Final Male Beauty

Injuries, arrests as thousands protest against Bush in Sydney

The march was organised by a group called the Stop Bush Coalition, but some demonstrators also expressed their concerns over a range of other issues, including climate change. As the protesters marched, Bush and 20 other world leaders gathered at Sydney's iconic Opera House on the harbour, some 20 minutes walk away, for the this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

The leaders, including Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is a close Bush ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao, did not catch even a glimpse of the protesters. The heads of government were protected by a five-kilometre (three-mile) long, three-metre high fence snaking through the city and 5,000 police and soldiers patrolling on land, sea and in the air.

The security operation, the largest ever mounted in Australia, included overflights by air force jets, police on jet skis in Sydney's famous harbour and special laws aimed at cracking down on protesters near the summit.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph describe the costs as follows: The operation has cost an estimated $170 million, involving 3,500 NSW police, 500 federal police and 1,500 Australian Defence Force personnel.

Countrywide to Cut Up to 12,000 Jobs

The fallout from the real estate slow down/collapse is continuing to expand with Countrywide's announcement that it is cutting 12,000 jobs. I am sure other lenders will be following suit in time if the drop in mortgages projection is correct, thus causing more folks to not be able to pay on mortgages. Meanwhile, the Chimperator is off pissing off the Australians by his unwanted presence. Here's part of a Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702092.html?hpid=topnews):

LOS ANGELES -- Struggling mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. will cut as many as 12,000 jobs in a bid to slash costs and cope with soaring foreclosures and defaults, the company said Friday. The cuts, amounting to as much as 20 percent of its work force, are needed because the company expects new mortgages to fall about 25 percent in 2008 from this year's levels, Countrywide said.

In a letter distributed to employees, Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo called the current market cycle "the most severe in the contemporary history of our industry." "During the past two years the growth in home price appreciation has stopped dead in its tracks and in many areas of the country it has turned in the wrong direction," Mozilo said in the letter.

Earlier Friday, IndyMac Bancorp Inc. announced plans to eliminate as many as 1,000 jobs, citing difficulties from the mortgage lending and housing market downturns.

Countrywide has also shifted its loan production guidelines and now only makes loans that can be sold on the secondary market to government-backed enterprises such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or that qualify under investment requirements for its banking unit.

More Saturday Male Beauty

Diocese settles abuse claims for $198M

Yet another huge sexual abuse settlement against a Roman Catholic diocese, yet still no disciplinary action by the Vatican against the bishops and cardinals who allowed the abuse and cover ups go on for decades. Over $2.3 billion in pay outs in the USA alone. Meanwhile, Benedict "the Nazi Pope" XVI thinks he can dictate what is moral and what is not. The man is unbelieveable. He's as delusional as Chimperator Bush and just as disingenuous. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot's story (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHURCH_ABUSE_BANKRUPTCY?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME):

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego said Friday it has agreed to pay $198.1 million to settle 144 claims of sexual abuse by clergy, the second-largest payment by a diocese. The agreement caps more than four years of negotiations in state and federal courts. Earlier this year, the diocese abruptly filed for bankruptcy protection just hours before trial was scheduled to begin on 42 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse. Bankruptcy could shield the diocese's assets, but a judge recently threatened to throw out the bankruptcy case if church officials didn't reach an agreement with the plaintiffs. The San Diego diocese initially offered about $95 million to settle the claims. The victims were seeking about $200 million.

Sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests has cost the U.S. church at least $2.3 billion since 1950. Some of the largest known payouts to victims since the crisis erupted in 2002 include:

- Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 2007, agrees to pay $660 million to about 500 people.

- Diocese of San Diego, 2007, agrees to pay $198 million to 144 people.

- Diocese of Orange, Calif., 2004, $100 million for 90 abuse claims.

- Diocese of Covington, Ky., 2006, up to $84 million for more than 350 people.

- Archdiocese of Boston, 2003, $84 million for 552 claims.

- Diocese of Oakland, Calif., 2005, $56 million to 56 people.

- Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., 2007, agrees to pay about $52 million to 175 victims to emerge from bankruptcy protection; sets aside another $20 million for any future claims.

- Diocese of Spokane, Wash., 2007, agrees to pay $48 million for about 150 claims to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

- Diocese of Sacramento, Calif., 2005, pays $35 million to 33 people.

- Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., 2003, $25.7 million to 243 victims.

- Diocese of Tucson, Ariz., 2005, agrees to fund a settlement trust worth about $22 million for more than 50 victims to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

Saturday Male Beauty

Anxious Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning and I came by the office to check for news that might have come in late from my divorce attorney. I'm a bit uneasy - I woke up to a text message my youngest daughter, sent last night which states: "I heard about court. Please don't do anything stupid."

Obviously, she is referring to the divorce case and my overdose attempt last October after a particularly horrible 5 hour hearing where the judge ordered me to pay support in an amount way more that I could possibly pay. Hopefully, it won't be too bad. My soon to be ex-wife is sure set on destroying me. She has turned out to be a very evil person. She drove me into debt and viewed me as an ATM and now she seeks to drain every last penny from me.

I spoke with my attorney, who has not received anything from the Court yet. He is going to see what he can find out, although with it being the weekend, I may be left in turmoil all weekend.

I cannot stress enough to those readers who are in the closet and contemplating marrying someone of the opposite gender - DO NOT DO IT. IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE AND HAUNT YOU!!!!!

