The Dark Knight Rises

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises yesterday.  It was tougher than I expected.

We saw it at Battery Park, which is alongside the financial district, where most of the action in the movie takes place, which makes things jump off the screen a bit more.  It's also right next door to ground zero, which makes seeing films with killing or large-scale destruction harder to swallow.


But of course, in light of the Colorado shooting, it was impossible not to picture how everything happened that night.  I was also ultra-alert every time someone got up during the movie or came into the theater after the lights went down.


And while I'm trying to process the movie, I'm also trying to process how something like that happens.  What makes someone descend down that dark road?  Was it nature or nurture?  How could anyone ever stop something so unexpected?  How did people in the theater feel in that moment?  How do they move on with their lives?


I got really emotional toward the end of the movie.  There's a theme of the characters choosing to do the right thing versus choosing to be selfish or evil, and of certain characters moving on with their lives.  And then I also thought of the plane that landed in the Hudson River - on the other side of the Battery Park theater - and how all those people survived a plane crash, something people don't usually walk away from.  While all these people last weekend went to a movie, the last place you'd expect to not walk away from, and yet.  All of this was too much, I had to cry it out for a few minutes as the credits rolled. 


I have a terrible habit of making terrible jokes, usually in the form of eye-rolling puns, right after a tragedy - it's a sideways way of dealing with it, of avoiding looking something horrific straight in the face.  So I'm glad when I'm overwhelmed by an event, when I cry for people I've never met.  It reminds me that we're all human, all connected, and that life is ever so fragile, and a gift to be intensely grateful for every single moment.

The Herman Cain Thing.

I don't really care about Herman Cain; from where I stand today, Romney's taking it anyway (more on that later).

I'm really upset - in a throw up my hands and walk away way - that the American public and media is automatically suspicious instead of compassionate when a woman has the courage to come forward about alleged harassment.  Who the hell would want to go through all the mess of accusing a famous person of harassment or rape or anything in between, even for a big payday?

We have got to change this culture of victim blaming.  We need to take these accusations seriously.  We should run any man who treats women poorly out of town, much less elect him to office. We need to create a culture where women are respected - then these things won't happen in the first place.

Is it Just Me, or is New York Getting More... New York?

Perhaps its the departure of the original Law & Order franchise, the city feeling the need to cumulatively reassert its badassness, but wouldn't you agree that thing have, as the original Real World posited, stopped being polite and started getting real?

This morning on the Q, this guys just sits down, opens his book, and pops a 20-ounce Coors Light can.  No visible judgment from other passengers, which only made me laugh harder.  Well, life in NYC ain't easy, and as Anthony points out, it's always 5 o'clock somewhere.  (Still, be a gentleman and opt for a coffee stout before noon, it's NY Craft Beer Week for heaven's sake!)

Last night on the Bedford L platform, a fight broke out and my friend B (who will remain anonymous because he probably wants to get laid again someday) got pushed onto the SUBWAY TRACKS.  Quel horror!  He's okay, a few scrapes, but that's trauma to last a lifetime.

And two nights ago, in N's luxury Manhattan highrise apartment building, a 21-year old resident was shot and killed, possibly a drug-related crime.

Let's be serious: down economy equals hard times equals rise in crime.  The whole country is at a weird boiling point, no one seems quite balanced these days.  It's bound to keep bubbling over, especially in a city like New York.

Winning Emmy's & Taking Names

Huzzah!  Once again, SVU triumphs, only this time in REAL LIFE!  Check it out.

As awful things go, few things trump the fact that thousands of rape kits never go tested.  Can you imagine surviving a rape, having the courage to report it right after the fact without even showering before you go to the hospital, and then going through the further torturous, prodding, multi-hour process of a rape kit... and then it never even gets tested?  How can law enforcement sleep at night?!  Benson and Stabler would never allow this.

In light of the rape kit backlog, it seems fair to ask: Why should we put women through hours of an invasive procedure if we don't follow through and test their kits? The last thing anyone wants is for news of the rape kit backlog to discourage women from coming forward to have a rape kit collected.

And while testing rape kits is important to advance investigations, it also sends an important message: It shows victims that their cases -- and their pain and their anguish -- matter.

