Nothing too serious, yeah right

Informative article about US Bisexual Health Study

2007-03-24T16:53:00.000-05:00

The Washington Blade has a news article about a recent 143 page US Bisexual Health Study. The article focuses on the presumptions, assumptions, and downright prejudices the medical community and less educated doctors and nurses have about bisexual people. I was interviewed by the reporter via email, (i have one small quote towards the end of the article).

Even though I am very solid in my identity as a bisexual woman, it gets very nerve wrecking from time to time to reveal my sexual history to doctors and nurses, etc., because of some of their reactions. I had a doctor tell me "hmm, so i guess you're enjoying that whole college bisexual experimentation thing?", in response, I had nervous laughter and really didnt how to react otherwise. I find many other bisexual people have the same troubles (as shown in this article) about the troubles of outing themselves to their physicians and in return, not having these physicians judge you for who you are. Because of the stereotypes, ignorance, and the assumptions of bisexual people (sex craved addicts, going through a phase, etc.) the medical community is less likely to recongize bisexuality as a valid sexual orientation. Ths is not the case for everyone bi person, but in my own experiences and others' personal accounts to me, bi-phobia in the medical community exists.

Here is the article...
Bi health report challenges doctors
Better education, understanding sought for patients

By JOSHUA LYNSEN
Friday, March 23, 2007

Brad Brownfield is willing to tell just about anyone he’s bisexual — but not his doctor.

The 36-year-old photographer living in Memphis, Tenn., said nine months after he came out to his family and friends, he still hasn’t told his primary care physician.

“I’ve concealed my orientation because although he is the best doctor I’ve found, he is still in the military reserves and
I hesitate to reveal my orientation because I am afraid of compromising the level of care I may receive,” Brownfield said.

A new report from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force aims to help ease those jitters.

“Bisexual Health,” written by Marshall Miller and other sexual health educators, challenges physicians across the country to better understand bisexual health issues.

The 143-page report released last week — which includes physician tips and a rundown of the top bisexual health issues — is intended to end the fear and confusion that mainstream doctors exhibit toward bisexuals.

“It’s a huge problem,” Miller said. “But I think these issues can be solved through education. If you give people the tools to understand, then they can change the approach that they take to their clients.”

Among the top bisexual health issues, according to the report, are drug and alcohol abuse, depression and anxiety issues, and other wellness issues.

Miller, who is bisexual, said the report clearly and thoroughly explains bisexuality and the physical and mental health issues bisexual men and women face.

“Is this stuff covered in medical school? Not necessarily,” he said. “And I think our hope is that by starting the conversation, if we can get more people thinking and talking about this, then it shifts the bigger picture over time.”

Several bisexual men and women from around the country said the report was long overdue.

“We, as bisexuals, don’t even seem to exist or be recognized by the medical community,” said Maria Myrback, a 40-year-old bisexual woman living in Melbourne, Fla.

Sheela Lambert, a 50-year-old bisexual woman living in New York, agreed. She said a local clinic has ignored her repeated pleas to add brochures about bisexual health to its racks.

“No matter how many times over the years I have asked them to have info that covers all the bases,” she said, “they have never changed or added any literature, and brush me off when I make requests.”

Barbara Lewis, a lesbian and physician’s assistant at Whitman-Walker Clinic in D.C., said not all clinics so deliberately dismiss bisexual issues. Others inadvertently err through omission.

She said when patients don’t openly identify as bisexual, many physicians assume orientation based on the patient’s current or most recent partner.

“I think very often that mainstream providers don’t like to take a very good sexual history,” she said. “It makes them nervous.”

Samantha Korb, a 20-year-old bisexual woman living in Greensboro, N.C., said these physicians must ease their nerves by learning “how to deal with someone who is bisexual and their health needs.”

About 1.8 percent of men and 2.8 percent of women ages 18 to 44 identify as bisexual, according to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

In addition to such statistics, Miller said the report offers many low-cost ways for clinics to integrate bisexual health issues into existing programs.

Among the suggestions are guidelines for creating health brochures, support groups and sex education programs that target or include bisexuals.

Many bisexuals said clinics should first purge any prejudices among physicians.

“Before we get to appropriate health care, we have to address the fact that medical and mental health professionals are still telling bisexual people that bisexuality doesn’t exist and that they have to pick a side — gay or straight — and stay there,” Lambert said.

Brownfield, who once heard a Mississippi health worker describe bisexuality as a “mental illness,” agreed.

“First, understand and accept the fact that bisexuality does exist, and it is a valid, very real sexual orientation,” he said. “Second, lose your preconceived notions. Do not assume that a bisexual person is not or cannot be monogamous.”

Bob Hattoy's speech at the 1992 DNC Convention

2007-03-07T18:12:00.000-05:00

From Democrats.org ....
Over the weekend, noted activist Bob Hattoy, who in addition to being a tireless advocate for a number of causes, became the first openly gay person with HIV to speak to a national audience when he gave a primetime address to the 1992 Democratic National Convention, passed away.

Governor Dean:

"This weekend, America lost a true champion for justice. Aside from being a fierce advocate on causes ranging from LGBT rights and HIV issues, to civil liberties and the environment, Bob Hattoy was a wonderfully charming man with a tremendous sense of humor. Most of all, Bob was a friend and mentor to so many. Through Bob's life and service to our country, we are all reminded of the need to do more to encourage greater participation of all Americans, including gays and lesbians, in our political process. Bob will be missed. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones."

I urge all of you to listen to his speech and to not stop caring about HIV/AIDS and to not stop caring about ensuring that all LGBTQI people, not just queer Americans, can lead, healthy and happy lives.

Let's not keep these issues under the rug. Health issues to the LGBTQI community are as important as ever these days. With the increasing rates of drug and alcohol abuse in the LGBTQI community, it is important we educate others about the increasing risks of the abuse of these substances and offer alternatives to the community besides clubbing and bar hopping (i.e.-volunteering and giving a damn about each other, actually establishing community). With the increasing rates of STDs and HIV/AIDS amongst my peers, not just the queer community, it is important we bring forth awareness of how to protect ourselves and to exact change in the blindless policies of abstinence only and abstinence plus sex education in our K-12 schools.

Ann Coulter: John Edwards = Faggot

2007-03-03T01:44:00.000-05:00

I've never been a fan of her, never. But I do have friends that are fans of her, but I ask, how can you be a fan of her after this?

I have never supported Ann Coulter because she offers nothing intellectual to contribute to the political discourse. And I have read her columns and heard her comments over the years, and they have all bothered me greatly. She categorizes liberals as terrorists and anyone outside of her view just can piss off to her.

But calling John Edwards a faggot, that hits a new low. Not because it was a slur I've seen recently defaced on my Safe Zone award, but more importantly, she is using the media in a way that she has never done before, she is reaching the depths of desperation. The Democrats have taken control of Congress and John Edwards could possibly be President, so therefore she will use what she has always used best (and in my view, worst) adding to the American political atmosphere. The way we talk in America is not in a cilivized discourse. Pundits represent what is really wrong with American politics. Nothing to contribute but name-calling and yelling.

The fact that there were claps at this Convention when she said this, worries me. Sure, I do not agree with a lot of what the Republican party stands for, but I am going to call someone a 'fag' or any slur or label we use to put somedown because I am shaking in my boots about them taking power? NO.

But watch the video and tell me, is using a slur on a presidental candidate at a widely publicized Conservative convention something we should value? Someone we should buy books from? Someone we should glorify because she says some bat-shit crazy things (or rather does not think before she speaks)?

To me, she offers nothing to debate about. She stopped any debate long ago when she called liberals godless and terrorists. When she calls John Edwards a fag, you can't respond to her because she is acting like the kid in middle school who doesn't like you because you're not friends with them, so they call you a name.

Forgive sounds good, forget, I'm not sure I could

2007-02-13T02:37:00.000-05:00

They say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting...

Taking the Long Way Around...The Dixie Chicks get what they deserve

2007-02-12T02:53:00.000-05:00

"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich

My Dixie Chicks, the best selling female group of all time, and one of the best groups period swept the Grammy Awards tonight. All the 5 Grammys they were nominated for, they won.

Best Album of the Year- Taking the Long Way Around
Best Record of the Year-I'm not ready to make nice
Best Song of the Year-I'm not ready to make nice
Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group-Not ready to make nice
Best Country Album-Taking the Long Way Around

I have been a fan of the Chicks for 8 years now, and even more of a fan since the 'controversy' of Natalie Maines' Bush comments. I supported them then, I support them now and I will continue to support them till they are no more. Not only is their music amazing, but they are talented, outspoken, and women I truly admire. Regardless of whether country music is your cup of tea or not, sip this cup of tea and gave their music a listen.

I feel these Grammys are not the Dixie Chicks' Grammys, but ours as well. The fans that stood by them through the insults, death threats, and pains of those 3 years that the Chicks and those supporting them had to endure. This is also about America, at its core. We hear that freedom isn't free. Maybe it isn't, maybe there is always going to be a consequence. But you know what, I have that right to speak my mind, stand up for what is right and support the Dixie Chicks in their times of lacking ticket sales and non-existent radio play and when they are recognized for the works they make, as were tonight. I could never be more proud of my Chicks as I am tonight.

If you haven't picked up a copy of the Best Album of the Year, I suggest you do so. Taking The Long Way is an album rich of not only amazing musical caliber, but incredible lyrics and insights into the Dixie Chicks and their lives, joys and struggles. It is worth the $10 off of Itunes, it is worth the $10-$12 on Amazon, or wherever you buy albums. It is worth the money and the time.

When youtube and other video sites start posting Grammy acceptance speeches and/or Grammy performances, I will post them. Right now, I am still escatic about all of this. The Chicks deserved every single Grammy they won.

The Vagina Monologues are back!

2007-02-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

After some amazing performances last year, the Vagina Monologues are back this year at UNCG. After seeing it twice last year (once for my own enjoyment, the other one for an article for the Carolinian, the UNCG student run newspaper), I must say I am very excited about this year's performances. I know a few people who are going to be in the Monologues, so I look forward to seeing them and the show overall.

The Vagina Monologues will be showing Friday, February 9th at 7:30pm and Saturday on 2pm and 7:30pm. All of these performances will be held in EUC Auditorium. If you are not on campus and do not know where it is, here are the directions to the EUC.

In the EUC, on the main floor, the auditorium is next to the Information Desk.

For those who have not heard and/or seen the Vagina Monologues, I strongly encourage you all to see it! To those who have seen it before, go again, this time with new faces and new takes on the monologues.

The Vagina Monologues are sponsored by the Women and Gender Studies department at UNCG. The event is free, but they will be taking suggested donations of $5 for the Clara House, a domestic violence shelter in the Greensboro area for women and children. However, any amount helps.

Call 336-334-5673 for more information.

Also for more information on the history of the Vagina Monologues and how it came to be, check out V-Day website.

Hope to see you all there!

Judy Shepard at UNC

2007-01-31T02:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight, Matt, Brittany and I went to UNC to see Judy Shepard (Matthew Shepard's mother) speak. We left late and got there right around 7, thank goodness they started late. Judy Shepard is an amazing speaker, she doesnt speak from a set list of things, but she speaks from the heart.

The only thing she read was her statement to the court after Russell Henderson changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. They were going to have his trial start on April 5th, 1999, but since he restated his plea, the sentencing for that new plea began. Judy read her statement from the court that day. It brought us back to a time, soon after the fact that Matt was dead (October 12, 1998), and it brought tears to everyone around us. Then she just spoke like it is. She talked about what is necessary for us to work towards fighting the good fight. Talking openly and honestly about who we are without shame, regret, or fear. We can bridge differences with words, hugs, and our actions. For someone who isn't a professional speaker, she gave me and the crowd, a reason to believe again.

There are many times over the last year and a half where I became disgruntled, upset and disappointed over the things I couldn't accomplish. But in my years as someone outspoken and honest about who they are, my words, however small they may seem, make a difference. My letter to the editor against Jason Crawford's words of hate last week, along with the articles (once posted on the Carolinian website, I will post) printed in this week's edition of the Carolinian showed that UNCG queer folk and their allies do not take this lightly. We will not accept, tolerate or condone this behavior as our own. As Mrs. Shepard said herself, hate is a learned action, no one is born to hate, but we learn it. We must overcome those biases we have and work together to see common ground, as human beings. We bleed, we hope and we love all the same, isn't that what it is all about?

What happened to the common rule my friends? Where did we lose our respect for others, how did this world become so muddled with fear of standing up for what's right? Well, I'll tell you what, lately, I've lived in fear, I can't do that anymore. I have to fight for what's right, no matter how hard it gets, because it's the good fight, simple as that. Judy Shepard inspired, touched me, moved me and motivated me to become more than I have ever been.

Some may see Matthew Shepard being a martyr for a cause, I do not. There are many Matthews in the world, we just do not see them everyday, the news doesn't report them, they think we do not care. Let's learn from the past and let's push forward as one.

Inspired by this :)

2007-01-24T21:14:00.000-05:00

If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard for us to find messages of self-love and support anywhere.... If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate to do anything in your life.... You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.--Margaret Cho

Going home for the holidays

2006-12-11T11:59:00.000-05:00

I am leaving this afternoon to go home for the Winter Break and it is definitely a break I need. Grade wise, this semester will be ok, but definitely not great (Biology makes things complicated). I had to quit many things that I didn't think I would have to or want to quit, but it is necessary for me to quit for my academic and personal life.

My break will be consisted of relaxing, working at the Jackson Library and just spending much needed time with Family and Friends.

I will be posting as time and interest allows.

Thanks for those of you who have been reading.

World AIDS Day

2006-12-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

Know your status, educate each other about HIV/AIDS till there is a cure.

Life update

2006-11-18T20:16:00.000-05:00

Hello all,
If you have read my most recent blog post, you know that I will be resigning from PRIDE! as President at the end of the semester. A lot of academic and personal issues need to be worked out and addressed and I must re-prioritize my life, all facets of it.

I hope all in PRIDE! and in the community can understand that, and I have the sincere faith that they will. I also will believe my life will be better due to these actions. I am not abandoning PRIDE!, but I am going to the general body meetings and events and I am also going to be volunteering when I can in the community.

None of this is easy, but all of this is necessary.

Read the letter, it explains it all.

Because of time, I may or may not be able to update. But I hope to do so as time and interest permits for me. Thanks for reading.

I do what I have to do, these things are never easy

2006-11-16T17:14:00.000-05:00

We must be our own before we can be another's. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The letter explains it all....

Dear PRIDE!,
When I came to UNCG, I was a shy, introverted and insecure freshman with nowhere to go or turn to. That would all change within the next year and a half. When I arrived back from English class my first day of classes, I walked onto College Avenue at Fall Kick Off and saw a booth with two accompanying rainbow flags flapping in the wind, at that moment, I knew I was home.
Ever since the third meeting of UNCG PRIDE my freshman year, I have been a board member in service to this organization. My fall semester I was Outreach Coordinator, Spring Semester: Program Coordinator and this semester, President. It saddens me deeply to do this, but at the beginning of next semester, that trend will end. At the end of this semester, I am resigning from UNCG PRIDE as President and giving my duties and position to Amanda Miller, current Vice President of PRIDE!
My reasons for resigning were well thought out and the decision did not come easily. At the beginning of my academic career at UNCG, I was doing extremely well in my studies and still maintaining a better than average GPA, while still being involved in PRIDE! However, the last two semesters, my academic life had began to suffer and subconsciously I began to re-prioritize, putting PRIDE ahead of my studies, and my personal life. I failed a class last semester because I skipped class a lot and lost my focus on why I was at UNCG.
When I ran for President this past March, I wanted PRIDE to take a different direction and to better the organization, and I believe it has under our leadership, but I was still unable to balance my duties as President and my other priorities. I knew going into this that things would not be easy, and I believed in myself enough that I could sincerely bring my GPA up, reestablish myself at work and be the best President I can be. However, that is not has not been the case. I am struggling in every area of my life, especially academically; I am going to lose financial aid next semester from the government and state due to my inability to meet my locked hours required by financial aid. I am able to stay in school due to private loans that I will take out for next semester or if the financial aid accepts my appeal but either way, I cannot be involved in the manner that I am right now in PRIDE.
With that being said, I do not blame PRIDE for the demise in my studies and my course here at UNCG, but I blame myself for losing track and focus. I need to re-prioritize everything in my life, especially my studies, and my emotional health and wellbeing.I have a lot of personal issues that simply cannot be dealt with in a non-professional manner and must be worked out in a professional setting through counseling, and possibly medication. It took me awhile to see that these issues needed professional attention, but I need to exercise that option.
I will continue my duties as President till the end of the semester, but next semester that is not an option. I will volunteer when I can at PRIDE events and volunteer in the community when I can. I plan to be involved as a general body member and nothing more or less. I will come to Thursday general body meetings when I can (which will be often).
I love this organization so very much, and I really wish there was another way, but I have to work on myself as a person and as a student to reach emotional wellbeing and restore my academic career here at UNCG.
I will still be there at PRIDE meetings and events and if you need help or need to ask questions about PRIDE, etc, I am here. I am stepping down, but I am not abandoning you all. In PRIDE, I have made lifelong friends, and I have every intention in making those connections and friendships richer and stronger over the years. I consider each and every one of you part of my extended family and we are LGBTQA brothers and sisters to the end.

With my deepest love, and respect for you all,
Samantha C. Korb

VOTE TODAY

2006-11-07T08:43:00.000-05:00

VOTE TODAY if you haven't already, our future counts on it.

If you haven't been given enough reason to vote, you obviously have not been paying attention.

And that is all I am going to say about that.

Bill Maher's New Rules, 4 days before the election

2006-11-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

Bill Maher's funny, humorous and down right amazing show Real time with Bill Maher has been one of my favorite shows for years. I have always loved Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, but being on HBO gives Maher a lot more leverage than Stewart and his talented crew will ever have.

At the end of show, Maher has a segment called "New Rules" (which has caught on and he has written a book with all his "New Rules"), where Maher solely can speak with humor and intelligence.

The last new rule of last night's show talks about what the Democrats need to do and say to take control of the Congress. Democrats have been criticized for not having a position or being too cautious when it came to being an opposition to the Republican party, and the majority of these criticisms hold a lot of weight.

However, I am cautiously optimistic about the outcome of Tuesday's election for the Democrats. Maher's talking points for the Dems are blunt, too the point and gives a real kick in the ass to the GOP and its pretty damn funny.

Here is the link if it does not work....
New Rules

Tell like it is Barney Frank...

2006-10-21T15:48:00.000-05:00

For anyone that is a baseball card collector or knows someone that is a collector...

2006-10-08T23:19:00.000-05:00

Do you all know of any baseball card collectors living in North Carolina? They can do it as a hobby or be a serious collector, it does not matter which. I am doing an ethnography for my Culture of Baseball class on baseball card collecting in North Carolina, and it is due on Tuesday, October 31st. I have a list of questions that those person(s) interviewed would need to answer...

If you do know someone, please refer them to me, and tell them to answer the questions below and to contact me with their responses at sckorb@uncg.edu.

These questions will be centered around the behaviors and practices a collector invests timewise, financially, etc.

Name: (you do not have to include your full name, but your first and last name would be appreciated. I will not use your name or email address for anything else but this research project).
Email:
Age:
Location:
Sex:

1) Around what age did you start collecting baseball cards?
2) What started/sparked your interest in collecting baseball cards? Or what do you think might have influenced your interest/hobby of collecting baseball cards?
3) Is baseball card collecting something you consider a hobby or something you take very seriously?
4) How many cards (estimate is fine) do you believe you have collected over the years and are currently in your own possession?
5) Do you buy from the pack or do you buy in bulk (boxes, online)?
6) Do you trade baseball cards? If so, how often and where do you trade?
7) Do you sell baseball cards? If so, through what avenue do you sell them through? (online, at shows, etc.)
8) Do you buy cards from a specific period/era of baseball? And if so, is it because of the value/rarity of the card (or if its not, what is your reason why)?
9) Do you just buy cards for a specific baseball team? And if so, why not collect from other teams as well?
10) What percentage financially (out of your annual net income), do you believe (estimate is fine) do you believe you spend on baseball card collecting?
11) What is your most prized card?
12) And what baseball card have you spent the most on?
13) Lastly, if you have any other comments, please type them down for me.

Thanks for helping me out and your time.

Take Care,
Samantha Korb
sckorb@uncg.edu

Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities with UNCG PRIDE!

2006-10-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

In the next couple of weeks, there will be volunteer opportunities in which UNCG PRIDE! members and community members can volunteer with UNCG PRIDE! in the Greensboto/Triad community area.

On Saturday, October 28th from 9am to 3ish, Triad Health Project's annual "Mother of All Mailings" volunteer day. THP needs 40 to 50 committed volunteers to dedicate their time that day to helping fold, seal, and label Winter Walk brochures (some 31,000 of them!!!) and other mailings. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Please contact any of the board members at latest by Thursday, October 26th, so we can contact Triad Health Project and let them know how many volunteers they can anticipate from UNCG PRIDE!

On Friday, November 10th from 6:30 till around 10ish, UNCG PRIDE! will be volunteering at the Guilford Green Foundation's Green Queen Bingo event. This year's theme will be "Mommie Dearest." The Bingo event will need volunteers for various tasks such as Concession/Bingo Dauber Stand table help, selling raffle tickets, and other assorted tasks.

The event will be held at the Empire Room, 203 South Elm Street, which is right across the street from the Kress Building.

Contact one of the board members for further information. If you wish to volunteer with us, contact us no later then Thursday, November 9th, so we can contact GGF and let them know how many volunteers from UNCG PRIDE! they can expect.

Hope to see you at one or both of this events!

South of Nowhere GLAAD PSA

2006-09-26T00:23:00.000-05:00

PSA from the stars of the hit show South of Nowhere (which is one of my favorite shows) on the N network.

Love the PSA, and also love South of Nowhere. Shows like South of Nowhere and Degrassi are groundbreaking for LGBTQ visibility in television. I find these shows have positive portrayals of LGBTQ youth, and they also deal with many other issues as well. These are not your typical high school dramas, but they actually have some substance to them.

The new season of South of Nowhere starts this Friday at 9pm.

Check out the South of Nowhere website for more information.

Going back to UNCG

2006-08-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted something on here. My summer vacation is coming to an end and my fall semester at UNCG is starting. I will be a sophomore this year and I am really excited about my classes (I have some pretty cool classes, Culture of Baseball being one of them.

I also will be the President of UNCG PRIDE!, UNCG's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Straight Allied Student Association. Last year I was Outreach and Program Coordinator, the group definitely had it's problems, but it also had it's ups, which I'm proud to have a part of. I look forward to the future with this group and what we can accomplish now is astounding.

Still working at the Jackson Library and will be during the Fall Semester (just not 30 hours a week during the Fall mind you). I really am starting to like that job, a lot.

I had a pretty rough spring semester, and I know this fall semester will be better for in all aspects of life. I will try and update as much as possible. I will be in my new dorm room with my new roomate, who is pretty awesome if you ask me, and I will see my lovely UNCG folk soon.

This is one of the reasons I love my father

2006-07-18T18:59:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons I love my father so much is he very supportive of his kids, including his LGBT children, my brother and myself. The House of Representatives failed to pass on a vote of the Federal Marriage Amendment today, however, our Congressmen (for the 6th district of NC), Howard Coble voted in favor of the discriminatory amendment.

