Rosie O'Donnell

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – Comedian, actress, talk show host, philanthropist, gay rights activist and mother to four kids, Rosie O’Donnell is no stranger to controversy.
Her strong personality and liberal views often tend to polarize Americans. But O’Donnell is showing off her softer side in a TV documentary playing throughout February on HBO about the many different types of families in modern America — including her own.
O’Donnell, 47, talked to Reuters about the making of “A Family Is a Family Is a Family”, her affection for children, dislike of bras and make-up, and the recent break-up of her long relationship with partner Kelli Carpenter.
Q: What did you learn from making this film?
A: “I learned that I love kids. To be around kids, for me there is nothing better. My youngest is 7 years-old now. It is heartbreaking. I miss that age. I really do. I’m thinking, ‘Dear Lord, is 47 too old to adopt another baby?’”
Q: Is that something that is on the horizon?
A: “It is always on the horizon. There is a lot of room on the raft, and if we could pull some kids out and put them on board, I am all for that.”
Q: The TV documentary includes home video of you and Kelli and your kids. Why did you decide to keep that section in after splitting up with Kelli some time ago?
A: “Kelli and I had been working on what kind of arrangement our family was going to proceed in for the last two and a half years. I never once thought to stop doing the documentary.
“It is different when gay people with children separate. It is not as dramatic as what you stereotypically think with heterosexuals, where one person walks out … It was more of a collaborative effort of how are we going to proceed and make sure of the most important thing, — which is that the emotional health, the heart and soul of these kids, remains intact. I think the greatest thing you can teach your child is how to deal with adversity because that’s what life is full of. Even though change is scary, sometimes it is necessary.”
Q: What do you think the reaction will be to the documentary?
A: “I haven’t had anyone tell me anything other than they love it. This is so kid positive. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been moved by it.”
Q: Are you bothered by some of the negative comments made about you?
A: “I don’t really remember my life without entertainment and showbusiness and public opinion being part of it. To say it doesn’t hurt my feelings when someone says something horrible is a lie. But to say that it devastates me is an untruth. When you are a young kid and you dream of fame and fortune, you never think of that part of it.”
Q: What’s the biggest wrong impression other people have about you?
A: “I don’t know. I kind of speak about things before people are ready to talk about them.”
Q: You started a satellite radio show in November. How are you enjoying that?
A: “I love it. I get to do it at home. I get to have my friends around. I get to invite people I really want to talk to. And most important, there is no hair, no make-up and no bra! Those are the three best things you can offer me in a job.”
Q: What is the first thing you think about in the morning?
A: “Where the kids are. Who is up.”
from Reuters
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Jacob

