Closed. The boat sank, the sharks won.

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Sally is a journalist…..

The security services planned the arrest of the journalist with painstaking care. They bugged her contacts and assembled an elite squad to take her down. On 8 May 2007, eight detectives swarmed into her home and seized her address book, mobile, laptops and bank statements. In a simultaneous raid, a second team searched her newspaper office - going through everything from filing cabinets to boxes of Cup-a-Soup by the office kettle.

Once in custody, detectives kept her isolated from her two teenage daughters and autistic son for 24 hours. Then they began the grilling.

It’s a tale from Stalin’s Russia? No? Mugabe’s Zimbabwe then?  Try again.

They let her go, but soon hauled her back in. Before her second interrogation, they left her shivering in a cell. Before her third, a woman officer put on rubber gloves and strip-searched her. After that, ‘I just lost my ability to think coherently,’ Sally Murrer said. ‘My brain went to cotton wool.’

Try Milton Keynes. Sally is a part time journalist who covers the WI and the occasional police story. It’s not a front line, outspoken newspaper and reading that article I am struggling to work out why, exactly, Sally was arrested in the first place, let alone what the charges are or why she needed such brutal treatment. I’m looking for a punchline, or April Fool, or a "Case thrown out for wasting court time." Or something. I don’t get it. What the hell is going on?

Is up at Witchy’s place, and I’m in there. Three times if you count the Blogless blog towards the bottom.

Wow. Thanks Witchy, V and Laurelin for including me. 

Now, does that mean I’m a Radical Feminist?

I’ve never chosen to hang that label on myself although I know that much of my feminist thinking does line up in that direction. But I’ve self identified as more of an Eco-Feminist.

It is a philosophy and movement born from the union of feminist and ecological thinking, and the belief that the social mentality that leads to the domination and oppression of women is directly connected to the social mentality that leads to the abuse of the environment.

It’s all about who has the power and control. 

ecofeminism states that male ownership of land has led to a dominator culture (patriarchy)

Can I be a Radical Eco Feminist? They seem to go well together….  

Spreading the word from Witchy’s place.

Guy Armand Raes, 51, an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was ostensibly supporting a 17 year old girl to get off drugs and alcohol and sort her life out but guess what happened? Yes, he had one of those “momentary lapses” that result in sexual assault.

[ ]

This same man is due to be given an award for bravery by the Queen’s representative in Canada, Governor General Michaëlle Jean, because, in the same year he sexually assaulted a vulnerable young woman in his care, he rescued two people from a fire. This cannot be right.

No, it’s not right. Even if this citation for bravery is for a single incident if individual bravery, it’s still wrong. It still negates the 17 year old’s experience and devalues the assault, because he’s a hero right? He can still get an award even if he abuses women? Or because women mean nothing…..

He’s in Canada, but the award is given from our Queen and what she gives in terms of honours is given in the name of the British people, in my name and yours. I have no desire to have my name connected with any award given to him, apart from an award of more time in prison maybe, or an award of hefty compensation that he has to pay to women in need of support while surviving abuse. But not an award for bravery.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean isn’t responsible for giving this man any awards but she has to present it to him. She has done some good work for women surviving abuse in Canada, I suspect she’d listen to us if we told her how we feel. 

To register your protest contact:
Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D.
Governor General of Canada

by email at info@gg.ca

by phone at (613) 993-8200 (or toll-free in Canada 1 800 465-6890)

by fax at (613) 998-8760

or by mail at
Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A1

Alternatively, email the Queen, or write, or fax, or shout, or something. There are other Royals on there if you fancy telling them too.

Two information centres which help victims of domestic violence are under threat because of a lack of funding, a charity has warned.

This is the centres at Colwyn and Aberconwy, but the location isn’t as important as the threat and the scale of this. 

Cheryl Dixon from Aberconwy’s Women’s Aid said the charity desperately needed more funds to pay an outreach worker to work with women and their children.

"The outreach worker is currently employed 10 hours a week, and that is not enough," Ms Dixon said.

Hang on, TEN hours? A week?  **speechless and spluttering in apoplectic rage**

"The refuge itself is paid for by the government, and that money is ring-fenced, although it does not go up with inflation,"

Why the hell not?  Inflation means costs go up, wage bills go up, utilities and services cost more, and this pot of cash isn’t linked to inflation???

Government reaction?

"Welsh Women’s Aid receives funding of over £1m per year from the domestic abuse budget."

Hey, Un-named Spokesman (yeah, man, not spokesperson…. *bangs head on desk*) You know something? £1 million won’t build us a big enough boat, it won’t really make enough of a difference. Funding rescue projects acknowledges there is a Domestic Violence problem and it does help a lot of women, but not everyone. But what is actually accomplished by even having a Domestic Abuse budget? Isn’t it saying that Domestic Violence is an accepted part of life but here’s a way to escape, maybe, if the funding supplies a space at the time you might need it.

Isn’t it just saying the water will keep on rising anyway and we can’t change it, but here are some sand bags? Is this not a "Take 2 aspirin and go away" approach to a serious issue?

Don’t get me wrong, the funding is needed and more than ever. But, perhaps a proper look at the root causes of domestic violence and the subjugation and dehumanisation of women is needed too? While we’re busy putting a little plaster on this gaping wound, we’re not making the changes desperately needed to stop the harm in the first place.

I’m back. Did you notice?

moar lolcats

Now there is conclusive proof that the 1969 Moon Landings were actually faked.

It’s been a bit fast and furious on here recently hasn’t it?

I had a burst of anger and it needed venting and now I’m just hoarse and tired of screaming into the wind when my words are stolen and twisted into pale echoes and no-one listens. No-one sees that the shadows in the water are the sharks, waiting out there for the unwary. No-one sees the No Swimming signs and that same wind blows them down, or lifts the sand to scour them free of my words. 

So I write in the sand and the tide comes in and washes it all away. I carve it deeper and still the tide and the wind take my power away and I’m left raw and hurting and wondering why we bother sometimes.

I need tea and cake, and a break from shark watching. Back when something catches my eye again, and at that point it’ll probably be fast and furious again. 

Watch the tideline…. 

BBC NEWS | England | Tyne | Sex killer ‘could not be stopped’

A stalker who killed his ex-lover and then had sex with her corpse could not have been prevented from murdering her, an official report has found.

He stalked her, terrified her and finally beat her to death and he got 20 years?The sentence was life with a minimum of 20 years to serve. He was 22 when sentenced so he’ll be out in his early 40’s.

Diane Edwards was eventually granted an injunction against Summers after he began to threaten her. He ignored it.

Summers was then given a suspended sentence rather than jailed for flouting the order.

He removed his electronic tag to get round restrictions which were meant to stop him visiting her home. 

Why wasn’t he jailed? Why wasn’t she moved, rehomed, protected? 

"Many times he has appeared before magistrates and been charged with crimes against Diane, only to be allowed to walk free and continue his reign of terror towards her.

"Questions have to be asked as to why, despite the obvious and known danger this man was to Diane, he was not put behind bars."

Yet again, the systems in place fail to protect a women and she paid with her life.

Egypt voices: Sexual harassment

"My mother says I shouldn’t answer back but I think this is wrong"

"I wear loose clothes, I don’t wear make up, I spend more than an hour in front of the mirror everyday thinking of ways to hide my body."

I think men are doing this because they are jobless and have no manners.