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Horizontes Antropológicos
versão impressa ISSN 0104-7183
Horiz.antropol. vol.5 no.se Porto Alegre 2010
Aging, life trajectories and female homosexuality
Envelhecimento, trajetórias e homossexualidade feminina
Andrea Moraes Alves
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Translated by David Rodgers
Translated from Horizontes Antropológicos, Porto Alegre, v.16, n.34, p. 49-70, dez. 2010.
A literatura das ciências sociais sobre o tema da homossexualidade feminina tem crescido recentemente no Brasil, mostrando o interesse despertado pelo assunto. A partir dos anos 1990, trabalhos acadêmicos discutem a homossexualidade feminina: seu significado e impacto sobre as questões de gênero, sua relação com os movimentos sociais vinculados às reivindicações sobre direitos sexuais e reprodutivos no Brasil. Grande parte desses trabalhos concentra-se sobre uma faixa etária jovem, em torno dos 20 anos de idade, e outros abordam mulheres um pouco mais velhas, entre 30 e 40 anos. No entanto, nota-se a ausência de trabalhos que discutam a homossexualidade vivida por mulheres idosas. Este artigo pretende começar a preencher essa lacuna e traz à discussão o olhar das lésbicas mais velhas e suas percepções sobre o que significa a homossexualidade feminina e o lugar que ela ocupa na trajetória de vida dessas mulheres.
Palavras-chave: gênero, homossexualidade feminina, trajetórias individuais, velhice.
The social science's literature about female homosexuality has recently grown in Brazil, showing the awakened interest in this issue. Since the 1990's, academic works have discussed female homosexuality: its meanings and its impact on gender issues, its relationships with social movements, specially the ones concerned with sexual rights in Brazil. Great part of these works focus on a young age rate, and some of them are dedicated to middle age women. However, there aren't works concerned with old age women and lesbianity. This article starts to fill this gap and takes into account old age lesbians and their perceptions about homosexuality and its place in their life trajectories.
Keywords: female homosexuality, gender, individual trajectory, old age.
The social science literature on female homosexuality has grown recently in Brazil, showing the interest aroused by the subject. Academic works discussing female homosexuality first emerged in the 1990s, exploring questions such as its meaning, its impact on gender issues and its relation to social movements campaigning for sexual and reproductive rights in Brazil (Almeida 2005, Facchini 2008, Heilborn 1996, and 2004, Lacombe 2006, Muniz 1992). Most of these works focused on a young age group in their early twenties, while others discussed slightly older women, aged between 30 and 40 years. However there is a notable absence of works on homosexuality among senior women.1 This article aims to start making up for this gap through an exploration of the views of older lesbians, their perceptions of what female homosexuality means and its place in their life trajectories.
The text's central argument is that the different generations configure distinct fields of possibilities' (Velho 1994) for the construction of being homosexual. In the case of female homosexuality, the generational viewpoint allows us to reassess the place occupied by sexuality in the construction of female life trajectories.
The research material includes interviews using the life history model with four women, one born in 1934 and the other three between 1943 and 1947. The interviews were conducted in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 when the women concerned were aged between 60 and 73 years old. All the interviews were held separately in the homes of the women and involved scripted questions on themes relating to their affective-sexual lives: sexual initiation, flirts, dating and love affairs, formal and informal conjugal relations, separations and widowhood, and their sexual experiences, whether or not accompanied by stable relationships. The idea behind the interview was to stimulate the informant to provide an account of their histories of love and sex over the course of their lives, beginning with their first flirts and romances, their first sexual experiences and moving onto the affective and sexual experiences as mature adults. In this article, the histories of the women's sexual experiences are highlighted as the first time,' the setting for the encounters, and the lesbian couple's maintenance of their sex life. The women's accounts are explored as affective-sexual scripts (Gagnon 2004), primarily looking to identify in these scripts how the women attribute meanings to the sexual and affective encounters experienced over their lifetime.
