by Melanie Nathan,  San Francisco:
Three of America’s leading LGBT cruise companies announced a joint fund to raise money for disaster relief in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.  Olivia Cruises, the all lesbian cruise and vacation company, owned by Judy Dulgacz and Rachel Wahba, is amongst the three who have joined forces.

Dlugacz, President and founder of Olivia Companies, a lesbian-oriented vacation company, commented that “so many of our passengers have been touched by the destruction and poverty in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. It is important that as LGBT Americans, we come together to show our community’s solidarity and support for those living through this unimaginable disaster.”

Rachel Wahba told Lezgetreal that Olivia has a history of helping in disasters mentioning the time when she and Judy visited a Club Med in Mexico on an Olivia vacation, soon after a hurricane had caused devastation.   The guests arrived after the hurricane and raised a lot of money which was matched by a local bank.

American Red Cross Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Floyd W. Pitts stated “We are thrilled with this partnership with the LGBT community and we are delighted to be working with organizations which take such a strong interest in humanitarian response”.

The other cruise groups involved include Atlantis and RSVP cruises (a subsidiary of Atlantis), has also joined the effort.

According to PR-USA.dot.net.  Atlantis/RSVP have pledged $15,000 in matching contributions, Olivia has pledged an additional $7,500 for a total of $22,500. Olivia is also offering a limited number of free cruises to those who contribute $7,500 or more. They are urging all LGBT individuals and organizations to contribute and provide matching funds when possible. To contribute to the fund, visit: http://american.redcross.org/LGBT-pub

“Olivia was created to serve a lesbian market that ranges from women who must live quietly in suburbia, to women who have the freedom to walk the streets holding hands. I am extremely blessed to have been part of this amazing experience. When the company launched 35 years ago, I never dreamed Olivia would become the company that it is today,” says Judy Dlugacz, President and Founder of Olivia.

Olivia’s has featured headliners such as Melissa Etheridge, kd lang, Heart and The Indigo Girls. Sports stars (Sheryl Swoops, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Rosie Jones, Diana Nyad) and comedians (Margaret Cho, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin) are no stranger to Olivia, either. Olivia also has amazing house entertainers—fantastic singers, comedians and other performers who have become part of the Olivia family.

Olivia has also recently rolled out its Sisters at Sea™ and Sisters at Play™ programs, which are designed for lesbians of color and their friends and provide special programming and activities onboard or at the resort. Olivia also has a solos/singles program so women traveling solo can meet up for meals, excursions and special parties and activities designed just for them.

In addition, Olivia has a strong online presence in the lesbian community, and Olivia.com boasts a vibrant community of women from around the world. Olivia.com was designed with the needs of the lesbian market in mind, and enables lesbians of all ages, cultures and passions to connect online. The site allows women to network, find out about Olivia and its lesbian-friendly partners, as well as plan their next trips. Olivia seeks to create memorable community experiences and Olivia.com is an extension of that mission.

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Melanie Nathan LGBT ADvocate /Activist

 by Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com

01/14/2010-by Natasia Langfelder

 Well ladies, it was only a matter of time. The Daily Mail is reporting that a 47 second scene featuring Lohan and a “mystery” man is being shopped around LA.  It is said that the man is a waiter at a Carl’s Jr. chain and that he or his camp will eventually sell the tape offshore, rendering Lohan powerless to stop it’s release.

I know Lindsay is a hot mess, but I feel bad for her. I really do. She shouldn’t have been stupid enough to make sex tape and it’s possible that at this point in time she wants it to be released so she can stay in the public eye.  Even if this is something she thinks she wants, in the end it will only humiliate her and cause her to spiral further out of control. If this tape really is being released without her consent, then that is unequivocally wrong and there should be ways to better protect women’s privacy.

 Let’s hope the tape doesn’t make it offshore. I don’t think that any of us are rooting for Lindsay to end up like Casey Johnson.

Image by Aleksandr Slyadnev via Flickr

Hey Lezzies, Welcome back to “Ask A Femme.” I’m Natasia and I will be dishing out advice on love, dating, relationships, friendship, career, family and fashion issues. Are your friends tired of trying to come up with the solutions to your problems? Are your friends the problem? Did your mom surprise you with a date with the nice guy at her office? I’m here to help!

Dear Femme,

I’m 23 but I look like I’m no older then 15. Cause of my looks I have trouble attracting older women. I don’t wear makeup and I don’t want to change my appearance for anyone. I like myself and the way I look. Have any advice?

Not Jail Bait!

Hi NJB,

Thanks for writing in! I’m glad that you have confidence in yourself. I would never tell anyone to wear make-up or to change themselves to conform to our society’s definition of feminine. However, I get the sense from your email that you are holding yourself back a little. If you want to get the message across to women that you are of age, some kind of change will have to be made on your end.

Instead of changing your style, why don’t you try upgrading your style? If you love t-shirts, go for ones with a more vintage theme or sexier cut.  Victoria Secret has some great stretchy tanks and tees that look sexy and comfortable. If you love jeans, go for a darker wash and avoid embellishments like butterflies and flowers. Also, avoid clothing in bright, primary colors, those will make you look even younger. Have fun with it! Good Luck, NJB. I hope this helps and keep in touch.  

Dear Femme, 

I’m an Asian lesbian in my 30’s and I’ve been single for almost a year. I can’t seem to find that special woman who I feel physically and emotionally attracted too and who feels the same about me. I was always in a relationship in my 20’s and felt the need to be intimate with someone but in my 30’s. I no longer need to fullfill that sexual need. I also find it harder as I get older to find a partner. I moved to another state for a partner I trusted. But she left me for a man who was her best friend and whom I also believed was my friend. I believe lesbian relationships don’t last and have begun to feel jaded. I don’t like to feel lonely and hate sleeping alone but can’t seem to find a woman that I can feel intimate attracted too and safe with. Please help, thanks.

Azn

Hi Azn,

Thanks for writing in! There is a lot going on here. You have had a bad experience and I’m sorry for that. You placed your trust in the wrong person, changed your life for her and she betrayed you and it sucks. But you need to move on. Being single for a year isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you, it’s not even that long to be single! It seems as though you have already starting thinking about your internal needs and what you want from a partner. I’m going to suggest that you continue to learn about yourself and worry less about not having a partner. Put finding love on hold for a little while, go out and have fun. Don’t stay home and feel sorry for yourself, join a gym, take cooking or art classes, drink your coffee at a café instead of at home. While you are out doing things and learning to love being alone, the right woman will come along. But you won’t meet her if you are at home hiding under the covers and crying over someone who didn’t deserve you.  

Also, you should keep in mind that just because your former love left you for a man, not all women will do that to you. Lesbian relationships change and there is as much drama, betrayal, love, affection and longevity as there is in any relationship, gay or straight. Good Luck, Azn. I hope this helps and keep in touch.  

Have a question for me? Email askafemme@yahoo.com

01/13/2010-by Natasia Langfelder

 Logo, the only television channel aimed specifically at the LGBT community, is launching four new series for 2010. These include “The Robert Verdi Show starring Robert Verdi”, “RuPaul’s Drag U”, “The Arrangement” and “Kept.”

 With the possible exception of “The Arrangement,” which focuses on florists showcasing their talents in a traditional elimination style reality competition, all the new series are focused around gay men, not women. “Kept” follows in the footsteps of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” series, with a cast of gay men who are supported by their more financially solvent husbands. RuPaul’s Drag U teaches everyday straight women to release their “inner diva.” As a lesbian, I have no interest in seeing pathetic straight women try to follow the advice of drag queens in order to make themselves more conventionally attractive to straight men. Really Logo?

The most readily available explanation for the lack of picking up a new show that includes the L in LGBT is that gay men outnumber gay women and Logo’s best chance of building up an audience and making money for their sponsors is to focus on their male audience. However, it is worthwhile to take note of the noticeable lack of women in the new shows they are producing.

 There is some good news, Logo has also ordered new episodes of “The Big Gay Sketch Show,” which address the entire LBGT community and is produced by Rosie O’Donnell as well as the popular series “Exes and Ohs,” which is the first scripted series about lesbians on basic cable. The series is returning to the air after an extended hiatus.    

The tourism industry has suffered greatly since the recession hit. Many Americans are tightening their belts and lavish vacations are generally one of the first luxury items to go. However, NY1, New York City’s 24 hour news channel, is reporting that the LGBT community is the only market that is actually growing in the tourism sector.

“Data show that a gay couple spends $7,000 on a week’s trip, about $2,000 more than their heterosexual counterparts.”

NY1 goes onto report that the LGBT community is more likely to look for gay tolerant cities and high end spa facilities, restaurants and a thriving nightlife. It seems that the largest deterrent is places that have historically displayed anti-gay tendencies, such as Jamaica.

If peace and love towards one’s fellow man won’t help these countries fix their attitude towards gays, maybe the sagging economy will.

http://www.ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/top_stories/111585/market-for-lgbt-travel-still-grows

12/22/09-by Paula Brooks
China’s first government-backed gay bar finally opened its doors this weekend in the tourist city of Dali in southwestern Yunnan Province, after a nearly three week delay.

Set up by a local anti-AIDS activist, Dr. Zhang Jianboto, with funding from Dali’s Health Bureau, as a way to attract gay men and then use it to distribute information on AIDS/HIV prevention, the bar was originally scheduled to open on December 1,World AIDS Day, however, Zhang had to delay the opening to protect the privacy of the volunteers and customers after the news of the bar opening attracted intensive media coverage throughout China.

More than 60 people, mostly gay men, attended the ceremony Saturday. Customers were given condoms free of charge.

While homosexuality has been documented in China since ancient times, it is still a sensitive subject in China. During the days of Mao’s Cultural Revolution gays were routinely arrested as “hooligans,” and sent off for “re-education.” Up to 1997 gay sex was illegal in China. Additionally, until 2001 the Chinese Governments Classification of Mental Disorders also considered homosexuality a form of mental illnesses.

Although in larger Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, gay clubs, bars, tea houses, saunas, and support centers are becoming more widespread, prejudice from the justice system and harassment from police, including detention and arrest nonetheless still occur, so most Chinese LGBT’s find it difficult to come out publicly.

Chinese LGBT’s also face societal and family pressures caused by the government’s one-child policy, which makes parents, rely on their only child to marry and produce grandchildren. All major religions in China also have some sort of codex, which have traditionally been interpreted as being against exclusive homosexuality when it interferes with continuation of the family lineage. So many marry and stay closeted.

China’s Ministry of Health recently admitted the country has an AIDS problem and estimates that China will have 560,000 to 920,000 living HIV carriers, with 97,000 to 112,000 AIDS patients by the end of 2009. The nations health minister also said sexual transmission has become the major cause of infection, accounting for more than 70 percent of all newly detected HIV/AIDS cases, and sexual transmission among gay men accounted for 32 percent.

According to China’s official newspaper, the China Daily, Dr. Zhang said he hopes that the bar can provide a platform to educate gay men about AIDS and would like to see the bar become a public gathering place for gay men, especially those from rural villages,who used to gather in a patch of woods near Dali.

“Starting from December 20, the bar will open nine hours every day, from 3 pm to 12 pm,” he said.

The minimum charge at the bar is a bottle of Coca Cola at 5 yuan (about .75 cents US), and tea and some snacks are free, he said.

“The charges are just for the need of bar operation, and we are not aiming for profits. Customers need not worry about that,” he added… (via China Daily )

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12/21/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
When the Republicans made it their mission to rile up as much of the anti-government, anti-Democrat, anti-reform, racist, sexist, bigoted, anti-Semitic groups as possible in this country in order to return to power, they made one thing clear with regards to the health care reform- if President Obama did not pass anything, they would declare his Presidency deader than President Clinton’s supposedly was after his health care debacle. They obstructed, threw fits, claimed that Obama was more partisan than Clinton (even though he repeatedly reached out to them), and did everything including apparently calling for either the death or illness of Senator Robert Byrd in order to make absolutely sure that health care reform would pass beyond the century mark for debate. In large part, because of that, the debate did not go Progressive’s way. Obama was intent upon passing something- anything, and it did not matter whether or not that bill matched his campaign promises or if it was even somewhere near protecting people from the health insurance companies. It was, as one Huffington Post headline read, a gift wrapped up for the lobbyists.

