Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk (Played by Sean Penn) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in New York where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years. His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.

The Film
After moving to San Francisco, the middle-aged New Yorker, Harvey Milk, became a Gay Rights activist and city politician. On his third attempt, he was elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, making him the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA. The following year, both he and the city's mayor, George Moscone, were shot to death by former city supervisor, Dan White, who blamed his former colleagues for denying White's attempt to rescind his resignation from the board.

Mr. Milk had been the subject of several books and the Academy Award-winning documentary feature, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984); but Milk (2008) is the first fictional feature to explore private aspects of the man's personal life and career.

Milk was filmed on location in San Francisco. Many of Mr Milk's real-life surviving friends and former associates participated in the making of this film, several appearing on camera.

My Response
I found it truly amazing how I was able to go this entire class semester and find little to no information at all about Harvey Milk and his amazing story. It actually bothered me at the fact that my professor was the one to bring this to my attention. There were hours of searching done to complete this blog, and it still baffles me at the fact that through all those different searches, the story of Harvey Milk remained hidden. Of course after I discovered his story, information began arising left and right. The story in itself is absolutely mind blowing. What an amazing man. The movie is supposed to be a hit among the liberal population, and although with high hopes of captivating all audiences, it is not likely that the conservative portion of our nation will appreciate this story.

I am so glad that I was given this opportunity and I am really looking forward to seeing the movie. Even if you are not one who supports gay rights, or anything of that sort, this movie has potential, critics of all types have been giving high ratings. Check out the trailer!

Pick a Side!

Throughout the entire 2008 presidential election I was baffled at how much John McCain managed to change his personal opinion on gay marriage. As seen in the video, John McCain was doing anything he could to please the press, saying one minute that gay marraige was a discrace and should be outlawed, and the next saying that he agrees with it, and it is not really as bad as people make it out to be. Make up your mind man!

I realize that John McCain is a republican. He is a conservative. He believes things that are polar opposite to that of what I believe. That does not make him wrong. That does not make him any less intelligent. It does however give him a particular stereyotype that he has done a superb job at living up to... until now! Everyone has known from the begninning how John McCain and Sarah Palin feel about same sex marraige. If not Sarah Palin, then at least John McCain. I mean, he bashed gay marraige on the Ellen show. Doesn't get much clearer than that.

Reading through some polls and other blogs, I don't seem to be the only one that has noticed this flip flopping in opinions. I strongly believe in the idea of confusion. Some people are just so uneducated with the deeper meaning that comes with a homosexual relationship that they are not able to formulate a fair or complete opinion. I think John McCain would have been better off telling the press that he is neutral on gay marraiges. Instead he says that they are accepted and discraceful all within 20 minutes. Not a good campaign strategy mister. Thats okay, votes were counted, nobody really cares anymore.

Degeneres vs. McCain- Gay Marriage

I must say that this was an incredibly bold move on John McCain's part! I cannot believe that he would take such a firm stance on his beliefs. There are parts of me that admire his wit, however I also feel that going on the Ellen Degeneres show to bash gay marriage was a little to far. Although YouTube is not the most scholarly source of information, I feel as though some of the 30,000 comments that were made on this video, a small handful of them were legitimate responses.

Many people made rude and hurtful comments towards Ms. Degeneres calling her names such as "dyke" and "queer", yet there was also a chunk of comments that were incredibly supportive. Most comments that worked in Ellen's favor were along the lines of, "she handled this like a professional, eloquent yet firm. She definitely made John McCain feel uncomfortable. It was an obvious mistake.

Ellen and John both made some incredibly bold statements in this video, many of which were up for debate.

"We are all people" was one of the lines in this video that sparked the attention of most. Me included. I feel as though Ellen is right. People are people. Love is love. And I also agree with her comment of hoping that one day gay marriage will no longer be classified as a contract. Many YouTube viewers also had opinions on the topic.

