The Skorpioni were a para-military group that attained world fame through a video made public in 2005, where they are seen getting a blessing from an serb orthodox priest, and then killing men and boys in Srebrenica.

The shock that this video provoked forced the serbian authorities to arrest those that appear in the video and prosecute them.

In case someone wants to see those images, please go to youtube and make a search on SKORPIONI. you will find plenty of apologetic videos about them. Please do read the comments, they are quite revealing. I just read one that said "they were a good unit but they shouldnt of filmed what they did because it makes us srbe look bad" . I am not going to post one of those videos here because i don't want to contaminate my blog with the language of hatred.

In the room reserved for the public in Special Tribunal of Belgrade, there were three groups of people:

• a group of Human Rights activists from Serbia, the Women in Black, all of them dressed in black in sign of mouring;
• a group of Mothers from Srebrenica, including some who identified their loved ones getting killed in the video;
• and finally a group composed of the friends and family of the accused. there were some men in this group, but most of the group was composed by wives, girlfriends and the mothers of the Scorpions.

There were a few other people, five or six at the most (including myself). In what regards the international community, only the Embassy of the USA sent representatives.

As we entered the room, the group who came to support the Scorpions sat on the front seats. The Mothers from Srebrenica sat on the back, while the Women in Black sat between both, as if they felt they needed to act as a barrier.

By that time, my skills in serbian were very very very limited (now they are only very limited), and people tend to speak really fast, so what I mostly did during those hours was to observe the other persons in the room, as well as in the room where the trial was taking place, which was separate with thick glass.

It was not but one hour after the session started that I fully interiorized that I had monstrous assassins in front of me . Not that I didn't know that. I had seen the video, just like millions of people did. I knew the story, but it's like on a certain moment I became aware, as it suddenly stopped being just one more thing that I rationally knew about, to become something much stronger: that is the sense that one cannot be indifferent, that we just don't have the right not to know.

On the short break in each session, these groups would go to the corridor and drink some coffee or water. Watching the behaviour of the Scorpion's friends and relatives was much more shocking that looking at the back of the assassins as they stood on trial. They were chatting, laughing, and in between they would intimidate and harass the women from the other two groups. It was obvious that they believed nothing would come out of that trial, and even more that they shared the idea that their victims had got what they deserved.

Then, there was also the attitude of the police officers that were guarding the tribunal. They too harassed both the Women in Black and the Mothers from Srebrenica as much as they could, while discretely (and sometimes not so discretely) exchanging complicit looks with the men who had come in support of the detainees and admiring the sensuality of the killers' girlfriends. While some of those women were dressing like prostitutes on duty, it was the girls from the Women in Black, who were outside the building smoking, that got a warning that they were not decently dressed.

Before the first session, one of the Women in Black told me that i would notice that those people that came to support the killers looked like normal people. This is an argument I often listen to when people talk about mass murder. Most of them did look like normal people, but there was a difference between them and what I consider to be normal people. They didn't behave like normal people. Their arrogance and contempt clearly indicated that the concept of justice is meaningless to them. I had witnessed such behaviour before in other trials, albeit involving much less serious charges. A friend of mine was over-run by a car whose driver abandoned her and flee. The driver and his lawyer had the same attitude of contempt in court that I observed in the scorpions trial, that is a total disregard for suffering inflicted on others and the absence of any sign of regret, not to mention shame.

These people are normal only if we consider that normal people are incapable of feeling remorse for their wrong doings and the suffering inflicted upon others.

I have given up on counting the number of people in Serbia that tried to manipulate me into relativising the seriousness of crimes committed during the wars. I guess I look dumb, and I do play dumb because I think it is very important for my work to listen to such arguments on first hand. It makes me sick, tough, to listen to some people that have everything to be qualified as decent honest citizens trying to pedagogically convince me about what "really" happened, and then doing their best to show me that the serbs are really nice people, excellent hosts and that I have the wrong impression because I was naive and thus manipulated to believe in anti-serbian traitors ( as if I needed to be rescued from those self hating serbs).

I have been studying about the rethoric of victimization in Serbia, and i also am aware that the reversal of reality is one of the most clear signs of a totalitarian mind-set. But at the same time, I often have the feeling that the strategy of denial, oblivion or relativisation used by normal serbian citizens whom I met in the last 2 and half years is in fact hiding a sense of shame that is sublimated as victimization and scapegoating of others. They need to denie or relativise so that they keep intact their self image of decent persons.

I am in Belgrade now, and today I listened to some young people who were teenagers in 1995. They remember, they know and they refuse denial. They face the hostility of the bystanders and relativisers, something that sometimes has deep implications to their lives, as those bystanders are often their parents, family and friends.

