Maria Sharapova's Photo Shoot For Cole Han

Maria Sharapova's

Photo Shoot

For Cole Han

Before the very interesting posts about an original 1933 Model T 1.5 ton truck, of which there are only 20 left, as well as yarn, spindles, and other joys, before that...

Last week I started going out in my Ti-lite wheelchair daily, going out to ‘make memories’, and I rejoined the Y because if it were not for sheer will power every single day I would already be unable to leave my bed. It seems I have a small time before that choice/chance is no longer a choice, and I will not go out without fighting.
My scalp is no longer getting blood and hair and scalp are falling out. I do what I can to hide that, at least in pictures. The same is true for my arms and legs. But unless I can get my blood to flow the way it did over a year ago….this is going to be it. My neuropathy has progressed and now with a majority of pain nerves gone and sensation nerves gone, the larger nerves are being destroyed. The right side is progressing faster so on that side my hand, arm is slower. Both sides are slow, and fatigued.

I was to go to badminton tonight but I simply could not. Just going up to the Y and rolling back interrupts my nerves so much that I cannot with both arms hit the button to bring the elevator. I went twice to the Y, then to the arcade the next day, to two farmers’ markets and the next day the RSPCA and did 48 postcards and a few gifts. Those actions almost immediately started depressing my respiration to the point that any relaxation of my general muscles would either result in passing out, or a ceasing of breathing, sometimes for a dangerously extended time.

I would love to know how I can have broken toes or have my hand crushed by a door and not feel it and yet not be yanked awake daily by the pain. My doctor (steady walk-in clinic) saw me and doubled my medication. Um…that’s lethal levels I think, but I get the point doc. Believe me, every minute I am not focused on trying to write, or watching something the pain is not just there, it is pervasive. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, it hurts to sit still,and to sit or lay and do nothing, nothing to distract, well that is just a bit too unpleasant. By unpleasant I mean remember that time you had you hand slammed in the car door, or when you fell or thought your ribs were broken or cracked? Remember that and how you were kind of amazed that it is possible to think semi-sane thoughts with that level of pain. Or think and speak at all? Unpleasant.

Okay, in pain, fatigued, yes, but so what?

Well, I want to live. I do. And if smashing against the wall of my body to find a way into extending the time before I can’t leave the bed, then so be it. I have been working and monitoring almost everything I do at 15 minutes intervals for months to stave this off. Talk about burnt-out! I need to get to Hawaii and I need to do that in my Titanium Chair. To go to the Big Island and Cremate myself if that is what it takes. I have Cheryl and Linda to restrain me from acting on those types of thoughts. I still plan on going to see the lava and the stars.

I would do so much, would have done so much more, if I had known how much energy it takes to simply be held upright and breath in a $24,500 wheelchair just made to support me...could I have gone on? The fatigue is a cruelty. So to do that for 10 or 12 hours a day takes a lot of energy, makes me so, so tired.

And to do that, shower, dress, go wheeling uphill, go out if not every day then several times a week, to prepare to externally retake my life of last year. Why? So I can get back into boxing. Because that is where I sweat before and if I don’t sweat soon I never will. I will risk the daily seizures, the daily mini-strokes, the stopping of breathing, the pain, God why did you make the body have this many ways to hurt, to achieve that. And I am only a couple steps away.

Yes, the last few months have been me faking it, pretending that I was in better condition than I was. Sorry. I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn't want the disability community to move on because I wasn't any type of disabled they could identify with anymore. Plus I didn’t want to be stopped (the PLAN!). Do I pretend so I can continue to make a difference or because I am selfish in the extreme: both.

In the west, I am trying to track down a saying that ‘We don’t do suicide missions’ but all other countries built suicide subs or human guided torpedoes, even the UK and Italy. There is a culture which does not lay it all on the line – isn’t that the service to the British Empire, Gordon holding off the hordes, to lay one’s life to the better land? So what will I sacrifice to stay disabled instead of dying?

Sanity.

Fuction of limbs. The limbs themselves.

