Lucky

The owners of the three major tuna canneries are unhappy with Greenpeace for taking them on. We have Mr. Lischeski at Bumble Bee, Mr. Chan at Chicken of the Sea, and Mr. Cho at Starkist. Yes, I realize that 2/3ds of tuna management is Asian. After all, they will soon control the world's food supply. But as of now they are unhappy with Greenpeace for a video it created and is promulgating. The video shows one of their "brand icons" being stabbed in the eye. The tuna trio call it "baffling" as , they say, it does not lead anyone to come away "more knowledgeable about tuna and sustainable fishing." The opinion piece can be found on the op-ed page of today's Wall Street Journal. It's not exactly "op" to the Journal's editorial slant though. But the authors claim that tuna is one of the cheapest sources of Omega-3 oils, and that Greenpeace is trying to "sabotage a serious sustainability partnership between dedicated conservationists and the fishing community." That's what mass fishing is now- the "fishing community." Greenpeace also had the nerve to dress in "funny" Halloween costumes that helped "rake in the donations." So why would people donate to Greenpeace when we know how valuable Omega- 3 oils are to human health? I went to the Greenpeace site, where I first encountered an endangered polar bear who needed my money to stay alive. After telling him to get lost, I searched for the tuna action. Hopefully, Greenpeace won't mind my posting this blurb directly from their site. After all, they want to get the message out. What you find out here is what isn't mentioned in that op-ed piece in the Journal. The Tuna Trio has threatened to sue Greenpeace! Read on, and watch that harmful video (it's really a cute little cartoon) if you can stomach a tuna icon taking it in the eye! From Greenpeace.org: All three of America’s leading tuna brands have made legal threats against Greenpeace in an effort to hide the truth behind the destructive methods of fishing used to bring tuna to the table. Law firms representing Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and Starkist have issued cease and desist letters, claiming defamation and trademark infringement, to censor a new two-minute animation that deals with the enormous problem of bycatch, or unintentional catch, created by the fishing methods used by the biggest US tuna companies. Greenpeace is declining to remove the video. “We believe the American public has a right to know how their tuna is caught, and of the swathe of dead marine creatures, from turtles and sharks to marlin, seabirds, and future breeding stock that lie behind so many of their favorite tuna products,” said Senior Campaigner Casson Trenor. “In their clumsy and litigious attempt to hide their dirty little secret, the industry has illustrated the lengths to which they will go to keep their methods in the shadows. “A simpler and more sustainable approach would be to stop using destructive fishing methods and switch to sustainable fishing, such as pole and line or FAD free fishing. “Every major tuna brand in the United Kingdom has made a commitment to do just that. The real scandal here is that Bumble Bee and Starkist would rather threaten an environmental organization with attorneys letters than consider the same approach,” Mr Trenor said. The video can be viewed here: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/tuna_secret/ More information about tuna fishing is available here: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/oceans/seafood/tuna/

The WSJ reports on another threat- uncollected trash. The floods are bringing garbage from the provinces to Bangkok, which is having trouble picking up its own. Disease is becoming a problem: BANGKOK—Thai authorities are boosting efforts to collect drain-clogging garbage in Bangkok as Thailand's slow-rolling floodwaters send debris from upstream into the capital, threatening two more massive industrial parks Monday after swamping seven others. Flooded roads are preventing garbage collectors getting to many areas—raising fears over the risk of disease and over the blockage of drains, which is impeding the flow of water into the sea. Bangkok produces about 8,700 tons of rubbish a day—roughly a quarter of Thailand's total. Added to that figure is the additional trash flowing into the city from northern provinces.

Four Aces, this comment did not leave me warm: "Here in Texas, as one can imagine, sentences for nearly all crime seems excessive at times. But I do not mind that. I rather error on the side of caution by protecting citizens who follow the laws than to give way to social pressure when sentencing a criminal." The law requires that we err on the side of the one who has the presumption of innocence, not the state. You prefer innocent people to suffer just to avoid an error?

If the kids involved get millions, who pays? I read that the football program alone brings Penn State $70 million a year, so they do have the deep pockets. College football, bringing in $70 million. Wow.

Well, this post really had nothing to do with the subject at hand, so I deleted it. Read the one above it!

