Genarlow Wilson Prison Time Just the Tip of the Iceberg

There's been a lot of buzz over the past few days about Genarlow Wilson, who two years ago was sentenced to ten years in prison for engaging in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. Wilson was 17 at the time. Wilson's sentence caused an uproar at the time, and then we all went on with our lives (except Wilson, who was sitting in prison).

Recent developments in the case have brought it to light again, and the moral outrage is flying again. There doesn't seem to be much controversy. A lot of people think that a 15-year-old girl performing oral sex at a New Year's Eve party is a bad thing, and a lot of people don't object to Wilson having been charged with a crime. No one (except apparently the prosecutor, who is fighting hard to keep Wilson in prison) seems to think that ten years in prison is a reasonable response to a consensual sexual encounter between two people only two years apart in age.

But this one prison sentence, which is getting so much press precisely because it is out of line with the norm, is just the tiniest slice of the problem regarding sex offenses in our society. Across the country, young men who once found themselves in circumstances very similar to Genarlow Wilson's are subject to sex offender registration requirements and restrictions for the rest of their lives. Men who at 18 engaged in consensual sex with long-time girlfriends 2 and 3 years younger than themselves have been branded child molestors for the rest of their lives. Their pictures are posted as sex offenders, their addresses disclosed. In some states, they are prohibited from even living near a school, let alone working in any context that might have to do with children.

I'm a mother, which means that however I feel about civil rights and civil liberties, I'm happy to be able to find out whether there's a child molestor on my block and take necessary precautions. But, I don't feel that my child, or yours, is in danger from a man who ten years ago, as a college student, had sex with his high-school-aged girlfriend. And, saddling those men with such designations hurts the "cause" as much as it unfairly hurts them, because it makes it all the harder to identify the real threats.

I'm not waving my hand dismissively and cheerfully noting that teenagers are bound to have group sex on New Years Eve and we should all just learn to accept that. But, I do have to question why sex crimes get this special designation in American society. A mass murderer who is released from prison (and yes, it sometimes happens) doesn't have to register when he moves in down the block from me; local police departments don't maintain websites to help us recognize the armed robbers or con men in our midst. Steal our cars, set fire to our houses, hold us hostage at gunpoint, and when you've served your time, you've served your time. Have sex with your girlfriend when you've passed the magical age line and she hasn't, and our safety requires that we know right where you are for the rest of our lives?

Plant a Tree - Support my Color Scheme

This morning I came across a posting on a discussion group called, "Calling all GREEN Bloggers". It was about an organization that's fighting environmental change and hopes to plant 8 million trees.

I like trees, and sometimes when I'm downtown I look around and really wonder about what we've done to the world, replacing everything God created with concrete and steel, but the truth is that I'm not much of an environmental activist. I'm more of a "feed the hungry, clothe the naked" kind of girl, and my charitable contributions tend to go straight to the food bank or into the poor box at the church or directly to someone I pass on the street. But (sigh)...my blog is green. I didn't know, when I was choosing the template, that it could have such ramifications, but here I am...I have a green blog, and Borzack called all green bloggers, so I'm duty-bound to share this tree information with you.

And, in fact, the lack of trees is definitely one of the things that's wrong around us, from a human perspective and a "keep the eco-system functioning" perspective. I'm no expert, though. If you want to learn more, you should probably read the original post: I Bought a Tree!

An ISM for Every Shape, Size and Color

I happened to read a post this evening called "I Hate Fat People". The title was a reference to something another woman had said on another website that I won't link to because...I don't want to send her traffic or help her Google ranking one little iota.

Corrina Makis, despite indicating that she was stunned and outraged, made a very reasoned response. But the problem is bigger than she probably knows. Corrina said: To determine a person's entire worth according to their physical appearance is obscene.

Yup. No argument here. But my perspective is just a little bit different. You see, although it's been a good many years since I fit into a size 6, I have a sister who's never reached that size and probably never will. She's 5'5" and ranges between 96 and 98 pounds. When J. Crew introduced its size 2 in 1996, the measurements they listed in the catalog were hers exactly. When other women look at her (concave) stomach and say, "I hate you," they don't sound good-natured at all.

But far more disturbing to my mind are the total strangers who feel free to inquire as to whether she has an eating disorder, to tell her that she needs to eat something, or to point out that she "looks like a skeleton".

Sadly, I think it isn't really about fat or thin any more than it was about black or white or Christian or Muslim. It's about hate. That's what's wrong around us. There's just too damned much of it, and it's going to find somewhere to go, whether the target makes any sense or not.

