October 2008 Archives
CNN Talking Head: "If You Don't Vote, Can't Complain!"By on October 31, 2008 3:17 PM | No Comments
And here we see CNN of course spouting out the same tired rhetoric that gets recycled every election season. Today we have Donna Brazile rehashing the cliche, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain later" rhetoric. Her article actually doesn't make a lick of sense. She says out of one side of her mouth, "You're not allowed to complain if you don't vote," and out of the other side wants to complain about how "Resources, both human and material, are scarce and may not be equitably distributed" at polling places. Um, who forgot to edit this story?
I thought for some reason that we had moved past this idea. Of course, I encourage everyone to vote -- don't get me wrong. But with news reports pouring in over voters being purged from the books, it becomes increasingly hard to argue this line.
It also presumes that everyone is able to, you know, take a few hours off of work to go down to the voting booth. This is actually going to be a problem at -- of all liberal places -- the University of Michigan. My day is packed with activity from 9 AM to 8 PM. None of my classes have been canceled. I'm not at liberty to cancel my sections. What am I supposed to do? I have two one-hour breaks, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the line to vote here in this huge college town will be more than one hour long. My polling place is also off campus, at least a 10 minute walk from my department building. It's a dilemma. I don't doubt that I will find a way to get there -- but this should tell you something: if a graduate student at the University of Michigan is having a hard time getting to the polls, you bet there are countless working Americans whose jobs totally prevent that possibility.
So I say this loud and clear to Donna Brazile, CNN's "Democratic strategist" (whatever the fuck that means): you should know better. After all, you're a member of the DNC's "Voting Rights institute." So I'm sure you're well aware of all the ways that people get disenfranchised in America.
Which brings me to my last question: Why the fuck are elections in America not either: 1) On a national holiday where everyone has off work; or 2) Less equitable, but better, on a Sunday, when many more people have off of work?
Election Night Timeline: What to Expect, WhenBy on October 31, 2008 2:41 PM | No Comments
Here I've adapted MyDD's wonderful timeline of what to expect on election night. I took out some of his speculation to make it more readable, but included a few important notes he makes -- namely around the 9 PM time-slot, which he notes would be the earliest point at which the election could be called. 11 PM, however, he believes is the latest timeline.
7:00pm EST/ 4PM PST:
Blue States Closing: Vermont (3 EVs)
Red States Closing: South Carolina, Kentucky (16 EVs)
Swing States Closing: Virginia, Indiana, Georgia (39 EVs)
7:30PM EST/ 4:30PM PST
Blue States Closing: None
Red States Closing: None
Swing States Closing: West Virginia, Ohio (25 EVs)
8:00PM EST/ 5:00PM PST
Blue States Closing: Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, DC, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois (79 EVs)
Red States Closing: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma (33 EVs)
Swing States Closing: Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Hampshire (63 EVs)
8:30PM EST/ 5:30PM PST
Blue States Closing: None
Red States Closing: Arkansas (6 EVs)
Swing States Closing: North Carolina (15 EVs)
9:00PM EST/ 6:00PM PST
Blue States Closing: New York, Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin (72 EVs)
Red States Closing: Kansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming (70 EVs)
Swing States Closing: Colorado, New Mexico (14 EVs)
"9:00 is about the earliest they could officially call the election, though of course, once Obama gets to 215 EVs or so, we'll know it's ours as soon as California closes. But to repeat, the earliest victory we can hope for is here, with Obama winning:
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachussetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. However, I think it's very unlikely that North Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana would be ready to call here, even if they all came up Blue."
10:00PM EST/ 7:00PM PST
Blue States Closing: Iowa (7 EVs)
Red States Closing: Utah (5 EVs)
Swing States Closing: Nevada, Montana (7 EVs)
11:00PM EST/ 8:00PM PST
Blue States Closing: California, Oregon, Washington, Hawai'i (73 EVs)
Red States Closing: Idaho (4 EVs)
Swing States Closing: North Dakota (3 EVs)
"It's time for a call from the Associated Press, if we haven't gotten it already."
12:00 AM EST/ 9:00PM PST
No closings
"I said after midnight. But look for the last few swing states to come in around now, if they come in overnight."
1:00 AM EST/ 10:00PM PST
Red States Closing: Alaska (3 EVs)
A Little Poem About BottomingBy on October 31, 2008 2:16 PM | No Comments
My friends and I were joking about what a poem by a bottom would look like, and I came up with this little charmer. I couldn't help but share it!
Yesterday I was fucked
By a man who drove a truck
His cock was so very thick
I almost couldn't handle it
But courage I found
And with a smile, went down
To lick the man's glans
And prepare for the entrance
I was in such a state
When he found my prostate
That I begged for more
Until the clock struck four
At which point he came
I'm not sure if I'll ever be the same!
And yes, I'm well aware that my talents lie in other forms of writing! :)
10,000 Unique Visitors!!!By on October 31, 2008 1:53 PM | No Comments
Just this very minute, TrevorHoppe.com got it's 10,000th unique visitor for the month of October!!!!!! Thank you!!! Wowzer! This is pretty incredible, and I'm so flattered that so many people are reading this site each month! I've been pumping a lot of energy into this site these past few months, and I've loved every minute!
xoxoxox
T
P.S. If you're unfamiliar, "unique visitors" is web jargon for "a statistic describing a unit of traffic to a Web site, counting each visitor only once in the time frame of the report. This statistic is relevant to site publishers and advertisers as a measure of a site's true audience size, equivalent to the term 'Reach' used in other media." (source: Wikipedia)
On San Francisco's "Prop R" and the California Prop SystemBy on October 31, 2008 1:10 PM | 2 Comments
If you've never set foot in California, you probably don't realize that the way things work there on election day is totally wonk. Instead of the legislature deciding on a variety of issues that other state legislatures decide, everything in California gets voted on at the ballot box. Well not everything -- but Jesus I remember my first time voting there, it was crazy! "Vote No on G and Yes on F!" Or "No on 25 but Yes on 42!" There's always a Prop that would effectively kill another Prop, or a Prop that sounds like it would do something, but in reality would do something completely different. It's a broken, fucked up system. I don't know how many millions of dollars are spent each year rehashing the same God dammed issues. But it's disgusting.
So as you can already tell, I'm pretty dubious of the California prop system. I think it's outrageously wasteful and a detriment to Democracy there (if you have enough money, buying a Prop vote can surely be done -- and if it doesn't win this time, well by God, but it up again next year!). So this year, as always, there are a number of Props up for vote (find a list here) -- from Prop 2 ("bars use of pens and cages that don't give farm animals room to turn around, stretch, stand or lie down") to utterly rehashed Prop 4 ("Amends the state Constitution to require a physician to notify a minor patient's parent or other adult family member 48 hours before performing an abortion"). And of course, unless you live under a rock, you're aware that Prop 8 would strip same-sex couples of the right to marry (oddly enough, "Yes on 8" anti-gay ads have been running here on this site -- eek!). All in all, there are twelve State propositions up for a vote this year.
Oh but wait -- there's more! Not only are there state-wide Proposition initiatives, but there are CITY-level Prop-initiatives too! Instead of numbers, those get letters. This year, there are twenty-two such San Francsico ballot initiatives (see list here). Yes that's right. Twenty-two. A number of controversial things are on the ballot this year. Prop K would decriminalize prostitution. And of course then there's the ridiculous "Prop R," which would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. That's right. A huge campaign is in the works to rename a sewage plant "in honor" of President Bush. How much money was spent on this fucking campaign?
San Francisco already has a bad rep for being a town full of crazy liberals, and you bet this kind of juvenile wasteful spending of time and money will only serve to reinforce the negative stereotype that many Americans have of the city. Don't get me wrong: I believe in the power of symbols to shape the way we understand the world. But this isn't the kind of infrastructure that people will interact with on a regular basis in years to come. Even if it passes, there will be some fanfare and jokes made, but in ten years, it will be forgotten. And in this critical election year, wasting resources like money and time that could be spent campaigning for more important issues is not just dumb, it's almost criminal.
So there you have it. If I lived in California, I would vote No on Prop R. But more than that, I would lobby to find some way to restructure the whole system of Propositions in California and San Francisco. It just doesn't work.
"Joe the Plumber" a No-Show @ McCain RallyBy on October 30, 2008 7:54 PM | No Comments
I love this story. It makes so clear how in shambles the McCain campaign is --- days away from their imminent defeat, and sweet, sweet victory. Here's CNN's Political Ticker:
As I was hanging up the phone, McCain started to yell for Joe, who he thinks is in the crowd.“Joe’s with us today. Joe, where are you?” McCain called the into the crowd, “Where’s Joe? Is Joe here with us today? Joe, I thought you were here today (pause) All right, well, you’re all Joe the plumber, so all of you stand up and say – I thank you.”
Ooops.
It was an awkward moment.
McCain aides called it a “miscommunication,” but once I got on the bus I called Wurzelbacher myself and asked him what really happened.
He told me that he had hoped to come to the morning rally, but that no one from McCain’s campaign ever called him back to confirm,
Bigger ooops.
He said he had heard McCain yelled for him and he wasn’t there, and Joe was “not happy about it.”
It turns out, as soon as camp McCain realized the error, they sent a car for Wurzelbacher and raced him to hook up with McCain’s bus caravan, which was making its way across Ohio.
Hah! Whoops!
GayCityNews: Police Entrap Men @ NYC Video StoresBy on October 30, 2008 6:39 PM | 2 Comments
GayCityNews is reporting that several arrests of gay men have been made this year by the Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Squad at NYC porn shops. One bizarre story is that of Robert Pinter, who was arrested at Blue Door Video in the East Village earlier this month:
Robert Pinter was looking for a DVD and perhaps a good time when he visited Blue Door Video on First Avenue in the East Village. He was approached by an attractive young Asian-American man."He is smiling, he's really a cute guy, very friendly," said Pinter, 52. "He initiated the conversation and drove the whole conversation."
Pinter said they agreed to have sex and the young man, who told Pinter he was 29, suggested they leave the shop and go to his car, which was parked outside. As they were exiting, the young man, who never told Pinter his name, mentioned money for the first time.
"He sort of threw in 'Oh, I want to pay you $50 to suck your dick,'" Pinter said. "When he offered me the money my first thought was he wanted me to pay him the money. When I realized that it wasn't that way I thought it wasn't logical."
Pinter said nothing in response and continued walking with the young man. Once outside, they were surrounded by a group of men who Pinter soon learned were police.
"At first I thought it was a gang because they didn't say anything, they didn't identify themselves as police," Pinter said. "They took my bag, started going through my possessions. I must have asked them four or five times, 'Why are you putting me under arrest?'"
Pinter, who has no prior arrests, was charged with prostitution. He was held handcuffed in a van for hours while officers made additional arrests around Manhattan, then photographed and fingerprinted at a Lower East Side police precinct, and finally arraigned on October 11, roughly 24 hours after his arrest, in the criminal courts downtown.
His arrest -- and others like it -- should be cause for outrage. It's clearly homophobic, selective entrapment targeted against gay men. It's straight out of a 1950s Police Officer Manual. Disgusting.
(Via KnuckleCrack)
Netherlands: 9 Mos Post-Blackout, Surge in BirthsBy on October 30, 2008 1:44 PM | No Comments
Wacky, wonky, but true!:
A small cluster of villages in eastern Netherlands has found itself in the midst of a mini-baby boom -- nine months after a power outage plunged its residents in darkness for two chilly days.Americans?: Broke. Exxon-Mobil?: $14.8 Billion Quarterly Profit"It was cold in the houses," said Anneleas van Eijkeren, spokeswoman for the municipality of Maasdriel. "They went to bed early to keep warm. And nine months later, we have this -- a little bit more babies."
