Indian Brothers Seduce Brits With Vegetarian Condoms

LONDON - Indian-born businessmen Shandip and Ketan Shah are scoring it big in Britain with a new vegetarian condom that has proved to be a runaway success with health stores.
The brothers' Fusion condoms are manufactured without any milk-based casein - unlike other brands - and have now been officially registered with Britain's Vegan Society.
All new Fusion condoms packets will carry the official vegan logo - a move that the Shahs hope will persuade more British youngsters to use condoms.
'Vegetarians and Vegans might not have realised that there is a milk extract in most condoms. Fusion condoms want to help this group make an informed choice about safe sex,' said Shandip Shah, managing director of Fusion Condoms.
'New figures show teenage pregnancies are yet again on the rise. We believe contraceptives must be made more widely available to break this trend - which is why Fusion condoms are targeting fashion shops, budget shops, health food shops as well as just chemists,' Shah told IANS.
The brothers, who run a pharmacy in Baker Street, London, said 30 health food stores have already placed orders to stock Fusion condoms as a result of their new vegan status. With many more placing orders it is the first concerted drive by a condom brand to establish vegan-friendly condom sales in health food outlets.
One of London's biggest Indian grocery outlets, Dhamecha Cash and Carry, has also agreed to stock Fusion condoms in all five of their depots.
Britain is home to three million vegetarians and 180,000 vegans - strict vegetarians who don't eat any dairy products - a substantial proportion of the British population.
And with their numbers increasing, particularly among young people, both health food shops and budget shops have begun to diversify their products range to offer customers a one-stop shop.
John Krahn, a director at the Haelan Centre health food shop chain, said: 'Because we have a large vegetarian client base and work a lot with vegan groups, I think it's very important that we are able to stock vegan condoms.
'We aim to be a one-stop shop for our customers, and the reality is that there's a lot of need for condoms. We want to make sure our customers can buy one that meets their ethical criteria.'
Fusion condoms are also designed for more environmentally aware customers, which again often means young people - the condoms are wrapped without the use of cellophane and have their instructions printed on the reverse of the cardboard packaging, eliminating the need for surplus paper inserts.
from Indo-Asian News Service

Three Anti-Gay Protesters At Opening Of 'Rent'

NEWPORT BEACH - It was opening night and the 46 students who make up the cast and crew of Corona del Mar High School's production of "Rent: School Edition" were scrambling through a hallway that doubles as a backstage for the school's tiny student theater.
Hannah Lindt, 18, made last-minute tweaks Thursday to the costumes she spent months searching for at thrift stores, tearing apart and tailoring to fit just so. Sienna Petree, 13, put make-up on cast members -- a homeless person, then a junkie and a cross-dressing street musician named Angel.
Outside, all but one gate to the affluent Newport Beach school was closed. Guy Olguin, principal of Corona del Mar's middle school, directed a staff of security guards in black uniforms. One guard was sent to wander the theater halls, another was positioned at the entrance to the stage, a couple were sent to the front of the school, and another headed to the open gate.
Ever since it was first proposed, the production of the modified version of the Broadway musical about artists struggling to survive in New York City under the shadow of AIDS has been mired in months of controversy.
The show was nearly canceled. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the school, alleging that the campus fosters a homophobic and sexist atmosphere. A handful of members of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, which is known for its anti-gay protests, vowed to come to the campus to demonstrate against what it saw as the godless enablers of homosexuality.
Ron Martin, the theater teacher and director, said he chose the production after a video appeared on Facebook showing Corona del Mar students using anti-gay slurs and after he overheard students using anti-homosexual insults on campus. He said he hoped the show would help teach students tolerance.
By midday Friday, the protesters had arrived. There were three of them, carrying signs that said, "[Gays] Are Beasts," among others.
As they gathered on the sidewalk, several students came together in counter-protest on the other side of the street. Within minutes, more than 200 -- some wearing rainbow tie-dye shirts and holding peace signs -- stood sentry in front of the campus, clutching signs that said, "Support Love," "God Hates No One" and "Love Is Not a Sin."
The students turned the protest into a mini-celebration, singing songs from the musical and breaking into the school's own fight song. A couple ran through the crowd in swim trunks, with the words "God Loves Gays" written across their chests. One was wrapped in a rainbow-colored cloth. Another wore a handmade shirt that read, "Love Is Equal."
At one point, several students ran across the street to stand near the protesters. They shouted, "God loves gays and lesbians too," and waved their signs at passing cars. Minutes later, Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, and his supporters walked away, taking their signs with them.
Martin, the theater teacher who had hoped his choice in musicals might touch some students, came by for a few minutes. But he walked away quickly, fighting tears. "I'm proud of them," he said.
Several cast and crew members stood nearby. In a few hours they would be at it again, tweaking costumes, applying makeup, rehearsing their lines and singing their songs for the second night's show.
from The Los Angeles Times

