Napoli.. bus? Some kind of a… SPIKE TRAP?!

YAY and YAY AGAIN and THANK YOU to all of you who are spreading the good word about Bill Napoli. I don’t know about you, but I feel a certain warm glow from napoling this asshole, even if it’s merely figurative.

For those of you who, like me, feel like you have a very real stake in this but don’t live in South Dakota and/or have your hands tied because you can’t vote, may I suggest that you throw whatever spare cash you have at these fine organizations, who will likely be challenging the abortion ban law and need all the help they can get?

Planned Parenthood
NARAL-Pro Choice
ACLU

Anyone else have other suggestions for other worthy organizations, as well as more direct action we can take, besides feeding, watering and petting your local reproductive freedom activists and civil rights lawyers (if you’re not one yourself)?

Note:
I’m going to leave this entry and the the napoli entry stickied for a couple of days, which means it’ll stay on top, even though we’ll post new content. That ensures it’ll get maximum visibility for just that much longer for people who are visiting this for the first time. Regular trashy novel bitchenating will resume soon; just scroll down to get to it.

Updated to add:

I checked Blogsnow because we were getting a bunch of hits from that site, and HOLY SHIT, Y’ALL. The Bill Napoli definition page is coming in at number 8 for “most linked to page.”

I shit you not. I took a screencap for posterity. The close-up is below; click on it to get the full screencap.

image

Again, thank you. Y’all motherfucking rock.

Categorized:

News, The Link-O-Lator

Comments are Closed

  1. Robin says:

    One thing that costs no money BUT, IMO, is of critical importance, is that anyone really invested in these issues read the case law on abortion, especially the Supreme Court decisions.  I know they’re long and the legalese can be really boring, but the legal paradigm is quite specialized, and the way we talk about the issue in general is not always what carries the day in court.  Being able to work from both within and outside the legal arguments on this issue is, IMO, incredibly empowering and absolutely necessary for those of us who are strongly invested in maintaining control over our sexuality and our reproductive rights.

    I found a page on AOL, and while I don’t know who created it, all the major cases (not just on abortion, but also some of the contraception cases that preceded Roe) are there with summaries and links to the opinions, oral arguments, etc.  I have included the link to the Con Law page through this post, but you can also click on the broader abortion law page for state-specific info, etc:

    http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/conlaw.htm

  2. Candy says:

    Thank you, Robin. Excellent point.

  3. Beanmaiden says:

    I’m pro-life, myself, but Napoli sure comes off as a self-righteous wingnut, don’t he? When’s the last time HE had to deal with an unexpected pregnancy? To be fair, though, the whole “only abortion for rape victims” is kinda shaky as it is – the actual percentage of women today who are impregated by rapists is almost too small to be relevant.

  4. Candy says:

    “…the actual percentage of women today who are impregated by rapists is almost too small to be relevant.”

    I can certainly understand somebody’s pro-life stance, and please know I’m not trying to change anybody’s mind here, but I can’t let claims like these go unchallenged or unquestioned. So, got any numbers, there? Most of the estimates I’ve seen put the pregnancy-by-rape number at about 30,000 every year, and this CDC page estimates about 32,000, based on a 1996 study.

    That is not a small or irrelevant number to me. That’s enough women to populate a fucking city.

  5. Aoife says:

    And even if the number of women who were impregnated by rapists was 30 rather than 30,000+, they should still have access to the means to end those pregnancies.  The percentage may be “small,” but if it’s you it’s 100%

  6. Trudi says:

    You know, there was a case in Tijuana where a 14 year old girl was raped in her own house. Abortion for rape victims is legal here in Mexico. But the doctors (in a government owned hospital) refused to practice it and KIDNAPPED her until the pregnancy was over eight months so she couldn´t have the abortion performed anywhere.
    And they ended up blaming her for it. And also, even though by law the doctors should have been banned from practice, no one did anything.
    I know there are thousands of cases like that, but still I´m f-ing mad.

  7. Honestly, I don’t always get all these angst over abortion.  In Asia, people do it, and nobody protests abortion or no abortion or whatever.

    BTW – I think that many pro-lifers misunderstand what pro-choice really is.  It just means we don’t want to make the decision for someone else.  We want the woman who’s pregnant to make the decision and have reasonable access to qualified medical facilities that can either help her with pre-natal care OR perform abortion.

  8. Thanks for reminding me it’s time to re-up in all three of those organizations.  I used to earmark my United Way contributions solely for Planned Parenthood.  It wasn’t something my boss advertised we could do, but I’d been tipped off by a friend, and my attitude was if they expected me to take one for the team, then I was going to say where my charity dollars went.

  9. Kate R says:

    you are number five now…and if you scoot down the page, you’re also number 27. Wow.

  10. Kate's PS says:

    I was talking about snowblot or blowsnow or whatever it’s called. The best thing about it? your entire blog title is there. . (Now at 30, not 27)
    Very cool.

