There are a number of things I've meant to blog recently, but not gotten around to, partly because my plan to hire live-in help has not yet come to fruition, and partly because of the subject matter.

The one most in need of blogging is the spate of disturbing tales of political rape. I find that I bounce off of news stories about rape, especially systematic rape in far-away places, and I just don't want to think about them. Here is a brand new one from the BBC: Rape 'a weapon in Colombia war':

Women and girls are being increasingly caught up in Colombia's armed conflict, as rival groups rape, mutilate and kill them, Amnesty International says.

Then there is the coverage of the Pitcairn rape trails. Pitcairn is a small island near New Zealand where rape had apparently become a way of life. A large group trial is going on under New Zealand judges. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. And yet I keep thinking I really need to blog it. ZHow did this situation get so out of hand that an island with a tiny population needs a trial on this scale?

And then there is the large-scale investigation going on in Kenya. The BBC story that caught my eye is Body exhumed in Kenya rape probe:

The body of a teenage Kenyan girl, whose parents say she died after being raped by British soldiers, has been exhumed by forensic experts.

The parents of Mantoi Kaunda, who was 16, say she and her sister were attacked after collecting firewood.

The girls were at Archer's Post, in a remote central part of the country close to Mount Kenya.

The UK has ordered an investigation into allegations by hundreds of Samburu and Masai women that they were raped.

British Royal Military Police Special Investigations Branch and Kenyan police have been looking into 650 claims dating from the 1980s and 90s.

Again, how did this situation get so out of hand? Why do 650 claims have to accumulate? Why does a rape probe have to involve exhumations? Why wasn't this stopped? I don't have an answer for that because I don't want to look at the world that way.

Then there is Nicholas Kristof's NYT piece, Sentenced to be raped, the account of a Pakistani woman who was sentenced by local authorities to be raped for a supposed crime of her brother's, after which she was supposed to obligingly commit suicide. She chose a different path.

I bring this to your attention because I find it hard to keep it in mind. I think I need to get better at it.