A study in the journal “Current Biology” looked at students who identified their political views on a scale from “very liberal” to “very conservative.”
The “liberal” students tended to have a larger region of the brain that processes conflicting information, the anterior cingulate cortex. In other words, the region of the brain that helps us take two opposing ideas and weigh them out for ourselves
The “conservatives” tended to have a larger Amygdala – the part of the brain that identifies fear and threats.
So I wonder, based on those findings, if that means that some people tend to hold conservative political views because they have a greater innate fear of things such as government?
“Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual’s political orientation. Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure,” Kanai said in a journal news release.
The study appears online April 7 in the journal Current Biology.
In an appearance on Fox News this afternoon, the former Governor urged his fellow Republicans to make the deal on budget cuts, drop the social issues riders and move on.
The former Arkansas governor replied, quoting The Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want. The reality of governing is, you get what you can and then you fight for what you want the next day. But if you battle everything on one moment and forget that [governing] is a process and it’s not a single event then you end up with a philosophy [of] ‘I want it all or I want nothing, I want it now or I want it never.’ You end up getting nothing, and you get it forever.”
I couldn’t agree more. Dragging Planned Parenthood, which spends 97% of it’s budget on preventive measures, into a budget fight makes no sense. This is surely not the hill to die on. Planned Parenthood helps millions every year with cancer screenings, birth control (which helps avoid unwanted pregnancies – duh!), HIV screenings, and a host of other services. No money is used to provide abortions – it’s illegal already due to the Hyde Amendment.
So come on Republicans. You got the spending cuts you wanted. Agree to it and move on. Otherwise, among a lot of things, our military won’t get paid and that would be a serious, serious mistake.
Louis Marinelli, who served as a strategist for the National Organization for Marriage – which virulently opposes marriage equality, has had a striking change of heart and now makes a public statement that he has resigned from NOM and now SUPPORTS marriage equality.
Jeremy Hooper of Good As You broke this story earlier today.
Marinelli was the strategist and organizer for NOM’s Summer Marriage Tour 2010 Bus.
Just some of what Marinelli tells Hooper: “The lesbian and gay people whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people (on the summer bus tour) for me almost instantly. For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing.”
“As a supporter of civil marriage equality, any statements I’ve made in the past about not recognizing homosexual relationships for one reason or another, of course it goes without saying that I no longer stand by these comments and I apologize for the insensitivity. Same-sex couples, whether they are married, in civil unions or domestic partnerships, ought to be recognized for what they are.”
“Any support or endorsement of what Peter LaBarbera does I retract. I have been reading via Twitter and his website what this guy has to say, and it is clear that he is just a hateful man and I would be embarrassed and ashamed to be associated with him.”
From San Diego Gay & Lesbian News: Target Corporation lost it’s lawsuit trying to stop Canvass For A Cause from speaking to customers outside it’s stores.
Judge Barton, in his decision, said Target failed to show sufficient evidence that the retailer’s business was suffering as a result of the petitioners.
During the hearing last month, the judge asked Target’s attorneys why Target’s court documents did not offer concrete evidence to back their allegations that CFAC volunteers were harassing customers and driving away business.
Tres Watson, executive director of Canvass For A Cause, said after the hearing that all his volunteers are trained on how to properly speak with customers outside stores such as Target, Ralphs and Vons.
During the hearing, Target’s attorneys tried to persuade the judge to rule on their behalf because they had won 121 cases in Superior Court to stop groups from talking to customers outside their stores in California. The judge seemed unimpressed, Watson said at the time.
“It’s hard to read the tea leaves,” Watson said in March, but noted that Target won those 121 cases because nobody defended their cases. “They bring out their million-dollar lawyers and go after grass-root groups that don’t have a lot of money. It’s always a David vs. Goliath situation.”
Watson says the lawsuit is another black eye for Target with the LGBT community. CFAC supports gay marriage, among other issues, and one of Target’s court documents complains that the corporation fears its customers will think Target supports same-sex marriage as a result.
