Random Musings

Aetna is in hot water this week after several groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the health insurer saying they violated the privacy of customers by sending many of them letters through which the phrase "filling prescriptions for HIV" was visible through envelope windows.

The lead plaintiff is listed by the pseudonym Andrew Beckett—a nod to the Tom Hanks character in Philadelphia—and is described as a "52-year-old Bucks County [Pa.] man, whose sister learned from an unopened large-window envelope that arrived in their mail that he was taking HIV medications."

He was, in fact, HIV-negative but on a regimen of prophylactic medication meant to guard against getting HIV.

An Aetna spokesperson did not comment on whether the company was aware of HIV-negative individuals who are not currently taking medication and who received the letters, nor did they comment on the class-action lawsuit.

I understand their privacy being violated, and any time your personal health information is made public in any way is awful, but I cannot help but be saddened by the fact that almost forty years into this epidemic there is still this stigma over HIV, a completely manageable condition.

Still, Aetna should be ashamed of themselves for the error.

Wasn’t it great how “President” _____ could take a visit to a disaster area and turn it into some sort of political reelection rally?

“What a crowd! What a turnout!”

That’s what he said to people who stood on the streets; people who’d been rained and flooded out of their homes. And later that same day he took the time to tell people that his response would be the best response ever:

“Nobody has seen something like this. We won’t say congratulations. We don’t want to do that. We’ll congratulate each other when it’s all finished.”

And yet he never spoke to one single victim of the hurricane.

PS He was selling his USA hat through hsi personal business website for $40 because if anyone is to make money off a devastating hurricane, it should be Donald _____.

I just realized ... because I’m slooooooow ... how much I love Stevie Nicks.

See this week it hit me that every time a Nicks song comes on the radio, I turn it up and sing along loudly and, probably, badly all the way through the end, and then sing it in my head for the rest of the day.

Ah, a bit of good news coming out of the Charlottesville hate rally ... One of the alt-right thugs who viciously assaulted a black protestor was arrested in Ohio.

Yup, police arrested white supremacist Dan Borden, the white supremacist who was identified as assaulting Deandre Harris, through pictures posted to social media. Borden has been charged with “malicious wounding” and awaiting extradition to Charlottesville.

As with all alt-right thugs who feel they are in the right in their hatred, Borden began running like a little bitch after he assaulted Harris; he had his little band of thug-friends busted open Harris’ head with their wood switches, broke his wrist and chipped a tooth.

I hope he gets a nice roommate in prison.

Look here, another Hate Baker ... Tastries, a Bakersfield, California bakery, was exposed on Facebook as being a discriminatory company ...because God ... by Sam Salazar, a customer who was refused service by the bakery after he said the cake he was ordering would be for a gay wedding:

“Tastries Bakery… so we just went with some friends to do a cake tasting for a wedding cake and we were referred to another bakery. Apparently they don’t “believe” in same sex marriage, so they refused to make the cake. I’m not even sure how to react or feel right now. So just be aware if you choose to spend your money there.”

And now Tastries owner, bigot baker Cathy Miller is speaking out:

“Our family are Christians. We love everyone. God created everyone … There are certain things that violate my conscience and my conscience will not allow me to participate in things that I feel are wrong. Our business is God’s business. We work for him…Participating in a celebration of a same-sex marriage goes against my conscience. I shouldn’t be picked on because of my beliefs.”

Once again, you dumbass, you cannot say you “love everyone” and then say “God created everyone” and deny services because they’re gay; that isn’t love, that’s discrimination and hate, m’kay?

And, again, as I’ve said to you bakers and florists who won’t serve The Gays, you are not participating in the wedding; you are not invited; you are not family—well, some of you might be ... wink wink; you are a business doing a job for which you are paid.

What you are doing is hate, and if you’d ask God, you’d know She isn’t happy about that.

Speaking of Christian Love ... mega-church pastor, and multi-millionaire, Joel Osteen didn’t open his huge church to victims of Hurricane Harvey this week even though he says his ministry is dedicated to helping the needy. But then, to Osteen, wealth is the gospel he preaches about, and the dollar is his God, so, you know, helping poor people, displaced people? Ick.

But once folks on social media began taking him to task, wondering why his Lakewood Church, which has room for 50,000 congregants, with additional open spaces for beds and cots for many others, wasn’t open, Osteen, first, tried to deflect.

And by deflect I mean lie.

“We have never closed our doors. We will continue to be a distribution center to those in need. We are prepared to house people once shelters reach capacity. Lakewood will be a value to the community in the aftermath of this storm.”

Oh, so once every other facility gets filled, you’ll open your doors?

But then why, “pastor”, did you and your church staff initially say the church basement and first floor were flooded, even posting pictures of the water. Only to be called out because the “flooding” wasn’t in the church but in the parking garage? The actual “stadium” part of the church is a lot higher.

