REVIEW: Ratatouille

The other half and I saw Ratatouille last Friday, the day it came out, primarily because we are fans of Brad Bird, the director of the film, who was also the main creative force behind The Incredibles, my favourite film of 2004. Plus, Pixar's track record at making computer animated films with intelligence and heart, has been impressive and consistent.

Ratatouille is no The Incredibles, but happily, it's not Cars, either. In fact, over at Oliver Willis blog I have been adding my comments on Oliver's rating of Pixar's entire oeuvre, in order of best to worst. I think my list would look something like this:

The Incredibles (2004)
Finding Nemo (2003)
Toy Story (1995)
Ratatouille (2007)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
A Bug's Life (1998)
Cars (2006)

What's amazing is that a movie about rat in Paris who wants to be a chef got made at all. One does not usually think these elements would make a compelling animated (which unfortunately is usually a synonym for kid-oriented) film: vermin, food and France! But somehow the film works, despite the lack of highly-paid voice talent and somewhat disjointed pacing. The film is highly creative in its depiction of the mysterious magic of cooking and taste; in fact cooking can really be thought of as a metaphor for any creative artistic endeavor. The plot is a bit silly but the strong points are the villain(s), the animation itself, especially in the more frenetic "swarm of rats" scenes and the character denouement of the food critic.

GRADE: B+/A-.

Celebrity Friday: Jill Scott Gets Divorced And Big Movie Role

You go, girl! One of Mad Professah's favourites, Jill Scott, has been making a lot of news recently. Two weeks ago it was confirmed that she is divorcing Lyzel Willliams, her longtime lover (and husband since 2001), and the inspiration for one of the best songs on her debut album, "He Loves Me (Lyzel in E-Flat)."

Jill's movie career has been heating up as her romantic life has been cooling. She is co-starring with Janet Jackson and Michael Jai White in the Tyler Perry movie Why Did I Get Married. In addition, she has been cast as Precious Ramotswe, the lead role in the new Anthony Minghella (Best Director Oscar winner for The English Patient) movie, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. This movie is based on the best-selling mystery novel about the first female detective agency in Botswana written by Alexander McCall Smith. The movie also stars Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls) and Idris Elba (Transformers, HBO's The Wire). The cast arrived in Botswana on Tuesday for 40 days of shooting on location. The book is the first in a series which highlight contemporary African life in the context of the mystery genre.

Villaraigosa Adultery Hits Media Sweet Spot

The Los Angeles blogosphere (LAist, LA Observed, Intersections, etc) and other local media have been buzzing with the news that recently separated Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has revealed that he is in a relationship with local Telemundo television anchor Mirthala Salinas.

But, wait, there's more! As Kevin Roderick has been revealing, Salinas has been cutting a swath through the top of the Mexican American Princes of Los Angeles politics for quite some time. Prior to dating the current Mayor of Los Angeles, Ms. Salinas was also romantically linked with Speaker of the State Assembly Fabian Nunez in the brief period during which Mr. Nunez was divorced from his wife (whom he later re-married) and Ms. Salinas also dated Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla (elected to the State Senate in November 2006).

The whole affair (sic) reaches "truth is stranger than fiction" levels when it was revealed that Salinas, who stopped covering local politics for the television station soon after she started dating the Mayor(!) a few weeks ago actually read the news story of the Mayor's decision to separate from his wife on the Spanish language station where she is an anchor:

(Thanks to Daniel Hernandez of Intersections blog for the screen shot of Mirthala Salinas.)

Black Lesbian Firefighter Wins Multimillion Dollar Lawsuit

Mad Professah has been covering the reports of multiple incidents of discrimination in the Los Angeles Fire Department for months now. This week, a jury found in favor of Brenda Lee in lawsuit claiming sexual orientation, gender and race discrimination and awarded the African American lesbian $6.2 million in the first penalty phase. Punitive damages are likely to be even larger. Pam at The Blend and 365gay.com have the story:

Lee alleged in her lawsuit that her superiors made derogatory comments about her, ignored her protests of discrimination. The lawsuit said that she was forced her into grueling drills that other firefighters were not subjected to and that proper safety precautions during the drills were ignored.