I never ask people to do what I ask of myself. Why not? We are all human. If they feel agony, then can I. If they can feel pain and loss then so must I. If they grieve over what is lost, then so do I, so do I. Except I can’t grieve for the losses which occur in a week, a month much less a year so I don’t talk about them, don’t write about those losses much.Who would understand anyway?

Why not rest? Because I have a progressive disease that never rests. And because I am only holding on that will power to get me out of bed and into my wheelchair by a thread, the one that lets me push that bit further. That 'thread' and routine get me out of bed, that and planning get me out the door. That and vanity to appear ‘okay’ to anyone passing by or that I met makes me expend a half days’ energy in a half hour. The fact that I can spend the energy that helps me breathe doesn’t make me bright when I do it, but I do.
Whenever there is a disaster, or when people start running, there is one person, me, who starts running toward the problem, and that’s the way it has always been. Even now, I still want what I recognize is the easy way: to die for another. A bullet to the head for me, to save someone, to save me...that is the easy way.

That’s why I like Terry Fox, because for him it was always hard. The training was hard. The days of cold were hard: minute by minute. The blisters on his stump end were hard. The pain, yes, the pain was hard and maybe if he had been offered regular check-ups they would have caught it early enough for him to live. But that would have meant someone, somewhere taking responsibility so while he shook the hand of the Prime Minister, he didn’t receive medical care while running 3,339 miles, more than the breadth of the USA in 143 days but only when he could not go on another day.

Tonight for the first time I read the letter, the first one he sent for fundraising, to the Canadian Cancer Society of those in the ward he left:

“There were the faces with the brave smiles, and the ones who had given up smiling. There were the feelings of hopeful denial, and the feelings of despair. My quest would not be a selfish one. I could not leave knowing these faces and feelings would still exist, even though I would be set free from mine. Somewhere the hurting must stop...and I was determined to take myself to the limit for this cause.”

I can think of no better summation. To continue to live, to keep going, to take the pain as I can't get out of bed. To go on even after speech and other functions have failed, as long as words can be recorded is my future. I will take risks to extend it, even though it is going to be hard.I don’t know what else I have to offer but my story, my day to day life, the truth of that, and the reasons why I put on the face, why we all do sometimes. And to explain why I keep going, and will keep going. I depend not on a miracle cure, or even the treatment I have been promised by the neurologists of British Columbia (still yet to appear – hello, IVIG? I’m over here!). I have had my home care reduced because my medical conditions are ‘too complicated’ and ‘there is no GP oversight.’ No one wants to take responsibility, not even those who would help me to pee, to shit, to eat, to sleep.

I take responsibility. Because someone has to start. Someone has to care. It isn't about just me but dozens to hundreds of people in this town alone dying THIS YEAR because of the poor care, the lack of equipment and tests which would be available in a first world country. I am just articulate and have access to a computer.

Medicine isn’t about ego’s, or a failure to take personal or larger responsibility but the opposite, with the opportunity to help or hurt others lives come the responsibility to do so proactively. When the staff has ‘birthdays’ for annual stays of seniors citizens (people, real people who are only a decade or two or three older than you) who are filling hospital beds because there is no place ‘to shift them’. Something is wrong.

Yes, your province may be great...today. Yes, your GP in British Columbia may be super...today. Because if you plan to live longer than a few years, you need to worry about it too. When 50% of the people GIVING me care who come in, including the temps (HALF!) have no GP of their own, then it is a story that needs to be told. And to tell that story I have to live it.That story is written on and in my body and within the DOCTOR’S charts and documents my last GP had the receptionist box up. That administrator then called Linda to tell her if she did not pick it up that day, over two years of extensive tests would be destroyed. That is how I found out I didn’t have a GP (again). Last time I went into see the walk-in clinic doctor there (for the third or fourth time) I heard her ask the front desk for my chart.

Doctor, “Well, this IS a walk in clinic and she DOES keep coming here so why don’t you start one (so I don’t have to take her history every time she comes in…).”

Yeah, I could sue the owner, a doctor, for discrimination at the BC human rights court. The last trial lasted about five years. Do you think I have five years?

