In the News (with pictures & videos)

[Betty]

These are the only plugins I have installed on Firefox & Pale Moon. Perhaps you got a plugin or extension overriding your browser settings. Of course, you should never have a google plugin or extension installed on a non-google browser, they tend to take over the browser so it does what they want instead of what you want or the browser was designed for.

[Betty]

Oops. At some Youtube videos, & at our private movie section, you may have to double-click the play button in the lower left corner of the video to get it to play, after you click on the video. That is, one click on the play button will set it to pause, & the next click on it makes it play.

It depends if your browser is using flash, HTML5, or VLC player to open the video. All Betty's videos are compatible with all 3, but the method need to open or start the video may vary. Usually the double click on the lower left play button works on all players, browsers, & settings to start the video.

Autoplay tries to use all methods automatically until it finds which one works. Unfortunately it often tries to play all or load all the videos on the page rather than just the one you want to see.

[Robyn Jodie]

Exactly my experience.  Thank you.

[Betty]

Simple enough to double click on something... no sweat. Many apps, programs, features, operating systems, & even some of our movies or their folders require a double click. A click is the easiest thing in the world to do except blinking. Clicking twice is almost as easy.

I'll estimate 1/4 to 1/3 of everything I click on requires a double click no matter what browser or operating system I use. In Linux, & windows in its default settings, almost everything requires a double click. It was considered an anti-goof mechanism so you don't accidentally click on stuff, delete stuff, or change stuff that you didn't want to.

It's handy if you got pets or kids, so they don't click on stuff if they get near your computer, & screw up you machine or send an email to Mars just by bumping something. I have my windows & Linux set for single click rather than the default double click though, but there's still a lot that requires a double click anyway.

I'm lucky that all my pets learned within weeks not to touch keyboards... I got a lot of keyboards. I think screaming as soon as they stepped on one as babies made them figure out early to stay away from them. It's usually pretty quiet around here, & I don't scream often, so it was easy for them to figure out.

Pets are a lot like kids -- if you yell & shout orders at them all the time, it gets confusing to them, so they don't know what to do. Or they think whatever they do will get a yell or orders, so it doesn't matter what they do. I like to keep it short, & simple so they don't get confused about what I mean.

But the cats have caused some accidental clicks. They'll rub their face against my hands while I'm typing or using the mouse, causing a click or miss-type. I also gave up trying to get cats not to step or sit on a remote control or portable radio nearby. I guess I never screamed loud or enough when they stepped on them. I just say "Hey!" & push them off of it. And, although they won't step on a keyboard, if I close the lid on a laptop, they can't wait to step on it or sit on it.

With cats, I don't try to make them learn too much & make it confusing, that way they actually learn more. I live alone. So except for if there's somebody at the door or a phone call, they never hear me speak unless I'm talking to them. With everybody texting, hardly anybody calls anymore... I just get texts & messages most of the time. So when I talk, they perk up & pay attention trying to figure out what I'm saying.

[Betty]

In a victory for people who identify as neither male nor female. Oregon became the first U.S. state to offer a third gender option on state-issued identifications.

The change approved by the State allows Oregonians to select “X” for “not specified” as their gender, as it appears on state IDs, driver licenses and driver permits.

“Our lives are so gendered, which is why it’s important that driver licenses and other forms of IDs recognize people who are non-binary,” said Basic Rights Oregon co-executive director Nancy Haque, whose organization campaigned for the change. “Removing barriers for people is critical to helping all of us live healthy, productive lives.”

The change comes almost a year after a court decision that prompted it. Last June, an Oregon judge granted Jamie Shupe, a retired Army tank mechanic, the right to legally identify as non-binary. The decision marked the first legal recognition of someone being neither female nor male. 

“In order to comply with the order, the Department of Motor Vehicles needed about a year to implement the change,” the department said in a statement Thursday. “Time was required to study state laws, update computer systems, work with business partners such as law enforcement and courts, and change administrative rules.”

Thursday’s decision is the latest in Oregon’s progressive track record on LGBTQ issues. In November, the state became the first in the country to elect an openly LGBTQ governor ― Kate Brown, a bisexual woman who first began serving as governor in 2015 following Gov. John Kitzhaber’s resignation.

While Oregon is the first U.S. state to offer the option, the “X” is also in use in Australia, New Zealand and the Canadian province Ontario.

California could be next. The state Senate is considering a bill that would allow residents to identify as non-binary on all official state issued documents, including birth certificates.

[Betty]

 While many LGBTQ advocates in the U.S. have been fighting against retrenchment of their rights, Canada set an international precedent for the protection of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-16 by a 67-11 vote. The bill adds prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act, amends the criminal code to extend protections against hate speech and allows judges to take into consideration when sentencing whether a crime was motivated by hatred of the victim’s gender identity or expression.

[Betty]

A survey of transgender life in the state of Maine suggests transgender people in Maine face discrimination in health care, housing and the criminal justice system.

Results were released Thursday by members of the Maine-based Health Equity Alliance and the Maine Transgender Network (MaineTransNet) at a news conference in Portland. Proponents called the survey the largest ever done on transgender life.