My father decided, without my help or asking him to do so, to write a letter to Mr. Coble speaking of his disappointment in Mr. Coble's vote for FMA and also why the FMA does not deserve a place in the Constitution. It really made me cry, that my father wrote this....

The Honorable Howard Coble,

Your vote in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment goes against all the things that I love about my country and our Constitution. As your constituent, I am writing to voice my disappointment in your support for the FMA. Your vote for the FMA is a vote against equality, fairness, and the civil rights of GLBT Americans.

I must say that while your vote certainly did not surprise me, it once again showed me that supporting you in the upcoming election is a bad idea. I've been married to my high school sweetheart for over 43 years. We've raised five children. Neither my wife or any of our children feel the least bit threaten by other couples, be they heterosexual or the same sex. As long as you love, care for, honor and respect each other, what possible harm can anyone's marriage or partnership do to any of us or the partnership of marriage?

Let's face it, since 50% of all legal marriages fail, we heterosexual couples seem to do a poor enough job on our own protecting the sanctity of marriage.

Our Constitution has never been amended to single out a group of Americans for discrimination and I'm ashamed of you as my representative for truly thinking that our Constitution needed this pathetically discriminatory change to it.

I suppose you can say, this is why I am the way I am today. :)

Three cheers for Amelie Mauresmo

2006-07-10T20:03:00.000-05:00

Amelie Mauresmo, the first French woman to win the Women's Wimbledon singles title since Suzanne Lenglen in 1925, is a lesbian. I had no idea that she was a lesbian till I looked her up on Wikipedia and it said that she came out in 1999 after her win over Lindsey Davenport in the Australian Open Semifinals.

The year before, Martina Hingis, then the #2 player in the world, had said a comment about Mauresmo and her girlfriend.

She's here with her girlfriend. She's half a man already" (referring to Amélie Mauresmo, French lesbian tennis player on the eve of their 1999 Australian Open Final).

Hingis also made a racist comment about the Williams sisters about their sponsorships they got...

Being black only helps them. Many times they get sponsors because they are black. And they have had a lot of advantages because they can always say, 'It's racism.' They can always come back and say, 'Because we are this color, things happen.'" (referring to the "advantages" that Venus and Serena Williams have in a Time Magazine article, 2001).

I never liked Hingis, and this has given me more reason not to.

But anyways, Congratulations to Amelie!

She plays fantastic tennis, is out, and is hot :)

How did I not know this before? ;)

I can no longer be your 2nd class

2006-07-04T00:13:00.000-05:00

My friend Matt posted an extraordinary post about how LGBT Americans still aren't free in America; LGBT Americans are 2nd class citizens in America. A while back I wrote a poem about the hurdles we have jumped and the walls we have climbed due to the struggles of inequality we face daily. In honor of the LGBT American community and those LGBT individuals we who do not have equal rights everywhere, this poem is for you...

2nd Class

You call me 2nd class
Like its supposed to be my place
You infer with your most high
That I most derive at this point

I can not avoid the hate and bigotry
This culture you call holy
Is only loving in your eyes
As I walk aside with my wounded pride

A shout and a let down
Won't defer my course
We deserve better, we deserve more
Than what were offered

I furrow my brow
At the Headlines
Taking away freedom with your actions, your words
It's not your right to dictate my life

You call me 2nd class
Like its supposed to be my place
Like my face is a disgust
To your America

As you walk in your security
Oblivious to our pain
Our plea for equality
Ignoring the tears that fall upon these streets

Four score and seven years ago
America was a land of the free
Though you wipe your hands-
on all thats supposed to mean
You crumble whats known, whats right

To destory my life, my rights
And you'll condemn and you'll yell
And you'll live to tell me of my one way ticket to hell
However, love will prevail throughout these tests

No longer can we hide or regress
No longer can we conceal who we are
I can no longer live in the past
I can no longer be your 2nd class

Advice to incoming college freshmen

2006-06-29T09:37:00.000-05:00

In today's Life section of the News and Record I wrote my last piece for the Greensboro News & Record's Teen Page because I honestly do not have the time with all I've been doing lately with work, THP, PRIDE! and having some time for myself and I know fall semester isn't going to be any less busy. Plus I'll be 2 decades old this November, so I will no longer a teenager and inable to write for the teen page.

This is my last installment of the 'College Diary' column, and it's my Advice (from the worldly sophomore that I am :), I was only a freshman this time last year!) to incoming freshmen.

Here is the article. Also here is the text of the article below...

Thursday, June 29, 2006
Advice to incoming college freshmen
By Samantha Korb
This time last year, I was going to freshman orientation. Now, I carry the title "college sophomore."

It makes me smile that I know my way around campus, that most of my introductory-level courses are over and that I am no longer the new kid on College Avenue.

Most of what incoming freshman will learn won't be from English Composition 101 but from their experiences — the people they meet and the choices they make. I never took the advice of upperclassmen, but here's hoping future freshman will consider mine.

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS

If you are going to be living on campus, contact your roommate before move-in day. Deciding who will bring the television and other items will help reduce stress. You don't have to become best friends, but at least be respectful and considerate. If you do become the best of friends, consider your room assignment a lucky one. Also, know your roommate's schedule and post yours. You'll both need solitude now and then.

SHOWING CLASS

Do not skip class. Each professor has an attendance policy. Missing too many classes will affect your grade, as well as your motivation to attend class.

If you are allowed a number of absences, save them for when you'll really need them (such as for sicknesses or family emergencies). If you expect to be absent or late, or if you'll need leave class early, let your professor know. It shows you care about the course and are considerate.

MAJOR DECISIONS

If you have not declared a major or want to change your major, don't freak out. You are not alone. It took me until March to declare, and for others, it might take longer. Being undecided isn't the end of the world. It actually gives you the chance to take a variety of courses and will help you make a good decision.

BEST BOOK BUYS

Don't buy books from the campus bookstore unless you must. You'll save money if you get them online or from used book stores.

FOOD STUFF

Every college is different, but one thing is for certain: The cafeteria food isn't going to be gourmet. Stock up on nonperishable food items throughout the year or order in when money is available.

A TIME TO EVERY PURPOSE

Manage your time well, and make sure your course work is your No. 1 priority. My parents have told me this countless times. I hate to admit it, but they were right. During my first semester, I lived on about five hours of sleep a night and earned a 3.34 GPA. But the second semester was a completely different story. I finished with a 2.67 GPA for the entire year because of my poor time management and because I didn't put my classes above all else.

LIVE IT UP

However, don't let classes be the only reason you're in college. Your course work is important, but the beauty of college is your newfound freedom and the people you will meet. Don't be a hermit in your dorm room. Make friends with all types of people, not just the ones you think you would get along with. Also, get involve in a student organization. More than likely, there's a group that interests you. If there isn't, start one.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Get a job on campus. It's not only convenient, but most employers are willing to work around your class schedule.

* * *

College isn't the easiest experience in the world, but it's definitely been one of the most enjoyable for me. Your college experience is what you make it. And incoming freshmen should always keep in mind that they are not alone.

Personal Update

2006-06-26T15:53:00.000-05:00

I have not posted here in a couple of weeks, its been crazy busy lately. I work 30 hours a week at my campus library at UNCG, take care of some UNCG PRIDE stuff here in Greensboro, and intern Thursdays at Triad Health Project. The month of June has been a bit insane here lately, but July will be here soon.

In other news..., UNCG PRIDE started the preliminary planning for their Fall events and its up the website, so take a look at it!

Hope all is well with everyone in blogsphere and everywhere else in the world.

I hope to be able to update sometime soon about stuff other than my personal life. :)

My straight ally list

2006-06-15T13:39:00.000-05:00

On the Q-Triad blog my friend Matt has a posting of some of his Straight Allies. The Guilford Green Foundation has a "Straight Ally" campaign to show that straight people support LGBT people. Since Matt posted his straight ally list, I thought I would post mine...

My parents, Sam and Cathy Korb
My sisters Judi Korb and Lisa Korb
My brother Justin Korb and his wife Wendy Korb
My niece Nichole Korb
Ms. Wendy Lavine(former THP head of Community Involvement)
Brook Taylor
Sue Pham
Shannon Propst
Lisa Lepage
Leehe Shmueli
Nicole Patrick
Meredith Babb
Brooke Lynn-Kemp
Steven Sparks
Ben Holmes
Erin Killian
Kathryn Schenk-UNCG Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood Vice President 2005-06, President 2006-07
Amy Bodsford, UNCG Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood President 2005-06
Alex Barbot
Cristen Bullock
Leslie Benfield
Sabrina Boyer
Crista Cuccaro
Dakia Davis
Meredith Duncan
Kristen from my Communications Class
Marianne from South Spencer
Terri Gardner
Amy Goudreau
Katie Rose Guest
Audrey Hardwick
Sarah Benedek-President of PRIDE! Spring 2006
Kayla Crews Peak-Vice President of PRIDE! Spring 2006
Danica Hickmon-Outreach Coordinator of PRIDE! Spring 2006
Meghan Hoffman
Chelsea Kurtzman
Lilana Landsman- President of Hillel @ UNCG- 2005-2006
Morgan McPherson
Ashley Scott
Natasha Sell
Melissa Westmoreland-UNCG College Republicans President 2005-2006
Keegan Smith
Tarah Enoch
Tracey Warfield
Julie Way
Marla Wilkse
My straight ally friends and co-workers from the library
Kati Harris
Claire Bartlett
Emily Beamon
Kelly Hilton
Michelle Rivera

Quotes Against the FMA from leading top conservatives and others

2006-06-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of quotes from top conservatives and others against the failed proposed Federal Marriage Amendment which would write discrimination into the Constitution if passed through 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures. While the amendment did fail, the fact that 49 Senators and millions of people want this put into an amendment is a very scary idea. Here are some fair and sane minded individuals' quotes against the FMA.

"The Constitutional Amendment we are debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans. It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed, and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them, and which they feel capable of resolving should it confront them, again according to local standards and customs."

–Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), Senate floor statement, 7/14/04

"Like most Americans, and most Republicans, I think it's important to do all we can to defend and strengthen the institution of marriage. And I also believe it is critically important to defend the integrity of the Constitution. But a federal amendment to define marriage would do nothing to strengthen families - just the opposite. And it would unnecessarily undermine one of the core principles I have always believed the GOP stood for: federalism."

– Former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), The Washington Post , 9/5/2003

"Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy."

– Syndicated conservative commentator George Will , The Washington Post, 11/30/2003
Leading Civil Rights Leaders Oppose the So-Called Federal Marriage Amendment

"In my view, constitutional amendments should not to be used to restrict or deny freedoms, but to protect and expand freedom. Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civic unions. A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay-bashing, and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages. Instead of trivializing the constitution, we need some laws that give families the kind of help they really need, like job-training and child care assistance, stronger schools and health insurance coverage for every family."

– Coretta Scott King, in a speech at Stockton College, March 23, 2004

"As an organization that has, since its inception, fought for and supported amendments to the Constitution to ensure and protect the most fundamental rights for all persons, the NAACP strongly opposes the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment and all other proposals that would use the Constitution to discriminate and restrict, rather than expand and protect the rights for any and all persons."

– Hilary Shelton, Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, March 3, 2004

FMA NO Quotes

Triad Health Project's June Newsletter

2006-06-06T16:03:00.000-05:00

Here is Triad Health Project's monthly newsletter for the month of June. It includes reflection on HIV/AIDS turning 25, THP's involvement in the NC Advocacy Day, an update on the 17th annual Dining For Friends, condolences, congratulations, organizational announcement needs, and information on the national HIV/AIDS testing day (June 27th).

If you want to sign up for the monthly email newsletter call THP at 336-275-1654, or contact Mike Baker at mbaker@triadhealthproject.com.

June, 2006 - HIV/AIDS TURNS 25

That’s right. It all began 25 years ago this month, when the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning about a rare cancer that
was affecting a handful of otherwise-healthy gay men living in New York
City. “GRIDS” (gay related immune deficiency syndrome) would later become
known as AIDS, coinciding with the discovery of HIV. The epidemic’s early
years saw fear and misunderstanding contribute to the deaths of tens of
thousands of AIDS sufferers. Since that time, the epidemic has become a
global pandemic that affects close to 40 million people worldwide. And the
numbers keep growing. A report released during last week’s U.N. General
Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS continues to paint a rather grim
picture: In 2005, just over 4 million people became infected with HIV, and
2.8 million people died of AIDS-related causes. U.N. member nations
attending the New York conference have issued an updated declaration to
address HIV/AIDS and provide an outline for a worldwide campaign to fight
the disease. Along with urging nations to provide universal access to
antiretroviral drugs and medical care, the declaration also urges countries
to “use scientifically documented preventions strategies, including access
to condoms; make clean needles accessible to injection drug users; and move
forward with efforts to provide comprehensive prevention information.” The
declaration also states that annual funding for HIV/AIDS worldwide must
increase from $8 billion to over $20 billion by the year 2010.

There are currently an estimated 18,000 North Carolinians living with
HIV/AIDS. In Guilford County, over 1,500 cases have been diagnosed. Of
those, almost 500 individuals are currently seeking services from Triad
Health Project.

THP PARTICIPATES IN NORTH CAROLINA HIV/AIDS ADVOCACY DAY…

Citizen lobbying is an important way to create legislative change - and it
was quite easy to do on Tuesday, May 30th! THP joined other partners from
around the state that day in Raleigh to “bend the ears” of our state
lawmakers on issues ranging from HIV/AIDS prevention programs funding to
enhancing the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). ADAP was created by
Congress to help individuals with HIV/AIDS afford expensive lifesaving
medications. Each state sets its own eligibility limits for the program.
With AIDS drugs costing an average of over $14,000 a year, a single person
in North Carolina making $13,000 is not ineligible for the state’s ADAP
support. North Carolina has the worst eligibility level in the nation for
ADAP, now turning away anyone who makes more than 125% of the Federal
Poverty Level. Other states in the South are doing a lot more, with
eligibility levels at 300%. The national average is 312%.

State Representative Pricey Harrison of Guilford County has introduced a
measure in the NC House that would adjust North Carolina’s ADAP eligibility
level to be more in line with our neighboring states. THP thanks
Representative Harrison, along with Representative Maggie Jeffus and
Representative Alma Adams for their acknowledgement to THP of support of
this measure. A similar bill has already made its way into the NC Senate
budget.

17th ANNUAL DINING FOR FRIENDS UPDATE…

With just over 100 parties taking place this year - and a few more to come
this summer - the 2006 Dining for Friends is well on its way to reaching our
$130,000 goal! The weather was perfect, the crowds came hungry, and
desserts at the Grand Finale were delectable! A big thank you to our DFF
presenting sponsors, Replacement’s Ltd. and the Greensboro Coliseum Complex,
with additional sponsor support from the Wachovia Foundation. And of course,
DFF could not be successful without the tremendous generosity of the
hundreds of hosts who opened their homes to wine and dine their friends,
family and neighbors, as well as the over 60 local restaurants, catering
companies and food service providers helping to satisfy everyone’s sweet
tooth.

OUR CONDOLENCES…

THP mourns the passing of Kathryn Randall Smith (1947-2006) after a series
of strokes. She was one of the original 14 founders of the agency in 1986.
Kathryn was a counselor who practiced in the Triad area before becoming THP’
s very first Executive Director when the agency shared an office in a small
house off of Freeman Mill Road….Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, 61, died last month after
surgery to remove a blood clot. Jong-Wook took the World Health
Organization (WHO) to a leadership role in the fight against HIV/AIDS, by
launching initiatives to bring treatment to developing nations and increase
access to medications in Africa.

OUR CONGRATULATIONS…

THP is proud to congratulate Board member James McNair for his recent
accomplishment as a new graduate of Leadership Greensboro.

NATIONAL HIV TESTING DAY JUNE 27TH…

This annual campaign is produced by the National Association of People with
AIDS, and encourages at-risk individuals to be proactive in protecting their
health by receiving voluntary HIV counseling and testing. This comes on the
heels of the CDC’s recent announcement it plans to recommend physicians
offer voluntary HIV testing to all U.S. residents ages 13 to 64 as part of
routine medical exams in private practices, clinics, hospitals and emergency
rooms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates almost
a quarter of HIV-positive people in the U.S. are not aware of their status -
and may “unknowingly infect many other people.” Routine testing could help
more learn they are infected and link them to earlier medical treatment
options. THP offers year-round free, confidential HIV/STD counseling and
testing every Monday night from 5-7pm at the Greensboro office, 801 Summit
Avenue, and the third Thursday of each month at our High Point office, 620
English Street.
For more information about THP's testing services, contact Jesse Duncan at
275-1654, or jduncan@triadhealthproject.com

JUNE NEEDS…

This month, THP has a client need for a new or gently used clothes dryer.
If you wish to make this donation, please contact Shane Burton at 275-1654,
or sburton@triadhealthproject.com.

SAVE THE DATE: WINTER WALK FOR AIDS, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3RD, 2006!

Equally Speaking-June 6th, 2006

2006-06-06T11:38:00.000-05:00

This morning's Equally Speaking was mostly about the Federal Marriage Amendment and it's debate within the Senate and President Bush's wasteful press conference to encourage his support of the FMA. No one that was openly gay was at his press conference (but those from the so called "ex-gay" movement were in attendance).

The Human Rights Campaign held their own press conference at the capital speaking out against the FMA and have been extremely active and getting it's members out there to speak out, call/write their Senators, and be a voice for fair minded individuals in America.

I do not believe the FMA will get the necessary support needed to even go to the Senate, but what I am most upset about is that Washington is wasting its time with the Federal Marriage Amendment when America's priorities do not lie with how marriage is defined. This is an election tool, and I hope that those in the most conservative camps realize that. It's unlikely, but the rest of us Americans know this is nothing but a way to divide Americans, as Bush did in 2004 and it is a distraction to the the things this administration should be focusing on... the economy, bringing our troops home, health care, etc.

Here is the transcript for this morning's show of Equally Speaking.

Good morning. Thanks for tuning in to Equally Speaking for Tuesday, June 6th – your morning dose of GLBT news from the Human Rights Campaign. I’m Janice Hughes.

And I’m Michael Cole. First up – the biggest story out of Washington yesterday was the President’s support for writing discrimination into the Constitution.

It was a sad day in the nation’s capital yesterday with the Senate taking up debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment, and at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the President using the discriminatory amendment to appease his extremist base. The White House event was like the Oscars for the anti-GLBT industry – with all of the stars in attendance like James Dobson, Tony Perkins and Matt Daniels – even leaders of the so-called ex-gay movement. White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed that there were no openly gay people in attendance. Here’s what the President had to say: [Bush speech clip]

On Capitol Hill, the Senate took up the amendment fresh back from their Memorial Day recess. The Human Rights Campaign sponsored a press conference at the foot of the Capitol speaking out against making GLBT Americans second-class citizens and delivered hundreds of thousands of postcards to Senators. You can view more of the press conference from a link on our homepage – h-r-c dot org.

We’ll have more for you on the Federal Marriage Amendment as events unfold this week. Turning to some other news, the U.S. isn’t the only country facing a ban on rights for same-sex couples. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said today that he will work to overturn new rights granted to gay and lesbian couples in the country’s capital region by outlawing marriage for same-sex couples as well as civil unions.

In Washington State, anti-gay activist Tim Eyman appears to have duped the media with his pledge that he would turn in signatures yesterday to repeal the state’s non-discrimination law. He didn’t turn-in any signatures but instead appeared at the Secretary of State’s office dresses as Darth Vader carrying a light saber. It was a publicity stunt so he could promote an unrelated anti-tax initiative he’s supporting.

That’s all for us today. With the Senate continuing to debate the discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment, continue to flood their offices with phone calls.

You can reach the capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. We’ll see you here again tomorrow on Equally Speaking.

Equally Speaking

25th anniversary of HIV/AIDS

2006-06-05T17:42:00.000-05:00

This is from my friend Brook Taylor's blog, I, along with Brook, could go on for forever and a day about HIV/AIDS stats and how's impacted our generation because of the ignorance of past ones. Here is the post from Brook's blog.

Today marks 25th Anniversary of HIV/AIDS

I could post historical facts and statistics to mark the occassion, but you've heard all that before (especially if this isn't the first time you've visited this blog). I think it will be more poignant and eye-opening to post this article I found from a Colorado newspaper, which documents the ignorance of younger generations to this ever persistent virus.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Forty thousand Americans are being infected with HIV each year, with nearly half of them under the age of 25, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

However, younger generations no longer perceive AIDS to be an imminent threat in their own lives.
“I guess it is a reality, but I've just never been one to dwell on it,” said Ashley Downing, 22, a recent CU graduate.

“[AIDS] is not the biggest concern considering there are other STDs that are more common,” said Francisco (last name withheld due to Planned Parenthood policy), a call center assistant at the Planned Parenthood office in Boulder.

Although AIDS information is widely presented by the media, high-school health classes, and parents, young people fail to see a direct connection to their everyday lives.

“Even though we are more informed about it, we think we will never get [AIDS]. We have that mindset where it's like, ‘Oh, that's something in Africa and in homosexuals,'” said CU senior Charissa Kinney.

“Since we are such a [homogenous] population compared to other schools and cities, we are sheltered in that respect,” said Downing.

Young adults today are more likely to be concerned with the fear of getting pregnant, thus dismissing the possibility of contracting HIV or other STDs.

“We just assume that birth control is a substitute for condoms,” said 17-year old Julianna Toledo-Mullin, “[With STDs], everyone assumes that ‘it won't happen to me.'”

“I feel like it hasn't really affected our generation. We haven't really seen it first-hand so we don't really know what the consequences are. It hasn't really hit us yet,” said 23-year-old Jeremy Backer.

Dixie Chicks' 'Taking the long way' is the #1 album in America

2006-05-31T20:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know that you all know I am CRAZY about the Dixie Chicks, but I must say I am very happy that their new album 'Taking the long way', which was released last Tuesday, is #1 on the Billboard album charts, #1 on the Country Album Charts, AND is #1 on music sales on Amazon.com and #1 on Itunes Album Charts. Taking the Long Way went Gold in a week, selling over 500,000 copies of the album.

Their tickets to most of their tour dates go on sale this Saturday (but not for Greensboro YET!).

I really love this group and this album, I've said it many times before, but I am very happy to see this group successful. Hopefully you will pick up the album, there is a link to the album on Amazon.com on the right side of my blog. It's quite possibly one of the best albums out this year and the best of the Dixie Chicks' four major albums.

Blogging for LGBT Families

2006-05-31T16:48:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, June 1st, is Blogging for LGBT Families, and bloggers all across the universe are blogging about their experience about being in a LGBT family, issues concering LGBT families, acceptance or anything that concerns those topics.

However, I am extremely busy tomorrow, so I will do this post a little early to blog about some of my personal history regarding my own experience as a bisexual daughter and having a gay brother and what it means for those families whose daughter or son's personal journey wasn't as easy as mine was and whose parents are not as accepting as mine are.

When I was 7 months old my biological grandparents adopted me and moved from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Greensboro, NC (where I reside now). My brother Michael, who was 20 at the time moved up to Greensboro a little bit before my parents and I moved up there.

The year I was born, Michael came out to my parents (a sign of things to come for me) and the only thing that got my parents upset was that they werent going to have any grandchildren. Well, when they me told this years later, I said "He could have had children, just adopted", well, Michael isn't the type of person to have kids, not because he is gay, but because some people just don't want to have kids, and he's one of those people.

