(click photo for a Bradylicious surprise!)
Growing Up Brady: My future ex-lover and INTERVIEW magazine model Brady Quinn just got nominated for the Hesiman Trophy! If Bruce Weber gets a vote then he may have a chance. (Fox)
Tranny Birth Certificates: New York City's Board of Health unexpectedly withd
rew a proposal this week that would have allowed people to alter the sex on their birth certificates without sex-change surgery. The plan, if passed, would have put New York at the forefront of a movement to eliminate anatomical considerations when defining gender. It had been lauded by some mental health professionals and transgender advocates who said it would reduce discrimination against men and women who lived as members of the opposite sex. But after the proposed change was widely publicized recently, board members and officials with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that a surge of new concerns arose -- many of which sounded pretty weak to me. Health officials said patients at hospitals asked how doctors would determine who would be assigned to the bed next to them (um, isn't that what this issue is about in the first place?!). Also, among law enforcement officials there were concerns about whether prisoners with altered birth certificates could be housed with female prisoners -- even if they still had male anatomies. (Reuters) 
Sour Grapes? By now you've probably read that Augusten Burroughs has been accused of James Freying his way through his best-selling memoir, "Running With Scissors." The family that took him is now pursuing litigation against him claiming defamation: Members of the Turcotte family of western Massachusetts say they decided to sue the gay author because he exaggerated and fabricated aspects of his life with them. "I don't know how [Burroughs] lives with himself," said Buzz Bissinger, who wrote a piece about the scandal for the new Vanity Fair. "'Running With Scissors' contains little strands of fact that were wildly embellished, and if you take those away, you don't have much of a book." So let me get this straight: we have a gay guy who embellishes stories about his youth to make them funnier and more entertaining -- gee, I don't know anyone like that. Furthermore: how much do you want to bet that we would have never heard from this family had the book not become such a smash (by reading the book we had no idea who they were because their names were changed; now they're running around telling every it's about them and saying Burroughs defamed them??!!!). Everyone knows these types of books are to be taken with a grain of salt -- they're written from memories, for god's sake, and sometimes things are so horrible that we are forced to remember things in a way that makes them something we can live with. I'm a writer and I believe in honesty and integrity in the craft, but something about this has sour grapes and $$$$$ written all over it. Maybe I'm wrong. (THR)
John Wayne Gacy 2: A Louisiana man has confessed to strangling or suffocating 23 men during an eight-year killing spree and dumping their bodies in remote spots in seven parishes, police said. Ronald J. Dominique, 42, was charged Monday with nine additional counts of murder, bringing the total to 11 counts against him -- 10 for first-degree murder and one for second-degree murder. My condolences to the victims' families. May they find some solace in this twisted monster's prosecution. (AP)
Freedom of Choice: It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of fat, but New York City's first-in-the-nation order to ban trans fats from all city restaurants doesn't sit well with me. Just as I don't want the government to tell me who I can put in my body can have sex with, I don't want them telling me what I can put in it, either. Tobacco and alcohol are easily as bad for people as trans fats, yet they're legal. I know there are valid arguments for instituting this ban, but when a Starbucks venti Caffe Mocha with breve milk and whipped cream has 770 calories, a third of most people's daily quota, and a single Burger King meal consisting of a triple Whopper with cheese, a king-size Coke and a large order of fries rings in at 2,120 calories (their whole daily allowance), how is infringing on the public's right to eat what they want really going to do any good? It's all about moderation -- and if I want to eat a trans fat soaked Krispy Kreme doughnut once in awhile, why shouldn't I be allowed to? (WP)
Jesus and Mary: How scary is it that the vice president's sinner lezzie daughter, Mary Cheney, is pregnant. A. gross; B. let's hope the kid doesn't get Mom's receding hairline; C. She's the femme in the relationship? (People)
Ya Gotta Have Faith: Conservative Jewish scholars eased their ban Wednesday on ordaining gays, upending thousands of years of precedent while stopping short of fully accepting gay clergy. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which interprets religious law for the movement, adopted three starkly conflicting policies that nonetheless give gays the chance to serve as clergy. Now if gay Jews could just have a pride celebration in Jerusalem in peace we'd really be getting somewhere. (AP)
rew a proposal this week that would have allowed people to alter the sex on their birth certificates without sex-change surgery. The plan, if passed, would have put New York at the forefront of a movement to eliminate anatomical considerations when defining gender. It had been lauded by some mental health professionals and transgender advocates who said it would reduce discrimination against men and women who lived as members of the opposite sex. But after the proposed change was widely publicized recently, board members and officials with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that a surge of new concerns arose -- many of which sounded pretty weak to me. Health officials said patients at hospitals asked how doctors would determine who would be assigned to the bed next to them (um, isn't that what this issue is about in the first place?!). Also, among law enforcement officials there were concerns about whether prisoners with altered birth certificates could be housed with female prisoners -- even if they still had male anatomies. (Reuters) 
4 comments:
Disregarding for a moment the freedom issue, the trans fat ban
doesn't seem like such a bad thing. There are other fats which will
make food just as fattening as trans fats (all those fats have the
same number of calories and will put on the pounds just as well) but
which won't clog peoples' arteries. No big whoop.
As to the freedom issue. As a former smoker, I will say this: If
there was another kind of 'tobacco' which didn't give people lung
cancer and heart disease, I would be smoking it! And, I would be
glad to see the *unhealthy* type made illegal.
Now, I don't know how far to go with the idea of making Bad Things
illegal. Murder, for example is a Bad Thing. Child abuse, assault,
robbery, embezzlement, etc. etc. etc. are all Bad Things. We seem to
be content with those things being illegal. So, there is a
precedent. Not that the laws have stopped child abuse, assault,
robbery, embezzlement, etc. etc. etc.
But, one of the problems in the world is all the Bad Stuff that food
companies put in foods, for no good reason except that it is cheaper,
and reduces their manufacturing costs. And, the food industry is not
likely to make much change unless there is some way to force that
change.
So, banning trans fats seems like a small enough thing to do. It
will make a lot of people feel like "somebody actually did
something." And gazzillions of people will feel better about chowing
down on that Big Mac so that McD's will make more money and people
will continue to get fat or fatter.
So, while I don't see anything wrong with banning trans fats, I do
think we're burying our heads in the sand regarding the main problem,
which is, of course, obesity.
Just the same way we carp about sex on television and in movies,
while we all kinds of bloody gore and violence to be perpetrated.
Funny how violence is OK, but sex isn't? Old question, too. You
might think we'd learn, eh?
So banning trans fats seems like a small thing in the big picture of
What We Should Change About Ourselves.
Excellent points.
It never occurred to me that Burroughs' work was close to factual. Nor was it funny. If he tried to pass it as true, it just all seemed so sad and pathetic.
Just for the record, the movement of Conservative Judaism was not really a player in the anti-gay hysteria fomented by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. For the most part, Conservative Judiasm (misnomer, really the left-of-centre, with Reform being the left and modern Orthodox being right, ultra-Orthodox being our right-wing fundamentalists theo-cons) is inclusive of gay Jews. The vote this week shows the evolution of that denomination. Mostly like at the next interval further progress will be seen. As for Jerusalem pride, demographics there are scarily against us. Ultra-Orthodox Jerusalemites are very numerous, gays few.
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