Saturday, December 29, 2012 7:17:56 PM
The 'Perfect Woman' In 1912, Elsie Scheel, Was 171 Pounds And Loved Beefsteaks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/perfect-woman-1912_n_2365529.html [with comments];
http://gothamist.com/2012/12/20/1912s_perfect_woman_was_from_brookl.php [with comments]
===
'Rape-provoking' miniskirts and crop tops banned by king of Swaziland with offenders facing six months in jail
Police in Swaziland will enforce a colonial law to stop women wearing miniskirts and other 'sexual' clothing. Officers say the clothes 'encourage rape'
(file picture)
- Miniskirts and low slung jeans banned in Swaziland
- The clothing 'encourages rape' according to police in the tiny African kingdom
- But semi-naked dances for all-powerful king are exempt from colonial-era law
By Sam Webb
PUBLISHED:15:31 EST, 24 December 2012 | UPDATED: 15:32 EST, 24 December 2012
Women in Swaziland [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaziland (Christian; due to rampant HIV, life expectancy of 31.88 years is the lowest in the world)] have been banned from wearing miniskirts and crop tops because they 'encourage rape' - and offenders face a six-month spell in jail.
Police in Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy in Africa and an incredibly conservative nation, have resurrected an archaic colonial criminal act from 1889 to stop women wearing clothes that expose their body.
Swazi police were responding to a march in the second city of Manzini last month by young women, some wearing miniskirts, who were seeking equal rights and safety.
In Swaziland women are legal minors and two-thirds of teenage girls have been victims of sexual assault, according to the South African Independent Online [ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/swaziland-bans-rapeprovoking-miniskirts-lowrise-jeans/1049615/ ].
Police spokesperson Wendy Hleta warned: 'They will be arrested.
'The act of the rapist is made easy, because it would be easy to remove the half-cloth worn by the women.
'We do not encourage that women should be harmed, but at the same time people should note acceptable conduct of behaviour,' she said.
The ban also applies to low-slung jeans and tank tops. However, the 'indlamu' costume, a tiny beaded belt worn when young women dance for King Mswati topless and with their buttocks fully exposed, is permissible, authorities declared.
Hleta said this apparel is permissible because police have no records of any maiden being raped while wearing the costume.
Ceremony: The tiny beaded dress worn when maidens dance semi-naked for the autocratic King Mswati III [such as at the annual Reed Dance where each year he picks yet another new wife ( http://www.indianexpress.com/news/swaziland-bans-rapeprovoking-miniskirts-lowrise-jeans/1049615/ )] does not fall foul of the new law
(file picture)
The king, who has been criticised for his lavish lifestyle in an impoverished country, already has 13 wives.
Women have also been advised on a way to retrieve dropped objects that will not make them 'culpable' in their own assaults by 'exciting males'.
Hleta said: 'For females it is polite that when you have dropped something, squat with your upper body still upright and pick up the item rather than bending half your body head first to pick up the item.'
The Swazi police spokeswoman did not say whether a woman not following the guidelines for picking up a dropped object would be arrested or issued with a warning.
Absolute power: Swaziland's King Mswati III has been criticised by his people for his lavish lifestyle in the otherwise impoverished nation
© Associated Newspapers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2252955/Rape-provoking-miniskirts-crop-tops-banned-king-Swaziland-offenders-facing-months-jail.html [with comments]
===
Insemination rules will be eased by new law
MeiBeck Scott-Chung (left) and Maya Scott-Chung, here with 8-year-old Luna, learned about the bureaucratic rules when they wanted a second pregnancy. A new law will ease those rules.
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle / SF
Stephanie M. Lee
Updated 11:00 pm, Thursday, December 27, 2012
Eight years ago, Maya Scott-Chung gave birth to the girl she and her female partner had been waiting for. To make the conception possible, a friend had handed over his sperm in an artichoke jar - an act that was casual, straightforward and, under federal law, illegal.
Now, the Scott-Chungs once again want to use their friend's sperm to get pregnant, this time in a legally sanctioned medical clinic. But the Oakland couple are finding the lawful path they've chosen to be the far more problematic one.
Under current law, any woman who wants to become pregnant with an acquaintance's sperm must verify his health in tests and undergo other procedures, rules that the Scott-Chungs view as costly and time-consuming.
On Tuesday, that process will change in California.
That's when a new law will take effect, making fertility services more accessible for Californians seeking to start a family through nontraditional means. Among those it will help are same-sex female couples, low-income women and single women.
"It removes a lot of barriers so women can become pregnant using the sperm of the donor of their choice," said Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who introduced the legislation. It was co-sponsored by Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
FDA's reasoning
The current law is designed to protect women without a traditional male partner from unknowingly ending up with a sexually transmitted disease by using, for example, a friend's sperm and a turkey baster.