The suit also claimed that someone at the fire hall put urine in her mouthwash.

[...]

Lee filed a discrimination case in 2001 and later the civil lawsuit alleging she had been the victim of homophobic bias on the job.

Two other firefighters who testified in the discrimination case also filed lawsuits against the department claiming that as a result of their support for Lee they too became victims of discrimination.

Lewis Bressler sued the city claiming he had been forced to retire as a result of testifying for Lee. A jury in April awarded him $1.7 million. The verdict is under appeal.

A second firefighter, Gary Mellinger, settled his lawsuit last year for $350,000.

Oddly, the jury awarded a mere $2,500 in punitive damages, according to Kevin Broderick at LA Observed.

Bill Gates Saves PlanetOut From Bankruptcy

Towleroad, Joe.My.God, Boy Culture and others are all covering the story of Microsoft founder Bill Gates stepping in to invest over $26 million for a controlling interest in PlanetOut Partners, Inc. in order to save the first online gay media company publicly traded (under ticker symbol LGBT) from an imminent bankruptcy. Joe.My.God has been doing the best job of covering this story and last week reported that PlanetOut was selling it's racier adult properties. PlanetOut Partners is a holding company which currently controls Out magazine, The Advocate, gay.com, planetout.com, and RSVP Cruises.

DISCLAIMER

Mad Professah used to be on the Board of Directors of the original PlanetOut, LLC. back in the late 1990s way before the takeover merger by Liberation Partners during the dot-com boom/bust period. I have no financial stake in the company at this time.

Wimbledon 2007: Ladies' Semifinals Preview

The 2007 Wimbledon Ladies' semifinals are now set.

Justine Henin BEL (1) vs. Marion Bartoli FRA (18).
Unfortunately, the Serena Williams-Justine Henin quarterfinal did not live up to the breathless hype for the second Grand Slam in a row. This time Serena was clearly injured and in her press conference describe herself at being "40 to 50 percent" due to a strained thumb which occurred in the third set of an amazingly dramatic three-set victory over Daniela Hantuchova on Monday. Even so, Justine was barely able to pull out a tight win 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 after losing serve the first time she served for her first non-clay surface victory over Serena Williams. MadProfessah was pretty sure that Marion Bartoli would not be able to last against the genetically gifted Michaella Krajicek in the quarterfinals, but I was wrong and the Frenchwoman won 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. This was not the French player that commentators expected to make the semi-finals of Wimbledon this year, although Bartoli did make the semi-finals of the grass-court warmup Eastbourne, losing easily to Henin 6-1, 6-3 in a match which was not as close as the score appears. There's no reason why the Belgian will not repeat the deed to make a Federerian sixth consecutive Grand Slam final. PREDICTION: Henin in 2 sets.

Ana Ivanovic SRB (6) vs. Venus Williams USA (23). The Serbian beauty is in her second consecutive Grand Slam final thanks to an epic collapse by Czech teen phenom Nicole Vaidisova who served for the match at 5-3 in the third set and blew three match points before succumbing 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 with a double fault on Ivanovic's second match point. Ouch. After playing one of her best tennis matches in years to demolish reigning U.S. Open champion Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3 on July 4th, Venus Williams is clearly on her way to her 6th Wimbledon final (and possibly 4th title) in nine years. Venus had 22 winners to 14 unforced errors, +8(!), with 6 in the first set and 8 in the second. I have never seen Venus averaging less than one unforced error per game, ever. This was an even more dominating performance over Sharapova than her Wimbledon semifinal 7-6(2), 6-1 win which MadProfessah labelled the 3rd best WTA Tour match of 2005. Her average first serve speed was 115 miles per hour, which matches Sharapova's fastest serve (Venus hit several serves over 120 mph, peaking at 126 mph). Clearly the Williams sister bring a special focus to matches against the Russian "It" girl who supplanted them as the most prominent female athlete in the world in 2004. Sharapova is 0-3 against Williams sisters this years and has won a combined nine games in six sets of tennis! Venus followed up that performance by defeating 2004 U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-4 with 23 winners and 20 errors. A Williams sister with more winners than errors is not going to lose to any other player on the WTA tour, especially not on Centre Court at Wimbledon. And not one whom she holds a 2-0 career head-to-head edge over. PREDICTION: Williams in 3 sets.

