Good-bye, productivity.

Things I've learned about myself, playing Sims 3:

• I believe -- and now have proof -- that money solves all problems and makes life easier
• I would rather be flirty or charismatic than ambitious or hard-working
• Bigger is usually better
• The ability to buy new things is better than the ability to spend time with other people
• Fewer clothes is always best
• I have no concept of heterosexuality

Meanwhile, everything else I'm doing is falling behind. However, my apartment is clean. It's a side effect of waiting for my SIM to sleep. Weird.

RUMOR MILL REPORT: Pride

Word on the street is...

...the Greater Cincinnati Gay and Lesbian Community Center, which has hosted Cincinnati Pride for the past five years, will be stepping down as the primary organizer of the event, allowing other local parties and organizations to take up the mantle and run the event. The Community Center will continue to support it, and help with the logistics of putting it together, but it will no longer be the primary spearhead.

Word is the announcement will come this coming weekend. No word on who is going to pick it up, but a few names are floating. I wonder who you guys should think should take it on.

Just to clarify: this is not the end of Cincinnati Pride, it's just being handed off...

..at least, that's what I hear.

Eyes Open Festival

Many thanks to Jamie at Stuff Queer People Need to Know for the heads up on this one...

Whoa -- I didn't even realize something like this, but it promises to be a huge day. They have movies, including Brooklyn's Bridge to Jordan, Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis at 100, The DL Chronicles: Boo, and Noah's Arc: Jumping the Brooms, as well as performers and art exhibits. And only $15.

To my fellow local queer bloggers: I say we make a day of it, yea?

Check out their Myspace page.

A Community Passing

If you did not hear all ready, a pillar of Cincinnati's LGBTQ community has passed from us. June Delph, long time supporter of organizations like PFLAG and the Greater Cincinnati LGBT News, passed last night around 8:00pm, surrounded by family, much as she would have liked.

I did not know June Delph, but I know her mark on the community. Months ago, I thought it was funny when I realized the mural, on the picture attached here, was on the side of the building where I reside and I realized, "I was meant to live here." The Delphs have been fierce donors to great causes in the city, giving time, money, energy, and enthusiasm with a passion and single-mindedness towards equality, love, and hope. From everything I knew of her, she was an inspiration. I know PFLAG, for one, will be sorely lacking for her passing. She and her husband were regulars at the meetings, giving comfort and support.

Bless her, and bless all parents who mark their own child's lives through love and dedication to others.

From the ISQCCBE mailer today:

We are writing to let you all know that our Dear June passed away at 8:00 last night. She was at home and surrounded by her adoring family. A memorial service will be held for her at 2:00 on Tuesday, July 7 at the Norman Chapel, Spring Grove Cemetery. June would love as many Court members as possible to attend and remember her "in face." She loved each and every one of you. Of course, you are all welcome no matter what you decide to wear.

Truly a touching story, truly an amazing woman. I did not know her, but it is hard to be in the know in the city, or even to be gay in the city, and not feel the amazing and wonderful effects this woman had on my life.

I wish I had known her, at all.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Don't forget about Equinox, nor the Northside 4th of July Parade!

I Want Penny Tration on RuPaul's Drag Races

And we only have four days to get her there!!!!

I Want Penny Tration on Rupaul's Drag Race! from Penny Tration on Vimeo.

Penny -- HELP! I can't find your voting page!

Queer Bar Stirs a Little Controversy

Cincinnati Guerrilla Queer Bar, which is fast becoming a mainstay on people's party calendar, has both tried to quell some complaints about the event but stirred some controversy in the process. The latest email via their Facebook group:

First-

GUERRILLA QUEER BAR is TOMORROW night (Friday, July 3rd)!

As we eluded to in the previous message, this month is going to be excitingly different. After lots of conversations with many female identified CGQB-ers, we've decided that it is necessary and important to focus this guerrilla queering on FIGHTING MISOGYNY.

I know many of you queer boys out there might be saying, "But there haven't been any problems! I've been having a great time, let's just keep it about being queer in straight spaces!"

