In Need of Counsel …
By the Numbers …
I stayed up way too late last night. But you just can’t miss a two hour episode of Deadliest Catch. My favorite program on television. Celebrity Ghost Stories is up there as well.
It was almost 4 am when I got into bed, and I had a 9:45 am wake up call so that grasshopper could take me to the clinic for my appointment. It was a quick and painless visit, however I am told that I must loose 1 kilo a month, for my next visit in September. Which means my fitness and running plan will have to start really soon. I have a lunch appointment with a friend tomorrow morning to discuss my plans.
The doctor is worried about my heart and my knees. He says I need to start out slow and take it easy. Advice noted …
Doc says I am gold on paper. Here are the numbers:
13 Oct 2011 VL 39 copies CD4% 45 CD4′s 1395
10 Jan 2012 VL 39 copies CD4% 43 CD4′s 1333
15 May 2012 VL 39 Copies CD4% 45 CD4′s 1350
It seems I am stuck at 39 copies on the viral load scale, I have been at 39 since July of 2010. My CD4′s have been above the 1300 mark since July of 2008. That is a good amount of time to be on the upswing. So the pills are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
I have hit the 1400 mark on 3 occasions since February of 2010. Those dates were: Feb 17, 2010, Jul 06, 2010, and Oct 4, 2010. So 2010 was my best year, by the numbers.
That’s today’s big event news.
More to come, stay tuned …
The Numbers are in …
Today was medical check up day. Which meant a 9 a.m. call first thing this morning. I had a lunch date so I had to get to the clinic as early as possible to get in and out before lunch.
I arrived around 10 and got in and out by 11.
Here are the numbers …
1 March 2011 CD4 1232 CD4% 44
19 July 2011 CD4 1364 CD4% 44
13 Oct 2011 CD4 1395 CD4% 45
All my bodily function tests were normal, but once again my triglycerides are a bit high and that sent a red flag up by my doc. He is concerned. Which means a tweak to my daily diet, so no more bread, rice or large potatoes.
I’m not sure what else to do. I need to loose 10 pounds which would be great. The less weight the lower the numbers will fall. I need to get back to the gym at some point. When we can afford the money to pay for a membership.
I had lunch with a good friend. Good food, Good conversation.
It was a good day.
There are 53 shopping days until Christmas.
And 37 days till my sober anniversary.
My Life Class Post will come later tonight. Stay tuned …
Pondering the Future …
Courtesy: Hawtblogfeed, Teq
I’m still alive. Thank God for small miracles. People tend to forget.
Today was my visit with the doctor. I got up, showered and got out with plenty of time to make my appointment early. My bus pass would not work on the bus. God damned opus passes. They are more trouble than they are worth. The bus driver let me ride anyways.
I get to the clinic 20 minutes early for an 11:20 appointment. I got through triage with Phillipe quickly. And then I waited. I waited for an hour. Thank God I brought a book with me to read.
I am still alive…
Here are the numbers:
The new viral load tests can detect copies less than 40 now.
Viral Load: 39 copies
CD4% : 43% – The highest this number has ever been, ever.
CD4 Abs. : 1419 (06 Jul 2010)
1462 (17 Feb 2010)
1312 (29 Sep 2009)
1638 (30 Jun 2009)
My triglycerides are the lowest they have ever been: 5.7
HDL: 0.9
Glucose 6.3
CH/HDL 3.7
My weight has leveled out at: 84 kg. Doc says I need to loose some weight. This freaking diabetes diet has done nothing for my girlish figure.
More to come, stay tuned…
He said what ???
It was an early day today. I had to be at the clinic at 9:20 in the morning, I got there at 10 past nine. They put me in an exam room and I sat and I waited. I waited more than an hour. Then they moved me to another exam room, and I waited some more. It’s not enough that they reschedule people for the god awful morning, then the doctor comes to work late and I could have slept in later instead of getting up at 8:30 in the morning.
