Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 21:17:38 -0600 From: ACTION ALERT Moderator Subject: ** ACTION ALERT and Articles Lists ** Greetings and Happy New Year from your moderator! For starters, your moderator is now using Netscape Communicator to send mail instead of Elm-- hopefully there won't be any significant difference. I wanted to make you aware of another mailing list known as "Articles". Many action alerts posted to this list have actually come from the Articles list. "Articles" is a nicely formatted compilation of newpaper and magazine articles which is sent out in a digest form. On average, there are about 5 mailings per day. On several occasions the Articles membership, combined with our membership on ACTION ALERT, have teamed up and created on big action alert family. We've made a tremendous difference by writing letters to the editors of major daily newspapers, along with relatively small ones, like Provo, Utah or Akron, Ohio. Many other times alerts sent to this forum were also sent to the Articles list for distribution. As moderator of ACTION ALERT, I try to send out alerts that affect the GLBT community as a whole (eg, same-sex marriage). The "Articles" list serves another purpose: dissemination of information for the GLBT community, along with low-level grassroots involvement in small communities. You can then see, for example, what the Sacramento Bee or Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinnel is saying about the GLBT community and can respond to their Voice of the People. Not all Articles mailings require action-- many are just general information. Some Articles mailings contain international news. ACTION ALERT and Articles are not rivals. We compliment each other by providing differing levels of coverage. This list, ACTION ALERT, will continue to bring you alerts that affect the GLBT community as a whole. However, if you're interested in obtaining news and information at a lower level (grassroots activism is where it's at, folks) I'd highly recommend trying the Articles mailing list. Just send email to Fenceberry@aol.com (mailto:Fenceberry@aol.com) and ask to be added to Articles. Currently they do not have an automated list server. Here's a sampling of what an Articles message looks like. After reading it, you can then chose to respond or ignore it. Pretty simple! 1. CHARLESTON POST-COURIER Letter: Pat Robertson's Family Channel censors sex and violence but condones antigay, racist slurs in movies it airs 2. ARIZONA DAILY STAR AIDS affecting more seniors 3. HAGERSTOWN HERALD MAIL Another letter bashing Disney 4. MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Thune leaves St. Paul city council (excerpt) 5. KANSAS CITY STAR Letter: Tolerance shouldn't extend to homosexuality, sin 6. FEEDBACK Regarding the articles from Akron in today's #'s 1 & 2 The Post & Courier, January 3, 1998 134 Columbus St.,Charleston,SC,29402 (Fax 803-937-5579)(E-MAIL: editor@postandcourier.com) Letter: Family Channel goof On the evening of Dec. 6, the Family Channel broadcast the movie "Blazing Saddles." I had seen the movie before and very much enjoyed the film. However, this time the presentation disturbed me. The channel had censored a few colorful phrases. Although those simple expletives would not be extraordinarily offensive to me, I thought that the censorship was appropriate given that the Family Channel's viewers include many children. It amazed me, however, that the censors allowed denigrating words for minorities and homosexuals in the broadcast. I believe that the use of these words is much more damaging. I would rather have my child occasionally shout an expletive in frustration than to denigrate and dehumanize a person or group. It is unsettling that a channel devoted to family viewing would be so careless. I don't like having to censor this letter, but this is a family newspaper. -- BEN WEINSTEIN Arizona Daily Star, January 4, 1998 P. O. Box 26887,Tucscon,AZ,85726 (Fax 602-573-4141)(E-MAIL: letters@azstarnet.com) AIDS afflicting more Ariz. seniors, especially women PHOENIX (AP) - AIDS is striking an unlikely segment of Arizona's population: senior citizens. Twelve percent to 15 percent of AIDS cases in Arizona are people over 55. Though infection rates are decreasing in other segments of the population, it is increasing in older women. Father Joseph O'Brien from Phoenix's Malta Center, which helps HIV and AIDS clients, recalls a Sun City woman who called seeking counseling on a 110-degree day last summer. The woman was calling from her garage because she didn't want her husband to know. When another Phoenix-area couple learned that their mother had HIV, they moved her into the garage so she wouldn't have contact with her grandchildren, according to Marcy Gorman of Arizona AIDS Project. Grandma had to eat off paper plates and use plastic utensils. About 2,500 women 60 and older have been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta, and those figures may not tell the whole story. Health officials believe many older women go undiagnosed. Although late-life romances are more common as people have longer, healthier lives, many don't realize the risks for AIDS are the same for them as they are for their grandchildren if they engage in unprotected sex. A decade ago, blood transfusions accounted for most AIDS cases in seniors, but heterosexual contact now is responsible for 69 percent of the cases in women, according to the CDC. Not fearing pregnancy or believing themselves to be at risk for AIDS, only 20 percent of sexually active seniors use condoms, said Debby Elliott of HIV Care Directions, which serves people with AIDS and HIV through the Area Agency on Aging. ``The virus is out there, and it won't respect your age,'' Elliott said. ``We have a large, growing retirement group that sees itself as vital and having sex is part of that.'' After the loss of a longtime spouse, she said, many people will, after a time, seek intimate companionship again. Jane Fowler, 62, a Kansas City, Mo., journalist returned from a long Christmas holiday