The first odd thought to cross my mind was that I hope my fellow cissies haven’t been up to shenanigans again. With big chunks of the western US and Canada, which are populated with idiots (just like the rest of the world), you never know when someone may have decided to celebrate the identification of bits of differentiating tissue in an embryo by setting off explosives in tinder-dry terrain. You know, like the El Dorado Fire last year.
The fire started from a gender reveal party, authorities said last September. The couple used a smoke bomb, Anderson said.
A firefighter died in that conflagration, but you know, it was important that a sacrifice be made to the genitals of the fetus. I don’t quite get it; when we were having kids in the 1980s, we generally didn’t care whether we had a boy or a girl, and if we were asked, we just used our tongue and teeth and lips and vocal cords to make complex sounds associated with statements about bodies. I don’t think we ever set anything on fire over it. Especially since the consequences of igniting the landscape are so dire.
Refugio and Angela Jimenez are charged with one felony count of involuntary manslaughter, three felony counts of recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, four counts of recklessly causing a fire to inhabited structures, and 22 misdemeanor counts of recklessly causing fire to property of another, Anderson said. They pleaded not guilty to charges, he said. The prosecution requested a $50,000 bail, but the couple was released on their own recognizance.
“Not guilty”? I’d be really interested to hear the reasoning behind that one. The people who lost their homes and the family of the firefighter who died might also be curious.
The conflagration, which authorities call the El Dorado Fire, started in the park of the same name on September 5, 2020, near Yucaipa, California, according to officials. It burned 22,680 acres, and killed Charlie Edward Morton, who worked with the San Bernardino National Forest for 14 years. Five homes and 15 structures were destroyed; four residences were damaged. The wildfire also resulted in 13 injuries. Two firefighters were hurt, Anderson said.
We had some heavy weather roll through SE Wisconsin a couple of nights ago. I was even woken up by my phone blaring a Tornado warning at 1:30 AM. Plenty of heavy rain along with thunder and lightening, but no wind to speak off.
Anyway, my father–my Trump-supporting, Right-wing Catholic, environmentalism-denying father–had been wringing his hands over how dry it’s been and how we “desperately need some rain.” The storms managed to dump an inch-and-three-quarters on us, and he was glad to get it. Of course, he doesn’t seem to be making the connection to how “dry” things have been getting, how hot the summers are becoming, AND manmade climate change. No, he dismisses that before sneering about how Al Gore is a hypocrite and how carbon credits are a scam.
I have a suspicion that behind the “not guilty” plea is some strange delusion that as long as you didn’t intend to do any harm, you aren’t actually guilty of all the harm you caused.
I’m fairly sure that behind that “not guilty” plea is a lawyer. Don’t admit anything. Make them prove every aspect, especially intent. And hope you get a judge who is sympathetic to new parents. (I just started Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Noise, which starts with examples of the noise in judicial sentencing decisions. Bias plays a role, of course, but it could matter even more whether the local high school team wins or looses.)
I think the only intent the courts need to prove is whether they intended to set off the gender reveal smoke bomb; the question is whether this was reckless in the legal sense. If my lay reading of the law is correct, even so called ‘safe and sane’ fireworks like the gender reveal smoke bomb are illegal in the park where they had the party. A big reason for such laws in California is the danger of fires and almost everyone here knows it.
Then there was the gender reveal “party” in Vermont when they set off a dynamite bomb and damaged several nearby houses. What is causing this mass insanity?
Gender-reveal parties are dumb by their very nature. Gender-reveal parties with pyrotechnics are both dumb and dangerous—and suggest the perpetrators shouldn’t be reproducing, no matter what the outcome.
About that “not guilty” plea: EVERYONE pleads not guilty at this stage. It means nothing. Their attorney will now get the evidence, see what plea offer is available, and proceed accordingly. They also have the right to take the case to trial. (That pesky Constitution sure does gum up the works!)
At this stage they don’t know what the evidence is, whether all the charges are valid, or whether they are not guilty of some, or even all, of them. And guess what? YOU don’t know either.
Since all of humanity got along for what, more than ten millinia? without knowing (or rather, without assigning) their offspring’s gender until it was born, and that never stopped the earth from spinning, I propose that we return to that.