Listen boys, it's time to clear the misogynist gauze from our eyes! Being queer doesn't make us free from our male privilege! Many women have reported that they might stop coming to Guerrilla Queer Bar because they feel unsupported in the struggle against all the sexual objectification and misogyny they face during CGQBs!

We'll have pamphlets about combating misogyny for people to pass out, but feel free to show your support by making a t-shirt, sign, or your own flier!!

***

"Okay, I'm excited to fight misogyny, but what is the ridiculously awesome place we'll be queering this month!!??", you might be asking...
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*
*
(can I get a drum roll please...)
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THE NORTHSIDE ROCK AND ROLL CARNIVAL!!!!!
located in Hoffner Park (where the Pride Festival was)

***

We know some of you may be complaining, "Northside!? Northside's already as queer as we get in Cincinnati! I thought CGQB was about going to radically straight bars!"

Have no fear! Though lots of queers may live in Northside, there are still plenty of homophoic/transphobic/racist/misogynist people to interact with and show the beauty of queer-dance-love-fantastic. ESPECIALLY at a ROCK and ROLL festival!

Some of you may be still be thinking, "I thought we were going to bars! I don't want to go to some outdoor festival with music I don't like!"

Have no fear again! First-- the festival is going to be ridiculously awesome. There will be a fire performer, a sword swallower (talk about no gag reflex!), and seriously good music. Second-- Cincinnati Guerrilla Queer Bar is going to have a booth so all us queers can gather and celebrate! It will be complete with a kissing booth, queer face painting from 8-10, and lots of cuties to meet. TONS of cheap beer will be for sale, but remember to also bring your thermos full of _________!

Leave your fears at home, put on the queerest outfit you've got (for serious this time-- you'll be in Northside!), come find the CGQB booth (we'll be gathering there around 8), and make Hoffner park even queerer than it was for pride!

Unfortunately, I don't think people got it, or just have just been responding with some negativity on their wall posts, for example:

Your new crusade to fight misogyny is laughable when one takes into account the stance taken in past Queer Bar events when the issue of the sexes has arisen. An April 2 invitation to an event in fact encouraged participants to take part in and ipso facto support a "lady's night" event". An event that offered preferential treatment contingent on being a member of a certain sex. Any preferential treatment is unacceptable, regardless of whether or not something is so common place that it is practically an institution. A number of state supreme courts, including California's and Iowa's, have ruled lady's night is sexist by nature and a violation of men's civil rights. Surely the women participants in said event happily took advantage of the benefits afforded them. I hardly see the point in coming to the defense of a group that willfully participates in events geared at discrimination. Any argument that ladies night is something designed to benefit men by ensuring a large number of women

With two supporters responding:

Every GQB has in some way encountered discriminatory gender-related policies like ladies night, and at every one GQB has engaged these policies in some way either in negotiating with the bar in advance or while we are actually there, either through a questioning of the rules each time they are encountered (remember when we tried to get Sully's to question what they understood to be "ladies"?), or, through a direct breaking of these rules. In the case of the "no dicks on stage" policy at the Lodge bar, this led some people to nearly get kicked out. This time, the engagement with broader issues of misogyny, sexism, and the objectification of women is just more explicit. So there's not really much that's laughable or new here.

And:

anne's got it. ryan, if we were to limit ourselves to attending bars with no discriminatory gender-related policies, we'd end up staying at queer bars. even then, there are a good number of those that are incredibly misogynistic. serpent comes to mind. as for recognizing the implications of our actions, i was barely aware that it even was ladies' night at sully's. all i know is that genderfucking the place opened up lines of dialogue (in bathrooms, on bartops, on dance floors) that would previously have been inaccessible to both the normatively gendered and the queerly gendered.

gqb isn't about choosing spaces where everyone will be safe, or choosing spaces where we know the drinks we buy will not support events like the "best legs" contests that lodge bar keeps e-mailing me about. it's about the creation of a safe space, the challenging of discriminatory policies, and the interaction between the queer community and the straight community.