Michael came out to me when I was 10 years old, and at the time, the word "Gay" to me meant happy, which is what it meant to my parents, when they were 10 in the early 1950's, as opposed to what 'gay' meant in 1996. Two years later, the word 'gay' would mean a lot more to me than happy.

When I was 12, I discovered that I not only liked boys, but girls made my heart go wild as well. In the next 3 years I identified as lesbian, because I wanted a community to identify with so badly, and I had figured that being a lesbian would give me more of a community than being 'bisexual'. When I was 15, I still had much to learn about the world and the LGBT community.

When I was 16 I realized that I couldn't stop my attraction to the opposite sex, I realized I was scared of being hurt again by men, I also realized that girls and women could be cruel and hurtful as well, we all are capable of hurting each, as well as loving each other. When I broke out of the 'lesbian utopia vision' I had of lesbians, I realized that YES, I am bisexual, and that my attractions to men and women were not a phase, and I wasn't greedy, but I had these attractions and they were completely natural to me.

My parents always thought I was a lesbian, as I did for a good 3 years. So they asked me about 3-4 times if I was, and I always told them "I wasn't exactly straight", I came out to them when I was 17. I told them I was bisexual, and ever since then, as always, they have been nothing but supportive and loving of who I am. I couldn't ask for better parents than them.

They won't go to PFLAG meetings or will they ever go to a gay pride parade/festival (plus all that walking isn't good for my mom's knees)but I know they love and support my brother and I as much as the rest of their other 3 kids.

Others I know weren't so fortunate. A friend of mine, came out to her parents when she was 17 as a lesbian and was thrown out that night, she lived with some friends for about a week and then moved back in, though they reluctantly let her back in because she had no place to stay and her parents do not support her till this day.

One friend in particular was sent to an ex-gay camp because of his sexuality and his relationship with his Mom is not the same since.

One might ask WHAT does this have to with LGBT families? I believe LGBT families do not just merely consist of a LGBT parent but also of just a LGBT son or daughter. My parents have 2 LGBT children, my brother and I, and while my brother isn't going to have kids, it doesn't mean I'm going to the do the same. I plan on having kids some day with the person I fall in love with.

There are more and more families that consist of a daughter or son that is LGBT and also those families with a LGBT parent(s) than the world may realize. So many people know someone this day and age that is LGBT, and it's not just those on the L Word or those on Will & Grace (RIP). We know a friend, a brother, a sister, mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin, teacher, mentor, SOMEONE that is LGBT and knowing that someone makes it more likely for us to increase awareness of the LGBT community because of that LGBT person and it encourages the push for LGBT equality. These individuals we know that are LGBT may or may not decide to create a family of their own, but the most important thing is that they are a part of someone's family.

The family I am apart of is one of the most loving and accepting, I really wish those LGBT individuals that do not have accepting parents like mine DID, had parents like mine. They aren't as visible as the mother on Queer as Folk (though my mom did go to a gay club with my brother once), but they will stand by their children, especially their LGBT children if they are hurt by anti-LGBT harassment, slurs, or verbal/physical attacks. So they might be old-fashioned and come from the '50s, but they are not stuck in them.

I am blessed and truly grateful for the family I am in and look forward to having a family of my own whenever that time may be.

Go and participate tomorrow in Blogging for LGBT Families!

For more details click any of the Blogging for LGBT family links above (or the one below).

Blogging for LGBT Families

Equally Speaking-May 31st, 2006

2006-05-31T16:09:00.000-05:00

This morning on the Human Rights Campaign's morning show Equally Speaking there was a variety of discussions from the vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which is expected to occur Tuesday and President Bush's press conference to publicly support the Amendment on Monday to a particular report on transgender work place discrimination.

I enjoy these brief morning news clips of LGBT news. Yeah, they're quick, but the get straight to the point and it keeps me well informed.

Here is the transcript to this morning's show.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Good morning. This is Equally Speaking for Wednesday, May 31st – your morning dose of GLBT news from the Human Rights Campaign. I’m Sally Heaven.

And I’m Brad Luna. First up, President Bush plans to break his silence on the Federal Marriage Amendment.

The conservative magazine The Weekly Standard is reporting that President Bush will hold a press conference on Monday to reiterate his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled vote. Not only that, but Bush will tout the proposal to write discrimination into the Constitution from the White House Rose Garden – a location generally reserved for events and ceremonies of significant national importance.

Turning to Georgia, Secretary of State Cathy Cox who is running for Governor is losing support among GLBT voters – a key constituency in the state’s Democratic primary. Cox had opposed the state marriage Constitutional amendment but now she has changed her position and is supporting a special session of the legislature to bolster the discriminatory amendment. Many GLBT voters say they are planning on boycotting the primary to be held July 18th.

Among its NATO allies, the United States is one of the few countries that continues to ban openly gay and lesbian military personnel. American soldiers commonly serve alongside openly gay troops from the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel. Now South Korea is poised to join the list of countries that have ended discrimination against gay soldiers. Their National Human Rights Commission has recommended the change and the government says it will begin to institute a new policy.

A transgender woman is suing her employer Hitachi claiming she was discriminated against because of her gender identity. Jessica Bussert was working for Hitachi in Indiana but was transferred to a position in the UK. Once there, she allegedly faced harassment and was undermined by her superiors.

In religion news, a senior Anglican Bishop is speaking out for fairness for GLBT people. The Right Reverend Richard Harries told the London Daily Telegraph that he believes the bible support unions between same-sex couples and then there is no reason not to appoint an openly gay man as a bishop in the church.

That’s all for us today. Don’t forget the Federal Marriage Amendment Vote is scheduled a week from today. Tell your friend to go to h-r-c dot org slash Vote No to take action.

We’ll see you again tomorrow morning here on Equally Speaking.

Equally Speaking

Equally Speaking-May 30th, 2006

2006-05-30T08:19:00.000-05:00

On Equally Speaking this morning there was discussion about various issues and events including President Bush signing the bill which would restrict protests like those of Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church.

Here is the Transcript of the show this morning.

Transcript

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Good morning. This is Equally Speaking back from a long weekend with your morning dose of GLBT news from the Human Rights Campaign for Tuesday, May 30th. I’m Michael Cole.

And I’m Laura Robertson. Today’s top story – President Bush signs the bill to stop Fred Phelps’ protests.

At yesterday’s Memorial Day observances at Arlington National Cemetery, Fred Phelps protested President Bush and the ceremonies honoring the country’s veterans. After the events the President signed a bill passed in Congress last week targeting Phelps that will put restrictions on exactly those kinds of protests.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke out for marriage equality Sunday in his weekly radio address. He said he urged the state’s courts to rule in favor of marriage for same-sex couples, but even if they didn’t, he says he would work with the state legislature to pass a marriage bill. He also reiterated his opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment that faces vote in the U.S. Senate next week.

Sunday in Moscow, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Russians took to the streets and were met with angry and violent protests. After government officials refused to sanction a GLBT pride celebration, activists organized a march nonetheless. They say the Mayor’s ban of the march contributed to the violence in which over one hundred people were arrested.

In Jerusalem, the city’s Orthodox mayor had also blocked their pride celebration for years. But yesterday a judge ruled the mayor was wrong to exclude the parade and ordered the city to pay seventy-seven thousand dollars to the group – money they would have received with official sanction of the events.

In the Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, police are investigating vandalism in a city park that will be used as a site for the Gay Games in July. Securing the location was no easy task for organizers who faced a small but vocal opposition in city council meetings.

Next week, the U.S. Senate will take up the Federal Marriage Amendment – the proposal to write discrimination into the constitution.

Our opponents are organizing – just over the weekend Mormon Church officials read a letter in everyone one of their congregations urging members to tell their Senators to support the Amendment.

Make sure you go to h-r-c dot org slash Vote No to join the voices of other fair-minded Americans against the discriminatory amendment.

Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you again here tomorrow morning.

Equally Speaking

Jolie gives birth to baby girl

2006-05-28T00:29:00.000-05:00

Angelina Jolie has given birth to a girl named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Best of luck to them, I love Angelina Jolie because she is a wonderful human being. Yes, she is a great actress, but she is also a humanitarian and UN ambassador. I see her more now as a humanitarian for her work she has done over the years for refugees across the world and the continued work which I know she will pursue. I know she will be a wonderful mother to this child, along with her other 2 adopted children Max and Zahara. Here is the article

LOS ANGELES - The baby has arrived — and no, they didn't name her Brangelina.
Thousands of miles from Hollywood but still within easy reach of celebrity hype,
Angelina Jolie gave birth to
Brad Pitt's daughter Saturday in Africa, Pitt's publicist announced.

"The night of May 27, 2006 in Namibia, Africa, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt welcomed their daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. No further information is being given," publicist Cindy Guagenti said in a statement. No photographs were being released, she added.

The baby's arrival had been the subject of intense press speculation in recent months, prompting the superstar couple to decamp to Africa for privacy. It escalated Tuesday when an e-mail Pitt sent to the Cannes Film Festival said he was unable to attend because of the baby's "imminent arrival."

The birth came a little more than a month after another blockbuster delivery: a girl born to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Jolie and Pitt had powerful help protecting their privacy from the government of Namibia, which refused to grant entry to reporters seeking to cover the birth without the actors' written permission. The government arrested photographers, confiscated film, ringed the couple's hotel with heavy security and set up large green barriers on the beach to shield their family.

Jolie and Pitt were linked romantically shortly after appearing together in the 2005 movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

Jolie, 30, is a frequent visitor to Africa and serves as goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Jolie has two adopted children: toddler Zahara, from Ethiopia, and 4-year-old Maddox, from Cambodia.

Both had their surnames legally changed to Jolie-Pitt after Pitt announced his intentions to co-adopt the children.

Pitt and actress
Jennifer Aniston divorced last fall.

Jolie, who won an Oscar for her supporting role in 1999's "Girl, Interrupted," is divorced from Billy Bob Thornton and Jonny Lee Miller.

Original Source

My 100th post could never be more fitting

2006-05-27T08:21:00.000-05:00

This morning, in the Opinion section of the Greensboro News & Record, a letter to the editor from me was published. To no surprise the letter to the editor is about the Dixie Chicks and how I feel about their comments and the respect they deserve.

All my father could say this morning was "O, i'm sure you'll have plenty of counter responses", and yes I believe he is right. :) I guess you could say I'm like Dixie Chicks (except for the big hair and the ability to play instruments and sing) but I speak out, especially when its necessary, and I feel these times it is necessary to not shut up and look pretty, but voice your opinion. You might not like what I say but can respect I am using my right to voice my dissent of what I see as moral threats created by the Bush administration.

Here is the letter to the editor and thank you for reading, hope you will be reading my next 100 posts!

Dixie Chicks speak out
I have been a fan of Natalie Maines, Emily Erwin and Martie Seidel, known as the Dixie Chicks, since I was 12 years old, and now I have never been more proud to call myself one of their fans.

The Dixie Chicks represent everything an American and a true patriot is, someone who will stand by their beliefs and voice them regardless of the consequences. It's so refreshing to have artists like the Dixie Chicks speaking out because so many performers targeted to my peers and me are products of their handlers and record companies. They look pretty and shut up. The Chicks are pretty, but they are their own handlers, they are not going to shut up and sing.

I admire the Dixie Chicks more than most of the fools in Washington. They are the real patriots. I admire them for their bravery, courage, talent, musicianship, and most importantly, their patriotism. They are the ones who deserve our respect, not President Bush.

Samantha Korb
Greensboro

Equally Speaking -HRC's daily dose of LGBT News

2006-05-26T19:47:00.000-05:00

Each morning The Human Rights Campaign has their own daily brief online video LGBT news show. It's short and gets right to the point. According to the show's video archives it has been around for a week now.

This morning the topics ranged from the banning of protests at the federal funerals for soliders, which is basically targeted at the anti-LGBT views and protests from Westboro Baptish Church, headed by the infamous Fred Phelps.

Arnold S is going to veto a bill which would be more inclusive of historically repressed minority groups' history, including the LGBT community. I had made a previous post about an out CA senator's effort to include LGBT history in CA textbooks. Arnold is expected to veto this bill, I'm rather ashamed at the politics of his voting, first the vetoing of allowing marriage equality for the LGBT community and now this expected veto, it really pisses me off.

The rest of the news report includes word of Q Television going off the air, LGBT discrimination continuing to be a problem in the Canadian workplace, and a Russian city's vote of to bar a Pride march to occur in June.

Here is the transcript for the show and the video for today's show .

You can get a daily email update from them, which I signed up for. I look forward to listening each morning.

HIV/AIDS traced to chimps in Africa is confirmed

2006-05-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

I was a bit leary when I first read the article by the Associated Press posted by the Raleigh News & Observer but after reading the article and the similarities that the SIV virus (simian immunodeficiency virus) that these chimps face and the HIV virus that humans face, its hard to debunk this confirmation. Here is part of the article that really convinced me...

"We're 25 years into this pandemic," Hahn said. "We don't have a cure. We don't have a vaccine. But we know where it came from. At least we can make a check mark on one of those."

Hahn's team tested chimp feces for SIV antibodies, finding them in a subspecies called Pan troglodytes troglodytes in southern Cameroon.

Chimps tend to form geographically distinct communities. By genetically analyzing feces, researchers could trace individual infected chimps. The team found some chimp communities with infection rates as high as 35 percent; others had no infection at all.

Every infected chimp had a common base genetic pattern that indicated a common ancestor, Hahn said. Genetic analysis let Hahn identify chimp communities south of Cameroon's Sanaga River whose viral strains are most closely related to the HIV-1 subtype.

Since there is no cure and no vaccine, this is a first step in many to coming to a vaccine and a cure. It was good to read this today on my friend Brook Taylor's blog, but it was upsetting to me to see that on the News & Observer website that it was one of the last World headlines to be posted today.

I really hate to see that people think that HIV/AIDS is just another STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection), because regardless of the cocktail drugs that were made available a decade ago, not all people living with HIV/AIDS are able to get the drugs, and others' strain of the virus cannot be helped by these medicines.

I hope by this confirmation and discovery that we can learn much more in how to create a vaccine and find a cure for this deadly disease which has plagued our world for 25 years.

Original Source

Is Jared Leto Gay? A vague coming out or was it?

2006-05-26T18:59:00.000-05:00

I really don't do purely celebrity posts, but this is an exception to my rule. In AIM interview with AOL Music,

actor/musician Jared Leto said this..

ThirtySecondLeto: I’ll give you an exclusive....
TyeinMusic: ooh. lay it on me
ThirtySecondLeto: I’m gay
TyeinMusic: *!*
TyeinMusic: please tell me you're serious
ThirtySecondLeto: as a goose.

But then later on in the conversation, this exchange occured...

TyeinMusic: but wait. back up... are you gay or not?
TyeinMusic: cuz if not, that was SO mean!
ThirtySecondLeto: hahaha
ThirtySecondLeto: I’m like Morrissey.
TyeinMusic: and... morrissey's kinda gay
TyeinMusic: when he’s not being celibate :)

I support him regardless if he's gay or not, but just seemed a hell of way to come out, if he was. From what I read, it looks like he is gay, but who knows. He has dated a lot of women, but that doesn't mean he isn't gay (or bisexual maybe?). More time will tell if these words show to be true.

Lay, Skilling found guilty of conspiracy and fraud

2006-05-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

According to an article from the Associated Press, Former Enron Corporate cheifs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted today of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in Enron. Lay is guilty of six counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and security fraud. Skilling is guilty on 19 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

All I've got to say it's about DAMN time. It took no time for Martha Stewart to get convicted and get prison time, but it took these jerks YEARS to get convicted. America will see a woman go down anyday (especially someone who is successful and not nice about it), but creeps like Lay and Skilling have a good ride for a few years. Now Martha didn't do hard time, but the fact that she got convicted before these guys did, and the fact that her crime was nothing in comparison to what Lay and Skilling did, makes me suspicious of our justice system (this is not the only thing that makes mes suspicious of the justice system, just one of the shining examples).

Lay and Skilling's sentences are set to be read for September 11th (hell of a day to get sentenced). They face decades in prison, and I hope they get the maximum penalty.

I hope Bush knows his 'Kenny boy' is about to be in some real deep shit soon.

Original Source

NC blogger praises the Dixie Chicks

2006-05-23T14:26:00.000-05:00

Local blogger, Ron Hudson, on his blog 2sides2ron posted his support and praise for the Dixie Chicks and their music, bravery, and patriotism. I've always liked Ron's blog, and this has to be one of my favorite posts. The post says...

I once worked for a good man who advised me about standing up for my principles. He told me that if I held a strong conviction, then I had to defend it even if it meant that I might lose my job over it. It was a good lesson and one that took me years to incorporate into my life. When I finally accepted myself unconditionally, I started to live his advice.

Tonight I wish to salute three true American heroines: Natalie Maines, Emily Erwin, and Martie Seidel, also known as The Dixie Chicks. Their new album "Taking the Long Way" is being released this week and I just purchased my copy. Their new single and video is powerful, entitled "I'm Not Ready To Make Nice." When they dared to speak their minds about the current President a few years ago, they were made out to be bad girls who didn't support American values. It proved to be a difficult experience for the three members of the band. I have heard about the hate mail they received, of the people who walked out on them, and of the radio stations that quit including them on their playlists. I found these actions more un-American than speaking one's own truth. It was as if some Americans expected them to sit down and shut up if they had an opinion.

I think this album brings them full circle after having passed through the fire of that experience. It seems that they have learned to love themselves unconditionally and to hear the beating of their own hearts. This album promises a new start for these beautiful, talented and brave women. I hope you will support them in their quest for truth by purchasing a copy of this album.

I ask you, what could be more American than freely expressing your opinion about how this country is being managed? The answer might just well be that there is one thing more genuine: speaking your mind and then sticking around to defend your opinion.

Post on 2sides2ron

I am a fan, ladies. Thank you for your work.

The new Dixie Chicks' album, Taking the Long Way is their best out of all their albums, and their most mature. They co-wrote or wrote every song on the album, and the talent and musicianship is even better than their last album Home (which won a Grammy for Best Country Album in 2003, right before Natalie Maines's Bush comment).

I have been a fan of the Chicks since 1998, and by the millions of posts on here it seems like I have posted about them, it is evident that I am still a huge fan today. I find it funny, that when they released their major debut album Wide Open Spaces in 1998, they were once called the 'Spice Girls of Country music, and now they are on the cover of TIME magazine. Times do change, and attitudes do as well.

The Chicks have proven themselves to be true musicians and true patriots and I am glad that I am not the only one who recognizes that.

"You're no Jack Kennedy"

2006-05-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

According to an article by the Associated Press, former Democratic Senator of Texas, Treasurey Secretary and Vice-Presidential candidate (1988 election),Lloyd Bentsen died this morning due to health problems and two storkes he suffered in 1998.

He served the state of Texas for 28 years, and was instrumental as Clinton's treasurey secretary in balancing the budget and cleaning up Reagan and Bush Sr.'s financial mess.

Though he is most remembered, when he was Michael Dukakis's vice-presidential running mate, for his comment to Dan Quayle, Bush Sr's vice-presidential running mate during a vice presidential debate in which he told Quayle "You're no Jack Kennedy."

Here is the transcript of that particular part of the debate (thanks to Ken on the Seventh Sense blog.

Quayle: ...I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Judy Woodruff: Senator Bentsen.

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy. (Prolonged boos and applause) What has to be done in a situation like that is to call in the -

Woodruff: Please, please, once again you are only taking time away from your own candidate.

Quayle: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause)

Bentsen: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator - and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken

I really loved that, I do. Yeah, to some it may be nasty, but Dan Quayle was never a Jack Kennedy, hell, he couldn't even spell "potatoe" right (that's the way he spelled it).

Farewell to you Lloyd Bentsen, you have served America (and Texas!, he definitely wasn't the idiot there!)well. Let's hope the current Democrats and future ones will have enough backbone to form their party to once being a party that actually opposed the Republicans.

Original Source

Dixie Chicks grace the cover of TIME

2006-05-21T12:48:00.000-05:00

The Dixie Chicks are on the cover of TIME magazine. When I told my Dad to guess who's on the cover, he replied "Bush?", and I smiled, and said "No, the Dixie Chicks", he said "WOW". Yes, my friends, "WOW". The Dixie Chicks, who before Natalie Maines' comments in 2003, 10 days before the Iraq Invasion, were the darlings of country music, are on the cover of TIME magazine. The last cover I have seen the Chicks grace was the cover of Entertainment Weekly where they were naked covering themselves with words and their own hands. . This cover, as you can see were criticisms they received and also words they felt reflected who they are such as "Proud American". I feel as if the Dixie Chicks represent everything that I am as a proud American using her voice and her choice to dissent against what I see as a moral threats to the world by the Bush administration.

They are unapologetic and don't give a damn who they piss off. Sure it might be bad for business, but I assure you there will be an audience for the Chicks, there always has been, and there always will be. So when my copy of Taking the Long Way comes in a package to me I will part of that audience. I have supported the Chicks since their first album, and will continue to do so.

While their single "Not Ready to Make Nice" isn't getting a lot of radio play, it's still making headway, it's lyrics alone are profound, it's even more powerful when you listen to the song. The music video for it represents a lot about what they went through, when they received harsh criticism, death threats, and lost a percentage of their fans. Here is the video, while some of the symbolism is obvious (black representing oil as a justification for war and invasion) other's are more subtle.

Here is a Summary of the TIME Article posted on CNN.com

The Chicks are BACK, and I for one, am the happiest chick of all because of it.

Dining for Friends-what a blast, and what a success

2006-05-21T11:42:00.000-05:00

Every year, for the past 17 years, Triad Health Project has put on Dining for Friends, one of the 2 main fundraisers, along with Winter Walk for AIDS to raise money for THP.

A couple of friends and I went to the Warehouse 29 party where dinner was served, and they had their own 75-80 minute production of RENT, which was a combo of live performance, lip-synching, and video clips. A couple of theatre students were in the play, and a couple of community people I knew were in the production as well.

Over all, the party at Warehouse 29, raised over $4,000. Which is amazing! I didn't get the figures yet as to how much was raised so far, but I will when I get more information.

I look forward to next year's Dining for Friends parties! :)

What Triad Health Project means to me

2006-05-19T10:52:00.000-05:00

There are few times I can see the front page of the newspaper and cry tears of joy, but this morning was one of them. Seeing the front page of this morning's News and Recordmade me remember why I am a HIV/AIDS activist. The front page title says "For 20 years, Triad Health Project has fought HIV/AIDS".

Triad Health Project started 20 years now, the year I was born, 1986, to address the needs of those gay men who were afflicted with HIV/AIDS. In 20 years, the face of HIV/AIDS has changed so much. Men who have sex with men are still at risk for it, but more and more people under the age of 25 are getting infected with the disease, and African American women are the highest percentage of new HIV infections.

While the article mentions that HIV/AIDS is now longer a death sentence, the disease is still deadly. HIV/AIDS seems to have gone out of the spotlight because of it, but the need for help still exists, that's why Triad Health Project is here, and they will be here till the need no longer exists.

Triad Health Project was an organization that started when I was born, and one might say 'you weren't around when AIDS was deadly and scary, so why do you care? (a fellow classmate of mine my junior said words to that effect to me). I answered him 'Because, HIV/AIDS is still deadly and scary and while those closest to me aren't dying like so many were 20 years ago, I still fight because I want those infected with the disease to live as long as possible, to educate those who aren't infected to protect themselves, to stop those to spread the disease that have it, and motivate and encourage people to become HIV/AIDS activists'. He muttered something inaudible and walked ahead.

