Via JMG: Obama Jokes On Daily Show: I'm Issuing Executive Order That Stewart Must Stay

The Guardian reports:

Barack Obama mocked foes, talked up his legacy and teased Jon Stewart in a nostalgic final appearance as president on The Daily Show, providing a bittersweet farewell for the old sparring partners. “I can’t believe you’re leaving before me,” Obama told his host, who is due to retire in two weeks after 16 years in the Comedy Central hot seat. “I’m going to issue an executive order: Jon Stewart cannot leave the show. It’s being challenged in the courts.”

The two men bantered on Tuesday night’s show over Iran, Donald Trump, lost opportunities and the “Hope” posters – gentle jabs rather than blows that yielded a fond, affectionate coda to the satirical news show’s prickly relationship with the president. Obama joked that critics of the Iran nuclear deal seemed to think that “if you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations everything would be fine”.

Stewart, who reflected liberals’ initial euphoria and later disappointment with the Obama era, noted his guest’s recent run of victories: “It appears that you’re feeling it a little bit right now. Do you feel like seven years in …” “I know what I’m doing,” Obama interrupted. “A lot of the work that we did early starts bearing fruit late. The way I’m feeling right now is, I’ve got 18 months.” He vowed to tackle climate change and fuel-efficiency standards before leaving.

Labels: Barack Obama, Daily Show, Jon Stewart

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: STUDY: HIV Transmission Is Virtually Zero For Patients "Reliably" Taking Their Meds

Via the Charlotte News & Observer:

Groundbreaking research conducted at UNC-Chapel Hill has demonstrated that potent drug cocktails can disable HIV to the point that the deadly virus can’t be transmitted to other people through sexual activity. The findings were announced Monday by AIDS researcher Myron Cohen at the eigth International AIDS Society Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Cohen, UNC’s chief of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, has headed the global research project for a decade and studied more than 1,700 couples.

The landmark study, financed with more than $100 million in federal research grants, confirmed initial results reported in 2011 and demonstrated that AIDS medications known as antiretroviral therapy, or ART, can suppress the virus for years. The virus can reemerge if the patient stops taking the medicine, but as long as it’s suppressed, the virus essentially is harmless and most patients can lead normal, healthy lives. “If people are taking their pills reliably and they’re taking them for some period of time, the probability of transmission in this study is actually zero,” Cohen said by phone from Vancouver. “Let me say it another way: We never saw a case of HIV transmission in a person who is stably suppressed on ART.”

The researchers stressed that they are not advocating unprotected sex for those taking anti-retrovirals.

Labels: HIV, HIV/AIDS, medicine, science

Reposted from Joe Jervis

The Muppets - First Look Presentation

Today's Daily Dharma: Not Always So

Not Always So

Once we notice the preconceptions that we are carrying around with us, then it is possible for us to let them go and say, "Well, maybe so, maybe not." Suzuki Roshi once said, "The essence of Zen is "Not always so."Not always so. It's a good little phrase to carry around when you're sure. It gives you an opportunity to look again more carefully and see what other possibilities there might be in the situation.   - Zenkei Blanche Hartman, "The Zen of Not Knowing"

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Today's Daily Dharma: True Seeing

True Seeing

It seems to me that the advice of the Buddha was not to change how you think about things so that you?re happy and content with them as they are, but rather to see things as they are.   - Richard K. Payne, "Brief Teachings Summer 2015"

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Via JMG: PETITION: Turn NYC's Christopher Park Into Nation's First LGBT National Park

 

The petition is here.

Labels: LGBT History, NYC, Stonewall Rebellion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

The Huffington Post: Thomas Roberts Becomes First Openly Gay Evening News Anchor On Network TV

 Thomas Roberts anchored NBC's "Nightly News" on Saturday, a huge milestone for both the 42-year-old journalist's career and gay rights history.

Until the broadcast, an openly gay person had never anchored the nightly news on network TV. Roberts told The Advocate that it was a "huge honor" to fill the role. 

During the week, Roberts hosts "MSNBC Live With Thomas Roberts." 

There are a few openly gay evening news anchors on cable TV -- MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, CNN's Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon -- but Roberts is the first for one of the big three networks.

