Cheerleader Doesn’t Cheer…And Rightly So
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 12th, 2011
I don’t always have the time everyday that I need to peruse the net as much as I’d like to. Thankfully every once in awhile, I have help with a few resources that send me articles that they know will be of interest to me and my readers. This is one of them. Thanks Doug.
Supreme Court Denies Justice To Texas Cheerleader Who Refused To Cheer Her Alleged Rapist
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court declined to review the case of a recent Texas high school student who was kicked off her school’s cheerleading squad after she refused to chant the name of a basketball player who had allegedly raped her. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the country, ruled last November that the victim — who is known only as H.S. — had no right to refuse to applaud her attacker because as a cheerleader in uniform, she was an agent of the school. To add insult to injury, the Fifth Circuit dismissed her case as “frivolous” and sanctioned the girl, forcing her family to pay the school district’s $45,000 legal fees.
According to court documents, H.S. was 16 when she was raped at a house party by one of her school’s star athletes, Rakheem Bolton. Bolton was arrested, but by pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault, he received a reduced sentence of probation and community service. Bolton was allowed to return to school and resume his place on the basketball team. Four months later, H.S. was cheering with her squad at a game when Bolton lined up to take a free throw. The squad wanted to do a cheer that included his name, but H.S. refused, choosing instead to stand silently with her arms folded.
“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she later toldreporters. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
Several school officials of the “sports obsessed” small town took issue with H.S.’s silence, and ordered her to cheer for Bolton. When H.S. refused again, she was expelled from the cheerleading squad. Her family decided to sue school officials and the district. Their lawyerargued that H.S.’s right to exercise free expression had been violated and that students shouldn’t be punished for not complying with “insensitive and unreasonable directions.”
Leading legal scholars have pointed out that this case is about more than justice for one purported rape victim — it’s a civil rights issue that goes to the heart of students’ right of free speech under the First Amendment. Though it might seem obvious to most people that H.S. had every right to sit out that cheer, the lower court insisted that as a cheerleader, she was speaking for the school and as such had no right to stay silent when coaches told her to applaud her alleged rapist. The court explained in its decision:
As a cheerleader, HS served as a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech – namely, support for its athletic teams…This act constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, HS was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily.
It’s unclear to many court watchers how H.S.’s silence was disruptive, or how the school’s right to “disseminate speech” through cheerleading outweighed the needs of a sexual assault victim.
The Firth Circuit has repeatedly illustrated its hostility to first amendment rights and victims seeking compensation claims. Texas too has a bad track record when it comes to high-profile rape cases. A recent case involving the gang-rape of an 11-year-old girl by at least 18 men, including several student athletes, caused national outrage after many in the community tried to blame the victim. For years Texas has forced women to pay for their own rape kits. Two months ago, the Texas House approved a bill that would require victims of rape who became pregnant to get an ultrasound and hear a description of the fetus before getting an abortion.
One reporter summed up the miscarriage of justice this way: “The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case is a devastating rejection of students’ rights to speak out against school officials, and a disturbing affirmation of a culture that punishes rape victims instead of perpetrators.”
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Readers: There is so much wrong happening in this article, I don’t even know where to begin to bitch. So I’ll let you all run with it. It’s not Friday yet, but I am sure your lips will be flapping. Blog me.
peace out…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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May 12th, 2011 at 8:47 am
Those men know exactly what they are doing when they claim to be protecting the “modesty” of “their”(notice the subtle claim of ownership implied) women.
Most society of men in one stage or another tried to range women as if they were cattle. Most have not come out of it. Actually none have completely, they all maintain some vestiges of control in one manner or another.
In the US, we pretend to be treating women equally. But men only give women what they can demand of them and back it up with the force of law.
THE LAW – That would be the key. Men attempt to influence what THE LAW can do to provide equality for women by devising something “extra judicial” to circumvent the ability of THE LAW to unbiasedly look at the facts and say “that is not equal treatment.”
