Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A Tale of Two Villages.

There are really two Broad Ripples. There's the Broad Ripple Village I write about often, the one of parks and bicycle shops and bistros and boutiques, a placid, tree-lined, artsy urban enclave full of yuppies, DINKS, starter families, and retirees. And then there's the other Broad Ripple.

The other Broad Ripple is the Strip, centered right along Broad Ripple Avenue proper, home of Chumley's and The Wild Beaver Saloon, live concerts at The Vogue, and the Axe-body-spray-scented, sorority-shrieking meat market of Brothers. Pretty much every night, and especially weekend nights, the area around the strip is infested with college-age revelers stumbling, knee-walking drunk, back to their cars.

And when you chum the water, you attract sharks. Bobbi and I were just talking about the Broad Ripple Robber last night while running errands, and now I wake up this morning to see that it looks like he's stepped up his game to include rape.

Stay alert, stay alive.

30 comments:

Roberta X said...

O. hully gee, whatever could serve as a deterrent? ...Be a darned shame if the guy got himself shot by a prospective viictim...

Bob said...

Broad Ripple: Tales From the Darkside.

As Tamara made her way down the streets of Broad Ripple, she was comforted by the presence of the Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm pistol strapped to her side, tucked out of sight under a lightweight jacket. There was a predator loose in Broad Ripple, and Tamara didn't intend to be his next victim...

Tam said...

Bob,

Are you kidding? I've ordered out for a little predator call from Cabela's. When you blow on it, it goes "Hey, y'all, I'm so wasted!"

Joseph said...

...stay armed.

there, fixed that.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

"Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm pistol"

Nah. I'm thinking 1911.

Woodman said...

Last night on the news they started showing tasers as possible defense options.

The reporter holds one up and says "This one looks like a phone" (From 1985 maybe)

I didn't watch the whole thing, hard to watch news while browsing web, talking to wife, and half falling asleep after Judo practice. I'm assuming they didn't mention guns, knives, self defense classes, or even how to safely use the police taser that has a range of 15 feet.

I'm not sure why it's ok to hand someone 50k watts but guns are dangerous. I can see some terrified drunk person pulling out a taser and zapping themselves or an innocent pretty easily.

On the same channel that probably hates those criminal extended mags, or folding thingies on "assault weapons".

Jay G said...

While I would hate for either our esteemed host or her roommate to be put in the position, the evil part of me can't help but chuckle at the scenario of the Broad Ripple rapist making his very last (wrong) victim selection.

One can only ponder what kind of pungent combination Axe and soiled undergarments would make...

karrde said...

Tam: do you think Gander Mtn also carries that call?

Ross said...

I think Tam needs to practice looking like she's drunk.

Kind of like a 6 foot tall mouse caroling "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..."

Hey, Tam... I know where you can get a slightly used superhero costume, cheap. I don't think the previous owner has much use for it now. Just have to pay shipping from Washington...

Unknown said...

You could just hang out on a dark street with the hood up on the car.

"Oh, man! My phone is dead, and now this!"

It's called "Woman Distress", and I think it's sold by Primos.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Keep in mind that, unlike Head shots for Zombies, the Kill Zone for Rapists is between the Knees and the Belly Button.

Preferably, with Double Ought Buck.

Good Hunting!

Anonymous said...

Ditto Jay G.

Hey! "American Rifleman" or a similar magazine could run a regular feature about would-be rapists who fall foul of armed and determined women. Call it "A Series of Fortunate Events".

Anonymous said...

Can you hunt over bait in Indiana or battery powered decoys? Is it OK to shine or jacklight?

Wouldn't want you get in trouble with the game warden.

Gerry

BGMiller said...

Who needs bait or decoys when you can build a blind overlooking the watering hole?

BGM

Anonymous said...

Tamara, Tamara, Tamara. I can't believe you would stoop to this level of victim-blaming and generalized partriarchal women-oppressery. Don't you realize, by urging women to "stay alert," you are implying that they have some kind of influence over events in their lives? This is exactly the same thing as saying that a woman wearing a short skirt "deserves" to be raped. Women have the right to stagger around, drunk and alone, on dark streets in the middle of the night, just as they have the right to wear short skirts. Let's put the blame for this crime squarely where it belongs: men in general.

Now, being a woman yourself, you can't be held responsible for passively absorbing the incorrect thinking of the patriarchal oppressors. Please just report to your nearest college campus for reprogramming in a women's studies class.

And for Gaia's sake, all of the rest of you all, stop advocating that Tamara carry a GUN around. Don't you know she's 43 times more likely to shoot herself on a sudden whim than successfully defend herself against an attacker? If the victim of this crime had been carrying a gun, she surely would have wound up getting shot with it.

Alath
Carmel IN

Caleb said...

I liked Brothers, the one at Purdue and the one in the 'Rip. :(

Cormac said...

