What the...?!?!

Sorry, I've been busy praying in synagogue and working this weekend and week respectively, so I'm just now hearing about all this...


(Feel free to take the above and use it elsewhere against these crazies who either signed the petition supporting Polanski or have publicly stated they support his release from jail.)

Roman Polanski - the creep - finally got arrested and will hopefully be extradited back to the US. But some people, who no doubt believe that art and time should heal all evils, seem to think he should be allowed to continue fleeing justice. What part of "HE DRUGGED AND RAPED A 13-YEAR-OLD-GIRL AND DIDN'T EVEN CONTEST IT! IN FACT, HE ADMITTED IT, PLEAD GUILTY, AND THEN FLED THE COUNTRY SO HE WOULDN'T GO TO PRISON FOREVER!" don't these people understand?!?!?! HE'S A PEDO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY! I'll repeat that for those who missed it the first time: HE'S A PEDO! FOR THOSE WHO DOUBT IT, I HAVE THIS QUOTE, SPOKEN BY ROMAN POLANSKI HIMSELF:

"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But... fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!"

(This was reported by The Telegraph UK, having been found in an interview that Polanski did with Martin Amis, a novelist, in 1979.)

If nothing else, we've all seen enough Law & Order: SVU to know that THAT RIGHT THERE is the way a PEDOPHILE THINKS to justify THE SICK things they do! They think everyone wants to do what they do, but everyone else just won't admit it. WTH?

And for those who might think that Polanski was right to run because the judge, who had accepted his plea deal, which Polanski had agreed to on the basis that the judge would reduce his sentence, reneged on the agreement that the sentence would be reduced and instead had decided to sentence Polanski to 50 years... The judge changed his mind because he was given evidence that Polanski had raped two underage girls in Germany before and had reason to believe that, if given the chance, Polanski would do it again. Sounds like a good reason to levy maximum sentence to me. The fact that Polanski has admitted to having sex with underage girls in the years since he fled the US just makes it that much worse.

So many people that I have to put on the "Dead to Me" list now, the people who have signed the petition asking for Polanski's release from the Swiss jail in which he's currently awaiting extradition... Including Terry Gilliam, who I adored until now, and Martin Scorsese. I notice, however, that most people on the list supporting his release are French or in some way Continental European... I find that rather interesting...

Oh, and I love (read that with sarcasm, k?) that this petition says he's been arrested on a 30 year old warrant in which he's charged "in a case of morals"... Nice euphemism for "child rape"? As if the rape of a child is not a generally abhorrent thing and it's all a matter of Americans being Puritanical prudes. Really, WTH?!? DIAF!

Another awesome article that obviously does not miss the point of all this at all. YAY! for SALON!

And I would like to say to Whoopi Goldberg, who clarified her "but I don't believe it was rape-rape" statement earlier today: You need to get your facts straight before you open your mouth. Polanski plead guilty to the lesser charge of "unlawful sex with a minor" in a plea deal. He would have been charged with and tried for "aggrivated rape" - which certainly is "rape-rape," as you put it - if he hadn't plead out. And if you read the transcripts of the victim's grand jury testimony, it is very obvious that what he did was aggrivated, violent rape of a 13 year old girl. The DA offered the deal to spare the child further anguish by having to go through what would have been a high-profile trial at a time when there were no protections for victims like there are today. There's no mitigation or down-playing of Polanski's crime, no matter to what he formally plead guilty.

Also: See this open letter to the signers of this petition and consider passing it on. This deserves to become viral on the internet and I hope every single one of the signers of the Polanski supporters' petition sees this letter and the comments.

As of 2:30am September 1st, the following people I once respected have signed the petition for Polanski's release:

Darren Aronofsky (husband of Rachel Weisz), Ethan Coen (one half of the Coen Brothers), Penelope Cruz (yeah, you read that right), Alfonso Cuaron (the director of Prisoner of Azkaban), Guillermo del Toro (damn it, and I wanted to see The Hobbit), Terry Gilliam (of Monte Python), David Lynch (who did Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive), Brett Ratner (the shit director who ruined X-Men: the Last Stand), Martin Scorsese (who needs no introduction), Tilda Swinton (The White Witch in Narnia), Sam Mendes (Kate Winslet's husband), and Woody Allen (who I never respected, ever, but who isn't a surprise to the point that it's a freaking joke...)...

