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Well social media here we come! Beck’s Cafe is now tweeting on twitter. You can follow us there if you like, our twitter address is http://twitter.com/BecksCafe and we’ll be feeding Beck’s Cafe’s RSS feed to our Twitter site as well so you can stay up to date for what’s percolating here. Of course, you could skip Twitter and just RSS us too by clicking on our RSS feed for Beck’s Cafe http://beckscafe.com/feed/
Whatever works best for you!
I work with quite a few Iranians. The women are kind souls and the men can be comically bellicose. But, to a person, they all want to see a revolution in their country. That means something different to them than to us I think. They seem to be okay with the violence if it means that the current regime is ousted. They don’t want Iran back…they want Persia back. The live story of this historic moment is happening at http://iran.twazzup.com/
It’s pretty amazing using Twitter. Since Twitter can work via SMS messaging, the Iranian government can’t shut down the communications network that has popped up to support the unrest revolution that is happening. Go take a look at http://iran.twazzup.com/ and, if you are on Twitter, don’t forget to make your icon green in support of Iran Freedom by visiting http://helpiranelection.com/
(photo courtesy of Rob & Ale Photostream)
Now this is something I never expected to see, “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy“. First some background about my experience.
My experience in Evangelical Church circles had been a mixed blessing on social justice. On one hand there was a tremendous life of the church on Sunday. Vibrant and moving worship. Excellent preaching and teaching. Strong support for most members. Miraculous answer to prayer at times. And effective children’s ministry. But the lack of actual practice of Micah 6:8, the social justice piece of the gospel, was troubling:
6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord really wants from you: He wants you to promote justice, to be faithful, and to live obediently before your God (NET Bible)
It’s such a big part of the Gospel I often wondered, “shouldn’t we have more attention on that piece?”
So the headline “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy” really caught my eye, and the results even more so. Check these out:
Now granted, the survey does focus on churches who are welcoming and affirming of the LGBT community already so perhaps there is some bias. I wonder what the effects would be on a broader range of churches. Still, I found the connection between a church being welcoming and affirming and being more open to helping the oppressed and down trodden unexpected. Perhaps opening our hearts to one group makes cold hearts thaw towards others.
You can read the press release on the study at The Task Force’s website here.
If you’ve got enough coffee left, you can read the whole study at the Institute for Welcoming Resources website here.
Oh and if you are in Massachusetts, a great welcoming church for Christians is First Presbyterian of Waltham. There are others too, if you do a search on you favorite search engine under “Open and Affirming” you should see a list. Keshet is a good choice to find resources if you are Jewish.
(Graphic image courtesy of Bemky and used under Creative Commons License)
“An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” has been re-introduced for the 2009 legislative session in the House by Representative Carl Sciortino and Representative Byron Rushing (HB 1728) and in the Senate by Senator Benjamin Downing (S.1687).
The hearing date July 14, 2009 and you can submit your testimony by July 10th by clicking to MTPC’s site here. But alot has been going on to get us to this point and let’s hear from just three of our community on this.
Back on April 7th, 2009 MTPC led a lobby day that had large attendance and many key speakers. To say it was a moving experience is an understatement. While the facts of the story have been covered at Pam’s House Blend, on a post at MTPC, on a post at the Interfaith Coalitions Website, and finally at Boston’s Bay Window article here, what about putting another face to the story? Well, that’s just what Michelle, Paula and Rebecca did, while enjoying salad and calzone together after the lobby day. Let’s listen in to their discussion; the results may enlighten you to a more human side of this story:
- One question we have to ask each other (queue diet cokes being sipped) is, why did we attend the lobby days in the first place?
- I think we all had different expectations going into this, but, what did you hope to accomplish?
- [between bites of wonderful Ceaser Salad comes another question] Was this your first time at this or had you attended before?
- So, what were your first impressions?
- What were the results of some of your conversations with our representatives and senators?
As we finished up our chat, slipped our dirty dishes into the garbage and got ready to head home, Paula had one last thing to say to finish up our roundtable discussion, Paula capped our discussion by saying, “Even though we are transgendered we are people too! That is all we ask is to be treated like people and be protected under the law as all citizens are entitled to”.
Amen sister!
Though it’s been around for 51 years, Club Passim was not a place I ever went to. I’m not sure why though I have some ideas I can share over coffee sometime. But Thursday night a dear friend Denise emailed and said, “Hey, what are you doing…want to go to a concert at Passim in Cambridge?”
Friday night commuting is a nightmare so I had to think about it for, oh, 32 seconds.
“Yeah sure I’ll go this will be fun”. And so we attended and saw these two amazing folk singing women:
Holy COW were they good. And so now the brief review…since as usual I am running late! And speaking of running late, getting to Cambridge from the South Shore was only 2.5 hours worth of commute on a Friday night. Talk about sucking. But the ride was oh so worth it.
And of course, even walking in Cambridge I got lost. I’m sure I looked like a tourist, eyes squinting, walking up one street after another in Cambridge, asking directions and only by accident stumbling into Club Passim. But find it I did.
The food at Passim is great. The restaurant that is co-located with them is called Veggie Planet. Seeing that I’m on the Cavewoman diet and actually losing weight this fare was right on target for my palate. We had the Caeser Salad on some kind of veggie pizza thing. I was good and had water to drink. And it was very good. The post-salad coffee was good too: robust, dark and soothing. And the wait staff was friendly and smiled. And for once in the past month it actually was not raining in Massachusetts…Halleluijah!
Amy was the opener (starter?) and she was the more brooding and quiet of the two in her style. An excellent voice with terrific lyrics, Amy, who had been enjoying the kind hospitality of Toronto Pearson’s Airport earlier in the day (having spent alot of time there in the past I can tell ya it’s not so bad BUT 6 hours plus in any airport will make you want to go into a coma), literally got off the plane and into Passim and was there crooning away. She’s terrific kind coffee swillers so have a peak at her site here http://www.amycampbell.ca/ and enjoy!
Natalia, a friend of my friend Denise (so now I have another friend who has famous friends, not bad!) was her own genre. First, this woman can PICK an guitar. I thought she had like 5 instruments on stage not just one and she was fabulous in making her guitar do things that I didn’t know you could with a guitar. Her vocal range is incredible and her songs, even the sad ones, are very uplifting. She’s got a great sense of humour too. I’d highly recommend getting her music or taking in her act if you can. You can read all about Natalia here: http://www.nataliazukerman.com/
The night was terrific. Many thanks to my gal pal Denise for inviting me out to share her love for folk music. She took the train in from the South Shore and, bizarrely, met neighbors at Passim. How weird is that. Denise is growing by leaps and bounds lately in her life so a big shout out of love to ya gal! …. Both Denise and I were thinking of Sonia whilst we were folkin’ out at Passim and Denise told me Sonia was out protesting (?) Okay Sonia if you are reading this what were you doing, exactly? …. Whilst dining our friend June text’d in to say she was still buried at work (on a Friday night? I thought I was the only geek doing that?) so a big Beck’s Cafe HUG and MUG to our gal June; the hardest working, rock mama executive I know. By the by, June is a big supporter of Fenway Health and she tells me that her recent tour of their new facility was amazing, impressive and welcoming. So hop on over there too if you’ve got some coffee left in your mug
Northampton, affectionately known as NoHo, and Western Massachusetts wouldn’t really seem to be a hot spot of economic activity…but apparently it is! What a nice surprise 
You can see the promotional video here: Western MA a Place to Work
In a puzzling and shocking outcome, Professor Jennifer Berdahl of the University of Toronto reports that women who act like men get harrassed more at work than if women are just more stereotypically “womanly”. Dr. Berdahl reports that:
BEHAVING like “one of the boys” to get ahead at work may not be the best strategy for women. A study had found that alpha-females are more likely to suffer sexual harassment.
Women who display what many regard as traditional male traits - such as assertiveness, independence and ambition - are more often the targets of sexual harassment than “feminine” women, the Canadian research has found. The situation is worst in workplaces dominated by men, where women with so-called masculine personalities - described in the study as “uppity” - suffered more than twice the harassment of other women.
Of course this begs the question, what if a woman is simply more masculined traited would her acting more stereotypically feminine get her someplace or would that be seen as non-stereo typical too?
The report goes on to say that:
“The more women deviated from traditional gender roles - by occupying a ‘man’s’ job or having a ‘masculine’ personality - the more they were targeted,” Dr Berdahl said. “Although having a masculine personality would seem to help employees fit into male-dominated work environments, having such a personality appears to have hurt the women in this study.”
But why is this? Accroding to Dr. Berdahl, it appears that sexual harrassment is not so much about sex it’s about punishing gender role deviance.
You can find the full report at Pscynet here or if your cheap (like we are at The Cafe) go here for the summary.
As we all know, the economy is in pretty terrible shape and the U.S. Government Stimulus Package may help to keep it from getting worse. To that end, we thought everyone would find this article from Yahoo of
interest, “Stimulus Job Watch: Collected Tips and Opportunities for Job Seekers”
There’s a good bit of information in it about sectors that are being stimulated:
Read all about it at Yahoo Hot Jobs here: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-stimulus_job_watch-794
It’s true, Godiva has gone MOBILE. That means our chocolate fantasies can all be fulfilled RIGHT from the comfort of your smart phone! I tried the application out on a Blackberry Curve and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use. There are menu options for gifts in various dollar ranges, business gifts, gift baskets and, of course plain old CHOCOLATE. It’s all very cool and you can get your mobile Godiva here: http://www.godiva.com/mobile/default.aspx
You may not know about them now, but you most certainly will in the future. AGREAA stands for The Association for Gender Research, Education, Academia & Action. They have an interesting charter that is multidisciplinary in approach. In their own words:
The Association for Gender Research, Education, Academia and Action (AGREAA) supports those who enrich the understanding of gender and sexuality by providing community space dedicated to the discussion of gender, professional development opportunities, and increased access to information.
One of their first projects was the very interesting, Trans-Academics.org, “a place where people of all genders can discuss gender theory, the trans community and its various identities, both as a part of the academic world and day-to-day life.”
And AGREAA now has an award under their bonnet, the Richard L. Schlegel National Legion of Honor Awards, awarded to “recognizes individuals living in the United States who have exhibited outstanding leadership and significantly contributed to the dignity and freedom of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people”. Dr. Schlegal was a pioneer in GLBT rights. You can read a bit more about him and the award at American University’s site here.
The Milky Way Lounge and Lanes is reopening! If you have ever visited the old Milky Way Lounge and Lanes you know what this means! The old one was downstairs in Jamaica Plain with a bar, dance floor and bowling ally! I kid you not fair reader, they had 7 candlepin bowling lanes. The new location has skee ball instead but hey fair enough.
The new one is at The Brewery 284 Amory Street Jamaica Plain MA 02130 (phone 617.524.3740). This Friday, is the first Dyke Night at The Milky Way so that’s even more good since they donate 25%+ of Dyke Night profits to GLBT causes.
When I first stumbled on The Sunlight Foundation I automatically thought it was a liberal leaning thing disguised to be a bi-partisan watchdog of the U.S. Government. I’m not so sure my initial impressions were right. So, having a second cup of coffee I dug a little deeper to look at their “projects”:
Reading these changed my mind that perhaps, for once, there is a group that cares about how our government is working for it’s citizens, for the people and by the people, regardless of political affiliation. Now that really is a ray of sunshine. You can read all about The Sunshine Foundation and the many projects they are doing to keep government accountable to the people by clicking to their site here.
I saw a post on Yahoo’s home page today that was so encouraging!
I know, I know, none of us really cares if we look hot or not, if our waistline bulges, if our hair grays, it’s all about being serious about who we are, standing up for others rights, being true to ourselves …. but you have to admit, “Married … With Children” mom Katey Sagal looks HOT at 55 and we’d all LOVE to look like that.
Okay Katey, fess up your secrets to Beck’s Cafe’s “very serious” cofee swilling readers 
The Boston Marathon has finished for another year. It’s a wonderful event with world class runners, drama, and of course Heart Breake Hill where the race is often made or lost. While I was doing some web surfing trying to figure out some of the stories of the people in the middle of the pack I cam across Joy Johnson. Wait till you see her.
Joy is the defending 80-and-over champion in the New York City Marathon. You read that right, 80 and over. She’s so good and so fit she increased the intensity of her training when she thought she might be slipping. I had no idea the 80 and over bracket was so competitive! You can read her inspiring story and see her training even at the Wall Street Journal at this link here
I think Joy’s story draws me in since she so inspires me as does Elaine Mansfield’s story of her transformation through strength training at age 55. Both women show it’s never too late. It’s never too late to take control back of your own personal health if you want to. That is quite and inspiration for me and, if you read their stories, for you too I hope.
Now to get the coffee ready for tomorrow morning
Life just got a whole lot more complicated as my company, finally, had to succumb to the pressure of the current economic thing-a-ma-bobish recession er MACRO-micro economic thing we are in. It was inevitable. Being a small firm with valuable technology we are valuable but we are also easy to push around. So as we sat in the meeting room today, our chief scientist cleared his throat (”ahem”) and became one for whom stroking one’s beard is a nervous act hiding as one of wisdom and he spaketh unto us …..
“I have some good news and some, well, less than good news…statistically speaking of course”.
Those of us tech-marketing weenies looked about and said to ourselves, “wow, even WE didn’t understand that but it was good; we didn’t know this guy was that good at creating copy”. But he continued.
And we all got kinda puzzled seeing charts, graphs, scattergrams, hockey stick graphs, deep valley graphs and then realized…oh crap we really ARE in trouble!
My first thought was, so typical, “My freakin’ hair removal budget down the drain”. Said through clenched teeth under my breath my blonde hair’d friends words echoing through my ears, “The hair Becki, it’s always about THE HAIR”. Many of our kind readers will remember her refrain, so captured in “Hair Removal Horror” … and here it was again. But my fretting and dark clouds soon had a silver lining as I learned about workshare. And that was a treat.
Share my job? Oh hell ya! I’m all about that and so I really DID feel joyful upon learning that my company would join many others in New England to spread the hurt a bit and help us all keep our jobs to make it through the tough times.
Jo Landers, President of Jo Lander’s Business Services, captures the essence of this program best on her site, when she writes,
The WorkShare Program, run by the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (formerly the DET), is a way to ‘partially’ layoff employees during a slowdown, without having to let them go or shut your business down completely.
The program is a boon on many levels for companies who are being assaulted by the difficult business climate. Among the many benefits are:
You can read Jo’s excellent summary on the Massachusetts Workshare Program at her professional services site here. You can read all about it from the employees and the employer’s perspective at mass.gov at this link here.
So, if the firm you work is having some challenges keeping the ship aright, suggest a Workshare program. Everyone sharing a little can keep the boat afloat giving everyone valuable time to make things right for the long term.
(Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Flickr Photostream)
“Large gender differences in the propensity to choose challenging tasks … appear to be driven by gender differences in risk aversion and in confidence about the ability to perform a new and potentially difficult task.”
How’s that for a quote!
You can read the full article here, “Gender Differences: The Role of Institutions” but here are some snippets that might make you situp and take notice:
(Photo courtesy of SillyDog Photos, used under Creative Commons License)
“Unthinkably good things can happen even late in the game. It’s such a surprise.” (quote from Frances, the Heroine, in the movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun”)
Under the Tuscan Sun was on again here in my town!
I so love this movie.
I reviewed this movie back in September 2006 and it still remains one of my favorite movies.
Of late I’ve been seeing more darker films like Batman, The Dark Knight and Watchmen. Both excellent films but, in both, it’s hard not to come away feeling so torn that the hero has to be ruined and in some cases killed.
I started to feel a little claustrophobic frankly about life.
But Under the Tuscan Sun always makes me cry; not tears of sadness but those of a hopeful heart that has been touched and somehow reawakened to who I am as a woman, providing for others from a full heart and hopeful for the future of those near me.
You completely owe it to yourself to see Under the Tuscan Sun. You’ll feel brighter after you do
Now this is nice news. Having personally faced discrimination twice in my life, on the job for being transgender (and this in high tech heaven no less) I was really happy to see this news from our hard workin’ crew at MTPC, 104 Legislators Co-sponsoring An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination & Hate Crimes!
So now the work begins to actually get the bill passed so now we can all join in the fun of lobbying
I remember being at The Neighborhood one time and I saw Gunner there. We were chatting about the whole ENDA fiasco. And I said to Gunner, “You know, I think we have to do this at the local level” and he agreed.
Of course MTPC has been making the grassroots local level work happen for years like no one’s business. He and the entire MTPC team have done a great job rallying all of us to do something locally to improve our lot. So how can you get involved?
There’s a lobby day planned on April 7 and some training planned too ahead of time. So you don’t sit like I did in front of my State Rep saying, “yeah this is good you should support this”. I eventually got my message down and actually on message thanks to MTPC’s coaching. You can too! Rummage on over to MTPC’s web site to learn how you can help: MTPC Ways To Help
I could probably post alot on this topic but I’ll leave the info for our readers over a nice cup of coffee or cocoa. In a nutshell, one of the largest and most influential Evangelical Churches, Willow Creek Community Church, has concluded that homosexuality is not a sin. It’s part of who you are.
While that may seem self-evident, it’s a major deal for a church like Willow Creek to admit it.
This happened during a meeting that none other than Julie Nemeck attended at Willow Creek. You might remember Dr. Nemecek, she’s both an experienced pastor and educator who was booted from her job in Michigan for being trans.
Here’s a quote from the story on her blog:
For our part, we were surprised and pleased that Willow Creek’s own 30-year study of homosexuality has led them to conclude that: (1) Sexual orientation is unchangeable. and (2) Sexual orientation should not keep someone from being received into their church. They acknowledged that 6 of the 7 verses used to condemn homosexuality are irrelevant; really referring to other things.
You can read the full story at Julie’s blog at her story, “Soulforce, Willow Creek and Me“.
Their story is pretty amazing and really goes back to something that we miss sometimes as Christians and as transgender people: God isn’t so much concerned with who we are but in our resultant behavior; our character. Are any of our behavior Christlike or not? Are our behaviors and actions showing we are redemptive and healing in our relationships and still uncompromising, and, though very much imperfect, disciples?
For me, it’s important to remember my behaviors are a reflection of my individual heartfelt desire to “give back”, in a sense, to Christ for His sacrifice for me on the cross and my personal acceptance of His sacrifice for my sins. My behaviors can’t earn me God’s love but they can show how much I love Him by loving others.
