Observations 3.18

I can't say I want to write about rape but something is just freaking me out a bit. First off I have a problem comprehending why some in the media can't seem to grasp three words, rape is rape. See it's a fairly easy concept to grasp. Personality doesn't come into it, nor does the fact that you were 'allegedly' drinking. Rape is rape.

Yesterday Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, 17 and 16 year old Steubenville, Ohio high school football players, were found guilty of raping a girl who they literally carried from party to party. The boys' only defense was the usual one of her consenting because she didn't positively say no. The main evidence against the boys consisted of videos and photos that were posted on Twitter and Facebook that night and over the next few days. Richmond was sentenced to a minimum of one year in a juvenile detention center and Richmond to a minimum of two because he was also found guilty of using the victim, a minor, in pornographic material. With good behavior both will spend less time locked up than the typical drug offender. I have more than one problem with the reactions to this verdict but for now I have a question.

What the hell is the matter with CNN?

Immediately following the verdict announcement Candy Crowley's main thought was of the poor boys whose bright futures were ruined by the verdict. She added that they would in all likelihood be traumatized for life. Crowley said "these two young men, who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their life fell apart." Very little mention of the 16 year old victim of the rape.

Not to be outdone Poppy Harlow, CNN's correspondent on the scene, added "One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed. It was very hard to watch." I'm torn between wanting to ask Harlow how difficult the rape video they posted on Facebook was to watch and wanting to kick Richmond a few times as he collapsed.

Crowley finished by asking CNN's legal expert what the lasting effects of the verdict are for the men. "But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives," answered Paul Callan. It should haunt them as I'm sure it will haunt their victim.

I'm not sorry if their lives are ruined, if the town of Steubenville's reputation is ruined, if the boys' "promising futures" as football players is gone forever. They raped a 16 year old girl as their friends took pictures and video than posted them on Twitter and Facebook. I really don't care if they are on a sexual predators list for the rest of their lives, that's exactly what they are. They have nobody but themselves to blame for their ruined lives.

To be fair CNN wasn't the only source reacting this way but one expects more from a serious news source. But than between this and the poop ship chronicles I'm not so sure CNN should be called that any longer.

3/19 update - I saw this yesterday on CNN's website in an opinion written by Ric Simmons, a guest writer from Ohio State's College of Law. Granted he doesn't specifically work for CNN but they published it. In his opinion Simmons said; "A few decades ago, this behavior would probably have been considered inappropriate or 'ungentlemanly.' Today, it brings protesters into the streets and creates a nationwide outcry about sexual abuse." Again we are talking about rape here.

Observations 3.13.1

I always have had a habit of calling my collection of websites my 'empire' because I spend so much time on them. Recently the empire has morphed has morphed into something a bit more important. I've made some important contacts for both Ash and myself, gotten my point across in ways I never imagined, and just gotten a large amount of exposure. The problem with exposure is it can be both good and bad.

For some time I've had a faux Facebook account the primary purpose of which was pushing this blog and some photos into Facebook. I know, totally against the terms of service and hard to do on Facebook but there are always ways. I finally decided it all wasn't worth the effort and stated looking for other options including blogger's dynamic views or just starting another tumblr to re-post this blog on. For various reasons I decided on the new tumblr and after learning some of tumblr's text code, a bit different from blogger's, I published it this week. As I said in the previous post, the tumblr introduction, it's very much a work in progress and looks a bit stale but you can see it here.

Now back to the bad exposure I mentioned, another reason for the change. I never have been much of a fan of Facebook, liked the movie but hate the product. Their statements to the contrary I just don't think they care all that much about the security of your information and they collect too damn much of it. Because of their terrible IPO and poor stock showing they seem more concerned with profit than security, not that it was ever the other way around.

A few months ago I started getting spam mail, the usual "grow your manhood four inches" type of thing, that I can trace back to that Facebook account. Now I began getting spam texts, Facebook is the only site requires/demands you list a cell number, that can only be related to that same account. These just added to my desire for a change and that account will be history as soon as I finish erasing it. I really don't trust them to delete it themselves so I'm doing it manually. It always goes without saying that you shouldn't post anything online you don't want to be there forever because it will be just that, forever. It's another thing entirely when personal information leaks from, or is sold by, somebody without permission and against their own rules.

There is a totally funny side story to all this. Facebook just announced their new design and it looks totally like, yes, tumblr. In a post on its blog Facebook says it developed the new feed using paper, Post-its, and a large blank wall. The blank wall must have looked remarkably like tumblr.

Seems I made the switch just in time.

Observations 3.13

This is something I have been posting on my tumblrs over the past few days. I'll have a better explanation in my next post here but I'm posting this alone so I don't have to re-post it on tumblr ....

Observations: A bit of an introduction
I have been writing a blog over on blogger for over three years now. At the same time I have a few, some not totally safe for work, photo blogs on tumblr. I had been re-posting my blog to a public facebook page but finally decided that was a total waste of time so I decided to combine some of my projects, lose some others, and re-post “Observations” here.

The first few posts will be what blogger calls my popular posts and some art posts I have done over the last week. After that I’ll just re-post what I’m blogging with maybe throw in some fav photos. There is a link to my blog in the header of this so if anyone has any interest there is plenty more to read there.

My thoughts for this are very much a work in progress so we shall just have to see what comes of it.
Katie

Observations from the Window 4.20

"I apologize but we seem to be having technical difficulties here
 at the empire, be back shortly."

I really should make some kind of button that says that because lately that is the story of my life. For a variety of reasons I have just been having all kinds of probs with the interwebs for a couple weeks now. As always insanity rules.

Last Friday night I was watching the Flyers' playoff game and tweeting about it when suddenly TweetDeck cut me off. It gave me some bogus error message that said I was tweeting over limits. Now there is a limit but it's in the thousands so I have no idea where the error came from. I just switched to a diff platform and went back to tweeting my inner most thoughts with minor irritation.

Than there is Tumblr. I probably enjoy Tumblr more than anything else because the combined four sites have become my pseudo gallery with me as the curator. I usually queue the posts the night before, spending way too much time picking and sorting the photos and quotes to appear just the way I want them. This worked just fine for the longest time but now, if I queue the day before, Tumblr sees it in my best interests to post randomly in the appointed time frame. This is more of a major irritation. I  mean what curator wants the movers to bring in works of art and randomly hang them on the walls?

The totally worst is Yahoo. There are all kinds of rumors out there but one thing that is a fact is that Yahoo reorganized recently and cut back heavily personnel wise. As far as I'm concerned it's starting to take a toll because Yahoo Mail is driving me insane. My Droid app loses mail or doesn't send it, I have to type in one of those anti-bot codes a few times a day, and yesterday morning Yahoo totally cut me off for suspicious activity. The only suspicious thing I see is that I stick with them and don't totally move to gmail. Maybe Yahoo should spend more time and money on their lawsuit against Facebook because the legal department seems to be the only one hiring.

I take my empire way too seriously.