Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Not a Good Week For Rape Victims


Misc. observations on yet another cold, rainy morning:

1.     It hasn’t been a good week for alleged rape victims. First came the collapse of the UVA/Rolling Stone story. Now comes a retraction from Random House over the star of Lena Dunham’s memoir, Barry the campus conservative and rapist. It seems that there really was a “Barry” at Oberlin back in the day and he was the campus conservative. Trouble is, he has lawyered up and is fighting back by loudly claiming his innocence, so much so that now Ms. Dunham claims that his name wasn’t really Barry. Here’s a little advice for all of you aggrieved feminists out there. There are enough real rapes out there. You don’t need to manufacture fake ones. When you get caught, it damages you and everything you stand for, not to mention legitimate victims.

2.     Over the weekend Pam and I went to see the Grand Illumination downtown with Gordon and Leigh Ann Fort. It was fun. While there we took two pictures, one of Gordon and Leigh Ann and another of the two of us. We would have done a selfie of all four of us, but couldn’t manage the mechanics. Later we posted both photos on Facebook. As of this morning the Dunnevant photo has 15 “likes”. The Fort photo has 75 “likes.” The Dunnevant family self-esteem is at all-time lows as we consider the appalling state of our popularity.

3.     It has been fascinating to watch the evolving tactics of peaceful protesters around the country over the Ferguson and Garner incidents. The latest rage seems to be something called a Die-In, whereby protestors gather at some high profile place and then lay down on the ground as if dead while photographers snap pictures. Interesting. I have never taken part in an organized protest in my entire life. It’s not that I have never been outraged by anything. I get mad as quick as the next guy. It’s just that it all seems so pointless. In a couple more weeks all of these protests will be over and cops and black men will still be enemies. Maybe it does serve the needs of the protestors by giving them a way to demonstrate their frustration which is fine and good. I just can’t imagine being part of a crowd of angry tax-paying businessmen marching on the IRS headquarters on April 15th. The very idea of laying on the sidewalk with my pockets inside out pretending to be dead-broke seems preposterously silly to me. I mean, it might make me feel better, might even be great fun, but I still owe them the money.
 Lucy is about to lose whatever sanity dogs come with. It has been cloudy, rainy and disgusting outside for what seems like forever, robbing her of her favorite activity…destroying my backyard. She has had only one digging session in the past week and the withdrawal symptoms are starting to become debilitating. Poor girl has taken to sitting at doors and windows and letting out long mournful whines. It’s a dog’s life.

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