Under rules set up by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a donor is required to either freeze and quarantine his sperm for screening or have his blood and urine tested in a medical setting within a week of transferring his sperm to the woman.
The new law aims to ease the frustrations of aspiring mothers like Maya Scott-Chung. She said she didn't know of the existing rules in 2003, when she began trying to start a family with MeiBeck Scott-Chung, her partner since 1997.
Instead of using a sperm bank, the couple wanted a known donor who shared their collective Asian/Latino heritage and could provide fresh sperm, which would give them the best chance for pregnancy.
In the end, they chose Daniel Bao, a local, gay Chinese man originally from Argentina. He brought a glass artichoke jar with his sperm to their house, and MeiBeck injected its contents into Maya with a syringe. In October 2004, at age 38, she gave birth at home to a daughter, Luna.
Four years later, when the couple wanted another child, they tried at-home insemination once again, but to no avail. So Maya decided to do an intrauterine insemination under a doctor's supervision. That's when she learned of the FDA regulations that she said effectively prohibited her from using Bao's fresh sperm.
Too high a cost
Freezing and quarantining his sperm for six months wouldn't work, she said, because the cost was unaffordable and she was 42 at the time.
"The thought of paying four to five thousand additional dollars to freeze and quarantine Daniel's sperm when he was right there, and especially since we'd had a baby with him ... it just didn't really make sense to us," said Maya, 46, a project development coordinator at a fertility clinic.
To date, she estimates that she and her partner have spent $10,000 on fertility procedures not covered by insurance.
A similar complaint inspired a lawsuit that an Oakland woman brought against the FDA last summer. The woman, a lesbian who wants to conceive with a friend's sperm without paying for medical services, is arguing that the rules are expensive, bureaucratic and unconstitutional.
The federal law provides for one exception. If the sperm donor is a recipient's "sexually intimate partner," in the FDA's words, he will not have to undergo multiple tests for such diseases as HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis.
The agency does not define what it means by "sexually intimate partner," but until now it has been used to apply to heterosexual couples in a relationship, according to Skinner's legislation.
Broader definition
The new law broadens "sexually intimate partner" to include a donor whom the recipient knows and whose sperm she has already used to try to conceive at home. That means the Scott-Chungs' donor will need to be tested just once to give fresh sperm, as long as Maya signs a waiver. He can be tested multiple times, but only upon her request.
The bill, AB 2356, encountered little organized opposition, except from the California Right to Life Committee, and sailed through the state Legislature in September.
The FDA declined to comment on the new law, citing a pending lawsuit.
The new law puts same-sex couples such as the Scott-Chungs "on the same playing field" as heterosexual couples by giving them equal access to fertility services, said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, director of UCSF's Fertility Preservation Center.
It also subjects them to the same risks, he noted. Heterosexual couples can transmit diseases when they have sex. Similarly, if a sperm donor gets a disease after being tested, "it's possible to contract a condition that the recipient would not know about," Rosen said.
With the new law about to take effect, Maya said, she and her partner have renewed hope for growing their family.
"As someone who really believes in equal fertility access and thinks that everyone who wants to have children should have the ability to do that," she said, "it's a very significant moment."
© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Insemination-rules-will-be-eased-by-new-law-4150765.php [with comments]
===
Progressive Muslims Launch Gay-Friendly, Women-Led Mosques In Attempt To Reform American Islam
The Muslims for Progressive Values mosque in Washington, D.C., hosts mixed-gender, woman-led prayers on Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic holiday, in 2010.
03/29/2012, Updated 12/08/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/progressive-muslims-launch-gay-friendly-women-led-mosques_n_1368460.html [with comments]
===
Pro-Life Coat Hangers At Springdale Cleaners
[ http://imgur.com/Muhva ]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/pro-life-coat-hangers-springdale-cleaners_n_2277562.html [with comments];
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/12/07/worst-marketing-decision-ever-drycleaner-puts-pro-life-message-on-their-hangers [with comments]
===
Perfect 10? Never Mind That. Ask Her for Her Credit Score.
Jessica LaShawn said she was surprised when a date asked her about her credit score. “It was as if the music stopped,” she said.
Nathan Weber for The New York Times
Graphic
Credit Range
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/25/business/credit-range.html?ref=business
Josephine La Bella said she kept a close eye on her credit score since graduating and broached the subject with dates herself.
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
Published: December 25, 2012
As she nibbled on strawberry shortcake, Jessica LaShawn, a flight attendant from Chicago, tried not to get ahead of herself and imagine this first date turning into another and another, and maybe, at some point, a glimmering diamond ring and happily ever after.
