Adam Sunny Flanders

Unfortunately the sky is too overcast to the see the lunar eclipse here in Maine, so maybe next time. I went to see TRON Legacy tonight and I really liked it and I felt the story was quite profound, actually. I have seen the original film from 1982 and the sequel relies heavily on many of the themes and ideas presented there; it would be somewhat difficult to understand the plot if you have not seen the original film.

Without giving too much away, I enjoyed the character depth, though I felt the more interesting aspect was the way the point and counterpoint of Creationism was presented to contrast with Buddhism. Buddhist ideas were presented in an almost textbook manner – anyone with such a background will see the references made apparent, even discussed, by the film’s main characters. In my opinion, the Biblical allusions are no less subtle and pick up where they left off from 1982, presenting the programs’ reverance for the Users in an unmistakable religious fashion. That is, the Users (humans) have created the programs, some of whom fight for the users (like Tron himself) and some of whom have strayed from the narrow path of light, claiming superiority over the Users.

While both Abrahamic and Eastern spiritual concepts were presented, I didn’t feel like they clashed. The isoform algorithms, or ISO’s, as we are told, “manifested” out of nowhere and it seems their evolution and development paralleled that of humans, except in the computer world, and therefore at a much faster and more efficient rate. The ISO’s are a new idea formed by Legacy’s writers, foreign to the original story, though their addition is completely consistent with the underlying themes of Buddhism in terms of human development. Arguably the basic idea is also consistent with scientific evolutionary theory.

I dare say that the Buddhist philosophies replaced the reverance for the Users, or Creators, much in the same way analogous matters did in recent literature such as His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass), The DaVinci Code and The Sorceror’s Apprentice. Whether fundamentalist Christians will take notice of TRON’s counterpoint remains to be seen, though I haven’t noticed any outrage. Perhaps the fundamentalist intellect is limited to instances of more obvious, even literal “hidden messages” such as those clearly displayed in Compass, lol.

For those of you with less interest in Biblical and spiritual allusion, the film overall offered a fun adventure full of fascinating characters and awesome special effects, particularly enhanced by 3D technology. In some ways the film is also very formulated, and it has received mostly mediocre reviews. I think fanboys and girls are the target audience here – those who were enraptured by the 1982 film and the cult following it created. I highly recommend watching the original before viewing this sequel. That said, individuals with a more superficial interest in films will certainly be delighted by Legacy and can probably get away with missing the original. The same goes for the kiddies. This is, after all, a Disney film. As a heavy computer and technology user and avid gamer, I commend Legacy for its loyalty to the original and interesting characters it produced. Combined with the 3D filming and special effects, they created (manifested?) a believable world that any fanboy, or girl, would appreciate.

Just wanted to be sure that everyone’s aware that there will be a full lunar eclipse Monday night into Tuesday morning! It’s really cool because it falls on Winter Solstice and practically a full moon! I’m going to be photographing the transition and I’ll post photos afterward.

BTW, this is blog post #100 since I started up my site in December 2008! Since that time about 7,500 of you have visited my site from all around the world. I’ll try to post a little more often. Also, for those of you who might be wondering about paleogenetics.com, it is still in the works – it’s just a LOT more work than I initially planned and I’ve been busy with other projects. I’m gonna try to get it up and going before the Spring semester starts in a few weeks. You can see a preview of it on my design site, SeashoreDesign.com in the web design section. Thanks for all the support!

The Senate voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell today, so full repeal is now assured, only awaiting Obama’s signature. I’ve been following the House and Senate debates very closely on C-SPAN these past weeks and I’m so happy Harry Reid made sure the Senate voted on this important issue before the lame duck session ended. Finally service members can be open about who they are without fear of discharge.

I haven’t blogged in a little while ’cause I’ve been busy with finals and all – I just came home yesterday, in fact, because this week was final exams week. This coming Spring semester will be my last at UMaine, and I’m in the process of making plans to move down to Florida shortly thereafter. I will likely attend graduate school in Florida, where I’ve already been accepted. It’s going to be awesome to finally have my Biology degree and start looking for a career! My roommates Mandy and Sarah just graduated, so I want to give a shout out to them. Thanks for a fun semester and best of luck to both of you! Come visit me to see the poms!

