-"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away..." Just last week the LGBT community was so excited about Governor Chris Christie's appointment of openly gay Mayor Bruce Harris to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Now we find out Harris made a pact with the devil and agreed to Christie's condition that he would recuse himself from any marriage equality cases! Does that mean African-Americans and Jewish-Americans have to recuse themselves too on cases impacting those communities? Is it even legal for the governor to demand a 'vote' before appointing someone! Outrageous!

-Count me among the many millions of "Downton Abby" fans. I can't wait for the Sunday night series. Now we get word that legendary actress and old friend Shirley MacLaine (photograph above) will be in the cast of Season Three starting in September! By the way, isn't it long overdue that MacLaine receive a Kennedy Center Honor? Now, that page should be created on Facebook!

-In Washington State, the Senate will vote on marriage equality tomorrow.  If it passes, the House will quickly vote on it and send to the Governor who will sign the legislation. Keep your fingers crossed!

-Did your jaw drop as much as mine when I heard that Mitt Romney and his wife Anne made his dead father-in-law a Mormon? Seems as deceased wasn't big on religion at all when he was alive. Nothing like forcing your values and religion on the dead.

The Glass House Tavern packed the celebrities in the last two weeks. Seen gracing their tables were Stephen Sondheim, Bernadette Peters, Nick Jonas (photograph), Michael Lurie, Beau Bridges and Agent Michael Moore.

-New Public Policy Polling has arrived on the anti-LGBT Constitutional Amendment that will be on the ballot this coming fall in Minnesota.  At this moment 48% will vote against us and 44% for us. Looks like a tough road ahead on this one.

-The United States might have set an all time low temperature record for all fifty states. One station in Alaska might have passed -80 degrees. While we have been having the year without winter, Alaska has been frigid and tons of snow. God help us if it breaks loose and heads south.

-In the 1960's, people would shout at protestors to move from the good ole USA if they didn't like it here. Congressman Alan West (R-FL) gave a speech where he suggested that the President, the Speaker and The Senate Majority Leader should all "get the hell out of the United States!"  

-This week will be the vote in New Hampshire to repeal the marriage equality bill. Already some Republicans are refusing their party leadership to fall into line. What is clear is that Governor John Lynch will veto the bill and it is becoming increasingly unlikely there will be the votes to override the veto. By the way, over 60% of the people of New Hampshire support marriage equality.

-At last a real heroine emerges from the Costa Concordia shipwreck. After the cowardly captain 'accidentally' fell into a life boat, a young Peruvian waitress, Erika Fani Soriamolina, stayed onboard, helped passengers into life boats and gave her life jacket to an elderly man. Her body was found on the ship this week.

-Finn Air was taking a plane full of passengers from Helsenki to Delhi to celebrate India's Republic Day. Suddenly before take off dancers appeared in the aisle and gave them all a taste of Bollywood!

-London's 'Countdown to the Olympics' has started and the plans are well underway for the Opening Night. The theme will be a Shakespearean "Isles of Wonder" under the direction of Danny Boyle, Oscar-winning helmer of "Slumdog Millionaire."

-Producer/Director Ryan Murphy of "Glee" fame has had NBC pick up his new pilot "The New Normal.". The comedy is about two gay men and the surrogate mother they pick to carry their baby! Andrew Rannells from Broadway's "Book of Mormon" would be one of the three leads.

-MassResistance in 2007 posted this piece about how 'pro-life Romney' really didn't have his heart into it back then. Worth a read.

-Chicago might have its hands full come the G-8 Conference May 1. A leading Occupy Movement magazine is calling for 50,000 protesters to converge on the city to protest the G-8 policies. Mayor Rahm Emmanuel might have wished he stayed in DC. Here is a video clip from the 1968 Democratic Convention the last time so many protesters visited Chicago. And we all know how well that turned out.

 

 

Don't let the Republicans know but thousands of undocumented hunters are coming into the United States for the first time over the Canadian borders. This will drive the GOP nuts. They will be eating our food in impoverished regions and drinking our water in drought stricken areas.

They weren't invited and historically have never been seen in these kind of numbers in the United States. These interlopers can be found from Oregon to Maine and even are starting to penetrate the Southern States. In Hawaii, one was shot for fear they would menace our airport security.

American citizens most likely will hear of this illegal immigration in the next debates. What is all the fuss about? The stunningly beautiful Snowy Owl has for the first time appeared in the lover 48 states by the thousands. They stand two feel tall and have massive five foot wingspans.

MSNBC has given serious space to these undocumented birds. They write on their site:

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.

"What we're seeing now — it's unbelievable," said Denver Holt, head of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

"This is the most significant wildlife event in decades," added Holt, who has studied snowy owls in their Arctic tundra ecosystem for two decades.

Holt and other owl experts say the phenomenon is likely linked to lemmings, a rodent that accounts for 90 percent of the diet of snowy owls during breeding months that stretch from May into September. The largely nocturnal birds also prey on a host of other animals, from voles to geese."

