Trab

The Foley Mashburn series is a set of stories by Brew Maxwell, and it is awesome. The over-riding theme is how one can be gay and yet perfectly normal in behavior, love other guys but as friends and brothers, and be accepting of everyone. Obviously that is WAY too simple an explanation, and if you haven't read them, I'd recommend highly that you do so.* Several of the authors here have mentioned that the stories were pivotal to their own acceptance of themselves as gay men. http://www.themailcrew.com/pdfpage.html This is the place I download each segment. *(I hope you weren't setting me up for a comeback 'gotcha', but if so, more power to you!)

I think I 'got you last' on that one Des. (Reference to Foley Mashburn series). You didn't really think I hadn't followed the links and knew that already, did you?

I so totally agree with you. Tolerated sucks. Acceptance is everything.

Very nice. Touching, and a bit of a miracle. They don't say anywhere the parents are a lesbian couple though (unless I'm blind as a bat and missed it), not that that makes any difference.

Interesting. Wish I had the money and time to go there. It looks to be a whole lot of fun, although one thing disturbs me a bit, and that's listing 'OUTINGS' as a specific event. Most of us try to keep it rather low key.

I actually have Mozilla 1.7.8 as my secondary browser. Should I change to FireFox 2.0

From what I can see, it requires one to use FireFox. I'm not sure I want to switch from my Safari.

I think maybe the "little dab" was to point out how little substance there is too these morons that only a little dab is necessary.

I have to say that I cannot understand ANY of these people who hate, despise, and otherwise reject. Sure, there are a few things I abhor, like abusing children or other helpless or hapless beings (or animals) but I'm not even sure I could say I hate those who do that. I think I merely feel sick of and sad about them.

Sheddule it is! I understand that there are over 30,000 Canadians directly involved in the LA TV and movie industry in either writing or acting. Goodness only knows how many more are in the technical fields. There is a reason we sound so much like 'Hollywood'. We have a pronounced influence there. I don't think that the cheaper production costs in Canada hurt that either. You probably wouldn't believe how many American shows are actually filmed/taped in Canada. Even in my little town there have been two this year. In a slightly larger town about 25 minutes drive from here, they've had 5 productions.

Recently I've noticed a photo attached to the signature of one of the esteemed members of this forum. I didn't really look at it too closely, but one day I stopped to take give it some more scrutiny. Notice that they seem to be in front of a church. Talk about in bizarre place to protest. I also see one of them is trampling the US flag. Way to go there asshole. Notice in the background that there is a whole group of guys, all hanging out together, not protesting at all. They are laughing, and that's a sure sign of sincerity, isn't it? Lastly, the guy in the back with the red shirt seems to have, from the shadows created, a pretty decent package dangling down in his right pantleg. Commando today, I'd guess. Lastly, there is only one sign being held up about God hating fags. The rest seem to be aimed at anyone that comes by "You", "You're". BTW, I have no idea what IEDs are. InExplicableDumbShits?

I wrote something. It's my first story, ever, and I'll expect you to rag on me gently and with love in your hearts. If anyone insists on beating me, please pick the right part of my body so I come away with something memorable. I don't suppose we can blame the editor if the story sucks? In a rally car, if the driver puts it in the ditch, the co-driver is blamed for giving the wrong instructions, nevermind that it is impossible to go straight ahead at a T intersection (safely) and no co-driver has ever told a driver to do that.

I don't think it's even quite that simple Graeme. Many 'foreign' singers sing beautifully in English, yet cannot speak a word of it. Quite simply, they are making music with their voices, and as such, do so without any accent, if that's the sound they're trying to achieve. If the major market is the US English sound, that's what their voice coaches have them sing like. And Colin, I'll thank you to not say American/Canadian accent as that's just about like saying Australian/New Zealand accent, or more closely to home, New York/Texas accent. I do think that there is a 'mellowing' of accents within the English language though, primarily due to TV and film. Eventually we may all speak Californian. (Let me go kill myself now, before it happens to me!)