I am not ‘inspirational’, nor am I ‘courageous’, 'heroic' or ‘defiant against the odds.’ I know the odds, I know I will die; I am just willing to risk further impairment to extend the time before that death.I didn’t know what desperate was until now. And I will probably say that again a few months from now....if I have a few months.

No one has ever beaten death.

New LooK Of Shahid Kapoor

My, oh my, Shahid Kapoor has grown from a boy to a man! No, we are not talking about some type of right-of-passage ceremony that the actor has gone through, instead we are referring to his brand new hard hitting look. Besides helping his career, Shahid Kapoor's film, "Kaminey," gave the actor a whole new image. The cutie who is known for his boyish appeal, has a sexy mature look for the film that he has surprised all of us with.

Who would have thought that with his baby face Shahid could ever be seen as a man's man. Well, he proves to us that he can and his new image is appreciated by the public. Critiques and fans like it so much that India's "Hi Blitz," magazine has featured the actor in his new look on the front cover.

On the cover, the actor stares into the camera as he shows off his biceps while in a sleeveless vest. His spiked up hair gives him a much trendier look. In the magazine's exclusive cover story, Kapoor discusses the challenges in obtaining his new look for the film.

The entire photo shoot showcases Shahid Kapoor in a way he has never been seen before. His new image marks a new beginning for the actor who has several upcoming films lined up. As Shahid Kapoor continues to gain popularity, who knows what's next for him. What we do know is that his career is on the rise and he could very well be the next big actor in Bollywood.

Why Women Need Health Care Reforms?