Watch the historic broadcast

Via JMG: LOUISIANA: Married Gay Man Denied Communion At His Mother's Funeral

Via the New Orleans Advocate:

Tim Ardillo said he was standing next to his mother’s coffin leading his young son to receive a blessing when the priest presiding over the funeral Mass denied him communion. The longtime Catholic said the priest told him it was because he married outside the church, but Ardillo doesn’t think that’s the whole story. He believes he was denied the sacrament because, as is stated in his mother’s obituary, he is married to a man. The priest in question, the Rev. Mark Beard [PHOTO], of St. Helena Catholic Church in Amite, did not return multiple calls seeking comment in the week following the July 10 funeral. Ardillo said the church passed out a quotation from 1 Corinthians at Mass the next Sunday, which states, in a portion highlighted in red ink, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks in judgment of himself.”

Ardillo says he has gotten an apology from the Diocese of Baton Rouge and from the Archbishop of New Orleans. (Tipped by JMG reader Ken)

 

Labels: Catholic Church, Louisiana, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

The Baha'i Faith is Homophobic: Compilation: Concerning issues related to homosexuality

Compilation: Concerning issues related to homosexuality

 

Click here to Download the Document Prepared by the Office of Community Administration for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 20/07/2015

“Por conta da repressão e dos traumas de exclusão, humilhação e abandono, a criança cria mecanismos de defesa que servem para protegê-la da dor, mas que a desconectam da sua verdadeira identidade. Com isso, ela se torna carente daquilo que é a sua própria essência. Na maioria das vezes a única maneira que ela encontra de suprir essa carência é tirando energia do outro, ou seja, invalidando e colocando o outro para baixo. Quando o outro se sente menos, ela se sente forte. Isso é o que tenho chamado de círculo vicioso do sadomasoquismo, uma doença coletiva gerada pelo rompimento com a essência, com fonte que é o coração - a fonte que é o amor.”

“Por causa de la represión y de los traumas de exclusión, humillación y abandono, el niño crea mecanismos de defensa que sirven para protegerse del dolor, pero que lo desconectan de su verdadera identidad. Con esto, él se vuelve carente de aquello que es su propia esencia. La mayoría de las veces, la única manera que encuentra de suplir esta carencia es sacando energía del otro, es decir, invalidando y poniendo al otro por abajo. Cuando el otro se siente menos, él se siente fuerte. Esto es lo que vengo llamando círculo vicioso del sadomasoquismo, una enfermedad colectiva generada por la ruptura con la esencia, con la fuente que es el corazón - la fuente que es el amor.”

“Due to repression and the traumas of exclusion, humiliation and abandonment, children create defense mechanisms to protect themselves from pain. These mechanisms disconnect them from their true identity. As a result, they become needy for their own essence. Oftentimes, the only way children can make up for this neediness is by robbing the other’s energy, which happens by invalidating the other and putting them down. When the other feels less than, the child feels stronger. This is what I call the vicious cycle of sadomasochism. It is a collective disease generated by the split with our true essence and the Source. The Source is our heart and love.”

Today's Daily Dharma: Religion Resurrected

Religion Resurrected

If we allow religion to be identified exclusively with a particular form that it took in the past, something that will always be inadequate to the present, we fail to take our own moment in time seriously and surrender the opportunity for renewal and reform.   - Dale S. Wright, "Religion Resurrected"

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Via WGB: Most Republican and Christian business owners believe it’s wrong to turn away LGBTI customers

Two-thirds of small business owners from across the political spectrum oppose discrimination against gay people in US – but one in three still believe it’s OK.

The survey’s main findings were as follows:

55% of Republican small businesses and 62% of Christian small business owners oppose denying goods or services based on an owner’s religious beliefs.

• Eight in 10 entrepreneurs support a federal law to protect LGBT individuals against discrimination in public accommodations, such as restaurants, hotels and other businesses that are open to the public. Nearly half (47%) strongly favor a federal law banning this type of discrimination. Twenty per cent were opposed to any such federal law.

• Sixty per cent believed it to be wrong for a business owner to fire someone for being LGBT, while 40% believed it was acceptable. Full story here!

