Message Therapy Workshop Scheduled at VCMCC
Vieux Carre MCC will sponsor a Healing Touch/Massage Therapy Workshop to be scheduled on March 9 from 1 to 3 pm. The workshop will be facilitated by Timothy Higdon and Cindy O'Donnell. It is free and open to the public, but participants are encouraged to register by March 2. For more information or to register for the workshop, call the church office at 504.945.5390.
Presentation on Hospice Services Set for March 16
S heila Osborn, an RN from People's Hospice, will give a presentation at Vieux Carre MCC on March 16 at 1 pm. The presentation will include what a hospice is, as well as some of the hospice services that are available. For more information call the church office at 504.945.5390.
Mount Mercy College Choir to Perform Palm Sunday Concert
V ieux Carre MCC is excited to be hosting a concert by Mount Mercy College Choir. The choir, directed by Daniel Klineknecht, hails from Cedar Rapids, IA, and will be performing at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church located next to Lazarus House. This is an event you won't want to miss as it is sure to add meaning to your Easter season! For directions or for more information call 504.945.5390.
Holy Week Services Scheduled at VCMCC
Holy Week services at Vieux Carre MCC will begin with a Seder Supper/Maundy Thursday service set for 7 pm on March 27, the Thursday prior to Easter Sunday. The following evening's worship schedule, also at 7 pm, will include a traditional Good Friday Tennebrae Service. Finally, the week's events will culminate with an Easter Worship Celebration set for 11 am on Sunday, to be followed by brunch. Come be a part of worship at VCMCC!
Luncheon for New Orleans Legislative Delegation
The Board of Directors of LAGPAC hosted a luncheon for members of the New Orleans Legislative Delegation on Thursday, February 13th at Feelings Cafe.
At the luncheon, LAGPAC members discussed with the legislators several issues of concern and solicited support for important bills in the next session of the legislature, which convenes March 31st and ends no later than June 30th. A dossier of proposed legislation was given to each member in attendance.
"The luncheon gave us the opportunity to discuss important issues with some of our friends in the legislature in a pleasant, informal setting," said Co-chair Chris Daigle. "We hope to have similar future gatherings in order to educate elected officials about issues we believe to be important. Discrimination is an issue that is important to all."
Hate Crimes: In 1990, the federal government enacted the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which requires the FBI to gather statistics on crimes motivated by hate. Forty states have enacted hate crime legislation of their own. A similar law in Louisiana would allow a judge to provide for stiffer penalties to the sentence of an individual found guilty of committing a Hate Crime.
A hate crime is an assault committed against an individual motivated by the attacker's bias against the particular group to which the victim belongs. Usually the attackers do not know the victim and have nothing against them personally. The attackers merely target an individual simply because of a dislike or hatred of the group to which the attackers believe the individual belongs.
Hate crimes are traditionally under-reported. Reasons for this include fear of bias within police departments, embarrassment, or in the case of gays and lesbians, fear of exposure.
"The most frequent victims of hate violence today are blacks, Hispanics, Southeast Asians, Jews and gays and lesbians. Homosexuals are probably the most frequent victims (Review of the U.S. Justice Department, 1987). Examples of hate crimes are church burnings, cross burnings, desecration of graves and gay-bashing.
ENDA. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would extend state employment discrimination protections currently provided based on race, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability to sexual orientation. The bill would prohibit employers, employment agencies, and labor unions from using an individual's sexual orientation as the basis for employment decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion, or compensation.
The state bill would be similar to a federal bill introduced in the last session of Congress. The bill failed by one vote in the Senate. Both former Senator J. Bennett Johnston and Senator John Breaux voted for the bill.
A 1996 Newsweek poll showed that 84% of those surveyed favored banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment.
A World of Difference
in Dallas
The 15th World Conference of Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Jews will take place July 4-6, 1997 in Dallas. The biennial conference is presented by The World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jewish organizations and will be hosted this year by Dallas' predominantly gay and lesbian synagogue, Congregation Beth El Binah. The focus of this years conference will be how each of us can make A World of Difference in our lives and the lives of others.
