Waitin' for the Weekend

Today's Chuckle

From the New Yorker.

You Can Help

It could have been any one of us.

Jimmy Lee Dean was beaten nearly to death five years ago by two men looking for a gay man to rob, leaving him with a smashed face and many physical problems.  Failed surgeries and the indifference of the medical profession have left him with a ruined life.  The Dallas Voice ran an article on the fifth anniversary of tbe brutal attack, but here's the story in Jimmy's own words:

On July 17, 2008 I was the victim of a hate crime in Dallas, Texas. Through the kind act of everyday people like you, I did not die that night. The criminals were stopped, prosecuted and the good people of Texas provided $50,000.00 from their crime victims fund to repair my physical damages and any phycological help that might be needed.

Problems started when I left Parkland County Hospital intensive care unit. Up to that point everything seemed to be going ok. Then After some 16 visits to the Oral Surgery Clinic, 2 surgeries and one attempted surgery that never took place and 27 visits to Parkland crisis center I am in the same phycical situation as at the crime scene.

Work done in the second surgery at Parkland Hospital has all come undone. My jaw and cheek bone are no longer attached. Teeth have never been dealt with. No one has followed up on my broken back. I have headaces every other day. My eyes are having problems. I walk with a causious gate. I get light headed all the time. I don't reallly go anywere because of the facial disfigurments and the way I look when I eat.

I never asked for what happend. It could have been anyone of us at that spot at that time.

My dreams and identity are gone along with my alillity to smell, but maybe there are medical procedures that might restore me to a point where I can have some kind of a normal life.

Nobody should have to go without needed medical treatment in this country, but you guys know the score as well as I do: if you have no money, the doctors won't even look at you. But we can make a real difference in Jimmy's life by contributing at his Indiegogo page. Please do.

It could have been you.





 Honk to Unfinished Lives.

Marriage News Watch, 8/5/13

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:




Also, same-sex marriage begins today in Uruguay.

Archimedes' Secret

Today's Quote

It’s great we live in a democratic society, but we’ve lost all sense of decorum and occasion. To be on Fifth Avenue is now about the same as being on the Coney Island boardwalk.

--"Shirtless Goes the City," The New York Times

 

 

Your Head Trucker has been saying the same thing for the last forty years, but nobody has paid me the slightest bit of attention. 

Sunday Drive: To Love Somebody

This is so touching, and not just because it's an old favorite song - Barry is the last one standing.



I always thought he was so hot. But damn, son, you're looking mighty old now.

But of course, I say that every time I see myself in the mirror, too.

Why Every Man Needs a Beard

Not to mention, beards are sexy as fuck.

And why should a man scrape his face smooth and bare like a woman's? Isn't that the very definition of unnatural?

Anal Sex

John Corvino is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Marriages Begin in Minnesota and Rhode Island

This brings the total of marriage-equality states to 13, plus the District of Columbia and five Indian tribes; thirty percent of Americans now have the freedom to the freedom to marry a same-sex partner. Seven other states have full civil unions or limited domestic partnerships.

Also this week, Gullup released its latest polling results, which show that 52% of Americans would vote for a federal law legalizing same-sex marriages across the country, while 43% would vote against it. The landmark Supreme Court rulings in June had no discernible effect on public attitudes as measured by this poll. Here's the breakdown by various groups:

Click to enlarge.

And here's a trendline showing the increase of support over time for same-sex marriage:

Click to enlarge.