It’s easy to forget that in Jesus’s day, He was considered an out there radical bent on destroying the government and the powers of the day. He was considered a major league weirdo and threat! And though He was a radical, even a surface read of the Gospels shows you how redemptive and healing His behaviors were. What a great example He left us.
You can learn about SoulForce at this linkie love here. Photos of this historic meeting are at SoulForce photos here.
It’s almost like you forget what it’s like to be hugged when you come out as transgender.
For me that was a loss.
I had always been kinda touchy feely. I loved hugging people in church and welcoming them in. Such a nice thing to do. Nothing says “Jesus loves you” like a warm human accepting you unconditionally and hugging you. When it was unclear what I was to my fellow parishoners, my soft hugs were met with a more professional, “at a distance” kind of “thing”. Not quite a hug and not quite a put off. More ambiguous than that. Oh well. Jesus was in there someplace I’m sure but I darn missed that hug!
I started reclaiming my huggability when I came into the transgender community and when genetic women accepted me. That was a nice suprise.
My first hug from a genetic woman who both knew about me and accepted me was quite the experience. She said, “Oh I’m pleased to meet you Rebecca” and then like a big cloud I was embraced and I embraced her. I felt normal! Like, wow, who woulda thunk it. I thought, for a long while, I’d become part of the NLG, “New Leper Generation”. Not nearly as trendy as the Pepsi Generation or being a Gen-X’r.
The best hugger by far is Mara Keisling. Mara is the Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. So she’s a mover and a shaker. And, generally speaking, you don’t get great hugs from a mover and shaker. It’s just not becoming.
I saw Mara at First Event, one day. I’ll never forget that day. I welcomed Mara with a big smile and a ‘Hi Mara” and she opened her arms and gave me a huge welcoming hug. It was like someone had put their arms around me and gave me enough comfort that life would be okay for like 3 days. Now THAT was a hug.
First Event 2009 was a love/hug fest. So many wonderful women. So many teary, “oh I love you’s” so many hugs. I thought I was going to get a rash from hugging so many of my old and new friends. It was great. I talked to my therapist about it, she said, “so you really got some nurturing”. Mmmm now that’s a great word. I felt nurtured. I was learning a hug could be a poweful thing and I’d forgotten that.
I’d encourage everyone to hug each other warmly. Think about how we could reduce our need for foreign oil! And don’t be shy in public with them hugs, “what will people think, my goodness…” nah, they will be so jealous they aren’t getting a nice warm embrace and being let know they are welcome to be who they are, right where they are, right as they are.
If your transgender and unemployed, or just plain old unemployed regardless of who you are, sometimes things can look pretty bleak. That’s especially true given today’s job market. John Buckman has an answer: Start your own company. And he’s got some very in your face advice as well.
John’s bio is interesting. He is the founder of Magnatune, a Berkeley, California-based record label he founded in 2003 and which is known for its commercial application of Creative Commons licensing and overtly artist-friendly business practices. He’s been profiled by Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and The Economist. You can read his full profile at Wikipedia here.
John gave a talk at LeWeb 08 about entrepreneurship which was provocative, simple and poweful. If your on the fence about starting your own firm, John’s presentation may help you re-think what you are doing. You can view his talk recorded at Le Web at UStream TV here. If you just want to check out his slide deck, you can download it from Slide Share here.
Dolla are still a rage with girls, in fact here is the list of the top 7 from 2007 from the NY Times, About.com site
I think the doll I hope I never have to buy over Christmas though is the patented, peeing doll….what a joy that would be! Read all about the pee doll at her patent at Google’s patent site, “Doll having delayed wetting and crying action“.
The Christmas Shopping rush is upon us! Now’s the time to give your funny bone a tuneup and make sure you take a little humor with you into the fray. In the immortal words of my hero, Mary Poppins, “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medecine go down, in the most delightful way”.
The gentleman kept repeating softly, “Don’t get excited, Albert; don’t scream, Albert; don’t yell, Albert; keep calm, Albert.”
A woman standing next to him said, “You certainly are to be commended for trying to soothe your son, Albert.”
The man looked at her and said, “Lady, I’m Albert.”
“Do you always carry your TV remote?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “But my husband refused to come shopping with me, so I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him.”
“Doing my Christmas shopping early,” replied the defendant.
“That’s no offense,” said the judge. “How early were you doing this shopping?”
“Before the store opened,” countered the prisoner.
* Your favorite Christmas movie is Jurassic Park.
* You turn on the lawn sprinklers on Christmas Eve to keep carolers away.
(Photo courtesy of Billaday’s Photos and used here under Creative Commons License)
I used to be uber-organized. Daytimer in hand, I would insure all my actions were lined up, set down, calendered in and then checked off as accomplished. Frankly it was all good. Ah then we have…
today’s reality….
Post it notes, very cool Palm Tungsten, phone with alarms, business cards stuffed into my purse, nice engineering pad, email, twitter….Certainly one of those has my todo list for today so I don’t get undone??
Well as you can see I’m less organized than I wish I were. So, thinking on what to do I read a booky called, “Getting Things Done” which was truly helpful for me. But what about a system to put my new book learnin’ to work? That’s when I stumbled on Remember The Milk.
Remember The Milk (or RTM for short) helps! In their own words:
Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience.
At first I was a little worried keeping my todo list on the web. Then I found out they have a secure connection and I choose what I make public or not so my stuff is safe. I have a list of articles I am writing for Beck’s Cafe, todo’s I have to get done for a thriving non-profit I’m on the board of, birthdays, work stuff (yeah my paying gig) and many other items. It’s terrific. Let me tell you how I used it and maybe you’ll be inspired if you aren’t organized already.
I enter todo’s in tabs, and each tab is for a specific subject area. Because Remember The Milk (RTM) lets you label any part of their system so it works for you as you can name things so they make the most sense for you. I have todo’s for work, for family, for Beck’s Cafe and so on. Once I enter an item in my todo list I then “tag” it. A tag is a special label that allows someone to group like items together. So, for Beck’s Cafe I have a tab for my article ideas and I tag all my articles for “workin’ girl” or for “frugal tech”. This grouping let’s me see all my ideas of the same tag so I can understand what I might write next. Oh and if you prefer not to use tags, you don’t have to. Early on I didn’t use them as I thought they were a bother and slowed me down, but, tags are a very helpful part. you can also color code which tasks to do before others. While this organizational process is helpful, phone text and email reminders are brilliant.
Every action item can have a due date and a reminder date and time. The reminders can be set for sending you a phone text message or sending you an email, or both! RTM’s reminders are worth the time to use their system. Yes, there are other text and email reminder systems on the web, but RTM’s tie in with your todo list makes this tool very helpful. Since using RTM I haven’t missed a single appointment for hair styling, hair removal, or those special hot dates I have … to go food shopping or get my oil changed. Pretty nifty!
You know that the Frugal Tech likes her deals so what’s the economic skinny here? Well RTM is FREE or you can pitch in $25 and get a few extra features and support their great tool. RTM can play nice with Google Docs, iCalendar tools and even is an application for your iPhone. And for free, or the $25.00 uptick you can’t go wrong. They have over 1 million users worldwide now so you won’t be a guinea pig when you try RTM.
So stop forgetting the milk and start remembering it with Remember the Milk today.
Oasis, from Google’s word definitions search page, it means:
Oasis is also an amazing coffee house with live music right in the heart or Waltham MA!
Housed in First Presbyterian Church of Waltham, Oasis is, in their own words:
is a welcoming community where you can enjoy an evening of affordable entertainment by local, national and international performers including singer-songwriters, folk musicians, blues, jazz and other genres.
Located in the art gallery of the First Presbyterian Church of Waltham, the space is intimate, safe, inclusive and alcohol-free. This not-for-profit coffee house, run by volunteers, offers a lounge area where baked goods and fair-trade coffee and tea are available along with free wi-fi. Proceeds go to support the coffee house and its performers.
And welcoming and warm they are! When a friend and I visited Oasis for the firs time in August, we were greeted at the door by some of the nicest people we had ever met. We were welcomed in, paid our admission ($12) and took a seat. The acoustics were terrific and the group we saw that night, Gretel, was amazing. During the band break, there was plenty of people to meet and chat with.
Gretel, a local Boston area folk group, is well worth tracking down to see. They have passion, strong musical skills and excellent words. Their songs are more stories than the simple drivel served up as music today. And powerful stories they are. Songs like “Heart Shaped Heart”, moved me to tears with words of how both love and pain leave hollow spaces in our hearts…sometimes so hollow they drive us to reassess our relationship. “Wolves” was a haunting tune that forebode some terror drawing ever closer as the song moves forward. Gretel’s lead singer, Reva Willimans’ voice and strong emotional content with each song remind me of Amy Mann but far more engaged. Reva is living through her music, not singing about a topic.
Oasis Coffee House features New England and National acts, is inexpensive, is warm and friendly. What’s not to like? For some local buzz, you can’t beat their offering.
I never cease to be amazed at how good we have it in the U.S. being both citizens and transgender. Certainly many of us are not doing as well as we could no question. And certainly the U.S. could come further along in terms of rights and safety for those of us who are transgender. But other countries have it far worse.
I happened on Juliet Victor Mukasa from Jay Sennett’s blog. Juliett is transgender, works for human rights and LGBT rights and does it all in Uganda. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be. But maybe there really is nothing better than being who you are. You can learn about Juliett Victor and what is going on in Ugandad by visiting the article, “On Transgender Human Rights Issues in Africa“
Well another Thanksgiving induced tryptophan coma has come and gone. At Beck’s Cafe we usually get ours by getting up at 5AM, ripping out the gizzards of our turkey, washing with cold water, season thusly and slipping our bird into a Reynolds oven bag then slide our bagged bird into our oven. Without a doubt, this is the easiest way to cook a Turkey we know.
But the fine patrons of Beck’s Cafe wanted something different this year. At 5AM I don’t do different. I do coffee. However, Mary Poppins being my idol I set out, spit spot, to determine a fresh approach for our old bird.
Google is my choice of search engine for recipes rather than going right to the Food Network, but, in typically Googley-Goodness The Food Network came up first anyway. And, surprisingly, the mad scientist of food, Alton Brown’s Roast Turkey recipe was feature. I’ve tried Alton’s recipes before in our kitchen, see my brief review coupled with a review of Laurel’s Kitchen Pancake recipe here at Beck’s Cafe at our article, Pancakes.
So about Alton’s recipe and our adventure making it.
My bird had not been frozen so I skipped the part on thawing it but in the process completely missed the brine soak that seems to a crucial part of this recipe. So we’ll have to try Alton’s brine soak next time.
The rest of Alton’s recipe was a snap to prepare. The surprising combination of apple, onion and cinnamon stick proved outstanding. Lacking sage, I bounced over to my neighbor’s and borrowed her Poultry Seasoning. Poultry Seasoning? “Well, Becki, it has Sage in it afterall” my neighbor explained to me. While it was the last ingredient in the list it did indeed have Sage in it. I also missed liberally coating the outside of our turkey with canola oil. Guess I needed more coffee or a Bloody Mary. Roasting the bird at 500 F for the first 30 minutes s was key to locking in the flavor and in creating ultra yummy skin (for which my neighbor felt was outstandingly good).
Beck’s Cafe recommends Alton Brown’s Roast Turkey recipe as a winner not a turkey. Your taste buds and noses will be delighted with your results.
Come help our team of plucky, oh so gorgeous and quite friendly Barrista’s make Christmas a bit more fun for your neighbors. Beck’s Cafe has teamed up with the Salvation Army in their On-Line Red Kettle program.
Our collective goal (on-line kettles and those kettles at establishments in your neighborhood) is $1M for Christmas. Beck’s Cafe’s little part is $125.00 So click on our kettle off in the right hand column of Beck’s Cafe and donate something small or large. All donations go right to the Salvation Army. Beck’s Cafe is not reimbursed, we are just happy to provide some space and spread the word
Suddenly I See…. by *ultra-seven on deviantART
Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you’re trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on a word
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
And she’s taller than most
And she’s looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from a page in a magazine
Oh she makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower, yeah
The power to be
The power to give
The power to see
Yea Yea
(Suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see
Yea Yea
(Suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see
Yea Yea
(Suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see
Yea Yea
(Suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see
Yea Yea
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me (Suddenly I see)
(Suddenly I see)
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me (Suddenly I see)
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
(Lyrics from song, “Suddenly I See”, KT Tunstall)
“Suddenly I See” KT Tunstall @ You Tube
None other than the Harvard Business Review is covering transgender workplace issues. This is pretty big. The best place to go for the links to follow this are at The Billerico Project Post, “Harvard Business Review Weighs in on Transgender Workplace Issues”
At that post, written by Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss, of The Transgender Workplace Blog, you’ll find links to:
All in all, very exciting to see!
The election for the President of the United States has felt like the most interesting in years. One woman has done a nice job of summing up both candidates in one paragraph each. You can read about them at Kellie’s Web Log by clicking to her article of Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at this link here.
I saw this post at Caprice’s Blog and I laughed and knew I HAD to share her visual insight with our readers … she has a truly good post.
Send your mousy mouse on over to Caprice’s Blog posting, “Community Organizer vs Governor“to see the difference between the two.
The historic implications of her visual are incredible when you think about … though the players today fall short of the original actors from the time of Jesus and Pilate.
The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) now offers job listings of known jobs that are transgender friendly. Certainly all jobs should accept you based on what your performance is in benefiting the company for whom you work, but, sadly, that is not the case (hence the reason for HB1722). So, to see some job listings that are transgender friendly, mouse on over to MTPC’s Trans-Friendly Job Listings to see what’s around.
Oh, if you know of a job that is trans-friendly, consider posting it at MTPC’s board to spread the word on the opening!
Beck’s Cafe also covered another list of transgender friendly jobs at our article, “Simply Hired and Transgender Friendly too” Go take a peek to see what you can find. Also, Southern Comfort Conference, on September 30 - October 5th, 2008 will be featuring their Second Annual Career Expo (a national event) in collaboration with Out and Equal Workplace Advocates. Exhibiting companies include GM, Raytheon, IBM, and many others
If you are transgender, transsexual, gender queer, gender non-conforming, a cross dresser, or anyone who crosses mainstream society’s notions of gender, Fenway Community Health offers a support group series, the T-Supper Club. A new 6 week group is starting up on September 23, 2008. Topics include community building, sexual health issues, stress management, personal expression and group dialog. The group is free and dinner is served each week. See their post at the Fenway Health site at this link here.
Register today by calling Alex at Fenway Health at 617-927-6449.
P.S.
We did a little highlight here @ Beck’s Cafe on Alex back in June 2007. Alex is not just the transgender community liason at Fenway Health, he’s also an accomplished artist; you can read our quick profile on him with links to his art at our article, “Alex Solange - Art with Heart“
I’m just sitting here at the Cafe. It’s about noon-ish. Morning coffee crowd has left and I’m just having a last cup before I clean up a bit. I’m sitting in my favorite black broom skirt, I love this skirt, as my friends Jenna, June and Sharon know.
I’m tearing up as I think about my Grandmother and reflecting on her life.
It’s sunset for her I’m realizing.
As some of you know my home is empty of some family members for whom the sun is rising, my daughters, and now my home is full of family members for whom the sun is setting, my Grandmother, recovering from her two heart attacks at age 91. It’s a bittersweet time of releasing. Releasing some for new life and others for death. It’s that simple
It didn’t really dawn on me where my Grandmother was in life until I saw her today in our kitchn. She was older and told me she wanted to go home. Of course, being the dutiful grand-daughter, I dropped everything and brought her home where she has lived for 70 years. The home her husband built for her, by hand, when he only had a single arm and they were in their early 20’s.
As I drove up to her home to drop her off I was finally able to understand better how her life must feel for her now. She has a few years, maybe, to live. There will only be so many days of tending her garden. So many days to say hi to her neighbors. Only so many days left to feel the soft grass under her feet or see the deer that compete with her for the earth’s produce.
She must be thinking of her little home, her brook, and her passed away husband I thought. She was smiling as I brought her home and she walked in. I was touched deeply realizing she was happy to be back in her home by her brook. She can’t stay there permanently. She is in some sense a visitor to her own place in our world. And, she still needs my help for life tasks for sure, but, for her, life is content in her home. I was jealous at some level frankly.
My Grandmother’s life in my home has been both blessing and frustration. We are blessed to help her and we are frustrated. Frustrated she will not take her meds on time, exercise or eat right. I find my heart torn between loving her and screaming she has to take care of herself or…sunset comes earlier than we all want.
Then I remember the word “dignity”…and I take a breath, smile my best Becki smile and hear her requests and supress my need to care for her. Her need to be her own person more important now. Even for a 91 year old woman, dignity is important.
I feel the warm summer breeze on my face and I take a breath realizing I’m not paying attention to a visitor who has stopped in to say “hi” this morning. I’ve been deep in my heart and writing. I smile, apologize, and say “Hi” and welcome her in. Good thing the coffee is extra good this morning
(Sunset Photo courtesy of MuffinMan photos, used under Creative Commons license)
Just a couple of things to point out in our sidebar in case you hadn’t perused down that way in a while to investigate our links.
First, you’ll see a fun Daily Cartoon about 1/4 of the way down the sidebar. Our cartoon, courtesy of Andertoons, changes daily and, almost without exception, is always good for a little chuckle.
Second, scrolling to the bottom of our sidebar you’ll see our daily quote courtesy of The Foundation for a Better Life. Their billboards have always inspired me (and almost caused me to lose control of my car) and having them join us at Beck’s Cafe is a nice treat, I feel, for all our readers
Enjoy!
(widget photo - yes that is what a widget is! - from our friends at Wouf_is_Wouf’s Photostream, used with permission under Creative Commons license).
7-14-2008 Update
Replaced “Foundation for a Better Life” quote of the day with “Quotes Collection” plug-in/widget under the side bar feature, “Inspiration and Thoughts”. Foundation for a Better Life was not responding to some tech questions and Quotes Collection gives us a wider library (a less spiffy look though).
It’s true, many of you who visit Beck’s Cafe really do read the articles and for that I am most flattered! Thank you all so much. It’s a joy to write and a joy to be read. So what are you all reading? Well, here here are the top five most read articles of the past three months at Beck’s Cafe. I hope you take a moment to take a visit….and thank you all for having done so already.