The conference will be held at Dallas' 5-star Fairmont Hotel located in the downtown Arts District. Plans for an exciting weekend include a Welcome to Dallas reception on the evening of Thursday, July 3rd and a series of workshops, seminars, services and speakers who will explore gay and lesbian issues in a Jewish setting. Tours of Dallas sites of interest, including the John F. Kennedy assassination site and museum and Dallas Holocaust Museum, one of the first such museums in the world. Special programming is scheduled for gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors.
Attendees and speakers are expected from around the world. The World Congress has member organizations on six continents and contacts for newly forming groups throughout eastern Europe and South America.
This conference promises to be a weekend of special events, an appropriate backdrop for the first World Conference to be held in the southwestern United States. Three World Congress member organizations from Los Angeles, New York and London will celebrate their 25th anniversary this year, and host organization, Congregation Beth El Binah of Dallas, will celebrate its Bat mitzvah year during the weekend.
Anyone interested in attending the conference or in conducting a workshop or seminar, may contact the conference planning committee at: 15th World Conference, P.O. Box 191188, Dallas, Texas 75219 USA, by telephone at 214. 497.1591. Registration materials are also available through the world wide web Internet site at:
www.global.org/beth.el.binah/
for more information contact: David Taffet at DPTaffet@aol.com or 214.941.2197 or 972. 612.6260 (days) Gary Rifkin at GRifkin@aol.com
Ida Kohlmeyer Remembered at NOMA
T he great New Orleans artist Ida Kohhmeyer, who died on January 24, 1997, is being remembered fondly through her celebrated works of art in a memorial exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Ida Kohlmeyer, 1912-1997: In Memorium. The exhibition, which remains open through March 29, is in the Frederick Weisman Galleries for Contemporary Louisiana Art on the Museum's second floor.
Ida Kohlmeyer was born November 3, 1912, in New Orleans. She was educated at Sophie B. Newcomb College of Tulane University; however, her interest in the visual arts did not surface until the late 1940s. Her career determined, Kohlmeyer studied in New Orleans under Pat Trivigno and in Provincetown, Mass., with Hans Hofmann.
Kohlmeycr held a special place in the heart of New Orleanians and her works, including public commissions such as the multiple works in front of the Aquarium of the Americas, remain popular in the city. Her local popularity and national recognition is reflected in her long association with the New Orleans Museum of Art.
"Ida Kohhneyer exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art frequently during 40 years, including her first solo exhibition in 1957 and the definitive retrospective of her work in 1985," said Museum Director E. John Bullard. "And, in 1995, she was the first recipient of the Museum's Delgado Society Distinguished Artist Award."Sterns' Gift of Veilleuses Exhibited
at NOMA
T he New Orleans Museum of Art is the recent recipient of a distinctive collection of veilleuses, or tea warmers, presented by Dr. Sol B. Stern, Mary Tunis Stern and his children Suzanne S. Koretzky and Stephen Stern in memory of Mrs. Terry Stern. Veilleuses: The Stern Collection will be on display in the Lupin Foundation Center for the Decorative Art from March I through May 18. The exhibition will be rounded out with porcelains, from the Museum collection, related to the arts of eating and drinking.
"This gift notably enriches the European ceramic collection and is utterly appropriate to New Orleans for several reasons," said John W. Keefe, NOMA's Curator of Decorative Arts. The veilleuse was popular during the opulent antebellum years of mid- 19th century New Orleans, later even figuring into the plantation house furnishings of Frances Parkinson Keyes' 1952 novel Steamboat Gothic. And, Keefe pointed out, the international authority on the form was native New Orleanian Harold Newman, whose book Veilleuses, 1750-1860 remains the standard reference. "Despite the popularity of the veilleuse in New Orleans, the Museum has not, until now, owned a collection of this distinctive ceramic form," Keefe said.
As Newman defines it, a veilleuse is a tea warmer resting on a hollow pedestal equipped with a burner. The term derives from the French verb veiller, to keep a night watch or vigil as the small burner provided illumination.
