This was on the National Geograhic Channel last Sunday. I watched their documentary, and what most impressed me was how much her parents loved her and how many sacrifices and changes they embraced in order to give her a better life.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:17 PM on June 27, 2008

Q: "What should I do with my life?"

A: "Live! Life is a banquet and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death."
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:07 PM on June 26, 2008

So many comments since I last looked in, but still:

Embracing mediocrity, however, is half the fucking problem of our civilization.

Half of everybody are below average.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:11 PM on June 27, 2008

As a gay moderate-liberal who moved from deep blue District of Columbia to moderate-red San Diego County to blue Galveston Island to red-but-rapidly-changing suburban Houston, my own experience doesn't jibe with this.

Or maybe I'm just a contrarian.

Or maybe I make my choices about where to lived based on criteria other than politics.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 2:56 PM on June 22, 2008

Now I'm visualize the Comcast box watching subscribers watching porn -- talk about voyeurism!
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:01 PM on March 24, 2008

You can tell it's an Australian list. I mean, I love ABBA and I bought all their albums when I was a teenager and all that, but they were never that big here in the States. Australia, though, was wild for ABBA. I've never seen ABBA drag here in the US.

Likewise, all the Kylie songs; either I'm too middle-aged or too American to get excited about her. I preferred the original version of "Your Disco Needs You." Of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:04 PM on March 6, 2008

Oh, and how about Cruisin The Streets by Boys Town Gang
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:10 PM on March 6, 2008

Don't forget the Kink's Lola:

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola

posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 5:33 PM on March 7, 2008

You know, when I saw the words "moving houses" I thought I was going to be reading something about a company that did this.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 5:43 PM on February 15, 2008

Ray Hill is also one of Houston's orginal gay activists as well as a prison activist and radio host for a prisoner call-in show. He's worthy of an FPP of his own.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 12:04 PM on February 14, 2008

Y'all, I was heading out the door when I posted the FPP. The story in the American-Stateman gives a lot better description of the background of this particular case, although the Chron has more, shall we say, human interest and local color.

The law is actually very seldom enforced. This particular case was instigated by by the adult-business owner hoping to capitalize on Lawrence.

On the heels of that landmark... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:24 PM on February 14, 2008

One of the [many] things missing in the OP is a link to any site trying to establish or explain a connection between supposed Type A / Type B characteristics and brain-lateralization theories.

FWIW, I did the three Type A / Type B tests and got different results on each one. If anyone asks, I'm Type ____. (as in fill-in-the-blank)
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:14 PM on February 13, 2008

Chewing ice @ Urban Dictionary
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:24 PM on January 30, 2008

I can't find a copy of my site from 1995. It's a pity, since I miss that nice gay-pride rainbow-checkerboard background image I had used on the left column. I don't miss the employer who "had a problem" with my personal site, where I'd described who I was and what I did (programming for a large retail chain). It "wasn't approved by corporate communications" and I was asked to remove the innocuous reference from my site. Maybe they didn't like the context. :-/
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:42 PM on January 27, 2008

I'm a West Side Story, too. The thing about how we're supposed "feel like outsiders in almost any group, but are very concerned with communicating, making connections, and forming bridges between people who seem unalterably opposed" rings true to me.

Now that that's out of the way, is she going to try to tell me whether I'm a Shark or a Jet?
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 2:29 PM on January 25, 2008

For me as a middle-aged gay man, one of the differences I've always assumed between long-term gay and long-term straight relationships is a question of, for want of a better word, milestones. I don't know, really, when my current long-term relationship started. I know when we met. I know that we were very, very close for six or eight weeks. I know that we broke up for a couple of weeks. I know that we got back together, and about two months after that moved in together. But we don't really... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:49 PM on January 24, 2008

I see on almost every page "Chicago New York San Francisco" and now I'm humming "New York London Paris Munich..." Just like Pop Muzik, I wonder how and when it might embrace more than the trendiest places.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:35 PM on January 23, 2008

In the body of the PDF, they say On average the
prostitutes work roughly thirteen hours per week, performing roughly 10 sex acts total. That suggests that either the prostitutes are pretty quick about about their business -- they turn tricks faster than Denny's turns tables -- or else the 13 hours a week does not include all their, ahem, marketing activities.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:06 PM on January 12, 2008

