Brassed off

I don't know whether exposure to daytime television counts as a fringe benefit or a hazard of being unemployed. The discussion on Oprah today was about a group of women who were systematically harassed and raped in the airforce academy. They are apparently still waiting for something to be done about it, after they were all kicked out of the academy for reporting the assaults. Watching it, I became so angry that I started thinking that any man who commits rape, especially if there is violence or the abuse of a power relationship involved, should have his penis slowly shaved down to a bloody stump, without anaesthetic, in the most public and humiliating manner possible.

I don't really like thinking that way, but somewhere in me is a conviction that if harsh corporal punishment was implemented in our legal system, more people might think twice about committing violent crimes.

Speaking of violations of justice, how the hell did Russell get down to the final two contestants on the X factor?! Don't the viewing public have any sense of discernment? He can't sing, sometimes can't even carry a tune at the right pitch, he has almost no charisma and in fact seems to be the very personification of blandness. What ever happened to quality in popular music?