Thanks to all our happy coffee, tea and cocoa sippers and swillers who spent the time to read
(Photo courtesy of Rachel Sian’s Photos, used under Creative Commons license)
The Human Rights Campaign has released it’s second edition booklet, “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace“. Authored by Samir Luther, the volume’s objectives are:
“Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” provides human resource and other employment professionals with best practices for transgender workplace inclusion—from discrimination and benefits policies to internal practices that reflect how gender is expressed and integrated in the workplace—as well as the state of legal issues encompassing gender identity in employment situations. The guide also covers topics such as appropriate terminology with which to discuss gender identity and expression, the creation of policies that protect transgender workers from discrimination, and the expansion of diversity programs to include gender identity and expression.”
Now remember, this is the same HRC that supported a transgender inclusive ENDA but then chose to remove that support at the last minute - you can read the history and see lins from our coverage at Beck’s Cafe at these links here: ENDA Fallout restricts Title VII Claims; Baldwin Amendment & ENDA; Representative Tammy Baldwin speaks out on ENDA; ENDA: Barney Frank backs down, HRC commits, time bought; ENDA time to make some phone calls; Continued Coverage of ENDA: Sean Hannity, ADA and James Bird; Continued Coverage on ENDA: Robyn’s Story; Petition Drive to support complete ENDA; Transgender Rights Hailstorm
And this is also the same HRC who has become a big supporter of the The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalitions (MTPC) work in helping us all to get Massachusetts HB1722, MA Transgender Civil Rights Legislation, approved. You can read about MTPC gaining HRC support at Bay Windows here.
You can download the booklet from the HRC site at our link here.
For some excellent analysis of the HRC “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” booklet, we’d suggest strolling over to Dr. Jilliam Todd Weiss’s blog, “Transgender Workplace Diversity” for her review of the HRC booklet. You can reach her review at her blog at this link here.
I know fair number of transgender women and one thing I can almost universally say about 95% of them is they…
do not sleep … hardly at all
It’s truly baffling to all of us. But now I might have some ideas on what’s making us become such zombies…damn good lookin’ ones but zombies none-the-less (thank GOD for under eye makeup cover).
In an article titled, “Why We Can’t Sleep?“, Gayle Greene, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Scripps College, teases out some interesting points in her Ms. Magazine article:
The article is very eye opening about how the medical community may be hiding it’s head under the pillow on a cause and help on a real issue in this country. It’s enough to make you stay up late to read! You can read the full article at Ms. Magazine at their link here.
(Photo courtesy of LunaDiRimmel, used under Creative Commons license)
Well, well looks like we are back online with our main url, http://www.beckscafe.com Nothing like duct tape to get ya goin’. For our next repair we’ll have to get some chewing gum.
Turns out the new options in Wordpress 2.5.1 required our barista’s to scarf down more espresso than normal to determine what went wrong and how to fix it. But fixed it ’tis so here we are now
Happy Reading everyone!
(photo courtesy of kylos and used with Creative Commons license)
There may be nothing more boring in blogging than posting about all the “issues” and “delays” one is having in trying to blog or get one’s blog re-started or in anything related to the underpinnings of a blog.
Let’s face it no one cares…they just want you to write again ’cause they enjoyed your writing.
So, I won’t bore you all ‘cept to say were are swilling some java, munching on chocolate and moving things around here. First, you’ll see we have a new Wordpress theme. This might not be the final but, we like it so far though we have some work to do hacking the code a bit. It’s called Tarski and is nicely done and, as importantly, nicely maintained. Nothing like getting a theme you like and having the developer abandon it as Wordpress chugs along.
What happened to the cute past theme with the mugs? Well, we couldn’t get it to work right. The header started to come into shape nicely thanks to two of our readers Mandy and Sonia, but then we couldn’t move things around and, though the underlying structure of the theme, Sandbox, was muy macho we were a little over our heads frankly. A little code we can hack, alotta code and, frankly, we’d rather spend the time writing. A BIG THANK YOU goes out to our loyal readers Mandy and Sonia for helping us get the mug header down. Thank you both very, very much for going out of your way to help
So thank you to everyone for hanging in there with us! We’re slowly getting things back to normal so we can brew up the content piping hot….as you’d expect
(many thanks to Vrogy for letting us use the cute crayon pic for this post per his Creative Commons license)
So, we decided to do a little upgrade prior to writing on some new topics and, well, we have a little issue. Bizarrely, after uploadining WP 2.5.1 our URL, http://www.beckscafe.com isn’t usable! Yes we paid our bill to Go Daddy!
This is a puzzler for sure. Stay tuned, I think we’ll be needing alot of coffee to solve this one.
So to reach us, at last for now, the underlying URL has to be used, http://susan.asmallorange.com/~becki/
I met Dr. Spack at a party held by my friend Laura when she lived in Boston. I remember the night well as it was a typical Laura mash-up of transgender people, kids, college students, genetic people, authors, Drs. and the odd stray who happened to smell free food. In short, fun and always interesting.
Dr. Spack was about the coolest guy at the party. He listened, spoke with passion about the transgender community, and, was from Harvard University. From my brief meeting with him I started to understand that people alot smarter than me were seeing this whole GID thing, weighing the facts and taking it seriously. He helped me to see I wasn’t necessarily crazy. We’ve actually done an article here at Beck’s Cafe on Dr. Spack. You can read that article about a paper he presented at Lahey Clinic at Beck’s Cafe by clicking HERE.
So it was nice to see at Boston.com a Q&A interview with Dr. Spack. It’s a terrific piece and one I thought all our happy coffee swillers would enjoy reading. Some highlights:
You can trott over to Boston.com to read the full article by clicking to boston.com at this link here.
We’ve updated the article here at Beck’s Cafe, “Gender Therapists: How do you choose” with a wonderful article on helping teens choose a therapist. It’s a link at the end of the article.
Happy Re-Reading
If you caught last night’s CSI (in Boston anyway) … it was the “Living Doll” episode. In one of the most sad and romantic moments in TV history, Sara writes a letter to Grishom, the series main character, that she is leaving. She tells him that she loves him; she talks about herself; she talks about what haunts her; and that she must go,
You know I love you. I feel I’ve loved you forever.
Lately I haven’t been feeling very well. Truth be told, I’m tired.
Out in the desert, under that car that night, I realised something and I haven’t been able to shake it.
Since my father died, I spent almost my entire life with ghosts. We’ve been like close friends and out there in the desert, it occured to me, that it was time for me to bury them. I can’t do that here.
I’m so sorry.
No matter how hard I try to fight it off, I’m left with a feeling that, I have to go. I have no idea where I’m going, but I know I have to do this. If I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll self-destruct, and worse, you’ll be there to see it happen. Be safe.
Know that I tried very hard to stay. Know that you are my one and only. I will miss you with every beat of my heart. Our life together was the only home I’ve ever really had. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I love you…I always will.
Goodbye.
In a lot of ways I feel her letter says, from the heart, what alot of us must feel like … at least sometimes.
You can see the scene for yourself at You Tube by visiting You Tube here.
Astronomer extraordinaire, and my friend, Sonia, has placed a new social and support group into the constellation of what we have in New England! She’s named it, T-Party, and you can reach her new venture by visiting her groups site HERE.
Those of us in the Boston area might wonder how this area can support yet another transgender group. Well, surprisingly, very easily. Lyn Conway actually did some statistical analysis not too long ago and even presented a paper on her work, you can read what she presented at the WPATH conference by clicking over to her article at her site HERE. In a nutshell, she found the prevalence of MtF transsexualism on the order of ~1:500 so let’s do some math
Greater Boston is home to 4.4M people. So, if we look at Lyn Conway’s findings, that means, if I have my math right, that there are 8800 trans-women in the Greater Boston area and, possibly, 1/2 that many trans-men. If we look at the entire transgender umbrella (crossdresser, drag queens, transsexuals, gender queer, etc.) there might be alot more but let’s just go with that figure of 8800 trans-women. Okay stay with me here for this next part.
I have heard, through the grapevine, that Dr. Richard Doctor has discovered in a study he led that only 70% of all crossdressers actually go outside their homes crossdressed and of that only a small percentage (5% perhaps ?) actually go to public venues (stores, restaurants, etc). I can’t find the any documentation where he said this but let’s just go with it.
If the above are true, then of the 8800 trans-women in this area, only 6160 actually venture out to trans-friendly events and of that only 300 or so go out in public, out and about. If we look at the 6160 number, the Greater Boston Area can easily support T-Party and all the other groups in this area.
Maybe we’ll have a cup of coffee with the star gazing Ms. Sonia at some point and understand what motivated her and what her dreams are for T-Party.
7/12/2008 Update
T-Party’s on-line presence for coordinating their doings has moved to TransSpace. To reach their new site at TransSpace you can click over to them from our link here.
The Nashua Telegraph did an excellent series on transgender neighbors. It’s very well done, and is about four or so articles. The commentary and letters to the editors are equally as good reading, providing an interesting look into what others think of the transgender community. It’s well worth a nice cup of mocha-java and a read. Here are the links:
How about some laughter with that morning coffee there?
Maybe a tailor would have helped?
After week’s of medical treatment, my doctor became concerned about some redness around my waist, so he sent me to a specialist. When that doctor entered the examination room, he studied my chart, then looked at me sitting in the chair.
“Should I take my clothes off?” I asked
“No need to,” he said. “I already see the problem. your pants are too tight.”
You always guessed this was true about those meetings!
Percentage of the work week that a typical worker spends in meetings: 25.
Odds that a person at a meeting doesn’t know why she’s there? 1 in 3.
Puntastic!
Seen in the window of a camping shop: “Now is the winter of our discount tents”.
This dog’s bark is worse than her bite
My dog is half pit bull, half poodle. It’s not much of a watchdog but it’s a vicious gossip (Craig Shoemaker)
(Photo courtesy of k-girl’s photostream Humor courtesy of Reader’s Digest, Dec 2007)
Early Registration Discounts for Fantasia Fair End Soon
If anyone is considering going to this year’s Fantasia Fair conference in October, you may want to register before March 1st. As of March, the early registration discount will no longer be available. If you are not sure if you can make it to this event, you can register now and get nearly a full refund if later on you have to cancel. Check out the Fantasia Fair website for details on the refund policy. The Fantasia Fair website is at http://www.fantasiafair.org.
If anyone could help us with the Beck’s Cafe graphics header we’d be grateful. It’s apparenlty too big. The cafe’s ultra-high tech computers can’t tell but some of our readers don’t see the nifty header we mashed up. So, if you’d like to help we’d be grateful because we aren’t sure what to do to make it fit for displays that don’t like big headers.
Thanks
It’s true. You might find that accepting a little misery might make you happier. A friend of mine had a parallel though, “You know Becki, sometimes you just know you are going to take a beating”.
How comforting.
Anyway, in a wonderful article from one of the world’s last bastions of independant news, The BBC, came this report from June of 2007. It’s good medicine for all our relationships in 2008. As published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, researchers from California State University, Northridge and Virginia Tech say expecting and accepting life’s miserable times are better than striving for perfection.
Some of the findings were surprising, if not shocking, so brace yourselves:
You may read the full report at the BBC by visiting the article at their site here. The relationships experts recommended meditation as a help to ease pressure in expectations. One would think a good shot of bourbon might help too.
Well our United States Presidential Election draws nearer today and you may or may not be any clearer on who to vote for. Well the Beck’s Cafe baristas have brewed a helpful tool just for you. You should use this only after you get over your New Year’s Eve hangover
The Candidate Calculator will help you determine who may best align with your position! Let’s face it, there are so many choices this time around WHO are you going to pick? It’s a puzzler that’s for sure, but as the Candidate Calculator recommends:
Answer the questions below to find the 2008 presidential candidate that best aligns with your beliefs. More than 1.5 million people have already filled it out. Give it a try!
Mark the column for Yes if you support the issue and No if you oppose it. After that, select how important the topic is to you. If you are unsure or have no opinion on a topic, just mark the Unsure column. You will be scored based upon how well you match the current views of each of the 2008 presidential candidates.
You should go visit the Candidate Calculator and see WHO lines up with you….then vote
Christmas, the birth of Christ, the savior, isn’t just for shoppers. While it’s true the 25th of December is likely not the precise date of Jesus Christ’s birth, the celebration of His incarnation is one of the most important celebrations in Christendom. And this is not the same as celebrating a religeous right political action win. This is about celebrating the birth of God incarnate who actually came for all the world….men and women in all the beauty of their diversity. You can bet your Christmas fruitcake He did not come for a political party. So, with that in mind, we have brewed up a few links on, Christmas:
Merry Christmas to all our readers, coffee swillers and general hanger-oners from us at Beck’s Cafe.
As we wrote about in our last post here. We’ve had a few problems with Beck’s Cafe. But we’ve not let the writing go stale. Instead, we’ve been blogging at the First Event 2008 Blog under the byline of “FE2008″ We’ve been having some great conversations with some of the exhibitors and speaker’s of First Event. We’ll be posting more too. So while we are fixing the Cafe up, we’d invite you to have a read over at the First Event 2008 blog.
First Event 2008 is being held this year at the Boston Marriott Peabody, January 16-20, 2008. First Event is one of the largest transgender conferences in the United States, with attendance of 600 or more during the bone-chilling New England January.
Yep we have been having some serious problems at Beck’s Cafe. First, our beloved server, Sun, died at our co-located facility in Atlanta. Our plucky hardware team at A Small Orange, moved Beck’s Cafe over to Susan. Then we couldn’t get back in the door to do anything about it. But, A Small Orange’s crack tech team got the door open and and now here we are again. We got allotta work to do here in the next couple of months. We have to fix all the links (ick) and we have to fix the upload graphics feature, that’s all broke 
we have to upgrade our Wordpress to 2.3.1 and we have to upgrade the base semantic structure of A Beck’s Cafe too as that has changed…gosh.
But we haven’t stopped writing. Check our next post on First Event 2008 for news on where we’ve been perking up the prose in the meantime.
Boston University is using a self-administered questionnaire to understand how facial appearance impacts the quality of life in male-to-female transgender individuals. Your responses are completely confidential and anonymous. Your email address or name is not required. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you can stopthe survey at any time.
WHY
- Your responses will hopefully allow us to better understand the best way to help the transgender community.
WHO
- Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel and Tiffiny Ainsworth from Boston University and Boston Medical Center are researchers studying the quality of life in male-to-female transgender individuals in the hopes of better understanding the best way to help the transgender community medically. Dr. Spiegel is the chief of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor at the Boston University School of Medicine with appointments in the department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery and the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery. He has significant experience in facial feminization surgery.
HOW
- Go to our website to fill out the online version of our survey at http://bmc.org/survey The Password for the survey is: Boston
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
- Male-to-female transgender individuals between the ages of 18years and 64years are eligible for participation in the survey.
QUESTIONS?
- Please contact Tiffiny Ainsworth at tiffann@bu.edu
The Neighborhood is billed as:
A space for all queer and transgender folks…We like mixed up spaces and so should you! Always femme, butch, gender varient, fairy, leather, & CD friendly
This place lives up to it’s billing and then some. The organizers, Gunner Scott of XGender productions see: http://www.Gendercrash.Com and dj d’hana of Cherub Productions, http://www.Myspace.Com/chubrubproductions have created a welcoming and high energy environment that is worth the trip to.
The vibe at The Neighborhood, which is held the second Saturday of the month at The Midway Cafe, located at 3496 Washington Street in Jamaica Plain is decidely good. I’m not sure there is a better way to describe it. Really good vibe. My co-conspirators and I met femme’s, butch’s, FtM’s, and straight folk just being themselves and having fun. Dj d’hana is an excellent DJ. She moved effortlessly from one music genre to the next mixing up hip hop, techno, 80’s and various other types of music in a style that kept the crowd on it’s feet and not bored. I remember standing with two other women, both femmes and an incredibly cute couple, and having just met and chattinng and hearing a smooth transition from a hip hop tune to The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven“. All our eyes met and simultaneoulsly the three of us yelled out, ‘WE LOVE THIS SONG” and we just started spontaneously dancing. That typifies The Neighborhood “experience” for me. Fully accepting, packed, good vibe. To top it off, Gunner is one of the coolest guys around and donates part of the procedes from The Neighborhood to a charity every month. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Go visit the neighborhood. Get their by 9PM or you’ll end waiting in line out front to get in.
For more details see: http://www.myspace.com/theneighborhoodjp
Dr. Julie Nemecek has some interesting thoughts on the conundrum that our President, George Bush, may be finding himself in with The Matthew Shepherd bill slowly making it’s way to his desk. The bill, which many of our reader’s already know about, makes violence against people due to their gender or gender identity, a federal crime. It’s good protections not just for the transgender but also for, as the bill states, hate crimes against persons due to:
Section 2 Findings…actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim…
So if your transgender, it’s protective and it’s also true if your disabled. That’s right, the disabled are in fact a group even more subject to hate crimes than transgender people. Sadly, they can’t hardly speak for themselves at all. Thank God all we have is GID. Check out these factoids on hate crimes focused on the disabled:
(data on hate crimes against the disabled from Civil Rights.org and UCLA Berkley Newsletter, “Flawed FBI reporting system undercounts disability hate crimes“. )
So back to President Bush and his conundrum. Dr. Nemecek sums it up nicely, at her blog, when she says, ”
He doesn’t need to ask “What would Jesus do?” because he has a more certain answer in asking “What DID Jesus do?” That answer is simple. Jesus befriended and sought to protect the oppressed of his day from the attacks of the religious right
In Jesus day, the Pharisees were a sect in the Jewish faith who would have been part of the religeous “right”. They were those who, in His words were:
- (vipers) “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7)
- (hypocrites) “But woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in. (Matthew 23:13)
- (unjust) “But woe to you Pharisees! You give a tenth of your mint, rue, and every herb, yet you neglect justice and love for God! But you should have done these things without neglecting the others. (Luke 11:42)
Jesus didn’t say that what the Pharisees taught was wrong…it’s how they lived and lived among the people that was wrong. It was their oppression of the people and unjust actions. That’s the conundrum President Bush has. To not sign the bill means he’s choosing to not protect the oppressed and siding with a vocal religious right. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to see that’s what Jesus did, protect and advocate for the oppressed, it just takes doing the stuff Jesus did.