James Blake's Book Is Out

On sale now wherever books are sold. And on my wishlist.

Wimbledon 2007: Ladies' Quarterfinal Preview

The 2007 Wimbledon Ladies' Quarterfinals are almost set. Despite delayed by rain like everything else during the wettest Wimbledon on record the four quarterfinal matches will be played on one day, thus providing an orgiastic feast of high stakes tennis all in one place. I hope to experience this in person one day, but until then I'll be watching on TV and the web like 99.99% of the spectators who are interested in the results. Without further ado, here are my predictions for Day 9.

Justine Henin BEL (1) vs. Serena Williams USA (7). For the second Grand Slam in a row the showdown between Serena Williams and Justine Henin is the most anticipated match of the tournament. In fact, some people have wondered if Henin hadn't skipped this year's 2007 Australian Open would the result have been different? It's hard to imagine there could be even more drama in Serena's next round after the operatic turn that her fourth round win over Daniela Hantuchova took towards the end of the second set. In fact, I don't think the match will be great, similar to the blowout by the Belgian on clay last month. This time, I expect that the American will overpower her opponent on the faster surface of clay, further stymieing Henin's attempt to win a career Grand Slam. It's true that Henin has been in two Wimbledon finals and is playing excellent tennis but she hasn't had to play anyone remotely close to Serena's ability on grass prior to this match. Some people are already calling this match the equivalent of the final, but I think there are atleast three players in the bottom half of the draw (one of them whose last name is Williams) who take exception to that chracterization and intend ti do something about it. PREDICTION: Williams in 2 sets.

Jelena Jankovic SRB (3) Marion Bartoli FRA (18) vs. Michaella Krajicek NED (31). This surpising quarterfinal matchup is a coming out party for the younger sister of 1996 Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek at the tournament where her brother achieved his greatest success on a tennis court and the hard-hitting French player. However, after Jankovic survived a near death experience against hard-hitting Czech youngster Lucie Safarova in the third round I was convinced that she would have had no trouble against the dubiously fit Bartoli but perhaps her excessive playing schedule finally caught up with the Serbian diva. Which one of these players will get to her first Wimbledon semifinal? It's hard to bet against the storied Krajicek name at Wimbledon, but it will be a tough, scratchy match.
PREDICTION: Krajicek in 3 sets.

Nadia Petrova RUS (11) vs. Amelie Mauresmo FRA (4). Ana Ivanovic SRB (6) vs. Nicole Vaidisova CZE (14). This was the trickiest quarterfinal to anticipate because this section of the draw has two great fourth round matchups like Petrova versus 2007 French Open finalist Ana Ivanovic and hard-hitting Czech teenager Nicole Vaidisova versus the reigning Wimbledon champion Mauresmo. However, I truly believe that Mauresmo has the game and experience to defeat the up-and-coming Vaidisova, who is one of my personal favorite players who has yet to win a Grand Slam, but at age 18 she has a great future ahead of her. Interestingly, Vaidisova has won the last two times the two have played making their head-to-head record even at 2-2. Petrova really has no right to win this 4th round match but I just think that Ivanovic has to have a let down at some point and believe that it's time for Petrova to make another run at a major. However, I would not be surprised at all to see Ivanovic in this quarterfinal, possibly even playing Vaidisova.

PREDICTION: Mauresmo in 2 sets or a toss-up between Vaidisova/Ivanovic.

Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS (5) vs. Venus Williams USA (23). This is an even more unlikely quarterfinal than the Jankovic/Krajicek quarter. Svetlana "the most talented of the Russians" Kuznetsova has been cutting through the draw like a scythe. Venus "3-time Wimbledon Champion" Williams has been lucky to get through two of her first three matches.
However, Venus has been in this position many times before and if she gets past Maria Sharapova in the fourth round it's unlikely any player will be able to stop her from getting to her sixth Wimbledon.
PREDICTION: Venus Williams in 2 sets or tossup between Kuznetsova/Sharapova.

