by Diana Denza in Features, News

Amelia Roskin-Frazeel, a 14-year-old from California and an out lesbian, has begun The Make It Safe Project, which provides schools without resources for gay and lesbian students packages of 10 LGBT-related books. Amelia said:

“When I figured out that a lot of schools didn’t have any resources about what it means to be LGBT or how to come out, I decided that I wanted to help send those books to schools.”

Though the project only began last month, it has already provided packages for several schools across the U.S. To support this worthy cause, visit the Make It Safe Project website and make a donation. All funds received will go to purchasing the book packages. [SheWired]

Author Elena Azzoni Talks Lesbians and Sexual Fluidity: The GA Voice chatted with Elena Azzoni, author of A Year Straight: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Lesbian Beauty Queen, about her controversial tale and her thoughts on sexual fluidity. [TheGAVoice]

Pioneering Gay Journalist Peter Burton Dies at 66: Often referred to as the “Godfather of gay journalism”, Peter Burton died from an apparent heart attack last week. After contributing to two of the first gay magazines in the UK, he published the famous poem “The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name” and became the literary and features editor of Gay Times in the 1980s. [PinkNews]

Detective Lane Series Continues: Detective Lane, the fictional gay cop created by Lambda Literary Award-winning author Garry Ryan, will continue to fight crime in the newly released Malabarista. Inspired by the bullying of gay students, the retired teacher decided to take a stand against hate by making his main character gay. [CalgaryHerald]

Photo: Thinkstock

Good news: Single women are generally more cautious spenders than men, since they only splurge on a few items (the expected ones: clothing and personal care products like shampoo and teeth-whitening products, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics), while single guys tear through more money overall, on things like eating out, entertainment and car ownership. Bad news: Those same women are behind on saving for their futures. We asked Alexa von Tobel, founder and CEO of the women’s finance site LearnVest.com, and Barb Chang, head of product for the money management site Mint.com, what single women should be doing with their money right now.

You Need to Track Your Expenses (As Annoying As It Seems)
Chang says single women often say they’re too busy and don’t see the payoff of putting in a lot of time in tracking. In fact, Mint got started because its founder realized catching up on personal budgeting was taking up an entire Sunday afternoon every week. But staying on top of the money that comes into and goes out of the Bank of You every month is the first step in financial planning. More than 90 percent of Mint users say they have changed their habits as a result of using the service. Here are some different ways you can track your spending.

You Need an Emergency Fund More Than Anyone Else Does
The old rule of thumb was to have about six months’ pay in an emergency fund, but von Tobel says that in the current economic climate, highly educated people who are laid off find that it takes about nine months to find a job—and because more women are getting advanced degrees than men, it’s particularly important for them to have more put away. The best place to keep an emergency savings account, von Tobel says, is in a place you can easily access without penalty at anytime. This means a money market account or high-interest savings account. And as you know but it probably bears repeating, don’t put the money in the stock market or in equities, as volatility in the market could decrease your savings.

Debt Can Hurt Your Future…Even If You Wind Up Marrying Mr. Perfect Credit
In 2009, 15 percent of American adults were late making a credit card payment; 8 percent missed a payment entirely. Those fees added up to about $20.5 billion, according to R.K. Hammer, a consultant to the credit card industry. Although those numbers decreased a bit last year, they’ve started creeping up again as some of the country’s major credit card issuers posted increases in the number of credit card payments that were at least 30 days late in September. Even if you’re only a week or two late, a credit card company can still disclose your missed payment to credit reporting agencies, and that may damage your credit score. You should know your debt-to-income ratio (the percentage of your income which you use to pay off your debts). These numbers impact anyone’s credit score—so you want it lower than 36 percent. (If you’re a single woman, even if you do end up marrying someone with pristine credit, banks will take the lower of you and your partner’s credit scores.)

Next: The one thing childless women are almost always wrong about

You Still Need a Life Insurance Policy
Von Tobel has noticed that a lot of childless women say, "I don’t need life insurance because I have no dependents." If they died and didn’t have insurance, though, their family would be responsible for paying off their car and education loans, mortgage, estate taxes and other debts. If you’re a single mom and don’t have it—and research from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and Genworth Financial shows that almost 70 percent of single parents with children living at home are in this situation—you risk your children not having their basic needs met, especially if there’s no dad in the picture. Most experts say you should carry life insurance that’s equal to six to 10 times your salary. If you have children, add more.

Saving for Retirement Is More Important Than You Think
It’s easy to procrastinate when retirement seems so far off and other demands—like student loans for 20-somethings and mortgage payments for 30-somethings—seem more pressing. And while you definitely should not neglect those obligations, retirement should be just as high a priority. In a panel on women and retirement sponsored by Merrill Lynch earlier this year (watch the 45-minute talk here), moderator Charles Gibson noted that in 2007 the average amount a woman had in her 401k was about $56,000, while a man had $95,000. Another fact from the seminar: Finance expert David Bach, who’s written 11 books on money, said the general rule for anyone (men, women, married or single) is to save at least 10 percent of your gross income for your twilight years. But because of women’s longer life spans (and think about how expensive those additional seven to nine years can be with nursing homes or extra medical care), he recommends that they save 15 percent.

You Still Need a Life Insurance Policy
Von Tobel has noticed that a lot of childless women say, "I don’t need life insurance because I have no dependents." If they died and didn’t have insurance, though, their family would be responsible for paying off their car and education loans, mortgage, estate taxes and other debts. If you’re a single mom and don’t have it—and research from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and Genworth Financial shows that almost 70 percent of single parents with children living at home are in this situation—you risk your children not having their basic needs met, especially if there’s no dad in the picture. Most experts say you should carry life insurance that’s equal to six to 10 times your salary. If you have children, add more.

Saving for Retirement Is More Important Than You Think
It’s easy to procrastinate when retirement seems so far off and other demands—like student loans for 20-somethings and mortgage payments for 30-somethings—seem more pressing. And while you definitely should not neglect those obligations, retirement should be just as high a priority. In a panel on women and retirement sponsored by Merrill Lynch earlier this year (watch the 45-minute talk here), moderator Charles Gibson noted that in 2007 the average amount a woman had in her 401k was about $56,000, while a man had $95,000. Another fact from the seminar: Finance expert David Bach, who’s written 11 books on money, said the general rule for anyone (men, women, married or single) is to save at least 10 percent of your gross income for your twilight years. But because of women’s longer life spans (and think about how expensive those additional seven to nine years can be with nursing homes or extra medical care), he recommends that they save 15 percent.

Oprah.com readers can get 25% off a 3-month ($39.99) or 1-year ($129.99) subscription to the LearnVest Advice Center. Enter code Oprah25 at checkout; offer expires 12:01 AM ET December 16, 2011.

Wimmin who change the system from within the system

by Kristin Flickinger

Q: After many years in a marriage to a man that was unfulfilling intimately and emotionally, I met a woman I am extremely attracted to. At this point I know I am not straight, but I’m not sure if I’m bisexual or lesbian. How do I know for sure?

A: My test is simple. Sexuality is about sex. I want to have sex with only women. There are men whom I love deeply. But the thought of sex with them is completely unappealing—whereas women I’d never spend my life with have visited me in my dreams. That makes me a lesbian.

I have a friend who identifies as “bisexual, but not bi-emotional.” She’s attracted to both men and women, but because of the emotional fulfillment missing in her relationships with men, she doesn’t date them.

Don’t beat yourself up about it if you’re not sure. It might be a moving target for you. A lot of people find their sexual orientation shifting throughout their lives. Attraction to both genders is a lot more common than we talk about in our society—or even in our community.

It seems like bisexual and lesbian women are two very different groups of people. Why is that?

Being gay is like being a member of a club—a somewhat secret club. There are relatively few of us in the world. Even if it’s 10 percent of the population, that’s not a lot. And being gay still isn’t totally accepted, which means that 90 percent of the world doesn’t know a lot about us. When we find each other, we have a common language, and shared experiences. We have slang, and jargon, and little inside jokes.

Many of us—both those who grew up knowing we were gay, and those who came out later in life—went through struggles, whether it was being teased in school, or losing bits and pieces of acceptance by our families and friends. A huge percentage of “street kids” identify as LGBT.

There are gay people who, if given the choice, would rather be straight. They’d rather be accepted in society, and not fear physical attack. They’d rather be “normal,”  get married and have a white-picket-fence kind of life. So it can lead to resentment when we see someone moving between the two worlds—the one we’re in and the one we might rather be in.

When I was coming of age during college, embracing my lesbian self and coming out, I had a problem with the idea of bisexuality. I thought it was a cop-out: an unwillingness to do the work to discover who you were, or a way to have more than one partner at a time.

The idea of “choosing”  to be gay was a big issue then. I remember expressing my discomfort with bisexuality to a friend. She asked me, “Did you choose to be gay?”

Of course not!”

Well, I’m attracted to both men and women. It’s not something I chose. You think that’s easy?”

She had a good point. That question really shifted the way I think about bisexuality. I actually think coming out as a bisexual can be equally, if not more, difficult.

Out bisexuals don’t fit into the straight community, because they’re “queer.” And they’ve faced alienation within the gay community because of the perception that they may at some point live, undetected, in the world that so many of us have tried desperately to fit into.

Additionally, many lesbians who don’t live in relationships that require traditional gender roles shrug off the social norms that dictate how women “should”  look and act. Women pursuing relationships with both men and women might appear different from lesbians, because they inhabit a world where relationships require men to look and act like “men” and women like “women.”

In the end, both groups of women are very diverse. There are super-butch bisexual women, and ultra-femme lesbians. And many of us would never give up being lesbian in order to be “normal.”

Typically, how do people transition from straight to bisexual or lesbian?

I can’t give you a roadmap. But I can tell you that there are a lot of women in the community who have done just that. The first step is realizing that you belong somewhere in the LGBT population. From there, the process is up to you. Start meeting people. Pick up a local queer paper, or look online for a dance party in your area. Many places have gay outdoor groups that can give you a way to get to know the community, and how you most comfortably fit into it.

Once you start meeting people, you will find that many share your story of self-discovery. In fact, I know very few people in the community who aren’t still on that journey to some extent.

And, wherever you feel safe, keep having conversations. It will help us consider each other and where we come from, and give us a better sense of our community.

http://www.justout.com/issues/11-11-11/ask-a-gay/     

Posted by admin on Nov 11, 2010 in 11-11-11 | 0 comments

Reviewed and submitted by Niyomi, of TeaDanceSocial, facebook

A Lesbian friend Up! Place.

 Meg Mallon an 18-time winner on the LPGA who represented the United States as a player in The Solheim Cup on eight different occasions and as assistant captain once, today was officially announced and introduced as U.S. Team Captain at the 2013 Solheim Cup, to be played Aug. 13-18, 2013 at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, Colo.

The announcement was made at the PGA Merchandise Show. Mallon sat alongside PING Chairman & CEO John A. Solheim at the news conference which took place on the floor’s main stage and was hosted by LPGA Chief Communications Officer Kraig Kann.

Set on land that course designer Ben Crenshaw has called "gifted for golf," Colorado Golf Club – host of The 2013 Solheim Cup – opened in 2006 to national acclaim. The 7,604-yard Coore & Crenshaw course debuted as GOLF Magazine’s Best New Private Course in 2006. Surrounded by more than 1,100 acres of open space, the golf course plays through ponderosa pine forests and open meadows and features dramatic views of the Rocky Mountains. Tom Lehman won the 71st Senior PGA Championship at Colorado Golf Club in

 

Sarah Burke ( )

Donations have been pouring in on behalf of Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke who died Thursday at the age of 29 in a Utah hospital.

A fundraising website has been set up by Burke’s family for the skier’s medical costs and related expenses.

