| You are White Chocolate |
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What Kind of Chocolate Are You?
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Cool, I like lilies anyway! They are May's flower and I was born in May! Hey, that rhymed! :-D
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So, I'm like...loving a good friend. I hope that's not a Bert and Ernie "Sesame Street" type love! :-p
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Friday, May 12, 2006
What type of girlfriend am I?
| You are a Great Girlfriend |
 |
Are You a Good Girlfriend?
I'm this type of flirt...
| You Are a Coy Flirt! |
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What Kind of Flirt Are You?
| Your Dream Engagement Ring Has a Heart Diamond! |
 You wear your heart on your sleeve, so of course you should also wear it on your ring. A heart diamond is the perfect choice for highlighting your passionate disposition. Only a true romantic can get away with wearing this ring. Luckily, that's you. And only a true romantic can give you this ring, so make sure you find him...! |
I'm such a girl!
| You Are Girly Sexy |
 |
What Kind of Sexy Are You?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Breaking her silence (Gay)Mary Cheney denounces anti-gay amendment, but critics say it’s too little too late
FEATURE/PROFILES
Breaking her silence (Gay)Mary Cheney denounces anti-gay amendment, but critics say it’s too little too late
By KATHERINE VOLIN Thursday, May 11, 2006
Mary Cheney broke her long record of silence on gay issues this week with a PR blitz that would make Tom Cruise proud.
After years of criticism from activists who said Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter should have lobbied publicly for gay rights instead of working for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, the woman who once preferred to fly under the radar was suddenly everywhere, from "Primetime Live" to "Larry King" to the Washington Post. It was an unlikely week in the spotlight for a woman normally found behind the scenes.
During her father’s tenure in office, Mary Cheney has resisted sharing her opinions on gay marriage, gay adoption or other gay issues, even as her father’s boss spoke out against gay civil rights.
"She has been put in a unique place to make more difference than all of us can make combined," gay activist John Aravosis told the Blade in 2004. "With power comes responsibility."
Tired of what he saw as Mary Cheney’s irresponsibility, Aravosis launched a website, DearMary.com, in February of 2004 that challenged Cheney on her silence regarding Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
At the time, Cheney was serving as the re-election campaign director for her father. The site generated thousands of letters to Cheney asking for her to speak out against the anti-gay rhetoric of the Bush campaign. Characteristically, Cheney issued no response.
IN A REVERSAL of that silence, Cheney, 37, has written a book titled, "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life," that was published on May 9 by Threshold Editions whose editor in chief is Mary Matalin, a noted gay-friendly Republican politico and Cheney adviser. Matalin did not respond to a request for comment about the book. Cheney reportedly received a $1 million advance for her story.
The book focuses primarily on Mary Cheney’s political experiences, but includes her story of coming out to her parents and the revelation that President Bush once offered her the chance to issue a public statement in response to the administration’s amendment effort. She declined the opportunity.
When she appeared on ABC’s "Primetime Live" on May 4, Cheney said she was conflicted about maintaining her position on the 2004 campaign and decided not to attend the State of the Union address in which President Bush called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
"I didn’t want to be there," Cheney told Diane Sawyer. "No one banned me from being there, but I didn’t want to stand up and cheer."
Cheney also said that most of her disagreements over the political stances of her father and President Bush were held in private.
"The president knows that I disagree with him," Cheney said. "Can you be too respectful of the leader of the free world? Can you be too respectful of the president of the United States?" she said later when Sawyer questioned whether she held back too much.
REACTION TO MARY Cheney’s decision to come out publicly with her views on gay marriage were mixed.
"It’s extremely disappointing that she did not use the opportunity that the president gave her … to make a statement against the administration’s policy on same-sex marriage and the marriage amendment," says Pam Spaulding, a lesbian activist who writes a political blog at www.pamspaulding.com. "That is the one thing you walk away from that confirms her cowardice."
Spaulding says that Cheney’s missed opportunity to speak out against the constitutional amendment may have cost gays and lesbians marriage rights at the state level.
"How many lives could have been changed for ordinary gays and lesbians if she would have said something during the campaign," Spaulding says. "From the time she was working on her father’s campaign until now, how many marriage amendments were on the ballot? She chose silence."
Candice Gingrich, senior youth outreach manager for the Human Rights Campaign and the lesbian half-sister of former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, took a very different path when her brother was in office than the one chosen by Mary Cheney.
"I knew if there was this opportunity to talk about issues that I cared deeply about and have people listen, that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t taken that opportunity," Gingrich says.
She added that she didn’t believe sharing her opinion publicly was disrespectful to her half brother.
"I couldn’t believe that he would ever begrudge me for taking a stance in what I believed in, even if it was completely opposite of what he said," Gingrich says.
Although Gingrich made very different choices than Mary Cheney, she says that Cheney needed to speak out in her own time.
"I’m grateful that she’s speaking out now," Gingrich says. "I know that she feels very strongly about the marriage issue and having a voice like hers now a month out before the Senate debate on the marriage amendment is important."
PATRICK GUERRIERO, PRESIDENT of gay political group the Log Cabin Republicans, agrees that Cheney’s timing shows a critical shift in conservative thinking on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
"I think we’re seeing a growing sentiment that there are a lot of good Republicans, good conservatives, who think we should not be playing politics with the American Constitution," Guerriero says.
Guerriero also says the "Primetime Live" interview showed that Cheney’s decision not to share her political viewpoints was a difficult choice for her.
"A lot of folks were quite harsh and scrutinized Mary Cheney during that whole period and I think many of us were unaware of the kind of conversations she had and her reflections on leaving the campaign and it showed someone who was trying to find a balance between family and politics and personal integrity," Guerriero says.
DURING HER "PRIMETIME LIVE" interview, Cheney said that it was hard for her to see her father take positions with which she disagreed. "Dinnertime can always be an adventure at the Cheney house," she said. "But those are always private discussions."
Kenji Yoshinio, a gay law professor at Yale University, wrote a book on the sociological notion of "covering," which occurs when one "downplays a stigmatized identity to help other people ignore it." In the preface of his book, "Covering: the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," he mentions Cheney as someone who downplayed her sexual orientation.
"My intuition is that she may be covering," Yoshino says, noting that Cheney is often shown without her partner, Heather Poe, at public events. "There’s a particular pressure for people in the public eye to background the negative aspects of their identity and foreground the positive aspects."
Gingrich agrees that the pressure can be intense.
"I think that what we saw with the ‘Where’s Mary?’ campaign is there’s sometimes more pressure put on the queer relatives," Gingrich says.
Mary Cheney timeline
1969: Mary Cheney is born.
1991: Graduates from Colorado College.
1993: Works in promotions for the Colorado Rockies baseball team
.2000: Leaves Coors, where she worked as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community to repair the rift between gays and the brewery, to work on her father’s campaign.
2002: Earns a graduate business degree from the University of Denver and serves on the advisory board of the Republican Unity Coalition.
July 2003: Becomes director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney
2004 presidential re-election campaign.
Feb. 2004: DearMary.com, a website that featured Mary Cheney’s face on a milk carton with the slogan "Where’s Mary," is launched.Aug.
2004: Alan Keyes calls Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist."
Oct. 2004: John Kerry and John Edwards both mention Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation in the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Lynne Cheney admonishes them later in a speech, and Bush’s polls spike in what was termed the "Mary Cheney bounce."Nov. 2004: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are elected to a second term.
May 2006: Mary Cheney appears on "Primetime Live" to promote her new book: "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life."
--------
Oh, Mary, my dear, why were you born to a republican mother and father? God truly does have a weird sense of humor, doesn't he?
Breaking her silence (Gay)Mary Cheney denounces anti-gay amendment, but critics say it’s too little too late
By KATHERINE VOLIN Thursday, May 11, 2006
Mary Cheney broke her long record of silence on gay issues this week with a PR blitz that would make Tom Cruise proud.
After years of criticism from activists who said Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter should have lobbied publicly for gay rights instead of working for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, the woman who once preferred to fly under the radar was suddenly everywhere, from "Primetime Live" to "Larry King" to the Washington Post. It was an unlikely week in the spotlight for a woman normally found behind the scenes.
During her father’s tenure in office, Mary Cheney has resisted sharing her opinions on gay marriage, gay adoption or other gay issues, even as her father’s boss spoke out against gay civil rights.
"She has been put in a unique place to make more difference than all of us can make combined," gay activist John Aravosis told the Blade in 2004. "With power comes responsibility."
Tired of what he saw as Mary Cheney’s irresponsibility, Aravosis launched a website, DearMary.com, in February of 2004 that challenged Cheney on her silence regarding Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
At the time, Cheney was serving as the re-election campaign director for her father. The site generated thousands of letters to Cheney asking for her to speak out against the anti-gay rhetoric of the Bush campaign. Characteristically, Cheney issued no response.