Blog Catalog Donors Choose Challenge Open Until Friday

Bloggers across the country are continuing to encourage their readers to join the first-ever coordinated effort at using social media to raise funds for charity. The effort has already reached 884 children in various schools around the country, providing materials for more than 2,000 hours of instruction and homework. But the effort is far from complete! Even after Total Divorce yesterday matched all donations made during the first day of the challenge, many projects remain unfunded or partially funded.

One project requires only $6 to be complete--that quick and painless donation could allow a teacher to purchase books on tape for her grades 3-6 ESL class! Please, take a moment to donate even that $6, and make a difference to kids across the country!

What's NOT Wrong Around Us

According to Technorati, there are more than 280 posts urging visitors to participate in the Blog Catalog challenge to use social media to raise funds for schoolchildren.

Here are just a few of the most recent posts on the subject--please join in this effort! Even if every person reading one of these posts donates only $10, it will make a tremendous difference in classrooms across the country.

Blog for School Projects

Blog Catalog Bloggers for Good Fundraising Challenge

Donors Choose: Non-Profit Site for Education

Blog Catalog Community Comes Together to Raise Funds for Education


Blogging for Good

Social Media...it Isn't Just for Google Ranking Anymore

Social media started out...social. But it wasn't long before the world of online marketers large and small discovered that it was a natural, inexpensive way to spread the word, place links, build rankings, and much more. Just like Google rankings themselves before it, social media was soon faced with a whole movement to manipulate the system for dollars.

And then Blog Catalog's Tony Berkman had an idea. Why not "work the system" for good?

Now, countless bloggers have signed on to use their blogs to raise funds for Donors Choose, an organization that allows donors to choose the particular project they'd like to fund from requests made by public school teachers and administrators across the country.

Donors choose has collected more than $12 million in contributions to benefit school children since its inception. The organization provides a quick and easy way to make a donation while offering enough specific information that donors can know exactly what they're funding and enjoy a personal connection to the project.

There's an even bigger reason to donate to Donors Choose through this post or one of the hundreds (or thousands) of other posts on the subject. Berkman has indicated that if the effort is a success, Blog Catalog will develop a community service page to promote similar events in the future. While every donation counts, the impact of a widespread social media effort to raise funds for charity could be much bigger in the long run. Please take a moment to follow this link and make a donation--every dollar counts! Donate to Donors Choose

We Interrupt the Serious Issues...

to talk about self-scan lanes at the grocery store. Note that, although I can't begin to understand the distinction, I am talking ONLY about self-scan lanes at the grocery store. The self-scan lanes at WalMart and such seem to work fine.

First, the lanes are set up in such a way that you can fill two bags on the weight-sensitive platform. That would be fine, except that when you have more than two bags worth of groceries, the machine shuts down every time you put one in your cart. It yells, "Item removed from bagging area! Please return item before continuing!" over and over again until you either return the item to the shelf (leaving no room for the remaining groceries) or a human comes over and bypasses the machine by moving through several screens and entering secret codes.

Now, if you've returned the item to the bagging area and have no room to put your next item IN the bagging area, you might as well just give up and go home. You scan the item and then see that you don't have room for it. What to do? If you set it aside, the machine yells, "Item not bagged! Place item in bagging area, or press 'skip bagging' to proceed!"

Don't you fall for it. When you press "skip bagging" it yells "please wait for assistance, re-starting the whole process with the multiple screens and the secret code.

If you don't press "skip bagging", but you hesitate a second too long, you're no longer allowed to bag the item. Instead, the machine yells, "Unexpected item in bagging area! Please wait for assistance!" Then...well, you know the drill by now, right?

And this is small potatoes (no pun intended, I swear) compared to buying produce. When you place an item or bag of produce on the scale, you're given two options--key in the item's code, or choose it from a seemingly handy photographic menu. Usually, there are no stickers on the individual produce items indicating their item codes, so unless you had the forethought to write them down while in the produce section, you're stuck with the menu. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. I mean, how wrong can you go with pictures? Especially when the pictures are also labelled. The only problem is, the prices associated with these items by photograph rarely bear any relationship to the prices indicated on the shelves.

This evening, for instance, I chose, "Whole watermelon". That's what I bought, after all. The picture looked like my watermelon. The sign where I'd picked up the watermelon said, "Whole watermelons, $3.99". It all seemed very straightforward.

I chose "Whole watermelon" with the photograph of a watermelon much like mine (it might even have BEEN my watermelon) above it and the machine cheerfully announced, "Whole watermelon, $8.99."

Sigh. Wait for assistance. Screens. Secret code. Sometimes I don't bother, which might be the point--so far I've never found the produce prices to be LOWER than those indicated on the shelves.