"Since is the government who provides marriage licenses... if gay marriage is allowed, any other form of marriage must be allowed too. Two people, three people, fifty people, eight women and one men, one women and eight men... EVERY COMBINATION as long as they are consenting adults and not first grade relatives. Otherwise it would be discriminatory"

Gay Politics

This will be an overlap of information on lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and gay politicians in the United States, both elected or current candidates, both in Congress and in the states. A check who is open about it and who is in the closet. Coming out of the closest is a very difficult thing for many politicians to do. It is not only a large step for the individual themselves, but also for their families, friends, and most of all, career.

"To win equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans we need the support of fair-minded politicians as well as LGBT politicians that put a personal face to legislation. Like in any institution, a critical mass of LGBT politicians is needed in order to represent our need for legal equality."

• Only one member of the House of Representatives is an openly gay man: Barney Frank


• Only one member of the House of Representatives is openly lesbian: Tammy Baldwin


• No members of the House of Representatives are openly bisexual or transgender


• No members of the US Senate are openly LGBT, although several are believed to be in the closet and vote against pro-equality legislation


• 20 states do not have an openly LGBT member of the State Legislature

In the pictures above are two homosexual members of the House of Representatives. Can you tell? No, of course not. Nobody can. Sexuality is something that is a personal choice and should be left in ones personal life only. It should not have the opportunity to effect ones job or social life what so ever. If only people in politics were more accepting of members of the GLBT community. It would help the world of politics become more open minded and possibly expand beyond the titles of "conservative" and "liberal".

Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin: Sex Sells, Even with Anti-Sex Authoritarians

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2008/10/sexual-politics-of-sarah-palin-sex.html

The election may be over and publicity may be slowly swindling to an end, but there are still some things regarding the losing candidates that I would like to discuss. Things that could have might possibly lost McCain/Palin the election.

Before reading what I have to say, I would highly suggest reading the blog attached. Amazing. To the point, honest, and quite frankly everything that I had wanted to say myself. The first paragraph can trip you up if you read it too fast. Read it slow, and even twice. Some may be distracted by the amount of times the word "sexuality" and "sexism" are thrown around, but it really does make sense. I love this blog!

I thought that the most creative idea used in this blog was the idea of Sexy Puritan.

Sexy Puritans engage in the culture war on two levels—not simply by advocating conservative positions on hot-button social issues but by embodying nonthreatening mainstream standards of female beauty and behavior at the same time. The net result is a paradox, a bit of cognitive dissonance very useful to the cultural right: You get a little thrill along with your traditional values, a wink along with the wagging finger. Somehow, you don't feel quite as much like a prig as you expected to.

It really doesn't get much more straightforward right there. Creative and well put.

The idea behind this blog that got me was the fact that sex sells anti-sex? Doesn't really make any sense. To anyone. But it seemed to be part of Sarah Palin's plan the entire time. Attractive woman, running with a much older, uh gentlemen. Protesting pro-life and abortion. Pushing the ideas of Christianity and following God's way, yet her unmarried 17 year old daughter is pregnant? There is only so much hypocritical nonsense that people can do before they start getting called out on it. I hope to slowly drift my blogs away from Sarah Palin. By spending time blogging on her after the fact, I feel as though I am making a contribution to her continued publicity stunts. I will let the past be the past. Regardless, read the blog attached!

Let's Get ONE Thing Straight America...

John McCain did NOT choose Sarah Palin to be his running mate because she is an attractive, well put together, much younger woman. He chose her because she is qualified, intelligent, attractive, and a well put together much younger woman. Please note the difference.



Let's get real. Sarah Palin, before being selected as John McCain's running mate, had hardly any experience in politics, compared to say that of, Joe Biden. Palin was mayor of a town whose population was less than 9,000 people. She was governor of a state, that most Americans forget exists. Although I could find myself constantly focusing on the negatives that come with Sarah Palin, I will say that she has her upsides.

