It's Good News Week

Just been perusing the news.

Of course the big story today is the horrific train crash in Belgium. Head-on collision. 18 dead. Eurostar services suspended pending an investigation. Big nasty. Ouch.

Then there's the lovely story of a fella who is still in hospital, unsurprisingly, after being stabbed in the eye with a stiletto heel! Yes! I'm not making this up.

"Gavin Taylor, 28, remains seriously ill in hospital after the incident last Sunday.
He suffered the injury in the back of a taxi while travelling home from a night out in Huddersfield with his girlfriend.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "At around 2am on Sunday, police received reports of a serious assault which occurred in a vehicle travelling through Huddersfield town centre."

A 28-year-old man was struck to the head and taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

"He was subsequently transferred to Leeds General Infirmary and is currently in a stable but critical condition."

Staci Hargreaves, 33, from Stalybridge, Cheshire, has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. She appeared at Huddersfield Magistrates' Court on Tuesday where she was granted bail to appear at Bradford Crown Court on February 16.

Police said the stiletto penetrated the eye socket and touched the victim's brain.

Makes me chuckle a little bit that the two protagonists in this story are named Gavin and Staci.

Then we've got this rather disturbing report that in a recent study, 75%  of women surveyed said they think that some women should take responsibility for rape. The old chestnuts being used here, such as dressing provocatively, and if they consented to getting in bed with the man before he attacked them.

Let me address the 'dressing provocatively' thing here. It doesn't matter how you're dressed, because a man is not an animal. We should be able to control ourselves, even when lusting after a hot girl in a miniskirt - this response seems to suggest that men have no self-control and that rape is triggered by sexual desire, whereas we know damn well that rape is all about power, control, and humiliation. A violent act, not a lusty one. And it doesn't matter if a woman consented to getting in bed with a man, it is still not an excuse for a man to suddenly turn violent once between the sheets, is it? It's not like the guy told her he was gonna become a maniac as soon as he got his kit off!

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said the findings were "alarming but sadly not surprising".She said: "It is depressing that, nearly half a decade later, people are still quick to blame the victim of rape rather than placing the responsibility where it actually belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator."

 Amen, sister.

Then we have the story of Clerks director Kevin Smith getting ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight by a pilot who said he did not fit in the seat correctly. So Smith goes on Twitter and says "Wanna tell me I'm too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: If  you look like me you may be ejected from @southwestair."

Whereupon a flood of support comes for Smith, including a user by the name of  Praxilla who called Smith the "MLK of fatties," to which he replied, "I have a Dream. And two lunches (meatball parm and Trix). And a couple of Twinkies. And a Diet Coke."

Southwest quickly responded to the Twitter storm with a public apology. However, they stated that their "Customer Of Size" (i.e. fattie) policy states that if a person cannot fit correctly into a seat then they are required to purchase an additional seat.

Now, Smith had purchased two seats. However, he was on standby, and only one seat was available. 

The airline did give Kevin a $100 travel voucher for his inconvenience, but he said that he did fit in the seat. "The arm rests went down and I could buckle my seatbelt without an extender. So...?" 

Always knew there was something wacky with Southwest.