Giving thanks

I'll likely be taking a short break from this blogging business to enjoy a proper Thanksgiving holiday (and to catch up on my NaNoWriMo attempt), so I just wanted to get one last post in before the relaxing begins.

First off, I hope everyone has a happy, safe, and belly-filling Thanksgiving. Don't let the retailers make you forget about this holiday in order to get you prematurely psyched up about giving them all your money for Christmas. And hey, don't forget to give a little back:

Thanksgiving donations were hard to come by this year, according to community organizers.Marlene Storms organizes the Goodman Atwood Community Center's annual Thanksgiving food basket campaign.Every year for more than 20 years, the center has given boxes full of all the Thanksgiving trimmings to 1,000 families across Dane County.But this year the center came close to not having enough to hand out.

Those of us who can afford to put a meal on the table, especially with any kind of regularity, should be counting our blessings. We should also be doing what we can to spread the wealth, and giving to food banks and other such programs is a good way to do that.

In a bit of good news (and something else to be thankful for), an amendment added to the recently passed city operating budget added much-needed funding for the Rape Crisis Center:

Per Brenda Konkel's account, the amendment:

Provide(s) additional funding to the Rape Crisis Center for compensation for the training of new police officers in Sexual Assault counseling tactics, along with the continued knowledge provided to the force already in service. Funds would also be used to maintain or improve current levels of education, sexual violence prevention advocacy, and emergency counseling services for college-aged students in the City of Madison.

The RCC does a lot of really good, extremely important work. Until we can stop rape and sexual assault outright (sadly, I'm not holding my breath), we'll need organizations like RCC to be there to help educate and support the population. Especially since shit like this still goes down:

A Dane County man was found guilty Friday of abducting and raping two female University of Wisconsin students in late 2006.

...

Victims told Madison police Pope abducted them at knifepoint and threatened to kill them if they turned to look at his face. He then took the victims to his car, bound their hands and drove them to his Fitchburg apartment and assaulted them. He then returned the victims to the area where he originally abducted them.

Apparently this worthless piece of crap claimed he had "no memory" of the events, blaming it on having been high on ecstasy on the time. I'm glad it looks as though the court isn't having any of that nonsense and will hopefully put him away for life. Look, I know a lot of drugs are bad and make people do stupid shit, but something this heinous is never the result of drugs alone. The person responsible has to be pretty messed up in the first place. And besides, ecstasy makes people touchy-feely, but not violent and horrible.

I'm thankful they at least caught the prick, and will keep him from ever committing those crimes again.

Now, time to cool down, eat your entree of choice (I'm a dirty vegetarian, so no turkey for me), spend time with people you care about, and give thanks for those things in life that ain't so bad.

P.S. Holy cow, this blog received 92 hits yesterday--my highest single-day hit count ever. Many thanks for that!