So I got a clean bill of health. The numbers are all fantastic.
Viral Load: 49 copies… undetectable.
CD4% …43%
CD4 1462
So the trend is as follows:
19 May 09: cd4 1312
30 Jun 09: cd4 1612
29 Sep 09: cd4 1312
17 Feb 10: cd4 1462
All the other numbers like cholesterol and such are good. I hit all mu numbers that I needed to all except my weight. I got the “YOU”RE FAT” lecture again today. I rolled my eyes and said yeah, yeah, yeah. What should I do, stop fucking eating? I was more diplomatic than that.
That was all he said. And I came home and went back to bed until this afternoon, when I went to class.
That is all…
Recordbreaking News !!!
I own the record at the clinic for the highest cd4 count to date. My numbers from the last four lab works:
- 03 July 08 – 1326
- 29 Oct 08 – 1365
- 19 May 09 – 1312
- 30 Jun 09 – 1638
My CD4 % is 42
My CD3 % is 84 – CD3 ABS 3276
My CD8 % is 41 – CD8 ABS 1599
My cholesterol is down and my triglycerides are down as well. It seems that the Crestor is doing the job, and to add to this I lost 10 pounds in the last two months. YAY !!! My glucose is in Nominal range and everything seems to be ok. My doc was very pleased at my progress.
This is a wonderful way to mark my 15th anniversary living with HIV.
Medical Update 8-06-08
It has been a day today. And I did not get upset, although I did have a minor anxiety attack when I checked my mail this morning and found out that the government had screwed up my financial aide for the fall semester, they had taken away over $4,000.00 in bursary money, which I had to get back. I had a doctors appointment, but before I could get to that I had to take care of the money.
The university figured out why the govt screwed up my file and supposedly, they fixed it and I should have a new calculation tomorrow. Let Us Pray !!! Never trust the government for anything…
So I got to the doctors a half an hour late and I got in and got out in less than 45 minutes this time. My doctor is concerned about my lipids, and my triglycerides, they are way too high. So I bought some salmon oil at the pharmacy, and I am told this natural supplement should help, along with more diet and exercise. I need to loose about 10 pounds. which would be really nice, but i can’t seem to get rid of my protease paunch.
Here are the numbers: They are higher than they’ve ever been before.
Viral Load: 49 copies pm/ml
Cd4%: 39
Cd4 Abs: 1326
Ratio: 0.91
Cd3%: 83
Cd3 Abs: 2822
Cd8%: 43
Cd8 Abs: 1462
Give Big or Go Home…
I think I used a box of tissues tonight. Of all the stories from this week would have to be Rachael Hollingsworth’s work with HIV + women, giving them a Spa Day and a Dinner party out afterwards. Well done…
International Carnival of Pozitivities…
Once again, this month I have been published at the I.C.P. which is being hosted over on CreamPuff Revolution. Go read what has been published this month.
Labels … Let us Reflect on them …
Krystalnacht – The Night of the Broken Glass…
The Beginning of The Holocaust
Work Makes You Free …
A Survivor from Buchenwald
Yad Vashem – Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial
Auschwitz – Concentration Camp
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The Red Ribbon – Synonymous for AIDS
The Pride Flag – Proud Symbol for all things Gay
The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt – For all those who died from AIDS
My friends,My family, My brothers and sisters…
The JEW – The Star of David used during the Holocaust …
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You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes and a no.
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At Home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.
Primo Levi
Survival in Auschwitz
The Homosexual – Also Used during the Holocaust …
A Young Man – Hungarian Jewish Boy -
From Fateless, the Motion Picture
The Label Chart Used By the Nazi Party within
the Death Camps and Concentration Camps to
Identify people…
Location, Ethnicity, Area, Orientation, Religious Affiliation
There weren’t only Jews in the Camps…
The ACT UP slogan for Gay and AIDS circa 1980
What Would Jesus Do???
