Model Wars-Oct 29, 2011 / Health-News-PICS
Safe PICS For All Ages / "NO" Religious Discussion
Boycott Trump-TARGET-FOX NEWS/Murdoch-Salvation Army
Watch "Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann" - "CURRENT TV" (8 PM EST, M-F)
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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:Eating Healthy on a Budget
Trying to cut back your spending and calories? The two can go hand-in-hand. Prepackaged diet foods can be costly, but fresh choices don't have to be. Here are some tips from What to Expect When You Have Diabetes, by the American Diabetes Association:
•Buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Those little fruit cups and prepackaged veggies can cost a pretty penny, but you can save money by buying your produce fresh and cutting it yourself. Package them in single-serving, reusable containers at the beginning of the week, and stock them in your refrigerator so they're ready to grab and go.
•Buy fruits in season. Focusing on fruits in season, when they are abundant, can save money – apples and grapes in the fall, citrus in the winter and berries in the spring.
•Buy produce from the farmer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture website has information about the Community Supported Agriculture program, which links local farmers to consumers who buy a share of the weekly harvest during the growing season.
Take Action:
- Boycott Bill O'Reilly and FOX News and their advertisers. Bill discussed a French commercial by McDonalds that was meant to show that McDonalds is Gay Friendly. Bill said what is next? Is McDonalds going to be Al-Qaida friendly as well? Imagine - Bill O'Reilly compares Gays to Al-Qaida! Further, Boycott Fox's Owner "Rupert Murcoch" and get him thrown in jail for illegal - political donations, corruption, greed, bribery, hacking!
- Boycott Target, Best Buy, Gold's Gym - for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations. Update: (12/26/2010): Target is continuing to donate to anti-gay groups/causes/politicians. Update 03/08/11 - Lady Gaga Ends Target Partnership, Reportedly Over Target's Poor LGBT Stance. Update 3/25/2010 - Target displays their hypocrisy and Sues California Gay Rights Group for Lobbying Outside Stores. Target is attempting to block the LGBT right of free speech! STOP SHOPPING AT TARGET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Update 4/8/2011: Target lost its case to stop the LGBT from canvassing in front of their stores. A huge PR Disaster for TARGET! Perhaps Target should go out of business as they betrayed their investers and customer base. Target contributed massive funds to a politician who would like to exterminate gays. Now, Target can not stop us from Boycotting them, nor picketing, nor talking to customers near their stores; although, Target allows a anti-gay company such as the Salvation Army to stand outside their door and speak with customers and raise money. Isn't this a double standard?
- End DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). Prevents Federal employees and Gays in the Military from gaining equal benefits. Prevents Gay Partners from gaining equal benefits.
- Pass a LGBT friendly ENDA (Employee Non-Discrimination Act). ENDA would prevent employment discrimination of LGBT workforce.
- Boycott Salvation Army as they will not hire Gays! "DO NOT DONATE TO THEM."
- BOYCOTT "Chick-fil-a" for donating money to anti-gay groups.
- BOYCOTT KOCH INDUSTRIES PRODUCTS- to include their products: Angel Soft toilet paper / Brawny paper towels / Dixie plates, bowls, napkins & cups / Mardi Gras napkins and towels / Quilted Northern toilet paper / Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper / Sparkle napkins / Vanity fair napkins / Zee napkins / Georgia-Pacific paper products & envelopes / All Georgia-Pacific lumber & building products (INVISTA Products) / Lycra / Stainmaster Carpet. The billionaire - Koch brothers are ultra republican - tea bag founders/supporters that do not support causes of the LGBT community.
- Boycott WALMART - The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force criticized Wal-Mart for denying employee benefits to same-s-x partners and for failing to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. By comparison, the group said two other chain stores with a strong presence in New York, Costco and Walgreens, did much better.
- "Tune Out Trump", Boycott all Trump Hotel, casinos, holdings, The Apprentice and NBC Network! At CPAC, Trump said he is considering a run for president as a Republican. In a interview with the Des Moines Register, Trump added that he opposes all forms of legal recognition for gay couples, not just marriage. "They should not be able to marry," he said. So why does NBC keep the Apprentice when Donald Trump has stated he may run for president? After making racist remarks about Obama and recv'g public backlash, Trump decided not to run for president after NBC renewed his awful TV Show. How can NBC re-new the clown's show after he pulled such hateful shenanigans?
- Boycott Georgia for Execution of Troy Davis @ 11:08 EST, Sep 21, 2011:
Former US President and Former GA Gov. Jimmy Carter felt that TROY DAVIS should not be executed and deserved a re-trial. The Former Director of the FBI felt that TROY DAVIS Was Not Guilty! Do not drive through Goergia as it is dangerous. Do not fly via Atlanta. For your safety -Do not travel to GA. TELL YOUR COMPANY NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN A CONVENTION IN GA! "Georgia Executes Innocent People!"
And Now, Our War of the Fittest!
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, you should select the "Male 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.
Eric James Lavin
VS
Kristen Courtney
You Decide!
Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, NYC; Oct 25, 2011
Stoked?
Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, NYC; Oct 25, 2011
Hard Times for Gay Retirement Havens
By DAN FROSCH - New York Times - Oct 28, 2011
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Like so many others who have settled here, Janice Gaynor and her partner, Barbara Cohn, wanted to retire somewhere where they could be themselves, whether that meant holding hands in public or making decisions about each other's end-of-life health care.
