Male, female or other?

Full Article

Male, female or other?

By Michaela L. Duckett – September 15, 2011

Font Size:

Share:

Good morning! Today the weatherman is calling a for partly cloudy skies this morning followed by scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. Today’s high will be around 86°. Showers in the evening are likely to continue overnight. Expect lows in the high 50s.

Here’s what’s brewing in the news:

Male, female or somewhere in the middle?

Australian passports will now have three options to describe their gender status. In lieu of choosing male or female, passengers will be able to mark an “x“.

According to AP reports, the government said the new guidelines are an effort to remove discrimination against transgender people and those of ambiguous sex, who often faced questioning and detention at airports because their appearance does not match their gender status.

QUESTION: Would you support similar legislation in the United States? Why or why not? ***

Woman strip searched at airport

In other aviation news, a 35-year-old freelance writer from Ohio says she was escorted from an airplane detained and strip searched simply because of her appearance.

Shoshana Hebshi, who describes herself as being of Arabic and Jewish decent, says that after being ordered off a Frontier Airlines flight, she was patted down, placed in a holding cell and then asked to remove her clothes by a uniformed female officer who strip searched her.

She was one of three people escorted from the plane after being reported by crew members for conducting suspicious activity. She says she was simply minding her business - sleeping, reading and playing on her phone during the flight. Two men were reported after crew members say they spent too much time in the bathroom.

After being detained for nearly four hours, Hebshi was released and thanked by an official for her understanding and cooperation. QUESTION: Was this woman violated? Has airport security gone too far? (Read more)
***

101-year-old evicted woman returning home

Two days after evicting a 101-year-old woman from her home, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Wednesday that they will allow the woman to move back in.

Texana Hollis was evicted from her home in Detroit on Monday after her 65-year-old son Warren Hollis neglected to pay the taxes and the mortgage for several years. When the eviction notices began arriving in the mail about a year ago, the son says he threw them in the trash and continued to hide the truth from his mother.

"I kept it from her because I didn't want to worry her," the son told WXYZ-TV. "I was just so sure it wasn't going to happen." Well it did. Monday, HUD evicted Hollis from the home she has lived in for nearly 60 years.

Neighbors say she was left sitting on the sidewalk in her wheelchair for about 12 hours alongside her belongings and that her medication had been tossed in the dumpster. HUD officials say they will pay the taxes on the house and that Hollis, who has since been hospitalized, can return when she is released. (Read more)

FILL IN THE BLANK:
If that was my mother and he was my brother, I would ___________ .
***
Did Sarah Palin have a fetish for black men?

In his new book “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin,” author Joe McGinniss reveals that Sarah Palin and former NBA player Glen Rice had a one night stand. McGinniss, who has reportedly confirmed the story with Rice says the fling occurred in 1987 when Rice was a star player for the University of Michigan. He was playing in a basketball tournament in Alaska where he met Palin, who was working as a reporter for the local television station. The author reportedly alludes that Palin had a “fetish” for black men. Does this surprise you? (Read more)
***

Not tonight honey…

A judge orders a man to pay his ex-wife $14,000 for violating their “marriage” contract by not having enough sex. The French woman filed for divorce about two years ago after 21 years of marriage. Apparently, she couldn’t handle the lack of copulation in her marriage. Her husband blamed fatigue and health issues as the cause of the problem. The judge ruled that "a sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other." (Read more)
***

Vegan couple to spend life in jail after starving baby to death

The Georgia Supreme court upheld the murder convictions of Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas, a vegan couple charged with allowing their 6-month-old baby to starve. The child died in 2004 after being fed a diet of soy milk and apple juice. In 2007, a jury convicted the couple of malice murder, felony murder, and involuntary manslaughter. The Georgia Supreme court announced earlier this week they have upheld that conviction and the couple will spend life in prison. (Read more)