New Website Will Rate Colleges for LGBT-Friendliness

A fellow blogger alerted me to a new site that will soon be coming on line which should be rather interesting. The site will allow students and alumni to rate their colleges and universities on the basis of their LGBT-friendliness. A more detailed description can be found at http://topoutcolleges.wordpress.com/, including a plan to launch a marketing blitz aimed directly at current and prospective college students. Here are a few details on the site:

"Essentially, we will contact virtually every LGBT campus organization we can get our hands on," says Brent Robinson, owner of TopOutColleges.com.

The site lists the “Top 500″ most LGBT-friendly American colleges as rated on a five-star scale by college students and alumni, according to their overall experiences with campus issues, i.e. life in the dorms, campus LGBT events, contact with campus LGBT groups, etc. As students and alumni rate their colleges, those rankings change and are displayed in real-time. Colleges are also ranked and rated by their state, region, and conference for easy searching and organization for prospective students researching their future college. Additionally, each college has its own ranking page, where students can post event announcements and stories of their LGBT experiences on their campus.

The ultimate goal of this campaign is to improve LGBT-friendliness on college campuses, ” says Robinson. ”As users start to vote, it will become evident which colleges tend to float near the top, and which fail to make the cut. That is the kind of information that LGBT prospective students are looking for, especially since the ratings are coming directly from the students at that college. When prospective students start choosing certain colleges over others, those bypassed colleges will start to take notice, and hopefully will want to do something about it. That is why it’s so important that students get on the site and vote, and we feel that 1 million votes is a great start.”

Final Friday Male Beauty

PETA's headquarters is in Norfolk (perhaps a mile from my office), but we have not see such demonstration with hotties here.

Real estate starts to pull the economy down

As I have been indicating, the slow down (or collapse, depending on where you are) of the real estate market has the potential to cause real damage to the larger economy and, in my view, those who try to down play it are not being honest. The latest issue of Time Magazine takes a looks at the issue of what a fall of real estate translates to employment wise (http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2007/09/real_estate_starts_to_pull_the.html). I am not the only one who believes that the foreclosure mess will get much worse before it gets better. Here are a few highlights from the Time article:

The August drop in employment that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning surprised a lot of people. You can't really blame them: It was the first monthly decline since 2003, the numbers had been moderately strong in recent months, and the survey was conducted in the first half of the month, missing a couple of very troubled weeks in the real estate and financial worlds. But that the train wreck that is the real estate industry was eventually going to start hurting the overall economy seems pretty obvious when you look closely at the numbers.

I constructed my own makeshift measure of real estate employment by adding together five BLS job categories: "residential building," "residential specialty trade contractors," "real estate," "building material and garden supply stores," and "credit intermediation and related activities." I realize that I'm catching some people not directly involved in real estate here, particularly in the last category, which includes banks, thrifts, and other lenders. But most of the growth in lending in the first half of the decade was in mortgage and home-equity loans, so I don't think it's too far off.

The real estate industry, as I've added it up, only accounts for 6.6% of American jobs. But between January 2001 and May 2006, when real estate employment peaked, it accounted for an amazing 46% of new jobs. Since then the real estate sector has shed 132,000 jobs while the rest of the economy continued to chug along. The August BLS numbers may indicate that this happy disconnect has ended.

More Friday Male Beauty

Just How Gay Is The GOP?

Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle writes humorous, yet often accurate columns that poke fun at the pompous, self-righteous and self-important. The following column (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/09/07/notes090707.DTL) is no exception and I encourgae you to read the entire piece for its entertainment value:

Here is the sticky, irresistible question, hovering like some sort of perky rainbow-colored cloud over anyone who reads the news or pays attention to the scandals or the nifty bathroom hand signals or the various semen stains covering the pages of the Official GOP Handbook like some sort of wretched, skanky Kandinsky painting:

Really, just how many closeted, self-hating, violently repressed "I-am-not-gay" totally gay hypocrites are there in the Republican Party? Or for that matter, in your average born-again Christian megachurch? Or in the U.S. military? Or in (your morally righteous group's name here)? Ten percent of them? Fifty? A hundred and four?

Because baby, it just keeps popping up, scandal after scandal, homophobic lawmaker after anti-gay preacher after gay marriage attacker after hooker-loving "family values" adulterer, Bob Allen to Ted Haggard to Jim West to Glenn Murphy Jr. to David "Diaperman" Vitter, so many examples of a militant loudmouthed Christian Republican suddenly caught with his pants down around his boyfriend's ankles that, after so many headlines, the notion that these cases might be rare or exceptional simply vanishes and you are left only with the undeniable fact that, oh my God, the American right is simply teeming with so much murky, pressure-cooked homoeroticism it might as well be a Young Republicans kegger at Mark Foley's pink Miami Beach condo.

You need no "Da Vinci Code" to tell you of the religious right's eternal repression of the feminine divine, its deep fear of sex, its eternal fascination with the supple flesh of young males. Hell, show me a vociferous anti-sex fundamentalist of any religious or political bent -- be he Muslim, Christian, Jew, Mormon, Republican or other -- and I'll show you a slideshow of his secret nighttime fantasies so kinky and dark it would make Jenna Jameson shudder. And not in a good way.

Friday Male Beauty

For GOP, Affairs Are OK if They Aren't Gay

This op-ed column from the Seattle Times (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/330502_robert06x.html)highlights the double standard applied to extra-marital affairs by the GOP. Apparently, "family values" is a pretty lose term as longs as gay sex is nowhere in the picture. Here are some excerpts:

If you are a politician who wants to engage in an extramarital sex romp, the GOP is the place to be. As long as you pick a lover of the opposite sex and keep the number of liaisons discreetly low, fellow Republicans won't rush to oust you. But know this: Should there be even a whiff of homosexual goings-on, you're toast. The Republican Taliban will come after you, wearing a "breastplate of righteousness" that blinds the public with its glare and hides something deeper.

