The Republic of T.

More news from Bobo's World: Christian camp counselors in Pennsylvania got busted for playing Naked Mafia with campers, and "swinging naked from the rafters" during "naked time" in the campers' cabins.

I’ve already mentioned my no-longer-secret celebrity crush on Lance Bass, but there are a couple of things still worth mentioning about his coming out. First of all, if you have a chance, go pick up People magazine and read the full interview with Bass. I read it while standing in line at the grocery store, and I think after reading it you come away from it feeling good about having read it.

Admittedly, it’s a sympathetic celebrity news piece, but it comes down to Lance coming out to his friends and family, some of whom struggled with it, but all of whom ended up embracing him. He’s also up front about his faith, that he still goes to church, and that he doesn’t feel conflicted about being gay and being a Christian. What’s more, he’s in a solid relationship and says he “definitely” wants to have kids. All in all, I say good for him.

Beyond the interview, though, the response to it from *NSYNC fans is even more interesting, and telling.

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And, after a long struggle, I have won. I know, I know. A few people advised me to wait until the next WWDC, in case any new iPods were announced. But to be honest, I couldn’t see going that long with no music on my commutes. Besides, as soon as I bought my fist iPod the photo and video iPods were announced. So there’s always going to be a new one around the corner.

But before my success, I spent four hours on the phone with Apple Care support and made a trip to the Genius Bar at the Apple store to get the new iPod working. And after all that I ended up solving the problem by doing some googling, and finding the one answer that none of the experts at Apple Care or the Genius Bar came up with. (And when they finally did, I found a much easier way to do it than they recommended.) I will now attempt to relate my experience here, and unfold the mystery a troublesome file named “iPodDriver.kext.” If nothing else maybe some other hapless person will come across it and be helped.

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As predicted earlier, Mel apologized.

The following is the complete text of Mel Gibson’s statement regarding his arrest for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol:

“After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriff’s. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person.

“I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said and I apologize to anyone who I have offended.

“Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry.

“I have battled the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health.”

Of course, there are a couple of things that still need saying.

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This reminds me of a saying I’ve heard from my mom a couple of times: A drunk man speaks a sober mind.

It’s not bad enough that Gibson, darling of religious right since he gave them their very own snuff film, was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. But according to one report he was also disorderly, and loudly anti-semetic during his arrest.

TMZ has four pages of the original report prepared by the arresting officer in the case, L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy James Mee. According to the report, Gibson became agitated after he was stopped on Pacific Coast Highway and told he was to be detained for drunk driving Friday morning in Malibu. The actor began swearing uncontrollably. Gibson repeatedly said, “My life is f****d.”

… Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, “You mother f****r. I’m going to f*** you.” The report also says “Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.”

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: “F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?”

I’ll just wait for his christian nationalist cronies to line up and condemn his remarks. But I won’t hold my breath.

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As in “Opps, I forgot to post the Friday music meme!” With everything going on yesterday around moving the company to a new office, I completely forgot about doing the random ten.

Fortunately, even though my iPod is busted, iTunes still works. So…

1. Turn it (or your MP3 player) on.
2. Randomize your whole collection.
3. Post the first ten.

1. Pon de Replay (Pon De Club Play Version) from the album “Pon de Replay - EP” by Rihanna
2. Purple Rain from the album “All The Way” by Etta James
3. Popcorn (Diplo Remix) from the album “Verve Remixed 3″ by Diplo & Walter Wanderley
4. Keep Me In Your Heart from the album “The Wind” by Warren Zevon
5. Give It Up, Turn It Loose from the album “Best Of En Vogue” by En Vogue
6. I Feel for You from the album “Prince: The Hits 1″ by Prince
7. The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get from the album “The Best of Morrissey” by Morrissey
8. She Moves Through The Fair from the album “Spiritual Spiritual” by B-Tribe
9. Things Just Ain’t The Same (Hex Hector’s Club Mix) from the album “Things Just Ain’t The Same (CD5 Maxi-Single)” by Deborah Cox
10. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover from the album “Negotiations and Love Songs: 1971-1986″ by Paul Simon

Whatcha got?

Well, I think it’s really and truly dead. I mentioned before that it was on life support. Well, I think it’s almost time to pull the plug. My attempts to resuscitate it this morning came to naught, and tonight I came home and tried everything suggested on this webpage. I reset it. I restored it. I reinstalled the software. I even reinstalled iTunes.Nothing.

At one point this evening, it seemed to work. After restoring it, iTunes started up and immediately recognized it. Soon, the iPod was updating and all the songs were being loaded. Since I had something like 14 to 15 GB of music, I figured it would take a while, so I went out to the grocery store. By the time I came back, iTunes had dropped the iPod again. They were back to not speaking to each other after a brief reconciliation. Nothing I could do would bring them back together.

So, it looks like I’ll be taking it to the nearest Apple Store tomorrow to see if there’s anything they can do for it. I’ve been holding off on getting a video iPod, but if they can’t resurrect this one, I may finally have an excuse. I’ll have to buy a new one, because I enjoy my commute a lot less without it. Instead of music, I listen to the roar of traffic, the groaning of the escalator, the droning of the recording announcing the closing of the subway doors, and the inane conversations going on around me. Plus, without earbuds in my ears, I might end up having to talk to someone I don’t want to. (The iPod is, after all, one half of the social shield of iPod+book/magazine.)