Burke crashed Jan. 10 in Park City, Utah, while training in a halfpipe. The Olympic gold-medal hopeful and four-time Winter X Games champion tore one of the major arteries supplying blood to her brain and went into cardiac arrest.

She underwent surgery and spent nine days on life support at the University of Utah Hospital. But Burke had suffered irreversible brain damage after the fall because of lack of oxygen and blood to the brain.

The website originally set up at www.giveforward.com/sarahburke was organized by her agent, Michael Spencer and has marked a goal for $550,000. Her husband Rory Bushfield, a fellow skier from Alberta whom she married in 2010, is listed as the beneficiary.

Burke, who was born in Barrie, Ont., and grew up in nearby Midland, was considered a pioneer in her sport. She lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Winter Games program and her arguments won over Olympic officials.

The discipline will debut in two years in Russia, where Burke likely would have been a favourite for the gold medal.

A moment of silence for Burke was observed Thursday night before Canada’s women’s soccer team played Haiti in an Olympic qualifying match in Vancouver.

A tribute to the first lady of freeskiing, Sarah Burke. Thank you, Sarah.

With love, MSP Films 

  http://vimeo.com/35730474

PinkNews to celebrate 25th January as Peter Tatchell Day – legendary campaigner turns 60

by Stephen Gray for PinkNews.co.uk
8 January 2012, 11:33am

 

Peter Tatchell: "Don’t accept the world as it is. Dream of what the world could be – and then help make it happen"

 

To mark the 60th birthday of our most iconic human rights campaigner, PinkNews.co.uk will be naming Wednesday 25 January Peter Tatchell Day.

To celebrate the day, we will look back at the enormous contribution Peter Tatchell has made to the fight for equal gay rights and human rights in general across the UK and abroad with contributions from all around the globe.

Late January will also mark 45 years of human rights campaigning by the naturalised Briton, and 10 years since the Peter Tatchell Foundation was originally launched.

For the day, all advertising space on the PinkNews.co.uk website and email newsletter will be donated to the Peter Tatchell Foundation, which promotes and protects human rights in the UK and globally. The foundation will use the estimated 300,000 spots (of varying sizes and locations) to raise awareness of its campaigns and to recruit new donors. More importantly, for the rest of Peter’s 60th birthday year, PinkNews will donate advertising on at least one spot on every piece of content on the PinkNews website to the foundation as well as space on our iPhone/iPad apps. It is hoped that in total 41 million advertisements will be shown to mark the 41 years since Mr Tatchell first joined the London Gay Liberation Front.

Born in Australia in 1952, he began his career as a campaigner at the age of 15 by opposing the death penalty.

Two years later, he realised he was gay and two years after that was bound for England because he objected to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war and was not willing to be to drafted.

In 45 years of non-violent human rights campaigning, Mr Tatchell has been arrested hundreds of times, but only one conviction has been upheld. Convicted under the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860, he received a fine of £18.60 for interrupting the 1998 Easter Sermon of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, in protest at his support for homophobic discrimination.

We are also appealing to our readers for their messages to Mr Tatchell, which we invite you to leave in the comments section below for publication on the day.

Today, Mr Tatchell said: “I am immensely grateful to Benjamin Cohen and the rest of the PinkNews team for their support and generosity. This advertising blitz will increase awareness of our human rights work and raise much-needed funds.

“The Peter Tatchell Foundation has no organised funding. Donations from readers will help us continue our campaign for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty for gay sex, and assist our efforts to win same-sex marriage, football without homophobia and the decriminalisation of homosexuality throughout the Commonwealth.

“My message to everyone is very simple: Don’t accept the world as it is. Dream of what the world could be – and then help make it happen.”

PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen explained why this publication is celebrating Peter Tatchell Day, writing: “More than any other person or organisation, Peter has, often single handed, campaigned for the rights we now enjoy in the UK. He’s also been a huge campaigner all around the world for LGBTQI rights.”

Interview: Patricia Nell Warren……lgbtSr

By Mark McNease

I came out at 16 in a small Indiana city of 30,000 people. It was 1974, and I was deeply hungry for images of myself as a gay person. There wasn’t much available then, aside from books I ordered from the Psychology Today book club, some of which did more harm than good. Then came a novel called “The Front Runner” about the love story between a young college athlete and his coach. The book gave me hope and, along with the few others I could find, let me know I was not alone in the world.

Patricia Nell Warren has never stopped writing. At 75 she has a new non-fiction collection out, titled “My West,” that presents her personal impressions of the American West, a book she describes as, “a collection of blogs, commentaries, historical essays and other personal writings… past, present and future.” It was a privilege to interview her and very much a reminder that passion has no shelf life.

MM: Thank you very much for this interview. As I mentioned in our emails, your landmark 1974 novel “The Front Runner” played a pivotal role in my gay teenage life in Indiana back then. I’m a sucker for a love story and a tragedy. But most importantly it let me know I wasn’t alone in the world. Is there any downside to having written such an iconic novel? Do you ever tire of being identified with it?

PNW: No, I don’t ever tire of that. The Front Runner has kept groceries on the table for over 30 years, and I’m grateful to all the readers who continue to buy the book. Even today the fan letters still roll in every week. And… I have written 10 books by now, and am a better writer than I was in 1974. So it would be nice if some retrospective attention would be given to my entire body of work. Some of my best writing is in the recent books, like The Wild Man.

MM: The follow up to that novel was “Harlan’s Race”, which was also the first book published by Wildcat Press when it launched in 1994. What prompted you and your business partner, Tyler St. Mark, to start your own press?

PNW: In the past, I’ve had problems with a couple of trade publishers on royalty reporting and contract compliance. When I joined up with St. Mark in the early 1990s, we made the decision to go independent. I had the prior experience in the publishing business to do books on my own. Being an independent publisher is admittedly a lot of hard work. But I prefer it to having to get a lawyer to get my royalties paid.

MM: You’ve just published your tenth book, “My West”, a collection of 47 short pieces on everything from agriculture to cooking, politics, sexuality and more. Can you say a little about this collection – why you decided to put it out, and what makes it close to your heart?

PNW: Two years ago in L.A., at the urging of gay author/filmmaker Gregory Hinton, the Autry National Center decided to display the two iconic Brokeback Mountain cowboy shirts in their Western film gallery. It was a courageous step, that opened a mainstream door on growing interest in LGBT presence in the American West. At the Autry for the media event, the day the Brokeback shirts went on display, I met Gregory Hinton, and felt very inspired by the Autry’s move.

The fact is — I’m a Westerner born and bred, and grew up in a ranch that is now a national historic site. Over several decades, I’ve written one novel (The Fancy Dancer) and dozens of short pieces that explore my growing sense of myself as an LGBT Westerner. After talking with Hinton, I decided to do an anthology that celebrates this self-identity of mine. My West is a real departure for me. But what surprised me, when I got all the pieces together, was how consistent my voice was, through the many years.

It’s important for us to stake our claim out here, because some imagemakers for the West put forth the notion that the West is all bible-thumping and neo-con. Yet the real West has its liberal and progressive streak as well. LGBT people have always been here — we continue to have our roots here, and to contribute in many ways. Gregory has since launched a program series called “Out West” that he’s taking to other cities and states, with 12 successful events in 2011, and more planned for 2012. Subjects range from gay rodeo to notable LGBT Western artists and other cultural figures of the past and present.

This year I did “Out West” events for my book in California, Montana and Nevada. Next year I hope to tour with the book in other states as well. What’s striking is the numbers of non-gay people who show up for these events. “Out West” is proving to be a strong crossover draw in these communities. So I support this wonderful series as much as I can.

MM: You talk about the importance of oral tradition in the YouTube video from the Out West at the Autry reading. It made me wonder if oral tradition has a place within our own LGBT communities, and also if oral tradition can survive in our modern technological age when the very idea of tradition is being replaced with 140 character tweets.

PNW: This is a good question. Oral tradition starts in the family, and a sense of its importance spreads into the wider community, where events and personalities of the past get carried along on a widening unwritten record. But today, oral tradition – even in families – is definitely on the wane. That includes a sense of family genealogy. I meet growing numbers of Americans who have no idea what their family roots are, even those who descent from immigrants. In many cases, when LGBT people are rejected by their families and communities after they come out, they are cut off from the oral roots. So there goes the chance to find out if Great Aunt Jane was really a lesbian.

Today, in spite of all our official emphasis on LGBT history, I see a dangerous lack of personal interest in that history. Especially in the blogging and tweeting world, where posts on the latest red-hot issue always get tons more comments than the history stories do. Yet achievements of the past, and what we’ve learned collectively from decades of organizing and lobbying, are the foundation of our civil-rights gains today. When activist veteran Frank Kameny died recently, how many of our people – especially young people – had any idea who he was? Yet Kameny was a towering pioneer in the history of our battle to end DADT. Oral tradition is very important in the military world, as I know from my many relatives who served in uniform and cherished their personal archives of war stories. I hope Frank’s best war stories got recorded by somebody before he passed on.

So sorry, but the tweet of the day will never replace a good story with a beginning, middle and end. It’s up to us LGBT elders to kick some butt and make sure that the oral traditions in our keeping are cherished and recorded.

MM: You’ve written eight novels and many more short stories, poetry, essays and editorials. Do you have a favorite form (short stories, novels, essays)?

PNW: During the Fifties and Sixties, I went for poetry and short stories. But I haven’t written a poem since 1978. Today I focus on full-length fiction and short nonfiction – historical articles, commentaries, etc. And I continue to operate in both those genres. I do have a passion for nonfiction, to the point where my fiction writing has a tinge of nonfiction “reality feel.”

MM: Publishing has changed so dramatically the last few years, with eBooks now being a way for people to get their work out there – good, bad or otherwise. What do you make of these changes?

PNW: E-books were in the cards, for sure. Everything in publishing is now obsessively digital, even the printing process. And it’s easy to get hooked on the low price tag of e-books.

But there is a huge danger inherent in e-publishing. Digital information is so fragile and ephemeral. It’s not in the interest of LGBT culture, or American culture, or any culture, to have our precious information or creative expression disappearing into thin air when e-books go out of print. Digital archives large and small can be wiped out by crashes, or hacking, or breakdowns of the power grid. At least with hard-copy books, an out-of-print title is still available as a used or collectible item. It can still find its way into a public library, archive or private collection. Print books (including the laboriously hand-written ones dating before Gutenberg’s press) have been on shelves for thousands of years. Since those books were well-made, they survived many centuries of use, including accident and neglect. This is how we get to have the great thinking of 2000 years ago – because books containing that writing have survived.

So I see ebooks as an economically attractive option for publishers and bookbuyers, in a time of recession when costs are critical. But e-books should never be viewed as a substitute or replacement for print books. A community (or a country) that invests entirely into e-publishing will be in danger of someday having a vast void where a recognizable past could have been preserved in real books. Paper recycling makes it possible to create new books without killing trees.

MM: For writers (not necessarily young ones, either) who might look at the publishing landscape today and find it intimidating, a confusing sea of options, what would you say that could encourage them to do it anyway?

PNW: Yes, it’s hard to get published. Big corporate trade houses, even independents and small presses, are cutting back on their book lists. They’re getting ever more picky and cautious about what they choose. But even in the best of times, it was never easy to get published. It took me a few years of rejection letters before my first novel (The Last Centennial) finally got published in 1971.

So new writers always need a determination of steel as they look for their breakthrough. Today I always tell newbies (including the seniors among them) that they can help their chances a lot by doing two things. First of all, to educate themselves about what the options are. (There are many online resources with information on how different types of publishing.) And second, to simply fight off that feeling of discouragement and never give up in their efforts to break into print. If they want others to believe in their writing, they have to start by believing in their own work.