A brief description of the interviewees
The four interviewed women engaged in paid work throughout adult life. Just one of them has still to retire and currently runs her own small business. Among the three who have already retired, one was a human resources manager for a large supermarket chain, one worked as an economist for a public sector company and the third is a drama teacher in a private school where still performs this activity. The latter is the only one without a higher education degree, the rest graduated in the areas of economics, social communication and administration. All four women are white. Three reside in the southern zone of Rio de Janeiro and one in the city centre. The four women own the properties where they live. One of them lives alone, another lives with her sister, another with a girlfriend' and the last one with her three adopted children. All of them were in stable affective-sexual relationships at the time of the interview. One had been in a relationship for two years, another for three years, the third for five years and the fourth for one year. In relation to the conjugal experiences over their lifetime: one of them had never lived with anyone until recently (at the time of the interview she had been cohabiting with her girlfriend for two years), while another was married to a man with whom she had two children and today is a grandmother to two grandchildren (the only interviewee to mention experiences of pregnancy and abortion); she and her husband separated after two years of married life. Today she has a girlfriend, but they live in separate homes without any plan to cohabit. One of the women lost her female partner in an accident: they had lived together for 20 years, living in the same house, and had adopted three children. This woman was also in a relationship at the time of the interview, but the two women lived separately in their own homes. They had plans to live together soon. Another woman had three experiences of cohabitation: the first experience lasted four years, the second seven years and the third fifteen years. She had been in a relationship for a year, but without any plans to live under the same roof. This woman said that she had never had any sexual relations with men.
The research material also included a set of interviews with five lesbian women aged between 37 and 49. Four are white and one is black. Their professions are: a public sector worker, two advisors for an NGO, an architect and a journalist. Three reside in the southern zone of the city, one in the northern zone and another in a municipality located in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. Four were in affective relationships at the time of the interview, three of them presenting themselves as married' and one as single.' One of the five women had biological children from an earlier heterosexual marriage. The accounts provided by these women are used here as a counterpoint to the experience of the older group, as a way of highlighting the generational differences. The central discussion of the article is the homosexual life trajectory of the older group of lesbians.
The women making up the two interviewed groups were initially approached following suggestions from acquaintances from my own different networks of contacts. They do not know each other. Selection of the interviewees was based on age group, educational level (higher education) and sexual orientation.
Old age, histories of love and female homosexuality
It has become a common belief that aged bodies have no space in the erotic marketplace and this disadvantage severely hinders elderly people from pursuing sexual adventures. This idea is even more deep-rooted where women are concerned. As they age, women are seen and see themselves as sexually unattractive. The bodily marks of aging, such as wrinkles and white hair, are devalued from the aesthetic viewpoint and are seen to diminish the seductive potential of the body in question (Goldenberg, 2008). It is also claimed that this aesthetic devaluation of the older body is especially widespread in Brazil, a fact reflected in the large number of people who undertake (or wish to) a variety of cosmetic procedures, including surgical, that promise physical rejuvenation. In response to this cultural denial of old age, older women can frequently be heard complaining of the invisibility of their bodies and the consequent loss of their powers of sexual attraction.
All of these claims can be nuanced, though. This feeling of invisibility is not shared by all older women in all situations. Distinct aesthetic patterns exist within Brazilian society and what appears to be a symbol of aging in one context may not have the same meaning in another. Similarly what is deemed sexually attractive can vary considerably. Among the women who I interviewed for this study, age was not described as an obstacle to their love lives. Contrary to what might be expected of women aged over 60, the interviewees continue to have affective-sexual relations and cohabit with their partners, and do not refer to old age as an impediment to their amorous encounters with other women.
The partners of the four senior interviewees were an average of ten to fifteen years younger than them, inverting a pattern which the women had experienced earlier in their lives: when they were younger and having their first sexual encounters, their first female partners were older than them. Now they are the ones who meet younger women to have relationships, sometimes including women from more modest social backgrounds with lower levels of schooling and income.
