It’s an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread…

So, this is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob have been looking at since our last This & That post.

• Feministing‘s Daniel Tosh “jokes” that woman in audience should be raped at stand-up show:

So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didn’t appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”

I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”

The woman and her friend left immediately after the remark, obviously terrified. This post pretty much immediately went viral, leading to a trending Twitter campaign of outrage against Tosh. His response? …

The twitter comments are at the article link. The follow-up Feministing article by Katie Halper is entitled Daniel Tosh was heckled & that’s the real crime or how not to write a real headline.

• Blurt‘s blog Seven Day‘s At Brock Fundraiser, Maine Gov. Paul LePage Doubles Down on “Gestapo” Comment (AUDIO):

Following a fundraiser for Vermont Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock Thursday morning, Maine Gov. Paul LePage repeated and elaborated on controversial comments he made over the weekend equating the Internal Revenue Service with the Gestapo.

Standing by Brock's side at the Sheraton in South Burlington, the Maine governor said, "What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad —

LePage then said, “They’re headed in that direction.”

Asked if he had a sense of what the Gestapo did during the second world war, LePage said, “Yeah, they killed a lot of people.” Asked whether the IRS “was headed in the direction of killing a lot of people,” LePage answered: “Yeah.”

• The Advocate‘s Toronto Mourns Suicide of Transgender Leader:

Toronto residents are grieving the loss of transgender activist Kyle Scanlon, who the Torontoist called “a valued leader, gifted mentor, and much-loved friend” after Scanlon took his own life July 3. Scanlon was the education, training, and research coordinator at the 519 Church Street Community Centre, which serves as a hub of LGBTQ and two-spirit community life in Toronto’s diverse Church and Wellesley Village.

According to the Torontoist, Scanlan had worked with 519 and Sherbourne Health Centre to “develop programs to address the needs of Toronto’s trans community, and gave generously of his time, energy, and expertise in assisting trans people with issues of employment, housing, sexual health, and acceptance within the larger community.”

Tributes have been showing up in blogs and area media as news of Scanlan’s death circulated this week, including one from Toronto’s Trans PULSE project (which Scanlan helped found) that described the young man as “a trans activist, researcher, front-line community worker and leader who worked tirelessly and selflessly for social justice. The wisdom from his life experiences helped to shape the Trans PULSE project from the very beginning. Kyle was on many occasions, our voice of reason; when things got difficult, he was always there to remind us why we were collectively there.”

Scanlan was, according to TransPULSE, a member of the AIDS Bureau, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Gay/Bi/Queer/Trans Men’s Working Group, and was a co-investigator on their new study focused on the sexual health needs of trans men who have sex with men and he previously worked with the FTM Safer Shelter Project and the Youth Migration Project…

More at the article.

• New York Times‘ Abuse Inquiry Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State:

The most senior officials at Penn State University failed for more than a decade to take any steps to protect the children victimized by Jerry Sandusky, the longtime lieutenant to head football coach Joe Paterno, according to an independent investigation of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the university last fall.

“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims,” said Louis J. Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who oversaw the investigation. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

Freeh’s investigation — which took seven months and involved more than 400 interviews and the review of more than 3.5 million documents — accuses Paterno, the university’s former president and others of deliberately hiding facts about Sandusky’s sexually predatory behavior over the years.

“The facts are the facts,” Freeh said of Paterno. “He was an integral part of the act to conceal.”

One new and central finding of the Freeh investigation is that Paterno, who died in January, knew as far back as 1998 that there were concerns Sandusky might be behaving inappropriately with children. It was then that the campus police investigated a claim by a mother that her son had been molested by Sandusky in a shower at Penn State.

• Our Wiener Story Of The Day: Huffington Post‘s Ketchup On Hot Dogs: Okay Or Not Okay?:

There’s a war raging in our country right now, and the source of this conflict is ketchup. More specifically, the dispute concerns whether or not ketchup belongs on hot dogs. There are those who enjoy hot dogs but would never, ever, dare to “taint” them with ketchup. (Most of these people come from the Chicago area.) But then other hot-dog consumers feel that a little ketchup on top, or even a lot, tastes great on a dog.

We were not aware of how passionatly people felt about the ketchup-on-a-hot-dog issue until we recently published a video and a blog post that dealt more or less with this subject. We were inundated with comments vehemently defending both sides.

To better look at the dispute, we’ve gathered the most interesting arguments. Check out the slideshow below to read the comments — they are illuminating to say the least. (We were told that in some states, restaurants will kick you out if you ask for ketchup to top your hot dog. You might want to start topping your hot dog with caution.)

There’s a poll that comes with the article that if you’re interested in wieners, you should participate in.

And as always, “The weenie tempts you!”

So anywho…It’s an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?

And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because…it’s an open thread! Woo-hoo!