MM: You ran for city council in West Hollywood in 2007 but lost that election. Any interest in doing that again?

PNW: It was an illuminating experience for me. Unfortunately, even at the local level, running for office takes big money. I was unable to raise enough contributions to compete with the city-hall incumbents, and wound up with a campaign debt that took me a while to pay off. Nobody ever talks about the campaign debts, but election losers usually have them! Even Hillary Clinton had a campaign debt! Presently I look for other ways of being “political” besides running for office.

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When the men went off to war, the women were left behind to hold the fort.  In this first episode entitled Jumping Tracks we’re introduced to Lorna Corbett (Meg Tilly), a hard, yet fair matron who takes the girls under her wing as they manufacture the weapons of war.  Gladys Witham (Jodi Balfour) has it a little easier than the other girls, in that she’s led a privileged life. She still wants to do her part however, and as the episode progresses she finds a way to get herself removed from the cushy secretarial role she’s been given so that she can join the other girls on the work floor.  Kate Andrews (Charlotte Hegele) has come from a different sort of situation herself.  Her father is a religious fanatic who torments her, and as the episode begins she runs from her family with her mother helping her escape.  And then there’s Betty McRae (Ali Liebert) the farm girl who is used to hard work, and is highly regarded by her co-workers.

The first episode is not much more than a way to introduce us to not only the women of the era, but the harassment they face while doing their part for the war effort.  You also get a nice glimpse of the world they live in, from the parties with the soldiers to the dangers they face on the job.  It does a great job of pulling you in, and when it ends you can’t wait for the next episode.  Bomb Girls should be a hit.

THE TALES OF 7 WIMMIN WHO ARE CHRISTIAN MINISTERS

By Mare Lane

I will be writing the next article about wimmin who are leaders of change

BODY/MIND & SOUL – AN PLANETARY GUIDE TO HEALTH    ….NEPTUNE

Every month as I write my article, I find I take on the energy of the planet I’m writing about. I’ve also noticed that each month

something happens that perfectly illustrates the meaning of that

planet, but right now I don’t remember exactly what they were. I decided to share this before starting my Neptune article

as I realized that I’ve been very Neptunian this month.

I’ve been lollygaggling around & easily distracted. I’ve been going off on tangents doing research & finding interesting wimmin to write about that have nothing to do with Neptune. And the chart print-outs have been piling up. I already had the charts I want for this month,

weeks ago.. Unless I write an encyclopedia I’ll never be able to include all of them as samples. I’ve been watching a lot of movies & telling myself I have lots of time. Today is Dec. 15 & the deadline is looming. I’ve been socializing with friends (Venus) nearly every day.

Then when I come home I tell myself to “start writing, but maybe I’ll start tomorrow-I’m tired now. I’ll go to bed & read”

This month I’ve started all kinds of projects & articles & haven’t finished any of them yet. I know I will though because I trust my

Saturn task-mistress.

Are you laughing now as I am?

There are so many sides to Neptune but they all relate to the

World of Imagination & the Realms of Sorrow.

Here we have the poets, the mystics, the artistes, the idealists

& dreamers, the compassionate ones, the intuitive empaths,

the Earth Mother saviours, & the believers in God, a Higher Power,

Great Spirit, Father/Mother Spirit, Angels, Innate Goodness, or

Humanism.

Here also we have the unhealed grieving ones, the lost souls, the drifters, the deceivers, the illusionists, the victims, the helpers & the the healers, the fearful & confused ones, the non-forgiving ones, the denying ones, the yearning ones, & the mysterious ones.

SOME EXAMPLES OF ILLNESS & TRAUMA

ASSOCIATED WITH NEPTUNE

Alcoholism

Drug addictions

Mis-diagnosed illness

Bunions

Wrongly diagnosed illness

Sleep disorders

Sleeping pills

Lack of Potassium

Poisons, especially chemical (& Mars)

Accidents(Uranus) through absent-mindedness (Neptune)

Anemia (plus Mars)

Artificial arms or leg

Yeast infections- e.g. – candida

Sleep-walking

Sleeping sickness

Secret enemies leading to scandal

Wasting diseases

False teeth

Isolation & seclusion – e.g.- mental hospitals

- contagious disease

- agoraphobia

Prescription drug side effects

Flooding – leading to mould, malaria, or typhoid

Damage to tissues of the body

Neuroses

Paranoia

Mania

Hallucinations

Dream nightmares from post-traumatic stress

Drowning

Eye glasses

Feet deformities & ailments

Catalepsy

Loss through blindly trusting the “experts”

My first chart this month is of Barbara Grier.

The pink elephant has just published an article about her,so

I’d like to include her from an astrological perspective as

she is an icon in the lesbian publishing (Jupiter) field & passed away a few weeks ago. It’s thanks to thepinkelephant, wikipedia & the New York Times obituary that I found her.

BARBARA GRIER

Born Nov. 4, 1933

Cincinnati, Ohio

Time unknown

MOON – 3 – 17 Gemini

CHIRON (The Wounded Healer) – 2 Gemini 40r

MERCURY – 3 Sagittarius 50

SATURN – 10 Aquarius 05

JUPITER – 11 Libra 45

NEPTUNE – 11 Virgo 56

SUN – 12 Scorpio

MARS – 18 Sag 50

URANUS – 24 Aries 45r

PLUTO – 24 Cancer 44

NORTH NODE (Destiny Point) – 25 Aquarius 10

VENUS – 27 Sag 30

At a quick glance we can see that Barbara was mostly Fire & Air Element with a Fixed Water Sun sign. She would have been a natural communicator (Gemini), super-intelligent & no matter what the challenges would have had a powerful will & strong magnetic presence (Scorpio) to overcome them with Fire passion & enthusiasm with a need to share her ideas with a broad sweep (Jupiter). Sagittarius planets often indicate being a mentor or teacher & wanting to share ideas. Moon in Gemini often indicates lecturing, writing, or being a natural-born teacher, but perhaps impatient with differing opinions.

The only Earth Element she has, is Neptune in Virgo, but because everyone for many years (including me in 1939) has this sign as Neptune is one of the transpersonal very slow moving planets, the importance of Neptune is the aspects it makes to other planets & its’ house placement if we know the time of birth. She may have an Earth Ascendent or Midheaven.

Because the Moon is allowed a larger orb, her Moon in Gemini would be square her Neptune.

Neptune is semi-sextile Jupiter, quincunx Saturn.

There is one very important, easy aspect to her creative, idealistic Neptune, & that’s the sextile to her Sun while the other aspects could

indicate irritability or difficulty compromising so I’ll be on the lookout for how it played out as I read through her bio.

Barbara came out as lesbian at 12 yr. & her parents divorced when she was 13. With her mother’s support she began collecting lesbian books from the age of 16. She later called her book collection “Lesbiana”

& had a -quote-“love affair with lesbian publishing”.

When Barbara was 18 she met Helen Bennett in a public library

& they lived together in Denver, Colorado for 20 yr. then moved

to Kansas City after Helen graduated from library school & they

both worked in public libraries.

Between 1956 & 1970 Barbara contributed writing short stories & reviews under many aliases (Neptune) to the first lesbian mag, “The Ladder”,founded by Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon & in 1968 took over from

Barbara Gittings as Editor & immediately improved & expanded the content. She improved the look, focused on more feminist works,

& became involved in a conflict with members of the Daughters of Bilitis because of her more radical separatist lesbian feminism, while their policy was to include all wimmin.

In Sept. 1970 when “The Ladder” was about to fold, Barbara secretly

(Neptune & Scorpio) took the only copies of the subscribers list & relocated the mag to Reno in order to keep it alive, which caused upset to the group, along with hurting Del & Phyllis when they found out. A lack of Earth element can often mean impulsive action with

no forethought.

The mag wasn’t financially successful & only lasted for another 2 yr.

Barbara always worked at her paying library job while she was

doing all this & only quit work in 1982 when she was 49 yr.

About 1972 Barbara met the love of her life, Donna McBride &

with difficulty ended her relationship with Helen.

She & Donna founded the Naiad Press in 1973 along with 2 other wimmin.

This is when she really blossomed into her best self & her most

fulfilling years.

LIFE WITH NAIAD PRESS & DONNA

The first book they published was “The Latecomer” written by

the co-founder Anyda Marchant using the name Sarah Aldridge.

The mag was moved to Kansas City in 1980, then was moved to

Tallahasee, Florida.

One of the books published was “Lesbian Nuns: Breaking the Silence”

which was banned in Boston & criticized by the Catholic Church.

Many, many wimmin, including Jane Rule benefited from being

published by Naiad Press.

In 1992 Barbara & Donna donated their entire collection of

14,000 books to the San Francisco Public Library. It was compiled by Barbara & 3 other wimmin, which they called “The Lesbian in Literature”. It is the largest English language collection of lesbian-

themed books.

Barbara & Donna won many awards on behalf of Naiad Press

in 1985, 1991 & 2002.

They sold Naiad’s backlist to Bella Books in 2003, then

they retired when Barbara was 70 yr.

She passed away of lung cancer Nov. 10, 2011 in Tallahassie.

My next chart is of a womin who was an underwater

archaeologist.

I found her thanks to Wikipedia, the U.K. Telegraph Obituary

& The Independent Obituary.

HONOR FROST

Born Oct. 28, 1917

Nicosia, Cyprus

Time unknown, & is

2 hr. ahead (East)

of GMT

MOON – Probably early Aries

NORTH NODE – 3 Capricorn 20

SUN – 4 Scorpio 20

PLUTO – 5 Cancer 26r

NEPTUNE – 7 Leo 03

JUPITER – 10 Gemini 15r

SATURN – 13 Leo 44

VENUS – 18 Sagittarius 45

URANUS – 19 Aquarius 47r

MARS – 27 Leo 10

MERCURY – between 29 Libra – 1degree Scorpio

but either way is conjunct her Sun & sextile her Mars.

Honor’s Neptune squares her Sun, sextiles her Jupiter,

quincunxes the North Node & semi- sextiles Pluto.

Her Saturn is straining but doesn’t quite make a conjunction

with Neptune. The orb of 8 degrees is a bit too wide for

slower moving planets.

She was orphaned at a young age when both her parents died

& her guardian (Jupiter) was Wilfred Evill, a London solicitor.

She went to school in Switzerland, developed a love of ballet & art

& spent much of her years by the sea. She studied at the Central London School of Art & the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford, then

became a designer for the Ballet Rambert. Later she was

hired as director of publications at the Tate Gallery.

Pluto rules archeology- Honor has Pluto, the ruler of Scorpio,

trining her Sun in Scorpio. Neptune rules underwater

& also artistic talent.

Quote from Honor- ”Underwater, the mind loses its habits of

anxiety, while powers of contemplation increase”

She began her training in Cannes in the late 40’s & had her first shipwreck excavation with Frederik Dumas, off the south coast of France.

She was a Scuba diver & became skilled as an illustrator of

shipwreck finds during the early 1950’s in France & Italy.

In 1957 she went on a land dig of tombs with Kathleen Kenyon in Jericho as a technical draughts womin, at which she was meticulous.

But being on dry land didn’t suit her at all.

In 1959, along with Dumas & 2 others she excavated off the coast of Turkey, where she discovered a late Bronze Age (12^th century B.C.)

shipwreck. She always worked with a team, but had a unique

ability to recognize as important what others didn’t spot.

(Scorpio seeing beneath the surface crud of the ships & contents)

In reference to her Moon in Aries, she was called a hero & a pioneer

in her field & was so busy, so prolific & so enthusiastic that I will

mention only a few more highlights of her underwater finds.

1968- dived the site of the Port of Alexandria, sponsored by

UNESCO. Found the ruins of Pharos lighthouse as well as the

remains of the lost palace of Alexander & the Ptolemies. Then

published the report with drawings.

