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On Todd Akin and Other (Unrelated) Things

20 Aug

This blog is going to be about the following three things.  First, I would like to share with you all a search term that led a potential reader to my blog that I found both funny and sort of infuriating.  Second, Todd Akin.  And third, a quote that  I read in The New Yorker this past issue that I found especially interesting.  I really think that if you don’t feel like hearing my rant on Akin, you should just skip down to the quote at the bottom, labeled “Part III: The Quote” for your convenience.  Also, there is no reason behind the order of the post.  It’s just how I felt like doing it.

Part I:  The Search Term

Okay, so if any of you read my post from yesterday, you will understand my astonishment when I went to look at my site stats to figure out what kinds of search terms are getting people to my blog and one of them read

up skirt shots reddit

Ugh.  Really?  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I will hope that this person was (a) looking for an article about how awful this specific SubReddit is or (b) was actually looking for the SubReddit but upon reading my blog post decided to forgo looking at unauthorized and demeaning pictures of women and girls and become a decent human being.  I highly doubt either of those things to be actual possibilities but, hey, a girl can dream!

Part II:  The Idiot

Now I am going to weigh in, ever so slightly, on Todd Akin.  So, for those of you who have been living under a rock, the 6-term, Tea Party-backed congressman from Missouri said the following thing yesterday, as quoted in a New York Times article:

If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.

He then quickly claimed to have “misspoke” and tried to make it better by saying this:

In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview, and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year.  I recognize that abortion, and particularly in the case of rape, is a very emotionally charged issue. But I believe deeply in the protection of all life, and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action.

He has empathy for women who are victims of violent crime yet he has no empathy for women who find themselves pregnant by their rapists because that would be victimizing an unborn child.  You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Akin.  And, misspoke?  Is that the best he could do?  The thing is, that Mr. Akin is not the first person to make a remark like this.  Statements just like his have been made in the past by Pennsylvania Representative Stephen Freind, North Carolina Representative Henry Aldridge, Dr. John C. Willke, and Arkansas politician Fay Boozman who was, at one time, the director of the health department in Arkansas.  I really want to just be like, “wow, how stupid can you get?” and move along with my day but then I realize that these people are in actual positions of power and they, as well as some of the people who listen to them, actually think they are speaking the truth even though once they realize how bad it sounds they try as hard as they can to pretend they didn’t mean it.  (I swear, if I ever read somewhere that some asshat rapist tries to deny paternity of a child by saying that due to a women’s natural trauma-secretions the baby in question can’t possibly be his I will have a full on fit.)

Here’s the thing that’s really scary about it.  After Akin “misspoke,” Republicans and Democrats alike could not distance themselves from him faster.  Everyone across the board saw this specific statement as heartless and horrifying.  Romney told the National Review,

Congressman Akin’s comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong.  Like millions of other Americans, we (he and Paul Ryan) found them to be offensive.  I have an entirely different view…What he said is entirely without merit and he should correct it.

How do you correct something like that??  As Meg Ryan said in When Harry Met Sally, “You can’t take it back.  It’s already out there!”  The thing is, as pointed out in this Huffington Post article, Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan actually doesn’t hold opinions that far off from Akin, he just knows how to package his beliefs in a less infuriating, less “out there,” way.  According to Michael B. Keegan of HuffPost,

Rep. Paul Ryan not only opposes abortion rights for rape victims, he was a cosponsor of a so-called “personhood” amendment that would have classified abortion as first degree murder and outlawed common types of birth control. Ryan has also bought into the “legitimate rape” nonsense, cosponsoring legislation with Akin that would have limited federal services to victims of “forcible rape” — a deliberate attempt to write out some victims of date rape and statutory rape.

So there’s that.  Also, Romney claims that he is not opposed to abortion in cases of rape, but if he is elected president he will work to overturn Roe v. Wade, putting decisions about abortion in the hands of individual states.  It seems that therefore, he is giving individual states the ability to make all forms of abortion illegal, regardless of circumstance.  If that’s the case, then when states make a decision about, say, abortion in cases of rape there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it if he did disagree with the state which, at least in this current iteration of Romney, he supposedly does.  And, unless he’s really stupid which I don’t think he is, he is well aware of that fact.  It’s great that people are getting all up in arms about this because what Akin said really was demeaning and insulting and wrong and all manner of other things.  But the thing is, I don’t see a huge distinction between the shitty science that Akin and company have referred to and some of the studies and statistics I hear Republicans site to justify their anti-choice stances.  Also, in a lot of these cases when politicians and pundits and whoever else make statements about the rights of the unborn child, they are immediately discounting the rights of the woman.  We cease being human beings and instead become vessels for the unborn.  Akin is an idiot, but sadly he is not even close to alone in his beliefs.  Okay.  Moving on (for now).

