I read an extremely fascinating story on OutSports yesterday: 'The desperate consequences of casual words'. It is the story of a pitcher for the University of South Maine by the name of James Nutter. It begins: 'Locker room language drove closeted baseball player James Nutter to embark on a suicide attempt. Now he wants to help gay athletes find their way out of the closet.' The story vividly illustrates the effect of how homophobic slurs are woven into casual speech in the locker room, the supposed 'last closet' for gay male or female athletes. Fortunately for James, this story has a happy ending when so many of our young LGBT's stories do not. That is why social networking sites for a cause like Patrick Burke's 'You Can Ply', Ben Cohen's 'Stand Up Foundation', Hudson Taylor's 'Athlete Ally', and Dan Savages 'It Get Better' campaign are such vital links in the chain for those LGBTQ youth, stuck in their closet for whatever reason, to help preserve the mental health of Gay athletes, male or female on any level of sports. Because of the works by the above mentioned associations, more and more athletes and their allies are coming out and growing stronger day by day and season by season. I applaud young Mr Nutter for his survival and now his efforts to help prevent some other LGBTQ athlete or ally from having the same thing happen to another of our young men and women. Suicide is not the 'final solution' although it all to often is for far too many of your young people still today. Read the Story for yourselves, you will be inspired!
Your play list for today has two Cello works by Dmitri Shostakovich as interpreted by
Internationally-acclaimed Cellist Misha Quint. First is the Cello Sonata,
Opus 40 performed at at the 2009 InterHarmony International Music Festival in
San Francisco, CA, with pianist Dmitriy Cogan. The Sonata is followed by Cello
Concerto Number 1 in E Flat Major, Opus 107 with the Duquesne University
Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sidney Harth.
Your daily dose of man candy for today is chock full of Random Hotness for your visual appreciation. Listen, Look, Lust! Thanks for the visit, see you again tomorrow. Until next time as always, Enjoy!