For Republicans, carnal indiscretions, more likely than not, get a pass when they involve heterosexuals:

The late Republican Congresswoman from Idaho, Helen Chenoweth-Hage, admitted to having an affair with a married man in the 1980s. That revelation didn't prevent her from getting re-elected.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, a devout Catholic, was convicted for DUI when he was a lieutenant governor and lost his marriage a year after meeting a Miss Idaho USA winner who was more than two decades his junior. They married last year. None of that has been a big problem for his fellow Republicans in a "red" state.

Former Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon might have survived allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward female employees while in office, but the number of accusers was too big to push under a rug: 17.

But the Republican Party, in seeking to appeal to its Christian conservative base, has claimed a mantle of moral superiority. It has framed homosexuality as the unforgivable sin -- worse than adultery between a man and a woman -- even though adultery isn't exactly in keeping with the party's "family values" mantra.

To be fair, Democrats aren't immune. Jim McGreevey was the boy-wonder governor of New Jersey until he stepped down after announcing he had an extramarital affair with a man on his staff. But here's the thing with Democrats: As a matter of platform or policy, they don't go around assailing homosexuality the way Republicans do -- so much that even gays in the GOP are forced to lead double lives on the down low.

The GOP: the Party of hypocrisy.

EX-GAY’ LEADER CONVICTED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

This story which I picked up on via Truth Wins Out (http://www.truthwinsout.org/uncategorized/truth-wins-out-responds-to-the-sexual-assault-conviction-of-%e2%80%98ex-gay%e2%80%99-leader-christopher-austin-2/) is yet another example of the dispicable nature of the ex-gay programs. I checked the Dallas County, Texas, court docket online, but the file is sealed, no doubt to protect the victim. Here is Truth Wins Out's coverage:

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out ("TWO") expressed relief today that Christopher Austin, an ‘ex-gay’ counselor in Irving, Texas, was convicted of sexually assaulting a client. Austin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but received seven years probation, had to register as a sex offender and was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine. After years of reported abuse – including several alleged victims who testified at the trial - it is welcome news that Austin has finally been put out of business, says TWO.

“We are deeply gratified that this ‘ex-gay’ predator is no longer in the counseling business, where he exploited his position of authority to sexually abuse vulnerable clients,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Ex-gay therapy is extremely dangerous and places confused clients in the hands of repressed therapists. It is a recipe for disaster.”

According to the 283rd Criminal District Court, a jury convicted Austin of a Second Degree felony. Court documents said that the ex-gay leader, “unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly caused penetration of [pseudonym Stephen Trask].”

Austin had started Renew Ministries, a counseling center run out of a church in Irving. He was affiliated with the National Association For Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Indeed, Austin taught a seminar at NARTH’s 2004 annual convention entitled, “Understanding and Treating Compulsive Sexual Behavior in Men with Value-Incongruent Homosexual Issues: A Multidimensional Approach.”

Austin spoke of the “devastating spiritual effects homosexuality has on a man’s heart.” However, he failed to take his own advice when he once wrote, “Before addressing the brokenness in others, we must defeat all the responses of our own flesh.”

“As we have seen with Christopher Austin, Mark Foley and Larry Craig, gay people who do not learn to accept themselves act out in unhealthy ways,” said Besen. “I hope Austin can use this experience to come out and have healthy gay relationships, so he won’t have to exploit other people.”

That NARTH utilizes individuals like Austin as presenters at its seminars speaks volumes.

More Thursday Male Beauty

Chimperator Bush vs. Winston Churchill

Chimperator Bush likes to think of himself as a War President and apparently may view himself as another FDR or Churchill. Other than in his delusions, he is clearly neither. As for Churchill comparison, here is an interesting and humorous story about Churchill's drinking habits versus the Chimperator's via The Van Der Galien Gazette (http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/the-power-of-alcohol/ ):

As we ‘re inundated with quotes from Robert Draper’s revealing book on Bush, I kind of enjoyed this one, on drinking:

Discussing his past battles with alcohol, he says he would never be able to make decision on war if he was still drinking. “Exercise helps. And I think prayer helps,” he says. “I wouldn’t be President if I kept drinking. You can get sloppy, can’t make decisions. It clouds your reason, absolutely.”

Wasn’t the War on Terror modeled after the struggle against Nazism? And didn’t Sir Winston Churchill make a resounding re-entry in the daily lexicon after the events of 9/11? What would the world have looked like if Sir Winston had applied the same rigor to his alcohol consumption as GWB? Here’s a clue:

His drinking habits were admirably fetishistic - preferably Pol Roger, served at precisely the right temperature (he was delighted when the gift of a refrigerator from Beaverbrook in 1926 obviated the need to dilute it with ice) and interspersed with much brandy and port. The papers of Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s lend-lease administrator, contain several good examples of the war leader’s zealous interest in his own consumption. For instance, Hopkins describes finding Churchill in January 1943 ‘in bed in his customary pink robe, and having, of all things, a bottle of wine for breakfast’. Viscount Alanbrooke made the same observation, and Eden’s diary mentions Churchill taking a ’stiff whiskey and soda, at 8.45 a.m’. A Foreign Office official described a dinner with Churchill as ,a varied and noble procession of wines with which I could not keep pace - champagne, port, brandy, Cointreau: Winston drank a good deal of all, and ended with two glasses of whisky and soda.’

