In This Newsletter
Ellen & Anne
"Unfortunately, we have decided to end our relationship." As difficult as those words were to hear for the fans and supporters of Hollywood stars Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, the world's most celebrated lesbian couple, the pain of their "amicable parting" appears to be deeper than the community that held them as role models will ever know. The New York Daily News, which on August 19 first published the news of the separation, cited a friend saying, "They're both very, very upset."
Responding to rumors in a joint statement to the Daily News, DeGeneres and Heche said, "It is an amicable parting, and we greatly value the 3 1/2 years we have spent together." The discrimination they both experienced along with the celebrity of that period led both to take a highly visible role in a range of movement activities. They bonded professionally as well, with Heche guesting on Ellen and later directing DeGeneres in part of the HBO film If These Walls Could Talk II which aired in April (and which is now scheduled for video release on October 10). Heche's film of DeGeneres' three-month stand-up comedy tour is still in post production and she is committed to finishing it.
DeGeneres and Heche's statement to the Daily News concluded, "We hope everyone will respect our privacy through this difficult time."
Founder's note:
At times like this I am so glad I do not live in a glass bubble. Poor Ellen and Anne they all say. Poor Ellen and Anne? What makes them more special than poor April and Bobbie? Poor Nancy and Elaine? Poor Stormy and Eva? The list goes on and on. The only big difference is where you are on the national popularity list. While the rest of us try and cope without the rest of the country looking on, Ellen and Anne are forced to live openly in the eyes of the public without making too much of a fuss over their break up. They can’t even mourn their losses without a comment in the press. It is about time we all took a good look at lesbian life and realized that MOST relationships last only three years and get on with the business of living. Good luck to you Ellen and Anne. May the next relationship be as happy as the first.
How to Survive a Heart attack alone
Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. & You're driving home, (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset & frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm & up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest you home; unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.
What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself.(Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order.)
Without help the person whose heart stops beating properly & who begins to feel faint has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly & very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, & the cough must be deep & prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath & a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.
Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs & coughing movements squeeze the heart & keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a phone &, between breaths, call for help.
Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives! From Health Cares Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter AND THE BEAT GOES ON (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)
Submitted and used with permission by: Brandee34
Firm plans gay cable channel
A television channel aimed at gays and lesbians and reaching a national audience with news and entertainment is a broadcasting company's goal.
Palm Springs Triangle Multi-Media Ltd. Inc. is planning to launch the 24-hour channel via cable and satellite Oct. 1. Gay and lesbian movies, sitcoms and a daily news show would be featured, said Dick Weiner, executive vice president of Triangle and the company's television station, Palm Springs Television Studio.
Weiner said he is in negotiations for the rights to air gay and lesbian movies filmed primarily in London, as well as a sitcom produced in Los Angeles. Palm Springs Television Studio would create the network's news show. Other programming would include gay and lesbian sports events, game shows and live shows from bars countrywide. Plans call for the channel to broadcast fresh programming 12 hours a day that would be repeated twice a day, Weiner said.
Triangle is in negotiations for a satellite feed that would enable the network to be viewed on a premium channel for about $20 a month. After the satellite deal is negotiated, Weiner said he would begin contacting cable networks to ensure the station is available across the country. "It's an idea that's long overdue," said Scott Seomin of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Los Angeles. "We hope it catches on and is a success, and with success comes copycatting."
Such a channel could be of value to the gay and lesbian community and parents of gay and lesbian children who want to learn about their offspring, Seomin said Wednesday. Palm Springs has a large gay and lesbian population, he added, calling it unsurprising that such a channel would emanate from the desert city.
Poem Of The Month
Short Time Topic's
Jenny Perricone, wife of the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives
Chuck Perricone (R-Portage), sent an unsolicited partisan "spam" email on
Monday, August 14 to a list of people that included a local Kalamazoo area gay
man.
In what gay activists are calling "offensive" the email was riddled with
statements that are insulting to women, minorities and other Americans, but the
attacks on gays are particularly offensive. The email blasted Democrats and
stated that "If you want to be a GOOD Democrat," then "You have to believe the
AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.that gender roles are artificial
but being homosexual is natural.that homosexual parades displaying drag,
transvestites and bestiality should be constitutionally protected."
One afternoon you and your lover decide to take a walk in a near by park, when you get there, you see a sign that reads ""No Dogs or Gays" . Can you imagine? By a decision of the city
council of Aguascalientes,
capital of the Mexican state of
Aguascalientes, the Ojo
Caliente water park has been
posted with a sign prohibiting
access "to dogs and
homosexuals," La Jornada
newspaper reported August
25. The city's Director of
Regulations Jorge Alvarez
Medina confirmed to the
newspaper that as long as he
holds his post, he "will not allow access to homosexuals."
StopDrLaura.com has reported this week that three more companies have dropped their sponsorship of anti-gay
top-rated radio talk show host "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger: RadioShack, Motel 6 and Saab. StopDrLaura.com
and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have geared their continuing national
campaigns to stopping Schlessinger's upcoming syndicated TV show, but since Procter & Gamble withdrew its
support from that project, no other sponsor has been made public. However, seventeen other national
companies have either dropped their sponsorship of the radio program or stated they would not advertise on it.
