Hey Stranger!

Yes, it's been a while.

What's up with that? For one, work has been really busy. Two, I've gotten into MotoVlogging, and you can see my handiwork here:

Spacep0d MotoVlog

MotoVlogging, as the name implies, is Video-Blogging on a Motorcycle. It's a great thing, and is a different way to voice one's opinions in a totally different format, and with some interesting video. Of course, writing doesn't need video, but it's a different way to consume thoughts. It's not that I am replacing blogging with vlogging, just that it's been new for me and working out the bugs and kinks has taken some of my free time I'd normally spend blogging.

In other news, the election has hotted-up and on the Republican side, has dumbed-down. A lot. The stupid things that Republicans say about rape and their god(s) is mind-blowing. Mourdock just recently said, 

'"And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."- Richard Mourdock , U.S. Senate candidate from IndianaHoly shit. First, this means that god, the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of worlds, approves, endorses and PLANS rape. This is the only conclusion, because a god which controls ALL THINGS simply cannot escape blame for anything, including rape.

Second, why the Hell would someone WORSHIP a god who goes around making women through rape? If god could stop it and doesn't, he's not good. If he can't stop it, he's not much of a god, is he?

Richard Mourdock is a fucking idiot. Not only that, he's too stupid to realize that saying this stuff in public is even more idiotic. At least Romney has the sense to pretend to be moderate, which makes him even more vile in a sense.

I've watched the debates (all of them) and the pundits, and voting for Romney would be unconscionable. Not only is he a flip-flopper, he's wrong on just about every social-issue that matters, especially with respect to marriage-equality and reproductive rights. Marriage-equality isn't even just a mere social-issue but a matter of basic human rights. If government is going to continue to recognize sexual relationships between consenting adults, they need to recognize ALL consenting adults and their marriages equally. Otherwise, they need to get out of the marriage business ASAP (an option I am also happy with).

As you know, I reject marriage for myself. I think it's a bad idea for me (and anyone), but I support the rights of others to live their conscience and get married if government recognizes any marriages.

My girlfriend and I are still fighting the good fight with respect to trying to get me (a freelancer) covered under her company health-insurance group-plan, with little success as yet—and we've been trying since 2004 (with years where I did have my own coverage). Unfortunately, her company (CBS) doesn't see fit to cover opposite-sex domestic partners because I suppose they are trying to save a tiny amount of money. It's not like there are hordes of unmarried iconoclasts in opposite-sex partnerships waiting to jump on the +1 bandwagon, but there are at least 4-5 couples we know about *personally* at that company would would benefit if CBS could stop discriminating.

See, gay couples have a mandate which covers them. Companies have to provide their partners with +1 coverage. Married people of course get favoritism because marriage is still a preferred legal status, discriminatory as that is. Unmarried opposite-sex couples are basically punished for not being married and they don't have the protections that unmarried gay-couples have. If the system were logical, both unmarried couples and married couples would be able to add any +1 to their employer-based healthplan, whether that was a sister, mother, uncle, friend, etc. Why does it matter that we're involved in a sexual relationship? Talk about big government.

An even more logical system is one where we can get our OWN insurance, without relying on employers and their peculiar ideologies, spouses in government-recognized marriages or the awful, stockholder-controlled, profit-driven private-insurance sector.

What I want is access to fair, reasonably-priced, individual healthcare coverage, and that is why I am voting to uphold the ACA and to allow our president to continue his landmark progress with healthcare reform. That is why I am voting Obama on November 6th.

It's good to be back. Check out my vlog if you like and please, VOTE!!

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Rape: A Crime of Violence?

There are some who say that 'rape' is a crime of violence and not sex. Duh. All violent crimes are crimes of violence, but rape is about sex with violence as a means.

If rape didn't require some kind of violence or threat of violence, women (and some men) the world over would simply say 'no thank you, I would prefer to avoid non-consenting sex' and the rapist would have no recourse....aside from violence, that is.

See, violence is the *means* by which someone gets what they want while the other person is resisting or considering it. This is how people make others do what they want right then and there, and it works in law-enforcement too. Don't wanna be arrested? They'll forcibly cuff and carry you to jail. Is it an arrest of violence, or a means to expediently get a perp to jail? Clearly, the latter.

Obviously, I am going to refuse to let some uncouth stranger just have sex with me coz he/she feels like it...so naturally the rapist puts two and two together, predicts this outcome, and shows up prepared, or opportunistically chooses a weak party. If rape were simply about the violence, the rapist wouldn't need to bother adding sex to the equation and would just be really violent.

If you refuse to give up your money to a robber, there's a threat of violence or worse. If you refuse to hand over your car in a car-jacking, there's the fear of getting shot and likewise, some rapes are probably non-violent (aside from the rape itself) simply because the perp has a weapon and is threatening the life of the unfortunate victim.

Rape is not *just* about violence. Rape is a violent means some criminals choose to pursue dangerous, illegal and unwanted sex.

I feel for the victims of rape, I really do, but let's be honest about this crime and not pretend it's something it isn't, and it can't be much consolation to tell someone a 'rape' is about violence and not about sex, when clearly the sex was the harrowing part of the ordeal, especially in rapes where there was only a *threat* of violence (which most of us would take seriously).

This is just another repeated myth I had to address. I am not really sure why people repeat this notion. It doesn't fix anything and I am sure provides no real comfort to anyone who has been raped. No matter how some might spin it, rape by definition includes sex....whether it's 'only about violence' or not.


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