Heads need to roll after this one: “Former Real World cast member sues MTV after being allegedly raped with a toothbrush”

The story contains “gems” like this:

the suit alleges that fellow cast members Kenneth Santucci and Evan Starkman “took another male participant’s toothbrush and rubbed the toothbrush around plaintiff’s genitals, including rubbing her labia and inserting the toothbrush into plaintiff’s vagina” while Cooley was “passed out cold.” (Probably from being really tired, from all the challenges).

and

Cooley says that not only were producers aware of the incident—she believes they got it all on camera, and even replaced the other participant’s toothbrush, never telling her what happened. How Cooley knows about any of this is, unfortunately, not addressed in the suit.

My response:

I’m a big fan of the AV Club, but I’m extremely disturbed to see a Newswire posting from Sean O’Neal making light of rape.

Sexual assault is sexual assault, even if it happens to a member of a reality tv show, even if that person happens to have been drinking too much.

Incidents like this happen to heartbreaking numbers of women every year. “Blame the victim” nonsense gets enough traction without being trumpeted by the AV Club.

For shame. You’ve given commenters the ability to flag other comments for being inappropriate. Perhaps that needs to extend to frontpage posts as well. I think Sean O’Neal needs some time away from the job–perhaps permanently–to reassess what’s funny and what isn’t.

Follow-up: AV Club editor Keith Phipps sent a sincere “not our intent” email in response, saying that several people took offense. He indicated it was a good case study for being more sensitive with these topics in the future. I appreciate his response.

In the September 26 issue of the New Yorker, Peter Hessler has a wonderful profile of Don Colcord, a “druggist” in the tiny town of Nucla, Colorado. Hessler does an excellent job of laying out the contours of a single life and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It’s especially moving on the subject of Don’s brother, Jim, who fled the town for being gay and who eventually, unwittingly, became part of a full-circle coincidence of redemption.

To my surprise, I had a letter published in today’s Sun-Times. (It’s not that I wrote it unawares; they hadn’t contacted me beforehand.)

Given it’s title, “Water Fee Hike Necessary,” I bet it’ll be the most popular thing I’ve ever written!

After a death, family members show signs of grief and exhibit ritualistic behavior. Field biologists such as Joyce Poole, who has studied Africa’s elephants for more than 35 years, describe elephants trying to lift the dead body and covering it with dirt and brush. Poole once watched a female stand guard over her stillborn baby for three days, her head, ears, and trunk drooped in grief. Elephants may revisit the bones of the deceased for months, even years, touching them with their trunks and creating paths to visit the carcass.

The most recent National Geographic has a moving article on efforts to save orphaned elephants in Kenya. Because elephants are such social animals, they need humans to provide emotional support as well as food and shelter.

It’s amazing how sophisticated the elephants are in their interaction with the people and peers around them. The boundaries we set for cognition come out looking pretty arbitrary.