She simply couldn’t help it, though. After all, he was tall, from a religious family, raised by his grandparents just as she was, worked in finance and even had great teeth.
Her musings were suddenly interrupted when her date asked a decidedly unromantic question: “What’s your credit score?”
“It was as if the music stopped,” Ms. LaShawn, 31, said, recalling how the date this year went so wrong so quickly after she tried to answer his question honestly. “It was really awkward because he kept telling me that I was the perfect girl for him, but that a low credit score was his deal-breaker.”
The credit score, once a little-known metric derived from a complex formula that incorporates outstanding debt and payment histories, has become an increasingly important number used to bestow credit, determine housing and even distinguish between job candidates.
It’s so widely used that it has also become a bigger factor in dating decisions, sometimes eclipsing more traditional priorities like a good job, shared interests and physical chemistry. That’s according to interviews with more than 50 daters across the country, all under the age of 40.
“Credit scores [ http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/credit/credit-scores/index.html ] are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test,” said Manisha Thakor, the founder and chief executive of MoneyZen Wealth Management [ http://www.moneyzen.com/ ], a financial advisory firm. “It’s a shorthand way to get a sense of someone’s financial past the same way an S.T.D. test gives some information about a person’s sexual past.”
It’s difficult to quantify how many daters factor credit scores into their romantic calculations, but financial planners, marriage counselors and dating site executives all said that they were hearing far more concerns about credit than in the past. “I’m getting twice as many questions about credit scores as I did prerecession,” Ms. Thakor said.
Executives who run online financial advice forums say that topics about credit and dating receive hundreds of responses within minutes of being posted. Alexa von Tobel, founder and chief executive of Learnvest.com [ http://learnvest.com/ ], a financial planning firm, said that members are more interested in credit scores than ever before.
“It’s the only grade that matters after you graduate,” she said.
Josephine La Bella, 25, who works at a payroll company, likes to tackle the delicate subject head on. Ms. La Bella, who has vigilantly monitored her credit score ever since graduating from Rutgers in 2009, has found that broaching the topic of her own credit score causes her suitors to open up, too.
In August, Ms. La Bella recalled, while at dinner in Bayonne, N.J., a date blurted out his credit score on the first outing. Instead of making things more awkward, she said, a really productive discussion followed. Since then, Ms. La Bella tries to bring up the topic soon after meeting someone.
“I take my credit score seriously and so my date can take me seriously,” she said. A handful of small, online dating Web sites have sprung up to cater specifically to singles looking for a partner with a tiptop credit score. “Good Credit Is Sexy,” says one site, Creditscoredating.com [ http://creditscoredating.com/ ], which allows members to view the credit scores of potential dates who agree to provide the numbers.
On another site, Datemycreditscore.com [ http://datemycreditscore.com/ ], a member posted on the Web site’s home page that others should to “stop kidding” themselves and realize that credit scores do matter.
Dating someone with poor credit can have real implications. Banks remain wary of making loans to borrowers with tarnished scores, typically 660 and below; the best scores range from 800 to 850, and scores above 750 are considered good. A low score could quash dreams of buying a house, and result in steep interest rates, up to 29 percent, for credit cards, car financing and other unsecured loans.
A middling credit score can also torpedo an application for an apartment and drive up the cost of cellphone plans and auto insurance [ http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/insurance/auto-insurance/index.html ]. And while eight states, including California, Illinois and Maryland, have passed laws limiting employers ability to use credit checks when assessing job candidates, 13 percent of employers surveyed by the Society of Human Resource Management in July performed credit checks on all job applicants.
Lauren Dollard, a 26-year-old assistant at a nonprofit in Houston, said her low credit score had helped to stall her romantic plans. Her boyfriend is wary of marrying her until she can significantly pay down the more than $150,000 she owes in student loans [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html ] and bolster her credit score, she said.
Ms. Dollard’s credit score is so low, around 600, that she hasn’t been able to qualify for a car loan. She sympathizes with her boyfriend’s position because he “doesn’t ever want to be accountable for the irresponsible financial decision I made,” she said. Her boyfriend declined to be interviewed.
John Hendrix, a 33-year-old chemist in San Francisco, said he worried that the vast disparity between his girlfriend’s credit score and his own low one could create tension in their relationship. When the couple leased a car in October, Mr. Hendrix had to leave his name off the contract because his poor credit scuttled his chances for the bargain interest rate that his girlfriend qualified for.
Mr. Hendrix said he resented that his credit score, which he said was marred by a single contested cable bill, has limited his access to credit. “I always pay my bills so it’s pretty ridiculous that a billing error can ruin your score,” he said. His girlfriend declined to be interviewed.