Marriage Laws Have Consequences

When I was growing up in the Caribbean, British sitcoms were a staple on television and one of my favorites was Are You being Served? starring John Inman as the uber-effeminate "poofter" Mr. Humphries. Well, it turns out that (surprise!) John Inman was gay and had a partner of 35 years named John Lynch when he died recently at age 71 and left 2.8 million British pounds (nearly 6 million U.S. dollars) in his will.
Fortunately, the longtime companions had been able to obtain a civil partnership in the United Kingdom:

Mr Lynch, 54, will not have to pay inheritance tax on the fortune he inherited because he and Inman underwent a civil partnership ceremony in December 2005 at London's Westminser register office.

If they had not been in a partnership, the taxman would have taken 40 per cent of everything the actor left over the £285,000 inheritance tax limit at the time of his death.

Inman's estate is believed to be the highest profile will of a gay man in a civil partnership since the ceremonies became legal in 2005 after decades of campaigning.

Before then gay men wishng to leave their estate to their partners would have to pay full inheritance tax while married men or women paid nothing on cash left to their spouses.

Hat tip, Pageone Q.

WIMBLEDON 2007: Two Dramatic Williams Wins!

MadProfessah has been mesmerized in front of the television most of the day watching the NBC and ESPN coverage of today's dramatic events at Wimbledon. First, Venus Williams was competing in a match delayed for two days due to rain and bizarre tradition against Akiko Morigami. Venus was down 6-2, 3-6, 3-5 with the Japanese player serving for the match. Venus broke at love and held to go to 5-5. Venus broke again and when she was serving for the match it started to drizzle; when she faced double break-point at 15-40 the rain really started to fall. Neither her or her opponent wanted to delay the match so they played on. Venus ended up winning the next 4 points and the match 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 with several consecutive huge first serves. She will face Maria Sharapova in a round of 16 match. They last played in the 2005 semifinals where Venus Williams defeated the defending champion on her way to winning her 3rd Wimbledon title. That was Venus' only win in 4 career matches, but she barely lost (7-5 in the third) to Sharapova at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami in March and is certainly eager for revenge on grass.

Venus' near-death experience on Court 2 would have been the biggest story of the day but while she was closing out her match her sister Serena Williams was dominating Daniela Hantuchova by winning the first set 6-2 in 26 minutes before the rain delay which coincided with the conclusion of Venus' match.

But after that rain delay Hantuchova was a new player and started increasing her first serve percentage by taking less risk and hitting her strokes more cleanly. She was quickly up 4-1 when Serena re-focussed, quickly won her service game at love and eventually broke back to even up the second set at 5-5. During the change-over at 4-5 Serena could be heard asking for "salt" and that she had pain in her "calf and part of her thigh." The significance was lost on all the commentators (Don't all athletic drinks include sodium and potassium and other electrolytes?) until at 5-5, 15 all this happened (see video of Serena Williams falling):


Eventually the rain came down during the second set tie-break at 2-4 and caused a nearly 2-hour rain delay during which Serena was able to recieve treatment. Despite losing the next five points and the second set tiebreak Serena was able to hold serve in the first game of the deciding set by blasting her serve at speeds approaching 120 miles per hour. Eventually as the set went on she regained more of her movement and she was able to win the deciding set with an identical score to the first set of 6-2 but in nowhere near as dominating a fashion. Overall, she had 34 winners (including 13 aces) to just 21 errors which should bode well for her match aginst World #1 Henin: a much discussed reprise of the Grand Slam quarterfinal clash from the French Open, this time on Serena's best surface of grass.

Oh, Obama!

Barack Obama is all over the news today, for raising a record 32.5 million dollars from 258,000 donors and for a dubious response to an AIDS related comment in the last Democratic presidential candidate debate.