Even if highly intoxicated, Churchill still was more in touch with reality than The Chimperator. Personally, I think Bush is more like Hitler than Churchill. :)

Thursday Male Beauty

My Central American Ties

Visiting my mother this past weekend gave me a chance to look at old photo albums with pictures of my mothers parents and from her childhood. My grandparents, as I have mentioned before, were quite adventurous for the times in which they were young and I wish that they had lived longer so that I could have known them better as an adult. I am trying to encourage my mother to write down her recollections from when she lived in Central America - it was an time and existence long gone and in some ways like something out of a movie. So far she has not done so, but this March 2, 2000 Virginian Pilot article gives a sense of it all:

TRANSFER OF PANAMA CANAL CONTROL HOLDS SPECIAL MEANING FOR WOMAN BAYLAKE PINES COUPLE MAINTAIN TIES TO AREA WITH INVESTMENTS

With the dawn of the new millennium, most in the United States were focused on celebrating or on the infamous Y2K bug happenings. Little fanfare was paid to an historic event that took place at noon Dec. 31. But George and Marion Hamar of Baylake Pines were watching as the United States officially transferred control of the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama.

It was a special moment for Marion Hamar, because she spent her early childhood in Panama, where her father practiced medicine. “The land divided, the world united'' reads the backside of a medal earned by Bruce M. Phelps, Hamar's father. He earned the medal while working on the canal from 1910-13. At the time, he was 24 and one of 44,000, including 5,000 Americans, who worked on the 50-mile project.

So began a family's ties to a small tropical country. After working construction on the canal, Phelps returned to the United States in 1913 to attend medical school at Vanderbilt University. After graduating in 1917, he was drafted in the Army and was sent to Ancon Hospital in the Canal Zone, in Panama for a year-long surgical internship. Afterward, he was stationed at a military hospital in Hampton.

When Phelps left the Army, he got a job with United Fruit Company, a corporation that produced and distributed fruit. Hamar's mother, Azelie Hibben, a registered nurse and World War I veteran, did the same. The couple met in Panama. They married and had three daughters, Mary Alice, born in Panama, and Ann and Marion, both born in Honduras. The family lived in Central America, mostly Panama, until moving to New York in 1939.

``In those days the fruit companies created entire towns at the ports including schools, roads, waterworks, a golf course, swimming pools and the hospital. They also built railroads to bring the bananas from the country to the port,'' Hamar said. The fruit company owned everything, we could go anywhere, do anything. The company took care of the employees, providing them with housing and medical care,'' Hamar said. Phelps was the superintendent of the hospital, which the fruit company owned. He also served as the chief surgeon. Therefore, the Phelps family received special benefits. “My father had the only car in town, and mom had a nurse and a cook,'' Hamar said. It was a great place to live, typical plantation living. We had all sorts of fruit: tangerines, oranges, papayas, and of course bananas, even the horses ate bananas,'' Hamar said.

The Hamars decided to invest money in Central America because of the connection. “Past and current investments are part sentimental, part economics. We had an original investment from Marion's dad, held on to it, and added to it,'' George Hamar said. They're pleased Panama took control of the canal. George, a retired stock broker, and Marion, a retired cytotechnologist, have lived in Virginia Beach since 1973. They have five children and 10 grandchildren.

My mother continues to own banking stock in Panama and brewery stock in Honduras. I have never been to either Panama or Honduras, but sincerely hope to visit there some day. Panama City, Panama is pictured above.

Wow - 20,000+ Visitors

I just happened to glance at the blog and saw that I have had at the moment 20,001 visitors. Moreover, blog visitors come from 113 different countries. When I started this endeavor, I never dreamed so many people would be interested in my story, thoughts and/or my views and opinions. I am very, very flattered by the response.

In the past, I have asked readers to e-mail me about themselves so that - if they are willing - they can be featured in a post. I repeat this invitation and hope some of you will contact me.

Again, thank you for all of you who visit this blog. I will continue to try to make it worth reading. Likewise, I will continue with my coming out story shortly for those that have interest in that saga.

Final Wednesday Male Beauty

Mandatory Vaccine for Deadly Bacterial Meningitis Sparks Debate

MSNBC has an online column (See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20519953/) about the debate over requiring entering college students to have the vaccine against believe parents should be able to choose which vaccinations they — or their children — receive. . Opponents of mandating the vaccine believe parents should be able to choose which vaccinations they — or their children — receive. Having nearly lost my oldest daughter to meningococcal meningitis in 1999, my personal view is that only a fool would not have their child receive the vaccine. I would urge any readers who are the parents of high school or college students or college age themselves to get the vaccine. While rare, the devastation that this disease can do even if not fatal is horrific, and the financial costs of treatment can be likewise devastating even if one comes through with a full recovery. Without a doubt, the experience with my daughter's experience with meningitis was probably the worse experience in my life to date. Here are some highlights from the MSNBC column:

Meningococcal meningitis strikes fewer than 3,000 people in the United States each year, many of them college students or children under age 1. But while the bacterial infection is relatively rare, it’s also deadly, killing 10 to 12 percent of those it infects, sometimes within hours. The disease attacks and shuts down major organs and prevents blood from circulating to limbs, causing tissue to die. Among survivors, 20 percent suffer brain damage, kidney disease, loss of hearing or sight, limb amputations or other severe complications.

A growing grassroots movement is pushing for more states to require the shot. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Menactra for kids ages 11 to 18, but only 12 percent of teenagers got the vaccine in 2006.

But the disease can be horrific when it does strike. It happens so quickly’The disease’s hard-to-spot symptoms and rapid progression make meningococcal meningitis a “great fear” for doctors, says Dr. Tom Clark, a medical epidemiologist for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The symptoms are devastatingly easy to overlook, to dismiss as something minor.