A seventh-inning smooch got a lesbian couple ejected from a Los Angeles baseball game on August 8, but their
threat of a discrimination lawsuit won them a public apology from the team and 5,000 tickets on August 23.
Lesbian couple Meredith Kott and Danielle Goldey and their friends, a heterosexual couple, all sat down
together at Dodger Stadium to watch the home team play the Chicago Cubs. Both couples occasionally kissed
affectionately during the game. But as the seventh inning began, security guards told Kott and Goldey to stand
up. More guards quickly surrounded them so tightly they couldn't move and asked them for identification. The
women asked repeatedly what was going on, and were finally told an incident of "lewd behavior" had been
reported.
One guard had told them that "Dodgers management is very conservative" and that by "a policy of the Dodgers"
the women would have to leave the stadium immediately -- without even picking up the belongings they'd left at
their seats -- and were never to "set foot back on the premises."
So the couple hired attorney Bernie Bernheim, who planned to file a civil rights lawsuit August 23 charging the
Dodgers with violating the Los Angeles Municipal Code by discriminating based on sexual orientation. That
lawsuit was seeking injunctions to prohibit the Dodgers from further differential treatment of gay and lesbian fans
and to change their policy to a non-discriminatory one; a public apology from management to not only the couple
but the city; and a first "Gay Day" in next year's schedule whose proceeds would be donated to area services for
gay and lesbian youth. The Dodgers plan to give 5,000 tickets to lesbian associations next year instead of a "gay Day".
Despite being told by the Colorado Court of Appeals this month that it's none of their business, the state's Department of Public Health and Environment (DPHE) announced August 21 that it will ask the Colorado Supreme Court to prohibit the names of lesbian non-biological co-parents from appearing on birth certificates, Boulder's Rocky Mountain News reported. So far two Boulder District Court judges have allowed seven lesbian couples to record both their names; in most of these cases, the biological mother was artificially inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor.
While the two judges believe there is room in existing law to recognize non-biological co-parents, the DPHE maintains the judges have created a new kind of legal relationship, a power which should be reserved for the legislature. The state Court of Appeals declined to review the DPHE's case, denying that the department had
any interest in the matter. Activists who believe the "best interests of the child" are served by recognizing two
adults' parental rights charge that it's a waste of funds and a discriminatory action to punish lesbian mothers for
the DPHE to persevere in its challenge.
Editor's note: I for one hope to one day be able to put my lovers name as well as mine on OUR child's birth certificate. I hope this will get through the red tape so that we can.
When Republican presidential candidate George W.
Bush tapped Dick Cheney to be his running mate,
Cheney’s daughter Mary became the subject of a
media hunt. With good reason: As the lesbian daughter
of a conservative Republican running on a platform that
vows opposition to any bills granting protections based
on "sexual preference," Mary Cheney raises
uncomfortable questions about the relationship between
family and politics. But if she has any observations
about those issues, she has kept them to herself.
Although Mary Cheney was front and center with her
family during the Republican convention in Philadelphia,
by mid August she had yet to speak to the media.
When Chastity Bono's homosexuality was divulged to the world by
a tabloid in 1990, she felt publicly crucified and called the outing
"terrifying." Eight years later, with her book "Family Outing," she set out to
make the coming out process a healthier, less agonizing one for other gay
youth and their families. Read the book.....very interesting.
A lesbian couple are going
to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission having
been thrown out of a Burger King for the second time in a month for kissing,
according to the New Zealand Herald.
Security staff said their behaviour wasn`t welcome and asked the couple to leave.
"They are trying to say we were all over each other but we couldn’t act that way in public," said 22-year-old Sonia Smithson. The pair said they had their arms around each other in the queue to
order food and pecked each other on the cheek when sitting down to eat.
Burger King’s area manager Andy Larsson said: "We don’t mid a
peck on the cheek, but if it goes further then we are a family
restaurant and we have to think about our staff as well, some of
whom are 15-year-olds." He claimed that a heterosexual couple would have received the
same treatment.
What does the triangle mean?
The rainbow triangle combines two gay/lesbian images: the rainbow flag
has become a symbol of
pride for sexual minorities across the world, and an inverted pink triangle
was worn by gay
prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps, and has become a mark of
remembrance and pride.
"Anti-social" women, including many lesbians, were forced to wear an
inverted black triangle in
those camps.
Pet Of The Month
This is my dog, her name is BG and we live in Oklahoma.
Or as some would say,Oklahomo ;o).
She's half border collie and half black lab. She's a brat but I guess
that's
moms fault (cough). She will be 3 in march of 2001.
For those inquiring minds that might want to know what BG stands for, here goes: baby girl,bad girl,brat girl,bitch girl and yes even billie goat, haven't found anything she won't eat. We don't do alot, just kinda hang out here in Oklahoma.
P.O. BOX 6441
Laconia, N.H. 03246
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