  11. Aimey says:

    9:39EST… its actually at #4

  12. Anne says:

    The bitch of living in a free, democratic society is that there’s a limit to how much you can blame your politicians.  What do the South Dakotans think of abortion?

    When I lived in Kitchener-Waterloo, abortion was legal, but the Planned Parenthood posters in the buses were always defaced.  The city’s residents were a pretty conservative lot — fortunately that kind of decision isn’t municipal.

  13. Lareign says:

    Oh this whole situation saddens me. It does. This guy is a complete and utter jerk. I thought living in Texas was bad but wow, I am never moving to South Dakota. Ever. Not that I was planning on it anyway.

    Anyway, thare are lots of stupid politicans in Texas too. Really, it’s ridiculous. And I live in Uber Conservative East Texas. There’s a Planned Parenthood nearby, that does not perform abortions, but there is still a group trying to shut them down because they believe the morning after pill is abortion. I once covered one of their meetings for the college newspaper, and it was so hard not to just stand up and scream, “Bullshit!”

    The newspaper I work for now is one of several owned by the same company-and I thought one of the columnists wrote an excellent column on this matter.

    http://www.lufkindailynews.com/opin/content/shared/news/nation/stories/03/YOUNG_COLUMN_0303_COX.html

    On a side note, sometimes I am so ashamed to live in Texas. Especially after Tom DeLay overwhelmingly won his primary yesterday. That baffles me how anyone could vote for him. So yeah, I’m supposed to graduate in December and sometimes I think I may apply for jobs far from here, in more liberal places. I mean, almost every place is more liberal than this. Except, apparently, S.D. And states like Mississippi.

  14. Candy, I’ve done my best for the cause:
    http://www.blogsnow.com/bnxcqq
    Give Crooks & Liars some props for a great site to get things out into the public eye for all to discuss:
    http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/06.html#a7412
    This freak Bill Napoli WILL be defined forever more by those hateful words. I’m just afraid that the next time we hear from Bill Napoli he’ll be in the news again for molesting his kids!

  15. Lareign,

    Yeah…I still don’t get how Tom Delay won!  I thought it was an early April fools day joke article from the local newspaper until I remembered that I live in Japan, and Japanese reporters take their job way too seriously to pull something like this.

    But remember—the fact that you think that there’s something wrong w/ the scenario makes you ahead of everyone who thinks everything’s just fine.  🙂

  16. Nikki says:

    Tom DeLay won the same way Roy Moore might win the governor’s race in Alabama.  They attach everything to religion and if you oppose them, it’s construed to be opposing religion.

    I’m a Christian but these people don’t represent me.  Quite frankly, the ultra right frightens the pants off me.  They believe they are the ONLY way, much like Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah did.  Scary, huh?

  17. BTW –

    If you think Napoli is making you pissed off, look at this asinine lawsuit filed by some old boy’s club who think men shouldn’t have to pay for child support because women have so many options now…like abortion.  (Maybe they haven’t heard about SD?)

    Men’s Rights Group Eyes Child Support Stay

  18. Soni says:

    Crossing fingers and sent a suggest-a-site to BoingBoing. No clue as to whether or not they’ll pick it up, but hey – it never hurts to ask. Also on my own blog, of course.

  19. ellcee says:

    I just used “napoli” in context in a serial “novel” on my site.  It’s parody fiction about a well-known comic strip, and I have a pretty decent readership (200-400 hits per day) so hopefully it’ll spread the word and show up on google via LJ indexing with all the other lj’s.

    LC

  20. Jeri says:

    Re: Angelle’s link

    U-F-Believable.

    Because women can have abortions, men want the equivalent (???): lack of financial responsibility. 

    That’s like me saying I want the female equivalent of a kick in the nuts, which is, um, two weeks at a spa!

    No one should ever sleep with these guys again.  That’ll learn ‘em.

    As a group of literary-minded bitches, we should take up a collection to send 400,000 copies of The Handmaid’s Tale to the ladies of South Dakota.  I’m sure Margaret Atwood would be thrilled, maybe throw in a comp copy for the governor’s wife.

  21. Rinda says:

    <

    >

    Very well said. 

    We believe in choice, not in abortion.

  22. Rinda says:

    Once again, I’m comment challenged.  My quote was from Angelle above.:)

  23. Robin says:

    Very well said.

    We believe in choice, not in abortion.

    I’ve really been thinking of having a t-shirt made up with the following slogan:

    Pro Choice does not mean Anti Life

    (or even better, “Pro Choice IS Pro Life,” but I’m afraid that would require too much explanation to make it effective)

  24. Robin says:

    Oops, I think my complete inability to successfully end my HTML code has screwed up the comments section—Candy?  Anyone?  Bueller?  SORRY!

