It's late, but this might be the only chance I get to blog this weekend, so I'm going to fire out an entry. Let's hit three topics, rapid-fire-like.
- It was a bad week for problems from the past. My treadmill broke again. It's pretty annoying, but not as annoying as I thought it would be. I think I just reached maximum annoyance last time, and now my brain is like nah, dude, we're not doing that again. I put in another service order to get it fixed, but at this point I might try to see if I can get a refund. The thing is though, I like having a treadmill. It's very nice, and it's become a crucial part of my workout routine. But I need one that works obviously. It's the same thing as happened before. If I go fast for too long, the motor stops and doesn't start again. But fast in this case is anything over like 7.5 mph, which is an eight-minute mile, so not actually that fast. If I keep this hunk of junk, and they fix it again, I might have to just set it at 7.0 or below and live with it. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing, and it's better than the headache (and cost) of getting a new treadmill. I mean, I can get a perfectly fine workout at that speed. I just need to get the heart rate up. It's not like I've got a big race coming up and need to do my time trials.
- Then our pipes got clogged again and backed everything up, just like before. This really worried me as we spent a billion dollars (not an exact figure) last summer to have them jackhammer through our floors and replace a stretch of corroded pipe that was constantly getting clogged. And I was just fearing having to do that again. But this time it turned out to be on city property. The water was getting all the way to the edge of our front lawn and getting blocked there. We had to call the water company's "emergency" line Thursday evening, and by Saturday afternoon they had it cleared -- not exactly emergency service, but, to be fair, we had some crazy thunderstorms Thursday, and when that happens it causes a lot of drainage issues. The receptionist at the water company did warn us that they had a lengthy list of service requests. I have a suspicion that this clog is related somehow to what happened last summer -- like maybe it was part of the problem. It just seems like too big a coincidence, but maybe that's all it is. I dunno. I am learning a lot about how residential piping, though.
- So, Johnny Depp won his case -- very surprising to me. I intentionally didn't follow this case live, but so many news outlets were talking about the verdict, I felt compelled to do a deep dive on it, so that I wouldn't be woefully uninformed. My take on it is that Amber Heard did defame him in the colloquially sense -- her statements did hurt his reputation and cause him to lose work -- but, from a free speech standpoint, I don't think what she said should have cost her $10 million. It's not even technically untrue. If I was somehow the ultimate decider on this case, she would get to keep her money, but she would have to put out a public statement owning up to her part in it all. I think it's pretty clear that that's what did her in. They had an abusive relationship for sure, but it wasn't always clear who was the victim and who was the victimizer. They kinda took turns in that regard, and I think the jury saw that. And I think I'll stop here because it's late, and I can't think super clearly, and when you can't think super clearly it's probably not best to write in depth about topics like domestic abuse.
Until next time...
Unfortunately, I'm not surprised to hear Depp won. I barely followed this either as it became clear it was an ego-driven shitshow and both parties clearly have mental health and drug problems, but I did early on see potential opportunity for it to be dismissed and provide hope for women everywhere that they CAN safely speak their truth without being labeled a "toxic bitch" and suffering the wrath of an emotionally fragile, misbehaving, rich, white man. Because here's the thing... did she also behave badly and abusively? Yes, it seems she did, HOWEVER, the power dynamics of that relationship from the beginning meant they were never on equal footing and therefore could never have been "equal" participants, because not only is he much older, he's also an uber wealthy and powerful man surrounded by sycophants and much more successful in their shared profession and that's where this thing becomes really gross and problematic for me because how much is she a "femme fatale" and how much is she a subordinate who was groomed from a very young age? She was freakin' 23 and he was 46 when they met! Yuck.
ReplyDeleteI'm, like, 60% in agreement with you. The take I heard that most aligns with mine is on the Lost Debate podcast #53 (https://lostdebate.com/).
DeletePNGL (Probably Not Gonna Listen)
-The trial wasn't fair Heard because of Depp's celebrity and the way the judge allowed the trial to play out so publicly without sequestering the jury.
-Heard was hurt tremendously by repeatedly lying to the jury in obvious ways.
-The people who are celebrating or lamenting this case as a huge blow to the #MeToo movement are probably both wrong.
My biggest concern is I see people using her as an example of "toxic femininity" which, like "reverse racism" can't exist because the foundation of toxic masculinity is the entire system that is set up to favor men so it's impossible for women to "rig" anything in their favor on a consistent basis. And, clearly, she didn't "get away" with anything anyway...
ReplyDeleteThe silver lining is it is drawing attention to and prompting conversations about power dynamics and the such.
ReplyDeleteI think it is an episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where one of the characters flirts with being a cougar, but is horrified to learn she is dating one of her son's friends and remarks something along the lines of "Ohhhh... women don't do this because it's disgusting."
ReplyDelete