Vermont has already started negotiations on setting up a single payer system in the coming years. Doing so would likely reduce the amount of money that Vermont has to pay for health insurance for its residents. It may even attract businesses who would be happier to pay taxes to the state rather than hand over more and more money to the health insurance companies. It may entice people to move to the state in order to get health insurance. The debate has yet to begin and the public records on the pros and cons of the single payer system are scarce and hard to say with any accuracy. More Vermonters support single payer than do any other system.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment which would have created a single payer Medicare For All system in the United States. Rather than let it come up for a vote, Senator Tom Coburn forced a read of the whole amendment in an attempt to slow the debate down to a crawl. Senator Sanders was, ultimately, forced to withdraw the amendment. Of course, Senator Coburn was not there when Senator Sanders went on to deliver a sternly worded and heated denouncement of the Republican’s decision to throw a fit over the way in which democracy works. The Republicans have done everything they can to undermine democracy by stalling legislation, demanding full readings, and refusing to negotiate no matter what.

Jane Hamshir at Fire Dog Lake has posted a compilation of why it is time to kill the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

  O K K I E S (ah-keez’) n.: plural of Okkie, familiar form of Oscar   – When I first arrived in New York City from South Africa, albeit an attorney , my foreign-ness made finding work near impossible.  I moved to Los Angeles and soon found myself running around the City with one of Los Angeles’ most well known celebrity stylists.  As it happens Lauren Landau Hines is my first cousin and I could not be more proud of her achievements.  She scooped me in her protective arms and I was able to help her with Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, working specifically with the late great Cyd Charrise who had a cameo in one of the music videos as well as a few other exciting projects.  Lauren has since honed her skills to fill a gap (no pun intended) -  she found that there was no loose comfortable  stylish clothes for boys.

Although accomplished, Lauren is probably the single most modest person one could meet, never touting her  ‘own horn’ and it’s a big one that should be blasted loudly. There is barely an issue of People, US, OK and other tabloids that does not show a celebrity child wearing one of Lauren’s simple and recognizable  OKKIE designs.  Now Lauren tells her career story in her own words:-

The thread that repeatedly weaves its way through my life and career is, well, literally thread. Actually, it’s the cut, color and fabrication of clothing that are among my most important memories and, later, my influences.

Born in South Africa, I attended a conservative elementary school that required me to wear uniform dress – a blazer, button-down shirt, skirt, hat and tie. Freedom came at the end of the day and on weekends when I donned my favorite outfit: bright yellow cropped palazzo pants paired with a tank top. I can picture the pants clearly; I remember how they felt against my body.  

At 14, my family and I immigrated to Los Angeles, where in High School, freed from a dress code, clothing was a means of self-expression. I used my mom’s idle sewing machine to make my own clothes that broadcast my membership in the artsy crowd. I was really into upholstery fabric in high school, I made an upholstery fabric pajama outfit with gold buttons that I lived in.

After high school, I moved to New York City to attend design school. Soon my school internship turned into a full-time job: I worked as a freelance editorial stylist for Interview, Details and Face, the fashion-forward magazines of the day. My work was heavily influenced by the aesthetic of my favorite designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, whose clothing lines continue to inspire. These Japanese designers effortlessly reduce fashion to simple sophistication; it is amazing how they delineate colors using a monochromatic color palette. And their designs artfully balance practicality with playfulness, seriousness with humor. Yet their clothes don’t overwhelm, instead they enable the wearer to express his or her own personality. 

In 1987 I returned to LA to broaden my freelance stylist and costume designer career. I created costumes for music videos, concert tours and album covers, adding Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones and Sting, to my client list. I also collaborated with television and print-ad directors styling and designing costumes for A-List commercial accounts such as Coke, Nike and Visa/MasterCard.

In 2001 I added motherhood to my resume with the birth of Hugo and, later, Oscar – nicknamed Okkie by his big brother. Watching my two young, constantly moving boys was easier than finding boy-appropriate clothing. At that time, girls had many fashion choices, boys much fewer. I struggled to find comfortable, easy-care, hip boys’ wear. Choices seemed locked into a few silhouettes merchandised in standard denims, fleeces and twills, in boy-accepted primary colors.

It was in the limited boys’ wear market that I saw opportunity. In 2005, as a natural next-step in my 20 years experience in the fashion industry, I designed and introduced OKKIES, a line of boys’ pants. With four pant silhouettes merchandised in a variety of fashion-forward colorations and menswear patterns, OKKIES debuted in five stores its first season. By fall 2006, I was designated best new designer by the online children’s clothing expert jamesgirone.com. In October 2008, Earnshaw’s national retail survey named OKKIES one of the top three best-designed collections in the boys’ wear industry. 

I am very excited to introduce my newest lifestyle-designed collection: OKKIES ‘girl’, a full line of feminine, but not frilly, interpretations of OKKIES’ best-selling silhouettes, for fall, 2009.

OKKIES girls’ wear Fall 2009 line features 16 styles in a full line silhouettes – from pants to shirts, dresses to leggings, sweaters, jackets and beanies – for size 3 months to 12 years. OKKIES boys’ wear Fall 2009 line features 19 styles – from pants to shirts, sweaters and hoodies, to beanies also for sizes 3 months to 12 years.

I have created OKKIES as a lifestyle approach to clothing – a lifestyle of ease of wear, clothing that allows them to move, stretch, run, climb and relax without restriction. For parents, that lifestyle is about comfort and more. It’s about clothes that are high-quality; that are wash-and-wear; that are appropriate for a full day of activity, going from a play date to dinner with grandma; that reflect an awareness and appreciation of fashion trends without being fussy or over done; that don’t express ‘generic kid’ but allows an individual’s personality to shine.

Up until now OKKIES have been available in over 500 specialty stores throughout the country, but moving forward, we will be offering our lifestyle approach to clothing directly to our customers on our website.

 Enjoy! go to http://okkies.com/information.php/about-i-1     You can take advantage of the online 48 hour sale – great Holiday Gifts

Posted by Melanie Nathan

 Follow my Twittering  @oblogdeeoblogda

Posted By Melanie Nathan
I found this post on Las Vegas Craigslist, after receiving an alert from a connection on LinkedIn.  Thought I would post here so that we can all be on the alert.  LGR and its writer’s are not making these allegations and we are merely quoting from a Craigslist Post,  

A local Las Vegas company announced today that they had been ripped off by two grifters from not just out of town but from out of the country.

Giuliano Celano and his partner in crime Ellen Woo (who also goes by various aliases including: Ellen Veyer, Ellen Wu, Juling Woo, Juling Veyer, Juling Wu) claimed to have a manufacturing plant in China that makes the “Shakti Mat” — as seen on Google and Ebay. Turns out the couple not only have no ethics or integrity but not a dime to their names. They travel from Las Vegas to New York City to Miami trying to find people who will “fund them” for their business. They are allegedly in China now. The Las Vegas company DID NOT front any money but spent time building a plan for the two for a business venture.

This information is sent as a warning to ANY local business here in Nevada or anywhere around the world. Giuliano Celano and Ellen Veyer or whatever name she is using cannot and should not be trusted as they welch on written contracts.

 

Senator Leahy and Melanie Nathan 6/3/09

By Melanie Nathan:- When I met Senator Leahy, I was touched by his compassion, his sensitivity and his veracity. Most of all he is a champion for equality and as a supporter of UAFA, and has done much for our LGBT binational immigration.   I would like to support Senator Leahy in his endeavors, first and foremost because he has my trust and faith.

On Tuesday Senator Leahy took to the Senate floor and formally filed an amendment to repeal the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies and it has already 18 co-sponsors signed on.

In the senator’s words, “I look forward to debating this critical measure during our deliberations on the broader health care reform bill. After all, to bring insurance costs down, we’ve got to introduce more competition in the marketplace — and my amendment will do just that.”

More Senators ought to join to get this critical amendment passed. 

Click here to forward an email to your Senators now — and urge them to support our amendment to repeal the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies!

I have not read the amendment but the Senator assures that amendment will introduce antitrust oversight to the health insurance industry, ruling out of bounds egregious anti-competitive conduct like the currently activated and detrimental price fixing loophole which  raises our health costs.  

There will be no real Health Care reform until, inter alia, the health insurance industry is forced to compete on a level playing field just like every other business in America, large and small. In all fairness, consumers must know that the price they’re being quoted is a concomitant of a free and fair marketplace.

The senator in a letter to his on-line community implored our support “That’s why this amendment repealing the health insurance industry’s antitrust exemption is so important — but I need your help, right now, to get it passed.” Call your representatives and Senators to ensure they support the Bill and this critical principle.

 From the Mediation desk of Melanie Nathan:     Recently in my mediation practice I have had a spate of divorce cases where the spouses (partners)  have been at odds about how to deal with underwater real estate.  When dividing community property real estate, the purpose of the mediator is to assist the parties in  dividing the asset, either through a sale of the property, a buyout by one spouse of fifty percent of the community property equity interest;  and possibly a continuing partnership in the property.  This may also apply where there is no community property and the parties jointly own the property.

 Since the recession and housing bust, there has been an increasing amount of homes either about to be foreclosed or upside down. Often both or one party may still be feeding community or post separation income into  an unviable  property.    These situations may be remedied by short sales, loan modification, divorce settlements providing inter spousal transfers and indemnifications for debt assumed, or simply by walking away.

This difficult situation adds to the stress of divorce, especially if the parties are not in tandem as to the fate of the property.   Some may want to hold on to the property in the hope of a future upside,  and whomever remains on must be prepared to take responsibility for their share of the holding costs, such as mortgage payments, property tax, maintenance costs and insurance.  If one party decides to hold on, there is no likelihood of the other receiving any cash settlement  for an upside down property, regardless of what went into the property or the dream of a future upside.   

 I have had cases where one spouse holds the property, like the sword of Damocles, over the head of the other, asserting they will be stuck with poor credit, unable to find rental accommodation, in legal trouble, creating fear resulting in the threatened party holding on for longer than necessary.   

 This is where a neutral mediator and/or advice of a consulting attorney is imperative.  The neutral can help the party step out of the dream into reality.  The neutral provides a safe and peaceful environment for joint exploration of the remedies and can facilitate a productive discussion, helping the parties crunch numbers,  call in other  professionals such as CPA or Mortgage expert to assist with the analysis.  

Fear, misunderstanding  and false senses of security ought not stand in the way of moving forward. It is important to pursue the evolving legal remedies.   These cases need to be mediated rather than litigated. Positioning and pos toward resolving all the issues. Using separate attorneys can be counter- productive and may result in wasted precious time, while throwing good after bad. A party can always have a separate consulting attorney on the side.  

 With all this in mind I was delighted to come across an article by Kenneth R. Harney, November 29, 2009, in the LA times: “Professor advises underwater homeowners to walk away from mortgages; Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, says that it’s in the homeowners’ best financial interest to stiff their lenders and that it’s not immoral to do so.” … read on…   ( A MUST READ!)

“Go ahead. Break the chains. Stop paying on your mortgage if you owe more than the house is worth. And most important: Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t think you’re doing something morally wrong.

That’s the incendiary core message of a new academic paper by Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, titled “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis.”

White contends that far more of the estimated 15 million U.S. homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages should stiff their lenders and take a hike.”  

 This Article, a breathe of fair air, served to endorse my sentiment which I have not hesitated to express in mediation. These are unusual times.  Although the facts of each case may seem similar, they all have a distinctive circumstance and the facts must be explored in detail before a strategy is employed. The one piece of generic advice that I can impart is that one spouse should not be held hostage by the other to a hope or dream about the  future of the property, or to any obligation.  Divorce provides a unique opportunity to walk away from the property and leave it in the hands of the Party who does not want to give it up.  The mediator can help draft documents to reflect such an undertaking by one, documenting the discussion that led to the decision.      The change in spousal relationship can have an impact on negotiations with mortgage lenders and indemnities can be established between spouses for an element of protection if the lender pursues the non-owner spouse in the future.  Also of course a plan can be made for both to walk away. 

 Save your money,  and muster up six months of rent instead of paying it into the property. If you have bad credit and need to rent a property you can offer a few months of advance rental.  However BUYER BEWARE – when you pay rental ahead- be sure that the home you are renting is not about to be foreclosed upon as you may find yourself the victim of the Landlord’s inability to pay his/her mortgage.  

 I believe that walking away from an expensive dream opens the door for an inexpensive reality and good nights of sleep. 