IN A REVERSAL of that silence, Cheney, 37, has written a book titled, "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life," that was published on May 9 by Threshold Editions whose editor in chief is Mary Matalin, a noted gay-friendly Republican politico and Cheney adviser. Matalin did not respond to a request for comment about the book. Cheney reportedly received a $1 million advance for her story.
The book focuses primarily on Mary Cheney’s political experiences, but includes her story of coming out to her parents and the revelation that President Bush once offered her the chance to issue a public statement in response to the administration’s amendment effort. She declined the opportunity.
When she appeared on ABC’s "Primetime Live" on May 4, Cheney said she was conflicted about maintaining her position on the 2004 campaign and decided not to attend the State of the Union address in which President Bush called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
"I didn’t want to be there," Cheney told Diane Sawyer. "No one banned me from being there, but I didn’t want to stand up and cheer."
Cheney also said that most of her disagreements over the political stances of her father and President Bush were held in private.
"The president knows that I disagree with him," Cheney said. "Can you be too respectful of the leader of the free world? Can you be too respectful of the president of the United States?" she said later when Sawyer questioned whether she held back too much.
REACTION TO MARY Cheney’s decision to come out publicly with her views on gay marriage were mixed.
"It’s extremely disappointing that she did not use the opportunity that the president gave her … to make a statement against the administration’s policy on same-sex marriage and the marriage amendment," says Pam Spaulding, a lesbian activist who writes a political blog at www.pamspaulding.com. "That is the one thing you walk away from that confirms her cowardice."
Spaulding says that Cheney’s missed opportunity to speak out against the constitutional amendment may have cost gays and lesbians marriage rights at the state level.
"How many lives could have been changed for ordinary gays and lesbians if she would have said something during the campaign," Spaulding says. "From the time she was working on her father’s campaign until now, how many marriage amendments were on the ballot? She chose silence."
Candice Gingrich, senior youth outreach manager for the Human Rights Campaign and the lesbian half-sister of former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, took a very different path when her brother was in office than the one chosen by Mary Cheney.
"I knew if there was this opportunity to talk about issues that I cared deeply about and have people listen, that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t taken that opportunity," Gingrich says.
She added that she didn’t believe sharing her opinion publicly was disrespectful to her half brother.
"I couldn’t believe that he would ever begrudge me for taking a stance in what I believed in, even if it was completely opposite of what he said," Gingrich says.
Although Gingrich made very different choices than Mary Cheney, she says that Cheney needed to speak out in her own time.
"I’m grateful that she’s speaking out now," Gingrich says. "I know that she feels very strongly about the marriage issue and having a voice like hers now a month out before the Senate debate on the marriage amendment is important."
PATRICK GUERRIERO, PRESIDENT of gay political group the Log Cabin Republicans, agrees that Cheney’s timing shows a critical shift in conservative thinking on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
"I think we’re seeing a growing sentiment that there are a lot of good Republicans, good conservatives, who think we should not be playing politics with the American Constitution," Guerriero says.
Guerriero also says the "Primetime Live" interview showed that Cheney’s decision not to share her political viewpoints was a difficult choice for her.
"A lot of folks were quite harsh and scrutinized Mary Cheney during that whole period and I think many of us were unaware of the kind of conversations she had and her reflections on leaving the campaign and it showed someone who was trying to find a balance between family and politics and personal integrity," Guerriero says.
DURING HER "PRIMETIME LIVE" interview, Cheney said that it was hard for her to see her father take positions with which she disagreed. "Dinnertime can always be an adventure at the Cheney house," she said. "But those are always private discussions."
Kenji Yoshinio, a gay law professor at Yale University, wrote a book on the sociological notion of "covering," which occurs when one "downplays a stigmatized identity to help other people ignore it." In the preface of his book, "Covering: the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," he mentions Cheney as someone who downplayed her sexual orientation.
"My intuition is that she may be covering," Yoshino says, noting that Cheney is often shown without her partner, Heather Poe, at public events. "There’s a particular pressure for people in the public eye to background the negative aspects of their identity and foreground the positive aspects."
Gingrich agrees that the pressure can be intense.
"I think that what we saw with the ‘Where’s Mary?’ campaign is there’s sometimes more pressure put on the queer relatives," Gingrich says.
Mary Cheney timeline
1969: Mary Cheney is born.
1991: Graduates from Colorado College.
1993: Works in promotions for the Colorado Rockies baseball team
.2000: Leaves Coors, where she worked as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community to repair the rift between gays and the brewery, to work on her father’s campaign.
2002: Earns a graduate business degree from the University of Denver and serves on the advisory board of the Republican Unity Coalition.
July 2003: Becomes director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney
2004 presidential re-election campaign.
Feb. 2004: DearMary.com, a website that featured Mary Cheney’s face on a milk carton with the slogan "Where’s Mary," is launched.Aug.
2004: Alan Keyes calls Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist."
Oct. 2004: John Kerry and John Edwards both mention Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation in the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Lynne Cheney admonishes them later in a speech, and Bush’s polls spike in what was termed the "Mary Cheney bounce."Nov. 2004: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are elected to a second term.
May 2006: Mary Cheney appears on "Primetime Live" to promote her new book: "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life."
--------
Oh, Mary, my dear, why were you born to a republican mother and father? God truly does have a weird sense of humor, doesn't he?
Thursday, May 04, 2006
My dearest Eric
My dearest Eric,
It’s just I again. Same old same old. I have many longings that are no longer possible on this earth. If I could only see you again…talk to you. Anything! I know you don’t want me to be this sad. What happened to you once you passed? Where did you go? As you can tell, this letter is very unorganized. I just miss you. I want this pain to stop. I want to heal. It’s weird. I mean, I know you were just a man as mortal as everyone else, but I never thought you’d die. Funny, isn’t it? I guess I’m still a child in that regard always thinking death is only reserved for the old and sick. No, death is random. Death never cares. It simply does what it has to do and no more. You were in pain. You couldn’t breathe anymore. Death must have known and acted out of mercy to halt your suffering. And then there was no more pain…physically. But the price of dying is expensive, indeed. It left a bitter debt. No more father, no more friend, no more son, brother, cousin, uncle, teacher…no more Eric. You never struck me as one to fear death though. You seemed to fear nothing when it came to life. I don’t think you were ever afraid to die. It was sort of a show to you. Death seemed to be just another part of that show. I think if you were to tell me about your experience with death, you’d just laugh and say, “Oh, he’s all talk! It’s no big deal!”
I just hope you aren’t lonely. It seems like you wouldn’t be with your first born there and your dad and all who have gone before you. Nah, you’re not lonely. I hope wherever you are, it’s fun and you’re there with souls you love. I want that so much for you.
My last memory of you is a powerful one: you were there on the DHS sidewalk, worried about my journey home by myself in my power chair.
“E-mail me when you get home,” you told me.
So I did. And you were relieved.
I wish that you could e-mail me from Heaven or wherever to tell me you’re all right. That way, I’d know for sure you’re safe. I wish I stayed in touch with you more often before you passed. Nothing can be done about that now. All I can do is talk to you and hope somehow you can hear me. Somehow, maybe somehow, you are reading all these letters I’ve written for you. I hope you know. Do you ever miss me? I know that sounds so selfish, but do you? Do you still think about me and remember our times together laughing and being stupid in class or on stage or in your office? It was always you I came to see after graduation. I guess I was afraid you’d forget me somehow with new students coming into your life. Silly me, the worry wart. I know you’d never forget me just as I haven’t forgotten you. Actually, the main reason I’d come see you was just to be in your company—just to be with you. I think you knew that.
It turns out that you touched a lot of lives. You saved a lot of lives and souls. So why should my story be so special? It’s average. You helped a girl from age 15-17 believe in herself again when the world she knew fell apart on her. It’s wonderful to know when everything else fails you and lets you down, there are still things you can believe in—things like love, and friendship, talent, and yourself. And so it turns out I was only one of hundreds of young lives you saved. How typical of you. You were magic and you are still very much so.
I worry about forgetting things so much. Silly little stuff like what you wore everyday coming into class. For some reason, I remember you vividly dressed from head to toe in black—black shirt, black pants, black belt, black shoes. You looked apt in black. How you moved—the way you walked. You could change it up in a heartbeat at your will as part of our lesson or just to make us laugh. I saw you dance, and beautifully I might add on that October night during Java Café.
You’re infectious and highly contagious. I remember so well your loud laugh when you let it free…how no one could resist joining in with it. Oh, God! I’ve seen you stressed and upset, too and that always made me want to hug you and help you out. Your smile, your dark, bright eyes. Your wild, short, Harry Potterequse dark hair. Your beautiful hands, always wide and open. I never once saw you really close them. You always seemed ready to help with them or use them in a helpful way whether it was to gesture or to push me in my chair, to touch my shoulder. They were always open. Hands that do. They did more than decorate you.
