Yet another "stellar" example of how women aren't really from Venus, or
Men from Mars, because we're all products of our socialization. Poooooor
Lisa. How are we all going to cover for her?
Man. All of the sympathetic spin on this story is enough to make you
puke, no matter how many examples of it we have to see played out: Female
does wrong. A Man is involved.
Humanize her. Humanize her. Humanize her.
Of course, it's not simply the fact that it was a Man who she snapped over
that has to be explained away and vindicated. It's a double-whammy: She
represents a woman in a super field, where the "women are breaking
through" ...the Ozone "Ceiling", this time, I guess.
As so often happens, the earliest ones in show up the shortcomings of
fast-tracking in the women, instead of making them earn it with some
special hazing. Until a field is fine-tuned enough to force the Men
around the women to compensate for these slackers (and to condition
themselves to be invisible about it) embarrassing incidents occur.
Thereafter, the all-important *image* of the "female professional" for
that field is temporarily in danger. The image that that they plan to
rely on well into eternity ...once they break through and turn it into an
entitlement.
A couple months ago, Sunita Williams fucked up the solar panels on the
space station so that the Men had to go out and fix them. Meanwhile,
everyone's tacitly blaming the solar panels, instead of the asshole at the
controls.
"Oh, they must've been old."
"Roger Charlie." *Thumbs up*
"Let's talk shop like the guys."
Now, it's a variation on the "supermom" theme. "Lisa Nowak is a human
being, like you and me." Bullshit. It's because she's a WOMAN. No other
reason.
She drives to the airport wearing diapers? Hello! For her sake, that had
better be an astronaut thing in use with spacesuits and other times in
space when you're incommoded for hours. Otherwise, how the hell did they
miss THAT in her psyche profile?
Good person? She's married with kids but brings some love mails between
her and another Man to prove her infidelity. Another character slam.
Then, of course, there's all of that minor weaponry she brought with her,
"simply" to intimidate.
"Oh, boo! hoo! Poor Lisa!" "Us female reporters and our token males had
better start dragging out her high school pictures and every other
"accomplishment" that AA ever gave to her in order to obfuscate what she
did.
Another point is that all of this is only because she assaulted another
female. A lot may be on the line for female astronauts at the moment, but
she can't be allowed to get away with assaulting another female - albeit,
a civilian - or that's counter-productive to "women's gains".
Had she assaulted a male astronaut for some reason, in virtually the same
exact way, she'd be getting standing ovations and guest starring on
Saturday Night Live. Instead, she plays out something out of Fatal
Attraction and so she's up on some real charges. Fuck that shit.
- - -
One of millions of Angry Men:
Turin
I have such sites to show you...
------------------------
http://members.fortunecity.com/turinturambar/
http://groups.google.com/group/Men_First/ ?
------------------------
"He who changeth, altereth, misconstrueth, argueth with, deleteth, or
maketh a lie about these words or causeth them to not be known shall burn
in hell forever and ever...."
-----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070206/ap_on_re_us/astronaut_arrested
Astronaut charged with attempted murder
By MIKE SCHNEIDER,
Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 55 minutes ago
ORLANDO, Fla. - She was the Robochick. He was Billy-O. According to
police, her obsession with him led her to drive 900 miles from Houston to
Orlando, bringing with her a trenchcoat and wig, armed with a BB gun and
pepper spray, and wearing a diaper to avoid bathroom breaks on the arduous
drive.
Once in Florida, Lisa "Robochick" Nowak apparently confronted the woman
she believed was her rival for the affections of William "Billy-O"
Oefelein. And this tawdry love triangle has one more twist - it involves
two astronauts.
Nowak, 43, a married mother of three who flew on a space shuttle in July,
was charged with attempted murder, accused of hatching an extraordinary
plot to kidnap Colleen Shipman, who she believed was romantically involved
with Oefelein, a space shuttle pilot.
Specifically, police said Nowak confronted Shipman, who was in her car at
the Orlando airport, and sprayed something at her, possibly pepper spray.
At first the astronaut was charged with attempted kidnapping and other
counts, and a judge had permitted her release on bail. Then, in a surprise
move, prosecutors upped the charge to attempted murder, basing it on the
weapons and other items they said they had found with Nowak or in her car:
a pepper spray package, an unused BB-gun cartridge, a new steel mallet,
knife, rubber tubing and large garbage bags.
Nowak's lawyer, Donald Lykkebak, disputed that upgraded charge, which
allowed police to keep the astronaut in jail. "In the imaginations of the
police officers, they extend these facts out into areas where the facts
can't be supported," said Lykkebak.
As the hearings on charges and bail played out on TV, the astonishing
details about the case were repeatedly broadcast and quickly made the
rounds of office e-mails and Internet blogs.
The details of the relationships of all three were unclear. Nowak and
Oefelein, who both live in the Houston area, had trained together as
astronauts, but never flew into space together. Shipman, 30, works at
Patrick Air Force Base near
Kennedy Space Center.
Earlier, Nowak was quoted by police as saying she and Oefelein had
something "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic
relationship."
Neither Oefelein nor Shipman could be reached for comment Tuesday, nor
could Nowak's husband be found.
But police found a letter in Nowak's car that "indicated how much Mrs.
Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein," the arrest affidavit said. And Nowak had copies
of e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein.
Police said Nowak, believing Shipman was romantically involved with
Oefelein, had driven 900 miles from Houston - wearing diapers in the car
so she would not have to make bathroom stops - to confront Shipman as she
arrived in Orlando on a flight from Houston.
There, police said, Nowak donned a wig and trench coat, boarded an airport
shuttle bus with Shipman and followed her to her car. Then, crying, Nowak
sprayed a chemical into the car.