MELANIE NATHAN 
nathan@privatecourts.com
www.privatecourts.com
www.divorcemediators.us

 By Melanie Nathan The billboard, located at 4855 Miller Road, shows two cartoonish images of Obama wearing a Muslim turban and reads “PRESIDENT or JIHAD?” It also says “BIRTH CERTIFICATE – PROVE IT!” alluding to the conspiracy theory which claims Barack Obama was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii, which would disqualify him for the office of President.  The words “WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD!” appear on the bottom of the billboard. The sign belongs to a sleazy looking bloke (sorry my judgment)  used car dealer who describes his business as a “car dealership.”

“Since Fort Hood, I’ve had it,” owner Phil Wolf, displaying an educated command of the English language, told FOX 31 News Friday. “You can’t suggest things. You can’t profile. You gotta call a spade a spade.”    ”Everything I have read about Mr. Obama points right to the fact that he is a Muslim. And that is the agenda of what Muslim is all about. It’s about anti-American, it’s about anti-Christianity,” Wolf said.  (I call that treason talk, Mr. Wolfe not freedom of speech – !) 

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the sign, as did AM760 radio host David Sirota, who discussed the sign and interviewed Wolf on his program Friday morning. “It’s out of control,” Sirota said. “This conservative hatred of Barack Obama is out of contol, and this brings together all those strands of it: the racism, the anti-Muslim fervor. It’s one thing to criticize the president on health care, or Wall Street reform, or immigration. But this is outrageous. And I think it’s a fair question to ask why these questions about religion and ancestry are being directed so viciously at the first African-American President of the United States.” 

 “Are you a racist Wolf?” asked Ed Schultz on his ED SHOW, MSNBC TV?  “I am not,” answered Wolf.  I was unclear as to why Ed Schultz gave this apology of an American the time of day.  Did Ed think he would get a retraction from him? Or an explanation that made any sense?    Anyway I was much relieved to hear Mr. Schultz speaking to a woman named Pat on his radio show the next morning, and was proud of her resilience and her courage. 

 A  small group of dedicated progressive women, led by PAT have been protesting at the Wolf car lot since last Friday. They are organizing a big protest for Saturday Nov 28, starting at 10 am (“until we run out of volunteers to carry signs”).  This will probably go for at least 3-4 hours if the ladies’ past efforts are any guide. An internet  notice said “Would be great if a lot of men showed up, this time too.”

On the Ed morning show, she explained how a few women had pulled together and protested at the site of the billboard in question.  They braved the insults of a group of male bullies who went scurrying the moment men arrived to stand on the side of the women.  The minute the good men left the little cowardly bullies would reappear with their insults and threats. 

I thought Pat was amazing – a brave hero- standing before a group of adversaries for hours and enduring the insults.   She insists on continuing her protest and will be out there tomorrow with a big request for many more to join her side and that of the progressive women who show no fear.   

 The  ADL issued a statement calling the billboard an exploitation of the Ft. Hood shootings that is “divisive and offensive, and perpetuates hateful and harmful stereotypes about Muslims”, prominent conservatives have been silent thus far. “That could suggest that conservative leaders are afraid to confront the extreme fringe of their base,” Sirota said. “Or it suggests they actually condone this message. Either way, it’s disturbing.”

I ASK YOU – Help these wonderful progressive women protest the Racist Anti-Obama Billboard in Wheatridge Sat Nov 28 @ 10:00 AM (Visibility / Sign Waving)  -    They are getting some flack from the dealership. Having some men with them could help. The protesters and the sign are just 50 feet from I-70 Westbound so the protest has the potential to be seen by hundreds of thousands of Black Friday-Christmas Shoppers driving by on Saturday.  

Their message is – Dust off your old Anti-Iraq War signs, impeach, Stop Torture, whatever… and bring them Saturday. Show the public what Wolf is so proud of.  Help change the discussion back to the crimes of the Bush Administration, The protest is at Wolf interstate Leasing and Sales Location: 4855 Miller St Wheat Ridge, CO 80033  Map from the Wolf Website .   http://wolfwheatridge.com/index.asp?s=7772

To contact the organizer of the event directly email Saturday, November 28 from 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM patdunn4@comcast.net 

Hope this post gets a few over there to help/.  Have a Great Weekend and goodluck to you brave ones who speak for us all….

UPDATE Apparently Wolf had erected the Billboard in response to a challenge by a Denver  radio host Peter Boyles, who hosts the top-rated morning program on Denver’s KHOW-AM, Wolf who owns multi State car lots is planning on erecting more Billboards across the Country.

My thoughts: Where does one draw the line? While freedom of speech serves our essence as a nation, this language is deplorable both in intent and effect. We are a Country at War.  The proponents of this language are in essence committing a subversive and treasonous act when one considers all the circumstances. They accuse the President of the United States as being on the side of the enemy during a time of war? I would never have imagined seeing anything like this.  Its not mere lack of decorum or common decency – it is a sign that racial hate is so intensely pervasive that it has the power to cause Americans to turn into traitors.  Speaking of our President in the fashion has the significant stench of siding with the enemy.

 Blogged by Melanie Nathan nathan@privatecourts.com 

11/27/09-by Paula Brooks
The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board in Sault Saint Marie, Ontario is catching flak over H1N1 vaccinations… not because it is giving them… or concerns that a batch of H1N1 swine flu vaccine was recalled after reports that the shots were leading to great number of severe allergic reactions…but because it sent students home with a vaccination consent form that included a line asking if the students, were transgender as well as male and female…

Last week, Ontario health officials expanded their H1N1 vaccination program to include elementary school children and adults over 65 with chronic health problems beginning Monday free of charge.

Sault Ste. Maries’ Algoma Public Health Unit, which issued the forms to the School District, indicated that the collection of information on other genders besides male and female in the Health Units jurisdiction was a requirement of the Ontario Ministry of Health.

However, Sault Ste. Marie Catholic School Trustee Kathleen Rosilius has taken issue with the consent forms and questioned the appropriateness of distributing the vaccination consent forms in Catholic schools, telling the conservative LifeSiteNews that the forms are, “agenda-driven, social-engineering.”

Unlike other health units in Canada that have experienced shortages of the H1N1 vaccine, a few small northern health units including Algoma, were initially provided proportionately more vaccine because of concerns about transportation and weather problems in that part of Canada, so the the rural Canadian health district decided to expand its vaccination program to other less than high risk groups.

On Wednesday however, the World Health Organization (WHO) and a pharmaceutical company warned the doctors in Canada not to use a batch of H1N1 swine flu vaccines after reports that the shots were leading to great number of severe allergic reactions…. There have been 24 confirmed cases of a type of severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis in Canadians who have received an H1N1 flu shot, including one person who died after getting vaccinated…

While elementary school students Canada have not been considered a high risk group, and it is not known if this Health District received the vaccines in question, children are highly susceptible to the H1N1 virus and it is well known that influenza will spread rapidly amongst elementary school students, then on to others including those who may be considered high risk, so vaccinating children contributes to reduce transmission to others….

So notwithstanding some Catholics getting their panties in a bunch over the consent form wording… all in all it is generally a pretty good idea to have your elementary school aged child vaccinated… at least it will be after the Canadian government health officials get it figured out why the vaccinations are killing people…

And as a gay mom… I would have to say that I would be far more concerned about the fact that vaccinations that are supposed to be keeping my children safe and well might not be doing that… instead of worrying the wording on a permission slip does not fit my view of the world.

Too bad doctors and scientist can’t come up way to make safe vaccines or a vaccination for bigotry and ignorance…

via Sault Ste. Marie Catholic School Board Using Gender-Confused H1N1 Vaccine Consent Form.

Photo via Kodomut on Flickr

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In  mid- 2009, MassEquality sent a survey to one individual in each of the 38,210 households on its mailing list to capture the participant sample possible,  providing the largest “snapshot” ever taken of the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.   Health data were collected through an online questionnaire developed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in consultation with the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, a think tank dedicated to LGBT issuesA follow‐up email went out halfway through the data collection period. The  online survey was completed by 1,598 individuals in a period just over one week, yielding a response rate of 4.2%. Among the findings:

 • Among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, the health of bisexual and transgender people is somewhat worse than their heterosexual and non-transgender counterparts, respectively.

• The health of lesbian, gay, people is comparable to that of heterosexual respondents. However, lesbians were less likely to have routine pap tests compared with their heterosexual female counterparts.

• Transgender persons had worse outcomes with respect to self‐reported health, disability status, depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, and lifetime violence victimization.

• Bisexual respondents how worse outcomes with respect to self‐reported health, disability status, suicide ideation, as well as lower rates of mammography for bisexual women compared with their heterosexual female counterparts.

• Legally married same‐sex couples were more likely to obtain health insurance through their spouse’s employer than non‐legally same sex couples.

 This research validates the research on other minority populations that associates stigma and other social determinants with poor health outcomes.  The health disparities faced by minority groups are all too common. Increasingly, there are more theories regarding the factors that lead to health disparities. Research increasingly points to a range of social inequities including income, access to health care or insurance, and housing as factors that impact everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender. However, there are theories specific to minority groups that add additional factors based on minority status.

 Recent changes, including marriage equality, may be helping to reduce disparities for lesbians and gay men, possibly by providing greater access to health insurance.  However, transgender persons still face major barriers with respect to employment nondiscrimination, public accommodations and general social acceptance. This report finds transgender persons reporting the highest level of health disparities.  See http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/commissioner/lgbt_health_report.pdf

One big hit is when it comes to  Gay Men and Women with Diabetes  -    Could the medical community be overlooking 2.5 million people who have diabetes?  Currently, 23.6 million children and adults in the United States, or 7.8 percent of the population, have diabetes. Although an estimated 17.9 million of them have been diagnosed, 5.7 million (nearly one quarter) are unaware that they have the disease.  If lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people comprise 10 percent of the U.S. population, then 10 percent of people with diabetes are part of the LGBT community-about 2.5 million people.  (Another reason to participate in the 2010 census.)

Lack of equality has always been a problem as we all know, but when it comes to specific stories we realize just how hard we must fight, because our lack of rights  detrimentaly impact  every aspect of our lives.  When Jim went to a local emergency room  for kidney stones, he experienced an episode of hypoglycemia. While he was trying to get a nurse’s attention to explain what was happening, his blood sugar sank to a dangerous 19 mg/dL and he began to have a seizure. The emergency staff rushed to raise his blood sugar and admit him to the intensive care unit, but no one bothered to tell his spouse, John, who was scared and confused.   Yet another example of the loneliness of marriage for a gay couple in the US.

“ Diabetes is a stress in any relationship and  when you combine that with the added stresses of life as a lesbian or a gay man-whether you are open about it or not-there is a great need for LGBT people with diabetes and the partners who support them to receive services and information geared to their unique needs, “  Said John from DANG Foundation.   

With the help available in the myriad of articles and unique content provided by  pre-eminent sites like the Diabetes Health Website,  and an increased awareness of one’s right to fight…. my message is fight for your rights and fight for your health…and fight for your health so you can fight for your rights.

Blog by Melanie Nathan

11/19/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
A recent study recommends that women start getting routine mammograms after the age of fifty. This has caused a great deal of uproar. Cynthia Nixon is a breast cancer survivor, and she is only forty three. However, it is not this recommendation that I want to discuss, but the lack of a particular recommendation that strikes me as odd. Why is there no recommendation for when men should get their breasts checked out?

Yes, men get breast cancer. Certainly men get it in smaller numbers than women do, but it is something that does happen. It even influenced an early episode of the series Family Guy where Louis Griffin discovers a lump in Peter’s breast. It turned out to be a fatty corpuscle, but, despite the humor of the episode, the reality is that men do get breast cancer. Yet, there is no guidelines on when a man should go into a doctor’s office to have his boobs pressed flat, folded and manipulated in order to find out if they have a lump in their breast. Alright, while a man getting a mammogram seems incredibly unlikely and even down right impossible, there is a serious lack of information and education regarding breast cancer in men.

Many people might find it hard to fathom the notion of men getting breast cancer, but there are 2000 confirmed cases of men getting it every year, and one in four of them die. Men are often more likely to be misdiagnosed with regards to breast cancer. Often times it is not caught until so late that it ends up being fatal. What is more, it may not be properly diagnosed even after it has hit the fatal stage. Breast cancer also changes as it spreads, which may make it harder to diagnose if not caught in the breast first. What it means is that, as understanding of the disease gets better, more men may be diagnosed with breast cancer per year than currently are.

