Miscellaneous: August 2006 Archives

Yeah, I know it sounds corny. I guess you have to see the movie. There are parts of it that are admittedly a bit corny. But I was really touch by this scene, because I remember feeling that alone and scared. Even today, we have kids feeling this. They feel, as this kid did, that they have to justify the way they feel inside. Some give up and throw in the towel on life, and others fight.

They shouldn’t have to fight. Everyone deserves and should expect respect.

A Marine from Milford who was awarded a Purple Heart after an insurgent grenade exploded and pelted him with shrapnel earlier this year was killed during combat Friday in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Saturday.

Cpl. Jordan C. Pierson, 21, became the 32nd serviceperson with ties to Connecticut killed since in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2002.

Pierson died during combat operations in the Al Anbar province, a combat hot zone. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division in Plainville.

Word of the Marine’s death reached his seaside hometown by late Friday.

“There were two Marines in full dress uniform standing outside their house when his mother got home,” said Rena Lewis, a neighbor. “I saw them there and I knew what it was about.”

Pierson graduated from Foran High School in Milford in 2003 and enlisted with the Marines that December. He postponed studies at the University of Connecticut to serve in Iraq. (source)

Servicemen and civilians with Connecticut ties who have died since March 2002 in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, 36, March 4, 2002, Afghanistan

Marine Staff Sgt. Phillip Jordan, 42, March 23, 2003, Iraq

Marine Cpl. Kemaphoom Chanawongse, 22, March 23, 2003, Iraq

Army Pfc. Wilfredo Perez Jr., 24, July 26, 2003, Iraq

Army Staff Sgt. Richard S. Eaton Jr., 37, Aug. 12, 2003, Iraq

Army Sgt. David Travis Friedrich, 26, Sept. 20, 2003, Iraq

Army Pfc. Anthony D’Agostino, 20, Nov. 2, 2003, Iraq

Army Sgt. Maj. Philip Albert, 41, Nov. 23, 2003, Afghanistan

Army Pfc. Jeffrey Braun, 19, Dec. 12, 2003, Iraq

Army Capt. Eric Paliwoda, 28, Jan. 2, 2004, Iraq

Army Sgt. Benjamin Gilman, 28, Jan. 29, 2004, Afghanistan

Army Spc. Tyanna Avery-Felder, 22, April 7, 2004, Iraq

Army (National Guard) Sgt. Felix Del Greco, 22, April 9, 2004, Iraq

U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal, 24, April 24, 2004, Iraq

Army Spc. Jacob David Martir, 21, Aug. 18, 2004, Iraq

Eric Miner, 44, employee of U.S. security firm DynCorp, Oct. 14, 2004, Iraq

Army Chief Warrant Officer William Brennan, Oct. 15, 2004, Iraq

Marine Cpl. Kevin Dempsey, 23, Nov. 13, 2004, Iraq

Army Sgt. Joseph Michael Nolan, 27, Nov. 18, 2004, Iraq

Army Lt. Col. Michael J. McMahon, 41, Nov. 27, 2004, Afghanistan

Army (National Guard) Staff Sgt. Henry E. Irizarry, 38, Dec. 3, 2004, Iraq

Army (National Guard) Spc. Robert Hoyt, 21, Dec. 11, 2004, Iraq

Army Staff Sgt. Thomas E. Vitagliano, 33, Jan. 17, 2005, Iraq

Barbara Heald, 60, civilian employee of the Army, Jan. 29, 2005, Iraq

Marine Lance Cpl. Lawrence Philippon, 22, May 8, 2005, Iraq

Lance Cpl. John T. Schmidt III, 21, May 11, 2005, Iraq

Army Spec. Christopher Hoskins, 21, June 21, 2005, Iraq

Army Maj. Steve Reich, 34, June 28, 2005, Afghanistan

Marine Sgt. David Coullard, 32, Aug. 1, 2005, Iraq

Marine Capt. Brian S. Letendre, 27, May 3, 2006, Iraq

Marine Cpl. Stephen Bixler, 20, May 4, 2006, Iraq

Marine Cpl. Jordan C. Pierson, 21, Aug. 25, 2006, Iraq

Source - Stamford Advocate via AP
Additional Source Information

“Wal-Mart Partners With National Gay and Lesbian Group - also Hires Gay-Marketing Shop as Retailer Works to Alter Image,” displays on a headline in this morning’s Advertising Age website.

Advertising Age (AdAge.com) reports: “Despite an ongoing review for its $578 million ad account, Wal-Mart hired Witeck-Combs Communications, a marketing shop known for its work targeting the gay and lesbian consumer market, according to Bob Witeck, president of the Washington-based firm.” (source)

There’s just something about Wal-mart I can’t stand. You can call me a snob if you want. If Wal-mart really wants to “woo” me, they can take that $578 million and start paying their workers a decent wage. That would be a good start in my book.