break with her grown son and his girlfriend in 1991 to find a letter of rejection from an insurance plan, citing ``a significant abnormality'' in a blood test. It was a Sunday afternoon and there was nobody she could call. She guessed leukemia all through that day and night. One more blood test later, she learned she was HIV-positive. ``All I wanted to do was to crawl in bed,'' she recalls. ``I wept and wept and wondered what was going to become of me.'' Fowler works hard to keep the virus in check, and has become a leading voice of warning to other seniors. She will tell her story at a first-of-its- kind conference, ``AIDS is Ageless,'' at Arizona State University West on Jan. 14, sponsored by the Area Agency on Aging. In some cities, HIV and AIDS support groups and special events have formed around the needs of people like her. Fowler is also one of the founding members of the National Association of HIV Over 50. The prevention message is getting louder, with AARP recently releasing a video, ``It Can Happen to Me.'' Professionals are concerned that the happy- talk senior magazines still won't touch the topic, however. Nearly 7,000 new HIV cases - approximately 11 percent of all cases - were diagnosed nationwide last year in people over 50, a number that has climbed steadily through the epidemic. But Debby Elliott of Care Directions doesn't think the statistics reflect the real numbers, especially among older women, many of whom she fears are never diagnosed with the virus because doctors don't associate this age group with it. ``A lot of doctors don't think of testing older women for HIV - it's like thinking your mother has HIV, said Dr. Dean Martin, a Phoenix Cigna family physician whose subspecialties include the treatment of HIV and AIDS. Hagerstown Herald, December 27, 1997 Box 439,Hagerstown,MD,21741 (Fax 301-733-7264)(E-MAIL: opinion@herald-mail.com) Letter: Media to blame The Herald-Mail recently carried an Associated Press story concerning a boycott of Disney. A group of Southern Baptists claim that Disney is anti- Christian, because Disney supports homosexuality. The story went on to give three examples of how Disney is helping to advance the homosexual agenda with a claim from the Disney Chairman Michael Eisner, that Disney is not promoting homosexuality. Disney will probably support homosexual Christian churches and then these Baptists would exhaust all of their efforts in trying to debate doctrinal differences instead of getting to a solution of the problem. Eisner and the other media bosses do promote Christianity, the 501-C3 tax exempt, politically correct, government approved, new world order Christianity. The agenda that is being rammed down our throats is anti-western civilization, and that includes Western Christianity. That is why our families are falling apart, drug use is up, crime is at an all time high, and Bill Clinton is in the White House. I would ask these Baptists to broaden their scope, and come to understand it's, not just Disney, but the media as a whole. They must also understand that they must fight the cause of this sickness, not a mere symptom. If you save Western Civilization, then you would have saved Western Christianity. For a report on the bias of the media send $1 to National VanGuard Books, P.O. Box 3559, Hagerstown, Md. 21742 and ask for a copy of "Who Rules America." -- Charles Allen, Hagerstown Star Tribune, December 27, 1998 425 Portland Avenue,Minneapolis,MN,55488 (Fax 612-673-4359)(E-MAIL: opinion@startribune.com) Thune, Megard look back on council roles (excerpt) Mary Lynn Smith / Star Tribune . . .Looking back As Thune and Megard prepare to leave, they take pride in their accomplishments and acknowledge their disappointments. Both say they believe they made a difference in rebuilding neighborhoods, improving services and helping bolster economic development. . . .Thune said even his family suffered during the council fight to pass a city human rights ordinance that included protection for gays, lesbians and transgenders. There were death threats and obscene phone calls to his home, Thune said. . . . Kansas City Star, January 3, 1998 1729 Grand Avenue,Kansas City,MO,64108 (Fax 816-234-4926)(E-MAIL: letters@kcstar.com) (Sounding Board at (816) 889-7827 and enter 1745. You'll have 90 seconds) Letter: Missed point It must be terrible being a public figure and having everything you say scrutinized and misrepresented by every Tom, Dick and Alice who don't hold you in high regard. Alice Putney (Letters, 12/30) completely missed the point of Jerry Falwell's comment about broken-down family values. Falwell was not talking about widows and orphans. He was referring to unwed mothers, deadbeat dads and homosexual couples who demand the same status as legally married heterosexual couples. Tolerance of others is fine when what we are asked to tolerate is within the realm of decency and moral order. But don't ask me to tolerate those things which are forbidden by the word of God. -- Mark Steele, Roeland Park FEEDBACK From: Selig602@aol.com You might want to put a feedback on-line recommending that readers with contacts in the local press try to get these stories {from the Akron Beacon Journal in Articles 1.4.98 sets 1 & 2} reprinted in their local papers (this is done all the time). If not a subject for feedback, perhaps you can ask members the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association to do so. What powerful journalism. -- _____________________________________________________________________________ * ACTION-ALERT is a moderated mailing list. * * To subscribe to ACTION-ALERT, send mail to: majordomo@vector.casti.com * * In the mail message, enter ONLY the words: subscribe action-alert * * To unsubscribe to ACTION-ALERT, send mail to: majordomo@vector.casti.com * * In the mail message, enter ONLY the words: unsubscribe action-alert * * Words in the Subject: line are NOT processed! * * List Information: http://www.qrd.org/qrd/electronic/email/action-alert * _____________________________________________________________________________