Shipman drove to a parking lot booth and sought help.
Inside Nowak's car, which was parked at a nearby motel, authorities copies
of e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein, along with the BB-gun cartridge
and other items.
A police affidavit made public Tuesday noted Nowak had "urinated in a
diaper so that she did not need to stop," and "stealthily followed the
victim while in disguise and possessed multiple deadly weapons."
The affidavit said the circumstances of the case "create a well-founded
fear" and gave investigators "probable cause to believe that Mrs. Nowak
intended to murder Ms. Shipman."
The judge initially had set bail at $15,500 and ordered Nowak to stay away
from Shipman and wear an electronic monitoring device upon returning to
her home in Houston.
"I guess they didn't like the ruling in the court this morning, did they?"
Lykkebak said.
He said that Nowak only wanted to talk to Shipman. Asked about the
weapons, he said, "You can sit and speculate all day."
Saying he was surprised by the case,
NASA spokesman John Ira Petty at Johnson Space Center in Houston said he
was concerned about the people involved and their families. But, he added,
"We try not to concern ourselves with our employees' personal lives."
A vague profile began to emerge of Nowak, who was graduated from high
school in Maryland in 1981 and the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985. She has won
various Navy service awards.
In a September interview with Ladies' Home Journal, Nowak said her
husband, Richard, "works in Mission Control, so he's part of the whole
space business, too. And supportive also."
On Tuesday, a Houston neighbor, Bryan Lam, told The Associated Press that
in November he heard the sounds of dishes being thrown inside the house
and the police came.
"I've seen them arguing before," he said.
Nowak, in a NASA interview last year, before her mission aboard Discovery,
as well as in an interview with ABC News, spoke about the strain her
career placed on her family. She has twin 5-year-old girls and a son who
is 14 or 15.
"It's a sacrifice for our own personal time and our families and the
people around us," she said in the NASA interview. "But I do think it's
worth it because if you don't explore and take risks and go do all these
things they everything will stay the same."
In an in-flight news conference aboard Discovery last summer, she talked
about waiting nearly 10 years for her first space flight. "It's been a
long wait, but it's worth the wait," she said.
NASA astronauts often have nicknames, at least among their crewmates and
Mission Control. Aboard Discovery last July, Nowak and crewmate Stephanie
Wilson were known as "the Robochicks" because they operated the shuttle's
robotic arm that checked the spacecraft for damage.
While on the international space station, Nowak's crewmates sometimes had
to duck to avoid her ponytail, which floated out during weightlessness.
In court early Tuesday, looking downcast, Nowak spoke only to respond,
"Yes," when asked whether she understood the conditions of her release.
A smiling, put-together woman in her NASA photos, her police mug shot
showed a fatigued, haggard face with scraggly hair, seemingly destined to
become the object of public ridicule. On Tuesday morning, it was shown on
MSNBC's "Imus in the Morning" next to the oft-posted mug shot of actor
Nick Nolte after his DUI arrest.
Oefelein, a 41-year-old Navy commander nicknamed "Billy-O" by his
comrades, trained with Nowak but never flew with her. He piloted a
Discovery mission in December to the space station where astronauts
rewired the outpost, installed a new $11 million section and dropped off a
new American crew member.
Oefelein is unmarried but has two children. He began his aviation career
as a teenager, flying floatplanes in Alaska.
As a child, he and his brother spent hours flying model plans with their
father and attending air shows. And old photo taken of him at age 8 shows
him standing next to a NASA jet.
"I love my time flying," he told The Associated Press last year before his
Discovery mission in December. "This is another fortunate opportunity I've
been blessed with."
The Orlando Sentinel reported Shipman, 30, is an engineer assigned to the
45th Launch Support Squadron at Patrick air base, and a Federal Aviation
Administration pilot directory indicates she is certified as a student
pilot.
Nowak spent much of the day in glass-fronted cell of about 80 square feet,
by herself and under constant observation, said Allen Moore, a spokesman
for the Orange County jail.
Chief astronaut Steve Lindsey, who flew with Nowak to the space station
last July aboard Discovery, and fellow astronaut Chris Ferguson attended
the hearing.
"Our primary concern is her health and well-being and that she get through
this," Lindsey told reporters afterward. "Her status (with the astronaut
corps) has not changed."
Ferguson said he was "perplexed" by Nowak's alleged actions.
An expert familiar with the psychological screening process NASA uses for
its astronauts said she could not explain Nowak's behavior and stressed
the interview process "only looks at the past" and can't predict future
behavior.
At least one retired astronaut, Jerry Linenger, said the space agency
should re-examine its psychological screening process. With NASA talking
about going to Mars, a 2 1/2-year trip, it would be dangerous for someone
to "snap like this" during the mission, he said.
"An astronaut is probably the most studied human being by the time you go
through your testing, your training," Linenger said. "I think there's
still a lot of unknowns out there."
However, Dr. Patricia Santy, a psychiatrist in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a
former NASA flight surgeon who once helped screen astronauts, said,
"People change.
"They can develop psychological problems at any stage of the way. Perhaps
that's part of it. Perhaps it's just, love triangles occur in offices that
you and I work in all the time."
Santy stressed she did not know the details of Nowak's evaluation. But
speaking generally, she said that while astronauts are extraordinary
people, "they put their flight boots on one foot at a time, after all.
They have marital problems, they have problems with their kids, they have
problems at work."
___
AP National Writer Erin McClam reported from New York for this story. AP
writers Malcolm Ritter in New York, Seth Borenstein in Washington, Rasha
Madkour in Houston, Kelli Kennedy in Miami and Jim Ellis in Cape Canaveral
contributed to this report.
