<div>Dear LOBsters,</div> <div> </div> <div>I think Yoshie and Miles are making very good arguments for skepticism.  Good on 'em.  </div> <div>On the other hand, Joanna is too. After all, there is the general psychological acceptance of dominance and submission which leads to responses like the one below.</div> <div> </div> <div>Regards,</div> <div>Mike B)</div> <div> </div> <div>***********************************************************************************************</div> <div> </div> <div>"Why Aren’t We Shocked?" by Bob Herbert, New York<BR>Times op-ed:<BR><BR>In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in<BR>rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the<BR>killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and<BR>then deliberately attacked only the girls.<BR><BR>Ten girls were shot and five killed at the Amish<BR>school. One girl was killed and a number of others were molested in the<BR>Colorado attack.<BR><BR>In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes,<BR>very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted.<BR>Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the<BR>basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only<BR>the white kids. Or only the Jews.<BR><BR>There would have been thunderous outrage. The country<BR>would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to<BR>eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls<BR>for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for<BR>what it really was: a hate crime.<BR><BR>None of that occurred because these were just girls,<BR>and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated<BR>with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be<BR>expected. Stories about the rape, murder and mutilation of women and<BR>girls are staples of the news, as familiar to us as weather forecasts.<BR>The startling aspect of the Pennsylvania attack was that this<BR>terrible thing happened at a school in Amish country, not that it<BR>happened to girls.<BR><BR>The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment<BR>of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about<BR>lost its ability to shock. Guys at sporting events and other public venues<BR>have shown no qualms about raising an insistent chant to nearby<BR>women to show their breasts. An ad for a major long-distance telephone<BR>carrier shows three apparently naked women holding a billing statement<BR>from a competitor. The text asks, “When was the last time you got<BR>screwed?”<BR><BR>An ad for Clinique moisturizing lotion shows a<BR>woman’s face with the lotion spattered across it to simulate the climactic<BR>shot of a porn video.<BR><BR>We have a problem. Staggering amounts of violence are<BR>unleashed on women every day, and there is no escaping the fact<BR>that in the most sensational stories, large segments of the population<BR>are titillated by that violence. We’ve been watching the sexualized<BR>image of the murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey for 10 years.<BR>JonBenet is dead. Her mother is dead. And we’re still watching the video<BR>of this poor child prancing in lipstick and high heels.<BR><BR>What have we learned since then? That there’s big<BR>money to be made from thongs, spandex tops and sexy makeovers for<BR>little girls. In a misogynistic culture, it’s never too early to drill<BR>into the minds of girls that what really matters is their appearance and<BR>their ability to please men sexually.<BR><BR>A girl or woman is sexually assaulted every couple of<BR>minutes or so in the U.S. The number of seriously battered wives and<BR>girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count. We’re all<BR>implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against<BR>women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society’s casual<BR>willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and<BR>foremost as sexual vessels — objects — and never, ever as the equals of<BR>men.<BR><BR>“Once you dehumanize somebody, everything is<BR>possible,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the women’s advocacy<BR>group Equality Now.<BR><BR>That was never clearer than in some of the extreme<BR>forms of pornography that have spread like nuclear waste across<BR>mainstream America. Forget the embarrassed, inhibited raincoat<BR>crowd of the old days. Now Mr. Solid Citizen can come home, log on to<BR>this $7 billion mega-industry and get his kicks watching real women<BR>being beaten and sexually assaulted on Web sites with names like<BR>“Ravished Bride” and “Rough Sex — Where Whores Get Owned.”<BR><BR>Then, of course, there’s gangsta rap, and the video<BR>games where the players themselves get to maul and molest women, the<BR>rise of pimp culture (the Academy Award-winning song this year was<BR>“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”), and on and on.<BR><BR>You’re deluded if you think this is all about fun and<BR>games. It’s all part of a devastating continuum of misogyny that at<BR>its farthest extreme touches down in places like the one-room Amish<BR>schoolhouse in normally quiet Nickel Mines, Pa. <BR> <BR><BR></div><BR><BR>Watch the communist manifestoon!<br>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk<p>  <hr size=1>How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! 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