Forty-four percent more, to be exact. Residents gave birth to 26 babies in September, compared with 18 in September 2007.
Maasdriel is a collection of 11 villages with a population of 24,000. Ten of the 11 villages lost power for 50 hours in December after the blades of a helicopter accidentally sheared the cables providing electricity to the area.
"Some people went to other cities, but a lot of people stayed in their house with low temperature," Van Eijkeren said.
The community is battling a declining birth rate, like the rest of the Netherlands -- which ranks among the lowest in the world.
And while the power cut method worked well, Maasdriel doesn't plan on a deliberate repeat.
"Don't even joke," Van Eijkeren said, laughing. "In Holland, we would like to have more inhabitants -- but not in this way."
By on October 30, 2008 8:49 AM | No Comments
Need I say any more?
Open Letter from STOP AIDS RE: Scarce's CritiqueBy on October 30, 2008 1:50 AM | 1 Comment
Late tonight, the Executive Director of the STOP AIDS Project posted the open letter that I've copied below here in the comments of a previous entry here at TrevorHoppe.com and of course over at the Gay Mens' Health Ning, where Michael posted this critique of their prevention efforts in SF.
Here's his letter -- scroll past it to find my initial, short, 2 AM mini-response:
We at STOP AIDS Project acknowledge and encourage a dialogue about how best to address GBT men’s health, a topic which is of crucial importance to GBT men. We appreciate Michael Scarce’s participation in this dialogue and recognize the Gay Men’s Health Summit’s role in fostering it. To be clear from the outset, Michael Scarce and STOP AIDS Project agree that segregating older men from younger men for the purposes of preventing the transmission of HIV is unquestionably wrong. Doing so would be against our values as an agency and as individuals who work in the field of GBT men’s health. We wholeheartedly agree that constant vigilance is necessary to ensure the implementation of programs that are consistent with our personal, community, and agency values.It is also important to note that we have not launched any of the new programs from the study Michael cited and will not do so until we have satisfied concerns about their practical, epidemiological, and ethical appropriateness. Program ideas from this study have been discussed with focus groups and will be posted online for feedback before we move forward, and we invite you to participate in that process. We believe that we are acting cautiously and responsibly as we forge into new HIV prevention territory and welcome appropriate and healthy discourse about these issues as we move forward.
Having said that, we need to acknowledge that Michael’s critique seems to be divided into two distinct halves, the first being the launch of an important community dialogue about the use and potential misuse of sexual network paradigms in HIV prevention, and the second an ad hominem attack on the agency and specifically-named current and former staff members. As it is illegal and inappropriate to discuss personnel matters, it is only to the first part of Michael’s comments that we will respond, both to address some misunderstandings that seem to have unfortunately arisen, and to invite community members to join in the ensuing energetic and healthy discourse.
Like many of the readers here, STOP AIDS Project understands that new approaches to fostering GBT men’s health and preventing the spread of HIV are needed. As most people can attest, attempting to try new things is much more difficult than resorting to the same set of tools over and over again. However, STOP AIDS Project as an organization and as a group of dedicated individuals is committed to taking on new challenges that improve GBT men’s health outcomes. In doing so, we welcome community partners as we generate new ideas.
STOP AIDS has helped lead this pioneering effort to use sexual network approaches to address a simple fact: though vitally important, HIV prevention efforts that focus almost exclusively on getting men to wear condoms leave much to be desired not only in terms of decreasing the rate of new infections, but more importantly in terms of building community, addressing the underlying causes of stigma and isolation, and supporting the assets and resiliency factors that already exist in the GBT community. STOP AIDS Project recognizes that sexual decision-making is influenced by any number of individual psychosocial and behavioral factors like self-esteem, joy, lust, love, desire for intimacy, and substance use. Furthermore, our sexual decision-making is also influenced by macro-level factors like racism, homophobia, ageism, socioeconomic disparities, and HIV/AIDS stigma (to name a few). In our work we also take into account that our sexual decisions are also influenced to a large degree by who our partners are, and where we fit in a sexual network.
For example, if your partner barebacks more than you do, you are at much greater risk of being exposed to an STD or HIV than if he doesn’t. In general then, barebacking with a new partner whose status you don’t know in San Francisco carries a much higher risk than the same activity in, say, Boise, if only because the background prevalence of HIV is higher in San Francisco than it is in Boise. Similarly, for young GBT men (as well as young heterosexual women) one of the biggest risk factors is having unprotected sex with older partners. Why? The background prevalence of HIV is higher among older people. Does that mean that we shouldn’t let men from Topeka move to San Francisco? Of course not. Does it mean that we should discourage young men from having partners who are older? Of course not. To take such a stance would be repugnant, and inconsistent with our personal and collective system of values. The stance we have taken is to confront these uncomfortable truths head-on and help men make informed, empowered decisions of their own.
The research project Michael references is part of the sexual networks approach we have begun to implement. This project focuses on disassortative mixing by self-reported sexual behavior, and not on demographic factors such as race, age, etc. We have had many conversations—both internally and externally—about maintaining an ethically appropriate balance between health and human rights concerns and we are determined to take thoughtful, measured steps to insure that any interventions we implement honor that balance.
These first steps in this new direction are formative and are helping us understand how sexual networks affect men’s sexual decision-making and explore potential new programmatic ideas. Several months ago we started creating a program development guide, which will clearly articulate our process for the creation of any new interventions, including the ethical concerns Michael airs so passionately.
Phase One of this research project was to identify venues where self-reported HIV negative men who bareback often and self-reported HIV negative men who rarely or never bareback both meet their partners. In other words, we developed sexual behavioral indicators that focused not on average HIV-risk among patrons within a venue but on the "bimodal HIV-risk" -- where there were men with low HIV risk and men with high HIV risk meeting partners and making sexual choices in the same venue.
Phase Two involved conducting interviews with men from the venues identified in the first phase to assess factors in the venues themselves that might affect sexual decision making (For example, Two-for-One drink specials that, for some patrons, may lead to excessive drinking). We interviewed over 30 men (including employees of these venues, and other key stakeholders) and were able to solicit ideas from them about programs that would be specifically tailored to those venues. This part of the project allowed us to use qualitative data to help us understand the contextual factors related to sexual decision-making.
Phase Three, which has just begun, identifies an appropriate program based on the information produced in the first two phases. In this case, “appropriate” includes how effective, ethical, and practical an idea is, how the patrons are likely to respond to it, and an assessment of possible indirect consequences. To date, we have held six focus groups to get input on intervention ideas and are poised to launch an online survey as well.
We state categorically that we are not focused on separating individuals by age—or separating them at all, for that matter. In trying to understand how men pick their sexual partners we have noted that men often do make selections based on age, which is related to both existing assumptions in the community about age and serostatus, and unfortunately to the ubiquitous ageism that permeates mainstream gay culture’s conflation of youth, beauty, and sexual desirability. These are not dynamics that we are interested in judging, supporting, or manipulating; they are simply findings in our work.
In point of fact, we have discussed how to facilitate an enhanced sense of community and intergenerational social support by designing interventions that bring men of all ages together. We have found in our interviews that there is great interest in this type of support and we are attempting to be responsive to a clearly articulated community need. We have, and will continue to discuss how to make it easier for younger and older gay men to share their experiences from their generational perspective. Further, we believe that intergenerational dialogue is an important and critical component of a healthy community. We are exploring how to do so in the context of several programs that we are hoping to implement.
For those unfamiliar with our work, we want to assure you that our process has been, and will continue to be, inherently community-based. We are deeply committed to making sure that all of our programs respect the human rights for which we all have fought so many years. As an agency we pride ourselves on building partnerships and on going beyond “service provision” to empowering and organizing communities.
We are open to new ideas, intellectual rigor, and robust dialogue. Please feel free to write or call if you don’t understand something we’re doing. Will all of us agree? No – although from the blogs we've read thus far, we probably agree much, much more than we disagree. We can all strive to understand each other, find common areas of collaboration, and find out how we can best work to assure that gay, bi, and trans men can make new HIV infections something to look back on as part of building a healthier community.
Kyriell M. Noon
Executive Director
STOP AIDS Project
knoon@stopaids.org
And here's what I said on the Ning in Response:
But again it seems you've missed quite a chunk of the critique that we've generated here. Noon says that:The Obama Infomercial"In general then, barebacking with a new partner whose status you don’t know in San Francisco carries a much higher risk than the same activity in, say, Boise, if only because the background prevalence of HIV is higher in San Francisco than it is in Boise. Similarly, for young GBT men (as well as young heterosexual women) one of the biggest risk factors is having unprotected sex with older partners. Why? The background prevalence of HIV is higher among older people."
But of course, saying that higher rates of HIV prevalence among older men is what's driving the increased risk misses the point -- yet again. As Michael and I and many others have been fervently advocating here and elsewhere, if you don't examine and take into account economic and material disparities between younger and older men, then you've missed the boat entirely. Prevalence may play a role -- although that risk is undoubtedly mitigated in SF where older Poz guys have high rates of HAART adherence and thus lower viral loads -- but we don't know that for sure.To put the point more finely, STOP AIDS in this letter has gingerly claimed to know WHY these new infections are happening, but there is no research here to support their claim about the casual mechanisms. All we know is that: 1) there is an a chunk of young men who seem to be getting infected by older men; and 2) that HIV prevalence is higher among those older men. Does that provide sound evidence for jumping to the conclusion that older men's higher prevalence rates is actually the mechanism driving these new infections among younger men? Absolutely not. But the idea of thinking outside the box -- of moving the prevention discourse forward (instead of backwards); of suggesting alternative social mechanisms that may be at play here (e.g. resource / network / power disparities) flies totally over the heads of most public health-trained advocates. I think it goes with out saying that, for many of us, this is incredibly frustrating and disheartening.
By on October 29, 2008 9:17 PM | No Comments
If you missed it, here's the 30-minute infomercial that Obama ran tonight. Pretty audacious move for the campaign. Haven't watched it full-through, but what I've seen (the beginning) has the feel of a drama-documentary, replete with acoustic guitar:
Counting Calories: Back in FashionBy on October 29, 2008 4:34 PM | No Comments
The New York Times has an interesting article on the rising trend of decreasing caloric content in popular food items across the country -- particularly in NYC, where recent legislation mandated that stores with more then 15 outlets post the calorie content next the price. Suddenly that Big Mac ain't so appealing! Evidence of the trend, they note, can be seen in chains from Starbucks to -- gasp! -- Dunkin' Donuts!:
Evidence of the calorie’s resurgence is everywhere. The makers of Coca-Cola and M&Ms will soon print calories on the front of packages. Consumers, too, are paying more attention, like the diners who discovered that some meals at Applebee’s had more calories than advertised and filed a class-action suit this fall.New Yorkers got a harsh dose of calorie reality this summer when restaurants with 15 or more outlets were forced to post the calorie content of food next to the price. The resulting sticker shock has brought parts of a great city to its knees, often to do push-ups.
The campaign has inspired lawmakers around the country to follow New York’s lead.
Restaurants and food companies are lightening recipes and portion sizes. Starbucks, for example, claims to have saved the nation 17 billion calories since last October by swapping 2 percent milk for whole. The 100-calorie snack is this decade’s answer to the fat-free SnackWell cookie, as more brands introduce tiny portions of things like Cool Ranch Doritos and Clif bars.
Dunkin’ Donuts recently added a low-calorie egg white breakfast sandwich, Così is using low-fat mayonnaise and McDonald’s large French fries have dropped to 500 calories this year from 570 last year. Quiznos is testing smaller sizes and less-caloric sandwich fillings in its New York stores. Cathy Nonas of the New York City health department said this is all a reaction to public-health pressure.
