Office Share Opportunity

One of my sub-tenants is moving out because his wife has accepted a position in the Czech Republic and as a result, I have an office available for rent. The rental includes a private office and shared use of the firm lobby area, the main conference room and the private kitchen that serves the office. The current tenant has paid $500.00 per month, but rent is negotiable and depending upon the tenant's requirements could possible include Internet access.

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The law office is located in the heart of Norfolk's upscale and pedestrian friendly Ghent neighborhood and close to downtown Norfolk without the need to park in parking garages. Restaurants, Starbucks, shops and other amenities are just steps from the main office area entrance on the first floor. The firm's space is on the second floor so that even in tropical storms or hurricanes (we are in the midst of hurricane season), flooding is not an issue. area.

The photo above shows the front facade of the historic building in which the office is located. The photo at left resembles the front lobby

Any local readers who might be interested or know of others who might be interested, please contact me either via the e-mail address on this blog or at mike@hamarlaw.com. The office phone number is (757) 622-2008.

Another "Ex-gay" Therapist Is Busted

Wayne Besen appears to have hit pay dirt again. It seems that
Alan Downing (pictured above) - the Director of Coaching and Group Services for the Jonah Institute, and a staff member of the Spring Lake Heights Counseling Center, of Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey and Brash-McGreer Associates of Medford New Jersey - who markets the lie that gays can "change" and become straight has been busted for inappropriate sexual behavior with much younger patients in his "ministry" program. What is it about these proponents of the "ex-gay" myth (e.g., George Rekers) who get off with voyeurism and other activities with young gays who could very well be their children. Rather than allegedly counseling others about the same sex attraction ("SSA" to use their jargon), these frauds need some serious psychological counseling themselves. The sad truth is that these snake oil programs exists for two reasons: (1) so that leeches like Downing can enrich themselves off of religiously brainwashed gays and (2) so that Christianists can claim to legislators and judges that being gay is achoice and, therefore, not worthy of legal non-discrimination protections. These folks give the term sleazy a whole new meaning. Here are some highlights from Truth Wins Out:
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Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
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Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.
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“These dysfunctional,unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shutdown,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often,repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”
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JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole,Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.
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This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”
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Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called,“homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.
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I truly believe that parents who place their underage children in these "ex-gay" programs need to be charged with child abuse and prosecuted. No youth deserves to be emotionally and psychologically scared simply because their parents are religious extremist whack jobs.

Monday Male Beauty

Newsweek on Afghanistan: It's Not Working and It's Time to Get Out

In an assessment that ought to be obvious to anyone other than neo-cons and senior military brass types who love nothing better than waging war - although they are always safely far from the front - and will claim to be on the verge of victory right up until the last troops get massacred, a Newsweek column by a former Bush official, while self-serving, has nonetheless had the guts to say what too few in the mainstream media have been willing to say: we are losing in Afghanistan, we cannot win, and we need to get the Hell out of there.
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Yes, stating the obvious is heresy amongst the far right who would have the U.S. go on throwing money and young lives down a rat hole, but sooner or later the nation needs to wake up to reality. Other than a quick foray to take out Bin Laden - which the Chimperator botched because of his eagerness to invade Iraq - we should never have been in Afghanistan. Plain and simple. Lives squandered, billions of dollars wasted and we're losing. Here are some column highlights:
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The war being waged by the United States in Afghanistan today is fundamentally different and more ambitious than anything carried out by the Bush administration. Afghanistan is very much Barack Obama’s war of choice, a point that the president underscored recently by picking Gen. David Petraeus to lead an intensified counterinsurgency effort there. After nearly nine years of war, however, continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.
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The first thing we need to recognize is that fighting this kind of war is in fact a choice, not a necessity. The United States went to war in October 2001 to oust the Taliban government, which had allowed Al Qaeda to operate freely out of Afghanistan and mount the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban were routed; members of Al Qaeda were captured or killed, or escaped to Pakistan. But that was a very different war,
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My colleagues in the Bush administration had no interest in my proposal. The consensus was that little could be accomplished in Afghanistan given its history, culture, and composition, and that there would be little payoff beyond Afghanistan even if things there went better than expected.
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By the time Obama became president in 2009, the situation inside Afghanistan was fast deteriorating. . . . Since then Obama has had several opportunities to reassess U.S. goals and interests in Afghanistan, and in each instance he has chosen to escalate. . . the return of the Taliban was equated with the return of Al Qaeda, and the United States became a full protagonist in Afghanistan’s civil war, supporting a weak and corrupt central government against the Taliban.
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Today the counterinsurgency strategy that demanded all those troops is clearly not working. The August 2009 election that gave Karzai a second term as president was marred by pervasive fraud and left him with less legitimacy than ever. While the surge of U.S. forces has pushed back the Taliban in certain districts, the Karzai government has been unable to fill the vacuum with effective governance and security forces that could prevent the Taliban’s return.
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All this argues for reorienting U.S. Afghan policy toward decentralization—providing greater support for local leaders and establishing a new approach to the Taliban. The war the United States is now fighting in Afghanistan is not succeeding and is not worth waging in this way. The time has come to scale back U.S. objectives and sharply reduce U.S. involvement on the ground. Afghanistan is claiming too many American lives, requiring too much attention, and absorbing too many resources. The sooner we accept that Afghanistan is less a problem to be fixed than a situation to be managed, the better.

