Bill Napoli is spelled A-S-S-H-A-T

I don’t usually use Smart Bitches to overtly rant and rave about politics; this site is for romance novels, after all. But I’m going to make a special exception for Bill Napoli, a Republican state senator for South Dakota who had these words of wisdom to say about acceptable rape exceptions for the abortion ban:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

An acquaintance of mine, Sylvia, referred to this as “hella rape,” which is quite possibly the best damn phrase I’ve read all year.

At any rate, fuckwittery should not go unrewarded. I’m thinking we should do to Napoli what Dan Savage did to Rick Santorum. The nifty thing is, Napoli himself has provided an excellent definition. I propose the following entry be entered into the lexicon:

napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): napolied
Pronunciation: nA’poli

1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage. 2. To hella rape somebody.

Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli’s (R-SD) words on an acceptable description of rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban.

Now, popularizing this term is going to take a little help from you guys.

First of all, I’ve created a little page with the definition for “napoli.” LINK TO http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/billnapoli with “Bill Napoli” as the anchor text. The link should look like this:

Bill Napoli

This is known as Google-bombing.

Second of all: Urbandictionary.com. I’ve submitted the entry, and it’s currently awaiting editorial approval. Once it’s up, I’m going to post a link here, and I hope enough of you guys vote on it that it becomes the top result for “napoli.” (Gawd, I feel bad for Napoli, but…not bad enough.)

And feel free to refer people to both the Bill Napoli definition page and this page, of course.

C’mon, everybody! With a little help, we can hopefully make napoli the new santorum.

Categorized:

News, The Link-O-Lator

Comments are Closed

  1. MzNicky says:

    Dear Bitches: I wandered in here this morning from the fabulous Twisty Faster’s “I Blame the Patriarchy” site, visited briefly, picked up your Google-bomb, and ran with it over to not only my own Tennessee Guerilla Women site, but also to the awesome Jesus’ General and Crooks & Liars as well. Best of luck schtupping this guy’s sorry ass.

  2. Laura says:

    Hey, we should also let Dan Savage know about this campagain. I bet he’d get his readers in on this, too.

  3. aeonsomnia says:

    Hey, somewhat regular reader here 🙂

    I’ll send this to Amanda at Pandagon, if you don’t mind.  Hopefully, she’ll spread the word about the new meaning of “Napoli” and the googlebomb plan further

    (and the idea is spreading, because I myself came here via Twisty Faster’s “I Blame the Patriarchy” blog)

  4. Candy says:

    Ohmigod, feel free send it to Amanda at Pandagon.

    *tries to repress fangirl squealing at the thought of Amanda looking at this blog*

    And DUDE! I totally forgot about alerting Dan Savage! God knows I’m totally

    ripping off his idea

    lifting a page from his book. I’ll e-mail him when I get home.

  5. Blythe says:

    A few people on LiveJournal are picking up on this—it takes a while for go0gle to index LJ, but hopefully it’ll help

  6. Robin says:

    What in the world is SBTB doing being linked from a site called “Jesus’ General?”

    I wonder how many people click on that site thinking it’s literal.  Anyone who hasn’t been over there, check it out! 

    You would think liberty would cover a person’s right to privacy.

    Here’s the thing: because the US is a constitutional democracy, we’re always balancing the liberty interest of the individual against the state interest in a particular issue (what Candy rightly identified as the majority-minority tension).  And depending on the issue and on how it’s framed legally, and on whether the right is “fundamental” or not (i.e. whether it’s in the constitution or granted by federal or state statute), on the particular Supreme Court justices interpreting constitutional law, etc.  Then there is the issue of what states can and can’t control, which is where the abortion debate seems to be settling.

    For anyone interested in these issues, I really, really urge you to read the case law, especially Roe v. Wade (1973), but also Planned Parenthood of Southern PA v. Casey (1992) and the earlier case of Griswold v. Connecticut (the landmark contraception case).

  7. Ravenmn says:

    Twisty sent met. I did my best. Good luck with this and Happy International Women’s Day!

    http://ravenmn.blogspot.com/2006/03/happy-international-womens-day-i-want.html

  8. Jeri says:

    Brilliant!  I put it on my writing blog, and even un-hiatused my political blog, Seething in the Wilderness, for the occasion, just to double the fun.

