Rep. Barney Frank Retires } " I don’t know CPR, and I can’t make bail. I’m no good in an emergency."

By Susan Milligan

boston.com

It is common, when someone retires from a long career in public service, to remark on what a nice person that individual is. Barney Frank, who announced today that he would not run for another term in Congress, is not nice. But that, paradoxically, has always been part of his charm.Frank is extremely intelligent, arguably the smartest person in the House of Representatives. He is also bitingly witty. There’s just no room for nice in that personality package. If you quizzed Frank on a banking bill and you hadn’t done your homework, he’d become visibly irritated. If he thought your question was stupid, he’d tell you. Weaker reporters might have been cowed, but most of us knew Frank’s high expectations made us better informed interviewers.
Trying to be nice to Barney didn’t make much of a difference. Once, during the week of Frank’s 70th birthday, former Massachusetts Congressman Bill Delahunt and I led a low-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" to Frank in the Speaker’s Lobby, an area off the House chamber. People clapped in polite congratulation. Frank just slumped on the ornate wooden bench as his colleagues passed by. "My whole life, I never knew an adult who knew how to respond to that," he sneered.

On the upside, Frank isn’t pretentious. How could he be, after beginning his political career with the slogan "Neatness isn’t Everything?" Try getting some obscure subcommittee chairman on the phone for an interview, and most reporters will endure an exhausting and unnecessary back-and-forth with aides arranging the terms and time of the call with "Mr. Chairman" whatever. Frank would quickly return a call himself, mumbling, "yeah, it's Barney." He’d call from pay phones at the airport, rattling off statistics and legislative details without any notes or help from a staffer. When he filed the personal financial disclosure form required of members of Congress, he attached a detailed bank statement that revealed far more of his personal finances than the law requires. Did he do so because he was a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, and felt people deserved to know more? "Nah. I just don’t like filling out all those little boxes," Frank explained, declining to take a public relations prize for hyper-disclosure.
Frank was refreshingly disinterested in social media and electronic communication. Once, I took my BlackBerry out during dinner, apologizing for the interruption to make sure my editors weren’t trying to reach me. "I don’t have one of those," Frank said. "My staff wants me to get one. They say I need it in case of an emergency. What emergency? I don’t know CPR, and I can’t make bail. I’m no good in an emergency." (He eventually had a similar device forced on him.)
We’ll all miss Barney on the Hill. He was a fixture in the Speaker’s Lobby, sitting at a table and (before the smoking ban) puffing on a cigar and doing the New York Times crossword puzzle — in ink. And he was a walking encyclopedia on matters ranging from housing and economics to history. He could, indeed, be cranky. But Niceness isn’t Everything.
Susan Milligan is a writer in Washington and a former Globe political reporter.
Barney Frank in 2011 (Globe Photo/Jonathan Wiggs); Globe file.

End of DADT } new era for Texas A&M

  latimesblogs.latimes.com

 

For generations, any evidence that a member of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University was gay while they were in military training was grounds for dismissal.

Judge Phyllis Frye, who earlier this year became the first transgender municipal judge in Texas history, recalls that an atmosphere of intolerance prevailed in the Corps before she graduated in 1970.

At the same time, she credits the Corps with preparing her for people’s reaction when she decided to transition to female in 1976.

“I went through terrible discrimination,” Frye said. “My first two years in the Corps at A&M had steeled me to survive that.”

But Frye and others say that attitudes on campus toward the LGBT community are changing.

By the time Noel Freeman joined the Corps in 2000, transferring in from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Texas A&M had been taken to task for discriminating against gays. Students had sued the university in 1976 for refusing to recognize a gay student group and won the case on appeal in 1985, setting a nationwide precedent.

When Freeman arrived on campus, he decided it was time to come out. After he told the Corps commandant, he was forced to leave the Air Force ROTC, but was allowed to remain in the Corps as the first openly gay cadet.

