Since our post “The Strange Social Media Witch Hunt For Michael Calamari” went live yesterday, there’s a bunch of quick updates to be made:

· The first (and easily most absurd) is that late in the afternoon yesterday, Philebrity was offered an “exclusive interview” with Calamari. Our immediate response: “Dear God no.”

· … and then referred him instead to Tara Murtha, who’s got a piece coming out about the whole mess at some point in Philadelphia Weekly. Not to prematurely damn it with faint praise, but it will probably be the most only anticipated PW article in over a decade. We’re looking forward to checking it out.

· Meanwhile, here’s Liz Spikol‘s take on the matter on the PhillyMag blog.

· And finally — and most importantly — we’ve learned that one of the two young women involved has enlisted the services of an attorney and will be pressing charges. Somewhere in discussing this whole situation, it may have been lost in the shuffle that violence against women is a very serious matter indeed, and we apologize if our initial post came off as flippant or dismissive of that in any respect. What we were trying to speak of (albeit perhaps a little ham-fistedly) wasn’t the actions of anyone involved in the altercation, but rather the life it took on once the narrative got away from them. To that end, a healthy debate then ensued in the post’s comments (BCO attendees notwithstanding) and as part of that, we’d like to link to the following online resources presented by commenter b1ff you can check out if you’re a woman and have suffered at the hands of a man:

If you’re a woman who’s been raped, assaulted, stalked, or harassed and you need help, contact the Women’s Law Project: http://www.womenslawproject.org/

Why law enforcement isn’t a reliable ally in preventing violence against women: http://whereisyourline.org/2011/05/why-we-dont-trust-you-nypd/

What men need to do about violence against women: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/QA-with-a-Leading-Male-Voice-Against-Sexual-Violence.html

Privilege, and how it helps dudes not care about ladies, and what to do about that: http://graceyrself.tumblr.com/post/6732670499/acknowledge-your-privilege

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 11:14 am.