1971- excavated a wooden hull found in shifting ocean sands

off Motya island which, when uncovered revealed a Punic

ship of Marsala. It was the first war galley of antiquity to be

discovered & because it was protected by the sand was in

excellent condition.

Her special interest & fascination was in ancient stone anchors.

She helped found the Council for Nautical Archaology in 1963,

& a journal in 1972, now in its’ 40^th year, along with teaching,

writing & publishing her works & drawings. She received many

honours & medals. In her Georgian house in London she entertained her many eclectic friends, including Thea Porter, a fashion designer & Erica Brausen, director of the Hanover Gallery. She bought a second home in Malta as the Mediterranean was her best-loved place.

Honor was married but separated? (that’s all I got on that subject)

Until the end of her life Honor continued to dive, was still full of

energy & proud posture, claimed to have broken every bone

(Saturn) in her body, had 2 hip replacements & was always

rushing away – to Sicily, Malta, Goa, Venice.

She passed away Sept. 12, 2010. Honor was almost 93 yr.

This next chart is of the launching of Wikipedia.

Jimmy Wales & Larry Sanger manifested an idea (Neptune) that

had been evolving since 1993 by Rick Gates, again about

1999 by Richard Stallman, then using the concept & technology

of Ward Cunningham & finally overtaking Nupedia, where it

has become a global phenomenon (Neptune)in multiple languages, written by over a million registered & countless anonymous, authors.

I don’t write about men’s achievements, but I want to honour all the people who contribute articles that I benefit from in my research.

According to some estimates there are only 1 in 10 writers & editors

who are wimmin, so far.

WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Born (launched) Jan. 15, 2001

Place origin of birth San Diego, Cal.

Time unknown

Because it went out into the Neptune ethers & because its’ launching

time was different in each Time Zone, I’m going to give the NOON planetary positions based on GREENWICH MEAN TIME, at Zero Degrees Longitude, which is the base line from which all charts are calculated.

E.G. – here on the west coast the time is 8 hr. west of Greenwich.

JUPITER – 1 Gemini 21r

NEPTUNE – 5 Aquarius 51

MERCURY – 8 Aquarius 12

VENUS – 12 Pisces 29

MOON – 12 Libra 39

MARS – 13 Scorpio 19

PLUTO – 14 Sagittarius 15

NORTH NODE – 15 Cancer 28

URANUS – 19 Aquarius 24

SATURN – 24 Taurus 08

CHIRON – 24 Sag. 40

SUN – 25 Capricorn 12

There are 6 points in AIR ELEMENT (count 2 points for the Moon).

Venus is in Pisces, ruled by Neptune.

Venus, Mars & North Node are in a WATER Grand Trine

Neptune is trine Jupiter, conjunct Mercury & with a wider orb allowed for the Moon, is trine.

Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn trines the Sun in Capricorn.

Jupiter is at the beginning degree of Gemini (the philosophy of free

& open communications) which can indicate a slow start. (because Jupiter is the planet of expansion & growing bigger). When I looked at the graph of its’ number of articles it really took off in 2004 & is now up to almost 4,000,000 articles!

By 2004, the partners agreed to part & go their separate ways.

Jimmy  Wales  is now the owner.

Since its’ inception there seems to have been ongoing disputes (Mars)

over what constitutes an “expert” (Saturn) writing about a particular topic or person. Mars in Scorpio is approaching an opposition to Saturn in Taurus & reached the exact aspect on Feb. 3, 2001.

Transiting Jupiter will have completed it’s first return to it’s birth position in June, 2012.

Transiting Saturn is in Libra & has been conjuncting its’ Moon.

This transit often indicates a change in structure or worry

about money & security issues. These issues will become even more emphasized when transiting Saturn comes up to square the natal Sun

of it’s own rulership. Challenges, difficulties & a need to protect are coming more to the fore, I suspect. There is hard work ahead &

perhaps a long drawn-out battle. I’m also watching as transiting Neptune slides into its’ own sign of Pisces, which will be squaring

natal Jupiter starting March, 2012. Maybe they’ll realize they

have too many fingers in too many pies & they’ve become unwieldy

or difficult to keep track of?

I’ll get back to you as soon as I check the recent News reports.

A FEW HEADLINES

WIKIPEDIA SIGNPOST – Dec. 12, 2011.

Bell Pottinger, a public relations company based in the U.K.

under heat for possible conflict-of-interest & for possibly

contributing biased information to several of its’ clients articles.

According to blogger Tim Ireland, who, quote” ——–he/she

was making edits according to a hidden bias/agenda dictated by money”.

There have been charges of writers plagiarizing from Wikipedia

Articles.

A research project message calling for wikipedia users to answer

a 25 minute survey, was poorly received & considered confusing.

It is being revamped.

To read the whole article see THE SIGNPOST – Dec. 12

The WIKIPEDIA FOUNDATION has announced the hiring of

LORI BYRD PHILLIPS. She will be the U.S. Cultural Partnership

Coordinator in 2012.

My EULOGY

I wanted to do a weather chart for extreme flooding to give an example of some Neptune mass events. I could have chosen

charts for oil spill disasters as well.

Some floods are caused by hurricanes/typhoons ruled by Uranus,

& some are massive long-term rains, but both types

destroy everything in its’ path.

I just couldn’t do it.

Since Spring, 2010 until recently, when I did the research, there have been so many extreme floods in so many parts of the world & so

many people have lost everything & everybody, that the cumulative effect of such terrible loss is devastating, heartbreaking & unbearably painful.

Which flooding event could I have picked?

AUSTRALIA?

THE PHILLIPINES?

CHINA?

COLUMBIA?

B.C. CANADA?

THAILAND?

SRI LANKA?

EASTERN EUROPE?

Some of you may have lost family or friends in a Weather

Disaster, even if you now live in a different country.

All I have the right to say is, I’m so sorry & I send you

All my Love.

Next month I’ll be writing about Pluto. Mare

New York is one of the world’s top gay tourism destinations

New York, New York, the city that’s so good they named it twice and the one that doesn’t sleep. We’ve all heard it before but what’s NYC like for a gay traveller? Here’s the PinkNews quick fire guide.

Getting there
If you’re lucky enough to be one of the hundreds of thousands of PinkNews readers within reach of a London airport, you have a multitude of options to fly to New York. Book far enough in advance and you’ll be sure to grab bargains.

PinkNews flew from Heathrow to New York’s JFK airport with Virgin Atlantic, as we were on a trip to pamper ourselves, we decided to opt for Virgin Atlantic’s Premium Economy class. It’s not as pricey as going Upper Class (which features the longest flat beds in business class) but it’s still worth paying a small premium for.

After the sparkling wine on boarding, you’ll settle down into a comfy purple leather seat with more legroom than you’d find with a standard economy seat. You’ll be grateful of the extra leg room on your return flight, which is likely to be overnight. We landed back in London and went straight back to work!

Meals inside the premium cabin are served on china with silverware, making for a much more elegant dining experience. With an in-seat ‘media centre’ of films, music and games, the flight of just over seven hours, literally flew by.

JFK airport is a fair way out of the city, so don’t expect a big NY skyline when you land. The easiest and cheapest way to the city is via the Subway,
having first paid $5 for an AirTrain to the nearest station.

Getting around New York
If you’re a Londoner, then you’ll probably used to using the Tube and you’ll probably think that exchanging it for the Subway will be an easy task, well think again! This sprawling mass of numbers and letters are a far cry from London’s easily colour-coded, quaintly named lines. But with a bit of practise you’ll soon work out where you are going. Just remember if you’re aiming to head ‘Uptown’ or ‘Downtown’.

But if like us you are staying in central Manhattan, you will probably find that the Subway isn’t really needed that much. The city is incredibly accessible on foot and so it’s probably worth only splashing out for a pay as you go subway pass, it’s not quite as sophisticated as London’s Oyster system but you’ll get the idea. Getting around Manhattan is pretty easy if you’re any good with basic numbers and left/right directions. The avenue numbers go roughly east to west and the street numbers go roughly south to north. And if you’re not feeling like walking or Subwaying it, a yellow taxi is incredibly cheap, especially compared to the UK.

Where to stay
We booked into the brand new Yotel on our arrival. The first city centre hotel from Simon Woodroffe, the founder of Japanese restaurant chain Yo! Sushi, modelled on Japanese capsule hotels, It’s literally an ‘out of this world’ experience with a space or air travel like feel. Indeed the ‘cabins’ as their rooms are labelled were designed by Softroom, who designed the interiors of Virgin Atlantic Upper Class.

Everything about the experience of staying at Yotel is different to a regular hotel. You don’t get checked in, you check yourself in at an airport check-in kiosk style touch-screen station. It’s speedy and quite fun. The keys to your cabin then slots out of the machine and you make your way up to “Four”, the lobby area of the hotel on the fourth story. It’s from here that you can pick up complimentary muffins and hot drinks in the morning. From this floor, you journey up in the lift to your cabin floor, complete with space age style theme music.

We found ourselves on the ‘Premium Queen’ floor with a magnificent view over Manhattan, primarily unobstructed by other buildings as is normally the case with New York. The cute bed doubles as a sofa and when you open the door for the first time, it’s folded back. When you’re ready to sleep, click the button and your bed extends, just like in Virgin Atlantic Upper Class, which the rooms are modelled on.

The rooms are small, even by New York standards but they are really functional. Going to a city like New York on holiday means you’re unlikely to be spending too much time in your room. You want to get a great night sleep, in a comfy bed in a great location but that’s about it.

The Yotel is perfect for gay tourists because of its location right by Hells Kitchen, home of many of the best gay and lesbian bars and restaurants. Turning on an app like Grindr firmly shows you that this is one of the centres of gay life in New York, most of the people that pop-up are less than 100 metres from the Yotel, and not all of them are staying there!

Checking out of the hotel is also a pretty amazing experience. Rather than simply handing your baggage over to a bell boy, instead you get to use the stunning Yo! Bot, a robot that pulls you out a draw to fit your suitcase in and then secures it safely for you. The only downside is that it takes a little longer than using a human, but it’s way more fun!

Part two of this guide (what to do, where to party, where to eat, where else to stay) will be published on Saturday

Yotel
Yotel Premium Queen Rooms are priced from $239 per night (including continental breakfast)
To book visit Yotel.com

Virgin Atlantic fly five times daily to New York from London Heathrow. Premium fares start at £234 + £300.93 tax. For reservations please call 0844 2092770 or visit VirginAtlantic.com

The legendary actress who broke barriers with her turn as a blacksploitation superstar in the 1970s, in films like Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Sheba, Baby is long heralded as the first female action hero. From Fort Apache the Bronx to Jackie Brown Grier has changed every film she’s starred in. But it was her role in the groundbreaking Showtime series, The L Word, that brought her a whole new audience. She’s done plenty since the show stopped taping in 2009 (turning up as a villain on Smallville and Julia Roberts’ bud on Larry Crown, and releasing a tell-all memoir Foxy: My Life in Three Acts). But as Grier reminds us, The L Word isn’t really over, nor is it off the air: it currently airs on Logo and in 46 different countries that have syndicated it, it’s spin off reality show The Real L Word is prepping season three, and the entire glorious series, a cast reunion, and several rarities from the iconic show have been released on the The L Word Complete Series DVD Collection.

For Grier, the show was a catalyst to LGBT activism, and the actress has shown up at fundraisers, celebrations, and protests in support of LGBT rights, and often acts as a bridge between the straight African-American community and the LGBT world. In recent months, she was awarded the Entertainment AIDS Alliance Visionary Award and she appeared in support of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (“I really support them because they really fight for injustices. They go down there and they really kick ass,” she says of NGLTF). She’s also a spokesperson for Dining Out for Life, a gourmet food movement that raises money for AIDS service organizations. We caught up with her to talk about TV badonkadonk, Twitter, and how The L Word changed the world.