Restaurant corporations say consumer demand, not the threat of legislation, made them change. That’s why Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and other fast-food restaurants, will start voluntarily posting calorie counts for individual servings in its restaurants nationwide later this year, said Jonathan Blum, a company spokesman.
Personally, I think this is a great idea. Consumers should be able to make informed choices about the food that they eat. Unfortunately, I think there's been a kind of classist attack on fast food, as if were the worst offender in fattening up Americans. But let's be real: any meal eaten in full at practically any sit-down American restaurant is likely to have more calories than a Bic Mac. We love to blame poor people for America's fatty woes, but I mean, c'mon! It's total fucking bullshit.
Let's say, for example, that you sit down for a meal at Olive Garden, chow down on a three of their breadsticks (150 calories / pop) and polish off one of their oversized potions of pasta -- Chicken Parmigiana, for instance, at 1090 calories / dish -- in that one meal, you've just gorged on over 1500 calories, more than a full day's worth for many people. Even if you downed a Big Mac, a Large French Fry, and a Large Coca-Cola at McDonald's, you'd only hit 1350 calories. Cut the soda to Diet and you'd be at around 1000 calories -- 33% less than the meal at Olive Garden.
I don't mean to pick on Olive Garden here, a meal at just about any American restaurant would be similar in caloric content. Obviously the public health efforts to get people to change their behavior and "eat right" aren't working. More structural efforts (like in NYC) have got to be made.
Liddy Dole: Down in the Polls, Desperate for VotesBy on October 29, 2008 4:15 PM | No Comments
This new ad from NC-Senator Elizabeth Dole is pretty despicable. Since Dole is down in the polls -- it looks likely she'll be ousted from her Senate seat come next week -- she's resorted to nasty smear tactics to try to regain some footing. Her claim: Kay Hagan is godless. From the Huff Post:
Dole's 30-second ad, which is running on television in North Carolina but has not (understandably) been promoted by the GOP, uses a September fundraiser co-hosted by 40 people, including a representative of the Godless America PAC, to falsely accuse Democrat Kay Hagan of being an atheist herself.The end of the ad features a picture of Hagan with a female voice yelling "there is no God!" -- the clear implication is that the voice is Hagan's. In fact, the Democratic candidate is a Sunday School teacher and an elder at her Presbyterian church.
The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday morning that Hagan's campaign is seeking a "cease and desist" order against Dole's new attack.
"A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor," the ad begins, showing some ominously blurred footage, ostensibly of the event in question. The ad then quotes the group's Ellen Johnson making atheist claims on two cable news shows. Summing up, the spot asks: "Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras, took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"
Two weeks ago, when the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a similar attack, the Fayettville Observer described it as "the nastiest, most misleading, negative ad of the campaign."
Oh but how sweet her defeat will taste come Tuesday. As a North Carolinian myself, I sincerely hope for Hagan's triumph over Dole.
CFP: "Lumpen-City: Discourses of Marginality | Marginalizing Discourses"By on October 28, 2008 11:09 AM | 3 Comments
Although the name is an academic wankfest ("Lumpen" in the title refers to Marx / Engel's concept of the "lumpenproletariat"), this conference sounds actually pretty engaging. The primary question it raises for me is: Academics make a living off of describing the poor conditions of marginalized groups, which threatens to reinscribe those qualities onto the populations we study. What is our responsibility as researchers to those populations, and how do we mitigate the potential negative consequences our scholarship may have on them? This is just my read, of course. There will be a variety of concerns represented.
Anyone from Michigan wanna go with me? I'm thinking of submitting a paper on my collaboration with the Gay Men's Health Movement in designing, implementing, and reporting my research...
CFP: Interdisciplinary Conference at York University, Toronto, Canada March 12-13, 2009Amy Sedaris on Vaginal CleansingLumpen-City: Discourses of Marginality | Marginalizing Discourses
Research on marginalized urban residents has been an academic cottage industry throughout the history of the social sciences – addressing social problems related to issues such as poverty, crime, youth, race, ethnicity, gender, health, and employment. To apprehend these notions of difference, conceptualizations of the poor, the underclass, the outcast, the ghetto, exclusion, marginality and others have been developed and applied. Inevitably, research defines and represents a group and as such influences everyday preconceptions and politico-administrative strategies, including policies, regulations and laws.
Contextualizing cultural and behavioural patterns of marginalized populations, academic and activist research commonly seeks to humanize an excluded group and/ or suggest alternative strategies of
intervention and modes of engagement by which to remedy the inequities of a particular situation. However, by virtue of representation fixity is imposed upon the identified population. Marginalized and excluded groups are often rendered vulnerable and passive through the circumscribed dictates of representational inscription. How can innovative and creative discourses break with this pattern of subjection?This conference challenges academics and activist-scholars alike to reflect upon the realities and potentialities of research on marginalized urban populations in the context of their struggles. We invite scholarly contributions which illuminate issues of representation by exploring multiple axes of identity such as class, race, gender, ethnicity, age, ability / disability, and sexuality.
The York University Sociology Graduate Students' Association (YSGA) in conjunction with the City Institute at York University and the Collaborative Urban Research Laboratory (CURL) invite academics and activist-scholars to participate in the interdisciplinary debates of this conference on Thursday, March 12th and Friday, March 13th 2009 in Toronto, Canada.
We accept proposals for:
- Academic papers (Presentation of 20 minutes)
- Short films, art, poetry or other forms of creative dialogue.The deadline for proposals / abstracts (approx. 250 words) is December 15th. Submission materials and general inquiries should be addressed to: LumpenCity2009@gmail.com
Selected papers will be considered for publication. Travel bursaries may be available.
Possible areas of engagement include, but are not limited to:
1. Methodological engagements:
The poetics and politics of representation
Comparing marginality across borders & boundaries
The description, inscription, and circumscription of research design
Ethnographic immersions
Activist alliances
Methodological alterities: Narratives of inversion/subversion2. Institutional interrogations:
Local, extra-local, regional, national, international contextualizations
Welfare state retrenchment and visions of poverty
The funding and financing of research
Fashions, fads and foibles of urban research
Re-structuring the university
University-community collaborations3. Controversies and Contestations:
Spectacularization of the urban outcast
Spaces of Struggle: Neoliberal citizenship and representations of urban marginality
Post/Colonialism and the metropolis
The Unrepresentable Multitude in the Lumpen-City
Public sociology / sociologies
The marginalized and media discourse4. Challenges and Change:
The role of activism in academia
Critique and the public sphere
Research, resistance and revolution
Envisioning the just city: claiming the right to the city
Social movements, citizenship and critical urban praxis
Progressive visual and aesthetic engagements
By on October 28, 2008 11:00 AM | 2 Comments
This is the funniest thing I've seen in months. The best part: the demonstration model was made for Amy by Todd Oldham:
Internet is "Series of Tubes" Senator Convicted of Ethics ChargesBy on October 27, 2008 5:15 PM | No Comments
In a stunning blow to the image of the Republican party -- just days away from the national election -- Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been convicted of all seven charges levied against him of ethics violations. The question now becomes: will he or will he not resign before the Nov 4 elections, when his seat is up for a vote? Let us sincerely hope that the good people of Alaska have the wisdom to vote Democratic in the face of Stevens' indictment.
Stevens is the longest-serving Senate Republican, who has most recently been made famous by his claim that the Internet "is a series of tubes." Priceless. His name has been plastered across newspaper headlines this past year, though, when the ethics case against him was brought forward. Another blow to Republican abuse of power. Another win for Democracy.
Here's the NY Times:
A federal jury of eight women and four men from the District of Columbia found that the 84-year-old Mr. Stevens, who has represented Alaska in the Senate for more than 40 years, knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of several gifts and tens of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska.The verdict came just eight days before the senator is to face re-election and after more than three weeks of testimony, the highlight of which was Mr. Stevens making the calculated risk of taking the witness stand in his own defense. As the verdict was announced, the senator remained composed and stared at the ceiling while his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, put his arm around him.
Mr. Stevens has long been tied to the rough-and-tumble history of his home state and wields outsized influence over federal spending. Government prosecutors used evidence and testimony to paint a picture in which several of Mr. Stevens’s wealthy Alaskan friends, keenly aware of his status as the dominant political figure in the state, were eager to shower him with gifts.
The indictment charged that he received some $250,000 worth from a longtime friend, Bill Allen, the owner of a huge oil-services construction company, as well as a sled dog, an expensive massage chair and other items from other friends.
Mr. Stevens’s defense was largely built on the notion that many of the goods and services he received were unasked for, and were things for which he had no use. In the case of the massage chair, he testified that it was not a gift from Bob Persons, a friend and restaurant owner, but rather a loan — even though the chair has remained in his Washington home for more than seven years and has been used by the senator.
One last Senate Seat to worry about!
AdsBy on October 27, 2008 1:19 PM | 3 Comments
So now that I'm up to just about 500 daily readers and almost 10,000 monthly unique visitors, it's about time for me to start trying to pay for the damn site with ads! I know it's annoying and I'd love to live in a world where I could blog without a need for them -- but the site costs me money, and I'd love to at least break even.
So I'll be experimenting over the next few days with ad placement. Feedback along the way is appreciated!!!! Thanks for your patience!!!
Resist "Lazy Structuralism": HIV Prevention as Case StudyBy on October 27, 2008 2:07 AM | 10 Comments
If you've stepped foot in a feminist studies classroom in the past few years, you've undoubtedly come toe-to-toe with the famous "structuralism vs. postmodernism" debates that have clouded feminist and queer studies since the mid-90s. If you haven't, let me catch you up pretty quickly. Structuralists are -- generally speaking -- interested in the ways that societal institutions like race, class, gender, etc., "structure" people's lives. And when they say "structure," they generally mean: how do institutions shape / determine / give meaning to people's lives? So, if you're Black, you're disadvantaged in X, Y, and Z ways. And if you're white, you're advantaged in A, B, and C ways. Taken to its extreme, it can lead to a kind of institutional pre-determinism. This is of course a totally reductionist definition. But let's say it's a rough sketch.
On the other end of the table, you had postmodernists who rebuffed against this kind of "structural determinism" that came out of a Marxist tradition. Heavily influenced by so-called "queer theorists" who sought to deconstruct labels like "gay" and "lesbian," postmodern feminist theorists demanded a bit more complexity in the way that we described and understood the lives on individuals -- and basically argued that no one's life could be understood as the sum of their demographic variables. Just because you're ____, doesn't mean that _______. Taken to its extreme, postmodernism might lead to a viewpoint that every person's life is completely unique, and cannot (should not?) be lumped under any umbrella category with anyone else's life. It's all about agency, agency, agency! The hell with structure.
Now, I find myself constantly coming back to this debate. As a sociologist, I'm obviously interested in the way that social institutions give meaning to and shape people's lives. As an activist child of the queer 90s, I'm also deeply troubled by universalizing theories that eclipse the diversity of lived experience, where I think the real meat of the story is. So I'm constantly trying to sniff out some kind of middle ground -- some happy place where I can recognize that social structures provide the framework, while also allowing for individual choice (albeit under a constrained framework).
This debate has been slapping me square in the face lately in discussions on HIV Prevention in the US, which I'd like to argue been plagued by something I want to call "Lazy Structuralism" -- in the perverse form of epidemiological data on HIV transmission. We are time and time again presented with pie charts that informs us that a certain bloated percentage of new HIV infections is among a certain minority racial group. We are told, in this way, that race is a risk factor for HIV infection -- and that's about the end of the analysis usually. No meaty analysis of what cluster of mechanisms are approximated by or associated with the category of "race." Just pie charts.