It is a common institutional bias within both the political and medical establishment to view disorders and diseases as belonging to one group or another. With politicians it is an easy way of saying “hey, see, I support YOUR concerns” by throwing money into researching diseases and disorders that often strike many people outside the niche group. Within the medical establishment, it is a combination of different factors which make it appealing to simply box in disorders and diseases rather than investigate and educate as a whole.

It is this expediency, this institutional bias, which makes it all that much easier to throw the minority concerns under the train in order to get political results. It results in men dying of breast cancer, women dying of heart attacks, and straight men and women dying of AIDS related causes. It is an issue that comes up constantly, but is not often addressed or adequately resolved.

The John W. Nick Foundation has information regarding male breast cancer. As an additional note, not only is Kathleen Sebelius maintaining that women should still get their first mammogram at age 40, but many cancer physicians and societies as well.

11/19/09-by Paula Brooks
The Obama administration distanced itself Wednesday from new recommendations on breast cancer screening called for earlier this week by a federally appointed task force after concerns among women caused lawmakers of both sides of the isle to attack the study.

The new guidelines released this week by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force suggested that only women over 50 need to get routine mammograms as part of breast cancer screening and said the early screenings are causing excess biopsies, unnecessary anxiety and the discovery and treatment of tumors that would not cause problems if let alone. Many doctors and experts however object to these recommendations, and say the task force is sending conflicting messages to women about how they can prevent breast cancer.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (D-FLA), a survivor of breast cancer, said she was “very concerned” that the recommendations conflict with those of other authorities, like the American Cancer Society.

“At a time when we are working to reform our health care system to provide greater access to preventative care,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement, “these guidelines and the fact that they conflict with many of the recommendations from leading cancer organizations only adds to the confusion that so many women have when it comes to breast health.”

“I am concerned that women are being given differing messages about how to prevent breast cancer,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said. “In addition to getting my own mammogram each year, I have been involved in public awareness campaigns to encourage other women my age to do so. I understand that there were many independent scientists involved in making this decision, but that there are also many respected medical experts that are disagreeing with the recommendations. I plan to seek some answers here so that women are getting a uniform message about how to protect themselves.”

Republicans meanwhile pointed out that the recommendations illustrated the dangers of a government role in medical decision-making and they raised the boogey man of health care rationing for woman.

“This is the little toe in the edge of the water,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “This is where you start getting a bureaucrat between you and your physician.”

Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill acknowledged yesterday that the recommendations in the midst of negotiations over a health care overhaul were “not helpful,” and one staffer from Representative Tammy Baldwin’s (D- WIS) office told LGR that people over at the executive branch, “sometimes just don’t seem to be on the same page, with what is going on in congress or with their bosses.”

Secretary Of Health And Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, acknowledged in a statement that the recommendations, by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, had “caused a great deal of confusion and worry,” and emphasized that the task force “is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations” that neither “set federal policy” nor “determine what services are covered by the federal government.”

“The task force has presented some new evidence for consideration,” Sebelius added, “but our policies remain unchanged. Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action.”

However Sebelius did not say in her statement the government would not eventually embrace the recommendations from the task force, which is appointed by her department, and said only that “there has been debate in this country for years” about the proper age and interval for breast cancer screening.

Women in the United States have the highest incidence rates of breast cancer in the world. Breast cancer is the second-most common cancer (after skin cancer) and the second-most common cause of cancer death (after lung cancer).

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Ten days ago, the House passed the Stupak Amendment, which would be one of the biggest setbacks to women’s health and rights in recent decades; unless we stand together and stop it, this will provide license for our rights to be rolled back to where the right wing would have us. Do not think the backlash would stop at women’s issues. It will go every which way!

The Stupak Amendment is discriminatory, extreme, and just plain wrong. At Lez Get Real we have been reporting and commenting on the Stupak Amendment, and we are not letting up – why? Because it will take away health insurance coverage that women already have. This would be a huge step back for women’s health. Now this together with the suggestion by Government Task Force regarding Breast Cancer screening at age 50 as the new recommendation is simply unacceptable and worthy of a revolution for our health!!! The mere fact that they can think this up is disturbing to me….

We support Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) launch of a petition because women must not be denied access to safe and legal medical procedures. If you want to join : click here -Senator Boxer wrote her supporters and saying: “For decades, a very difficult and delicate compromise has held firm: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. But in a stunning turn of events, anti-choice House members passed the Stupak Amendment as part of the health care reform bill and shattered that compromise. The House amendment would tell women who participate in the new health insurance exchange that they can’t even use their own funds to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage. We need to be sure that all our voices are heard clearly on this issue.”
Boxer asks: “How can we tell women that they will lose coverage that they already have? How can we tell women that they can’t buy insurance coverage for a legal health care procedure, even if it’s paid for with their own money?”

 SIGN THE PETITION and then visit our site in the next few days for my personal story on how Breast Cancer Screening in my forties saved my life…   

Blogged by: Melanie Nathan, nathan@privatecourts.com : Picture – Credit to Artist Benny Ovid, Tel Aviv, Israel – Thanks to  Dorit Israel, from her Personal Art Collection.

 By Melanie Nathan -  If there is one thing to come out of healthcare reform’s ultimate house bill, is the need for the Democrats to take lessons in the “Lockstep Tango” and who would be better teachers than the experts on the other side of the aisle.

History nonetheless -as an unusually emotional Nancy Pelosi graced the gavel on a 220-215 House Vote – to cheers and tears and amidst a barage of defections.   I invite comments about the Reproductive Rights Amendment thrown in to produce the vote. 

 Visit  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOQ-Iw6_wTA&feature=player_embedded   

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com.

Tell the U.N.:

To: Ban Ki-moon (U.N. Secretary General)

Sponsored by: CARE go to http://change.org

To: Ban Ki-moon (U.N. Secretary General)

 Just weeks ago in the West African country of Guinea, countless women were brutally raped in a public stadium when soldiers stormed a peaceful protest. The world reacted with outrage, but Guinea is just the tip of the iceberg.

What happened in Guinea is a visible example of the violence and abuse that threatens women and girls all over the world. In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 36 women and girls are raped every day. This is the world’s shame.

You can do something to change it. Sign the petition at www.change.org to urge the U.N. Security Council to appoint a special representative now who can help hold government forces and armed groups accountable for stopping repeated gender-based violence, and assist survivors of rape and assault. This special representative was called for in a recently passed U.N. resolution to protect women and girls from sexual violence, but pressure is needed to ensure urgent action.

America is not far off in terms of the brutality. Shame USA – what in our culture breeds gang rapists that feel good about brutalizing a 15 year old, 100 pound child at her school dance for over 2.5 hours.  Its man vs. woman – its crimes against women .  Flagrant disregard for humanity. Selflish momentary instances of feeling powerful, which turns back upon itself because of itself;  and serves only as a constant endeavor because in truth those who suffer such loss of their own humanity can barely sustain that feeling of power; and so must compensate by perpetuating the crime.  Its unconscienable in Africa, America and anywhere. It has got to stop.  To my way of thinking omission and inaction is as bad as the bad action itself. If you can do something to stop crimes against humanity you are obligated to do so; and for us that means waking up to the call of our sisters. Silence is tantamount to participation.

Post by Melanie Nathan, Contact nathan@privatecourts.com
www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com; www.privatecourts.com

Melanie Nathan: Considering Maine and Reflecting on California:

Does marriage equality and more specifically same-sex marriage hurt traditional marriage? This most confounding question has yet to be answered by anyone, especially those who expound the rhetoric while seeking to ban same-sex marriage.  The derogatory impact of same-sex marriage on straight marriage has yet to be quantified.  I wonder how one would be able to figure it out.

Could it be that for every 4 gay marriages one straight person will not marry his fiancé; could it be that for every 4 gay marriages one straight couple will divorce?  Could it mean that allowing gay marriages will result in less straight people marrying and thereby reduce the numbers of married people?  I am trying so hard to come up with a formula, can someone please help me?   

Proposition 8 succeeded in California, and effectively removed a fundamental constitutional right, as endorsed by the Courts by way of popular vote – the right for any couple in California to marry regardless of gender was stripped.  Prop 8 was initiated in direct response and its mantra was  to “protect the institution of marriage” by keeping lesbians and gays out.  

After the barrage of voracious advertisements led 51% of voting Californians to believe that gay marriage would by its mere legality threaten straight marriages. Churches poured their money into the advertising coffers, tacitly claiming the interests of their God.   Silly them there is a better way to save the institution of marriage and just think it can be done without stripping other Americans of their inherent rights, as well as the advantage of quantification.  The obvious, unambiguous and only one absolute vehicle to sustain the precept of marriage is clearly the “The outlawing of Divorce.”  We must bring a new proposition to the voters in this earnest quest and that would be  ahh maybe -Proposition 9 – “Repeal of the Legislative Right to Divorce Act.”

Notably, divorce, unlike same sex marriage, can be easily quantified.  I believe in California the divorce rate is approximately 1 in 3. There you go – for every 60,000 marriages ending in Divorce, we can save 60,000 saved – see how easy that was. Not like our difficulty when we attempted to quantify the impact of same-sex marriage on ‘ traditional marriage.’ – that means we would have 60,000 out of every 180,000 marriages saved… How powerful is that!

This is a call to all those who truly believe in the sanctity of marriage. Support the rescue of marriage by ending divorce for good. Here is a safer and better plan – how about making that retroactive.  Anyone who has been divorced consider your good-selves remarried.

Indeed the next obvious step is legislation that prohibits one’s right to divorce.  Divorce is not an inherent right; it is one that is granted by specific statute. For example in California there would be no divorce if the Family Law Code did not deal create it. It gets worse – Divorce involves one spouse suing the other for divorce.  In California the first paper served by a plaintiff spouse on a defendant spouse reads “SUMMONS- You Are Being Sued.”  How bizarre – to separate church and State in this fashion.  It is an abomination to the sacred right of marriage to think that after spouses have said “till death do us part” that one may sue the other for divorce and that our law allows that to happen.

If Maine supports the ban of same-sex marriage tonight, I profess this to be the nest obvious step there too. 

Is this ban on Divorce a joke?  Not according to a Sacramento man, John Marcotte who is collecting signatures to place a new piece of legislation on the 2010 ballot for the people of California to decide on. He wants to make it illegal to divorce in California. Read his petition here.

Why? He contends that this is a natural extension of what religious conservatives did when they voted “Yes” on a ballot measure to ban gay marriage so that they could “protect traditional marriage”.

From John Marcotte’s Rescue Marriage website, here’s the statement announcing the new ballot measure:

“I loved Proposition 8, but felt it did not go far enough. So fresh from the office of our legal counsel, I present the 2010 California Protection of Marriage Act.

No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family Code.”

Marcotte has just launched his first couple of PSAs on the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. Here they are:

Few Choice Quotes From the PSAs:

“My kids are being taught in school that divorce is all right.”

“You said ‘Till death do us part’. You’re not dead yet.”

“Hell is eternal, just like your marriage is supposed to be.”

“If we allow anyone to get divorced, before you know it, people will be divorcing their dogs.”

Lock Step-lock-jaw-Republicans-and conservatives- and those on the right – do not fail – put your money where your mouth is and support the BAN on DIVORCE.

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news andLGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com. nathan@privatecourts.com

10/30/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Today, President Barack Obama extended and strengthened the coverage of HIV/AIDS in the United States by signing into law the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act. In doing so, President Obama recognized that the disease is a priority. Obama opened his remarks noting that, while Americans often focus upon the epidemic in Africa, the United States is in serious condition on this issue.

He also went further and lamented that part of the problem was that the disease was originally seen as striking only one specific part of the population. “It has been nearly three decades since this virus first became known. But for years, we refused to recognize it for what it was. It was coined a “gay disease.” Those who had it were viewed with suspicion. There was a sense among some that people afflicted by AIDS somehow deserved their fate and that it was acceptable for our nation to look the other way,” he said.

What President Obama signed was the fourth reauthorization of the bill. The program set up under the bill helps to provide individuals with the medicines and treatments they need to fight this disease.

On Monday, President Obama will issue new rules regarding travel for people with HIV/AIDS. Stating at the signing, “If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it. And that’s why, on Monday my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just
after the New Year. “

HIV/AIDS strikes millions of people irregardless of their sexual orientation. Many gay men are more likely to be tested with regards to the disease, and are, thus, more often able to catch it while many straight men tend not to be tested. This is what likely accounts for the disparity in numbers with regards to which group has the most cases.

