The Collection: How Much is a Little Girl Worth?

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Mercy and the Law

Rachael Danhollander’s closing testimony, How much is a little girl worth?, in Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing should go into collections of great speeches in American history. Her legal reasoning in calling for the maximum sentence the law allows, her theological description of the mercy in grace, and her ability to distinguish the two were all the more remarkable for the fact she was no outside observer but one of the criminal’s many, many young victims. I have no other comment to make on it, only a recommendation that everyone listen to it for yourselves.

Unfortunately, I do need to discuss the judge. I’ve seen many worries about her “unprofessional” comments during the sentencing and how she may have risked an appeal.

• One, while I technically agree with the turnabout comments being over the top, I did not sit for days in a courtroom listening to victim testimony. I’ll give her some leeway on righteous anger.
• Two, judges are neither expected to be impartial nor are they routinely impartial in sentencing hearings. They chew parties and attorneys out all the time. For smarting off. For being late. For bad briefs. For dreadful behavior. They are judges. They are the People’s stand in for declaring the law, and sometimes that means a lecture, not only for the defendant but for the victim and the rest of us listening. Hear Rachel’s statement. She covers this.
• Three, all the worry about drawing an appeal — Nasser pled guilty. Pleas are final. Appeal is not an option. Occasionally a defendant strikes a deal that allows for appeal of the sentencing phase, but Judge Aquilina was going off the range set in the deal, so I think that exclusion is unlikely. Nasser did not get an exception. That is why Judge Aquilina asked him, right after she tossed his “I’m the real victim here” 6-page defense aside, if he wanted to withdraw his plea. That was not idle snark. The next words out of her mouth were going to be it for him. HIs attorneys would have told him that. She would have told him that. He pled. She sentenced him within the sentencing guidelines. It is done.

For a moment, I will switch focus and speak directly to my conservative sisters. Lori Harding caught Rachel’s comment about losing her church when she came forward. She does not go into details about why they did not support her, she just mentions it was one of the things she lost by standing up. I cannot imagine what would properly draw that result unless she was lying, but the 150 other women with similar stories over 30 years suggest that is not likely. Then as I noted above, the reaction to the Judge’s comments are off. Faced with a serial child molester with a 20 year tenure, and some of us worried that the judge was too harsh? All the things going on the US, and that merits public mention? Add in the horrible contrast of the recent Roy Moore debacle and continued defense of President Trump given his history regarding women and that reputation conservative women have for not actually caring about women, the one that annoys us so? — this is how it is earned. Yes, I am aware that sometimes it is different subsets of the right conflicting with each other, but one, not always, and two, we are not so naive to think anyone would give us the benefit of the doubt. We have a problem. And we must confront it.

The Sh*tty Men In Media List

Alice B. Lloyd covered an interesting development in the #MeToo movement and ended up making news herself. Back when the Weinstein scandal was fresh, a woman decided to use the cloud to do what women often do: warn each other about dangerous men. Word of mouth networks are essential for sketchy hunches and behaviors that don’t rise to the level of assault. But this woman recognized that not everyone had the advantage of a network and that malicious men in media in particular were slipping though. So, she leveraged technology and made a spread sheet. It went viral. It also drew many objections, most of which I think are overblown as I explained here last summer. (Second item.)

The list spread over media. Mike Cernovich threatened to publish it but never did likely because the defamation liability would be huge if any of those accusations were false. As I commented in my last piece at The Federalist, technology has thrown defamation law into flux. The woman ended up taking the spreadsheet down and hunkering down. She, however, had started an idea. Apparently, she wasn’t the first to think of a list. Others existed. But now we are talking about reporting and reputations and what should be said when. Enter Katie Rophie writing a piece about the movement and the lists for Harper’s. Alice B. Lloyd’s piece covers the hoopla about Rophie’s supposed plan to out the name of the creator of the Sh*tty Men in Media list. I highly recommend it for that and second her endorsement of the creator’s article outing herself. It is an excellent piece and probably good strategy to out herself given everything going on. But Alice herself made news for exposing…

Failing Journalism Standards: Plagiarism and a theory about how writers get away with it

Alice B. Lloyd wrote a great piece. It was so great that Lizzie Crocker stole it and ran it under her name at The Daily Beast. Frankly, plagiarism and its many permeations are a huge problem in modern media. The Crocker incident is unusual for its boldness — huge cut and paste sections on a trending topic between major publications — and for the results. She got fired, quickly too. The guy that caught her, Thomas Chatterton Williams, on Twitter no less, has a theory, which makes a lot of sense. Because the public doesn’t read the opposition, and I’ll add that mainstream publications look down on right publications, Crocker probably figured no one who reads the Beast would read The Weekly Standard. (You can get the whole thread from this tweet.)