Freeman recalls how tough it was to tell his unit.

“It was actually more difficult to come out to my peers in the Corps than to my parents,” Freeman said.

Some cadets stopped speaking to him. Some wouldn’t look at him. Others openly resented him.

Freeman left the Corps the following semester. Then he realized the Corps was the main reason he had enrolled at A&M. He returned -- and became a squadron commander.

Now president of the Houston LGBT political caucus, Freeman remains a Corps supporter. When he married his partner in Washington last year, another former cadet was at his side.

“People call the Corps backward and nothing but a bunch of white Christian men,” he said. “The reality is, the Corps has been progressive,” he added, especially compared to the nation's conservative military academies.

The recent end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allows openly gay cadets to remain in both the ROTC and the Corps.

Retired Brig. Gen. Joe Ramirez, a former cadet who took over last year as commandant of the Corps, called overturning the policy “the right thing to do.”

“I’m trying to increase or promote diversity in the Corps so we better reflect our state and nation,” Ramirez said.

While some cadets may not like the new policy, he said, “In the Corps, you have a wide diversity of opinions and ideas about the world in general.”

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Houston

Photo: Texas A&M Aggies members of the Corps of Cadets form a block T formation for the first time in 55 years during halftime against the Kansas Jayhawks at Kyle Field on Saturday. Credit: Thomas Campbell / US Presswire

Miachel Barrymore } Arrested on DUI and Drugs

Jonny Payne
pinkpaper.com

Comedian Michael Barrymore has been arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and for being drunk and disorderly after he was found at the scene of an early morning car crash in a West London suburb.

Police found the former Strike It Lucky presenter a short distance from his home in Acton during a routine patrol of the area at 4.30am on Tuesday morning, after a Citroen DS3 had hit a kerb.

A witness told the Daily Mail he saw the 59-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Michael Parker, lying on the ground shortly after the incident, which occurred on the junction of The Vale and Dordrecht Road.

It is as yet unclear who was driving the car, but Barrymore and a 30-year-old man were held over the incident. Police have confirmed Barrymore will attend a hearing next month after both men were bailed. 

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Michael Parker, 59, of London W3 appears on bail at Ealing Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday December 7 charged with possession of a Class A drug, namely cocaine, and being drunk and disorderly,” the Daily Mail reports.

The latest controversy comes ten years after the death of Stuart Lubbock in 2001. Lubbock, who was attending a party at Barrymore’s home, was found dead in the entertainer’s swimming pool. A post mortem concluded the most likely cause of death was drowning, but results revealed he had suffered severe internal injuries, which suggested sexual assault. It also found he had ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol in his blood. An inquest later recorded an open verdict.

A spokesperson for Barrymore declined to comment on the latest incident, according to the Daily Mail.

J.R. Martinez DWTS Winner Gets Letter From Sec Defense Leon Paneta

BY AARON PARSLEY   people.com

 Dancing with the Stars winner J.R. Martinez has fans in high places. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wrote a letter to the Iraq war veteran and called him up to offer his congratulations for winning the mirror-ball trophy in last week's finale, according to the Department of Defense. 

In his letter, Panetta praised the former Army infantryman, who suffered severe burns when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq in 2003. 

"Over the course of this competition, your spirit captivated the nation and your victory sends a powerful message about the strength and resilience of our wounded warriors," he said. 

Panetta also made a phone call to Martinez on Friday and said he admired how much effort the show's performers put into each routine, according to Department of Defense spokesman Cap. John Kirby. 

Martinez said he is proud to have served in uniform and credited his military training and experience for his ability to prepare for the show, Kirby added. 

During the 10-minute call, Panetta also invited Martinez to the Pentagon. Plans are now in the works to arrange a meeting in the very near future, Kirby said. 

Another Pentagon spokesman, Douglas Wilson, reportedly said that Martinez's victory with Karina Smirnoff has recently been "the talk of the
 troops."