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Quoting: The Democratic Party Site – CALL OUT: 

 “A lot of folks use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family. For Sarah Palin, it’s a great way to spread lies about health insurance reform.  A few months back, Palin took to Facebook to declare that health reform would create “death panels,” and drive private insurers out of business — and nonpartisan fact-check sites and the independent Congressional Budget Office debunked those lies.

But that hasn’t stopped Sarah Palin. She’s back with a new Facebook note claiming that reform will raise costs on families and drive up deficits. Unfortunately for her, even the conservative “Tax Foundation” says those claims are false. “

So we’re calling out Sarah Palin, and taking to Facebook to debunk her lies on the very same pages she’s using to spread them.  Call Sarah Palin at 202-747-1812″

No more lies – it is not going to work anymore….

Refs: http://www.democrats.org/page/content/callemoutpalin

 Melanie Nathan -Quoting from Democratic Party Webpage and e-mail. Spread the word good lezgetrealpeeps- especially on your facebook sites!

10/01/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Representative Tammy Baldwin is hoping to increase funding to a segment of the population hit by the HIV/AIDS virus by increasing the amount of money that government spends on getting these individuals treatment. Currently, the Ryan White comprehensive AIDS Resource Emergency Act or the CARE Act provides medical care for people living with the virus who are without sufficient medical coverage to receive treatment.

HIV/AIDS appears to have arrived in the United States sometime between 1920 and 1950; however, the disease was not isolated and identified until the early 1980’s. More than 56,000 Americans are infected with HIV every year. The virus is not curable, but it is treatable, and the expense for the treatments can be a significant burden adding to the already physical and emotional trauma of the disease.

What Rep. Baldwin hopes to do is increase the funding for CARE and increase the reimbursement rate. Often those organizations which help the underinsured, uninsured, and indigent lack proper funding to help many of the people who are in need. They often receive grant money through the mechanism of the Ryan White CARE Act. Unfortunately, even with Medicare being relatively well run, the program cannot fund all of the needs of many of these organizations, and the economic downturn has severely undermined charity of almost all kinds while increasing the amount of people who are in need of those benefits.

The Ryan White Grantee Payment Equity Act (HR 3665) would increase the amount of money going to these organizations through the fund. This would help to fund these groups at a time when the need for their services is increasing both through increases in the numbers of people who have HIV/AIDS, and through the loss of jobs for those who have the disease but are able to work and get health insurance.

“As HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately afflict low-income Americans, lack of financial resources should not prevent these individuals from receiving health care. I am proud to introduce legislation that will improve health care access for some of the most vulnerable in our society,” Rep. Baldwin stated in her press release regarding the submission of this bill.

“It is unjust – and at times unbelievable – that Americans tolerate a health care system in which the patients who desperately require care are the most hard-pressed to get it. When you have a disease like HIV/AIDS, but don’t have the insurance coverage or money to get the care you need, it’s a serious problem. HIV/AIDS is not a disease that can go without treatment, especially if those who have contracted it are to have any chance of living. We need the health care providers that receive funding through the CARE Act to fill the gaps in health insurance coverage and resources that leave HIV/AIDS patients vulnerable. I am proud to co-sponsor this legislation, which will expand funding to these providers, allowing them to care for the growing number of HIV/AIDS patients who are in need,” ,Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI) stated in support of this measure.

“The Ryan White Grantee Payment Equity Act makes a critical investment in our health care workforce that provides care to HIV/AIDS patients, and reiterates this Congress’ commitment to the health and wellness of all Americans,” added Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA). “Many HIV/AIDS patients struggle everyday to get access to the quality care they need and deserve. I applaud Congresswoman Baldwin for her leadership on this issue, and am proud to be an original co-sponsor of this important piece of legislation.”

The Ryan White Grantee Payment Equity Act has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee upon which Rep. Baldwin currently sits.

10/01/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Friday, October 2 will see another HIV/AIDS forum held by the White House. This time, the forum will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Zuhrah Shrine Event Center. These events are RSVP, but that it simply so that they can get a headcount. This event is part of a long series of events scheduled by the White House in order to get ideas from the community on how to slow or even halt the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus.

This event will feature Minnesota Senator Al Frankin as well as Congressman Keith Ellison. Also attending the event will be White House Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeffrey S. Crowley, and Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman.

The panel will begin at 6pm CT and run until 8pm CT. If you are interested in helping the White House create an effective HIV/AIDS policy, then be sure to call them and then attend.

The Zuhrah Shrine Event Center is located at:
2540 Park Avenue, S
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: 612-871-3555

The technology always brings facilities for our lives, and when it comes to health, even better!

The gadget Breastlight helps women detect any change in your breast regularly.

Using a red light against the breast, the device illuminates the skin so you can see details within the region. Should be used in dark conditions so that the light has more effect.

With its continued use, the woman will get used to seeing and knowing the appearance of her breasts, making the veins and blood and family. The important thing is to look for any change during the examination, as darker spots. If this is the case, the search for a doctor is advisable!

Even with the Breastlight, the manufacturer points out that mammography should never be discarded.

It can be purchased here for 84.99 pounds.

I’m Brazilian and best known as Menina Digital (Digital Girl!) I have a site about gadgets, techies and the web… the internet is my world and I try to use my site to show this!! Have a look at www.meninadigital.com.

Girls, who among us has never experienced a situation in which we wished pee standing up!? Yeah, just like the guys!!??

Wherever you are super tight and a serpentine queue tells you have to wait…or when you are traveling by car, and you can’t find a gas station, or worse..you found one but the bathroom is worst than your true nightmares…well, I bet you wished you could pee standing huh?

A brave and good soul decided to help us and just invented a GoGirl gadget!!

The GoGirl is made of flexible, medical-grade silicone and comes with its own underwear (optional) to help you take perfect aim during those absolute emergencies.

A single pack (one GoGirl, tissue and biodegradable bag) costs $6.99 while a pack of 3 costs $18.99. You can purchase the GoGirl from Amazon.com using this link here.

I’m Brazilian and best known as Menina Digital (Digital Girl!) I have a site about gadgets, techies and the web… the internet is my world and I try to use my site to show this!! Have a look at www.meninadigital.com.

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8/30/09-by Paula Brooks
Saying its “marketing strategy is coming out of the closet,” Harrah’s Atlantic City New Jersey operations announced this week they are courting gay and lesbian travelers in hopes of attracting new customers to a market that has been demolished by the recession and competition from neighboring states.

Harrah’s has been catering events to gay and lesbian travelers at its Las Vegas casinos for a sometime now, but now says it will launch a similar campaign in its Atlantic City gambling operations with an event called “Out in Atlantic City” Sept. 25-27.

As a group, we gays and lesbians spend $64.5 billion annually in the U.S. travel market, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce and a study by Community Marketing Inc., a gay-market research group.

A national online survey conducted by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive found that gay and lesbian consumers planned to spend an average of $2,300 for business and leisure trips this summer as opposed to $1,500 by our heterosexual counterparts.

Harrah’s developed its marketing campaign with the help of an employee advisory board that included LGBT casino workers.

“We believe our customer base comes from all cultures, all sexual orientations and all backgrounds. We really believe that our customers will embrace this,” said Jennifer Weissman, regional vice president of marketing for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc last week in an article on Press of Atlantic City.com.

The push according to Weissman, in establishing Atlantic City as a “gay friendly” town not only emphasizes the need to expand the customer base of the casino, but also reflects a shift in the cultural landscape of AC as a whole.

Harrah’s gay marketing program is the first of its kind for any Atlantic City casino and is part of an overall effort by Atlantic City to make the city a gayer travel destination.

The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority has also recently reached out to the gay and lesbian community through advertisements in gay travel media and by setting up a promotions booth at a recent gay-themed consumer show in New York.

In addition, a private, nonprofit organization called the Greater Atlantic City GLBT Alliance was formed this summer to promote LGBT businesses in the surrounding area.

Harrah’s plans to host some of the best-known names in the gay and lesbian entertainment scene and the casino hopes the event will draw more than 1,000 people through its doors.

Amanda Lepore will kick things off with a party at Club Worship at Showboat Casino Hotel’s House of Blues.

The “Out in Atlantic City” weekend will also include appearances by singer and “Dyke Diva” Lori Michaels and the cast members of Showtime’s lesbian-themed series, “The L Word,” will be on hand for a Q&A with Pam Grier, Rose Rollins, Kate French, and Mia Kirshner.

Lance Bass, of ‘N Sync fame, and Jai Rodriguez, of the Bravo Network’s show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” will also be throwing a party at Harrah’s Caesars Atlantic City as well and Rodriguez will also host a game of bingo at Harrah’s Resort, with proceeds benefiting the South Jersey AIDS Alliance.

“It comes down to diversity in our company and diversity in our workers and our customers,” said Weissman. “We believe that by having different backgrounds and different perspectives, it will only make us a better business.”

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8/24/09-by MELANIE NATHAN
Circumcision will be discussed this week at the C.D.C.’s National H.I.V. Prevention Conference in Atlanta, which will be attended by thousands of health professionals and H.I.V. service providers.

When I visited South Africa in 2000, I remember reading an article in the Johannesburg newspaper – the financial section- which predicted that HIV virus would infect 1 in 4 of the work force in South Africa by the year 2010. Well I think the statistic was reached five years early. It has been a place where HIV has spread rapidly and for many reasons. At the same time Africa presents a place of reference where by virtue of the vast numbers, research is can be of value. How and when we apply that research can take detours as the clash of culture and controversial issues complicate the advisories.

I picked this up off the CDC website and it sent me to an Article in the New York Times on line, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/health/policy/24circumcision.html article by Roni Carin Rabin which published this week; he reports that public health officials are contemplating the promotion of routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States, to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. This is 2009. Rabin says that the “topic is a delicate one that has already generated controversy, even though a formal draft of the proposed recommendations, due out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the end of the year, has yet to be released.”

In February 23, 2007 it was reported in Paris that trials showed that male circumcision more than halves the risk of HIV infection. The trials, conducted in Kenya and Uganda and earlier in South Africa, found that men who were uncircumcised were twice as likely to catch the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) compared with circumcised counterparts. The researchers have found that circumcision serves to protect the female partners of the tribes that were used in the studies. However it is clear that this did not take cognizance of sex between male and male where circumcision may not in fact impact the statistics.

In 2000 Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois, Chicago reported at the 13th International AIDS Conference about his studies of the Luo, a tribe of 3 million in Kenya who do not practice circumcision and who presented an unusually high percentage of HIV infection — around 30 percent in women and 25 percent in men. http://www.doh.gov.za/aids/docs/13conf00.html He joined other researchers at that time, saying it “may be time for health officials to think about promoting circumcision in Africa as a way of helping to prevent the spread of HIV. “ The data were so dramatic that the trials in Kenya and Uganda were apparently halted ahead of schedule, for it would have been ethically wrong to continue them.

Would promotion now in the US turn into more than mere promotion? Perhaps promotion per se is valuable as long as it serves an educational purpose, one that enables parents to use the information to make their own decision. However to what extent is the CDC required to “protect” society. If it makes its promotion more declaratory and possibly even mandatory in the same way as we are required to have certain immunizations.

I can only imagine the controversy if there were to be such a recommendation here in the USA, albeit at this late stage in the timeline of this research and these conclusions. Are we notoriously slow to protect the women in our society – to protect the female interest above the satisfaction of the male?

“Experts are also considering whether the surgery should be offered to adult heterosexual men whose sexual practices put them at high risk of infection. But they acknowledge that a circumcision drive in the United States would be unlikely to have a dramatic impact: the procedure does not seem to protect those at greatest risk here, men who have sex with men.” Again what about the women?

Till Newell and Marie-Louise Barnighausen calculate that in KwaZulu-Natal province, where HIV incidence is very high but circumcision rates very low, 35,000 new infections could have been prevented in 2007 alone if the 2.5 million men there had been circumcised.

Experts in asserting this as preventative for Africa say they implementing circumcision should be approached with caution, because of how different cultures perceive it – some as ritual into manhood whereas others see it as emasculating. http://www.aegis.com/NEWS/AFP/2007/AF070284.html

In the US however the cultural considerations are vastly different. One can only imagine that the controversy will revolve around the comfort and satisfaction of the young man, the impact on him later and the ideal that perhaps he would consider circumcision of his own accord as a choice when he is older.

