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Chris James

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Posts posted by Chris James

  1. For the first time in eight years, the White House has dumped any notice of Gay Pride. President Obama went out of his way to make sure the country knew that government was backing the LBGTQ movement and supporting equal rights...not so that thing we now have as president.

    However, I noted today that the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Labor Department made announcements of support. Good for them and their employees.

  2. I will be the first to admit I am handicapped when it comes to technology. My feeling is that if I need to know something about new technology then all I have to do is ask the eight year old up the street. This story is good news for the handicapped and those who give them a helping hand. I have watched many a wheelchair bound person struggle with ordinary things in life, but this boy is about to make that easier.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/12-year-old-creates-app-for-disabled-people/ar-BBBHSEB?li=AA4Zoy&ocid=spartandhp

     

  3. This is Trump's Amerika, welcome to the nightmare....but then so is this:  https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/05/besty-devos-says-state-funded-schools-can-reject-lgbtq-students/

    I think someone handed Trump a list of ignorant people, and he hired them all. DeVoss, Ben Carson, Jeff Sessions, Rick Perry...not one of them has the brains or the inclination to do the jobs they now hold. I would say impeach Trump just to get rid of these idiots, but then Pence will probably keep them in place. Canada anyone?

  4. Now that Trump has gone soft on Islam, kissing ass across the Middle East this week, I suppose the following is considered acceptable behavior:

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/2-men-in-indonesia-caned-dozens-of-times-for-gay-sex/ar-BBBrpC4?li=BBnbcA1

     

    The foreign excursion currently underway with Trump and his cabal of advisors is a disgusting display of greed, and how the New Amerika will embrace anyone for a dollar. No matter that Saudi interests have funded ISIS from the beginning, all is now forgiven because...because ISIS is evil just like Iran.

    The new ignorance in this foreign policy is astounding. Indonesia needs to feel the pressure of an economic boycott, and besides, they make lousy clothing for the American market. But their version of Sharia law is dead set against homosexual behavior between adults while they manage to overlook their huge market in child sex. 

    Can't touch a woman before marriage but you can have all the anal rape of boys you want. This is not uncommon in Muslim countries, just ask a soldier returned from Afghanistan. The hypocrisy of this New Amerika, a supposed Christian nation, turning a blind eye to human rights violations propagated in Islamic countries is disgusting. This week is just another nail in Trump's coffin. 

  5. The United States is for sale, at least with the present Trumpian business model. I can't get over people thinking Trump is a great businessman. Six bankruptcies to cover his ass and the loss of millions of dollars of other people's money. Is this what he has planned for our country?

    On a darker note: the U.S. State Department is denying visas to Chechen gay men trying to avoid kidnapping and murder. (article on Buzzfeed) All the while Jared Kushner and his company are selling visas for half a million to Chinese individuals in their touring revival show aimed at businessmen with too much money. Trump has his fingerprints all over this one.

     

  6. Investigations on the release of this ransomware are underway, and once again the fingers seem to be pointed at North Korea. It will take some months  for the results, as reported in the New York Times.

    Just what NK hopes to create with all this is unclear, but as the experts warn it is not over yet.

    Economic sanctions over missile launchings and nuke tests don't seem to work against a regime that doesn't care if its people starve to death. Dictators rarely care about anything but themselves, especially when other rogue nations like Iran support them.

    To further isolate NK perhaps there is a way to terminate their access to the world wide web and kill their internet. The NK government is already blocking average users in country from most of the web, leaving only the localized propaganda channel. I'm sure it can be done even if there are no laws allowing it.

    The situation with NK is already out of hand so either we nuke their internet now or wait until real nukes become necessary to terminate the threat. The buffoon in charge of NK makes all these threats, launches missiles, and claims he is going to nuke America. How long are we going to allow this behavior?  

  7. I have no idea what piano he uses. We can see them in his performance videos, but what he uses in recording could be different. I am sure he specifies a type and brand when he tours and the venue provides the instrument. In this image, can you just imagine the Steinway people asking..."You want a piano delivered where???" 

     

  8.  