The new path cited for encountering sexual partners is the internet. The chat rooms on GLS2 sites are used for socialization and flirting. According to Heilborn (2009, p. 83):
The internet makes it easier to meet people from distant social worlds and, accordingly, a pattern has emerged once almost unknown to the middle-class lesbian world in Rio de Janeiro: contact between subjects with very different social origins, a model heavily documented for the gay male world.
This new circuit has combined with traditional means of interaction: the fan clubs of singers like Zélia Duncan, Ana Carolina and Cássia Eller, as well as older singers like Maysa3 for example. In Rio de Janeiro, the interviewed women all had fond memories of Bar Gaivota,4 a retreat heavily frequented by them in the 1980s and the setting for romantic dates. Today they complain of the lack of such spaces. The public spaces used by homosexuals to socialize are perceived to be aimed at a younger public, leading them to feel out of place: they dislike the kind of music played, the clientele is considered too young (around 20/30 years old) and the opening hours are seen to be prohibitive. Consequently the social activities of these women primarily involve frequenting each other's houses and configuring a network of friendships based on affective, material and sexual exchanges.
The sex life of lesbian partners have been treated in the specialist literature as a sub-factor in the configuration of the couple. According to this literature, the lesbian couple is constituted by a strong feeling of conjugality, allied to an awareness of their distinct individualities. The two women share projects, tasks and obligations without diluting their own personalities. Sexual practice is obscured as a determining element in the couple's union. The doctoral thesis of Maria Luiza Heilborn, published in 2004, presents these conclusions based on a study conducted at the start of the 1990s centred on middle-class women aged between 35 and 45.5 The middle-class women interviewed by myself are in another phase of their life-cycle (between 60 and 73 years old), have already experienced some long-term relationships, including cohabitation, and at the time of interview were all in relationships with women younger than themselves. In their interviews, sexual practice is seen as an element fundamental to the existence of the lesbian couple. While the motive for the union is love and friendship, not sex, the maintenance of the bond depends on feeding sexual attraction and self-esteem.
Sex is very important for me, I can't go for more than a week without sex, I've always been like that and it remains the same today. In the day-to-day of the relationship, physical attraction matters greatly. I would say that it's 70% sex and 30% the rest. (Roberta, 60 years old.)
However when asked what exactly they did to sustain the sexual attraction between the couple, the replies were very vague. By comparison, the younger lesbian women (aged between 35 and 45) interviewed elsewhere in this research were much more explicit in naming the erotic resources used by the couple, such as the purchase of items from sex shops. The younger women also engage in a more varied sexual repertoire, emphasizing the transitory nature of the attitudes and positions adopted by each partner during the sexual act. Hence while the senior women affirm the importance of maintaining sex as an element that moulds the lesbian couple, it is the younger women who openly name the practices and resources used to break the routine' of the couple's sex life.
Another point worth highlighting in this exploration of the relation between old age and female homosexuality is the way in which older women produce an affective-sexual history of their lives. This history provides us with a valuable insight into the relations between the interviewed women and their social contexts, the networks of social contacts that enabled them in the past (and still enable them today) to obtain the experience of female homosexuality in Rio de Janeiro. In the phase of life in which they now find themselves, the opportunity to tell the history of their sex lives - a history that remained in the shadows for years - is seen as a chance to give meaning to this trajectory and locate themselves as the subjects of this history.