Western societies in the past used pseudoscience to do it. Remember when the white boy used his scientists to tell women that they couldn’t ride bikes or be professionals because science said for one phony reason or other it was either health threatening or they were physically or mentally incompetent to do it.
The Civil Rights Laws pretty much did away with that. Without their pseudo science bullshit to rely on they were forced to manipulate THE LAW to prevent it from being able to force them to give equality to women.
So men set about devising roadblocks to make it difficulty for women to sue men. So when a woman goes to court she has to contend with different burdens of proof and etc, etc, than a man or woman would if the case was not one involving a gender issue.
Still the courts were forced to put plaintiffs of sex discrimination in the same arena as plaintiffs in most situations when a business is being sued by a man for non sex discrimination reason.
So western men looked out at what we are addressing today. the use of religion to come up with that “extra judicial” something to circumvent the ability of THE LAW to unbiasedly look at the facts and say “that is not equal treatment.”
Presto! RELIGION – Using another pseudoscience – the belief in a supernatural being that is particularly concerned with the moral behavior of that god(s) creation of men.
The god(s) main creation is always a man. The woman is usually an after thought. The fact that science says that in the womb of woman all life begins as a female fetus is probably one of the reasons men insist that science stay way out of the way of religion(unless he needs it to bolster his religious argument to prevent women from attaining equal treatment via THE LAW.
I digress. but I will return to this thought later to show why men in the west are tolerant of the barbaric practice of other men using religion as a means of treating women as property with no less say so about their treatment than the mens’s animals do. Actually men of the West would complain more if those men were treating their animals in a cruel fashion.
So men use religion. God says that is the way it should be. “How dare you to question God!” Interestingly though, it is always a man telling the woman what “god” is supposed to have said.
So is the man acting as G-O-D who have him do or is he acting out of his natural D-O-G like ways- Jealously guarding his pussy, keeping it from all others.
Those male reporters would not call the bullshit the enslaver of women was using to justify his enslavement what it was because he secretly admired him for being able to pull off what his society had to give up.
Actually Western man still uses religion to control women. The most glaring example is abortion laws are based on some religious premise bolstered by pseudoscience.
Western women not only except this but they get out and march and vote for the right of men to tell them what they can do with their bodies. All the time aware that if a man could get pregnant this shit wouldn’t even be an issue.
The others are birth control methods and church doctrine. All discriminate agains women. And in most cases the women of the west would fight to the woman to defend the right of their men to continue that discrimination.
So you Western women who are demanding that we men get behind you against this religious perverter of women remember that most of you do not have clean hands when it comes to standing up to a man’s bullshitting women with religion about their equality in certain situations.
A man being the D-O-G he is when he is attempting to use G-O-D to do what he could not do otherwise to a woman will always be prone to look the other way when another society of men can get away with justifying controlling “their” pussy with G-O-D.
That is the situation.
So as long as the paper apologizes to the men by acknowledging that he disrespected that man’s government, he will get a free pass on the fact that he is controlling “his” (denoting ownership) pussy by using religion to limit its access to information that might make it think it had the right to freedom(you know; to give that pussy to whomever she wants to).
Is that clear enough?
Robert
er, and like Anonz I see no reason he or his “religious sect” should be given that pass.
May 12th, 2011 at 9:38 am
Get Top Dollar for Your Home — Even in This Market
Barbara Corcoran
If you’re putting your house on the market this spring, congratulations — you probably missed the worst of the real estate crash.
Home prices have begun to flatten or rise in some parts of the country.
But it is hardly a seller’s market and median prices remain 20% to 25% below 2006 peak levels. You need to stage, advertise and price your property much more carefully than during a boom. Steps to take…
Choose a shrewd broker. During the boom, about one-fifth of all home sellers saved themselves the 6% average sales commission by listing their properties For Sale By Owner (FSBO). That’s riskier in a down market.
For example, you could lose more money by mispricing your home than you would have to pay an agent.