Part III:  The Quote

In the August 13th and August 20th edition of The New Yorker there was an article by Adam Gopnic called “I, Nephi:  Mormonism and its Meanings.”  It was a review of 4 books that have been published in recent months that was spawned, I would imagine, by the fact that Mitt Romney is Mormon and a lot of people find Mormonism baffling. I have to admit at this point that I didn’t read the entire article because, although I consider myself a curious person, I am not currently terribly curious about Mormonism.  I did, however, come across this quote that I found interesting and figured I would share with you all.

…almost every American religion sooner or later becomes a Gospel of Wealth….The astonishing thing…is that this gospel of prosperity is the one American faith that will never fail, even when its promises seem ruined.  Elsewhere among the Western democracies, the bursting of the last bubble has led to doubts about the system that blows them.  Here the people who seem likely to inherit power are those who want to blow still bigger ones, who believe in the bubble even after is has burst, and who hold its perfection as a faith so gleaming and secure and unbreakable that it might once have been written down somewhere by angels, on solid-gold plates.

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Peeping Toms

19 Aug

It’s 12:30am on a Saturday night.  I am telling you that for two reasons.  First, I am not at my best late at night, blog writing included.  And second, like every other weekend for the past 3 years and for the foreseeable future, I worked all day today and tomorrow I have another full day of tending to my adoring public. Therefore, Saturday is generally a pretty low key night for me.  Being tired and/or hungover at work generally makes for a less than enjoyable bartending shift.  So why, you might ask, am I awake right now?  Why am I sitting on my sofa typing this rather than lying in bed, staring at the inside of my eyeballs? Well, I’ll tell you.  Are you sitting down because this might seem a bit of a shock.  It’s because I am stewing.  Surprise!

Here’s what happened.  After working all day I came home to have a nice relaxing evening involving a bit of ice cream (AKA a stomachache waiting to happen) and watch some mindless television, enter Law and Order SVU.  I achieved all of those things, stomachache included, and decided to cap off my raucous evening with a game of suduko on my cell phone.  I changed into my pajamas.  I sat down on my bed.  My bed, as it happens, is against a wall with a window.  The window is right next to my pillows.  So there I am, on my bed, minding my own business when I hear, yelled from across the way,

You’re really sexy, baby!

I look over at the window in disbelief.  That couldn’t have been directed at me.  Fuck, I didn’t put down the blinds.  Fuck, that dickwad who always plays his shitty ass music at ridiculous volumes is home, entertaining friends and playing his shitty ass music at ridiculous volumes.  And his blinds are up.  And my bedside lamp is on.  And it’s dark outside.  Fantastic.  There is nothing quite like having someone harass you when you are in your own bedroom and on your own bed.  I mean, really?  I don’t know.  Maybe I should thank him.  Thank him for reminding me that people are gross and that I should be more militant about closing my blinds when I am in my bedroom at night lest someone creep me or, worse yet, take a photo of me and post it on the internet along with all those other photos of unsuspecting girls that are popping up in Photobucket and Reddit subthreads.  It’s a real problem, you know.  I mean, really, it’s gotten to the point where I am actually nervous about wearing skirts and dresses in this city because some perv might be walking behind me up the stairs and sneak an up-the-skirt shot and post it online for all his pervy buddies to look at.  And the thing is, it’s not like if that happened I would even know about it.*  What am I going to do, spend all my time online, image searching for photos of my underwear that may or may not exist?  By the way I have totally done that before.