This is my Label – I earned every hour of it, with Pride…
We Should Be Proud, but we should remember what labels have done to millions world wide over the Decades. I think it is time to move past them, to stop labeling and Outing people. I think we need to learn to live together PEACEFULLY in order to stop the killing of ALL people around the world…
THAT WE SHOULD REMEMBER – SO THAT WE NEVER FORGET!!
Radcliffe nervous about baring all on Broadway
By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) – British actor Daniel Radcliffe hopes to debut on Broadway next year in a reprise of his London role in “Equus,” a performance where he shed not only his clothes but the mantle of Harry Potter.
Radcliffe won rave reviews for his performance as a tortured teenager during an 8-week run of Peter Shaffer’s grueling psychological thriller in London earlier this year, but said the prospect of acting in New York was “terrifying.”
“It will be amazing, but I will be terrified because I was talking to Richard Griffiths about playing New York and he said the most stupid thing you can do is underestimate New York audiences,” said Radcliffe, 18, in an interview with Reuters.
Griffiths, who appeared with Radcliffe in “Equus” in London and played the role of Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter movies, won a Tony Award in New York in 2006 for his role in “The History Boys.”
While promoting his latest movie, “December Boys,” in New York, Radcliffe — best known for bringing to life author J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard Harry Potter — said “Equus” could open late next year in New York.
“I would be very nervous because I think that (the audiences are) even more discerning than in London,” he said. “But I know we have a good show, it was a good show when we did it in London and hopefully if we do it again it will still be that good. It has to be better.”
Media hype over Radcliffe’s nude scene in the play sparked more than $4 million in advance ticket sales in London.
“Equus” was first produced in London in 1973 to critical acclaim and won a Tony Award for best play in 1975 during a long run on Broadway. It was adapted by Shaffer for a 1977 film starring Richard Burton and Peter Firth, which received three Oscar nominations in 1978.
“December Boys,” Radcliffe’s first major role outside the Harry Potter films, opens in the United States, Britain and Australia this month. The movie tells the tale of four orphans growing up at a Catholic convent in outback Australia.
Radcliffe said he will begin working on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” — the sixth movie in the seven part series — this month and that the project would likely take a minimum of eight or nine months.
The Totem
Tonight I am proud to present the last of the three very special writers who were commissioned to write for me during my birthday week. This is from Cooper – from Coopers Corridor out in B.C. He is a truly gifted writer and a father of two young boys. Without further ado, I give you Cooper and his writing on the Totem.
*****************
I stand in the great hall of the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, head bent back, gazing up forty feet to where precise images have been carved into cedar totem poles by craftsmen whose art has been almost entirely erased by time. Near the bottom of a nearby pole, a smooth-shouldered wolf rests in the shadow of a killer whale. The eye of the whale is a shadowed well.
This wood, these bones, trace the nature and purpose of a vast awareness, a living spirit in the grain, each knot and every growth-ring a secret hieroglyph worked carefully into many layers of meaning. The echo of leaves is here, the resonance of damp fields half submerged in twilight, of dark soil and tales of night. And long, interwoven strands of time knitted together by wood and human hands.
The wood has been coaxed into shape … whittled, chiseled, sculpted with broad, incising strokes … by tools of utmost antiquity, by weapons, by stones, by countless forms oiled by brown muscled skin.
The focus of the collections is northwestern …hundreds of examples … an eagle with a five-foot, intricately carved beak, a tenebrous skull shape, moons and ravens and wild spirits of the forest. There are objects of great power here. The spirit of creative work calls to whomever will listen, and as I gaze at these ethereal faces staring back from a lost age, their muted colors hiding a secret flame, once again I hear that whisper spiraling out from the primordial source of things.
This is my spiritual heritage.
The instant I reach my hand to the wood and sense a silent energy thrumming inside, I become aware of being pulled into an elemental state. The stillness of that source lies behind the dream of an ancient, verdant grove that sometimes wakes me in the night.