Brokers are practiced at showing houses and playing up the qualities that buyers care about most. And many will “prequalify” anyone who makes an offer, doing a preliminary credit check.
To get the right broker, first find out which real estate firm dominates the business in your area by looking at For Sale signs and talking to neighbors.
Then call the sales manager and ask for the broker in the top 10% of the office’s sales rankings. These agents generate 90% of revenues. They’re the most likely to sell your home at the best price.
Before you commit yourself to a relationship with a broker, ask him/her extensive questions to be sure that…
The person has sold several homes in your general neighborhood and that those homes sold for attractive amounts.
No more than six months passed between the first listing of a home and the contract signing in the vast majority of cases.
The broker has a marketing plan tailored to your property.
Get your marketing right. Most home buyers start their searches online. Make sure your property is listed on the five biggest Web sites for real estate sales — Yahoo, Craigslist.org, Trulia, Zillow and Homes.com.
If your broker doesn’t provide this service, you can post a listing on Craigslist, Yahoo and Zillow. (If you have given the broker an exclusive listing, the broker collects the commission even if it is your Web listing that attracts the buyer.)
Only real estate professionals can list on Homes.com and Trulia. Advertising costs range from nothing for a Craigslist.org or basic Yahoo listing to $300 and up for enhanced features such as first-page positioning, slide shows and videos on some sites.
Besides raising your home’s visibility, Trulia, Zillow and Homes.com let you or your broker keep track of the traffic your listings generate and see what comparable properties have fetched recently.
Use professional photos. Market research shows that photos influence house hunters more than any other marketing tool.
A wide-angle lens will magnify your space, and good lighting compensates for any shadows. Some brokers send a professional photographer to take the photos for a new listing — if yours does not, hire one yourself.
This can cost as little as $100 or over $500 depending on where you live and how big your property is.
Stage creatively. Back during the boom, home sellers spent tens of thousands of dollars on trendy appliances to lure buyers — and it worked.
In fact, a Sub-Zero refrigerator was said to add twice its price to the value of a house. Today you can’t count on recovering hefty remodeling costs, because buyers want a bargain more than they want state-of-the-art decor.
So make the most of what you already have by taking these steps…
Clean out the closets. Neatness implies that you take care of things. Buyers may think a messy closet means faulty plumbing and wiring.
Throw out the clutter. Every piece of junk reduces your home’s value because people can’t see past it. Rent storage space for a few months if necessary.
Let the light in. Buyers prize brightness above everything else except location. Take down heavy drapes, wash the windows, move furniture away from windows, and trim any outdoor foliage that blocks the sun. Paint walls a creamy white.
Borrow from the pros. Attend an open house at a new development to check out the latest decorating trends.
Pretentious, “Trumplike” luxury isn’t popular today. Ten years ago, buyers wanted kitchens with cherrywood cabinets, black granite countertops and black appliances.
Now the preferred look is French country kitchen — white cabinets, blond countertops and stainless steel appliances. Instead of installing new kitchen cabinets, put new doors and knobs on the ones you have.
And because buyers like a “spa” feeling in the bath nowadays, consider buying a “rainfall” showerhead for $200.
Price with care. Underpricing is often the smartest strategy. The market will correct a low asking price — you entice multiple buyers with a great value, then let them bid against one another.
The worst thing you can do is start too high and ratchet down your asking price by degrees. Buyers will smell desperation, making low-ball offers, or they will wait to bid until your asking price reaches rock bottom.
Offer an up-front financial incentive. In today’s market, buyers are looking for value. So a cash incentive can give you a huge advantage over other sellers. Even a relatively small gesture works — anything free will make an impression.
Example: Offer to pick up all or part of the closing costs, which can run from 2% to 8% of the sale price.
Don’t wait for potential buyers to ask for this perk, which has become more common lately. Advertise it in advance, and more people will want to view your property.