New news for Christians

Paula Bolyard brings news of developments at The Babylon Bee. What is The Bee? It is The Onion for Christians, sharp satire that has grown very popular in just two years. The founder now finds that he has to keep up with news so closely that running a news aggregation site for Christians is hardly any extra work. I’ve been following since I found it and finally there is a general news site that posts stories about Christian persecutions. They happen all the time and are virtually unknown to US audiences. The Christian Daily Reporter has plenty of other news as well. For instance, I first saw the Graydon Carter farewell to Vanity Fair letter there (another recommended read for anyone in publishing.) It simply stands out for the stories of Christian realities in other parts of the world.

The Last Straw

Inez Stepman tweeted about it and Amanda Prestigiacomo explained. Five or so years ago, a nine year old called some restaurants and did some extrapolations and estimated the number of plastic straws get thrown away. So now some California politician has proposed a bill of citizen informants and fines and imprisonment for waitstaff that hand out straws before people ask for them.

Who keeps convincing women that getting naked in public is empowering?

Georgi Boorman on the latest event in the public nudity is empowering lie. “Posing nude doesn’t accomplish any of the goals that good people are aiming for on either side of the fat positive debate. It doesn’t earn respect, boost self-confidence, gain equity for the body type, or have anything to do with caring for and loving your body.”

#WhereIsShe

While our women’s marches were going on, women in Iran were protesting as well. One brave mother dared take off her headcovering in public in defiant protest of modesty laws. Iranian authorities simply waited for publicity to die down before arresting her. Kira Davis has that. There are some reports that she has been freed Sunday afternoon, but nothing solid. Luma Simms has more on Iran in general, and Melissa Braunstein on how the Iranian protests present an opportunity to talk to your children about tyranny.

#BoyMom rising

SLM Goldberg is getting her #boymom on with Kicking Boys Off TV and 2018 Will be the Year Feminists Target Little Boys. A quibble to Susan, they’ve been targeting little boys for decades. If you mean they are going to step it up in 2018, yeah. (She does mean that. I’m just being a pest.)

Now Playing

I have currently been watching The Crown and Expanse, waiting for Victoria season 2 which is finally up in the US. But what I actually love right now is the History Chicks new podcast, The Recappery. They started with explainers for season 2 of The Crown — what’s the full story of what really happened, episode by episode. I don’t think they are conservative women, so they are a crossover mention, but if you like The Crown, I recommend the podcast and if the viewer poll held from when I took it, they will do Victoria seasons 1 and 2 next.

Jennifer Doverspike has an intro and review of The Orivelle, “good — very good — Star Trek fanfiction.”

A note from Leslie on sources

The question keeps coming up: how can I use links from certain sources? I am sharing the authors, not the publications. Due to many problems in right media, some of which I’ve covered, there is no safe space from objectionable opinion. Since I wrote that last year, Erick Erickson has left Fox and told us why — they want certain ideas on air — and Acculturated a popular website on culture lost its money and shut down in December. On the right we simply do not have the luxury of going full boycott for sites that publish objectionable material. We can — and do — object, complain, argue, pressure, and plead. But our resume’s shut us out from mainstream work, not everyone can afford to go alone, and simply stopping writing is not an option. How would our perspective ever be known? Talented writers with good ideas write where they can. Considering how much the market favors quick click bait (which encourages plagiarism, see above) I grab the good and talented where I find them.

From the magazine

A Tale of Two Doofuses by EdgeOfTheSandbox

Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up by Chloe Cuthbert

Human Trafficking Happens Here by Chloe Cuthbert

When life throws you lemons so sour and so bitter you can’t ever imagine getting the taste out of your soul by Dodi McVey Swayze

This Sunday collection of works by conservative women is usually curated by Leslie Loftis. It is part of Iron Ladies, a Medium magazine by conservative women mostly for the concurious. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you may sign up here.

On social media, we may be found on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook: @IronLadiesUS.

Come look around. Forward this to a friend.

Otherwise, until next week,

Leslie