“This data gives voice to the experiences of Mainers from Aroostook to York,” Quinn Gormley, president of MaineTransNet, said in a statement. “We, as advocates, face a constant struggle to impress upon providers, politicians and the public the severity of discrimination faced by transgender Mainers. These statistics come as no surprise to anyone in our community.”

In the Maine report, 43 percent of respondents who saw a health care provider in the past year reported at least one negative experience, including being refused treatment, verbally harassed or physically or sexually assaulted.

The survey reported that 28 percent of Maine respondents experienced some form of housing discrimination in the past year, including being evicted or being denied a home or apartment because they are transgender.

And the survey of Mainers said 62 percent of transgender people who had encounters with police reported being verbally harassed, referred to as the wrong gender or physically assaulted. Fifty-nine percent said they felt uncomfortable asking the police for help.

“From employment to housing, to education, to police violence, sexual assault, access to health care and beyond, transgender Mainers experience disparities that can scarcely be compared to the lived reality of the general population,” Maggie Campbell, director of communications and development for the Health Equity Alliance, said in a statement.

[Betty]

Catholics came from across the state of Missouri Tuesday to pray for restoration of Catholic principles in the controversy caused by a Diocese of Jefferson City initiative pushing acceptance of gender ideology in its schools.

Roughly 120 Catholics traveled to be part of a pilgrimage conducted at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima adjacent to the diocesan chancery in the middle of a workday, praying the rosary together with two diocesan priests in the 93-degree heat.

Jefferson City Bishop John Bishop Gaydos has defended the new policy, insisting to priests in an internal memo that it promotes Catholic moral teaching. He dismissed opposition and subsequent media reporting as “public furor” coming from “outside our diocese.” He also called the pushback “falsehoods” and a “misinformation campaign.”

The policy makes the diocese a forerunner in the U.S., according Superintendent of Schools Sister Elizabeth Youngs, who had told the Jefferson City News Tribune for a June 4 report, “We probably are in the lead.”

The policy — referenced by the diocese as a “pastoral process of accompaniment and dialogue” — allows pastors to admit transgender students to diocesan schools and also encompasses anyone from a “non-traditional” family such as children in household led by same-sex couples or living with cohabiting parents.

To justify the policy, the diocese cites #250 of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, which says families with members experiencing same-sex attraction should be given respectful pastoral guidance and assistance in understanding and carrying out God’s will in the their lives.

[Betty]

The United Methodist Church is raising brows after appointing its first "non-binary" transgender deacon.

Deacon M. Barclay does not identify with either gender and prefers to be referred to by the pro-noun "they," the United Methodist News Service reports.

Barclay spent 12 years studying theology and training to become a minister in the church. There were times when those years were filled with uncertainty and a crisis of faith.

"I struggled with how much harm the church had done, not only to LGBT people but to other marginalized people. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a part of that… My faith was still there. It was just really hard to imagine the church living out what I think God is trying to do in the world right now… I understand the rules of the church… But here's the truth: I'm queer, and I'm called to this. I tried to walk way."

The topic of LGBTQ clergy has been a source of heated debate in the Methodist church in recent years. Texas rejected Barclay's request to become a deacon.

It wasn't until Barclay went to Chicago that she finally got appointed.

The Methodist church is not the only place where transgender and queer ministers are popping up. The  First Baptist Church of Greenville opened its doors to LGBTQ ministers and weddings in 2015

First Baptist Greenville cut ties with the Southern Baptist convention in the early 1990s. It's now a member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

However, the fellowship opposed the church's decision.

"The foundation of a Christian sexual ethic is faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman and celibacy in singleness," the CBF said in a statement.

[Betty]

Trump said he will ban transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity, a reversal of the Obama administration decision that would have allowed them to serve.

The missive comes after Trump's defense secretary, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, delayed the implementation of the plan to accept transgender troops by six months. The decision came one day before the deadline for the military to update its medical standards to accommodate transgender service members.

Under Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, the military lifted the ban on transgender troops and was given one year to determine how to implement a policy that would allow transgender service members to receive medical care and would ban the services from involuntarily separating people in the military who came out as transgender.

Thousands of troops currently serving in the military are transgender, and some estimates place the number as high as 11,000 in the reserves and active duty military, according to a Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Defense Department.

Brad Carson, a former congressman who worked on transgender policy deliberations under the Obama administration, said in an interview Wednesday that months of delays last year in implementing a change in transgender policy “left the door open” to Trump's scrutiny now.

“That being said, just from the tweets it seems as if what he is doing is rolling back already implemented policies, which will force out several hundred openly transgender service members out of the military,” Carson said. “This will be personal tragedy for them, but it will be a professional loss for the military, and it's going to invite litigation that will distract the Department of Defense for months, if not years, to come.”

Carson predicted that the courts ultimately could have a larger hand now in deciding transgender policy in the military, and that the Pentagon could lose some of its say in how to implement it in the process.

Carson said he is unclear who is driving Trump's decision. While the president tweeted Wednesday that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved, Carson said he talked to “every single chief” while he was working on transgender policy and none of them was in favor of a full ban.

Trump's announcement comes two weeks after the House rejected an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have blocked the Pentagon from offering gender transition therapies to active duty service members. Twenty-four Republicans joined all 190 Democrats voting to reject the measure.