Two mobile phone applications that supposedly employ innovative uses of text, email and social media, as well as offer users quick and easy access to emergency assistance and dating violence and abuse resources, have won the "Apps Against Abuse Technology Challenge" -- a national competition launched in July 2011 by Vice President Joe Biden and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The "Circle of 6" and "On Watch" apps will be available for free public download beginning in early 2012.
"These winning applications will help young Americans become more empowered to prevent dating violence and sexual assault," said Secretary Sebelius. "Whether quickly checking in with your friends or sending critical information to your support networks, these innovative tools have the potential to protect and save lives."
Fires, muggings, car accidents, and robberies don't merit their own apps, but sexual assault does? Really?
It's not enough that smart phones give users the capability to contact police for any emergency with the press of a button or a verbal command. It's not enough that the Internet is a treasure trove of resources for young women in the event they are raped. Nope. A presidential administration desperate to hold onto, and to mobilize, its single female base is giving us apps that almost certainly will never be utilized by a single sexual assault victim. It is doing this to underscore both how awful the rape epidemic supposedly is and to showcase what it is doing about it.
It's The Music Man all over again, and only Professor Harold Hill can get River City out of the terrible trouble it is in -- terrible trouble that Professor Harold Hill manufactured out of whole cloth.
It is not difficult to predict what will happen with these apps. In a very short time, perhaps a year, they will be forgotten -- added to the massive pile of useless efforts, which we've written about many times, to end the so-called rape "epidemic." And we will still be hearing from the same folks who stand to gain from rape fear that rape is still rampant, and that underreporting is worse than ever.
How about this: let's remind our kids how to place an emergency call with their smart phones in case they are in trouble for any reason, and let's cut out the politicized, gender-divisive, Chicken Little, fear-mongering that makes a mockery of rape and that drives our false rape culture.
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”Fires, muggings, car accidents, and robberies don't merit their own apps, but, sexual assault does?”
The reality is that these app’s will be just as useful in the event of some other crime or accident. In fact, especially in the case of accidents, they’re actually bound to be far more useful.
From what I can tell (reading about the “Circle of 6” app) having a simple way to alert close friends that you are in trouble, and sending your GPS co-ordinates to some close friends isn’t going to be particularly effective in preventing actual crimes (especially violent kidnap-rapes), it’s just going to let your friends know where to find you (or, your body, as the case may be).
What I found quite odd, given what is being claimed of the app, is that it does not provide a way to notify law enforcement (unless one has the personal phone number of a police officer), nor to send ones location information to them.
There are 3 situations where SMS notifications are sent to your circle of 6, and one emergency where the Love is Not Abuse hotline is called automatically.
1. Car icon: Come and get me. SMS message reads, "Come and get me. I need help getting home safely. My GPS coordinates are..."
2. Phone icon: Call me. SMS message reads, "Call and pretend you need me. I need an interruption."
3. Chat icon: I need some advice. SMS message reads, "I'm looking for information, just letting you know."
These might be useful in getting someone out of a “bad date” (which would necessarily mean that there was even a risk of unwanted sex), but not is stopping a crime from happening.
It’s really just another case of high-sounding fluff, designed to give the impression that something is being done about a (perceived) problem.
Oh, baby, baby, baby, no!
A California woman says she robbed teen pop star Justin Bieber of his virginity and produced a love child from the groupie hook-up.
Mariah Yeater, 20, slapped the pint-sized hitmaker with a paternity suit in San Diego, demanding that he take a DNA test.
Yeater said she had sex with Bieber, now 17, after meeting him backstage at a Los Angeles concert last year, RadarOnline reported. Yeater was 19 when she allegedly hooked up with Bieber, who would have been 16 then.
Bieber -- known for his hit “Baby’’ -- played at Staples Center in LA on Oct. 25, 2010, which would fit the timeline of the 3-month-old baby boy’s birth
“Justin Bieber suggested that I go with him to a private place where we could be alone,” Yeater says in the suit. “I agreed to go with him, and on the walk to a private area, he told me he wanted to make love to me and this was going to be his first time.”
For a beginner, Bieber was remarkably aggressive, she said.