So The L Word was one of the all-time highest rated shows on Showtime.

It was? Past tense?

No, it is.

[Laughs] There you go!

What impact do you think the show had on the world?

It is still continuing. In education, it’s a formidable tool of information, for families from diverse backgrounds, cultures, class — it’s still resonating, it’s still very, very popular. And the fact that so many woman — and because of its overall theme, and men, gay men, bisexual and transgender men — have been able to be more authentic with themselves and more comfortable, and people who were ignorant or not knowing would find a comfort zone.

It brought up issues we hadn’t seen on TV.

Even myself, I had no idea of the many injustices in the gay community, whether its the adoption of children, marriage, benefits, estates. But a lot of it was the assumption in the hetero world, in the straight world — my mother and I, we just assumed that gay people received automatically, by birthright, the same benefits as us.

You said your mother and her friends discussed the show.

My mom being 82, and being very wise and cultural, she often assumed that there shouldn’t be a problem [with being gay]. My mom is an academic and she wants to go back to school at 82, because of [her love of] information. But I was relaying this to her and her friends who had gay children and still didn’t have an idea of how to approach them or let then know it was OK [to reconnect] after they kicked them out 15 years ago. How did they reconcile the fact that they are more tolerant and they understand and that it is OK now? As a matter of fact, you know that isyour child. It used to be that these people, my mom’s generation would sit and have discussions … about how so many people haven’t been able to, or are uncomfortable, or will not be ever ready to come out and just be themselves. So to have 82-year-old women discuss that is great.

I remember how African-American queer women were so excited to see you in person as well as on the show.

I was invited to a wonderful, wonderful symposium in Las Vegas of African-American lesbian woman. It was a community, it was an organization, very prolific, very successful, very informative — and it was so amazing that they could have this seminar and have a great retreat in Las Vegas. I know often in African-American communities… they are still uncomfortable [with homosexuality] in many areas. I think they are more religious or old-school, if you will. Eventually, as Howard Zinn — the social activist, who was the first white professor at Spellman College, which was an African-American woman’s college — said in a statement that has always lingered with me, it is something very special, he said: “Small acts, multiplied by millions, can transform the world.”

That’s really resonant.

And it has been a part of my families’ mantra, small acts, and if The L Word in relative terms was a small act, look at the millions of people it reached. It’s playing in 20 some countries. I get emails from Finland, Brazil, from gay women who love The L Word. And my mom asks me, “Are you shocked if a lesbian woman gives you a compliment?” I’m like, “No, its flattering, can’t do much, but its flattering.”

It means you connected with lesbian viewers.

It’s the fact that we highlighted the life of many women, so other people can herald the greatness of people. That is why I had to be a part of it. And Jennifer Beals, my sistah, wanted me to play her sister in the show, and I am so grateful for that because I would not have known what I know. I’ve met so many incredible people who are my friends for life. And they still can’t adopt children, and they still can’t get insurance, and they still can’t buy a home comfortably, and there’s all these other ridiculous issues. And so with that, I thank Jennifer and Jerry [Offsay, then president of programming] and Showtime for allowing me to learn and be a beacon of knowledge and information for others who have no idea.

We’ve talked about how this show affected others. What type of impact has its had on you?

Oh the impact on me is still, oh, we won’t know. We won’t know because people on my Twitter page of half a million people still talk about The L Word and its great because many of them are African-American. Back in the day we had church, we had no other form of social media, there was no lecture series, maybe a school somewhere, but we didn’t have what we have today. And thank God for it. Thank God for information and knowledge to break down barriers. Thank God one Tweet can start a Wall Street protest. [Laughs]

Yes, the Occupy Wall Street movement really relied on social media.

But you know that’s this country, and that’s who we are — we want to do better, we want to bebetter as a community. I am still, as far as people when they come to sign autographs, they bring my book, and three L Word sets. And many women ask, “Can I [get your autograph]?” Of course you can! One lady told me she had raised her children, she was a doctor, she was a single mom, and then she came out to her children and her children had a difficult time understanding it, so they abandoned her for awhile. And maybe they will come around, maybe not all of them. But it is interesting that the forces of community and common sense and education, and what it does. And I think eventually they will all come around and see that she is still mom. She still had three jobs and went to school and put us all through college. And just because she came out, she’s another person? So their dialogue is going to be amazing. And it is going to be very simple. They’re going to see how simple is that, how easy? And as people start realizing historically, the incredible people that were gay you know since, a thousand years ago. You can go back. It’s all about education and information, and I think all the schools should have gay studies.

Like we’re going to have in California.

Hey, it should be all across the country. It should be in college. Some families and cultures can’t comprehend… junior high school people can’t communicate with their families and they’re committing suicide and have other issues. It is so unnecessary. If they can have a course on slavery, the Holocaust, Native-Americans and how this was the first nation to suffer a holocaust when sailors and voyagers came to this country and conquered a people already existing — if they can have all of these classes and courses on that, finally catching up, why can’t they have a gay studies class? And should be an option, of course, because of religious background with people and their cultures but it should be there. I bet they would be very successful. I know they have the sex courses in junior high which already makes people nuts: “I don’t want someone telling my son, where his genitals are. I want to do it.” Well when are you? We should have courses in junior high school, high school, and in college; obviously in college its a different level of study and investigation and political and social discourse, so it should be. Like I said small steps, little steps, small acts.

Absolutely.

Overall, if you hit them over the head, if you pontificate and you scream at them, they back away, and they fear it. So you have to do it, it’s not on the sly; it’s just in a very more subtle gentile way. Because the courses for junior high would be different than high school, and of course the courses from high school would be different than college.

That’s sort of the thing that television allows you to do as well, to bring ideas to people in a more subtle way.

Absolutely, and I think not only is it through television, but now you have junior and high school students having clubs and organization to support themselves and their families. And I think that is really, really important.

I know you got a great deal of feedback from viewers during your time on The L Word. Was there a common thread that stood out to you?

Well, the common thread was from a certain community, the African-American community, asking, “Why would I want to be in a show about lesbians?” And I said, “Oh, well it’s a community and it’s well written, it’s just about people.” And they would be like, “Aren’t you afraid people are going to think you are a lesbian?” And I am like, “Is that fear? I should be afraid that people might think I’m a lesbian? You should really ask yourself, why would I be afraid? Who do I have to fear?” Its not like you can put on a shirt and you would suddenly be a lesbian. But I said, “I need to know about other people, other communities, other cultures. If I had a gay child, I would want to help them, guide them, and I’d want them to be the best person they could be because life isn’t going to be as easy. It could be, I don’t know, we’ll have to navigate. And I have friends who are gay; I have to know how they feel. They’re just people. It’s you guys, who are the fear mongers, the ones who create this distinction. Everyone else is comfortable.”

It’s amazing how race affected how people reacted to the show.

But that was a question from the black community: why and was I afraid? There were some black actresses who had signed on to do the show and had a problem playing a love interest to some of the cast members. So they backed out because they were afraid of ridicule by their peers or family and how they felt uncomfortable kissing another human being.

It’s amazing how some actresses get hung up on the kissing scenes.

I think I kiss my dogs a whole lot more on the lips then I think I do [anyone else] and they have tongue-kissed me. My beagle has whipped his tongue out on occasion. [Laughs] And it’s just as warm and human as anybody else’s. So I’m like what’s the big deal? I never got a disease where I started growing fur over night, or howling at the moon.

What other issues were different for you?

I wanted to have more weight. Because everyone was a size two, everyone was skinny minny, I was like, Let’s show some bodankadonk here. Let’s show some real women, not everything is perfect. No hair and makeup one day. I just wanted to look less [perfect] than I normally look, as a size four at a 117 pounds, a skinny, modelly person. I’ll let the other girls do it. I wanted my character to be curious. I wanted her to sustain. I wanted her to ask questions, because she’s from another generation than her sisters. Using my political legacy, I wanted to invite people to see the show, to see the stories and let them resonate, let people think, not people preaching.

There’s a lot of preaching on the flip side.

There are a lot of black preachers with serious, serious issues who don’t want to discuss it with me to this day. Because they deal with their biblical legacies, their biblical reasons, but I think they should look a little deeper. And people interpret the Bible in so many different ways its just crazy. But I just said, I just want to be in contemporary society with contemporary thought, to where we are today. Because we couldn’t possibly have projected the outcome and the resonance and the whole intellectual forum that the show would create globally.

For Ilene Chaiken and her co-writers and Showtime and Jerry Offsay and the cast members who came aboard and wanted to tell great stories, kudos. And it’s going to resonate many, many years to come. It will probably be a part of those studies we were referring to. If they’re studying Coffey, Foxy Brown and Jackie Brown in film school and African-American pop-cultural studies, I know The L Word and every aspect of it will be projected 10, 20 years from now in academia. It’s got to be done.

There were more stories left to tell, too. I hear you had one in mind.

We could have gone a good eight seasons. Easily because I was writing a script about two women that I read about while I was in Canada; they had left their country, a Muslim country. Many Islam countries are diverse; it’s monolithic, but still fundamentalist, conservative, moderate, and liberal. These two women were a couple who had to leave their country and their family and their fathers had put a fatwa on them. They had to put their daughters to death because homosexuality in their culture was a death sentence. So they were living in Toronto on the run. And this father had sent uncles and brothers to kill them and bring back fingers and hands and heads or whatever, but they were supposed to kill them. I was horrified by this.

It was in a Toronto newspaper and I was like, what a great story! So I pitched it… but I said, there won’t be a fatwa against Showtime or none of the [regular cast members] but it isa great story to be told and I would love to write it and direct this episode. Alice has this radio show and the two women come to her for asylum because they know their families are very close to finding them. So they come down to Los Angeles, to where we are, and… relatives are going to kill them once they find them. So Alice is going to bring them to the club, to the Planet because there is alcohol there, and it is forbidden to them. So once the men, the brothers and the cousins find out its a female club and there’s alcohol there, and a tough sister that runs it, they will back off but try and find a way to take the girls from us. And I wanted that to be so much one of our stories. Where everything else has been social and legal, and a few intimate pugilistic episodes, I really wanted that to be one of our episodes, to see what lengths we would go to protect them and to see Kit go ghetto.

That must have been a huge disappointment then to have it not come to fruition.

The depth and spectrum of so many lives and stories just haven’t been told. But it’s OK. The Real L Word is on and Ilene is doing great and everyone is doing well. Real stories were told, but there is still more to be told.