There was this one time a few years ago when I was in the shower and I swear to you I saw a camera flash go off in the window across the way.  Out of the corner of my eye.  I thought about the height of my breasts relative to the height of the window and, while frantically trying to cover myself up, analyzed whether or not it was possible for the photographer to (a) get an angle of anything other than my face and neck, which, by the way, would be creepy enough and (b) to make anything out through the very steamed-up window.  And then, after I hastily jumped out of the shower and measured for a curtain (we ended up covering the window with a ratty t-shirt for quite some time) I looked online to see if photos of me had surfaced.  I don’t really want to go into what my search terms delivered to my computer screen.  I gave up after the first set of hits came back.  So there may or may not legitimately be photos of me showering on the internet which intermittently gives me the heebie-jeebies and also bursts of intense anger on a semi-regular basis.

I know that both these incidents have the common denominator of me forgetting to close my blinds.  I get it.  I will take full responsibility for my carelessness on that front.  But the thing is that in my house is the one time when I really let my guard down.  I come home from runs during which people whistle at me and catcall me.  I walk past construction sites.  I get hit on or threatened when I am at work.  I get spit on.  I choose my wardrobe based off what will make me feel the least victimized while I am going to the bank and getting my morning coffee.  And I actually worry, every time I walk up the stairs, feel my shirt go up in the back when I sit on a chair, notice the wind from the subway slightly moving the bottom of my skirt, that someone is looking and maybe snapping a photo.  My house, and specifically my bedroom, is the one place where I stop worrying.  But that’s silly.  It’s not safe here either.

*Let it be known that if I ever catch someone taking an up-the-skirt shot of me I will push that person down the stairs.

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Running in a Type A City

6 Aug

One of the things about New York is that we have the best of the best here.  I’m not saying that we have all the best people in the world but that, in almost any walk  of life, any academic or athletic pursuit, basically anything at all, we have some highly talented people and, unless you know someone or are really good at whatever it is you do, you will have a hard time competing.  For an example just look at our women’s roller derby team, The Gotham Girls, who routinely trounce all their competition.  As a person who considers herself to be more or less average — although I did just manage to accomplish a feat I never thought possible:  I cut my forearm on a not-very-sharp table corner because I was mindlessly leaning on it while reading pointless articles about women’s gymnastics on the internet rather than working on my thesis — New York could, potentially, be frustrating and disheartening.  Luckily for me, I am not Type A.  Not even close.  I am a steady-goes it, low-stress, often-running-late kind of a gal.  And, honestly, I like it that way.  What I do not like, however, is when my blissful Type B day gets invaded by some Type A nutjob in running shorts.  And now, story time.

This morning I did what I do most mornings (or afternoons, depending on the amount of farting around I engage in):  I laced up my running shoes.  I then proceeded to waste about 1/2 hour, meandering around the house, complaining to no one in particular about how hungry I was.  Once that ritual was completed, I headed out the door for my loop around the park.*  Up I went, following my normal path.  Over and up, over and up.  I got onto the main running road and assumed my slower-than-normal pace because, due to my new and theoretically better plan which is explained in the below asterisked portion of the post, I have become significantly less fit.  No matter.  At some point either approaching or ascending The Big Hill I came upon a man in his mid-60’s.  I approached him from behind, breathing more heavily than normal, and assumed I would just cruise by him.  But no.  He sped up.  I hate when people do that.  Whatever.  I didn’t let it bother me.  At the top of The Big Hill I decided to give the man some space so my running experience wouldn’t be negatively impacted.  I pulled over next to a tree to stretch.  I was joined, moments later, by a friendly speed-walker who, when I greeted her, dazzled me with a thick accent reserved for Jewish people born and raised in New York City.  We chatted for a minute or two, I wished her a good walk and carried on.  Not too much later I caught back up with the older man.  Clearly, he had fallen off the pace he had earlier assumed in order to not allow me to easily pass him on The Big Hill.  I chuckled to myself.  As I approached him for the second time that day he did the thing I hoped he wouldn’t do but which I knew deep down he absolutely would do:  he sped up.  Ugh.  Annoying.  As we covered the final .8 miles of the park loop, the man kept slowing down to the point where I’d come up over his left shoulder and then, when his Type A Spidey Sense alerted him he was about to be caught and passed by a girl with boobs and hair, he sped up again.  So I decided to do what any normal person would do:  I controlled my breathing and pushed the pace because you know what?  If he is going to get all competitive and annoying and take the fun out of my run, then I am going to make him want to vomit by forcing him to run faster than he is comfortable doing.  So, slowly but surely I continued to speed up.  He followed suit.  When I came up to the final 100 meters of the run, more or less, I decided to do what I often do, sprint to the finish and, wouldn’t you know it, he started racing me.  I mean, really?  Rather than stew in sweaty silence I called out to him

Is it really that important to out sprint me?  Do you feel good now?  Thanks for ruining my run, jerk.