And why did it take social media, and news organizations, pointing out that Joel Osteen wasn’t doing anything other than tweeting about the flood to get an ALLEGEDLY  “Good Christian” to lend a hand?

And then church officials released a statement saying that even if they wanted to open Lakewood as a shelter, “the streets surrounding the church are already so flooded … Lakewood is inaccessible.” So inaccessible that there were a bunch of cars parked in the parking lot yesterday ...

Here’s a couple of things to note ... nearly every mosque in Houston instantly opened their doors to those affected by the storm, no matter their faith, while Joel Osteen sat in his $10 million mansion in Houston’s affluent River Oaks.

While his neighborhood was affected by flooding, Osteen’s home was unaffected and yet he didn’t offer to house any of his neighbors.

Good Christian.

Kathy Griffin cannot let anything go, because all publicity is good publicity in her mind.

After that photo shoot where she stood with the severed head of Donald _____ she was fired from several jobs, including her New Year’s Eve gig with BFF Anderson Cooper.

Cooper maintained that he and Griffin were still friends, but he thought her photo shoot was in bad taste; still, he stood behind CNN’s decision to fire the comedian.

Well, Kathy wants y’all to know she is no longer friends with Cooper because he did not reach out to her before commenting publically. Griffin went on to say the _____’s were out to destroy her and she no longer has a career and boo hoo boo hoo ...

Only now she’s saying she’s not sorry she did the photo shoot.

Look, Kathy, make up your goddamned mind. Either it was a mistake or it wasn’t; it was in bad taste or it wasn’t.

And we now know you’re the kind of friend who won’t accept criticism from anyone, even your own friends, and will cut anyone off if they cross you.

You lose, Kathy. You lose.

I need a palate cleanser now, and so ...

Andre Ziehe, a Brazilian model, who wears mostly underwear and does so brilliantly, is the Hot Man of the Week. He rocks a suit, he rocks a blanket, but mostly he rocks the underwear.

Just sayin’.

In Karma Is A Bitch news ... Ashlee Marie Preston, a trans female, took aim at Caitlyn Jenner at an LGBT event for voting for _____:

“It’s really f**ked up you continue to support somebody that tears us down. It’s really f**ked up.”

Jenner said nothing.

“Nobody wants you here … it’s really ridiculous. You’re a f**king fraud.”

And as a bystander stepped in to try and defuse the situation, Preston became more angry:

“We are complicit. Taking her money and doing all that, it makes us complicit. It goes against the mission.”

Brava, Ashlee Marie, for calling out Caitlyn for her hypocrisy.

I doubt she heard you though, unless there was a television camera around. Jenner is just like those “gays” in Deplorable Pride, who stand by and support this Bigot-In-Chief while he attacks our community.

They are f**king frauds.

Architecture Wednesday: Hilltop House

The Portland Hilltop House was commissioned by an artist couple who own a series of stores featuring American art, craft, and jewelry. They asked for a home, on a hill—hence the name—with views toward downtown, and ended up with a home that draws on classical proportions and scale making for a sophisticated yet comfortable home.

The simple, long bar plan, and spacing of floor-to-ceiling windows, creates a sense of unity within the house, and access to the views and the backyard as well. Those same windows create a lantern-like entry vestibule welcoming visitors to the house from an auto court.

The main level includes the kitchen, dining room, and living room, an office, and a master suite, all with views across the main axis—from the courtyard to the south-facing balconies—providing a strong connection to the outdoors. At the end of the bar, the master suite angles away from the rest of the house, taking in the best views and appearing to float above the trees.

Toward the rear of the house, the site slopes down and away from the auto court toward a pool, terraced gardens and the lower level of the house containing a media room, guest quarters, storage, and a 100-foot-long library that stretches the length of the house.

It is a house just made for reading ....

HomeDSGN

OlsonKundig

ISBL Asshat of the Week: Georgia Racist Republican Jason Spencer

Sadly, in The Age of _____, the Asshats are multiplying, like cockroaches.

Georgia State Representative, and Repugnant Republican, Jason Spencer, might just be one of the “fine people” _____ recently mentioned who are white supremacists or ... he’s an Asshat; you decide.

Over there to the Facebook, former state representative and colleague of Spencer’s, LaDawn Jones came upon a photo Spencer had taken alongside a monument to Confederate president Jefferson Davis and posted with this statement:

“This is Georgia’s history.”

LaDawn Jones questioned whether state tax dollars should pay for the upkeep of the memorial, which includes the house Davis fled to after the Civil War ended. Jason didn’t like that ... and he replied:

“Continue your quixotic journey into South Georgia and it will not be pleasant. The truth. Not a warning. Those folks won’t put up with it like they do in Atlanta. I can guarantee you won’t be met with torches but something a lot more definitive.”