When Lynn Bozof’s son Evan was a teenager, there was a meningitis outbreak in a neighboring county. Evan was worried, and he asked his mom if he should get the vaccination. “‘Mom, how do I know if I’ve got meningitis?’” Bozof recalls her son asking. And she remembers her reply: “Oh Evan, you don’t need to worry about meningitis!” But five years later, as a junior at Georgia Southwestern University in 1998, Evan called his mom complaining of a migraine. It got so bad that he went to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with meningitis and placed in intensive care. His kidneys shut down. His liver stopped functioning. Both arms and legs had to be amputated. After a 26-day fight against the disease, Evan died. Bozof says, “Just because this disease is rare doesn’t mean it’s not going to affect you or someone you know.”

Many of those advocating for mandatory vaccinations are parents, including Frankie Milley, who have lost children to meningitis. Nine years ago, her 18-year-old son, Ryan, died of the disease, and since then, she has worked in her home state of Texas to make meningitis education available to all families. She also supported a bill currently being considered by the Texas Legislature that would require college students to get the vaccine.

Dr. Jim Turner, the executive director for the department of student health at the University of Virginia, was skeptical in 2001 when Virginia passed a law mandating that all students attending four-year universities must get the vaccination or sign a waiver. He thought most students would just choose to sign the waiver. But it seems that education about the disease has motivated many to get the vaccine. He’s seen the numbers climb from 55 percent of students getting vaccinated to 95 percent.

“It’s a safe vaccination, it’s an effective vaccination, and it’s one of those terrible, terrible risks — albeit extremely rare — that you can really minimize by spending money on the vaccine,” says Turner, who is also the chair of the Vaccines Preventable Diseases Committee for the American College Health Association. The vaccine is generally covered by insurance and costs around $120 on most college campuses.

In fairness, I have to comment that one of those who helped push the 2001 Virginia law requiring the vaccine was then state Senator Ed Schrock with whom I had discussed the need for the legislation.

Idaho Affiliate of American Family Association Wants Gays Driven Out of GOP

If one needed further proof that the GOP's "big tent" story line is a fiction, this ought to help put the myth to rest. It should get interesting watching the Christianist attempt to drive all gays (and moderates) from the GOP. Here is a portion of the newsletter sent out by the Idaho Values Alliance, which proudly identifies itself as an affiliate of the American Family Association:

One larger issue must be addressed. The Republican Party platform clearly rejects the agenda of homosexual activists. The Party, in the wake of the Mark Foley incident in particular, can no longer straddle the fence on the issue of homosexual behavior. Even setting Senator Craig’s situation aside, the Party should regard participation in the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle as incompatible with public service on behalf of the GOP.

No member of the Republican Party in the 1860s could represent his party and be a slaveholder at the same time. Nor can the Republican Party of today speak with authority and clarity to the moral issues that confront our society and at the same time send ambivalent messages about sexual behavior.

As I decide about five years ago, one cannot be a gay Republican unless and until the Christianist choke hold on the Party is broken. The complete newsletter can be found here: http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/news.asp?id=596

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Televangelist Rev. D. James Kennedy dies

First Jerry Falwell, now James Kennedy. Two of the leading Christianist homophobes dying within not many of weeks is an interesting coincidence. That leaves Pat Robertson and James Dobson as perhaps the remaining top tier gay haters, although Tony Perkins, Rev. Wildmon and others are striving hard to keep peddling the hate Falwell and Kennedy helped to first package. Here is a portion of the Miami Herald's coverage (http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/226256.html):

The Rev. D. James Kennedy, the controversial televangelist who built Fort Lauderdale's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church into a politically powerful house of prayer on a foundation of Biblical fundamentalism, died Wednesday morning.

With a steeple tall enough to require aircraft warning lights -- 30 stories -- and a world-class, 6,500-pipe organ, the church is the nucleus of a $37 million evangelical empire that includes Westminster Academy, Knox Seminary and Evangelism Explosion International, an outreach program. Kennedy's Coral Ridge Hour television broadcasts reportedly reached three million viewers in 200 countries. With equal fervor, he preached the Gospel, promoted Bible study, family values and the power of prayer, and decried secular humanism, homosexuality, abortion, global warming and the public schools.

Kennedy campaigned tirelessly to tear down the constitutional wall separating church and state. In 2005, Rolling Stone called him ``the godfather of the Dominionists [and] the most influential evangelical you've never heard of. A former Arthur Murray dance instructor, he launched his Florida ministry in 1959, when most evangelicals still followed Billy Graham's gospel of nonpartisan soul-saving.

''Kennedy [preached] that it was time to save America -- not soul by soul but election by election ... [George W.] Bush sought his blessing before running for president ...'' the Rolling Stone piece said.

Kennedy once preached that he and his followers' ''job'' was to ``reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.''

Fort Lauderdale gay-rights activist Wayne Besen calls him something else: 'a source of great pain for gays and lesbians, distorting our lives on a national level. The whole `ex-gay' movement we see nationally was jump-started by Coral Ridge Ministries ... Kennedy popularized this idea that has caused a lot of suffering for gay people,'' that homosexuality could be ``prayed away.'' He was ''far to the right of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell,'' Besen said.

I suspect Kennedy and Falwell will be roommates in Hell for all the hate they generated and all the pain they cause so many.

