Intro to Twitter: A batch of April's best Tweets (of mine)

Chock full of the funniest and weirdest links, lists and pics I've been able to find over the past few days! I hope it provides some amusement. Judging by my international stats, I'm doin' an okay job of it so far. I've now got followers from every continent! If you're unfamiliar with Twitter, no worries - just click the "ow.ly" link next to whichever subjects grab your interest, and it'll take you to the article I'm discussing. Have fun, and get hooked like the rest of us!

April 29th

• 00:41 What's the measurement term I'm looking for - furlong? Furlough?? Am I even close? Text my cell if you know! Settle a bet for me! #
• 02:28 RT @atomicrose: @prettyh Furlong! [Thank you, Casey! Bonus points: How MUCH is a furlong??] #
• 06:25 @aliciamcauley I am SO EXCITED about our upcoming @chuckpalahniuk experience! So...I'll be Scotland and you'll be Ireland? ow.ly/4lNQ #
• 08:40 I have vegetarian/vegan friends. We respect each other. Possibly why this ("they forced meat on meee!! RAPE!") irks me so. ow.ly/4lHt #
• 10:20 Whoo, boy. LJ never fails to deliver ~DRAMA~. This time around it's a PostSecret about rape/not rape. See for yourselves: ow.ly/4mCi #
• 19:55 My friend Lana, who works at CBC3, posted an amusing blog entry re: Music That Makes You Dumb (I'm smart; so there!): ow.ly/4sCX #
• 20:30 RT @Carlanime: Speaking of the flu, WHO have finally raised the whatsit level to thingy. ow.ly/4sFu [LOL! Well put, Carla.] #
• 20:55 Doesn't surprise me: 60% of Twitter users quit within their 1st month. They're just not as good at link-hunting as I am! ow.ly/4sP2 #

April 28th

• 16:17 Too much to dissect for Twitter. Pics of Michael Jackson's Neverland auction - am laughing and shrieking at same time: ow.ly/4hLj #
• 18:29 This is just getting disgusting. Tori Stafford's mom says she had a secret meeting with a rich benefactor offering ransom: ow.ly/4iSJ #

April 27th

• 06:22 @madam_mina Shush, you! We gave the Yankees AJ Burnett for a song, and now the poor fellow's under pressure. See: ROY HALLADAY! <3 #
• 06:24 @mattgood Are there specific Vans you're seeking? I've gotten some from a shop on Queen St/Toronto if you need details. Adidas & Chucks,too. #
• 06:25 @strombo I'm overtired, probably, but I read your Chris Walken hashtag as "douchedbyabadangel". Good band name, I think. #
• 06:27 @madam_mina My beloved Jorge Posada is not that far from 40 now! I can relate to the "OMFG I'M OLD" feeling! Our teams SUCKED today. Bah. #
• 06:55 @johncmayer Also not ugly, ever: soccer (er..."football") players. It's true. Watch the World Cup sometime. Wall to wall gorgeous. #
• 07:30 "Bewitched" movie is on TV. Lazy late nite/early a.m. viewing, y'see. But it's worse than the RottenTomatoes 25% implies. ow.ly/3Z9v #
• 08:50 @ShayneWinters You should try AudioCaptcha. It's even more challenging to get right the first try. YouTube's doing it now, too. Stupid. #
• 09:30 Everyone seems fairly convinced missing girl's mom (Tara, mom of Tori Stafford)is the culprit. Interesting Facebook group: ow.ly/3Z4J #
• 10:10 Unless you love Woody Allen, AVOID "Cassandra's Dream". HORRIBLE. Even Farrell, McGregor & Wilkinson couldn't save it! ow.ly/3Z4Q #
• 10:41 @pweifenbach So envious of you being in Vegas! Have you seen the Cirque "LOVE" show? What I'd give! Beatles fans unite!! ow.ly/3ZRK #
• 11:30 Question: Is there something other than LoudTwitter I could use to have my Tweets sent to my open Blogger? Can't find another shipper! #
• 12:43 @ShayneWinters You need answers to WHAT? You only asked one question! And yes, thx, I'll take @stephenfry on "Bones". NAY to Cassie Clare!! #
• 13:25 @aerojad !!! I think, short of proposing marriage, you joining Twitter is the grandest gesture a man has ever made for me. It's fun here! #
• 14:05 I sleep with a fan on me nearly every night, and I'd NEVER heard the urban legend that it's supposedly FATAL! WTF?? ow.ly/3Z5U #
• 14:10 "I sleep with a fan on me every night" sounds more sordid than it is. I DO, however, have a Fan Club (I'm not allowed in): ow.ly/40hZ #
• 14:31 I think I'd like to be a BNF ( ow.ly/40jo ), in my own fandom. As in, I'd be the BNF of Ehch Fandom. Is that a bit too...Mussolini? #
• 14:45 One more thing re: me having fans: Why do only 19 people love me? Is it because I don't plagiarize fic??( ow.ly/40jQ )*sob*BE MY FAN! #
• 15:15 I know every word of 'Trainspotting' film, but every fan MUST buy Director's Cut. The deleted scenes? SHOCKING. ow.ly/3Z6s #
• 15:35 @Carlanime You've gotta know that a pregnant woman in a Naughty Nurse costume is some kind of niche fetish. Lemme know how it turns out. o.O #
• 16:00 Who among you has an account at Last.FM? (Aside from those already on my list.) I wanna spy on your musical tastes! Mine: ow.ly/40hK #
• 17:05 RT @MossySloth: @prettyh HOLY CRAP I didn't know Labyrinth was based on a book!!!! [See? My Tweets are educational! ~H~] ow.ly/3MyM #
• 17:50 RT @yokoono: IMAGINE PEACE:Simplest most effective peace meditation. It's a space transformer.Transforming the world as quickly as possible #
• 20:25 I have about four years' worth of laundry to do. Think that means I have too many clothes. Diabetes Assoc.'s gettin' a BIG donation this wk. #