Oh, if I could just remember all the silly things you said:
“Stupid people should not breed!”
“Don’t you hate it when you’re WRONG?! Ha, ha—Celia jumped!”
‘Jeff, wake up—you’re drooling, man!”
“Ya’ll, isn’t it SO COOL I left my TV down here?!”
“I love you, little girl!”
“Love ya, mean it—DON’T DO DRUGS!”
“Oh, you are in SO MUCH TROUBLE, little squirrel bait!”
“What, Celia? Did you say ‘research’?”
“Celia’s my piece of trash!”
Oh, good times! I never wanted them to end. In my own naivety, I never thought they really would. I’m just dumb. There are only so many words to say I love and miss you and language can never express them to my satisfaction but I know that you know this already. Except for death, nothing has taken you from me. Do you hear that, death? Do you hear that, Baileys? Nothing either one of you has done or will do has taken or will take Eric from me. As long as I remember, he is with me. And I remember so much. Not everything, though I wish it were possible, but enough to keep him alive forever.
If love indeed is real and it does indeed last forever then there are no real goodbyes. There are only “I’ll be here waiting for you”s.
I remember, Eric. I remember what I have to do now: live. You helped teach me this.
I’ll stop for now.
Love to you always and always,
S.B., L.G.
It’s just I again. Same old same old. I have many longings that are no longer possible on this earth. If I could only see you again…talk to you. Anything! I know you don’t want me to be this sad. What happened to you once you passed? Where did you go? As you can tell, this letter is very unorganized. I just miss you. I want this pain to stop. I want to heal. It’s weird. I mean, I know you were just a man as mortal as everyone else, but I never thought you’d die. Funny, isn’t it? I guess I’m still a child in that regard always thinking death is only reserved for the old and sick. No, death is random. Death never cares. It simply does what it has to do and no more. You were in pain. You couldn’t breathe anymore. Death must have known and acted out of mercy to halt your suffering. And then there was no more pain…physically. But the price of dying is expensive, indeed. It left a bitter debt. No more father, no more friend, no more son, brother, cousin, uncle, teacher…no more Eric. You never struck me as one to fear death though. You seemed to fear nothing when it came to life. I don’t think you were ever afraid to die. It was sort of a show to you. Death seemed to be just another part of that show. I think if you were to tell me about your experience with death, you’d just laugh and say, “Oh, he’s all talk! It’s no big deal!”
I just hope you aren’t lonely. It seems like you wouldn’t be with your first born there and your dad and all who have gone before you. Nah, you’re not lonely. I hope wherever you are, it’s fun and you’re there with souls you love. I want that so much for you.
My last memory of you is a powerful one: you were there on the DHS sidewalk, worried about my journey home by myself in my power chair.
“E-mail me when you get home,” you told me.
So I did. And you were relieved.
I wish that you could e-mail me from Heaven or wherever to tell me you’re all right. That way, I’d know for sure you’re safe. I wish I stayed in touch with you more often before you passed. Nothing can be done about that now. All I can do is talk to you and hope somehow you can hear me. Somehow, maybe somehow, you are reading all these letters I’ve written for you. I hope you know. Do you ever miss me? I know that sounds so selfish, but do you? Do you still think about me and remember our times together laughing and being stupid in class or on stage or in your office? It was always you I came to see after graduation. I guess I was afraid you’d forget me somehow with new students coming into your life. Silly me, the worry wart. I know you’d never forget me just as I haven’t forgotten you. Actually, the main reason I’d come see you was just to be in your company—just to be with you. I think you knew that.
It turns out that you touched a lot of lives. You saved a lot of lives and souls. So why should my story be so special? It’s average. You helped a girl from age 15-17 believe in herself again when the world she knew fell apart on her. It’s wonderful to know when everything else fails you and lets you down, there are still things you can believe in—things like love, and friendship, talent, and yourself. And so it turns out I was only one of hundreds of young lives you saved. How typical of you. You were magic and you are still very much so.
I worry about forgetting things so much. Silly little stuff like what you wore everyday coming into class. For some reason, I remember you vividly dressed from head to toe in black—black shirt, black pants, black belt, black shoes. You looked apt in black. How you moved—the way you walked. You could change it up in a heartbeat at your will as part of our lesson or just to make us laugh. I saw you dance, and beautifully I might add on that October night during Java Café.
You’re infectious and highly contagious. I remember so well your loud laugh when you let it free…how no one could resist joining in with it. Oh, God! I’ve seen you stressed and upset, too and that always made me want to hug you and help you out. Your smile, your dark, bright eyes. Your wild, short, Harry Potterequse dark hair. Your beautiful hands, always wide and open. I never once saw you really close them. You always seemed ready to help with them or use them in a helpful way whether it was to gesture or to push me in my chair, to touch my shoulder. They were always open. Hands that do. They did more than decorate you.
Oh, if I could just remember all the silly things you said:
“Stupid people should not breed!”
“Don’t you hate it when you’re WRONG?! Ha, ha—Celia jumped!”
‘Jeff, wake up—you’re drooling, man!”
“Ya’ll, isn’t it SO COOL I left my TV down here?!”
“I love you, little girl!”
“Love ya, mean it—DON’T DO DRUGS!”
“Oh, you are in SO MUCH TROUBLE, little squirrel bait!”
“What, Celia? Did you say ‘research’?”
“Celia’s my piece of trash!”
Oh, good times! I never wanted them to end. In my own naivety, I never thought they really would. I’m just dumb. There are only so many words to say I love and miss you and language can never express them to my satisfaction but I know that you know this already. Except for death, nothing has taken you from me. Do you hear that, death? Do you hear that, Baileys? Nothing either one of you has done or will do has taken or will take Eric from me. As long as I remember, he is with me. And I remember so much. Not everything, though I wish it were possible, but enough to keep him alive forever.
If love indeed is real and it does indeed last forever then there are no real goodbyes. There are only “I’ll be here waiting for you”s.
I remember, Eric. I remember what I have to do now: live. You helped teach me this.
I’ll stop for now.
Love to you always and always,
S.B., L.G.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Standing up for immigration reform
Standing up for immigration reform
In struggling for a way to move forward on the issue of immigrant rights, the African-American community should reflect on the compassionate words of civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin, who was both black and gay
By the Reverend Irene Monroe
An Advocate.com exclusive posted, April 24, 2006
As the country now finds itself in a battle over immigration reform, one particular disenfranchised community—African-Americans—has displayed troubling feelings on the issue, ranging from a disquieting silence to unabashed xenophobia. And although the struggles of being black, immigrant, and LGBT are not mutually exclusive, many African-American organizations and individuals, however, have veered off the road on this issue.
For example, where the NAACP has been outspoken in their advocacy for immigrant rights, the National Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which aided in spearheading the civil rights movement of the 1960s, have not.
And while the Book of Leviticus is continuously misused by black ministers in their attacks on LGBT people, one passage illustrates how clerics should employ the text to guide them on the issue of immigration rights: “Don’t mistreat any foreigners who live in your land. Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners in a strange land.”
The struggle for liberation is mired when any activist ignores the interconnections between citizenship status, LGBT rights, and the rights of immigrants, as Jasmyne A. Cannick did in a column published earlier this month on Advocate.com entitled “Gays First, Then Illegals.” In it, she wrote, ”Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the gay civil rights movement, which has not yet been resolved.… I didn’t break the law to come into this country. The country broke the law by not recognizing and bestowing upon me my full rights as a citizen, and I find it hard as a black lesbian to jump on the immigration reform bandwagon when my own bandwagon hasn’t even left the barn.”
If the African-American community is looking at how to move forward on the issue of immigration rights, let us remember Bayard Rustin.
While Rustin is most noted as the strategist and chief architect of the 1963 March on Washington that catapulted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King onto the world stage, he also played a key role in helping King develop the strategy of nonviolence in the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-1956), which successfully dismantled the long-standing Jim Crow ordinance of segregated seating on public transportation in Alabama.
Rustin was not a one-issue man, because as the quintessential outsider—a black man, a Quaker, a one-time pacifist, a political dissident, and a gay man—he connected to the plight of all disenfranchised people around the world. And if he were among us today, Rustin would no doubt be in the forefront of tearing down the borders of HIV/AIDS.
During his lifetime, he did, however, tear down many borders—and one was speaking out against prohibiting immigrants displaced by the Vietnam War from entering the U.S.