Dark sky, cold rain, and a ground made bright by the sinuous shapes of wood sawn fresh from the tree … ivory of birch, faded porcelain of maple, linen of alder. There is some cypress, too, its scent of lemons reaching to sting me with exhilaration. A black, rough walnut rests alongside the opened bole of a Douglas fir, its orange grain glowing from a sunrise heart. I reach down to touch the alder, and in the moment of reaching, of touching the silent wood with its living core of mystery, I become acutely aware of the life-blood of my ancestors within me.
I acknowledge that the wood’s redemption … its escape from dissolution … is also my own. We are bound now, fragments of becoming. We share the journey of the totem. The faces of the figures are hidden in my own hands and heart. The totem is a spiritual heraldry. It describes, through a vast shorthand, the indications of the unfathomable. It is a finger pointing to the beginning, a wind blowing from a pristine field of possibility. It relates the tale of meteoric iron birthed as companion to the sun. Totems are reminders to remember, and to act.
I step into the landscape of my own totem. I see my Nana, the falcon, her brow etched like the grain of rough cedar, weathered by pain, made bright with love. I hear the voice of my mother, the wolf … first a clear call, then a tremor, and finally a sorrowing wail. I feel the hands of my unknown father, the ghostly raven that I sometimes watch, looking for myself.
I am the eagle ….the one who carries and sustains, whose touch is redolent with solace.
My oldest son, to whom I gave the second name Cedar … the swift little deer … blueberry stains on his chin, shouting with joy as he runs through green fields. And my baby boy Rowan, the seal, cradled by wonder, darting into the light with luminous eyes.
I wonder what indelible traces I will leave … and they … what teeth marks from carved mouths? I reach toward a horizon of prophecy, to mentors and unknown guides, the gods and goddesses of an unbroken cord of lineage secured at the source by invisible hands.
This is where I begin.
Totem Poles – The Story of a Nation carved in Cedar (website)
We Have Failed to Remember …
Writing along the lines starting at my last post, “Custodians of a Living Earth,” we take a more serious look at the past for guidance for the future. With all the wars in the world and all the conflict in many areas of the world like the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Iraq and Afghanistan:
“We have Failed to Remember and We have Failed in Never letting this Happen Again.”
I have updated my header with images from that period of time. I happen to have spent an entire semester last Fall 2006 studying the Holocaust. We watched film after film, looking at raw data and Nazi history. I read “Night” by Elie Wiesel and “Survival in Auschwitz” by Primo Levi and I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Montreal and these numbers come from research notes from our class. My goal here is to remind you that we may not call it Holocaust today, Some use the term “Genocide” and millions of people are dying all over the world by war, conflict, division, famine, disasters and so forth and so on…
It Falls to Us to make a Difference, I Wonder if We are Able???
And do We care to even Try? We Must DO there is no Try !!!
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The largest Nazi extermination camp.
- Location: Oswiecim, Poland
- Established: May 26th1940
- Liberation: January 27th, 1945, by the Soviet Army.
- Estimated number of victims: 2,1 to 2,5 million (This estimated number of death is considered by historians as a strict minimum. The real number of death is unknown but probably much higher, maybe 4 millions)
Belzec
From march 1942 until early 1943, it is estimated that about 600,000 Jews were murdered in Belzec extermination camp.
Chelmno:
Chelmno, also known as Kulmhof, was a small town roughly 50 miles from the city of Lodz, Poland. It was here that the first mass killings of Jews by gas took place as part of the ‘Final Solution’.
Majdanek
The killing operations began in Majdanek in April 1942 and ended in July 1944. Majdanek also provided slave labor for munitions works and Steyr-Daimler- Puch weapons factory. The estimated number of deaths is 360,000, including Jews, Soviet POWs and Poles.
Sobibor
Sobibor was the second extermination camp to come into operation in the Aktion Reinhard program. Estimated number of deaths: 250,000, the majority being Jews.
