Aaaaaaaand We're Back

More later -- I need to spend at least today and likely tomorrow catching up with, oh, everything, especially sleep -- but GenCon was tremendous fun, and I got to spend (way too little) time with Howard Tayler and Lar DeSouza and Ryan Sohmer and Randy Milholland and Diana Harlan Stein and Rob Balder and Luke Ski and the lovely Sara Trice and Ken Sherlock and his daughter Erin and the ever-amazing Marc Gunn.  And I ran into Michael and Terry and CJ Biro and just a whole bunch of folks, and I met and was quite impressed with Mikey Mason and Dan the Bard (and his lovely wife Kerry), and didn't spend nearly enough time with the fabulous Damsels of Dorkington.

And I learned about some of the very coolest games and artwork I've ever seen.

And I got a bunch of deep-discount rulebooks and sourcebooks and a metric buttload of pretty dice and a whole bunch of cool web sites to share with you. I think doling them out over the week will be lots of fun, and GAMES GAMES GAMES!

How's your week looking?

Legitimate Rape

Jeez, get off the internet for a couple of days, and you miss all kinds of WUT I DON'T EVEN:

Rep. Todd Akin, a tea party candidate who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in the closely watched race, was asked in a local television interview about whether he supports access to abortion in the case of rape.

"If abortion could be considered in case of, say, a tubal pregnancy [which threatens the mother’s life], what about in the case of rape?" asked KTVI host Charles Jaco, in a clip that was disseminated by Talking Points Memo. "Should it be legal or not?"

"It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare,” Akin said, referring to conception following a rape. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child."

According to a 1996 study by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. The journal put the national rape-related pregnancy rate at 5% among victims age 12 to 45.

It's so insane and offensive and flat-out stupid that the Romney campaign has already rebuked it.

We keep coming back to this again and again and again: I have no idea how some people think. It's such an alien way to look at the world, such an utterly different set of priorities, that I'm stunned.

I'll see if I can make it easier for Mr. Akin. I'll likely be clumsy about it, but it has to be said.*

Rape is primarily an act of violence and control and selfishness taken to the extreme. Sex is not so much the point of the exercise as the medium by which control is established and violence and selfishness are satisfied. Rape is a violation of a person, not merely of their genitals.

There is no circumstance in which rape is "legitimate". And I feel there is truly something wrong about a society that values an embryo or fetus over the woman carrying it.

* The original post said, "this sort of thing should be said by a woman, of course, but I don't know if he'd listen to her, 'cause that's just how he rolls," and pocketnaomi pointed out in comments that, while I was trying to make it clear I didn't speak for all or even any women, it's as much the duty of men to speak out against this bullshit as it is the duty of women.

ETA: Akin's non-apology (he "misspoke"), and Romney seriously distances himself from Akin.

ETA2: A little clarification on my posting this.

ETA3: Sorry, but Akin is indeed not out of step with the Republican party on this.

Farewell, Phyllis Diller

Great sadness. Comedienne Phyllis Diller has passed away at the age of 95.

A force of nature with a cigarette holder and a mad cackling laugh, Ms. Diller was a mainstay of variety television, quite a good actress, and most of all outrageous. You know how Don Rickles mocks everybody in his vicinity? Diller mocked herself (and "her husband Fang") with the same energy and snark.

And, to a lot of us who grew up in the 60s, she was best known for being in Mad Monster Party.

For more than sixty years, Phyllis Diller made us laugh. Thank you, Ms. Diller, and rest well.