Suspect In Murder Of Gay Man Ruled Mentally Incompetent

DENTON TEXAS - A suspect accused of murdering and dismembering a gay Dallas man last year has been found incompetent to stand trial.
The finding means 29-year-old Seth Winder will be transferred from the Denton County jail to a state psychiatric facility, according to his defense attorney, Derek Adame. Winder will receive treatment in an effort to restore him to competency so he can stand trial in the murder of 38-year-old Richard Hernandez.
“We’re just kind of in a holding pattern until we figure out what’s going on with his treatment,” Adame said. “I have no idea how long that’s going to be.”
Hernandez, who lived in a portion of Far North Dallas that’s in Denton County, is presumed dead after his disappearance in early September 2008. Dallas police never located Hernandez’s remains, which they believe were deposited in a Dumpster and buried in a landfill.
They first identified Winder as a suspect when he allegedly used Hernandez’s debit card in the days after the murder. The case against Winder is expected to rely heavily on DNA evidence.
Police found a gruesome murder scene inside Hernandez’s apartment — including tissue from internal organs in the bathtub — and they later recovered blood-covered evidence at two campsites where Winder is believed to have stayed.
They also found pornographic images of Winder that were taken inside Hernandez’s apartment on a camera that was recovered at the home of Winder’s father.
Adame said he requested the psychiatric evaluation because he was concerned that Winder didn’t understand the charge against him and was unable to effectively communicate with his attorney about the case.
After the defense and prosecution agreed to accept a mental health expert’s findings, a Denton County District Court judge decided earlier this month that Winder is “incompetent with a probability of recovery,” according to online court records.
The Denton County District Attorney’s Office didn’t return multiple phone calls seeking comment about the case, which recently was the subject of an episode of “The First 48,” a real crime TV show on A&E.
Winder’s psychiatric evaluation is sealed, but Winder’s father said this week he believes his son suffers from schizophrenia.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Rodney Winder said of the court’s finding. “If he’d have gotten the help before, there might have been a better outcome. It’s just too little, too late.”
Rodney Winder said he tried unsuccessfully for years to convince authorities that his son needed help. Seth Winder had been discharged from the Army for mental health reasons and reportedly tried to strangle his mother in 2005.
He also had a fascination with knives, and his strange behavior included chopping up snakes and scattering the pieces in his father’s yard.
“With each year that passed, he would become worse and worse,” said Rodney Winder. “He’s not faking it. He’s bona fide.”
Hernandez’s longtime friend, Rudy Araiza, disagreed.
“I honestly believe that he knew what he was doing, and now this is his way of not paying for his actions or serving time,” Araiza said. “This guy’s just buying himself some time.”
Seth Winder initially was charged with capital murder, which is punishable by death. However, court records show that the charge has been reduced to first-degree murder, which is punishable by five to 99 years in prison.
Adame said he believes prosecutors reduced the charge because they don’t believe there’s sufficient evidence to prove that the murder was committed in the course of a robbery.
Rodney Winder and Araiza both said they hope Seth Winder spends the rest of his life behind bars.
“You can’t let him loose, because you don’t know what he’ll do,” Rodney Winder said. “That would be a travesty if they were to allow him to go free.”
Araiza, who’s gay, said the court’s finding that Winder is incompetent to stand trial would delay closure for Hernandez’s family and friends.
“If this guy was given a trial and found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, that would have closure for me,” Araiza said.
“I feel that peace would be to know that this psycho wouldn’t be out there attempting to hurt anyone else in the same manner that he did Richard.”
from The Dallas Voice