    Jesus’ General rocks!  I’ll blogpimp you to Shakespeare’s Sister momentarily.  It’s been awhile since I’ve visited her.  Ooh, and Big Brass Alliance, too.

    Thanks for waking the sleepy, cranky activist in me.

  9. Candy, in case you want a link to the vid of that asshat saying those words. Your idea is making it around on Crooks & Liars. Good Luck. ~ PEACE!
    http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/06.html#a7412

  10. SB Sarah says:

    Jesus’ General does indeed rock – thanks for pointing me in that direction!

  11. Jenny says:

    Add another LJ post to the mix.

  12. Candy says:

    Jenny, that was beautiful.

    And ohmigod, the Wikipedia entry on Napoli? I’m certain that any minute now they’re going to flag it and take it down, so this time, I took a screenshot AND made a PDF of the page for posterity.

  13. Aimey says:

    i threw it on my lj too and msn’d alot of friends to look

  14. Rubber Soul says:

    What a great site.  I love trashy novels so will come here often.
    re: napoli – when I saw this cretin on News Hour I couldn’t believe my ears.  I love that this is getting the attention it so richly deserves and hope it doesn’t die out anytime soon.  I can’t believe all the things my generation fought for are being swept away in my lifetime.  I have chills like I had when I read “A Handmaids Tale” – that book will haunt me forever.

  15. ballgame says:

    Bounced over here from Shakespeare’s Sister. Just wanted to say that, while I like Dan Savage and read his column often, I always thought his ‘santorum’ campaign—though funny—was, well, wrong, because Rick Santorum isn’t the only Santorum in the world, and I always wondered how the other Santorums felt about having their name hijacked this way. I mean, I’m sure there are a bunch of perfectly sensible, level-headed and open-minded Santorums out there, right? That campaign can’t have endeared them to liberal activism, can it? How would you feel?

    I empathize with your anger at Mr. Napoli, and I wish you best of luck with whatever Bill Napoli specific campaigns you come up with, but I think this ‘smear someone by besmirching a name they share with hundreds of others’ idea can’t be the best you got, can it?

  16. Dark Wraith says:

    Good evening.

    This site was posted in a comment at BlondeSense, and I made the mistake of clicking on the link. Now, unfortunately, I shall be forced to put this site in my blogroll if for no other reason than that I rarely find a blog with so many grammatically excellent commenters possessing that difficult-to-achieve morsel of reasonably well-mannered outrage. I have also amended my current Open Forum to note this site and your current campaign to bring the word napoli into the lexicon of American English.

    May your efforts bear fruit.

    From another part of the Blogosphere, the Dark Wraith bids your well.

  17. Doug Hoffman says:

    Candy, you’re brilliant. I’ll do what I can.

  18. Susan says:

    hey all—i tried googling “bill napoli” earlier (i know it’s too early for major results, but i was wondering if the site would come up at all yet).  when i made the search more specific, the SBTB site did come up, but the definition page didn’t.  does it just take time for google to notice new pages, or is there something we can do to speed up the process?  i seem to remember there’s a way to register or index your site with google…am i wrong? 

    another interesting thing—when i googled “bill napoli” yesterday i got around 730 hits.  now there are something like 11,000—most of them about these rape comments.

  19. Jeri says:

    ballgame, I agree that the Santorum campaign was a little juvenile and served no purpose other than humiliation (which the “honorable” PA senator roundly deserved but not those who share his name, except possibly his wife).

    But this campaign is different because it a) targets one individual and b) draws attention to Napoli’s own vile words.  It educates and enlightens in a matter of seconds.

    The point here is to get people talking about the real consequences of an abortion ban.  In the event it ever gets approved by the Supreme Court (unlikely, according to most experts), policy makers will have to ask the hard questions: Who counts as a “victim”?  Who is “worthy” of an abortion?  If abortion is declared to be murder, should women go to jail for having the procedure?

    Better to have this dialogue now so people can remember that there are other lives at stake besides that of the fetus.

  20. I’ve been fuming since yesterday about this, and it’s getting worse. Will attempt to tame righteous anger, so here’s a bit of background.