The act of narrating her history, her experiences over time, allows the interviewee to construct a self-presentation, a biography in the sense Bourdieu (1996) gives to the term. The events and actors either placed at the centre of the scene, or pushed to its margins, indicate the relations that the narrator herself finds significant. As Plummer argues (1995), when we record sexual histories,' we need to keep in mind the context in which they are produced and with which they are interrelated. In the case of my own research, the context of the narration includes the interaction between a younger, heterosexual interviewer and a narrator who is at least 20 years older and homosexual. The histories told to me presume a listener who does not share the same codes. Moreover the testimonies are addressed to someone whose age difference prevents sharing of the same temporal reference points. The city was different in the past, as were the forms of circulating between the spaces identified as open to practices and interactions between homosexuals. Since we are dealing here with female homosexuality, the spaces for which have always been fewer than those frequented by their male counterparts, it becomes comprehensible how often these narratives mention the almost complete absence of such places. A perfect metaphor for the invisibility of female homosexuality. Nonetheless, the women lived homosexual lives, spaces were constructed for this experience and today they form the raw material for the narrative.
The memories put into play in these accounts are individual constructions based on contextual references. Like any memory, they are connected to the future insofar as what is mobilized concerning the past is linked to the present and to the future projects of these narrators.
The past is therefore discontinuous. The consistency and meaning of this past and of memory are interconnected with the elaboration of projects that give meaning and establish continuities between these different moments and situations (Velho 1994, p. 103).
Memory puts in motion the individual trajectories of these women, providing a space for them to appropriate places that had been almost forgotten,' moments that became significant in the present. These are significant moments precisely because they construct a perception of what constitutes them as subjects with an affective-sexual life, with histories of love that can be told in the present and that give meaning to their life courses. Old age is seen as an ideal opportunity for remembering and weaving the threads of this history. Old age is simultaneously the time in which this history is maintained and is connected to future projects: it is thus a moment of creation (Lins de Barros 1998).
Memories of lesbianism: the first time
I must have been 19 or 20, thereabouts. It was by correspondence. At that time chat rooms didn't exist, not even computers. You need to go back 40 years or so. We used to read a lot of magazines, they featured a readers' corner where readers could correspond with each other. One day I was feeling really down and I placed an advert saying that I wanted to correspond with fans of Maysa. I adored Maysa.6 I received a lot of letters. But by the time I got the letters, I was in a different mood, I was already feeling better, it was a different me to the one who had written. I thought it was all hugely funny and threw the letters in the bin. But one of them caught my attention, and I decided to put it aside and respond. So I replied and the girl wrote back to me and we started to swap letters. Until one day - up until then I hadn't had anyone - I thought that I was starting to like her in a different way. We continued writing to each other. Then one fine day, I sent a letter to her explaining that I wouldn't be sending anymore because I was feeling something different, I liked her. [I told her] there was a song that reminded me of her a lot and so on, and that I couldn't write to her any more. Coincidentally she sent a letter to me that very same day, saying the same things. Like something out of a film. But we started to... We felt that we liked each other, the letters became more frequent. Only we had never spoken to each other, what we were like physically, nothing Then one day we started to telephone each other and she came to Rio No, I went to São Paulo, I went to meet her. It was a shock, because she was ten years older than me. I was 20 and she was 30. Except her hair was dyed almost completely white and I looked like a boy. So the first impact was a real shock, but we already liked each other. The first impression wasn't what mattered. Three months went by, I left home and rented an apartment. And so we ended up living together. (Roberta, 60 years old.)
Understood as processes, having sex and assuming a sexual identity are not sequential stages forming a smoothly organized life course. Hearing the narratives on the women's first sexual encounters allows us to understand which elements are used by the narrators to make sense' of their lives, providing us with material that can reveal
the interplay between social meanings and social interactions deemed relevant for the representation of the narrator's subjectivity - and if we take into account the fact that every narrative is also constructed by the person listening, its analysis can provide us with important elements to understanding the role played by the elaboration of the experiences of a generational group in learning and transmitting master-narratives on the origin of sexual desire. (Simões 2004, p. 432.)
In the interviews on their trajectories, the women were asked about the beginning of their sex lives. In response, the women who have sexual relations with other women asked me: "Which beginning do you want to know about? With men or with women?" I replied: "I want to know about what you think is your beginning." This was the cue for me to hear about at least two beginnings to their sexual lives and a temporality very often difficult to follow. This separation of scripts, one hetero' and the other homo,' is an artifice used to make sense' and, like any artifice, should be interpreted in the way Simões tells us in the above citation: an important element to "understanding the role played by the elaboration of the experiences of a generational group in learning and transmitting master-narratives on the origin of sexual desire."