The Bangor Daily News published my letter to the editor in the weekend edition today. You can read it by clicking here. I have copied it below as well. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, or whatever other holiday you celebrate! I’ve already begun wrapping presents and preparing our Christmas tree. Kitty will not be getting any tinsel this year ^-^

Gay harassment

I was disturbed to hear from my mother, a local social worker, that another student at Belfast Area High School has attempted suicide due to anti-gay harassment.

During my time at BAHS, students and some faculty repeatedly harassed me, because I am gay. School administration suspended me for a week for wearing a T-shirt that said, “It’s OK to be Gay.” It became necessary for the Maine Civil Liberties Union to become involved, and on a regular basis a civil rights attorney visited the school.

In 2008, during a small claims proceeding, I recounted all the abuses against me in front of school administration and their attorney.

Schools nationwide are on high alert to prevent bullying, especially anti-gay bullying. I am incredibly disappointed by the BAHS administration’s total failure to protect its gay and lesbian students, now five years later. When a school turns a blind eye to bullying or even advocates for discrimination, victims and their parents should contact the Maine Civil Liberties Union and follow up with litigation.

There are many resources available to help victims of bullying and even more for parents and teachers to help prevent bullying.

I know from my experiences that it does get better, but for a kid who is having to deal with being called a “fag” or “dyke” every day, the day things get better may come too late. Victims of bullying, parents, and educators — – don’t wait for it to get better. Take action now.

Adam Flanders

Orono

Gays Targeted for Hate Crimes Far More Than Any Other Minority in America

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that gays are targeted for hate crimes far more than any other minority in America.

“The SPLC’s analysis of 14 years of hate crime data found that homosexuals, or those perceived to be gay, are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and 14 times as likely as Latinos. The findings are based on FBI hate crime statistics from 1995 to 2008, the period for which there is complete data. The basic pattern also holds true in individual years.”

They also updated their list of anti-gay hate groups, notably the…

• National Organization for Marriage (NOM)
• American Family Association
• Americans for Truth About Homosexuality
• Concerned Women for America
• Family Research Council

18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda

I’ve been meaning to write this blog for over a year now. If you’re not familiar, Stevia is an all-natural zero-calorie sweetener and I’ve been using it for a couple years now. I use it mostly in my tea, but it can be used in lots of things. It has no known side effects and it’s been used in Asia for several decades and in South America for several centuries with no known health problems. Unlike synthetic artifical sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose (Splenda), Stevia is 100% natural and comes from a plant of the same name. I’ve had great success growing and harvesting it myself, right in my apartment this semester.

Stevia is currently being sold by several companies. My favorite is the Cargill/Coke product TruVia. Pepsi has marketed PureVia, and there are several other brands under various labels such as Stevia in the Raw and Sun Crystals. Most of them dilute the extremely sweet Stevia with maltodextrin or a similar empty-calorie carbohydrate. A good rule of thumb is to look for green labeling to distinguish from other sweeteners. Real sugar is usually packaged in white or brown, aspartame in blue, saccharin in pink, Splenda in yellow, and Stevia in green. They all appear white in their refined form.

Many new diet/zero-calorie drinks are sweetened with Stevia, such as Sobe LifeWater, Lipton PureLeaf Tea, Vitamin Water, and Zevia Soda. Stevia has been approved for diabetics because it does not cause an insulin response. In fact some studies suggest Stevia may reverse the effects of insulin resistance and improve diabetes. It has only recently received FDA approval in the US, which is why we’ve experienced the sudden boom in product placement. I’ve found that some people don’t like Stevia, but most find that it has little or no taste other than sweet. It can depend on the specific brand and blend. In particular my mom doesn’t like raw Stevia but she does like Sun Crystals, a slight mixture of Stevia and a tiny amount of sugar – it smooths the taste a bit and is only 5 calories per packet.