It doesn’t matter to me how “gay friendly” their company becomes. If they treat their workers to little more than minimum wage with no way to advance within the company, it’s just not good enough. If they won’t hire older workers because they demand what they’re worth, it’s just not good enough. Go to a Wal-mart and just trying to find a career employee. There are none. Go to Macy’s or Sears, you will find plenty.

A company has to do right by it’s employees. Second to that on my list is the fairness the organization has within it’s management for benefits, promotion, and hiring policies towards it’s employees - including extending health benefits to the partners of it’s gay employees, even when the state won’t.

On the second point, it seems that Wal-mart is willing to make that challenge.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is broadening its anti-discrimination policy to cover gay and lesbian workers, bringing the company into line with most other big companies.

Virtually all of the Fortune 500 have similar policies but Wal-Mart is being pummeled by conservative Christians who apparently feel the company’s Arkansas roots should make it immune to societal forces. (source)

Sounds fair enough to me, but then it goes on to say,

The policy will not affect benefits, which Wal-Mart does not offer to unmarried partners of any orientation. But Williams said sexual orientation will be added to the company’s existing “diversity-awareness” training programs.

Gay rights groups said that Wal-Mart has a history of fair treatment but they welcomed the explicit change in the company’s policy.

“This action helps ensure that Wal-Mart’s gay and lesbian employees will be judged on their merits, not on their sexual orientation,” said Zack Wright, a lawyer with Seattle-based Pride Foundation, which pushed Wal-mart to change its policy.

“It’s a tremendous step forward, a real symbol of how far we’ve come in recent years,” said Michael Adams, an attorney and spokesman for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Wait, so this policy doesn’t extend health benefits to anyone - gay or straight partners? This goes back to my first point on how Wal-mart’s employees are treated in the first place.

It’s funny, a spokesman for Lamgda Legal, a gay legal firm, calls this “a tremendous step forward”. How easily Wal-mart can “woo” us. Shouldn’t we demand more? Decent wages, a chance for advancement, and benefits for our families might be a good start.

If you are sending your kid to a college or university, or starting to look around at which school may be more tolerant to minority students, here’s a list to get you started. If you have a gay or lesbian child, I’m sure you know that some schools are much more accepting than others. If you want your child to go to a school that is about diversity and embraces it, this list may be of help to you.

The list is composed, in part, from input from students who have attended these schools.

Accepting Schools for Gay Students
New York University
Eugene Lang College/New School University
New College of Florida
Macalester College
College of the Atlantic
Simon’s Rock College of Bard
Wellesley College
Mount Holyoke College
Bryn Mawr College
Bennington College
Emerson College
Lawrence University
Harvey Mudd College
Grinnell College
Smith College
Wesleyan University
Swarthmore College
Hampshire College
Vassar College
Reed College

Non-Accepting Schools for Gay Students
Baylor University
Texas A&M University-College Station
University of Notre Dame
Hampden-Sydney College
Brigham Young University
Wheaton College
College of the Holy Cross
Grove City College
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Samford University
Seton Hall University
Valparaiso University
Pepperdine University
Washington and Lee University
Miami University
Trinity College
North Carolina State University
University of Utah
Calvin College
Providence College

Source information

U.S. astronomers say they have found the first direct proof of the existence of so-called dark matter. [...]

Astronomers say the observations provide the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark. Despite considerable evidence for dark matter, some scientists have proposed alternative theories for gravity where it is stronger on intergalactic scales than predicted by Newton and Einstein, removing the need for dark matter. However, such theories cannot explain the observed effects of that collision.

“A universe that’s dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking,” said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona-Tucson, and leader of the study. “These results are direct proof that dark matter exists.” (source)

All they have to do to find “dark matter” is to look in the White House. It has to be “dark matter” - there’s a complete void of “gray matter” there.

I have made a few changes to my website this weekend. Because of a friend of mine, I’ve been made aware of the challenges that blind people face when using the Internet.

For my site at least, I wanted to make that a bit easier for them. So I’ve added some functionality to the site that will hopefully make it a bit easier for them. I’ve already had some positive comments on this.

First, I’ve added code that will actually read each entry and speak it through your speakers attached to your computer. If you click on the image on the right side, labeled “Listen Now”, a box will come up and start reading the last twenty entries on the site. You can step through them one by one as you wish.

Second, if you subscribe to iTunes, you can subscribe to this site, with either a PC or a MAC, and simply download the entries and listen to them at your leisure.

I’m still researching the issue, but this should be a good start, and I’ve been told that it is a big help to some already.

When AIDS first crept into the public consciousness in the early 1980s, the victims of the terrifying new disease were mostly gay men in North America and Europe. One after another they died, as partners and friends despaired of becoming infected themselves and wondered if the next of the innumerable funerals they attended would be their own.