Nigerian Cleric Condemns Homosexuals, Lesbians

With all of Nigeria's horrific problems of poverty, religious conflict and poor medical care, one would think that the Nigerian Anglican Church would have better things to keep it occupied other than persecute gays. The following is a from United Press International and the languague used by this homophobia bishop is anything but Christ like. Personally, I think the Episcopal Church, Church of Canada and other liberal branches of the Anglican Communion should jetison these nut cases and shut off the money spigot in the process.

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Uyo, Sept. 2, 2007 (NAN)

The Anglican Bishop of Uyo, Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama, has condemned the activities of homosexuals and lesbians, and described those engaged in them as "insane people''. "It is scaring that any one should be involved in a thing like that and I want to say that they will not escape the wrath of God,'' he said. Orama told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) today in Uyo, that the practice, which has worsened over the years, was "unbiblical and against God's purpose for creating man''.

"Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God's purpose for man,'' the Bishop said. He noted that the Anglican Church in Nigeria had continued to lead the fight against the practice especially in the US where it led the opposition to same sex marriages. "The aim of such fight is to provide a safe place for those who want to remain faithful Anglicans and Biblical Christians,'' he explained.(NAN).

I'd say that if anyone is not fit to live, it is Bishop Orama. Where is the love of Christ in his statements??

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Ft. Lauderdale Gets Crazy - Group of Clergymen Flock to Mayor Naugle's Side

Things appear to be getting rather crazy in Ft. Lauderdale and some of the black pastors who have been cynically recruited by white Christianists to oppose gay rights are beginning to look more like para-military types (see photo at left) as opposed to pastors preaching the Gospel of Christ. I continue to be dumb founded by the actions of black clergymen who stupidly act as tools for the same Christianist groups (or their successors) who fought against desegregation. Meanwhile, the black community has so many larger and more critical issues that go unaddressed. I guess it shows what happens when people do not know history. Here are a few highlights from the Sun-Sentinel:

FORT LAUDERDALE - A group of Christian clergymen flocked to the side of Mayor Jim Naugle on Tuesday, saying the depth of sexual sin in Broward County necessitates an old-fashioned spiritual revival.

The group of clergy met with Naugle privately Tuesday in City Hall, then made public statements. They did not say when, where or how long the revival would be.The mayor incited a fight with gays in gay-friendly Fort Lauderdale in July when he commented that he uses the term "homosexual'' because many of them aren't gay, he said, "they're unhappy.'' He also alleged they frequent public bathrooms in Fort Lauderdale to have sex [MY COMMENT: obviously, Naugle is mistaking gays for closeted Republicans].

Naugle's public supporters have been relatively few, while his public opponents have been many. Tuesday's event was meant to help turn that around.Elder Mathes Guice of the Koinonia Worship Center in Pembroke Park said the county tourist council's targeted marketing to gay visitors "led the spiritual community on a collision course with Satan.'' He said "we have no other choice but to step up and do the right thing'' by holding the revival.

New Cargo Terminal Buoys Portsmouth and Hampton Roads

One of the few bright spots for the local economy - the housing market is in a virtual stand still with foreclosures doubling since last year and the huge Norfolk Ford plant has closed - other than the cushion provided by the vast military population, is the new port facility opening in Portsmouth, across the river from Norfolk. While the increased port traffic and revenues generated thereby will be welcomed, the local highway system will be even more overloaded and inadequate. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot (http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=131803&ran=127981&tref=po):

When the new $450 million port terminal officially opens in his city on Friday, Mayor James Holley will be all smiles. “That’ll be the biggest and the best ribbon we’ve cut since 1752,” Holley said. That was the year Portsmouth was founded.

APM Terminals Virginia will add many more container-hauling trucks to city roads and send out road-choking trains multiple times each week. Its bright lights and noise may disturb neighbors in West Norfolk and Hunter s Point. But it also will pump at least $2 million a year into Portsmouth’s tax coffers. It will bring the city new jobs and bragging rights as it becomes the port epicenter of Hampton Roads.

APM Terminals spent about seven years developing the cargo container terminal, which sits on a large tract north of Va. 164 in Churchland. It replaces a far smaller facility leased from the Virginia Port Authority next to Portsmouth Marine Terminal. It is expected to increase the number of containers the port of Hampton Roads can handle each year by 50 percent.

That’s just the beginning for Portsmouth. The APM terminal, which has room for expansion, likely will be followed by the Port Authority’s planned $2.2 billion terminal on Craney Island. The first phase of that complex is slated to open in 2017. “It will make us the city in Hampton Roads when you think of the maritime industry and port-related activities,” said Steven L. Lynch, Portsmouth’s economic development director.

The facility is projected to add 3,000 truck trips a day onto the state highway, which connects the Midtown Tunnel and the Martin Luther King Freeway with northern Suffolk and Interstate 664, said Richard Hartman, Portsmouth’s city engineer.

Wednesday Male Beauty

Craig reversal angers GOP colleagues

Frankly, I find a great deal of entertainment in Larry Craig's possible decision to NOT resign. After 27 years in Congress, Craig found out that he had very few friends as almost everyone in the GOP rushed to throw him under the bus. Perhaps Senator Craig has learned that his erstwhile friends are merely opportunists who like you only as long as it is convenient. I hope Craig keeps the GOP twisting on their own sanctimonious rope for quite some time. Here are some highlights from Politico:

Just when Republicans thought things could not get much worse for their scandal-stained party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig leaked word Tuesday night that he is reconsidering his abrupt plan to resign from the Senate in the wake of his arrest in a police sex sting operation.Top Republican strategists were neither delighted nor amused by the senator's decision to rethink retirement after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest in a Minnesota airport men's bathroom.