The first semester of my junior year of high school I was told by one of my favorite teachers, Ms. Becker about a program called "Lifeguards", a part of Triad Health Project that has been around since 1994, which educates high school youth about HIV/AIDS and trains those high school students to protect themselves and then educate their peers through their respective schools.

So I agreed to do it, not knowing what I was getting myself into it. I was 16 at the time, a time where I was very insecure about myself and my capabilities. I only knew the bare minimum about HIV/AIDS, basically how you contracted it (through what activities and through what fluids). I didn't know the impact of it, at that time I saw it as just another STI, boy, I was wrong.

Through my education and training process, I began to understand why educating those about HIV/AIDS was so important. The Lifeguards meeting at Western Guilford was a success, and during the time it was there it was mostly a success. During my senior year, while things went crazy with my academics (too much to do in such a little time), and the 7 other clubs I was in kept me extremely busy, so participation was down, and now I regret for not A)making officers B) and promoting it more, but you learn from your past actions.

Lifeguards at Western Guilford is inactive at the moment, which saddens me, but I hope in the future someone is motivated like I was 3 years ago to energize, motivate, and encourage their peers to educate others and be a HIV/AIDS activist.

During the school year was not the only time I volunteered. I volunteered the summer before my senior year of high school, which was considered a non-paid internship :) I enjoyed my time there, and really wish I had done the same the next year, but once again, we learn. So I decided this summer I was going to work Monday through Wednesday (starting Monday) and then intern one day at THP, Thursdays, June 1st. I am very much excited about seeing my THP family, because it's been long overdue.

Some faces have left since I was last there, and some new faces have appeared. The people at Triad Health Project have such a huge heart and love for what they are doing. This organization and cause means so much to me that I tear up with joy just thinking about my past experiences.

I remember the coffee Thursday mornings during my morning internship, the hugs from one client in particular who warmed my heart so much, one who gave me a kiss on the cheek twice everytime we saw each other, and the love and support I received from the staff. There are all an inspiration to me and really re-energized my batteries for me to realize that we cannot become complacent about HIV/AIDS, the time is act is now.

I remember volunteering at Dining for Friends, Winter Walk for AIDS, Mother of all Mailings (mailing for Winter Walk for AIDS), the Green Queen Bingos. I remember the sexual health trainings with not only the Lifeguards from Western Guilford, but all the other Lifeguards from Guilford County high schools. I remember talking to inner-city kids about HIV/AIDS and seeing their reaction to the common myths about the disease.

I remember holding my own Dining for Friends party 2 summers ago, and it being one of the best things I ever did.

I look forward to the future fighting for this cause, and working with Triad Health Project. This Saturday, is Dining For Friends, one of the 2 main fundraisers, along with Winter Walk for AIDS, that THP has. Dining for Friends is where the Triad area all has their own fundraiser parties to raise money for THP, and then the host of that party has tickets for their guests to go to the Dessert Finale at the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center.

I am going to Warehouse 29 with a couple of friends to have dinner and see their own production of RENT and then I will be heading over to the Dessert Finale at the Coliseum. If you plan on going it is donation at the door. If you can't find a party to go to tomorrow, than go to Triad Health Project and contact Mike Baker (his contact info should be on their website).

This post is long overdue and quite possibly I could write so much more about THP and why I a HIV/AIDS activist and advocate, but that would take forever and a day to type it.

So while I stopped a couple of times during this post to type tears of joy, I know many have cried tears of pain because they have been in pain due to their HIV/AIDS status, or family members have mourned a loved one's status or passing from HIV/AIDS, and many more who are suffering with no one there to help them. I will work to there are no more tears shed, and hope you will do the same.

Here is the article on THP in today's News & Record.

First fraternity to welcome transgender members

2006-05-17T16:03:00.000-05:00

According to an article on the Arizona Republic, Arizona State University's first and only gay fraternity, Sigma Phi Beta, has become the first frat to welcome and recognize transgender members. They are in support of welcoming those who are FTM transsexuals and support welcoming back those MTF transsexuals that were once "brothers" in the frat.

I think this decision is one of the first baby steps in transgender equality. Hopefully next time we will have a frat that isn't specifically set for gays welcoming transgender individuals into the frat, but until then we should celebrate this decision and work toward more trans-inclusiveness in everyway possible.

Here is the article.

------------

Sigma Phi Beta has redefined what it is to be a man.

The Arizona State University fraternity is the country's first to allow members who identify themselves as male regardless of their birth or legally recognized gender.

Even those who decide later to become female may remain members, said Sam Holdren, the fraternity's national president and chairman. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2004 and helped establish Sigma Phi Beta as ASU's first gay fraternity in July.

Holdren emphasized Sigma Phi Beta is for men.

But "students develop best in environments where they feel valued, protected, accepted and socially connected to their peers."

Jamison Green, a national transgender activist, said the decision fulfills "the Greek life values of self-determination, self-actualization and brotherhood." - Mike Cronin

Original Source

Westboro Baptist Church: There is no Christ in their Christianity, Only Hatred

2006-05-17T14:03:00.000-05:00

According to the Good as You blog Barney Frank, one of the three US congressmembers to vote against the "Respect for American Hereos" act (which passed through the House with a vote 408-3), would bar Westboro Baptist Church from protesting at solider's funerals, has been called a "fat faggot" by WBC as a way to say "thanks" to Rep. Franks. While this comes as no shock to me, it was in extremely bad taste of them.

Shirley Phelps Roper, who recently appeared on FOX NEWS's Hannity & Colmes was talking about WBC's "message" to America. I believe in free speech, but this is just down right wrong, and hateful. If you can piss off FOX NEWS, than mostly everybody loathes you. Here is the video of this appearance on FOX.

Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for protesting Matthew Shephard's Funeral, (they have been protesting various events as well for years) because they believe that LGBT people are the root of all the problems America is facing, including the "war" in Iraq and they believe every dead solider is a sign of God's wrath. At these protests they held up signs that say "Thank God for Dead Soliders", "Thank God for 9/11", "Thank God for IEDS", and a slew of other anti-gay slogans and phrases, and imagery that is extremely hateful and distasteful on these posters.

I disagree with the vote made by Congressmen Frank, but he doesn't deserve that. He is protecting their right to spread their hatred and instill pain in the hearts of those families who have lost their loved ones. Phelps and his church should thank him properly for protecting their right to do this, but you can't expect these people to be decent, not even an ounce of them is full of God's love. There is no Christ in their Christianity, only hatred.

Original Source

Dear Mr. President Live

2006-05-16T19:51:00.000-05:00

Pink and the Indigo Girl's song "Dear Mr.President" has the lyrics and musical delivery that have driven me to tears more than once. The live version of this song by Pink still does that to me. Pink is a great performer, and this is a powerful and profound song.

This is cross-posted in my new video blog Youtubing my way which has some of my favorite videos on there posted daily. Some may be posted in here if they are political in nature, others will be purely on the website as they may have nothing to do with politics.

Enjoy!

The only bush I trust is my own!, or Laura Bush..?

2006-05-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

Laura Bush's message to the Republican party and the Conservatives on the Hill: "Don't use the federal marrage amendment as a campaign tool." Yes, she said words and much more, and all this was said today on FOX NEWS.

Recently, Laura Bush spoke in support of her husband, and said the polls didn't matter because the media exaggerates the problems of her husband's administration.
While I find it hard the media can spin so much that 71% of America is misled on the fallacies of the Bush/Cheney Administration, I definitely agree with her on her recent comments about the Federal Marriage Amendment. I think that out of the many things she has said, this is one of her brighest moments. What really got me is this quote right here...

"But you know, what I can say is look, amending the Constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."

Now, where was she 2 years ago when the FMA was introduced? Regardless of the timing of her statements, it's good to have Laura on the side of reason and support when it comes to Marriage Equality.

Here is the Article

(Washington) Some election-year advice to Republicans from a high-ranking source who has the president's ear: Don't use a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage as a campaign tool.
Just who is that political strategist? Laura Bush.

The first lady told "Fox News Sunday" that she thinks the American people want a debate on the issue. But, she said, "I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously."

"It requires a lot of sensitivity to just talk about the issue — a lot of sensitivity," she said.

The Senate will debate legislation that would have the Constitution define marriage as the union between a man and a woman early next month, Majority Leader Bill Frist said on CNN's "Late Edition."

President Bush supports the amendment, but Vice President Dick Cheney does not. Cheney's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian and has been speaking out against the marriage amendment as she promotes her new book, "Now It's My Turn."

Mary Cheney wrote that she almost quit working on the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004 because of Bush's position on gay marriage. Asked Sunday about reports that White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Republicans want to use the issue to mobilize conservatives for the midterm election, she said she hoped "no one would think about trying to amend the Constitution as a political strategy."

"I certainly don't know what conversations have gone on between Karl and anybody up on the Hill," she said on Fox. "But you know, what I can say is look, amending the Constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."

But Frist said he would defend the amendment even to Dick Cheney.

"I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country," Frist said on CNN. "And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman."

Original Source

Shut up and Listen

2006-05-14T19:12:00.000-05:00

3 years ago, Nataline Maines of the country/pop trio the Dixie Chicks said the night of the Invasion in Iraq said "I'm ashamed that George Bush is from Texas". What followed was many radio stations, not just country stations stopped playing the group's music, people smashed their CDs as public gatherings and recreation, heavy criticism (not constructive or diplomatic at all) ensued from the community that they called home-their country base, and even death threats followed the Chicks while on tour, one in particular that had a very serious direct threat.

Now, the Chicks are set to release their first new album in 3 years entitled Taking the Long Way on Tuesday, May 23rd. Their new single Not Ready to Make Nice is musically impressive, and most importantly brings forth attention to the fans that deserted them, the country community that has forsaken them, and those who threatened them. What's sad about this is that country stations, and pop stations are not playing their music. It's not surprising by any means, but when on average, 70% of Americans agree more with Maines and the Chick's viewpoint now than they did 3 years ago, don't you think people should listen more?

I found this video on www.youtube.com (which has become one of my favorite websites lately), has a short video from a site called Shut Up and Listen whose sole purpose is to show that their song isn't being played. According to Billboard Charts Not Ready to Make Nice is #36 on the Country Charts and #23 on the Pop charts. One might say that is not bad, but the single has been out 6 weeks now, and I haven't heard much of it on the radio (and I do listen to Top 40 and Country). I bought the song off of itunes. What I find ironic though, is that Not Ready to Make Nice is #1 Country song downloaded off of itunes. Also, as of May 14th, 2006, their album
Taking the Long Way is #6 in Music Sales on Amazon.com (I also preordered the album off of Amazon.com.

Here is the video, it gets the point across well in a simple, yet powerful video clip...

As one of my favorite music groups, the Dixie Chicks have proven themselves on many fronts. They have proven to be talented, musically and vocally, they have proven to speak out and voice their beliefs, and I commend them for it, and they are not forgiving about it. If you stick by your beliefs, regardless of the stakes, you have earned my respect twofold. For a musician or artist to comment on the culture, politics, or religion, (and many other topics that affect the world we live in) you are not merely someone with a mic pleasing your fans, you are someone using your voice in a big way.

Out CA Senator calls for LGBT history in textbooks

2006-05-14T15:19:00.000-05:00

I have always wondered in my years of K-12 education, where was the history about my community that I was a part of? If you looked at textbooks today, even those of AP US History, LGBT people were seldom mentioned and not concentrated at all. There was no depth to their impact upon America and the social and political climate of certain decades. Certain LGBT activists were not mentioned at all.

So I think Sheila Kuehl is doing good work and hopefully CA textbooks will be inclusive of LGBT history. I doubt NC will see a more progressive text of our history books, but what Sen. Kuehl is doing is a start. It will be interesting to see if this passed and at least by 2012 if CA textbooks include LGBT history. I'd like to take a Queer Theory course, hopefully UNCG can have the course come up in the next couple of years :) Here is the article

SAN FRANCISCO, May 13 — Sheila Kuehl has done a few things that someday may merit mention in the history books: more than a decade in the California Legislature, a public crusade against domestic violence and a stint as the tenacious busybody Zelda on the classic sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

But if such immortality were to happen, Ms. Kuehl says, she would want one fact listed with the rest of her accomplishments: she is gay.

So this year, Ms. Kuehl, a state senator representing western Los Angeles, introduced a bill to assure that lesbians and gay men get what she feels is their due in California textbooks. The bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday and is now headed to the Assembly, would forbid the teaching of any material that "reflects adversely on persons due to sexual orientation," and add the "age appropriate study of the role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender."

For Ms. Kuehl, 65, the bill seems to have as much to do with school security as it does with the A B C's.

"One of the things that contribute to a safe or unsafe environment for kids are the teaching materials," Ms. Kuehl said. "If you have teaching material that didn't say anything at all about gay and lesbian people, it is assumed that they never did anything at all. But if it said anything about gay and lesbian people, the whole atmosphere of the school was safer for gay and lesbian kids, or those thought to be gay and lesbian."

At a time when same-sex marriage is a polarizing presence in the courts and in voting booths across the country, any issue dealing with gay rights is bound to cause a fluster, and this bill is no exception. The Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative organization, labeled the proposal "the most outrageous bill in the California Legislature this year."

Concerned Women for America, a Christian public policy group, filed a letter with the Senate suggesting that such studies were the domain of the home, not the schools.

Cindy Moles, the state director of Concerned Women for America, said the bill was trying to indoctrinate children to "dangerous sexual lifestyles" and was unnecessary from an educational standpoint.

"We don't need to list all the behavior of historical figures," Ms. Moles said. "Certainly not their sexual behavior."

Representatives for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to comment on the bill, as did Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction.

Ms. Kuehl says she traces her quest to include material on gay figures in textbooks to her days as a student in Los Angeles public schools in the late 1940's and early 50's.

"When I was a kid, there were no women in the textbooks, no black people, no Latinos," she said. "As far as I knew, the only people who ever did anything worthwhile were white men."

Ms. Kuehl said the practical applications of the law would be limited to including the accomplishments of gay figures in textbooks and class studies alongside those of other social and ethnic groups. For example, a teacher talking about Langston Hughes would not only mention the fact that he was a black poet, but also mention his sexuality, Ms. Kuehl said.

If the law were to pass, new textbooks probably would not hit desks until 2012, by which time Ms. Kuehl, who is recognized as the state's first openly gay legislator, might merit a mention or two. What might she like it to say?

"I'd like to be remembered as a person that fought for civil rights and social justice," she said.

But what of "Dobie Gillis"? "I'm proud of that work, too," she said.

Original Source

Boy murdered because he was HIV+

2006-04-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on 365gay.com a Kenyian boy named Isaiah Gakuyo was presumed to be killed by his uncle, who was his care taker, his mother and grandmother had passed from AIDS.

The police had said that the uncle had gotten upset because Isaiah would not use a separate utensils, and he was killed with a pitchfork.

Here is the article

(Nairobi) Hundreds of people marched through the capital of Kenya on Thursday to protest the killing of a boy who was HIV-positive.

Isaiah Gakuyo's mother and grandmother had already died of AIDS and the boy was being cared for by his uncle.

Police say the uncle became angry because the youth would not use separate eating utensils and killed him with a pitch-fork.

The uncle had been investigated in the past for abusing the boy.

The child was removed from his care and for a time was looked after by a social service agency. But recently the uncle was allowed to resume cared.

Following the murder the uncle disappeared and AIDS activists who organized Thursday's protest called on police to find the man and bring him to justice.

They said that the killing shows the fear and ignorance of HIV/AIDS in Kenya.

Kenya is one of the recipients of US AIDS funds but the money is tied to the promotion of abstinence, a condition of receiving the money.
---------
I believe this shows the fear many people have of HIV/AIDS, especially in Kenya. Mentioned later in the article was that Kenya receives US AIDS funds only to be used for abstience promotion, having sex education anywhere that isn't comprehensive is irresponsible because abstaining sex from is not the only option Kenyians have, or anyone has, but especially Kenya.

Embrace Diversity

2006-04-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

"We’re getting off on a morass here of political correctness."
Colorado Sen. Jim Dyer (R) opposing a bill to outlaw discrimination of gays in jobs and housing.

Unfortunately I feel Mr. Dyer has too many people that agree with him. I feel as if people are wanting to just remember their own identity and culture and not accept and acknowledge other cultures, ethnicities and identities. I feel as if that there is a backlash in the strive for acceptance of all people, not just a gay backlash, but that definitely fuels the fire.

Under the right wing hold we have in the US government there is a turning back to what some would tout as "Traditional American Values", denying and ignoring the rights of ethnic minorities and sexual minorities, I feel that the strive for the rights of minorities has taken a deep plunge and suffered a major backlash.

Though, I believe people are opening their eyes and waking up to the reality we see under the Bush administration, where this administration has a love affair with the rich Christian white male, while ignroing the greivances of anyone that doesn't fit that image of America to them. America is named the melting pot for a reason, and diversity is what makes America one of the best countries to live in. Let's keep it that way, and let's learn about each other instead of focusing solely on ourselves. Main point being: Embrace Diversity.

UNCG PRIDE! Movie Night and Upcoming Events

2006-04-19T16:55:00.000-05:00

UNCG PRIDE! will be having their movie night with the documentary "Paragraph 175" which interviews those men and women who suffered through Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Paragraph 175 was the German code that had outlawed sex between men from 1871 until it was ultimately revoked in 1994. Many provisions to the code were made during the years it was existence.

The movie is in German with English subtitles and is narrated in English.

It will be held tomorrow evening, Thursday, April 20th @ 7:30PM in the Ferguson Room in the EUC.

We will be co-sponsoring this upcoming Monday with Alpha Delta Pi, a safe sex presentation by Jean Workman from the Guilford County Department of Health. It will be held in the Jamison Parlor, there will be individuals there to let you in to the dorm. This event will be held Monday, April 24th @ 8pm.

Our last meeting of the year will be next Thursday, April 27th, with our End of the Year Picnic in the Tower Village Courtyard (someone will be there at 7PM to open up and let you in).

I hope to see you all at one or more of those events!

Thanks,
Samantha

Questions? email me at uncgpride2006@hotmail.com or give me a call at 336-255-4417

Pink and Indigo Girls singing and writing the truth

2006-04-16T23:12:00.000-05:00

Pink and the Indigo Girls came together to make a wonderful protest song titled "Dear Mr. President", it encompasses all the anger, pain, frustration, and hate felt under Bush's rule and administration. No one lyric doesn't hit a chord within me, and I think you will feel the same way once you listen to the song. Purchase the song off of itunes for .99, it's definitely worth it.

"Dear Mr. President"
Pink feat. Indigo Girls

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pay the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

Vernon Robinson's "Twilight Zone" Campaign TV AD

2006-04-15T00:18:00.000-05:00

Vernon Robinson is running for the 13th district of North Carolina against Democratic incumbent Brad Miller . I haven't learned much about Mr. Robinson till now, he is quite the interesting candidate. He ran against Virginia Foxx in 2004 to gain the Republican candidacy for the 5th district, which he did not receive. He had ran against Democrat Molly Leight for a seat on Winston Salem's City Council in 2005, and lost, but had served two terms on the Council, where he is one of two Republicans on the Council.

I ran across his new campaign ad for his 2006 run against Brad Miller, and I find it to be ridiuclous because these types of "values" he said that he is in favor of are hateful and unconstitutional. At the end of this ad it shows the family from Leave it to Beaver waving, which is supposed to represent his view of "Traditional American Values". You know, if he wanted to go back to 1955, than he can get himself a time machine if it was possible and try to run for Congress then and see if he could run for Congress, let alone get a support he has now (which is scary that he has one at all) considering how most Americans felt about African Americans then.

I believe it to be funny, but in a rather sick, you are shocked, but I suppose that's his intended purpose. My intended purpose is to show this to many people as possible and keep Brad Miller in office.

Watch below and be horrified and then register to vote, cause I'm sure no matter where you are there is a fool like Vernon Robinson promoting hate, prejudice, and ignorance as "Traditional American Values", hell, our government, all 3 branches, are run by fools like these.

Lesbian wins Homecoming King

2006-03-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

According to an article on AOL News, a senior college student, who identifies as lesbian won Homecoming King at her College.

I, personally, have no issue with a woman winning Homecoming King or a man winning Homecoming Queen, in also in the same respect, with someone who is transgendered winning either of those titles, because Gender is blind, so is race. Both are a socially constructed concept and socially, a lesbian winning Homecoming King is an issue.

A good friend of mine from high school, who was one of the few openly gay males at our school, was very popular, and was voted Homecoming King. There were a lot of jokes that came out afterwards that said he should have been Homecoming Queen because he was gay, and non-apologetic about it. A lot would say he was your "stereotypical gay man" (hell he had better eyebrows than I did!). Regardless of how "feminine" he was, he would have been more of a man than any of those men, and more of a woman than any of those men would get (notice my Rent reference, I couldn't help it!).

So good for Jennifer Jones and all those who wish to be King or Queen regardless of what their gender is or what gender role society thinks or wishes them to fill. The article is below...

--------------------------

FREDERICK, Md. (March 7) - Hood College is reviewing its homecoming rules after a lesbian was crowned king, a college official said.

Jennifer Jones, the 21-year-old senior who beat out three men for the honor, said the crowning was a positive step for the private liberal arts college.

"It is cool that Hood allows people to be themselves," Jones told The Frederick News-Post. "If people didn't want me to be king, they wouldn't have nominated me and voted for me."

Jones, of Newark, Del., received 64 of 169 votes cast for king last month.

More than two weeks after Jones was crowned, criticism and praise were still rippling through the 2,100-student campus in western Maryland.

"She is not a man," said Singleton Newman, a 22-year-old senior who was nominated for queen. "It is a gender issue, and she is a woman."

Santo Provenzano, 21, who competed for king, said Jones' selection made the event seem like a joke. "It discourages guys from wanting to take part in the future," he said.

Donald Miller, Hood's student activities director, said all homecoming events will be reviewed and possibly changed. "We will look at what students want Hood's homecoming to be," he said.

It was only the second annual homecoming for the school. Men started attending Hood in 1971 but the school didn't become fully coeducational until 2003 when men were permitted to live on campus for the first time.

Jones tried to run for homecoming prince last year, but a student committee wouldn't let her on the ballot even though she had gathered the required number of signatures on nominating petitions.

Miller said a rule change this year abolished the petitions and required that candidates be nominated by student ballots.

Original Source

Brokeback Mountain wins 3 Oscars

2006-03-05T23:22:00.000-05:00

Brokeback Mountain, which was nominated for the most Academy Awards coming in to the Oscars won 3 Academy Awards. BBM won Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. While, personally, I feel that BBM should have won more (especially in the acting categories), I understand that these were tough categories, and there were really great films and performances this year.

Annie Prolux's stunning and powerful short story was adapted into such a wonderful and moving film, and I was happy that the Academy recognized this. Ang Lee's direction of this film was worthy and deserving of being recognized by the Academy. And the beautiful beautiful score of BBM, which I listen to frequently on my computer, really captured the mood of the film and its message.

So Congratulations to all the winners, I was so glad that Reese Witherspoon won for Best Actress for her portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line

And Crash was definitely deserving of Best Picture, this year in cinema had some of the greatest and most controversial films that have been made which dealt with race relations and homophobia and other various issues.

I really hope that the LGBT community recognizes that the Academy is not biased or homophobic, but honestly, and truly, this year had some great films. For Brokeback Mountain to win 3 Oscars (remember they won a share of Golden Globes and other various awards) is a great thing for the LGBT community and our visability in the media and film.

