kidnapping? Yes, Sidra, kidnapping?

From the Sidra is Incredibly Dense and Incredibly Lucky Department.

So, this guy stalked and tried to kidnap me when I was 18 or 19. Actually, he tried to kidnap me and then stalked me. It took me 20 years and a student patron at the law library needing to look up information on attempt as a crime for me to realize that. I am so incredibly fucking stupid. I have also always thought that I used up all my luck in this life long ago, but now I wonder how I survived the car accident in the 90s at all, because, shit howdy, some guy tried to kidnap me and I got away unscathed 20 years ago. My luck should have been used up right then. No more. Holy crap. How is it that I am alive? No, seriously. And I should've plunged through the ice and drowned in Wasilla Lake years before that. I should have been raped and murdered in 1980. I mean, holy fucking cow. How many more near misses can one human have?

I wonder if the stalking afterward qualifies as renewed attempts to kidnap. That could be an interesting law school exam question.

(Attempt to commit a crime is a criminal act, but you generally need more than mere preparation to commit the crime, and to perform an act to actually "attempt" the crime. To pluck a not-at-all random example out of my past, try, say, putting your hand on my arm and trying to pull me into your car when I say "no" after you invite me into your car. Conspiracy to commit a crime works similarly.)

ETA: changed age 17 to 18 or 19, as I remember it was after graduating high school in Calif., not before.

My goodness, intelligent thinking all over the place today

Posted on DW on June 13.

(Oh, OK, "this week", since I basically don't get to look for intelligent thought online save on the weekends, these days. But, still.)

Fear is the mind-killer, or, fearful women are easy to control, aren't they?

Stoking that fear is an incredibly effective way to control women's lives, because although it's impossible to avoid all situations where rape might occur, it's possible to take precautions like, oh, making sure you have a male protector whenever that's possible, or avoiding activities where such protection might not be possible. It's the 21st century; anyone who says that women should be dependent on and subservient to men because of some innate gender determined traits is going to get laughed at. But if someone says that women should behave in a way which is tantamount to that, because unfortunate though it is, we live in an imperfect world and there are some evil men out there who might rape you if you don't follow your properly circumscribed feminine role, that's credible.

will be teaching this fall

I will be teaching legal research and writing in the fall semester at my alma mater. I'm pleased (and flattered I made the cut to be offered a slot!) to be one of the incoming LR&WII profs. It's one semester, one day a week.

I've taught small groups informally (tutoring in groups, training in corporate settings) but this will be new. I will get various orientation, training, and a previously prepared syllabus so I know a lot of work is being done for me already, and it's a research & writing class, not a lecture class, but I've never actually taught a class in a classroom from start to finish over a semester and I feel like there is some secret manual somewhere that I should be consulting for how to do it properly.

So, I sort of own a digital camera now

I've been bequeathed an iPod Touch, which includes a camera, and have been taking a photo every couple of days (there's two I took yesterday I haven't uploaded to flickr yet) as of last week. I'm sidravitale on flickr.

I'm also getting oodles of useful ideas for my current novel from this book I've been reading on Iroquois diplomacy on the early american frontier. I think their diplomacy plus a stronger position based on stronger magic than the European settlers (and thus, lessened susceptibility to disease and possibly alcohol, haven't decided yet) can pretty much explain anything I damn well need that's different with the nations on my North American continent. I am most pleased. Plus, women's equal participation in private council (but not public) in Iroquois society may allow me to introduce more female secondary characters in an historically accurate way. I am most pleased about that, too. And, possibly get some real use out of the Quakers if I put some action in Lancaster, PA, and a few other places. Which I think I will when our party of characters go on a long trip from Boston to fight the voodoo king of New Orleans in the land of the freedmen, as it makes a fair amount of sense they'd travel through Iroquois-treatied territory.

La la la, a-worldbuilding we go.