News: Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Research, Michael Sandy, Bill Duke,

For the second time, President George W. Bush has vetoed popular legislation that would expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and, possibly, save many lives. Hoping to deflect criticism, the President issued an executive order “intended to encourage scientific advances in regenerative medicine.” The New York Times reports "the effort appears largely symbolic—there is no money attached—and some scientists were instantly skeptical."

· After Elton on director Bill Duke and Cover, his upcoming film on black men and the "down-low": "One of the early trailers for the film looks like it's another homo-horror flick. Every time the "DL" scenes are shown, the lights are lowered, creepy music plays, a distraught women is in tears and before you know it, the oversexed homo is killing off all the black women in the free world with HIV/AIDS!"

· Report: " 28 percent of LGBT employees have suffered harassment in the workplace with nearly half describing it as severe."

· Michael Savage, the anti-gay right-wing radio shock jock, on the recent defeat of the gay marriage vote in Massachusetts: "The gay mafia bought the votes of state representatives up and down the line—bought them lock, stock, and barrel, like cheap tricks in a gay bathhouse."

· There has been a curious development in the trial of the three young men accused of in the murder of Michael Sandy, the black gay Brooklyn man who was lured, beaten and chased into traffic last October. Defense attorneys argue the state hate crimes statute—with harsher penalties—is broadly written and the defendants did not exhibit "animus" toward gays. "The victim here was chosen because he was an easy target,” argues Gerald J. Di Chiara. “Not because he was gay."

Comments

[Jim]

Yes, I remember Bill Duke. He did a wonderful labor film, "The Killing Floor," in the late '80s about the Chicago race riot of 1919. After World War I, the meatpackers in Chicago were threatening to unionize, and the stockyard owners wanted to use black men who had just arrived up from the South as scabs to break the unions. Some of the white union organizers, mostly recent European immigrants, were savvy enough and un-racist enough to realize that only by unifying with the black workers would they be successful in fighting the bosses. A race riot began when a black man was killed at a white Lake Michigan beach, and the bosses started fires in the Czech/Polish/Lithuanian ghettos and blamed black people for the fires. The political bosses in Chicago even sponsored white gangs of thugs to do their dirty work for them. When the riots were over, the black neighborhoods had been cordoned off for days with no access to food, thirty-eight people were dead, and a thousand more, mostly Lithuanian, were left homeless. And the union movement in the meatpacking industry was set back twenty years. Score a big one for the stockyard owners.

This film was a real eye-opener, and I really admired Bill Duke for making it. But here he comes strolling into the film festival screening room where I saw "The Killing Floor," not ready to rabble rouse, but wearing a $2,000 suit and sunglasses, and with a tall, skinny, light-skinned, glamorous, bejeweled Hollywood girfriend draped over his arm. Talk about cognitive dissonance!

After that, it has been mostly mainstream trash for Bill Duke. The good stuff, I guess, was just a stepping stone to the big payout.

So, not surprised he would be exploiting this whole DL junk at our expense. What a waste of talent!

[A-Train]

On the stem cell post.

It will be interesting to see when some of these ivory tower living politicians have to suffer from some of the diseases that are killing thousands and that could possibility be treated with stem cells.

Then you will see them pass legislation with a quickness.

[jbyrd130]

Ugh, the POZ interviewer refers to Bill Duke's film as a "HIV whodunit"!

So ridiculous.

[Jen]

You are correct in saying that the new DL flick looks like a homo horror show. How do they think they will get viewers with such a terrible trailer (or film therein)? I can't stand negative representations of the gay black community.