Rabin reflects on the fact that in the US circumcision rates have fallen in part because the American Academy of Pediatrics, in setting the guidelines for infant care, has not endorsed routine circumcision. “Its policy has said that circumcision is “not essential to the child’s current well-being,” and as a result, many state Medicaid programs do not cover the operation. The academy is revising its guidelines, however, and is likely to do away with the neutral tone in favor of a more encouraging policy stating that circumcision has health benefits even beyond H.I.V. prevention, like reducing urinary tract infections for baby boys, said Dr. Michael Brady, a consultant to the American Academy of Pediatrics. “

I wonder how the anti-circumcision mothers would feel when it comes to weighing up their son’s satisfaction versus their daughters’ safety?

This is going to find an interesting path and maybe even something else to add to the healthcare debate. Who is going to pay? Surgery vs. AIDS Drugs…. ?

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com.

8/22/09-by Paula Brooks
Reports coming from Sweden are saying that a shortage of healthy sperm and a spike in demand from lesbian couples has caused a backlog of artificial insemination requests at Swedish fertility clinics, that is forcing couples seeking the procedure to look outside the country.

According to Sweden’s English language newspaper, The Local, the problem stems in part from a 2005 change in laws governing fertility treatment at Swedish hospitals. That change granted lesbian couples the right to receive fertility treatments that previously were only offered only to married women or those who were in registered heterosexual partnerships.

Inger Bryman, head of gynecology and reproductive medicine at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska University Hospital said, “We had estimated an increase of around 25 couples per year after the law change. Now there are 90 couples in line.”

However, Swedish lesbians are not the only cause of the sperm shortages.

Swedish law allows children born from artificial insemination to learn their biological father’s identity once they turn 18. That fact has discouraged donors, thus adding to the crisis.

However, the major reason for the shortage say Swedish health officials is due to poor quality sperm, either related to deterioration while being frozen or to medical conditions.

Because all this, Bryman explained, the wait can be up to 18 months and her hospital is unable to comply with Sweden’s healthcare guarantee law, which says that patients must receive treatment within a reasonable amount of time and last spring, the hospital started an ad campaign to actively recruit new donors in an effort to reduce wait times.

With the sperm shortage, and wait times, many Swedish couples have now chosen to seek treatment in other countries, chiefly in Denmark or Finland.

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8/22/09-by Paula Brooks
President Obama announced Friday the launch of the National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions, a series of events to be held across the country beginning with an event being held in Atlanta to be held next week as part of a larger National HIV Prevention Conference that started yesterday and that will run through Wednesday.

These events, hosted by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) will offer the public a chance to provide input as the White House works to fulfill the President’s pledge to develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS).

Obama said he believes that the country must re-focus national attention on the domestic epidemic and he has articulated three goals for the NHAS: reducing HIV incidence, increasing access to care and optimizing health outcomes, and reducing HIV-related health disparities. “HIV remains an serious challenge to the American people and I am committed to developing an effective National HIV/AIDS Strategy,” said President Obama in a press release.

The President also said the National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions will provide an opportunity for members of the public to give their input on how we can best address the issue of HIV/AIDS. “With the insights from communities across the country, we will have a strategy that is focused on the goals of reducing HIV incidence, getting people living with HIV/AIDS into care and improving health outcomes,” said Obama.

There are more than 56,000 new HIV infections occurring in the United States each year, which works out to about one person every 9.5 minutes and about 1 in 5 people infected with HIV don’t even know they have the virus.

The White House said in a press release, the national HIV/AIDS community discussions are just one mechanism for engaging the American people and obtaining input. The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) will also provide input, and public comments submitted to the ONAP website will also be taken into consideration.

ONAP is part of the White House Domestic Policy Council and is tasked with coordinating the continuing efforts of the United States government to reduce the number of HIV infections across the U.S., and respond to the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Also according to the press release, other cities in which communities discussions will be held are: Washington, DC; New York, NY; San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles, CA; Houston, TX; Albuquerque, NM; Jackson, MS; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Columbia, SC; Puerto Rico; and the Virgin Islands.

Specific dates will be announced later said the White House.

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8/14/09 8:25 AM ET- by Paula Brooks

A recently done study by researchers at UCLA has found that nearly twice as many gay, lesbian and bisexual Californians sought mental health or substance abuse treatment last year than did straights.

The study, which looked at data from a survey of more than 2,000 Californians, found 48.5 percent of gay, lesbian or bisexual individuals said they received treatment during the past year, as opposed with 22.5 percent of heterosexuals.

The study also found that lesbians and bisexual women were most likely to seek treatment while heterosexual men are the least likely to look for help.

“It is well known that health services utilization is greater among women generally. Here we have shown that minority sexual orientation is also an important consideration. Lesbians and bisexual women appear to be approximately twice as likely as heterosexual women to report having received recent treatment for mental health or substance use disorders,” Researcher Susan Cochran said in a news release.

The researchers speculate the increased use of healthcare might be the result of higher exposure to discrimination, violence and other stressful life events.

“The pervasive and historically rooted societal pathologizing of homosexuality may contribute to this propensity for treatment by construing homosexuality and issues associated with it as mental health problems,” Cochran added.

Other studies have shown that LGBT young face daily threats to their mental and physical health, that range from anti-gay taunts to beatings in their schools and communities. Research indicates that 31 percent of gay youth were threatened or injured at school in just the last year.

Also because of a lack of safe places to socialize, the LGBT community has in the past had to rely on gay and lesbian bars as a place to meet potential friends and partners.

The study appears in the current issue BMC Psychiatry

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Gay Girls Jobs is the new online job board with lesbian friendly employment!

Organizations like the Lambda Community Center, Immigration Equality, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the ACLU and other organizations are looking to expand their operations and hire employees to help them do it.

The Gay Girls Jobs job board filters through all jobs posted online and displays the jobs that are considered “lesbian friendly”.

You can search for jobs that are full-time, part-time, contract, seasonal, permanent, temporary, volunteer, or internships. Jobs can be found in a variety of industries with a wide array of occupations to choose from.

Lesbian friendly employers can post jobs directly to the Gay Girls Jobs job board for just $5 for a 45 day posting.

Jobs posted directly to our board are displayed above those that have been filtered from the internet, and are also syndicated via our Gay Girls Jobs RSS Feed.

If you are a gay girl looking for employment or an employer offering lesbian friendly employment, be sure to take a look at Gay Girls Jobs to see if we have what you need.

Here are the links:

Gay Girls Jobs: Job Board

Gay Girls Jobs: Post a Job

Gay Girls Jobs: RSS Feed

If you want to start your own job board you can do so by visiting www.jobamatic.com.

Thanks for being a reader of this blog and feel free to come back by any time.

Sincerely,

LezGetReal.com

A Guest Post By Becky Chandler

I was in a bikini kill frame of mind—sitting here in my home in the Sonoran Desert, the temperature an ungodly 115 degrees, waiting for the stoned pool boy to show up, fix the pump and clear out the toxic toads, that are now making themselves at home in what is now a toad poop cesspool—all the time kicking myself for not calling the stoned pool girl.

My thoughts were back in the Pacific Northwest—the overly caffeinated land of my birth and epicenter of Riot Grrl –where the mist and rain generally lets up for two weeks a year (present scorcher excepted)– giving a grrl a most brief window of opportunity to sport a bikini.

So when Paula called, suggesting I do a report on the Suicide Girls Swimsuit Edition—nothing could have been finer—being as I was in a bikini kill frame of mind.

For those who have just recently arrived from Mars, I probably should explain that the Suicide Girl thing has nothing to do with the premature termination of life.

It all started when three friends were sitting in a Pacific Northwest coffee shop, as people in the upper left corner of the country always are, discussing, as friends often do, how to get rich off the Internet. And as friends often do, two of them, who were Portland girls Missy and Spooky Suicide, came to the conclusion, as many have before, that the only sure-fire strategy was to show some skin.

It was 2001 –and especially in Portland, Oregon—punk rock and porn were beginning their money-slicked slide into the mainstream. Punk had never been afraid of a little nudity—but the porn industry had never been punk. Conventional Porn favors plastic women and slick images. Spooky and Missy had something else in mind.

Simply put the idea was to show hot punk chicks nekkid. There was nothing else out there like it.

Yes, Suicide Girls is a pay-to-view soft-core porn site, complete with the requisite photos of naked women. But these women look less like balloon-chested big-hairs than like half the audience at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs show. Suicide Girls often sport tattoos, piercings and pink and purple hair. They choose their own poses and backdrops, and they keep blogs in which they post their opinions about music, politics, fashion and even viewers who post.

The SG Girls perform old-fashioned burlesque—punk style. Burlesque has been bumping and grinding away on the indie club circuit for a while. Burlesque, to some, is nothing more than timid stripping. But this recent burlesque boom owes its popularity to punk’s who-cares-what-you-think spirit, Third Wave feminism’s kitschy nostalgia and–thank goodness–a sense of humor The Suicide Girls have been the best and most successful at bringing this entertainment mainstream.

And most significantly over fifty percent of their paying subscribers are women! So it is that there are regular fashion reports—most entertainingly Dirty Laundry—who recently addressed the proper attire for a fashionable punk girl when it is just too darn hot for a pair of PVC short shorts.
The answer of course is the bikini—fun to wear and easy to shed—and to get on the right fashionista track I must recommend the Suicide Girls Swimsuit Edition.

And when the Suicide Girls do it there is often even an element of socially responsible awareness. For example, take this effort to rehabilitate the pirate profession with a black bandanna bikini with white skull detail or the red and purple not-quite-pin-stripe two-piece with Riot Grrl skull and bones rebel girl coochie protector—thats about as close to punk as a bikini can get:

Go take a look at Dirty Laundry’s Suicide Girls Swimsuit Edition runway—you’ll be glad you did.

Bikinis kill.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/06/53034
profile:
http://img.suicidegirls.com/media/albums/2/20/15202/737425.jpg
cross
http://img.suicidegirls.com/media/albums/2/20/15202/737429.jpg
http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/23749/Dirty%20Laundry%20Swimsuit%20Edition/
http://www.target.com/Xhilaration-Bandana-Swimwear-Black/dp/B001VEE898/qid=1247694691/ref=br_1_16/186-7752487-3829829?ie=UTF8&node=618280011&search-alias=&frombrowse=1&pricerange=&index=tgt-mf-mv&field-browse=618280011&rank=salesrank&rh=&page=10
bikini kill 210 w and h
http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/23749/Dirty%20Laundry%20Swimsuit%20Edition/

http://suicidegirls.com/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000372H?ie=UTF8&tag=jusagirinshos-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00000372H

A 22-year-old ban that has prohibited individuals testing positive for HIV from immigrating or traveling to the U.S. may be lifted according to sources at the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are currently seeking public comment through Aug. 17 on the proposal, which would remove HIV from the list of diseases that can bar entry to the United States and do away with HIV testing as part of medical exams for permanent residence and travel visas.

“We’re trying to end the stigma and the discriminatory practice for a disease that doesn’t warrant exclusion for coming into this country,” said the director of the CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine, Dr. Martin Cetron. “We have to appreciate this is not a threat we face from abroad.”

While Dr Cetron acknowledged, “HIV is clearly a public health disease of significance,” he added that simply letting somebody with HIV into the country does not “immediately pose a risk to the public.

So far the reaction to lifting the ban on the CDC’s comment board has been mixed, and critics of the proposed regulation change are expressing concern about the cost of lifting the ban or that infected immigrants and travelers could spread the disease.

Image via Wikipedia

Senator John Kerry D-MA, a key supporter of the proposal to remove the ban, said in a statement, “I sincerely hope we can continue to work in a bipartisan manner with the help of the public health, religious, LGBT and immigration groups to make this proposed rule final as soon as possible.”

The proposed change comes more than a year after Congress voted to repeal the 1987 restrictions on HIV-positive immigrants as part of a package of AIDS reforms proposed by former President George W. Bush.

About 1 million people immigrate to the United States each year, and about 6.6 million people visit using nonimmigrant visas, according to State Department statistics.

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MyGayGo is an iPhone application that allows you to run a search for LGBT friendly business that are near you .

My Gay Go is “for gays on the go” and was “built by the LGBT community, for the LGBT community”.

You can buy the app  for your iPhone at the iTunes store.

Mike Wallace talks to President Ford, Judy Roberts (injured by the 1976 swine flu vaccine, paralyzed similar to Gardasil injury), Dr. David Sencer, Mary Tyler Moore, and others about the Swine Flu vaccine of 1976. The admitted lack of safety and informed consent to the public, even as TV ads frightened American citizens into getting the shot, is just plain shocking.

Do you think anything has changed today? Please take the information in this article to help you make an informed choice.