Silent Gains for Regressing Reproductive Rights in America

2006-02-24T19:37:00.000-05:00

Since the confirmations of Justices Roberts and Alito, the very real possibility of Roe v Wade being overturned is looming. Though what the general public does not realize are the gains being won in the fight against choice in their states. One of the greatest gains for regressing reproductive rights in America was evident the other day when South Dakota passed a law that made it a felony for doctors to perform any abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant woman. These are the kind of things we are up against, even in cases of rape or incest, abortion is not an option in South Dakota

"The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future," said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene."

When I read this article I got so pissed, and cried. I got motivated too, another reason why I am public health education major (with a community education concentration, i love saying that) and an activist for reproductive rights and choices and women's rights.

What people don't realize are that the states are passing restrictions from the fact in general, Medicaid won't cover abortion procedures, and you start off with parental notification laws, then 24 hour waiting before you have an abortion, to late term abortion bans, to the criminalization of abortion (as I'm sure there are more types of restrictions I have not mentioned). If this trend continues, which I do believe it will, we will see the possible overturning of Roe v Wade.

I really feel that abortion is not something that she condoned as birth control (because condoms and contraceptives should be used first and used together), but as a choice available to women. No man or legislator has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body. As Hillary Clinton once said "That decision is between a woman, her doctor, and her God(s) that she does or does not believe in" (or something to that effect. I couldn't agree more.

Here is the article...

South Dakota passes restrictive abortion law

From my Republican friend-Bush and his "leadership"

2006-02-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

From my friend Chris, who is a registered Republican, his thoughts on Bush, this was featured on AOL blog post...I really like what he has to say

----------

Sadly, it isn't Bush's amazing ability to lead this country; it is his inability rather, that inspires passion on the keyboard lately for things such as news articles, blog entries, and academic essays. He has aggressively undermines the authority of the U.S. Congress in any way imaginable to promote and execute a personal agenda fueled by hatred, bigotry and ignorance. People are catching on to his unethical and somewhat illegal behavior and, to a certain degree, rebelling against Bush. It is my personal opinion, as a Republican (who gained sensibility before the ?04 elections), that a chimp could do a better job in the White House. I think the puppet master dropped the strings and let this Pinocchio-like character run untamed?and we all know the trouble that Pinocchio got himself into when those puppet strings were gone. And, what in God?s name was Bush thinking when he decided to allow an Arab nation to purchase six major U.S. ports? On one hand Bush is sending the message that the Arab nations harbor terrorist activity and that American troops (I am in no way discrediting those serving in our nation?s armed forces) are fighting a war to protect national security by ridding terrorism from the Arab nations, but at the same time he is opening the country up for a catastrophic disaster. As Americans we must ask ourselves how this will affect us in the long-run. Are we willing to put us, our children, their children, and so on at risk by opening up our nation to the same people we are fighting?

(Chris Wood)

Why are "dykes" more accepted than "fags?"

2006-02-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

I had a friend of mine ask the question "Why are dykes more accepted than fags?" He is a gay man himself and does not like to hear about lesbian/bisexual woman because as he told me "it grosses him out".

I understand he would never sleep with a woman, but he has told me the "gross out" statement as someone who is completely disgusted and repulsed by the idea of lesbianism in itself.

So when the question was posed to me, I felt I needed to give my opinion as to why within society (not the LGBT community, because gay male homosexuality is more accepted and always has been among the "letters" within in our community) why gay male homosexuality is more taboo and less acceptable in comparison to lesbianism and female bisexuality.
Why are dykes more accepted in society then fags?

In the fabulous (says sarcastically) society we live in today, the reason lesbians and bisexual women are accepted more than gay and bisexual men is because heterosexual men have sexualized lesbianism for their own pleasure.

We have lived in a society where the established patriachy seeds have sown themselves for inequality where gay man are more "Taboo" in our society because honestly, straight men are not going to get off on gay men getting it on, but they will get off on 2 women together. Therefore male homosexuality is not as accepted because you mostly have unaccepting straight men exuding their power and influencing others in the mainstream culture.

When a straight man hears a woman is lesbian, bisexual, or bi-curious a lot of the time he wants to watch her with another woman, get in a 3 some (if his girlfriend or wife says she has an interest in woman), or he will believe that he is the cure all for her lesbianism. This has come from many experiences of mine and other queer women I know and their experiences they had told me.

The patriachal system we live in has the power to influence and has influenced what is considered what is more acceptable than others and what is taboo. Lesbianism is not so taboo because the ignorant heterosexual men in society see lesbianism as something they can get off to and not a group of people. Male homosexuality is more taboo because they cannot get off on it, (or are ashamed to get off on it if they have a homo moment(s)) and if two men are together they see that losing their masculinity.

Established Gender Roles come into play there, ignorant straight men fear homosexuality because they see it to be something that could "change them" or scared of what they might discover about themselves. Straight men getting off to two women together is perfectly fine for them because they don't see themselves as losing their masculinity, its a comfort zone for them.

Its not fair how one sect of the LGBT community is more accepted and the other is not.

But also, within the queer community you have things that are still considered somewhat taboo. Like bisexuality, I have heard many times "Just choose already", or "Make up your mind". Some gays and lesbians see bisexuality as not being able to choose, having their cake and eating it to (no pun intended), or as a phase really.

We should all be accepted within the community, queer and society, as equals. The lack of cohesiveness between the "letters" LGBTQ etc is a tough hurdle to climb. Because we are all in the struggle in the fight for equality and acceptance, its about time we recognized the other letters besides just our own.

Betty Friedan dies

2006-02-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, one of the great pioneers of the modern feminist movement died at the age of 85. Writer of the Feminine Mystique, a book which helped start the modern feminist movement, was also the co-founder and first president of the National Organization for Women. I mourn her loss and hope that her work continues and lives on in the lives of today's feminists (me!). Here is the article

-------------------
Betty Friedan, whose manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85.

Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon.

Friedan's assertion in her 1963 best seller that having a husband and babies was not everything and that women should aspire to separate identities as individuals, was highly unusual, if not revolutionary, just after the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era.

The feminine mystique, she said, was a phony bill of goods society sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquilizers and psychoanalysis.

"A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, `Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children," Friedan said.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms. magazine and a former president of the National Organization for Women, praised Friedan's legacy.

Friedan, she said, "was a giant for women's rights and a leading catalyst of the 20th century whose work led to profound changes improving the status of women and women's lives" worldwide. "The Feminine Mystique" helped to "define the lesser status of women," she said.

"That book changed women's lives," said Kim Gandy, current president of NOW, which Friedan co-founded. "It opened women's minds to the idea that there actually might be something more. And for the women who secretly harbored such unpopular thoughts, it told them that there were other women out there like them who thought there might be something more to life."

In the racial, political and sexual conflicts of the 1960s and '70s, Friedan's was one of the most commanding voices and recognizable presences in the women's movement.

As the first president of NOW in 1966, she staked out positions that seemed extreme at the time on such issues as abortion, sex-neutral help-wanted ads, equal pay, promotion opportunities and maternity leave.

But at the same time, Friedan insisted that the women's movement had to remain in the American mainstream, that men had to be accepted as allies and that the family should not be rejected.

"Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school," Friedan told a college audience in 1970.

To more radical and lesbian feminists, Friedan was "hopelessly bourgeois," Susan Brownmiller wrote at the time.

Friedan, deeply opposed to "equating feminism with lesbianism," conceded later that she had been "very square" and uncomfortable about homosexuality.

"I wrote a whole book objecting to the definition of women only in sexual relation to men. I would not exchange that for a definition of women only in sexual relation to women," she said.

Nonetheless she was a seconder for a resolution on protecting lesbian rights at the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977.

"For a great many women, choosing motherhood makes motherhood itself a liberating choice," she told an interviewer two decades later. But she added that this should not be a reason for conflict with "other feminists who are maybe more austere, or choose to seek their partners among other women."

By then in her 70s, Friedan had moved on to the issue of how society views and treats its elderly.

She said that while researching her last book, "The Fountain of Age," published in 1993, she found those who dealt with old people "talk about the aged with the same patronizing, `compassionate' denial of their personhood that was heard when the experts talked about women 20 years ago."

She had not stopped being a feminist, she said, "but women as a special separate interest group are not my concern any more."

Friedan, born February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, was a high achieving Jewish outsider growing up in middle America. Her father, Harry Goldstein, owned a jewelry store; her mother, Miriam, quit a job as a newspaper women's page editor to become a housewife.

As a girl, Friedan watched her mother "cut down my father because she had no place to channel her terrific energies, a typical female disorder that I call impotent rage," she said.

From high school valedictorian in 1938 to summa cum laude graduate of Smith College in 1942, "I was that girl with all A's and I wanted boys worse than anything," she said.

She won a fellowship in psychology to the University of California, Berkeley, but turned down a bigger fellowship there so as not to outdo a boyfriend.

The romance broke up anyway and Friedan moved to Greenwich Village in New York and became a labor reporter.

She lost one job to a returning World War II veteran but found another before marrying Carl Friedan, a summer-stock producer and later an advertising executive, in 1947. The marriage, which produced three children, ended in divorce 22 years later.

Friedan got a maternity leave to have her first child in 1949, but was fired and replaced by a man when she asked for another leave to have the second child five years later.

The family had moved to a big Victorian house in the suburban Rockland County village of Grandview-on-the-Hudson, New York, where Friedan cranked out freelance magazine articles while bringing up her brood.

Hoping to get a magazine piece out of a Smith College 15-year reunion, Friedan prepared an in-depth survey of her classmates.

What she found was that these well-educated women of the class of 1942, now largely suburban housewives, were asking, in effect, "Is this all?"

Friedan couldn't get the article published in a magazine, but five years of more research and writing turned it into "The Feminine Mystique."

If some women read it as a call to arms, others were outraged, Friedan recalled. Dinner invitations stopped; she was out of the school car pool.

But the first printing of 3,000 eventually grew to 600,000 copies hardcover and more than 2 million in paperback. The book was listed at No. 37 on a 1999 New York University survey of 100 examples of the best journalism of the century.

In 1964, the family moved back to Manhattan in 1964 and Friedan began working to have the federal government enforce the Civil Rights Act as it applied to sex and not only to race, religion and national origin.

Founding NOW was a response to federal inaction. The finale of Friedan's presidency was the national women's strike of August 1970, which brought women out across the country on the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage.

She also was a founder in 1968 of the National Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws, which became the National Abortion Rights Action League, and of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971.

During the following decade she taught and lectured, and her 1981 book, "The Second Stage," was seen by many as a public break with the feminist leadership that had succeeded her. She said they had pursued "sexual politics that distorted the sense of priorities of the women's movement during the 1970s," and had opened the way for conservatives and reactionaries to occupy the center on family issues.

In "The Second Stage," Friedan also appeared to accept criticism from some women that "The Feminine Mystique" was too dismissive of domestic life. "Our failure was our blind spot about the family," she wrote.

Friedan taught on both coasts, at New York University and the University of Southern California, lecturing widely and traveling to women's conferences around the globe.

She helped persuade the Democratic Party to give women half the delegate strength at its nominating convention and was herself a delegate when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for vice president in 1984.

She lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., and had a summer house in Sag Harbor, New York.

Survivors include her sons, Daniel Friedan of Princeton, New Jersey, and Jonathan Friedan of Philadelphia, and daughter Emily Friedan of Buffalo, New York; nine grandchildren; a sister, Amy Adams of New York; and a brother, Harry Goldstein of Palm Springs, California.

Carl Friedan died in December, according to Bazelon.

She said the funeral will be Monday at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.

Original Source

Bush world and reality

2006-02-02T23:04:00.000-05:00

There were many things said in President Bush's State of the Union address that were stretched to fit his truths and his agenda, but not what fits reality. This LA Times article shows Bush's world and his thoughts, while showing the facts and what he distorted to make his points. Here is the
article

--------------------

Bush Stretches to Defend Surveillance
The president's justification for his spy program has disputable roots, as do some of the facts and figures he put forth in his speech.

WASHINGTON — President Bush received a roaring ovation Tuesday for his prime-time defense of wiretapping phone calls without warrants. But Bush's explanation relied on assumptions that have been widely questioned by experts who say the president offers a debatable interpretation of history.

Defending the surveillance program as crucial in a time of war, Bush said that "previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority" that he did. "And," he added, "federal courts have approved the use of that authority."

Bush did not name names, but was apparently reiterating the argument offered earlier this month by Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, who invoked Presidents Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt for their use of executive authority.

However, warrantless surveillance within the United States for national security purposes was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 — long after Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt stopped issuing orders. That led to the 1978 passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that Bush essentially bypassed in authorizing the program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Since the surveillance law was enacted, establishing secret courts to approve surveillance, "the Supreme Court has not touched this issue in the area of national security," said William Banks, a national security expert at Syracuse Law School.

"He might be speaking in the broadest possible sense about the president exercising his authority as commander-in-chief to conduct a war, which of course federal courts have upheld since the beginning of the nation," Banks said. "If he was talking more particularly about the use of warrantless surveillance, then he is wrong."

Bush's historical reference on domestic spying marked one of several points in his speech in which he backed up assertions with selective uses of fact, or seemed to place a positive spin on his own interpretation.

On his headline-grabbing pledge to decrease U.S. reliance on Middle East oil by 75% over the next 20 years, Bush's words seemed to suggest a dramatic new program to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

But experts point out that the U.S. gets only a fraction — about 10% — of its oil imports from the Middle East. In fact, the majority now comes from Canada and Mexico — and Bush said nothing on Tuesday about them.

Speaking about Iraq, Bush argued that "our coalition has been relentless in shutting off terrorist infiltration." But he may have left the wrong impression about how far U.S.-led forces have gotten in closing off the huge border areas, especially the 375-mile-long one between Syria and Iraq.

Administration officials have often complained that the Syrian government does little to police the border and have said it may not be possible to close it, given its size.

Two weeks ago, Rep. H. James Saxton (R-N.J.), chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee, complained in a column in the Washington Times that the border is "extremely porous" and called for new steps to cut off the flow of enemy fighters.

Bush made a number of claims for his economic stewardship that were technically accurate but told only a part of the story.

"In the last 2 1/2 years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs," Bush said. Although the claim is essentially true, he did not say that the United States lost 2.6 million jobs in the first 2 1/2 years of his presidency.

"In the last five years," Bush continued, "the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses and families, and they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth."

But to many economists, the cause-and-effect relationship is not so stark; they credit tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 with helping to turn around a stagnant economy, but now they worry that the resulting deficits may retard it.

"Every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending," Bush said. True again, but this represents less than 20% of all spending. Including defense and the giant benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare, spending has risen by about 30% in the five Bush years.

The president also seemed to ignore Supreme Court precedent when he called for Congress to give him the "line item veto." But Congress did that once, in 1996, and it was used once, by former President Clinton. But in 1998, a federal judge ruled that it was unconstitutional. That was affirmed by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court.

Bush praised his administration's efforts to help the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina. "A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency, and stays at it until they are back on their feet," he said.

But Bush omitted any mention of tensions between Gulf State officials and the administration over responsibility for the botched response to the storm. "There was nothing in terms of new money," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). Perhaps Bush's most controversial language came as he defended the surveillance program.

The president echoed earlier administration assertions that the domestic surveillance program would have been useful before the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush said two Sept. 11 hijackers living in San Diego made telephone calls to Al Qaeda associates overseas, but that "we did not know about their plans until it was too late."

However, The Times has previously reported that some U.S. counterterrorism officials knowledgeable about the case blame an interagency communications breakdown, not a surveillance failure or shortcomings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Original Source

The Weenie World

2006-02-02T11:51:00.000-05:00

After watching Bush's State of the Union address last Tuesday night, and then hearing the Official National Democratic Response, I got very upset. Bush's speech was something to make all sensible minded people angry, but also motivated. As a Democrat and someone who longs for the days of Clinton and also when the Democrats were an opposition party.

Well, I was equally angered by the Democratic response. The newly elected Democratic governor of Virginia Tim Kaine gave the Democratic response and I felt like I was listening to the John Kerry of 2004. Well, I found a post of what Bob Burnett of the Huffington Post, calls the Democratic response since Clinton left office the "Weenie" response. Here is what he says and one I really really agree with...

-------------------
Tuesday night brought us another example of the weenie effect. George Bush gave his State-of-the-Union Address. Newly elected Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine, followed with the Democratic response. Kaine may be a dynamo as Governor of Virginia, but as the national spokesman for the Democratic Party he was instant weenie.

Having observed this phenomenon for the past five years - it reached its nadir with John Kerry - it appears that Democratic speakers are obligated to follow four rules of weenie world.

The first is Never, never reveal what the Democratic Party stands for. Apparently, since the end of the Clinton Administration, Party insiders have decided that speakers should under no circumstance say what the Dems stand for. They believe that it is sufficient to state, "We're not Republicans."

The second rule is Pick a wimpy slogan and say it over and over until everyone knows that it sucks. On Tuesday night, Kaine repeated "There is a better way." In doing so, Kaine implied he actually knows this better way, that managing the US is just like managing the State of Virginia. "In Virginia... we're moving ahead by focusing on service, competent management and results... That's how we in Virginia earned the ranking of America's 'Best Managed State.'" Hmm, I haven't been in Virginia recently, but I don't believe that managing it is like running the US. Virginia doesn't have to worry about little things like an imminent Al Qaeda attack.

The third rule in weenie world is Don't push back. Apparently, Democrats feel that it hurts their public image to go after President Bush when he goes on the offensive. They seem to believe that the public expects Dems to be passive, intellectual, even effete. (That's why John Kerry won the hearts of Americans.)

The fourth rule in weenie world is When in doubt, imitate the Republicans. Tim Kaine was selected to give this response because he's an outspoken Christian; the Dem "brain trust" thought that he'd convince the electorate that Democrats actually have values

Original Source

Shirt tales for Sheehan and GOP Wife

2006-02-02T11:39:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on CNN.com, anti-war protestor and peace activist Cindy Sheehan and GOP Wife Beverly Young both caught attention with their t-shirts wore before Bush's State of Union Address this past Tuesday. Here is the article...

-----------------

Shirt tales differ for Sheehan, GOP wife
Capitol police admit mistake as protester mulls legal battle

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Call it the tale of two different shirts worn by two very different women: a well-known peace activist who has agitated the White House and a lawmaker's wife who has staunchly supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan wore a shirt with the message "2,245 Dead. How many more?" -- a reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

Beverly Young, the wife of 18-term Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Young of Florida, wore a shirt that read "Support the Troops."

Both shirts resulted in their owners being ejected from the House chamber before President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. (Full story)

Sheehan, an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat, was arrested around 8:30 p.m. ET on charges of unlawful conduct. Young was asked to leave but not arrested.

On Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said neither woman should have been removed from the chamber. "We made a mistake," he told CNN.

He said an apology was made to Bill and Beverly Young, and the congressman has been told that Capitol officers will receive better training. He said they are operating under outdated guidance on House rules regarding demonstrations.

"Just wearing a T-shirt is not unlawful," Gainer said. Wearing a T-shirt and engaging in actions meant to draw attention to the shirt is against the law, he said, but neither woman was doing so.

Gainer said he has attempted to reach Sheehan to tell her he is recommending that charges be dropped and to express his willingness to talk to her at her convenience, but has only been able to leave her a message.

Woolsey has called for a withdrawal of troops in Iraq and supports legislation for the creation of a Department of Peace.

"Since when is free speech conditional on whether you agree with the president?" Woolsey said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Sheehan told CNN Wednesday that she planned to file a lawsuit despite Gainer's statements.

"I was there for four hours," she said. "It seems like someone could have figured out they made a mistake in four hours."

Sheehan said she was treated roughly and left bruised by the incident.

"I'm going to file a lawsuit for defamation of character and because my civil rights were violated, hoping that it will never happen to another person," she said.

Before Gainer's statements, Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said of Sheehan's shirt, "She was asked to cover it up. She did not."

'She has a real passion for our troops'
Outrage also came from the pro-war Young.

On Wednesday, he held up his wife's shirt on the House floor and denounced her treatment.

"She has a real passion for our troops, and she shows it in many, many ways," Young said.

"And most members in this House know that. But because she had on a shirt that someone didn't like, that said 'Support Our Troops,' she was kicked out of this gallery while the president was speaking and encouraging Americans to support our troops. Shame. Shame."

Young and his wife are known as passionate supporters of U.S. service members. He has spoken in the past about their many visits to military hospitals during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and their efforts to ensure the needs of the wounded and their families are met.

Sheehan, on the other hand, was thrust into the spotlight after her 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

"Cindy Sheehan, who gave her own flesh and blood for this disastrous war, did not violate any rules of the House of Representatives," Woolsey's statement said. "She merely wore a shirt that highlighted the human cost of the Iraq war and expressed a view different than that of the president."

Sheehan, a Vacaville, California, resident gained national attention in August, when she and hundreds of fellow protesters camped outside the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch, demanding an audience. She also recently penned a book, "Not One More Mother's Child."

Sheehan said Wednesday she was trying to "make a statement" with the shirt but did not intend to get arrested.

"I didn't think I would be provoking an incident," she said, suggesting that her message contributed to her arrest.

"I got arrested and [Young] didn't," she said. "What does that tell you?"

Original Source

A sad day for America: Alito confirmed

2006-01-31T13:52:00.000-05:00

(Washington) The Senate on Tuesday confirmed the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

The overwhelming vote in the Republican controlled Senate came after a last ditch effort failed to get enough support for a Democratic filibuster by Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

Kerry called a filibuster the only way to stop a confirmation "that we feel certain will cause irreversible damage to our country."

The nomination was also opposed by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and others.

Alito will replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She has been a swing vote on the court on such hot-button issues as abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty and other matters.

"With this confirmation, the Supreme Court likely will shift to the right and become a less welcoming forum for many kinds of civil rights claims," warned Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart.

"However, it is important for us to remember that the court still contains a majority of justices who ruled in favor of liberty and equality for gay people in Lambda Legal's two recent Supreme Court successes that are the foundation for much of our community's progress - Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans - and those cases remain the law of the land."

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese praised those Democrats who opposed Alito's confirmation.

"The senators who stepped up today to protect fairness by voting against Judge Alito's confirmation were acting on America's fundamental promise of equality," Solmonese said. "It's time the halls of Congress were packed with fair-minded leaders.

"We are disappointed by the confirmation of Judge Alito to the United States Supreme Court, and by the President's failure to appoint an individual who will be aggressive advocate for the Constitution and who is free from the restraints of special interest pressure groups who control the Republican Party," John Marble, Communications Director - National Stonewall Democrats said in a statement.

During confirmation hearings some 700 questions were put to Alito on a range of topics, but opponents said his answers danced around the more contentious, including LGBT rights and abortion.

Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) questioned Alito on his 2001 vote on the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down a public school policy that prohibited offensive conduct toward individuals based on sexual orientation or other personal characteristics.

In the case, Alito ruled that the First Amendment only protects people against harassment regarding religious beliefs.

Feingold asked Alito whether he felt the First Amendment might also protect gay students against harassment. Alito said only that the policy he struck down read the amendment too broadly.

But he also noted that in another case he had ruled in favor of a New Jersey student who wanted attend a high school outside of his neighborhood because he had been subjected to homophobic harassment.

Kennedy questioned Alito about his membership in the now defunct Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an extreme conservative group that Alito joined while a law student.