Sarah Klein, who manages myFICO Forums, an online discussion group, likens credit scores to dieting because both affect dating but often are shrouded in secrecy. To motivate members to openly discuss and rehabilitate their credit scores, the site runs an online contest called the myFICO Fitness Challenge [ http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness-Challenge-for-2012/td-p/1153965 ], where participants try to increase their scores. (FICO is a name derived from Fair Isaac Corporation.) Last year, more than 24,000 members participated.
In a post on the forum, one member asked for advice after finding out that her boyfriend’s credit score hovered around 400. Some members denounced the member as petty and materialistic while others counseled her to run away from him.
Ms. LaShawn, the flight attendant from Chicago, said that she was still shocked that her credit score could sabotage a potentially great date. She had accumulated credit card debt and sporadically fallen behind on bills, and explained that she wasn’t sure of her credit score, but was positive that it wasn’t very good.
Days after her failed date, she said, she got an apologetic text message. Her date reiterated that the problem “wasn’t me, it was my credit score.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/business/even-cupid-wants-to-know-your-credit-score.html [with comments]
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The Mormon Marriage Crisis
Steve Rinehart, 36, one of a growing number of single members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stands in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
09/14/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/mormon-singles-lds-singles-wards-marriage_n_1875524.html [with comments]
===
Fred Willard, Nick Stahl arrested by same LAPD vice unit
December 28, 2012
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/fred-willard-nick-stahl-arrested-by-same-lapd-vice-unit.html [with comments]
===
Media may argue against redactions in church files, judge rules
Cardinal Roger Mahony's name, and those of all church employees, could have been redacted from documents about to be released by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, under the order of judge. But media organizations will be allowed to argue against the redactions now.
(Al Seib, Los Angeles Times / July 16, 2007)
The personnel files are due to be made public as part of a historic $660-million settlement between the Los Angeles Archdiocese and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
December 27, 2012, 9:01 p.m.
Media organizations will be allowed to argue against redactions in secret church files that are due to be made public as part of a historic $660-million settlement between the Los Angeles Archdiocese and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.
Pursuant to Judge Emilie Elias' order, The Times and the Associated Press will be allowed to intervene in the case, in which attorneys are gearing up for the release of internal church personnel documents more than five years after the July 2007 settlement. The judge's ruling came after attorneys for the church and the plaintiffs agreed to the news organizations' involvement in the case.
The Times and the AP object to a portion of a 2011 decision by a retired judge overseeing the file-release process. Judge Dickran Tevrizian had ruled that all names of church employees, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other top archdiocese officials, should be blacked out in the documents before they were made public. In a hearing, Tevrizian said he did not believe the documents should be used to "embarrass or to ridicule the church."
Attorneys for the news organizations argued in court filings that the redactions would "deny the public information that is necessary to fully understand the church's knowledge about the serial molestation of children by priests over a period of decades." The personnel files of priests accused of molestation, which a church attorney has said were five or six banker's boxes of documents, could include internal memos about abuse claims, Vatican correspondence and psychiatric reports.
Contending that the secrecy was motivated by "a desire to avoid further embarrassment" for the church rather than privacy concerns, the media attorneys wrote: "That kind of self-interest is not even remotely the kind of 'overriding interest' that is needed to overcome the public's presumptive right of access, nor does it establish 'good cause' for ongoing secrecy."
An archdiocese attorney said Thursday that the church had spent a "great deal of effort" in redacting the files to comply with Tevrizian's order, and said the media attorneys misunderstand the legal process that both parties in the settlement agreed would be binding.
"We agree with Judge Tevrizian that enough time has passed and enough reforms have been made that it's time to get off this and move onto another subject," attorney J. Michael Hennigan said.
An attorney representing the victims also filed papers Thursday arguing that the church was "too broadly construing" Tevrizian's redaction orders, and asking Elias to release the files with church officials' names unredacted.
"Each of the higher-ups in the Los Angeles Archdiocese who recklessly endangered generations of this community's children by protecting pedophile priests will themselves be protected," wrote Ray Boucher, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
A hearing on the release of church documents is scheduled for Jan. 7. At the hearing, Elias will also hear objections from an attorney representing individual priests, who contend that their constitutional privacy rights will be violated if the files are made public. In a court filing this month, the priests' attorney, Donald Steier, said Tevrizian was "dead wrong" to rule that the documents can be disclosed because the public interest outweighs the clerics' rights.