Treblinka
Opening for “business” on July 23, 1942, with the beginning of the evacuation of the Warsaw ghetto, some 245,000 Warsaw Jews and 112,000 Jews from other places in the Warsaw district were murdered in Treblinka by September 21. 337,000 Jews from the Radom district, 35,000 from the Lublin district and 107,000 from the Bialystok district also met their death in Treblinka with 738,000 Jews who had been residents of the General Gouvernement. From outside Poland many thousands of Jews were transported to and killed in Treblinka: 7.000 from Slovakia, 8,000 from Theresienstadt concentration camp, 4,000 Jews from Greece, and 7,000 Jews from the Macedonia portion of Bulgaria. In addition to the Jews, some 2,000 gypsies were killed in Treblinka.
Coming soon… 7 – 31 – 2007
We have invited several well known and brilliant writers to come and write selections for my Birthday Celebration next week. The brilliant Cooper from BC on the Peoples of the West Coast, And Novelists – (The Misanthropic Anarchist) Ben Leto from London England and our very own Haiku author of Montreal, the most amazing Angela Leuck.
You can visit Ben: The Boy who Could but Didn’t
You can visit Cooper : Cooper’s Corridor
It will be a most beautiful day of writing, poetry, prose and story. I hope you all will join us on Tuesday July 31st…
Remembering John Paul II
You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes and a no.
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At Home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.
Primo Levi
Survival in Auschwitz
*****************************************
“You brought to many comfort
True shepherd of your flock.
Hallmarks of your wisdom shone
With kindness entwined -
A loving knot.So many on our planet loved
Your charity of ways.
Your path through life
Showed us well -
How not to fall astray.Let’s take the teachings from your reign
Let’s not forget the lessons.
Let’s ever remember your inspirations
Came directly from -
Our Father in Heaven.”Prayer by Susan Kramer
UNESCO committee renames Auschwitz
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – UNESCO officially renamed the Auschwitz death camp in Poland Thursday to reflect the German Nazi role, and added seven new sites to its world heritage registry, including ancient ruins in Iraq.
The U.N. agency’s World Heritage Committee did not mention the war in Iraq but said it had listed ruins in the city of Samarra as “in danger.” Considered a holy city by Shiite Muslims, Samarra has been the target of attacks. Earlier this month insurgents blew up the minarets of its Askariya shrine.
Auschwitz now will be known as “Auschwitz-Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945),” said Roni Amelan, a spokesman for the committee. Previously the camp was listed on UNESCO’s world heritage registry as the “Auschwitz Concentration Camp.”
Poland requested the change to ensure that future generations understand it had no role in the camp established by Adolf Hitler‘s forces during their brutal occupation of the country.
Polish officials have complained that Auschwitz is sometimes referred to as a “Polish concentration camp,” a phrase they fear may be misleading to younger generations who may not associate the camp with Nazi Germany.
The Nazis killed more than 1 million people at the camp outside the city of Oswiecim and nearby Birkenau, the site of the main gas chambers and crematoriums.
Most of those killed were European Jews, although Poles, Gypsies and others also were gassed or died from starvation, disease and forced labor during its roughly five years of operation.
The camp was made a World Heritage site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1979.
The ruins in Samarra stretch along the eastern bank of the Tigris river and include the 9th century Great Mosque with its 170-foot-tall spiral minaret.
Measuring about 26 miles long and 5 miles wide, the huge site “testifies to the architectural and artistic innovations that developed there and spread to the other regions of the Islamic world and beyond,” the committee said.
The other sites include the Lope-Okanda landscape of Gabon, the Richtersveld mountainous desert of South Africa, the rock carvings of Namibia’s Twyfelfontein region and 1,800 fortified tower houses in China’s Guangdong province.
Three natural sites — the Teide National Park on the island of Tenerife, ancient beech forests in central Europe and Switzerland’s high Alps site of Jungfrau-Aletsch Bietschhorn — also were named.
The committee, meeting this week in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, was considering dozens of other applications for additions to its list of natural and cultural treasures.