Or you can sweeten the deal by offering to prepay property taxes for the first year. In a buyer’s mental arithmetic, a year without property taxes sounds like a year of living gratis.
It carries so much value that you may more than recoup the expense with a higher sale price. Including fixtures or furnishings that a buyer likes also can help nurture a deal.
Consider seller financing. Offering to finance the purchase of your home can be a win-win for you and your buyer.
There’s no need to be skittish about this technique — about one-fifth of all home sales in the US involve whole or partial seller financing.
Buyers may not be able to qualify for an institutional mortgage because, say, they are self-employed or they can’t come up with a 20% down payment in time.
If you don’t have a mortgage to pay off… aren’t buying another house… and don’t have another pressing need for the cash, you can charge 4.5% to 5% on the loan, and your collateral is a property you know and trust.
The buyer gets to skip the hassle of applying for a mortgage and saves on closing costs. The down payment becomes negotiable — an advantage to the buyer that may translate into a higher sale price for you.
And you may be able to spread any capital gains taxes you owe on your home over several years because you’re making an installment sale.
Important: Have your lawyer or accountant perform a credit check on the buyer, which usually costs $50 to $60, and draw up a formal promissory note.
The contract should stipulate that you may take over the property if the buyer falls behind on payments by more than one or two months, depending on how tough you want to be.
Personal interviewed Barbara Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Group real estate company and president of Barbara Corcoran Inc., New York City.
She is the weekly real estate contributor for NBC’s Today show and a panelist on ABC’s entrepreneurial reality series Shark Tank.
She is author of Use What You’ve Got (Portfolio) and Nextville: Amazing Places to Live Your Life (Springboard). http://www.BarbaraCorcoran.com
May 12th, 2011 at 9:39 am
Michelle:
I am commenting on the newsper photo with the missiong Women. You hit it on the head. As you know, I am Jewish, however I agree totally with your Post:
“It’s the same old story. We (men) control our women…repress our women. But hey, if they get out of hand … if they show too much leg, wrist, face … whatever, and tempt me, I will not be able to control myself. And by the way, it’s all your (the women’s) fault.”
I believe that If Women do not have COMPLETE equality, you are not equal and can be controlled by men. Religion is a great thing to hide behind, but it does not work for the enlightened.
“It’s as if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with her hand clasped over her mouth, and Audrey Tomason, director of counterterrorism, weren’t there and weren’t part of history.” — I know they were there.
Women of many religious sects are being denied the knowledge that they can compete in the secular world against men and make it, just like Hillary Clinton and many others. Keeping them out of the news does not make them disappear.
HOWIE
May 12th, 2011 at 10:23 am
Howie, I take back whatever I said about you. You have become one of the true gentleman scholars of this blog.
Too bad, many will not be able to go back and see the evolution of the new breed of man.
Helena
May 12th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Howie, that is what I would have said if I could have put it in those words. But coming from a man, WOW!
Claire
May 12th, 2011 at 10:42 am
If Newt Gingrich becomes president statistics indicate he’ll leave America for a younger, more attractive country that doesn’t have cancer.
May 12th, 2011 at 10:58 am
hey Boggzy, thanks for cutting to the chase with marianne and george (sorry no capital letters for you two) bc I have no intention of addressing such rabid ridiculousness given out in the name of the lord and misquoted bible shit, puh-lease. I’m a freethinker and have little time for listening to dog(ma) written by males of g’s ilk.
marianne…you,like my own mother, were born of an era where you bought in hook, line and sinker taht males were smarter (and the evidence of that is?) and that our only role was to be a nurturing mommy and a amenable leg parting spouse (even if you weren’t enjoying it). I am a mommy and sweetly nurturing to my cute offspring and I am outspoken about whatever strikes my mood, the two ways of being are not mutually exclusive. I am yin and yang always…and march to a different drummer, that’s reflected in the ZL moniker, too bad if you don’t like that.
