I linked to this article "Women announced suicide on Facebook, no one helped" on my Facebook profile. 

I got a very, very despicable answer.

A person on my profile replied "she sucks" on it, to which I responded "Excuse me?" 

His response, after deleting his original post "she sucks" was:

"Yeah she's weak and doesn't know how to deal with her problems like an adult. That's some emo myspace shit."

Oh, that asshole.  I read the post and responded on my mobile phone.  That...asshole. 

I responded with

"So you wrote "she sucks" as your initial response to the post, erased it, then comes back with saying she's weak? Because she committed suicide/attempted it at all, or because she wrote a suicide note online?
I think it's despicable others ...taunted her or made fun of her and didn't take her seriously. I think it's sad that her only friends who asked for her address were those who didn't live nearby and those who seemed to know didn't do anything. Someone saying they'll kill themselves is serious, especially if they seem specific about how and/or when.
There are people who threaten suicide or self-harm to emotionally manipulate people, I've met them or heard of them, but every instance should still be taken seriously. Even if only to show people that their statement is taken seriously, be they seriously suicidal or emotionally manipulative."

It's sooo infuriating, reading his comments.  

I read this article and my mouth dropped.

Apparently "International Burn a Koran Day" is September 11th.

I've started taking my antibiotics and the side effects have made going to class uncomfortable. Also, trying to figure out a good time for taking this antibiotic twice a day, 2 hrs before and after meals/dairy products and "NOT BEFORE BEDTIME" is a lot harder than I thought. Especially with dance rehearsals/classes + side effects to consider.

Today I read shadesong's entry and followed her link to bookshop's entry "Bad Romance (or, YA & Rape Culture). I had Hush, Hush on my to-read list because the cover was beautiful and the synopsis on Goodreads.com didn't seem that bad, but reading that entry made me want to kick the book across a muddy field. (I still can't say I want to burn it. I don't know if I've yet reach a point of horror and hatred that I would say I want to burn a book.) That books sound like all the bad, anti-feminist parts of Twilight gone hay-wire. As one commentor said (I think), Twilight idealizes stalking = love, whereas Nora, the main female character in Hush, Hush knows that Patch's stalking is wrong and makes her uncomfortable. Apparently she tries repeatedly to get the bio teacher to change their seating arrangement, but he won't do it, scoffing at her statements she feels uncomfortable (I want to kill him), and she tells Patch, too, but he still pursues her. To the point that somewhere expelicitly in the book she wonders if he's going to rape her. WTF? This has a happy ending, apparently. They fall in love or whatever. Why is this a best seller about teenage love instead of a best-seller about "WHAT LOVE ISN'T" or "WHAT LOVE SHOULDN'T BE"???

But yes, I extremely dislike books where stalking and ignoring someone's request to back off is okay, it's romantic, it's tough-guy. The sought-after person will soon realize you're soulmates and meant for each other. I hate it more when it seems to "work" and the girl (usually it's the girl) falls for the guy in the end. I also hate it when movies have that kind of plotline. I don't care if it's a "cool, suave" guy going after a "bookish" girl, or a "socially awkward boy" going after a "really popular and hot girl" or gender roles reversed with the girl hunting the guy (though I can't really recall that many off the top of my head. I know "John Tucker Must Die" was more about revenge against a guy who played them all...). It doesn't matter if I'm suppose to root for the socially awkward person to win the popular person and show them that "hey, you're really shallow for thinking I'm not worth your time because I'm lower on the social status ladder than you. I'm a person, too, and I'm deep and quirky and treat you better than the shallow significant others [of the same social strata] you've been with." No... If someone tells you they are not interested in you, or shows it very, very obviously, or does not put forth any effort in talking to you, (rather than you cornering them and making them awkwardly talk back to you because you won't freaking let them be quiet), you should respect that. You should not make things awkward and embarrassing for the both of you for continually pursuing said person and coming up with antics that enroach on their personal space and discomfort them. What happened to respect? Over the years those movies have really started to bug me. Romance =/= wearing down someone's resistance and having them capitulate to date you, even if you do have some good qualities.

bookshop's entry leads to another blog, Fugitivis's "Another post about rape." To basically copy the same sections bookshop thought relevant:

( Cut - social rules females are taught to follow )

She then talks about a scenario of being on a bus and having a guy giving you the eye and two various ways you could react to it - breaking the rules or obeying the rules. This really freaked me out because I remember the one time I was really uncomfortable on a bus to the public library because two guys kept talking at me (Event 3 on the day).

From that day, I wrote:

( Cut for longness )

A friend and I were talking about our scary run-ins yesterday. Next week is the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Week here, and there are self-defense classes being offered. I don't know if I can go, because of the time committments and projects I have already going on. But I had mentioned it to her and she commented that self-and-physical awareness was probably the biggest help in stranger run-ins (the kind we've had so far, as far as I know, at least). As for bad, inappropriate encounters with people we actually know and hang out with...I have no idea...

New Zealand HIV-positive man 'infects wife with needle'

Reading that article made me so...incredibly...angry...

Taking away someone's choice like that, inflicting them, knowingly, with an incurable disease?? Because he wanted to be able to have sex with her, after she refused to?? It makes sense to me, good sense, to refuse to have sex with someone you know is HIV-positive. Something also to ponder: how he got infected but not his wife or kids. I don't know how long they were married, or how old the kids are.

I think 14 years in jail is too lenient a sentence.

I was shocked when I saw this article! How horrid! How completely outrageous!!! Libraries should never be closed down. And definitely not all public libraries! (Are there even private libraries?) Reading/literacy is such an important part of culture! Or should be!

In a way that makes me glad that Beloit has only one public library and we've the inter-library loan.

Re-reading this article I'm still horrified. An entire city, and a rather large city, without any libraries...