A senior GOP Senate strategist said Republican leaders want him gone now and will press for him to keep his promise to resign. The strategist warned Craig is "losing any goodwill built up among his colleagues," adding, "He is simply a fish out of water, floundering right now to get his last gasp of political air."

"It simply defies reality," said a Senate GOP aide. "You can't make this up even if you are heavily medicated. The American people heard from Larry Craig that he would resign, and using the word 'intent' as a back door doesn't work with them."

The unexpected announcement caught fellow GOP senators – and members of Craig's own crisis management team – mostly by surprise and threatened to draw negative attention to the party at a time when it is preparing for big fights over the budget and the Iraq war.

The GOP Senate strategist said senators are frustrated they will now spend another day or more deflecting questions about Craig and his bathroom behavior. McConnell got a taste of what's to come at a press conference he held Tuesday. Why, he was asked, did the GOP leadership seek an ethics investigation of Craig while giving a pass to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) after he acknowledged in July that his phone number was among those on the client list of an alleged prostitution ring?

McConnell was pressed again: Were the responses different because the Craig incident involved alleged homosexual activity. He rejected suggestions that the Craig and Vitter incidents, coupled with the FBI raid of the home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in late July as part of a federal corruption probe, have contributed to Congress' sub-basement approval ratings or soiled the Republican Party brand.

I love it when the GOP attacks and self-destructs! I hope the cat fight goes on for a long time. See the full story at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5652.html

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Coming Out (of Marriage)

I came across this column (http://www.bilerico.com/2007/08/coming_out_of_marriage.php) by Michele O'Mara, LCSW (www.micheleomara.com) and compared it to my own experience and found some of the advice useful and therefore I have set out the points she mentions. Readers going through the coming out process may benefit from Ms. O'Mara's advice. The decision to come out is painful, and not always the chosen or best solution given your situation. However, when it is, the following resource offers you some helpful hints about how to navigate your way into uncharted territory. The journey can be both scary and exhilarating - as is true with all journeys to the truest corners of our being:

1. Identify a supportive friend, or person with whom you can begin to identify and share your conflicting feelings.

2. Start a journal. Document what you are feeling and find a way to express these. Containing conflicting feelings can be overwhelming and confusing. Take your time. Pay close attention to your feelings and expect to feel very sad and confused for some time. That is normal.

3. Find a gay-friendly counselor with whom you can process your feelings.

4. Acknowledge to your partner that you're struggling with some confusing feelings. If your are in a relationship, acknowledge to him or her that you are struggling to understand some things about yourself that are confusing and that they are about you, not her. Explain that when you feel ready, you will share what you are experiencing with her. Reassure him in ways that feel honest to you such as: "you have done nothing wrong," "this is not about you," "I need to understand myself better before I can explain to you what I am feeling and that's why I am going to a therapist - to get help doing that." "I would like you to be a part of my process, but I need to understand what my process is before I can include you in it."

5. Identify your potential losses (former identity as heterosexual and all that accompanies that) and allow yourself to feel sad about these potential losses.

6. Explore with your therapist what it means to you to be gay. Growing up we either learn incorrect information about homosexuality, no information, or accurate information. It is essential to recognize the messages you grew up with that may not be accurate or true. These incorrect messages can negatively affect how you feel about yourself.

7. Recognize feelings of shame and find ways to let it go. One of the most painful parts of what you are going through is the intense amount of shame that often overshadows how you feel about yourself. Shame is the feeling that you are a "bad" person, or that you have done something very wrong. Shame is a common emotion felt by people in this situation and it can revolve around a lot of things, such as: Feeling a sense of self-betrayal, for not allowing yourself to explore your orientation more directly, sooner. A feeling of betraying others and feeling like you've "led a lie" or misled loved ones. Feeling like you've wasted years by not being honest with yourself or others. Simply thinking that being gay is a bad, sinful or wrong thing.

If you can identify your shame (if you are aware of this feeling) and let it go (by talking about this with your therapist, journal writing, etc.) you can also get rid of some of the denial, fear, disgust, etc... that may keep you from being honest with yourself in this process.

8. Be honest with yourself. Often we become confused to protect ourselves from our own truths...one of the things that gay and lesbian people tend to do is distrust our own feelings because we are socialized to believe that what we feel is "wrong," "bad," or "not real."

9. Journal write what you are feeling. Writing is an excellent way to clarify and sort through conflicting feelings

10. Read books on being gay, coming out, and related issues.

11. Find other gay/lesbian-identified people with whom you can connect. This is an important part of decreasing the sense of aloneness and isolation that you may be feeling.

12. Maintain balance in your life (such as eating, sleeping, working, time with kids/family/friends, etc). Coming out to yourself and others is an emotionally draining process. The sense of loss during this process can be overwhelming and leave you with a very lonely, scared feeling. Be sure to tend to the other important areas of your life so that you can retreat from this process to a place that is comfortable and familiar to you if you begin to feel overwhelmed.

More Tuesday Male Beauty

The Most Feared Man on the Hill?

This is a good interview in today's Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090301396.html) with my friend Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com and PageOneQ.com. I believe that Mike is doing a great service in exposing closeted anti-gay politicians and their staffers. In my view these people are akin to Jews working for the Nazis or segregationists having affairs with blacks. They are hypocrites and they need to be exposed for their self-serving demonetization of gays. Hopefully, in time they will learn that gay bashing is counterproductive for self preservation, if nothing else:

Soon, a new name will pop up on Mike Rogers's hit list. Larry Craig wasn't "the first on my list," the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, "won't be the last."

For three years now, he's been a feared one-man machine, "outing," he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers -- "Are you gay?" he'd ask -- is "a call from Satan himself," says a former high-ranking congressional staffer whose name is on the list.

