House of Eratosthenes

Toni Milton, 38, mistakenly dialled Neil O’Brien’s number on her mobile phone while she was making love to her ex-boyfriend, a court heard.

O’Brien, 41, said the sound of his girlfriend sleeping with another man caused him to flip out. He drove to her house and stamped on her face so hard he left a shoeprint, Leicester crown court heard.

He was jailed for 15 months after a judge said even the “unusual circumstances” of the incident would not save him from prison.
:
The court heard the couple had been together for six months, but the relationship had hit a rocky patch. When O’Brien went to stay with his parents in Exhall, Coventry, Miss Milton invited an ex-boyfriend to her home in Barwell, Leicestershire.

Mr. O’Brien has prior convictions for violence and “grievous bodily harm.”

The story itself is less interesting than some of the comments on FARK. There arises, in particular, a certain mindset of the variety of…how shall I say it…

“Okay look, what she did is wrong and I am not trying to justify it, don’t you dare try to insinuate that I am, but he really, really, really should not have done that.”

These people are confused about the meaning of “should not have.” They’re trying to communicate a thought that the English language will not afford them the means to communicate — because if you were to slide a questionnaire under their nose and it said “Question 1 — she should not have done that, true or false” they’d pick True. And don’t you dare insinuate that they wouldn’t.

So the ideas that find words upon which to hang, assert the a) She should not have done what she did and b) he should not have done what he did. The logical conclusion to draw from this is that these were equivalent transgressions.

This, obviously, is a complete opposite of what these “He should not have done that” types are trying to say. Clearly, there are two tiers of “should not have” at work here. They are suffering from language-inspired cognitive dissonance.

And I further infer that these people are not living in a land of reality, because their more excoriating level of “should not have” is antithetical to common sense cause-and-effect. If I hold a bowling ball chest high and let go of it, it should crash to the ground — and if I say it “should not have” I’m going to be a certain brand of dimwit. I think all rational persons would agree to that. Similarly, if a woman has a boyfriend with a history of assault convictions, has some kind of a tiff with him, separates, sexes up some other ex-dude and then calls up the violent supposedly-current dude on her cell phone in the middle of carnal acrobatics…it’s lunacy to promote some expectation that nothing will happen.

Cunning Plan In other words, they’re imposing an expectation of civilized behavior, upon someone who has no history of showing it. In so doing, they are, in fact, excusing her and if they don’t realize this, it really doesn’t matter. Once the boyfriend shows a proclivity for thuggish behavior, he ceases to be civilized. Once he ceases to be civilized, he becomes essentially a force of nature. A wild bear, or a puddle of gasoline. To lapse into addle-minded automaton condemnations of his predictable behavior, is to pronounce she should have an ability to hold a match to that puddle of gasoline without consequence.

Oh, and the bit about dropping the phone and having it land on redial — sorry, not buying it. You can parade all the cell phone models past my nose you care to, and intone to me with righteous indignation “yeah, you drop this thing it hits redial all the time!” all you want.

She was gettin’ boned, and she wanted her stud to know all about it. She pulled a Nicole Simpson. Furthermore, there’s no reason whatsoever to doubt that she picked the thuggish stud in the first place, because he was a thug. Turned on by the “bad boy.” This is why the “he should not have done it” stuff turns me off. If I was a gambling man, I’d bet some serious money he got picked in the first place because “should not” doesn’t apply to his kind. It doesn’t even begin.

She harnessed a dangerous, overly-masculine energy, and sought to control it and toy with it for her amusement. It’s very common. Kind of a female version of asking your brother bubba to hold your beer, and yelling “watch this!” What happens next is seldom good. At that point, you’re wrestling not with a civilized consciousness quite so much as with forces of physics and nature. And it’s by choice.

Having said that — yeah. Fifteen months sounds about right. No big miscarriage of justice here, on either side. She got a big surprise that comes from natural-consequence cause-and-effect, kind of like the kid who sees a bear cub in an open field and adopts it as a pet. Or the guy who takes a whiz on an electric fence. He inflicted assault and got a jail term. Although I think three years would have been a little bit closer to the mark. But, whatever.

Funny thing about that picture. That was me, at 4 years old on our patio in Arleta. Yup. I did it. It hurt.

Never did it again. 🙂
- philmon | 06/11/2008 @ 12:00
I am again guilty of rambling. The Duke covered this topic as completely as anyone would need or want…

Life’s tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid.
- mkfreeberg | 06/11/2008 @ 12:03

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Attention Ladies: During Sex, Do NOT Call Your BoyfriendWednesday, June 11th, 2008

Attention Ladies: During Sex, Do NOT Call Your Boyfriend
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008