I'm reminded here of my friend Michael Scarce's scathing critique of San Francisco's STOP AIDS Project's new attempts to quell HIV infections among younger MSM in SF by restricting their access to venues where older MSM frequent. This is based on "epi" data that indicates that a sizable chunk of new infections among younger MSM is the result of sexual contact with older MSM. Their solution: segregate the two populations. In a conversation on the Gay Men's Health Ning, Michael reminded us that:
More than likely, age does correlate in some way with risk. However, correlation is different than causation, and age of partner is one of the few questions asked by SAP in their data collection. But what are the deeper meanings and connections? What are the underlying social and cultural complexities? For example, older men in San Francisco tend to have dramatically higher incomes than those of younger men. It's quite possible a power differential corresponding with age is more relevant, such as money, housing, social status, employment, and so on. The difference between your analysis and that of SAP is this: Stripping these demographics of their cultural context alleviates researchers from the responsibility of having to consider how their work intersects and interacts with other social forces such as ageism and AIDS-phobia, as well as the great examples you give such as cognitive development, social psychology, racialized desires, and more.
In this way, what STOP AIDS is resorting to is what I'd like to term "Lazy Structuralism." They get this kind of "blocky," uncomplex data from public health, and try to use that totally decontextualized data to try and come up with an intervention. The result: a total fucking disaster. And of course it is. Because it's based on nearly meaningless data. What HIV epi data tells us is basically the outcomes sorted by a number of demographic variables. But it does nothing to tell us the causual mechanisms that are working behind the scenes to lead to those disparate outcomes. Obviously, skin color is not what's driving high infections among African-Americans. Things like access to housing, health care, racialized discrimination, and employment are the actual culprits -- obstacles that obviously may also be differently faced by Latino, white, or Asian-American queer men. Similarly, it's not the difference in age in and of itself that's driving the new infections among younger MSM, it's the differences in income, housing, etc. But epi data can't tell us that.
We need to be demanding an end to this kind of lazy, uncreative, and wholly uninspired thinking about the epidemic. It's not just misguided, in the face of rising disparities and new infections, it's patently unethical. It does representational violence to the lived experiences of queer men's lives, and threatens to divide and promote hostility within our communities. STOP AIDS' efforts are just one small example of this kind of thinking.
The next time you're at conference or community forum and hear someone repeat ad naseum that X percentage of new infections are among X population, raise your hand and ask them, "What's driving that disparity?" If they're honest, they'll probably tell you they don't know. If they're crafty, they'll speculate about a variety of factors that might be associated with the demographic variable at hand. But please: call them out on their willful ignorance in the face of increasing health outcome disparities. On their continued participation in institutions of research and prevention that refuse to fund innovative projects that seek to explore the causal mechanisms beyond sexual behavior, rather than the overly simplistic demographic outcomes. Because pie charts will not provide us with solutions, and we can't allow public health to continue its injustices against our communities by continuing to assault us with the Same. Old. Fucking. Data. It's tired. And it isn't working. And we're over it.
Déshabillez-moiBy on October 26, 2008 3:04 PM | No Comments
From my dear friend Maxime, a little ditty from French singer Juliette Gréco, "Déshabillez-moi" (Undress Me). Enjoy!
Quotes from People's Profiles: "I Just Stopped Talking to Myself"By on October 26, 2008 2:58 PM | No Comments
I love this little quote from a fellow Ann Arborite:
Posting a faceless photo of yourself with a headline like, "Just looking for chat and friends" is like walking into a bank waving a gun yelling, " I'm here to make a deposit!" I also love the ever so famous profiles that declare, Don't talk to me if you're FAT, FEM or FUGLY I just stopped talking to myself
Gaymen!
GMHS Photos: Gay, Gay, Goose!By on October 25, 2008 8:08 PM | 2 Comments
Here's a few gems from this past weekend in Seattle. Thanks to Kaijson for sharing the photos!
Jordan, Jason, Me, Bill, Chris, and Kaijson and Ieon at the Leadership Dinner
Kaijson and I shootin' the shit!
Gays, gays, gays!
Fellow PhD-bound gay, Jason, and I
By on October 25, 2008 5:33 PM | No Comments
With only 10 days until the election (can you believe it???), FiveThirtyEight.com's crazy statistics utility predicts that things mostly likely will shake out to Obama garnering 375 electoral votes to McCain's 163. Like many have said, it's not a question anymore of whether Obama will win -- it's how much of a landslide the victory will be.
Smart activists and progressives need to be thinking about how to get a foot in the door of the upcoming policy changes. Gay Men's Health activists should of course be lobbying for the elimination of the "No Promo Homo" policy, the global gag rule on condom promotion, abstinence-only sex education broadly, to name only a few things we should be fighting for...
Outrage! NC DJ Arrested for Having Unprotected Sex (Updated)By on October 23, 2008 4:53 PM | 12 Comments
I don't even know what to say about this story. I know this person from my years spent in Chapel Hill, going to the gay bar in nearby Raleigh, Legends. I'm upset by a few things:
1) That he was arrested in the first place. Criminalizing sex and HIV-positive people's lives is not only unethical but a dangerous practice that will undoubtedly stoke the flames of hate and stigma against Poz people.2) That Q-Notes (Charlotte's gay newspaper) published his photo. You should know better! I'm so fucking disappointed about this decision. It's no different that newspapers in the 1950s posting photos of gay men arrested for having sex.
3) That his engaging unprotected sex is license for them to order him to a "psychological evaluation." The message is clear: you have to be crazy to have unprotected sex or not disclose your HIV status. But in a climate filled with stigma and hate against Poz people, it's no wonder that he didn't choose to do so.
That's only the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure. Why do you think he didn't disclose to his partners in North Carolina? Oh that's right, because HIV is so stigmatized there that Poz folks there feel like lepers in the community. We know so little from this story. Were his partners negative? Did he top them?
I'm so upset about this. It makes me want to cry and scream and vomit all at the same time. I don't just want to write a letter about this. I want to intervene in some way. To call the system out for its injustice and pathologizing actions. I'm disgusted. And sad. Deeply sad.
Here's the "story" from Q-Notes. I've bolded the parts that piss me off the most:
A gay disc jockey in Raleigh originally convicted of violating HIV infection regulations in August has been placed on house arrest after admitting he broke probation orders in early October. On Sept. 6, Q-Notes reported that Joshua Waldon Weaver, 23, who works in clubs in Raleigh and Wilmington, pleaded guilty to charges that he failed to disclose his HIV-positive status and engaged in unprotected sex with three people. Weaver was given a suspended jail sentence and placed on probation. The terms of his probation ordered Weaver to use protection when engaging in sexual activity.About two weeks ago Weaver was arrested after Wake County Public Health officials contacted his probation officer with information that he had possibly violated court orders by having sex without a condom. Assistant District attorney Boz Zellinger told The News & Observer that health officials became aware of the DJ’s violation after he contracted another sexually transmitted disease that could have been prevented by the use of a condom.
Weaver could have faced 40 days in jail for his most recent violation, but District Court Judge Jacqueline Brewer instead sentenced him to six months of electronically-monitored house arrest. He will not be allowed to leave his father’s house except for probation-approved employment. Brewer also ordered Weaver to undergo a psychological evaluation..
If Weaver breaks his probation again, he will face up to 25 days in jail and prosecutors will ask for a two-year quarantine in a state prison hospital.
“His behavior hasn’t changed,” Zellinger told the Raleigh newspaper after the hearing. “We’re trying to address the callousness his actions have demonstrated.”
Zellinger added, “It’s not a witch hunt. It’s a desire to change his behavior to benefit the community.”
Weaver’s attorney, Evonne Hopkins, who declined to speak with Q-Notes for our original Sept. 6 story, said she’s “confident we will not be back here.”
“Josh is very sorry we’re back in court,” she said.
North Carolina Administrative Code 10-41 and North Carolina General Statute 130A-144(f) address control measures regarding the spread of HIV and require those with communicable diseases — including other sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis and tuberculosis — to comply with measures intended to curb their proliferation.
Weaver is only the second Wake County resident in 15 years to be sentenced for failing to follow laws governing the transmission of communicable diseases, according to The News & Observer. In 2007, only 16 people statwide [sic] were convicted of violating the communicable disease law. Rather than HIV, many of the instances were related to diseases such as tuberculosis or hepatitis.
UGH! This people don't fucking get it!
UPDATE: From the comments section of the Q-Notes newsstory. Looks like Q-Notes will be providing some feedback on their coverage in an upcoming editorial on Nov 1st. I've been rankling them in the comments and on of course here on my blog. I hope this will be a positive (so to speak) move:
Trevor, et al.,11 Things You Can Do to Resist Lousy ResearchQ-Notes will be publishing a staff editorial addressing this issue in the Nov. 1 print edition. The editorial will also appear online the same day.
In case there is some confusion, please note that this story, as noted in the text, is a follow-up to a Sept. 6 article:
Raleigh man pleads guilty to HIV health law violation.
We encourage concerned readers to guard against making conclusions that are not supported by the facts as reported in this story, in the Sept. 6 report or any other report by other news agencies. Further, we encourage readers to also guard against making personal and/or ad hominem attacks against the subject of the article or those participating in community discussion on this website.
Q-Notes reserves the right to remove or edit obscene, unsubstantiated or overly offensive remarks or comments. We remind our readers of our website’s terms and conditions.
I encourage those with concerns and questions to contact me directly via phone (office, 704-531-9988, ext. 208) and email (editor@q-notes.com).
Thank you,
Matt Comer
Editor, Q-Notes
By on October 23, 2008 1:31 PM | 2 Comments
"Flickr User TooHotty yesterday uploaded this photo to his account. He writes: "After 11 years of my dad never mentioning the word 'gay' or acknowledging the fact that I am, I got this in the mail. It's totally awkward, and came with a check. I hate to think that this is all he knows about my lifestyle.'" (Via Towleroad)
In Seattle, Chris Bartlett and I facilitated a workshop on how to resist lousy research. In particular, this was feeding off of earlier conversations on MRSA, the supervirus, etc. Here are 11 practical ideas we came up with to resist bad scholarship on Gay Men's Health:
1. Improve our understanding and ability to critique research methods, particularly the use of focus groups by prevention marketing agencies 2. Adding behavioral / identity questions to existing ongoing large-scale research projects 3. Form a National Gay Men's Health Community Advisory Board (CAB), where we would encourage researchers to voluntarily submit their work for critical feedback 4. Funding drives the agenda --> Influence funding's agenda 5. Develop a list of funding priorities for Gay Men's Health research 6. Start a Health Research Blog, where we could critique unethical / "bad" scholarship and praise "good" scholarship on GMH 7. Train doctors, researchers, and nurses while they're in school 8. Create national database of research abstracts, protocols (Wiki?) 9. Provide examples of good research, not just examples of bad 10. Form independent Gay Health Institute 11. Push for the funding of new and innovative prevention strategies, interventions, and organizations -- not just the same old, same old.
With the upcoming administration change, we in particular discussed the importance of #5, to influence the decisions in the coming few years about what priorities to set in regards to Gay Men's Health.
Potentially Revolutionary MS Treatment FoundBy on October 23, 2008 12:08 PM | 1 Comment
Very exciting news for folks affected by multiple sclerosis:
Researchers at the University of Cambridge said Thursday they have found that a drug originally developed to treat leukaemia can halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS).Don't Forget to Subscribe!In trials, alemtuzumab reduced the number of attacks in sufferers and also helped them recover lost functions, apparently allowing damaged brain tissue to repair so that individuals were less disabled than at the start of the study.
[snip]
In the trial, 334 patients diagnosed with early-stage relapsing-remitting MS who had not previously been treated were given alemtuzumab or interferon beta-1a, one of the most effective licensed therapies for similar MS cases.