So when RainbowVision swung open its doors in 2006 as one of the first retirement communities in the country to proudly serve gay men and lesbians, offering elegant adobes where people could live out their lives among friends, the couple could not move in fast enough.
"This was our safety valve," Ms. Gaynor said.
These days, that promise is all but forgotten. RainbowVision has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, racked by financial problems and an increasingly bitter dispute between residents and management. Its problems mirror those of many other gay retirement communities around the country that have either failed to open or fallen on hard times, victims of a weakened housing market, a deflated economy and, in some cases, poor business decisions.
They were once hailed as havens where the so-called Stonewall generation -- the first "out" group of senior citizens -- could age without being treated with hostility or forced back into the closet. But such communities in Austin, Tex.; Boston and in the Phoenix area never opened because of a lack of finances and a decline in real estate values. A development near Portland, Ore., is struggling at 25 percent of capacity, and another near Sarasota, Fla., has, like RainbowVision, filed for bankruptcy.
"It's very concerning to see places like RainbowVision having trouble, both because older people need them and because they're an important community institution," said Michael Adams, executive director of Services and Advocacy for G.L.B.T. Elders. The group, which is known as SAGE, is pushing for improved housing options for elderly gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.
Many are growing older without the support of children or extended family members. Gay and lesbian seniors are twice as likely to live alone, according to SAGE. A 2010 report by the group also found that nursing homes often failed to protect gay men and lesbians from hostile treatment by staff or other patients. In a study released in April by the National Senior Citizens Law Center, many older gay men and lesbians and their family members reported instances of mistreatment at long-term care centers. The study also noted that social service providers said it was unsafe for residents to be openly gay at such facilities.
Potential residents of retirement communities, however, may be less inclined to sell their homes and move away during tough economic times. And because developments for older gay people have emerged only within the last 15 years or so, they may not have the financial reserves to weather an economic crisis, Mr. Adams said. As a result, housing options tailored to the estimated 1.5 million elderly people in the United States who are gay are especially limited.
Before buying a condominium at RainbowVision, Ms. Gaynor, a former school administrator, toured a traditional retirement community in Florida, but left with the distinct feeling that she and Ms. Cohn were not welcome.
The fear of suddenly being hurled back into a world that is not always friendly has divided residents at both RainbowVision and the Palms of Manasota, a small community near Sarasota on Florida's Gulf Coast whose developers filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year. A local bank foreclosed on unfinished buildings and a number of empty units at the Palms, and there is uncertainty about who will buy the foreclosed land.
"There was a lot of contentiousness, and the bank hasn't given any indication on what they plan to do," said Ron Lennon, president of one of two homeowners' associations at the Palms. He said his support for the bankruptcy angered fellow residents who feared what could happen to the community. "There are still people here who won't talk to me."
For those who have invested, both emotionally and financially, in retirement communities that never got off the ground, the prospect of having to drastically change their plans is daunting.
Alice Fisher, a retired caterer, is weighing her options after plans for Boston's first retirement community geared toward gay people were abandoned in 2008 after a major investor dropped out.
Ms. Fisher, 70, lost her $10,000 investment in the community. The developer, Stonewall Miner LLC, has since filed for bankruptcy. Ms. Fisher, who is single and owns her home, is contemplating moving into a rental for the first time, or to another retirement community.
"I thought it was really, really too bad," she said. "This felt important because it felt like we were the last generation who were going to be able to do something like this because the economy has changed so much."
The battle at RainbowVision has unsettled the once-harmonious group of about 100 residents, about half of whom are straight. It involves reduced services and the steeply rising monthly fee for use of a popular common building that includes a restaurant, a salon and a gym. The fee increase has strained the finances of some of the residents.
RainbowVision's chief executive and president, Joy Silver, said that the cost of running the community had skyrocketed and that the flailing economy had slowed leasing activity for the community's condominiums.
Many condo owners, including Ms. Gaynor and Ms. Cohn, began refusing to pay the common building fee and have been banned from using the building.
Ms. Silver, who founded RainbowVision with help from other investors, attributed much of the ill will to speculators who bought units but never lived there. "What's difficult is watching people who are full of fear worry about what's going to happen to them and watching them go through the challenges of aging," she said. "If it were up to me, everything would be free. But that's not pragmatic or realistic."
In June, an arbitrator in the dispute between residents and the management decided that though RainbowVision had not broken any laws, it was overcharging residents based on the services it was providing. (An attorney for RainbowVision responded that the arbitrator had not taken into account how expensive it had become to operate the community.) In the bankruptcy court filings, RainbowVision's lender described the atmosphere at the community as "terrible and openly hostile," and called for the management to be replaced.
"Every one of us had this starry-eyed vision of what we thought RainbowVision was going to be, and we thought we were working toward a common goal," said David Garrity, 62, who also stopped paying the disputed fee because of the lack of services.
Mr. Garrity, who has not fully moved into his condominium yet, said he had overlooked red flags about the company's finances because he was excited to be part of a project he called "a dream" for gay men and lesbians. "Here we are, the victims, victimized by their own," he said.
Not everyone here has sided against RainbowVision's management. John Wojtkowski, who is disabled, has been renting there since the summer and praised the company for being responsive to his needs.
But Mr. Wojtkowski, who worked on Wall Street for nearly 30 years, said he was worried. "We used to kid around when we were younger and say, 'Are we just going to sit around on a porch?' There was no place for us," he said. "I don't hide the fact that I'm gay. When I came here, I felt like I could be myself."
"I don't want to go back in the closet again," he added. "Without RainbowVision, there's no other place to go."
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."
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