The form evolved from food warmers introduced at the great German porcelain factories of Nymphenburg and Hochst. The tea warmer surpassed it in popularity, however, as tea was the most fashionable beverage of the day. A basic veilleuse consisted of a pedestal on which rested a teapot with a peg-like base extending down to the burner at the base; however, veilleuses became considerably more elaborate after 1830. Considered luxury-trade novelty objects produced for a booming French economy, veilleuses were frequently lavishly decorated and often took on whimsical forms such as people and animals. As such, they became small pieces of functional sculpture.
Although the veilleuse ceased to be produced as a functional item in about 1860, they are still manufactured and widely collected.
The Stern Collection was begun by Dr. Sol Stern and his late first wife, Terry, in the 1970s. Although it filled their home, Veilleuses: The Stern Collection will mark the first time the collection has been displayed publicly. The veilleuses will be shown with tureens, plates, compotes, sweetmeat stands, teapots, coffee pots, cups and saucers all produced in France at the same time as veilleuses, thus giving a complete picture of the 19th century French tableware porcelain trade. There will be several examples from the state services of King Louis-Philippe, Emperor Napoleon III and the duc d'Orleans.
Ides of March Benefit for LEGAL
O z is holding its 1997 Ides of March benefit for Louisiana Electorate of Gays and Lesbians (LEGAL) on Friday, March 14 at 800 Bourbon St.
The Second annual Spring Break benefit, "Caligula's Orgy: The Toga Party," will begin at 9 pm. Togas and other Roman attire are highly encouraged although not essential for admittance. Prizes will be awarded for "best costume" and "best orgy scene."
So, get your togas out! Dust off that laurel wreath! and get ready for the Spring Break Toga Party of the year--at Oz!
LEGAL is a statewide non-profit organization that works to end discrimination based upon sexual orientation. You can contact LEGAL by calling voice mail at 504.365.3105, e-mail: legalinc@aol.com, visit their web site at http://legalin/or writing at P.O. Box 70344, New Orleans, LA 70172-0344.
GLAADalert Update -- NIC'd On The Net
Amidst the controversy surrounding the domain name "godhatesfags.com," GLAAD recently spoke with Sherry Proehl, a representative from InterNIC, in hopes that she might shed more light on the policy behind registering a domain name. GLAAD has been challenging InterNIC's arbitrary policy since "godhatesfags.com" first hit cyberspace.
During the conversation, Proehl said that InterNIC automatically screens the FCC listing of the "Seven Dirty Words." Other than those words, she said that InterNIC does not engage in any political statement and because they register domains internationally, the company did not want to be responsible for drawing the line on speech.
However, in order to test their policy, a member recently tried to register "nigger.com," a domain with a hateful and clearly inappropriate racist epithet. His request was declined by InterNIC, which stated that "Network Solutions has a right founded in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to refuse to register, and thereby publish on the Internet, registry of domain names words that it deems to be inappropriate." When Proehl was asked why this domain name was declined and not "godhatesfags.com," she replied that it contained one of the "Seven Dirty Words." However, "nigger" is decidedly not one of the Seven Dirty Words. So, why does it allow "godhatesfags.com?"
The Feb. 19 issue of The Netly News, an online publication put out by Time-Warner's Pathfinder, does an excellent job at highlighting InterNIC's "uneven policy." The article clarifies the concerns behind such a hateful domain: "The domain name itself, the activists feared, might incite violence against gay people. Just as troubling, though, was the uneven way the NIC handles cases like this. What's the NIC's policy on allowing discriminatory names? Clearly, it has none."
Please write Network Solutions/InterNIC and ask them to clarify their policy around discriminatory names. Contact: David Graves, Internet Business Manager, Network Solutions, 505 Huntmar Park Drive, Herndon, VA 20170, fax: 703.742.8449, e-mail: bmo@netsol.com.
Also, let The Netly News know that their insightful reporting is much appreciated. Send e-mail to: thenetlynews @pathfinder.com