Many of women's problems stem from the fact that to get anything close to decent private insurance, you usually need a full-time job, which women are less likely than men to have--52 percent versus 73 percent. (The flip side of this problem is that linking jobs to insurance leaves many women tethered to full-time jobs they'd rather not have, given their other responsibilities. In fact, 60 percent of full-time working mothers would prefer part-time work, according to a 2007 Pew poll. While some keep their full-time jobs for the income, many others stay because they have no other way to get health benefits.) Many women who work part-time or stay at home have become a sort of medical underclass, stuck without insurance, paying dearly for it out of their own pockets or, as was Jemilla Mulvihill's experience, begging desperately, and unsuccessfully, for the opportunity to pay dearly for it out-of-pocket.
A 38-year-old yoga instructor and personal trainer, Mulvihill was uninsured when she recently discovered she was pregnant. She had made do without coverage throughout her adult life, relying mostly on luck and over-the-counter remedies. This time, she knew she needed something more. Even without the cost of prenatal care, a standard in-hospital delivery typically runs between $7,000 and $10,000. If anything went wrong, the costs would be way higher. So Mulvihill resigned herself to buying private insurance, hoping to put it on a credit card and pay it off at some point in the distant future. Yet, after spending hours calling private insurance companies, she found none would take her. The reason? Private insurers can legally reject pregnant women on the grounds that their pregnancy is a pre-existing condition. While federal law forbids group health plans from playing this sleazy trick, on the individual market, companies face no such restriction. Given the loophole, seemingly all insurers jump through it. Even though not getting prenatal care is a technically a violation of the law (according to family law experts, women could be prosecuted for neglect, though they rarely if ever are), private insurance plans for individuals aren't required to help them get it.
When looking for real help, many uninsured pregnant women encounter this utterly useless advice: get a policy before conceiving. Yet planning ahead doesn't necessarily solve women's insurance problem. Many women couldn't afford whatever care they find, since companies often charge women more--in one case as much as 140 percent more--for the same health coverage, according to a 2008 study by the National Women's Law Center. And only the lucky have the privilege of paying even these high prices, since companies can simply reject women for anything from having been subject to domestic violence to having had a C-section. Meanwhile, the vast majority of individual plans don't even offer maternity coverage. Only 7 percent of women get insurance through the individual market, yet its unwelcoming practices clearly contribute to the fact that another 18 percent are uninsured.
So what's a pregnant woman to do if she can't afford insurance? Some women take their chances, skipping the doctor's visits and hoping for the best. (A startling 15 percent of American women receive no prenatal care in the first trimester, a fact that contributes to our appallingly high infant mortality rate). Other women "spend down," forgoing income to qualify for Medicaid. Even then, they can wind up without prenatal care for long periods, since twenty states lack laws allowing pregnant women to receive time-sensitive coverage while waiting for approval of their Medicaid applications. Mulvihill took this route, and is still grateful to the benefits worker who granted her a Medicaid card, despite the fact that her income was slightly above the cutoff in New York City at the time. "I wanted to give her a hug," Mulvihill said later. "It was either have an abortion, or I'm going to have this child and the decision was in this woman's hands."
Still other women spend their money on the bogus health companies that have slithered onto the scene to exploit uninsured pregnant women. These faux insurers should be Exhibit A in what's wrong with our current system. You can find two of them listed on PregnancyInsurance.org, a website that purports to offer solutions for uninsured pregnant women and heavily promotes two companies: Affordable Health Care Options (AHCO) and Ameriplan. Unfortunately, despite the website's name and the companies' sly advertising, neither actually offers insurance to pregnant women. It turns out Pregnancyinsurance.org is run by a "life-affirming Christian ministry," which helps explain its relentlessly money-is-no-object tone when it comes to women having children they can't afford. (Among the money-saving suggestions it offers uninsured pregnant women are signing up for Medicaid, eating well and looking into home births, which are "considerably more economical than hospital births.")
Ameriplan, a huge multilevel marketing company, capitalizes both on women's overall lack of health insurance and their need for part-time employment by setting up work-from-home businesses selling "discount medical plans." (According to the company's website, the fact that seven in ten Americans is either uninsured or underinsured "presents the opportunity of a lifetime!") Unfortunately, women haven't had much luck either selling or using the cards. In 2006, the Montana State Auditor sued the company, charging that it didn't actually hold up its end by contracting with local healthcare providers, leaving the Montanans who bought discount cards from the company out of luck--and their monthly fee, which ranges up to $59.95. Ameriplan gave the state $200,000 as part of a settlement of the suit, which charged the company with conducting a pyramid scheme, in addition to engaging in insurance and securities fraud.
As for AHCO, the company is not only not an insurance company, it's a blatant fraud that exploits pregnant women, according to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, which sued AHCO in 2008, alleging that, while the company sells a "Maternity Card" that it says offers maternity services, such as doctor's visits, hospital stays, lab work, sonograms and prescriptions, "in truth and in fact the Maternity Card offers none of these services."
Healthcare reform shouldn't harm Trig Palin, as Sarah Palin has suggested it might, but it would put a knife through the hearts of the bottom-feeding companies that prey on uninsured, pregnant women. By forbidding real insurers from denying coverage on the grounds of pre-existing conditions, as four of the five proposals now floating around the various Congressional committees would, reform should eliminate pregnant women's desperate search for coverage. Most of those bills would also outlaw the practice of "gender rating," or charging women more for the same policies, though the Senate Finance Committee version would reportedly allow insurers to charge companies with more than fifty employees more for women.
It's still unclear how much money the government would offer to help pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Since women still struggle more to cover these expenses, the size of the subsidy will determine whether they'll really be able to afford the insurance they'll be required to buy. The biggest question of all, of course, is still whether any version of health reform will pass. In part, the answer will rest on whether women remain silent or, worse, contribute to the twisted version of events offered by groups like Concerned Women of America and (the sadly co-ed) Conservatives for Patients' Rights. The best hope for the more than half of women who are uninsured or underinsured would be to lend their support to groups like the National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Women's Law Center and Moms Rising, who are actively fighting for reform--and against the misrepresentation of women's experience. If they don't, women's prognosis for escaping the medical underclass--and the sleaze that comes with it--is grim.

Making Preparations For Flight & A Challenge!

I could tell you that I have been resting and pondering since the last post (I have 'pondered'). And decided that I need to set strong boundaries which include resting and accepting limitations, like maybe not doing everything all the time. But that would be a lie.

I took a shower and wheeled up to the Y to rejoin. Yes, in the manual. And was told they had ‘changed policy’ and I needed to come back the next day. And that they did not accommodate ‘power chairs’ (the next day power that be wanted to know who said that, but didn’t say one way or another). BUT, I am NOW a member of the YMCA-YWCA and have my Recreation Integration Card and am getting ready to take flight.

