Wednesday, March 23, 2011

[Peckers_Pics] Model Wars; PICS + Articles; Mar 24, 2011-Safe PICS For All Ages



Model Wars; PICS + Articles; Mar 24, 2011
Safe PICS For All Ages / Support Keith Olbermann who will be on "Current TV"

Updates on Keith Olbermann  @ ObamaBiden2008 (Update: Keith joined "CURRENT TV").  Check with your cable provider to see if you have "Current TV".  Current TV's website has option for you to request service from your cable provider.   Current TV's founder is Al Gore.  Charter Cable does not carry "Current TV".  Please Contact Charter now!  Keith is a man who stuck his neck out for progressives, as well as the LGBT community. Update:  Keith began his FOK NEWS blog. 

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Diet & Fitness:

  • Reminder: Did you complete your Diet Journal today?
  • Did you do any physical activity?  If not, make a point of it by tomorrow! 
  • Perhaps our male fitness photos shall inspire you to get Fit!
Health - Wellness - Exercise - Reflections:
Brent Bauer: promoting gay men's health

NEWS / 2011 Hero Awards: Editor's Choice

Noreen Fagan / Ottawa / Monday, March 21, 2011 / Xtra

Brent Bauer was catapulted into the media spotlight in 2010 after speaking out against the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) for its issuing a press release with a gay man's photo, name and HIV status. The police sent out the release in May after the man was arrested for HIV nondisclosure. He was already in custody.

"I was angry this past spring and energized again. I think we had been a bit complacent in Ottawa about the idea of HIV criminalization," Bauer says.

Brent Bauer(Ben Welland)
Bauer, by default, became the spokesperson for the Gay Men's Wellness Initiative. He was consistent in his condemnation of police actions and their negligence in a case that was both sensitive and important as a public health issue.

Bauer was instrumental in pushing OPS to do an internal review of its actions. He went before the Police Services Board to propose operational guidelines for the criminalization of HIV, and he helped coordinate an HIV working group.

A group was struck -- made up of community members, Ottawa Public Health and OPS -- to discuss how to deal with future HIV-nondisclosure cases. Bauer is still trying to get the Crown to join the group.

Bauer is not new to activism; in fact, he has decades behind him. He lived in Montreal during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and, as a doctoral student, he worked with Egale.

"I had a really neat liaison role at that time between the national movement and some of the strategies leading up to the marriage summit of June 2001, which I think was really the key decision point on taking the legal route through the courts," he says.

Around the time that same-sex marriage became legal in Canada, Bauer moved to Ottawa, where he was forced to give up his seat on Egale as its Quebec representative.

Bauer was working at the Public Health Agency of Canada on HIV/AIDS issues when he heard about Bruce House. He spent four years volunteering at the hospice, three of them as chair of the board of directors.

At Bruce House, he learned the fine art of governance -- he helped bail the organization out of funding troubles, shored up their fundraising and embarked on a major rejuvenation of the hospice.

"I think Bruce House's reputation as a HIV/AIDS organization that has a voice in the community was a major accomplishment for me in that period," he says.

Bauer left Bruce House to chair the Ottawa Carleton Council on HIV/AIDS, which is now called the Ottawa Coalition on HIV/AIDS. He worked on a program that was funded for one year by the Government of Ontario.

The program involved a community-planning process for cities across the province. Its goal was to gather community partners around the table to investigate ways of working together on issues pertaining to HIV/AIDS.

After a year with the council, Bauer joined the Gay Men's Wellness Initiative. He feels that addressing the wellness of the gay community is an extension of HIV/AIDS activism.

"It's a natural progression of how the epidemic has evolved but also where gay men are at in their lives," he says.

The mandate of the initiative is to promote gay men's health: socially, physically, mentally, spiritually, sexually and economically. It aims to advance men's wellness by reducing HIV transmission, liaising with Public Health and ensuring that all gay men (regardless of their HIV status) have access to appropriate services.

The initiative had been working on strategies last May when the OPS debacle unfolded. Bauer says that, at that time, there was a strategy in place around the development of public policy guidelines, public education awareness and best practices for agencies when dealing with someone wanting to come forward with a complaint or with someone struggling with disclosure.

It was a strategy that OPS bypassed when it issued the press release and the reason Bauer became a public critic of the police.

Although Bauer continues to work with the Gay Men's Wellness Initiative and the HIV working group, he is already considering his next step in activism -- establishing a social-media platform for gay men's health.

"I think what we are grappling with now is taking the idea of a physical drop-in space and building a broader platform for that through social media," he says.

However, Bauer acknowledges that that is his "dream strategy." For now, he wants to focus on reenergizing the initiative and getting more men involved in taking care of their health.

Bauer is sincere in his desire to put public health issues at the forefront of his activism.

"I think there are still social injustices out there; there are still institutional resistances. I think that as you enter into middle age, as I am, you realize what has been accomplished but what still needs to be done," he says. "I think that now it is almost a different era in which there is a levelling effect of some of the rights and victories that we have achieved, and yet underneath the surface you have bubbling still some health and wellness challenges that need to be addressed."
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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!
 
Your participation in discussion of health / news articles - appearing in this message is greatly appreciated.
 
Sebastian Pyre
by Shawa Pablo-chester
 
VS
Enzo Pilari
 
You Decide!
Casino Night at The Cafe; San Francisco; March 21, 2011
Stoked?
Bartender Brandon; St. Patrick's Day @ The Cafe; San Francisco;
March 16, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor, Gay Icon, HIV/AIDS Activist, Dies At 79
by David Badash on March 23, 2011 / The New Civil Rights Movement

Dame Elizabeth Taylor died today at the age of 79. She was an Academy Award-winning actress who starred in 70 films and television shows, a relentless HIV/AIDS activist who raised millions of dollars to fight the disease, and was known for her beauty and friendship to stars such as Michael Jackson and Rock Hudson. Seriously ill for more than a decade, Taylor died of congestive heart failure.

Perhaps best-known for her work in iconic films such as Butterfield 8, National Velvet, Giant, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf, Taylor went on to make appearances in popular soap operas in the 1980s, such as All My Children and General Hospital. Taylor also appeared as the voice of Maggie Simpson in a 1992 episode of "The Simpsons," titled, "Lisa's First Word."

After her friend Rock Hudson died from an HIV/AIDS-related illness, Taylor helped found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and started the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF).

At her acceptance speech at the 11th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in 2000, Elizabeth Taylor said, "There is no gay agenda, it's a human agenda," and added, "Why shouldn't gay people be able to live as open and freely as everybody else? What it comes down to, ultimately, is love. How can anything bad come out of love? The bad stuff comes out of mistrust, misunderstanding and, God knows, from hate and from ignorance."

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, today said in a statement, "We are deeply saddened by the death Elizabeth Taylor. Ms. Taylor was a true ally to the LGBT community. She was one of the first public voices to speak up about the AIDS crisis while many others stayed silent in the 1980s and she helped raise millions of dollars to fight the disease.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family, and to all those whose lives have been positively impacted by the life and work of Elizabeth Taylor."

Taylor is known for saying, "If not to make the world better, what is money for?," and, "Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses."

Of long-time friends Michael Jackson, Taylor said, "What is a genius? What is a living legend? What is a mega star? Michael Jackson -- that's all. And when you think you know him, he gives you more . . . I think he is one of the finest people to hit this planet, and, in my estimation, he is the true King of Pop, Rock and Soul," and "He is part of my heart. We would do anything for each other."

Elizabeth Taylor did not attend the 2003 Academy Awards due to her opposition to the Iraq war.
"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."
....Jake
  
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"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."

...Jake (Moderator)



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