In collecting signatures from prominent black leaders in support of Vietnamese immigrants, Rustin wrote a New York Times op-ed published on March 19, 1979, entitled, “Black Americans Urge Admission of the Indo-Chinese Refugees.” In it he stated, “If our government lacks compassion for these dispossessed human beings, it is difficult to believe that the same government can have much compassion for America’s black minority, or for America’s poor.”
Like Rustin, I too stand up for immigration reform. My hair-braider, for one, was trained in the Ivory Coast as a nurse and her husband was trained as a computer scientist, but they take menial jobs here in Boston to feed their baby.
And I stand up for immigration reform because the issue is about a friend—a student at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica—who was recently gang-raped because she is a lesbian. She tells me that the day before the incident one of the assailants read an article from the March 29 issue of the Jamaica Gleaner that stated, “If Jamaica is a Christian county and calls itself a Christian country, then gay and lesbian lifestyles must be deemed absolutely immoral and unacceptable.”
And I stand up for immigration reform because it is about AIDS and the current ban prohibiting HIV-positive immigrants from entering the country.
Rustin teaches us that we pay the debt of justice we owe to immigrants and all marginalized people everywhere through our individual and collective acts of humanity in making a more democratic society.
The African-American community, the LGBT community, and indeed, all Americans should heed Rustin’s teachings as the country moves forward on immigration rights.
In struggling for a way to move forward on the issue of immigrant rights, the African-American community should reflect on the compassionate words of civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin, who was both black and gay
By the Reverend Irene Monroe
An Advocate.com exclusive posted, April 24, 2006
As the country now finds itself in a battle over immigration reform, one particular disenfranchised community—African-Americans—has displayed troubling feelings on the issue, ranging from a disquieting silence to unabashed xenophobia. And although the struggles of being black, immigrant, and LGBT are not mutually exclusive, many African-American organizations and individuals, however, have veered off the road on this issue.
For example, where the NAACP has been outspoken in their advocacy for immigrant rights, the National Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which aided in spearheading the civil rights movement of the 1960s, have not.
And while the Book of Leviticus is continuously misused by black ministers in their attacks on LGBT people, one passage illustrates how clerics should employ the text to guide them on the issue of immigration rights: “Don’t mistreat any foreigners who live in your land. Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners in a strange land.”
The struggle for liberation is mired when any activist ignores the interconnections between citizenship status, LGBT rights, and the rights of immigrants, as Jasmyne A. Cannick did in a column published earlier this month on Advocate.com entitled “Gays First, Then Illegals.” In it, she wrote, ”Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the gay civil rights movement, which has not yet been resolved.… I didn’t break the law to come into this country. The country broke the law by not recognizing and bestowing upon me my full rights as a citizen, and I find it hard as a black lesbian to jump on the immigration reform bandwagon when my own bandwagon hasn’t even left the barn.”
If the African-American community is looking at how to move forward on the issue of immigration rights, let us remember Bayard Rustin.
While Rustin is most noted as the strategist and chief architect of the 1963 March on Washington that catapulted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King onto the world stage, he also played a key role in helping King develop the strategy of nonviolence in the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-1956), which successfully dismantled the long-standing Jim Crow ordinance of segregated seating on public transportation in Alabama.
Rustin was not a one-issue man, because as the quintessential outsider—a black man, a Quaker, a one-time pacifist, a political dissident, and a gay man—he connected to the plight of all disenfranchised people around the world. And if he were among us today, Rustin would no doubt be in the forefront of tearing down the borders of HIV/AIDS.
During his lifetime, he did, however, tear down many borders—and one was speaking out against prohibiting immigrants displaced by the Vietnam War from entering the U.S.
In collecting signatures from prominent black leaders in support of Vietnamese immigrants, Rustin wrote a New York Times op-ed published on March 19, 1979, entitled, “Black Americans Urge Admission of the Indo-Chinese Refugees.” In it he stated, “If our government lacks compassion for these dispossessed human beings, it is difficult to believe that the same government can have much compassion for America’s black minority, or for America’s poor.”
Like Rustin, I too stand up for immigration reform. My hair-braider, for one, was trained in the Ivory Coast as a nurse and her husband was trained as a computer scientist, but they take menial jobs here in Boston to feed their baby.
And I stand up for immigration reform because the issue is about a friend—a student at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica—who was recently gang-raped because she is a lesbian. She tells me that the day before the incident one of the assailants read an article from the March 29 issue of the Jamaica Gleaner that stated, “If Jamaica is a Christian county and calls itself a Christian country, then gay and lesbian lifestyles must be deemed absolutely immoral and unacceptable.”
And I stand up for immigration reform because it is about AIDS and the current ban prohibiting HIV-positive immigrants from entering the country.
Rustin teaches us that we pay the debt of justice we owe to immigrants and all marginalized people everywhere through our individual and collective acts of humanity in making a more democratic society.
The African-American community, the LGBT community, and indeed, all Americans should heed Rustin’s teachings as the country moves forward on immigration rights.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
The 100 unsexiest men in the world
The 100 unsexiest men in the world
Who would Scarlett least like to be with?By: BILL JENSEN & RYAN STEWART
4/18/2006 6:34:51 PM
Welcome to the first installment of ThePhoenix.com's 100 Unsexiest Men in the World. After pouring through thousands of photographs, millions of frames of movies and TV shows, the staff at thephoenix.com has compiled a list of the least sexy males on the planet.
1. Gilbert Gottfried: Rumor has it that Gilbert is the heir apparent to Uncle Milty when it comes to what he's packing, but that still can't save him. The parrot-voiced, pickled-face comic is to sexy what Kryptonite is to Superman.
2. Randy Johnson: If he couldn't throw a ball 100 miles per hour, Johnson would be wearing a wife beater and getting hauled into a squad car on Cops. Could you imagine the nights when he pitched to Otis Nixon?
3. Roger Ebert: Yes, he lost all that weight. Yes, you still wouldn't fuck him.
4. Dr. Phil: Being a know-it-all is never sexy. Being a know-it-all who is also a bald-headed prick is downright horrid.
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5. Alan Colmes: Not really fair, since he's got to sit next to brown shirt-stud Hannity each night. But Colmes - lazy eye, unkept hair, droopy features - has a face made for radio. Pirate radio. Garr!!
6. Chad Kroeger: It's not just the massive head, weird face, and bad hair. It's also the fact that he's in Nickelback, the worst band since the dawn of music.
7. Mike Mills: You'd want to talk music with the bassist from REM. Sleep with? Not unless you're trying to get to Pete Buck.
8. Osama Bin Laden: Power is sexy (notice how Dick Cheney isn't on the list). But a 6'5", no-vertical-leap mass murdering douche bag is not getting any style points.
9. Jay Leno: "It would be like having sex with a banana, but not in a good way," was what one of our staffers remarked about the fruit-headed comic.
10. Don Imus: "It would be like having sex with an old leather bag, but not in a good way," was what the same staffer remarked about the bag of skin and bones.
11. Michael Jackson: What happens when an ugly JC Penny manequin has sex with Pogo, the clown identity of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
12. Wallace Shawn: Even if you're attracted to his rounded dome, how can anyone get past that nasally lisp?
13. Mike D. of the Beastie Boys: We hate to do this. But the sickly looking Beastie "did it like this, did it like that, did it with a wiffle ball bat . . . because no one would want to get within three feet of him naked.
14. Richard Simmons: Words don't do it justice.
15. Jon Lovitz: Bald, annoying, unfunny, and hair in the all the wrong places. For all we know, he was running through the cast of League of Their Own. But we doubt it.
16. Carrot Top: Sheer obnoxiousness necessitates his placement on this list.
17. Jerry Seinfeld: This is for everyone who has ever yelled at the TV when Jerry brought home another model on Seinfeld.
18. Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point.
19. Chevy Chase: He got unfunny with age. Then he got ugly.
20. Raffi: Maybe it's his proffession. But no one surveyed, man or woman, could think of any situation in which they would bed down with him.
21. Ron Howard: He was cute as Opie, passable as Richie, but now as Ron Howard, he's just plain weird-looking. Especially with a beard.
22. Clint Howard: Ron's younger, balder, and weirder-looking brother. Yes, weirder looking than Ron Howard.
23. Bill Gates: To quote Dana Carvey: "Gates apparently made a deal with the devil: 'You can have $60 billion, but you have to go through life looking like a turtle.'"
24. Paul Shaffer: The bic'd look does not work for everyone, plus he makes all those crazy faces while he plays.
25. Axl Rose: I mean . . . did you see the 2003 VMAs?
26. Tim Burton: He's got the Robert Smith hair coupled with a mighty hunch. Yet he's dating Helena Bonham Carter.
27. Edward James Olmos: Remember season one of South Park? When Kenny was a zombie, everyone assumed it was an Edward James Olmos costume. Wonder why.