Fortunately, the doing-good-in-real-life team at SVU, Executive Producer Neal Baer and the divine Mariska Hargitay (who also runs Joyful Heart, an amazing organization that helps survivors of domestic abuse), is beginning a campaign to help solve this.  Now that's using your influence for good.

In Which The Mayoress Narrowly Avoids a Stabbing

Oh, the irony.

Perp is seated next to guy in background;
guy in foreground is blocking my view of him.

After nearly six months of searching, I'd finally found an affordable, adorable apartment.  I had a few reservations, one of which was its subway stop and distance from the main street I really want to live off of, so last night Nicolle and I went on a "safety walk" to assess my comfort level (not comfortability, that is not a word) in the area after dark.

We were doing okay, all was good, entering the Q train at Church (Caton Ave entrance) we were chatting about how enriched our lives have been having lived in Brooklyn (you can see this coming, can't you?), and we go down to the platform and the train is stopped as if it's stalled, people standing in the doorways and whatnot.  And we duck into the first car, ask what's going on, and some guy says there's been a fight.  Then we notice a man in the car covered in blood.  Um, where are the cops?  What happened?

Citizen Journalism Meets Seattle Stupidity

The internets are abuzz with this straight-outta-Seattle video of a cop acting questionably during a jaywalking pullover:



Though I can see why Anthony tipped me on it thinking I would go Politically Involved Minority Woman Apeshit, my first reaction is actually Former Seattlite Disgust.  In college, there was a tiny two-lane street that ran between the bookstore and the student center where we'd routinely get fined for jaywalking.  I wish I had a picture, it's completely ridiculous.  I still to this day, after ten years in jaywalkitoff NYC, get all apprehensive when crossing even on corners in the Pacific Northwest.  Way to be tough on crime Seattle!

The problem with this video to me is that a) we don't see what may have provoked the cop to get physical at all in the first place, and b) if a cop was trying to handcuff me or whatever, the last thing I would do is fight back because anyone with even a cursory knowledge of TV crime dramas knows you can get slapped with an assault of a police officer charge.  Also, where's his partner? 

But as I'm sure the comments on this coverage will support, this one's going to piss people off, on both sides.

Crap, I really hope that's not the cop I dated in college.

This Does Not Bode Well for Law & Order

The Times reports today that NYC is on track for the fewest homicides in a 12-month period since 1962. Pretty remarkable in such a bad economy (yes, traditionally lack of money makes people trigger-happy). But what about our dearly beloved NBC drama? Will the "ripped from the headlines" plots of the next few months be reduced to golf scandals and foiled plane bombs? Yawn.

Before You Go Postal

Seriously? This is what we're considering federal crime? Perhaps it's time to reevaluate. I can think of, like, 10 things worse for society than reusing stamps. Like that kid throwing a tantrum at the park yesterday while the dad just let it roll. Make that a crime, then we'll talk about getting a second use out of a 43-cent product.

Because $49,000 is More Than $2.50

Pretty airtight argument against the Three Strikes rule and the high rate of incarceration in general in Kristof's editorial today.

The United States incarcerates people at nearly five times the world average. Of those sentenced to state prisons, 82 percent were convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to one study... California spends $216,000 annually on each inmate in the juvenile justice system. In contrast, it spends only $8,000 on each child attending the troubled Oakland public school system, according to the Urban Strategies Council.

I think we can all agree that there are better ways of spending this money (health care? education? bronze statue of The Mayoress?), and that we simply throw a lot of people in jail too easily. Another evidence of our country's under-attention to prevention over temporary cure.

Fort Greene: The Gritty Underbelly

Watch out, Nicolle, Lisa & Meghan! Your hood isn't as safe as we thought...

Apparently, five teenagers jumped a Pratt student for his wallet. Man. Bad economy --> more crime, always.

Full article.

In Which The Mayoress Gets A Court Date After All

Be careful what you wish for.

After my uneventful jury duty day, I was feeling restless and met up with a Cute Boy Who Shall Remain Nameless for drinks. Things went well, so I had the brilliant idea of showing him the view from the piers in Long Island City. Romantic, right? Yeah, the Mayoress has game.