If I could get my nose close enough to really smell my penis, you can bet I'd be doing something a lot more fun than posting here.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:24 PM on January 10, 2008

The $4000 in groceries might be equivalent to the purchases of, say, 40 shoppers. That's actually not that much of a cost for the store, in the grand scheme of things, if it keeps things running smoothly. Customers didn't have to line up and wait and get annoyed. Their frozen and cold purchases didn't spoil while they were waiting. Customers arriving weren't treated to a scene of chaos, and didn't turn around and shop at a competitor instead. Employees were able to keep doing their more or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:29 PM on December 21, 2007

Thank you, thank you, but now I'm salivating. Our next-door neighbors in Galveston gave us homemade tamales last year. Now that we've moved, I need to find a local source.

/googles Houston tamale factory

There! That works.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:16 PM on November 29, 2007

I live in Texas and I've never heard of this kook. A quick glance at his web site almost makes the incumbent Sen. Cornyn look good -- never thought I'd say something like that, either. Anyhow, I'll probably vote for Noriega.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:31 PM on October 10, 2007

My partner is disabled from several conditions and has been so for years. He first received his disability placard from California in the early 1990s. He is usually one of those "invisible disability" people, and he hates, absolutely hates, to think of himself as disabled -- even after all these years.

Yet, there are some days when although he appears able-bodied he cannot walk across a parking lot without getting short of breath or having chest pains. There... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:07 PM on October 8, 2007

I was 17. My brother was at UT-Austin and he got tickets for him, my sister, and me to see Linda Rondstadt at the Erwin Center. It was December 15, 1978, which I remember because the radio was full of the news about President Carter extending diplomatic recognition to the Peoples Republic of China and un-recognizing the Republic of China (Taiwan).
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 6:32 PM on October 2, 2007

First thing I thought of was a book I read when I was a kid in the 70s: Hope Campbell's Meanwhile Back at the Castle. Accidental micro-state exists on island between US and Canada... I keep thinking there was a TV or movie adaptation, but I can't put my finger on it.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 12:31 PM on October 1, 2007

The mention of the Orange Revolution is oddly salient, since Ukraine is having another election -- today. Seems like a ongoing stuggle there.

One could compare those protests and their effects to the "people power" movement that toppled the Marcos' in the Philippines (successful) or Tienanmen Square in China (not). Whether there is a valid comparison to Western street protests regarding the war is another question, and one that I can't answer.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:14 PM on September 30, 2007

I doubt very much that this will damage Sanders' career or his prospects very much in the San Diego mayoral race. The city and county have a long history of electing LG (if not BTQ) people, Christine Kehoe and Toni Atkins (Democrats) and Bonnie Dumanis (a Republican) to name a few. Although it's a GOP-friendly community, it's not a hard-core fundamentalist or John-Bircher sort of place, aside from the few crazies you have anywhere.

As a former San Diegan, I expect that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:00 PM on September 22, 2007

amberglow: The fact that it took his daughter and not some other gay or lesbian San Diegan to get him to change his stance is wrong.

rtha: But it was his daughter's life that helped him see those other gay and lesbian San Diegans as something other than "other."

I always thought that the most effective thing I, as a gay man, could do to work for equality was to do it on the "retail"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:52 PM on September 22, 2007

What davidmsc said -- we don't know the whole story about the hip replacement.

FWIW, I've had a lot of experience with family members in the military healthcare system. My mom had a hip replacement at an AF hospital, and they actually did it twice when she had complications due to an drug-resistant infection. I've never had any sense that cost considerations caused them to stint on her care or my father's, when he was alive. Having said that, the system is sort of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 9:20 AM on September 21, 2007

Wait, wait, I remember seeing this on Everybody Loves Raymond.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 11:25 AM on September 15, 2007

I always loved Laura Branigan's version. It was one of my anthems after I came out in the early 80s.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:12 AM on September 11, 2007

Laura: Forever Young.