28. Gerard Way (from My Chemical Romance): Luckiest dude since Ringo. Or at the very least, since D12.
29. Don Zimmer: The gerbil's got a massive, ivory-white noggin' that never did much thinking to begin with. Ask any Red Sox fan over 35.
30. Tony Kornheiser: Yes, calling sportswriters unattractive is like shooting fish in a barrel. But come on, he looks like your uncle.
31. Chris Kattan
32. Otis Nixon
33. Julian Tavarez
34. Christopher Lloyd
35. Willie McGee
36. Pat Cummings
3 7. Scottie Pippen
38. Larry David
39. Michael Moore
40. Al Franken: Too arrogant
41. Paris Latsis: Maybe not the worst-looking guy in the world, but, well, think about who was there first.
42. Rush Limbaugh: No doubt he will claim his placement on this list as a result of a media bias and not the fact that he's just butt-ugly
43. David Gest
44. Garey Busey: Those teeth would give anyone nightmares.
45. Nick Nolte: Busey's oddball partner in crime, but at least he had a career once.
46. Leif Garrett
47. Andy Dick: It's a trap!
48. Scott Stapp
49. Lyle Lovett
50. Ric Ocasek: Yes, we know who his wife is. And no, we don't care.
51. Bill Wyman
52. Danny DeVito
53. Peter Jackson
54. Drew Carey
55. Newt Gingrich
56. Rob Schneider
57. Ed O'Neil: We love ya, Ed, but sorry. There was a reason you never waited on any really hot girls at that shoe store.
58. Bill O'Reilly
59. Clay Aiken: This feels like a cheap shot, but even leaving aside the rumors about his personal life, he still looks like someone's bratty little brother.
60. Joe Lieberman
61. Jim Gaffigan: Pasty, goofy-looking comedians abound on this list.
62. Bill Maher: . . . Especially ones with poodle hair.
63. John Popper
64. Dennis Miller
65. John Madden: Those massive hands seem more frightening than anything. Boom!
66. Robert Englund: Seriously, try lying in bed next to him without thinking about Freddy Krueger.
67. Robert Patrick: Seriously, try lying in bed next to him without thinking about the T-1000
68. John Ashcroft
69. Joe Gannascolli
70. Kevin James: His TV marriage to Leah Remini on King of Queens is less believable than anything on Lost.
71. George Steinbrenner: Come on, we live in Boston, you knew it was coming.
72. Grady Little: Come on, we live in Boston, you knew it was coming.
73. Harvey Pekar
74. DJ Qualls: What's he weigh, like, 70 pounds? How much of that is grease?
75. Joey Buttafuoco
76. Garry Shandling
77. Meat Loaf Aday
78. Joe Walsh
79. Tom from Myspace: As a friend of mine said, why does he have to be everyone's friend? Isn't that a little needy? Not hot at all.
80. Art Garfunkel
81. Brian Posehn
82. Howie Mandel
83. Barry Bonds €“ If what his mistress told the authors of Game of Shadows is true, then no, you don't want any part of that
84. Dick Vitale €“ Call it a hunch, but we have a feeling that sex with Dickie V. would be anything but "awesome, baby."
85. Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg
86. Jeff Van Gundy
87. Jimmy Johnson: It's the hair
88. John Clayton: How is this ESPN's top football guy?
89. Don Vito: I suppose we were never really supposed to know what Bam Margera's uncle looks like, but since we do, he has to be included.
90. Lemmy Kilmister: Sadly, the ravages of time have not been kind to him.
91. Hideki Matsui
91. Jose Canseco: "Every time I have tried to help a woman, I've been incarcerated," he famously said on The Surreal Life. You old charmer, you.
92. Bill Parcells: Especially when you see the photos of him in shorts at training camp
93. Ric Flair: To be the man €“ WOO! €“ you got to . . . do something about those man boobs!
94. Ralph NaderÂ
95. Dennis Kucinich: Something about those progressives.
96. Horatio Sanz: Laughing at your own jokes is not sexy
97. Dom DeLuise
98. Emeril Lagasse
99. Kevin Federline: Mooching hicks aren't so hot these days.
100.Brad Pitt: He may look good, but if the rumors about his hygiene and BO issues are true, then he's probably not worth it.
mep1='&article=7852&author=BILL JENSEN & RYAN STEWART';
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Is it just me, or do they attack too many liberal democrats on this unsexy list with Lieberman, Moore, Franken (Franken is "too arrogant") and Kucinich? Oh, that's right, it's me! :-D
Who would Scarlett least like to be with?By: BILL JENSEN & RYAN STEWART
4/18/2006 6:34:51 PM
Welcome to the first installment of ThePhoenix.com's 100 Unsexiest Men in the World. After pouring through thousands of photographs, millions of frames of movies and TV shows, the staff at thephoenix.com has compiled a list of the least sexy males on the planet.
1. Gilbert Gottfried: Rumor has it that Gilbert is the heir apparent to Uncle Milty when it comes to what he's packing, but that still can't save him. The parrot-voiced, pickled-face comic is to sexy what Kryptonite is to Superman.
2. Randy Johnson: If he couldn't throw a ball 100 miles per hour, Johnson would be wearing a wife beater and getting hauled into a squad car on Cops. Could you imagine the nights when he pitched to Otis Nixon?
3. Roger Ebert: Yes, he lost all that weight. Yes, you still wouldn't fuck him.
4. Dr. Phil: Being a know-it-all is never sexy. Being a know-it-all who is also a bald-headed prick is downright horrid.
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5. Alan Colmes: Not really fair, since he's got to sit next to brown shirt-stud Hannity each night. But Colmes - lazy eye, unkept hair, droopy features - has a face made for radio. Pirate radio. Garr!!
6. Chad Kroeger: It's not just the massive head, weird face, and bad hair. It's also the fact that he's in Nickelback, the worst band since the dawn of music.
7. Mike Mills: You'd want to talk music with the bassist from REM. Sleep with? Not unless you're trying to get to Pete Buck.
8. Osama Bin Laden: Power is sexy (notice how Dick Cheney isn't on the list). But a 6'5", no-vertical-leap mass murdering douche bag is not getting any style points.
9. Jay Leno: "It would be like having sex with a banana, but not in a good way," was what one of our staffers remarked about the fruit-headed comic.
10. Don Imus: "It would be like having sex with an old leather bag, but not in a good way," was what the same staffer remarked about the bag of skin and bones.
11. Michael Jackson: What happens when an ugly JC Penny manequin has sex with Pogo, the clown identity of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
12. Wallace Shawn: Even if you're attracted to his rounded dome, how can anyone get past that nasally lisp?
13. Mike D. of the Beastie Boys: We hate to do this. But the sickly looking Beastie "did it like this, did it like that, did it with a wiffle ball bat . . . because no one would want to get within three feet of him naked.
14. Richard Simmons: Words don't do it justice.
15. Jon Lovitz: Bald, annoying, unfunny, and hair in the all the wrong places. For all we know, he was running through the cast of League of Their Own. But we doubt it.
16. Carrot Top: Sheer obnoxiousness necessitates his placement on this list.
17. Jerry Seinfeld: This is for everyone who has ever yelled at the TV when Jerry brought home another model on Seinfeld.
18. Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point.
19. Chevy Chase: He got unfunny with age. Then he got ugly.
20. Raffi: Maybe it's his proffession. But no one surveyed, man or woman, could think of any situation in which they would bed down with him.
21. Ron Howard: He was cute as Opie, passable as Richie, but now as Ron Howard, he's just plain weird-looking. Especially with a beard.
22. Clint Howard: Ron's younger, balder, and weirder-looking brother. Yes, weirder looking than Ron Howard.
23. Bill Gates: To quote Dana Carvey: "Gates apparently made a deal with the devil: 'You can have $60 billion, but you have to go through life looking like a turtle.'"
24. Paul Shaffer: The bic'd look does not work for everyone, plus he makes all those crazy faces while he plays.
25. Axl Rose: I mean . . . did you see the 2003 VMAs?
26. Tim Burton: He's got the Robert Smith hair coupled with a mighty hunch. Yet he's dating Helena Bonham Carter.
27. Edward James Olmos: Remember season one of South Park? When Kenny was a zombie, everyone assumed it was an Edward James Olmos costume. Wonder why.
28. Gerard Way (from My Chemical Romance): Luckiest dude since Ringo. Or at the very least, since D12.
29. Don Zimmer: The gerbil's got a massive, ivory-white noggin' that never did much thinking to begin with. Ask any Red Sox fan over 35.
30. Tony Kornheiser: Yes, calling sportswriters unattractive is like shooting fish in a barrel. But come on, he looks like your uncle.