April 26th

• 06:08 I'm laughing way too hard at this. It trumps all of the other terrible street signs. Who knew Welsh was so difficult?? ow.ly/3U2N #
• 07:05 I've long bitched about Daddy having no cell phone. Now I think I'm grateful; he wouldn't like texts about my sex life: ow.ly/3U30 #
• 08:25 Twitter can, apparently, cost you your job, reputation, relationships... Here are 5 of the "Worst Tweets Ever": ow.ly/3U4I #
• 09:25 While not impressed with the resemblance to Heath OUT of makeup, this Joker figure ( ow.ly/3U8C ) is FREAKY in face paint!!! WOW. #
• 10:50 Punk'd by the 'net: how some companies have gotten SCREWED by social media. I still wonder about the iPod rumour. ow.ly/3U9e #

April 24th

• 03:05 @MossySloth We need to sit down (er, Skype down!) & compare sleep disorders, I think. That and myriad odd subjects, like: ow.ly/3CO6 #
• 04:11 @ShayneWinters It scares me a little that you know enough about Dancing With The Stars to ask if the gymnast has been kicked off. And NO. #
• 04:25 Utterly fascinating link courtesy of @MossySloth, containing a whole lot of conspiracy theories and other überweird stuff: ow.ly/3MpH #
• 04:41 REAL JIGSAW KILLER:"Mr Howe's head, arm, leg & torso were found [...] Only his hands have not been found. " Why the hands? ow.ly/3MwM #
• 05:04 Another ex. of nature being warped: Cats in heat sound like babies crying. I hear one outside. It's creepy and makes no biological sense. #
• 05:20 Haven't yet read it, but LOVE the title of this article:"Children Don't Make You Happy, Says Expert Who Doesn't Have Any": ow.ly/3Mvb #
• 06:10 Um..good god. "Australia's Miss Universe finalist dangerously underweight". D'you THINK?? I didn't know corpses qualified. ow.ly/3MvC #
• 07:05 Just FYI, all of my Thurs/Fri tweets have been scheduled as of Wednesday, so if I'm dead by then and you're seeing these, don't panic. #
• 08:05 I can always outdo myself with weirder lists, you know. "Top 10 Greatest Floating Heads Of All Time". (Only 10?) ow.ly/3CEw #
• 10:10 @Carlanime You are the only person I've ever heard say, "I'm glad my sex life doesn't involve a speculum." It COULD! See: ow.ly/3CFq #
• 12:30 LOL!! Re: the chick who was nearly lunch: "Logic tells us that polar bears will do this type of thing in this situation." ow.ly/3Mwn #
• 13:50 "British scientists study Happy Face Spider". What the hell?? Mother Nature is sicker than I thought; this thing is SCARY! ow.ly/3Mv1 #
• 14:35 A hilarious collection of street signs and the like. This one forbids soft coconuts on hospital premises. AS IT SHOULD! ow.ly/3Mxk #
• 14:50 This should be a rule for LIFE: No obnoxious behaviour, no crying/unhappy children, or you'll be booted from the cave! ow.ly/3Mxz #
• 16:15 @foresthouse If YOU want a Dreamwidth code, ever, let me know! My beloved @jmatwood took care of me: ow.ly/3CGW #
• 18:20 Top 10 Childrens' Books For People Who Hate Their Children (I'm noticing a theme in my tweets today...): ow.ly/3MyM #
• 20:35 Another step in the neverending downward spiral of Lindsay Lohan: she's skinnier than the Aussie pageant chick. AUGH!! ow.ly/3MCa #
• 20:36 @michaelsheen1 I totally read that wrong and thought you said you just had your makeup melting. Which does indeed sound mysterious. #
• 21:15 A fresh, funny-as-hell take on Billy Bob Thornton's stupidity whilst visiting (read: forcing himself upon) my country: ow.ly/3MD2 #