All the women were sexually initiated with women older than themselves by a fairly significant amount: between ten and fifteen years. The only exception was the woman who had her first homosexual relation at the age of 57, whose younger partner was 45 at the time. However the latter was more experienced since she had already had various affective and sexual relations with women previously. This large age difference for the first homosexual relation is not found in the accounts given by younger lesbians. Among the latter group, the first sexual partnerships took place in settings such as school and university where people from similar age ranges tend to group. In the case of the older group of women, the contexts of the first encounter are different: their first relations were with women met in more exclusive social environments where homosexuality was not condemned. Two women met their partners through the fan clubs of famous Brazilian singers, another met her first partner in a gay bar at the end of the 1970s. This difference in the settings for the first sexual encounter helps explain, I think, the reduction in the age difference between the sexual partners over time. The contexts for homoerotic encounters are more abundant and diverse today than they were in the past.
The older women's accounts of their first sexual encounter with another woman tend to emphasize the affective dimension rather than erotic pleasure. The relationship developed with the sexual partner is slow, beginning as a relation of friendship and complicity that, at a certain moment, absorbs sexual intercourse into its repertoire. These relations are fairly durable and are described as the first great love.' The language of sentiments comes strongly to the fore in these narratives and turns sex into the corollary of what is primarily an emotional trajectory. The bond of affect is seen to require no explanation and, once established, clears the way for another process: the woman's self-construction as a homosexual.
For the women presenting themselves as homosexual, the first relation is depicted as a discovery of something that had always been there. The first sexual encounter is the gateway to a universe of meanings that are at once strange and familiar. The first time with a woman appears as a spontaneous encounter with affect. The interviewees' accounts stress the idea of the authenticity and uniqueness of the relations. Although some degree of internal conflict exists, along with the fear of discovery and negative reaction from their families, all the women identify the first sexual relation with another woman as a moment of self-realization.
The women with earlier heterosexual experiences, one of whom had even married and raised two children, insist on establishing a sharp divide between sex with a man' and love with a woman.' Physical pleasure is present in the sexual relations with men, but the feeling of completeness' and fulfilment' only appears in the accounts of sexual experiences with women.
Ah! It was marvellous! [the first sexual encounter with a woman] Wow! I had already had relations with men and it's completely different! Everything, absolutely everything is different. Why is it different? Because the energy was there, the chemistry too was much better. The act in itself is much more complete. I had been engaged, I'd had [male] lovers. I had as many lovers as my address book could take. But it was just something physical. My relations with men were always physical, I had orgasms with men too, but it's something else entirely. (Alba, 60 years).
Making oneself lesbian: a contrast between generations
There was an entire culture of the period, a mind-set. At the time when I was beginning to come out, when I began to go to night clubs and all that, there was a huge difference between being a dyke [sapatão] and being the girlfriend of a dyke. Today you don't see that Today you come across in the know' people and you can't identify them physically. The posture, the way of dressing was completely different then. During that period, you had to use heavy clothing.