31. Chris Kattan
32. Otis Nixon
33. Julian Tavarez
34. Christopher Lloyd
35. Willie McGee
36. Pat Cummings
3 7. Scottie Pippen
38. Larry David
39. Michael Moore
40. Al Franken: Too arrogant
41. Paris Latsis: Maybe not the worst-looking guy in the world, but, well, think about who was there first.
42. Rush Limbaugh: No doubt he will claim his placement on this list as a result of a media bias and not the fact that he's just butt-ugly
43. David Gest
44. Garey Busey: Those teeth would give anyone nightmares.
45. Nick Nolte: Busey's oddball partner in crime, but at least he had a career once.
46. Leif Garrett
47. Andy Dick: It's a trap!
48. Scott Stapp
49. Lyle Lovett
50. Ric Ocasek: Yes, we know who his wife is. And no, we don't care.
51. Bill Wyman
52. Danny DeVito
53. Peter Jackson
54. Drew Carey
55. Newt Gingrich
56. Rob Schneider
57. Ed O'Neil: We love ya, Ed, but sorry. There was a reason you never waited on any really hot girls at that shoe store.
58. Bill O'Reilly
59. Clay Aiken: This feels like a cheap shot, but even leaving aside the rumors about his personal life, he still looks like someone's bratty little brother.
60. Joe Lieberman
61. Jim Gaffigan: Pasty, goofy-looking comedians abound on this list.
62. Bill Maher: . . . Especially ones with poodle hair.
63. John Popper
64. Dennis Miller
65. John Madden: Those massive hands seem more frightening than anything. Boom!
66. Robert Englund: Seriously, try lying in bed next to him without thinking about Freddy Krueger.
67. Robert Patrick: Seriously, try lying in bed next to him without thinking about the T-1000
68. John Ashcroft
69. Joe Gannascolli
70. Kevin James: His TV marriage to Leah Remini on King of Queens is less believable than anything on Lost.
71. George Steinbrenner: Come on, we live in Boston, you knew it was coming.
72. Grady Little: Come on, we live in Boston, you knew it was coming.
73. Harvey Pekar
74. DJ Qualls: What's he weigh, like, 70 pounds? How much of that is grease?
75. Joey Buttafuoco
76. Garry Shandling
77. Meat Loaf Aday
78. Joe Walsh
79. Tom from Myspace: As a friend of mine said, why does he have to be everyone's friend? Isn't that a little needy? Not hot at all.
80. Art Garfunkel
81. Brian Posehn
82. Howie Mandel
83. Barry Bonds €“ If what his mistress told the authors of Game of Shadows is true, then no, you don't want any part of that
84. Dick Vitale €“ Call it a hunch, but we have a feeling that sex with Dickie V. would be anything but "awesome, baby."
85. Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg
86. Jeff Van Gundy
87. Jimmy Johnson: It's the hair
88. John Clayton: How is this ESPN's top football guy?
89. Don Vito: I suppose we were never really supposed to know what Bam Margera's uncle looks like, but since we do, he has to be included.
90. Lemmy Kilmister: Sadly, the ravages of time have not been kind to him.
91. Hideki Matsui
91. Jose Canseco: "Every time I have tried to help a woman, I've been incarcerated," he famously said on The Surreal Life. You old charmer, you.
92. Bill Parcells: Especially when you see the photos of him in shorts at training camp
93. Ric Flair: To be the man €“ WOO! €“ you got to . . . do something about those man boobs!
94. Ralph NaderÂ
95. Dennis Kucinich: Something about those progressives.
96. Horatio Sanz: Laughing at your own jokes is not sexy
97. Dom DeLuise
98. Emeril Lagasse
99. Kevin Federline: Mooching hicks aren't so hot these days.
100.Brad Pitt: He may look good, but if the rumors about his hygiene and BO issues are true, then he's probably not worth it.
mep1='&article=7852&author=BILL JENSEN & RYAN STEWART';
---------------
Is it just me, or do they attack too many liberal democrats on this unsexy list with Lieberman, Moore, Franken (Franken is "too arrogant") and Kucinich? Oh, that's right, it's me! :-D
For some, E.T. stands for extreme terror
For some, E.T. stands for extreme terror
By Holly Miyasaki is a reporter with the Penticton Western
NewApr 23 2006
My biggest fear is a friendly alien from the 1980s.When Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was released in 1982 I was not yet born, but I was around when it was on VHS.My parents, thinking it would be a nice family night to eat pizza and watch this terrifying film, rented it.
My first glimpse of the small, oblong-headed, long-fingered beast drove a stake of fear into my soul that still lingers today.As the events of young Drew Barrymore, that monstrous alien with his glowing heart and her co-stars unfolded on the television screen, I tried to hide my face, but my mom thought I was being silly and told me to stop.I can’t remember if I endured the whole film — I must have blocked out the memory — but whatever I did see had an everlasting effect on me.That night I cried, threw up and had a nightmare; my parents must have felt so guilty. I can still remember that dream as clear as if it happened last night — it wasn’t even that scary, but I’ll never forget it. E.T. had me pinned down and was sitting on my chest. All around us were multi-coloured bunnies hopping around. That was the extent of it.
After that night I couldn’t allow my hands or feet to hang off the bed because I was worried E.T. would be hiding under my bed and grab me.I looked up some pictures of E.T. on the Internet while writing this column and just seeing him again sent chills down my spine that I still can’t shake. I’m not kidding.
When my sister got an E.T. doll for her birthday we had to get rid of it because it frightened me to have it in the house.When we went to Universal Studios I couldn’t go near the E.T. bicycle attraction.If I was planning to have a scary movie night E.T. would definitely be on the list.
And don’t think I’m alone in my fear. I have met quite a few others in my generation that were frightened by this blood-curdling film. I’m thinking what was so scary about it was it was our first exposure to aliens and the thought of life outside planet Earth. Children shouldn’t be exposed to that!I know, I know. The movie was supposed to be a touching portrayal of family, friendship and ... making friends with petrifying little creatures from outer space. Today, I’m pretty sure I could take E.T. I’m not tall, but I’m quick and can scream really loud. Although if I was actually confronted with him I would probably freeze like a deer in the headlights and be at his mercy.I just hope they don’t make that sequel to the movie. I heard Spielberg was thinking about it.Whether there’s a critically acclaimed addition to E.T. or not, I don’t plan on seeing it again or ever making any children I might one day have watch it. By the way, I still make sure my hands and feet don’t hang over the edge of the bed when I go to sleep at night.
-------
What the duce?! Lady, what movie were you watching? This flick wasn't supposed to be 'Signs'! Geez, this woman was probably afraid of the Easter Bunny, baby chicks and white, fluffy clouds!
"I’m thinking what was so scary about it was it was our first exposure to aliens and the thought of life outside planet Earth. Children shouldn’t be exposed to that!"
And what sort of movies do you suppose they should be exposed to? White bread, vanillia, Bing Crosby, flag waving, ultra conservative, let's-never-look-beyond-our-own-backyard-to-dream movies? That only leaves movies made before 1946! Some film library!
Hey, kids--don't go watching movies at Holly Miyasaki's house! She's no fun!
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Geez, I'm my mother...
| What Completely and Utterly Random Object Are You? AAAE Accreditation Module You are an AAAE accreditation preparation handbook. Wow, you're one ambitious (and ambiguous) soul. We admire your dedication to work, but you might consider getting out more often. |
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Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Tennessee hints at what's to come on adoption front
Tennessee hints at what's to come on adoption front
By Lisa Keen
Originally printed 4/20/2006 (Issue 1416 - Between The Lines News)
Before Scott Hines and his partner Jon Hines adopted nine-year-old Louis, the young boy was being given 13 pills a day to control behavior problems. He had been abused by his biological parents and the foster care system in Tennessee.
"Louis was angry, and rightfully so," said Scott Hines, in a statement to reporters prior to a Tennessee legislative hearing on gay adoptions this month. "No one else wanted Louis and, without an adoptive home, he would have been sentenced to a life of neglect and heart break."
Scott and Jon Hines felt they had the parenting skills to help Louis, so they adopted him.
Scott Hines' relatives have now asked the couple to adopt another child, a girl, born to a drug-addicted relative of Scott's. But Tennessee legislators are considering bills to ban such adoptions.
The legislature considered such bills before and they have failed. But this year, the strategy of gay civil rights opponents has changed. Instead of introducing explicitly anti-gay bills concerning adoption, foster care, and guardianship, the legislators have introduced "stealth" bills, says Chris Sanders, a spokesperson for Tennessee Equality Project, a statewide LGBT organization.
The bills this year, he said, are worded such that they appear on the surface to be addressing some general matter of the state code concerning adoption, guardianship, and foster care.
"But when they think no one is watching," said Sanders, "they want to amend the bills in committee to ban adoption by gays and lesbians."
For example, one bill, introduced by State Rep. Paul Stanley, said Sanders, purports to address issues concerning information sharing rights of permanent guardians.