"Under California law, it is the employees who own the information in the files, and the Archdiocese is merely the custodian who has a legal duty to defend the contents of the files and has no legal right to agree to disclose them," Steier wrote.
victoria.kim@latimes.com
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-church-records-20121228,0,7221633.story [with comments]
===
Christianity in a nutshell
===
A Girl's Message To All Christians
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72017967 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78160607 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80565177 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81883797 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82218674 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82759158 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82805984 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82772319 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82838064 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82838077 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82878624 and following
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/perfect-woman-1912_n_2365529.html [with comments];
http://gothamist.com/2012/12/20/1912s_perfect_woman_was_from_brookl.php [with comments]
===
'Rape-provoking' miniskirts and crop tops banned by king of Swaziland with offenders facing six months in jail
Police in Swaziland will enforce a colonial law to stop women wearing miniskirts and other 'sexual' clothing. Officers say the clothes 'encourage rape'
(file picture)
- Miniskirts and low slung jeans banned in Swaziland
- The clothing 'encourages rape' according to police in the tiny African kingdom
- But semi-naked dances for all-powerful king are exempt from colonial-era law
By Sam Webb
PUBLISHED:15:31 EST, 24 December 2012 | UPDATED: 15:32 EST, 24 December 2012
Women in Swaziland [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaziland (Christian; due to rampant HIV, life expectancy of 31.88 years is the lowest in the world)] have been banned from wearing miniskirts and crop tops because they 'encourage rape' - and offenders face a six-month spell in jail.
Police in Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy in Africa and an incredibly conservative nation, have resurrected an archaic colonial criminal act from 1889 to stop women wearing clothes that expose their body.
Swazi police were responding to a march in the second city of Manzini last month by young women, some wearing miniskirts, who were seeking equal rights and safety.
In Swaziland women are legal minors and two-thirds of teenage girls have been victims of sexual assault, according to the South African Independent Online [ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/swaziland-bans-rapeprovoking-miniskirts-lowrise-jeans/1049615/ ].
Police spokesperson Wendy Hleta warned: 'They will be arrested.
'The act of the rapist is made easy, because it would be easy to remove the half-cloth worn by the women.
'We do not encourage that women should be harmed, but at the same time people should note acceptable conduct of behaviour,' she said.
The ban also applies to low-slung jeans and tank tops. However, the 'indlamu' costume, a tiny beaded belt worn when young women dance for King Mswati topless and with their buttocks fully exposed, is permissible, authorities declared.
Hleta said this apparel is permissible because police have no records of any maiden being raped while wearing the costume.
Ceremony: The tiny beaded dress worn when maidens dance semi-naked for the autocratic King Mswati III [such as at the annual Reed Dance where each year he picks yet another new wife ( http://www.indianexpress.com/news/swaziland-bans-rapeprovoking-miniskirts-lowrise-jeans/1049615/ )] does not fall foul of the new law
(file picture)
The king, who has been criticised for his lavish lifestyle in an impoverished country, already has 13 wives.
Women have also been advised on a way to retrieve dropped objects that will not make them 'culpable' in their own assaults by 'exciting males'.
Hleta said: 'For females it is polite that when you have dropped something, squat with your upper body still upright and pick up the item rather than bending half your body head first to pick up the item.'
The Swazi police spokeswoman did not say whether a woman not following the guidelines for picking up a dropped object would be arrested or issued with a warning.
Absolute power: Swaziland's King Mswati III has been criticised by his people for his lavish lifestyle in the otherwise impoverished nation
© Associated Newspapers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2252955/Rape-provoking-miniskirts-crop-tops-banned-king-Swaziland-offenders-facing-months-jail.html [with comments]
===
Insemination rules will be eased by new law
MeiBeck Scott-Chung (left) and Maya Scott-Chung, here with 8-year-old Luna, learned about the bureaucratic rules when they wanted a second pregnancy. A new law will ease those rules.
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle / SF
Stephanie M. Lee
Updated 11:00 pm, Thursday, December 27, 2012
Eight years ago, Maya Scott-Chung gave birth to the girl she and her female partner had been waiting for. To make the conception possible, a friend had handed over his sperm in an artichoke jar - an act that was casual, straightforward and, under federal law, illegal.
Now, the Scott-Chungs once again want to use their friend's sperm to get pregnant, this time in a legally sanctioned medical clinic. But the Oakland couple are finding the lawful path they've chosen to be the far more problematic one.
Under current law, any woman who wants to become pregnant with an acquaintance's sperm must verify his health in tests and undergo other procedures, rules that the Scott-Chungs view as costly and time-consuming.
On Tuesday, that process will change in California.
That's when a new law will take effect, making fertility services more accessible for Californians seeking to start a family through nontraditional means. Among those it will help are same-sex female couples, low-income women and single women.
"It removes a lot of barriers so women can become pregnant using the sperm of the donor of their choice," said Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who introduced the legislation. It was co-sponsored by Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
FDA's reasoning
The current law is designed to protect women without a traditional male partner from unknowingly ending up with a sexually transmitted disease by using, for example, a friend's sperm and a turkey baster.