That comment from "Alath" was a joke, right? A gag, a farce, a parody? A laugh, perhaps at the expense of people who might actually think like that? ...right?

Anonymous said...

Cormac,
You know, some worldviews are difficult to parody because they've already done the job themselves.
Alath
Carmel IN

Tam said...

Alath,

Absolutely 100% of the blame in this instance falls on the shoulders of one man: The animal that raped her.

Joanna said...

I think what Alath meant is that there's a difference between "quietly minding your own business" and "getting so shitfaced you couldn't mind your business if you wanted to."

Read into that what you will; I know what I meant and I'm in no mood to argue.

Tam said...

Joanna,

"Read into that what you will"

I think you are perhaps reading too much into my response?

Joanna said...

Oh, probably.

Jason M. Rogers said...

As a father of two little girls I sure hope they do not get drunk in public or walk around unarmed.

Jason M. Rogers said...

ETA ... When they grow up.

Tam said...

Joanna,

"Oh, probably."

e.g. "It's dumb to leave your door unlocked, but the onus for stealing your stereo is entirely on the thief." :)

Cormac said...

Yeah...I was mostly referring to the "guns r bad mm'kay" nonsense.

As for the rest, I wouldn't consider "stay alert" as assigning blame so much as friendly advice.

Anonymous said...

Cormac, Tam, Joanna:

I made the mistake of trying to parody something that is already preposterous, so it fell a little flat.

There is a mindset (I use 'mind' loosely) among the university women's studies crowd that seeks to empower women by considering them as passive, helpless victims in everything. Thus, any kind of practical advice, like "don't get drunk and pass out in dark alleys," is frowned upon because, supposedly, it puts the responsibility for rape on the victim.

I think they're confusing culpability (which belongs entirely to the perpetrator), with responsibility for one's own well-being (which belongs to every mentally competent adult). Not surprisingly, these same folks are generally opposed to armed self-defense.

The irony of all this is that they're constantly saying they're about 'empowering' women. I don't know exactly how it empowers someone to say 'We're taking your gun away, because you're too incompetent to use it effectively in your own defense."

This is the kind of 'thinking' that can only flourish under the highly artificial conditions of academia. Anywhere else, where ideas are subject to reality testing, they fail in very obvious ways. But in the ivory towers of your nearest institution of higher learning, you will encounter this kind of nonsense. What's more, you're expected to treat it seriously.

Sorry for any confusion. In the future I'll stick to straightforward disdain, instead of attempting to parody.

Alath
Carmel IN

Tam said...

Alath,

"Thus, any kind of practical advice, like "don't get drunk and pass out in dark alleys," is frowned upon because, supposedly, it puts the responsibility for rape on the victim."

There is frequently a communication gap involve, because someone will be relating their traumatic rape story, and a no-doubt well-meaning commenter will show up and say "Well, it's very important not to get drunk and pass out at frathouse parties" which, no matter how sage that piece of advice may be, is not what someone needs to hear after they've gotten drunk and passed out at a frathouse party and been raped.

Then other people jump in with shrill cries of "victim-blaming" and the well-meaning interlocutor is driven off into the wilderness thinking "Feminist harpies!" and thus is the cycle perpetuated.

As a woman who thinks there's no excuse for rape, and also as someone who thinks that everyone (male and female) should pay more attention to the often-hostile world around them, I find myself on the horns of this dilemma, seeing both sides' viewpoints, quite often. :(

Anonymous said...

Agreed, a dissection of tactics and critique of the actions leading up to being attacked is not an appropriate or helpful response to someone who has been traumatized. And I suppose you never know when what you thought was a general discussion turns out to be you're talking to someone with such a history.

I was thinking back to my campus orientation, where they were offering general advice meant to help prevent such attacks. And they said things like, "just because she is naked in his bed doesn't meant she has consented to sex with him." Which, as a matter of ethics is true - a last minute 'no' still means 'no.' But as practical advice, it's pretty piss-poor, because a last minute 'no' naked in bed is a lot harder for her to enforce than a "No, I'm not coming up to your dorm room, and I'm not taking my clothes off."

I'm not about assigning blame or fault to someone who has been raped, but it seems to me that effective practical advice to prevent that from happening can get lost in the ideological debate.

Alath
Carmel IN

Joanna said...

Gonna go 'round in circles, gonna fly high like a bird up in the sky ...

*ahem*

I'm touchy on the subject because I have a close family member who had a near-rape experience with an abusive boyfriend. However, because she lives her entire life in condition white, there was absolutely no discussion about how things got to that point in the first place. Attempting such discussion makes me the bad guy in the family (how dare I suggest she take responsibility for her actions). I seem to be the only one in the group who knows the difference between blame and responsibility. So, yeah: There's a nerve there, and it's pretty raw.