But 25 years later, gay men have found themselves relegated to the periphery of the HIV-AIDS pandemic, which has expanded exponentially into every continent and to every possible segment of humanity.

The shift in focus from men who have sex with men (MSM), as they’re now called, to women and children, and from western countries to Africa and other southern regions, was nowhere more apparent than at the week-long International AIDS Conference, which wrapped up Friday. [...]

Franck DeRose, the Washington-based executive director of the global Condom Project, called it deplorable that there was no representation of the MSM community “inside the conference.”

“I’m not resentful. I’m a little bit disappointed actually,” he said. “Am I surprised there’s not something on MSM? Yes I am. I would think that we would be a little bit more progressive.”

While acknowledging that gay men were the most affected in the early days of the epidemic, conference co-chair Dr. Helene Gayle of Atlanta said that since then, HIV-AIDS has become much more diverse. (source)

AIDS is a very “progressive” disease - it will accept the whole rainbow of people into it’s fold.

Years ago when I was a volunteer as a “buddy” for an AIDS organization, all of our clients were gay men. As a buddy, I would take on clients and help them out in a variety of ways - clean house, shop for them, run errands, take them for drives, etc. It was something I could do and since I was not yet employed, I was able to pour a lot of time into doing this.

Every couple of weeks, it was required that we had a buddy support group meeting. This was very important because of the nature of the work we were doing, it was a place we could go to find support for ourselves. Once in awhile, a fellow buddy would let us know that his client buddy had died. I remember dreading going to this meeting. When your client dies, you are required to let the organization know, mostly for your support. My buddy died in the hospital and I was with him the night he died, along with his father and his husband. At the meeting, I told everyone, “I’m afraid I have some bad news. John (not his real name) died two days ago.” I tried to say more, but started crying. And that was the place to do it. That was what the group was for. I was strong for his family and never shed a tear in their presence. But afterwards, I realized how attached I had become to him. This is part of being human. You feel life, or you don’t.

At one such meeting, the subject came up that we had a new potential client. The only problem was that he was a straight man who had AIDS. This was twelve or so years ago, so it was unusual to have a straight man come to us for help. But there was no where else for him to turn. AIDS was primarily in this country at the time a disease that gay men had. This straight man contracted the disease through IV drug use. He was Hispanic, and he “didn’t think” he would have “much of a problem” being around gay men.

Well, many of us had a problem with him being part of our organization. He was straight. Who the hell did he think he was coming to us for help? Where the hell was he and people like him when we needed their help? The answer is obvious. They were no where to be found because they really didn’t care if gays died from this or not. That is as honest as I can be about this, and to this day, I believe that to be true.

But, we concluded, rightfully so, that we were doing exactly the same thing to him that was done to us. I remember saying at the meeting after coming to the conclusion that we should take him as a client, “Where does the cycle of hate stop? The man dislikes us, perhaps hates us, but the fact is, he has AIDS and needs our help.” It’s sometimes difficult to overcome the anger we have for society, which is totally justified, into doing the right thing. We did the right thing by taking him in. And afterwards, his ideas changed as far as gay men were concerned.

So today, I was remembering all of that as I read this story. They have an AIDS conference and some people are angry that gay men were not talked about at the conference. I admit that I’m a bit surprised at this as well, but we have to look at the reality of this. AIDS does not take into consideration who you are, who you sleep with, what your gender is, what your nationality is.... so why should we? In Africa, there is an entire generation of children who are now orphans because both of their parents have died from AIDS. That is reality.

In this country, I’m alarmed that women are contracting AIDS at an alarming rate. I’m frightened that I’m seeing this more and more in the African American community in this country. I’m concerned that more and more young gay men are contracting this disease because AIDS is now being portrayed as a “manageable disease” with the use of “drug cocktails”, which apparently is being reduced to “one pill a day”.

And I’m really concerned that our government can hardly say the word “condom”, let alone say that we should be talking about “safe sex” to children as early as middle school (hey, they are having sex at that age!). But our government thinks that if we just pray hard enough, think good thoughts, and tell the kids to be abstinent, that will be good enough. It’s like a take-off from the Nancy Reagan days, where her drug campaign slogan was “Just say NO to drugs”. Yeah, that worked well. Keep thinking those good thoughts, Mr. Bush. Oh, and pray! I don’t know what world our government lives in, but it’s not reality!

The Bush administration is accustomed to criticism of its AIDS policies by those attending the biennial International AIDS Conference. But this week, two U.S. leaders in the fight against HIV — including Bush’s gay former AIDS czar — took aim at what they called the president’s “ideologically driven, abstinence-until-marriage focus that places many at risk of needlessly contracting HIV.”