Kennedy read from a publication put out by the group that attacked gays, people with AIDS, women and other minorities. (story)

In one selection from The Prospect, read by Kennedy into the record, the publication, noting that scientists believed they had traced the origin of AIDS to rhesus monkeys, called for more research and that it be conducted on homosexuals. It further suggested that the studies be conducted on members of Princeton's gay alliance.

Kennedy then read a portion from another Prospect article attacking adoption for gays.

Alito's confirmation comes just hours before President Bush delivers his State of the Union address.

Bush's public approval ratings are the lowest of any president since Richard Nixon in 1974, when the Watergate scandal forced him to resign, and led to big Republican losses in Congress setting the stage for the party's loss of the White House two years later

Coretta Scott King dies

2006-01-31T08:49:00.000-05:00

Pioneer Made Mark in Civil Rights
By ERRIN HAINES, AP

(Jan. 31) -- Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning. She was 78.

Young, who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, broke the news during a phone call he made to the "Today" show. "I was not expecting it. She has been ill for last few months. My first reaction was she was ready to cross on over."

Asked how he found out about her death, Young said: "I understand she was asleep last night and her daughter tried to wake her up."

Efforts by The Associated Press to reach the family were unsuccessful. They did not immediately return phone calls, but flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.

King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.

She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. She had married him in 1953.

After her husband's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.

She worked to keep his ideology of equality for all people at the forefront of the nation's agenda. She goaded and pulled for more than a decade to have her husband's birthday observed as a national holiday, then watched with pride in 1983 as President Reagan signed the bill into law. The first federal holiday was celebrated in 1986.

King became a symbol, in her own right, of her husband's struggle for peace and brotherhood, presiding with a quiet, steady, stoic presence over seminars and conferences on global issues.

"I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality," King said soon after his slaying, a demonstration of the strong will that lay beneath the placid calm and dignity of her character.

She was devoted to her children and considered them her first responsibility. But she also wrote a book, "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.," and, in 1969, founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

King saw to it that the center became deeply involved with the issues she said breed violence -- hunger, unemployment, voting rights and racism.

"The center enables us to go out and struggle against the evils in our society," she often said.

After her stroke, King missed the annual King holiday celebration in Atlanta in January 2006, but she did appear with her children at an awards dinner a couple of days earlier, smiling from her wheelchair but not speaking. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.

At the same time, the King Center's board of directors was considering selling the site to the National Park Service to let the family focus less on grounds maintenance and more on King's message. But two of the four children were strongly against such a move.

Coretta Scott was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music and planning on a singing career when a friend introduced her to Martin Luther King, a young Baptist minister working toward a Ph.D. at Boston University.

"She said she wanted me to meet a very promising young minister from Atlanta," King once said, adding with a laugh, "I wasn't interested in meeting a young minister at that time."

UNCG PRIDE! "Transgeneration" Meeting this Thursday

2006-01-25T12:43:00.000-05:00

UNCG PRIDE! to focus on the "T" in "LGBT"

UNCG PRIDE!, (the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Straight Allied Student Organization) will hold a meeting to focus solely on transgender issues.

On Thursday, January 26, 2006, UNCG PRIDE!, will hold its meeting, entitled "Transgeneration".

Two guest speakers will help to educate the group about transgender issues and engage them into a discussion about those issues.

Please join PRIDE! and our two guest speakers as we discuss and educate ourselves on transgender issues...

Transgender individuals are, sadly, often overlooked in the LGBT Movement and LGBTQA organizations. We hope you'll join us for this meeting on Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 7:30pm in Cone Ballroom B of the Elliott University Center.

Nominations for Vice President, Program Coordinator and Outreach Coordinator will also be open.

PFLAG NYC

2006-01-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

My cousin Kara lives in Manhattan and works for the NYC Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), she sent me this article, and I wanted to share it all with you. I am a huge sports fan and to see that the commissioner of the NFL loves and supports his gay son and life partner is a wonderful thing. I am so proud of my cousin and the work she has done and continues to do for the LGBT individuals in our family and LGBT individuals all over. Here is the article...

Tags' commitment to family never flags

January 25, 2006

BY RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement

The most powerful man in a sport has a gay son.

OK, maybe you want to argue whether NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has more societal and financial and cultural power than NBA commissioner David Stern or ESPN boss George Bodenheimer.

But you can't argue that Tags' only son, Andrew, is a homosexual and out and -- here's the main thing -- loved and respected, even honored, by his brilliant, no-nonsense lawyer dad.

Tagliabue, the man in charge of a league filled with more testosterone and primitive impulse than the denizens of King Kong's basement bar -- and that's just the owners -- was honored along with his wife, Chan, four months ago by the New York chapter of PFLAG -- Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

What had the 64-year-old commissioner, who presides over an organization where hugely muscled men routinely stand over battered foes and scream in primal triumph, done to merit such an award?

Among other things, he had been openly supportive of his 37-year-old son, Andrew, and Andrew's live-in partner from Australia, Mark Jones.

Andrew Tagliabue is Paul and Chan's only son -- they have a daughter, Emily, 34, who is married to John D. Rockefeller (yes, of those Rockefellers) and has two sons -- and he was 21 when Paul took over the NFL reins from Pete Rozelle in 1989.

Andrew is tall, like his onetime Georgetown University rebounding-champ dad, and according to those who know him, smart as a whip.

A graduate of Amherst College, Andrew is a head-hunter associate with the New York-based global executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

The Tagliabues, all three generations of them, including Andrew's partner Jones, regularly meet for summer vacations at the family house in Maine, and you can bet that's not the kind of family gathering that would have looked "appropriate'' in a photo op back in, say, hmm ... well, not long ago.

But now we have Ang Lee's dramatic gay cowboy movie, "Brokeback Mountain,'' being declared by USA Today as the front-runner for this year's Best Picture Oscar. And we have the wildly popular gay-themed TV show, "Will and Grace,'' and, we have "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,'' and -- guess what? -- we have the PFLAG ceremony at which the Tagliabues were honored hosted by Kyan Douglas of "Queer Eye.''

A visible campaign

"What Paul and his wife did was they gave us a substantial five-figure gift for our 'Stay Close' campaign,'' says New York PFLAG vice president Suzanne Ramos, herself the mother of a gay son. "In that print campaign we have straight celebrities such as Ben Affleck and Cyndi Lauper, who have gay family members, posing with their relatives and letting people know it's OK.''

The campaign, kicked off last spring, was funded in large part by Viacom, which gave PFLAG $300,000 worth of space in New York subway and bus stations and on the interior walls of some vehicles.

That was nice, but more money was needed for the printing and posting of the signs.

Voila, the NFL commissioner and wife came to the rescue.

"Paul and Chan and Drew have been members of PFLAG for at least five, six years,'' says Ramos. "Our organization itself has been around for over 30 years. It's primarily a heterosexual organization, and it's about keeping families together. Finding out a family member is gay can still be a very stressful, confusing event, even in these times. 'Stay Close' says that the family relationship is too precious to lose. ''

There is a black-and-white photo, from back in 1972, showing a mom named Jeanne Manford marching with her son, Mortie, in New York's Gay Pride Parade, and she is holding a small hand-lettered sign that reads, "PARENTS OF GAYS UNITE IN SUPPORT FOR OUR CHILDREN.''

Mortie had been beaten at a gay rights protest two months earlier, and the police had done nothing. An angered Jeanne became the godmother for a movement that now includes a man who earns $8 million a year and tells TV networks what to do with his macho product and how he wants them to do it.

Times are a-changing.

Indeed, President Bush was asked Monday at an audience-attended interview session in Manhattan, Kan., if he had seen "Brokeback Mountain,'' with its semi-graphic tent scene wherein stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal get it on, gay-style.

"I'd be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie,'' Bush said. "I've heard about it.''

And so has a nation, one that is finding out that gays and lesbians are everywhere, maybe even in your own family.

Quiet advocacy

Tagliabue, though proud of his son, is not now choosing to speak openly about gay matters, not on company time, anyway.

His spokesman, Greg Aiello, says, "I think what Paul is doing is setting an example in his private life.''

Aiello is quick to mention that Tags was in favor of gay former NFL player Esera Tuaolo speaking to the league workers last fall at the NFL office in New York, and that the league's official diversity statement reads: "We represent and respect a wide range of human differences, personal experiences, and cultural backgrounds for the benefit of the organization and our employees as individuals.''

Andrew Tagliabue, who speaks fluent Japanese and has been described as "brilliant,'' is cut, obviously, from the same mental and physical cloth as his dad, a former honor roll student, Rhodes Scholar finalist and editor of the New York University Law Review.

Andrew just walks a slightly different path.

You have to admit it's an amazing and, yes, wonderful thing when he and his dad -- despite the potholes and stares -- can walk arm-in-arm.

UNCG PRIDE!'s First Meeting of the Semester

2006-01-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

UNCG PRIDE! (the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and Straight Allied Student Association) will hold their first meeting of the Spring 2006 Semester. This meeting will be a Welcome Back Social.

At this meeting the PRIDE! Executive Board will be discussing what events and meeting topics we plan to have for this upcoming semester. There will also be food to be eaten and much fun to be had among friends. We Welcome All to Attend!!

Again, this meeting will be held tomorrow, Thursday January 19th, 2006 @ 7:30 PM held at Cone Ballroom B in the EUC.

Bring yourself, a friend, or anyone else you feel like bringing!

Life's most urgent question, what are we doing for others?

2006-01-16T12:29:00.000-05:00

Every year on Martin Luther King Jr, I try and listen/watch Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream Speech." This morning, after my shower, I saw that AOL had a link to watch the speech. I watched the speech and within a minute or two, tears welled up in my eyes and I started to cry. His words, unlike many others, speak to me, the way he spoke to millions of others and touched their hearts, he has touched mine.

To me, what makes Martin Luther King Jr, one of the greatest people to have ever lived was the fact that he believed that he could, along with many others change the world he was living in. He might not see the long term results of the work he and many others were doing, but he worked so hard to promote and live by a message that still lives on today. Peace, love, brotherhood, understanding, and believing one can change the world without hurting each other.

I believe in this message and always will. Because a soul is too weak to not believe in something that you are willing to die for, a heart is broken without the love of your fellow neighbor, a spirit is shattered without peace in your community and world, life is too precious to devote one's time to ignorace and hatred. Many of you know that I am a quote person, and here are a list, a rather long one, of some of the most profound words that Martin Luther King Jr has spoken...

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
Expediency asks the question - is it political?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or political; but because it is right. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false, and the false with the true. -MLK Jr.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

If a man hasn't discovered something that he would die for, he isn't fit to live.

Wisconsin Governor vetoes abortion bill

2006-01-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

According to an
article posted on CNN.com, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle vetoed an abortion bill that said doctors would have to tell women seeking abortions after the fifth month that the fetus could suffer pain.

Wisconsin already has a law saying women must say wait 24 hours before receiving an abortion and they have to get information for other options. Well, the problem with that is that the people who give the "other information" are trying to avoid the woman from having an abortion. You might think, what's so wrong with giving women information right? Well, the information is usually incorrect and written and/or told in a way to divert women of thinking of abortion as an option at all.

It's hard enough getting an abortion in this country, it might be legal, but you try getting your health care to cover the costs for you to get one. Or if you're 16 and your father rapes you(who is your only guardian) and you try getting abortion when you have to notify a parent to have one.

The problem is that women's reproductive rights are silently being reversed and the conservative climate is more 'sympathetic' to ensure the 'rights of the fetus' as opposed to a woman, who is actually alive, living and breathing and we know for a fact feels pain. Kudos to Governor Doyle for vetoing this ridiculous bill. In the future
I hope more and more bills like these vetoed and reproductive rights for women are ensured, protected, and expanded. Here is the
article

--------------------

Gov. Jim Doyle on Friday vetoed a bill that would have forced doctors to tell women seeking abortions after their fifth month of pregnancy that their fetuses could suffer pain.

Doyle, a Democrat, said there is no evidence conclusively proving when a fetus can feel pain. The Republican-controlled Legislature should not be allowed to decide scientific fact, he said.

"It would be reckless to inject a requirement that doctors communicate unproven science to their patients during an already difficult and sometimes traumatic time," Doyle wrote in his veto message. "This bill intrudes on the doctor-patient relationship ... and contravenes the requirement that doctors provide objective and accurate information to their patients."

When a fetus can feel pain is a matter of debate in the medical community. The bill's supporters say some research supports the theory that a fetus can feel pain at the 20th week of pregnancy. Opponents say none of those claims have been proven.

Bob Delaporte, a spokesman for Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard, accused Doyle of "ignoring the science on this one."

Three other states -- Arkansas, Georgia and Minnesota -- have similar notification requirements, and federal legislation is pending.

Women seeking abortions in Wisconsin already must be given information on alternatives to ending their pregnancies. They also must wait 24 hours after a counseling session to have the procedure performed.

Delay quits post as House Majority Leader

2006-01-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on CNN.com, Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader has quit his post due to scandal over campaign finances and to ties to lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff (who plead a guilty plea earlier this week). I am not surprised by Delay's quitting, but am happy to hear that the Republicans aren't having the easiest time in the world, our country and world has suffered enough under their leadership. Here is the article

------------------------

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among House Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said.

These officials said DeLay, R-Texas, was preparing a letter informing fellow House Republicans of his decision. These officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt the formal announcement.

DeLay is battling campaign finance charges in Texas and was forced to step aside temporarily as majority leader last fall after he was charged in his home state. He has consistently maintained his innocence and said he intended to resume his leadership post once cleared.

His about-face came amid growing pressure from fellow Republicans who were concerned about their own political futures in the wake of this week's guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Elections likely this month
Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt, the party whip who temporarily has filled in for DeLay, was expected to run for majority leader.

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, a former member of the leadership, is also likely to run.

Elections are likely the week of January 30, when lawmakers return to the Capitol.

DeLay intends to remain in Congress, these officials said, and plans to seek a new term in November.

DeLay acted hours after a small vanguard of Republicans circulated a petition calling for leadership elections and citing DeLay's legal problems as well as his long ties to Abramoff.

Who cares about a finger in someone's chili?

2006-01-03T23:12:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite comedians, Margaret Cho, speaks the truth about politics, and the intentions of those in power, specifically those who have used their power to spread hatred, ignorance, bigotry and prejudice and call it "Moral" or "Family" Values. In her most recent comedy concert, Assassin (yeah I said Assassin) she further discusses the 2004 election and the Christian Conservative Right who have used the God card to push through their theocratic type of government.

And it is very upsetting to think that this is the state of our government and nation, where Conservatism has reigned itself supreme, but Ms. Cho finds a way to make it humorous while stay educating the public about what this administration is doing to the LGBT community, women, minorities of any kind.

How can a comedian speak the truth? Humor is the best form of medicine and also the way to inform people. We live in a generation where the News isn't reliable anymore. Fake News like The Daily Show is where most young people find their news. Journalism has lost its investigative ways. Days of Journalism from Nixon and the Watergate Scandal and Dan Rather near the front lines of battle in Vietnam are no more. Hell, we can't even show the caskets of the American soldiers dead in Iraq. Everything is so hush hush, no wonder Margaret Cho was disinvited to the Democratic National Convention.

The news went on and on about Al Sharpton's ranting about how George Bush would be in favor of segregation if in charge in the 1950s, and while I believe that, the media focused on the wrong facet of the convention and I'm surprised the DNC hasn't barred him from future conventions. Not that I didn't agree, but the conventions, tall hall meetings and debates are put on a pedestal as the Super Bowl of politics, they are marketed like the candidates are, comparable to how boxes of cereal are marketed (George Bush was definitely crunchy, but John Kerry had less sugar, rather dull).

Everything is monitored, everything is observed so closely, that if you fuck up, the media will jump upon it, its superficial and really avoids the real news. Who gives a fuck about a finger in someone's chili? Do I care if that a Bride ran away and tried to cover it up? And is the scroll at the bottom really necessary? Is is that urgent to know that Britney and whatshisname married? Where has the news gone in America? That's why The Daily Show, shows like it, and blogs are the new form of Journalism.

For more information about Margaret Cho, go to her website. Her blog is a link on my page, under "LGBT blogs" and her website "Love is love is love" is placed under my links section.

Want real news? Stay on the internet and watch Comedy Central. Or rather rent her latest DVD Assassin.

2006's first Green Queen Bingo of the Year

2006-01-01T19:43:00.000-05:00

From Guilford Green Foundation ...Green Queen Bingo

Green Queen BINGO – it’s bingo with a twist! Green Queen Bingo has become the must attend event in downtown Greensboro. Sponsored by the Guilford Green Foundation (GGF), each bingo draws a multitude of diverse groups for a night of fun and enjoyment. Each bingo game is sponsored by local businesses and individuals who provide monetary support to join Karla Kincaid, the Green Queen herself, on stage to draw and announce the winning numbers.

Game sponsorships, along with ticket sales, raffles and concession proceeds, go to fund various Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual (GLBT) initiatives in Greensboro though GGF’s grants program. In 2004, GGF granted over $45,000 dollars back into our community.

Green Queen Bingo - February 17, 2006
The Empire Room

Original Source

Happy New Year and Bush quotes

2006-01-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I haven't been updating my blog due to the Holiday activities, which was exciting and fun, but tiring as well. I have had some computers problems as of late, which are going to be resolved soon. I will try and post as much as possible.

I want to reflect on three 2005 issues with some quotes of from Bush
1) "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
President Bush Praising Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to Hurricane Katrina

Former FEMA Director Mike Brown and this administration has done the worst job in responding to Hurricane Katrina. I find this was the most important issue of the year, because it was the worst natural disaster on American soil, it showed how weak, racist, and heartless the Federal Government's response was to Hurricane Katrina. I have said before in this blog, on a previous post where I fully stand on all the issues and factors revolving around the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

2)"We've got to get us an energy plan."
—Bush, Feb. 4, 2005.

Well, we do, and I agree, but I don't see you actively trying to do so. Drilling in Alaska isn't going to solve the problem long term, its a temporary solution, and that's how this administration sees problems, as a temporary political solution to raise polls and image. If he really was concerned with getting an energy plan, he wouldn't have focused so much on Social Security and Tax Reform earlier on the year, (which thankfully the public and Congress did not buy) and he would have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. We are one of 2 (including Australia) indsutrialized countries that have not signed onto the Kyoto Protocol. It shows where our interests and priorities lie, with money and greed instead of trying to improve the Earth that God gave us.

3) "I'm perfectly comfortable in telling you, our country is one that safeguards human rights and human dignity, and we resolve our disputes in a peaceful way."
—Bush, answering a Russian reporter's question at a Feb. 24 appearance in Bratislava, Slovakia, with Russian President Vladimir Putin

If that is so, explain the policy and war you sold to the American public, over 2,000 lives lost, and even more American injuries, and let's not forget Iraqi deaths and injuries. We are continuing to see that we had no exit strategy and no plan for peace. Hopefully we can realize that the best policy was to withdrawal our troops from this heartless and greed fueled war. Secretary of Defense has called for Troop Cuts, hopefully that trend will continue, and that will follow through in the future.

The picture says it all

2005-12-30T01:38:00.000-05:00

The Most Outrageous Right Wing Comments of 2005

2005-12-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

Media Matters has a list of the most outrageous comments from 2005 from the political side. I think this is a good refresher list for everyone to read as I think with so much that's happened in 2005 its easy to forget that these things were actually said:

Former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." [Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America, 9/28/05]

Pat Robertson: "If [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." [Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, 8/22/05]

Bill O'Reilly to San Francisco: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. ... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 12/8/05]

Bill O'Reilly, agreeing with caller that illegal immigrants are "biological weapon[s]": "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 4/15/05]

Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]

Rush Limbaugh on the kidnapping of peace activists in Iraq: "I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/29/05]

Ann Coulter: Bill Clinton "was a very good rapist"; "I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties"; "I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning." [New York Observer, 1/10/05]

Ann Coulter: "Isn't it great to see Muslims celebrating something other than the slaughter of Americans?" [Syndicated column, 2/3/05]

Radio host Glenn Beck: "[Y]ou know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 9/9/05]

Tucker Carlson: "Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada." [MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson, 12/15/05]

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon: Liberals "don't have the kind of family responsibilities most people have, and certainly not church responsibilities." [American Family Radio's Today's Issues, 5/11/05]

David Horowitz on Cindy Sheehan: "It's very hard to have respect for a woman who exploits the death of her own son and doesn't respect her own son's life. ... She portrays him as an idiot." [MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, 8/16/05]

Radio host Neal Boortz on the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams: "[T]here will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. ... The rioting, of course, will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now." [Boortz.com, 12/12/05]

Pat Buchanan: "Our guys" in Iraq "have got every right to have good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, even if it's got to be planted or bought." [MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, 12/1/05]

National Review editor Rich Lowry: Given EPA-mandated "small-flush" toilets, "[h]ow is it possible to flush a Quran down the toilet?" [Young America's Foundation speech, 8/5/05]

Neal Boortz, suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution: "I dare say she could walk out of that hotel and walk 100 yards in either direction on Fulton Industrial Boulevard here in Atlanta and have a job. What's that? Well, no, no, no. ... Well, you know what? [laughing] Now that you mention it ... [i]f that's the only way she can take care of herself, it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers." [Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, 10/24/05]

Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson: Same-sex marriage would lead to "marriage between daddies and little girls ... between a man and his donkey." [Focus on the Family radio program, 10/6/05]

Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid: "Have you noticed that many news organizations, in honor of former ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, have embarked on a quit smoking campaign? So why don't our media launch a campaign advising people to quit engaging in the dangerous and addictive homosexual lifestyle? ... It appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking." [Accuracy in Media column, 12/14/05]

Greensboro, NC's gay San Francisco?

2005-12-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

According to a blog written by Beth from greensboring.com, she ponders on a blog she read that said Greensboro, NC is the new gay San Francisco for North Carolina. I would say we have made progress, but Quaker Village is no where near the Castro. Here is the blog...
Greensboring-Gay San Francisco

--------------------------

I was reading a blog the other day, and one of the comments on it was that Greensboro is North Carolina's Gay San Francisco. I didn't think much of it at the time. But later I began thinking about it. It could be true. In fact we might even be the South's Gay San Francisco. (excluding Florida of course.)

Seriously, a recent billboard campaign by a local activist group has made Greensboro an advertised gay positive city. Our own local blogger Matt Hill, has become one of the most visible voices for gays in Greensboro on the internet. Even my favorite radio station: 107.5's morning D.J. Josie, proudly explains she is the daughter of two lesbian mothers on a frequent basis.

UNCG has a very prominent and noticeable GLBT group, and Guilford College has always been known as a diverse educational institution open to gays, and other such groups.

Even my old High School, Western Guilford, has gotten press, as students spear headed a program to welcome and accept other homosexual students, into a fairly conservative area of town.

It was only a few months ago, here in the blogger community, local bloggers had cited those political officials running for office and their opinion on homosexuality.

I'm certainly not aware of all aspects of this community, but could it be, while Charlotte and the Triangle have found their niches, we've become an oasis for the gay community? Low cost of living, safe neighborhoods, and ironically enough good Christian folks that never would assume your, well.... gay?

Hey I'm all for it. I'm sure some people are going to be upset to find out, Hooters will be hiring drag queens... but I just have to know where the Castro district is here in Greensboro? My vote? Quaker Village Shopping Center. Wait never mind it, practically is.

Original Source

Gay Unions in Australia? Never, says Prime Minister

2005-12-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on 365gay.com, Australian Prime Minister John Howard says he would opposed to gay marriage and civil unions. He says it's not because of discrimination towards gays and lesbians, but I think he really should examine WHY he is opposed to it in the first place. Here is the article

--------------
Australian Prime Minister John Howard says he would never permit the passage of same-sex marriage or civil unions legislation.