Orginal here (NSFW) 

Via JMG: Evil Alabama Mother Still Won't Let Dead Son's Husband Have His Estate

Remember Patricia Fancher, the evil Alabama mother who hired the Foundation For Moral Law to petition SCOTUS to keep her former son-in-law, Paul Hard, from inheriting his dead husband's estate? Despite the Obergefell ruling, she is still fighting. From the FML's executive director Matthew Kidd:

"The issue is not whether someone may marry a member of the same sex today. The issue is whether a court may or should look back four years and recognize a marriage that was not legally valid. Of course, if the marriage is recognized it will only cause further economic harm to a family which has already lost one its own. And if recognized, this man will be awarded an entire spousal share of the wrongful death proceeds which would be unjust even under normal circumstances considering the two were 'married' less than 3 months."

From FML president Kayla Moore, wife of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore:

"It is outrageous that five unelected lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court think they can invalidate a constitutional amendment adopted by 81% of Alabama voters in 2006, on the flimsy ground that violates a so-called 'right' found nowhere in the Constitution. It adds insult to injury to contend that this so-called 'right' should be applied retroactively to matters that should have been settled long ago."

Back in November 2014 the Social Security Administration advised Paul Hard that since he and his late husband were not married "under the laws of Alabama," he is not eligible for federal death benefits. In February 2015, when same-sex marriage first became legal in Alabama, Paul Hard was granted an amended death certificate declaring him to have been the legal spouse of his late husband. That's when Hard's evil former mother-in-law employed the FML in an attempt to thwart Hard's receipt of his share of the settlement in a wrongful death suit filed following his late husband's car accident. According to yesterday's press release, the FML is now claiming that Obergefell does not retroactively apply to unsettled legal actions. Not incidentally, the FML openly advocates for replacing the government of the United States with a Christian theocracy ruled by "biblical law."

Labels: Alabama, Christianists, disgusting, evil, Foundation For Moral Law, hate groups, Kayla Moore, Obergefell, religion, Roy Moore

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me

Via WAMU: Mirabai Bush — Search Inside Yourself: Contemplation in Life and Work

 

Search Inside Yourself: Contemplation in Life and Work

 

She works at an emerging 21st century intersection of industry, social healing, and diverse contemplative practices. Raised Catholic with Joan of Arc as her hero, Mirabai Bush is one of the people who brought Buddhism to the West from India in the 1970s. She is called in to work with educators and judges, social activists and soldiers. She helped create Google’s popular employee program, Search Inside Yourself. Mirabai Bush’s life tells a fascinating narrative of our time: the rediscovery of contemplative practices, in many forms and from many traditions, in the secular thick of modern culture.

http://onbeing.org/program/mirabai-bush-search-inside-yourself-contemplation-in-life-and-work/7731

Via Daily Kos: Hilarious Letter To The Editor

by DbugFollow

This appeared in todays Forum in Fargo, ND, reprinted from the Wishek ND Star and Ashley ND Tribune, about several items from the recent news:
Letter: High court goes gay; GOP frets.

Here are a couple of quotes. But really you should click on the link above to read the whole thing. I think it's very funny and well-written.

Bobby Jindal, one of 666 Republicans seeking the nomination for president, said, “If we want to save some money, let’s just get rid of the court.” Presumably after conservatives dump the EPA, IRS and other troublesome letters of the alphabet. Ted Cruz called it, “the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.” The. Darkest. Day. Ever. Worse than Pearl Harbor, 9/11, JFK’s assassination, or the day the Baha Men released “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

I don’t blame Republicans for being upset. If Americans no longer have the freedom to discriminate on the basis of their personal beliefs, well, what is this world coming to? It’s not like this is a Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960. Still, I see a silver lining in the apocalyptic cloud. With American ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit, we can turn lemons into ... Mike’s Hard Lemonade and get really plastered. No! No! That’s not it, although that’s not a bad idea.

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 18/07/2015

“Máscaras são mecanismos de defesa criados para nos proteger da dor dos traumas da infância, e que podem ser identificados através de sintomas como ansiedade, depressão, angústia, vergonha, além de compulsões e vícios. Quando começamos a bater na porta da verdade, as estruturas das máscaras começam a se romper. Esse não é um processo fácil porque tudo que conhecíamos até então estava atrelada a isso. Nós começamos a perder as referências e a entrar em contato com aspectos da natureza inferior que desconhecíamos. Inicia-se uma séria mas bendita crise, pois é através dela que a transformação é possível.”