    History bit: Up into the 19th century, the law in most of the states was the pre-existing common law inherited from the British. This didn’t consider abortion prior to “quickening” (see below*) to be a criminal act. Things were a bit more grey after quickening, but even so many people didn’t consider it a sin.

    From a social perspective, even after the states began to pass laws against abortion from the first half 19th century, juries often acquitted abortionists. “Female” pills to induce miscarriage were advertised in newspapers. Moral condemnation and attacks only intensified in the second half of the century.

    A number of reasons have been put forward for this, and they’ve been hashed through in books, so to keep things brief, I won’t go into the arguments. They include: the humanitarian movement that arose at the time (a bid to “protect” women); development of biological knowledge; shift to women being treated by doctors rather than mid-wives (the AMA was solidly against abortion); influence of Victorian morality; political need for increased population to fuel economic growth.

    Many of these seem to tie into the concomitant condemnation of birth control as exemplified by the Comstock law (1879, not repealed until 1965).

    *Quickening: Again, things are a bit hazy on this depending on era and culture. It was usually deemed to be the point where the foetus took on life. This was important because many religions saw this as connected to the point where the soul entered the body. Until then, the foetus was seen as an extension of the mother.

    Sometimes this was deemed to be the first time movement was felt in the womb, more usually it was a set number of days after conception. Many of the church fathers like Augustine (not exactly a hand-wringing liberal softie when it came to women) held this view. The Catholic church officially set the days as 40 days for a boy, 80 for a girl. Make of that distinction what you will. In fact it was only in the late 19th century (1879ish I think??) that the Pope condemned all abortion as a sin. Protestants accepted these dates without much question. Islamic theologians set the time as anything from 40 to 120 days after conception. Judaic views seem to have been similar.

    Back to Napoli and S.Dakota. I’m still furious. One thing is that as far as I’m aware (and Robin or anyone, please correct me on this) the foetus doesn’t have full rights under the law in other matters. For example, pre-natal injury or propery/inheritance laws. But this might have something to do with acquiring a birth certificate/citizenship? Also, in the case detailed by the senator, wouldn’t the rapist have to be convicted before the abortion could be authorised? Which might take a while to do, and makes the issue irrelevent after nine months or so.

    Interestingly, this side of the pond the Home Office have just kicked off a big campaign to warn men that they should ensure that they have a woman’s consent. This is partly because apparently in about 1/3 of rape cases reported to the police, the victim has been drinking which makes it harder to secure a conviction. But they want to try to clarify the law on consent in this respect, hence the campaign. It’s a good thing if it works, but points to the fact that the culture of blame is still pervasive.

  21. Sarah F. says:

    EvilAuntiePeril, in some benighted states here on the other side of the pond, you do have people getting tried for double murder if the woman they killed was pregnant.  And in England, at least, didn’t you have to wait to see if the widow was pregnant/had a son before you could entail estates onto other branches of the family?  Does that count as fetal rights?

  22. you do have people getting tried for double murder if the woman they killed was pregnant.  And in England, at least, didn’t you have to wait to see if the widow was pregnant/had a son before you could entail estates onto other branches of the family?  Does that count as fetal rights?

    Good point, Sarah. I’d forgotten about the entailing/heir to the manor thing. And it’s possible to will things to future descendents, too. But in this case they don’t even have to be conceived. Can anyone clarify the theory behind this? I’m on shaky ground because I don’t have any background in law to prop this up.

    I think it’s interesting to consider the whole question of rights because this is one of the justifications put forward for restricting access to abortion (protecting the rights of the vulnerable minority). So I’d really be grateful for some insight into this.

    The double murder issue is interesting, too. A lot of the evidence for early historical views of the unborn child is based on legal judgement in the case of pre-natal injury. And for the most part, this focusses on the parents’ loss rather than the child.

    Is there a legal opinion on how a child’s status changes at the moment of birth? For example things like tax credits and child benefit only apply after birth, don’t they?

  23. Robin says:

    I think it’s interesting to consider the whole question of rights because this is one of the justifications put forward for restricting access to abortion (protecting the rights of the vulnerable minority). So I’d really be grateful for some insight into this.

