Peter's Place

[Updated 25 June 2017 at 7:20 pm EDT with information on driver requirements and safety features] As someone who's been using ride-sharing technology from apps such as  Lyft  and  Uber  for the past few years, I see a lot of misconceptions and misperceptions about them, especially by people who've never used them. Here are my thoughts, based on my real life experiences after having taken hundreds of rides with both services over the past few years. I'm not merely responding to the hype surrounding them based on stories I've read or heard about but my actual experiences. People are afraid of technology and have a tendency demonize anything new and disruptive to the status-quo. We need to get over our fears of change and embrace new technologies and the world we live in, especially when those technologies make our lives easier. Lyft  and  Uber  are companies that have been operating for years and have had time to work most of the kinks out of th...

Earlier today I received this e-mail response from a Hillary Clinton supporter who was in my contacts, listed as a media contact, in response to trying to promote one of my articles . It's disheartening that members of my LGBTQ community would respond in such a way, especially with respect to an issue I firmly believe is of great importance to the queer community. We cannot—and should not—allow anyone, for any purpose, to distort our history. This sort of response worries me a great deal. Certain members of our community are completely deaf to dissenting voices, afraid of damaging some fragile balance that must be maintained at all costs. The attitude that we all must fall in line, lock, step, and barrell, is more than troublesome. Our community used to celebrate our differences and value each other's uniqueness. When did we shift from celebrating our diversity to enshrining who we, the queer community, are in such a cookie-cutter definition? Further, when did we, as a ...

Yaaaaaaaaasssssssssss!!!!!!!! Down with gender-based stereotypes; there's no reason to have labels such as "Girls' Toys" and "Boys' Toys" There's long been a reason I've much preferred Target over Walmart as the "big box discount store." Descriptive labels such as "Dolls" or "Toy Cars" and "Stuffed Aminiminals" not only alleviate some of the anxiety and pressure kids face to fit into antiquated gender roles but are so much more helpful to the shopper! Adults often force certain toys on kids based on perceived gender stereotypes. I played with dolls as a child, as well as trucks and cars, as did my sister. We played with each other's toys and we never thought anything wrong with or bad about that. Thankfully, our grandparents understood we were playing together as brother and sister, and there wasn't anything wrong with my playing house just as there wasn't anything wrong with my sister p...