He looked over his shoulder with a scowl that expressed anger, embarrassment, and shock.  I had called him out on his poor Type A behavior and he was not happy about it.  I ran home, feeling less cleansed than usual from my running experience.  Damnit.

But seriously, this sort of thing happens all the time and, I would like to point out, the annoying party is always male.  Always.  Never do women seem insulted by being passed by a runner who is (A) faster (B) having a random really awesome running day or (C) doing some sort of a tempo run.  So I want to say to all you Type A runners out there, please leave me be.  I am out there running not to be faster than everyone else in the park, but to have fun and clear my mind.  Running is the one hobby in my life that has been a constant for me.  I have picked up and dropped so many other activities — trumpet, tennis, gymnastics — but, for whatever reason, this is the one that has stuck. I love it because I can do it in my own time and on my own schedule.  I love it because it’s something that I do just for me, not to be better than anyone else, not for bragging rights, just for my own happiness.  And I love it because it allows me a small bit of time to be outdoors without a huge, heavy shoulder bag, more or less alone.  So please, please, if you see me running, don’t try and out run me.  Don’t try to prove to me that you’re faster.  Honestly, I could care less.  All I ask is that you let me continue, unchallenged, doing what I love doing.  Just let me run.

And one last thing.  Get a life.

*Recently I decided that I would try and run just one loop around the park, about 5 1/2-5 3/4 miles, 6 days a week rather than put pressure on myself to run more miles slightly less often, thereby lessening the pressure quotient and making running more fun.  Pressure takes the fun out of things for me.  The problem, however, is now I have put pressure on myself to run 6 days a week, which effectively dissuades me from actually running those 6 days, resulting in less weekly mileage and more difficult (read: less enjoyable) sometimes-daily runs.  I think I need a new, pressure and commitment free, plan.

 

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Proclaimed Busyness

5 Jul

Busyness.  Or supposed busyness.  Claimed busyness.  It is something that has driven me crazy for years and something I could never quite articulate.  Why do people compete with one another to see who is the busyiest?  Who is so put upon that they don’t have time to do any of the enjoyable things in life?  Who is so awkwardly proud about that?  And, why do I care about how much more packed your day is than mine?  Well, finally someone has done it.  Tim Kreider of the New York Times wrote this article about the boastful complaint of busyness and I think in a lot of ways he hits the nail on the head.  He points out that

it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve ‘encouraged’ their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

He then continues.

The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it…. It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

It’s true.  And, I’ve noticed, it is largely though the guilt attributed to the feeling of having free time.  There are plenty of things I do, like watching The 15 Biggest Tear-Jerking Moments in Summer Olympic History*, that I don’t necessarily tell people about because I can’t stand to hear the retort of “Oh, I’m just too busy to watch something like that.”  Talk about making someone feel useless and indulgent, you know?  But maybe Kreider’s existentialist musings can add a little insight.

I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

And then in the conclusion Kreider addresses the issue that might have popped up a bit throughout his piece.  That it is a luxury for one to choose a life that allows for long bike rides in the middle of the day and routine drinks with friends at night.

My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue, but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love.

For some people, due to their skill set, the impacts of institutionalized sexism and racism and a myriad other isms, their time, unfortunately, is not worth enough monetarily to allow them to invest quite as much of it with loved ones as Kreider claims to.  And that’s a shame.  But those of us who do have the ability to spend time with friends and family should make an effort to do so, and we shouldn’t have to schedule it in or make people feel like burden on us.  Those of us who aren’t so busy as to be tired to the bone should feel proud, not ashamed, and we should hope that some day everyone will be so lucky.
* Definitely watch the one about Derek Redmond, a real tear-jerker.  That is, if you aren’t too busy.

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Public Assholes for the United States

28 Jun

Disclaimer: This post was written in a state of severe agitation.  It really should be better thought-out and better written, but I am going away for the weekend and would rather write now when the anger is fresh and directed.  So, enjoy.