Perhaps that was the purpose of going to those bars, those lady's night genderfucks. That was always my thought, at least. What do you guys think? Lame or awesomeness, this new branching out and this new take?

The Wicked Ol'Witch is Dead... er ... out of office!

Sarah Palin has resigned as governor of Alaska. Absolutely no one one knows why, though the assumption is so that she pursue her national political interests in 2012. I am going to make a guess: shit is about to hit the fan for Ms. Palin for reasons as-yet-disclosed. Why do I say that?

Because, if you want to be President, you don't jump out of your post three quarters of the way through to seek the Presidency until long after you've declared. That's bad PR and makes you look like a flake. Truly. Something is simmering that has not hit the national media yet -- another scandal? another child pregnant? a paramour? perhaps more corruptions charges? -- and we're just going to sit back and watch it go insane in Alaska.

But the DNC said it best:

"Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down," DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said.

"Either way, her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today."

Seriously, Alaska, you've got to do better on the national stage. If this is the best you have to offer, I think we're all vastly disappointed.

Regardless, good-bye, Sarah Palin.

And here's her press conference -- weird:

On the flip side, do you think this will be enough to remind queers why we elected Obama and not McCain Palin?

There seems to be some great commentary going on about this out there. From Nate Silver:

Palin is the most Bushlike of all the Republicans who have emerged as contenders for the national ticket: the smirkiness, the smugness, the regional accent (although Palin's, I assume, is not feigned), the malapropisms, the contempt for media (both the people who cover it and their mediums), the express deference to religious faith, the occasionally undeniably likable moments of joviality and regular guy/gal-ness, the tendency toward self-dealing, the bulldog/barracuda mentality, the comfort in one's own skin (Palin was crippled when she lost hers late in the campaign), the (apparent) preference for isolation in [Wasilla, Crawford], and last but not least, the no-holds-barred, no-apologies conservatism.

And sure, some of this is complicated by the fact that Palin is a woman, and a very attractive woman. Would Palin be resented to the same degree by (some) liberals if she looked like Susan Boyle? Well ... maybe not. But would she have been picked for the national ticket? Well ... maybe not. But this has less to do with Palin herself and more to do with the manner in which she was elevated to the national stage. Liberals believe very deeply in the idea that life ought to be meritocratic. Palin didn't seem to have earned it, especially in comparison to John McCain and Barack Obama and even Joe Biden who had such compelling life stories. To a lot of people (not exclusively liberals; Kay Bailey Hutchison's contempt for Palin was obvious), it felt like another case of the pretty girl getting the promotion. If Palin wins the nomination on her own in 2012, this case will fade, and in turn so should some of the resentment.

And don't forget to check out the bit on Hot Air, entitled "Palin isn't a serious candidate for President."

Fagette -- NSFW Video

Out of Athens, GA, thanks to Genderfork.com...

The Athens Boy Choir is a project of trans spoken word artist Katz.

EHEA Update from Equality Ohio

You know, for all my criticism of Equality Ohio, they've been very effective at getting information out about the Equal Housing and Employment Act (EHEA) this time around. The EHEA, as you may remember, would make Ohio the 21st possibly the 22nd state to pass employment (and housing) protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (the correction is due to the possibility of passage of a non-discrimination bill based solely on sexual orientation in Delaware).

From the email-er:

The General Assembly Session (which started back in January) was scheduled to end on June 30, 2009. However, because the budget has not been approved, Session is still on-going - for an indeterminate amount of time. As long as the House remains in Session, HB 176 (the Equal Housing and Employment Act) could get a vote at any time. We may have no more than a few hours notice. HB 176 remains on the agenda for a vote by the House, but only budget related items are actually getting attention as of this morning.

This is our best shot, right now, to get the Equal Housing and Employment Act (HB 176) passed. It will only get harder if it doesn't happen in this General Assembly (2009-2010). Opponents of HB 176 are working hard to keep equality out of reach of Ohioans. This CAN NOT be stressed enough.

So what can you do? Until the Session goes on recess or a vote occurs on the House floor this summer, keep your focus on the House Members -

Again, I cannot stress this enough -- email your state representatives to pass HB176.