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1. What Do You Mean By Sex?
   Whether you want more or less sex, what does it mean to you when you say you want sex? Do you want specific behaviors, specific outcomes (e.g. an orgasm)? Do you want more intimacy, more connection or more attention paid to you? We all assume we know what we mean when we say “sex” but sex has many meanings, and you should start by clarifying for yourself what sex means to you. At some point that’s something you can communicate to your partner.
2. Define the Issue for Yourself
   It’s rare that one of you will be dissatisfied while the other is completely happy. Even if you like things the way they are, how do you feel about your partner’s dissatisfaction with your sex life? Does this issue feel like a relationship “deal breaker,” something that will have to be fixed or it will destroy your relationship? Does this feel like something that is less important to you than finding compromise on raising kids, or work or family? If you find out that your partner prioritizes sex differently than you, are you willing to compromise to stay in the relationship?
3. Describe Your Sex Drive
   Your interest in sex is connected to many parts of your life. Have you taken the time to think about how your own history and your current life have influenced your interest in sex? One way to explore this for yourself is to write out your sexual history. This may not be something you share with your partner, but having a better understanding of your sexual desire can help you take responsibility when talking with a partner.
4. When Talking Won’t Do, Write a Letter
   Don’t worry about floral language or grammar. Writing down what you want to talk about is a great step to clarify your issues for yourself and practice the way you might communicate it to your partner. Some people actually write their partner a letter, and end up giving it to them at a later point. Letter writing can be a powerful way to communicate your thoughts and feelings, and if done along with talking it can increase intimacy in a relationship in surprising ways.
5. Compare Notes with Your Partner
   Have a conversation about what sex means to each of you. Don’t make this conversation about the current problems you have with your sex life. Instead start by keeping it broad, with the goal being that you each get to understand the role sex has played in each others lives before and during your relationship. Before you have this conversation, look over this sexual communication tip that emphasizes the importance of listening and reflecting back what your partner is saying. The goal of this conversation is just to eliminate problems of miscommunication and mistaken assumptions.
6. Do You Have a Goal?
   One reason conversations about sex may get stymied is that you don’t have a goal in mind. Your goal might be specific or general. It might be that you want to know yourselves or each other better. It might be that that you want to find a way to stay together and both of you be happy. It might be that want to figure out if the relationship is worth saving. Maybe you have more than one. You can also change your goals. This tip isn’t one that will work for everyone, but for some people having a goal to work toward can help keep them on track.
7. Avoid Blaming, Take Responsibility
   It’s easy in this situation for one partner to be labeled as the “problem” and for the other to deny any responsibility, claiming that they are happy with the way things are. If you’re that partner, ask yourself if you’re really happy knowing that your partner is unhappy? In reality, if one partner in a relationship is dissatisfied often the other is as well. When you do talk about issues of difference in sex drives avoid the temptation to blame each other and make an effort to each take responsibility for the situation.
8. Remember You’re a Team
   Sometimes differences in sex drive are so great that a couple will choose to end the relationship. Ultimately this is the couple’s decision to make. But regardless of the outcome, if your partner is someone you love and respect, try to cultivate a sense of teamwork between the two of you rather than being on opposite teams battling it out. The ultimate goal is one you want to arrive at together, but when defenses go up and we feel challenged its often easier to get into a fighting posture than a cooperative one.
9. Make Change a Possibility
   Often we can talk about ourselves and our partners as if we are incapable of change (“I’m just not that kind of person.” “She would never do that,” “I can’t see him offering that in a million years.”) The fact is that we are all capable of change, probably far more change than we imagine. This doesn’t mean we will change, but it does mean we can. But when we talk about our situation as if change were impossible we shut ourselves and our partners down and may actually make change harder to accomplish.
10. Talk About Your Options
    There are many causes of sex drive discrepancies in a relationship and many ways of addressing the problem. Read over the above tips and talk about the options available to you. Are you both willing to try counseling or therapy? If you found a good book to help you navigate through these issues will you both be committed to reading it and talking about it regularly? In the end if only one of you is willing to work on this issue there may not be a lot of hope for a mutually satisfying resolution, so making sure you’re both on board seems like a crucial step in working toward change.

O’Canada need gender neutral changes. Women are asking lets get inclusive Canada!

Jann Arden sings the National Anthem before the start of the Grey Cup in Vancouver last month. Former lieutenant-colonel Shirley Robinson wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to change the words in O Canada to make it gender-neutral. December; 2011

Photograph by: Todd Korol, Reuters

Commnet; This should not even be a debate – it should be changed. I used to get boys telling girls that they cannot be Prime Minister because it is ‘all our sons command".  It is one small thing but representative of an attitude that needs adjusting!

Article; OTTAWA— Shirley Robinson spent 30 years in the Canadian military and figures she knows something about leadership. Hence, her message to Stephen Harper: Show some leadership and change O Canada to make it gender-neutral.

“Stand up and be a woman,” the former lieutenant-colonel said Thursday in expressing her frustration at the Conservative leader’s hesitation to alter lyrics in the national anthem. “Our laws are very explicit; women and men are equal in this country. Our anthem should reflect that. He (Harper) should do the right thing.”

Robinson’s challenge was prompted by an article in Thursday’s Citizen that reported the prime minister’s unwillingness to address the issue again after have been burned politically last year when he used the occasion of a Throne Speech to float the idea of changing a line in O Canada — “in all thy sons command” — to something less gender specific. At the time, the suggestion met with overwhelming public opposition — the prime minister’s office was reportedly flooded with phone calls and emails objecting to any change — and was quickly dropped.

Earlier this week, however, the Austrian government announced that European country had changed its national anthem to make it gender-neutral. When queried whether the Harper government might follow suit, the prime minister’s press secretary, Sara MacIntyre, was unequivocal: “No, this issue is not up for consideration. Canadians are very proud of their national anthem as it is.”

As far as Robinson is concerned, that pride is both false and rooted in ignorance. “I take great exception to people who don’t want wording changes (to the anthem),” said the former deputy director of women personnel for the armed forces. “They are a disgrace to this country. That anthem has to be changed.”

Other women’s rights exponents concur. “This (changing the anthem’s wording) is not something that’s merely cosmetic,” said Marguerite Ritchie, president of the Human Rights Institute of Canada, which has long been involved in the issue.

Ritchie, like Robinson, argues that to dismiss concerns about the inclusiveness of the lyrics in the national anthem is to ignore not only their symbolic significance but also their psychological resonance. As it is, they said, O Canada effectively perpetuates attitudes that once denied women the right to vote, run for office, own property or be treated as equals in the workplace. “Until the anthem is changed, women will not be thought of as fully equal participants in the life of Canada,” said Ritchie, who spent her career as a lawyer in the federal justice department and was the first woman appointed as a federal Queen’s Counsel.

Robinson concurs. “We’ve had human rights legislation and the Charter of Rights for years. Men and women have equal status in this country, so why is it taking so long to change the words (in the national anthem) to reflect that?”

Both women pointed out that the original lyrics to the English version of O Canada were, in fact, gender-neutral. The score for O Canada was penned by Calixa Lavallée in 1880 as a patriotic rallying song for the St. Jean Baptiste Society, drawing lyrics by Sir Adolph-Basile Routhier. It remained a French-only song until 1901, when it was performed in English for the first time during a royal visit to Canada. Robert Stanley Weir published his version in 1908, which contained the phrase “true patriot love thou dost in us command.” That line, according to some sources, was later replaced by “all thy sons command” to help recruit soldiers for the First World War.

“I don’t sing the national anthem anymore,” said Robinson. “It’s not my anthem because I’m not in it. When the anthem is played I remain silent, and I will continue to do so until women are included in the anthem.

“Women have fought and died for this country, long before the Afghan war, I might add,” Robinson said, noting the military nurses who served with troops during the Riel Rebellion in 1885. “I don’t think the public has a clue about what this means to some of us who have served our country for all these years. I have literally devoted my life to this country, and I expect to be included in the national anthem.”

She and Ritchie also argued that changing the anthem’s lyrics to include women would send a strong message to immigrants from cultures that continue to regard women as subordinate to men. “It would be a wonderful message to send about our values,” said Ritchie.

Both women were pleased and proud last year when Harper broached the idea of changing the anthem’s lyrics, but disappointed when he retreated on the issue.

“I believe he (Harper) wants to make the change,” said Ritchie, “but unfortunately he’s looking at the political side of things.”

Robinson took a harder attitude. “I’m a Conservative and I have a lot of time for Stephen Harper, but he has to take a stand and stick to it. That’s what a leader does. Sometimes you have to take a stand and get out there and explain that you’re doing something because it’s the right thing to do.

“I expect the Conservatives to change the national anthem for the women of this country. It’s a matter of justice and fairness.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Anthem+debate+right+thing+women+advocates+tell/5833040/story.html#ixzz1goNJLhKX

Times change. The miracle remains the same.

What is World AIDS Day?

World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV,

show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.

Why is World AIDS Day important?

More than 90,000 people are currently living with HIV in the UK and globally an estimated 33.3 million people have HIV. More than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007 have died from the virus, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history.

Today, many scientific advances have been made in HIV treatment, there are laws to protect people living with HIV and we understand so much more about the condition. But despite this, people do not know the facts about how to protect themselves and others from HIV, and stigma and discrimination remain a reality for many people living with HIV. World AIDS Day is important as it reminds the public and Government that HIV has not gone away – there is still a vital need to raise money, increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education.

What should I do on World AIDS Day?

World AIDS Day is an opportunity for you to learn the facts about HIV and put your knowledge into action. If you understand how HIV is transmitted, how it can be prevented, and the reality of living with HIV today – you can use this knowledge to take care of your own health and the health of others, and ensure you treat everyone living with HIV fairly, and with respect and understanding. Click here to find out the facts.

You can also show your support for people living with HIV on World AIDS Day by wearing a red ribbon, the international symbol of HIV awareness.

World AIDS Day is also a great opportunity to raise money for NAT and show your support for people living with HIV. If you feel inspired to hold an event, bake sale or simply sell red ribbons, click here to get started. If you’d like to see what other events are taking place — click here and find out more.

But what about after World AIDS Day?

Although World AIDS Day is a great opportunity to get the public talking about HIV and fundraise, we need to remember the importance of raising awareness of HIV all year round. That’s why NAT has launched HIVaware — a fun, interactive new website which provides all the information everyone should know about HIV. Why not use what you have learnt on World AIDS Day to Act Aware throughout the year and remember, you can fundraise at any time of year too — NAT is always here to give you suggestions and ideas.

BODY/MIND & SOUL – A PLANETARY GUIDE TO HEALTH

URANUS – Part 8

 Now we’ve come to the biggies – the next 3 articles will be about the 3 TRANSPERSONAL PLANETS, starting with Uranus, then in Jan., Neptune, then for Feb., will be Pluto.

It seems like a (Uranus)paradox that these planets are so far out in space & yet have such a powerful influence on our lives, both personally & collectively. Partly it’s because their energy field is so strong & partly because energy knows no boundaries. I like to think of them as Pulsing Waves interacting with the Mother Earth energy, including our human experiences.

Uranus was the first planet discovered that we can’t see with our own eyes. Saturn is the last planet we can physically see & represents the limitations of our physical body. The Ancients called Saturn “The Dweller on the Threshold” & “The Ring-Pass-Not”

Now we will step (or fly) past these limitations & dwell in the realm of Uranus who does not like limitations & is a systems smasher!

Because Uranus takes 84 yr. to go through all 12 signs, each generation born within a 7 yr. period all have Uranus in the same sign. For example, transiting Uranus has been going into Aries from May 28, 2010 until Aug. 14, 2010, retrograded back to Pisces, then went forward into Aries Mar. 12, 2011 & will be there until it finally leaves after tickling Taurus, on Mar. 6, 2019.

Hmm–that means because Uranus will be in Aries for more than 7 yr., it will be in another sign for less than 7yr. in order to stay on the 84 yr. total cycle of return.

The last time Uranus was in Aries was from April, 1927 until it finally left on Mar. 28, 1935 to be in Taurus.

Do those historical years seem like deja-vu?

The people born in those years, who are still alive are now 84 down to 76 yr. old. If we take their peak work years of influence as 35-55 yr. we come to 1962- 82 & the last group reached their peak 1970-90. What was going on from 1962-1990? What was new? What weather disasters were there?

What was happening in countries all over the world?

Remember the Vietnam war & all the protests?

Remember the stock market crash Oct. 29, 1929?

Remember the stock market crash Black Monday Oct. 19, 1987?

Remember the hippie movement?

Remember the Wimmin’s rights struggles?

We can go on & on with each of us having different memory

slices of history, but my point is that the more things change with

Uranus, the more they can seem the same, but I like to think of change as a spiral, not a closed circle going round & round

with no opening opportunities to evolve.

NATURAL & MAN-MADE DISASTERS

Let’s use the earthquake in Japan as an example.

