Book Blog: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

New post up at the book blog, reviewing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Once I can find my copy of Ahab's Wife, that'll be up, too.

Bits & Pieces

• OK first? My ISP majorly blows. I do NOT like random multi-day outages.
• Second, this? is awesome. "So, Bob, what do you do for a living?" "Well, Jill, I take pictures of penguin shit from outer space." Actually I do think it's a bit creative and cool.
• Definition: Irony (n) - Being shit-scared of falling down and hurting oneself when rollerblading for the first time in a year, then injuring oneself removing rollerblades immediately after sighing relief due to an injury-free hour of rollerblading.
• Sammiches are awesome. Especially the variety with hard salami and spicy peppers. Someday my stomach is going to just up and quit, methinks.
• This is totally sick and wrong (no pun intended): 60% of all bankrupcies are due to medical debt; over three-quarters of those bankrupt people had health insurance. We need to get the hell on this. From the bottom up. I had a 15 minute doctor visit a few months back when I hit my head on a shelf (aaaand that's a story for another day). The bill was $150 (thank God for my insurance). That's $10 a minute for someone to have me touch my nose with my finger and walk in a line. And, this is at one of the "cheaper" health systems in the country. This system is fucked from the ground up. Universal health care won't be a cure all. We need more.
• This song is awesome: Guess Who Ran Away With the Milkman by The Pipettes (if only for the title, ha!). Click to listen, srsly. They're a 60's girl group reimagined in punk style. Here's the refrain:

I don't want to get a mortgage

or think of when I'm sixty-three
Or in terms of dogs and babies
I know how much you love me
But I don't think I love you
Anymore

• I realized today that I adore break-up songs like most people adore love songs. Also? Songs that are depressing in lyric but happy and upbeat in instrumentals are my faves. There is something wrong with my brain.
  

The Truth is Brutal

LB(from the bathroom): Aaaaw. *heavy sigh*

QR: Huh?

LB: I was just weighing myself.

QR: That scale weighs light by about 8 pounds, you know.

LB: (imagine high-pitched scandalized valley girl shriek) Uh! No it doesn't! Fuck you!

The messenger! She...has..beeeen...shoooooooooooooot....ugh *dies*

Silence is the Enemy

This post will be unpleasant. It is meant to be. I'm sure some of you know what I have gone through, and that it is difficult for me to write about rape. But my discomfort in writing, and anyone's discomfort in reading pales in comparison to what women and girls are living daily. For their sake, educate yourself, speak out, donate. Our eyes need opening.

There is an online movement happening to raise awareness and action to end the systematic rape of women and girls. While we seek to end all rape, the main focus of this movement is to end the rape of the majority of females in the war-torn countries of Liberia and the Congo, where rape was used as a tactic of war. As Dr. Denis Mukwege explains, in a column penned by Bob Herbert :

“Once they have raped these women in such a public way,” he said, “sometimes maiming them, destroying their sexual organs — and with everybody watching — the women themselves are destroyed, or virtually destroyed. They are traumatized and humiliated on every level, physical and psychological. That’s the first consequence.

“The second consequence is that the whole family and the entire neighborhood is traumatized by what they have seen. The ordinary sense of family and community is lost after a man has been forced to watch his wife being raped, or parents are forced to watch the rape of their daughters, or children see their mothers raped.

“Neighbors are witnesses to this. Many flee. Families are dislocated. Social relationships are lost. There is no more social network, village network. Not only the victims have been destroyed; the whole village is destroyed.”

Women and girls are being sexually mutilated: raped so severely they will never bear children, cannot walk for months, have permanent incontinence. Some have been raped to death. And those are just the physical scars. It began as a tactic of war, and continues long after the wars have ended. It is estimated that in Eastern Congo, 1,100 women are raped a month. One thousand one hundred. In some regions, it is rare to find a female who has not been raped.

What You Can Do

Educate yourself:

• Silence is the Enemy
  
• After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist
• War on Women in Congo
• The Invisible War
• Women Left for Dead
• Shattered Lives
• Sexual Violence
  

Participate in Silence is the Enemy:

• Join the Facebook Group
• Visit these blogs; they are donating revenue to Doctors Without Borders and income is determined by blog traffic. Every click helps.
• Donate. I am. (A good list of organizations to donate through is here.)
  
• Speak out: Counter rape myths, link to the blogring, make a note on your facebook page, write to your congressional representatives
• I read that there is a Twitter feed for the event as well. I don't Tweet, as a rule, but the tag is #silencehurts

For too long, rape has been a subject relegated to whispers and innuendo. This silence has placed victims into a realm of shame and isolation, though we are many. This silence has allowed rapists to ruin lives with impunity. Do not stigmatize victims or empower rapists, rapist sympathizers and rape apologists: Refuse to be silent. We will be heard.

Disruption

Well, I broke my streak. A very close family member needed me, and I was unable to post. He is much better now, no worries :)

I will continue to write every day from this day foreward, until the end of this week, which would have been the original 4 weeks. More later.