ACLU Demands LGBT Website Access For TN Students

KNOX COUNTY, TENNESSEE - The ACLU is threatening the Knox County, Tennessee, school system with a lawsuit if it does not meet their web demands.
The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that the school system unblock "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" websites by April 29, 2009, or face a lawsuit. The ACLU claims the filtering software employed by Knox County -- which is provided by Education Networks of America -- blocks students from viewing nonsexual websites that host content they consider protected free speech.
According to an ACLU press release, the default settings on the ENA software block LGBT websites such as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); and Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The latter is the largest pro-homosexual lobbying group in the U.S.
Knox County schools are engaging in "illegal viewpoint discrimination," claims the ACLU, by denying students access to "political and educational information about LGBT issues" on school computers. In the ACLU's eyes, that constitutes "censorship" and denies students information for research purposes.
Matt Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, says the ACLU is throwing its weight around again. "This new threat by the ACLU against these schools in Tennessee is simply an attempt to push the homosexual agenda down the throats of every American. This in fact is blatant bullyism," says the attorney.
According to Staver, the school does not have to comply with the ACLU's demands. Many of the websites that are blocked do indeed have inappropriate content, he says.
"They're not just talking about general issues with respect to homosexuality," he explains. "They're pushing a very sexualized agenda in their advertisement and in their content. The school is doing the right thing not to allow these websites to be made available to students in school."
The Christian attorney argues that homosexual activists want to use the schools as "an incubator to sexualize the next generation."
Meanwhile, the ACLU says it is "eager" to find out if any other Tennessee school districts that use the ENA filtering software are "violating students' Constitutional rights by restricting access to LGBT sites."
from One News Now

Just One Look...#103

Breaking The Silence Around Bullying

Despondent over daily bullying and harassment at his middle school in Springfield, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, a sweet-faced 11-year-old, hanged himself earlier this month. His mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, found him hanging by an extension cord in their home.
Before this tragic moment, she had attempted to get help and support from the administrators of his school, the New Leadership Charter School, where her sixth-grader endured taunting and threats of violence, some of which included anti-gay epithets. Carl played football, soccer, and basketball. He belonged to a Boy Scout troop, was active in his church, and did not identify as gay. Another young person ended a promising life, alone and scared and crushed by his peers' degradations.
The terrible truth is that Carl was not the first child to end his life, nor the last.
Eric Mohat, 17, from Mentor, Ohio, went home from school on March 27, 2007, and shot himself in the head. According to court papers filed in a lawsuit by his parents against his school, Mohat suffered harassment and bullying that took the form of constant name-calling, teasing, and verbal intimidation as well as pushing, shoving, and hitting both in class and in hallways of the high school. His parents do not seek punitive damages; instead, they want the school district to recognize the suicide as the result of homophobia and to implement an anti-bullying program to prevent other similar tragedies.
According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Center, nearly one in three youths nationwide report either being bullied, having bullied someone, or both. For students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), the statistics are grimmer. "Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2 percent) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1 percent) reported being physically harassed, and about a quarter (22.1 percent) reported being physically assaulted," according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.
The report continues, "Nearly two-thirds of LGBT students (60.8 percent) who experience harassment or assault never reported the incident to the school. . . . Of those who did report the incident, nearly a third (31.1 percent) said the school staff did nothing in response."
Nothing in response? Nothing to help young people who rise each morning not knowing if school brings another day of hell on earth or something a bit more tolerable? As parents and school leaders, we cannot tolerate this status quo.
Here in Massachusetts, legislators have filed 14 bills that address bullying in schools. As caring adults, we must work for an anti-bullying law that guarantees public school environments are free of bullying and harassment based on actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnic group, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, weight, or sex. While a listing of actual or perceived characteristics like race or sexual orientation and gender identity/expression may seem unnecessary, it is important that school personnel be attuned to the specific ways that students are targeted.
The Golden Rule hasn't created safe school environments.
My eighth-grade son reports that he often hears and challenges anti-gay slurs and name-calling on the playground, in the hallways, and on his school bus. Would that every kid could be so brave, but many children do not have the self-confidence and support to challenge anti-gay slurs slung around the schoolyard. Students, teachers, and school leaders all need to help end the scourge of bullying.
Carl would have celebrated his 12th birthday yesterday; instead, his mother was expected to "break the silence" at an event in Springfield marking the end of the national Day of Silence, a program to raise awareness about LGBT bullying and harassment at school.
Let's join Sirdeaner Walker by breaking the silence around bullying. Let's ensure that our political leaders take fast action to implement strong school safety policies that include accountability mechanisms, training for school personnel, and specific definitions of bullying behavior and its lonely targets.
from The Boston Globe

Day Of Silence Videos

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