The shower and going up to the Y in the heat turned out not so great as I wasn’t good on the breathing by bedtime and at one point breathed unassisted between 5-7 times over 25-35 minutes. I don’t think Linda was amused, since she was the one with the ambi-bag. The next day, after waiting for the person to get my membership for an hour in a hot, unventilated room, and then on the way home, I passed out and had to be brought inside and hooked up to oxygen by the people I was talking to. Then did the, “Look MA! I don't breathe!” trick again that night too. BUT I did accomplish what I set out to. I am however firmly grounded for now, and will be sitting still for a little while. But just you wait; I am going to fly. Not anymore because I think people won’t like me if I don’t or demand it but because I can. Because I want to, and because I want to show anyone, and everyone that what is possible is only limited to what can be dreamt, desired and the willingness to try even if you fail.

This is where you come in. Oh, like you thought you were getting out of this? Cheryl, three weeks ago, after the Moss Street Artist Display complained that she was so sore from the going up and down the hill and the distance. I said, “well, better keep doing a couple kilometers or miles a week so you are ready for the five kilometer events we enter into. Having a pit crew is nice, but having a fellow PARTICIPANT would be better!” She must have thought I was serious as she HAS been doing training. Which is good as the first 5K is in 3 weeks, and the next two weeks after that. Hee hee.

Most of us in our lives, are in some ways like me, limited, but not by heat and walls but by the limits we have put on ourselves. We live a good life, we live a crappy life, we all get by, but..... And that is it, what is it that makes you secretly look out when no one is looking, and what is it you dream, that you want to do?
September is coming they say and if you want to take a class, take it! So what if you are older than other students. SO WHAT?! Or if you are like me and indoors, then is there not somewhere you want to go, whether 1 block away or 10 miles? Is there no way, with planning, with time, that you can make a dream, a goal come true? Something that will only matter to you (and me). A picnic, looking at the stars, starting a new language, starting an instrument, starting a new project, restarting an old project, reading a book you have been putting off, getting outside to a place that is special to you, or just simply going someplace and remembering, honoring. Whatever it is, it is you flying. Like I said, I would rather have fellow PARTICIPANTS.

To fly requires two parts: to dream and to try. Dreaming is something some have let grow rusty, or hidden behind shields. Because to dream is to expose yourself to hurt, to have dreams, to lose them, there is pain there but there is also joy. And to dream you must believe that you can become more than you are, that you ARE a person worth taking risks. That you matter.

We all matter, but only some will choose to dream. And fewer still will risk trying to fly. For years, I have tried in all ways, in tactile ways, in words, in everything that you are unique, and hold unique dreams and desires. And that nothing is impossible, or few things. Many are scary, some are dangerous but the greatest limit is ourselves. It is time to dream what can be.
I am not asking that achieve it tomorrow, I am asking that you start TODAY! Not that you go out and run a marathon but if you want to run a marathon, or wheel one, then you dream it, and you write up a realistic plan on how that can happen. The hardest twenty meters to run during training are the twenty meters out your own door. To do it is to try and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I try two, three, six, seven times before I simply can get out ANYWHERE with Linda besides here. If you don’t try, if I don’t try, I already know our chance of success and then a dream is just that, something we build a shell over. And something we get resentful about when we see others struggling to achieve the same. Because there will be difficulties. But then, even I am not so sure on how to fly anymore, so there might be some bumpy moments. But as Amelia Earhart said (via Life and Times of Emma), “Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.”

I will leave these walls and I will go to the Y with a volunteer, or I will be so ill from trying that I will have to stop, to gather my strength, and to try again. But I will go, I will play badminton and I will box. Yes, that’s right, I am going to box. Because if the pain of muscles ripping is so bad that I can only handle one night of boxing, that is one night more than I have had this year. That is one night that I lived my dream. And nothing will ever take that away.