Indian Gay Sex!

I'm going for crazy headlines these days.

Just a few hours ago, the Delhi High Court of India ruled that consensual sex between people of the same gender is a violation of the rights expressed in the subcontinent's Constitution. Section 377 says that homosexual sex is against the "order of nature" and is punishable with up to 10 years in prison. Activists blame the exploding HIV rates in the country on the law, saying that people have been afraid to discuss their behavior, afraid that it would land them prison time.

However, the decision is tempered with some of the details of the ruling, from the Associated Press story:

The law itself can only be amended by India's Parliament, but the court's verdict should protect New Delhi's gay community from criminal charges and police harassment.

While the Delhi High Court's ruling is not binding on courts in India's other states, Tripti Tandon, a lawyer for the Naz Foundation, said she hoped the ruling would have a "persuasive" affect.

In short: the law has not changed, it's just unlikely to be enforced, and then the ruling only stands in the one state of India. It is a start -- a start that took 8 years to complete, btw, which, apparently is not unusual in the clogged civil litigation system of the world's second largest country. Let's hope it goes further, yes? That's a billion people who can't enjoy the wonderment of man-on-man (or woman-on-woman) action. Human rights issue ... seriously.

Other than the HIV issue, India's gay scene gained international attention after a prince of the country came out and then was subsequently disinherited by his family.

Ten on Tuesday (On Wednesday): Cody's 10 Places

Well, due to the fact that I have a job and a boyfriend an hour away from my summer home in Hamilton, I've had very little time to keep up appearances online lately. Currently, I have a couple weeks off work though, so I have some time to kill before dinner...

Considering I split my time between the whole of Butler County and the whole of Hamilton County, I'll combine my top-10 places for both (in an itinterary order):

Beginning in Butler County and heading south:

1.)State Line Rd. west of Oxford, OH. Quaint, very photogenic area on the OH-IN border. Dead-straight road (with a couple chicanes) and flat-land for miles (lots of cornfields and such). Great place to photograph incoming storm-fronts.

2.)Quick stop at Coldstone Creamery in Oxford for ice-cream. Great treats!

3.)Holiday Drive-In (north side of Hamilton) stop to see a small collection of vintage GMC buses a friend of mine owns. (I'm such a GEEK)

4.)Miami Woods in Hamilton (my backyard ends into the woods). Walk the trails and check out the ruins of the old Streamas dairy farm (destroyed in the '20s or '30s by coal fire we think).

5.)Governor Bebb Park out in Okeana. Hooked up with a straight guy there one time. Nice rural park.

6.)Bellevue Park in Clifton. Great view of the city from the top of Clifton hill. Down off Ohio Ave. Very romantic at night.

7.)Gypsy Hookah Cafe on Calhoun St in Clifton. I LOVE HOOKAH and the Gypsy started it all. There's another hookah lounge 2 or 3 doors up the street that is legitly Indian and better lit. Kinda like The Dock and the Adonis of hookah bars respectively. I like the patronage of the Gypsy better, even though the service is kinda slow sometimes (but the shisha is more to my liking and doesn't bite as hard as the other lounge's.)

8.)Sawyer Point/Yeatman's Cove. Cool to be down on the river and also quite photogenic.

9.)Back to Clifton to grab a bite to eat at the Skyline at Clifton and Ludlow. Good food, great price, great people. And open whenever you want/need to eat!

10.)Hang in the Gaslight District on Ludlow. Neat shops, and a Graters and UDF... yummm! Might even drive down to Northside for some more fun afterwards.

-Cody
The Seeker

A Tale of Two Police Departments

On the one hand, we have the Fort Worth Police Department, responding to the raid of a Fort Worth gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge. Seven men were arrested and one was sent to the ICU for a brain injury. Police called it a routine bar raid, but this was police chief Jeff Halstead's response, however:

"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."

Oh, what? So you can attack someone if you're touched inappropriately -- isn't that called the gay panic defense?