Unlike those other people, they are willing to go against the tendency to denial and oblivion. From their mouths I know that I will have to listen to lectures about the demographic strategy of the albanians, or about how the roma who refuse to integrate themselves in the serbian society all carry muslim names, and similar racist statements that I have heard too often. They are a source of hope, and the fact that they were able to organize and engage in common actions with people like the mothers of Srebrenica is a source of hope for Serbia too.

�There�s a clique in my daughter�s grade that�s making her life miserable. She doesn�t want to go to school anymore. Her own supposed friends are turning on her, and she�s too afraid to do anything. What can I do?�

Welcome to the wonderful world of your daughter�s adolescence. A world in which she comes to school one day to find that her friends have suddenly decided that she no longer belongs. Or she�s teased mercilessly for wearing the wrong outfit or having the wrong friend. Or branded with a reputation she can�t shake. Or pressured into conforming so she won�t be kicked out of the group. For better or worse, your daughter�s friendships are the key to enduring adolescence�as well as the biggest threat to her well-being.

In her groundbreaking book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, Empower cofounder Rosalind Wiseman takes you inside the secret world of girls� friendships. Wiseman has spent more than a decade listening to thousands of girls talk about the powerful role cliques play in shaping what they wear and say, how they respond to boys, and how they feel about themselves. In this candid, insightful book, she dissects each role in the clique: Queen Bees, Wannabes, Messengers, Bankers, Targets, Torn Bystanders, and more. She discusses girls� power plays, from birthday invitations to cafeteria seating arrangements and illicit parties. She takes readers into �Girl World� to analyze teasing, gossip, and reputations; beauty and fashion; alcohol and drugs; boys and sex; and more, and how cliques play a role in every situation.

Each chapter includes �Check Your Baggage� sections to help you identify how your own background and biases affect how you see your daughter. �What You Can Do to Help� sections offer extensive sample scripts, bulleted lists, and other easy-to-use advice to get you inside your daughter�s world and help you
help her.

It�s not just about helping your daughter make it alive out of junior high. This book will help you understand how your daughter�s relationship with friends and cliques sets the stage for other intimate relationships as she grows and guides her when she has tougher choices to make about intimacy, drinking and drugs, and other hazards. With its revealing look into the secret world of teenage girls and cliques, enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and a much-needed sense of humor, Queen Bees and Wannabes will equip you with all the tools you need to build the right foundation to help your daughter make smarter choices and empower her during this baffling, tumultuous time of life.

From the Hardcover edition.

Order Queen Bees and Wannabes from Amazon for $7.96

Don't have Amazon Kindle? You can always purchase it from here
Or if you prefer to read the Print editions instead, you can get it from here

Other Kindle Books of Interest
Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads: Coping with the Parents, Teachers, Coaches, and Counselors Who Can Rule--or Ruin --Your Child's Life
The Price of Privilege
Cliques: Eight Steps to Help Your Child Survive the Social Jungle
Best Friends, Worst Enemies
Staying Connected to Your Teenager: How to Keep Them Talking to You and How to Hear What They're Really Saying

Read about Melissa's "Spring Weekend Nightmare." You can also read more at Shakesville, the Hartford Courant, and Oh, You're a FEMINIST?!. And check out StudentActivism.net for discussion of criticism Bruen has faced for speaking out.

Having come across situations like the one Melissa describes many, many times as an advocate, either hearing about them from a survivor or intervening as a witness to such acts, I feel compelled to admit an unpleasant reality that most people are apt to miss. The men who assaulted Melissa are not awful, terrible, evil monsters, nor are they strikingly different (at least from what we know) from other men. This is not to say that we ought to condone or ignore their actions - doing so would be irresponsible and would provide support to a rape culture that has no place in a civil society. Indeed, while I hesitate to use the word "punishment" precisely because such a concept in practice tends to reinforce the same masculinist practices we are trying to reject, the men who assaulted Melissa owe her (at the very least) an apology. They also owe themselves and all women some very careful and critical reflection on their roles as human beings and their responsibilities to resist the allure of male supremacy, particularly mens' perceived entitlement to use and abuse women's bodies. But even while these personal acts of redemption and self-transformation may be meaningful, and in fact, may prevent further acts of violence, a larger system of male supremacy is operating that begs our attention.

