pennsylvania

i don’t know what to write.

i’m exhausted from a visit to my parent’s.
4 days, i had to leave early

too many conditions to be in their presence.

oiy. my mother freaked out because i bought a buddha candle holder.

‘not in my house!’

jesus christ.

i’m so happy to be back in new york.

a city that has no conditions.

“There is a great deal of political pressure to only talk about abstinence, and to deny support for condoms and education on using them. This policy will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people.”

this is what abstinence only education looks like

Sex, Science and Savings

President Bush’s veto of Congress’s main social spending bill has Democratic leaders looking for places to make trims to satisfy the president’s sudden zeal for fiscal discipline. A small, but sensible, place to begin would be to eliminate the bill’s $28 million increase for one of Mr. Bush’s signature boondoggles — abstinence-only sex education.

Federal government spending on highly restrictive abstinence-only sex education has ballooned under President Bush, while evidence of the program’s danger as a public health strategy has continued to mount.

Last April, a Congressionally mandated evaluation found that students who received abstinence instruction in elementary and middle school were just as likely to have sex in the following years as students who did not get such instruction.

States are catching on. Last month, Virginia became the 14th state to reject federal grant money for abstinence-only sex education to pursue the comprehensive approach supported by science and most Americans. That approach encourages abstinence but also arms young people with information about sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptives and pregnancy.

Expectations that the new Democratic Congress would confront the abstinence-only hoax have proved unfounded. Instead of cutting support, or at least ditching outrageous rules that restrict information about condoms and contraception, the vetoed spending plan actually increased money for faith-based and other groups offering abstinence education programs above the wasteful $113 million allotted for the current fiscal year.

The weak link is the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes the administration’s ineffective abstinence-only approach. But she seems to have ceded the issue to Representative David Obey, the House Appropriations chairman, who continues to insist on using it as bait for Republican votes on a budget compromise. Forgoing principle failed to produce a veto-proof majority for the spending bill the first time. Ms. Pelosi needs to reconsider whether expanding a discredited sex education program should be on the rather meager list of achievements of the first Democratic Congress in a decade.

ypc

the youth pride chorus

last night and 2nite

brilliant kids

singing their hearts out.

i’m lucky to have shared the stage with them

light of a clear blue morning

i love this photo from adam dugas’ show…

obviously, i’m a little angry at the lack of ‘light’ in the clear blue morning

the show

this is 5 minutes b4 my show

and this is 30 seconds after

thanks to everyone who came last night.

xxx, -j

well, we have a sense of humor.

so funny story we got stuck behind route clearance, they find ied’s, well they go really slow and we decide to pass them, well we all say it would be ironic if we get blown up, well 10 min down the road we hear them say they found an efp, good thing it was remote detonation by a cell phone and our warlock jammed the signals otherwise we would have been swiss cheese, hahaha

(my brother’s latest wall-posting on facebook)