In an opinion piece published Aug. 14 in the Toronto Star, timed to coincide with the city hosting the XVI annual International AIDS Conference Aug. 13-18, Scott Evertz, Bush’s former director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, wrote that current domestic policy is “creating confusion and fear among [HIV-prevention organizations] regarding the appropriate role of condoms.” [...]

The pair wrote that comprehensive HIV prevention could be a lifesaver for people around the globe, from underage sex workers in developing countries to “the young gay teen in Washington D.C., told to abstain until marriage when marriage is impossible.” (source)

The fight is not about who got air time and who didn’t get mentioned. That fight is ridding AIDS from the face of this earth once and for all - not arguing about who was mentioned and who wasn’t mentioned. We need to keep our eye on the target and stop all the fighting. What a waste of energy.

As privacy issues continue to concern nearly everyone, gay and lesbian consumers in particular may be curious to know that the net’s largest retailer, Amazon.com, would like to know more about you.

In a report last week, the Seattle Post Intelligencer revealed Amazon is developing a system to gather and keep massive amounts of intimate information about its millions of shoppers, including their sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and income.

Do you ever wonder why everyone is trying to collect as much data as they can? You order something online and you are asked questions about your personal life that seem to have nothing to do with your actual purchase. Another thing that creeps me out is the collection of data that you are never told about. For example, I shop occasionally at CVS Pharmacy and Stop & Shop. At both stores, if you show them your card, they will scan it. This of course allows you to get discounts on certain items.

In the case of CVS, they will print out coupons that you can redeem within a certain time period (usually only two weeks or so). But, you are usually given coupons that are relevant to you. They are relevant because some computer has analyzed your buying patterns and it knows what you like and what you don’t like. The Stop & Shop computer also knows what I cook. I did think it was strange that I got a brochure with soup recipes in it from Stop & Shop, after buying ingredients on several occasions for different soups I was going to make. I mean, how would a program take the information from a bunch of different ingredients and assume that I was going to make soup from those ingredients?

Soup is fairly harmless. Aside from the annoying brochure, which falls under my “junk mail” category, it has made me wonder about all the other information out there that is just floating around on all of us. What if someone had less than stellar motives in how that data was to be used? I’m not talking about the crooks that we all know are lurking in cyberspace. I’m talking about all the data that corporate America is collecting on all of us.

But it’s safe right?

The Seattle-based company, however, said it has no immediate plan to implement such a program, and was quick to issue statements assuring customers that their information would be kept private.

“Amazon is always careful how it uses customer data so the customer experience will be as good as it can be,” Amazon.com spokeswoman Patty Smith told the paper.

Right.... I’m sure they will keep it safe. After all, data is never stolen. Although, occasionally, mistakes do happen.

AOL recently published a list of more than 650,000 user queries that revealed names, addresses and Social Security numbers, and the company this week apologized and removed the data. It is unknown how many copies of the sensitive information were made.

Source information

Abu Oudai, chief rocket coordinator for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the West Bank told WorldNetDaily that Hezbollah’s ’tremendous victory’ had inspired his group and other terror outfits to focus their ’resistance’ on rocket attacks. [...]

“If we do [what Hezbollah accomplished], this Israeli army full of gay soldiers and full of corruption and with old-fashioned war methods can be defeated also in Palestine.”

Unlike the US military, Israel has embraced gay soldiers, some would say through combative necessity, rather than a wish to expand their liberal credentials. Israel has mandatory military service for both men and women. Typically, men serve for 36 months, women serve for 24 months.

In 1983, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) adopted regulations which officially allowed homosexuals to serve in the military.

Oudai may not be impressed with the prospect of gay personnel, but security and mental health officials for the IDF have found no evidence the long-standing inclusion of homosexuals in the IDF has harmed operational effectiveness, combat readiness, unit cohesion, or morale in the Israeli military. (source)

From my point of view, even though both sides are claiming victory in this conflict, it seems to me that Hezbollah got their asses kicked.

And, it’s too bad that the United States hasn’t learned that soldiers serve in the military to serve their country and to do a job. Their sexual preference should be irrelevant. The Israeli Defense Force knows this. When are we going to get the message?

This is the Iraq that you won’t hear about. Not from George W. Bush or Condoleezza Rice. To them, we are “moving towards democracy”.

Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an ‘honour killing’ to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq’s penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

‘The government will do nothing to tackle this issue. It’s really desperate when people get to the stage they’re trading their children for money. They have no alternatives because there are no jobs,’ Hili says.

Graphic photos obtained from Baghdad sources too frightened to identify themselves as having known a gay man, and seen by the Observer, show other gay Iraqis who have been executed. One shows two men, suspected of having a relationship, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs - guns at the ready behind their heads - awaiting execution. Another picture captured on a mobile phone shows a gay man being beaten to death. Yet another shows a corpse being dragged through the streets after his execution. (source)