Today I had a plan to write a blog about a somewhat heart-touching moment that occurred while I was doing some angry food shopping at Trader Joe’s yesterday.  But then I saw a link to this on my Facebook feed.  The basic gist, for those of you who are either (1) too lazy to read about it yourself or (2) working in a Big Brother-esque office that doesn’t allow you to surf the intertubery freely, is that a photograph (one that happened to be taken by an incredibly talented photographer in my neighborhood named Kristina Hill) shot at a wedding was stolen, photo-shopped with a politically-motivated message,  and used by a group called Public Assholes, I mean Advocates, for the United States in a campaign targeting Senator Jean White for her vote for the last two years that allowed same-sex couples to form civil unions.  Here is the original photo*:

Photograph by Kristina Hill Photography

And here is what Public Advocates for the United States did to it:

I’m sorry, really??  How can you be so awful as to steal from a couple a photograph which, in the words of the couple,

“…represents my first home away from home, my beloved NYC, which at the time this image was taken (2 years ago) did not allow same sex couples to marry. It represents my longterm relationship with my best friend, my partner, and now husband – the love we share and obstacles we have overcome. It is a reminder of the happiness I felt the day he proposed to me and of the excitement I had all throughout our engagement. It represents hope and it represents love. Or at least it did…”

The action taken by Public Advocates for the United States is just so nauseatingly wrong to me it makes me want to scream.  It is horrific.  It is immoral.  And also possible illegal.  I’m pretty sure the photograph is a possession of the photographer and the couple (who presumably purchased it from her) and therefore is not in the public domain and therefore should not be used without the express permission of the owner of the photograph, ie Kristina Hill herself.  And, knowing Kristina, I cannot imagine any circumstance in which she would even for a millisecond consider giving someone permission to use any of her photographs for such a hateful purpose.

From their own website, this group claims its mission is

“defining political issues of our time, always defending the rights of fathers, mothers and children to live their lives free from government intrusions and the self-serving motives of liberal special interests and agendas.”

I just, wow.  Okay.  I don’t understand what is not self-serving about what this group has done with this image.  And I also don’t understand how a group that truly wants less governmental intervention in the lives of “fathers, mothers and children” can possibly advocate for the governmental regulation of the private lives of individuals who, as it turns out, are oftentimes they themselves mothers, fathers and children.  I also don’t understand how a group which claims to have been a vocal supporter of “equality under the law, regardless of one’s sexual orientation” can then turn around and offer strong and vocal opposition to “same sex marriage and furtherence of so-called ‘Gay Rights.'”  (I would also like to point out that the phrasing used there is highly redundant.  If the rights are “so-called” then I really don’t see the need for the quotations surrounding Gay Rights but I suppose that is neither here nor there.)  I am just flabbergasted and horrified at the state of politics in this country today.  Have your views, that’s fine (even though I disagree with them and think they are horribly bigoted and homophobic).  But to steal from a couple an image representative of the moment in which they officially cemented their love, after years of waiting, is horrible.  How can you use someone’s love like that?  How can you attempt to trivialize something so important?  Someone, please, explain this to me.

And another thing, Public Advocates, fuck you and your milquetoast, repressive, hate-filled “family values.”  I’ll take acceptance, understanding and love any day.

*Both photos are taken from the website thegayweddingexperience.com

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Bloomberg Ban on Big Bubbly

14 Jun

Those of you who know me are aware of my love for The New Yorker.  Yes, it arrives in my mailbox too often.  Yes, I have stacks of unread issues piling up and gathering dust in my room.  Yes, I have this ridiculous fantasy of one day reading them all despite never canceling my subscription.  Yes, I am aware that my life as a New Yorker subscriber makes me more likely to reach the rank of hoarder.  I don’t care.  I just love it so much.  This week’s cover was especially awesome considering Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large sodas.  Here it is for your viewing enjoyment.