(Bible references are from the Net Bible)
Last night a friend and I were talking on the phone about ENDA. Realizing we might be among those at risk we wondered if GLAD was going to weigh in on this issue? It was encouraging to see that they too felt that removal of support for the transgender in ENDA was wrong…..It was nice getting this in my email late today….
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We downed an espresso shot then called Pelosi’s office and got a recording so we could register what we at Beck’s Cafe felt about the removal of transgender protections from ENDA. It was surprising they had space to record what we wanted to say. We then rang up our congressman, Ed Markey, and found out he was indeed supporting ENDA!! How nice We asked would he pretty please call up Mr. Frank and ask that he, perhaps, change his mind? You have to wonder how fruitful any of this effort is, but, who knows. Still the whole course of events is disappointing in the extreme.
Ms. Pelosi’s part in all this is especially troubling since we had written how helpful she had been to the transgender community. Please see our previous article on her at Beck’s Cafe, entitled, “Nancy Pelosi, what to expect for the transgender“.
(For past coverage of ENDA at Beck’s Cafe, please visit these stories, “Continued Coverage on ENDA - Sean Hannity, ADA and James Byrd“, “Continued Coverage on ENDA - Robyn’s Story“, “Petition Drive to Support a Complete ENDA“, “Transgender Rights Hail Storm“ )
When our children were growing we often wondered if their faith in Christ, something we had always nourished in them with the same care as we took care of their bodies, would flourish in public schools. Most of our friends opted for private Christian schools as nurturing grounds for their children’s education. We could never afford such a luxury, feeling instead that a faith that grew in the real world, no matter how questioned, would be stronger than one without tests. Afteral, Jesus had taught us that we were in the world but not of the world (John 17:14-15). That said to us that we had to stay in the world, not hide from it. We can’t say for sure that such an approach is always the best though. Afterall, poor public schools do exist and a private education, Christian or otherwise, might be the best option. But we now have a little data to backup what we had always felt in our gut.
The Denver Post reported, in the September 24th edition, the results of a study performed by the University of Texas that,
higher education is not the secularizing influence many Christians suspect it to be…Texas researchers found that college students were less likely to lose their religion than others in their age group, 18 to 25 years old.
Interestingly, 24% of those who never attended college said that religion had become less important to them compared with only 15% of those who did attend college. Could college make you smarter and more religious? We certainly didn’t think so as we saw our little birds flutter from our nest. But we felt that we and our public school, had taught them to think for themselves. It turns out that thinking about your faith is what this is all about. And at U.S. Universities, where the percentage of atheists and agnostics teaching are three times as high as the general population, a UCLA study found that,
79 percent of college students surveyed believed in God, 69 percent prayed and 81 percent attended some religious services.
Teaching of all kinds makes kids think about who they are, who they are becoming and what they believe. That sounds healthy not damaging. This quote, by Church of Christ Minister Mark Wylie, from the Denver Post article, might be the best lesson here,
“You have to let college students explore,” Wylie said. “They are incredibly spiritually active and vibrant.”
But, he concluded, they don’t like a hard sell from any side of the debate; I think alot of us fall into that category these days.
Speaking of thinking, another writer, named Caryn Lemur, has penned some outstanding articles to help Christians and non-Christians alike, think about what it means to be transgender in the midst of their faith. It can be a damning paralysis to be Christian and be transgender (perhaps this is so for all faiths) but Caryn’s essays will help you to think critically about this topic. That is if you need to think about it at all.
To read the Denver Post article; “Study: College campuses may nurture faith”, click to the Denver Post HERE.
To read Caryn’s “Essays For The Thinking Christian”, please visit her site at this link HERE.
As some of you know I’m looking for gainful employment. So, why not Google? They have scads of money and wicked smart people. Then I ran into this comparison of working at Google vs MeetUp. As one of my friends reminds me on occasion….”Becki, I really think that things really happen when people are with people”. I believe this comparison further strengthens her conviction! You can jump to the comparison by visiting Scott Heiferman’s (the CEO of MeetUp) blog at this link HERE.
Some tidbits though to wet your appetite..but you have to see the photos to really “get” these:
| Working at Google | Working at MeetUp |
| At Google, you take the Google Bus with people as smart as you. Your fellow Googlers will probably be listening to Tech Talk Podcasts while coding. | At Meetup, you take the NYC subway to work. You’re part of the greatest melting pot on Earth. WARNING: Some of your fellow riders aren’t naturally excited about Google Apps. |
| At Google, you eat exquisite free Google Food with other Googlers at the Googleplex, prepared by Chef Googlers. It’s the best company food around. | At Meetup, you eat at one of NYC’s 18,696 restaurants. They’re not free, but some are cheap. It’s the best cafeteria in the world. |
| At Google, after you consume all the Google Food you can eat, you will enjoy Rear Cleansing, Front Cleansing, Dryer, and Oscillating options. | At Meetup, there are no options when flushing the toilet. |
You have to see the site to really appreciate the text, so go get an iced latte and have a look at the comparison of working at Google vs MeetUp at this link HERE.
This is the fourth and final installment in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 3, please click here. Please enjoy!
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BECK’S CAFE: So then Randolph Country Club came into the picture?
JUNE: Well that took work. Randolph Country Club, RCC, a premiere GLBT country club and dance club, had a bad relationship with the transgender community up until that point.
YVON: I visited them a couple of times to outline what we were trying to do and what the benefits were to them. They told me that their relationship with the transgender community had soured primarily due to lack of follow through on the transgender community’s part. It was common for transgender women in our community to plan an event with them and then not to actually hold the event or communicate about it. I had to convince them that the community was honorable and could be trusted.
JUNE: And we’ve done just that. We plan events with them for about every six weeks, we communicate with the RCC team, and we have our event. This has resulted in a benefit to RCC, to FoRCC and to the transgender community overall. We had to insure that we would be good patrons and good contributors to the benefit of RCC. The reception that the management and patrons now give the trans community has been overwhelmingly supportive and nice. Even the bathroom is a non-issue.
BECK’S CAFE: So, every six weeks FoRCC has a transgender party at RCC and you’ve been doing this all told for 10 years. What keeps you doing this?
JUNE: I remember what it was like to not have a place to go and in feeling isolated and alone. To the extent that I can provide an opportunity for others to come out and be themselves and really, to lead much healthier lives, that’s what motivates me.
YVON: My personal satisfaction is to produce something and watch it grow and see the results. The fruit is in the smiling faces; they are smiling not because they are drunk but because they are getting a chance to be who they are. It’s my chance to get out and I’m having a great time and I want others to as well. I don’t want it to stop I’m having fun!
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Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.
This is the third part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 2, please click here. Please enjoy!
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BECK’S CAFE: With that “walk out” certainly there must have been some sense of displacement or abandonment?
JUNE: Well, with the end of the relationship between Friends Landing and the transgender community something had to fill that void. So, a sort of entrpereneurial spirit was unleashed from the split and some new groups started forming. One of those was The Girl’s Night Out group, or GNO for short, which began in Manchester, New Hampshire. GNO’s approach was to provide a safe space for gender expression and have, as the founder, Maxine, was fond of saying, “The Courage to be Free”. Many girls did end up gravitating to GNO and GNO had a big, positive impact on the New England Transgender scene allowing many transgender women to come out and be free to be themselves.
YVON: FoRCC, or FoF at the time, needed a new place and we approached the Crowne Plaza in Woburn, and they suggested Friday Night. At the time, GNO wanted to merge with FoRCC (or FoF) group. We felt our group’s unique character and identity was still alive due to the real life relationships of people that grew out of this one little place.
JUNE: That’s right, many of us with FoRCC (FoF at the time) wanted to continue our group and keep it alive. The Yahoo Group kept us communicating and loosly together, as it had always been, we just needed to find a physical place. We weren’t against GNO, we just felt we had a unique group.
BECK’S CAFE: So did FoRCC every find a new place to meet?
YVON: We were alive, still looking for a home, and in March of 2006 the group was having a lot of hang wringing about going back to Friends Landing after the year long walk out.
JUNE: Friends Landing was part of my journey and I felt I had a right to be there. Some felt the same way, but not in general. I really felt that I deserved to be there but the good part about it was that the management had changed over the year and Friends was very welcoming to us.
YVON: This was a BIG surprise to all of us.
JUNE: I agree, I was expecting an attitude and had a hard time going in. But I was bound and determined to go there and even to use the ladies room. I didn’t feel like I had my begging bowl out. We were transgender and this was a GLBT club and that was that. I had a right to be there and so I went.
YVON: In a way the Friends Landing incident did us a favor. They got us out into the world MORE.
JUNE: Yes that’s right. That was the year we started going to other GLBT and Straight clubs that welcomed us. We learned we could come way out of the closet and just be ourselves.
YVON: When we came back to Friends Landing they were so happy to have us there they put our name and a big picture of us on the front of their web page, “Welcome back T-Girls” We returned in March of 2006, we had some big parties there and things were really cranking along fine until the 2006 Halloween party. It was a packed house and then on the Monday after the Halloween, with no notice, Friends Landing closed it’s doors and was sold.
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In Part four of this four part series, we’ll wrap up about how Yvon and June worked to heal a rift between the transgender community and the GLB part of the community so that FoRCC could find it’s new location. To easily reach part 4, please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.
This is the second part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 1, please click here. Please enjoy!
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BECK’S CAFE: How would you say that FoRCC has evolved over it’s 10 year life?
YVON: Well, FoRCC started as FoF, Friends of Friends Landing and was out at Friends Landing, in Haverhill, MA like we mentioned. We used a Yahoo Group for all of us to build connections outside of those meetings and stay in touch. In many ways, the Yahoo Group became the The Unofficial Friends Landing Message board. And it was a way to get people to know what was happening in each of our lives and who was going to go to be together at Friends Landing. Once in a while we’d do a roll call to create a more structured kind of meeting. But the evolution was more of one of closeted strangers who all came out to become friends.
JUNE: I’d agree. Over time what was just transgender people meeting in person and communicating online grew as friendships grew. It’s really a story of people isolated in their experience who became people connected in a shared experience of being transgender. They made friends at Friends Landing, grew into using the Yahoo Group to communicate and spilled out into real life. The Events weren’t all done at Friends Landing but sometimes happened at Jacques Cabaret or MANRAY. And that’s the interesting point. The group became interelated, invited others in, accepted them for what and who they are, and ended up having fun in the process.
YVON: Really the group grew and grew and became the focal point for THE Transgender SCENE in New England then one day it was gone. And it was really the result of one unfortunate incident.
BECK’S CAFE: You know, this “incident” is the stuff of folklore. What was the incident and how did it not only effect FoRCC but what were it’s effects, in your opinion, on the transgender scene in New England in general?
YVON: Well, at one point, Friends Landing became very trans-unfriendly and they instituted what amounted to a “vagina check’ for the ladies room and people just stopped going. You know, as transgender women, we present as women and using the right bathroom is a big deal. One key part of it is safety for us. Using a men’s bathroom presenting as a woman could put us in physical harm.
JUNE: I remember times at Friends Landing when bouncers would swarm t-girls if they felt what they wore for clothing was inappropriate even. They would harass someone like that out of the club. I had to intervene in one case. And then on St. Patrick’s Day 2005 the transgender community walked away from Friends Landing; tired of a GLBT club that had rejected us.
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In Part three of this four part series, we’ll talk about how the transgender community reacted to the Friends Landing incident. To easily reach part 3, please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.
FoRCC, or Friends of Randolph Country Club, a Massachusetts transgender social and support group, was a lengthy interview Beck’s Cafe had with two Massachusett’s transgender-women who are leaders in the community; Yvon Steel and June Casad. There are many personal and group stories and courageous trans-women and trans-men, dating back to Stonewall, who have made being transgender just a little easier for many of us today. Jennifer Boylan, in her speech at Southern Comfort Conference 2006 last year, said that, “there are so many other stories out there, and they all desperately need to be told, so that all of our stories can become familiar”. This is just one of those many stories. This is a special four part series from this interview. Please enjoy!
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“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are” - Gail Goodwin
Gail Goodwin’s quote may well be the story in one line of the transgender social and support group, the Friends of Randolph Country Club (FoRCC). This group, in existence for ten years, has typified that quote: appreciating others for who they are, as they are; not for who society believes they should be. Yvon Steel and June Casad are two of the founders of this long standing group. We caught up with them in the midst of their most recent event at The Randolph Country Club in Randolph, Massachusetts to learn more about this group and how their unique history is a part of the history of the transgender community in New England.
BECK’S CAFE: I’m glad we could finally get a chance to talk in the midst of this busy Fall season for you both.
YVON: Busy is right, with our event and so many others taking place in the Fall, life can seem like whirlwind
JUNE: We try to float through it. It’s busy but fun no question about that.
BECK’S CAFE: Can you tell our readers how the Friends of Randolph Country Club started?
YVON: FoRCC, as we like to call it, or the Friends of Randolph Country Club. We’ve been around continuously for ten years at least, since about 1997. It was originally started by a woman named Holly then when she left ownership was handed over to Diane, June, Brenda, and I came in later. We originally started meeting at Friends Landing in Haverhill and kept our connections alive through the use of a Yahoo group. The Yahoo group was a great tool for all of us to collaborate together and keep the group as a group. Actually the groups original name was FoF or Friends of Friends Landing.
BECK’S CAFE: Ten years is a long time, it may be that only Tiffany Club of New England has had a longer existence. What do you think is the reason the FoRCC Community has been able to last this long?
JUNE: FoRCC is really organic and changes over time. With a lot of other groups that have come and gone, usually they get a big splash right away and are really driven by one person with a vision and energy to make it happen. FoRCC on the other hand, while it began with Holly’s vision, it never really had to rely on her singular person to make it happen. It was a sort of infectious need the transgender community felt and got behind. We never had a lot of rules or moderating either in our group meetings or in our online Yahoo group. It’s just been a place where people have felt safe to come out. And we’ve always supported people who have done that.
YVON: That’s true June. We found that our group culture just thrived on being more relationally in touch. It became clear to us that we were less “leaders” in the group as much as we were “facilitators” of this group. We saw that too many rules and one person in charge would stifle what was blossoming. We never wanted to have that. As long as people were respectful of each other anything was okay.
JUNE: We have never tried to moderate the content of our Yahoo Group or our in person meetings but when things have been deemed offensive and disrespectful we just simply squash what is happening and move on.
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In Part two of this four part series, we’ll talk about the historic incident that changed much of the transgender landscape in Massachusetts today. To easily reach part 2 please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.
More lovin’ from linkie land….
http://www.yelp.com/boston
A very helpful site with real reviews by, of all things, people! Very interesting and very helpful.
http://ftmichael.tashari.org/transgender.html
Michael’s site is chock full of information for FtM Transgender Folk
http://trans-health.com/
Superfabulous site on many aspects of the health of us Transgender persons (including some great articles on muscle loss for MtFs and muscle gain for FtM’s)
http://pflag.org/TNET.tnet.0.html
This is PFLAG’s transgender specific support and information site. Very helpful stuff for families.
http://www.cnet.com/train-wreck.html?tag=bc
The first post by the author says it all…if you could get to it. Basically C/Net is letting Steve Tobak say what he wants about management and the high tech industry! It’s good stuff. But, the fact you can’t get to the archives is bothersome since his earlier stuff was really good.
Over at Jen is Famous, comediene Jennifer Dziuran, who is in the Middle East as part of an Armed Forces Entertainment tour, is shopping for a camel …. it’s hilarious (and perfect for a Monday giggle).
Read and smile …. over at Jen is Famous by visiting her blog HERE.
So we are sure you have noticed the schizophrenic and seemingly constant construction here at Beck’s Cafe. Thankfully our back end is stable (..and I expect NO comments from Sharon, June, Jenna or Richard on that one!)
But it’s that front end…what is going on here?
Well, we’ve moved the cafe from a standard Wordpress theme to Wordpress using Sandbox. What this means practically is that Sandbox enables some basic Internet programming stuff that we’ll need going into the future such as:
So quite a bit really. Working with CSS has been alot easier than I’d thought it would be. I’d say tweaking a non-sandbox theme is actually more work. But there’s that learning curve on CSS so the changes will gradually take place here over time.
Sorry for making everyone crazy….now go have an iced cappucino and disregard all the plaster dust and plywood stacked all over the place
Researchers at Fenway Community Health are exploring possible uses of rapid HIV home testing. The study includes an optional HIV test. Researchers for this study are looking for WOMEN who:
If you’re interested in finding out more about this study, please call 617.927.6030 or visit Fenway Health here . They will need to ask you a few questions to see if you qualify to participate in this study. There is no compensation for the screening. Participants in this study will be compensated with $40. Enrollment ends September 24, 2007.
It’s 4PM EST and if your visiting Beck’s Cafe it’s because it is nice and sunny outside and your brain has decided it’s done for the day. Well how about some funnies to get you in a good frame of mind for that commute home? So what gender are these things?
ZIPLOC BAGS - male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.
KIDNEYS - female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.
SHOE - male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.
COPIER - female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.
TIRE - male, because it goes bald and often is over inflated.
WEB PAGE - female, because it is always getting hit on.
SUBWAY - male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.
HOURGLASS - female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.
REMOTE CONTROL - female… Ha! You thought I’d say male. But consider it gives a man pleasure, he’d be lost without it, and while he doesn’t always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.
(Jokes courtesy of The Romantic.com )
Your transgender, your unemployed and now your looking at your options. Should you just work for anyone and hope no one finds out your transgender? Should you just go find a job and just not worry about it unless the issue comes up? Maybe you don’t present as the gender you really are at all but it’s who you are and you need to take some action eventually and yet you still need to work. What do you do?
These are all very personal questions and effect each and every transgender person, regardless of if they are transitioning or if they’ve found a life balance that allows them to live productive, healthy and happy lives.
One resource that you may want to consider is from a relatively new job search engine called Simply Hired Job Search Engine. Simply Hired has coupled their search engine technology with the Human Rights Campaign list of companies the have studied that support LGBT employees (see HRC Corporate Equality Index Human Right Campaign Corporate Equality Index). It’s easy to do, you simply do a search with the Simply Hired LGBT filter on and out pops the jobs!
You can reach the Simply Hired Job Search Engine with LGBT Filter at their site HERE.