“ Las máscaras son mecanismos de defensa creados para protegernos del dolor de los traumas de la infancia, y que pueden ser identificados a través de síntomas como ansiedad, depresión, angustia, vergüenza, además de compulsiones y vicios. Cuando empezamos a golpear en la puerta de la verdad, las estructuras de las máscaras comienzan a romperse. Este no es un proceso fácil, porque todo lo que conocíamos hasta entonces estaba ligado a esto. Empezamos a perder las referencias y a entrar en contacto con aspectos de la naturaleza inferior que desconocíamos. Se inicia una seria pero bendita crisis, ya que es a través de ella que la transformación es posible.”

“Masks are the defense mechanisms we created in order to protect ourselves from the pain of childhood traumas. Anxiety, depression, anguish, shame, compulsions, and addictions are the symptoms we can observe to help us identify our masks. When we begin to knock on the door of the truth, the structures of our masks begin to fall apart. This is not an easy process because, up until this moment, everything we knew was dependent on these masks. We start to lose our reference points and we get in touch with unknown aspects of our lower nature. A serious yet blessed crisis begins to unfold, as this crisis is what allows for transformation to occur.”

Today's Daily Dharma: Facing Impermanence

Facing Impermanence

Change is continuous in spite of our efforts to resist it. We begin to realize that we do not have any way to stop it or to slow it down. The more we try, the more we suffer. But there is a way to let go, to break this cycle of suffering. We can slow down and have a closer look at our experience of it. When we have a look, we begin to realize what we have been doing, and the whole enterprise begins to feel more and more dubious. It becomes more difficult to hide from what in our hearts we know to be true?the fact of impermanence.   -  Judy Lief, "Letting Go"

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Favor vota Não! / Please vote no! Uma violenta campanha homofóbica!Favor entrar no site abaixo e votar sobre a definição de familia.

Assunto: Uma violenta campanha homofóbica!

Amigos e amigas

Está correndo na internet esta mensagem:

A Câmara dos Deputados está promovendo uma enquete querendo saber se:

"Você concorda com a definição de família como núcleo formado a partir da união entre homem e mulher, prevista no projeto que cria o Estatuto da Família?" Vote sim. E divulgue o máximo que puder

http://www2.camara.leg.br/agencia-app/votarEnquete/enquete/101CE64E-8EC3-436C-BB4A-457EBC94DF4E

Vote urgente no sim - em menos de 1 minuto.REPASSE para seus CONTATOS.Podemos votar pelo celular!!Não deixe de votar para preservar o conceito de família.

Às pessoas que me mandaram esta mensagem devolvi o seguinte:

Devagar com o andor que o santo é de barro, amigos e amigas. A definição de família é uma questão muito complexa. A proposta de que se vote "sim" é simplista e não leva a sério as inúmeras facetas da realidade humana e das questões de gênero. Está sendo propugnada por grupos homofóbicos que não têm a menor consideração para com os sentimentos e valores das pessoas homossexuais, como se estas fossem incapazes de demonstrar amor e de educar as crianças que vierem a adotar como seus filhos. Na realidade - a família existente hoje, composta de um homem e uma mulher - tem se revelado um verdadeiro fracasso no amar e no educar seus filhos. Quem é capaz de negar isso? Então uma coisa nada tem a ver com a outra.

Não se deixem condicionar pela campanha homofóbica que se esboça no Brasil hoje. Não deixem que alguém lhes diga como deve votar. Votem com consciência e especialmente com amor para com todas as pessoas - LGBT inclusive - e com consideração para com seus sentimentos. Imagine se você fosse uma destas pessoas e se visse impedida de formar uma família? Não julguemos as pessoas de acordo com as pressuposições e preconceitos de nossa hipócrita sociedade.

Repasso a vocês pedindo-lhes que, ao contrário dos que recomendam os homofóbicos - que estão votando no sim de forma maciça - entrem no link acima e votem no espírito de amor e inclusão que caracteriza a fé cristã mais genuína. Eu já votei NÃO!

Sérgio Marcus Pinto Lopes

(assinatura automática)

Prof. Dr. Sérgio Marcus Pinto Lopes
Tradutor e Intérprete
http://terrafirmetraducoeserevisoes.blogspot.com.br/