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, a gay man was followed and gay slurs were shouted by a group of Somali youth that included "I hate gay people," and "Fuck gay people," as reported by Joe.My.God. and demonstrated in this YouTube video:

Please note the almost Zen-like restraint the gay man uses while being followed down the streets. The Minneapolis Police Department, in response to accusations that the man was seen in the video passing possible local police officials, released this statement (again, thanks to Joe.My.God.):

June 30, 2009 ( MINNEAPOLIS ) Currently, there is a video on YouTube of an incident that occurred sometime during the Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival. There has been some speculation that Minneapolis Police Officers were in that video. The Minneapolis Police Department wants to assure the public that those security officers who casually walk by during this incident were not from our department. We have a strict uniform policy and those were not our uniforms or our police officers. This is unacceptable behavior that would not be tolerated by the Minneapolis Police. Action would have been taken immediately to stop the harassment that is depicted in the video. We want all people, no matter of color, race, creed or sexual orientation to feel safe and welcome while they are in the city of Minneapolis. PIO contact for this incident is Sgt Jesse Garcia III.

Which one represents tolerance, understanding, and an attempt to make things right; and which represents idiocy and homophobia? I'll let you decide.

Gay History: June 30, 1979

Thanks to the Dean of Cincinnati from the Cincinnati Beacon for the heads up on Facebook on this, the original wording coming from the Examiner, though I can't find other sources to confirm. On June 30, 1979:

A group of 40 people in Cincinnati Ohio who had reserved a city park pool for a gay pride party were outnumbered and attacked by local residents who threw rocks and bottles at them. Police arrived, watched for a while and then drove away. One man had to be rescued by a television news crew. Police refused to return, even after several calls reporting a riot.

I have a feeling at least one of my readers will be able to confirm this, or know someone who can confirm this so we can get an interview and learn more about the incident???

Mother?

WEARING WHAT WEDNESDAY!!!

Yea! Wearing What Wednesday is back -- the last post was June 10th, if you can believe it. See, there's this new hot-and-botheredness growing over Ryan Reynolds because he's partially naked in his new movie, The Proposal. And apparently he had some recent cover shoot which brought all the boys to the yard because of his sheer gorgeousness.

And can I say that I have been a huge fan of the man ever since Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place. I certainly never watched that sitcom for his acting. And now since he looks like this:

But Mr. Reynolds is not shy in front of the camera, as per this scene from Buying the Cow:

Which is really the whole reason I posted this blog this morning. But, for your hot blog of the week? You have to admit it (otherwise, I'm calling you a liar) that you've had a crush on a hot cartoon or superhero at some point in your life.

Thank god there's the Shirtless Superheroes blog to remind us just how hot and how dirty that makes us all feel. :-) That's Peter Parker in the picture, btw.

And to my readers who love the hairy types: I recommend LifeLube's WOOF WEDNESDAY's. Trust.

Slutty Gang Bang!!!!

Ha! Did the headline catch you? I seriously am perusing the web this morning, and I wanted to bring you two blogs written by maybe one of my newest favorite authors in the blogosphere, not necessarily for her writing style, but for her topics. Her name is Chantelle Austin, and her blog is all about sex, sexuality, love, and relationships... from the point of view of someone who has experienced enough to be able to write intelligently about the topics.

The first piece came via the @sexgenderbody Twitter feed: "Is being a slut a bad thing?"

We’re programmed to believe that being promiscuous, or a slut is a bad thing and what is that really? It’s a judgment, damn it! The one thing I pride myself on NOT doing. Coming from someone who works hard to accept others as they are, I was judging myself! I had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t a slut because I was selective about whom I slept with but what does that say about people who aren’t selective? And is that really “wrong”?...

And why does being a slut have to be a bad thing? Are they not just experiencing all that sex and life has to offer? Some people love chocolate, and they’ll eat any sort of chocolate they come across, does that make them a chocolate slut? Hell yes, but is that a bad thing? No! So why is it that some people get labelled as a slut and the connotation is that it’s a bad thing, almost an insult to be called one?