I ordered some Stevia seeds over the Summer and I’ve been growing the plants in my apartment during the college semester. It’s a fairly aggressive grower once you get it started and is easy to manage, though it can get quite tall and, like tomato, Stevia requires regular pruning to remove suckers. The leaves can be removed, and 100% grain alcohol can then be used to extract the Stevia compound from the leaves. The leaves are also easy to dry for storage and later use. Below is a photographic journal of my experience with this awesome plant…

You can see just how tall the plant can get. I’m sure this is at the low end of growth since it’s not in an ideal climate.

One of the suckers that tomato growers are all too familiar with. It’s really like a baby plant in its own right and can be separated and rooted for planting. I did this a couple months ago with Take Root media, but it’s not very practical considering there are better ways of cultivating Stevia.

As the plant matures it develops woody tissue at its base. If this is cut back, small plants will grow out from this base. The plant itself has a mild flowery-sweet scent that will rub off on your hands if you touch the stalk or while harvesting leaves.

A close-up of a baby plant emerging from the woody base of the previous mature plant.

These are some recently harvested leaves from a mature plant. I use a tin disposable baking pan with holes melted in the clear plastic top. They dry out easily with virtually no mold.

I believe this is a bud at the top of the mature plant. There are several of them and they appear different than the emerging suckers. If these are in fact buds, I will attempt to self-pollinate them and see what kind of seeds I can obtain.

This is the Stevia extract I acquired using 100% grain alcohol vodka. The process is fairly straightforward. This is the extract of several mature plants and many leaves. It may not look like much, but keep in mind Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar. This small dish (frozen for preservation) can make A LOT of Stevia sweetener. I tasted a tiny bit of the pure extract and it’s so sweet that it tastes bitter, like burnt sugar. It has to be diluted with water.

This is the commercial Stevia I use, TruVia by Cargill & Coca-Cola. I find it has a smoother taste than the other brands. As you can see it’s white, unlike my greenish-brown homemade extract. This is because I lack the industrial processes that refine the Stevia to an absolute pure form. My extract likely has other plant matter in it such as tannins and cellulose, though these do not have a major impact on the overall flavor.

The elections are now over and while here in Maine we’re still waiting for the outcome of the close race between Cutler and the homophobic LePage, the rest of the political landscape has changed considerably. The GOP has taken control of the House and even though the Tea Party was not as powerful as was speculated, they still had an apparent effect in this highly unpredictable election. Despite being primary targets of the Tea Party, both Harry Reid and Barney Frank were re-elected. In California, Democrat Jerry Brown defeated Meg Whitman, who spent $142 million of her own money in a desperate attempt to buy the election. Without Meg in office to defend Prop 8, we may see it die before any chance of appeal, as it should! Here in Maine both Democratic incumbents for the House, Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud, were re-elected. In fact, Mike Michaud is Maine’s longest-serving congressman, now going into his 5th term. So much for the power of the Tea Party. As Maine goes…

I am not especially concerned about the GOP taking control of the House. The Tea Party has based its platform on smaller government and drastically lowered taxes. Now is their chance to put their money where their mouth is. In the next couple years I predict Tea Party supporters will be just as disillusioned as die-hard Obama supporters have been in the past couple years. I am disgusted by the hyberbole surrounding the Tea Party campaign, but I was equally disgusted by that of the Obama craze, especially among my college-aged peers. My vote for Obama was nothing more than a vote against Palin.

Unfortunately in this highly polarized political climate, we are often forced to vote for lesser evils. Almost nothing has changed since Obama took office two years ago; we are still at war in the Middle East and our troop numbers have only increased, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell still stands and it looks like it’s not going away for a long time, same-sex marriage hasn’t budged, and the nation has not become any less racist. The kind of change politicians talk about, whether Obama or the Tea Party, takes a long time and rushing to make a decision for the sake of making a decision more often results in disaster. And I wouldn’t worry about hope, either – the general trend is that things stay the same. Lately the choice between candidates is really like choosing chocolate or vanilla – no matter what flavor you choose, you’ve still got ice cream, or perhaps tea in this case.

