29th Annual GLAAD Media Award nominees include outstanding stories about transgender people #glaadawards

www.glaad.org/blog/29th-annual-glaad-media-award-nominees-include-outstanding-stories-about-transgender-people

1988 Cult Classic ‘Heathers’ TV Reboot is Here with a Gender-Queer Twist: TRAILER

The 1988 cult classic Heathers has been reimagined for 2017 with a few twists, including a switcheroo for the Heather Duke character played then by Shannen Doherty. She’s now a gender-queer male named Heath.

The red band trailer is here for your examination (above).

The Hollywood Reporter noted the show’s changes in August:

The original film, written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann, centered on Veronica (played by Winona Ryder) and her rebel boyfriend J.D. (Christian Slater) and their trials and tribulations dealing with the social order in high school. The updated take, set in the present day, features a new set of popular-yet-evil Heathers — only this time the outcasts have become high school royalty. Heather McNamara (originally played by Lisanne Falk) will be portrayed by Jasmine Mathews; Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty in the film) is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath (Brendan Scannell); and Heather Chandler (originally Kim Walker) has a body like Martha Dumptruck and will be played by Melanie Field. Newcomers James Scully and Grace Victoria Cox star as J.D. and Veronica, respectively. Original Heathers star Doherty guest-stars in the pilot, which was directed by Leslye Headland and written by Jason Micallef.

The show premieres on March 7. Will you be watching?

The post 1988 Cult Classic ‘Heathers’ TV Reboot is Here with a Gender-Queer Twist: TRAILER appeared first on Towleroad.

1988 Cult Classic ‘Heathers’ TV Reboot is Here with a Gender-Queer Twist: TRAILER

Sterbenden Motorradfahrer gefilmt – Gaffer bekommt nur eine Geldstrafe

www.huffingtonpost.de/entry/unfall-heidenheim-gaffer-geldstrafe_de_5a620538e4b074ce7a07a97e

Unless We Kick Our Addiction to Growth, We’re Heading Towards A Debt-Fuelled Dystopia
We can’t sustain infinite economic growth on a finite planet, and it’s increasingly clear that governments’ attempts to do so are having devastating social and environmental consequences. It’s been obvious for decades that our addiction to growth is unsustainable, so why aren’t governments getting the message?

GDP is a crude measure of economic activity. It represents the sum total of all the goods and services being produced in an economy. But it takes no account of those things’ true value, or of the cost of creating them. As Robert Kennedy famously pointed out, it measures cigarette advertising and jails but not “the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages”.

Our determination to maximise growth has led to severe environmental degradation. It’s held us to extract the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate, and induced a catastrophic increase in carbon emissions.

Nevertheless, it remains the most popular indicator of economic progress. A small uptick in growth is celebrated with fervent enthusiasm, even as more real-world indicators, such as real incomes – continue to stagnate, or household debt – continues to increase.

The growth narrative relies on the belief that “a rising tide lifts all boats” – that growth in the size of an economy increases the opportunities for all citizens.  Some writers have joked that a rising tide lifts only luxury yachts, while all the other vessels sink. As inequality and increasing levels of poverty become too big to hide, ‘inclusive growth’ is a term to ensure growth benefits all – but why do we have to stick to pursuing growth at all costs?

There are several reasons why governments think growth is beneficial and essential, and that if we didn’t focus on it so much there would be significant social and economic problems as a result. Some of the common ones are that growth is necessary to reduce poverty and raise living standards. They’ve been widely debunked, and experts have shown that prioritising growth is an unnecessary – and even an unhelpful way to pursue these objectives.

But while there have been compelling reasons to reject many of these sources of “growth dependency”, one reason clearly is a cause for concern. Since households, businesses and governments are in debt to each other to such a significant extent, the only way to manage these debts is for the economy to grow.

A new report from Positive Money, published on Thursday, proposes two remedies for this last source of growth dependency, both of which involve reforms of the money and banking system upon which the rest of the economy rests.

The main source of money used by citizens is created by banks – over 97%.  Though evenmost MPs aren’t aware of this, banks create new money when they make loans, and through this process, money is created as an IOU, or debt.

