Model Wars; Dec 4, 2010
Safe PICS For All Ages, Rated G
Diet & Fitness:
- Reminder: Did you complete your Diet Journal today? Get it done!
- Did you do any physical activity? If not, make a point of it by tomorrow! Own a bike? Ride it to lunch, work, park, lake!
- It is our hope that our male fittness photos shall inspire you!
Today's Health - Wellness / Exercise / Reflections:The Health Hazards of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"by RH Reality Check / Opposing Views; Dec 3, 2010On December 1, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article I wrote entitled "Health Hazards of `Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" The article describes how the military's policy on homosexuality imperils the health of service members, the military, and the country, and it advocates for repeal of the policy on those grounds.
I have to say that, until last year, I never anticipated publishing an article about "don't ask, don't tell." I have, and still do, support its repeal. But I'm a physician and public-health practitioner, not a policy wonk, lawyer, or expert on military affairs. And I've never served in the military myself.
What changed? Well, in 2009 I moved to San Diego, California, to take a job as medical director of the municipal STD clinics in San Diego and as director of public health efforts to prevent and control STDs in the community. San Diego has proved different from places I've lived in the past. It's not just sunnier. It's a whole lot more military. In fact, about 175,000 active-duty service members and their dependents live in San Diego. And considering that an estimated 2.2 percent of military personnel are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), it should not be a surprise that a fair number of them are LGB.
I know that first-hand, because I not uncommonly care for active-duty service members, including LGB service members, in the municipal clinics. And, as I do for every patient I see, I take a sexual history. I ask my patients who they have sex with, what types of sex they're having with their partners, whether they're using protection.
In doing so, I'm simply doing what I've been trained to so since my very first day of medical school: find out what the problem is, and fix it. And, when it comes to sexual health, those questions are critical to me, in determining which screening tests to order, which diagnoses to consider, and which STD and HIV prevention messages I should provide. For example, guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding STD screening are different for men who have sex with men who than they are for men who have sex only with women.
What happens when I ask my patients those intimate questions? Well, for the most part, whether my patients are men or women, gay or straight, military or civilian, they tell. They know that I need that information to help them. And they want to be helped. They want to be - or stay - healthy, after all. That's why they came to see me in the first place.
The problem with "don't ask, don't tell" is that it's a giant roadblock in the middle of the typical "ask" and "tell" encounter that's absolutely essential to the effective practice of medicine. It's like trying to take care of a patient with chest pain without being able to ask him whether he smokes, or has a history of heart disease, or has ever had a heart attack in the past. It's not good medicine.
But, unfortunately, that's exactly what happens in many military healthcare settings, according to scores of military clinicians and service members with whom I've talked. Military clinicians don't ask, and service members don't tell. No matter that the Department of Defense last year exempted use of disclosures of same-sex sexual behavior from use under "don't ask, don't tell" procedures. Many military clinicians and service members I've talked to aren't aware of that exemption. Even after I tell them about it, military clinicians and service members say they still won't ask and won't tell. As one military physician wrote me after reading my article: "Training in military medicine will also have to change with the times because I/we have never been previously trained in taking appropriate sexual histories."
The upshot is that infections among service members go undiagnosed and untreated - unless they come see me, or another civilian provider proficient in sexual health. There are certainly many more service members who don't know about, or don't have access to, municipal clinics. In those cases, we all lose. If infections go undiagnosed and untreated, our public health efforts to break the chain of transmission of STDs and HIV are undermined. That goes for our efforts in both the military and the civilian populations, which in San Diego, and many other areas across the country, have a huge amount of social - and sexual -- overlap.
STDs, of course, compromise military readiness, whether they're among LGB service members or not. And they also predispose to HIV acquisition, which itself is unfortunate for a service member and costly, in terms of readiness and healthcare expenses, for the military.
The best way to make sure our service members stay healthy is to remove the "don't' ask, don't tell" roadblock. Repealing "don't ask, don't tell" will have health benefits for service members, the military, and the country. Don't we owe it to our men and women in uniform, who are called on to sacrifice so much for us every day, to make sure we're doing our part to protect their health?
The Department of Defense this week released survey results indicating that 70 percent of service members say that repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" would have positive or mixed impact, or no impact at all, on their units. And there's hope that the U.S. Senate will vote on repeal of the policy before the lame duck session ends this month.
But in the meantime, active-duty service members continue to come to the municipal clinics. They include people like the sailor I describe in The New England Journal of Medicine, a gay man I diagnosed with an STD. He would never, he told me, go to a military clinic with a problem like that, so long as "don't ask, don't tell" was the law of the land. Doing so would pose too great a risk to his career. The sailor also told me he would return to see me for retesting for gonorrhea in three months, as I recommended, following CDC guidelines. He was, after all, about to be deployed on a combat mission in Afghanistan.
Consider joining:
- Members of Peckers Pics should join our President Barack Obama group . (Health Care, Gay Rights, Gay Marriage, Repeal DOMA & Don't Ask Don't Tell
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Take Action:
- Boycott advertisers of Glenn Beck on Fox News as well as all of FOX NEWS! Glenn has lied about Health-care, called our President a racist, and is anti-gay rights.
- We demand immediate end of DADT. It is out-right discrimination.
- Boycott Bill O'Reilly and FOX News and their advertisers. Bill discussed a French commerical by McDonalds that was meant to show that McDonalds is Gay Friendly. Bill said what is next? Is McDonalds going to get be Al-Qaida friendly as well? Further, Bill said that McDonalds would never show a gay friendly commercial in the USA. Imagine, Bill is comparing Gays to Al-Qaida!