"Our concern is not with the bill as filed," said Sanders, "but it opens up a section of the Tennessee code related to guardianship and all kinds of things can happen in committee."
Plus, Paul Stanley was a sponsor of one of the explicitly anti-gay bills last year, noted Sanders.
Sanders acknowledged that it was hard, at first, to get the LGBT community's sense of urgency up around the bills.
"You say, 'Tennessee code' and people's eyes glaze over," he said. But two things helped: One, the organization has a professional lobbyist watching for potentially dangerous legislation, and two, one of the state legislators ignited a political bonfire.
Republican State Rep. Debra Maggart told a constituent that research shows that "most homosexual couples have numerous emotional dysfunctions and psychological issues that may not be healthy for children."
The comment was made in an e-mail response to a constituent in February who asked her to oppose the bills.
While she acknowledged in her e-mail that "emotional dysfunction can be found in heterosexual couples homes," Maggart, who is herself divorced, claimed to "have seen evidence that homosexual couples prey on young males and have in some instances adopted them in order to have unfretted access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse."
"Some of the evidence we were presented," said Maggart, "showed that lesbian and gay couples have a higher rate of breaking up than heterosexual coupes as well as higher rates of promiscuity outside of their relationships."
The e-mail got out to the media, and when it did, said Sanders, "we didn't have to go through a long explanation about opening up the Tennessee code."
"When Maggart made her comment," said Sanders, "it became very clear there was a threat. The threat became palpable. It electrified the GLBT community in Tennessee."
Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride, points to statements from numerous professional organizations supporting the adoption of children by gay couples.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in 2002 saying that "a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence" that children with same-sex parents "can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual."
Numerous other professional organizations have made similar declarations, including the North American Council on Adoptable Children, which says, "Children should not be denied a permanent family because of the sexual orientation of potential parents."
Currently, only one state (Florida) bans gay couples from adopting. Twenty-five states allow gay couples to co-adopt children. (A judge in Michigan ruled in 2002 that adoptions by gay couples could no longer be allowed due to a state law which stipulates that only married couples and single individuals can adopt.)
In other recent adoption news:
* An Indiana appeals court ruled April 14 that a county court judge could not overturn the adoption of an infant because the adopting couple was gay.
* A Missouri circuit court ruled in February that the state's denial of a foster care application by a lesbian amounted to "unreasonable" discrimination.
* Massachusetts's Department of Early Education has said it will not take action to stop Catholic adoption agencies from barring gay couples from adoptions. The state's human rights law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, but Republican Governor Mitt Romney is seeking passage of a bill that would allow some groups to discriminate against gays by saying that equal treatment of gays violates their religious beliefs.
By Lisa Keen
Originally printed 4/20/2006 (Issue 1416 - Between The Lines News)
Before Scott Hines and his partner Jon Hines adopted nine-year-old Louis, the young boy was being given 13 pills a day to control behavior problems. He had been abused by his biological parents and the foster care system in Tennessee.
"Louis was angry, and rightfully so," said Scott Hines, in a statement to reporters prior to a Tennessee legislative hearing on gay adoptions this month. "No one else wanted Louis and, without an adoptive home, he would have been sentenced to a life of neglect and heart break."
Scott and Jon Hines felt they had the parenting skills to help Louis, so they adopted him.
Scott Hines' relatives have now asked the couple to adopt another child, a girl, born to a drug-addicted relative of Scott's. But Tennessee legislators are considering bills to ban such adoptions.
The legislature considered such bills before and they have failed. But this year, the strategy of gay civil rights opponents has changed. Instead of introducing explicitly anti-gay bills concerning adoption, foster care, and guardianship, the legislators have introduced "stealth" bills, says Chris Sanders, a spokesperson for Tennessee Equality Project, a statewide LGBT organization.
The bills this year, he said, are worded such that they appear on the surface to be addressing some general matter of the state code concerning adoption, guardianship, and foster care.
"But when they think no one is watching," said Sanders, "they want to amend the bills in committee to ban adoption by gays and lesbians."
For example, one bill, introduced by State Rep. Paul Stanley, said Sanders, purports to address issues concerning information sharing rights of permanent guardians.
"Our concern is not with the bill as filed," said Sanders, "but it opens up a section of the Tennessee code related to guardianship and all kinds of things can happen in committee."
Plus, Paul Stanley was a sponsor of one of the explicitly anti-gay bills last year, noted Sanders.
Sanders acknowledged that it was hard, at first, to get the LGBT community's sense of urgency up around the bills.
"You say, 'Tennessee code' and people's eyes glaze over," he said. But two things helped: One, the organization has a professional lobbyist watching for potentially dangerous legislation, and two, one of the state legislators ignited a political bonfire.
Republican State Rep. Debra Maggart told a constituent that research shows that "most homosexual couples have numerous emotional dysfunctions and psychological issues that may not be healthy for children."
The comment was made in an e-mail response to a constituent in February who asked her to oppose the bills.
While she acknowledged in her e-mail that "emotional dysfunction can be found in heterosexual couples homes," Maggart, who is herself divorced, claimed to "have seen evidence that homosexual couples prey on young males and have in some instances adopted them in order to have unfretted access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse."
"Some of the evidence we were presented," said Maggart, "showed that lesbian and gay couples have a higher rate of breaking up than heterosexual coupes as well as higher rates of promiscuity outside of their relationships."
The e-mail got out to the media, and when it did, said Sanders, "we didn't have to go through a long explanation about opening up the Tennessee code."
"When Maggart made her comment," said Sanders, "it became very clear there was a threat. The threat became palpable. It electrified the GLBT community in Tennessee."
Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride, points to statements from numerous professional organizations supporting the adoption of children by gay couples.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in 2002 saying that "a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence" that children with same-sex parents "can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual."
Numerous other professional organizations have made similar declarations, including the North American Council on Adoptable Children, which says, "Children should not be denied a permanent family because of the sexual orientation of potential parents."
Currently, only one state (Florida) bans gay couples from adopting. Twenty-five states allow gay couples to co-adopt children. (A judge in Michigan ruled in 2002 that adoptions by gay couples could no longer be allowed due to a state law which stipulates that only married couples and single individuals can adopt.)
In other recent adoption news:
* An Indiana appeals court ruled April 14 that a county court judge could not overturn the adoption of an infant because the adopting couple was gay.
* A Missouri circuit court ruled in February that the state's denial of a foster care application by a lesbian amounted to "unreasonable" discrimination.
* Massachusetts's Department of Early Education has said it will not take action to stop Catholic adoption agencies from barring gay couples from adoptions. The state's human rights law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, but Republican Governor Mitt Romney is seeking passage of a bill that would allow some groups to discriminate against gays by saying that equal treatment of gays violates their religious beliefs.
Marriage equality threatened in Canada
Marriage equality threatened in Canada
By Lisa Keen
Originally printed 4/20/2006 (Issue 1416 - Between The Lines News)
Same-sex marriages have been legal in parts of Canada for almost five years now. But if the country's new conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has his way, they won't be available for much longer.
It was probably a financial scandal and not his party's support for same-sex marriage that caused former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to lose his seat to Harper. The Conservative Party leader who defeated Martin by a narrow margin three months ago used his opposition to same-sex marriage as a campaign issue during the fall election.
This month, as the new parliament convened, Harper told reporters he intends to follow through on his promise to overturn the Civil Marriage Act, shepherded through the parliament last summer by the Liberal Party.
It was not the Civil Marriage Act that made same-sex marriages legal throughout Canada. Most provinces began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples after courts ruled that bans on same-sex marriage violated the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The first province to issue licenses was Ontario, which spans the Great Lakes region and attracts numerous visitors from the United States. Toronto, the first city in Ontario to issue licenses, issued 3,194 licenses to same-sex couples between June 10, 2003 and April 4, 2006. Thirty-eight percent of those licenses were issued to gay couples from the United States.
USA Today reported in February that the number of same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses in Toronto was up - from 60 in January 2005 to 90 in January 2006. But that does not necessarily reflect a surge in couples seeking licenses because of the Conservative Party victory in January. The average number of marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples by Toronto since 2003 has been about 94 per month; between January and April of 2006, it has been about 75 per month.
According to Canadians for Equal Marriage, in order for the parliament to overturn the Civil Marriage Act, it must first vote on whether to revisit the same-sex marriage legislation currently in force. Should that resolution pass, it can then take up a bill to repeal the legislation.
But gay civil rights supporters are hopeful that, even if parliament repeals the law, Canadian courts will again rule that a ban on same-sex marriages violates the country's constitution.
With the passage of the Civil Marriage Act last July, Canada became the fourth nation to legalize same-sex marriages - behind The Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), and Spain (June 2005).