Long time no update, but...TWEET!

Yes, I'm overdue for a proper entry...but for the time being, I'll be sending my Tweets here, for those of you who follow the weird goings-on in my life and who get a kick out of my bizarre collection of links. It's mainly for those who don't have access to my private blog; I keep my Tweets suitable for public consumption. Usually. Ahem. (Yes, I know, there was that one ***NSFW*** "Stages Of The Cervix" thing that got everyone all freaked out...but it got even more people offering up TMI in response!)

If you'd like to subscribe, you can do so easily: either comment to this entry (and make sure you sign your name!), or use the "Subscribe" button on the sidebar of the blog. I try not to be one of those nonsensical, pointless Twitterers whose 140 characters make NO BLOODY SENSE, so I'm hoping you'll find some enjoyment in the links I provide when I get the chance.



Please note that, with the exception of a very, very small number of people, this will be opt-in ONLY. If you don't leave a comment saying you want to read more, or if you don't subscribe to the posts, this is the last notification you'll get about it. You may have only gotten notification because your address is/was in my Gmail contacts list, so fret not - I'm not targeting anyone in particular! Don't panic and think you'll be inundated with 32,746 Tweets every day no matter what.

And no, I won't be offended if you're not into my weird links and strange conversations with celebrities. As you can see, I get a lot of traffic already...

...from all over the bloody world! The above graph only shows a slow week. My monthly stats are usually around 1,500 clicks, and I seem to get a lot of traffic from Belgium, Spain, And Poland. Haven't quite figured out why just yet.



Quite often I schedule a week's worth of links and such at a time, so I'm not actually sitting busily at my computer on a daily basis, hunting for material. I do have a life. ;) If you happen to comment, or if you're on Twitter and you reply there and don't get an answer right away, now you know why: the Tweets you're seeing on Thursday could have been scheduled on Monday, and I'm nowhere near a computer!

I'll be dropping in to do proper entries as well from time to time, of course, since sometimes 140 characters just can't say it all. But I wanted to give you guys a heads up, in case you wondered what on earth you were suddenly seeing here in place of my ranting and raving!

To see who I'm following on Twitter: http://twitter.com/prettyh/friends.

To see who's following me: http://twitter.com/prettyh/following.

Here's an example of what you'll be seeing:

• 06:08 I'm laughing way too hard at this. It trumps all of the other terrible street signs. Who knew Welsh was so difficult?? ow.ly/3U2N #
• 07:05 I've long bitched about Daddy having no cell phone. Now I think I'm grateful; he wouldn't like texts about my sex life: ow.ly/3U30 #
• 08:25 Twitter can, apparently, cost you your job, reputation, relationships... Here are 5 of the "Worst Tweets Ever": ow.ly/3U4I #
• 09:25 While not impressed with the resemblance to Heath OUT of makeup, this Joker figure ( ow.ly/3U8C ) is FREAKY in face paint!!! WOW. #
• 10:50 Punk'd by the 'net: how some companies have gotten SCREWED by social media. I still wonder about the iPod rumour. ow.ly/3U9e #

Welcome to the new age of pseudo-blogging! Enjoy your stay, and have fun clicking the strangest links I can find!

If only FOX was truly "Gut"less.

It seems I've been writing a lot of letters lately. Such a Canadian stereotype, I know, but I'm so tired of being prim and polite when it comes to international politics. I was just beginning to get past my rage concerning the O'Reilly keynote speech when another horrible bastard - from the same network! SURPRISE! - decided to insult my country, our armed forces, and therefore by default my grandfather, great-grandfather, and countless great-uncles who have served in the military. This man should be fired for the things he said, and I have sent a copy of the letter below to every available email address and bulletin board I can find. Once again, I acknowledge the fact that this is little more than tilting at windmills, but it took me three minutes to write it. A small sacrifice in the hopes that it just might affect something.