The Delaware State Senate just passed the Civil Unions Bill on a vote of 13-6.
The bill now goes to the state House where it is expected to pass. However, recent history in Maryland shows it’s never good to be too confident with these things.
This is really cool for me. I recently got my first assignment as a writer of a cover story, and it’s now available!
I wrote the cover story/interview about Mike Manning of “The Real World – Washington, DC” for QVegas Magazine, which is the largest magazine in Nevada covering LGBT issues.
Mike is a really cool young guy who, during his time on The Real World in Washington DC, became involved in LGBT politics and began working with the Human Rights Campaign. He now travels the country on behalf of the HRC speaking to college students about coming out, LGBT issues and getting involved in politics as young people. Writing the interview couldn’t have been a better fit for me since I share the same passions about being involved and raising our voices as Mike does.
Mike will be in Las Vegas on April 21st at UNLV. I encourage everyone in Las Vegas who may be facing their own issues regarding coming out or anyone who cares about grassroots political participation to attend. Or just show up to see him – clearly he’s easy on the eyes.
From LGBTQ Nation: The Nashville Metro Council on Tuesday approved new rules for city contractors that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people.
The council voted 21-15 to require firms doing business with the city not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and to sign affidavits to that effect. Contractors already agree not to discriminate against federally protected classes.
“I think this is a great move for Nashville and it’s a great step to show we believe in equality,” said Erica Gilmore, one of the co-sponsors of the bill.
Council member Jamie Hollin called the vote “a milestone moment” for the city.
“As of today, no matter who you are, you’re welcome in the city of Nashville,” said Hollin. “Not only can I tell my son that it’s not cool to hate gay people, it’s the public policy of this city.”
Let’s hear it for Nashville, kids! This clearly must have been a bit of a fight in Tennessee. Good for these public officials to do the right thing.
According to a study done by Gary J. Gates, Williams Distinguished Scholar at the UCLA School of Law, about 9 million or 3,5% of the population of the US identify as members of the LGBT community
Gates compiled his information from four recent national and two state-level population-based surveys.
“Understanding the size of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population is a critical first step to informing a host of public policy and research topics,” Gates’ report said. “Examples include assessing health and economic disparities in the LGBT community, understanding the prevalence of anti-LGBT discrimination, and considering the economic impact of marriage equality or the provision of domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.”
A few interesting facts from the study: • women are more likely than men to identify as bisexual • about 19 million respondents say they have engaged in same-sex sexual behavior • nearly 26 million Americans acknowledge some same-sex sexual attraction
When you take all that “extra” criteria into account, I think the word “identify” becomes a somewhat narrow term. Just my .02
Today is my 2 year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. The above picture was taken a couple of weeks before the “cancer journey” began. I looked at this picture practically everyday knowing I’d “get back there” eventually. Plus I like my hair in this picture. For folks who may not know, April 7, 2009, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The good news is the disease was Stage 1 and I kicked its ass. The bad news at the time was it kind of didn’t matter – Stage 1 or not – six rounds of chemotherapy were in my future. The first thing I said to Michael was “well, it’s going to be a shitty summer.” In the end, I look back at a roller coaster ride and the many things that came out of the experience. First and foremost, my appreciation for the life and health I’ve had in the past and the fact that I’m still here. Until you go through something like this yourself or with a very close loved one, you think you understand it but it’s really at arm’s length. I constantly felt like I was stuck in a bad TV movie. I’ve also met and listened to and spoken to every cancer patient and survivor that crosses my path. I always have time to listen and let them know “no, you’re not crazy – it sucks – but you’ll get there.” During the journey, I only told a few friends who had to deal with my day to day. In my mind, I couldn’t put this huge thing on friends who were across the country and already had full plates. It felt selfish. Below is a Note I posted on Facebook the night of my last chemo round, plus a couple of pictures from “the ride.” It was in this note that I finally shared the journey with my friends. I