Author: Brett

Mayor Pedro Segarra

Brett

http://www.hartfordmag.com/html/stories/Mayor_0910.html

Hartford’s new mayor, Pedro Segarra, is a straight arrow. Even reporters say so.

Freelancer writer Phil Knecht, who has been chasing Hartford political life daily, says, “You can write the words ‘straight arrow’ in capital letters.”

Council member Matthew Ritter agrees, adding that Segarra is “as approachable and committed
as you can find in a public official, and he understands how City Hall works.”

Hartford Courant cartoonist Bob Englehart blogs that Pedro Segarra would be Hartford’s “first
honest powerful mayor in the modern era.”

He also wrote that Segarra is “Hartford’s first gay mayor [and] who cares?”

Mayor Segarra cares. On June 26, the day after he was sworn in as mayor following the resignation of Eddie Perez, he married Charlie Ortiz, his partner of 14 years, and he was happy about that.

“I think that with marriage equality, we have come of age so now we don’t need to isolate
ourselves into a particular corner,” he said.

The New Mainstream: 28% of TV Watching Spent on LBT-Inclusive Shows

Brett

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/the-new-mainstream-28-of-tv-watching-spent-on-lgbt-inclusive-shows/

Audiences and advertisers alike are flocking to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT)-inclusive programs. Representing 24 percent of broadcast primetime scripted and reality shows last season, these series garnered 28 percent of broadcast primetime TV viewing and 22 percent of ad dollars, according to Nielsen data. According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the presence of regularly-appearing LGBT characters accounted for 3.9 percent of all scripted series regular characters during the 2010-2011 season, reaching a record high.

Op-Ed: Shepards Say Obama Will “Move This Country Forward”

Brett

http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Oped_Shepards_Say_Obama_Will_Move_This_Country_Forward/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AdvocatecomDailyNews+%28Advocate.com+Daily+News%29

The parents of Matthew Shepard reflect on what it’s meant that, two years ago today, the president signed a hate crimes bill that invokes the name of their son who was murdered.

No hate crime prevention laws existed nationally or in our state prior to his death, and though we were grieving, we knew our family’s story had to be told. We didn’t want a single family to have to look at the empty chair around the dinner table or at family holidays. You aren’t supposed to have to bury a child, and we wanted to make sure we did everything we could so that other parents didn’t have to. If we could help save just one family from the pain that we still experience, then silence was not an option.

Artist’s Music Supports “It Gets Better”

Brett

http://www.teenspot.com/spotlight/lgbt-artist-music-supports-it-gets-better-project/

In September 2010, syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage created a YouTube video with his partner Terry to inspire hope for young people facing harassment because they’re gay. The message was simple, yes, it does get better after high school.

The campaign inspired, and continues to inspire a number of artists including indie rocker Jen Grygiel. In fact, the artist is donating all proceeds from her latest EP, Grygiel, to the It Gets Better Project. Already a selfless act in itself, Grygiel took it a step further by co-founding her own organization, No Gay Left Behind, after her former high school denied her offer to come back and give a speech as an openly gay Alumni.

LGBT Centers Get Johnson Family Grants for Mental Health Programs

Brett

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=34431

The Johnson Family Foundation has announced that The Pride Center of the Capital Region in Albany, NY, and The LGBT Community Center of the Desert in Palm Springs, CA have each been awarded a $150,000 grant over 3 years dedicated to:

�increasing the variety and quality of mental health services provided by LGBT community centers; and

strengthening the overall organizational capacity of these institutions during a critical phase in their development.

CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers is proud to be a partner in this mental health initiative and will be working with both centers to implement yearly organizational technical assistance plans through funding made available from the Foundation.

“CenterLink is thrilled to be part of this innovative program and we look forward to working with each center as they become model programs in the delivery of mental health services,” said Terry Stone, Executive Director.

The grants were awarded to support specific capacity building projects of already existing mental health programs, and mark the third year of a three year project.

Top 20 College Sex-Ed Programs

Brett

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/18/sex-education-colleges-with-the-best-programs.html

Sex education has never been a black-and-white issue, especially on college campuses. But the statistics are impossible to ignore—as many as 25% of college students have or have had a sexually transmitted disease, and people ages 15 to 24 contract nearly half of all new STDs.

To highlight the need for sexual health resources, as well as to recognize the campuses that excel at providing students extensive and convenient sexual health services, Trojan and Sperling’s Best Places annually releases the most comprehensive evaluation of campus sexual health services. This year, the company provided The Daily Beast with an exclusive preview of the data for the top 20 campuses.

Can an Action Star Be Gay?

Brett

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/24/hed-zachary-quinto-luke-evans-and-the-politics-of-coming-out-in-hollywood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29

Last week, Zachary Quinto, best known for playing Spock, casually came out as gay to New York magazine, in a tossed off aside in part of a longer feature story that barely focused on his frank admission about his sexuality.

Evans, now 32, started his career on the stage in London—working his way up from fringe productions to roles in Rent, Taboo, and Avenue Q. Now that he’s crossed the pond, he’s embarking on a high-profile career in movies. He co-starred in the current release The Three Musketeers, next month he will be seen as Zeus in Immortals, and in March will star opposite John Cusack in The Raven. By the time his biggest vehicle, The Hobbit, comes out in Dec. 2012, we can assume that many Americans will know who he is.

What Michelle Obama Ate–And Where She Ate It

Brett

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65558.html

The dining-out habits of presidents and first ladies have been chronicled for years, but when it comes to Michelle Obama, every morsel is scrutinized.

When she was spotted ordering a burger, fries, chocolate milkshake and a Diet Coke at Shake Shack this summer — a meal clocking in at 1,700 calories — her critics were ecstatic: hypocrite, fatso and for good measure, fashion disaster, were among the milder insults hurled at her on the anti-Obama blogs.

Blame the vitriol, at least in part, on the first lady’s campaign to reduce childhood obesity, “Let’s Move,” which warns that a steady diet of fast food and lack of exercise are turning little children into little blimps. Never mind what nutritionists and what Michelle Obama have said over and over about eating: “There is nothing wrong with occasionally splurging on treats and desserts.”

What to make of the 1,700-calorie outing? Did Mrs. Obama eat it all herself? Did she, as suggested by the two drinks, share it with someone else? Or does she blow her own advice when she goes out?

To find out, an investigation was in order of what she has eaten at the 33 or more restaurants in the Washington area she has visited with her husband, family, friends or staff since January 2009. I ate at 25 of them. (Some places may have been missed: Sometimes she goes out in disguise à la Target.)