So I am asking to try flying with me. And yes, there might be a big splat. But there might not….then what? Another dream to try? Lots of reason to not. Truth is that you might have fragile wings, delicate. But if you have wings and never even try to fly...? Yes, scary to try: People can see us, we can see us, we are too old, too young, not experienced enough, not ready, not this month, not this year. There is ALWAYS a reason to not do something. I am asking to please find a reason to get ready to try. I am not the kind that goes, “Don’t ‘try’ but DO!’ as my rock climbing instructor used to yell. Not a well loved person. I, on the other hand, know that the ‘doing’ comes from honest ‘trying’ and that is all we can do, is try, with all our might. And regardless the outcome, I would be interested, if you are willing, to share how things went, or are going.

So, I am going to sleep and hope that I breath independently for the start and when I get up I will start matching postcards. I am resting up, but I didn’t say I was sitting still doing nothing! As for what else, and with me, there is ALWAYS something else, well, you are going to just have to wait and watch this space.

The Idiocy Of Sex Testing

World-class South African athlete Caster Semenya, age 18, won the 800 meters in the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships on August 19. But her victory was all the more remarkable in that she was forced to run amid a controversy that reveals the twisted way international track and field views gender.
The sports world has been buzzing for some time over the rumor that Semenya may be a man, or more specifically, not "entirely female." According to the newspaper The Age, her "physique and powerful style have sparked speculation in recent months that she may not be entirely female." From all accounts an arduous process of "gender testing" on Semenya has already begun. The idea that an 18-year-old who has just experienced the greatest athletic victory of her life is being subjecting to this very public humiliation is shameful to say the least.

Her own coach Michael Seme contributed to the disgrace when he said, "We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It's a natural reaction and it's only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the telephone numbers of her roommates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide."

The people with something to hide are the powers that be in track and field, as well as in international sport. As long as there have been womens' sports, the characterization of the best female athletes as "looking like men" or "mannish" has consistently been used to degrade them. When Martina Navratilova dominated women's tennis and proudly exposed her chiseled biceps years before Hollywood gave its imprimatur to gals with "guns," players complained that she "must have a chromosome loose somewhere."

This minefield of sexism and homophobia has long pushed female athletes into magazines like Maxim to prove their "hotness"--and implicitly their heterosexuality. Track and field in particular has always had this preoccupation with gender, particularly when it crosses paths with racism. Fifty years ago, Olympic official Norman Cox proposed that in the case of black women, "the International Olympic Committee should create a special category of competition for them--the unfairly advantaged 'hermaphrodites.'"

For years, women athletes had to parade naked in front of Olympic officials. This has now given way to more "sophisticated" "gender testing" to determine if athletes like Semenya have what officials still perceive as the ultimate advantage--being a man. Let's leave aside that being male is not the be-all, end-all of athletic success. A country's wealth, coaching facilities, nutrition and opportunity determine the creation of a world-class athlete far more than a Y chromosome or a penis ever could.

What these officials still don't understand, or will not confront, is that gender--that is, how we comport and conceive of ourselves--is a remarkably fluid social construction. Even our physical sex is far more ambiguous and fluid than is often imagined or taught. Medical science has long acknowledged the existence of millions of people whose bodies combine anatomical features that are conventionally associated with either men or women and/or have chromosomal variations from the XX or XY of women or men. Many of these "intersex" individuals, estimated at one birth in every 1,666 in the United States alone, are legally operated on by surgeons who force traditional norms of genitalia on newborn infants. In what some doctors consider a psychosocial emergency, thousands of healthy babies are effectively subject to clitorectomies if a clitoris is "too large" or castrations if a penis is "too small" (evidently penises are never considered "too big").

The physical reality of intersex people calls into question the fixed notions we are taught to accept about men and women in general, and men and women athletes in sex-segregated sports like track and field in particular. The heretical bodies of intersex people challenge the traditional understanding of gender as a strict male/female phenomenon. While we are never encouraged to conceive of bodies this way, male and female bodies are more similar than they are distinguishable from each other. When training and nutrition are equal, it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between some of the best-trained male and female Olympic swimmers wearing state-of-the-art one-piece speed suits. Title IX, the 1972 law imposing equal funding for girls' and boys' sports in schools, has radically altered not only women's fitness and emotional well-being but their bodies as well. Obviously, there are some physical differences between men and women, but it is largely our culture and not biology that gives them their meaning.