“After walking away from the other people backstage, Justin Bieber found a place where we could be alone -- a bathroom,” she said, adding he refused to use a condom.
Bieber’s rep Matthew Hiltzik fired back, “It’s sad that someone would fabricate malicious, defamatory, and demonstrably false claims.”
The lawsuit could put Yeater in a tough spot -- opening her up to a potential statutory-rape probe. California’s age of consent is 18.
“Under a normal situation, no harm, no foul . . . I would think [prosecutors] might let it go,” said Steve Cron, a California defense lawyer.
“But under these circumstances, the DA’s office has to show they’re not treating women differently, not treating a celebrity differently, [and] they might have to do something.”
Since the ages of the parties’ are so close, prosecutors could press a misdemeanor case to hold punishment to probation, Cron added.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/bieber_baby_shock_Cf40LBuJ8OJmAKtwlB9wFI#ixzz1cZ0L9D1B
Well, this might be their un-doing...
That is, if these apps never get purchased, or used - what will that say?
And, if they do get used - will it be the same small group of people using them over and over again?
This idea does sound stupid, but, it might be a good thing for the cause you support...
It might reveal the truth about what is going on with "rape culture"...
Well, well, well,
After number of reported sexual assaults at Occupy (insert name here), it looks like at least one may not have happened (unclear at this point if it’s and FRA or just a woman who thought she might have been raped).
It seems a woman awoke to find her but feeling sore, and (so she claimed) that her $1,800 in cash was missing. So, apparently, as some other woman have done when they are confused about what might have happened, she reported that she might have been sexually assaulted. But, after a SANE exam, it was concluded that she had not been.
http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2011/11/02/as-occupy-baltimore-rape-charge-fizzles-security-and-homeless-issues-remain/
However, it might be more nefarious than that account suggests.
According to one Stephen Tish, who seems to be connected to the “leadership” at Occupy Baltimore:
”There were reports that this young woman was doing crack and turning tricks in the park and was asked to leave by Occupy Baltimore security and thus her ax to grind.”
If so, then it would seem it’s more of the sort of FRA’s we’ve seen so many of – with a revenge motive being the reason for the fabrication.
I'm sure this was a reaction to all of the falsely accused men who have produced evidence of innocence from cell phones- they won't tolerate the idea that technology is helping the accused but not the accuser.
This is unrelated but:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/herman-cain-sexual-harassment_n_1072275.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%7C109540
It seems Cain's been accused again!-And for the third time,..I don't buy it!
Without the cell video to prove their innoccence the 4 Hofstra guys that the girl gang-banged in the bathroom, and later said it was a gang rape, would be in jail.
slwerner-the female may have very well been raped and we shouldn't doubt her.The culprit in many of these unsolved cases is an incubus.I believe that the police are working with Ghostbusters to find the villain.
OK, I'm being slightly facetious but there's a reason that many females imagine that they have been raped in the night and perhaps we're going to have to establish some scientific and medical reasons for this if only so it may be used as a defence in these cases.First, many females are using psychoactive drugs for depression and anxiety but even when they're not females tend to be lighter sleepers than men.This means that they are sometimes in a sort of twilight sleep where dreams and reality are confused. Contrary to what most people believe, females actually think of sex and their bodies much more than men do. Sex and how they look to men are always in their subconscious minds and when you merge this with vivid dreams and fantasies from their twilight zone type sleep they can really believe they were raped.The dividing line between fantasy and reality as in children may be very thin.They many even feel that there was a presence in their room the same way that women have believed that there were aliens in the room who performed examinations on them and you'll notice that these exams always have something to do with their sexual organs.
Of course, most false accusations are just fraud or done for some malicious purpose but even here a female may delude herself into believing that she was raped to the extent that she could pass a polygraph.That's because the female is very suseptible to suggestion and outside influences especially from other females in the herd. People used to understand this in the past and took everything a female said with a grain of salt but since this cannot be used in court as a defence we're going to have to establish some sound scientific principles in how the female brain functions that can be admitted and testified to by expert witnesses.Men and women simply do not think, perceive reality or process information in the same ways and a female's perception of past events is almost always distorted.
After reading that post, I'll definitely stay away from women.
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