*cough, cough*

Well, I feel as if I dropped off the face of the earth of late. I can't sit here too long, but I want to write something so I'll be brief.

I have the flu. I missed three days of work this week, but I should be able to go Monday. I'm getting better, but slowly. I also think I might have bursitis and/or tendinitis possibly in several location in my right hip (based on quite a lot of research this week while I've had little else to do). I went to the doctor last weekend about it, but the doctor wasn't in, so I had to see a NP. No offense to those out there who have taken that path in life, but NPs are and always have been utterly useless to me in private practice. They always tell me I have something I don't have and invariably misdiagnose me and then it has to be correctly diagnosed by the doctor at a later date. This time, it was no different. I won't go in to all of it because it makes me far too angry and I really want to scream at the woman what an idiot she is. Just one of the many things she did wrong, was that she gave me a prescription for the same GERD meds I've been taking over the counter that aren't working for me, but she didn't tell me that's what she had done because they have a different name by prescription. The only real difference is that they charge about 10 times as much for it. This after I explained to her what I had been taking and that it didn't work and I needed something else. Can we say, why do you have a job? I think we can. The NPs who work at CVS though, what gems they are. Always very knowledgable, polite and helpful. So as soon as I have a day free from working, I have to make an appointment with an actual doctor and go back to find out what's really wrong with my hip, as well as this stomach pain that my doctor has previously told me is scar tissue in my duodenum... Only problem is that the duodenum is higher up. The location is classic for the start of chronic appendicitis. I think I might have to demand some actual tests rather than just relying on his guesses. An ultrasound. Some blood tests. Something. Or maybe I should find a new doctor. That's a possibility too. *sighs*

As far as the flu goes, I'm mostly just coughing and sniffling now, but I don't want to get sick again so I'm taking it easy this weekend until I'm sure it's well and truly going away...

My hip is why I can't sit here for long. It hurts to sit at the computer. I don't know if it's the height of the desk, the chair or what, but I just can't do it. I also wonder if I originally hurt my hip by spinning too long and too vigorously. I wonder if others have had similar injury. Because the NP didn't believe me and looked at me like I was the stupidiest person ever to come in to her exam room. Hey, just because I don't get my repetitive motion injuries by typing, ballet dancing or running marathons, doesn't mean they aren't real, lady.

In other news, I have only the toe of the first of Jensen's socks to do. I'm waiting on pictures of his feet. ... Yeah, pictures of his feet. I want to know wheather he has particularly broad toes or not. I also got the handcards I ordered. Can't remember if I mentioned that or not. They're nice. I've been blending some of the alpaca Ilana sent me with some lambswool that wasn't carded to my liking and was difficult to spin on its own. It's fluffy and beautiful.

The garden is doing very well. With the flu, I haven't been able to be out in it at all since last Sunday, but it's doing all right. My dad's been watering for me, and that's really all it's needed. There's a lot that should be done, but nothing that absolutely must be done for at least another week, which should give me enough time to finish getting over this flu.

The new issue of MaryJane's Farm came in the mail today. It is beautious and filled with gardening stuff and recipes. *my eyes are all aglitter* Especially interesting to me is the article on people who are turning their front yards into vegetable gardens. What a fantastic idea that is for those who have soil in that location that will work for them. Us... all our good soil is in the back. Oh, sure, we could always amend the soil in the front to get it up to snuff too, and we are for the flower beds that are already established, but our front yard is the size of most people's back yards, so a full-scale effort there is not going to happen any time soon. Still, I had my friend Joe help me out today by putting down new top soil in one of the beds and planting it with the summer and winter squash seedlings that I never found room for out back. Now there are some of all varieties in both locations. :D

This is really cool...

Okay, so this afternoon I got an e-mail from Ilana's mom, Clara. Now, this is really embarrassing, but I have to admit it anyway: I knew her name was Clara, but I didn't immediately connect the name in the e-mail to that bit of information in my brain (because if there's one thing I've always been it is SO BAD at remembering names quickly - faces, yes, but names, not so much). So I did a quick websearch because I knew I should know exactly who it was who had sent me this e-mail but I just couldn't remember, and immediately realized oh, yeah, Ilana's mom! But upon searching the name, I found a really interesting article she wrote about Crypto-Jews of Brazilian extraction, in particular about her own family. So fascinating! If you're interested in this topic in any measure, check out the article here.