Doesn’t that sound a little like a threat, especially when you toss into the story the fact that LaDawn Jones is a black woman?

When someone else commented about the differences between Atlanta—which has a large black population—and the rest of Georgia—which, I’m guessing has a large population of bigots, rednecks and Klansmen— Spencer agreed.

“They will go missing in the Okefenokee [swamp]. Too many necks they are red around here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about ’em.”

Now, it might just be me, but that’s a threat, and that’s exactly how Jones took it:

“Sounds like a threat of physical violence … is that what we are doing now? Desperate times call for desperate measures huh? Afraid of what is going to happen in southern GA? I saw those white supremacists crying when sh*t really hit the fan.”

No comment from Jason because he probably just realized that he’s a white elected official from Bigoted, Rednecked, Alt-Right South Georgia, who just threatened a black woman on Facebook, and, as most cockroaches do, he scurried back into that hole in the wall when the lights came on and he was exposed.

Jason Spencer; ignorant, bigoted, racist, rednecked Asshat of the Week.

I'd ask Georgians to vote him out, but ... it's Georgia.

Raw Story

Randy Gamel-Medler And His Family Were Run Out Of Town Because ... Race and Homophobia

Randy Gamel-Medler, his husband and their adopted son moved to Hitchcock, Oklahoma just over a year ago and what happened to them is vile.

"When our family moved to the town of Hitchcock in rural Oklahoma we thought we were buying our last house, we wanted to know our neighbors by their first names and grow old together, but we were soon met with hatred, suspicion, and discrimination. We were terrorized, murder threats were made against our seven year-old African-American son. Town officials conspired to run us out of office, all while local law enforcement ignored our pleas for help. We are now left with the last 27 years of our life literally erased. What do we do now?"

He was called “a f***ing queer” in town.

People threatened to harm his son, who is black; one woman said to him:

“I’m going to grab your little boy, rip his n****r head off, and s**t down his throat.”

At the beginning of May 2017, Gamel-Medler was clearing an obstruction from the road, per his duties as town clerk, when he was assaulted by Jonita Pauls Jack, who had tried to enter Gamel-Medler's truck, found it locked, and began to call him expletives.

When Gamel-Medler attempted to file a police report after these incidents, he was informed that Mayor Rick Edsall had already described the incident with Jonita Pauls Jack to the police. Blaine County Sheriff Tony Almaguer and Undersheriff David Robertson refused to take a report, said that this is just how these folks are, and called the incident Free Speech.

Free speech isn’t hate speech; and threatening violence against a child?

Over the next several weeks, one or more of the defendants threw gravel at Gamel-Medler’s home, posted a sign outside of the post office stating that “the town clerk is a “f***ing queer,” and attempted to run a friend of Gamel-Medler’s off of the road.

And here’s a telling piece of information; at a town council meeting in September, a trustee asked Gamel-Medler:

“What’s going to happen when your house burns down and we don’t send out the fire trucks?”

On May 28, 2017, eight months later, Gamel-Medler heard the sound of glass breaking in his garage and called the Sheriff’s office to report a burglary; he then saw a fire in his garage and called the fire department.

Despite the fire department being located one block away from Gamel-Medler’s home, the fire department failed to arrive until the house had burned to the ground; and while it burned, Gamel-Medler says a number of the named defendants watched it burn, including Rick Edsall, who sat and watched with his family in lawn chairs.

Gamel-Medler, who was arrested in July, charged with threatening violence against the first responders, has filed a lawsuit against the town, the mayor—Richard Edsall—who says:

“It’s a farming community. Everybody knows everybody. He moved in and started stirring up crap.”

The lawsuit stated the mayor and other citizens watched as it burned, and that firefighters stationed a block away did not respond until it was too late but Edsall has a different story:

“Our fire department—a volunteer fire department—was at the fire within six minutes, putting the water on it,” he said. “I was in my robe, fixing to go to bed when I heard the ruckus, and I went down there and grabbed a hose and started spraying.”

And, to be fair, Edsall insists race and sexuality were never an issue because, wait for it ...

“I’ve got half-nieces that are half-black. I mean, we are not racist. We don’t care if you’re gay or anything else. We’re not that way.”

Except ... “fucking queer” and “I’m going to grab your little boy, rip his n****r head off, and s**t down his throat.”

Gamel-Medler filed a federal equal protection lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma against nine defendants from Blaine County, Oklahoma, including Mayor Rick Edsall, Sheriff of Blaine County Tony Almaguer, and Undersheriff of Blaine County David Robertson; the lawsuit also includes claims for assault, battery, destruction of real and personal property, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and details months of police and government inaction in response to racist and homophobic threats and harassment.