Also, don’t forget to checkout the SCC Transgender Career Expo or the Washington D.C. Transgender Job Fair. Finally Dr. Weiss over at Transgender Workplace Diversity has some excellent articles on this topic in general that are well worth a read over a tall, cold iced Americano.
When your about ready to sputter out your coffee at the cafe ’cause you see an amazing idea, well, you have to blog about it. The web site Bag Borrow or Steal is exactly that.
How would you like access to bags such as Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Jones New York and more for…$15?
Okay you can get up off the floor now.
The site works like a NetFlix for Handbags. They have a huge selection and you get to KEEP them as long as you want till you need to turn them in. Need a bag for that hot date? Need a bag for a night at the opera? Need a bag to go shopping with mom? No problem…they have bags, and good ones, for every occasion.
Swing your hips on over to Bag, Borrow or Steal to get in on this deal.
It started innocently enough. Three guys, some with beards, hanging around a table, talking about the days events. If it was five-PM they’d have had beers in their hands. Then five trans-women walked up and asked if the three ladies had a good time at the conference. Ladies?
That story angered a couple named Mike and Natasha West. How could one group of transgender-women show a group of transgender-men such disrespect at a major national transgender conference they wondered? The answer, they determined, lay in lack of respect within the transgender community for each others changes. Surprisingly, for the “T” part of the LGBT community, this is harder than it looks. Mike and Natasha decided to take some action to influence the transgender community to change their own attitudes about respecting each other; male-to-females and female-to-males.
Mike and Natasha have both seen their own share of disrespect within the transgender community. In some sense, they form a small sample size for how disrespect is practiced within the community. For Mike that has taken the form of transgender women asking him, after he discloses to them his transgender status, why ’she’ would want to be a guy, why would ’she’ want to have such beautiful breasts removed and moving from the pronoun ‘he’ to ’she’. Natasha has been a victim of similar disrespect and witnessed similar events as well.
Mike’s three computers are humming in his office with various programs for his web and graphics design consulting firm as we talk. As he puts it, “The transgender community has the constant issue of dealing with respect, or mostly disrespect, from friends, family, loved ones and other members of the non-transgender community…All transgender people can relate to one another in at least some way, regardless of background. Each and everyone of us has had to deal with the looks, the gender slurs, the wrong pronouns and the rude remarks. The entire transgender community needs to respect one another. If that respect does not start with each and everyone one of us; how will we ever expect the non-transgender community to respect us?” But why does this happen at all when it appears that both transgender-women and transgender-men have similar paths?
Natasha’s sense for the cause is that both sides know the right thing to do in their hearts, but, “they have to break old ways. I think it takes a conscious effort to start and gradually it gets to become automatic”. She continued saying, “I believe low self-esteem and a lack of self-respect have alot to do with an overall lack of respect within our community. Kind of like, you can’t love others until you love yourself. The teenager in high school who picks on everyone to make himself or herself seem more popular, usually is hiding their own insecurities and flaws”. Both Mike and Natasha also highlighted that the seeds of disrespect are often sown in how people were raised as children. This baseline sense of disrespect for other people and their differences isn’t connected to being transgender or not but is rooted in deep learning at an early age. The unlearning of these lessons takes conscious effort. As they grew to understand this problem within the transgender community they realized they could be a part of the solution to improving it.
First, they co-authored a booklet, targeted at the transgender community, entitled, “Respect Starts with the Community”. This booklet encourages the transgender community to consider how to respect each other; male-to-females and females-to-males. Mike used inspiring quotes, clear guidelines and common sense examples to communicate the message of respect within the transgender community. The examples are particularly important as they provide a sense of modeling of what respectful behavior is. As Mike put it, “I felt it was necessary to spell the examples out. In my travels within the transgender and even non-transgender community, some people unfortunately do not have common sense. I think providing the examples is one of the best ways for people to get an insight on how others feel when they get disrespect. Sometimes, the examples, or stories are enough to wake some people up to different forms of disrespect”.
The booklet was the first practical step and the next was a natural outgrowth; live seminars on the topic. Mike and Natasha held one of their first seminars on disrespect within the transgender community in January 2007 at First Event 2007. First Event is one of the largest transgender and diversity conferences in the United States and is held each year in New England, usually in the Boston area. The seminar was very well attended among the 600 event goers at First Event, proving the topic of respecting others within the transgender community was more important than both Mike and Natasha had oringally believed. Mike noted the feedback they had gotten, “I have had many people come to me and say they had no clue that some of these things were going on. I have also had people tell me that they were unaware that some of the things listed in the book would be taken as disrespectful and often hurtful. And lastly in the process of talking about this topic, I have had some transwomen tell me that they are beginning to understand transmen a little more”.
The topic of disrespect within the transgender community is not one that anyone would generally think of as a hot button. And yet, respect is a fundamental need for every person and group. And, it’s fundamental to the transgender community actually supporting itself. As Natasha noted about the transgender community, “We can’t be united enough to stand up for ourselves as a whole as long as there is this rift that’s been caused due to disrespect within the community”.
© 2006 Beck’s Cafe, http://www.beckscafe.com
Okay so I haven’t yet started getting my official mailings from the AARP BUT I do get mailings from the LGBT aging project. The LGBT Aging Project is, in their own words:
The LGBT Aging Project works to ensure that LGBT elders and their caregivers have equal access to the benefits, protections, and aging programs, services, and institutions that their heterosexual neighbors rely on.
Typically, LGBT elder activists replicate existing, mainstream services and provide them directly to elders. This is very important work. But the LGBT Aging Project works from a different perspective: we focus on the significant aging services infrastructure and expertise that already exists. We believe that LGBT citizens and taxpayers should have full access, and a real choice about whether or not to use it. And we teach the system how and why to create an LGBT-friendly atmosphere and culturally appropriate programs and services.
One little thing they are doing, which sounds totally cool, is to sponsor an OUT to Brunch, a gathering of Lesbian, Bi and Trans-women over 50. It sounds neat…here are the details and how to get more info:
Reservations required:
Give Lisa Krinsky a call at the LGBT Aging Project at (617) 522-6700 x307 or email: LKrinsky@ethocare.or
Well, if one job fair weren’t enough for transgender folk, now there’s two. While the Southern Comfort Career Expo focuses on a national theme, the Transgender Career Day in Washington D.C. has a more local flavour and it’s happening on two different days. In the words of the organizers,
The purpose of these events will be to bring together representatives of government agencies, corporations and private businesses with interests in the District together with members of the District’s transgendered community for the expressed purpose of finding jobs and job training opportunities for them.
And what a list of organizers there are. It looks like people are rallying around the concept of getting people jobs. And for those of us in the transgender community this is great news. You can get a job, a new start, a bright future.
So here are the dates for our readers in Washington D.C.:
You can get more details on the Washington D.C. Career and Job Fairs by visiting the District of Columbia’s LGBT affairs office at this link HERE.
Fenway Community Health did something similar in Boston in February. You can read about it at this post at Beck’s Cafe here. JobNET Boston led the career part of the Fenway Transgender expo in Boston. So don’t be afraid to contact them here in Boston for some help!
Southern Comfort Conference (SCC) is one of the most important Transgender Conferences in the United States. This year they hope to top 1000 attendees. I’ve had the immense pleasure of meeting some of their organizers such Lola Cola (in person, what a treat!) and CAT (only on the phone, but a delight none-the-less). They are so helpful in fact that both of them were important consultants to First Event 2007. How’s that for being a friend!
Both Lola and CAT are dedicated to making SCC fun, friendly and helpful. And the helpful part is something you don’t hear to much about but they blaze a trail of social justice that every trans-person should take note of and emulate even in some small way.
This year SCC’s innovative approach to helping the transgender community extends to finding a job! The Transgender Career Expo at Southern Comfort Conference. The Career Expo will run from 9:00AM until 4:00PM on Friday, September 14th (closed during lunch). It is an open event sponsored by SCC and The Human Rights Campaign and one need not be registered for the conference to gain value from this function.
The Transgender Career Expo is exemplary on a number of levels, from it being the first of its kind to the type of companies that are exhibiting. Here’s a partial list. Some will have actual HR Recruiting Managers present while others will simply be sending representatives as a show of support and to supply information Its a who’s who of corporate America:
How important is the Transgender Career Expo? Let me quote Lola Cola and Kristin Reichman both of SCC:
Please be sure to spread the word to promote and support this extraordinary event. It is critical that we, as a community, step up and create our own place in the world just as these companies have stepped up to the realization that hiring and retaining quality employees is based upon talent and abilities and that being Transgender is irrelevant.
[information courtesy of Lola Cola, Kristin Reichman; Southern Comfort Conference]
Well you know you’ve hit the big time when Harvard falls in line with Transgender Support. Their web page in support of transgender students is well done. You can check out their page by clicking to Harvard’s Transgender Resource Page.
And this is from the university that brought you the controversy on manliness and The New Feminism.
I’ll lift a mug of java to the progress shown I’d say!
Faith in the transgender community is sometimes talked about and sometimes not. But there is an under the surface sense in which many transgender people either struggle with their faith, wondering if they’ve “crossed the line” with God or that they are just fine, that what is happening is a simple issue of genetics and that it’s their response that matters, God is not angry with their gender dilemma. For those who are Jewish though, a new embracing has come.
The Union for Reform Judaism announced on August 7th a major revision to their 10-year old guide on welcoming individuals into the community. They are now including blessings for transgender people in the union’s 500-page resource manual for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion. The guide includes two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders. You can read the official press release on this announcement by clicking to the Union for Reform Judaism site at this link HERE.
There is some news on the wire on this so here’s some additional resources for you to check out:
We’ve shared a cup of coffee and conversation together about Christine Daniels here at Beck’s Cafe before. You can catch up with that past talk by skipping back to our May 21st entry about Christine at Beck’s Cafe at this link HERE. But this new article in Alternet, that is fresh on the wire as of August 1st, 2007, is a little different.
Alternet does what alot of other stories have done, covering Gender Identity Disorder and being a Transexual from the medical side and covering some of Ms. Daniels public disclosure. But the author, John Ireland, goes much further in giving an excellent survey history of transexual women in sports, and, the unexamined but very real culture of bigotry that exists in the culture of sport. He goes further to discuss those two areas in the context of Christine’s challenges today as a transexual woman sportswriter. The article is very well written and very informative.
Grab a cup of coffee and jog over to Alternet to read the article at this link HERE.
Helen Boyd, author of “My Husband Betty” and “She’s not The Man I Married” will be visiting New England! I met Helen and her partner Betty at First Event 2007 where she was the events keynote speaker. They are very cool people to hang out with and to talk to. I’m sure Helen’s talk will be well worth your taking the time to see her. Here’s the details:
Sharin’ some linkie love with our readers…’cause we all love the links…
http://www.melted-dreams.net/definition/
Definintion is a feminist blog about rejecting other’s images of who we should be and living as who we are. Lots of good reading from a different angle. Don’t delay spending some time at Definition, she’s contemplating closing it.
http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/
This woman writer and feminist “gnaws away at sexism and misogyny”. Excellent reading particularly on the topic of rape and the real dangers of pornography from a feminists view point. The writer has been through some tough times for speaking out, including personal and family threats. She’s got courage, give her a read.
8/22/07 update: Den of the Biting Beaver is open to invited readers only. If you can get invited, the reading is well worth your time.
http://www.feminist-reprise.org/wpblog/
Upfront blog on feminism in the broadest sense of that term. Strong opinions from a soft heart.
http://www.jenisfamous.com/blog.html
A National Society of Newspaper Columnist Award winner, comdian, blogger and runner of spelling bees
She’s funny, educated, informational and so strong she’ll kick yer ass! Oh and since Jay Sennett recommended her I figured her blog had to be worth a read!
Donna Rose was interviewed by Fortune magazine as part of their coverage on transgender folks in the workplace. It’s interesting reading with some very helpful references included. You can catch it at CNN by visiting their site at this link HERE.
Among the cool tidbits are:
Well worth a read I’d say.
I belong to a few Yahoo Groups and most of them are pretty good. I actually belonged to more but had to cut back about a dozen as I was really not contributing very much. But a recent thread on the topic of the “true measure of a woman” was well posted in one group and has led to a wonderful discussion on this topic. While some of the excellent posts from others cannot be shared at Beck’s Cafe for reasons of confidentiality, this one, by me can be. But let me explain what I’m sharing, so that it appears less like the shameless promotion I’m so well known for ( a friend who had seen the movie, “Thank You for Smoking“ actually compared me to the PR Person for the smoking companies!)
The most valuable pieces of my post that are worth sharing on “the true measure of a woman” comes not from my keyboard but from the keyboards of two other genetic women. I think their answers may challenge you.
First let’s hear from a genetic woman, earlbecke, from who’s blog, “Definition” this piece come from:
The reality is that there is no universal, essential experience of womanhood. The mainstream American feminist movement has often and rightly been criticized for ignoring the experience of women of color, queer women, poor women. None of us have grown up or been raised the same way. None of our experiences have been exactly the same or meant the same thing to us, impacted us in the same ways.
My experience as a biracial, queer, ex-Mormon feminist can’t be compared to a straight, white, Christian woman. It can’t be compared to a woman who grew up in poverty, or another culture, or another part of the world. We are not the same. There is no unifying thread which connects us, nothing magical or spiritual binding us all in sisterhood with one another except those threads we weave ourselves, those bridges that we build, and our shared humanity, which, might I remind you, we also share with men.
What is this experience transwomen can never have or understand which makes them not “real” women in the social sense? We can’t argue it’s dependent on the presence or absence of female sex organs; there are women with birth defects and women without wombs. There are women who have been victims of Female Genital Mutilation. There can be women born with ambiguous genitalia. And, so, there can be women with male sex organs, too.
An appeal to blood is useless here for the reasons stated above: not all women, even cisgendered women, bleed. Some women have reproductive health issues. Some women have been through menopause. Not all of us bleed the same way. I can hardly relate to women for whom menstruation is a horrible, agonizing ordeal — for me, it is something I hardly even think about. Given the huge amount of physical variation, the ultimately subjective nature of our interactions with our own bodies, I hardly think a woman born with a penis can be much different from me than a woman with endometriosis. Both are foreign. Both are certainly women.
There is no biological congruence. There is no identical socialization. Even women who have endured the same event will process it differently, come to different conclusions. Nobody is an island, but neither are any of us the same. It’s been argued that no one can ever truly understand another person, and I agree. Given that, how can anyone really believe there’s anything essential that ties all women together? Even if we all emerged from the same common background, I don’t think that would be true. [ed. - you can read the full post at Definition blog by visiting this link here].
And now a word on this topic from my wife, partner and best friend. This is what she had to say when I ran this by her:
If you really want to know the true measure of a woman is, it’s being a friend and looking out for each other. It’s making sure you are all safe and don’t have to go to places like you described. If you really want to be a friend, make a safe path for other transgender friends. For example, my seven closest friends are all there for each other when we need it. Two of us have had cancer, another numerous family deaths, and all of us deal with daily life. If any of us needed something we would call each other and stick together. Even a potato! We come from all
walks of life and yet we help each other out”.
If you plan on going to Fantasia Fair in Provincetown, MA, October 10 -14, but are facing a little pinch in your pocketbook, you can apply for a scholarship See details at this link: http://www.fanasiafair.org/scholarships.asp
Here’s the full press release:
July 1, 2007
For Immediate Release
Scholarships Available for Fantasia Fair 2007
http://www.fantasiafair.org/Press.asp
The Fantasia Fair Planning Committee will be awarding scholarships to the 33rd annual Fantasia Fair, to be held October 14 - 21 in historic Provincetown, Massachusetts. Scholarship recipients will receive free tuition to the Fair, including all seminars, workshops, and events, 12 meals, and shared room accommodations for seven nights. Recipients will be responsible for their own transportation to and from Provincetown.
“We’re proud to make this announcement,” said Fair Director Dallas Denny. “Fantasia Fair is a wonderful conference. We want to reach out especially to the young people who will be the future leaders of our community, and especially to FTMs. We’ve worked hard to keep Fair prices low, but we understand some people can’t afford to go to any conference. These awards are just one way to make our conference accessible to some who could benefit from attending but couldn’t otherwise come.”
Scholarships are open to individuals of all ages who demonstrate financial need.
Applicants should submit a statement of financial need and a letter explaining why they want to attend Fantasia Fair. Applicants will be selected to receive awards by the Fantasia Fair Planning Committee.
Eligibility Requirements
* Age over 18 (or parental permission if under 18) * Demonstrated financial need (applications will be considered on an individual basis) * Submission of a “Why I Want to Come to Fantasia Fair” letter * Receipt of materials by 31 July, 2007
Fantasia Fair Planning Committee Members and their families and friends are not eligible for scholarships.
Rules for Scholarship Awards
1) Submit a letter entitled “Why I Want to Come to Fantasia Fair.” There are no limitations for length or style. You can be creative just as long as you are convincing.
2) Submit a letter, note, or other materials demonstrating your financial need; in other words, tell the committee how your financial situation prevents you from coming to Fantasia Fair.
3) Applicants under 18 years of age must include a document giving parental consent.
4) Following the 31 July deadline, the Fantasia Fair Planning Committee will evaluate all submissions. Those who have not, in the Committee’s judgment, demonstrated financial need will be excluded from further consideration. “Why I Want to Come to Fantasia Fair” letters will then be read and rated. Awards will be given to the candidates who, in the judgment of the Committee, most convincingly demonstrate their desire to attend Fantasia Fair.
5) Contest winners will be notified on or about 15 August, 2007.
6) An announcement that the awards have been made will be released to transgender news sources on 15 August, 2007 and will be posted on the www.fantasiafair.org website although the names of scholarship recipients will not be made public.
7) In the event that a winner is not able to attend Fantasia Fair or declines the scholarship, the first runner-up will be notified immediately.
Please submit your materials by the July 31st deadline to:
or
Fantasia Fair
P.O. Box 33724
Decatur, GA 30033-0724
When you submit your materials, please make sure to include a postal address, email address, or phone number for the Fantasia Fair Planning Committee to use to contact you. If you provide a phone number, please mention what name to ask for.
Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss has posted an aritcle on her blog, “Transgender Workplace Diversity” that is sobering. Entitled, “National statistics on Transgender Unemployment”, the article has some chilling facts for all of us:
But Dr. Weiss wisely asks the question, “how was the data collected”. Let’s face it, even in the transgender community the massaging of numbers and the tilting of data is not above some activists approaches. And Dr. Weiss is asking the hard question, “how did you find your subjects”? Her question is valid and her conclusions are well worth a read. You can read the full article to see what is going on at her Blog, “Transgender Workplace Diversity” at this link on her site HERE. You can read the full study, as done by Richard M. Juang at “Trans Group Blog” by visiting the story at this link HERE.
Finally, such an article as this begs the question, what do I do about being employed if I’m trans? Well, there are a number of strategies, but one that pops to mind is the Career Expo being held at Southern Comfort Conference. Companies such as Microsoft, Deloitte, JP Morgan, Starbuck and Turner among many other national firms will be there exhibiting at the Career Fair. It’s well worth a look see. You can visit the Southern Comfort Conference web site at this link here.
I was watching C-SPAN2 live coverage of Senate speeches the other day and walking to the podium comes none other than the honorable Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd. At first, I thought he was delirious as he started on this bizarre speech denouncing the rise of Dog Fighting.
Dog Fighting….wtf?? I thought that went out with the middle ages.
Apparently not.
Seeing that I am covered these days in plaster, html and php trying to re-furb Beck’s Cafe I haven’t really been paying attention to the news. But I’ll be darned right there in prime time was a report on Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, himself involved in a dog-fighting ring (see story on Vic by clicking to Yahoo News here) . Friends, we have now reached a time in history where the bizarre is commonplace.
Senator Byrd went on to say that this truly horrendous bloodsport is on the rise. Clearly some people have WAY too much disposable income and FAR too much disposable time on their hands. But is it really on the rise in general and how about here in Boston?
On the national front, it is just sad. We pulled up an article from CBS that did an expose in Chicago on dog fighting on July 19th, 2007. You can visit CBS2 in Chicago at this link HERE to read the full story, but just read this quote by a “trainer” of dogs for dogfighting…this is just one method they use to get those dogs “ready” to fight:
“We’d get 17, 18 bumblebees and put them in his food so that when he ate it, it would sting his gums he went nuts, driving him berserk,” Chico said.
Well now that’s a way to train an innocent domestic animal that is 95% of the time docile and man’s best friend. It’s nice to see the human race has reached the pinnacle of civilization and is now de-evolving.
I did a little snooping around over coffee on this heinous practice and thought I’d share the linkie love with you all. Diane Jessup, who started the Law Dogs program, has a gruesome piece on what dogfighting is all about, you can read her article at her site, “Working PitBull” at this link here.. It made my skin crawl. I’m not sure what kind of “men” dogfighting kinda guys are but it’ll make you scratch your head.
But what about the hard numbers on this “sport”. Is this on the rise or was this just an eye catching feature story for a slow July news month? Sadly, according to a CNN report during an interview with John Goodwin, an expert on animal fighting with the Humane Society, there are an estimated 40,000 professional dogfighters in the United States and purses for such fights can reach $100,000.00. Follow the money and you’ll find something. Sometimes what you find is good, this time what you find is bad. You can read the full CNN report on dogfighting at this link here.
What about here in Boston? Surely we are more “sophisticated”? Well, maybe not. Beck’s Cafe had an email exchange with Joanne Mainiero, Director of the Massachusetts Humane Society on this topic. She told us that Massachusetts does indeed have some illegal dogfighting rings around but that they don’t generally last very long. Usually they are caught quickly. But, she told us, the evidence of dogfighting is here even on an amateur basis with dead dogs found in yards. Pretty gruesome.
We asked Ms. Mainiero what could be done to help combat this practice and she had this advice. First, she suggested that all of us contact the NFL to suspend Michael Vick. The Humane Society even has a quick mailer set up so that you can send your sentiments on this subject over to The NFL Commish. You can reach the Humane Society web page with the “NFL, Throw the Book at Michael Vick” emailer at their site at this link here. Second, be on the lookout. The Humane Society has a fact sheet on this subject and you can reach it by clicking to the Human Society “dogfighting fact sheet” as this link here.
Lots of changes are coming to the cafe all of them caffeine charged and good, I assure you! You’ll notice lots of theme morphing going on as we continue to screw with, hack the code for the site and give the Cafe a nice new paint job, some new upholstery, and, umm, finally clean the toilets (where the hell is that toilet brush anyway). We’ll be doing some collaboration too with others and unleash some new content areas that came over wayyy to many Cosmo’s with Boston’s own celebrity Diva, June C.
Thanks for hanging with us and probing our ample archives….thanks to YOU our readers we get 8,000 hits per month on average! And, thanks to YOU all we’ve won the following awards:
First and foremost though, Beck’s Cafe is not a “transgender” blog per se. It’s a virtual place to share ideas, get some love, tell a story, learn something new, and have a laugh and best of all, do it over a cup of coffee
Well we took the plunge and upgraded to WordPress 2.2.1 Things “feel” like they have to be rung out a bit, so we’ll be doing some testing, drinking coffee, and likely cussing. It’ll be worth it in the end I’m sure
Update: 6-24-07 : Archives are broken; repair in process; ETA based on how much free espresso I give my tech’s
I met Alex Solange at a conference, First Event 2007, and then at an event he developed and ran for the transgender community in Boston for Fenway Community Healty. I was touched by his humor and down to earth, easy going manner. He’s quite a guy. So I was not surprised to learn that he’s also an artist.
A very accomplished artist in fact.
You can see his remarkable art at his site, Solangeart. You can reach Solangeart by visiting his site at this iinik here.
You can also SEE his art, in person at two locations. The first, is an Open Exhibit running July 28- to Aug 30, 2006 at Rumbas Nightclub, in Lowell MA, (978) 970-2005 (see the Yahoo listing by clicking to Yahoo at this tinyurl link here: http://tinyurl.com/yogb7f )
The second place you can see his art is TONIGHT, June 21st, at his exhibit:
Alex Solange Art Reception
June 21, 2007
5:30PM to 9:00PMThe MALE Center
571 Columbus Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
617.450.1987
So come by and see some heartfelt art from a local artist who’s making a difference.
Admit it, at some level you knew it was just plain old healthy to come to Beck’s Cafe and have a steaming cup of java. Well, now we have proof
As reported by the BBC,
Italian researchers looked at the coffee drinking and smoking habits of 166 people with blepharospasm.
Sufferers have uncontrollable twitching of the eyelid which, in extreme cases, stops them being able to see.
One or two cups of coffee a day seemed to reduce the risk of the condition, the team reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
To read the full article at the BBC, Coffee ‘could prevent eye tremor’, click to the BBC at this link HERE….and don’t forget to bring a mug of coffee with you
“Last Monday in Mayâ€Â©
By…John T. Bird
We pause to remember those who died
With so much courage, so much pride
They’ll never come back, yet memories endure
To remind us of freedom: fragile, pure
We’re worthy of their sacrifice if we pause each day
Not just on the last Monday in May
Links of interest:
Remembering our fallen heroes: remember.gov
U.S. Memorial Day Site: usmemorialday.org
Thank you to any veterans reading this site today. I appreciate what you’re helping to keep our country free.
Good underwear. It feels good. Looks good. Doesn’t make you feel like you’ve got sandpaper on or something, umm, reminding you it’s THERE all the time. It’s just nice.
The general way of choosing good underwear is to simply keep using what you have been using until it’s so thread bare that your “going commando”, (as an aside, the whole concept and prevelence of “Going Commando” i.e., wearing no underwear at all, has actually been studied. As reported in the Wikipedia at their site HERE, brief and bra firm, Fresh Pair, in 2004 conducted a study “…of 7,000 people which revealed that 9% of men and 7% of women go commando day-to-day. Those who do so semi-regularly are much more numerous, possibly around 25-30%”. You have to love our unquenchable thirst for knowledge).
But now, fair reader, we’ve got the inside track on a more refined way of getting your undergarments right. The Vote. Or more precisely, “The Undie Awards“. In the words of the lingerie ladden workers managing the contest:
Women around the world voted for their favorite lingerie and the results are here. The Underwear Awards, (The Undies) were decided in 13 categories including Favorite Bra, Favorite Panty, Favorite Shapewear and more.
With the vote tallied the Overall Winners are:
So there you have it, no more holey underthings, no more breezy briefs and saggy bras! You can read about all the winners and even purchase said garments by visiting the Undies Awards by clicking to their site HERE.
Fenway Health’s Transgender Health Program is starting a new support
group series, the “T-Supper Club.” The first six-week group starts on Tuesday
June 5th and runs weekly from 6:30-8:30pm.
If you’re transgender, transexual, gender queer, gender non-conforming,
cross dresser, or anyone who crosses mainstream society’s notions of
gender, Fenway Community Health offers a new support group series, the
“T-Supper Club.”
The first six-week group is forming now!
Topics include: community building, sexual health issues, stress
management, personal expression, and group dialog.
The group is free and dinner is served each week.
The first group starts on Tuesday June 5th and runs weekly from
6:30-8:30pm.
For more information or to register call Fenway Health’s Transgender
Program Coordinator, Alex, at Fenway Health 617-927-6449 or email him at
asolange@fenwayhealth.org
For more information on Fenway Health you can visit their site at this link HERE.
As a transgender woman living in the United States I often have a kind of view that is centered on here in the United States. That’s not a bad thing given that I live and make a living here in the United States. But from time to time I wonder, how do other trans-folk feel about themselves? Do they have the same view as to the source of our GID (gender identity disorder) as we do or is our view in the United States decidedly more “western”.
A 2006 study published by Sam Winter BSc, PGCE, MEd, PhD, Division of Learning, Development and Diversity, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in the International Journal of Transgenderism: Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 2006 (see abstract at that journal here) helped to shed some interesting light on this topic for me, as I hope it does for you. The results may surprise you in how similar across the world those who are transgender really are.
The study was done in Thailand. Now for those of you in the transgender world, Thailand is seen, by many in the United States, as a sort of transgender mecca. Fully tolerant with surgery and life options that make integrating mostly easy. That’s the perception anyway.
In Dr. Winter’s study one hundred and ninety-five transgender females (i.e., male-to-female transgenders (or MtF TGs)), with an average age of about 25 years, completed a questionnaire examining, what they believed about the attitudes of parents and society towards them and what they thought may have caused them to have Gender Identity Disorder. First let’s look at the acceptance statistics.
Thai Mothers tallied at the top on accepting their child’s condition with 62.9% accepting or encouraging their children who showed transgender traits. Thai Fathers had an interestingly high number as well, at 40.7% accepting or encouraging.
On the causal front, 84% believed that biology played a role in their being transgender. Interestingly, friends and karma were also commonly endorsed as explanatory factors as well, with 50% for the latter and 48.4% for the former.
All in all, interesting reading on how similar we may all be after all. You can reach the full abstract at Th International Journal of Transgenderism at this link HERE.
In case you missed it Christine Daniels, of the L. A. Times, has put up a blog. From the blogs description:
Christine Daniels is a veteran sportswriter who has worked at the Los Angeles Times for 23 years — as Mike Penner. Christine shocked many readers on April 27, 2007, when she announced her decision to change gender. She will be blogging about her transition over the days to come.
Fun reading You can reach Ms. Daniels blog at by clicking to the L.A. Times from this link HERE. (p.s. bring a cup of mochajava with you!)
In case you missed it. The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (HBIGDA) has changed it’s name to The World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH.
Their new address on the web is : http://www.wpath.org/
And, if you don’t know, WPATH is, in their own words:
is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders.
We have approximately 500 members from around the world, in fields such as medicine, psychology, law, social work, counselling, psychotherapy, family studies, sociology, anthropology, voice therapy, sexology and other related fields
And, their bi-ennial symposium is in the USA this year! It’ll be held in Chicago, September 5th through September 8th at the Embassy Suites Hotel. The hotel is in downtown and a short walk to Navy Pier and Michigan Avenue. The theme for the conference is: “Looking to the Future: Environment, Transplantation, Telepsychiatry”
Here are some of what will be talked about:
Surprisingly you do not have to be a physician to join. You can be on the latest cutting edge developments in the field of Gender Identity Disorder by joining as a supporting member!
Supporting membership is available to individuals who do not work in the professional disciplines listed above, but still have an interest in being an active member of the organization. Supporting membership costs $110 (US) per year, and carries no voting privileges.
Get it on the fun by visiting the WPATH site at this link HERE.
Every day we risk something.
You walk out the door you risk stepping in a pile of dog poop
You drink a cup of coffee you risk burning a few layers of flesh of your tongue
You kiss your honey and your risk your nose ring getting caught in her braces
and so it goes…
But what about those every day run of the mill disasters like a tornado? Or maybe an earthquake? Have you ever thought “gee, I wonder if I’m at risk for those today”?
Well wonder no more fair reader! I present to you the patented, “Glenn Beck Interactive
Disaster Map”. You’ll find it quite illuminating we think. Just click on over to the map by visiting this link HERE. It will take you to Glenn Beck.com where you’ll learn what YOUR risk is!
( Source data for this post courtesy of our correspondant, “The Southern Man”. Thanks!!)
Okay, here’s a little internet quiz. How many of you have seen URL’s (universal resource locators, internet speak for a web address) like this?
http://www.ryansaghir.com/archives/www.thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com
Or maybe this?
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&mqma
p.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bI
gpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6
OzE5XVqcuc5zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvN
lygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrf
XNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC
9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%
252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP
Yeah one of those broken web addresses you have to copy by hand into your browser to make work. Always a barrel of laughs those are.
So what to do?
Well shrink the multi-line monstrosity above to this:
http://tinyurl.com/6
Sound appealing doesn’t it? The tool to use is called TinyURL and it takes super long URL’s and makes them shorter. You can try it out yourself at http://www.tinyurl.com We think you’ll find it handy and helpful.
But are there any downsides?
Not really as far as we can tell but then again somedays we don’t get quite enough caffeine to make our brains work properly. But others have found a voiced a key concern that being it’s poor writer etiquette to make your reader wonder where it is your new shorter, spiffy link is taking them. With phishing in vogue today that’s a valid concern of course. So a possible compromise is to show the longer link so your readers see the original and post the shorter for their web surfing convenience. Another option is, presuming your readers trust you (you are the honest type are you not?) you simply put a descrtiption near the link such as, “Click over to the wikiepdia by going to this link here” where “here” is the link to the Wikipedia article or other locations.
Are there any alternatives?
Why yes there are! DoIP will do essentially what TinyURL does with one simple twist: you can choose the suffix or last part of the new shorter URL you create. For example, a standard URL to an article in the Boston Globe looks like this:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/11/03/plaintiff_alleges_alito_conflict/
Using TinyURL it looks like this:
Using DoIP it looks like this, based on your choosing the suffix:
So, readers know they are going to see the article you referenced in the Boston Globe. It’s a nice touch.
“Too complicated, gotta do it on the fly from my browser”
Always a naysayer in this crowd but we’ve got you covered as well. Firefox has a addon that allows you to use TinyURL right from the browser. You can get to that add-on at this link here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/126
Like all things frugally at the Frugal Tech TinyURL is a bargain in price and usablity. It’s free and easy to use so it meets our tightwad desires well. So bring back web address elegance with TinyURL, your readers will be happy they don’t have to cut and paste your long URL’s again!
At the Cafe we own a Wii. The thing really is fun, in fact, it’s so fun we’re considering keeping the patrons usage TIMED so that everyone gets a chance to use it. The free Wii Sports pack, particularly the Bowling, is the big hit here, as is YouTube on the Wii. Yes, the Wii streams video and audio.
So it was a natural to see how the Wii does with browsing the Internet. Frankly, it works just great. Nintendo has released it’s final version of it’s Internet for Wii and we like it. You can sit back with a latte, browse the net, and watch it on your TV. A few years ago this was possible of course, but, not nearly as useful, primarily due to lack of content. But now with more streaming video, audio and yes news and features, such as Beck’s Cafe, browsing and using the net from your couch isn’t such a weird idea.
We think the Wii will do a few things to change life as we know it on the planet - or at least the game console buying planet. First, the whole virtual reality part of gaming and entertainment is now very accessible to Jane Doe. It’ll take some fancy programming, good marketing, and some inexpensive hardware but, predicted here, a virtual reality setup for Wii shouldn’t be more than 12 months away. The Wii’s revolutionary motion sensing technology makes it possible. And, not too long ago, one of Beck’s Cafe’s writers helped develop micro-screens for eyeglasses (think a computer screen on the inside of your sunglasses). Put those together and you may be running from PacMan rather than just playing him on the screen!
Over at GigaOM, Wagner James Au has his own thoughts on what the Wii will do in his article, “Wii will remake the web?” here’s some of his thoughts to tease you to go read the whole article:
…according to a recent Merrill-Lynch study, by 2011, an astounding 30% of American households will own a Wii. If that estimate holds up (and given the Wii’s still-thundering sales figures, there’s no reason to doubt it), about one out of every three U.S. homes will soon have a new kind of Web browser sitting in their living room.
One in Three…think about those numbers Mr. and Mrs. Marketeer! Oh and how about this?
The obvious immediate objection, or course, is “who’s going to browse the Web without a keyboard?†The most obvious immediate answer: the very young, who already send text messages over their cellphones
If it was as easy to use the Wii controller as it is a keyboard, why wouldn’t you just chose the easy option? From our experience at the Cafe, about 10% of the time, patrons chose to use the Wii over the computers we have installed for surfing and email. Interesting huh? We thought so.
Look out, there are changes coming in the way we reach the internet which has become highly necessary to much of the world to get information and to communicate. And it’s not all through the PC. Is it any wonder Intel, Microsoft and everyone else is vying for the living room now?
Okay, if you’ve had your coffee here’s a riddle…
Figure it out? Well it’s the simple “thank you”.
The “thank you note” seems to be fading into the distance as a standard tool of communication in business and inter-personal relationships but it’s one of the most important tools to strengthen a relationship with someone in any sphere (staff at Beck’s Cafe take note!!)
According to Kim Izzo, etiquette columnist, during an interview with Oprah on Thank You notes (see that interview at Oprah’s site here), “It’s making the effort. People really appreciate getting mail that’s not a bill, for one thing, and just taking that extra bit of time to write a thank you note really means everything.”
So how do jumpstart this so you to can say “thank you”?
So get your pen in hand and paper on the desk today, you’ll improve your relationships with this simple act.