In Rogers's mind, if you're against gay rights in your public life and you live a secret homosexual life, all bets are off.

In 2004, one of the first public officials he targeted was then-Virginia congressman Ed Schrock because of his voting record on such issues as gays in the military, same-sex marriage and gay adoption. In 2000, for instance, Schrock told the Virginian-Pilot: "You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them." Schrock decided not to run for reelection because of the rumors.

In the coming months, he plans to post the names of "a few more" closeted Congress members on his blog, he says, all of them Republicans. There are 33 names on his published list, most of them men, 30 from the GOP. That fact reveals more about the Republicans, he says, than about him. Although a registered Democrat, he says he is bipartisan.

"I write about closeted people whose records are anti-gay," he says. "If you're a closeted Democrat or Republican and you don't bash gays or vote against gay rights to gain political points, I won't out you."

GDP Growth Not Reaching Employee Paychecks

This CNN article (http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/03/news/economy/epi_report/index.htm?cnn=yes) brings focus on why I discount all of the Chimperator's talk of economic growth being benificial to rank and file Americans. The Chimperator's fat cat friends may be doing better financially, but most Americans are not. Add to that the ever increasing cost of health care and now declining property values and most Americans are likely to have less disposable income. Here are some highlights:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The economic expansion that began six years ago has failed to benefit most workers, according to a report from the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, released Monday. Productivity growth, although slower of late, has been strong since 2000. After a sluggish start in the period, employment has picked up, although at a slower pace than in past recoveries. Yet, that growth hasn't transferred to workers' paychecks, particularly for workers at the lower and middle end of the pay scale, the report found.

After rising quickly in the second half of the 1990s, most workers real wages have been stagnant in the 2000s, especially since 2003. While productivity jumped almost 20 percent since 2000, the real median hourly wage of all workers rose just 3 percent in the same period. Since 2003, productivity has risen 5 percent, while the median hourly wage fell 1.1 percent.

Both high school and college workers saw hourly wage gains of about 2.5 percent since 2000. Yet, in the period between 2003 and 2007, wage gains for median workers, male and female, as well as high school and college workers have all been flat or falling. Not so for workers at the highest end of the wage scale. At the 95th percentile, real wages have risen 9.4 percent since 2000 and 5.1 percent since 2003.

The average CEO of a large U.S. company made roughly $10.8 million last year, or 364 times that of U.S. full-time and part-time workers, who made an average of $29,544, according to a joint analysis released Wednesday by the liberal Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

Tuesday Male Beauty

After the Purge of Larry Craig: Who's Next?

As I indicated yesterday, I fully support "outing" anti-gay voting closet case politicians regardless of party affiliation. Related to this topic is a column by Michelangelo Signorile (http://signorile2003.blogspot.com/2007/09/after-purge-of-larry-craig-whos-next_03.html) that explains why outing these hypocrites is relevant and timely. Moreover, the longer the LGBT community participates in the practice of hiding sexual orientation because it is potentially detrimental to career, financial and social success, the longer all of us can expect to be treated like second class citizens. The strongest offense is for as many of us to be openly gay as practicable and thereby change stereotypes. I know that my own totally out status has caused a number of people to re-think their old prejudices and homophobia. Therefore, let's out these anti-gay closet cases. Here are some highlights from Michelangelo's column:

The speed -- and brute force -- with which the Republican Party purged the newly-revealed bathroom sex troller among them is pretty astounding. The New York Times reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell forced Larry Craig's resignation by threatening Craig with a sensational, televised, McCarthyesque ethics investigation that could bring forth Craig's history of prior male-on-male sexual activities and force him to answer to all the lurid details.

The Republicans were fretting big time about their homo-hating base -- it's really all they've got left -- and they would do whatever it took to banish Craig, including bludgeoning him into submission with threats of further exposure. The Idaho senator may have pleaded guilty to a crime but his was a minor infraction --compared to the sleazy business of other Republican senators, including Alaska's Ted Stevens, whose home was raided by the FBI and IRS in the midst of an investigation of official favors he may have done for an oil company -- and Craig paid for his crime (with a fine).

Just a few weeks ago Republican Senator David Vitter appeared to have admitted committing a crime yet hasn't been investigated, let alone charged or paid any consequences. Glenn Greenwald exposes the double standard of the GOP evident in the treatment of Craig and Vitter, noting that, "the only kind of 'morality' that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality," which is "why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery."

If the Republican Party has no choice but to tell its base that purging the queer members of Congress is the way to go, well then, there seem to be a few more Republican senators and house members that must be banished. It is now even more relevant for the traditional media to report on these alleged closet cases, considering how the party leadership has treated Larry Craig.

If, for example, the Senate Minority Leader himself, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, were secretly gay -- and there have been unsubstantiated though persistent rumors about him for many years, a la those previously unbelieveable rumors about Craig -- his antigay voting record wouldn't now be the only criteria that would make his secret homosexuality relevant. We now have him using blackmailing tactics against another senator, threatening to reveal that senator's past homosexual activities. Certainly that would rise to the level of relevancy to report on McConnell, wouldn't it?

If the rumors about other Republicans are true -- or not -- then there is even more reason now, in the post-Larry Craig Republican Party, for them to be investigated. So let's have a real investigation of the rumors about South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who, like Larry Craig until shortly after the gay rumors reached a crescendo in the 80s, is, at the age of 52, unmarried, and has been rumored to be gay for years. Like Larry Craig, Graham has voted antigay -- including for the federal marriage amendment -- while people in South Carolina and Washington have discussed what some say is an open secret for a long, long time.