 

 

 

In a first ever effort, Global Journal has listed the Top 100 NGO's (non-governmental organizations) in the world. This was an ambitious undertaking for the Journal and sure to generate debate and maybe even some controversy. The methodology that they used to judge some of the world's most prominent organizations consisted of:

-Innovation
-Effectiveness
-Impact
-Efficiency/Value for Money
-Transparency and Accountability
-Sustainability
-Strategic and Financial Management -Peer Review

You see more on the methodology and the entire list of 100 organizations by clicking here but the top ten are:

1. The Wikimedia Foundation

2. Partner in Health

3. Oxfam

4. BRAC

5. International Rescue Committee

6. PATH

7. CARE International

8. Medecins San Frontieres

9. Danish Refugee Council

10. Ushahidi

 

 

Increasingly the arts community is becoming the voice of the history of the darkest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The newest project to be unveiled at Sundance Film Festival was Director David France's "How To Survive A Plague" which tells the story of ACT UP in the 1980's and early 1990's. At its first screening, the documentary received two standing ovations. In addition, the film was immediately brought for distribution by Sundance Selects. Jonathan Sehring of Sundance Selects said of the Joy Tomchin/David France entry

This is a towering film in the history of cinema about social activism. Its astonishing use of archival material to reconstruct an era of political indifference in the face of an unimaginable health crisis helps to create a new blueprint for modern activists."

The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a rave review and here are a few excerpts:

Words like “important” and “inspiring” tend too often to be meaninglessly attached to non-fiction filmmaking, but in the case of David France's compelling snapshot of a revolutionary period in AIDS treatment, they are amply justified........

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of David France’s emotionally charged documentary, How to Survive a Plague, is that despite the wealth of books, films and plays dealing with AIDS, this feels like a part of the story that hasn't yet been told – certainly not with such probing insight. Packed with fascinating interviews and stirring footage from the trenches, the film deftly shapes its information stream into a powerful drama recounting the highs and lows, setbacks and victories in the fight for an effective HIV treatment.........

The battle of a small New York-based group of gay activists against the FDA, the NIH and major drug companies might sound more earnest than engaging. It’s not. The film is actually an epic celebration of heroism and tenacity, and less directly, a useful template for any fledgling activist movement, demonstrating the effectiveness of inside/outside strategy. It also shows the enduring government apathy toward gay-rights issues that slowed research funding and cost so many lives.

Variety also joined in the raving about the documentary:

This saga is told primarily through archival videotape (Act-Up was nothing if not media-savvy) often narrated by participants. These include a number of important researchers, but the character emphasis is on the activists, a vivid assortment whose survival the pic cannily holds in suspense.

A veteran journalist who's been reporting on AIDS since the epidemic's earliest days, debuting helmer France and his first-rate collaborators have assembled a package as engrossing in human terms as it is historically informative. Artful editing, original scoring and music supervision make especially valuable contributions.

 

 

Once again Oakland became the battleground for the Occupy Movement. Apparently the mayor or no one else in city government can control the police or maybe even care to control them. As protesters were gathering police lobbed tear gas and fired rubber bullets. After creating total chaos, the police then boxed in the demonstrators and proceeded with the mass arrests.

Recently, the international agency that protects journalists moved the United States down to number forty-seven in 'press freedoms.' The main reason given by the organization was that journalist were by large numbers being beaten and arrested during the Occupy demonstrations despite clearly identifying themselves to law enforcement officials. Not since 1968 have we seen so many journalists being rounded up by the police and arrested.

The only reason to arrest reporters who show identification is to intimidate them from covering the news. Either by making them reluctant to get close to the event or making it almost impossible for them to cover the news.

Here is an excerpt from Mother Jones magazine by journalist Gavin Aronsen about the arrests of six reporters:

On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states "media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status."

After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside city hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrogated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.

As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.

I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.

When Hanes displayed hers, an officer shook his head. "That's not an Oakland pass," he told her. "You're getting arrested." (She had a press pass issued by San Francisco, but not Oakland, police.) Another officer rejected my credentials, and I began interviewing soon-to-be-arrested protesters standing nearby. About five minutes later, an officer grabbed my arm and ziptied me. Around the same time, Ho—who did have official OPD credentials—was also apprehended.

As I waited in line to be processed and transported to jail, Ho approached me with an officer who had released her from custody. The two explained to my arresting officer that I was with the media. "Oh, he's with the media?" the officer replied, although I had already repeatedly told him as much and my credentials had been plainly visible all night. He appeared ready to release me, until a nearby officer piped in, without explanation: "He's getting arrested."

 

 

There is something magnificent about a classy bathroom. Sitting in a deep tub with a fireplace roaring next to you and surround sound music caressing your ears. Even more special are those showers that hit you from every direction. Especially if they are large enough for a romantic couple to work up a good lather with each other! When you add nature to the equation and bring the outdoors in to the indoors it becomes close to heaven. Architizer.com recently had a story about showers.

 

 

"Your Eyes...." by David Mixner

My love,
When I look into your eyes
I see the moon rising to a brilliant song,
And the comet streaking across the Monterrey sky.
The waves pound by our Fire Island bedside.
The smells from our travels linger on your body.

Our journey is unique,
The road has had many twists and turns.
The passage has been uncertain,
Filled with strangers seeking a glimpse.
The crowds are ignored as we passionately embrace.

Love has no limits.
There can be no fences.
Stand on the edge with me and
Marvel at the beauty of the unknown.
Fall into the splendor of overwhelming sunsets,
So we again can return to our song.

Your youth challenges me unto new ground.
The body gives me delights previously unknown.
My age teaches patience to enjoy the lush green.
Spirituality is our bed upon which our souls make love.

Although we witness the harshness of the world,
There is no sword of war that can deny me your love.
Our love rises above the cascade of angry voices
To create a world of flowers, incense and music.
In our travels we have even touch the sun.

All of this I remember
When I look into your eyes my love,
I see you and I see the world.