The Vatican Simply Just Doesn't Get It

Over the weekend I looked at the Vatican's incredible insensitive - can we say down right stupid - move in equating the sexual abuse of children by priests as equally heinous with the ordination of women as priests. Maureen Dowd, with her typical verbal flare, took on this idiocy in a New York Times op-ed column yesterday. Until such time as the Roman Catholic Church gets over its Medieval views of sex and the inferiority of women, I suspect that more and more Catholics will listen less and less to the Church's hypocritical and sexually obsessed moral lectures. Add that to the still ongoing disclosures of sexual abuse and high clergy cover ups of it and it all equates to waning Church influence in the developed and educated parts of the world. Indeed, Catholicism is headed for a third world religion status. Here are some highlights from Dowd's column:
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If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn’t really do that.
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The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it’s making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it’s taking baby steps.
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The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened. There is no moral awakening here.
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In a remarkable Times story recently, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger debunked the spin that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the more alert officials on the issue of sexual abuse: “The future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction.
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In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus “is the one who said, ‘Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.’ That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus.
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I cannot begin to understand the warped thinking of the Church hierarchy - and I am glad that I can't comprehend it since it is utterly sick.

More Disingenuousness from Christianists on DADT Repeal

I will admit that while utterly devoid of truth and veracity, the Christianists never seem to rest when it comes to seeking special rights for themselves. The expect the entire nation - indeed, the entire world - to revolve around them and their hatred towards others which they attempt to justify by wrapping themselves in religion and the Bible. Now, with the prospect that DADT might be repealed, the insidious Christianists are talking seeking "consciencious objector" status so as to not have to serve in the military with openly gay service members. The premise is ludicrous because, if taken to its logical conclusion, these Christianists will be claiming that based on their interpretation of the Bible, they cannot serve along side blacks, Muslims, Hindus, non-Christians, and others who do not live in accordance with their exclusionary religious bigotry. Perhaps a proper response would be to place such Christianists in segregated units which could be left to their own devices if attacked by enemy combatants. The New York Times has a piece on this latest Christianist bullshit. Here are some highlights:
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Ms. McNeil got a hot-line call that raised a new issue: the caller said he considered homosexuality an abomination and wanted to be a conscientious objector because he could not serve in the military alongside gay soldiers.
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“I told him I wasn’t trying to criticize, but he was already serving with gays, since there’s lots of gays in the military now,” said Ms. McNeil, the executive director of the Center on Conscience & War, a nonprofit group that supports conscientious objectors. “He said, ‘Yes, but now if they come out, they can be forced out. But if homosexuality is actually allowed, I will be housed with somebody who’s sexually attracted to me.’ ”
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In the “don’t ask, don’t tell” cases, Ms. McNeil concluded that there was no legal basis for a conscientious objector claim.
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The legal standard, she said, is that the person must be conscientiously opposed to participating in war in any form, based on a sincerely held religious, moral or ethical belief. And the person must have had a change of heart since joining the military, when the person signed a form saying he or she was not a conscientious objector and did not intend to become one.
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“In the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation, they’re not opposed to participating in war, they’re opposed to who they’re participating with,” Ms. McNeil said.
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Like Ms. McNeil, Mr. Jolly said opposition to homosexuality would not be a valid ground for a conscientious objector discharge, whatever happens with “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
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“It’s like when blacks and whites were integrated in the armed services,” he said. “They have to learn to live together.”
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Believe me, I am not anti-religion - or perhaps more specifically organized religion per se. However, on the other hand, since the beginning of time, literally millions of innocent people have murdered and otherwise died because religion and its toxic fruits. Would the world really be a worse place if religion did not exists? One does have to wonder.