wanted to share it again on my anniversary: SUMMER ADVENTURE 2009 or “Everything You Never Needed To Know About Cancer” Well, it’s about time… I finally put this all down regarding my Summer Adventure 2009, or as I got used to saying “Everything You Never Needed to Know About Cancer.” In Early April of this year I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. A routine medical test (my first “over 40 test” as I called it) discovered what would be the beginning of a surprising, unexpected, sometimes uplifting and often depressing chapter of my life. However, this is NOT a “woe is me” story. I just felt a strong urge to share this with all my friends who have not known what’s been going on in my life this summer. For most of you, when we’ve spoken or emailed and you’ve asked how I am, “great” was about as far as I could go with this tale. I also want my friends to know this kind of thing can happen to us, and we then face it and move on stronger than before. 🙂 How I Got Here After first meeting with an oncologist in Las Vegas whose office was too cold, sterile and not conducive to healing, plans were reassessed. Olivia Newton-John, who is a friend and client of Michael’s, asked how my first appointment went in Las Vegas, and when we related the lack of healing “environment”, she reached out and made sure I had an appointment with the head of oncology at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles – which became my home away from home for the past five months. I have to applaud the world class treatment I received at the Cancer Center there. Olivia uses the word “journey” in describing the cancer adventure. I couldn’t pick a better word. Hills and valleys, ups and downs, long days to long nights and then dawn again. It’s a step by step kind of thing. I really want to share a bit about “my journey.” The Bad Things: Ok, there are a lot, but I don’t and won’t dwell too much on those things. I’ve been lucky – not too many side effects along the way. I did lose my hair two weeks into it all but it will grow back – although I miss it everyday. It’s just about the only physical attribute I’ve ever liked about myself. 🙂 Thanks to all the anti-nausea and pre-meds they pump me full of before each round, I never got too sick. I did go through a lot of fatigue. Just collapsing fatigue. That made days and nights very long sometimes. Restless nights. Seconds crawled by. Dawn would never come it seemed. The drugs also me very bloated most of the time. It was, and still is, hard to look in a mirror. Not in a vanity way – I just don’t recognize the guy I see. The one major side effect I’ve hated the whole way has been numbness in my hands and now my feet due to one of the drugs in my chemotherapy. I’m told it will “probably” go away but will take 6-9 months once I’m done. I couldn’t button a shirt or write a note or type for a long time. Now I’m kind of ignoring it. Check back in 6 months and cross your fingers – I really want the feeling to come back…. The Good Things: Are there good things in cancer? Maybe not. But the journey does remind you of some great things in your life. And in this case, those would be the friends who were a part of the “great adventure.” No over dramatizing here, but I wouldn’t have made it without them. I made a choice early on not to make this whole thing too public. Not because I felt shame or attached some negative connotation to the disease. But it felt selfish thinking I would add to my friend’s already “full plates.” To tell friends that I wouldn’t see on a day-to-day basis anyway – well, that just felt selfish and self centered. One other reason about not sharing this sooner: especially in the beginning I simply was not able to take more than one phone call a day or answer more than one email. My energy level was so low, I had to make the decision to keep things to my self for a while out of self-preservation. No reflection on any of you. I knew I would be fine and I knew I would tell you all someday after all of this. And with long distance, there was nothing you all could do but worry. And I couldn’t do that to you. I wanted to save that energy for you all to tend to your lives, and also for us to celebrate this day that I finish my “great walk.” Some friends, however, I speak with daily, and there was no getting around sharing with them. And they are my heroes. Olivia Newton-John, besides being a world famous pop music icon and humanitarian/advocate for cancer since her own bout 17 years ago, became my patron saint of the journey. Emails, notes, voicemails, phone calls – it seems she checked in on me just at the right time, giving amazing encouragement to me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She confirmed aspects of what she had gone through, almost to say “no, you’re not crazy – it’s not fun, but you can do it.” Her CD “Grace and Gratitude” played on my iPod almost every day. She is more special than the world truly knows. Usually, I rarely could muster walking to the kitchen. But on the very last days ending a recovery period