MIssissippi } The Worse Backward State To Come Down With AIDS

Backward laws and ignorant legislators make Mississippi an especially deadly place to be sick

BY IRIN CARMON

  

Recently, an elderly woman in Mississippi was left alone on the curb outside a hospital emergency room. The woman didn’t have a medical emergency. She’d been dumped by the nursing room employees who had learned that she had HIV, according to a lawyer at the Mississippi Center for Justice to whom she was eventually referred.

Mississippi’s neighbors have been known to thank God for Mississippi — when your state ranks 48th or 49th in just about every sad statistic about health or poverty in America, it’s nice to know you’ll always look better than someone. The state’s indicators for HIV and AIDS are about as horrific, although the9,546 people in the state reported to have the virus probably aren’t particularly grateful about it.

The state has the highest new infection rate and greatest percentage of people living with HIV in the country, and by many measures, the least interest in helping them. Elsewhere, HIV/AIDS has become manageable with anti-retroviral therapy, but a Mississippian with HIV/AIDS is almost twice as likelyto die than the average American with the virus; HIV-positive African-Americans in Mississippi are ten times as likely to die from it than their white neighbors. African-Americans are only 37.5 percent of the population, but represent 78 percent of new HIV infections. Meanwhile, an abstinence-education statute forbids even programs offering information about condoms to demonstrate how to use them, but does include a requirement to mention the anti-sodomy laws still on the books.

Combine racism and political indifference to poverty with homophobia — there’s been a rapid rise in infections among young men having sex with men in the state — and you’ve got a public health disaster that state politicians mostly ignore, or worse. ”I’ve been called a nigger and a faggot by state legislators right in the Capitol,” Alonzo Dukes, executive director of the Southern AIDS Commission in Greenville, Miss., told Human Rights Watch for a recent report. One of the few advocates for people living with HIV, state Rep. John Hines, says in the same report, “Legislators in Mississippi don’t see it as a public health crisis; they see it as a punishment for an unhealthy lifestyle.” The state contributes only $750,000 towards HIV/AIDS programs, out of a budget of $4.9 billion.

In other words, there’s very little to prevent employers and housing providers from discriminating against people with HIV, especially because the state doesn’t have any anti-discrimination laws and Mississippi also ranks 49th in funding civil legal services for the poor, according to the state’s Access to Justice Commission.

Even those who can afford a lawyer might have trouble. “I’ve heard stories of even lawyers turning clients away when they have AIDS,” says Marni von Wilpert, a fellow with the Mississippi Center for Justice. “People think they can get it from handshakes or hugs.”

Human Rights Watch also indicted the state for “punitive, stigmatizing, and discriminatory policies that undermine efforts to reach the population’s most vulnerable to HIV … leav[ing] people with HIV/AIDS without treatment at rates comparable to those in Botswana, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.” Advocates report hearing stories of public health officials showing up at workplaces and homes without any regard for confidentiality — terrifying in small rural communities where the stigma of HIV is brutalizing.

Robin Webb, executive director of A Brave New Day, which provides support services to people with HIV/AIDS, says this fans long-standing mistrust of government medical services in the African-American community going back to the Tuskegee syphilis studies. “The government actually plays out that whole Tuskegee scenario when it becomes a punitive force. The way they handle public health is all about authoritative punishment.” They are also terrified of what will happen to their lives if their infection is discovered. ”The No. 1 punishment is to kick people out of the church,” says Webb. “These are the people who talk about Jesus and the lepers.”

One MCJ client, admitted to the hospital for seizures, woke up to discover the doctor had informed a relative, in violation of medical privacy laws, that the patient had AIDS.  ”People are not going to seek care if they think everyone in their family is going to find out,” says Von Wilpert. Meanwhile, Von Wilpert says, the state has chosen only to distribute free AIDS drugs at limited Department of Health locations. “People are traveling two or three counties over to even get the drugs,” she says — or not traveling at all.