We roll up, get rockstar parking, and walk over. There's a police barricade fence thing blocking the side entrance, no biggie, we go in, there are other people on the piers. Then we hear some guy yell, "Watch out! The cops are coming! It's the state police and they don't mess around!"

My date and I go different ways and seconds later, there's a flashlight on me. I get called over by Mr. MeanyPants NYPD Officer and stupidly remember someone I know getting out of charges by giving a false name. Leave me alone, I'd had a few drinks by that time.

Obvs the name doesn't check out in the system, so I give him my real info, and he makes me get in the cop car and threatens me with arrest and a night at central booking. In Queens.

After I ball my eyes out he gives me a ticket with a criminal court date of August 10. I get out of the car and get the hell out of there. My date and I find each other and I can't decide whether I'm more worried about the ticket or my eyes being all red in front of such a cute guy. He apologizes profusely, buys me a stiff drink, and the rest is not appropriate for this blog.

So! Rally together, Meet The Presslerians! Make your posters, get your "Free The Mayoress" tees, and meet me at the Queens County Courthouse for some real Law & Order type shit! Word.

Jury Duty: Nothing Like Law & Order

Attention, Brooklyn Courts! The following is a list of complaints re jury duty.

1. I was not chosen to sit on a jury. This is preposterous as I would make an awesome juror.
2. There was not enough exciting news on CNN playing in the waiting room all day so at least give me the remote.
3. Speaking of, how can you guys afford a bunch of flat screens with my tax money if I can't even afford one?
4. Someone in my voir dire smelled like booze.
5. Neither of the lawyers in my voir dire were hot and single.
6. Not one fellow juror was worth hitting on.
7. 8:30am? Really?? I'm supposed to be awake enough to make judgment calls about someone's innocence at that hour? If you ask me, everyone is guilty before noon.
8. Blogger was blocked from the waiting room computers so I couldn't live blog the action adventure of it all.
9. My camera was confiscated so I couldn't even get a cute pic with the judge for this post.
   

But on the bright, I rocked a super cute Legally Blonde-meets-Brooklyn outfit in the red/white/blue palette. Bring it!

SVU in Real Life

A very important editorial from the divine Mr. Kristof:

Solomon Moore, a colleague of mine at The Times, last year wrote about a 43-year-old legal secretary who was raped repeatedly in her home in Los Angeles as her son slept in another room. The attacker forced the woman to clean herself in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Tim Marcia, the detective on the case, thought this meant that the perpetrator was a habitual offender who would strike again. Mr. Marcia rushed the rape kit to the crime lab but was told to expect a delay of more than one year.

So Mr. Marcia personally drove the kit 350 miles to deliver it to the state lab in Sacramento. Even there, the backlog resulted in a four-month delay — but then it produced a “cold hit,” a match in a database of the DNA of previous offenders.

Yet in the months while the rape kit sat on a shelf, the suspect had allegedly struck twice more. Police said he broke into the homes of a pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl, sexually assaulting each of them.

I assume you're as nauseous as I am that in some countries, women are put to death for being rape victims. But how far ahead is the U.S. if this is how we're dealing with our own?

Read full article.

Ever Notice How Many Massacres Happen in April?

Dahlia Lithwick did. Check out her article.

"The extreme hysteria that surrounds discussions of gun control leads to absurd arguments about causation. Nobody claims that Glenn Beck is responsible for killing people. Nobody thinks guns are inherently evil. But how can there be an honest national debate over gun violence if we cannot even acknowledge the connections between people who admonish us to become "armed and dangerous" and a citizen's decision to arm himself and kill? Our annual April shooting sprees have many complicated causes, and no single factor is fully to blame. But it's willful blindness to fail to see any connections between the rising number of guns in America, the decline in gun regulation, and the screaming nightly predictions about the rise of an apocalyptic totalitarian police state."

Is Alaska kidding me right now?

Seriously Alaska? Senator Ted Stevens was indicted on seven counts of corruption, and you still voted for him? I questioned your judgment before with your governor, but this is absolutely ridiculous.

As you may know, Stevens and three other senate races - Georgia, Oregon, and Minnesota - are still undecided. Go go Dems...