Howard was asked by reporters about gay unions after same-sex couples began exchanging vows in Britain.

"I would be opposed to it," said the P.M. "I think marriage is for men and women. That's why we amended the Marriage Act."

Howard's Liberal government passed legislation last year defining marriage as between a man and a woman. (story)

The Prime Minister told reporters that his opposition to same-sex unions is not discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"But I believe very strongly that marriage is exclusively a union for life of a man and a woman to the exclusion of others."

Asked about civil unions, Howard declared that he also "would be opposed to the recognition of civil unions."

A gay civil rights group fighting for same-sex marriage said Howard's comments "embarrassed Australia in the eyes of the international community."

"Australia is fast becoming the odd one out," said Peter Furness, the national spokesperson for Australian Marriage Equality. "John Howard's remarks just highlight that fact and this damages our image overseas."

Furness said that the issue of recognizing same-sex unions could pose problems at next year's Commonwealth Games, when "athletes and visitors from a number of other countries in same sex marriages will be abruptly refused recognition of their legal status the moment they set foot in Australia".

Last August on the first anniversary of the gay marriage ban more than a thousand gays and lesbians demonstrated in cities across Australia.

Original Source

Impeachable Offense?

2005-12-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

MSNBC.com has a Poll out discussing whether President Bush's actions regarding spying and the mislead war in Iraq are impeachable offenses, look for yourself... Poll

This poll is a long way from scientific, but I definitely think the American people have spoken. It's just good that this sort of dialogue is being discussed now. I think his actions as a President are impeachable offenses, no where near lying about sex.

I will quote a bumper sticker I love, "No one died when Clinton lied."

NO Officers arrested and 1 suspended

2005-12-22T00:57:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on aol.com, 2 NO Police Officers were arrested and 1 NO Police Officer was suspended for 120 days for beating an African American New Orleans resident after he came back to NO to check on his remaining property.
I saw the video of this beating on CNN earlier today, it just saddens me deeply, I know these sort of racist beatings exist, but it hurts me to know that they occur in the wake of such a tragedy as this. Here is the article

-----------------
A union official vowed to fight the firings of officers Robert Evangelist and Lance Schilling for their role in the beating of 64-year-old Robert Davis. Officer Stuart Smith was suspended for 120 days.

Davis is black; the three officers are white.

Evangelist and Schilling were accused of battery on Davis. Smith was accused of battery of a reporter.

The New Orleans police union disagreed with the decision and plans to appeal it to the Civil Service Commission, said police association president Lt. David Benelli.

"This case became highly publicized through the media," Benelli said. "In light of the worldwide media frenzy these officers were placed under, it was impossible for them to receive a fair investigation."

After seeing the video of the beating, police superintendent Warren Riley called the officers' actions unacceptable - comments Benelli said interfered with their ability to get a fair investigation by the police internal affairs division.

The officers' attorney, Frank DeSalvo, did not return calls made to his answering service, nor did Davis' attorney Joseph Bruno.

DeSalvo has said that the video of the confrontation does not give the whole story.

All three officers had been suspended without pay since the incident. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges and face trial Jan. 11.

Davis, a retired elementary school teacher who returned to the storm-struck city to check on his properties, said he was searching for cigarettes in the French Quarter when police grabbed him.

The Associated Press Television News tape shows an officer hitting Davis at least four times on the head. Davis appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers.

One of the officers kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.

Smith ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.

Davis later pleaded not guilty to charges of public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation.

The video shows two FBI agents, in town to help with post-Katrina patrols, joining the New Orleans police in subduing Davis. Their role in the incident is being investigated by federal officials.

A federal civil rights investigation also was launched.

original source<

Elton John and partner 'unionize'

2005-12-22T00:47:00.000-05:00

According to an article Elton John and his partner David have solidified their civil union as legal. The Civil Partnership Act was enacted today as many gay and lesbian couples in Britian took advantage of this act. It is a great step in the fight for marriage equality. I will be fighting for the US and other countries to be in the same league as Canada, Spain and Belguim, all three where same sex marriage is legal. France, Switzerland and now Britian have similar civil union laws, with in the US, same sex marriage is only legal in MA, (and only recognized as legal in MA, not in any other state). Here is the article

---------

The Rocket Man has gone groom.
Elton John swapped vows with longtime partner David Furnish Wednesday, taking advantage of a new law in England that permits same-sex couples to enter into legalized civil unions.

The twosome made their partnership official in a private ceremony at Windsor's town hall, the same spot where Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were wed earlier this year. Hundreds of fans turned out to line the streets in support.

John eschewed his usual flamboyant garb for a traditional dark morning suit, accessorized with a diamond brooch on the lapel and purple sunglasses. Furnish also wore a dark suit and a black tie.

The couple's parents and their dog, Arthur, as well as a few close friends, looked on as John and Furnish said their vows and sealed their union with a kiss.

"Both Elton and David had tears in their eyes as the service drew to a close," guest Sam Taylor-Wood told People. "It was lovely when they kissed. Very romantic and touching."

Following the ceremony, the newlyweds hopped into a black Rolls-Royce to head to a lunch, followed by a star-studded reception with more than 600 guests.

While John and Furnish kept their ceremony low-key out of respect for their parents, all bets were off when it came to the after-party.

The $1.75 million affair was held at the singer's Windsor mansion, where two large tents were erected on the lawn to contain the revelers, who were served pink champagne and lamb.

The couple bid their bachelorhood farewell Monday night at an elaborate stag party, attended by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Elizabeth Hurley, Bryan Adams and Kid Rock, among others. President Bill Clinton sent a videotaped message congratulating the couple.

The bash took place at the Too2Much nightclub in London's Soho neighborhood, where shirtless waiters reportedly served guests flutes of champagne and sushi. In lieu of gifts, the couple requested that their guests make donations to AIDS charities.

John and Furnish announced their engagement in April after 11 years together.

Apparently, being John's other half is rarely boring--Furnish chronicled his life with his dramatic lover in a 1995 documentary titled Tantrums & Tiaras.

Sir Elton has often credited Furnish with helping him to kick the drug and alcohol addictions that almost killed him.

The singer was wed once before, to German music producer Renate Blauel, from 1984 to 1988.

John and Furnish were among hundreds of gay couples to enter into civil unions Wednesday, the same day the Civil Partnership Act went into effect in England.

The law is seen as a major milestone in the gay rights movement.

Same-sex marriage is permitted in the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium and Spain, while Germany, France and Switzerland have laws similar to Britain's. In the United States, only Massachusetts allows gay marriage, while Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions.

Original Source

Health care budget cuts

2005-12-22T00:38:00.000-05:00

According to an article on 365gay.com, the Senate, with the deciding vote put forth by Vice President Dick Cheney cut nearly $40 billion in health care programs, including Medicaid and Medicare. These programs are necessary for seniors and also PWAs (People With AIDS). I was glad to see ALL DEMOCRATS and a couple of sensible minded Republicans voted No for this bill, the final vote was 51-50 (with Cheney's vote). This just saddens me deeply because we are getting more and more of our tax-payer dollars for an unjustified war instead of helping and caring for those American citizens who need the most help. Here is the article

---------

Budget Chops $-Billions From Medicare, Harms PWAs
by Paul Johnson, 365Gay.com Washington Bureau Chief

(Washington) The Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation Wednesday slashing the budge by $39.7 billion a move that activists say will endanger people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Senate voted 50-50 with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote but not before Democrats succeeded in forcing the bill back to the House for another vote before it can be sent to President Bush for his signature.

Passage is all but certain, but the timing remains in question, since most House members have returned home for the holidays.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada charged that the GOP was advancing "an ideologically driven, extreme, radical budget. It caters to lobbyists and an elite group of ultraconservative ideologues here in Washington, all at the expense of middle class Americans," he said.

The budget package permits new premiums and deductibles, and higher cost-sharing on Medicaid beneficiaries who already find themselves on the edge of being able to seek quality care and treatment for their HIV/AIDS. Medicaid is the nation's largest payer of HIV/AIDS care.

"On HIV and AIDS, Congress handed over authority to extremists with the potential to harm thousands of Americans," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

"It is unacceptable to pull the rug out from under hundreds of thousands of our neighbors living with HIV/AIDS and simply say your government is not there for you. We should be focusing on ways to improve these programs, not shoving them onto the cutting room floor."

A provision in the Senate's version of the reconciliation bill was stripped out in conference that would have given some states the option to extend Medicaid coverage through a demonstration program to childless adults with HIV who are currently ineligible for Medicaid until they develop AIDS.

Currently, the law requires that all Medicaid beneficiaries be treated fairly and have access to all of the medically necessary Medicaid services their state provides.

The budget reconciliation package changes current law to provide new "flexibility" to states by allowing states to discriminate against groups of Medicaid beneficiaries.

States will now be allowed to provide more services to some beneficiaries than others, based on political or arbitrary considerations-instead of relying on the professional judgments of health care providers about the necessity of Medicaid services.

Republicans said that programs such as Medicare and Medicaid threaten to consume an unsustainable amount of federal revenue if their growth is not trimmed quickly.

©365Gay.com

Original Source

Senate blocks ANWR Drilling

2005-12-22T00:18:00.000-05:00

According to an article posted on CNN.com, the Senate blocked a vote on a defense spending bill that included a very controversial amendment to drill for oil in Alaska. I was not only shocked, but delighted but this...
Here is the article

------------
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate blocked opening the nation's largest untapped oil reserve in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday, denying President Bush his top energy priority and delivering a victory to environmentalists who said drilling would threaten wildlife.

It was a stinging defeat for Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, one of the Senate's most powerful members, who had hoped to garner more votes by putting the measure onto a defense spending bill. That forced senators to choose between supporting the drilling measure, or risking the political fallout from voting against money for the troops and hurricane victims.

Instead, Stevens found himself a few votes shy of getting his wish.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, who led the floor debate in opposition to the drilling provision, called it "legislative blackmail" and said Democrats agreed they "were not going to get jammed" by the tactic.

Republican leaders could not break a Democratic filibuster threat over the drilling issue, falling three votes short of the 60 votes need to advance the defense spending bill to a final vote. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, left the bill in limbo as he, Stevens and other GOP leaders gauged their next move.

The measure was widely expected to be withdrawn and reworked without the refuge language, although Stevens warned he was ready to stay until New Year's if necessary to fight for the drilling, a cause he has pursued for 25 of his 37 years in the Senate.

Democrats as well as a number of Republicans were already angered by Stevens' tactic that delayed action on the $453.5 billion defense bill including $29 billion for hurricane relief, the war and border security, and $2 billion to help low-income households pay this winter's heating expenses.

Original Source and Rest of the Article

Bush: Senate vote on Patriot Act 'irresponsible'

2005-12-18T02:45:00.000-05:00

President Bush called the Senate's decision on the Patriot Act Friday "irresponsible," saying it "endangers the lives" of the citizenry.

Bush made the remarks in a live TV appearance on Saturday morning at the same time his weekly radio address -- which is normally taped -- is aired.

The Senate on Friday rejected efforts to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, dealing a major blow to President Bush and the Republican leadership.

Senators on both sides of the aisle argued that some of the act's provisions infringe on civil rights. The bipartisan group proposed a three-month extension to continue debate and amend certain provisions.

Some of those lawmakers had threatened a filibuster to prevent the act from being renewed in its current form.

The Senate needed 60 votes to override a filibuster and end debate, which is called "invoking cloture." Cloture would have brought the Patriot Act to a vote, allowing the Senate to renew it by a simple majority.

But only 52 senators voted to cut off debate; 47 voted against cloture.

--------------------
You know, when the US Patriot Act was passed, we all, including our leaders were scared and needed something to think we were safe-the US Patriot Act, it passed in the Senate 98-1. Of course it passed with great of proportions then, NOW, it should not pass. Bush called the fillerbusting of the vote to follow from the US Senate on the US Patriot Act, "Irresponsible" and that it "endangers the lives" of our citizens. I do not believe this is the case. I believe this because what the US Patriot Act allows the Law Enforcement to do is a breach and an erosion of our civil liberties. I do not want my emails read, my library accounts searched, or my phone conversations reviewed. Nor do I think Americans want that either. The US Patriot Act takes the fine line of protecting America AND its civil liberties into a whole other ball park. I hope that the US Senate votes with the Constitution in mind when deciding whether or not to renew it. My hope is that the senators who vote to renew it understand what they are doing to our civil liberties of the American people.

Original Source

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

2005-12-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

According to an Article from the Associated Press, the Senate has rejected the extensions put on the US Patriot Act. Hopefully when this comes around for a vote, US Senators will have sense enough to protect our civil liberties.
The Senate on Friday refused to reauthorize major portions of the USA Patriot Act after critics complained they infringed too much on Americans' privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders.

In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill's Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47.

President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Republicans congressional leaders had lobbied fiercely to make most of the expiring Patriot Act provisions permanent.

They also supported new safeguards and expiration dates to the act's two most controversial parts: authorization for roving wiretaps, which allow investigators to monitor multiple devices to keep a target from evading detection by switching phones or computers; and secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries.

Feingold, Craig and other critics said those efforts weren't enough, and have called for the law to be extended in its present form so they can continue to try and add more civil liberties safeguards. But Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have said they won't accept a short-term extension of the law.

If a compromise is not reached, the 16 Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31, but the expirations have enormous exceptions. Investigators will still be able to use those powers to complete any investigation that began before the expiration date and to initiate new investigations of any alleged crime that began before Dec. 31, according to a provision in the original law. There are ongoing investigations of every known terrorist group, including al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad and the Zarqawi group in Iraq, and all the Patriot Act tools could continue to be used in those investigations.

Five Republicans voted against the reauthorization: Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Craig and Frist. Two Democrats voted to extend the provisions: Sens. Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Rest of the Article

In memoriam: Sen. Proxmire, dies at 90

2005-12-16T01:22:00.000-05:00

According to an Article Senator Proxmire, who retired the year I was born, 1986, died. Here is the article...

When William Proxmire won a Senate seat in 1957, he took a most unusual approach for a freshman, challenging the right of congressional leaders to determine committee assignments.

Capitol Hill watchers termed this act of hubris "Proxmire's Farewell Address," but they underestimated the Wisconsin Democrat. Proxmire would go on to serve for four decades in the Senate, distinguished by his knack for taking on big targets.

Proxmire, who died Thursday at age 90, made his mark in Congress by taking on government waste with his mocking "Golden Fleece" awards.

He battled for causes that few colleagues embraced. He won re-election repeatedly without accepting campaign donations and fought year after year for ratification of an anti-genocide treaty.

The former senator, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died at a convalescent home in Sykesville, Maryland. His son, Douglas Proxmire, said that no exact cause of death had been determined.

"He was a constant profile in courage on countless issues, continually insisting that the Senate live up to its ideals and always willing to wage lonely battles for noble causes," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who served with Proxmire for nearly three decades.

Proxmire began his monthly "Golden Fleece" awards in 1975 to point out what he thought were frivolous expenditures of public money. They became a Washington tradition.

He also fought for decades for passage of an anti-genocide treaty, which the Senate finally approved in 1986, two years before his retirement.

He was elected to the Senate in 1957 to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator notorious for his communist witch hunts.

Proxmire was re-elected in 1958 to his first six-year term and was returned to the same post in 1964, 1970, 1976 and 1982.

Long before the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law was a twinkle in the eye of lawmakers and at a time when millions were spent campaigning for Senate seats, Proxmire made a point of accepting no contributions. In 1982 he registered only $145.10 in campaign costs, yet won 64 percent of the vote.

Over the years, the rebel Democrat developed an image of penny-pinching populism that played well with Wisconsin voters.

But even as he condemned Pentagon officials for cost-overruns, he remained tireless in his defense of milk price supports, criticized by others as symbolic of government largess run amok. Milk price supports are a leading issue in Wisconsin.

The son of a wealthy physician in Lake Forest, Illinois, Proxmire graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School.

He served with military intelligence in World War II and later moved to Wisconsin to begin a career in politics, after briefly working as a reporter for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin.

After three unsuccessful attempts at winning the governorship, Proxmire won McCarthy's vacant seat.

Soon he carved out a reputation as a senator with an independent streak, introducing amendments without consulting Democratic Party heads, filibustering and even criticizing the dictates of Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.

In more than two decades, Proxmire did not travel abroad on Senate business and he returned more than $900,000 from his office allowances to the Treasury.

He repeatedly sparked his colleagues' ire by opposing salary increases, fighting against such Senate "perks" as a new gym in the Hart office building and keeping the Senate open all night long -- at a cost of thousands of dollars -- so he alone could argue against increasing the national debt limit.

Even so, his reputation was that of a workaholic and even his strongest critics found him to be one of the chamber's most disciplined, intelligent and persistent members.

He held the longest unbroken record in the history of the Senate for roll call votes.

Proxmire said his biggest mistake in Congress was his early support for the Vietnam War, a position he reversed in 1967.

Proxmire kept in shape with rigorous exercise, ran several miles to work each day and wrote a book about keeping fit. He even got a facelift and a hair transplant.

Although he was generally considered a liberal Democrat when he began his political career, Proxmire later said he found such labels useless. He opposed abortion and school busing.

As Proxmire increased in seniority, he became less of a budget nitpicker and more of an effective legislator.

He served for six years as head of the Senate Banking Committee, where he first opposed, and then backed, the federal bailout for New York City.

He also focused on consumer legislation, pushed a "truth in lending law" through Congress to protect borrowers and attempted to get the Federal Reserve System open to public scrutiny.

Proxmire is survived by his wife, Ellen Proxmire of Washington; sons Douglas Proxmire of McLean, Virginia, and Theodore Proxmire of Chevy Chase, Maryland; a daughter, Cici Zwerner of Scottsdale, Arizona; and stepdaughters Jan Cathy Licht, of Naperville, Illinois, and Mary Ellen Poulos of Shorewood, Wisconsin.

A private memorial service will be held next week in Lake Forest, Illinois, said Douglas Proxmire. Services will be held later in Madison and Washington.

-------------------
Reading about the things he fought for and stood up for he is someone to be admired and looked back upon with great distinction. It makes me wonder, will we ever have politicians like him, who stand up for the issues that seemingly no one seems to be important. Senator Promxire addressed the honesty in lawmaking, anti-genocide measures, and how Congress spends its money. HELL HE EVEN OPPOSED SALARY RAISES, he realized that in his job he was making way too much money and felt the money could be better used. Senator, you will be missed, even if I didn't know about you till tonight, I commend you for your actions and decisions while you served Wisconsin and the United States for 3 decades. Makes me wonder where he would stand on the issues today.

Original Source

House backs Mccain's ban on torture

2005-12-16T01:01:00.000-05:00

According to an Article posted on CNN.com, the US House of Representatives passed a $50 million spending bill for Iraq that includes a momentous amendment by Mccain stating that torture of any kind by interrogators is cruel and inhumane. Hopefully the Senate will pass this measure, not for the sake of the spending bill, BUT for Mccain's amendment.

Final approval of ban on degrading treatment expected soon

Sen. McCain has refused to agree to modify his detainee treatment ammendment.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress is nearing agreement with the White House on a Senate-passed ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign terrorism suspects, the primary issue stalling completion of two defense bills.

"We are mere millimeters from the finish line," a senior Senate GOP aide said late Wednesday, requesting anonymity because of the delicate nature of negotiations.

Earlier, the Republican-controlled House voted to urge congressional negotiators to include the ban, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, in a final $453 billion military spending bill.

The 308-122 procedural vote was symbolic, simply putting the House on record backing the ban and another provision by McCain, R-Arizona, that would standardize interrogation techniques used by U.S. troops.

Nevertheless, such a mandate -- 107 Republicans joined 200 Democrats and one independent in supporting McCain -- puts political pressure on House negotiators to accept the provisions overwhelmingly approved by the Senate in October.

"The House and Senate have now spoken loud and clear, with a single message -- the United States will not permit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The only way this standard could fail to pass the Congress now is through closed-door negotiations that defy the will of the majority of members of the House," said Elisa Massimino, the Washington director of Human Rights First.

Rest of the article

City may require separate washrooms for transsexuals

2005-12-14T15:19:00.000-05:00

According to an article 365gay.com,
City may require separate washrooms for transsexuals

Rio de Janeiro's Mayor will deicide to make public establishments have a third bathroom/washroom for transsexuals. It has already passed through the Nova Iguacu council. Let's hope Mr. Lindberg decides for Brazil's transgendered population and community, so they can feel comfortable in these type of settings. Here is the article...

City May Require Separate Washrooms For Transsexuals

(Rio De Janeiro, Brazil) Legislation has been passed by the Nova Iguacu city council that would require night clubs, shopping malls, movie theaters and large restaurants to provide a third type of bathroom for transsexuals.

Mayor Lindberg Farias will decide whether to make it a law.

"A lot of lawmakers didn't want to deal with this issue, but it's a serious problem in society," said city Councilman Carlos Eduardo Moreira. "It's a way to put an end to prejudice."

Moreira, a 32-year-old policeman on leave from the force, said he got the idea when dozens of transssexuals showed up for a local samba show.

"It was a real problem. The [non-transgendered] women didn't feel comfortable having them in the ladies' room, and the men didn't want them in their bathroom either," said Moreira, who is married and the father of two children. "I'm not doing this for my own benefit."

He said the "alternative bathrooms" could be used by anyone.

Moreira said there are nearly 28,000 trans people in Nova Iguacu, a poor city of about 800,000 on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

Moreira said many transsexuals are reluctant to go out because there's no bathroom for them. And he denied that the cost of building a third bathroom would be a big problem for restaurant or club owners.

"It requires an initial investment, but after that, the establishment will end up making more money because it will have a larger public." he said.

The issue has divided gay groups; some feared it could segregate people, while others said it recognized a problem within the gay community.

"At first we were against the law, but after some discussion we decided we had to support it because it addresses a real problem for a segment of the gay community," said Eugenio Ibiapino dos Santos, a founder of the Pink Triangle Association, a gay group in Nova Iguacu. "We see it as a way to open a discussion about civil rights."

Brazil is generally more tolerant of homosexuality than other Latin American countries, but discrimination still exists.

A study conducted by the Candido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro found that 60 percent of Rio's homosexuals had met some type of harassment, and 17 percent said they had experienced physical violence.

"Dyke" not offensive?

2005-12-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

So according to an article from Washington Blade, Dykes on Bikes Win Trademark, the term dyke has been associated with gay pride. While I see this as a victory on one hand, considering "Dykes on Bikes" has been around for 3 decades now, I also see it as offensive in many other and most contexts that it is used.

I remember elementary and middle school and some particular incidents where I was called "dyke", and I remember how much it hurt me then. I hope this decision won't make the use of dyke as an acceptable form of hate. It is offensive in most contexts.

Here is the article...

'Dykes on Bikes' wins trademark
Agency had denied application

'Dykes on bikes' convinced the U.S. Patent and Trademark office that the once-offensieve term 'dyke' has now become associated with gay pride.
A San Francisco lesbian motorcycle group has successfully trademarked the name "Dykes on Bikes" after proving the gay community does not find it derogatory.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office had denied the San Francisco group's applications for a federal trademark.

But the office reversed itself after being convinced the once-offensive term "dyke" has now become associated with gay pride.

The motorcycle club was founded nearly 30 years ago and became famous for leading San Francisco's annual gay pride parade.