The good news is that advocates believe they have an ally in the state’s new STD/HIV director, Nicholas Mosca. Von Wilpert and her colleagues are launching a new medical-legal partnership program, as well as an office in the hard-hit Delta region. Webb, who grew up in the Delta but lived in New York during the AIDS crisis and subsequent activism, says he’s trying to import that language of empowerment and self-management to his home state, and try to undo the shame and stigmatization. “I think most of us realize that diseases, especially lethal diseases, love secrets,” he said.

http://www.salon.com 

Irin Carmon is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @irincarmon.   More Irin Carmon

Gay Person Killer Gets 20 Yrs } Had the Gay attack defense

 .

David Nairne carried out a "vicious and sustained attack" on Alan Ross    bbc.co.uk

David Nairne, originally from Inverness, was told he must spend a minimum of 20 years in prison before being considered for parole.

He carried out a "vicious and sustained attack" on Alan Ross stabbing him 11 times in the face and neck in February.

A jury at the High Court in Livingston unanimously found him guilty of murdering Mr Ross in his Pilton home.

The fatal wound was so deep it severed the jugular veins on both sides of the victim's neck.

  Firemen who were called to Mr Ross's flat in Pilton Road North after neighbours smelled smoke told how they found the victim's badly charred corpse on the floor of his bedroom with the walls and bed soaked in blood.

The jury returned a majority verdict of guilty to a charge that he attempted to defeat the ends of justice by setting fire to the dead man's clothing, making a microwave "bomb" and disposing of evidence, including blood-soaked clothing and two knives.

 Nairne was given a concurrent six-year prison sentence for the secondary charge and both sentences were backdated to 1 March when he was first remanded in custody. During the trial several witnesses gave evidence that Mr Ross had previously told friends that he had "slept" with Nairne. Nairne had claimed in his defence that he was heterosexual and had never had sex with a man. He said he had been "provoked" into attacking Mr Ross after he woke up to find his victim performing a sex act on him. Advocate depute Stephen O'Rourke, who during the trial described the knife attack as "frenzied", revealed Nairne had an extensive criminal record which ran to four pages of convictions.

  

He said the accused, who was unemployed and lived in Edinburgh at the time of the murder, had a long history of alcohol and substance problems.

Defence counsel Robert Anthony QC told the court: "Clearly he is a man with alcohol problems.

"He never denied taking the life of Mr Ross and he offered a plea of guilty to culpable homicide in March."

Temporary Judge John Beckett told Nairne: "The infliction of a large number of stabbing injuries to the head and neck of the deceased demonstrates that you carried out a vicious and sustained attack on Alan Ross, a well-liked, kind gentleman who showed only kindness to you.

"You were armed with a knife when you arrived at Alan Ross's flat. You killed him by stabbing him through the neck, causing an injury which almost extended out the other side of his neck."

So Much Bud! More Than You Thought } Juan Monaco and Rafael Nadal Hug and Squeeze

 By Greg Hernandez  
http://greginhollywood.com/

 

No doubt Rafael Nadal would rather be playing for the ATP Tour Finals title in London today but he crashed out early.

Instead, he headed home to Spain to immediately prepare for next weekend’s Davis Cup Final against Argentina.

The world number two is pictured here with opposing team memberJuan Monaco during a tennis training session at the La Cartuja stadium, in Seville.

Rafa looks awfully glad to see the Argentinian greeting him with a big hug and giving his tush a good grab. Hopefully Monaco got to grab Nadal’s ample bottom in return!

(I know this is a silly post but had to share these pics!)

Third accuser says coach Bernie Fine sexually abused him as child } Caveat: He Himself Faces Charges

Gary Walts/The Post-StandardPolice talk to Syracuse University associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine while executing a search warrant at Fine's home at 7001 Tiffany Circle in DeWitt. Authorities are investigating allegations that Fine sexually abused three men when they were children.