Thank You for reading
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Oh, oh, oh
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
Oh, yeah, yeah
Live Acoustic Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGlvZ3uYRB0
Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQdX-Ui4zo
(Lyrics: Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”, 06.09.2004, from the album “Unwritten”)
JPMorgan Chase has done some interesting work on the actual cost for transexual healthcare we just stumbled on here at the cafe. It’s a good read over your monring coffee. They presented the eye opening facts at the 2006 Out and Equal Workplace Advocates Seminar.
If at first blush your response is, “I didn’t know this wasn’t covered” or “Why the heck should it be covered” consider this:
The slide deck, in pdf, is an interesting read well worth your time. It covers data that was collected on what the costs are, what some major companies actually paid out for health benefits for the transgender community, assessment on prevelance rates and more.
So go see our barista, grab a mug (this one is on the house) and have a read of the deck, “The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits” by JP Morgan, by going to the Out and Equal link HERE.
It’s Monday and…well it’s Monday, that’s about all you can say about it.
So if your like everyone else visiting Beck’s Cafe your brain has not engaged with the rest of your body and, frankly, a good laugh would really get you going before you hit that latest weekly report your late on.
Presenting, via You Tube,….A mom with 3 kids…Sarah Maizes @ The Comedy Store
(make sure you have your headphones on, or invite your boss in to listen).
Saturday nights SHOULD be a time to go out to dinner not eat dinner in. But, when your week’s been long sometimes it’s just nice to kick back, skip the espresso, have some wine (well more than some) and use the kitchen for something a bit more upscale in evening fare.
And that’s what we did at the Cafe Saturday night. We whipped up some Farfalle with White Wine Sauce. Yummy is only one of the sounds we heard upon serving it. But before serving it you have to make it, so let’s start there shall we
Ingredients
First things first, have some of your wine Happy? Good, now let’s start.
Fill a large soup pan with water, add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and get it on your stove, turn on the burner to bring it to a boil. That’ll take a few minutes and you’ll be boiling the Farfalle in it.
Fill a large, deep skillet with the olive oil. We used 1/2 a cup but a 1/4 will probably do just as well. Then, turn on the burner under this pan. Be sure to set the burner for low. Using a lower heat more slowly warms up the oil and leads to less “sputtering” up of the oil from the pan once the oil is really hot.
You’ll want to cut up all your ingredients before you start cooking as things will need to be stirred as you cook on the stove so:
Once you’ve got your ingredients prepared the action gets a bit more intense. Your water may be boiling now, if so, turn the heat down on it, you’ll need it boiling in a few minutes so just keep it hot for now. The oil in the pan should be very hot by this time.
Pour the onions and garlic into the pan with the hot olive oil in it. The sound of searing vegetables and their wonderful smell should make you hungry immediately. You’ll want to stir the cooking onions and garlic pretty much constantly in order to lightly brown (emphasis on lightly) the garlic and onion. That’ll take about 5 minutes or so.
Crank up the heat on the pan of hot water in which you’ll be boiling the Farfalle, you’ll want to bring it back to a boil to cook the Farfalle in.
Once the onion and garlic are browned, pour in the shrimp. Stir and cook for about 8 minutes. Cooking the shrimp makes them softer for this recipe and really helps to bring out their flavor (providing you like shrimp of course).
While the shrimp are cooking, the pan of boiling water should be, well, boiling. Put in the 1/2 pound of Farfalle. Stir and let it cook about 10 minutes. You’ll want it to be al dente - soft to the bite but not squishy. A sort of firm/soft kind of state of being.
About now, the shrimp’s color should be turning a bit more red but more important they should be softening. Take one out and give it a bite, it should be a bit softer. It’s at this point you want to pour in the 1/2 cup of white cooking wine, stir it a bit, and then put the cover back on the pan. You’ll want to simmer this mix, so turn the heat down to low/medium. Let it cook until the shrimp are tender, that’ll be about 10 minutes.
By now the Farfalle should be al dente, so drain it into a colander, and then rinse it with cold water to stop the pasta from cooking. Pour the Farfalle into a large mixing bowl - you’ll be mixing it with all the other ingredients in this bowl so make sure it’s large enough to mix things around.
Turn the heat off under the shrimp and then, pour it onto the Farfalle. There should be a nice light white wine sauce that comes out of the pan along with the shrimp. Make sure you scrape in any of the onion and garlic sticking to the bottom of the pan. Pour the red bell pepper in as well that you chopped up. Then toss everything together in the bowl till it’s all covered. Sneak an occasional taste (cook’s privilege!).
Place into serving bowls, garnish with 1 Tablespoon of parmesan cheese and enjoy! Serves four; add a salad and fresh bread for a nice meal.
What did the taste tester’s think?
Human taste tester one: “Very good, I really like the subtle tastes in this. It’s like upscale comfort food”.
Dog taste tester one: “Woof” (this was after the Cafe Hound sneakily snuck her snout into my plate).
Around the cafe’ we’re just happy to have you all feel at home here. That’s reward enough. But when a major local magazine comes a callin’, we brush our teeth, comb our hair and make sure we’re all perty to see what they have to say.
Well, what they said was that, Spirit Boston, Boston’s Premier Gay and Lesbian magazine, has given Beck’s Cafe the nod as one of the Boston Blog’s to Read in the Transgender category. Well isn’t that nice! If anyone has a copy of the Decemeber/January issue we’d love to see it. I heard from the reporter that the mention was in that issue.
Of course the only reason this wonderful award happened at all is because of YOU, our wonderfully caffeine juiced up readers. We just whip out the content but YOU put us where we are ’cause you read us So thank you all very much from the bottom of the team’s heart
(We’re leaving this post up as our top post for a bit as we follow this)
Tenessa Thomas, age 13 of Auburn, Maine went missing on Thursday, 3/22/07 around 7am. She took none of her things for school, no jackets, and all of the doors and windows have been locked with no sign of any entry. Basically, the parents have no idea about anything what so ever. If ANYONE has ANY information about her where abouts or even nows someone who knows something PLEASE call (3/23/07: phone numbers deleted as Tenessa was found).
I got this message from an acquaintence via email. We’ve emailed back asking that the parents contact the Maine police to kick off the nationwide Amber Alert System for this little girl. We’ll post updates here to this post to keep everyone informed as this very serious issue develops.
***updates***
3/23/07 12:10PM While we are waiting for some further news you might like to read this post here at Beck’s Cafe I did here on one of my kids, just click here.
3/23/07 9:43PM Great NEWS! We just talked to a woman who is a relative of Tenessa’s. She was found, is back home and is a-okay!! Thanks to everyone for their concern Free Mochacino’s for everyone
If you look around you might find a few, but not a whole lot. The “few” are women in management. Grant Thornton, a U.K. based international accounting and consulting firm, published an interesting study on March 5, 2007, to coincide with International Women’s Day. The survey solicited the opinion of some 7000 privately held businesses in 32 countries. To give you a sense for the size of these enterprises, they represent 81% of global GDP. The findings may or may not cause you to think.
April Mackenzie, Grant Thornton’s Executive Director of Public Policy had this comment on the survey. It’s a wonderful summary:
It is disappointing that the participation of women in senior business management has not increased more dramatically over the last three years. It is however encouraging to see some of the Asian economies leading the way. North American and European businesses in particular continue to disappoint. Hopefully we will see this change in coming years as more women play increasingly prominent roles in business and public life such as Indra Nooyi, the new chief executive officer of PepsiCo, Angela Merkel, German chancellor, Margaret Whitman, chief executive and president of eBay and Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of France’s state-owned nuclear group Areva.
You can read a brief on this fascinating survey at Grant Thornton’s website by visiting their site at this link HERE.
The Economist magazine posted a splendid chart form of the results. Well worth a quick visit by skimming to The Economist via this link HERE.
Finally, some thoughts on why this happens might be found in my post, “Pelosi media coverage covered by gender“. It’s an article on media coverage and women, but the why of it might apply here too.
(A hat tip to rebecca blood, author of rebecca’s pocket for the lead for this post)
I used to publish with Blogger and then Typepad but finally settled on a self hosted blog at A Small Orange using Wordpress. You can read about my odyssey in my comment on the article, “What Blogging tool Do You Use And Why”on Lorelle on Wordpress, at my article,”Thoughts on Moving On“, and at my article “A New Home for Beck’s Cafe”
One of the (many) great things about Wordpress is how responsive the community is. To that end if your running Wordpress 2.1.1 HEED this ANNOUNCEMENT from the Wordpress Development Blog:
If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.
Clearly malicious hackers still have way too much time on their hands…
They (whoever “they are”) say that the only thing that you can be sure of are death and taxes. Well, now there’s a bit more to fear on the tax side. From the fiends at The fiends at the Inquirer have discovered that revenuers can now use Google Earth to detect those of you defrauding your various governments of their hard sought tax dollars. As seen in the Inquirer,
A PROVINCIAL revenue agency down in Argentina is using Google Earth Pro to find tax dodgers. With this approach, the taxman for the Buenos Aires province detected 1184030 square feet of undeclared property.
If it weren’t enough to actual find the deadbeat properties, there are a few more tricks the eneterprising taxmen can employ:
A list of alleged debtors is published by the provincial Public Revenue Service on the web, but as is usual in him, he pressed for more. Google’s Earth Pro subscription allows the agency to import site plans and property lists, and export high-quality images. It also allows to transfer “up to 2,500 locations by address or geospatial coordinates from a spreadsheet” and includes measurement tools -square feet, mile, acreage, and the like- by point and clicking on the screen.
Ah, so what you may say as you quaff down another espresso. Well the “so what” is that other governments IRS Agents will likely pick up on this little convenience and add it as a tool in their auditor’s briefcase. Look up, the Taxman Cometh.
You can read of this diabolical development for dollars at The Inquirer by visiting them at this link here.
There’s a few generally accepted things you can guess you should not do in while driving in your car, among them:
Finally, do not use your laptop computer while drivingin your car. Apparently a gentleman was driving down the wrong side of the road while using his laptop, perhaps he was blogging? In any event, the gentleman was a computer teacher and his four door sedan collide with a Hummer. The couple in the Hummer escaped with some bruises, the computer the chap in the car was using was fine and still operating after the crash. The computer using teacher died though.
You can read the reports at CBS news here or at The Inquirer here.
It’s Monday afternoon, admit it, YOU want to be home with a big plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies in front of you. Instead your at work. And your at work reading Beck’s Cafe.
Okay, how about some riddles to get your brain back in gear?
The Riddles
The Answers (no peaking!)
Sometimes the pain of Gender Dysphoria just…hurts
The feeling of inside loneliness is so extreme you can’t even think sometimes. You feel like you simply aren’t there. It’s like your watching yourself move. You just wish that this strange background noise would go away and that you were just “here” or “present” again. Every attempt to cope comes with a bagfull of complications that makes the word “choice” almost absurd ; the trans-persons choices to cope are all pyrrhic.
Worse perhaps, your pain gets reflected onto your partner. Your partner; your damn best friend, becomes collateral damage. They start to hurt like someone abducted you and there was no note left behind. Just a cruel emptiness. The concept of the transgender person “still being there, just look on the inside of us” is simply not true. We aren’t there for them and we can’t even hardly be there for ourselves many times. Our partner’s feelings of helplessness to rescue us without destroying themselves makes their lives as nearly as unlivable as the transgender person’s becomes. Our partners just wish we were present again. They just wish we were here again.
Wish You Were Here
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here.
(pink floyd, “wishing you were here”, 1975)
(Wishing You Were Here music video, Pink Floyd Live)
The latest report from Technorati shows that, as of November 2006 there were 57 MILLION blogs in existence with 100,000 new blogs being created per day. That’s alot of writing. Don’t you wonder if any of this matters?
As a writer I do wonder at times and I’m always happy when I find that something I wrote sparked a comment, made someone laugh, or cry, or think differently, or even opened up a conversation that wasn’t there before (whether I agree with the viewpoints expressed or not). It’s all good. I think I would still write even if I didn’t self-publish.
But sometimes don’t you wonder if any of this writing and self-publishing matters? Well I’m here to tell you it does. Check out these tidbits. I’m going to put some of the content from these news reports in my post because you never know when the report might come down. The common thread here is that these mere bloggers are being watched. Why are they being watched? Because people are reading their blogs, hearing their viewpoint and they are thinking.
So blogging, in fact writing, does appear to make a difference. Let’s hope that for every voice silenced 100 more spring up.
Women’s eNews has a wonderful op-ed piece on the differences in gender coverage that the news makes. It’s well worth a read and you can visit the Women’s eNews article, “Memo: Nancy, Hillary Are More Than Elected Moms”, here, but first a few snippets to whet your reading appetite:
After Nancy Pelosi’s historic election as Speaker of the House, the Washington Post described her as a “grandmother of five.”
The Post didn’t refer to her as a “20-year veteran of Congress,” which probably had more to do with her election.
Meanwhile, the Post described Harry Reid, the new Senate leader, as the “son of a hard-rock miner” with no mention of Reid’s 16 grandchildren.
Imagine how differently the story would read if it began “Pelosi, daughter of a mayor” and “Reid, grandfather of 16.”
And here’s another interesting quote to think about relative to how gender neutral is our news coverage from the article:
The Sunday after Pelosi’s inauguration, the New York Times’ feature opinion piece written by New Republic senior editor Ryan Lizza purported to question the Democratic strategy of electing a pack of new “alpha” male Democrats in Congress. But Lizza’s opinion takes as fact that strength and leadership are “masculine” traits, to be contrasted with the image of the Democrats as the weak “mommy party.”
The suggestion was clear that male is strong; female–used interchangeably with “nurturing”–is weak.
Not surprisingly the gender differences in news reporting have not escaped the mind of researchers (one gets the visual cue of a bespecklad gray haired woman in white trench coat, coke bottle glasses tight to her eyes as she pours through endless charts of numbers, sifting them for answers). In a report from Michigan State University dated July 15, 2004, “MSU researchers find gender bias in coverage of political races”, some interesting findings were revealed from examining media coverage of political campaigns in four states; Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota (the press release for the report is at MSU at this link here):
Of course none of this tells us why this is happening just shows us it is happening. It’s a little beyond the scope (or budget) for the good barista’s here to froth up a full bore study but here’s a few thoughts that might pique your own thinking. Perhaps when women are seen as nurturing, their views on our personal lives, in a one-to-one session, are received as nurturing. However, in a more public venue perhaps they are not received nearly as much so because there is no perceived sense of threat or danger on the part of the male listener. If there is no threat of being usurped or dominated why worry and why pay much attention? In the case of other women, they may receive and trust another women’s views more so as part of mutually accepting and supporting each other.
Another view is the issue of how much women are perceived to have talked. They key here is “perceived”. In Deborah Tannen’s Book, “You Just Don’t Understand; Women and Men in conversations“. She notes on page 77 that, “Studies have shown that if women and men talk equally in a group, people think the women talked more”. Like it or not, it may be that men simply wrongly perceive that women have said enough. In their minds the reporting is indeed equal. When in fact it is not.
Bias in the media is alive and well to this day. How is your own listening, and accepting of what is said, towards men and women in your life. Do you filter what is said, or bias it yourself? Maybe the media bias will change when men realize that a women’s views on the world are indeed different but just as valid and normative as their own. When that day fully comes there may be a better perspective on the world reported for all our own benefit.
Virginia, who is completing her final year in a Masters in Social Work program at Smith College has launced a study of violence, stress and gender identity. She could use your help to fill out her data set. The best part? You can do it anonymously from your computer. So give it a go You can visit her site where the study is by clicking this link here. To go right to the study, you can click this link here. If you have any questions, you can email Virginia directly by way of clicking to her email address at … virginia@transstudy.com
Well it finally happened. No I didn’t win the Lottery or find the answer to where Waldo is. Nor did I invent a mascara that goes on with one stroke to create lashes instantly curled and thick as a kitten’s tail. Nope none of those.
But I did get invited to a wedding.
Ah weddings have to love them. Have you ever been to one?
The setting, the flowers, the dresses, the handsome groom, the pretty bride…the STRESS.
So my gal pal calls me and says, “hey, Becki, come to my wedding in Pennsylvania” and I said, “yeah sure, what species should I come as”.
She laughed; she knew what I meant.
“Well come as you”, she said, “I love you as you are, so come as you”.
And so that started the chain of events that led to my entering a fundamentalist church for the first time as me, hanging out with some cool people as me and getting my first drink bought for me. It was like spreading my wings and stepping from the nest and finding my wings worked.
who would know?
But first…the dress.
Scene I: The Dress
Once I was given the “all clear” to go to the wedding I became obsessed with what to wear. I mean, you don’t go to a wedding every day so you gotta wear something nice right? So I said, “heck with the budget, I’m going in style”. So I went to Chico’s, Lane Bryant (yeah I’m a thick chick), Dress Barn, Sears, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Models Resale, and found exactly…zippo. So I was pretty much in a panic. I started not my usual one hour ahead of time with that “deer in the headlights” look on my face showing up at Model’s Resale hoping my savior, Kimberly, would snap her fingers and make me gorgeous. Nope, I started 10 days ahead of time. That’s pretty good for me.
But the clock was ticking and I had……nuthin’.
So in desperation I called the bride to be (lucky girl!!)
“Can I wear black to your wedding” I asked, hope in my voice that a “yes” would give me some options I’d yet to consider at that point.
She paused and then said, “Black? Well I really would prefer if no one wore black to my wedding”.
My face dropped and panic instantly set in.
Not knowing what to do, I went in desperation to Walmart.
WALMART? They have fashion there? I had no idea. I was in a daze and sort of just wandered in there. But I was shocked to see they did indeed have something(s) for a woman like me. So I got the cutest black peasant skirt, a gold flecked maroon tunic and marched out. However, a good deal on some threads no more makes an outfit than a sow’s ear makes a purse.
Unless of course you accessorize…
ahhhh accessories…what would a girls life be without ‘em.
So in to see my friend Kimberly again. I showed her what I had.
She gave me her “thoughtful” look, hand on chin, mouth twitching. Then she said, looking at my threads hard trying to envision some visage of acceptability I might be able to attain.
“Well, everyone wears black at an afternoon wedding, I always do, you’ll be fine”. Then she pulled out a silk black shawl and gold earrings that were half moon shaped with small zirconia stones in them. My jaw dropped when I saw them. “Here, take these”, she said, “this will dress it up”.
