Peter's Place

Approximately one decade ago, Westchester County (where I live) was debating the passage of legislation that would establish its own Human Rights Law/Commission. The proposed legislation was extremely controversial because it included "sexual orientation" as a protected class--something the New York State law did not do at the time. As someone who has been politically involved since high school and active in the LGBTQ rights movement, I wrote a letter to the editors of our local newspaper in support of the passage of the county's proposed Human Rights Law. For whatever reason, somewhere around 90% of the letters to editors that I write actually get published, and this was no exception. My letter appeared in the local paper, signed with my name and village of residence. My grandmother, very frail of health (at that time she'd had four major coronary infarctions and a series of minor strokes, along with the usual health problems associated with someone approach...

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. ~ John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., (4 July 1872 – 5 January 1933) President of the United States of America I spend today, Christmas 2009, with my father down in the State of Georgia. He lives near Atlanta. It's quite strange down here; almost nobody decorates (I'd be surprised if but one out of every 25 homes were decorated) and it doesn't feel at all like Christmas. A bit more so in my father's home as I practically forced him to get a Christmas tree. Of course, I had to decorate it. We split the cost for the ornaments & lights, though, and he did pay for the tree. I paid for the stand. It was a fair trade. :) Anyway, I'm just doing a lot of thinking, which I'll reserve for another post. In celebrating your holidays, whatever your tradition, religious persuasion and what not, I do ask that you please take so...

Yesterday, the New York State legislature made an historic statement against providing equality to its citizens: the New York State Senate voted 38 against, 24 in favor of a bill that would equalize the playing field and legalize same-sex marriages in the state. Guess what folks? There are only 30 Republican Senators in the New York State Senate (all of whom, unfortunately, voted against the bill). That means that eight (8) Democratic New York State Senators voted against the bill. What surprised many (but not this jaded) LGBTQ activists was the wide margin by which the marriage equality bill was defeated. According to the Albany Times-Union blog , this is the official roll call for the vote: YES: 24 NO: 38 FULL ROLL CALL Eric Adams (D) — YES “This is about love.” Joseph Addabbo (D) — NO James Alesi (R) — NO Darrel Aubertine (D) — NO John Bonacic (R) — NO Neil Breslin (D) — YES John DeFrancisco (R) — NO Ruben Diaz (D) — NO “Sen. Smith, it is better to keep your word.” Mar...

OK, so I'm the horrified new owner of a Blackberry Curve 8350i PDA , that I got for the new car service (taxi & airport runs) business that I'm going to be operating/owning out of Yonkers (but that's another story). Yes yes yes, I know that I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn't allow my computer/technology/Internet addiction grow to the crackberry but, alas, the Universe directed me in this regard and I was left with little other choice, given the circumstances and needs of the business and what I needed from a phone. There are a lot of great reviews, like this one from Engadget . The service we have is through Sprint Nextel. After using the device for a few days, though, I have a few complaints and, quite honestly, I don't understand why more people don't complain about these things. I would imagine that my complaints are valid regardless of which particular crackberry model you're using. So here are my complaints about the Blackberry (crack...

If you want a great lesson on how to alienate your customers and destroy brand loyalty that has taken years to build up, take a close look here... Y'know this is really a very sad story. Hewlett Packard makes some really great products--that's not the sad part. What's sad is that if you ever are unfortunate enough to find yourself in a position of having to deal with their tech support, consider just junking the equipment and buying something else. Unless, of course, you're dealing with re-installing or upgrading your printer drivers. I don't know what's going on at HP these days but after the last ten or so contacts I've had with their tech support department, I can unfortunately no longer recommend that people purchase their products. And it's a damned shame, too, because they make some of the best printers out there. Case in point: I own an OfficeJet Pro L7580 and an OfficeJet Pro L7680. When I went to upgrade the printer driver for the OJP7580, it w...

“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” ~ Phil Donahue (1935-) Emmy Award winning American media personality and writer “Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live” ~ Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) English sportsman and writer “The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over” ~ Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Pulitzer & Nobel Prize winning author “No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.” ~ Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) Italian Poet, Critic, Novelist and Translator “To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.” ~ Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scientist and Physician Today (10 September 2009) is World Suicide Pre...