Under rules set up by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a donor is required to either freeze and quarantine his sperm for screening or have his blood and urine tested in a medical setting within a week of transferring his sperm to the woman.
The new law aims to ease the frustrations of aspiring mothers like Maya Scott-Chung. She said she didn't know of the existing rules in 2003, when she began trying to start a family with MeiBeck Scott-Chung, her partner since 1997.
Instead of using a sperm bank, the couple wanted a known donor who shared their collective Asian/Latino heritage and could provide fresh sperm, which would give them the best chance for pregnancy.
In the end, they chose Daniel Bao, a local, gay Chinese man originally from Argentina. He brought a glass artichoke jar with his sperm to their house, and MeiBeck injected its contents into Maya with a syringe. In October 2004, at age 38, she gave birth at home to a daughter, Luna.
Four years later, when the couple wanted another child, they tried at-home insemination once again, but to no avail. So Maya decided to do an intrauterine insemination under a doctor's supervision. That's when she learned of the FDA regulations that she said effectively prohibited her from using Bao's fresh sperm.
Too high a cost
Freezing and quarantining his sperm for six months wouldn't work, she said, because the cost was unaffordable and she was 42 at the time.
"The thought of paying four to five thousand additional dollars to freeze and quarantine Daniel's sperm when he was right there, and especially since we'd had a baby with him ... it just didn't really make sense to us," said Maya, 46, a project development coordinator at a fertility clinic.
To date, she estimates that she and her partner have spent $10,000 on fertility procedures not covered by insurance.
A similar complaint inspired a lawsuit that an Oakland woman brought against the FDA last summer. The woman, a lesbian who wants to conceive with a friend's sperm without paying for medical services, is arguing that the rules are expensive, bureaucratic and unconstitutional.
The federal law provides for one exception. If the sperm donor is a recipient's "sexually intimate partner," in the FDA's words, he will not have to undergo multiple tests for such diseases as HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis.
The agency does not define what it means by "sexually intimate partner," but until now it has been used to apply to heterosexual couples in a relationship, according to Skinner's legislation.
Broader definition
The new law broadens "sexually intimate partner" to include a donor whom the recipient knows and whose sperm she has already used to try to conceive at home. That means the Scott-Chungs' donor will need to be tested just once to give fresh sperm, as long as Maya signs a waiver. He can be tested multiple times, but only upon her request.
The bill, AB 2356, encountered little organized opposition, except from the California Right to Life Committee, and sailed through the state Legislature in September.
The FDA declined to comment on the new law, citing a pending lawsuit.
The new law puts same-sex couples such as the Scott-Chungs "on the same playing field" as heterosexual couples by giving them equal access to fertility services, said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, director of UCSF's Fertility Preservation Center.
It also subjects them to the same risks, he noted. Heterosexual couples can transmit diseases when they have sex. Similarly, if a sperm donor gets a disease after being tested, "it's possible to contract a condition that the recipient would not know about," Rosen said.
With the new law about to take effect, Maya said, she and her partner have renewed hope for growing their family.
"As someone who really believes in equal fertility access and thinks that everyone who wants to have children should have the ability to do that," she said, "it's a very significant moment."
© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Insemination-rules-will-be-eased-by-new-law-4150765.php [with comments]
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Progressive Muslims Launch Gay-Friendly, Women-Led Mosques In Attempt To Reform American Islam
The Muslims for Progressive Values mosque in Washington, D.C., hosts mixed-gender, woman-led prayers on Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic holiday, in 2010.
03/29/2012, Updated 12/08/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/progressive-muslims-launch-gay-friendly-women-led-mosques_n_1368460.html [with comments]
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Pro-Life Coat Hangers At Springdale Cleaners
[ http://imgur.com/Muhva ]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/pro-life-coat-hangers-springdale-cleaners_n_2277562.html [with comments];
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/12/07/worst-marketing-decision-ever-drycleaner-puts-pro-life-message-on-their-hangers [with comments]
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Perfect 10? Never Mind That. Ask Her for Her Credit Score.
Jessica LaShawn said she was surprised when a date asked her about her credit score. “It was as if the music stopped,” she said.
Nathan Weber for The New York Times
Graphic
Credit Range
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/25/business/credit-range.html?ref=business
Josephine La Bella said she kept a close eye on her credit score since graduating and broached the subject with dates herself.
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
Published: December 25, 2012
As she nibbled on strawberry shortcake, Jessica LaShawn, a flight attendant from Chicago, tried not to get ahead of herself and imagine this first date turning into another and another, and maybe, at some point, a glimmering diamond ring and happily ever after.
