The News is in the News

The state of news gathering organizations in the US is that they need healthcare as much as we do. How do we have an informed public when the news is so broken? How many newspapers are in danger or have closed this past year? How many radio stations and media outlets can one company own? In one city? Edward R. Murrow where are you when we need you?
How many right wing wing-nuts dominate the media?

When will the myth of the “Liberal Media” end? What we have is not only conservative media in control…we have ultra right wing extremists controlling the media. Dominating the public airwaves.

This week the Tea party convention is taking place here at Opryland Hotel. Local media was not invited. There is no national progressive radio talk show hosts on the air here to discuss the progressive angle. None, Nada, Zip.

What we have is ugly side of capitalism…monopoly. 5 or 6 companies now own and control everything we see & hear. If it’s not in their corporate interest for us to know about something they just bury it. Why should you care? Why do I harp on this problem so much? I’d love to just discuss GLBT issues…I’m sure Paul Revere would have rather just made his little beautiful bowls & spoons too…

The fact of the matter is we’re in a whole lot of trouble and a whole lot of Americans haven’t got a clue what’s going on. The ways you were informed in the past are gone. Journalism is disappearing. News organizations have merged with entertainment organizations and foreign news gathering offices have shut down. Ratings guide the direction of stories and dictate what leads. Companies that have been standards for years have been bought out by right wing nut jobs that have turned them into crap. Others have simply shut their doors.

There are organizations fighting back. They need all the support you can give. There are progressive voices out there but you have to go out there and find them. I can help you there. I can point you to where they are if need be. You can’t make an informed decision if you don’t have all the facts. The corporate media likes that. If you aren’t an informed electorate…well…they can make sure the politicians are in their pocket. A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court helped them even more to do just that. Next time you send a few dollars to re-elect your favorite politician…think about how that will go… when his or her challenger has the support of say, Walmart or G.E. Whose candidate do you think will win? Democracy is kind of over at that point isn’t it?

The solution to this problem we find ourselves in? WE THE PEOPLE. America will not be destroyed from without…it will be destroyed (if it is) from within. I’ve heard that my whole life. I think my parents told me that. I think it’s true. I’m afraid we’re in the midst of it now. As a lesbian, it’s difficult enough living in a “free, democratic society.” If America were to turn into something else…Fascist, corporatist, dictatorship…well who know what it would be like. I don’t want to know. We’ve got right wingers in DC at “the family,” helping Uganda pass laws to KILL gay people.

As I find news that I believe is important I’m going to continue to post it here and on my facebook page. If you find stories and want to do the same great. We need to help inform each other.

Remember this…Democracy and Capitalism are not the same thing. We do business every day with China and they are a thriving Capitolistic society. They are also a ruthless Communist dictatorship. Their record of Human Rights Sucks.
Free Market and Free Enterprise are not the same thing either. The so called free market system that right wingers are all fighting for today is what has led us to this debacle. What it really means is Un regulated laissez-faire capitalism. Think of the super bowl game with no rules. Free enterprise on the other hand is what we used to have when you went to the mall or shopping plaza and all the little shops were owned by local people. “Mom & Pop” operations. Profits went back in to the local economy and jobs were filled by local people too. There were factories where people actually made things. What a concept! When the country was in trouble during WW2 those same factories transformed over night into military supply machines turning out tanks and bombs and parachutes. Rosie the riveter could have been your grandmother or mine. If we’re buying everything from China and they threaten us what are we going to do? Ask them to sell us the materials we need to beef up our military?

That’s all for today. Thanks for listening to my rant. Sometimes you just gotta get it out. Next time you turn on the news think about who’s bringing it to you and what’s in it for them. Follow the money. Good Night, and Good Luck to all of us.

Planned Parenthood response to Superbowl ad

Free Nashville Entertainment Law Clinic

ATTENTION ALL MUSICIANS, WRITERS AND ARTISTS
The Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville and the Tennessee Bar Assoc. Entertainment & Sports Law Section present the
Nashville Entertainment Law Clinic

WHAT THIS MEANS: Do you have questions about how to copyright your art? Would you like to have a pair of expert, legal eyes look over an entertainment contract? At the Nashville Entertainment Law Clinic, you can sign up for a 30-minute appointment to receive pro-bono legal advice from entertainment lawyers. They’ll answer questions about intellectual property (including copyrights, trademarks, and licensing) and all manner of entertainment law issues.

WHEN: Saturday, February 20, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

WHERE: Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, the SunTrust Community Room, 222 5th Avenue South

HOW TO SIGN UP: All artists who would like to attend must sign up for a time slot by noon on Friday, February 19th by emailing vlpa@abcnashville.org or calling (615) 743-3055.

Action Alert: Rescued Horses inspire new legislation in Tennessee

Before Thanksgiving, you will recall the 85 horses and mules removed from a farm in Cannon County. It was obvious that these horses were in very bad shape – many hundreds of pounds below normal weight. The horses were relocated to the Nashville Fairgrounds and cared for by volunteers from all over the state, many from Nashville and Middle Tennessee. At that time, I committed to filing a bill that would make the intentional withholding of food and/or water from any animal a felony. Currently, withholding food and/or water from companion animals is felony aggravated animal cruelty – to do the very same to “livestock” is a misdemeanor. It makes no sense to have one penalty for companion animals and a different one for “livestock”. Cruelty is cruelty regardless if you are 3 lbs. or 16 hands high.