I mean, I was kind of like, "OK, that's not such a bad point, but it's one I've heard before, and how is this special," until I delved further and read a previous column she had written that spurred this particular piece of work: "Am I a Slut If I Participate in a Gang Bang?"

I might be a swinger and engage in sex with people other than my husband but that doesn’t mean I don’t have standards, self respect or professionalism. And it's no excuse for others to treat me with any less respect or manners either so I'll let them know so...

All behaviours of a self respecting woman in my book.

I have recently been criticized for some of my own personal behaviors, and, perhaps they would cause some hackles to rise, but, honestly, I have no problems with them. No guilt -- mostly -- and no worries -- mostly. Sure, I've messed up and made poor decisions, and sometimes my decisions have been overly tainted by alcohol and not by my own libido...

...but it was refreshing to hear a straight woman thinking the same thing I am, and feel empowered by her choices rather than demeaned.

Thoughts on Doctors

Yesterday, the an advisory committee to the FDA recommended for the removal of Vicodin and Percocet from sale in the United States due to the acetaminophen (Tylenol) component. Acetaminophen overdoses are directly related to acute liver failure, and long-term use is linked to other liver issues.

At the Emergency Department, we are not unfamiliar with overdoses on a variety of issues, acetaminophen included. We are not also unfamiliar with people pleading -- pleading -- for painkillers, usually vicodin or percocet. See, they are relatively inexpensive and innocuous as compared to the more powerful ones like dilaudid or fentanyl. Why we don't see more people begging for morphine tablets escapes me, but I have no doubt it's due to the sheer obivousness of morphine in comparison.

Which brings me to my point...

As we are speaking, right now, a new class of doctors is arriving in Cincinnati for their very first shifts as MD's. Sure, they've had their time in clinical rotations, but today they begin the arduous process of doctorin' up people, and they will get to learn the lessons and make the decisions that so many have before them. They will get to learn the difference between a grimace of real pain and the grimace of a needy 20 year old dislocating his shoulder regularly for the sole purpose of obtaining pain medication. They will get to hear the crazy tales -- the STD check who brings both his pregnant baby mama and his pregnant girlfriend in to get tested -- and they will become familiar with our frequent fliers.

At the same time, a class of doctors is leaving. I have fought with these doctors and become friends with them. I have learned to like them, and I've learned to hate them. Though my job does not near approximate the nurses roles, and my judgment on who is good and who is bad is slightly skewed to who refers to me the most, I have a pretty good and I am sad to see them go. But it also reinforces a sharp divide within the hospital.

We are a team together, working towards health, working towards homeostasis. However, as doctors move from R-1 (first years) to R-2 (second years), or as the R-4's leave, or as the R-1's enter, the doctors are still the doctors in a class in and amidst themselves. They know each other best. And the nurses know each other best. And the other services are so dwindled and separated out as to not be able to say that we really know each other. Thus, these new doctors will learn from all of us, and we will learn from them. They will take with them, as they move onto bigger and better things, the memories of our combined efforts. They will remember the patients we diagnosed together, and the crazy patients we held down together.

But they will move on, confident in their ability to cure. For my part, I will be part of "this cool program we had during my internship;" and the nurses will likely fall into one general lump of people known simply as "the nurses at my last job," individual faces and names forgotten and left behind. (See, when a nurse leaves, it is known, and we say good-bye a little and hug but there are a lot of them and they pass on; when someone lower leaves, it is not known and likely forgotten more often than it is remembered.)

I guess I'm just a little sad this morning, seeing work friends depart and realizing that they were never, perhaps, my friends. I was just part of their learning experience.

In the next month, I will teach the newbies about HIV and sexual health. They will look to me for answers about behaviors they had never heard about, and they will ask me questions about my program, my experience, and some snippet of neat information they missed over the newswire. Or, they will use me -- well, all of us in the Emergency Department -- to supplement their knowledge and to carry out their great and wonderful work, and we will support them. We will help them become better doctors.

Then, on their final day years later, they will look at me over their guitars and say, "I'm just ready to get the fuck out of here," and forget to say good-bye when they go and never acknowledge the part we all played in making them, them.