After three years, alemtuzumab was found to reduce the number of attacks the patients suffered by 74 percent over the other treatment, and reduce the risk of sustained accumulation of disability by 71 percent over interferon beta-1a.
Many individuals who took alemtuzumab also recovered some of their lost functions, becoming less disabled by the end, while the disabilities of the other patients worsened, the study in the New England Journal of Medicine said.
By on October 22, 2008 1:14 AM | 2 Comments
Just a lovely little reminder to subscribe to TrevorHoppe.com, if you haven't already done so. Hope some of you guys from the GMHS have made your way over, and I would love to continue to hear your feedback on future postings!!! xoxoxo
Would You Stop to Help?By on October 21, 2008 10:29 PM | 2 Comments
Well I had quite the afternoon in Seattle! I got up early to check-out of my hotel and travel to the airport in Seattle for my flight back to Detroit. Very sad to leave the Gay Men’s Health Summit – what a wonderful group of thoughtful, inspiring, and dedicated men. It’s important for me to recharge at these events, and despite the high cost this year (funds are tight for me as they are for everyone), it was totally worth a few weeks of ramen-eating.
I was planning to be lazy and take a taxi to the airport, but realized while sitting in the lounge area of the Summit that this was just not financially practical. It would cost around $40 or so – money I needed for food. I mentioned that to Marcus – a lovely Canadian ‘mo sitting nearby – who mentioned back that there was a cheap bus that took you to the airport for $1.50. Seattle is really cool because they have busses running underneath the city where a future light rail system will be implemented. Fabulous. I realized that if I left at that moment, I could make it with extra time. Marcus even traded me $2 American for my $2 Canadian, the only cash I could find in my man-purse. Thanks, babe!
Cash in hand, I made the trek six blocks to the underground bus station. How neat! It felt simultaneously futuristic and ancient. Busses. Underground. Weird! Anyholler, I asked the friendly security guard down in the depths for directions to the appropriate place to catch my bus. She informed me that there were two busses – the 174 and 194 – and “One takes 20 minutes and the other takes an hour and a half. Now, which one do you want?” She laughed, and pointed me towards the decidedly faster 194 option. In about 10 minutes, I was on the move.
The beginning of the bus ride wasn’t particularly remarkable for the most part. I was sitting across the aisle from an incredibly obnoxious, loud, and immature younger couple. The man may have been an Army veteran based on his camo outfit, but God bless I hope the Army never employed such an idiot. An older woman sitting across from me shared my misery in their company, as we constantly tried to avoid eye contact with the couple. At one point the woman in the couple (with a full moustache – no really, it was amazing) told the older lady that she “had pretty jewels,” to which the older woman gave a weak smile and thank you. She went on to say that “I used to have a beautiful three-stone diamond ring that my husband gave me,” with the man with her (her husband?) adding “It was platinum!” She continued, “But I sold it for seventy dollars,” while the husband mumbled that “it was appraised for $1700!” Weird.
About that time, the bus started to slow down, and then the driver quickly slammed on our brakes as we came to a jarring stop. The man in the couple next to me flew face-forward a few seats ahead, and generally everyone freaked out as they were thrown around the bus. I braced myself on a partition nearby, bruising my wrist a bit but otherwise unscathed. Everyone was okay, but no one seemed to know what happened. We had come to a complete stop, with cars whishing by us on the freeway. Immediately the obnoxious couple began speculating loudly as to what happened, and what that meant for us. “We rear-ended somebody. Gonna have to wait for a bus to come get us now. This isn’t safe. There are heavy, extremely fast moving metal objects flying around us.” The man became increasingly unruly, at one point standing up and yelling “We need triangles and cones! Triangles and cones! We need triangles and cones, and maybe a flare if we have one. This isn’t safe. Very heavy, metal objects flying around us. Triangles and cones! We need triangles (long pause) and cones!”
Anywho, news travelled to the back of the bus that indeed we had rammed into someone – but the driver never once made an announcement over the loudspeaker to let us know that. We didn’t know what was going to happen. So we just waited patiently – most of us, anyways. The woman in the couple was whining about how hungry she was. “I want a pumpkin pie milkshake.” Actually that sounded pretty tasty, but she went on to name a variety of foods she would have liked to have at that moment in time. “I’m so hungry,” she whined. 28 going on 12.
After maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, the bus slowly started moving again when we heard a loud BANG to the left of the bus. Everyone curiously looked out the left side of the windows, where we saw a trail of smoke in the far left lane. What happened? The bus kept moving, and after 500 yards we saw exactly what happened. A green SUV was absolutely destroyed, the entire front of the vehicle crushed, with some kind of liquid spilling out of the front while the headlights flashed and alarm sounded. I have never seen a car crash before, but this one looked pretty bad. The windows were tinted, and I couldn’t see where the driver was. Was he or she okay? Cars kept whizzing by, no one stopping to help. Someone at the front of the bus called 911, but otherwise I didn’t see anyone stop to intervene. I felt totally traumatized in that moment, worried for that person’s well-being but unable to get out of the bus to assist in any way, haunted by the million dollar question: Would I have stopped if I was driving behind the car?
Apparently a dump truck hit the SUV, a truck we saw pulled over (unscathed) a few hundred yards ahead, driver on his cell phone. I felt nauseous, sad. To be so close to a traumatic event is haunting. Proximity is everything. Somehow, looking through the smashed windshield of the SUV, I felt that person’s fear. My heart sank at the sight of the crumpled vehicle. Was that somebody’s mother? Brother? Maybe their lover?
Would I have stopped? Or – like everyone else – would I have just driven around the car, hurrying on to my important meeting?
Twittering From My Bottom PresentationBy on October 21, 2008 9:56 PM | 4 Comments
Holy canoli! There was a whole lot of Twittering going on at the GMHS in Seattle this past weekend. I took some time to try to reconstruct the fabulous / amazing / mind-blowing Twittering dialogue that happened during my presentation on bottom identity. For the unfamiliar, Twitter is basically something like a mini-blog that people update from their handheld phones. At the GMHS, people have been coordinating activities and giving feedback on sessions during the actual sessions. It's really something to watch happen.
You'll notice that there are, like, eight people Twittering below. Some were in the workshop. Some were in other workshops. And others weren't even at the Summit! Mindblowing. They're roughly reconstructed chronologically, in reverse order. So the beginning of the workshop is at the bottom. So to speak :)
kaijson: @harveymilk or do they - poz bttms and their diff way of compt bttmhood - still to be discoveredJoin the Gay Men's Health Movement @ Ning!harveymilk: Positive bottoms have a different way of contemplating bottomhood.
Tank1275: sexual behaviour is fluid, I started life as a small bubbling brook, then became a stream before widening to the sea
harveymilk: RT @u761508: @harveymilk he could look at the fluidity of sexual practice layered on ascribed or assumed identity (that seems more rigid)
u761508: @harveymilk Trevor's research could look at the fluidity of sexual practice layered on ascribed or assumed identity (that seems more rigid)
Tank1275: I think sexual story telling is one of my great pleasures, especially on lifelube.org
harveymilk: Alex: there is a need for gay men to tell a story about their sexual identity. Story telling as an access to some of these issues.
Kripalu: also used to think tops "could" be straight if they liked to fuck hole
ATG: @Kripalu I would agree! The subtle texture of "bottom-top," whatever these terms means for people, has changed.
Tank1275: as a top there is a pressure to be perpetually hard and fuck for hours, which can be challenging
harveymilk: @kaijson au contraire, I love all of your comments.
harveymilk: Alex: there is a need for gay men to tell a story about there sexual identity. Story telling as an access to some of these issues.
kaijson: @harveymilk did you find my comment too aggressive?
Kripalu: @harveymilk it used to be more about power. Now it's relational if those are different
jimberly: I am not there, but nothing new about power and aggression belonging to the bottom
Kripalu: I do find myself more confident and relaxed as bottom
harveymilk: @atg I love that @tank1275 is in the next room and tweeting on two workshops at the same time. He is versatile!
ATG: @Tank1275 @harveymilk Truly wish I was there with y'all!
harveymilk: Bottom identity allows people to understand some similarities.
Kripalu: As "vers/ bottom" I was interested in exploring less than 100 percent bottom
Kripalu: I have prejudice against power bottoms
harveymilk: @kripalu for some, bottoming is default, but in context can change. Hoppe: relational identities.
harveymilk: @kripalu is speaking Yay! Curious that nothing came up about versatility.
jimberly: Got it
Kripalu: @jimberly 18
harveymilk: @jimberly I came in late, but I seem to remember it is a smallish sample... qualitative starter project, leading into his dissertation.
jimberly: How big was sample?
harveymilk: @Tank1275 what if you want to get out of your mind during sex? just wondering....
Tank1275: @jimberly @harveymilk lots change roles depending on many factors and the top-bttm dynamic creates hierachies which undermine us
Kripalu: when my friend thanks me for servicing him, I always say "no, thank you"
kaijson: we need positive bottom studies.
harveymilk: request for same study of HIV poz bottoms or HIV neg tops, or other variations...
ATG: @harveymilk Oh, another good one in addition to heteronormative is gendernormative. I use both liberally. :-D
kaijson: "maybe there is a difference in identifying in being a bottom and being a bottom"
kaijson: i am blown away that someone would suggest that b/c this data is not replicatable we shouldnt be doing it...
jimberly: Lots of men don't identify
kaijson: these question must start to being asked
jimberly: Curious as to why bottoming is ironic
harveymilk: @jimberly re:ironic perhaps "taking it" as a bottom is not sexist/heteronormative, but an ironic parody of the hetero version... (my words)
kaijson: are people really being honest about describing their sexual likes and desires
ATG: Well then. Ahem. LOVE LOVE LOVING @harveymilk's Twitterstream from the "Gay" "Men's" Health Summit! I just love HM! *mwah* #gmhs08
kaijson: people being scared about stating on paper or in dialgue what they really like -
harveymilk: True True @jimberly, the crowd is really digging into the meanings-- very interesting- and perhaps first opportunity for all of them.
kaijson: responses: hetero-normative and sexist
cyberczar: @harveymilk "heteronormative" … I love it!
kaijson: "For the love cum"
kaijson: Trevor suggests it is ALL OVER this work!
kaijson: what does cum mean to gay men?
pozguy75: @kaijson we all have the responsibilty, regardless of position or heirarchy!
kaijson: interesting that the bottom would be the one to initiate the use of the condom - do tops have no responsibility - OR DO WE ALL regardless
kaijson: how can video taping NOT need IRB approval?
kaijson: i am an aggressive bottom - an example narrative being different
kaijson: i love passionate sex...i love...the other kind, that loves your hole, all he wants is just to fuck you, diump his load and leave...interesg
kaijson: ifirst time i heard about his study, this past summer i said he was / is brilliant, and he is!
kaijson: it is a great session.
harveymilk: Experiencing bottom as a celebration of pleasure. What about the irony of bottoming? Not heteronormative/sexist, but different.
kaijson: ...transcending and amazing...w description about a certain tupe of sex that starts beyond the physicality of sex.
harveymilk: Comment from audience: seemed sexist and heteronormative...
kaijson: do bottoms control tops? is there such power issues?
harveymilk: Using relationships as a prevention strategy.
harveymilk: Prevention techniques for bottoms: very clear seroadaptation.
kaijson: im a bottom, not a waitress....
kaijson: in fact, with small focus groups, even if robust dialouge, limiting...how can this be studied on a larger scale? should it
harveymilk: This is such a good session it almost defies tweeting...
kaijson: it truly does take "sex" to a level of intamacy
kaijson: taking the time to understand your partner!
kaijson: Grrrrr.....this is an exmplae of taking control of the questions being asked.
harveymilk: I love the font that Trevor has used in his presentation. Very old-fashioned, like My Weekly Reader.
harveymilk: @kaijson this qualititative focus group work is important for topics that, like this, are unlikely to be funded for study initially.
kaijson: why is this, taking it as feminine
kaijson: "...not about the sensation in my ass, it is about the sensation in my head" really?
kaijson: "sex is just in the head, our head"
kaijson: still in the roots of bootomhood, there seem to be more questions than answers
kaijson: a power exchange going back and forth with it.
kaijson: playing with the power concept.
harveymilk: "Offering up my body to a man physically and mentally" --one description
harveymilk: I am getting to the bottom of bottoms! Trevor Hoppe's workshop.