I doubt it. But it makes me feel better, anyway, to unload my venom on someone who deserves it.

A very brief primer, for anyone who's been living under a rock and hasn't heard word one about this situation: Watch the offending segment, filmed the same day that four more Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Then have a look at what this prick is passing off as an apology. And then see how angry even our own journalists have become as a result. If you're on Facebook, take note of the fact that all 600 of his 'fans' are disgusted Canadians, many of whom have crossed the line into death threats. Not our proudest moment, to be sure, but I can't say I don't understand that kind of disgust and rage.


Consider yourselves caught up.



To Greg Gutfeld:

I don't care how this gets to you, or if it's even read BY you. It would suit me just fine if your peers, however distant, and/or your colleagues and/or your superiors receive it instead.

My American friends - none of whom even watch your poor excuse for a network, let alone the show in question - have been apologizing to ME because of what YOU said. It's truly pathetic when a good group of people feel the need to distance themselves from their own nationality because you've embarrassed them by being the ultimate stereotypical American that the world has come to loathe. What's worse is that you haven't even apologized for yourself! You made a pithy statement about how Canada "misunderstood" what you said. So that's our fault, too, huh? I think you've been watching too much South Park, pal.

I just realized that I'm typing all of this under the assumption that you can read. That's rather foolish of me. Perhaps you can get Bill O'Reilly to sound out the words for you...?

I'd never heard of you before this. I hope I never do again. And I hope someday the freedoms our soldiers have afforded you are snatched from your greasy little hands.

Part II - To everyone associated with FOX:

You would be well advised to rid yourselves of this Gutfeld person and the others of his ilk; Canada is a very large country, full of consumers who are only too happy to boycott any product your advertisers are selling for as long as you allow uneducated mouthpieces to represent you.

Unlike America, we in Canada are regularly shown our soldiers coming home in coffins. My commute every day is along what has been renamed the Highway Of Heroes, which runs through Toronto, and I have seen altogether too many processionals of these young men and women being repatriated. We gather on overpasses with Canadian flags and we honour them in silence as their caskets are driven past us. There is absolutely no room for humour in this.

The talking heads responsible for this uproar need not offer another insincere apology. Fire them, save your ad revenue, and do not ever mention my beloved country again.

The days of the true rock concert experience are dying.

My 2009 summer concert list is getting rather unwieldy.

• Coldplay - tickets are bought (show is July 30th)
  
• Depeche Mode - tickets are bought (show is July 24th)
  
• Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction - tickets aren't on sale yet, but I have a crack team working on snatching up a few when the time comes (show is June 2nd)
  
• U2 - no onsale date yet, either (whyyyyy did they pick the lousiest possible venue??? Show is on September 16th)
  

And those are just the four major contenders; there will surely be others. Thank goodness I'm only actually paying for two of these at a time. And the Depeche Mode ones are actually a gift from my parents, which is a damn good thing, since they're $115 each. Compare that to the $50 apiece we paid for Coldplay, and it's outright despicable, really.



Oh, before I forget (and completely off-topic!), I'm putting out a call to all:
What's your favourite conspiracy theory?
Is there one (or more than one??) that you've always kinda thought had some merit to it? I'm doing a little research into some of the more popular ones, and was thinking of doing a few blog installments about them, so tell me which conspiracy theories fascinate you the most, or which ones are completely ridiculous (and why!), and I'll get around to compiling a few posts looking a bit further into 'em.


Back to the concerts thing, then.



Remember the good old days, when TRUE FANS would line up the night before or the morning of the tickets going on sale? When you'd befriend other fans in line and you'd see them again months later at the concert? Remember when people had to do more than sit on their lazy asses and click a mouse to go to a show? All of those things, that effort, really did add to the experience. Now scalpers get more tickets than fans do, and venues add an extra $20 to each ticket for "convenience charges" and so on. Mark my words: The days of the truly great rock concert are dying, my friends.

The craziest ticket-getting experience I ever had was the bitterly cold January morning when my boyfriend Doug and I lined up to buy Pink Floyd tickets. We were actually going to see Billy Joel that night at Maple Leaf Gardens (this was 1994), so having to get up that early on a Saturday morning and then make the trek in a blizzard downtown in 12 hours was...not an exciting prospect. Still, it was PINK FLOYD. It was the "PULSE" tour, in support of The Division Bell *swoon*, and nothing was going to stop us from getting those tickets. There was no such thing as Ticketmaster.Ca or .Com, but you could do it by phone, if you were a wimp. This was also before the random wristbands; you had to haul ass to prove you were worthy of those good seats, damnit. And there was also a limit of 4 tickets, EVER, per person.