Today, 10 September 2009, is World Suicide Prevention Day . I am a suicide survivor. My first attempt was made when I was a teenager, because I couldn't come to terms with being gay and being Catholic. I just responded to someone on Facebook who inquired about this. Here's what I wrote: I was raised in a very conservative, very religious Catholic Democratic household, by my very religious, very conservative Democratic Grandparents . I didn't know that there were gay people growing up. Then I started going on-line, and I met my first gay person, my Unca Uni . He got me to realize that all the fantasies/what not I'd been having were b/c I was gay. I couldn't reconcile being Catholic with being gay. One night, whilst on the phone w/ a fellow young Republican from Yonkers, I came out to him. I was also taking sleeping pills. But having led an extremely sheltered life, I didn't know that you're supposed to take the whole bottle all at once, not one at a time (wh...

“Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.” “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” “Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” ~ John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937 (American Industrialist and Philanthropist, founder of the Standard Oil Company) (QOTD=Quote Of The Day)

"A smile is the shortest distance between two people." ~ Victor Borge 1909-2000 (Danish-born U.S. comedic Musician)

I can't believe no one has said this before, so I'll say it now: "Friends agree to disagree. Enemies just disagree." ~Peter C. Frank (197x-present) Disabled New York LGBT Political Activist

OK, I've been trying to do this for the past few weeks but things just haven't been in my favour. I'm hoping that today, they are. Actually, I started this tag a number of weeks ago in my #followfriday and #samesexsunday recommendation posts but I just never had the chance to explain it until now. As most of you know, I use Twitter, that wonderful micro-blogging service that where you send status updates in 140 characters (or less) in response to a very basic question: What are you doing? One of the greatest things about Twitter, and what I find most valuable about it, is the ability to connect with people around the world who you may otherwise never come into contact with. I hold daily conversations with folks from the Netherlands, Australia, Europe, Asia, and the Americas (North and South) that I've met -- solely through Twitter. I've formed great friendships, and met some truly wonderful folk. The way to interact with people on Twitter is by following them, or ...

This is the 6th update to my blog about my niece, Jennal, and what she's been going through. Here's a link back to the 5th update on her condition . If you haven't been following this story, please read the original blog post . What a whirlwind these last few days have been. Jennal's fever really began to spike so I spent quite a bit of time down at hospital. She's doing better now, insofar as the fever is concerned. It still can run up to 101.something quite easily, however. I wish her body were adjusting to this procedure better but I guess it's just a matter of time. It is cause for concern, however, so that's something that will have to be monitored constantly. Jennal really is not doing well in the setting of a hospital. She totally does not want to be bothered about anything, by anyone. She won't let doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff approach her or do anything to her. Right now, the only people who are able to do anything for her are h...

This is the 5th update to my blog about my niece, Jennal, and what she's been going through. Here's a link back to the 4th update on her condition. If you haven't been following this story, please read the original blog post . So Jennal was moved from ICU to a regular pediatrics hospital bed. The staff there is not nearly as responsive as the staff in ICU but they have a much heavier caseload. As such, while it's not an excuse for the nurse to call on the Intercom ten minutes after pressing the call button, it is understandable as the nursing staff has an entire ward to tend to, instead of just one room (in ICU, it's one nurse per room/four patients maximum; it's probably about quadruple the patient load in the regular rooms). They started -- or should I say attempted to start -- physical therapy (PT) with my niece over the weekend but Jennal just was not having it. Putting her in a wheelchair was just about all they could coax her into doing and even that ...

This is the 4th update to my blog about my niece, Jennal, and what she's been going through. Here's a link back to the 3rd update on her condition . If you haven't been following this story, please read the original blog post . As I mentioned in my 3rd update on her condition, the second procedure that was performed on Jennal, which was the full hemispherectomy , was performed without incident. When I returned Thursday evening, my sister had left for her OB/GYN appointment. Thankfully, the twins are doing OK; they're moving around and everything her doctor told her seemed to be good, so far. So getting back to Jennal, her father was with her. She woke up when she heard me speaking with him. She was extremely grouchy and yelled at us for waking her up, so we had to whisper but even then, she could tell that we were talking about her. Jennal was in and out throughout most of the night. She did manage to fall into a deep sleep a few times (we could tell when from he...