- Boycott Arizona the home of senile - Sen. John McCain: because of their Hateful anti-Immigration Law that encourages racial profiling and increases hatred towards minorities. A remedy: Demand Republicans to support Immigration Reform. Further, Their Senator McCain voted against ending DADT and blocked Immigration reform! We shall hold the voters of Arizona responsible!
- NEW: Boycott Target and Best Buy for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations.
- NEW: Boycott Gold's Gym for donating loads of money to anti-gay candidates.
And Now, Model Wars!
This group is called "Peckers Pics." The English - slang definition of "pecker" is to pluck at the truth. Therefore, we peck at items such as Gay Men's Health, Male Fitness, Gay (LGBT) Politics & Issues. In this section you may peck at each photo in order to decide the winner of the "war of the fittest!" Whereas, who is the model that may inspire you to exercise and "get fit?" Warning: This may stoke you!Remember your participation in discussion of health and news articles in this message is greatly appreciated!
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Joe Manganiello
Cast Actor in HBO's True Blood
VS
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Kellan Lutz
Actor: Twilight Movie Series
You Decide!
Former Navy dog handler Joseph Christopher Rocha is an advocatefor repealing the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy on gays.Serves on congressional panel to end DADT!
Stoked?
Dan Choi (right), West Point '03 grad. Dan Choi has become the public face of themovement to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
After DADT Hearings, White House Meets With Repeal Groups
by Chris Geidner on December 3, 2010 / Metro WeeklyFollowing today's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing discussing, in part, the lame-duck consideration of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal legislation, the White House held an off-the-record meeting with organizations pushing for DADT repeal regarding repeal and the National Defense Authorization Act to which it is attached.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye confirmed the meeting with Metro Weekly, writing, "Today, the White House met with various stakeholders to discuss the passage of the NDAA, including DADT, during the lame duck."
Two people who attended the meeting but asked to remain anonymous because of the off-the-record nature of the meeting told Metro Weekly that those organizations that were represented included Center for American Progress, Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans, National Black Justice Coalition, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, OutServe, People for the American Way, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Servicemembers United, Stonewall Democrats and Third Way. [Politico's Josh Gerstein, who first reported the news, also reported that representatives from OutServe and the Palm Center attended the meeting, a fact confimed to Metro Weekly by a third attendee.] As such, it would make it the largest of several such White House meetings held about DADT repeal this year.
The two attendees of the meeting said that the White House was represented at the meeting by Christopher Kang, White House legislative affairs; Christina Tchen, director of the public engagement office; Brian Bond, deputy director of public engagement; and representatives from the Domestic Policy Council and White House Counsel's Office.
Echoing and expanding on President Barack Obama's comments made after the report was released on Tuesday, Inouye wrote, "The meeting follows the release of the Defense Department Working Group report and the congressional testimony of 10 top military leaders this week. The testimony from those witnesses makes clear that now, more than ever, Congress can and must take action during the lame duck session to give the military the flexibility it needs to end DADT in a way that does not jeopardize military readiness."
One of the attendees said that the attendees were told that "this was in fact a priority for the president and that [the New] START [treaty] and DADT [repeal] can both be passed in the lame-duck.
"Early next week, they are going to engage the progressive community in calls for the senators," the attendee said they were told, referencing the Organizing for America and Democratic National Committee outreach described on Wednesday to Metro Weekly.
A second attendee looked at the Senate action this week, saying, "We had a very, very good series of Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, dominated by a really strong message from the Pentagon that we can repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and we can implement in a timeframe that makes sense.
"While today's hearing pointed to the fact that the are different opinions [of this issue], at the end of the day, the message was, 'We can do this.'"
Of the White House's view after those hearings, that second attendee said, "With all the competing legislative issues and a shrinking calendar, they were very positive about NDAA and DADT repeal, and they are committed to getting it done."
Regarding the timing, however, the first attendee said that the pending impeachment proceedings for U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Porteous of Louisiana and resolution of the tax-cut issues raised in a letter sent to Reid from and signed by all 42 Republican senators earlier this week "need to be done" before the Senate will proceed. "So we're looking at the next week," the first attendee said.
As for that timing, which differs from the timing discussed by SLDN executive director Aubrey Sarvis after the hearing, the second attendee said that discussion about running out of time was slightly overstated at this point.
"Eventually, yes, we'll run out of time. But we're not there yet, and we won't be there if the vote isn't held next Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday," the second attendee said. "The important thing is that we win the vote when it's held because there's no second chance.
"We want to hold the vote when will be able to win the vote."
The first attendee said that Tchen stressed the White House's commitment to passage of repeal language by stating that "if they weren't serious about this they wouldn't have put [Defense Secretary] Gates and [Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike] Mullen out there."
The second attendee, asked if this appeared to be a meeting to mollify organizations as a prelude to bad news about the repeal legislation, said, "I know it wasn't. I've been mollified before, and this wasn't mollification."
The first attendee, however, did say, of the path forward, "All roads keep leading back to [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [(D-Nev.)]. If he chooses to lay out a fair path, the votes should be there. If he chooses to be a jerk about it, the game's over."
URGENT: Boycott Gold's Gym, Target and Best Buy for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations and to Proposition 8 (California) to prevent gay marriage. I would not purchase "Blood Diamonds," nor should a person / organization be contributing funds to both Hitler / Nazi's and the Jews at the same time! Obviously giving money to the Jews and not Hitler/Nazi's was the right thing to do. Hence, these companies violated my trust and well-being. They gave money to my enemy who would terminate me from my job, deny me housing and send me to a Internment camp. Therefore, goodbye Gold's Gym, Target and Best Buy! The CEO's of these companies have been insensitive to our reaction and do not even comprehend their actions! What takes so long to "fire" these Neanderthals?
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