by Pat Nelson Childs

As we progress into a new millenium, I sometimes reflect sadly on how little has been done to "normalize" gayness in our society. Of course, I mean American society, because Europe and even our neighbors to the north are light years ahead of us in this respect. To be fair, our government doesn't execute gays (if you ever saw the video of the two gay Iranian teens being executed, you might think twice about how bad things are for us here), and we've reached a point where even most conservative pundits support legal rights for gays, though generally more in theory than in practice (and no, Ann Coulter doesn't count. The only "value" she represents is the size of her royalty checks). Even President Bush has come out (sorry poor choice of words) in favor of civil unions. I point this out simply to illustrate how far we've actually managed to come in the past 20 years in some respects. A sitting Republican president (and staunch Christian Conservative) publicly expressing support for civil unions? If that isn't progress, I don't know what is.

But these things are more in the nature of political progress. What I've always been more interested in (and think is far more important) is achieving the "normalization" of alternative sexualities, a state in which the sight of two men sharing a kiss on a bus or in a TV commercial doesn't immediately produce waves of indignant outrage and endless punditry about the decline of Western civilization. Does it strike anyone else as odd that gays can adopt children in most states with the blessing of the majority, but that same majority goes absolutely ape shit if two girls hold hands on the bus? Gays can adopt children as long as they don't show any love for one another? Isn't that going to produce a way more fucked-up kid than one who just happens to have two mommies?

How political hopefuls in the presidency always seem to resemble cartoon type characters?

Hillary=Maleficiant
Barack=Dumbo
McCain=Jack Skelington (he's a reanimated corpse)
Bush=Curious George

Only exceptions I can find really are Huckabee, because all I can seem to think of is HuckaBYE...

So one of my friend's saw that I had an Obama pin on my bag. She started flipping out with a group of people, because they think that McCain is better. I explained to her that I like Obama better, because the Democratic party is more inclusive of minorities and promotes civil rights compared to the GOP.

by Jeff Walsh

The odds are stacked against them from the moment they meet. Noam is a part-time Israeli Army checkpoint attendant. Ashraf is Palestinian. Soon thereafter, Noam lets Ashraf stay in Tel Aviv illegally with his roommates: Lulu, a female clothing designer, and Yali, an openly gay restaurant manager.

Their relationship tries to exist outside of politics, a place that doesn't really occur in Tel Aviv. They find out they actually grew up near one another, but segregation of Arabs and Jews kept them apart when they were young, and that sentiment has only gotten worse since they were kids. Noam's roommates do their best to accept Ashraf into their circle of enlightened left political friends, but the foundation is always shaky.

Director Eytan Fox (Yossi and Jagger) sets this modern, gay Romeo and Juliet right at the biggest cultural, religious rift in the world, but keeps the story at a human level with its small cast of characters. While the weight of reality constantly applying pressure, they still try to share joyful moments together, fall in love, make love, and dance.

I got my final grades back yesterday and I cleaned up pretty well. The only thing I got a B in was calculus and since I don't plan on designing any airplanes anytime soon, I'm not too worried about that.

When will governments realise that peace is not achieved through war?

Hello, all. For those of you who don't know, Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady and currently a Senator for NY, is running for President in the 2008 Elections. I am supporting her, and helping to raise money for her campaign. If you would like to support Hillary, go to www.HillaryClinton.com and sign up.

Hey guys. I just thought I'd call your attention to the following op-ed piece in the Washington Post by Republican Senator Alan Simpson. I want to illustrate that the view that all Republicans are anti-gay is just as wrong as the assumption that all liberals are pro-gay.