2017 and people are still acting like this, and saying these things and doing these things; and you can say its Oklahoma, a backwoods, backwater state that is far from progressive in any sense of the word, but you can also say it’s Donald _____, who doesn’t seem to have a problem with violence and Hate Speech against any minority group.

Remember that: Hitchcock, Oklahoma, still stuck in the 1950s but no longer wearing their hoods and white robes.

HRC

News 9

WCSH 6

ISBL Asshats of the Week: Deplorable Pride

We’re the LGBT community, which means all of us, gay lesbian, bisexual and transgender, are community; we should stand with, and for, one another, always.

And, yeah, you can go a couple of letters further and call us the  LGBTQIA community ... Q could mean queer or questioning while I might mean intersex or intergender, and A is for asexual or ally, but we’re still a community and we need to be there for one another when anyone comes for any one of us.

So, please to explain Deplorable Pride, a group of gay Republicans and supporters of _____, protested at Charlotte Pride in North Carolina especially on the heels of the Bigot-In-Chief signing his ban on transgender military personnel.

“Join us in Charlotte North Carolina on August 27th. Come and show your support for your fellow _____ supporters who are LGBT and are being persecuted by their own gay community. Help us show them that WE ALL STAND UNITED!”

Um, I don’t know if you’re being persecuted, Deplorables, but how you support a man who does not condemn racism, and who, in fact, promotes anti-LGBTQIA agendas is beyond me.

The Deplorable protest is in response to Charlotte Pride’s decision to bar Deplorable Pride’s pro-_____ entry into the event’s parade and it set Deplorable co-founder, Brian Talbert, right, on edge:

“I’m very proud of my country, proud of my president, and was once proud of my community. I’m very proud of my vote. I don’t regret my vote. I will vote for Donald _____ again.”

Charlotte Pride maintains that they reserve “the right to decline participation at our events to groups or organizations which do not reflect the mission, vision and values of our organization.”

Good on Charlotte Pride not to allow a group who supports racism, because, let’s be really really queer, if you support _____ and he supports racism and discrimination, then you do, too, no matter you spin it.

Better still, you might think of it like this:

_____ first came for the transgender community, but I didn’t speak up because I was not transgender.

Then he came for the Bisexuals and I didn’t speak up because I was not bisexual.

Then he came for me and there was no one left to speak up.

Asshats, the lot of you.

NCRM

Kearny High School Removes Gay Student's Quotes From Yearbook

When I was in high school and about to graduate, we didn’t have the Senior Quotes business, where each member of the graduating class gets to select a quote by which to remember them; had we done that, me, being so shy back in those days, might have chosen this quote:

“ ..... ”

Just sayin’. And I’m also saying that my quote might not have “offended” anyone ... unlike the quotes from Joey Slivinski and Thomas Swartz, two openly gay Seniors at Kearney High School in western Missouri. See, after being asked to submit quotes to go along with their portraits in the school’s yearbook, Joey Slivinski and Thomas Swartz, used the opportunity to celebrate their sexual orientation ...

Joey Slivinski wrote:

“Of course I dress well, I didn’t spend all that time in the closet for nothing.”

Thomas Swartz wrote:

“If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one deserves to live in the closet.”

Both young men found their quotes inspirational and kind of fun, but school administrators felt differently and when the yearbooks arrived, Slivinski and Swartz found blank spaces under their names.

Blank. Non-existent. Let that sink in.

The Kearney School District says they removed both young men’s quotes, without warning, over concerns that they could “potentially offend” other students.

For the life of me I cannot find anything offensive in either quote.

And when a kerfuffle ensued over the censorship, the school district, in a statement to parents and the media, apologized to the Slivinski and Swartz and yet also tried to defend themselves:

“In an effort to protect our students, quotes that could potentially offend another student or groups of students are not published. It is the school’s practice to err on the side of caution. Doing so in this case had the unintentional consequence of offending the very students the practice was designed to protect. We sincerely apologize to those students. We acknowledge our mistake and will use it as a learning opportunity to improve in the future.”

Slivinski and Swartz said no one ever told them their quotes might be “problematic,” and no one ever offered them the chance to change them if they chose; instead, the two boys are planning to make stickers with their messages to place into the yearbooks of friends.

Sure, it’s just a yearbook, and sure it’s just a quote, but what this school did was to continue making LGBT people feel invisible and less than, something we’ve been fighting in big ways, and small, all of our lives. The message that this sent to those two young men, and to every student before and after them, is disgusting.

It’s, to use their word, offensive.

Pink News

The Funny Papers

Nate Beeler, David Horsey, Nick Anderson, Bill Day, Clay Bennett, Mike Luckovich, Jim Morin, Jack Ohman