Russia Defends Gay Hate Law
In the latest development from Russia with regard to the anti-gay law that has sparked outcries from many parts of the world, a letter was sent from Russia stating that there would be no discrimination, according to the rules of the Olympic Charter. However, a good deal is still unclear, and Russia stands by its anti-gay law.
The letter still leaves open the question of what would happen to Olympic athletes or fans if they made statements or gestures that could be considered propaganda.
Couldn't a simple rainbow pin be considered propaganda?
The law has provoked harsh international criticism ahead of the Feb. 7-23 Winter Olympics in the Russian resort of Sochi. Some activists have called for a boycott of the games, though President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have ruled that out.
As I've said before, if this were any other minority in the world I have a feeling we would be boycotting and most would be agreeing with the boycott. But because it's LGBT oriented and the shame and stigma associated with being LGBT is still there, we don't receive that kind of treatment or respect. Not even from our leaders who claim to support us.
You can read the piece in full, here.
Free Excerpt Doughy Joey
Most of the back listed books I've been re-releasing this summer have been fairly simple from an editorial POV. All were professionally edited at the time of the original release. But with
Doughy Joey I'd never received an arc from the publisher and all I had was the original file in raw form. So I've been editing all day, and I figured I would put up an excerpt here for the weekend. It's not available yet, but will be next week as a .99 e-book. I did have to self-censor a little for blogging reasons, however, the uncensored version will be be released in full.
Joel Roman
did not eat carbohydrates. On the day of his thirty-fifth birthday he announced
to all his friends he was starting one of those all protein diets so he could
become ripped, as he’d read in the fitness magazines. This was five years
earlier and he hadn't touched a single starch or sugar since then (well, you
couldn't really count the occasional piece of chocolate).
So was it any
wonder one of his oldest friends in town, Gerry, was shocked to see him enter
the new soft pretzel shop on a Saturday afternoon in mid-January. "Soft
Philly Pretzels", said the shiny green and gold sign on the small, two
lane highway, "We Bake'm Better". Though this wasn't actually in the
city of Philadelphia; more like the far northern suburbs where city people took
day trips to visit expensive candle shops and admire the leaves in autumn.
"I knew
this would happen one day," Gerry said. His cheeks bulged, vigorously
chewing a soft pretzel on his way back to the car. "You'd finally go off
that protein diet and eat ten pounds of mashed potatoes and four dozen soft
pretzels in one sitting." His round face still flared red from the cold
wind and there were feathery wisps of salt and pepper hair sticking out beneath
a navy knitted cap. His weighty body was zipped and snapped right up to the
bottom of his double chin in a puffy red ski jacket with a faint white goose
feather sticking out from the shoulder.
Joel smiled
and slipped his hands into the side pockets of his smooth black leather (always
a short jacket so other guys could check out his butt in tight jeans; it had never
happened, but Joel liked to imagine a guy would one day walk up from behind and
slither a firm hand down his pants). Though Gerry sounded as though he were
joking around, he'd always been slightly jealous that Joel looked more like
thirty than forty. "I'm here for the hot sausage," Joel said. "Someone
told me they have these hot sausages wrapped in pretzel dough that are fantastic.
I figured it would be simple enough to pull the wrapping off and just eat the
sausage."
"Ah,
well, I don't think the dough of one small sausage wrap…"
Gerry was
about to say he didn't think a little soft pretzel wrapping would cause Joel to
gain any weight because he was so trim and fit already, but he didn't get a
chance to finish because of a loud crash toward the back of the store. This was
one of those completely open bakeries, where the ovens and freezers and wooden
work stations are exposed. You couldn't miss that the young guy who was working
had just dropped a full tray of frozen pretzel dough onto the red tiled floor.
There was a
lot of white noise; fans and ovens and freezer motors all running at the same
time. "Are you okay?" Joel shouted to the guy.
"Oh,
yeah," he said, "I'll be with you in a minute; I'm the owner…I can't
get fired." He bent down, giving his gray sweat pants a jerk at each knee,
to pick up the doughy mess as though this was a perfectly normal occurrence,
but his bright red cheeks suggested chagrin. At a glance he couldn't have been
more than eighteen or nineteen years old.
"I've
gotta run," Gerry said. There was a small white piece of wet pretzel stuck
to the bottom of his bulbous chin. "Now don't you go crazy and eat too
many pretzels. Haha."
"I
promise," Joel said, as awkward Gerry guffawed and loped toward the exit
door. It occurred to Joel that although they both were the same age, Gerry
looked more like fifty than forty (too many soft pretzels, no doubt).
But the
baking pretzels did smell so good on a brisk winter day: doughy and floury and fresh.
The ones already arranged on the warming counter were covered with specks of
white salt; next to them rows of small plastic containers filled with melted
cheddar, soft butter, and several cream cheese mixtures were dwarfed by a quart
sized yellow mustard dispenser filled to the rim (in Philadelphia yellow
mustard was the topping of choice). All of a sudden Joel was starved. If he
could have made a quick exit out the door he would have driven down the road to
the Gourmet Just Food and bought a small salad instead. But the guy
behind the counter had already seen him; he had to buy something.
You could
tell this guy was new at running a business. He should have just left the mess
and taken care of Joel. It would have served him a good lesson if Joel had actually
walked out. But when he took a closer look, while the young guy swept loose
flour into a dust bin, it occurred to Joel there was something quite attractive
about this young man. He wasn't tall, no more than five eight in running shoes.
Though his body was thin, and you could see from the outline of the white t-shirt
he wore he wasn't a body builder, he had that natural, messy type of sex
appeal. His dark brown hair was longish and wavy…parted in the middle; all one
length and cropped bluntly at the middle of his neck. Dark shocks kept falling
in front of his face when he bent over. When he spread his legs and squatted to
pick up the aluminum tray the fabric of loose gray sweat pants stretched.
He rinsed his
hands and then jogged back to the counter to wait on Joel. "Sorry you had
to wait. What can I get you?"
His eyes
appeared hazel: small and dreary without much light. And his features were thin
with that turned down look of a turtle face. But there was something about the
entire package that caused Joel's heart to beat a little faster.
"Ah, I
think I'll try one of those hot sausage wraps, and maybe a dozen pretzels,"
Joel said. Oh well, he couldn’t just order one tiny little sausage wrap like
that. How would it have looked? The poor young thing didn't have tons of people
knocking down the front door for hot pretzels, after all.
"Coming
right up," said the pretzel guy. His voice flowed forth like the hum and
buzz from an old transistor radio; deep and low, yet soft and pleasant, too. He
wore no underwear. The outline of his junk kept protruding through the gray
sweat pants.
While he
awkwardly shoved a dozen salted pretzels into a brown paper bag his expression
remained blank, as though he wasn't quite sure whether or not he liked running
this new business of his. The poor guy worked fast; his arms flailing bags and
pretzels and napkins, as though there were fifty people standing behind Joel,
when in fact no one had entered the shop the entire time Joel had been there.
There was a thick glass warming shelf next to the cash register. When he
reached inside for a hot sausage wrap, Joel noticed his thick, strong fingers. They were
meaty and firm just like the hot sausage he placed into a foil wrapper.
