I'm so mad I could spit over the Unborn Victims of Violence act Congress
has passed. It's not even the fetus-rights part that bothers me, except in so far
as how stupid do anti-abortion types think people are? This isn't meant as a First
Step toward yet another privacy invasion? Yeah, right. It's probably a good thing
fetuses don't have library records or they'd be looking at those too. Other than
that, though, that part's not the focus of my ire; I really have nothing against
massive punishments for the low-life who hurts a pregnant woman badly enough to
cause a miscarriage.
What has me spitting mad is the implication that
violence toward a pregnant woman -- toward any woman, in fact toward any one at
all -- is not a serious enough event on its own, so that we need a special law
because it's the effect on the fetus that really matters in all this. Nonpregnant
women? Yeah, go ahead and beat on them. They're not breeding so who cares? I would
have been much happier if they had passed the version that simply made attacking a
pregnant woman a greater crime; it is fairly heinous to attack someone who is most
vulnerable, in addition to the risk of ending another incipient life. Even better
might be if violent federal crimes against anyone, woman or man, were simply
treated seriously enough in the first place to make additional charges
irrelevant.
On a happier note, this morning was the
best row I've had in I don't know how long. It was cooler last night, so I slept
better, which probably didn't hurt. It was cool enough this morning to need light
fleece while getting ready to row, warm enough to take the fleece off as I stepped
into the boat. For the first time in a week, the water was calm. She-Hulk must be
missing Rudder because she decided to stay with me. I'm not sure why because she's
considerably faster but it worked out well as we took turns critiquing each
other's racing starts. She hasn't done a ton of them and they can be a little
unstable and scary, so I think she felt more secure with someone watching. She was
able to give me some feedback that really helped me smooth things out, which
translated nicely into speed through the water. Even outside the starts during
regular rowing, for some reason I was much faster today than I have been. I don't
know whether it was because I slept better, because I skipped weights yesterday,
because of the extra walking I've been doing at lunch, because of the flat water,
or a combination of everything. Whatever it was, it felt awfully good.