Besides, my commute is about the only time I get to listen to music anyway. And I’d like to be able to choose from my whole collection rather than having to pick a playlist and stick with it for the day. So, I may be doing some shopping this weekend. And with my luck I’ll get a video iPod and Apple will announce the next generation days later.

Before I get started with this week’s round-up, I have a confession to make, prompted by a bit of news this week. See, for a period of my life I was a boy band fan; a big gay boy ban fan. Celebrity crushes are a regular thing with me, and in this case I had one in every group. When a video came on, I’d park myself in front of the set hoping to catch my favorite.

I knew they were all straight, but a single gay man can dream, can’t he? And there was one I dreamt about more than the rest. He wasn’t a lead singer or anything like that, so I had to really pay attention to catch a glimpse of him, but my attention seemed to focus on him naturally. He had a certain something, but I didn’t know what it was. Now I do. That’s not the biggest news of the week, jut it rocked my world just a little. Anyway, that’s my confession. I’ve always been and remain a “Lance man.” Now for the round-up.

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Help. It started sometime a week ago, and I finally tried to do something about it tonight. A while ago, I noticed my iPod wasn’t showing up in iTunes anymore. It showed up in the Finder in Mac OS X, but not in iTunes. What’s more, iTunes began launching every time I start my computer, even though it doesn’t detect my iPod.

So, I looked around online for advice and tried some of the stuff I found here. Specifically, I got down to step 8 and tried reinstalling iTunes and the iPod firmware. That turned out to be a minor disaster because I couldn’t install iTunes. So I figured I had to uninstall it first. I dragged it to the trash, etc., and still couldn’t install. The installer said there was nothing to install.

So now I had no iTunes. At least not until I went here and found the info I needed. Voila. ITunes installed. So, I went back and started iTunes, and it announced that there was new software for my iPod and asked if I wanted to install it. Which I did. But it still doesn’t detect my iPod. It doesn’t show in iTunes and when I check iTunes preferences it says there’s no iPod attached. But the iPod does appear in the finder.

The only thing I haven’t done is restore my iPod. I guess I could back up my music collection and try that, but frankly it scares me. Who knows how that will turn out.

Any Mac whiz kids out there got any tips for me?

Imagine a troubled gay teenager contemplating suicide, dialing a suicide prevention line, and getting James Dobson on the other end. It could happen. Via a government agency, it looks like the Bush administration could trying to starve a suicide prevention line of funding in order to make that happen. Or it might just be payback.

This is the kind of thing that won’t register on most people’s radar, but it’s important and once it was brought to my attention I wanted to do everything I could to let others know about it to. The suicide prevention program 1-800-Suicide is in trouble. It’s in danger of being shut off, or falling into the hands of the federal government.To put it another way, and underscore the importance, it’s in danger of falling into the hands of the George W. Bush administration. That’s something that should concern a lot of people, especially the gay community, because there are some pretty serious — even deadly— implications for LGBT youth. But first, sere’s the vital info:

1-800-SUICIDE is in danger of being shut off or worse falling into the hands of the Federal Government. With teenage suicide being the 3rd leading cause of death between 18 to 24 year olds - our government should not be duplicating prevention efforts but helping fund the many local organizations and non-profits with proven track records on prevention. In addition our government should not be in the business having access to this private and sensitive information!

Despite the fact that almost 2 million callers have reached help and hope over the last 8 years, and a government funded evaluation stating the benefits of 1-800-SUICIDE, the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), a division of Health & Human Services, has decided to create their own government run system where they would have direct access to confidential data on individuals in crisis.

To protect the callers to suicide crisis hotlines the management of 1-800-SUICIDE has refused to turn over the control of the National Hopeline Network to the SAMHSA. As a result it is in danger of being completely shut off to the almost 2,000 individuals in crisis who reach out daily because our government has not only ended all funding but also continues to owe $266,000 in overdue bills to the Hopeline from 2 years ago. (This is not new funds – but money that was already allocated!).

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

The Bush administration ignoring human services and running up bills is nothing new, but there’s more to this story than meets the eye, and the outcome could be detrimental to LGBT youth in our communities.

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A couple of months ago I posted about study claiming that children learn racism by the time their three years old. I was reminded of that post when, via Damn Straight, I came across this article about nursery schools in the UK teaching about same sex relationships, which included the idea that kids learn homophobia as early as they learn racism.

Many gay parents of nursery school children are reluctant to "come out" for fear that their children might become the target of homophobic bullying, said the union.

Young boys at primary school are also bullied and called "gay" if they do not conform to perceived male stereotypes - reflecting the union's belief that homophobic prejudice should be addressed at an early age when children are in nursery school.

The NUT said: "It is particularly important to begin to make three to five-year-olds aware of the range of families that exist in the UK today". That would includes families with single parents or those with "two mums" or "two dads", the union said.

The union added: "There will be parents who are gay or lesbian who will want to be reassured that that their children will be safe in the setting."

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I'm on a business trip today, so posting will be slow and I'll probably be otherwise occupied when the Washignton State Supreme Court rules on marriage.

And, by the way, thanks for giving me a reason to agree wit Gay Patriot on something. I don’t honestly care what you were doing in the bushes with that guy or how you get your rocks off. But do me a favor, please, and in the future leave the rest of us, and gay culture out of it.

In a sweat, the ashen-faced singer declared: “Are you gay? No? Then f*** off! This is my culture!”

Then he claimed: “I’m not doing anything illegal. The police don’t even come up here any more.

“I’m a free man, I can do whatever I want. I’m not harming anyone.”

And according to Queerty, you’ve made similar claims.

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