I personally find it incredibly unfortunate for Palin herself to be a female in this presidential election. Not only is she a conservative, but she is by far the most attractive running candidate in the entirety of this election, which has worked both for and against her. Because of her sex appeal, and somewhat bumpy interviews along the way, Sarah Palin, for the most part has been laughed at, degraded, and completely underestimated since the announcement of her vice presidency. Google it. Search it on YouTube. Hell, even watch the local and national news. There isn't really anything good that people have to say. Probably one of the reasons I swing so much to the left side. What ever happened to equal treatment of candidates? I realize this is basically an impossible task, but Biden has received much less hassle in this ordeal than Palin ever will.

I feel as though this is going to continue to happen until someone steps up and sets people straight. I do not agree with Sarah Palin. I do not agree with anything that she stands for. I do feel however that she deserves a fair shot in this election. I also feel that John McCain deserves that same right. Using Sarah Palin's sex appeal as an advantage in this election may or may not be included in John McCain's selection, but that is for no one to judge but himself. It was strategic. Most of us would agree, but there had to have been more to it than that.

I plan on continuing on with my thoughts on this topic, but in the meantime, I will leave you with this. Watch the video. Watch it closely. Its sad to see that people watch this to feel educated. Watching an edited news program for knowledge as well as entertainment. I will admit I laughed, but I know better. Some don't which is why America is where it is.

Sarah Palin is Hot! (And Wrong)

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2008/08/sarah-palin-is.html

Before you read this post, it would probably be in your best interest to check out the URL of the the blog posted above. Lets just be honest, Sarah Palin is not one of my favorite people in the world right now. As a matter of fact, I don't really like her or anything she stands for. My blog choices may seem biased, but really isn't that the point?

The blog that I chose to work with is called HinesSight. The blog itself was incredibly interesting, but I was more intrigued by the comments than anything. This blog discusses the advantages and (primarily) disadvantages of potential Vice President Sarah Palin. The main focus on this blog is "who cares" about Sarah Palin, and for those who do, why?
"Because…she's hot! (To my 59 year old eyes, she's a youthful 44 year old babe.) And she's been right on a few things -- like her admitted use of marijuana, including inhaling, when pot was legal in Alaska. If Joe Biden's brain could be put in her body, that'd make for a much more attractive Obama administration. Unfortunately, this isn't going to happen."

Sarah Palin, much like any attractive celebrity (which she has become) knows that she is a desirable woman who is constantly the talk of politics, but more than that- the talk of all media. Most people who are "following" politics right now don't have even the slightest idea what Palin stands for, other than the few things that are repeated over and over.

Example-
Creationism: favors teaching it.
Global climate change: denies humans are a cause.
Abortion: rejects it even in cases of rape or incest.
Polar bears: who cares?

There were a variation in the comments that were made on this blog, most of them which I found to be incredibly interesting. Some of them were far from politically correct, whereas others were legitimate arguments. Here is a glance of responses from both sides of the spectrum :

"Id pick the corn out of her pooh. And id love to let her ride my pork sword any day of the week. So what if she smoked Mary Jane? Didn't we all in the 80's? Plus she is Pro Gun and that's damn sexy too."
This man obviously is not looking at this blog from a political standpoint. Most people are on the same page. Sarah Palin has risen so high in popularity that her political beliefs are no longer acknowledged. Her sex appeal, and now past drug habits are putting her on the path to Presidency. She's getting media coverage for all the wrong reasons.

Sarah Palin is scarrrrrrrry!
How come she hasn't given an interview by HERSELF. I think if she speaks without John Mc Bush, the Alaska ignorance will become unveiled. The Dem are campaigning separately, How come she isn't.
Her views are not mainstream at all!!! If you noticed on the campaign trail with John Mc Bush, she keeps repeating the same words and or speech she gave at the RNC... go figure.
Still on the verge of being politically incorrect, but at least this comment discusses more than Palin's physical appearance. She is an attractive woman. She has more appealing qualities than flaws, however it seems that the more media coverage their is on this woman, the more they are dragging her down. People think that having a "hot vp" is the way to go, however taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture is strongly advised. We're on a path to destruction. Something needs to be done.