___
On the Net:
Potter stars look to the future
|
By Caroline Briggs |
The three actors have starred in the films since 2001 |
Dark clouds are gathering over Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The fifth film to be adapted from JK Rowling’s books – released on 11 July – is the grittiest yet, as Harry battles with the angst and growing pains of teenage life.
And while the film echoes the growing age of the young cast, actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be wearing school uniforms for at least another two years.
Rowling brings the magical saga to an end in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published on 21 July.
It will mark the finishing line for the trio, who have played Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley since 2001.
Radcliffe, 17, says he has no idea what to expect from the final book, but has pre-ordered a copy.
“We can sit here and talk about it but Jo is coming to come up with something far more interesting or exciting than anything we can predict and imagine,” he says.
 |
Emma Watson |
I hope Hermione doesn’t die – I really didn’t have that in my plan for what she would achieve 
Rowling has already hinted that two main characters will die in final instalment, but has not revealed who.
Watson is tempted to take a sneaky peek to see if it is Hermione who meets a sticky end.
‘Beautiful babies’
“I hope Hermione doesn’t die – I really didn’t have that in my plan for what she would achieve,” she says.
“I want to see her putting her intellect and her very caring nature to some very worthy cause – going around the country protesting for the rights of house elves, or continuing with SPEW and generally making the world a better place. Being married to Ron and having beautiful babies.”
Grint, 18, is more succinct: “If Ron had to die it wouldn’t be so bad – it’s the last one anyway.”
The latest Harry Potter film is the fifth in the series, and sees the franchise’s fourth director at the helm, with David Yates following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell.
Daniel said he enjoyed portraying Harry’s troubled teenage years |
Yates, best known for TV dramas such as The Girl in the Cafe and State of Play, has combined aspects of previous films with his own take on Harry’s character, explains Radcliffe.
“I think this is the film I’m most proud of and we had a great time working with David,” he says.
“He has taken the charm of the films that Chris made, the visual flair of what Alfonso did, and the thoroughly British bombastic nature of the fourth film, and added his own sense of grit, and realism to it that perhaps wasn’t there so much before.”
Watson, 16, says it is the most “genuine” of all the films.
“The word I connect the most with David Yates is ‘truth’,” she adds.
“He always wanted to find truth in all the characters. We really relished that and it stopped us getting complacent.”
Reflective
Radcliffe says one of his greatest challenges was tackling the more troubled and complex side of the teenage Harry.
“I talked to Jo (Rowling) about it, and she said if people say they don’t understand why he is angry then they have not understood what he has been through in the last five years,” he explains.
“He has a right to be angry. For me it was just as interesting to play the reflective side of the anger, where it comes from like the loneliness and feeling misunderstood, than the out-and-out shouting that people may have interpreted from the book.”
It was Gary Oldman, who plays Harry’s godfather Sirius Black, who inspired him.
“Me and Gary got to do some really emotional and heartfelt scenes together, which was great,” Radcliffe says.
Hermione and Ron sign up for Dumbledore’s Army |
“I have been a fan of his for a long time, and I think anybody would be hard-pushed to name another actor whose body of work covers so many different areas. I think he is incredible.”
On-screen kiss
The Order of the Phoenix also stars Oscar-nominated Imelda Staunton as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge, and Helena Bonham Carter as the demented Bellatrix Lastrange.
It also sees Radcliffe share his first on-screen kiss.
But kissing Katie Leung – who plays fellow Hogwarts pupil Cho Chang – was easy compared to stripping off on stage, as he did in the West End play Equus.
“Once you’ve been on stage naked in front of 1,000 people you really feel you can do almost anything without inhibition,” he laughs.
“Being naked was possibly not as complicated as kissing – although belt buckles can give everybody a bit of trouble at times – but kissing Katie was a very, very comfortable experience, especially when compared to being naked on stage and blinding horses.”