Sen. Ketron and I have sponsored legislation that will make withholding food and/or water from ANY animal felony aggravated animal cruelty. The bill numbers are HB3386 and SB3546. The bill can be viewed by going to www.capitol.tn.gov, the legislative page will appear, go to the bottom left hand side to “find legislation”, enter the bill number and click on search. You can print the bill from there.

If you have problems, please call our office at 741-6861.

Please contact your legislators – both House and Senate – and ask for their support in passing this important legislation. It will take everyone working together.

Thanks for all your support.

Janis Sontany
State Representative – District 53
741-6861/331-7616

Snow pictures from the farm!

The news says we got 5″ here. (Near Nashville) Roads too icey to drive and it’s going down to 9 degrees tonight so no thaw for another day or two. We’re fine. Try to find something to use for sledding down a hill tomorrow.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=182832&id=621835798&l=749a257d9d

Walking with the Butterflies

Taking an hour out of the day to walk with butterflies at the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory is just what is needed after the cold January we have had in Tennessee.

As it turned out there was a severe rain storm while we were there so what better place to get in out of the weather? I brought the camera and Emily and I took turns with it as we walked past beautiful plants, birds and yes butterflies.

They were flying free all around us as we walked and it’s supposed to be good luck if they land on you. I may not be very lucky but I got close enough to them to get some good pictures.

There was a koi pond with these bird sculptures in it and lots of fish swimming in it.

The building is climate controlled and even has roof shades that can be used in the summer to protect from the hot tropical sun. They were not needed this time as it barely made it to the 70’s. The week before was so cold in Key West that it almost broke the all time record getting down to the 40’s. People there don’t have heat in their homes so it’s really cold to them. We saw a lot of dead fish and some iguanas while we were there that couldn’t take the extreme drop in temperatures. For a brief time with the butterflies though it felt like summer.

We saw several species of small birds that also were flying free around us. I stopped to take a picture of this guy having his lunch.

It seemed everyone was eating and I was getting hungry too. Good thing the seafood festival was going on too. More on that later…A little oasis and a fun gift shop with EVERYTHING you could ever want with a butterfly on it…I say don’t miss the Butterfly Conservatory next time you’re in Key West. It’s really close to Pearl’s if you’re staying there Ladies…

Me and the Sea

I have a special affinity with the sea and ships. Sailing Ships and Tall Ships make me stop and take notice. One of my favorite bands, The Wyrd Sisters, from Canada have a song called When Ships Had Sails. I love that too. I read about Shackleton and the Endurance. I grew up reading about Thor Heyerdahl and his sailing raft Kon-Tiki. I had a neighbor that built a small sailboat in his backyard. He named it The Lollypop for all the suckers that helped him build it. The only Bible Story that stuck in my head as a kid was Noah. I tried in vain to understand God’s directions on how to build that craft but it never made much sense to me since God didn’t seem to speak in inches and feet. What the heck is a “cubit” anyway?

When I was in my 30’s I won a sales contest at work and the prize was a trip for two on a Windjammer for 5 days in the Bahamas. I was selling TV ads along Florida’s Treasure Coast and had out hustled everyone in my office to win my dream vacation. My company it turns out had a trade arrangement with the Windjammer Cruise line for advertising and when I boarded the Tall Ship The fantom, I realized all the other guests also had been media trade folks. It was a fun group with people from Playboy, CNN, Time Magazine and other publications & networks. I had a brief time in my life where I tried to live life like a straight person and I had a husband at the time. Bob was happy to join me for the trip.

We had an unforgettable time aboard the Windjammer Fantome and so it was shocking to hear of the loss of the ship and crew about 8 years ago. Here’s a link to a story about its fate. It went down in Hurricane Mitch near the Yucatan Peninsula off of Mexico. Being a steel hull ship it went down very fast. 31 crew members were lost.

Tonight in Key West, Emily and I went out for a few hours on The Schooner Hale and Matthew.

The Captain and I were talking

and he reminded me about the fantome. It felt so similar standing on this deck and a bit strange to know that one was gone and sitting on the ocean’s bottom somewhere. We had a great time though tonight and I took a few pictures with my cell phone camera.

Emily dried off a seat for us after water rained down from the rising sails.
You may see the ship this week on CNN as there is a sailboat race in Key West and The Halie and Matthew is the official watching boat of the race. Media will be onboard filming it.

The Captain let me “woman the helm” for a picture…

Emily and I hoisted the sails with the rest of the passengers and the crew members readied the lines.

The Captain blew the conch shell for us and a female crewmember did too…much better I think. She was a trombone player which may have helped.

I wish I could say we sailed off into the sun and she cut through the waves like butter but it was not to be today. The wind barely filled the sails and alas it was but a 2 hour sunset cruise around the harbor. Still, standing there on the deck listening to the sounds of a wooden ship as she rolled and creaked and moaned I went back to another time in my mind and dreamed of those days when ships had sails.