(By Mike McAndrew and John O’Brien)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- A third accuser told police Wednesday that Syracuse University associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine sexually abused him as a child.

That revelation prompted authorities to search Fine's home two days later, a source said.

Zach Tomaselli, 23, of Lewiston, Maine, told Syracuse police that Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room when Tomaselli was 13 years old.

Syracuse police detectives Raul Santana and Clark Farry interviewed Tomaselli, who grew up 78 miles north of Syracuse, for more than four hours Wednesday afternoon in Albany, Tomaselli said.

Tomaselli — who is facing sexual assault charges in Maine involving a 14-year-old boy — said he signed a police affidavit on Wednesday accusing Fine of molesting him in the Pittsburgh hotel the night before an SU game against Pitt.

Tomaselli alleged in his statement that Fine invited him to a party at Fine’s DeWitt home in 2003 following another SU game, and it describes in detail the inside of Fine’s house at 7001 Tiffany Circle.

AP Photo/Michael C. YorkZach Tomaselli, a former Jefferson County resident, told police Wednesday in a signed statement that SU associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine invited him to an away game in Pittsburgh in January 2002 when he was 13 and molested him in a hotel there.

Tomaselli’s friend, Rose Ryan, said Saturday she was with Tomaselli and the police at a Marriott hotel room in Albany when one of the detectives read out loud Tomaselli’s statement. She shared the content of the statement with The Post-Standard.

Ryan said she gave Syracuse police a signed statement that alleged Tomaselli told her two years ago in her apartment that Fine had sexually abused him in 2002.

No one witnessed the alleged abuse by Fine, Tomaselli said, and he does not have any physical evidence to back up his allegations.

Federal prosecutors used Tomaselli’s statement to police as proof of possible crimes when they applied to a judge for a search warrant of Fine’s home, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

On Friday, two days after Tomaselli and Ryan gave statements, Fine watched as about a dozen U.S. Secret Service agents, Syracuse police and state police officers searched Fine’s home for seven hours and hauled away three file cabinets.

Officers who searched Fine’s home seized a cabinet full of Fine’s financial records, most of them related to his insurance business, said Joseph Spadafore, a private investigator who responded to a message The Post-Standard left on Fine’s home phone Saturday.

Police also seized Fine’s cell phone and a computer that was not Fine’s, said Spadafore, who said he is working for Fine’s attorney, Karl Sleight.

The search occurred eight days after allegations became public accusing Fine of sexually abusing two other Central New York men, Bobby Davis and Mike Lang, when they were children.

Fine, 65, who is in his 35th year as an assistant coach at SU, issued a statement Nov. 18 denying the two men’s accusations.

Fine and his lawyer could not be reached Saturday for comment on the new allegations by Tomaselli, who claims Fine abused him only once.

A Syracuse police spokesman declined to comment.

Tomaselli’s father said his son is a liar.

Fred Tomaselli, who lives in Rutland, in Jefferson County, denied ever meeting Fine or letting his son go to Pittsburgh with the SU team in 2002. He said his son did not go to a party at Fine’s house in 2003.

Fred Tomaselli said his son is lying about Fine.

The father and son have been estranged for years, Zach Tomaselli said.

Syracuse police have not filed any charges against Fine. Police confirmed Nov. 17 that they were investigating Fine after ESPN aired a story about allegations brought by Davis and his stepbrother, Lang, both former SU ball boys.

The university put Fine on administrative leave the night that the news broke. The school said it conducted its own internal investigation of Davis’ allegations in 2005 and found no corroboration of his claim.

Davis, now 39, lived in Fine’s house as a teen and baby-sat his children. He told The Post-Standard in 2002 that he was sexually abused by Fine for years, beginning in the mid-1980s when he was 12 or 13 years old. He alleged some of the abuse occurred while he was traveling with SU’s team on out-of-state trips, including to the Final Four in New Orleans in 1987, when Davis was 15.