before a new round of chemo, I almost had a normal sense of energy. One day after round four, I put some Oleta Adams music on. And as the song “Window Of Hope” came on, I started to dance a bit around the kitchen. It took me a minute to even recognize it was happening. It was a very moving moment to reconnect to a part of me – dancing – that I hadn’t felt in so long. I eventually wrote her manager a note to share with her about my “window of hope” that I felt. Oleta herself emailed me the most wonderful letter saying “You danced because you let go of any delusions about your present condition (good or bad) and enjoyed where you were at that moment. And yes, you were ‘smiling in your liver!” I’ve loved her music, voice and writing for so long. To hear from her was magical. John Genovese was with me at my first “outpatient” chemo-treatment. I had no idea what to expect and it was a six hour infusion process before I left with a portable chemo pump (I eventually named “Bumpy”). John sat with me and handled the whole episode with such confidence. Confidence I only pretended to have. More than once, because my husband Michael had to travel on business to keep our household going, John stayed with me in L.A., cooked for me, and drove me through the desert back to Las Vegas because I couldn’t do it alone. Hero. Matt Zarley never missed a round of this with me. Whether it was dinners or lunches or going to a movie (something I rarely could get through physically) Matt was always checking on me, texting me, emailing me, sending me new music to listen to, getting me out of the house…. Telling Matt face to face about my diagnosis was one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever experienced in my life. Perhaps one of the only times I cried as I said the words “I’ve been diagnosed with cancer.” He never flinched. He just knows me. He’s my little brother and this time he carried me. John Bell and David Burke are my best friends from high school. John, a police officer in Texas and David, a fireman in Washington state. John had major back surgery the day I had my second round of chemo. Both of us wanted so badly to be where the other was. But we had to be in our respective states getting the treatments we needed. From John’s bedside in Texas, David was checking in on me. John came out of anesthesia asking how I was. They both have honored me with giving me space to heal but also being in contact long distance, asking questions, sending good thoughts and planning a reunion in Las Vegas for us after all this. I didn’t tell Carlye Hughes, my family of 30 years, because she carries so many people through life. She’s the Rector of her own Episcopal church, and in addition to helping her congregation on a daily basis, her niece Gabrielle was diagnosed with cancer two days before me. My first instinct was not to add to her plate. It just felt selfish. Her plate was too full already. And with the certainty that I’d be fine, I decided early on that I would tell her after this was all over. But after one round, I just couldn’t hold this back. Sometimes you just need someone. At the end of my first round, with confidence that I would be fine, I called her. Shock and silence on her end. OMG, I knew it might be selfish to tell her. I asked her not to come to the west coast. Too many other people needed her. Two weeks later she was on my couch in L.A. for my first “out patient” round. I was knocked out, fatigued, and she was the answer. For four days we just watched TV, she cooked my favorite foods from childhood, and talked. And that made all the difference. Sometimes your best friend being on the other end of the couch is the greatest medicine in the world. Carlye is my greatest medicine. Always. And finally, there’s my husband Michael – my rockstar. There’s not enough room anywhere to express how he got me through this. What I can say is he made this about me at all times. Even though he was carrying the household and working 14 hour days in the absence of my income, he never complained. He constantly asked me to just “go lay down and get better.” That was his mantra. Dawn would come and I would get up to find the whole house cleaned and put together so I would have “order in my chaos.” He made everyday about my recovery. Whether sleeping in a chair in my hospital room in between working on his computer, to driving me to the hospital – sometimes at 4am because “Bumpy” the chemo-pump was malfunctioning and we had to go get it fixed. He’s just a rockstar. No other words. Thank you god for Michael. The End: The words “full remission” have been spoken. But treatment/checkups will continue for a few months still to monitor and make sure I’ll be fine. Up one hill, coast down another. One foot in front of the other. Then, one more dawn. One more day. One day more.
Me and Bumpy, the chemo pump. Looks like I have bad taste in handbags, doesn’t it?
My wristbands from each time I went to the hospital
Doctors diagnose, nurses heal. JoEllen, my chemo nurse. Bless her. This was my last day of chemo.