Special Notice from Olivia Cruises about helping Haiti

Dear Valerie,

The terrible disaster that hit Haiti this week has touched all of us. We, as individuals, always come forward at these times to make contributions and offer support. Now we can speak as one voice, joining together to help the people of Haiti.

Olivia is collaborating with the Red Cross in an historic effort to bring the LGBT community’s contributions to Haiti. Because we are now able to donate directly to the Red Cross as a group, our community’s efforts can be identified as such. By giving generously, and in a timely manner, we will be making a statement to the world that will have a profoundly positive impact.

The Red Cross is instrumental in the early response efforts critical to the survival of so many. Please click here and donate what you can to aid the people of Haiti. We know many of you have already contributed, but please consider an additional donation, in any amount, to this fund. Even ten dollars will make a big difference; Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and much of its capital city, Port-au-Prince, has been utterly destroyed by this disaster.

Olivia pledges to match the first $7,500 raised through this email. As an added incentive, the first five individuals who donate $7,500 or more will receive an Olivia trip for two. Those five people will each receive a balcony stateroom (category BA) for two on our Caribbean Sun Cruise (October 30-November 6, 2010). Because the staterooms will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, you must contact me directly before you contribute, so that I can confirm that the allotment has not been filled. Please also note that in order to be eligible, you must contribute the funds directly through this link.

Thank you in advance for participating in this effort to help the people of Haiti. We strongly urge you to forward this letter to your friends, so they may also donate to the LGBT Americans for Earthquake Relief in Haiti fund.

Even if you can’t donate today, will you help us get the word out widely about this new initiative by sending this note to your friends and asking them to pass it on to their friends? It is our intention to generate a groundswell of support for Haiti within the LGBT community.

If you’d like to read more about this historic partnership between Olivia and the Red Cross, click here.

We know that our community is always the first to give when there is a major disaster. Now we can make the statement together.

Much love and thanks,

Judy Dlugacz
for the entire Olivia staff

www.olivia.com 434 brannan st., san francisco ca 94107 (800) 631-6277

© Copyright 2010. The Olivia Companies, LLC, All Rights Reserved.

It’s Back To Court In New Jersey For Gay Marriage | On Top Magazine :: Gay & Lesbian News, Entertainment, Commentary & Travel

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via It’s Back To Court In New Jersey For Gay Marriage | On Top Magazine :: Gay & Lesbian News, Entertainment, Commentary & Travel.

Mary Daily

Reprinted from Maize…
Its a remarkable and significant moment in all our lives to mark the passing of perhaps our greatest scholar Mary Daly. So many of us have stories and things to say which I hope will unfold over the coming time. I last saw her at the Feminist Hullaballoo in Santa Fe two years ago. It was probably her last public event, and she wasn’t well but she was still as spikey and confronting and courageous and outrageous as always. A group of her oldest students from Boston College led by Emily Culpepper and Linda Barafaldi formed a support team and made her last years better organised and comfortable. Her legacy and her papers/archives are all in order I know and that is good, thanks to Emily. She died in Western Massachusetts on 3rd Jan 2010.
Mary was 81, born in 1928, worked and wrote and thought about the end of patriarchy all her life it seemed. She burst out of the cobwebs of the old catholic church in the 1960’s, having gone off to study theology in Friborg, Switzerland and attended some of the sessions of Vatican 2. I remember her describing the servitude of the women, of the fast revelations that followed, her writing The Church and The Second Sex, and then the great book Beyond God The Father. I first wrote to her back then, when I read that book, and we began our correspondence then. I finally met her in 1979 in Boston, went to her class at Boston College, stayed with her and Denise Connors at Newtonville for 2 weeks and we became life-long complicated friends, as she was with all her friends. She visited Australia in 1981, a tour which I organised with a collective of brave women. It was an exhausting and controversial trip which culminated in the public meeting in the Teachers Federation Hall in Sydney which could be described as a riot. Maybe now I can start to tell some of that story, there’s a thought. Maybe, because lots of the Mary Daly stories are very controversial. Her great book Gyn/Ecology was read widely in reading groups, had women up in arms and passionate like almost no other book of the 70’s period. For me the greatest of all the books is Pure Lust from 1983. Its time to revisit them all, and there are lots. There was also a great essay she wrote in a Quest journal from the late 1970’s which I still think is one of the best sources of her ideas. Her own theological roots went to Thomas Aquinas and she took him apart in a rad fem revisioning of the whole of western male thinking. Her work is still to be truly grasped I think, and will be over future time, interwoven with an understanding of her biography and experiences among women and her times. Its a monumental intellectual creative journey.
This was a huge life throbbing with ideas at the very edge of our thinking – that’s a lot to consider. There will be stories and gossip, reflections and laughs, for the remarkable achievements and legacy of the very complex very alive to the deep background world very much loved and honoured Mary Daly. I thank the spirits for her life and commend her to the galactic cows and to Stein and Woolf and the other women she can now hang out with in the spiral galaxies of the ancestors.- Suzanne Bellamy