And I wonder who I will say good-bye to, and who will guide me, much like these doctors in a class all their own did for each other.

In a weaker moment, I might say that I just want to be remembered, that I want to matter in some way. I wonder, for those doctors already gone, if I did.

TEN ON TUESDAY

Ten on Tuesday is a feature I run, well, whenever I feel like it. I post ten things on various subjects and invite you -- fellow bloggers and friends -- to post as well on the same topic. This week, I'm feeling a little bit of love for this city we call home, and so...

TEN ON TUESDAY:

Ten Places You Take People When They Come Into Town

1. Any Local Festival -- What else are you going to do with your friends except drink and eat and watch some amazing entertainment?

2. City Parks -- We have a lot of them, and they are, by far, some of the most amazing I have ever been in. Mt. Echo, Mt. Adams, Devue, even Burnet Woods -- all with views and neat little hideaways to enjoy nature amidst the city's sounds.

3. For Chili -- I'm actually a little bit of a Gold Star man, myself, but I've had far more positive reviews with Camp Washington and Skyline.

4. To Newport on the Levee -- You may crucify me now, if you so desire, but it's nice to sit in the Barnes & Noble porch and look at the skyline of the city over the river. That, and a movie is alwasy the safe bet when taking guests out.

5. To the Top of Carew Tower -- Because you kinda have to, don't you? I mean, it's a requirement, to take them to one of the highest points with an observation deck.

6. My House -- But that's a different type of guest.

7. Scenic Home Tour -- Through Northside, Clifton, Avondale, Covington, Over-the-Rhine, and Price Hill. I absolutely love the housing stock, and I think it's something to be adored and amazed at, if only we all were better stewards of our history.

8. Hustler Store -- Preferably in Mason, but that, again, is another type of guest and one that has a great sense of humor. It's part of our culture here, seriously.

9. Purple People Bridge -- If I can manage the time, a trip through Sawyer Point and across the bridge to #5 usually leaves people awe struck.

10. Fountain Square -- Again, because you kinda have to, don't you?

I know, there's probably nothing surprising on the list, but, I'll be honest, I have had a very small circle of existence since I stopped driving and haven't had much opportunity to explore as far afield as I would like.

So, there you go. As always, post your list in the comments, or a link to your own blog post.

New Loss for Lt. Dan Choi

In the most high-profile case of its like, Lt. Dan Choi, an Arabic interpreter in the National Guard, was recommended for discharge yesterday from the military by a panel of four officers due to breaking the infamous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. So, he's out, and now he's out.

From the MSNBC story:

Lt. Dan Choi would be the first New York National Guard member discharged for violating the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, a spokesman for the New York Army National Guard.

Choi, a combat veteran, said it amounted to firing him "for nothing more than telling the truth about who I am."

"I'm a leader. A setback is an opportunity to keep fighting, and I'm going to do that through my actions," said Choi, who on Sunday was a celebrity grand marshal in San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade.

Choi says he will go on to fight the decision, but it is unlikely that he will win due to the recent setback on the federal level on Don't Ask, Don't Tell where the Supreme Court refused to hear a case.

My suggestion? Let's expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- as suggested by the group The Power -- to include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and then move on to court cases. We need some kind of law on our side first, right? Seems reasonable, yea?

Thanks to Wolfie at Back2Stonewall for the heads up on this video of Keith Olbermann's take on DADT:

About Damn Time

And, so, Al Franken has been declared the victor in the long, 8-month battle for the junior Senate seat in Minnesota, and he had these words to say:

"When you win an election this close, you know not one bit of effort went to waste. The way I see it, I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator, I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from Minnesota."

I have no idea what he really means by that statement except to say that I'm sure Hillary said something similar back when she got the Senate seat in New York. Political aspirations what?

The Democrats now control 60 seats in the Senate -- a filibuster proof majority -- which is as disturbing as it is exciting, but it also proves that Minnesotans love their outsider politicians, and 312 people in that state may be thinking, "What the fuck did I do on election day?"

Norm Coleman conceded and, I wonder, if that is, officially, the end of the 2008 election.