First, the money race. Obama, the45-year-old freshman Senator from Illinois, raised more money between April 1 and June 30th in 2007 than the entire Democratic field did in the same second quarter in 2003 ($30.8 million) but still shy of the all-time record set in that same quarter by George W. Bush, a sitting Republican President, with $35 million. Obama has now outraised Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton $55.7 to $53 million since January 1, 2007 (and Clinton's amount includes $10 million she transferred over from her Senate re-election campaign fund). In addition, Obama is raising a significantly higher percentage of his money for the Presidential primary election as opposed to the Presidential general election. Clinton had $6 million of her $27 million for the general election, while Obama had only $1.5 million of his $32.5 million. The former First Lady consistently leads the African American presidential candidate by approximately 10 percentage points in national polls, however.

Now, to the accusations of homophobia being cast towards Obama due to this informal exchange at the Democratic Presidential forum last week:

Joe Biden: ...I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There's no shame in being tested for AIDS. It's an important thing because the fact of the matter is, in the communities engaged in denial, no one wants to talk about it in the community and we do not have enough leaders in the community and outside the community demanding we face the reality, confront the men in the community as well as the women, letting them know there are alternatives.

Tavis Smiley: Thank you.

Barack Obama: Tavis, I just got to make clear that I got tested with Michelle when we were in Kenya in Africa, so I don't want any confusion here about what's going on.

Joe Biden: Well, I got tested to save my life because I had a blood transfusion.

Barack Obama: I was tested with my wife.

Tavis Smiley: And I'm sure Michelle appreciates you clarifying that.

Barack Obama: In public.

Why is this exchange provoking negative reviews all over the blogosphere? As usual, TerranceDC over at Pam's House Blend has nailed it.

[...]

Clearly, his comfort with the issue only goes so far. In the light of morning, far from the flashbulbs and the headiness of being in close proximity to political celebrity, Obama's second response seemed to me a superfluous affirmation of his heterosexuality (given the presence of his wife in the audience, at least) and one that would only be necessary to a mind that read Biden's remark as an implication that he and Obama got tested together and thus had some reason to get tested together. A "comfortable" candidate wouldn't have felt it necessary to respond affirm his heterosexuality by responding to Biden's comment, but would have laughed it off instead, without further comment.

And speaking of laughter, given the response of the audience to Obama's second remark's raucus laughter that seemed to me to be in stark contrast to the subdued response to his earlier remark about homophobia ? indicates that, contrary to Lane Hudson's assessment in his HuffPo piece, any "level of immaturity" indicated in Obama's second remark may actually enhance his ability to "go all the way" in this campaign rather than hobble him in any way.

I've written about black homophobia and its origins before, and I will again, but it occurs to me that it was briefly on display Thursday night, both on the stage and in the audience. In his first line, Obama was "keeping it non-homophobic" for just a minute and the audience response was polite at best. In his second line, Obama was "keeping it real" and they loved him for it.

Word!

Out 100 Nominees

Joe.My.God points out that Out magazine is asking readers to submit names of candidates for the magazine's Out 100, which will appear in the December 2007 issue.

My candidate for someone who should be in this year's Out 100, as yours truly has previously been mentioned (quite awhile ago) is Brad Sears, founding executive director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy. The organization's mission is on their website:

The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy is a think tank dedicated to the field of sexual orientation law and public policy. The Institute supports legal scholarship, legal research, policy analysis, and education regarding sexual orientation discrimination and other legal issues that affect lesbian and gay people. The Williams Institute originated with the recognition that issues central to sexual orientation law have profound implications for the development of the law and public policy in general. Drawing on the intellectual and material resources of UCLA, one of the world's leading research universities, the Williams Institute provides a national center for the interdisciplinary exploration of these issues by scholars, judges, practitioners, advocates, and students.

WIMBLEDON 2007: Mid-Tournament Report

Well, since there's no tennis being played at Wimbledon today for obscure reasons, I thought I'd give you and update on the tournament so far. The picture above was posted on wtaworld.com, a fan web messageboard, and sent to me by a fellow Venus Williams fan. Previously, Mad Professah had blogged about Venus going down to Texas to visit her golf pro boyfriend Hank Kuehne at a tournament and included a grainy black and white newspaper photo. Above is a better picture of Hank, wearing well-fitting jeans and looking comfortable holding hands with America's Most Popular Female Athlete (2004, 2006).

