Only in Nottinghamshire ... and thoughts on sexism

Thank you to BoingBoing for this fabulous post about ...

: "A British businessman fed up with being targeted by vandals has installed a 30-foot Roman-style catapult on the premises to hurl bucket loads of chicken manure at culprits attacking his rural offices." A 30ft Roman catapult, loaded with chicken droppings from a nearby farm is primed each evening. And a cannon, which Mr Weston-Webb once used to shoot his wife across the River Avon, will fire a railway sleeper if triggered by an intruder.

Mr Weston-Webb was yesterday erecting a sign outside his business, which stands at the end of a farm track in the lower valley of the River Soar in Nottinghamshire — a place known locally as Soar Bottom. It reads: “Warning: These premises are protected by smart-poo and railway sleeper projectiles.”

That's the best use of a catapult I've seen since "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" used it to hurl dead cows and sheep.

Also, check out this New York Times article: So You Want To Be A Blogging Star. It's got the usual "rules" of the game we all know, but some helpful advice to writers who hesitate to push the button, or spend too long revising and editing their posts.

I have been notably slack at GMLc Blog in the past couple of months, posting only every couple of weeks. I have no excuse except that I'm overwhelmed by events (who ELSE is sick of the Democratic primary? raise your hand) and pollen and too much reading. So one more reading recommendation ... The $3 Trillion War ... and then I will get into my thought of the day.

Barack Obama's speech on race was honest, non-pandering, blunt and inspiring. All in all, brilliant. What is wrong to this writer with Rev. Jeremiah Wright condemning Hillary Clinton for not understanding what it means to be a black man in America and never having been called names is that it's a statement of the obvious. Neither has Rev. Wright been left out of conversations, dismissed or ignored in business meetings, whistled at, been groped, been date-raped, been the subject of late-night anonymous phone calls, had sexual innuendo thrown his way at every turn, been the subject of an industry built on sexually explicit images of his body type, humiliated, or had to listen to men endlessly discuss and legislate female body issues and posit that prostitution is a "victimless" crime.

I would say that most women have experienced these things, even the date-rape  whether they know it or not. But as sick as I am of the primary process, I'm even more sick of the conversation that has ensued from a woman and an African American man running for president that entails who deserves the top-spot for victimhood, and I'm not suggesting that this electorate or culture continue to participate in the cult of victimhood. (In that stakes, African American women would deserve the prize.)

Obama didn't really ask for that mantle with his speech, but he did manage to be praised for bringing up our racist past and present culture and gain sympathy for his struggle for identity within that. Obama is being hailed for insisting that the conversation about race continue and that this nation heal. What about the conversation about sexism? It's something that we seem to not discuss in polite company.  Clinton has been pilloried every time she even hints that sexism is also a problem and has played a part in this election process. She's been called a whiner, shrill, a *itch, strident, all the typical code-words for strong. smart women that are as offensive as the word "articulate" is when applied to smart African Americans. People comment upon her wide-eyed look as if she is the devil. I realize there have always been haters. But when is women-hating going to become just as unacceptable as racial hate? Frankly, she has taken the high road in not mentioning most of the stuff she has seen and endured as a woman. Women know what she could be talking about. After all, as First Lady, she was responsible for getting women's rights worldwide on the agenda of the State Department.

African Americans were bought and sold as slaves, a national shame we may never recover from. But people tend to forget that for much of this country's history, women have been chattel, without legal rights, their fortunes completely dependent on those of a man. That is not regarded as so much of a shame. In South Carolina, a state where women are more likely to be killed by a man than any other, we should pay attention to that.