Burn the evil ultrasound machines! Toss them into bonfires! At least when they’re gone, that’ll be the end of conflagrations.
Re: garnetstar @ #8…
Just for h, sapiens, try at least 200 millennia.
When my kids were born, (mid 1970s) is was usual that one didn’t know the gender until they were born.
Tossing the ultrasound wands into the bonfire is not the answer. The gender reveal fiascos could just as easily happen after birth.
Ultrasound technology helps identify risks for the fetus and the mother, and thus save lives. That’s why they recommend doing it…not to reveal the gender of the fetus. It helped get my partner and our son through pregnancy.
So, let’s not reject the technology and go back to an idealized past just because some people have ridiculous ideas about gender…and want to help grandmas buy outfits in the “right” color.* What we really need to do is upgrade our attitudes and customs about gender, as is often noted here. There’s nothing special about the gender of a baby.
By the way, you can ask the practitioner doing the test not to reveal the gender to you, if they can actually tell.
Our little baby boy was very cute in pink, blue, purple, orange…or nothing at all.
@#5, cervantes
It’s a reaction to the LGBTA rights movement, especially the T part. Have you seen the stuff these people have when their parties go right and fail to start a fire or blow people up? The most rigidly-outlined, overperformed gender binaries you can imagine. Look at the cake in the illustration at the top of this article, or this thing. (Those aren’t even the worst, most-cliché-ridden ones I’ve seen pictures of, I’m just too lazy to go dig the worse ones up.) The message they’re going for is: “I am determined that my kid’s genitals guarantee that they will be either a manly man or a girly girl from their cradle, if I have to beat it into them with a hammer”. What’s a forest fire or a few deaths to the enforcement of cartoonish traditional gender binaries, if you’re a reactionary bigot?
I don’t mind a bit of fire if the embryo is the Dunwich Horror, in which case I recommend doing a ‘Prometheus’ -style fast abortion followed by ‘kill it with fire’ shouts.
.
And if the kid is ‘Desire ‘ from the ‘Sandman’ books of Neil Gaiman a bit of ambiguity is in order, as Desire never was content with just one gender.
and lungs, those are kinda important to the process as well…
That was apparently a thing many fans of the series either forgot or completely missed. When I heard a gender fluid person was cast as Desire for the Netfix series, I was so excited because it meant having someone with the right sort of experience to present a character of that sort. Then to hear about so called fans losing their shit over this fact, was confusing and infuriating.
All that to say, I’m looking forward to the Sandman series on Netflix and gender reveal parties are stupid.
@8 You just stop ,stop ,stop it right now about getting rid of ultrasound machines .I had one yesterday to see how the bastard Rheumatoid Arthritis I have is fecking up my wrists .
Don’t think the GR Parties have reached the shores of this septic isle yet ,I may be wrong .
Every bastard American stupid fad appears over here sooner or later .
I wonder what the children will think when they grow up? I’d certainly be a bit disturbed learning that my parents harmed or killed people in the process of celebrating the shape of my infant genitals.
Creepy…
I’m guessing the argument will be: “We’re not reckless, we’re stupid.” It’ll be hard to prove otherwise.
But not surprising. They also lost it back when a Black girl was cast as Rue in Hunger Games, despite the fact that the book describes her as dark-skinned.
Bigotry trumps truth.
Ultrasound….
I am told that using “metamaterials” in the design can theoretically increase the resolution by a factor of four, spotting problems early and thus cutting down on the (already few) late- term abortions.
I don’t get the gender reveal party thing either.
When my kid was still in utero, we did find out her gender (yeah, spoiler warning, she’s a girl) but didn’t tell ANYBODY.
Because we knew darn well that if we did say she was a girl, she would get inundated with PINK PINK AND MORE PINK (just as if it was a he, we’d get blue and sports crap from everybody).
Instead, the kid has this really nice natural green and wood theme in her room like she was living in a cabin at a national park, and she’s quite content with that. The toys are a good balance of science stuffs and legos, stuffed animals and wargames; the books are both Fairies and Disney Princess, but also Pixar Cars and Warrior Cats.
By holding the gender back, WE got to define that we were setting the space for her to define herself, instead of inviting relatives to all force some archaic stereotypes (not out of malice…just by not thinking about it and acting on a bit of habit)