In 1986 Spanish hurdler Maria José Martínez-Patiño was stripped of her first-place winnings when discovered to have an XY chromosome, instead of the female's XX, which shattered her athletic career and upended her personal life. "I lost friends, my fiancé, hope and energy," said Martínez-Patiño in a 2005 editorial in the journal The Lancet.

Whatever track and field tells us Caster Semenya's gender is--and as of this writing there is zero evidence she is intersex--it's time we all break free from the notion that you are either "one or the other." It's antiquated, stigmatizing and says far more about those doing the testing than about the athletes tested. The only thing suspicious is the gender and sex bias in professional sports. We should continue to debate the pros and cons of gender segregation in sport. But right here, right now, we must end sex testing and acknowledge the fluidity of gender and sex in sports and beyond.

Taking WoodStock Ang Lee's New Comedy Film

It's a comedy from Focus Features based on the memoirs of one of the festival's organizers, Eliot Tiber, and features a lot of great music from the 60s. Details about the movie are below.

We're excited to be offering Washington, D.C. Nation readers the opportunity to be among the first in the nation to see the film at a private screening in D.C. next Wednesday, August 26.
Taking Woodstock is the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee - and it's a trip!

David Ansen of Newsweek raves, "'Taking Woodstock stirred this ex-hippie's soul! A story of personal liberation"

Based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, the comedy stars Demetri Martin as Elliot, who inadvertently played a role in making 1969's Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the famed happening it was. Featuring a standout ensemble cast, and songs from a score of '60s musical icons including The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish-plus a new recording of "Freedom" from Richie Havens - Taking Woodstock is a joyous voyage to a moment in time when everything seemed possible.

Working as an interior designer in Greenwich Village, Elliot feels empowered by the gay rights movement. But he is also still staked to the family business-a dumpy Catskills motel called the El Monaco that is being run into the ground by his overbearing parents, Jake and Sonia Teichberg (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton). In the summer of 1969, Elliot has to move back upstate to the El Monaco in order to help save the motel from being taken over by the bank.

Upon hearing that a planned music and arts festival has lost its permit from the neighboring town of Wallkill, NY, Elliot calls producer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) at Woodstock Ventures to offer his family's motel to the promoters and generate some much-needed business. Elliot also introduces Lang to his neighbor Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), who operates a 600-acre dairy farm down the road. Soon the Woodstock staff is moving into the El Monaco-and half a million people are on their way to Yasgur's farm for "3 days of Peace & Music in White Lake."

With a little help from his friends, including theater troupe leader Devon (Dan Fogler), recently returned Vietnam veteran Billy (Emile Hirsch), and cross-dressing ex-Marine Vilma (Liev Schreiber) - and with a little opposition from townspeople, including Billy's brother Dan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life-and popular culture-forever. Take the Trip August 28th in movie theaters everywhere!

Air Hockey Gloaty & My Foot

I have been rather ill of late. But not before I stuffed in a bit of fun. The problem is that my fun seems to stop when the world goes all blue and I pass out. (Cheryl just added “a LOT!”). So I have had a fever for three days or four or I am not sure what day this is, do those things really matter compared to the joy of Air Hockey from Friday? I went with Cheryl and we had a very intense and close game The first game was a tie, and the second she lead 6-4 but I caught up and we were tied at 6-6 when she slammed the winning goal disc home. As you can see, there is NO obvious gloating and satisfaction on her face here! NOT!

Luckily we played the Hydro boat game which just uses hand controls, no feet controls.While I seemed to play to win, Cheryl seemed to play to have the Sierra Club, PETA and Greenpeace pissed at her as she ran her boat over: ‘unlimited number of penguins’, an Inuit kayaker who screamed at the last moment as well as running her speed boat across the deck of a cruise ship. At the end of the game, she was high speed approaching an oil rig I had NEVER seen before and the workers were running and screaming. She says it is good to let out ones’ aggressions.