She simply couldn’t help it, though. After all, he was tall, from a religious family, raised by his grandparents just as she was, worked in finance and even had great teeth.
Her musings were suddenly interrupted when her date asked a decidedly unromantic question: “What’s your credit score?”
“It was as if the music stopped,” Ms. LaShawn, 31, said, recalling how the date this year went so wrong so quickly after she tried to answer his question honestly. “It was really awkward because he kept telling me that I was the perfect girl for him, but that a low credit score was his deal-breaker.”
The credit score, once a little-known metric derived from a complex formula that incorporates outstanding debt and payment histories, has become an increasingly important number used to bestow credit, determine housing and even distinguish between job candidates.
It’s so widely used that it has also become a bigger factor in dating decisions, sometimes eclipsing more traditional priorities like a good job, shared interests and physical chemistry. That’s according to interviews with more than 50 daters across the country, all under the age of 40.
“Credit scores [ http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/credit/credit-scores/index.html ] are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test,” said Manisha Thakor, the founder and chief executive of MoneyZen Wealth Management [ http://www.moneyzen.com/ ], a financial advisory firm. “It’s a shorthand way to get a sense of someone’s financial past the same way an S.T.D. test gives some information about a person’s sexual past.”
It’s difficult to quantify how many daters factor credit scores into their romantic calculations, but financial planners, marriage counselors and dating site executives all said that they were hearing far more concerns about credit than in the past. “I’m getting twice as many questions about credit scores as I did prerecession,” Ms. Thakor said.
Executives who run online financial advice forums say that topics about credit and dating receive hundreds of responses within minutes of being posted. Alexa von Tobel, founder and chief executive of Learnvest.com [ http://learnvest.com/ ], a financial planning firm, said that members are more interested in credit scores than ever before.
“It’s the only grade that matters after you graduate,” she said.
Josephine La Bella, 25, who works at a payroll company, likes to tackle the delicate subject head on. Ms. La Bella, who has vigilantly monitored her credit score ever since graduating from Rutgers in 2009, has found that broaching the topic of her own credit score causes her suitors to open up, too.
In August, Ms. La Bella recalled, while at dinner in Bayonne, N.J., a date blurted out his credit score on the first outing. Instead of making things more awkward, she said, a really productive discussion followed. Since then, Ms. La Bella tries to bring up the topic soon after meeting someone.
“I take my credit score seriously and so my date can take me seriously,” she said. A handful of small, online dating Web sites have sprung up to cater specifically to singles looking for a partner with a tiptop credit score. “Good Credit Is Sexy,” says one site, Creditscoredating.com [ http://creditscoredating.com/ ], which allows members to view the credit scores of potential dates who agree to provide the numbers.
On another site, Datemycreditscore.com [ http://datemycreditscore.com/ ], a member posted on the Web site’s home page that others should to “stop kidding” themselves and realize that credit scores do matter.
Dating someone with poor credit can have real implications. Banks remain wary of making loans to borrowers with tarnished scores, typically 660 and below; the best scores range from 800 to 850, and scores above 750 are considered good. A low score could quash dreams of buying a house, and result in steep interest rates, up to 29 percent, for credit cards, car financing and other unsecured loans.
A middling credit score can also torpedo an application for an apartment and drive up the cost of cellphone plans and auto insurance [ http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/insurance/auto-insurance/index.html ]. And while eight states, including California, Illinois and Maryland, have passed laws limiting employers ability to use credit checks when assessing job candidates, 13 percent of employers surveyed by the Society of Human Resource Management in July performed credit checks on all job applicants.
Lauren Dollard, a 26-year-old assistant at a nonprofit in Houston, said her low credit score had helped to stall her romantic plans. Her boyfriend is wary of marrying her until she can significantly pay down the more than $150,000 she owes in student loans [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html ] and bolster her credit score, she said.
Ms. Dollard’s credit score is so low, around 600, that she hasn’t been able to qualify for a car loan. She sympathizes with her boyfriend’s position because he “doesn’t ever want to be accountable for the irresponsible financial decision I made,” she said. Her boyfriend declined to be interviewed.
John Hendrix, a 33-year-old chemist in San Francisco, said he worried that the vast disparity between his girlfriend’s credit score and his own low one could create tension in their relationship. When the couple leased a car in October, Mr. Hendrix had to leave his name off the contract because his poor credit scuttled his chances for the bargain interest rate that his girlfriend qualified for.
Mr. Hendrix said he resented that his credit score, which he said was marred by a single contested cable bill, has limited his access to credit. “I always pay my bills so it’s pretty ridiculous that a billing error can ruin your score,” he said. His girlfriend declined to be interviewed.