    For some reason, the pick made by Mike for this month's story page: My Name Is Eli, has brought me a good deal of mail. In the story I wrote about this minor character playing a piano piece in the church hall written by Ludovico Einaudi. Many of the readers picked up on this and gushed their thanks for bridging a contact to the music of this wonderful composer and pianist. Silly me, I though everyone knew of his music.

    Einaudi has hours of music posted on YouTube and yet he is still one of Europe's highest selling musicians.  Nuvole Bianche was the first piece of his music I heard over a decade ago, and it is still one of my favorites. Enjoy.  

  9. Isn't it interesting how quickly a news source can make a declaration, incite the hard feelings this story engendered, and then switch gears to say it didn't happen the way we reported it. Any wonder all we hear about these days is 'fake news.'

    News has become so competitive, everyone jumping to tell us the facts that really are not facts at all. Perhaps the Buenos Aires Herald  should change their name to the Buenos Aires Speculator. 

  10. Will the readers here be the last generations to remember Ryan White? This one slender quiet spoken boy did more to educate the country about AIDS than the entire United State Government did in the 1980's. The 27th anniversary of his death is this Saturday, April 8th, and I am heartened to see this story percolating up into the news cycle. 

    I think every gay man who has survived the ordeal of this horrible disease owes Ryan a debt of gratitude. He put the human face on something so many did not understand. Despite the hatred thrown at him Ryan was not a bitter person. If anything he espoused the real meaning behind being a Christian, something he was not afraid to speak about. There is no doubt in my mind that he was a hero...and still is. 

     

     

  11.  This story has all the makings of a good film, and perhaps one day it will be made:

     http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/these-high-school-journalists-investigated-a-new-principal’s-credentials-days-later-she-resigned/ar-BBzna1x?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

    It took courage for these six high school students to challenge the credentials of their principal. Now that the event is in the national news I would think these young people might consider a career in journalism...if they aren't offered internships upon graduation. At least some wise adults stood behind them in support. 

     

       

  12. I believe many of us are indebted to the various photo archives available on the internet for the images we can present in a story, I know I am. A book of early photographs available from the library cannot compare to the vast resources that are now available to us online.

    Douglas' story has taken us on walks through the streets of old Shanghai and helped us see the architecture and people with his words. In many ways an old photograph does give birth to the words through the author's mind. A pity that many of these places no longer exist, but we can still write about them. 

  13. Difficult decisions ahead, Graeme. A narrator should be omniscient, but that doesn't prevent him/her from being one of the characters, and quite often that works very well. Mixing the languages will be quite the challenge although we all understand it to be English. You could, of course, make the narrator Chinese, but then imagine the reader confusion that would create. (just joking).

    The use of different slang between the American and Australian characters does not need to confuse readers, but then you may get tired of having to explain what was just being said. I think if you tag your narrator with a nationality right from the start it will go a long way in making things work out. Like many readers, I tend to sound out the words in my head when faced with unfamiliar pronunciation, names being the hardest words to absorb.

    Whatever you decide I am sure we will accept. Have fun.  

  14. Trump's budget is a shambles that isn't even garnering the support of many in Congress. But in looking at the list of things Trump would like to see cut out of the budget that will affect ordinary Americans I see a pattern. Considering his background, I doubt if Trump has ever listened to NPR, or understands that funding for PBS stations only costs Americans $1.35 per citizen per year. (statistic from PBS yesterday).

    Okay, Trump knows real estate...or perhaps not considering how many bankruptcies he's filed in the past two decades. But social programs are not in his lexicon and no where is it more obvious than in his planned cuts to the care for the sick and elderly. One of his aides said yesterday that the Meals on Wheels program shows no results for the expenditure. What planet are these idiots from?

    Removing a lifeline that provides meals and social contact for homebound patients with HIV/AIDS, and the elderly that cannot shop at grocery stores for whatever reason is a slap in the face to a most important social program. As one blog noted yesterday, perhaps Trump thinks that older people should just send their butler out to do the shopping. He needs to get his head out of his ass.