Kripalu: bottom workshop packed! So to speak
By on October 21, 2008 3:04 PM | No Comments
Folks interested / working on Gay Men's Health organizing should head on over to Ning to join the social network we've set up to organizing and network among leaders, thinkers, activists, and practitioners. Join in the fun, and become my friend! Above is a screenshot of my blog entry on my bottom presentation. More fun to come! xoxox
My Bottom Identity Slides @ GMHS 2008By on October 21, 2008 2:59 PM | No Comments
Hey folks! As promised, here is the link (zip file) to a copy of my Powerpoint slides from the Gay Men's Health Summit this past weekend in Seattle. Exciting presentation / feedback! I would love to hear your thoughts on the direction of my research based on the quotes you'll see highlighted here. xoxoxo
RIP, ZimaBy on October 21, 2008 2:55 PM | 2 Comments
Sad news! Zima will no longer be produced. Of course the crap is absolutely revolting, but I was weened on Zima in my early gay years, when we used to put Skittles in our Zimas and watch in wonder as the beverage fizzed and turned the color of whatever Skittle we had chosen. I reference that in my "The Making of a Southern Faggot" essay over at Beyond Masculinity. Sigh. I'll miss you, Zima! Even if no one else will!
"America's Next Top Bottom"By on October 19, 2008 3:44 PM | 2 Comments
I'm preparing for my presentation tomorrow on my research this summer in San Francisco on bottom identity among HIV-negative men there, and as I was looking for images while putting together my Powerpoint slides, I stumbled on this interesting photo set from Flickr user iieeef.
Obviously, I'm interested in the way that top/bottom categories are culturally gendered (while recognizing the variations in this "on the ground"), and this photo set surely evidences that...
What is Sexual Health?By on October 19, 2008 2:52 PM | 2 Comments
Yesterday, I attended a lovely workshop titled "Operationalizing Sexual Health," which generated discussion around what exactly we mean by this term. It was an interesting discussion, prompted first by a group activity where participants were forced to stand on either side of the room to indicate whether or not they thought a given activity or idea was part of sexual health. One side was labelled "THIS IS NOT SEXUAL HEALTH," the other "THIS IS SEXUAL HEALTH."
Then they called out activities like "mutual masturbation" or "douching" and we were forced to pick a side, and then discuss. I was one of the few defenders of douching as part of sexual health, arguing that -- for me -- douching can give me anal confidence, which can promote pleasure in my sexual life. But most folks of course were thinking strictly in terms of the public health / STD transmission / risk model of sexual health.
We then broke up into groups to come up with our own definitions of sexual health. After a lengthy and complicated discussion, our group came up with this definition:
Sexual health is more than just the absence of sexually transmitted diseases. It is first and foremost individually and culturally contextual, but generally includes: 1) The ability for people and their partners to set boundaries and make informed consensual sexual decisions; 2) The ability to feel good about those decisions, without fear or stigma; 3) A claim to pleasure and/or intimacy in whatever way people see fit; and 4) The access to communities and institutions that support and promote healthy sexual lives.
I edited that last bit just a tad to say "healthy sexual lives" instead of "those decisions" -- I think it's a bit stronger that way. What do folks think? A good start? Is something radically missing?
My Opening Remarks @ GMHS 2008By on October 19, 2008 4:08 AM | No Comments
Hey everyone! As promised, here's a copy of my remarks that I gave this morning on Wellness in the context of Gay Men's Health. Tipsy, so can't add too much more presently. But the plenary today went really fabulously. I hope y'all enjoy these remarks:
Good afternoon! I’ve been asked to provide some provocative opening remarks about Wellness – but I’m going to do something very academic-y, and talk a bit around the issue. Rather than defining what wellness looks like, per se, I want to ask us to be thinking about how Power works to structure Wellness. That is to say, how power – a concept I’ll elaborate on in a minute – works in different ways to either give or deny access to Wellness. Power gives us access to Wellness – without it, we can never hope to achieve it, collectively or individually.In Seattle!So let’s dive in. It’s a rather vague word, “Power.” What ever does it mean? I want to briefly sketch out three potential meanings that have a direct impact on Wellness. First, from a Marxist or materialist perspective, we might first think about power as whether or not we have access to material resources – and by material resources I mean things like jobs, housing, health care, a down payment on a car that your parents lend you, or even the twelve dollars it costs for a monthly subscription to Manhunt.net. This is perhaps the most obvious kind of power because – especially in the last few months – we’ve seen how money and materiality can deeply impact our social worlds. But it’s not the end of the story.
There’s also another kind of power I’d like to draw on, a more sociological or anthropological notion of cultural capital. Money can buy many things, but often it’s who you know (and of course who you don’t) that prove to be your greatest assets. We see this in studies of job applicants. It’s not a resume that gets most people their first job out of college – it’s the fact that their fraternity brother’s father is doing the hiring. Or – more realistically perhaps for many of us in this room – that a friend works for the company and put in a good word. So understanding how gay, bisexual, and transgender men are networking is important to understanding the resources they have to draw on in times of need. More than just social networks, though, this kind of power also lurks around a thing we like to call in sociology “social status.” You know, the moment you turn to the guy to your left and ask him who he works for and where he went to school. Certain answers may lend him more credibility, while others may not.
So that’s two. One more to go. The final kind of power I’d like to present is more often associated with sex. And that’s the kind of physical power of brute force. Obviously, things like rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence come to mind here. We all know the serious impact that misuse of this kind of power can have on our Wellness – and the Wellness of our communities.
So, you say, “Well that’s all well and good Trevor, but what the hell does this have to do with Gay Men’s Health?” I think we’ve been relying on a very simplistic notion of power that we get from epidemiological public health data that shows HIV infections clustered among certain populations. Men of color, sex workers, etc. Most of us think primarily about race in this way – race is a rough approximation, it seems, for power relations and that has implications for Wellness. But this actually has told us very little about why this clustering is actually happening. We continue to distribute surveys, and we continue to be baffled when we get data back that indicates that, for instance, Black MSM aren’t engaging in riskier sex than their white counterparts – and yet their rates of infection are outrageously different. I have some news for you: surveys and epidemiology will never explain that difference. And I mean never.
This is because we’ve been too focused on the big picture. Let me use an art metaphor to help explain my meaning. It’s something like viewing a Monet painting. Far away, we can see a certain shape and structure to how things are operating. We think we see the picture. But as we get closer, we realize that that area of the painting that looks blue from far away, is actually composed of thousands of brushstrokes of all kinds of colors – red, green, and maybe even turquoise. To get back to race, the epidemiological data is giving us a rough approximation in the form of pie charts and time-series graphs. But this doesn’t tell us a damn thing about what’s happening up close and personal, about what kinds of variation exists within that “46% of new infections.” We know the outcome – the big picture – but we don’t have a fucking clue about the why. Settling for a macro-level “Big Picture” analysis of power does not paint a complete picture.
This occurred to most clearly while recently reading and essay written by a radical faerie by the name of Middle. The article was generally about bareback porn, but his analysis extended into relevant territory. He says:
I'm repelled when terms like bareback, pre-condom, and raw are used to brand, commodify, and attach a premium to risk. There's a human impact I've encountered first-hand - men and boys who feel their willingness is a commodity to be traded against their perceived shortcomings: age, ability, cock size, weight, femininity, HIV status. Where the vulnerable or clueless pursue fantasies fueled by glamorization of risk with little or no brotherly support, unhappy results range from name-calling to seroconversions, addiction, and worse.Now he is making an incredibly illuminating point here. He’s noting that men online are often feeling the need to “trade” against their perceived “flaws” (judged on the gay marketplace of desire) – whether that be their old age, curvy figure, smaller cock size, race, or gender - he’s arguing that they feel compelled to trade their willingness to go bare against that perceived flaw. Too fat? Well maybe if you agree to get fucked raw, you might get laid. Too much of a queen? Just tell him how much want his load in your hole.
In this way, power is operating in all kinds of crazy ways both inside and outside our bedrooms. Though they are certainly playing a role, it’s not just about race or class – the two primary lenses through which many of us typically think about power relations in gay/bi/queer/trans male communities. It’s also about age, ability, weight, femininity, whether you’re a top or bottom, and even how big your dick is or isn’t. This is why we are in desperate need of a complicated analysis of power relations. Because – while from far away we think we understand what’s happening on the ground – the closer we get, the more muddled things become.
We need to better understand how sex and power interface to create risk disparities among different populations of gay, bisexual, and transgender men. Until we start thinking critically about these relationships, we will never understand why Black and Latino men account for the overwhelming majority of new HIV infections. And let me be clear: this is way beyond HIV. Power structures Wellness in all areas of our lives. You want a happy, healthy community? You better start thinking about housing and health care. You better start thinking about homophobia in public schools and racism in our bars. Wellness will not be achieved by knocking out one of these contributing factors. We won’t end homophobia without ending racism. We won’t eliminate new HIV infections without challenging and attacking the violent and destructive influence of masculinity in our lives and communities. Wellness is a package deal. I hope you will join with me this weekend in thinking critically about how your work moves us towards that vision. Thank you.
By on October 18, 2008 2:56 AM | 1 Comment
Hey everyone! I'm in Seattle for the Gay Men's Health Summit and having an AMAZING time! What a whirlwind of a day its been. I've had the pleasure of chatting with Lifelubes Jim Pickett; the amazing Chris Bartlett (see his Twitter, which he updates when he should be napping); LA's own Tony Valenzuela (see this amazing recent article); and countless other amazing gay men's health activists, thinkers, and strategists. So lucky to be in their company!
Tomorrow I give my plenary remarks on how power structures wellness. I'll post the full remarks (they're not long) tomorrow after the event. I think it's pretty provocative stuff, but I guess I'm a bit biased! Anywho, I may be slow to update these next few days, as I'll be busy workshopping and mingling. I'm presenting my bottom research for the first time; taking part in a panel talk on bareback porn; and of course doing the plenary session. Oy vey! I can't wait to dive in and meet so many amazing activists!!!!
xoxoxo
By on October 16, 2008 12:00 PM | No Comments
Actually this isn't *technically* a quote from someone's online profile -- but a copy of a very lovely e-mail I just got from a total stranger on Manhunt. People have gone out of their way to send me notes thanking me for putting "Totally Gay Acting. UB2" in my profile. In part because it's an admittance and proud proclamation of my gayness, and in part because of its inherent critique of the "Straight Acting" pseudo-gay culture. So I got a big smile when I got this note just now from an older fellow in upstate Michigan with the subject line "You Rock!!":
Let me just say. I'm a little older than you're looking for, but I just have to tell you how nice it is to see a young man proud to say "totally gay acting" I love you all. I'm very butch and masculine, men like you represent something I only wish I could be. hugs
Aww, thanks! So sweet!
Conservative Icon's Son Endorses Obama, Resigns from Nat'l ReviewBy on October 15, 2008 10:52 AM | No Comments
Conservative icon William F. Buckley's son Christopher has just resigned from the staff of the movement's emblematic journal, the National Review. You can read his entire resignation column here, but here is the highlight:
Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)
My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.