I bought 3 Libera CDs. They are terrific. Both the CDs and the group.

Well, I cannot disagree too much, as I don't think I'm a musician by any stretch of the imagination, however, I have learned to play an instrument and it took hours of practice each day. Regardless though, I met someone who actually could pick up an instrument, and with a few minutes work, make beautiful music, despite never having played that instrument before. BUT, this is such a rarity, that it really shouldn't be a pivotal point in a plot, so your issue is valid.

Obviously as much as some of the best people in the world. Okay, maybe your knowledge level is lower, but your soul is right there, with the best.

Very interesting site Des. I'm just starting to explore, but I did the test and I'm right there, with Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. What can I say, except "Wow". My results were L/R -7.88 and L/A -5.49 Some of those questions are a bit ambiguous though, so I think we have to be a bit careful about reading too much into it. Thanks for posting that.

Right On jamessavik. In fact, there should be people who are paid to not be politicians; maybe most of them.

I've finished reading this story, and I was pulled down, up, and sideways by my own emotional reactions. I neglected almost all my other duties and thoroughly enjoyed the story. I even e-mailed the author. As for the piano and practice, Connor has intrinsic talent, and doesn't need to practice. He just hears the music and it translates into movement of his fingers and hands. I've seen this type of talent in person, so it's not a stretch at all. I don't know anything about this nomination thing, but I DO know a good read when I find one.

One correction Graeme. I didn't propose that. What I personally like is the use of the popular vote countrywide to assign the number of seats each party gets in the legislature. However, your Australian voting systems sounds like a very useful method. Is it still true that Aussies are required to vote, and don't just have the 'right'?

Have you thought about using a private or public wiki page? https://my.pbwiki.com/new.php http://pbwiki.com/

I won't profess to understand US politics. Hell, I don't even understand Canadian politics and that's where I live. However, one thing is obvious to me that is wrong with both of our systems, and that is the representative system. In the past there were major problems with communications and quick response times to crises, but that time is surely gone. What we need to do is encourage a whole new system in which we have politicians proposing laws and having everyone voting on each issue. The infrastructure may be a few years in the making, but it IS feasible. One caution about multi-party systems: you can end up with a majority government with significantly less than 50% popularity. And I mean significantly. I'm sure that some of you who are math geniuses will be able to figure it out exactly, but I'll just give you a very broad based example. 100M people can vote. A majority government is one which has 1 more seat than all the others combined. If there are 100 seats, only 51 need to be 'taken'. If there are 4 parties (mostly 4 across Canada) then only 25.1% of the people in any one of those areas comprising a seat need to vote for that party. 25.1% of 51% of 100M is 12.8M. BUT, the average voter turnout is about 60% in a "hot" election, so 7.68 million people can elect a majority government that cannot be defeated in any vote on any topic whatsoever. That's 7.68% of the country's population swings it like that in a multi-party system. It's not perfect, believe me. The 3rd most popular party in Canada is one dedicated to the breakup of Canada, with the French Canadians forming their own country. How's THAT for dissension?

Jason, I can sympathize with your anguish of that loss. I'm glad you had a saviour to help out a bit, although the violation will not be forgotten.Many decades ago, I had written a small booklet about something that is not important now. So many people told me it was marvelous, and told me I should expand it into a larger book. In order to do this, I travelled for many weeks, visiting remote and urban areas of my province of British Columbia. On the very last night before I got home, some sick bastard broke into my decrepit car and stole the information. ALL my research for my new book was gone. For me, there was no saviour. I never had the drive, nor the money, to do the research all over again. The book was never written. Did you know that your cell phone can be disabled by the service provider so that at least nobody can use it after that? If you don't report its loss, you may get a nasty bill on top of the other insult.

Very much on par with 'curing' homosexuality, we have a similar shocking situation in an autism cure. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0641,murphy,74685,6.html

That's NOT dumb. It's logical. You have a formula/procedure that works all the time, so you can avoid worry and frustration. What's wrong with that?