Oh, gosh, it wasn't Cinderella and the Seven Dwarfs was it? But she was a golddigger!

The scandal is exploding as calls for the resignation of the president of Penn State mount, and Joe Paterno, still coaching at the age of 84, is getting his share of criticism. He says he "did what he should" by notifying a superior. But, as one pundit points out, if had asked for a change of paint color and it didn't happen, he wouldn't have stood by as quietly as he did when nothing happened after he reported a sex offense on a child. Read what the students themselves are saying: Penn State newspaper

Well, Cinderella was busted for child sex charges and orgies with dwarfs. (dwarves?)

Thanks, Tom, and thanks for the eye friendly post. We enjoy your pix as well as the stories.

Occasionally on a Saturday night, the bf and I will go up to Thousand Palms to the local branch of In and Out Burger. It's always crowded, being right off the freeway, and it being a Saturday night. Living in Palm Springs we tend to be surrounded by an older crowd, but the burger joint reminds us that youth surrounds us. And soldiers, specifically Marines from the Twenty Nine Palms base up the road a ways. This particular Saturday we saw a guy who looked like a male model right from Copenhagen, and he had 3 young sons with him all decked out in designer hoodies. Even though it was nighttime, daddy had sunglasses tossed back on his head. Well, daddy was gorgeous enough that he could wear the dictionary and look sexy. Many heads turned when he passed. Soon he and the gang took up a table to eat their meals. Now, us gay guys might like to go up to a hot guy like that and chat him up, even if just to say hi and get a closer look. But I am not one of them. I was perfectly willing to admire from afar, let daddy and the kids eat in peace. But with the new fad in America of approaching obvious military personnel to "thank them" for their service, daddy did not get to eat in peace. Frankly, I would find it kind of annoying to let my fries get cold while some stranger interrupts to thank me. This particular thanker chatted daddy up for awhile, then shook everyone's hands, chatted some more, and then shook daddy's hand again before leaving. Sure, I would have liked an encounter with the hot guy. I would have thanked him just for existing. He seemed friendly enough to the stranger, but sure seemed happy to eat when the interlude was over. I'll never know just how daddy felt about this, nor will I know if the stranger was more taken with the guy's looks than his service. But we see it more and more- this approach to military guys to thank them. It assumes that they have all done something to be thanked for. After all, not every soldier goes to war. And it assumes that the thanks are welcome. For that, take a look at this recent column by a soldier on the subject, printed in the Washington Post: Thank You For Your Service

We are moments away from finding out if Dr. Conrad Murray bears any criminal culpability in the death of pop star Michael Jackson. The verdict is due to be announced in ten minutes. So, before it is, I want to say that I think he will be convicted, and he probably shouldn't be. Would you have wanted to be the Doctor to this mercurial superstar? I wouldn't have. Jackson no doubt was used to having his way whenever he wanted to, and for a professional to want to stay employed, he would likely have had to give in to whatever Jackson demanded. And one thing we know he demanded is sleep. My guess is that Jackson took whatever he wanted to get to sleep, and didn't necessarily tell his doctor what he had already taken, knowing it might preclude the doctor from giving him something stronger. Of course, I wasn't there, and neither was anyone else. So it's all a guessing game now. The media had ninety minutes to fill after it was announced that a verdict had been reached, and they did, even with nothing new to say.

Poor Tomcal is probably landing about now at LAX...or John Wayne airport...feeling quite tired and no doubt a bit lonely without his Brazilian boys around. But Tomcal, you have us! We are welcoming, and eager too. Yes, eager. We want the pics and all of the stories that you didn't have time to tell!

The media is treating it as new news, since it is all over the internet and the several papers I read each day are giving it big news status.

Even the one time the Board of Parole, or whatever it is called, recommended clemency, Governor Poofter refused it and had the guy executed. Aces, of course you don't mind, few do until they are the ones being victimized by a group of people who only give lip service to the Constitution.