You two have your heads so deeply entrenched up your anus’s that it’s hard to see the light of day (in 2011) and for that I’ll give you sympathy though it is given freely only if you’re actually trying to pull your thick heads out of that tight hole…and I’m thinking you two like the smell going on up in your tushy grills. Enjoy the stench. And I’ll repeat, shame on you, uh – granny.
Re: this article. Ass kicking all the way around for the judge and that rapist who got off easy AND was allowed back on the team? Oh please, as you said, Misch, there’s so much wrong with this one, where does one begin?
Robert, nice summary of the sitch, Western women of marianne’s type are gaining momentum with ‘their’ men who of course are behind ‘their’ GOP women taking up activism on their behalf (to keep women at home, barefoot pregnant and unable to control their lives/bodies, thinking males are better/smarter, etc…) da boys are probably having beers together ‘Stepford wives’ style saying ‘well, that went well and they’re so cute when they’re arguing our cause, huh?’ – arrgghh, seriously, women please wake up and smell the coffee, it’s a much nicer scent than the maneur you’re breathing but you must step away to clear your passages first.
Hi Howie, glad you’re back I was thinking you had a health thing going on, all good on the eastern front? how is Al?
Luv, Zen Lill
May 12th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Baby today, I need it just as badly as you do.
Please visit tonight.
Send an emissary if you must but just come.
I think I’m gonna die if I dont get a piece of you soon.
May 12th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
You know, in a pinch an emmisary will do. I usually just call it ‘love the one you’re with’ ala Steven Stills ; ) Good luck with your ‘mission’ tonight anon #8 and your beloved. I’m totally digging the poetic banter. – ZL
May 12th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
ZL, think “Field of Dreams.” If you build it (the body), they will come. Cheerio!
May 12th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
We are in 1875:
Michelle, Men have been at it with their, as Robert said, “pseudo-science” since they convinced the masses that science always knows best. Here is an Italian professor’s attempt at convincing the dim brained that he can tell a criminal by the shape of his head. One guess what race isn’t criminally head shaped.
===============
The march of science has made a great potential contribution to Law-enforcement. Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Forensic Medince and Psychology at Turin has published I’ uomo deliquente (“The Delinquent”) as he result of years of study, with countless phrenological measurements and detailed photographs of physical characteristics.
In a nutshell, Professor Lombroso says that criminals are born, not made. Instead of looking to wickedness or hardship as reasons for some men preying on others, the professor asserts that delinquency is as precise an anthropological type as the Mongol or the Negro.
Professor Lombroso’s careful observations describe the low sloping brow, the small close-set eyes; the somewhat simian appearance which warns that a man is a natural rogue.
Everyone may benefit from this major work. The police will no doubt train their eyes to spot marks of delinquency in the faces on the street. And all of us can protect ourselves more surely once we have learned to recognize a natural criminal by his telltale features.
=======================
This would be noted as obvious inanity except it appealed to the race that was not featured as having natural criminals in its midst.
Ah, flattery is still the gentle art of tell one what he already believes of himself.
May 12th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
An Elderly Gentleman…
Had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%.
The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again.”
The gentleman replied, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet.
I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!”
May 12th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Michelle, Texas is a very bigoted state. The whites aren’t the least bit apologetic about the extreme racist behavior of the ones of their race who act out their racism. Rather they revel in it.
That second 1/3 you talk about are much different here in Texas. They may not be a rabid as the first 1/3, but they are far more supported of the rabid ones here. They will tell OTWs to get over it in a second.
The legal system is a mess! The whites want to keep control of that “Just-Us” justice system you talk about on your blog so they have destroyed the independence of the judicial system in Texas.
Since they have control of the vote, they have made the judicial system and elective venue. Imagine judges who are elected based on how they rule on the bench?
Whatever the majority opinion is that will be the leaning of the judge, especially if it is an election year. Think about the clout this gives the wealthy, big business and corporations in this state. They are the ones that provide the campaign money for the judges.