Just as the men who assaulted Melissa are not extraordinarily different from other men in our male supremacist culture, there is nothing about the assaults that could be described as unique. Not the location, the environment, the social context, and obviously not the gendered arrangement. I started college right after news hit that Kobe Bryant had been arrested on sexual assault charges and graduated shortly after the Duke lacrosse players became posterboys for every man in the country wishing to reveal the so-called "epidemic rates" of false rape allegations. During these two cases and several in-between, I was shocked at the level of public disbelief that men might be responsible for rape and other forms of sexual assault - or perhaps it was the belief that we can decipher whether or not a man is a rapist based on race, class, or social capital, conveniently sorting men into rapists and non-rapists. The horrifying truth of the matter is that all men are capable of rape, and we live in a culture that teaches men to feel empowered through exploiting women's bodies. And the notion that "good guys" are okay and it's really the "bad guys" we ought to be concerned about not only creates an unrealistic picture of men's violence, it also endangers women's lives.

One day I'll write a book. Well, hopefully several. But this book in particular will be a compilation of all the stories shared with me by survivors. Women (of a variety of different backgrounds) raped, beaten, groped, stalked, threatened, drugged, coerced, tortured, pissed on, and emotionally abused by men (of a variety of different backgrounds). It always strikes me, when listing these abuses, that the words are almost meaningless out of context. Maybe that's part of the problem. Why would we take men's violence seriously if we cannot begin to understand, on an emotional level, its effects on the lived experiences of women? I would never try to publish this book - these are not my stories to tell. But sometimes I tinker with the idea of creating something - maybe a work of art - that could somehow demonstrate to people that this problem is real. That the "shocking," "disgusting," and "evil" stories they hear about barely scratch the surface.

What does stand out about Melissa's story, what is truly unique, is that she spoke out. Not just to a friend or family member. She put it on the front page of the campus newspaper! And since, along with a whole host of ridiculous and insensitive reactions, an online reader challenged her journalistic integrity, let me say that I think Melissa's decision as an editor was not only appropriate, but vitally important. By making her story public, she did something that took a lot of courage and will unfortunately stir up some of the most sexist and ignorant (a correlation perhaps?) criticism. She challenged people to face men's violence, to challenge it, and to build communities of resistance.

Thank you, Melissa.

Until the violence stops,

Kyle

]]> http://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/?p=2181 Tue, 06 May 2008 01:57:06 +0000 Laurie Kendrick http://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/?p=2181

Four men were walking down the street, a Saudi, a Russian, a North Korean, and a New Yorker. A reporter comes running up and says, "Excuse me, what is your opinion about the meat shortage?"

The Saudi says, "Excuse me, what's a shortage?"

The Russian says, "Excuse me, what's meat?"

The North Korean says, "Excuse me, what's an opinion?"

The New Yorker says, "Excuse me? What's excuse me?"

See what I mean?

This isn't necessarily a joke about Saudi Arabians who don't know shortages...or about Russians who do.

It's not exactly about North Koreans who've never been able to vocalize a thought or an opinion without the fear of sinister retribution.

It's about the rudeness of New Yorkers.

I'm talking about the classic "Fuck off, I could give a shit about you and the world" New York City resident. We've all heard about them. We've seen them in TV shows; portrayed on stage and in films. They are rude and inconsiderate and as apathetic as the day is long.

Case in point: The Kitty Genovese Story

Phenominal tale, really and one that's been beguiling the collective American psyche and to some degree, psychologists and sociologists.

It was about 3:15 on the morning of March 13, 1964 when Kitty Genovese arrived home. She found a parking spot about 100 her apartment building's front door. But she never made it. She was grabbed by Winston Moseley, a Business Machine Operator, but Genovese broke free and Moseley ran after her and quickly overtook her, stabbing her twice in the back. Genovese screamed out, "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" It was heard by several neighbors; but on a cold night with the windows closed, only a few of them recognized the sound as a cry for help. When one of the neighbors shouted at the attacker, "Leave that girl alone!", Moseley ran away and Genovese slowly made her way towards her own apartment around the end of the building. She was seriously injured, but now out of view of those few who may have had reason to believe she was in need of help.

Records of the earliest calls to police are unclear and were certainly not given a high priority by the police. One witness said his father called police after the initial attack and reported that a woman was "beat up, but got up and was staggering around."

Other witnesses observed Moseley enter his car and drive away, only to return ten minutes later. In his car, he changed his hat to a wide-rimmed one to shadow his face. He systematically searched the parking lot, train station, and small apartment complex, ultimately finding Genovese, who was lying, barely conscious, in a hallway at the back of the building. Out of view of the street and of those who may have heard or seen any sign of the original attack, he proceeded to stab her several more times. While she lay dying, he sexually assaulted her. He stole about $49 from her and left her dying in the hallway...all of which happened within a 30-minute time frame. During the last attack, a neighbor at the top of the stairs, reportedly opened his front door and watched the attack without doing anything to stop it.