Sunday Male Male Beauty

Neo-Nazi Leading Anti-Immigrant Patrols in Arizona

The putrid swamp that is now the Republican Party just seems to be getting nastier and nastier. Jumping in to enforce Arizona's new GOP backed immigration law - which is supported by whack job Virginia attorney General Ken Cuccinelli - are the neo-Nazis. Yep, that segment of society is apparently becoming a part of the GOP base along with the racist Tea Party crowd. The rest of the world must be looking at this country and saying to themselves WTF is going on over there? Imagine what it must be like to be a third or fourth generation American citizen of Hispanic descent in Arizona now. Leading the Neo-Nazi intervention is Jason "J.T." Ready (pictured above) who to me is down right scary. In fact a lot scarier than some Mexicans merely trying to enter the USA to find a better life. NOTE: Ready and his cohorts are NOT gay friendly either. The Arizona Times Union and Time Magazine both look at this frightening and dangerous development. Here are highlights from the Times Union:
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Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.
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Jason "J.T." Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants.
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But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."
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"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said. "This is what our founding fathers did." . . .
He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.
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"These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."
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Ready said he's planning patrols throughout the summer. "If they don't want my people out there, then there's an easy way to send us home: Secure the border," he said. "We'll put our guns back on the shelf, and that'll be the end of that."
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I don't think I am going to be visiting Arizona any time soon with freaks like Ready on the loose and determining who should have the right to be a citizen.

Paraguay Next To Consider Gay Marriage?

It seems that the tide of equality may sweep South America before the USA joins the 21st century, accepts modern scientific knowledge on sexual orientation, and forces religious based anti-gay bigotry out of the nation's civil laws. With Argentina having just approved same sex civil marriage, Paraguay, is moving to bring up passage of same sex marriage in that country. Meanwhile, Uruguay, Argentina's neighbor just across the Río de la Plata is already progressive and has civil union laws already in place - P.S. and is gorgeous to boot (see the photo above). Not surprisingly, the gay-hating and woman-hating Catholic Church has announced that it will oppose the contemplated legislation. Equally embarrassing to the USA is the fact that Chile is moving to consider a civil unions law. Unfortunately, the knuckle draggers continue to hold sway in far too much of the USA - Virginia being one such backwater. The irony is that both Paraguay and Uruguay are little known to most in the USA - which falsely holds itself up as a beacon of freedom - and I suspect many Christianists and self-anointed Uber-American patriots could not locate either country on a map), Here are highlights from On Top Magazine on the developments in Paraguay:
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Gay activists in Paraguay say they'll legalize gay marriage next.
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The gay rights group SOMOSGAY (we are gay) tweeted celebratory messages Thursday to Argentina for becoming the first nation in Latin America to legalize gay marriage, and then went on to say they'll lobby for passage of a gay marriage bill in October.
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Moved by its neighbor's decision, Paraguayan lawmakers Thursday appeared on television to discuss gay marriage. Senator Alfredo Jaeggli said he favored the institution in an appearance on Asuncion-based television Paravision.
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The Roman Catholic Church, to which 89% of the population claims allegiance, has already announced they'll campaign against the law. “We are going to put out an intense educational campaign on Christian values, to avoid the law of marriage between people of the same sex that was approved in Argentina from coming to Paraguay,” Bishop Adalberto Martinez of San Pedro told La Nacion.
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The Catholic Church would seem better served weeding out sexual predator priests and honestly dealing with sex abuse victims as opposed to intruding into the civil laws - in Paraguay and everywhere else in the world.

Christianist Bat Sh*tery in Norfolk School

I never cease to be amazed at the manner in which Christianists - who always always depict themselves as victims of discrimination - ride rough shod over the rights of others. They claim that they should have the right to raise their children according to their religious beliefs but never seem inclined to afford other parents the same courtesy. An example of this insanity is a Norfolk, Virginia, teacher who has resigned (before she was fired) for anointing students with "holy oil" in a religious ritual. This follows the distribution of fetus dolls by an anti-abortion staff in another Norfolk school earlier in the year. The latest incident took place at Jacox Elementary School. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:
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A Jacox Elementary teacher who anointed students with "holy oil" in the classroom has resigned. School officials say she may have performed inappropriate religious practices during her three years with the division.
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The fifth-grade teacher is the second educator this year to be investigated for inappropriate religious activities.

Earlier this year, the division conducted an investigation at Oakwood Elementary after teachers told the state that their principal had led staff and students in prayer prior to Standards of Learning testing. Teachers also said they felt pressured by the principal, Sheila Tillett Holas, to attend prayer or Bible sessions before school.
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At Jacox, a parent complained in early June about the teacher's religious actions, according to a memo sent to the School Board on Wednesday. The memo was obtained by The Virginian-Pilot in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed July 1.
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[State] guidelines bar teachers from leading students in devotional activities during classes or school-sponsored activities. Teachers also cannot encourage students to participate with them in religious activity before or after school.

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Sadly, a number of comments on left on the Pilot article indicate that a number of the loonies in our community see nothing wrong with a Christianist inflicting their views on other citizens and/or their children. I hate to say it, but with Christianists, it is always about them - they are the ones who want special rights.