MOHAWK, NEW YORK – The bullying by classmates and taunts of “homo” only got worse after Jacob began dyeing his hair and wearing eyeliner in eighth grade. One student scrawled “I hope you die” on his shoe, he said; another drew a pocket knife on him.
Jacob’s grades dropped, and he missed school from fear. His father tried repeatedly to get school officials in their working-class village in upstate New York to help protect his son from harassment. The response by the Mohawk Central School District, according to a federal lawsuit, was to do “virtually nothing.”
“Everything was bad,” Jacob – who is identified as “J.L.” in the lawsuit and didn’t want to draw attention to his new school by having his last name used in this story – said this week. “I hyperventilated when I left the school … and I didn’t want to come back the next day, or ever.”
The 15-year-old might soon get a measure of satisfaction. The lawsuit filed by Jacob and his father against the school district with the New York Civil Liberties Union could be close to settlement, according to both sides.
The negotiations come as the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to intervene in the case, citing the “important issues” it raises in enforcing federal civil rights laws.
“There is a growing recognition across the country that schools need to take harassment based on gender expression and homosexuality seriously,” said NYCLU attorney Corey Stoughton. “If there is a settlement in this case, that’s an affirmation of that principle.”
Justice officials say it’s the first time since 2000 that they have argued that Title IX, the antidiscrimination law affecting schools that receive federal funding, covers sex discrimination based on gender stereotypes – such as when a boy does not act or look stereotypically male. Stoughton said that while harassment based on gender nonconformity is widespread, there have been only a handful of legal cases like this nationwide.
Mohawk School Superintendent Joyce Caputo said the district denies allegations in the lawsuit, but she stressed they are working with the NYCLU and the Justice Department to settle the suit in a way that benefits everyone.
“We are committed to doing everything in our power to prevent bullying and to promote tolerance,” she said.
Mohawk is a village of modest clapboard homes set near the river of the same name and just east of Utica. Jacob said he did not face serious problems until he went to Gregory B. Jarvis Junior/Senior High School as a seventh-grader in fall 2007.
That was about the time it became clearer that Jacob was different. By eighth grade, he wore eyeliner to school sometimes and would dye his hair bright blue or pink. He was out of the closet that school year.
“People would ask and I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m gay, whatever. Peace out,’” he said.
In an interview this week with his father at their home, Jacob said he was just being himself. That is, a teenager who loves to write songs, short stories and poems and who dreams about a career in the movies, maybe as a director or a writer.
Dressed in a blue fleece and jeans, Jacob talked effusively about pop culture – Pink is his favorite singer, “Orphan” a favorite movie. But his voice got softer when he talked about his experiences at Jarvis.
The lawsuit claims the principal and other district officials did not follow their own anti-harassment policies. Teachers blocked him from going to a “safe room” set up for him. One teacher told him he should be ashamed of himself for being gay, according to court papers.
Jacob’s father, Robert Sullivan (he has a different last name), devoted himself to making sure his son was safe in school despite fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“I put the cancer stuff aside,” Sullivan said, “because he doesn’t have anyone to defend himself beside me.”
But Sullivan said he failed to make much progress.
“You listen to your child cry at night and wish he was dead, and wish he wasn’t here. It’s a hard thing to go through,” Sullivan said. “And you know you’ve got to send him back there the next day.”
The idea of a lawsuit came from someone at a support group Jacob attended, and the NYCLU sued in August. The Department of Justice asked to intervene last month, noting the suit’s claims that Jacob was denied equal protections guaranteed in the Constitution and under Title IX, the antidiscrimination law affecting schools that receive federal funding.
The department would not comment on the litigation, but gay rights supporters saw its involvement as evidence of a strengthened commitment under the Obama administration to the rights of people who are gay or who do not conform to gender stereotypes.
However, it’s now possible that a settlement will be reached before a judge decides whether the federal agency can intervene. The Justice Department would not comment in detail on the lawsuit.
Jacob this week seemed happy just to put the trauma behind him.
The family recently moved to the next town. Jacob started a new school and the experience has been like night and day, he said: “It’s amazing. I have a lot of friends there.”
Sullivan’s cancer is in remission. He said it’s nice to see his son smile again, and he has hopes for their future.
“As long as I can get to see him graduate high school,” Sullivan said. “I think I can die happy.”
from The Associated Press