    But in many cases I don't think Trump is the author of these cuts, they must be coming from his advisors, or should we be calling them his "handlers." In years past we used to make jokes about who was doing the thinking for G.W. Bush while he was president. This time with Trump in office there is no joke, just a serious concern that he is going to destroy decades of progress. 

  15. The more analysis I read about our new president the more I realize he has no sense of perspective, at least not for American history.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-does-trump-love-andrew-163033874.html

    Trump caused a portrait of Andrew Jackson to be hung in the Oval Office, but does he know anything about Jackson? Our 7th president was a huge slave owner, but then so were all of his ilk. Number 7 is also known as the Genocidal President for what he did to the Native American population in the name of greed. Maybe there is some resemblance between Jackson and Trump...unfortunately we will find out the hard way. 

  16. In everything you read about Hitler, one of the outstanding facts seems to be that he surrounded himself with advisors who told him what he wanted to hear. That level of disinformation, the avoidance of truth as we see it today, brought down the Third Reich.  When the idiot in charge begins to believe his own propaganda, leadership is compromised and command fails.  

  17. In this month of focus on women's issues, one Texas legislator is rolling out what could be seen as the ultimate payback for all those nasty men who seek to oppress women's issues:

     http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/03/guess-texas-lawmaker-proposing-regulate-masturbation/

    Is she serious? Perhaps not considering it would take a majority of the men in the legislature to pass a law like this, and I doubt they would vote for it. But just by proposing this State Representative Jessica Farrar is serving notice that current laws on women's reproductive health are oppressive.

     

  18. I lied, unintentionally, but I did. Perhaps the mind is failing, but I have read this book before a long time ago. It was first published in 1980 and became the focus of much radical thinking on the founding of our nation.

    I received the book in the mail this morning and immediately remembered the reading, but I intend to read it again. Good thoughts, strong ideas, and the need to understand how the masses have failed to uphold truth in our society compels me to read it again. Howard Zinn was given every dirty label in the conservative playbook for his writing. But most of that came from the 1 percent we now loathe, and so it is hoped that the ninety-nine percent will further embrace the ideals that urged Zinn to write this book.

  19. The images are quite disturbing, but if you have the stomach for violent pictures go right ahead:

    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/03/07/trans-woman-pleads-for-her-life-before-being-beaten-to-death/

    Brazil...and we thought all the savages in a modern society had been tamed. I saw the article this morning and will remain disturbed by the images for some time to come. What happened to civilization? My only moment of relief came with the revelation that the perpetrators had been identified. Cold blooded murder deserves the death penalty, and I hope justice in Brazil is swift.

    The image of this country is considered favorable for the LGBT population, and yet the statistics quoted in the article says that one LGBT person is killed there every day. Here is a society with deeply entrenched homophobic government officials and Catholic Church leaders. That is where the issue begins and the UN human rights people ought to be taking a closer look. 

  20. Let's start here:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/8917fa7f-9aef-3651-80ec-f6e4b8e73bd8/ss_censoring-howard-zinn-and.html

     

    There have been revisionists in every nation on the planet who would change the facts of history to suit their own interests. The most prominent textual changes have probably been in religious books....the Bible comes to mind. But the history of the Americas has been under assault ever since the first white man set foot on these shores, decided this was an uncivilized land, and claimed it all in the name of some foreign power.

    Howard Zinn is famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view. Needless to say he will not be celebrated as a great scholar in Arkansas any time soon, but what do they know? Radical thoughts about American history beyond the flag waving apple pie bunch of conservatives means his latest book had to be banned.

    In all honesty, I have not read this book, yet. Needless to say it will not be high on the list of acquisitions my local library will order this year. But it is available from Amazon at a reasonable price and I am awaiting delivery. A Peoples History of the United States, sounds like a good read to me.

    So read the article and try to see how the contents might fit into your way of thinking. I will read the book and get back to you here once that is accomplished. I love a good story, especially when someone digs thru the American trash bin to write it. I don't doubt the residents of Arkansas will be thrilled to know their state is protecting them from certain knowledge. I intend to read and find out what they don't know, evaluate the words in the book and compare them to  what I already know. Arkansas won't find out until Breitbart  News tells them what to think. Sad.   

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