Anyway, back to tennis:
The stars are aligning for Roger Federer to win his 5th consecutive Wimbledon title. Today his 4th round opponent Tommy Haas withdrew and gave the World #1 a walkover to the 2007 Wimbledon quarterfinal. His arch nemesis has yet to play his 3rd round match, and to win the tournament will be required to play 5 matches in seven days. This basically means Nadal, who just turned 21 last month and is in phenomenal shape will have two rounds where he will have two play consecutive days. That won't be a problem, the problem will be who he is playing in those rounds (Robin Soderling, Mikhail Youzhny and Tomas Berdych) any of whom can beat him if they are having a good day. I predict Federer will win the final, and it will not be over Nadal.

On the Women's side, defending Champion Amelie Mauresmo is looking sharp, as is World #1 Justine Henin and the always dangerous Maria Sharapova. However, who can bet against a Williams sister at Wimbledon? At least one of them have appeared in six of the last seven Wimbledon Ladies' finals, with 5 titles between them. Serena (as usual) looks more focussed, and is on track for a titanic clash with Henin in the quarterfinals. Venus need to make up a 1-4 deficit in the second set (after winning the first set 6-3) against Akiko Morigami in order to set up a very interesting Round of 16 match with Sharapova.

Potential cure for HIV discovered

In a breakthrough that could potentially lead to a cure for HIV infection, scientists have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells, a study released Thursday said. The scientists engineered an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell, according to the study in Science.

read more | digg story

Celebrity Friday: Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holiday Sing THE SONG Together

Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday sang "And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going" from Dreamgirls at the BET Awards this week. Check out YouTube for the video.

Washington Post Pits Black Voters vs LGBT Voters

Argggh, in an aticle published on gay pride day, the Washington Post has again pitted African American Democratic voters against LGBT Democratic voters (as if there is no intersection between the two!) as a rationale for leading Presidential candidates' hesitancy to embrace full marriage equality:

Black voters are heavily Democratic, but exit polls in last year's elections found that only 46 percent of African Americans favored allowing same-sex marriage or civil unions, compared with 61 percent of the overall population who did, a figure that included Republicans.

In 2004, aides to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee, were so worried about black voters' feelings about same-sex marriage that they put Bill Clinton on a conference call with 3,000 black pastors so the former president could reassure the pastors that Kerry truly did oppose same-sex marriage.

I found this article because I was reading TPMCafe's Election Central coverage and I saw a phrase ("[T]he core Democratic constituency of black votes has a strong social conservative element — they are 15 points less likely than the general population to support either gay marriage or civil unions.") on this usually progressive blog which reinforced the "Black people are more homophobic than others" meme that Mad Professah and other bloggers have been trying to deconstruct for years.

The pernicious nature of this "Blacks are more homophobic" notion is that it 1) erases the reality of Black LGBT individuals (like myself) and 2) shields Black people who are homophobic from having to fully address the source of their irrationality.

Keith Boykin did a good job of responding forcefully to this meme on BET's "Meet The Faith" last Sunday. He has posted a link to the video online. It's a great discussion.

CA-37: A Primary Win for Black, LGBT Communities

In the hotly contested special primary election in to fill the congressional seat of Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Carson) in the 37th district Assemblymember Laura Richardson defeated State Senator Jenny Oropeza yesterday by nearly 2000 votes out of almost 30, 000 votes cast, a turnout of a measly 11.14%.

Candidate            Votes           Percentage
Laura Richardson     11,027         37.76%
Jenny Oropeza        9,144          31.31%
Valerie McDonald     2,743          9.39%

This is a win for both the African American and LGBT communities. Although previously
Mad Professah had described this election as pitting the Queer vs Black vs Latino communities, because the gay-friendly African American candidate (Richardson) won over the homophobic Black candidate (McDonald) the LGBT community gains a gay-friendly congressperson, retains a Latino gay-friendly State Senator (Oropeza, who is a co-sponsor of the marriage equality bill) and punishes the politics of homophobia!

Now, if openly lesbian Gerrie Schipske will run to replace Richardson's seat in the State Assembly, that would be fitting, although an openly LGBT Latino candidate would be even better.