Harold Strickland said he was on his cellphone to 911 reporting a police beating of a man when the officers turned on him.
The ACLU of Florida says two Miami Beach police officers yelled epithets at a gay tourist and falsely accused him of trying to break into cars after he witnessed them kicking and punching a handcuffed man at Flamingo Park.
As Officers Frankly Forte and Elliot Hazzi approached witness Harold Strickland, they didn’t know he was on his cellphone reporting the beating to a Miami Beach 911 dispatcher, said Robert F. Rosenwald Jr., director of the ACLU Florida’s Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Advocacy Project.
“This is an issue that we have hoped to address for a long time. Miami Beach Police have for a long time harassed gay men around Flamingo Park without probable cause,” Rosenwald said Wednesday.
Miami Beach police first learned of the alleged incident — which occurred last March — on Wednesday afternoon and immediately began an internal affairs investigation, spokesman Detective Juan Sanchez said.
“At this time, the department cannot comment nor is it a practice to comment on an intended issue that is going to be [the] subject of litigation by the city,” Sanchez wrote in an e-mail to The Miami Herald.
Detective Gus Sanchez, vice president of the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police, also said he couldn’t discuss an open investigation.
Forte and Hazzi both were hired by Beach police as new officers in February 2007. They were still on duty Wednesday, Juan Sanchez said.
The incident began about 1 a.m. March 13 as Strickland, a former Beach resident now living in Los Angeles, walked past Flamingo Park near 14th Street and Michigan Avenue.
Strickland called 911 when he saw a man being beaten by two men just outside the park.
“I saw a guy running and then I saw two, what looked like undercover cops running. And they pushed this guy down on the ground, the one cop did, and the other cop came up as if he was kicking a football — and kicked the guy in the head,” Strickland, 45, told a dispatcher during a recorded phone call to 911.
For nearly five minutes, he talked to the dispatcher, who encouraged him to get closer for more detail “if it doesn’t put you in any danger.”
A few seconds later, Strickland told the dispatcher: “Now they’re coming after me!”
The two men, later identified as officers Forte and Hazzi, approached Strickland and could be heard saying, “What are you doing here? Where do you live? Let’s see some ID.” A few seconds later the line went dead.
Strickland later told the ACLU that Forte and Hazzi grabbed his cellphone and disconnected the call.
“The officers then told Strickland: `We know what you’re doing here. We’re sick of all the f—ing fags in the neighborhood.’ The officers pushed Strickland to the ground and tied his hands behind his back,” Rosenwald wrote in an ACLU letter delivered Wednesday to Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower.
“While Strickland was on the ground, the officers continued to spew anti-gay epithets. They called him a `f—ing fag’ and told him he was going to `get it good in jail.’ ”
Bower and City Manager Jorge Gonzalez also declined to comment.
Strickland called 911 at 1:06 a.m., according to dispatch records.
Forte wrote in an arrest report that 30 minutes later — at 1:36 a.m. — he saw Strickland trying to break into six cars at 14th Street and Michigan Avenue near Flamingo Park.
Strickland said he tried to tell the officers about his call to 911, but that they wouldn’t listen to him. They took him to jail on a loitering-or-prowling charge. At a hearing the next day, a judge told him that he would get out of jail faster if he pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor, Rosenwald said.
Strickland agreed, left jail and called the ACLU. He later changed his plea to not guilty. The State Attorney’s Office later dropped the charge. Loitering and resisting-arrest-without-violence charges also were dropped against Oscar Mendoza, the man Strickland reported being beaten near Flamingo Park.
from The Miami Herald

Johny Weir

This was only a matter of time. Johnny Weir has been forced to switch from real to fake fur.
Weir wore a costume for his free program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships two weeks ago that included a small amount of — gasp! — white fox fur on his left shoulder. Not surprisingly, he received enough protests and hate mail from animal rights advocates that he has decided to replace the fox with faux fur.
The death toll in Haiti is more than 150,000. Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. One in 10 Americans are unemployed and homeless shelters are swelling. But hey, Johnny Weir wore a piece of fur on his costume! We can’t have that!
“I would like to announce that due to pressures and threats from a certain animal rights group, I will be changing the genuine fox fur on my free program costume that I will use in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C., to white faux fur,” Weir said in a statement first posted on icenetwork.com. “I made this decision after several threats were sent to me about disrupting my performance in the Olympic Games and my costume designer, Stephanie Handler, was repeatedly sent messages of hate and disgust. I do not want something as silly as my costume disrupting my second Olympic experience and my chance at a medal, a dream I have had since I was a kid.
“I hope these activists can understand that my decision to change my costume is in no way a victory for them, but a draw,” Weir continued. “I am not changing in order to appease them, but to protect my integrity and the integrity of the Olympic Games as well as my fellow competitors.
“Just weeks away from hitting my starting position on the ice in Vancouver, I have technique and training to worry about and that trumps any costume and any threat I may receive.”
Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, told The Associated Press that no one from the group had threatened Weir.
“If he’s made the smart decision I hoped he’d make, to shun the skins of animals and not decorate his costumes with them, that’s a very good thing and I’m happy to hear it,” Feral told The AP.
Weir has strong opinions and is not shy about expressing them or defending them. When asked about the fur during the U.S. championships two weeks ago, Weir said he thought “it was lovely.”
He also said “PETA has been up my butt since the 2006 Olympic Games. I get postcards and nasty hate mail and videotapes of animals being skinned. And while I feel bad and understand their side of things, I take my little autograph card and I sign my name and I draw a chipmunk with X’s over its eyes and I mail it back. Don’t attack me for a personal choice. You’re protecting animals. We have soldiers dying all over the world. Choose your battles. Don’t pick on me.”
That was then. Apparently, even Johnny can take only so much. “When ‘Friends of Animals’ starts sending my costume designer hate faxes, it’s gone too far,” Weir tweeted recently.
So now it will be fake fur. Whew. Thank God. The Olympics can go on and we can focus on weightier, more important matters, like whether the cheese fondue to be served at the Swiss Olympic House represents an abuse of cows.
from ESPN
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