(Holy crap, I've become a person that blabs on about their kid! Wow. Huh. Cool.)

So cool. Sounds like you handled it pretty well, at least to this non-parent.

Since we're going up to 11 today:

11 Women Warriors of World War II

#1:

Born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, Nancy Wake was a journalist in New York and London and then married a wealthy Frenchman and was living in Marseille when Germany invaded. Wake immediately went to work for the French resistance, hiding and smuggling men out of France and ferrying contraband supplies and falsified documents. She was once captured and interrogated for days, but gave no secrets away. With the Nazis in hot pursuit, Wake managed to escape to Britain in 1943, and joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British intelligence agency. After training with weapons and parachutes, she was airdropped back into France -as an official spy and warrior. Wake had no trouble shooting Nazis or blowing up buildings with the French guerrilla fighters known as maquis in the service of the resistance. She once killed an SS sentry with her bare hands. After the war, Nancy Wake was awarded the George Medal from the British, the Medal of Freedom from the U.S., and the Médaille de la Résistance and three Croix de Guerre from France, among other honors.

ETA: Then there's the Russian sniper chick, "with 309 confirmed kills, including 36 enemy snipers."

Whoever is filming this vigil for the live stream can't see the speakers at all, so is filming the crowd, and every so often switching to filming the moon for a little while. It is a very pretty moon tonight, but that seems kind of pointless. And the audio is pretty bad, so that I can barely hear the speakers. I think I'll switch back to just getting the highlights from the newspaper's twitter.

And now the camera person is completely walking away from the crowd. This feed, by the way, is from the local ABC affiliate.

I'm trying, smonster. It's still pretty newish territory for me, but we rub along real well. I set clear boundaries, always explain, give lots of love and physical affection. I'm pretty strict about things like manners and lying, but I am also a big doof who likes water guns and plastic swords fights.

Hil, I'm pleased to hear there's a large presence at the vigil.

Re: crises -- yeah, a responder has to be CALM in an emergency. Freaking out just sets others off, and can escalate stuff. Plus, it wastes time that can be essential. I can overreact to small, niggly stuff sometimes, but I am pretty damned clearheaded in a crisis. I like that about me, but it's something I've learned.

That said, WTR to a situation like the Penn case, my crisis response, had I been the witness, would not have been calm at all, I'm afraid; it would have been quite visceral. Perhaps in more ways than one.

Individuals are supposed to do a lot better.

Yes, but I don't see any evidence those guys were acting like individuals, even when they were alone in the room.

Wow, tommyrot, that was a cool list! The only one I knew about was the first woman.

What ita ! said. It's the dark side of deep loyalty.

ita,

my only point in bringing that up is that your example probably isn't the right one for the Penn State situation. From my understanding, that line of research refers to why people in crowds (like bystanders when someone falls ill at a mall or something) often watch and wait for another to take action - although even this research doesn't show that it happens all the time. The converse isn't necessarily true.

In the PSU situation, a different set of social pressures are at work. Over-identification with institution would be where I'd begin.

Everyday Food -- it's got great ideas for fast/easy stuff.

I always wind up buying this in the checkout line. I should probably just bite the bullet and subscribe.