Even as the bill passed last summer, Conservative leader Harper said he would seek to overturn the law, should his Conservative Party win control of the parliament. Harper also promised, however, that, should the parliament reverse itself, his administration would continue to honor marriages already licensed. And according to CBC News, Harper does support civil unions for same-sex couples.
Harper has indicated he will call on parliament to vote on a resolution to take up the same-sex marriage issue this year - probably this fall, according to various news reports. A national poll by The Environics Group, a market and social values research company, asked Canadians in late January whether they wanted the newly elected Conservative Party government to bring up the same-sex marriage issue in parliament. Of the 2,034 polled, 66 percent said "No," 30 percent said "Yes," and four percent were undecided.
By Lisa Keen
Originally printed 4/20/2006 (Issue 1416 - Between The Lines News)
Same-sex marriages have been legal in parts of Canada for almost five years now. But if the country's new conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has his way, they won't be available for much longer.
It was probably a financial scandal and not his party's support for same-sex marriage that caused former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to lose his seat to Harper. The Conservative Party leader who defeated Martin by a narrow margin three months ago used his opposition to same-sex marriage as a campaign issue during the fall election.
This month, as the new parliament convened, Harper told reporters he intends to follow through on his promise to overturn the Civil Marriage Act, shepherded through the parliament last summer by the Liberal Party.
It was not the Civil Marriage Act that made same-sex marriages legal throughout Canada. Most provinces began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples after courts ruled that bans on same-sex marriage violated the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The first province to issue licenses was Ontario, which spans the Great Lakes region and attracts numerous visitors from the United States. Toronto, the first city in Ontario to issue licenses, issued 3,194 licenses to same-sex couples between June 10, 2003 and April 4, 2006. Thirty-eight percent of those licenses were issued to gay couples from the United States.
USA Today reported in February that the number of same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses in Toronto was up - from 60 in January 2005 to 90 in January 2006. But that does not necessarily reflect a surge in couples seeking licenses because of the Conservative Party victory in January. The average number of marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples by Toronto since 2003 has been about 94 per month; between January and April of 2006, it has been about 75 per month.
According to Canadians for Equal Marriage, in order for the parliament to overturn the Civil Marriage Act, it must first vote on whether to revisit the same-sex marriage legislation currently in force. Should that resolution pass, it can then take up a bill to repeal the legislation.
But gay civil rights supporters are hopeful that, even if parliament repeals the law, Canadian courts will again rule that a ban on same-sex marriages violates the country's constitution.
With the passage of the Civil Marriage Act last July, Canada became the fourth nation to legalize same-sex marriages - behind The Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), and Spain (June 2005).
Even as the bill passed last summer, Conservative leader Harper said he would seek to overturn the law, should his Conservative Party win control of the parliament. Harper also promised, however, that, should the parliament reverse itself, his administration would continue to honor marriages already licensed. And according to CBC News, Harper does support civil unions for same-sex couples.
Harper has indicated he will call on parliament to vote on a resolution to take up the same-sex marriage issue this year - probably this fall, according to various news reports. A national poll by The Environics Group, a market and social values research company, asked Canadians in late January whether they wanted the newly elected Conservative Party government to bring up the same-sex marriage issue in parliament. Of the 2,034 polled, 66 percent said "No," 30 percent said "Yes," and four percent were undecided.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
'Brokeback Mountain' banned in anti-gay move
'Brokeback Mountain' banned in anti-gay moveThu Apr 6, 2006 2:53 PM ET
By John Marquis
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) - The Bahamas has banned the gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain," triggering a new controversy over the island chain's reputation for homophobia.
Gay rights groups and other critics called on the Plays and Films Control Board to think again, so far to no avail.
"I cannot understand denying people the right to make their own choices," said theater director Phillip Burrows.
The award-winning 2005 film about two cowboys who fall in love got the thumbs-down from the control board after a request for it to be banned from the Bahamas Christian Council, which has been involved in previous anti-gay action.
The ban does not come as a surprise to Bahamians.
Last September, Miss Teen Bahamas was stripped of her title after she admitted to being a lesbian.
Four years ago, employees walked off the job at an isolated resort cay in the Bahamas after a shipload of gays arrived. The disgusted workers described carnal scenes on the beach as "like Sodom and Gomorrah" and refused to work until they had gone.
In 2004, Christian groups led a protest against the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship, which had docked with 1,600 gay passengers.
Rallied by the Save the Bahamas Initiative, which maintains that family values are undermined by gay couples, hundreds of demonstrators waved banners saying, "If you're gay, stay away," and "Even animals have more sense than homosexuals."
The 2004 protest did not repeat the violence of 1998, when lesbian couples were chased off Bay Street, Nassau's main shopping thoroughfare, by furious protesters and the mooring ropes of a visiting gay cruise ship were tossed into the sea.
In its 2005 Country Report, the State Department criticized the Bahamas government for actively promoting opposition to homosexuality.
"Although homosexual relations between consenting adults are legal, there was no legislation to address the human rights concerns of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals or trans-gendered persons," said the report, released last month.
A gay rights organization, the Rainbow Alliance, has called for tolerance and last year opened an office in Nassau.
"We hope this will become a center for social change," said member Helen Klonaris.
--------------
So, uh, let , me get this straight...you can have a gay time in the Bahamas and take as many drinks and do as many drugs as you want to...but you just can't BE gay YOURSELF...oh, NOW that makes sense! Let's just ban all movies with "gay" themes...um, let see, My Best Friend's Wedding, Philedelphia, every musical ever made and every movie with Judy Garland in it! (rolls eyes) Boycott the Bahamas for your next vacation--we have enough anti-human being problems here at home!
>>"Even animals have more sense than homosexuals."
WHAT?! Animals cannot love and live the way people can, and homosexuals are people. They're saying that gays are lower than animals...so does that make them on the same level as viruses, bacteria and scum? Being gay isn't a disease anymore than Cerebral Palsy is a disease--both are equally as contagious. There's NOTHING worse than people with social diseases that they CHOOSE to have, like these folks in the Bahamas. Ranting anymore about this will just waste my time...(sigh)
By John Marquis
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) - The Bahamas has banned the gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain," triggering a new controversy over the island chain's reputation for homophobia.
Gay rights groups and other critics called on the Plays and Films Control Board to think again, so far to no avail.
"I cannot understand denying people the right to make their own choices," said theater director Phillip Burrows.
The award-winning 2005 film about two cowboys who fall in love got the thumbs-down from the control board after a request for it to be banned from the Bahamas Christian Council, which has been involved in previous anti-gay action.
The ban does not come as a surprise to Bahamians.
Last September, Miss Teen Bahamas was stripped of her title after she admitted to being a lesbian.
Four years ago, employees walked off the job at an isolated resort cay in the Bahamas after a shipload of gays arrived. The disgusted workers described carnal scenes on the beach as "like Sodom and Gomorrah" and refused to work until they had gone.
In 2004, Christian groups led a protest against the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship, which had docked with 1,600 gay passengers.
Rallied by the Save the Bahamas Initiative, which maintains that family values are undermined by gay couples, hundreds of demonstrators waved banners saying, "If you're gay, stay away," and "Even animals have more sense than homosexuals."
The 2004 protest did not repeat the violence of 1998, when lesbian couples were chased off Bay Street, Nassau's main shopping thoroughfare, by furious protesters and the mooring ropes of a visiting gay cruise ship were tossed into the sea.
In its 2005 Country Report, the State Department criticized the Bahamas government for actively promoting opposition to homosexuality.
"Although homosexual relations between consenting adults are legal, there was no legislation to address the human rights concerns of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals or trans-gendered persons," said the report, released last month.
A gay rights organization, the Rainbow Alliance, has called for tolerance and last year opened an office in Nassau.
"We hope this will become a center for social change," said member Helen Klonaris.
--------------
So, uh, let , me get this straight...you can have a gay time in the Bahamas and take as many drinks and do as many drugs as you want to...but you just can't BE gay YOURSELF...oh, NOW that makes sense! Let's just ban all movies with "gay" themes...um, let see, My Best Friend's Wedding, Philedelphia, every musical ever made and every movie with Judy Garland in it! (rolls eyes) Boycott the Bahamas for your next vacation--we have enough anti-human being problems here at home!
>>"Even animals have more sense than homosexuals."
WHAT?! Animals cannot love and live the way people can, and homosexuals are people. They're saying that gays are lower than animals...so does that make them on the same level as viruses, bacteria and scum? Being gay isn't a disease anymore than Cerebral Palsy is a disease--both are equally as contagious. There's NOTHING worse than people with social diseases that they CHOOSE to have, like these folks in the Bahamas. Ranting anymore about this will just waste my time...(sigh)
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
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