Well, thanks, hitoallusa. You have started an interesting thread. But damn. I lost that extra hour I gained last night tossing and turning in bed. I was thinking of my friend who had died. She was ill, but didn't see it coming. I thought of how cold and final death is. I remembered the feelings of terror we had during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Death is scary. Mother Nature is never colder than when she takes a multitude of lives in a tsunami, a hurricane, an earthquake or tornado. Even a car wreck brings death in droves, such as the one in England this weekend. Last week, a former pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals threw out the ceremonial first pitch- a week later he was dead at 61. I give kudos to Epigonos for being the first man here to admit to "sheer terror," although not for his death, but that of his sister. Losing a person close to you can be extremely painful. Worrying how a survivor of your death will do when you are gone can bring deep thoughts and deep stress. Yet we are all going to go, yes, this includes this message board membership of aging gay men. Hopefully we all live to ripe old age, which is some comfort, but we know that won't be true. Death has already struck the old Hooboy site. Aging gracefully, accepting death- these are the challenges facing us. I admire the guys who are not letting the grass grow as they continue living, traveling, sharing time with their families, and yes, keep on hiring. All of that is probably the best recipe for the times.

Hopefully he sings that lyric to a boy.

Former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, Jock Soto, is featured in today's New York Times wedding profiles. Soto is one of the main factors I finally took a liking to ballet, after having watched his sizzling, sexy moves on the City Ballet stage. He married Luis Fuentes, an opera buff who did not know who Jock Soto was when they met. Mr. Fuentes is a sommelier. Their wedding included an entrance song by Abba "I Do, I Do, I Do" with Mr. Soto dancing down the aisle before the best men swept him onto their shoulders for "Dancing Queen." Former Massachusetts governor William Weld performed the wedding at the restaurant Indochine. More details in the NY Times article: Jock's Wedding

Yes, I do. And that is me soft. I love poking people with it, but my tragedy is that most people can't take it!

Frank Rich, in a recent column in New York magazine on Occupy Wall Street, had this to say on Steve Jobs: But while Romney is a class enemy liberals and conservatives can unite against, perhaps nothing has revealed how much the class warriors of the right and left of our time have in common than the national outpouring after Steve Jobs’s death. Indeed, the near-universal over-the-top emotional response—more commensurate with a saintly religious or civic leader, not a sometimes bullying captain of industry—brought Americans of all stripes together as few events have in recent memory. Some on the right were baffled that the ostensible Marxists demonstrating in lower Manhattan would observe a moment of silence and assemble makeshift shrines for a top one-percenter like Jobs, whose expensive products were engineered for near-­instant obsolescence and produced by Chinese laborers in factories with substandard health-and-safety records. For heaven’s sake, the guy didn’t even join Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in their Giving Pledge. “There is perhaps no greater image of irony,” wrote the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, “than that of anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-materialist extremists of the Occupy Wall Street movement paying tribute to Steve Jobs.” Of course, that's not all he has to say on Jobs, Occupy Wall Street, or the economy. Read the whole article for choice comments like this: The anger of the class war across the spectrum seems fatalistic more than incendiary. No wonder. Everyone just assumes the fix is in for the highest bidder, no matter what. Take—please!—the latest bipartisan Beltway panacea: the congressional supercommittee charged by the president and GOP leaders to hammer out the deficit-reduction compromise they couldn’t do on their own. The Washington Post recently discovered that nearly 100 of the registered lobbyists no doubt charged with besieging the committee to protect the interests of the financial, defense, and health-care industries are former employees of its dozen members. Indeed, six of those members (three from each party) currently have former lobbyists on their staffs. nymag.com

The Hollywood Reporter has obtained a copy of a lawsuit alleging that Adam Lambert was ineligible for American Idol because Lambert had an operating agreement with recording label Welsford Music Productions when he tried out for the show. If he did, that would be a violation of eligibility rules. On October 6th, representatives for Lambert got Amazon to remove a recording allegedly by him from their sales list. "Beg For Mercy" was released by a subsidiary of Welsford. Lambert claims that it is actually his 2009 album consisting of mostly pre-American Idol material. (The lawsuit contends in part that Lambert wrote and recorded the tracks on Take One while under an agreement with Welsford, which says it paid him $200,000.) (NYmag.com) Here's the story as reported in New York magazine: Lambert Lawsuit Revealed