“60 MINUTES, Sunday Nov 4, 1979

“SWINE FLU”

MIKE WALLACE: The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about
this year, and what kind of shots will we be told to take? Remember the
swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us
all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread
across the nation, and Washington decided that every man, woman and
child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nation-wide outbreak,
a pandemic.

Well 46 million of us obediently took the shot, and now 4,000 Americans
are claiming damages from Uncle Sam amounting to three and a half
billion dollars because of what happened when they took that shot. By
far the greatest number of the claims – two thirds of them are for
neurological damage, or even death, allegedly triggered by the flu shot.

We pick up the story back in 1976, when the threat posed by the swine
flu virus seemed very real indeed.

PRESIDENT GERALD FORD; This virus was the cause of a pandemic in 1918
and 1919 that resulted in over half a million deaths in the United
States, as well as 20 million deaths around the world.

WALLACE: Thus the U.S. government’s publicity machine was cranked into
action to urge all America to protect itself against the swine flu
menace. (Excerpt from TV commercial urging everyone to get a swine flu
shot.) One of those who did roll up her sleeve was Judy Roberts. She was
perfectly healthy, an active woman, when, in November of 1976, she took
her shot. Two weeks later, she says, she began to feel a numbness
starting up her legs.

JUDY ROBERTS: And I joked about it at that time. I said I’ll be numb to
the knees by Friday if this keeps up. By the following week, I was
totally paralyzed.”

Kathleen Sebellius is telling us now that they will begin testing in early August, and try to have the vaccine out by September/October. I just don’t think 4 to 8 weeks of testing merits the level of safety they claim. Also, they are recommending this for children who are very young, and who have proven to be in study after study the ones who have the worst reactions to these vaccinations. One study finds that children who recieve the seasonal flu shot are 3x more likely to be hospitalized for influenza. Consumer Health reports:

“Most children are vaccinated three times by the time they enter grade school, the first in infancy, the second before kindergarten and then re-vaccination before entering Grade 1. The accumulation of these vaccines is what is killing our children and suppressing their immune systems. Are children dying of vaccinations? Absolutely.”

Toxins found in vaccines include:

• Mercury (Thimerosal):

“Most parents blieve that mercury or Thimerosal is no longer present in vaccines, siince it became a concern several years ago.

However, Thimerosal is still present as a preservative in the influenza (flu) vaccine, often given to pregnant women and young children, and in some tetanus shots.”

• Aluminum:

“Several childhood immunizations contain aluminum, which helps to make the vaccine more effective. These vaccines include the DTaP vaccination, the hepatitis B vaccination, the HPV vaccination, and the Hib vaccination, all of which are given several times to babies under twelve months. Neil Z. Miller explains that “babies who follow the CDC immunization schedule are injected with nearly 5000 mcg (5mg!) of aluminum by 18 months of age” (Aluminum in Vaccines: A Neurological Gamble, PDF file, 2009).

This should raise some alarm, as Dr. Sears notes that “aluminum can build up to toxic levels in the bloodstream, bones and brain when injected.” Miller quotes the American Academy of Pediatrics, who say aluminum can interfere “with a variety of cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.” Miller notes that the CDC, WHO and FDA are aware of concerns connected with aluminum – but ignore this hazard in vaccines.”

• & More:

“The NVIC notes that vaccines may contain, in differing amounts depending on the vaccine, “lab altered viruses and bacteria; … formaldehyde; … monosodium glutamate (MSG); hydrochloric acid; hydrogen peroxide; lactose; gelatine; yeast protein; egg albumin; … antibiotics; unidentified contaminants.” These ingredients are present in vaccines in very small quantities. However, Dr. Sears notes that formaldehyde is carcinogenic and that MSG “can affect how the brain functions” and cause nerve tissue damage when injected.

Vaccines have been found to also be ineffective because the virus strain mutates by the time everyone gets the shot anyway. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has poured so much effort into getting the truth out about vaccines, I hope you’ll check out this article on Huffington Post.

“People will argue that ADEM is rare; that vaccines “only” caused PDD in Bailey; and that this was a legal and not scientific decision. The problem is we don’t know how prevalent ADEM is because we never looked; while “PDD” is interchangeable with “ASD” in the language of public health. And, the three cases that lost were also “legal” decisions.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. and I would love nothing more than to reassure parents that the nation’s current vaccine program is 100% safe for all kids, and that zero credible evidence has been presented to link vaccines with autism. But that simply isn’t true — as at least two court cases have found.”

Now that the WHO has moved us up to pandemic level six for swine flu the push for mass vaccinations is going to be ramped up. Before you make your decision on what’s best for you and your family, I hope you’ll check out this documentary: Vaccine Nation. This film, released in 2007, has run the gamut of awards including Best Documentary in ten different film festivals. This film isn’t a boring scientific study. I guarantee that it will grab you by the heart when you hear parent, after parent, after parent share their story. I truly feel that this is a film every parent should watch.

“

HOW TO BECOME ACTIVE

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Msnbc - MINNEAPOLIS – “The $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman accused of sharing 24 songs over the Internet could ratchet up the pressure on other defendants to settle with the recording industry — if the big fine can withstand an appeal.“Normally in our American legal system, we say the punishment should fit the crime,” said Ken Port, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.”

The Federal law states that the recording companies can get up to $750 to $30,000 per song. Like that isn’t bad enough, the law also allows the jury to arbitrairily raise that to as much as $150,000 each. This jury decided on $80,000 per song, which is probably more than I’ll make in my entire life.

Its all pretty strange. She downloaded such a small amount of songs, it doesn’t make sense that she’s the one who gets busted. How many users are on Kazaa? Millions probably, and I’m pretty sure the majority of them have about ten times as many downloads. All four major recording companies, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment were going after this woman for what wouldn’t have cost fifty bucks on Itunes. Why?

I mean, I can even understand a big faceless corporation suing someone for downloading. There’s been 36,000 people sued so far. What’s strange is that this MSNBC article also reports that the companies all said back in December that they weren’t going to go after individuals anymore. They said they were going to go after the P2P sites instead.

So why this woman for just 24 songs?

This new bill, HR 2749 is bad news if you ask me. And its on the fast track to getting passed unless we all speak up against a poorly written legislation that could be severely damaging to our already ailing food safety. It gives the FDA way too much power without reforming any of the inadequacies we’ve seen. Our food supply is being toxified left and right, and these guys haven’t done the right thing for the people again and again. The bill will also significantly diminish existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. What!? There already is ton that needs to be investigated, and now they’re just going to flat out make the organization untouchable on paper?

But most damaging of all, the bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers. How are the little guys supposed to be judged by the same criteria of a multi-million dollar processing plant. And why does this legislation seem focused on the little guys, and not these industrial apothecaries ginning up our food supply? Since moving out to the San Francisco Bay Area in ’06, I’ve gotten really into the farmer market scene, something that I kind of used to laugh off when I lived in New York. Organic this and that didn’t really make sense to me until I started reading about all the flat out toxic crap in our food supply.

FoodFreedom Reports:

“HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas.

HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any “facility” that holds, processes, or manufactures food. [isn't this every home in the US, every garden?] Although “farms” are exempt, the agency has defined “farm” narrowly. [What is the definition?] And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times.
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers. [This astounding control opens the door to CODEX. WTO "good farming practices" will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry's products. They will be slaves on the land, doing the work they are ordered to do - against their own best wisdom - and paying out to industry against their will.
* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including “prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.” [This - "that has been used to transport or hold such food" - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.] Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area. [This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.]
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. [If these bills cover all who "hold food" then this allows for taking of records of anyone at any time on no basis at all.] Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers.
* HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each “person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food” [Is this not every home in the US?] would have to “maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food,” and “establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons.” The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods. With all these ambiguities, [with all these ambiguities, it is dangerous, period, separate from the money] it’s far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers. [It is massive and absurd and burdensome beyond the capacity of people to comply - is this not fascism? - so it is a set up for being used to impose penalties endlessly and/or to eliminate anyone at will.]
* HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals. [Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a defined set of “crimes”? Or is it entirely ambiguous and left to the whim and sole power of “the Administrator”? Who is that person set to be? Is it Michael Taylor, Monsanto lawyer and executive, as Food Democracy has said? That is, do these bills set up an agency by which the entire US food supply will be turned over to the control of a multinational corporation under WTO regulations (and not to US farmers and not to US laws under the Constitution), with boundless freedom to do what it wants, and one infamous for harm to farmers and lack of safety of food?
Actions to Take:

Contact your Representative now! Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food issues. Tell them you are opposed to the bill. Some points to make in telling your Representative why you oppose HR 2749 include:

1. The bill imposes burdensome requirements while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where the real food safety problems lie.

2. Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety; lessening the regulatory burden on them will improve food safety.

3. The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past while making the agency less accountable for its actions.

HR 2749 needs to be defeated!! Please take action NOW.

To contact your Representative, use the finder tool at www.Congress.org or send a message through the petition system (the petition will be on our website this evening) at http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

To check the status of HR 2749, go to www.Thomas.gov and type “HR 2749″ in the bill search field."

As LGBT community leaders, including the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay civil rights group in Washington, pull out of a Democratic National Committee LGBT fundraiser planned for next week in Washington, last night White House officials said President Obama will announce later today that he is extending some federal benefits to include unmarried domestic partners of federal workers, including same-sex partners.

The State Department last month announced a similar gesture for State Department employees.

However, because the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government from extending health and retirement benefits to same-sex couples, health benefits do not appear to be among those that are planned to be extended.

Most in the LGBT community are greeting the move with skepticism this morning, as the order appears to be one of several lower level moves the administration had already promised gay groups were coming earlier this month. The timing of the announcement also appears to have been made last evening make sure it hit MSNBC Rachel Maddow show, which is widely viewed by members of the LGBT community.

It is doubtful that this move will silence many of Obama’s LGBT critics who are incensed over his inaction on gay rights issues as promised during his campaign and his Justice Departments defending in court the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex married couples, and by the administration’s linkage in that defense of same-sex marriages to marriages between cousins or children.

Fierce Advocates reluctance to repeal the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay service members … after Obama promised during the campaign to repeal it … has also been a sore point among LGBT activists. The order Obama is to sign today would not apply to military men and women in uniform.

Most in the LGBT community are now demanding that Obama go beyond the small potato issues and toward the substantive issues of ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act and supporting Marriage Equality and most are saying his announcement last night will not be enough to save next weeks fund raiser.

Politco’s Ben Smith quoted the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, Alan Van Capelle, as saying, “Welcome to 1999. How revolutionary of the White House to give benefits to same-sex couples, when two-thirds of conservative Wall Street are already doing it. What an achievement. It’s just one of the things that should have been done in January. If the President makes the announcement tomorrow, it will still fall short of what LGBT people are expecting from this administration.”

Van Capelle, is among those dropped out the Biden event.

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People, I am seriously begging you to legalize marijuana, asap. Do it now before California goes bankrupt. Do it before Mexico implodes under the weight of corruption caused by these maniacal drug cartels. We legalize weed, and bam, 3/4ths of their profit is gone. That will in one fell swoop accomplish more than the billions we’ve wasted on “the War on Drugs“. 20,000,000 Americans have been arrested since 1965 in the US. The cost of processing, trying, and incarcerating these non-violent offenders is astronomical, and completely unnecessary. And think about all the jobs it would create! An entirely new industry is exactly what we need to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, cuz right now, we don’t even have boots.

People, thanks to the economic crisis, are finally waking up to the fact that we NEED to do this.

MSNBC Reports:

“For the most part, what we’ve seen over the past 20 years has been incremental,” said Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief now active with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “What we’ve seen in the past six months is an explosion of activity, fresh thinking, bold statements and penetrating questions.”

Some examples:

• Numerous prominent political leaders, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Mexican presidents, have suggested it is time for open debate on legalization.
• Lawmakers in at least three states are considering joining the 13 states that have legalized pot for medical purposes. Massachusetts voters last fall decided to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of pot; there are now a dozen states that have taken such steps.
• In Congress, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., are among several lawmakers contending that marijuana decriminalization should be studied in re-examining what they deem to be failed U.S. drug policy. “Nothing should be off the table,” Webb said.
• National polls show close to half of American adults are now open to legalizing pot — a constituency encompassing today’s college students and the 60-something baby boomers who popularized the drug in their own youth. In California last month, a statewide Field Poll for the first time found 56 percent of voters supporting legalization.