The allegations by Davis and Lang would be too old to be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. But the alleged abuse of Tomaselli in 2002, if true, might be prosecutable in federal courts.

Although most federal crimes carry a five-year statute of limitations, some run longer, including sexual or physical abuse or kidnapping of a child under 18 years old. Someone can be charged with those offenses within 10 years of the crime.

For such a crime to fall under federal jurisdiction, there would have to be an act of crossing state lines or the use of interstate commerce, according to Edward Z. Menkin, a Syracuse criminal defense lawyer who practices in federal court. The interstate conduct could include the use of the Internet in the commission of the crime, he said.

If an adult arranged for a child to be transported across state lines for the purpose of sex, that would also be sufficient basis for federal agents and prosecutors to get involved, Menkin said.

Tomaselli said he talked briefly with Davis several times on the phone since the story broke and before he called the police. Tomaselli said he has never met Davis or Lang.

Tomaselli said he first talked with Syracuse police Monday.

Later that day, Tomaselli posted a message on his Facebook page that alleged Fine molested him.

“I wanted to announce this to encourage all sex abuse victims to come forward as tough as it is because we can stop other kids from this abuse,” Tomaselli wrote.

Tomaselli said he has not asked Syracuse police or federal authorities for help getting the criminal charges against him dismissed in Maine.

On April 13, Lewiston police arrested Tomaselli on an indictment warrant that charged him with gross sexual assault, tampering with a victim, two counts of unlawful sexual contact, five counts of visual sexual aggression against a child and unlawful sexual touching.

Tomaselli was accused of having sexual contact with a 14-year-old boy who attended a camp where Tomaselli worked as a counselor. The charges stem from alleged incidents in 2009 and 2010. Tomaselli has pleaded not guilty.

Tomaselli acknowledged he was also fined $500 in 2010 for providing alcohol to a minor in Maine. He said he bought alcohol for a 20-year-old.

Unlike Davis and Lang, Tomaselli said he never played organized basketball and did not attend the Big Orange Basketball Camp that Fine ran.

Tomaselli said he first met Fine when he and his father attended an SU team autograph session on the SU campus in late 2001.

Shortly after that, Tomaselli said, Fine telephoned Tomaselli’s parents and arranged for the teen to travel to Pittsburgh with the SU athletic department staff on a chartered bus, spend the night in Fine’s hotel room and then attend the SU vs. Pittsburgh basketball game Jan. 22, 2002.

Tomaselli said he ate dinner with the team in Pittsburgh. Afterward in the hotel room, Tomaselli said, Fine switched on a pornographic movie on the TV, and Fine fondled Tomaselli’s penis in bed.

The next day, Fine arranged for Tomaselli to attend the game for free and sit about 5 to 10 rows behind the SU bench at Fitzgerald Field House, Tomaselli said.

After the game, Tomaselli said, he rode the SU chartered bus to the Pittsburgh hotel and then back to Syracuse.

About a year later, Tomaselli said, Fine arranged for him and his father to attend the SU-Pitt game Feb. 1, 2003, at the Carrier Dome and sit 10 to 15 rows behind the SU bench.

After the game, Tomaselli said, he and his father bumped into Fine as fans stormed the Carrier Dome court. Fine invited Fred Tomaselli and his son to a party at Fine’s home, Tomaselli said. Tomaselli said his father was unable to go. But his father agreed to let the 14-year-old Tomaselli go to Fine’s house, spend the night there, and have Fine drop him off the next morning at Hancock Air Base, where the father worked, Tomaselli said.

In the morning, Fine drove him to Hancock Air Base, Tomaselli said. Tomaselli said he never talked to Fine again after that.

Tomaselli said he never told anyone about what happened in the Pittsburgh hotel room until he told Ryan a few years ago.

Contact Mike McAndrew at mmcandrew@syracuse.com