The vast majority – about 80% of these loans – go into property and financial markets. Wage decline has resulted in households having to take out more debt just to get by, meaning that in the UK, private debt stands at 219% of GDP. Not only do such high levels of private debt pose serious financial stability risks, but they also fuel the government’s single-track focus on pursuing growth to make these debts manageable.

We could therefore make the power to create money a public good which works to serve society rather than burderning it with more and more debt. This could be done through Sovereign Money Creation, or “quantitative easing (essentially creating new money) for people”.

The Bank of England can create money without increasing public or private sector debt. So rather than using it to continue to create hundreds of billions of pounds to pour into financial markets, as it has done since 2009 through conventional QE, a smaller amount could be created and put straight into the real economy, via investment in green infrastructure or a citizens dividend to wipe out unsustainable debts.

But with some scientists forecasting that catastrophic climate change could be unleashed in a matter of years rather than decades, perhaps we need to be bold enough to also think about more systemic measures. This is why another reform proposed is aSovereign Money System, where private banks would lose their privileges to create money simply by lending. This would pave the way for a new economy, no longer based primarily on endless debt and endless growth.

Such ideas may seem utopian, but as a debt-fuelled dystopia approaches, a world beyond growth dependency is not only necessary, but could be closer than we might think. It is worth remembering that economic growth itself was only introduced as a priority in the second half of the twentieth century. Just as ideas and the systems they produce have been changed before, we too have the power to change them again.

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www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/growth_uk_5a61fa2ce4b074ce7a0793be

HRC Releases Heartbreaking New Video Featuring Dreamer and Sexual Assault Survivor

HRC released a powerful new video featuring Yuridia, a 22-year-old queer DACA recipient and sexual violence survivor. It was only after she received DACA that she was able to report her abuser to the police. HRC has repeatedly called on Congress to pass the DREAM Act now to protect young Dreamers like Yuridia.

“It was not until I had DACA that I felt human enough to walk into a police station and report my abuser. And DACA allowed that — for a moment — to allow me to feel a little more deserving in this country,” Yuridia says. “With the DREAM Act, it would mean a whole different life, I think — having lived in the shadows. No more silence on any identity.”

Yadira is part of the immigrant youth-led United We Dream network working to change hearts and minds for the passage of a common-sense, bipartisan DREAM Act. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) was created by the Obama administration in 2012 to protect 800,000 young people who were brought to the U.S. as children, including 75,000 LGBTQ Dreamers. Among those who would be affected by DACA’s rollback are 36,000 LGBTQ recipients. With every day they delay in passing the DREAM Act, lawmakers are putting more and more people at risk of deportation and violence.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-releases-heartbreaking-video-featuring-dreamer-and-sexual-assault-survi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Vote for Your Favorite Fetish Photo

www.advocate.com/photography/2018/1/19/vote-your-favorite-fetish-photo

Trump Appointee Carl Higbie Resigns After Homophobic, Racist, Misogynistic Remarks Surface

Carl Higbie, a former Navy Seal who was appointed by Trump as chief of external affairs for the Corporation for National and Community Service (the agency that runs AmeriCorps) resigned on Thursday after CNN’s KFILE uncovered racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, and misogynistic remarks made by Higbie on conservative radio shows.

Representing @realDonaldTrump in #blockisland as he’s on message on point #Trump @EricTrump pic.twitter.com/3g6ysQCMdl

— Carl Higbie (@CarlHigbie) August 20, 2016

Some of Higbie’s homophobic remarks can be heard in the clip up top.

CNN reports:

Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and conservative media personality, was a surrogate for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, appearing on cable news and serving as the spokesman for the Trump-aligned Great America PAC. He was appointed to the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) in 2017 to direct the public image and messaging of the federal department that manages millions of Americans in volunteer services like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.

More clips:

The post Trump Appointee Carl Higbie Resigns After Homophobic, Racist, Misogynistic Remarks Surface appeared first on Towleroad.

Trump Appointee Carl Higbie Resigns After Homophobic, Racist, Misogynistic Remarks Surface