You talk greasily, your lips grow foul

Everyone fucking swears. It’s not necessarily nice, but y’know, what the fucking shit ya gonna do about it, huh?*

Everyone from your nanna (oh come on, of course she swears, you just don’t hear it) to your boss to your friends (especially my friends, vulgar plume-plucked puttocks they are) to your favourite football team. Especially your favourite football team.

When watching a game of rugby league on the TV, I especially enjoy the slo-mo replays of players mouthing, “fuuuuckiiiiing cu-…” before the camera abruptly switches away from their foul-mouthed rants.

So, when I read in the SMH about the lily-livered Manly player being offended by an expletive which allegedly triggered off a sideshow brawl in last Friday night’s big game, I thought, “That’s a fucking lie, you useless piece of dickbeating cockburger”.

I’d post a video of said brawl here but the National Rugby League HQs have yanked the clip from YouTube due to a copyright claim. Motherfuckin’ jerkoff shitspitters.

In this day and age, we’re surrounded by swearing. It’s getting to the point where we’re no longer offended — apart from swearing that is intentionally designed to hurt, insult and be virulently offensive. Y’know, context.

Generally, we’re not offended by humorous swearing or day-to-day conversations that have the “fucks” and “shits” dropped into it. We may even refrain from such language with strangers or those whose good books we need to stay in (like, say, Centrelink).

The fact that offensive language in public is still a summary offence and Victoria recently gave their police powers to issue on-the-spot fines for offensive language is, quite simply, astounding. These laws are anachronistic and unrealistic, for the simple fact that it disadvantages the disadvantaged further. Have you hung out in an inner city park lately? You’ll hear the homeless nearby swearing profusely — but they’re not intentionally being insulting or offensive. It’s part of their lexicon.

You know who else you’ll hear swearing wholeheartedly? Catch an afternoon train on the North Shore of Sydney when all the private, elite schoolkids are going home and listen to them. Go on. (I’ll admit to sometimes feeling a little appalled at their utterances!)

Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, polite or impolite — everyone is swearing these days. And for a footballer to claim he was offended is just fucking hysterical!

Note: There’s very little I hate but Manly Sea Eagles football team is one of them. That might have something to do with my current mirth.

* I make exceptions for young children. It just ain’t nice for young kids to be swearing, no matter how much you may wanna argue that it’s OK or that “if adults swear, why shouldn’t kids?” I’ve heard this argument and I call bullshit. I won’t budge from this view.

Stoking the fire of selectiveness

When Floridian Casey Anthony was charged with the murder and manslaughter of her two year old daughter, Caylee, media went into overdrive, condemning Casey guilty before the trial even began. The internet and news outlets were exploding with outrage and indignation, causing me to remark to a friend that it felt like the Lindy Chamberlain slash trial by media all over again. The only difference this time was that Casey’s jury, unlike Lindy’s, were obviously not influenced and pressured by media attention to find her guilty, no matter what.

When that jury acquitted Casey, hot emotion went beyond boiling point. And suddenly everyone was a legal expert on the criminal justice system, behaving as if they had been in that courtroom, listening to the defence, prosecution and all the evidence presented, how and why the law was wrong and is an ass, and how they can “fix” the legal and jury systems. They forgot that they were getting second-hand information as distilled by media sources. Predictably, social media went into overdrive. Facebook members sent out invites to people to put their porch lights on for Caylee (I received two invitations and declined both, obviously. Also, I don’t have a porch).  Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor of dubious prosecutorial conduct and host of a current affairs show, laid it on thick, stating that “the devil is dancing tonight”.

It has gone so far as people calling for the revocation of the Fifth Amendment which protects people from double jeopardy, and signing a petition at Change.org that is calling to make it a felony for a parent or guardian to not notify law enforcement of a child going missing within 24 hours.

As Radley Balko points out, this would be bad law for several reasons, least of which it would be based on emotion rather than reason and it would be bad policy. There would be “no way for a medical examiner to determine time of death in the sort of narrow window that would be necessary to enforce Caylee’s Law”.

Balko elaborates with a number of questions:

If medical science can’t pinpoint the time of the child’s death to the minute, how else are authorities going to determine it? They can’t ask the parent. A guilty person isn’t going to give you an honest answer, and even an innocent parent may lie if they fear the truth could land them in prison. It also seems safe to assume that a parent’s first instinct upon witnessing the death of a child isn’t to look up at the clock to take note of an official time of death . . . .

There are myriad other problems with the one-hour requirement. What if a child dies while sleeping? When would you start the clock on the parent’s one-hour window to report? From the time the parent discovers the child is dead, or from the time the child actually dies? . . . .  What if a parent or babysitter missed the deadline because she fell asleep at the time the child was playing outside and suffered a fatal accident? . . . .

The portion of the bill that requires a parent to report a missing child within 24 hours is just as fraught with problems. When does that clock start? From the time the child actually gets abducted, gets lost, or is somehow killed, or at the time the parents noticed the child was missing? How do you pinpoint the time that they “noticed”?

Clearly, the Caylee Anthony case was stoked to inflame the emotions of people — and I want to make it clear here that it is tragic and sad what happened to Caylee. No doubt.

But what has been bugging me the most is this: where is the equivalent outrage and emotion over this?

Sudan

Or this?

Child prostitutes

Or this?

Los Angeles, USA

I’m also not seeing the equivalent public grief over Leiby Kletzky, the 8 year old boy who was kidnapped, drugged and suffocated last week in New York City.

The inflaming effect of media coverage on the Casey Anthony trial and acquittal, and the public grief and outrage for Caylee Anthony compared to the examples above, makes me wonder, wonder about people’s sense of reality, selectiveness, perspective and genuineness at times.

Sara Kruzan: an update

Over a year ago, I posted a video where Sara Kruzan* spoke about how she was groomed as an eleven year old by an older man before he raped her, forced her into prostitution where she “worked” every night for 12 hours being raped by degenerate strangers, and how when she was only 16, she snapped and shot her pimp, G.G.

She is currently serving a life sentence without parole.

She is now 32 years old.

Sara is asking California Governor Schwarzenegger for clemency.

Sara was arrested and tried in 1994, before anyone was using the term “human trafficking” and when the country was still struggling to understand issues like domestic violence and pimp control that give one person coercive control over another. So there was no expert witness at Sara’s trial to explain how her years of repeated rape, trauma, and abuse had affected her actions. There was no expert to tell the jury that with counseling, support, and care, Sara could heal from her traumatic past and grow to be a strong and moral woman.

Sara’s clemency plea has been submitted to Gov. Schwarzenegger, and the decision of whether or not to release her with time served rests solely with him. Sara Kruzan deserves hope.  She deserves hope that she didn’t survive being raped and sold for three years for nothing.  She deserves hope that the darkest chapter of her life has passed, and a horizon lies ahead.  She deserves hope that she can change, grow, and flourish as a woman. But in life without parole, there is no hope.

[Petition]

If you are an American and understand the extreme injustice that has occurred here — and you should — please sign this petition. And pass it on to your fellow Americans.

*Unfortunately I spelled Sara’s name with an “h” which I’ve only just noticed.

Sarah Kruzan: Sentenced to Life Without Parole at Age 16

Just wrong. Just so wrong. I was going to say much more, but I don’t think I can because it’s all here in this video clip. It says everything that is wrong with the American criminal justice system.

(source)

(also, belated h/t CosmicJester)