Leung, 19, who won the part of Harry’s girlfriend after an open audition, says he was a “good kisser”.
“I only watched the film yesterday and I thought I’d be cringing, but I’m very pleased with it. It’s a very endearing and sweet scene,” she says.
“I’m not sure how my mum and dad are going to react. Hopefully they will find it really sweet as well.”
Construction To Start On Berlin Memorial To Gay Victims Of Nazis
A very good film about the Nazi’s and the Homosexual Story see
Paragraph 175
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: June 4, 2007 – 1:00 pm ET
(Berlin) After nearly four years of delays construction will begin this year on a monument to honor gays and lesbians persecuted by the Nazis. Final approval of the design was made on Monday the government announced.
A government committee approved the design by Danish-born Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian native Ingar Dragset last year but until now could not agree on minor changes for the memorial.
It will be a gray concrete slab, with a window allowing visitors to view a film projected inside showing gay men and lesbians kissing.
The statement said that the memorial will be completed later in the year at a cost of slightly over $800,000.
It will sit on the edge of Tiergarten Park near the memorial to the six-million Jews who died in the Holocaust.
The exact number of gay killed by the Nazis may never be known. Adolf Hitler declared homosexuality an aberration that threatened the German race. Some 50,000 homosexuals were convicted and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where few survived.
The Nazi law against homosexuality remained on the books in West Germany until 1969.
In 2002 the German parliament issued a formal pardon for gays convicted under the Nazis.
There also is a monument to gay holocaust victims is in San Francisco.
©365Gay.com 2007
The Good news – And the Bad news
Actually, there is no good news today.
Like I need another headache to worry about. It seems I have come to the end of this present HIV medical regimen. The Zerit, Viracept and Videx EC diet is coming to an end.
My viral load has gone downhill, well actually UP hill. From an undetectable position to more than 6,000 points in the last few months and my T-cell count has dropped drastically. So, in a months time, I will be starting a new regimen of meds that have been approved in Canada. There are a few to look at, and also today the blood vampire took 12 vials of blood to test, UGH!!
The doctors are afraid that I may be in danger of the numbers dropping quicker now as they are sure that my virus has begun to mutate. Damn those fuckers!! So times to make a change. They are doing a blood sugar test and a genotyping test and all those regular blood work for people with HIV.
In addition, I have been experiencing water issues and diet issues and sleeping issues and the doctor has warned that I may be crossing into “Diabetic” territory. So this means I must do some dietary changes, (ala the Atkins or Mediterranean diet) just something that will remove the simple sugars, major carbs like bread, rice and potato. UGH!! I LOVE baked potato!! god dammit…
The doctor is not pleased with my current state of physical being. I need to loose more weight and cut the sugars and he thinks I can get back to some normalcy with moderate diet change and a bit more exercise. I can do that. I’ve lost a few kilos since my last visit and that is a start.
I don’t feel sick, in that “sick” kind of way. Although I am tired more often and my fluid intake at times, is really heavy, which means at night I am making numerous trips to the potty during the night and I am not getting a full nights sleep as I used to. I told him that my academic undergraduate is coming to an end – so he has given me a months grace period before he starts making massive changes to my system and my diet.
I need to see the dietitian in a months time, but I talked to my friendly pharmacist on the way home so she gave me some reading material. I think I am set in that department. So if any of you have information on any of the diets I listed above, please by all means, drop me a line.
Times are a changing. My doctor has admitted that I don’t take to change very well. He is very observant. Although I have to say the new doctor that saw me today was very soft on the eyes. Me thinks he should come around here a lot more…
I think nasty thoughts about some of the cute doctors who come through the clinic. Too Bad he’s straight and has a wife! Damn those straight men… They were all into a huge discussion about Battle Star Galactica, too bad I’m not a watcher…
Oh well, you win some and you loose some…
New Potter book to hit U.S. with 12 million copies
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Publisher Scholastic Corp. said on Wednesday it would release a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first U.S. printing of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which hits stores on July 21.