Thanks to that “bought and paid for five” on the US Supreme Insult, the corporations have an unfair monetary influence on the legal as well as the legislative and executive branches of all levels of our government.
Nothing will change in this country as long as whites have the numerical advantage at the polls. I am sorry to put down your race Michelle, but the facts speak for themselves.
The whites have destroyed the democracy this country represented to the rest of the world. Today it is basically a racists, third world country with nuclear weapons and a highly motivated technological advanced military.
If it weren’t for President Obama(who I am ashamed to say I didn’t vote for) we would have no respect in the international community.
I am a full blooded Filipino born and raised in this country. It is every bit as much mine as it is the self proclaiming Texas whites that strut around acting as if they have some special claim to the country.
My brothers have given their blood and one his life for this country. Many of the whites fawning over the flag are basic traitors because they give more honor and respect to that civil war flag than they do to the “Stars and Bars,” that is the flag of the United States of America. You know the one President Obama says represents all its citizens and the example that shows the rest of the planet how a democracy should truly work?
The fact that they proudly display a flag that traitors marched under to overthrow our country shows the hypocrisy of their claim to love this country so much.
Today whites have the votes, so they make the rules. The guy who called american whites “America’s Affirmative Action Beneficiaries” was so on point. Whites have manipulated the American political system to give themselves all or most of the benefits this country has for all their lives.
One day their day will come. I may not live to see it. But nobody stays on top forever. Oh, to be a fly on that wall.
Liwanaq
May 12th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
When two people are mutually amenable to having sex whenever they are together and one of them, being me, is craving sex with her to the point of almost total distraction, is it safe to drive?
When a person’s sexual craving for a particular person is this distracting it is lunacy to be doing anything else but making love to her?
Please somebody tell me what it is safe to do because I just cut my self trying to open a plastic container of “Classic Cole Slaw.”
I’m not even sure why I bought it. I looked up from this sexual stupor and I was sitting in front of a SafeWay.
As I seldom shop at SafeWay, this came as a shock to me. But I took it as a sign and I went in and someone directed me to the salad section. Now I’m sitting here with a cut finger trying to open it. Did I buy it or steal it?
I’m pretty well fixed for change. I can go where I please and I am fairly attractive so I get hit on by attractive women when I am out. But the thing is, I am not interested. I want her so why bother going anywhere?
So do you see why I am sitting in my dinning room with a cut finger and a slightly opened container of “Classic Cole Slaw?”
If she were reading this, she would be smiling with that “The Power of the Pussy” look on her face.
Man is she wrong! That’s just a man saying, “I want to get laid and she has the pussy I want to lay.” But what I am really saying is, I miss her so much that damn-it, I’m loosing it.
Sure, she’s SEX-ON-A-STICK!, But, that’s beside the point. I mean, “one man’s …. is another man’s….” can always counter that opinion of mine.
But that is immaterial to me because she’s the STICK that has this mind on a one track collision course with my lust for her and my sanity.
Okay, so I sit here, between moments of staring at this container of “Classic Cole Slaw” and pounding away at my computer keys waiting for the relief.
Call me Sweetheart! If I hear your voice, maybe some form of withdrawal is possible. Or at least an enjoyable sleep caressing the last words that float from your “Kiss-me-if-you-dare and become a slave to their power lips.” Lips whose smile could light up an ellipse, and bring light into the darkness of any black hole.
All I need is a few words from that enchanting mouth to take to bed with me. Aaahh, to caress and make tender love to the sound of you saying, “good night, love you.”
May 12th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Anonymous, that got me so wet, I called my husband. He is on a business trip, and is away probably laying some young hooker, but I said “good nite, I love you.”
May 12th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Anon14 – I thought your message was for me – until I called for the umpteenth time and got no answer. So good luck to u hearing from your girl and good luck to me trying to find my god among the stars. Good night to us both
May 12th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
I called my boyfriend. I know he doesn’t know about this blog but you made me cry. I didn’t want him to feel bad he is so far away.
I hope she called.
Lisa