/sigh
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:23 AM on September 11, 2007

What Nelson said about social roles and sexual roles, and more: There really is not any sort of be-all and end-all terminology that everyone is going to accept. The words and labels happen by usage, and by what men choose to call themselves (if they choose to call themselves anything) and by others who work with or study these men. "MSM", for example means "Men Seeking Men" in this context, and health outreach people talk about trying to educate "MSM" who do not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 11:02 AM on September 8, 2007

the men profiled in all these studies are never happy at home

Ah, but never say never. My former partner and I were happy at home and happy in the park and happy at CCBC and happy at Slammer and happy at Parliament House... You see what I mean.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 12:26 PM on September 8, 2007

Fascinating, though as a former Galveston resident I'm especially intrigued by the thought of calling the place as Cabeza de Vaca did: Isla de Malhado, Island of Misfortune. Sadly, misfortune marks many points in the Island's story.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:01 PM on September 7, 2007

Loved the books. Had no idea that anyone would have wanted to ban them, sheesh.

.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 11:38 AM on September 7, 2007

"does anyone in this thread know of someone who was discriminated against on the job for being gay?"

First thing I thought of was Cracker Barrel.

FWIW, a little googling brings us a Harris survey from 2002: "Two out of five gay and lesbian adults in America’s workplaces report facing some form of hostility or harassment on the job, according to a new national study conducted by Witeck-Combs Communications and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:03 PM on September 4, 2007

See also the HRC's web page and report (PDF) "Documenting Discrimination" to read reports of anti-GLBT discrimination or to submit your own story.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:09 PM on September 4, 2007

I don't know any of my gay friends who haven't experienced discrimination at some level.

As far as I know, I've never personally experienced workplace discrimination for being gay, even though I've been working since 1980. I recall one boss years ago who I overheard making a sort of jerky homophobic comment to someone else, but it was really more a reflection of his awkward pointy-headed boss quality rather than actual... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:34 PM on September 5, 2007

Peter H : Who is this woman? She sounds 17.

She sounds like Carrie Bradshaw. But her boyfriend isn't Big.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:08 PM on August 24, 2007

It's derailing, but I want to mention tamales; they seem more Mexican to me somehow, or maybe it's just Tex-Mex. I remember walking around the supermarket in San Antonio as a little kid and seeing the pigs' heads in the meat department and the end-caps on the aisles full of masa harina (corn flour) for making the holiday tamales. And then the masa trigo (wheat flour) for the flour tortillas, too.

In college freshman "speech communication" class we all had to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 2:34 PM on August 24, 2007

The links came to me in an email from my sister, along with a note that said it sounded like something our Mom would have written -- but maybe 50 years ago, pre-Internet. There were five of us, and I was the youngest.

Fortunately for Mom, there was enough of an age gap between me and the earlier four that she didn't have to cope with all of us traipsing through the Air Force commissary at one time. She had her stories, though.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 6:52 PM on August 22, 2007

perilous: Thank you! I had wanted to link to this in the Google cache, but I couldn't figure out how to find it.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 6:46 AM on August 23, 2007

Whoops. I meant malor. I'm not awake yet...
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 6:46 AM on August 23, 2007

I graduated from college in 1984. Is there a list for me?
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 8:01 PM on August 21, 2007

Yours?

Kirby Charles Polk
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 4:07 PM on August 21, 2007

Ah, yes. I remember being fascinated by book-covers with John Carter of Mars in his leather harness when I was young. It figures.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 3:59 PM on August 21, 2007

You can get add-ons for IE7 that do the same thing as AdBlock Plus - are they going to block IE7 too?

After I looked at the site in Firefox, I looked at it in IE7 -- and I reached the same message: "You've reached this page because the site you were trying to visit now blocks the FireFox browser"

WTF?
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:24 PM on August 16, 2007

About the absence of Houston, Dallas, or other top metro areas in Texas, state law here prevents public disclosure of real estate sales prices. (There's a more elegant and correct way to say that, I can't remember what it is...) Thus, Zillow does not have access to meaningful and useful data for Texas. I wonder if the same is true for Pennsylvania...?

You think they'd at least have a footnote or something to explain why certain large metro areas were omitted.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:38 PM on August 15, 2007

One more thing: It's isn't Zillow that included outer suburbs in the metro areas, it's the US government: Wikipedia Combined Statistical Area.
posted to MetaFilter by Robert Angelo at 7:43 PM on August 15, 2007