Reason 562 Why 'Color Blindness' Is Wrong

Mad Professah saw this post by Angela Winters at The Moderate Voice blog alerting me to an article in the Washington Post on the success of African American students in Advanced Placement courses in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Fairfax, VA and Montgomery, MD. I immediately was reminded that if African American conservative Ward Connerly had his way, such race-specific data would not be available.

Connerly was a University of California Regent appointed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson who was the main spokesperson and force behind two racially divisive ballot measures, 1996's Proposition 209 (which eliminated affirmative action by the State of California based on race or sex) and 2003's Proposition 54 (which would have barred the State of California from collecting or using data based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin). The so-called Racial Privacy Act was an extreme manifestation of the conservative principle of "color blindness" which they claim is the best way to heal racial divisions in this country.
Tomorrow, we are likely to see another manifestation of this when the United States Supreme Court rules on two important school racial desegregation cases; most observers expect a 5-4 decision saying that race can not be taken into account even when it is argued that it being used to preserve racial and ethnic diversity.

The Post reviewed AP data from nine of the 10 school systems in the nation with the largest black populations, from New York City, with 115,963 African American students in grades 9 through 12, to Baltimore City, with 22,225. One of the 10, Detroit, declined to provide data. The analysis considered 20 other school systems, all among the 80 largest for black high school populations, that are known for their rigor. The smallest systems studied were Prince William and Anne Arundel, each with about 5,000 black high school students.

The analysis considered the number of passing exams by black students and weighed it against black student enrollment in grades 9 through 12. A score of 3 or higher on the five-point AP scale is considered passing because it is the typical cutoff for credit and advanced standing in college.

Outside the Washington region, no school system analyzed produced more than four passing AP tests for every 100 black high school students -- half the success rate of Montgomery and Fairfax.

Here's a graphic illustrating the results

Today is National HIV Testing Day

Today is National HIV Testing Day and yesterday Lambda Legal Defense and Educatio Fund released a set of fifteen guiding principles which they believe all HIV testing protocols should follow.

1. People living with undiagnosed HIV infection must be reached and offered
testing.
2. Any HIV testing program must provide the highest standard of care.
3. Everyone offered testing must be educated about HIV and the significance of positive and negative test results.
4. People who test positive for HIV antibodies must be linked to care.
5. Expanded HIV testing must be carefully planned, implemented and monitored.
6. People with HIV/AIDS and other stakeholders must be included in formulating plans for expanded testing.
7. Patients’ human rights and informed consent are consistent with, and not opposed to, the goal of expanded HIV testing.
8. Expanded HIV testing must be tailored to different clinical settings, populations, and patient needs.
9. Clinicians, medical directors and other providers must
receive training and education in delivering high-quality testing programs.
10. Clinicians, medical directors and other providers must receive training and education in making appropriate service referrals and linkages to care.
11. Community-based HIV prevention interventions must be expanded in
tandem with efforts to expand voluntary HIV testing in healthcare settings.
12. Special attention must be paid to the prevention and care needs of at-risk populations.
13. Expanded testing and the provision of care to all existing and new HIV cases require new and adequate funding. .
14. Testing protocols must address insurance issues.
15. Efforts to assist those with undiagnosed and untreated or unmonitored HIV infection must be evaluated.

Unfortunately, many large AIDS service organizations (like the largest such organization in the world, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation) have been supporting dangerously reckless legislation which purports to expand HIV testing but instead opens up the door to coercive and discriminatory HIV testing in the state of California.



MadProfessah hopes that on National HIV Testing Day these organizations can take a deep breath and spend some time thinking about these issues, guided by the principles articulated

Bush Hits New Low In Newsweek Poll

The Princeton Research Group conducted their regular poll June 21, 2007 for Newsweek magazine and the results are stark:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

                 Approve    Disapprove   Don't Know

Current Total     26          65             9
Republicans       60          31             9
Democrats         6           89             5
Independents      23          66             11

As Pam over at The Blend notes, only President Richard Nixon has had a lower approval rating in the modern era (23%) and Bush still has 19 months to go....