[Question: "You mention during that period "]
Forty years ago. To give an idea of the mind-set: my mother, when she learnt, said that she would prefer me to go with a divorced man. "I'd prefer her to go with a divorced man than with a woman!" That gives you some idea of the mentality at the time. The divorced man was a nightmare. It was terrible for someone to go with a married or divorced man. So you can imagine the culture, can't you? At that time, there were two classes of people that had to remain distinct. So when I knew what side I was on, I had to assume that side. So I assumed the side of the dykes. I had always had that posture. I was always a real tomboy, a street kid, ready to fight, to I always behaved in a more masculine way, even as a child, so it was something that came naturally to me. It wasn't forced, I did it because I dressed like that because I liked it. Obviously when I started to work I had to use high heels, I couldn't just wear trousers, I had to wear a skirt, tights, makeup. It didn't bother me, it wasn't any great sacrifice. But when I could remove that fancy dress, it was great. So, there was that entire culture during the period. But as time passed, things evolved, everything changed. When I go out today with this one [her current girlfriend], she says: "Put a bit of lipstick on." I have to put some on, I already use some, it's not so forced anymore. I've got more used to it. So there was a change too. [ ] My behaviour in bed also began to change. I had relations before, but I had all those old preconceptions. I would never accept someone doing something just for the sake of it. They did it to me, they gave me pleasure, so I had to do it too [ ] I always assumed the position of giving pleasure. Today it's no longer like that, there's been a change in posture, in everything.
The history of the 60-year old Roberta contains some important elements. Firstly the division she makes between the past, where there were old preconceptions' and a very clear demarcation of boundaries between the women themselves, the dykes' [sapatões] and their girlfriends,' and the present where these boundaries are blurred, a time where all lesbian women are, to use her own term, entendidas, in the know.'7 Secondly, the evolution of her own identity is depicted to coincide with this temporality. In the past she was forced to take one side' and chose the side of the dykes.' Today she sees herself as a woman.' One era is not necessarily any better than the other. Roberta does not feel she was violated by wearing heavy clothing' or having a sex life in which she was responsible for giving pleasure' to her partner; the change simply brought new habits to her sex life and her self-presentation. The partners with whom she relates today are women who ask her to use a bit of lipstick.' Roberta's structuring of her sex life is an example of the way in which the women try to make sense of their trajectories for themselves and for others. Roberta situates the history of her sex life in a context involving a transformation in the visibility of homosexual relations. The past to which she refers, 40 years ago,' is seen as a time in which a lesbian woman had to choose one of two sides to be homosexual: a side that mimicked the male, both externally, in appearance, and in sexual posture. Today the female image has been revived and sexual relations have become a terrain for exchanges between partners where the rule is to act as one feels.
Alba, also 60 years old, speaks of her current partner, who is ten years younger than herself and had never had sexual relations with a woman before. They consider themselves married, though they do not live in the same home for operational reasons': Alba has three children and her partner too, "it's difficult to have six young people living under the same roof." Alba tells me about her partner's process of sexual initiation:
I said to her: "You just need to have a direct relation with the spots that give you pleasure. Discover these on your own body, it will be exactly the same on mine because our bodies are identical."
This equality in bodily identification is seen as the key to pleasure. The same interviewee told me how she felt an enormous compassion' for transgender individuals and transvestites because they "are unable to see themselves in their own bodies." The body recognized as the same becomes the basis for sexual experience.
In the interviews with younger lesbian women, also from Rio's urban middle classes - collected in another phase of this research - the discourse takes on another tone. Comparing these statements provides a clearer idea of the differences in how older lesbians look back on their life courses. Hence the experiences of the younger women are used here as a contrast to those of the older group.
Joana, 41 years old, fell in love with a school colleague at the age of 17. She describes it as a marvellous period since she and her girlfriend belonged to a group of friends, "all gay and highly creative, rebellious, crazy, artists." For her it was a private universe' where nobody had to define themselves: "we knew we were gay, but we didn't need to pronounce the name." Some of these people still belong to Joana's circle of friends, some are still gay today, others not, "they are married [to someone of the opposite sex] and have children," as she says. During this period of adolescence, Joana was simultaneously in love with a boy and her girlfriend. It was when she went to college that she began to have relations exclusively with women. These relations were extremely intense and dramatic with scenes of jealousy and relations with women who wanted her to be "the guy in the relationship." During this period, Joana had an unstable professional life, stopped and restarted her studies numerous times, depended on her parents' money to live and became addicted to cocaine. The end of this rougher' period, as she defines it, coincided with meeting her current partner, with whom she has lived for 13 years, someone who helped her to grow and to liberate herself.