A few minutes after the final attack, a witness, Karl Ross, called the police. Police and medical personnel arrived within minutes of Ross' call; Genovese was taken away by ambulance and died en route to the hospital. Later investigation by police and prosecutors revealed that approximately a dozen ( individuals nearby had heard or observed portions of the attack.

/

Indecision is a decision..

We embrace apathy because apathy is a fear of commitment- and if we commit ourselves to do good, we have higher expectations of ourselves- and that can be a heavy load.

Still, when all is said and done, commitment always bears unexpected fruit. We may have to nourish that commitment, tend the tree and at times, even prune it. But it's beauty is the reward. All those things--the effort put forth constitute a small price to pay for a better and fuller life..

Billy Wolfe in Fayetteville, AR, is taking a higher road, suing at least one of the bullies that has assaulted and battered him for years. Others, like the Columbine shooters and many others over the years, have taken more violent steps. In most or all of those cases, the shooting was not entirely targeted, and innocent bystanders were shot and killed.

The morality of the situation is a moot point by the time the shooting occurs. Bystanders who see continued bullying should realize that their own lives may be at stake and take steps to resolve the situation. Schools should deal with repeated aggressors aggressively, as violent criminals, ideally, are dealt with by the law.

I don't personally trust the law or authority figures in general, and institutional solutions are often worse than the problems they are created to solve. I like to fantasize about seriously damaging, even killing, those who physically threaten or attack me. I like to think about Heathers-style solutions to institutional problems.

If schools and bullies and innocent, bystanding students truly care for their existence, they need to alter their behaviors before another victim snaps, taking it a little farther than I do, becoming an aggressor him/herself in a decidedly irrational and random way.

Most of us know about some of the drama that was stirred up (by a
number of us in the LUG) at the end of last year that resulted in
Digit/CryptoMole no longer being an active member of LUG. With enough
time having passed that cooler heads have prevailed, digitman contacted
the lug admin mailing list (linux-core@) asking to rejoin the OSU LUG
community on a trial basis, starting with the mailing list. I think
(as was the consensus in the admin list) that anyone that wants to be
part of this group and can positively contribute like digitman has
committed to, should have a chance to do so. We've talked to digitman
about what happened last year, and are confident it won't be a problem
again.

This has given us a chance to reinforce a (irregularly enforced) rule
we've set for hacking socials: weekly meetings of the LUG are open to
students (not just from OSU) and OSU affiliated people (staff,
faculty) and personal guests. Registered events, like the coming
Installfest8 are open to the entire community by default. The list and
IRC are, as well, open to the community at large, with social rules
for appropriate conduct.

It may sound cheesy, but we should all make a conscious effort to
create a welcoming environment for new and old members both in hacking
socials and on the mailing list/IRC. No one likes being singled out,
and doing only splinters the group up. So, lets all welcome back
digitman and then get back to talking about open source and whatnot.

If you have any questions, I encourage you to have an open talk in
this thread. Otherwise, you are welcome to contact me out of band or
email the linux-core@ mailing list (open to any LUG member for
registration, but discusses administrivia and coordinating of regular
events).

Welcome back, digitman.

MESA, Ariz., Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The sight of an old man being hit by a truck in Arizona touched off a feeding frenzy among witnesses who allegedly stole the dying victim's groceries.

Not only were the man's groceries taken, but the only person who tried to help him also had his own bags taken.

Mesa police told KPHO-TV in nearby Phoenix that the scavengers could face theft charges if they are eventually tracked down.

The elderly victim was waiting for a bus Tuesday night when a pickup truck swerved off the road and plowed into the stop. The man was sent flying as were his bags of groceries.

As the truck sped off with a white plastic bag flapping on its grill, witnesses began grabbing whatever scattered food they could get their hands on. Boro Mitrovich, who was himself nearly struck, said he ran to help the man and had his bag disappear as well.

Source: Breitbart

BYSTANDERS 02 // JUN 07

ahem. sekedar membuktikan bahwa kita bukan one hit wonder. atau memang karena kita hanya sekedar memanfaatkan waktu. selagi masih muda. selagi inspirasi datang. selagi bersemangat. dan selagi diberi kesempatan hidup oleh Tuhan.

senang sekali rasanya bisa lepas dari beban untuk kembali menerbitkan bystanders. sempat terhambat oleh serangan virus influenza, tetapi ternyata sedikit istirahat, vitamin, dan beberapa sendok obat batuk kembali membantu kelancaran pembuat layout untuk menyelesaikan pembuatan bystanders.
Dan sekarang, berkat sponsor, kita bisa menambah halaman tapi menurunkan harga. 34 pages of gigs, interviews, cd reviews, and other things you might want to read.