The Daily News reports: Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and another school administrator were charged Saturday with perjury and failure to report in an investigation into allegations that former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young men, state prosecutors said. Sandusky, 67, of State College, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail, the attorney general's office said. Curley, 57, and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, both of Boalsburg, were expected to turn themselves in Monday in Harrisburg. Schultz's position includes oversight of the university's police department. Closely identified with the school's reputation as a defensive powerhouse and a program that produced top-quality linebackers, Sandusky retired in 1999. Longtime head coach Joe Paterno, who has more victories than any coach in the history of Division I football, was not charged, authorities said. When Paterno first learned of one report of abuse he immediately reported it to Curley, prosecutors said. Sandusky, who worked with at-risk children through his Second Mile organization, was charged with seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse; eight counts of corruption of minors, eight counts of endangering the welfare of a child, seven counts of indecent assault and other offenses. A preliminary hearing for Sandusky is scheduled for Wednesday. Attorney General Linda Kelly called him "a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys." The grand jury identified eight young men who were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky from 1994 to 2009, prosecutors said. As stunning as the charges were the names implicated at a school where the football program is known for its consistency as much as its success - a big change this year was the removal of white trim from players' uniforms. "It is also a case about high-ranking university officials who allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy after the information was brought to their attention, and later made false statements to a grand jury," Kelly said. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/penn-state-coach-jerry-sandusky-arrested-child-sex-case-ad-tim-curley-charged-perjury-article-1.972670#ixzz1crfqdGBj The NY Times provides a link to the grand jury report: Times Account

I had to Google it: The simple theory of the apathist: Perhaps there is a god, or gods, or goddesses, or higher powers. Perhaps not. It's irrelevant. You do the most good you can with what you have. If you get help from somewhere else, that's just icing on the cake.

Hope this pic lasts, I don't want to have to take it again.

The mysteries of the Orient have long attracted westerners. Today the Weekend Market in Bangkok, which is the last place where I saw our fellow poster kjun, is partially underwater, resulting in many fewer merchants and customers at what is otherwise a fantastic Bangkok weekend excursion. Flood waters continue to threaten central Bangkok. In Beijing, smog is overwhelming the city. Masks do little other than cover the faces of the cute guys. Both cities have long faced these problems, but even with all of the money now flowing to them as the Asian economy rises,the problems are no better, and probably worse than ever. Flooding leads to mosquitoes and mold. Smog leads to dirty buildings and dirty lungs. What's an intrigued Westerner to do? Probably nothing. The rising Asian economies will have to find ways to clean their own houses, then lend us some more money so we can afford to buy their goods. In the meantime, plans to visit are on hold. A decline in the tourist industry does not help, but what's a westerner to do?

The New York Times today reports that a 26 year old Florida man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for having pornographic images of children on his computer. This is a longer sentence than if he had actually molested a child, or even children. Yet two Pennsylvania judges who were convicted in a kickback scam of actually sentencing juveniles to a privately run prison in return for bribes received sentences of only 28 and 17.5 years in prison. In many cases the juveniles would have received no sentence at all, but for the judges' need for money. They directly hurt children's lives, as well as breached their public trust. Prison sentencing disparities have increased as conservative legislators and judges have increased penalties for various crimes. Often the prisons receive no extra funding,leading to our now common gross overpopulation of prisons. In tight economic crimes, taxpayers cannot handle the funding needed to provide humane prisons. Of course, humane prisons are not what some people want. Corrupt prison guards can act without worry that they will be caught or even punished if caught. Life in prison for many is a nightmare, well beyond any reasonable punishment for the crime convicted for which they were convicted. The worst example are these high security prisons such as we have in California's Pelican Bay. There, and at other federal prisons, inmates are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day, and on their short exercise release do not come into contact with any other prisoners. Can you imagine spending 23 hours a day in a windowless room...for years? Naturally some will say that the prisoners deserve what they get. Prison is for punishment, after all. But our own legal principles require us to use punishment that is not cruel or inhumane. The sentence should be just for the crime commited. We seem to have gotten far from that. At a minimum, we need to provide prison facilities that are not overcrowded, that use well-trained guards who see their functions in a professional manner, that provide decent meals, that protect the prisoners from predators, and provide humane living conditions that include access to other inmates for conversation and relaxation, as well as plenty of access to fresh air and materials such as libraries and other opportunities for self-advancement. This has been a Lucky editorial. Nothing is expected to change as a result, but it felt good to vent.