Monday Male Beauty

Another Vick co-defendant may turn witness against him

Things are definitely not looking good for local Surry County resident Michael Vick who has been charged with creating a dogfighting operation called "Bad Newz Kennels" in 2001, gambling on fights and setting up matches with owners from several other states. The men executed dogs that lost or performed poorly, and ran their operation out of a rural Surry County property that Vick owned, the federal indictment alleged. The Virginian Pilot is reporting this evening as follows:

Another co-defendant in the Michael Vick dogfighting case has scheduled a plea agreement hearing, an indication that he is ready to plead guilty and testify against Vick. Quanis L. Phillips has a hearing set for 9 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, before District Judge Henry E. Hudson.

Tony Taylor accepted a deal and entered a guilty plea two weeks ago to the felony charge. The agreement required him to testify honestly against the remaining defendants: Vick, Phillips and Purnell Peace.

Final Sunday Male Beauty

A Public Viewing for A Virginia Pioneer of Civil Rights

It is ironic that Virginia is honoring Oliver Hill (at center in the picture at left) for the civil rights work he did to end racial segregation. You see, Virginia was one of the states that in areas opted for "massive resistance" in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and literally closed the public schools rather than have blacks and whites attend the same schools. It is also ironic, in my view, because in the area of LGBT rights, Virginia is again following the massive resistance approach - e.g., a "marriage amendment" was passed last November and other anti-gay legislation was enacted before that - instead of one that provides equal rights to all citizens. Here's a portion of the Washington Post story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081100972.html?hpid=sec-nation):

RICHMOND, Aug. 11 -- Hundreds gathered at Virginia's Executive Mansion on Saturday to pay homage to Oliver Hill, the civil rights lawyer at the forefront of the court battle that outlawed America's segregated public schools. Dignitaries, citizens and Hill's family members filed into the governor's home to view Hill's body, which lay in repose in a sun-splashed room adorned with bright orange flowers. Hill died last Sunday at age 100.

"I really think this was kind of a validation of all that he'd done in his life," said Hill's son, Oliver Hill Jr., as he stood among a crowd of mourners. "It just lets us know how many people he touched, both black and white -- and he really was instrumental in transforming the commonwealth." An inscription on the inner lid of Hill's casket read, "May the work I've done speak for me."

In 1954, Hill was part of a series of lawsuits against racially segregated public schools that became the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which changed America's society by setting the foundation for integrated education.

"This is a changed commonwealth because of Mr. Hill," [Governor] Kaine said. "There are some things that we will never go back to because he helped break some old traditions that needed to be broken."

Needles to say, to many people in Virginia during the 1950's and 1960's, Oliver Hill was a hated and despised figure. Not coincidentally, many of those who hated Hill (and/or their religious and political successors) today hate gays.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Suicide

I had a conversation today with a dear friend who is in the depth of depression and was talking semi-suicidal. Not anything immediate, but still disturbing. Later, I saw a post on Real Euphoria that talked about the issue of suicide (http://realeuphoria.com/?p=1101). As one who has had near encounters with suicide, I believe Euphoric is correct in saying that suicide seems to be the answer to two things: A feeling of hopelessness and/or an uncontrollable need to stop the pain. Those were certainly what I was feeling at the time, particularly the latter.

In retrospect, I know I was not thinking clearly and was letting my depression and sense of hopelessness take control. I also was failing to live in the present and was totally stressing myself out about things that in the final analysis did not matter. Sometimes we let social constructs and our conditioning patterns dictate who we are instead of valuing our own uniqueness and talents. My friend is an amazingly good hearted person, but sadly lets his difficult past blind him to the opportunities the future can hold.

I hope my friend will realize that someone does love him and that someone does want to be with him and someone is always willing to help him.

The other thing that struck me in Euphoric's post was this statistic: A recent Australian study found that gay-identified young men (aged 18 - 24) were 3.7 times more likely to attempt suicide. In the U.S it is up to 14 times more likely. This certainly speaks to how screwed up the USA is and what the message of hate put out so frequently by the Christianists and false Christians can do to young males.