Welcome to the Tea Party
Want to be my VIP?
You didn’t RSVP
That’s ok, that’s ok

The Coming Out Week Halloween dance was pretty awesome. Tons of people showed up – I didn’t expect so many, with such awesome costumes! The gold fabric I bought for my Egyptian costume kept falling apart when I was sewing (it was like tinsel), so I gave up and bought a gladiator costume, which worked out really well. It got pretty hot, so I had to take the tunic off, but it was cool – there were several cute shirtless guys, some gay, some straight, hehe. It was only one part of what made this year’s Halloween so fun!

Below is me in my costume, in front of the mini haunted house that was set up. The little kids really enjoyed it. The free food was really good, and the Bear’s Den was serving drinks for those of us 21+. I was impressed with the large variety of costumes. My favorite was definitely Zero Suit Samus from Metroid. I posted a pic of her and some of my other favorites in my Flickr account, so check ’em out! Thanks to everyone who made Coming Out Week so great this year. I’m kinda sad I won’t be living in Maine next year.

Update: WABI TV5 removed their video, so I posted it to YouTube:

Today WABI-TV5 came to UMaine to report on the Coming Out Week events. They interviewed some of us, including me, and it was great to come together as a community in this way and promote the message that it gets better. I’m proud of my fellow Wilde Stein members and our GLBT and Allies community here on campus! We hope our statements become part of the larger message spreading across the nation, in direct opposition to homophobia and anyone who proclaims homosexuality is unnatural or sinful. It does get better; being gay is completely healthy, natural, and good.

If you’d like to view the clip, you can see it here: UMaine Students Rally In Support of GLBT Students and University of Maine Celebrates Diversity

Coming Out Week has been going great so far. Among other events today, the Eastern Maine AIDS Network (EMAN) offered free HIV testing. We encourage everyone to get tested regularly, gay or straight. The 20-minute OraQuick tests offer nearly instant results so you can have peace of mind. We always promote safe sex and offer condoms and other safe sex resources in the Rainbow Resource Room, as well as a full library of GLBT literature and film. My test came back negative, as always (I get tested at least once every year, as everyone in a non-committed relationship should). It was good to see lots of students taking advantage of this resource.

Saturday night is the Coming Out Week dance. I’m going as an Egyptian. I’m sewing my costume just like I did with my Max costume last year, but this won’t be nearly as difficult as the polar fleece I used for Max. Then Sunday is Halloween. Probably going to Styxx, the gay bar in Portland, like I did last year, staying with some friends.

On a separate note I got two gerbils Monday night. They are both very cute and I will probably post pics later, but right now they are getting accustomed to their new home and I don’t want to do anything to stress them out. Because they are in my apartment, and the apartment has a no-pet policy, I am required to point out that these are are Emotional Support Animals and approval required a process with Disability Services and medical documentation.

Coming Out Week at UMaine starts today and continues to Saturday with the Coming Out Week Dance. Below is the calendar and the t-shirt design, which I helped make. You can click on calendar and t-shirt below to get full-size images of them. I haven’t colored my t-shirt in yet…

Many people have been creating “It Gets Better” videos in an attempt to encourage GLBT youth to be strong and maintain hope, specifically due to the recent youth suicides resulting directly from homophobia. I can personally say that it does get better. I was heavily harassed and discriminated against when I was in high school, by both my peers and some teachers. When I came to UMaine, everything was different and it was homphobic individuals who were in the minority. The rainbow Pride Flag is has been flying all week and Coming Out Week begins this Monday. I’ve nearly got my undergraduate degree and I have no doubt things will get even better.

I know what it’s like to want to kill yourself, to have so much internal emotional pain and feel like you can’t talk to anyone about it, or feeling like nothing will change. High school was my world for a short time and I falsely believed it was the world, and always would be. But I was wrong, fortunately. The world is not like that at all. There are opportunities and happiness you should be here to see and be a part of. I’ve been out since middle school, so about 10 years now. I’ve suffered with major depression and I’ve been hospitalized for suicide attempts because I believed something was wrong with me. But I am so glad that I am here today, to be able to write this and tell all of you that it does get better, a lot better. For the first time in American history, we have a president who agrees and wants you to know this…