    I don’t know much about this, but I can tell you that as long as states don’t violate the Constitution, they can make laws that, for example, afford greater protections than a particular amendment.  As Sarah said, there has been a shift toward considering a fetus/unborn child a murder victim in some cases, and I don’t know what the impact of that will be on the abortion issue.  In some cases, it’s not, IMO, so much about religious beliefs, but about the desire to crack down on crime, and to ensure that big sentences land on folks like Scott Peterson, for example.  Double murder = potentially double punishment. 

    People just have to remember that this is largely about what STATES have the power to do because the Consitution provides a minimum guarantee of rights, and the Supreme Court is the branch that establishes the nuances of that minimum.  What, for example, are going to be the implications of the way the Roe Court emphasized viability as the threshold for a woman’s privacy rights, especially given the neo and pre natal technology available today?  Let alone the power the Right has gained since 9/11.

  24. EAP, I am not a lawyer, but I think the inheritance laws were to protect the deceased landowner’s interests more than the fetus. In other words, if the wife is barred from remarrying for three months, that allows interested parties to determine if she’s carrying a potential heir.  Since her husband is presumed to be the father of her baby, if she remarries too quickly and then gives birth, her new husband is considered under law the child’s father, and the interests of her deceased first husband haven’t been secured.

    It’s not really about the woman or the fetus, but about protecting the property rights of the dead husband’s family and by extension, his potential rightful inheritor.

    But as I said, IANAL, but I spend a lot of time reading and writing historical romance.

  25. Don’t forget about http://www.pseudodictionary.com – “the place where words you’ve made up can become part of an actual online dictionary!” I love that site. TW

  26. Priscilla says:

    Blogged!  Anything to put an end to this revolting, antediluvian, patriarchal spew.

  27. scout says:

    Added it to my blog, after finding it on Sybermoms.  And I, too, needed *one more blog* to read… 

    Rock on, sisters.

  28. Vicki says:

    I’m sure I’m getting off topic here, but I just want people to THINK!. . .

    Here’s a question to ponder. . . When was the last time ANYONE, pro-life or not, went to a funeral for an 8-week gestated fetus that was miscarried? Uh. . . never? Why is that, hmm? Because it would be absurd? Because that life is not equal to mine?

    There is a line, people. We all have our own idea of where that line is. That’s the point. YOU can’t tell me when life begins. I can’t tell you either.

    I absolutely understand and respect that some people think abortion is wrong. It’s EASY to understand that. Nobody thinks abortion is festival we should all attend. But until every single unwanted, disabled, ill, hard-to-control, impossible-to-love, half-grown child is out of foster care and being raised in a loving househould, I don’t even want to discuss this shit. It’s ridiculous. You have no RIGHT to talk to me about making abortion illegal until you have at least three of those kids living and thriving in your home.

  29. Jane says:

    Amen, sister!

  30. Blogged as well!

    And may I give another AMEN! to Vicki, too!

  31. Vicki says:

    Thanks, you guys. But you shouldn’t encourage me.

    Hey, I just started my period! I’m gonna have a little memorial service at my house, if anyone wants to come pay respects to my poor, precious unfertilized egg. I think I’ll take her picture and put a eulogy in the paper. God’s littlest angel. . .

    Every potential life is precious.

  32. azteclady says:

    Very unoriginal of me but… what Vicky said!

  33. azteclady says:

    And I just realized that I posted something very similar to Vicky’s sentiment in the comments to the newest Napoli entry here at SBTB.

  34. Vicki says:

    Hey, I agreed with your post too! *g*

  35. Eve says:

    blogged

    Best of luck in your google bombing campaign.  And glad I live North of the border.

  36. Christin says:

    Bill Napoli doesn’t have his own page in the Wikipedia… yet.

    Bwa ha ha.

  37. Christin says:

    ….Wow. In the time it took me to figure out how to create new pages in Wikipedia, somebody made one. Crazy people. I’m a-looking into how to make this part of the article.

  38. Shon says:

    I’m just as outraged and can’t really add to what has already been said but also – in other news, there is the patriot act that has survived, too.

    I did a google search for Bill Napoli and your definition popped up first. Probably already knew that.

    Good job.

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