What we didn't know, though, was that things were different that morning than they usually were when we'd gone to buy tickets at the record store. Usually the store employees would open the mall doors enough for us to at least wait inside for an hour or two, even while the whole place was still technically closed. So I hadn't dressed for -30°C temperatures. I had normal boots on, and a normal winter jacket, sure, but I didn't have a scarf or mittens or a hat, and the wind was bitter enough that I should have been wearing tights and extra-thick socks as well. We had to stand out there for two hours, after all...and that's enough to kill you if you're not dressed for it. (I was also a skinny little thing then - just shy of 5'6" and not even 125lbs. No natural insulation whatsoever.)

After the first hour, my feet started to hurt so badly that I actually began to cry, and my tears froze at the corners of my eyes. Doug had been holding me as close to him as possible, but that didn't help my feet, obviously. So he had to leave me there (I'd only gotten my driver's license a few weeks earlier!), drive to my house several blocks away, and ask my parents for whatever they could give him so he could rush back to me and wrap me up in layers. By now I was getting those telltale white spots on my face, and the pain in my feet....GOD, it was INDESCRIBABLE. The people in front of me in line weren't in much better shape; they were two college guys who were wearing blue jeans and their leather jackets from school. The three of us took turns shielding each other from the wind, but mostly they felt sorry for me, this pathetic little 17-year-old girl with big blue eyes and frozen tears who kept trying to sing "Comfortably Numb" along with them so none of us would pass out.

When Doug returned, he was the hero of the hour: My Dad had sent over a couple of extra sweatshirts and pairs of thermal gloves for the people around us, and my Mom had given Doug money to stop at Tim Horton's to get a whole tray of hot chocolate. Oh, it was bliss. He wrapped a scarf around my face, pulled a toque down over my ears (they hurt like a sonofabitch, too), helped me put on an extra pair of socks, and stuffed my hands into the biggest mittens I owned. He'd gotten 8 cups of hot chocolate, so everyone we'd befriended in this terrible melee was so grateful.

By the time 9:59 a.m. rolled around, and the line began to move toward the door, I could barely walk. Doug dutifully dragged me along, with the help of one of the college guys who'd gratefully taken one of my Dad's sweaters, and the normal inside temperature of the mall felt, comparatively, like we were entering the mouth of hell as we hobbled through those doors.

There was an unspoken code in those days: When you got your tickets and came back out of the record store, you would announce to everyone in line behind you which section you'd gotten, so everyone could calculate which seats were left and so on. Sometimes, if you'd spent enough time together and had become friends while you waited, you might even try your luck at getting tickets for all four of you - two and two, of course, to better the odds, but it still saved precious seconds from ticking away for those people behind you. In this case, though, we opted to go it alone. We wished the college boys good luck, and we watched like hawks as they stood at the Ticketmaster counter, trying to read the lips of the girl behind the register. As it turned out, we all got really good seats, and the guys waited for us outside the store to give back the clothes that had probably saved them from freezing to death. They promised they would remember this, and that they'd see us 7 months from now at the show and would make it up to us.

That night, while we sat at Maple Leaf gardens singing along with Billy Joel, I had to fight back tears because my feet and legs still felt like someone was stabbing them with red-hot knitting needles. But the concert was fantastic, and the fact that I enjoyed it anyway really says something.

Fast forward to July 5th, 1994. January was long forgotten, as was the miserable weather we'd endured to allow us to end up at Exhibition Stadium. It was a gorgeous summer night, and Doug and I were over the (dark side of the) moon about seeing Pink Floyd. We had watched A Delicate Sound Of Thunder on VHS so, so many times, and we were ready to have this experience firsthand. Our seats were breathtaking. And it was the final night of an annual tradition in Toronto - the Symphony of Fire - so we got to watch a most extraordinary fireworks show before the concert began. The stadium was right on Lake Ontario, and the moon was full, and it was just...idyllic.

Not long before the show started, I was startled when something landed in my lap. It felt like...clothes. I looked around and couldn't tell in the throngs of people who had thrown it. And then I lifted it up. It was the Division Bell concert t-shirt. Seconds later, Doug got hit in the face with one. And then we saw them. Our college guys! They were only about seven seats over from us, had spotted us earlier, and had gone to the concession to buy us these shirts. They hadn't forgotten the payback they'd promised. It was lovely. We convinced the couple next to us to switch with these guys, and so the four of us were able to bask in the glory of the opening notes when David Gilmour first came onstage.