That poll pleased California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat who introduced a bill in February to legalize marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol — taxing sales to adults while barring possession by anyone under 21. Ammiano hopes for a vote by early next year and contends the bill would generate up to $1.3 billion in revenue for his deficit-plagued state.”

Now there was less support than that for Prop 8, and I sure as hell can’t get married.

The state of California, the world’s 8th biggest economy, is going bankrupt (except a state can’t even file for bankcruptcy). Maybe if we move the state capitol to Wall Street we can get some help? It’s ridiculous that the Obama administration feels they have the right to blow billions on the car industry, just to drive them into 60% government ownership, but you can’t help California out with a lousy twenty four billion? You’ve got trillions for the banks, and nothing for the people of California? The administration thinks we can live without it, we’ll just have to cut some services. Yeah, like teachers, and healthcare. Just “services”, right? Nothing important.

David Cho, Brady Dennis and Karl Vick reported in The Washington Post:

California Controller John Chiang, a Democrat, warned last week that the state was “less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government.”

While its fiscal crisis is severe, experts say the state is unlikely to default on what it owes, even if it runs out of cash. It can raise money through taxes and other means to assure repayment of its debt. Most likely are massive cuts in public services.

“After June 15th, every day of inaction jeopardizes our state’s solvency and our ability to pay schools and teachers and to keep hospitals and ERs open,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said Friday.

Problems unique to California have made it hard for the state to find a way out of its crisis.”

So a unique way out of it makes the most sense! Check out these great organizations to find out how you can get involved. I am not exaggerating when I say that we need to save California, and this could do it. Hell, it could jumpstart our whole economy! Its the most American thing to do, be creative, be inginuitive. They do say that neccesity is the mother of invention, right? And hey, that hemp grower Thomas Jefferson did alright for us, don’t you think?

NORML

LEgalize.org

Twitter was all a buzz yesterday over a new Orbitz commercial. The commercial is set on a golf course and one of the golfers is wearing a shirt with an HRC logo on it. The logo looks to have been enlarged so that it really stands out. Those commenting on the internet wondered if the logo was intentional

The inclusion of the HRC logo was confirmed by Brian Hoyt, Orbitz’s vice president of corporate communications and government affairs.

This is not the first time Orbitz has marketed to the gay community. In June 2002, Orbitz launched www.orbitz.com/gaytravel within its main Web site. Going to the address you will find information about gay-friendly destinations and events.

Lezzymom has two kids and a wonderful partner. Her political commentary has appeared on C-Span and CSPAN.org. Visit her Lezzymom blog for more of her insights.

The national conversation about the dangers of medicating our children is heating up once again. Personally, I’ve always been wary of putting kids on drugs. Its just such a sensitive time for our bodies, and we’re growing so much, it just seems like an unnecessary risk to give these chemical cocktails to them. I mean, can you imagine growing up on pills from before you can even remember. Does that set you up to be dependent on Big Pharma for the rest of your life? Just my thoughts, I guess worries would be more correct to say.

This new study confuses me more than ever. The study shows a risk of sudden death because of really young kids taking these ADHD drugs, but then it says its not a reason to stop taking them. They say the test was too limited to be sure enough to stop the widespread use. While I definitely understand that no one should ever ever ever suddenly stop taking a prescription, it does make you wonder how we got to this point in our culture. When I was growing up, I thought it was a big time faux-pa to drug your kid. Everybody I knew was pretty hard set against it. How did this change-over happen? Anyway, here’s some info on the study:

By Salynn Boyles @ WebMD Health News

Is the problem in the prescribing and monitoring?

“On November 17, 2008, on the popular Furious Seasons website, Philip Dawdy reported that Zyprexa had killed 3,455 people between 1997 and early 2008, based on a review of an FDA staff document with a summary of adverse events in the agency’s database.

From 1993 through the first three months of 2008, 1,207 children on Risperdal suffered serious adverse events, including 31 who died, according to a report in the November 18, 2008 New York Times.

The deaths included a 9-year-old child, receiving Risperdal for the unapproved use of ADHD, who suffered a stroke twelve days after starting the drug. At least 11 of the deaths were in children whose treatment was for an unapproved use.” ~By Evelyn Pringle at CounterPunch.

And what really struck me as I researched this was the number of kids in the Foster Care System on these drugs. In state after state the numbers were upwards of 50%.

AJC.com writes:

“Children and teens taking ADHD stimulant medications were seven times more likely to die suddenly than their peers, the study found.

“What we found — to our surprise — is that even if you take out confounding factors, the association between stimulant use and sudden death was still significant,” said study author Madelyn Gould, a professor of clinical epidemiology in psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. “I’m confident the association is real and significant, but it’s very rare.”

The researchers sifted through mortality data from 1985 through 1996, and found 564 cases of sudden death that occurred in children aged 7 to 19, and they compared them to 564 youths who had been killed as passengers in automobile accidents.

After ruling out factors such as a history of known cardiac problems; known causes of death, such as asthma or an accidental death; and other conditions, such as sickle cell anemia or cerebral palsy, Gould and her colleagues found only 10 sudden, unexplained deaths in children taking stimulant medications.

When they compared those 10 youths to age-matched controls who had died in car crashes, they found that the odds of sudden death were 7.4 times higher for children taking stimulant medications.

“Stimulants do increase blood pressure, and there have been reports of them changing heart rates,” noted Gould.

“This report is quite helpful,” said one of the authors of the accompanying editorial, Dr. Benedetto Vitiello, a psychiatrist and chief of the child and adolescent treatment intervention branch at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. “It rings a bell for everyone to be more attentive and less cavalier about the use of these drugs.”

And then In my research on the foster kids angle of this, I was horrified to see this headline on MSNBC: AIDS VACCINE Tested On Foster Children from back in ‘05. Obviously, there are some wolves in the healthcare industry who see these poor kids as defenseless guinea pigs.

“The research was conducted in at least seven states — Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas — and involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records.

Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

In one study, researchers reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.”

Sick. How is it that there are scientists who can carry out this kind of experimentation? I just can’t imagine ever doing that to a child. This is certainly not the way to help kids. I think the real problem with the “Healthcare” Industry is that they really seem more interested in paying off corporations than helping patients.

Again, I want to make it abundantly clear that it is critically important not to stop use of any prescription suddenly. Always consult your doctor if you feel the need to step of the medication safely. Suddenly stopping can even prove to be fatal, so please, just take the time to educate yourself, and talk with your doctor.

From Consumer Tips Weekly:

“After locating two different companies offering “dentist strength” teeth whitening products online, Cathy took her idea a step further–to save even more money (as if the trials alone weren’t enough). Cathy (with the help of her son, as she quickly admits) was able to obtain TWO different discount coupons that would drop the shipping price for each trial to less than $1.99–meaning she could get her hands on both trials by paying less than $4 total.

“I was amazed… this was a steal, and I just couldn’t be more thankful. I was able to get both of the products, used them one after another, and the difference is astounding. This is better than I would have expected from my dentist.”

Cathy has been able to use the internet to share her secret with thousands through publications such as this one. If you are interested in following her routine, we have provided the coupon codes and links to the trial offers below:

Step 1: Click here for Dazzle White (Use Promo Code: whiteteeth)
Step 2: Click here for Smile Brite (Use Promo Code: smilenow)”

Now this makes a lot more sense than spending hundreds of dollars at the dentist office. Goes to show that even in a recession, you can still find something to smile about, right? I’ve tried these types of products in the past, as well, and they worked wonders on my poor smoke abused teeth. It’s really worth the five bucks, especially if you’ve got a job interview coming up.

On Saturday, the space shuttle Endeavour is set to carry the seven astronauts of STS-127 and a key piece of the Japanese laboratory complex to the International Space Station… And just maybe we could see a Pride Party on the ISS… Because in an official announcement posted at the website of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Acting Administrator of NASA and the Equal Opportunity Programs Office at Goddard Space Flight Center are encouraging NASA employees to take part in LGBT Pride Month…

OFFICIAL NASA STATEMENT

On June 11, 1999, President

Image via Wikipedia

Clinton issued Presidential Proclamation 7203, the first Proclamation to designate June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. In that proclamation, the president said “…Since our earliest days as a nation, Americans have strived to make real the ideals of equality and freedom so eloquently expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We now have a rare opportunity to enter a new century and a new millennium as one country, living those principles, recognizing our common values, and building on our shared strengths. I encourage all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that celebrate our diversity, and to remember throughout the year the gay and lesbian Americans whose many and varied contributions have enriched our national life.”

The first Gay Pride parade was held on June 28, 1970, on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police entered a gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village and began harassing and and arresting gay and transgendered patrons. The patrons fought back in a protest that lasted for the next three days. For many gays and lesbians, this protest marks the first organized effort in the United States by gays and lesbians to openly gain equality under the law, and gave birth to the modern gay civil rights movement.

During Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, we focus on our efforts to embrace acceptance and welcome diversity in communities regardless of sexual orientation. Gay and lesbian groups celebrate this special time with pride parades, picnics, parties, memorials for those lost from HIV and AIDS, and other group gathering events that attract thousands upon thousands of individuals.. This month is meant to recognize the impact Gay, Lesbian and Transgender individuals have had on the world.

Symbols of LGBT pride include the rainbow flag, the Greek lambda symbol, and the pink as well as black triangles reclaimed from their past use.

The statement also said NASA will be hosting events in conjunction with Pride Month….

http://eeo.gsfc.nasa.gov/#Ann1

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Popsi.com’s By Dan Smith wrote this great article Dread Zeppelin:

The Army’s New Surveillance Blimp

“Since the airship glory days of the early part of the century, blimps have certainly lost some of their cachet, relegated to hovering over sporting events and not much else. However, the Army is about to test launch an unmanned hybrid airship to be used for surveillance missions in Afghanistan.”

Meet your knew stalker: LEMV (Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle). I found out more about this crazy spy blimp (that I heard about I think last year, in a special about UFO’s, but didn’t believe it then) at Aviation Week’s site:

“LEMV  has replaced the Persius (Persistent Elevated Reconnaissance Surveillance Intelligence Unmanned System), which was planned as a FY2009 joint capability technology demonstration. Persius was to be awarded to Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, to build a version of its P-791 proof-of-concept hybrid airship, which flew back in January 2006.

The Persius and LEMV specs look almost identical. Army Strategic Command is looking for a demonstrator that can carry a payload of at least 2,500lb to 20,000ft for three weeks. At 20,000ft, the payload line-of-sight would be 173 miles.

The hybrid airship is to be untethered and unmanned, but optionally manned for self-deployment, with the ability to fly a 2,500-mile roundtrip mission. The payload gondola and airship structure is to be capable of carrying a heaver, 5,000lb payload to lower, 10,000ft altitude.”

I haven’t been able to find video of LeMV, yet, but here’s the very simillar Lockheed-Martin “Skunk Works” P-791 LTA:

And this is the demo-model’s capabilities! Well, if the fact that google was already capable of getting detailed street views, imagine the detail this can get. Maybe the could just write BIG BROTHER down the side? What’s the point of being subtle with giant, unmanned spy balloons?

“Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.”~ Washington Post.

Mercury causes brain damage. I kind of figured somebody was saying something bad about corn syrup since all those adds saying how it was good for you and natural popped up. The FDA is a joke, and to prove it to yourself, here’s an experiment you can do at home:

“”Even at low levels methylmercury can harm the developing brain. The last thing we should intentionally do is add to it,” Wallinga added, in an MSNBC article also covering the story. I think we’ve seen the gutting of the FDA under the Bush administration, and we’re suffering the consequences. We should not be worrying about poison in our soda, salmonella in our tomatoes and spinach, and hormones in our milk.

Our way of creating, and safeguarding our food supply is changing dramatically day by day. Companies like Monsanto are now patenting living organisms, like the corn they are being forced to grow in Iraq. Monsanto, also an Obama supporter, has been destroying farmers around the world with their mutant GMO seed. Did you realize that you’ve probably already eaten Gentically modified food? Did you know they’re pushing hard just to get labels on beef from a GMO cow? I’ve got a container of organic milk in the fridge bragging right on the front label how there’s no cloned cow milk in it!

There is a lot to look into. But we all have a responsibility to ourselves, and our families to get involved in this issue. New laws are being written that hurt our agriculture, not help it. You can do something about it! Get in contact with your local representatives. I know we’re about to start knowing these guys on a first name basis, we have to contact them about so much stuff, but that’s what they’re there for!