Vick Germany, president of the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent, also known as Dykes on Bikes, said the decision was a huge victory.

Bush's ratings jump

2005-12-12T18:43:00.000-05:00

According to an article in today's New York Times, Bush's ratings have increased in several polls, here is the article...

After months of political erosion, President George W. Bush's approval rating improved markedly in the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, apparently because of Americans' better attitudes toward the economy.

But his presidency is still plagued by widespread doubts about his handling of the war in Iraq, with 52 percent saying the Bush administration intentionally misled the public when officials made the case for war.

Democrats have their own political difficulties on Iraq. The poll found widespread skepticism toward the idea of a speedy withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, an idea embraced in recent days by Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House. Thirty-six percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who called for such a withdrawal, while 20 percent said they would be more likely.

The survey, conducted Dec. 2-6, showed Bush's approval rating at 40 percent, up from 35 percent a month ago, which was the low point of his presidency. His gains primarily came among men, independents, moderates and conservatives. He remains a fiercely polarizing figure, with an approval rating of 79 percent among Republicans, 12 percent among Democrats and 34 percent among Independents.

Overall, 53 percent of Americans disapprove of his job performance, down from 57 percent a month ago.

As Republican strategists have hoped, the economy may be helping Bush's political standing.

Bush has tried hard to highlight good economic news in recent weeks, which have seen a drop in the price of gasoline and new figures showing strong growth in the third quarter. The poll showed that 57 percent now describe the national economy as good, up from 47 percent a month ago.

Bush's handling of the economy also got slightly better marks - 38 percent approved, up from 34 percent last month. In a measure of national mood closely followed by political strategists, the percentage of Americans who say the country is "seriously off on the wrong track" has declined - to 59 percent, from 68 percent a month ago.

The telephone poll of 1,155 adults nationwide has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Eleven months before the midterm elections, the poll found several ominous trends for the Republican congressional majority.

Only 33 percent of Americans said they approved of the way Congress is doing its job, while 53 percent disapproved. The approval rate among independents was just 32 percent.

If the elections were held today, 42 percent of registered voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their district, while 33 percent said they would vote for the Republican. Democrats had a substantial edge among Independents, with 38 percent saying they would vote for the Democratic candidate, while 22 percent preferred the Republican.

But the poll suggested that Republicans are not wrong to emphasize highly localized races focused on the strengths and familiarity of their incumbents. Sixty percent said they approved of their own representative's job performance, while 24 percent disapproved.

Original Source

-------------------
I seriously think that these numbers are attributed to less and less people being fooled. Bush and his administration is an administration full of many mistakes, many of which are inexcusable. Lets hope the Democrats' can show some political muscle to gain some seats in Congress and win some pivotal local races as well.

20 year anniversary-Ron

2005-12-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, and a local blogger, Ron, who's blog is linked on my blog, is celebrating his 20 year anniversary of living with HIV/AIDS. Meaning, he was diagnosed in 1985, right when the disease was most deadly and the least treatable. I know Ron will be around to see another 20, the link to his blog post about is here 2sides2ron-20th Anniversary

In my junior year of high school I was brought up an opportunity to educate my peers about HIV/AIDS within our local community and beyond through Lifeguards. Lifeguards is a peer-led HIV/AIDS awareness and service clubs in high schools throughout Guilford County.

Ever since then, it has been in my heart and soul to educate all about this deadly and preventable disease we know to be HIV/AIDS. I hope my generation sees that HIV/AIDS is still a disease to be knowledgable about. My generation thinks HIV/AIDS is not a danger, nor a threat, and they are sadly mistaken. HIV/AIDS rates are rising
more and more among young people and it saddens me to see the complacency that we settled in. I will continue to educate and inform others, especially my peers about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. Practice safe sex, know how to protect yourself and others, HIV/AIDS is still a killer, it might be a slower one now, but that doesn't mean its not a threat.

A family member of mine has lost 2 friends to HIV/AIDS through intravenous drug use. And I have worked with HIV+ and AIDS afflicted clients at Triad Health Project, I have seen how HIV/AIDS can infect but also affect everyone. Let Ron's activism and courage be a testament to why HIV/AIDS education and safe sex education is needed to help prevent HIV/AIDS and other STDs from spreading.

Catholics Protest Gay Ban

2005-12-12T14:07:00.000-05:00

Members of a lay group formed to combat sexual abuse in the priesthood staged demonstrations in cities across the country Sunday to condemn the Vatican's ban on gay priests.

Voice of the Faithful said that banning gays from entering or teaching at seminaries does nothing to address the problem of pedophilia in the priesthood and accused the Church of using gays as scapegoats.

In a statement to the media the group said, "We repeat and reaffirm our support for priests of integrity – without regard to their sexuality. We urge all Catholics to dismiss sexuality litmus tests for service in our Church. And we strongly encourage prompt and adequate funding for the overdue Causes and Context Study – our Church cannot heal without it."

"We are told in Acts of the Apostles that the early Christian community was recognized when observers would say of them, ‘See how they love one another,'" said Ray Joyce, Executive Director of VOTF. "What better time to live that message?"

The group, which has branches around the world, held demonstrations Sunday at cathedrals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Fall River, Massachusetts.

In Boston, about 60 people held a vigil in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

''The integrity of Catholics who are homosexuals is being questioned while the bishops have yet to question themselves," said Dorothy Kennedy, chair of the Boston area Voice of the Faithful council.

Last month the Vatican officially released its long awaited document outlining new rules for men entering the priesthood. Story here

The document, called an "Instruction'', says that "one cannot ignore the negative consequences that can stem from the ordination of people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies.''

"If instead it is a case of homosexual tendencies that are merely the expression of a transitory problem, for example as in the case of an unfinished adolescence, they must however have been clearly overcome for at least three years before ordination as a deacon.''

In a covering letter to the heads of seminaries the Vatican says that gays teaching in seminaries should be removed from their positions. Story here

Original Source
------------------
Religion has always been a touchy subject with me. My mother is Catholic and my father is Jewish, both, now, not practicing. I was baptized in the Catholic church, and named in temple, so right now I idenfity as agnostic, still learning about religions and other beliefs to see which one I believe and identify with the most.

My mother still identifies as Catholic, but doesn't agree with the Church's positions on homosexuality and abortion. Since we have gay family members and many friends who are gay, she cannot, in all good conscience, go to a church that abhors those she loves. She still loves mass, and the traditional core beliefs, meaning the believe in Jesus and the Saints.

She cried when Pope John Paul the Second died and she still hangs her rosary on her nightstand and she was faithful that the new pope would hopefully be more accepting of gays and have a less strict position on abortion. She still reads her "Upper Room" prayer and devotional book, and now she has a subscription to it.

Her and I are going to St. Paul the Apsolte Church next Sunday for Mass, the Church I was baptized in 18 years ago and received Holy Communion about 10 years ago. Recently she has wanted to go because Catholicism was what she was raised with and still, of course, is a part of her.

I read this article to her and she hopes that the Vatican and Church can revers their positions on gay priests. As she knows and we all should know that pedophilia is not a result of being gay. Hopefully the Vatican and Church will stop scapegoating gays for pedophilia in the Church.

And for my mother, she and my father are going to the Unitarian Univeralist Church of Greensboro on Hilltop Road. It definitely has been a change for my mother, but she enjoys the sermons, the service and the people. I am happy for her that she has found a church that will fit her belief in Jesus and also being accepting of others at the same time.

UNCG PRIDE! and VOX at Winter Walk for AIDS

2005-12-12T01:49:00.000-05:00

Many UNCG student groups participated in last Sunday's Winter Walk for AIDS, including UNCG PRIDE!, VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood, Black Students Business Association and many assorted Sororities and Fraternies. Above is a picture of members from both UNCG PRIDE! and VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood.

It was a wonderful event and I enjoyed walking for Winter Walk for AIDS for the 3rd year in a row. No matter how late I stayed up to finish my papers, I could not miss this event for anything in the world.

Triad Health Project, the Walk's organizer, is always seeking volunteers for varied events, and daily tasks. Call 336-275-1654 and ask for Shane Burton, the Head of Community Involvement or email him at sburton@triadhealthproject.com for more information. For general information about Triad Health Project, visit their website at Triad Health Project.

Clinton: Bush 'flat wrong' on climate

2005-12-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

MONTREAL, Quebec (AP)
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told a global audience of diplomats, environmentalists and others on Friday that the Bush administration is "flat wrong" in claiming that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to fight global warming would damage the U.S. economy.

With a "serious disciplined effort" to develop energy-saving technology, he said, "we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets in a way that would strengthen and not weaken our economies."

Clinton, a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing emissions-controls agreement opposed by the Bush administration, spoke in the final hours of a two-week U.N. climate conference at which Washington has come under heavy criticism for its stand.

Most delegations appeared ready Friday to leave an unwilling United States behind and open a new round of negotiations on future cutbacks in the emissions blamed for global warming.

"There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, acclerating and caused by human activities," said Clinton, whose address was interrupted repeatedly by enthusiastic applause.

"We are uncertain about how deep and the time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear they will not be good."

Canadian officials said the U.S. delegation was displeased with the last-minute scheduling of the Clinton speech.

But U.S. delegation chief Paula Dobriansky issued a statement saying events like Clinton's appearance "are useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change."

The former U.S. chief executive spoke between the official morning and afternoon plenary sessions of the conference, representing the William J. Clinton Foundation, which includes a climate-change program in its activities.

In the real work of the conference, delegates from more than 180 countries bargained behind closed doors until 6:30 a.m. Friday, making final adjustments to an agreement to negotiate additional reductions in carbon dioxide and other gases after 2012, when the Kyoto accord expires.

Efforts by host-country Canada and others to draw the United States into the process were failing. The Bush administration says it favors a voluntary approach, not global negotiations, to deal with climate issues.

"It's such a pity the United States is still very much unwilling to join the international community, to have a multilateral effort to deal with climate change," said Kenya's Emily Ojoo Massawa, chair of the African group of nations at the conference.

Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, was instrumental in final negotiations on the 1997 treaty protocol that was initialed in the Japanese city of Kyoto and mandates cutbacks in 35 industrialized nations of emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 2012.

Original Source

-------------------
Time and time again, the Bush administration has ignored scientific research and reveled in profit, especially in OIL, and not do anything about climate control. In 2001, when Bush renounced the US' agreement to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, it showed the lack of commitment this admnistration had to alternative fuel sources, and also research about how to combat climate control. Saying that it will affect the US economy as an excuse to not sign on to the Kyoto Control is ridiculous and inexcusable. Just look at these year's events-the unchartered hurricane season and the destruction that followed. Its no wonder that we are now facing a time where we need to put money, time, and research into finding alternative fuel resources or continue guzzling up the earth's resources without consideration of who it might affect indirectly now and directly in the future. 1 degree makes a wonder of difference.

German man claims US tortued him

2005-12-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

German man files torture case against CIA

Tuesday, December 6, 2005; Posted: 10:27 a.m. EST (15:27 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A German man filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he was held captive and tortured by U.S. government agents after being mistakenly identified as an associate of the September 11 hijackers.

Khaled el-Masri, who is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was arrested while attempting to enter Macedonia for a holiday trip and flown to Afghanistan. During five months in captivity he was subjected to "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," says a lawsuit he filed in U.S. District Court in suburban Alexandria, Virginia.

The suit names as the main defendant former CIA Director George Tenet. In addition to torture, he claims his due process rights were violated and that he was subjected to "prolonged, arbitrary detention." He is seeking damages of at least $75,000.

"I am asking the American government to admit its mistakes and to apologize for my treatment," el-Masri said in a statement. "Throughout my time in the prison, I asked to be brought before a court but was refused. Now I am hoping that an American court will say very clearly that what happened to me was illegal and cannot be done to others."

The CIA rendition program, in which terror suspects are captured and taken to foreign countries for interrogation, has been heavily criticized by human rights groups.

The scope of the program has not been disclosed by the CIA. However, Amnesty International claimed Monday that six planes used by the CIA for renditions have made some 800 flights in or out of European airspace, including 50 landings at Shannon International Airport in Ireland. (Watch how renditions can work and why they are controversial -- 2:31)

El-Masri, 42, was born in Kuwait to Lebanese parents and moved to Germany in 1985. The married father of five said that on New Year's Eve 2003 he boarded a bus in his hometown of Neu-Ulm for a holiday in Macedonia. At the border he was stopped by Macedonian authorities and his passport was confiscated.

He said he was detained by local authorities for 23 days and then handed over to what he believes was a team of CIA operatives. He then was flown to Afghanistan where he was subjected to abuse during four months in captivity.

In late May 2004 he was flown to Albania and then put on a plane back to Germany.

Original Source

----------------------------
With the passing of the US Patriot Act in late 2001, and with the condonement of the use of torture to 'fight terrorism', the US Government has shown its weaknesses and this is one of them. This particular case here is why I do not support the US Patriot Act, nor do I support the use of torture, EVER. It is morally wrong and what are we saying if we condone torture? What message is America sending out? This country really needs to examine our means for 'combating terrorism', because we are not combating terrorism, we are detaining people and taking their rights away from them.

Give 'em Hell Dean-"Idea that America can win war in Iraq is just plain wrong."

2005-12-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

Dean: U.S. can't win Iraq war
GOP says Democrat leader embraces 'retreat and defeat'

(CNN) -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is drawing GOP fire after telling a Texas radio station that the idea the war in Iraq can be won is "just plain wrong."

In an interview with WOAI radio in San Antonio Monday, the head of the Democratic Party drew a parallel between efforts to hand over security responsibilities to Iraqis and similar efforts during the Vietnam War to the South Vietnamese.

That side ultimately lost the war.

"Of course, the South Vietnamese couldn't manage to support their own country," Dean said. "I do not believe in making the same mistake twice. And America appears to have made the same mistake twice."

Dean said he wished President Bush "had paid more attention to the history of Iraq before we had gotten in there."

"The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong," he said.

Calling President Bush's plan in Iraq a "failed strategy, Dean said he and most Democrats support bringing home an estimated 80,000 National Guard and reserve troops within the next six months.

He said that he backed the redeployment of 20,000 troops to Afghanistan and a force in the Middle East to deal with al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but not in Iraq.

"We cannot have our troops being targets there," he said.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman blasted his Democratic counterpart, accusing Dean of embracing "retreat and defeat" and "predicting that America will lose the war in Iraq."

"His outrageous prediction sends the wrong message to our troops, the enemy and the Iraqi people just 10 days before historic elections," Mehlman said in a statement. "Democrats across the nation should stand up and reject the pessimism of their chairman."

Responding to Mehlman's broadside, Dean spokeswoman Karen Finney said that Republicans were "cherry-picking" Dean's words "just like they cherry-picked the pre-war intelligence."

"We can only win if the Iraqi people are able to play a greater role in peacekeeping, and we can only win if the president gives an honest assessment of what's really happening on the ground in Iraq," Finney said. "Staying the course and paying for good headlines are not a strategy. It's merely a bad excuse for not having a plan."

Original Source

----------
I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but Dean is right. And by God, he has always been right about the Iraq war. As a 17 year old junior in high school I have followed Howard Dean and supported Howard Dean. Through his rise as the Democratic candidate in 2004, to his chairman position of the DNC, where he currently stands. Hopefully his words can make the Democrats get their backbone once again and stop becoming "Republican-lite." For too long, the Democrats have not been the opposition party and not presented a choice to the American people on these issues. When the Republicans and conservatives want to wedge issues such as gay marriage and abortion and BIRD FLU from what really needs to be discussed, the war in Iraq and the possiblity of bringing our troops home from an occupation that is just like Vietnam.

There was no plan for peace in Iraq, nor did were the troops fully equipped going into combat. It is not ridiculous to think that this could happen again, but the Democrats and all sane minded people (not the 38% that will support Bush no matter what, because by GOD he's a "Christian" man) can unite and show Bush and his administration what we all think. We must organize and we must vote, we must change the world we are living in. The man still has three years left in office, and 2006 is going to be a glorious midterm election season.

Help bring LOGO to the Triad

2005-12-06T11:22:00.000-05:00

From the UNCG PRIDE! website...

Help Bring LOGO, the new LGBT channel from MTV Networks, to Greensboro and the greater Piedmont/Triad area!

Dear Friends,

We need your help today to reach out to Time Warner cable with a quick email. We think it's time they knew first-hand how many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and gay-friendly households they are serving in the greater
Greensboro area. You may have heard that LOGO, the new lesbian and gay channel from MTV Networks, launched this past June to nearly 18 million households. But did you know that LOGO is not available to one single cable customer served by Time Warner in Greensboro?

Whether or not you wish to watch LOGO (that is your choice), we believe the airwaves belong to all of us, and that we should have a say on what is available on TV. Today we have a unique opportunity to help bring LGBT related cable programming to underserved parts of the country including Greensboro, NC. LOGO features relevant LGBT news, a wide range of LGBT related films, original series, innovative documentaries and much more.

Visit http://www.LOGOonline.com to see for yourself what LOGO is all about.

This is in no way a pitch for you or anyone else to subscribe to cable or satellite TV, or even to watch LOGO. This is about you and your family and friends deserving to have a choice about what to watch, and not being denied access to gay TV programming.

We can make the difference, and we are asking you to do the following right now: Email Time Warner cable at https://www.timewarnercable.com/PiedmontTriad/

Select Contact Us in the Customer Service field, then Online form in the Programming request field, and then strongly urge them to carry LOGO.

Let's make sure Time Warner knows that there are plenty of potential viewers in the Greensboro community they serve who count, including you.

Please share this message with your friends, and ask them to request LOGO too. We have strength in numbers!

Protesters arrested near Bush's Ranch

2005-11-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

CRAWFORD, Texas (Nov. 23) - A dozen war protesters including Daniel Ellsberg were arrested Wednesday for setting up camp near President Bush's ranch in defiance of new local bans on roadside camping and parking.

About four hours after the group pitched six tents and huddled in sleeping bags and blankets, McLennan County sheriff's deputies arrested them for criminal trespassing. Many in the group held up signs, including one that said "Give me liberty or give me a ditch."

A dozen or so other demonstrators left the public right of way after deputies warned them they would be arrested.

The protest was set to coincide with Bush's Thanksgiving ranch visit.

The arrests were made by more than two dozen deputies who calmly approached the demonstrators in their tents and asked if they wanted to walk out on their own or be carried. Two chose to be carried. They were to be taken to jail for booking.

Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war, estimated it was his 70th arrest for various protests since the 1970s.

"Those of us who finally saw through the Vietnam war saw through this war, and all the actions that were necessary to end the Vietnam war will be necessary here," Ellsberg said Wednesday before his arrest. "I think the American people will get us out of this (war)."

Ellsberg became famous for his release of the secret documents, which indicated the government had deceived the public about whether the Vietnam war could be won and the extent of casualties.

Also arrested Wednesday was Ann Wright, who resigned her post as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003 in protest of the war with Iraq.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan wasn't among the protesters Wednesday because of a family emergency in California, but she planned to be at the camp later in the week.

"We are proud to be here," Dede Miller, Sheehan's sister, said hours before her arrest as she huddled in a blanket at the campsite. "This is just so important. What we did in August really moved us forward, and this is just a continuation of it."

In August, hundreds of demonstrators camped off the road during a 26-day protest led by Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq last year. But a month later, county commissioners banned camping in any county ditch and parking within 7 miles of the ranch, citing safety and traffic congestion issues.

Earlier this week, three demonstrators filed a federal lawsuit against McLennan County over the two local bans.

During the last several weeks of their summer protest, the activists had camped on a private one-acre lot that a sympathetic landowner let them use. That land is about a mile from Bush's ranch.

Original Source of Article

-------------------------
I have the biggest respect for the anti-war protesters and always will. I feel as if they see this war for what it really is, Bush's vietnam. Maybe not the same extent as Vietnam, but all the same game, the same government corruption, the same propaganda, just a different "enemy".

That's what the World Can't Wait Campaign is doing, protesting not only the war but the Bush administration and its lies and broken promises. Look at Katrina and its horrible response, look at the attack on women's rights and LGBT individuals, look at the condonment of tortue, look at the denial of scientific research and the dogmatic response involved in critical decisions involving people's well beings and identities. There has been a lot the Bush administration that has done that cannot be generalized in a few paragraphs, and the destruction of American lives over a lost cause, all these deaths are in vain. The thousands of innocent Iraqi women, men, and children.

We need our troops out now, we need a real force of people to say that this has to stop, the lies, the deceit, the hatred, prejudice, bigotry, it has to stop. And thats what the World Cant Wait Campaign is about. Go to www.worldcantwait.net for more information and local contact information for the Greensboro, NC chapter or whatever chapter is closet to you.

Denial of benefits

2005-11-23T15:32:00.000-05:00

County Refuses Lesbian Cop's Dying Wish
by John Curran, Associated Press

(Toms River, New Jersey) A cancer-stricken law enforcement officer who wants her same-sex partner to get her death benefits got an enthusiastic show of support Wednesday, with more than 100 gay rights advocates turning out to denounce Ocean County officials for not agreeing to it.

Carrying placards and handmade signs, members of Garden State Equality and other groups staged a rally outside the county Board of Chosen Freeholders' office, accusing the panel of homophobia and hypocrisy in failing to extend benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees.

At the center of the dispute is Lt. Laurel Hester, 49, a 23-year investigator for the Ocean County Prosecutor's office who is fighting lung cancer. Hester wants the county to pass a resolution as provided for by New Jersey's 18-month-old Domestic Partners Act, which gives counties and cities the power to extend pension and health care benefits to the gay partners of employees if they so choose.

Hester, of Point Pleasant, fears that without her $13,000 death benefit, partner Stacie Andree, 30, will be forced to sell the house they now share after Hester dies.

The county has yet to act on the request. Donna Flynn, a spokeswoman for the freeholder board, had no immediate comment on the controversy Wednesday.

More than 100 agencies in the state have adopted domestic partnership benefit resolutions, including Bergen and Hudson counties.

"Ocean County Freeholders Where's Your Humanity?" read a sign hung from a recreational vehicle parked outside the Board's office.

"Shame on you, Ocean County," read a hand-lettered sign carried by Nancy McNeil, 62, of Toms River, who attended in a wheelchair. "My sign says it all," she said. "Who are the freeholders to pass moral judgment on a woman who put her life on the line for them?"

The rally, organized by Garden State Equality, featured its chairman, Steven Goldstein, who spoke through a bullhorn and introduced a series of speakers who support Hester's cause.

Among them was a seven-person contingent from the Gay Officers Action League of New York, which is made up of gay law enforcement officers.

"Straight or gay, we do the job. We put our lives on the line," said its president, George Farrugia. "Lieutenant Hester, we're here for you."

So were other supporters of gay marriage and domestic partner benefits.

"This is a moral issue," said Suzannah Porter, president of the National Organization for Women's New Jersey chapter. "It's about time that people who talk family values start valuing families."

Weakened by her sickness, Hester sat in a wheelchair at the center of the rally, a blanket over her lap as she spoke into a bullhorn held by Andree, who stood over her.

"As of this point, my prognosis is not very good," she said. "I don't know how much time I have left." But she said the battle over benefits - not just for her partner, but for others - had given her resolve.

"This issue has given me cause to fight and to stick around long enough to see this injustice rectified," Hester said.

Original Source of Article

-------------------------

Hopefully this will make America realize that marriage isn't the only LGBT issue that needs to be discussed. Domestic partnership for LGBT couples is needed, and this is a prime example of why.