Kimberly is the closest thing I have to a fairy God-Mother. I swear she has a wand in her handbag.
With the addition of a serpentine gold necklace she was right. I had an outfit that would blend into the wedding. For girls like me, blend is good. But I got way more than blended. Keep reading.
Scene II: Becki forgets how to drive
My friends who’ve braved a vehicle with me know that I am, at best, an average driver, and at worst a clear menace. My swerving to stay on a course of direction printed from Mapquest or Yahoo Maps is nothing short of a scene from some clown car derby.
So finishing work on a Friday I got my rump on the road and went to complete my shopping. First it was off to MAC for some refills, “oh your girlfriend will love these” the MAC person said to me as she handed me the items I’d chosen. I smiled my best Becki smile in boy mode, “Hey thanks, but these are for me I’m gonna love ‘em”. She looked at me, smiled, blinked twice and had a silly cartoon grin on her face like the one the coyote gets when the roadrunner drops an anvil on him, took my credit card and then wished me a good night.
So off I went 3 hours late but hey it’s only 6 hours to Pennsylvania and since I”m a night owl I figures that leaving at 10PM I’ll miss all the traffic AND I’ll get there by say 4AM, hit the hay get up at 10AM with two hours to get ready….
That was all well and good until four hours later, I looked up and realized I was in some part of NJ that was not on my map. I knew I was still in NJ due to the New Jersey State Police cars that seemed to be in abundance in this part of the state. But where? The fact my map was about 10 years old had nothing to do with it I’m sure.
So, not seeing anyone or anything in site, I made a u-turn and headed back to where I thought my last exit was supposed to be. I was, by some divine intervention, right.
So the girl pulls into in to her hotel at 10AM. 12 hours on the road. Hey I can do this on one hours sleep!
Scene III: The Wedding, The Drink, and The Girl who Learned to Fly
The wedding was beautiful. The bride was so beautiful I cried. The groom was so handsome I melted for my friend and thought, he’s such a catch, she’s so lucky. They look so beautiful together. My friend’s son was about as cute as can be. I would have taken him home in my pocketbook if I could have.
At the church a woman, sitting next to me, was choking up her lung. I mean she was HACKING. People were starring. So I got up to find some water for her. Figuring the kitchen was a good spot I sort of tiptoed in there.
A churchwoman halted me. “Why are you in here” she said to me suspiciously. “Well I need some water”, I said, confidently and hoping I didn’t get booted from the church, “a cup really, a woman sitting next to me is choking”.
“Oh, well just go the ladies room, we have some in there with cups”. She smiled at me. I smiled back. I felt normal. The woman got her water and was about as surprised someone had actually gotten her a glass of water as I had in being able to easily obtain one for her.
From there we headed over the reception with great mirth! Food was eaten, friends were made, smiles were smiled and pictures were taken. It was nice.
Then it happened.
I was at the bar and a man turned to me, smiled and said that I should try a Southern Comfort and Coke. He smiled again, then lingered looking into my eyes and said I’d really enjoy it. So I gave him my best Becki smile and said, “sure, that sounds like a great idea”. So he ordered one for me. Then he turned, taking his two cups to the table. One for him and one for his wife. The bartender smiled at me and poured me about the strongest and tastiest drink I’d ever had. Do bartenders do this for all the girls? The best part, the man who first saw me at the bar was looking over at me and smiled across the room at me as I showed him I had the drink and sipped it. Then he toasted me.
Then the girl learned to fly…
The blonde haired woman at my table said “Hey come catch the bouquet with me”. I said no, wiggled my wedding ring at her and mouthed to her, “I’m married”. And she smiled back at me, gave me a puzzled look and skipped off. I smiled too. I’d just learned to fly as me. It’s hard to put those feelings into words. Maybe it will never happen again - maybe I’ll go into the closet and cherish the day as one of those life highlights. But then again maybe I won’t. Maybe one day I’ll get to fly again.
Harvard University’s School of Public Health and the University of Athens Medical School released a startling study that should make us all wake up to the importance of SLEEP…ready?
Midday napping (siestas) reduced coronary mortality by about one third among men and women. The study appears in the February 12, 2007 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine.
How’s that for a reason to get some well needed Zzz’s? In a nutshell, the researchers looked at 23,681 individuals living in Greece who, at the beginning of the study, had no history of coronary heart disease, stroke or cancer. The researchers then followed these people for 6 years. The researchers found that study participants who took regular naps, which they defined as napping at least three times per week for an average of 30 minutes, had a 37% lower coronary mortality than the participants who did not take naps. The effect was strongest among working men and weaker among retired men. Curiously, among working women there were too few death to be significant (perhaps women have much better work like balance than everyone thinks!). The researchers aren’t sure why napping three times per week for 30 minutes at a time has this effect but it may be related to being a sort of release valve for stressors in the body.
So, next time you want a health boost take a snooze. Being well rested may be this centuries secret miracle potion and it’s most sought after commodity.
(You can check out the press release at the Harvard School for Public Health at their web site HERE. You can see the original study by visiting the Archives of Internal Medecine by clicking HERE).
I found a highly informal poll done on cross-dressers, and performed via Yahoo Answers! UK & Ireland, very interesting. The sample size is tiny, but, it is highly random. Of course, those who answered may be predisposed to answer the way they did (ahh, statstics….) still, I found this encouraging. There were 11 respondants and they were all quite supportive that someone should not “confront a cross-dresser, be they male or female, just on their own beliefs”. You can have a look at the entire poll results by clicking over to it at Yahoo Answers, UK and Ireland, at this link HERE.
Fenway Health’s T-Social: “We live in a Vibrant Culture “
Thursday, February 15 6 to 9 p.m.
Connect with the Boston area’s transgender, transexual, gender queer,
gender non-coforming, crossdresser, SOFFA, friends and allies of anyone
who crosses mainstream society’s notions of “gender” for a “T-Social”.
Representatives from Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD),
Pathways to Wellness, The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
(MTPC), Fenway Community Health Transgender Health Program, and JobNet Boston employment
advisors, and others will be on hand to answer your questions and
address your concerns.
A note on the employment advisor. JobNet Boston will have an employment
counselor at a table with information and people can ask questions to
one of their employment and career counselors. Attendees can find out
about training available from JobNet. Fenway has spoken to them about
the needs of the Trans community especially (women). They have an
introduction to computer training available free and they want to help
with resumes and some offices have a clinician working with them.
Employment advisors will answer all questions about the office and how
to find a job.
Where is the event? Milky Way Lounge and Lanes, 403-405 Centre Street,
Jamaica Plain, 02130
When is the event? Thursday February 15, 2007, from 6PM - 9PM
For more information call J. T. Vincent at (617) 927-6218 or email livingwell@fenwayhealth.org
This social is free and open to the public. Food will be served.
Well Wordpress 2.1 has come out, my graphics code is still broken and our links are still out of whack (rendering the long loved on Site Map not very useful). And the issues I noted in our “Happy New Years 2007” post are still here. We also learned that not everyone has broadband (perish the thought!) and so our oh so cute article graphics may have made Beck’s Cafe not so much fun to download for some. We apologize for not being a bit more sensitive to those with less than a fat pipe at their disposal.
So what’s a barista to do? Well the team huddled over some chocolate spiked cappucino and decided that some serious rolling up the sleeves was in order. So over the next two weeks or so you’ll notice some test changes and some permanent changes as well. Things might get a little whacky around here in the display and functional department. In the meantime we’ll be whipping up the content and hope you find it worth stopping by Beck’s Cafe to sit for a bit and read over a latte.
OH! And we had one reader who stopped by for a personal (as in in-the-flesh kind of in-person) visit just to say “hi” and to tell us how much he enjoyed the frothy mix of content here. Mr. Reader, and you know who you are, please drop me some mail so we can fix the problem with you not being able to add comments on this blog. I’m not sure where the code is broken on that but maybe between the two of us we can narrow it down. It may also be your comment got marked, but accident, as spam, and so Akismet has been moving your comments out. In either case we can likely narrow it down if you’ll help me a bit here.
Finally, our little Cafe has grown considerably in readership and I want to thank each and every reader who has come by. You could choose to do something more valuable with your treasured time but you’ve come here and for that I and the team are very grateful. We are now serving up hot content to about 600 unique visitors per month (6000 hits per month, from 38 counties! ). Thanks!!
Back in my early days of burning my flesh with Nair, I wrote about how my friend noted that it’s always about the hair. You can read that post at Beck’s Cafe by clicking to this link HERE.
In celebration of hair, hair salons and bad hair days, the barrista’s at Beck’s Cafe proudly present, Hair Humor. All jokes courtesy of Hair Salon Humor at Becquet.com
MANY people hold down two jobs, so I wasn’t surprised when my hairdresser mentioned to me that he also worked part time at the racetrack. “That’s interesting,” I said. “What do you do?” As he finished styling my hair, he replied, “I groom horses.”
WHEN a new permanent turned out to be a disaster, I phoned my husband and issued a one-line warning: “Don’t say anything about my hair.” During dinner, we discussed the weather, his day at the office — anything but my hair. I began to feel uneasy. Finally, when we were washing the dishes, he said in a serious tone, “You’d better go now. My wife will be here any moment, and she wouldn’t like to find me with a strange woman.”
AS A reminder of my early morning appointment for a haircut, I left a note stating “hair today” next to the alarm clock. The resulting style was considerably shorter than usual, which didn’t please my husband at all. However, it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized just how unhappy he was with my new look. There, next to the alarm clock, my note now read: “hair today - gone tomorrow.”
MY MOTHER was telling her hairdresser about her bad luck with men, after having just broken off with her boyfriend of five years. “You think that’s bad,” the hairdresser responded, “I had a customer who just found out her boyfriend was married.” “You’re kidding!” my mother exclaimed. “How long did it take her to find out?” The hairdresser thought for a minute and began counting on her fingers. “About eight haircuts.”
I’ve been reading a book called, “The Bitch in the House” for the past few months (yeah I’m slow) and I would highly recommend this book. The basic premise is as the title states: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage.
And it does exactly that.
It’s a no hold barred look at:
It’s a very good book to get a sense for how some women feel today about some very basic life issues and life choices as well. There are some short comings and that’s the point about this book being about “some” women and not all. Virtually all of the writers are just that, professional writers. So we don’t have stories from women who live on the farm and grew up in that community and what they think of life and their choices. We don’t necessarily have the views of women in poverty either. I’m sure there are works in that area for sure, but this is not necessarily one of them.
Overall the book is very good. You’ll learn aspects of women’s lives you didn’t know and many of which you’ll likely to be able to relate to. This is especially true if your a transgender women. Many times it’s the outward expressions that get focused on due to safety and acceptance factors. Sometimes something as basic as getting a job is predicated on if you pass or if you don’t. And let’s face it, having a job and paycheck beat living on the street any day. But it’s our hearts that matter most and from that springs your true life. And people can see that. I can assure you that if you read and think on the stories and lessons from reading “The Bitch in the House” your heart will be changed too.
How many times has this happened to you?
You get sent a file via email. Could be at work. Could be at home. The file provides you the information you need but now you want to do something with that file or you want to use it in another program that let’s you work the way you want to (or perhaps need to). And what happens to you? Well your stuck. Stuck fiddling and diddling trying to make it work.
This my friends is what is known as a sticky wicket. You need the file so you keep fussing meanwhile the deadline to your project ticks on whilst you are amired in file format fuss. Not alota fun.
Well NOW there is a fun way to fix your function and that way is a service called Zamzar (and did we mention it’s free, we frugal techie’s love free…too bad the cheapskate Becki won’t give us free coffee for writing this column).
How it works is very simple. You upload a file to the service by clicking the browse button on step-1. That opens a little pop up box that lets you explore your hard disk on your computer for the right file. Click on your file and it uploads it. Then you choose what you want to convert the file to. There is a HUGE list. Once complete an email is sent you telling you that the file has been converted. This whole process, even for large files, is amazingly fast. This, my fine coffee swillers, is a service that’ll take away your headaches, not cause you more.
We tested it with PowerPoint files, Word files and PDF’s and it worked flawlessly converting from one file format to another with nary a hiccup. It was the way we like our software; allowing us to quickly grasp how to use it, made our lives easier not harder, and was reasonably priced (in this case free!).
So give Zamzar a try next time you need to convert some files. It’s a quick and frugal way to easy your file conversion madness.
“I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door - or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present (Joan Rivers)
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” (Dolly Parton)
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” (Ella Fitzgerald)
“I have alot of things to prove to myself. ONe is that I can live fearlessly”. (Oprah Winfrey)
“I think the day of selfishness is over the day of really working together has come, and we must learn to work together, all of us, regardless of race or creed or color”. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
Happy New Years 2007 to all our happy coffee swillers here at Beck’s Cafe!!
Well 2007 should be yet another exciting year at the cafe: Lots of new coffee sputtering from the espresso machine, fine froths of milk on mugs and hopefully some interesting reading as well. It should be fun.
One thing that was NOT very fun when we strolled in this morning though was the message we got upont trying to load a nice Happy New Years 2007 graphic:
Unable to create directory. Is its parent directory writable by the server?
We’d thought we’d solved that technical nuisance back last year. Apparently not. Either that or the move of the calendar to 2007 has confused our otherwise robust (if sometimes slow) data center.
THEN, insult to injury, we found that some of the links from site back back into Beck’s Cafe didn’t appear to work. So,attempting to see where the code might be broken we went to W3C, ran a validation test and *ouch* here’s the answer:
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
So we’ll be graphics and photo free for a bit, and a little clunky on internal Beck’s Cafe links from the site map whilst we figure out how to fix all this. Guess we’ll need more coffee!
Now onto our regularly scheduled program.
  Merry Christmas everyone! This is indeed the Christmas Season, beginning at sundown on 24 December and ending at sundown on 5 January. It’s a time of “Holly Jolly Christmas“, eggnog, and gift giving too. But it is also the time of The Incarnation. In fact, this IS the reason for the season, the “invasion” by God as a man, into our world.
So what and why is it important? Well, in his excellent and very scholarly article, “The Importance of the Incarnation”, Bob Deffinbaugh , Th.M., writes:
In the past, God had revealed Himself through His works (as recorded in the Scriptures), His world (Psalm 19:1-6), and His word (Ps. 19:7-14). In the coming of Christ, God was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ:
- God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:1-3a).
- For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him (John 1:17-18).
- In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it . . . . There was a true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him (John 1:4-5, 9-10).
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The Incarnation is the real reason for this Christmas Season. So with your holiday mocha-cappucino in one hand and Christmas cookie in the other, I invite you to read more of Mr. Deffinbaugh’s full article at Bible.Org by clicking to it at this link HERE.
(stained glass photo courtesy of St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church)
I had almost forgotten that this is not just the season of the celebration of the birth of Christ, it’s also the Festival of Light for the Jews! If your like me, you know that there’s a bunch of candles in there someplace, a top called a dreidel and, well, that’s about it. But there’s much more to this holiday than meets the eye! According to an article in Judaism 101, Chanukkah:
Chanukkah, the Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the festival of lights, is an eight day festival beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev.
Chanukkah is probably one of the best known Jewish holidays, not because of any great religious significance, but because of its proximity to Christmas. Many non-Jews (and even many assimilated Jews!) think of this holiday as the Jewish Christmas, adopting many of the Christmas customs, such as elaborate gift-giving and decoration. It is bitterly ironic that this holiday, which has its roots in a revolution against assimilation and the suppression of Jewish religion, has become the most assimilated, secular holiday on our calendar.
The Story
The story of Chanukkah begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.
More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar. Two groups opposed Antiochus: a basically nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Selucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.
According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory: Jews do not glorify war.
You can read more about Chanukkah at the full article on Judaism 101 at this link HERE.
AND for a family taste tested Kugelly good treat during Chanukkah, click to our article, Kugelly-goodness, from our test kitchens!
(photo courtesy of Brew*Crew’s Photos, used under Creative Commons license)
If your going to First Event 2007 and haven’t signed up yet you should! The discounted early registration deadline ENDS Sunday 12/10/06. So sign up for registration at the Official First Event Web Site this by clicking to this link HERE.
Beck’s Cafe has a bevy of coffee swillers, ne’er-do-wells, vagabonds, glam girls and handsome men as patrons, one of our fav’s is a genteman from down South. He sent along what is probably the most unusual, but certainly memorable business card promoting a photography business that I’ve seen in a long time, “Brides to Bitches”.
Now, how can the name of a photo studio called “Brides to Bitches” NOT stick in your memory? What ideas can you think of to make your business memorable?
Think AIDs is only an issue if you shoot up? Or maybe if your a gay male cruising three or four times a night for sex? Think again, and read about Regan Hoffman. You might be surprised:
Regan Hofmann grew up in the tony suburbs of Princeton, N.J. When she went to high school in the 80s, she was terrified of AIDS.
“By the mid-90s, I had never heard of a woman — a heterosexual woman who was not an IV-drug user — having HIV,” Hofmann says. “I perceived myself to be literally at no risk for HIV.”
But in 1996, Regan contracted HIV from her first and only boyfriend after her divorce. She was so embarrassed that she kept it a secret. And because she had health care, she could keep it a secret from her friends. For about eight years, she only told her immediate family.
You can - and should - read the rest of her story at the National Public Radio web site. You can reach Ms. Hofmann’s important story by clicking to it at this link at NPR HERE.
(photo courtesy of ElektraCute’s Photos, used under Creative Commons License)
Today is World’s Aid Day. The facts on this scourge are pretty telling:
You can help the fight against AIDs right here in the Boston area by making a donation to the Fenway Community Health Center. Since Fenway diagnosed the first HIV cases in New England, they have been at the forefront of the battle to end this epidemic. Make a gift today to help them continue that fight.
In honor of World Aids Day, give today and your gift to Fenway could be worth three times as much!
Through the generosity of a special benefactor, all eligible online gifts made to support World AIDS Day will be matched on a $2 for $1 basis. If you give $100 today, your gift could be worth as much as $300 to help Fenway fight HIV and AIDS. Click over to Fenway to make a donation by clicking this link HERE.
Learn more about aids at these links:
In one of the more bizarre things I’ve seen in technology, Microsoft has a patent on your body! See the story at TechDirt by clicking to them at the story HERE. Or read the patent at the U.S. Patent Office at this link HERE.
By the way, I’ve tried to negotiate contracts with Microsoft, I can assure y