So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.
While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.
Amen.
(Via CNN's Political Ticker)
NYT / CBS Poll: Obama 53, McCain 39By on October 14, 2008 11:44 PM | No Comments
McCain's nasty attacks appear to be backfiring, so says The New York Times:
The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.
Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.
The findings come as the race enters its final three weeks, with the two candidates scheduled to hold their third and last debate on Wednesday night, and as separate polls in critical swing states that could decide the election give Mr. Obama a growing edge. But wide gaps in polls have historically tended to narrow in the closing weeks of the race.
[snip]
After several weeks in which the McCain campaign sought to tie Mr. Obama to William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground terrorism group, 64 percent of voters said that they had either read or heard something about the subject. But a majority said they were not bothered by Mr. Obama’s background or past associations. Several people said in follow-up interviews that they felt that Mr. McCain’s attacks on Mr. Obama were too rooted in the past, or too unconnected to the nation’s major problems.
It's pretty much over folks. Get ready for the first Black US President!
New Study Finds Genetic Link for BaldnessBy on October 14, 2008 1:26 AM | No Comments
A new study out of England and Germany points to another genetic variation that may predispose some to baldness. The common trope has for years been to check your mother's father and see if he's bald. If not, you're in good shape. But this has never actually been 100% accurate. The new link they've found is actually not on the X chromosome (where the previously discovered one was) -- but on chromosome 20, which everyone has two copies of (one from mum, one from pop):
New genetic links to male pattern baldness have been discovered by researchers in England and Germany.It's the second genetic connection to the kind of hair loss that many men -- and women -- experience as they grow older, said Felix F. Brockschmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bonn and one of the authors of a report published online Oct. 12 in the journal Nature Genetics.
"The first gene known until now is on the X chromosome," Brockschmidt said. "It is the most important for alopecia [hair loss]. We are sure that this new locus we found is the second most important."
The discovery could open the way for genetic tests to single out men most likely to lose hair as they age, Brockschmidt said. "Screening for the X chromosome locus and also for this new one can possibly show the risk of male pattern baldness," he said.
[snip]
That test looks at variants of a gene governing receptors for androgens, which are male hormones. That gene location, on the X chromosome, was identified only a few years ago. A man has only one copy of the X chromosome, inherited from his mother. The new gene locus is on chromosome 20. Men and women alike have two copies of chromosome 20, inherited from both father and mother.
[snip]
"If you don't have the genes, there is a negative predictive value of 96 percent," he said. "If you do have the genes, there is a positive predictive value of about 14 percent."
This is my GREATEST. FEAR. EVER. I mean, don't get me wrong. Some guys look hot bald. But I've shaved my head before. It's.... lumpy. Ugh. And mole-y! Eek!!! My mom's dad has a full head of great thick silver hair. I've got my fingers crossed!
Salon: Army Lying About Friendly Fire DeathsBy on October 14, 2008 12:23 AM | No Comments
Salon has a heart wrenching and incredibly detailed piece of investigative journalism (something we don't see much of these days because of its high cost and uncertain payoff) regarding the 2006 deaths of Pfc. Albert Nelson and Pfc. Roger Suarez-Gonzalez in Iraq. A lengthy and violent video has surfaced from the helmet-cam of a soldier present at the encounter, where it appears that an American tank fires on American troops stationed in an abandoned home in Ramadi, Iraq:
Shot from the perspective of the soldiers taking fire from what they clearly believe is an American tank, the footage shows how Pfc. Albert Nelson and Pfc. Roger Suarez-Gonzalez died. It also records soldiers trying to save Nelson’s life, and the sound of a platoon sergeant attempting to report over a radio that the casualties were due to friendly fire. He then seems to be overruled by a superior officer who insists it was an enemy mortar attack. Troops from Nelson’s unit interviewed by Salon, including three soldiers there that day, blamed friendly fire from a U.S. tank for the deaths. “A tank shot us,” said a soldier. “That is what happened.”An Army investigation, however, found the deaths were caused by enemy fire. Soldiers from Nelson and Suarez’s platoon, based at Fort Carson, Colo., described what they felt was pressure from above to accept this official story despite evidence to the contrary — including the video, which has circulated widely. Jean Feggins, after watching the video, said it was more evidence that the Army had misled her about the circumstances of her son’s death. The Army told Feggins that her son had died instantly, while the video shows a painfully protracted attempt to get Nelson to a field hospital before he bled to death.
The piece is well-researched and well written -- take a look. I won't post the video here -- it's much too violent and disturbing -- but if that interests you, Salon has posted it.
Chicago to Get "Gay-Friendly" High SchoolBy on October 13, 2008 10:42 AM | No Comments
I'm not sure that of all the issues at hand right now, CNN's front-page coverage of this is the most appropriate really.... but anyways:
Public school officials in Chicago, Illinois, are recommending approval of a "gay-friendly" high school because harassment and violence are causing gay students to skip class and drop out at alarming rates.The School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials say will not be exclusive to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, is aimed at being safe and welcoming for any student looking for another school option, said Josh Edelman, executive officer in the Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools.
"It is not going to be a 'gay high school,' but yes, in a way, it is meant to target kids who feel they have been victims of bullying for their sexual orientation or perceived orientation," Edelman said.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan announced his recommendation Wednesday. Officials said Pride Campus would be separate physically but be attached administratively to the School for Social Justice.
It's an interesting idea. Certainly homophobia has a terrible effect on many gay students, forcing some to drop out or worse. But I'm not sure giving them their own gay-friendly campus is the best long-term solution. It will ease the problem for students who are willing to opt-in to such a system, but there are surely countless young queer folks who are either not out / comfortable with doing so, or who strongly desire to stay at their designated school for other reasons (sports, theater, friends from elementary, etc). It also just lets the problem -- homophobia and bullying -- continue to fester inside the classroom.
I'm torn about how to receive this news. CNN ran a similar story back in 2003 when the Harvey Milk High School opened in New York City, which was more explicit about being for LGBT-identified students (the Chicago School is billed as just "gay-friendly"). It would be useful to hear stories from students at Harvey Milk High, to see how useful it has been for them in escaping homophobia and achieving academic success.
Will the Cell Phone Effect Cancel Out The Bradley?By on October 13, 2008 12:40 AM | No Comments
Unless you've been living under a rock, you're well aware of the doubt in many Democrat's minds about the so-called "Bradley Effect." This is the potential for bias to be introduced in polling numbers due to white respondents indicating they will vote for the Black candidate -- but failing to follow through with that in the voting booth. Less has been made over the impact of many pollsters relying on landline samples to compile their data, skewing the data more Red than a cell-phone-inclusive sample.
Pollster's Brian Shaffner recently examined this impact more closely, and argues this very interesting point:
Second, just looking at party affiliation masks the fact that cell phone only respondents are actually quite a bit more liberal than those with a landline. 35% of cell phone only respondents classified themselves as liberals compared to just 23% of those with a landline. These ideological differences are not completely accounted for by party either. From the table below, you can see that cell phone only Democrats are 10% more liberal than those with landlines. Democratic leaners in the cell phone only sample are 15% more likely to classify themselves as liberal. And even those cell phone only independents who did not express a lean to either party were more likely to be liberal compared to their landline counterparts. Given that cell phone only Democrats and Democratic leaners are more liberal than those with landlines, they should be less likely to defect and vote Republican than landline Democrats.
So the question now is: Will Bradley cancel Cell Phone?
Three Fags in a BoatBy on October 12, 2008 3:28 PM | 2 Comments
What an adventured I had yesterday on the Huron River! The weather is miraculously still warm enough here in Ann Arbor to have allowed Maxime, Rostom and I an afternoon of leisure on the river. It was a *ridiculous* afternoon. Rostom has no shame, and was prone to hollering at hot boys (see photos and video below) -- offering them candies or other treats if they came closer.They must have recognized him for the siren he is, as they never dared to come closer than a few feet. We even serenaded two hotties who were canoeing near us for the trip back. No really, we have video to prove it. I shot a few different short videos -- all funny in their own light -- but I've only posted three here for your enjoyment!
Singing "All By Myself" to the hot boys in the canoe ahead of us. Amazing!
Commenting on Maxime's butch shoes and coaxing him on -- and then screaming like queens when I realize we're headed into the "Satanic Mudpitt," when Rostom shifts his weight and the boat tilts, we all scream!
We got stuck in some muck, but we got out. And then Rostom and I continue our discussion of Michael Warner's concept of heteronormativity, in particular considering the way it gets taken up by activists / thinkers who misinterpret it to mean a lazy critique of that which is heterosexual:
And some photos for your enjoyment:
Beautiful / deadly swans! They will kill you!
What a hottie! Rostom took this photo, as you might have guessed
Here are the two hotties we were chasing and serenading for most of the trip back
Warmth. Sun. October. Amazing.
By on October 11, 2008 6:59 PM | No Comments
My parents came to town for a few days to visit me here in Michigan. It's been absolutely beautiful here in Michigan this October. When I came to visit Ann Arbor two years ago this weekend, it was already snowing! Fuck that! But this year the warm weather is holding out. Today I even went canoeing -- more on that later!
This past Wednesday my parents came in to town and we had dinner with my friends Nat, Maxime, and Andre. It was fabulous! The staff at Zingerman's Roadhouse treated us like royalty! They were so generous with a complimentary fried cheese curds appetizer (*amazing*) and some fresh roasted veggies from the chef's garden to accompany dinner. It was a really delightful evening. I got pretty hammered by the time we took the above photo (hence my shirt a bit more opened than I might have liked!)
Betty White -- Still the Best!By on October 11, 2008 11:42 AM | No Comments
Betty White is a genius.
On John McCain: "He likes all his communication via carrier pigeon."
On Sarah Palin: "That is one crazy bitch!"
On Barack Obama: "That is one hot piece of man!"
All on 90 seconds. Enjoy!
Report: Palin Abused PowerBy on October 10, 2008 9:40 PM | No Comments
No surprise here:
A legislative committee investigating Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate, issued a report Friday night that found she unlawfully abused her authority by firing the state’s public safety commissioner.Dear Gay.com: Get Your Act TogetherWhile the report concluded that a family grudge was not the only reason for dismissing the commissioner, Walter Monegan, it said it was probably a contributing factor.
“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: To get Trooper Michael Wooten fired,” said the report, which was issued in Anchorage.
Mr. Monegan has insisted that he was dismissed as retribution for resisting pressure to fire Trooper Wooten, who was involved in a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister. Ms. Palin said Mr. Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.
The report, which was commissioned and released by a bipartisan state legislative panel made up of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats, said: “The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in ‘official action’ by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Troooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation].”
By on October 10, 2008 8:24 PM | 1 Comment
If you're a Gay.com user, you've surely grown tired of seeing the above message upon trying to access their website the past few weeks. They "revamped" their website -- including their chat utility -- edits that have been largely panned by users. They originally only planned to be down for 24 hours or so -- but have been rocked by repeated outages in the past two weeks from bugs in their scripts and kinks in audience reception.
While only one of a number of popular online gay networking sites (Adam4Adam, Men4Now, Manhunt, etc), it's the only chat-based network -- the others are all profile/e-mail based sites that seem to focus more exclusively on meeting guys for sex. I've always preferred Gay.com because of that; it feels less anonymous, more connected generally. Of course, many guys despise it for that reason, and have bailed to other sites where more efficient sex-finding is possible. To each their own, I suppose. But the new sites blows. It's totally user-unfriendly. Slow to load. "Biolines" -- sort of Twitter-like mini-profiles that gave a short schpeel for each user -- have lost all their former utility. The "chat room" focuses on what people are saying in the room, not on who's actually inside the room (most users don't actually chat in the rooms -- but rather focus on "private messages.")