A website with many links to information can be found here: http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.suicide.html

Pastor Accused of Dragging Girl Behind His Van

This is another case of fundie whack jobs getting around state regulation by way of being "religious" organizations. I truly, think some of these people are the ones who need to be locked up/disciplined. In my view, any organization receiving public money needs to be regulated and investigated before the first dollar is received. Here are highlights from the Houston Chronicle story:

A San Antonio pastor and an employee of his Christian boot camp were arrested Friday on aggravated assault charges, accused of dragging a girl behind a van after she failed to keep up during a running exercise. Investigators with the Nueces County Sheriff's Office arrested Charles E. Flowers, 46, shortly before noon at the Faith Outreach Center in northwest San Antonio, said Brad E. Bailey, a spokesman for the Schertz Police Department.

Bailey said boot camp trainer Stephanie Bassitt, 20, was later arrested without incident at her home in Kirby. Flowers and Bassitt each were being held on $100,000 bail at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi. Authorities interviewed on Friday could not say how far the teenager was allegedly dragged. Her mother complained to authorities after boot camp personnel took her daughter to get treated for scrapes and bruises on her stomach, legs and arms.

Flowers, a retired U.S. Air Force instructor, holds the title of commandant of the boot camp he has operated with his wife, Janice, since the mid-1990s, states the camp's Web site. The camp was created to "reinstill the values that have been lost in our society for a couple of generations, values such as discipline, morality, unity and integrity."

Last year, Love Demonstrated Ministries reported private and government contributions totaling $314,673 to operate the boot camp, with nearly 89 percent of the costs, $278,549, going for salaries. Associate pastors at the Faith Outreach Center couldn't be reached for comment Friday. Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said it "appeared that this operation is probably exempt from our regulation."

Sunday Male Beauty

Bush on Track to Become the Vacation President

More evidence that Chimperator Bush is utterly clueless as to how most Americans live (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/mason/5042364.html). Note, that the amount of Bush's vacation time to date calculates to over 13 and 1/2 months of vacation:

On Thursday, Bush left for a weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his family's summer compound, Walker's Point. On Monday, he heads to his Crawford retreat, where he has spent all or part of 418 days of his presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS News White House correspondent and meticulous record-keeper.

The presidential vacation-time record holder is the late Ronald Reagan, who tallied 436 days in his two terms. At 418 days, and with 17 months to go in his presidency, Bush is going to beat that easily. Still, all this governmental time off is more than most Americans are taking. A recent survey by Yahoo Hot Jobs found nearly half of American workers did not take all of their vacation days last year.

Birthday Ramblings

It is a bit frightening turning 55 today. I guess, in some ways I never thought I’d be this old. The strangest part is that I do not feel any older – it’s like the 21 year old I was is locked in the 55 year old body (which fortunately, is holding up pretty well). The good side of that feeling is that as long as one doesn’t think of them self as being old and stays mentally young, you in fact tend not to age as quickly. So I have to stay young thinking in my outlook. I need only look at my 90+ year old aunt, who has always been too busy to get old, to see that it truly makes a difference.

In honor of the ELCA’s last minute resolution yesterday at the Churchwide Assembly (see yesterday’s post), I went to church today at First Lutheran. Everyone is always nice and pretty much everyone knows that I am gay. My pastor - who is a former bishop - was pleased with the resolution and knows of a number of bishops who are already following the dictates of the resolution. At church, I also ran into one of my friends from my teenage years up at the lake house in the Adirondacks who had her birthday yesterday and tied one on like we did in the old days. We gave her great grief about wearing sunglasses through part of the church service due to her hang over. We always have a good laugh when we get together and her kids know I have “dirt” on their mother from our summers at the lake.

Happily, I received a birthday wish call from my two daughters waiting on my voice mail after church. They sang "Happy Birthday" and were very wam and bubbly in the long message. When I called back, my older daughter had already headed out to the pool where she is the head coach for the swim team, but I did get to talk some with my youngest. Hopefully, my son will call me later. Hearing from them was the best gift I could receive. I also heard from Raymond who sent me birthday wishes. We have been apart now for almost a month. I still care for him deeply and always will whether or not he believes it. Tonight, a couple of my friends are taking me out to dinner which will be nice.

The rest of the day I intend to chill and take it easy. Tomorrow, I am one of two speakers at an all day seminar on real estate transactions. Yes, I get continuing legal education credit for doing the seminar and preparing my part of the materials, but I still plead temporary insanity when I agreed to do it about 4 months back!