The release of the seventh and final book in the popular series by British author J.K Rowling will be backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign and is expected to be one of the biggest publishing events in recent years.
Speculation has run high that “Deathly Hallows” could mark the death of the boy wizard hero.
“Harry Potter” books have sold 325 million copies and have been translated into 64 languages. The series has spawned four feature films. A fifth film based on the fifth installment, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” will reach theaters a week ahead of the new book’s arrival.
The first printing of “Deathly Hallows” breaks a record of 10.8 million copies of the sixth book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” in 2005.
That book sold 6.9 million in the first 24 hours, Scholastic said.
In the UK, it sold more than 2 million copies on the first day of release, making it the fastest-selling book of all time, according to the publisher.
Reuters/Nielsen
Radcliffe makes compelling debut
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By Neil Smith |
Equus deals with controversial themes of sexuality |
A star-studded audience saw Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe make his full West End debut in Equus.
Christian Slater, Bob Geldof and Richard E Grant were just a few of the luminaries who braved the paparazzi outside London’s Gielgud Theatre.
Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry and Helena Bonham Carter – performers with close ties to the Harry Potter phenomenon – were also in attendance.
For all the celebrity talent in the stalls, however, there was only one focus of attention once the lights went down.
The controversial nature of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, combined with reports of Radcliffe’s on-stage nudity, has already made this the hottest ticket in town.
To concentrate on the sensational aspects of Thea Sharrock’s production, however, would be a disservice to its star’s accomplished and thoroughly committed performance.
Boasting a well-toned physique and a compelling stage presence, Radcliffe quickly distances himself from his boy wizard alter-ego.
Minimal experience
Indeed, the overriding impression is of a gifted young actor casting off the shackles of a restrictive screen persona.
Radcliffe and Joanna Christie leave little to the imagination |
True, he is perhaps too composed to be wholly credible as Alan Strang, the disturbed stable boy sectioned for blinding six horses.
Nor do his polished vowels befit a character who, according to Shaffer’s text, is both ill-educated and semi-literate.
With a maturity and intensity that belie his 17 years, though, the teenage heart-throb compellingly conveys the angst and trauma of a youth in crisis.
And as Shaffer pieces together the sorry history that led him to commit such an inexplicable act of violence, Radcliffe ensures he retains both our sympathy and our compassion.
Looking visibly drained and shaken as he took his bows, Tuesday’s opening night clearly took its toll on an actor with minimal theatrical experience.
Then again, he had just been required to strip naked for a sex scene with co-star Joanna Christie that leaves little to the imagination.
With two rows of audience members seated directly behind the actors on stage, there is nowhere to hide.
It would be no slight on their exertions, though, to lavish equal praise on Richard Griffiths for his work as the conflicted therapist who guides Strang through his psychological minefield.
Tortured mind
In a role created on stage by Alec McCowen and played on film by Richard Burton, Griffiths is a portrait of avuncular concern tempered by nagging self-doubt.
Richard Griffiths’ performance has also been praised |
It is a dichotomy that mirrors the play’s ambivalent attitude towards psychiatry when it comes to explaining the workings of a tortured mind.
Animal lovers will be relieved to know Equus – the Latin word for horse – has actors wearing metal headgear standing in for actual livestock.
In lesser hands such a device might seem incongruous, but Sharrock makes it feel entirely natural.
This is no mean feat in a drama that presents a lurid cocktail of sexual repression, religious obsession and stylised animal cruelty.
But the real triumph is Radcliffe’s for winning his thespian spurs in one of the most demanding roles an actor his age could tackle.
Compared to the emotional exposure the part entails, his well-publicised disrobing seems almost incidental.
Harry Potter fans, though, have one more shock in store should they choose to see their hero in his current guise.
More shocking than wounding horses and having sex? Perhaps. Shortly after the interval, Daniel smokes a cigarette.
Equus continues at the Gielgud Theatre in central London.