It didn't hurt that they'd also brought the purest pot I have ever smelled. They offered, and we declined, but I was rip-roaringly high off the secondhand smoke, which made Doug laugh, because I kept bursting into happy tears and saying, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" whenever the lights turned into green lasers. (The inflatable pigs with the floodlights for eyes FUCKED ME UP, though.)

There were no email addresses to exchange back then - not really - so at the end of the show, we simply thanked our new/old friends for being so generous, and they thanked us again for rescuing them on that wintry day, and we parted ways. I still have the shirt, and so does Doug.

These are the experiences we miss out on nowadays. Hiding behind our computers, selling our tickets on eBay, waking up two minutes before the onsale time hits... It may seem perfectly normal to some of the younger folks reading this, but you're missing out. You truly are.



I have always wanted to tell that story. I'm glad I have. Am I the only one who's had such a fondness for the way getting tickets used to work???

My open letter to - and final words on - Bill O'Reilly.

The petition to have the It Happened To Alexa foundation withdraw its invitation to Bill O'Reilly started out seeking 10,000 signatures. The engagement is only 6 days away, and the goal has now been lowered to 2,000. As of my last check, it hadn't even broken a thousand names.

Disheartening.

So I went to IMDb, planning to post a thread in O'Reilly's message boards with a link to said petition, and wouldn't you know it? His profile is up and running, but the message board dedicated to him is marked "Section Closed".

Next step: the man's own website. Apparently you have to pay to become a premium member if you wish to use the "Contact Bill" form. I'm not even willing to pay extra on the cable bill to get FOX News, so I'm sure as hell not going to give a dime to talk to him in cyberspace.

Final step, then: I found his email address, and I wrote the most restrained, polite message I could manage without gagging. You catch more flies with honey, after all, and I don't think my message would hold much water if I was simply being one of those screechy bitches our friend Billy seems to loathe so very much. Instead, I polished a few paragraphs and hit 'send'. Chances are it will make no difference whatsoever. Few things do when it comes to people like him. But at least I can say I did it.

---Original Message---
To: Bill O'Reilly
From: me
Subject: The "It Happened To Alexa" Hullaballoo
Date:

Mr. O'Reilly -

Surely you've received a mountain of mail about your upcoming talk at the "It Happened To Alexa" luncheon, and the petition asking for your withdrawal. I'll keep mine as short as I can.

Please don't speak at the engagement.

I realize that part of being an on-air personality is putting across what is often a more extreme and exaggerated version of yourself; perhaps the many comments you've made that lead the public to believe that you're a misogynist, among other things, is a direct result of those exaggerations. But I will say this: I was sexually assaulted a few months ago (and no, I don't expect you to care; maybe it would make a difference if you knew that I was wearing medical scrubs at the time, and was alone inside the building in which I worked, and was not in any way making a target of myself the way you said Jennifer Moore did...?), and when I tried to imagine sitting at a luncheon and listening to you speak about rape survival, I felt ill. I couldn't handle hearing a man who has been quoted more than once saying things that amount to "s/he deserved it" or "s/he brought in on him/herself" telling me that he's on my side.

I ask you, Mr. O'Reilly, to please simply consider what your television audience has seen and heard from you, and then think about what the rape survivors at this luncheon will be feeling when you take the microphone and do an about-face (and lie to them?) by saying women's rights matter to you. Please don't make any of those women feel even more belittled and guilty and humiliated than they already do. I can only assume that your reason for never apologizing for some of the more truly upsetting remarks is that you believe you are right, and that there are times and places wherein assault is justifiable. It won't matter what you say on March 19th; what you've said in the past is already out there, and you can't unring that bell.

I appeal to your obviously sizable intellect, and whatever humanity you may have behind your on-air blustering, to reconsider this speaking engagement. Your withdrawal from it would speak volumes about whether or not you actually DO care about how a woman who has been raped or otherwise assaulted should feel. There are so many topics about which you are the perfect man to speak...but the degradation and abuse of women is not one of them.

I'll never know, as we no longer get FOX News here without paying a small fortune for it, but if you did read this far, I thank you.


~Heather xxxxxx
Toronto, ON, Canada



You have the link to the petition. You can try your luck at IMDb, if you like ( http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0971123/board ). Now you have his email address, too.

Six days left. Never say never.


And that's the last I have to say about it.