Sarah Klein, who manages myFICO Forums, an online discussion group, likens credit scores to dieting because both affect dating but often are shrouded in secrecy. To motivate members to openly discuss and rehabilitate their credit scores, the site runs an online contest called the myFICO Fitness Challenge [ http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness-Challenge-for-2012/td-p/1153965 ], where participants try to increase their scores. (FICO is a name derived from Fair Isaac Corporation.) Last year, more than 24,000 members participated.
In a post on the forum, one member asked for advice after finding out that her boyfriend’s credit score hovered around 400. Some members denounced the member as petty and materialistic while others counseled her to run away from him.
Ms. LaShawn, the flight attendant from Chicago, said that she was still shocked that her credit score could sabotage a potentially great date. She had accumulated credit card debt and sporadically fallen behind on bills, and explained that she wasn’t sure of her credit score, but was positive that it wasn’t very good.
Days after her failed date, she said, she got an apologetic text message. Her date reiterated that the problem “wasn’t me, it was my credit score.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/business/even-cupid-wants-to-know-your-credit-score.html [with comments]
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The Mormon Marriage Crisis
Steve Rinehart, 36, one of a growing number of single members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stands in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
09/14/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/mormon-singles-lds-singles-wards-marriage_n_1875524.html [with comments]
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Fred Willard, Nick Stahl arrested by same LAPD vice unit
December 28, 2012
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/fred-willard-nick-stahl-arrested-by-same-lapd-vice-unit.html [with comments]
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Media may argue against redactions in church files, judge rules
Cardinal Roger Mahony's name, and those of all church employees, could have been redacted from documents about to be released by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, under the order of judge. But media organizations will be allowed to argue against the redactions now.
(Al Seib, Los Angeles Times / July 16, 2007)
The personnel files are due to be made public as part of a historic $660-million settlement between the Los Angeles Archdiocese and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
December 27, 2012, 9:01 p.m.
Media organizations will be allowed to argue against redactions in secret church files that are due to be made public as part of a historic $660-million settlement between the Los Angeles Archdiocese and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.
Pursuant to Judge Emilie Elias' order, The Times and the Associated Press will be allowed to intervene in the case, in which attorneys are gearing up for the release of internal church personnel documents more than five years after the July 2007 settlement. The judge's ruling came after attorneys for the church and the plaintiffs agreed to the news organizations' involvement in the case.
The Times and the AP object to a portion of a 2011 decision by a retired judge overseeing the file-release process. Judge Dickran Tevrizian had ruled that all names of church employees, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other top archdiocese officials, should be blacked out in the documents before they were made public. In a hearing, Tevrizian said he did not believe the documents should be used to "embarrass or to ridicule the church."
Attorneys for the news organizations argued in court filings that the redactions would "deny the public information that is necessary to fully understand the church's knowledge about the serial molestation of children by priests over a period of decades." The personnel files of priests accused of molestation, which a church attorney has said were five or six banker's boxes of documents, could include internal memos about abuse claims, Vatican correspondence and psychiatric reports.
Contending that the secrecy was motivated by "a desire to avoid further embarrassment" for the church rather than privacy concerns, the media attorneys wrote: "That kind of self-interest is not even remotely the kind of 'overriding interest' that is needed to overcome the public's presumptive right of access, nor does it establish 'good cause' for ongoing secrecy."
An archdiocese attorney said Thursday that the church had spent a "great deal of effort" in redacting the files to comply with Tevrizian's order, and said the media attorneys misunderstand the legal process that both parties in the settlement agreed would be binding.
"We agree with Judge Tevrizian that enough time has passed and enough reforms have been made that it's time to get off this and move onto another subject," attorney J. Michael Hennigan said.
An attorney representing the victims also filed papers Thursday arguing that the church was "too broadly construing" Tevrizian's redaction orders, and asking Elias to release the files with church officials' names unredacted.
"Each of the higher-ups in the Los Angeles Archdiocese who recklessly endangered generations of this community's children by protecting pedophile priests will themselves be protected," wrote Ray Boucher, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
A hearing on the release of church documents is scheduled for Jan. 7. At the hearing, Elias will also hear objections from an attorney representing individual priests, who contend that their constitutional privacy rights will be violated if the files are made public. In a court filing this month, the priests' attorney, Donald Steier, said Tevrizian was "dead wrong" to rule that the documents can be disclosed because the public interest outweighs the clerics' rights.
"Under California law, it is the employees who own the information in the files, and the Archdiocese is merely the custodian who has a legal duty to defend the contents of the files and has no legal right to agree to disclose them," Steier wrote.
victoria.kim@latimes.com
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-church-records-20121228,0,7221633.story [with comments]
===
Christianity in a nutshell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n16PpvdpMXo
===
A Girl's Message To All Christians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YXINEYdnkY
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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