March 11, 2011

Tokyo, Japan

5:46 Greenwich Mean Time,

+9 hr. – 14:46 Japanese Time

Koch House System

MOON – 0 Gemini 08 in 10^th house

          - sextile Mercury 2 Aries 49

          - sextile Uranus 29 Pisces 57

          - square Neptune 29 Aquarius 12

          - quincunx North Node (destiny point) 28 Sagittarius 38

In traditional event astrology when the Moon is in the first few degrees of a sign it indicates just the beginning of the event & the effects will last for quite a while. In this case years. Because the Moon moves about 12-14 degrees in 24hr. that means the Moon was in exact aspect to Uranus, Neptune & North Node just a few minutes previous to the disaster, in late Pisces.

The North Node is also at the Galactic Center which is 26-28 degrees Sagittarius.

Mercury was in exact aspect to Uranus, Neptune & North Node when it was 28-30 degrees Pisces on Mar. 9^th.

There is a stellium (star cluster) in the 8^th house which is ruled by Pluto & Scorpio.

Planets in the Pluto-ruled 8^th house

SUN – 20 Pisces 18

MARS is squeezing the Sun on one side at 12 Pisces 47 &

URANUS is squeezing it on the other side at 29 Pisces 57

Mars & Uranus together are a very dangerous combination which is made even more volatile by the Sun being the Mid-point between these 2.

MERCURY – 2 Aries 49

Planets in the Venus-ruled 7^th house

NEPTUNE 29 Aquarius 12 conjunct CHIRON the wounded healer at 2 Pisces 03.

Neptune here indicates the terrible loss, sorrow & fear of losing loved ones along with the incredible empathy & hard work of the volunteer survivors, along with Chiron where we know whole communities of people will never totally heal from this terrible experience.

SATURN which rules Capricorn & the 10^th house (Pluto – 7 Capricorn 17 & the 10^th house where the Moon is placed), is in the 3^rd house of all forms of communication & information. All the communication systems, along with the infrastructure were demolished & I understand there were Saturn delays in informing the world along with mis-information about the seriousness of the nuclear plant disaster.

SATURN – 15 Libra 38r trine Venus 10 Aquarius 49 pre-cuspal conjunct 7^th house (Uranus rules Aquarius)

             - oppose Jupiter 10 Aries 08 in the 9^th house of International

Aid & higher education. E.g. -  Many countries are re-thinking their nuclear energy policies & some have put a moratorium on building more of these monsters.

             - widely square Pluto 7 Capricorn 17

             - quincunx Mars 12 Pisces 47

             - sextile Ascendent in Leo

All the planets were involved in this natural & man-made disaster but I’ll just recap the major ones.

SATURN asks the questions (3^rd house) How are we the people responsible & how prepared are we when we live in an earthquake zone? What do we use to warn us of an earthquake graph indicator, when our buildings & communication centers fail, when we can’t use transportation to reach people.

Saturn asks the question of who is responsible for knowingly allowing a nuclear power plant to be built on a fault line?

Can we rebuild from the foundations up? How many buildings were earthquake- proofed? When are we globally going to learn & how long will it take?

Remember – URANUS (along with Aquarius & the 11^th house) have rulership over LARGE GROUPS with specialized knowledge & interests, along with the friendships with people of the same group with the same interests. This can create tunnel vision & an aversion or indifference to “outsiders”, because Uranus also represents INDIVIDUALS who are futuristic Prophets who often feel that they are “crying out in the wilderness” because they don’t follow the “collective party line” & TRY TO WARN US. These people have their Third Eye open & can conceptualize or “see” what’s coming.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: when we don’t understand the past, we are bound to repeat it.

Saturn rules our karmic inheritance & its’ metal is LEAD.

URANUS RULES EARTHQUAKES, ELECTRICITY & ANY SUDDEN VOLATILE EVENTS, INCLUDING (ALONG WITH MARS) EXPLOSIONS.

Its’ metals are URANIUM & POLONIUM

It also rules the technology of the power plant & brings an awareness of how dependent we’ve become on modern technology & the risks we take with Mother Nature & the Laws of the Universe. Uranus is always a wake-up call for us to become more aware, more enlightened; to find creative solutions to our dilemmas.

NEPTUNE RULES FLOODING & TSUNAMIS. (IT ALSO RULES

OIL SPILLS & toxic waste in our rivers, lakes & oceans)

It symbolizes secretive cabals who create fear & chaos as a weapon.

I’m not sure what metal Neptune rules but one of my books suggest it may be STRONTIUM. I do know that anything carried far distances by water or clouds belong to Neptune.

What the earthquake didn’t destroy, the tsunami did.

A lot more people may have been saved if they didn’t also have to experience the massive power of tons of water mowing down everything in its’ path.

Recently a massive conglomeration of wreckage has been spotted on the ocean & the tons & tons of it are heading toward the west coast of Canada & the U.S. & is expected to reach our shores in a few weeks or months.

Neptune represents our spiritual beliefs when we pray “please forgive us, for we know not what we do”

I also pray that those who find some of the debris treat it with dignity & respect.

PLUTO RULES PLUTONIUM & NUCLEAR WASTE. IT RULES

PERMANENT CHANGE THAT CAN TRANSFORM BY RISING OUT

OF THE ASHES. IT ALSO RULES PLUTOCRATS, POWER STRUGGLES

& AN AWARENESS OF WHAT WE ARE LEAVING TO THE NEXT GENERATIONS AS AN INHERITANCE.

Pluto can symbolize extremes, including the extreme trauma of living through terrible events in Uranian shock, which later leaves mental, physical & emotional despair, along with survivor’s guilt & permanent scars.

Pluto can represent those who live at close quarters with death, or who have a near-death experience & come back to this life.

My Pluto conjunct Mercury can see an even higher incidence of cancer coming & even more babies being born with physical Disabilities due to radioactive fall-out. Pluto rules our genetic inheritance.

My teacher Toula, nearly 30 yr. ago, taught me a bit of Occult Chemistry in relation to astrology & life itself.

It’s called CHON & is important in relation to this chart, as all the ANGLES (based on the time of the event) contain these building/destroying elements of life.

CARBON – belongs to Fixed Water Scorpio – 4^th house cusp

HYDROGEN – belongs to Fixed Fire Leo – Ascendent

OXYGEN – belongs to Fixed Air Aquarius – 7^th house cusp

NITROGEN – belongs to Fixed Earth Taurus – Midheaven

As you can see, when I write about each planet separately, I knowingly take them out of context, in each chart I use as individual wimmin’s samples, but in the case of mass events, especially this one, I can’t do that.

Let’s move on to some Uranus meanings in our personal lives as individuals, along with a few Uranian health issues.

SOME URANUS HEALTH ISSUES

Being struck by lightning

Nervous Breakdown

Nervous twitching or tremors

Organ transplants

Tetanus

Physical abnormalities

Accidents & accompanying shock

Adultery

Startle reflex

Spasmodic pains

Ailments of calves & ankles

Epilepsy

Electrolytes imbalance

Colonic spasms

Zinc depletion

Alienation

Suicide or suicidal thoughts

Aberrent behaviour

Repetitive compulsive disorders

Emphysema (also Mercury)

Refugees – incredible stress of leaving everything to come to a different culture & often a different language.

Wild animal attack

Hearing aids

Caisson disease – this is a condition divers develop after coming to the surface with a too rapid reduction of air pressure following exposure to compressed air. Nitrogen bubbles in the tissue spaces & small blood vessels.

The treatment involves recompression then slow decompression in a special chamber. (quote from my medical dictionary)

Because Uranus rules inventors, composers & electronic music, & unusual, even controversial careers & weirdly wonderful beliefs

I had an exciting time researching wimmin in all these categories – what a cornucopia!

I am amazed at all the exciting wimmin I found but, as usual, not all of them give their birthdays, but I found more than I’ll be able do for this article.

This month we have 1 inventor, 1 composer, & 1 Civil Rights politician.

THE INVENTOR IS – TA DA!!

PATRICIA BATH

Born Nov. 4, 1942

Harlem, New York

Time unknown

MOON – MID-DEGREES VIRGO

NEPTUNE – 1 Libra 05

NORTH NODE – 1 Virgo 43

MARS – 1 Scorpio 50

URANUS – 3 Gemini 25

PLUTO – 7 Leo 15

VENUS – 8 Scorpio 10

SUN – 11 Scorpio

SATURN – 11 Gemini 07r

JUPITER – 25 Cancer 08

MERCURY – 27 Libra 30

CHIRON – 27 Leo 50

As you may not know, when I sit down to write my articles, I’ve done a lot of research, picked the charts I want to do, & have a rough idea of what I’ll write, but I write as I type in that moment & study the charts as I put them up on the screen. So sometimes when I look at the birth data, I’m as pleased or surprised as you may be.

When I look at Patricia’s chart I’m surprised that she’s not as Uranian as I thought she’d be, but very much more  Plutonian. If we knew her birth time we could see if she has any planets in the 11^th house, or maybe Aquarius on the Ascendent or Midheaven, or even Uranus on one of her angles.

Let’s go ahead with her chart anyway.

Patricia is a (Pluto) opthamologist & invented the Laserphaco Probe which is used around the world (Uranus) to treat eye cataracts (Sun).

Pluto also rules Laser beams.

Her Uranus is trine Neptune, square North Node & quincunx Mars in Scorpio.

Patricia’s father was an immigrant from Trinidad who became the first black man to work as a motorman on the New York Subway, & both her parents encouraged her to get a good education.

While still in high school she won a National Science Scholarship which she used to do a research project on cancer which aroused her interest in medicine. In 1960, when she was only 18 she won the Merit Award by Mademoiselle mag. for her part in the project. She graduated from Hunter College in 1964 with a B.A. in chemistry & then moved on to university in Washington, D.C. where she received her doctoral degree in 1968. While Patricia was there she was president of the Student National Medical Association & received 2 fellowships.

She was a fellow at Columbia University & interned at Harlem Hospital Center where she became aware that racial minorities & poor people received less care & they had higher numbers of blindness.

As a physician she was able to persuade her professors from Columbia to operate on blind persons at Harlem Hospital Center for free. (Uranus).

Patricia – quote -“pioneered the world-wide discipline of community (Uranus) ophthalmology, a volunteer-based (Uranus) outreach to bring necessary eye-care to underserved populations.”

She was the first African-American to serve a residency in her field of ophthalmology which she did at New York University from 1970-73.

Patricia’s career has been stellar & varied, nearly always being the first womin & she retired from UCLA in 1993 & then was elected to be the first womin on their honorary staff. She has lectured internationally (Jupiter) & written more than 100 papers.

PATENTED INVENTIONS

Patricia registered 3 of 4 patents in 1988 for her Laserphaco Probe which she conceived & developed (Uranus genius) from 1981 & makes her the first (again!) African American female doctor to receive a medical-use patent. The device quickly dissolves the cararact with a laser, irrigates & cleans the eye, & permits easy insertion of a new lens. She keeps improving her invention & has successfully restored sight to many people, from all over the globe who have been unable to see for up to decades.

In 2000 her 4^th patent was granted for a method she devised for using ultrasound technology (Uranus) to treat cataracts.

I couldn’t find anything about her private (with secretive Scorpio, Pluto -what could I expect) life but whenever a biography doesn’t include that bit, my Sun in Cancer is disappointed & my Venus in Gemini curiosity is thwarted!