newyorker

So awesome.  Also awesome is the “Talk of the Town” piece on the same topic entitled “Fluid Ounces” by Lizzie Widdicombe (fantastic name.. don’t ever change it).  First she goes over the basic premise of the ban which will effect drinks over 16 ounces and will not include convenience stores such as 7-Eleven — or as we used to call it growing up, Sleven —  which is set to open 100 new locations in NYC.  The author then went on a little soda-drinking tour, stopping in locations known for serving massive sized beverages, often with free refills.  Many of these were chain stores and a lot were located in tourist areas and the Bronx, the borough with the highest obesity rates.  The article quickly, rightfully, and not-surprisingly ended up focusing on income levels.  One KFC employee said “Show me a picture with the mayor insidea KFC.  His meals probably cost a thousand dollars.”  Downtown, standing outside the Waverly Inn, one of the locations where sodas are poured from small glass bottles into highball glasses, was interviewee Fran Lebowitz.  Of the proposed ban she said

“These issues are class issues… Soda is the recreation — the summer house — of the poor.  This man (Bloomberg) has eleven houses.  That’s the self-indulgence of a billionaire.  He’s of the generation of Jewish men who feel that if they didn’t become a doctor they are a failure.  Now he’s trying to become a doctor.”

Although I don’t quite agree with the way Lebowitz put it, I side with her sentiment.  Is it good to put ounces upon ounces of sugar liquid into your body day after day?  No, certainly not.  It’s bad for the individual and it’s bad for our health system.  But for a wealthy white man to go around telling people not what they should and should not drink but what they can and cannot drink, because he prefers sparkling water over Coke*, is really uncalled for.  Obesity is not only because of soda.  It is because of a lifestyle.  It is tied to differing ideas of beauty.  It is about access and education, or lack thereof.  It is about exercise.  It is about a litany of things.  And you know what?  If people want 32 ounces of soda they will get it.  Simple as that.  And no tsk tsking from Bloomberg is going to change that.

So Bloomberg.  I really appreciate what you did with the parks, they look great.  The beach volleyball courts in Brooklyn?  Yes!  But if you could please stop doing things like increasing term limits for yourself and screwing with people’s personal choice, that’d be awesome.  Thanks.

*That was a baseless assumption but I’m going with it.

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Solamente en ingles

9 May

First and foremost, please forgive my inappropriately accented Spanish.  I have no idea how to make an accent mark in WordPress but, for those of you who care to know, there should be an accent over the “e” in “ingles.”  And now, on to the real purpose of this post.

Last night before bed I was perusing the New York Times on my phone when I came across this article about the mysterious death of a groom at Churchill Downs.  In the interest of full disclosure, I would just like to say that when I initially read the title and, in fact, the reason that I continued on to read the article at all was because I thought it referred to a bridegroom, not someone hired to care for horses.  Like most people, I am always interested in something tragic.  Not to say that the death of this man isn’t a tragedy, but there is something especially upsetting about the death of someone right before or right after marriage, or some other important life event.  It’s like, you have made a decision to do something big and important with the future in mind, and then bam.  Dead.  Anyway, as I was reading the article (I had committed to it, after all) I came across the following few paragraphs:

Officials said Mr. Pérez, a Guatemalan immigrant, was living in the stables at Churchill Downs at the time of his death. His son, Wilson Pérez, 19, identified his body. He had been licensed by the racing commission as a groom in 2008, Mr. Brown said.

Police officers worked to establish the facts of the case on Monday, hobbled in part by the fact that Mr. Pérez’s son does not speak English.

“It is sort of a barrier that you can’t get the information firsthand,” said Lt. Barry Wilkerson of the Louisville Metro Police Department, who spoke at a news conference on Monday.

Okay, people, we are talking about Spanish, here, right?  Not like, Malayalam or Welsh.  According to the US Census, as of 2010 16.3% of the overall population, and 3.1% of the population of Kentucky, identified themselves as being of “Hispanic or Latino origin.”  I know that not everyone who identifies as being of Hispanic or Latino origin speaks Spanish, but I also know there are plenty of people of other backgrounds that do speak Spanish.  Also, weren’t there all kinds of people there for the Kentucky Derby?  Maybe one of them speaks Spanish.   I don’t know, maybe having lived in New York for all these years has blinded me to the fact that there are some more linguistically homogenous areas of the country, but I can’t imagine how trying to get information out of a Spanish speaker would be especially “hobbling” to a murder investigation.  We’ve got plenty of Spanish-speaking police officers up here in NYC, maybe one of them would be willing to help.  It’d be a nice vacation from the rain.

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