All in all, it's a bust. And they need to fix it fast, especially given their rapid decline in traffic over the past few months:
By on October 10, 2008 10:28 AM | No Comments
Parents are in town -- so busy keeping them busy. But I couldn't help but to post this video montage of emo boys making out. God bless angsty skinny boys with chopped up dark hair. Oof. Where's the porn genre to follow?
West Virginia a Toss-Up State?!?!By on October 9, 2008 6:54 PM | No Comments
Now it's one thing to say that North Carolina, Ohio, and Colorado are going Blue this November. It is quite a-fucking-nother to say the same for West Virginia Holy Canoli! Notice that since I last posted Pollster's Electoral map, Pennsylvania has gone dark blue. A reader commented and pointed me to the website FiveThirtyEight, which is a political statistician's jerk-off fest. Check out these tidbits, for instance:
By on October 9, 2008 6:37 PM | 2 Comments
(Click to Enlarge)
I wish I was going to be in San Francisco next Wednesday! UCSF's Center for Gender Equity will be presenting a night of spoken word, monologues, music, dance, and discussion under the banner of the "Men's Story Project." The flyer (above) says that it will be a:
A powerful night of men's true stories examining social ideas about masculinity. Topics include sexuality, identity, friendship, family, culture, HIV/AIDS, violence, rites of passage, transformations, and more
If anyone goes, bring a copy of Beyond Masculinity to share!
2008 Polling Trends vs. 2000 / 04 TrendsBy on October 7, 2008 5:53 PM | 1 Comment
(click to enlarge)
So how do the poll numbers were seeing compare with the 2000 and 2004 election? A very helpful chart above details that difference, in terms of Democratic minus Republican national poll figures. So here you see that the wide lead Obama has opened up nationally far exceeds any lead Gore or Kerry were able to obtain. And on the flip side, Obama's current lead far exceeds either lead Bush could muster at this stage in the campaign. This is -- of course -- good news.
In other news, I can't wait for the debate tonight! Should be interesting!
Them Polls Sure Look Mighty Fine!By on October 7, 2008 8:20 AM | No Comments
Florida and Colorado have officially flipped light blue (from yellow, or undecided) on Pollster's electoral map. Notice that Dem's currently have 296 electoral votes in their pocket, compared to only 163 in the Red. With only 79 left undecided (and Obama carries narrow leads for over 50 of those), things look very good for Dems this November. There of course is some chatter about the potential for the Bradley Effect (voters saying they'll vote for the Black candidate, but then voting for the white candidate in the voting booths) to bite him in the butt -- but I sincerely hope we've come a long way since 1982. If Obama wins (and I think he will, overwhelmingly) -- and his win resembles the polls -- then we need to drop the term from our political discourse. It's harmful to Black candidates by creating doubt and spinning fear.
UPDATE: New Hampshire and Ohio have flipped since I posted this message less than 12 hours ago! Check it out.
How to Pronounce "Nuclear"By on October 6, 2008 8:24 PM | 1 Comment
What is with Republicans and their inability to say the word "nuclear"? George Bush always said "nuke-you-lar" -- and Sarah Palin continued in that tradition last week at the debate. Here's some amusing clips highlighting some of her... more interesting moments there:
(Video via DailyKos)
NYT: "Racism Without Racists"By on October 6, 2008 12:52 PM | No Comments
Racist propaganda that's been flying around this election. Obviously, this is an example of the "dyed-in-the-wool" kind of racism Kristof cites
Columnist Nicholas Kristof has an interesting piece in the NYT today on the way that race might be operating in the election this year. He notes that it's not the "dyed-in-the-wool" racists who are hurting Obama -- they're conservatives and would never vote for a Democrat. But instead, it's the "well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality" yet still make (unconsciously) racist decisions. This is a VERY important distinction:
Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously."I Believe Marriage is a Sacred Institution Between Two Unwilling Teenagers"“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,” said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.” “Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.”
For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In the experiments, the applicant’s folder sometimes presents the person as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.
Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.
For example, when the black job candidate is highly qualified, there is no discrimination. Yet in a more muddled gray area where reasonable people could disagree, unconscious discrimination plays a major role.
White participants recommend hiring a white applicant with borderline qualifications 76 percent of the time, while recommending an identically qualified black applicant only 45 percent of the time.
John Dovidio, a psychologist at Yale University who has conducted this study over many years, noted that conscious prejudice as measured in surveys has declined over time. But unconscious discrimination — what psychologists call aversive racism — has stayed fairly constant.
“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.”
By on October 5, 2008 12:24 PM | No Comments
Tina Fey does it again!
Don't Let The Door Hit You...By on October 4, 2008 4:08 AM | 1 Comment
John McCain -- faced with tight races in a number of states -- has decided to pull out of Michigan:
John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush.
Good riddance.
(Via DailyKos)
My New Favorite Song: Hot Chip, "Ready for the Floor"By on October 3, 2008 7:09 PM | No Comments
I can't get enough of this song!!!! The video is at times very stunning / clever (the half-black-painted ladies, anyone?) at at other times a bit annoying / nonsensical. But the song is fabulous. Pure pop perfection. Just delicious. I wanna bite into it and suck the juice from its veins. And then go out and party. Loves it.
Quotes from People's Profiles: "Str8 Acting"By on October 3, 2008 6:22 PM | No Comments
This hot little twinkazoid is obviously very concerned with his masculinity:
I'm a very str8 acting dude. I"m str8 acting and looking for someone whos good looking and in shape... and is also str8 acting. Not sure what i'm actually looking for nothing lol ... just here bc i'm bored!
Not just once. Not twice. But three times he invokes the phrase! Oy vey! I got tired of this shit years ago and started putting in my profile "Totally Gay Acting Here. UB2."
Debates Over Bareback Porn: RFD MagazineBy on October 3, 2008 12:54 PM | 2 Comments
[ Image redacted - see here (Warning: Explicit) ]
The faerie magazine RFD has a very interesting article by "middle" over the mag's recent decision to run ads from bareback porn studios (namely Treasure Island Media -- the ad pictured above is from issue #131). You can read the entire article on the flip (it's not available online, so I have transcribed it for you!), but I was particularly struck by one bit in particular:
I'm repelled when terms like bareback, pre-condom, and raw are used to brand, commodify, and attach a premium to risk. There's a human impact I've encountered first-hand - men and boys who feel their willingness is a commodity to be traded against their perceived shortcomings: age, ability, cock size, weight, femininity, HIV status. Where there vulnerable or clueless pursue fantasies fueled by glamorization of risk with little or no brotherly support, unhappy results range from name-calling to seroconversions, addiction, and worse.
Bingo! This is EXACTLY the issue I have been trying to put my finger on for some time. I see men out there -- online in particular -- "trading" in the way that he describes. Too fat? Well maybe if you agree to get fucked raw, you might get laid. Too much of a queen? Just tell him how much want his load in your hole.
This is the kind of logic I see operating left and right in online sex sites. And it's not just operating in the minds of bottoms; tops are totally working this logic to their own advantage. I get the sense that many guys out there are looking for bottoms they know they can prey on in this manner -- guys who they perceive as low(er)-value on the hooking up marketplace, guys who will desperately want it, no matter the cost. It makes me furious to see it happen -- or when I feel that it's happening to me. I got that sense in San Francisco almost every time I logged online. They'd ask if I fucked raw, I said no, and they said goodbye, hoping that I'd lose my will and give in.
Ugh. It's manipulation of the worst kind. Not only does it make you feel like an abject piece of meat, but -- oh yea -- it also is extremely high risk sex for the bottom.
You can read the whole article on the flip.
(Via LifeLube)
Continue reading Debates Over Bareback Porn: RFD Magazine. What Palin Was Thinking...By on October 3, 2008 12:18 PM | No Comments
Teehee. I love this chart. At times during last night's debate, it seemed to be quite accurate. But let's be real, here. Palin didn't tank as many of us had expected her to, which in my mind translates that she won the debate. But of course that's pretty fucked up logic. Biden didn't knock it out of the park, either, though. National polls all indicate that most Americans think Biden won, though. I'm surprised by that -- pleasantly though.
Last night was fun because I watched the debate with several foreigners, who were aghast at Palin's colloquialisms (esp. "Say it ain't so, Joe!" -- barf!). It gave us some good perspective on how ridiculous American politics looks to outsiders. We also drank ourselves stupid, which is always a fun time. I'm just waking up now at 12:30 PM, if that's any indication of things.
(Image via Joe. My. God.)
Quotes from People's Profiles: The EconomyBy on October 2, 2008 4:39 PM | No Comments
You know times are bad when comments like these start popping up in gay men's sex profiles:
Our economy stinks!!Times are tough! Everything is going up but my income? Gas, food or heat? I never had to choose before, I use to love sucking dick, now I do it just to get something warm in my stomach!
Amazing. I'm not sure if I should laugh, or cry really!
This is a good intro to the debate this evening. I bet you can't wait! I know I can't!!!
Couric: "Believe Constitution includes right to privacy?" Palin: "I do. States Decide."By on October 2, 2008 11:44 AM | 2 Comments
Jesus H. Christ. This woman doesn't understand have a basic 9th grade understanding of how the legal / judicial system works! In this clips, Palin dishes about why she doesn't like Roe v. Wade. Couric astutely asks if Palin believes the Constitution includes an inherent right to privacy. Palin responds, "I do. Yea I do. I do and I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the fifty states would like to see their will ushered in on an issue like that." Um, sorry lady. If it's mandated by the US Constitution, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction.
Couric goes on to ask Palin "What other Surpreme Court decisions do you disagree with?" I feel bad for Palin here -- because you just *know* Couric was preying on Palin's obvious lack of knowledge here. I'm not sure other candidates would have been asked this question. But nonetheless, it's a question that deserves answering. I mean, after all, if you want to overturn one Supreme Court case, what about others? She couldn't name any others, of course.
It brings to mind Whoopie's (flip) question to John McCain on The View about whether she should be worried about being a slave again. Now the issues are very different -- the 13th Amendment outlaws slavery. There is no blatant amendment that calls for a "right to privacy," which is the issue over abortion. But Palin has just said she believes that the Constitution includes an inherent right to privacy. Honestly she doesn't understand the importance of that admission, so it's a bit silly to try to hold her to this mucked up attempt at "strict interpretation" that she's floundering on. But it's worth pointing out -- because she's an election and a heart attack away from the Presidency.
Site Stats: Jan 08 - Sept 08By on October 1, 2008 9:09 AM | No Comments
As you can see, the site continues to grow steadily in readership! Wew-hew. Thanks for reading! It's very flattering every day to come home and find that a few hundred people have logged on to read my blog. So -- a big THANKS to y'all readers!
Sullivan: HIV Travel Ban NOT RepealedBy on October 1, 2008 8:56 AM | 2 Comments
Andrew Sullivan is reporting what many of us feared: The US Government has not complied with legislation passed to lift the ban on travel for HIV-positive people. In fact, he's been told to leave the US for good by March:
The Bush administration has not yet lifted the regulation barring people with HIV from entering the United States, despite the law lifting the ban overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed by president Bush last July. Yesterday, they simply reiterated their previous plans to "streamline" the process, which, in fact, does nothing but make it more bureaucratically cumbersome for temporary visitors with HIV to enter the country as tourists or for conferences. They have done nothing to end the ban as the law clearly asked for.As it currently stands, I will still be required to leave the US for good next March. And many more are in much worse straits. They say they will change the regs. And that it takes time. My guess is that it will take until after the election. But does anyone believe a Palin administration would make life any easier for people with HIV? For people with HIV, the Palin nomination should be terrifying.
He's damn right.
(Via Joe. My. God.)