Bystanders zine bisa didapat di Hey Folks!, Jl. Bumi no.17, Mayestik, Kebayoran Baru. Bisa juga langsung ke pemilik account multiply ini, yang sudah kembali rutin datang ke sejumlah gigs ibukota hehehe. Dan segera bisa didapat di tobucil dan Cisitu Asylum, Bandung.

see you at the gigs!

]]> http://oxalis.wordpress.com/?p=32 Sun, 15 Apr 2007 04:52:17 +0000 oxalis http://oxalis.wordpress.com/?p=32

setelah perjuangan panjang... akhirnya bystanders edisi perdana terbit juga. sebuah proyek iseng2 empat orang (oxal, firza, tirta, yudi) dan dibantu bbrp teman (didien, mo, yearry, nia, lia).

untuk mendapatkan edisi perdananya, langsung hubungi oxal aja hehe... sorry soalnya gw belum sempet kmana2, jadi kalo berminat, hubungi oxalis_410@yahoo.co.uk atau langsung ke emailnya bystanders di the_bystanders@yahoo.com

bentuk web-nya baru dalam versi darurat, berhubung webmasternya lagi pada sibuk hehe.. bisa dibuka di www.bystanders.tk

oiya, berhubung ini proyek independen, untuk 1 copy-nya dijual seharga Rp4000, buat sekedar ganti ongkos print + fotokopi hehe...

beli yah, jadi penglaris! hihihii...

cheers!
oxalis // project manager
www.bystanders.tk

In this edition of bystanders:

GOODNIGHT ELECTRIC // interview // gig review // cd review //

OTAK AND CHAIR // article // interview //

EVERYBODY LOVES IRENE // gig review // cd review //

DEAR NANCY // gig review // cd review //

THEDYINGSIRENS // article //

GIGS REVIEW // soundshine 2007 // Muse concert // planetbumi album launch review //

ALBUM REVIEW // pet shop boys // homogenic //

ART EVENTS // pameran komik di:y // banjir puisi di stasiun //

Sorry to list readers, but I just had to point out that this kind of reply doesn't contribute anything productive. [name withheld], if you want to, block digitman's messages, but please don't vent here. In fact, the mediocre punctuation and capitalization looks familiar (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Actually, look at this email compared to one a few months ago. digitman's emails *are* now mostly workable (perhaps not immediately so), hence why others are actually trying to help.

Your Narrator opines: Sounds like wishful thinking. Three messages along the lines of "cups is broke, it must be a KDE bug, waa waa, I googled for 'cups is broke' but didn't get any results" does not a workable question make.

my machine won't turn on. there's a black button above another black button on the face of my machine. when I press it nothing happens. what do I do? I tried to google it. d'oh?! oh, yea there's that thing called a power cord. nooge..

you sound like the nagging patient on " Becker " who, when instructed to wear SPF 30 sunscreen for health reasons asks if she should put on 6 coats of sunscreen 5 times a day or 3 coats of sunscreen 10 times a day.

ever heard the expression " nothing is free "? that goes for peoples personal and professional time too. I know you know there are web based forums out there RIGHT NOW where people have publicly researched topics like linux+CUPS exhaustively. do an intelligent keyword search using ACTIVE syntax from CUPS terminology and you'll find what you need after a couple of tries. stop working without a net.

Your Narrator sez: Oh snap!

I was trying to add the source to my apt-sources.list file but
the problem came when, I ran apt-get update -the source was not
recognized ,because the GPG key was missing .
so I installed it without the gpg key .

The cleaner way is to import the actual gpg key.

When you get an error message like:
"W: GPG error: ftp://ftp.debian.org unstable Release: The following
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available:
NO_PUBKEY 010908312D230C5F"

You can download the respective key from the keyserver (as root) with

gpg --recv-keys 010908312D230C5F

Use the key ID that was displayed in the error message, of course.

And at last, you have to convince apt to actually use the key by executing:

gpg --export 010908312D230C5F | apt-key add -

Not too complicated, I hope :)

[Narrator's note: How little you know, fair bystander...]

What is your question? Have you tried installing java? Do you have the source for the package but don't know how to add it? Where are you on the whole process?

A simple search gave me this:

http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/java2-status/jdk1.4-status.html

You can just download the package there and install it, you don't need to add any sources (dpkg -i package_name.deb).

There is also this. It describes how to create your own java package from the .bin file you can download from Sun's webpage:

http://wiki.serios.net/wiki/Ubuntu_Java_JRE/JDK_installation_with_java-package