  25. BTW—

    Did you guys see that the Illinois rape case was acquitted?  I’m sick to stomach.  There was very strong evidence—video tape of the gang rape, which the girl was forced to watch by the judge’s order.  Many men commented that the verdict was just because the girl consented and probably asked for it.  (The girl was drunk / unconscious and was only 16 at that time)

    With what happened there and Napoli and all, I dont’ even feel angry anymore.  I’m just really sad at how low the general human kind sank.

    How can the “justice” system say that it’s OK for four men to gang rape a drunken unconscious 16-yr-old girl, spit on her, write obscenities on her, and film the entire thing and force her to watch the tape in front of the judges, juries, and attorneys?  (and acquit those men)

    How can people be so narrow-minded as to take away other people’s right to decide what’s right for them on their own?  Why is it so difficult to understand that not everyone thinks like you do?

    Why do we think the criminal’s rights are more important than the victim’s rights?  Why is it that criminals can refuse to answer questions without attorney(s), entitled to due process, the right to face their accusers, and a whole bunch of supporting their right to live (anti-capital punishment people), but when the victims were brutalized, the victims didn’t have the right to an attorney, entitled to due process, and their right to live and be safe?

    Why do people do such horrible things to each other in the name of religion?  I’m not talking about Muslims or Christians or any one specific group.  I’m talking about ALL religions here.  ALL believers who feel that it’s their god-given right to shame, degrade, and punish those they consider to be “nonbelievers” or “heathens”.

    Where’s human decency that compels a man to watch out for a woman who’s alone at a bar to make sure she’s safe?  Where’s human compassion that compels these believers to reach out (without judgment) to those who are less fortunate than they are?

    I think I’m emotionally too drained to write coherently.  Sorry I rambled for so long.

  26. Stef says:

    Back in the heyday of the Taliban, I remember thinking, if all the Afghan women left the country, just stood up and said, “We’re outta here,” I wonder if the men would change their tune a bit?

    I’m thinking the same thing right now.  If abortion becomes illegal, suppose every woman of child bearing age said, I’m not willing to risk pregnancy, so how about you go fuck yourself, and I’ll take care of my own sexual gratification?

    Angelle, you said it so beautifully, I’m in awe.  Heartfelt and so true, and I wish I had an answer for you.  The only bright spot is that there ARE kind, compassionate people in the world – I meet and see them every day.  I guess it’s just that the bad eggs stink so much, they overpower the kinder, gentler scents.

  27. azteclady says:

    From Angelle Trieste’s link, Mel Feit spouts: “If the woman changes her mind and wants the child, she should be responsible,” Feit said. “If she can’t take care of the child, adoption is a good alternative.”

    Really?

    So that’s why there are *no* children in orphanages anywhere in the world.

    Nor children being juggled, and sometimes even lost, in the mess that we like to call children services.

    Nor children living in the streets, sometimes in packs, sometimes alone, sleeping under bridges and inside storm drains and abandoned buildings.

    Because really, adoption is such a good alternative.

  28. Amira says:

    I don’t even live in the US and I am so disgusted that it women in South Dakota are being given no choice as to whether or not they can terminate a pregnancy. I thought we had it tough in Australia trying to get they morning-after pill available at the pharmacy. Honestly, don’t these parilamentarians consider the amount of unwanted, unloved or abused children already in the world? If given a choice, what child would like to grow up in a situation where his mother didn’t want him, but had no choice over the matter?

  29. Firefly says:

    The bombing was a success!  I googled Bill Napoli, and your link was the first hit.

  30. I saw that, Firefly!  Yay!

    Stef – thank you.  I thought I rambled for so long and made no sense.

    BTW—

    I just thought of something—if pro-choice people only want people to make their OWN decision as to whether or not to have the baby, shouldn’t we technically call Pro-Life Anti-Choice?  Because that’s what they’re really pushing for:  no choice except for what they think is right.

  31. Ostrea says:

    Honestly, don’t these parilamentarians consider the amount of unwanted, unloved or abused children already in the world?

    Some of them do, and think it would be a good thing.

    Commenting on illegal immigration, Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. “We could have used those people,” she said.

  32. Sarah F. says:

    Jesus, Ostrea.  Do people listen to themselves when they talk?  How could anyone who claims to be civilized and/or compassionate say something like that?  God.

  33. Sam H says:

    I saw where they are trying to pull something similar here in Tennessee, too. I also saw over on the Reading, Writing, Reviews and Rubbish link earlier this week that 2 of our lawmakers are trying to ban sex toys. I guess they think we should only have sex to procreate and God help us if we enjoy it with or without a man.

  34. azteclady says:

    From Ostrea’s link, because I can scarcely believe my eyes:
    “Commenting on illegal immigration, (Senator Nancy) Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. “We could have used those people,” she said.”

    Dear Lord.

    Ladies, it’s been ratified: our only worth is as ‘cheap labor’ factories. Now, hop to it, and remember that you are not supposed to enjoy yourself!

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