The next chart is of the composer

JENNIFER HIGDON

Born Dec.31, 1962

Brooklyn, New York

Time unknown

MOON – EARLY TO MID DEGREES PISCES

URANUS – 5 Virgo 06

SUN – 8 Capricorn 54

JUPITER – 9 Pisces

SATURN – 9 Aquarius 52

PLUTO – 12 Virgo o5r

NEPTUNE – 15 Scorpio 04

MARS – 24 Leo 35r

VENUS – 24 Scorpio 50

MERCURY – 28 Capricorn

NORTH NODE – 29 Cancer 43

Jennifer’s family moved to Atlanta until she was 10, then moved to Tennessee. She taught herself (Uranus trine Sun) to play flute in the high school concert band. She knew very little about classical music until college, where she studied flute performance at Bowling Green state university & played in their orchestra. She there met the teacher of a conducting course, Robert Spano who became a strong supporter of Jennifer’s compositions in the American orchestral community.

Jennifer says “ Because I came to classical music very differently (Uranus) than most people, the newer stuff had more appeal for me than the older” (Saturn in Aquarius)

Jennifer’s music has been performed by more than 150 conductors & she taught Hilary Hahn. She has an Artists Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music along with a Masters & Doctoral degree in composition from the University of Pennsylvania.

I mainly associate classical music with Cancer & Capricorn traditions, & as we see Jennifer has her Sun & Mercury in Capricorn along with her Nodal axis – Cancer-Capricorn

Her genius in composing newer forms of classical music is indicated by her Uranus trine Sun, opposing Jupiter/Moon & quincunx Saturn in

the Uranus ruled sign.

She also has the dedication, self-discipline & need for order & structure indicated by her mind being in careful, goal-oriented Capricorn, along with the passion, depth & will of her Venus in Scorpio. She is a free-spirited, joyful, creatively flowing womin with a very intent, committed, serious side & the ability to inspire so much respect for her compositions that she has seen them manifested (Earth Element) by hundreds of orchestras & conductors.

Jennifer teaches composition at the Curtis Institute & has served as Composer-in Residence for so many Orchestras

I can’t name them all. I will mention one in particular as it is a piece she wrote called “blue cathedral”, which is a one-movement tone poem in honour of the death of her brother from cancer.

It is one of the most performed modern orchestral works by a living composer & has been performed by over 200 orchestras since it debuted in 2000!!

Her music has been described as displaying a freedom of form, intense dynamic changes & dense structures. Are we surprised?

Of course not.

SOME AWARDS & GRANTS (again, too numerous to mention all, but we know her prolific, public awards & many accolades are some indication by her Jupiter conjunct Moon! My head is whirling & very impressed with her wonderful energy, talent & teaching abilities, along with all her public recognition.

GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

2 AWARDS FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF

ARTS & LETTERS

2010 GRAMMY FOR BEST CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL

COMPOSITION

2010 PULITZER PRIZE FOR HER VIOLIN CONCERTO

Jennifer & her life-partner Cheryl Lawson have known each other since high school.

The next chart for us to study is of Barbara Jordan who was a Civil-Rights politician.

BARBARA JORDAN

Born Feb.21, 1936,

Houston, Texas

Time unknown

MOON – Mid to late Aquarius

SUN – 2 Pisces

URANUS – 2 Taurus 18

MERCURY – 5 Aquarius 40

SATURN – 11 Pisces 31

NORTH NODE – 11 Capricorn 40

CHIRON – 11 Gemini

NEPTUNE – 15 Virgo 46

JUPITER – 20 Sagittarius

PLUTO – 25 Cancer 34

VENUS – 29 Capricorn 40

MARS – 29 Pisces 40

Uranus sextiles Sun, squares Mercury & out-of-sign Venus, along with out-of-sign semi-sextile to Mars.

The ruler of Aquarius is her Mercury mind & thinking.

She also has her Moon in Uranus-ruled Aquarius, which probably quincunxes her Neptune & Pluto, sextile Jupiter.

Barbara graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern University in 1956, with a double major in political science & history & while there was a national champion debater, defeating many universities. She then went on to graduate in 1959 from Boston University School of Law.

Barbara was a leader of the Civil Rights movement & was the first African-American to be elected, in 1966, to the Texas Senate since 1883. She was re-elected & served until 1972. when she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives & was the first southern black womin to do so. Former President Lyndon Johnson supported her & was influential in securing her on a seat of the House Judiciary Committee, where, in 1974 she made a televised speech supporting the impeachment of President Nixon.

In 1976 she became the first African-American womin to make the key-note speech at the Democratic National Convention, in support of Jimmy Carter. That speech was  rated 5^thin the Top 100 American Speeches of the 20^th Century List.

Barbara was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis – a chronic, slowly progressive disease – Saturn, of the central nervous system – Mercury & Uranus) in 1973 & eventually had to use a cane, then a wheelchair.

She so successfully hid her illness, even from the press, that Bill Clinton wanted to nominate her for the U.S. Supreme Court but her disease prevented him from following through on her nomination.

She supported the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 Legislation that required banks to provide services & lend money to poor & minority people.

She retired from politics in 1979, & became an adjunct professor teaching ethics (Jupiter) at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (Uranus) attached to the University of Texas. In 1992 she again gave  the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

From 1994 until her death in 1996, she chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform that called for increased limits on immigration, advocated that all U.S. citizens should carry a national identity card & to increase the penalties on all employers who violated U.S. Immigration policies, to tighten border security & to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. President Clinton endorsed these proposals. Quote from Barbara “It is both a right & a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest”

I admit I was surprised at her hard-line stance as it doesn’t seem very Uranian/Aquarian to me, but maybe it was coming from her Venus in Capricorn opposition to Pluto/South Node in Cancer.

She was using Saturn/Capricorn keywords & ideas.

So – what do you think?

I do know that her Venus as love opposing Pluto as intensely private helps to explain why Barbara was never publicly open about being lesbian, even though she was with her life-partner for nearly 30 yr. She met Nancy Earl on a camping trip in the 1960s . Nancy was an educational psychologist & sometime speech writer. After 2 unsuccessful statewide races for the Texas House of Representatives in 1962 & 1964, Barbara was advised to not bring any female partners on the campaign trail.

SOME AWARDS & HONOURS

1993 – Elizabeth Blackwell Award

1994 – Presidential Medal of Freedom

Both the Texas & National Women’s Hall of Fame. Some schools & an International airport terminal are named after her.

University of Texas press collection of her papers.

Kaiser Family Foundation fellowships in her name awarded to African-American students as a summer experience Working in a congressional office.

After Barbara passed away Jan. 17, 1996 of pneumonia, she was buried in the Texas state cemetery in Austin & was the first black womin to be buried there.

One posthumous accolade of Barbara, who was known as an advocate of (mostly) progressive politics is the Jordan/Ruskin Coalition formed in 2000. They encourage gay & lesbian African-Americans to promote marriage equality in the state of California, to empower GLBT individuals & familiesin Greater Los Angeles & to promote fair treatment of everyone, regardless of their race, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Before finishing this month’s article I just got the thought of consulting my ephemeris for the transits of the year Barbara was diagnosed with MS. I don’t know the actual date.

1973 TRANSITS

PLUTO – 4 Libra 46 – 1 Libra 40 then direct up to 6 Libra 48

            quincunx Sun 2 Pisces & quincunx Uranus 2 Taurus 18

            then trine Mercury 5 Aquarius 40

NEPTUNE – 6 Sag. 14 – 4 Sag.40 then direct up to 8 Sag. 18

            sextile Mercury 5 Aquarius 40

URANUS – 22 Libra 44 – 18 Libra 56 then up to 27 Libra 18

            possibly trine Moon in Aquarius,

            sextile Jupiter 20 Sag. 52,

            square Pluto 25 Cancer 34

            approaching the square in 1974 to Venus at 29 Capricorn 40

SATURN – 13 Gemini 38 – 30 Gemini then Aug. 1^st into Cancer

While it was in Gemini it opposed Jupiter 20 Sag. 52

             & possibly trined her Moon in Aquarius

from 0 to 4 Cancer 45

             trine Sun 2 Pisces

             sextile Uranus 2 Taurus 18

             approaching quincunx to Mercury 5 Aquarius 40

When Barbara died, transiting Pluto was exactly squaring her Sun, Neptune was exactly opposing her Pluto, Saturn was exactly squaring her Jupiter & Jupiter was squaring her Uranus.

I always watch Dancing With The Stars as I used to be a ballroom dancer & still love to watch it. The season finale just ended, as I’m

ending my article. I hope you all find something to enjoy during  these tumultuous times & may the Goddess protect us!

Next month I’ll be writing about Neptune.      Much Love,  Mare

Posted 11/15/2011 4:47 PM by Brian Jacks

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Tegan and Sara, courtesy Lindsey Byrnes/ Warner Bros. Records

Canadian indie darlings Tegan and Sara have enjoyed over a decade’s worth of success, so it’s not surprising that we’re now seeing the release of "Get Along," a DVD/CD combo that offers fans two mini-documentaries and a 70-minute intimate career-spanning performance (the album includes 15 of those live tracks).

The first film showcases the band’s early beginnings and their impressive musical journey that has resulted in legions of dedicated fans, touring sets with acts like Neil Young, Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer, Ben Folds and Paramore, and memorable offerings like "Walking with a Ghost" that was ultimately covered by the White Stripes (although personally, I much preferred T&S’s original version).

But it’s the second film that we’ll draw your attention to, since we have the whole thing streaming below for free. Entitled simply "India," the half-hour mini-doc follows the pair on their first-ever tour of India, and combines interviews with the twins with fan/friends/family commentary as we get an up-close-and-personal view of life on the road in a foreign land.

Check it out below, and then pick up "Get Along" via Teganandsara.com or iTunes.

… It’s a celebration of the sport and the young women who play the game!

The Wickenheiser International Women’s Hockey Festival in its second year . Held in beautiful Burnaby, British Columbia this festival is different than any international female tournament before. The Festival is an event where young women can engage in world-class competition; make friends from around the world; improve their hockey skills and learn from one of the world’s best – Hayley Wickenheiser – who was involved in all aspects of the on and off-ice event for the duration.

Over the course of four days, over 1,000+ players competed and connect ed while building positive female hockey experiences across all levels.

 MEDIA RELEASE

November 21, 2011

Young Women Gained Skills, Played Competitively and Learned From Sports Greats such as Hayley Wickenheiser, Pat Quinn and Mason Raymond

Over 1,000 young women from across Canada, the U.S. converged in Burnaby, B.C. to participate in the second annual Wickenheiser International Women’s Hockey Festival. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete and learn from the some of the most elite athletes, sports personalities and trainers in the world took place from November 18 – November 21 at Burnaby 8 Rinks in British Columbia.

A total of 64 teams across 10 of divisions competed in the tournament in addition to attending the off-ice clinics and presentations.

 “I hope that the young women who participated in this event really left here with a sense of ‘why not me?’ And that they can do anything they set their minds to,” says Hayley Wickenheiser, three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Special guests at the festival included Olympians and Wickenheiser’s teammate, Bobbi-Jo Slusar and Olympic swimmer, Annamay Pierse. Highly regarded coaches, scouts and trainers such as Mel Davidson, Syl Corbett and Kelsey Andries held sessions that addressed everything from coaching techniques to interactive footwork for players.

A special guest appearance was made by Vancouver Canucks superstar, Mason Raymond. Hayley also hosted former NHL coach Pat Quinn and his daughter Kalli in a ‘Fireside Chat’ that gave attendees an intimate chance to hear about the Quinn’s take on the parent/coach dynamic as well as many other topics.

The event was also used as a scouting venue for some of the top female hockey scouts.

“The opportunity that our girls have with the totally inclusive approach where our girls can play great hockey, but also learn from the best of the best off the ice too, is phenomenal,” said Moe Velji, who’s daughter plays for the Burnaby Wildcats, the partner minor hockey association to the festival.

The event does more than just provide opportunity for the 1,000+ young women both on and off the ice, but also helps raise awareness and funds for two organizations very near and dear to Wickenheiser – Right To Play and KidSport BC.