It's not the same as today; the homosexual girls and boys who begin to experiment now have more information than I had. So, in fact, you brought to your relationship a very heterosexual idea of sexuality, the role played by each partner, what each person does. I think it took me a while to get this out of my system, I think it really was a period of maturity, of becoming more mature and saying: "I like this." It means I like it, not because it's active or passive. That was very common at the time, I lived through that, we experienced that a lot during the period, someone had to assume a particular role. I think the mark of change is there: each person does what they want, you don't have to have pre-defined roles. This is something I found a lot with R. [her previous partner], I had to be very active, because she had a very passive profile, one of those women who comes from relations with men, and she didn't like women. She was fundamental for me, because she taught me who I wasn't. O. [her current partner: silence as she thinks for a few moments] I still can't explain this, I don't know how to explain. R. was fundamental, it wasn't the relationship I wanted. I wanted a relationship in which I could be whatever I wanted, what I wanted. With O. it's precisely that. It was a discovery, we could be anything. But there was always something extra, though I didn't understand what it was. Today I know, it wasn't anything, it's natural, you're free, you're liberated, which doesn't mean passive or active, that's not the issue. Perhaps one woman likes one thing more and the other woman something else, but it's not pre-defined, it just happens. But R. marked me because she brought a very strong heterosexual history with her and asked me to perform a role that was very she asked me or I made myself do it, I don't know, but it wasn't good. With O. we can, we live everything, we play with this. We say: "You're lazy today, aren't you?" and the other one becomes more [active] and that's really good, we can talk about out desires. So, nobody is forcing anyone to be anything. There are no pre-defined roles.
Joana fits her process of learning about sex into her relations with other women. Maturity and the love of one particular women are responsible for a change that she considers to have been for the better, leaving behind a fixed and masculinized position in favour of a relationship based on symmetrical exchange and mutual learning. This change in her sexual practices coincides with abandoning the unruly and stressful life she had been leading until then. Joana constructs a more psychological reading of the change and situates herself in a position where she could make a choice. It is no coincidence that the entire process of change was accompanied by sessions of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Generational affiliation has a major influence, then, on the women's perceptions of the flow of sexual identifications and practices. In the case of older women we can identify a process marked by a strong dualism and a persistent view of the naturalness' of sexual relations. Dualism is expressed in the idea that the women had to make a choice, as if a social pressure existed to assume a place and a role within the universe of female homosexuality: be the dyke or the girlfriend of a dyke. This era of dualism is contrasted with the present time where the boundaries evaporate and where it becomes more difficult to tell who is and who is not entendida or in the know.' Today the only thing seen to guide sexual practice is spontaneity.' Roberta only lets someone give her pleasure' if she feels' that the person really wants this.' Alba also speaks of a supposed naturalness where women coincide sexually because their bodies are identical. In the younger generation, the discourse marks an apparently more conscious flight from the mechanisms that generate fixity, a reflexive process determined more by the idea of a search for oneself, a self-improvement.
This reflexive process of improvement takes place when women manage to dialogue among themselves: conversation is something highly valued by this younger generation of lesbians. In Joana's testimony, this learning through dialogue denotes the achievement of personal autonomy in the affective and personal field, what she calls maturity.' A learning process that culminates in the experimentation of a sexuality without pre-defined roles. This absorption of the idea of self-determination in the construction of the homosexual trajectory can be traced to a change in the social context in which sexual relations are experienced in general and the relations between people of the same sex in particular. The younger women produce a set of meanings about sexuality in which the latter is seen as a relational practice that supposes an individual awareness of one's own acts and choices. These women not only reflect on their sexual trajectory, as the older women do too, they also believe their sex lives can be improved through the accumulation of relations over the course of life.
While this belief in improvement is not confined to lesbians, it was these women, particularly the younger ones, who spoke explicitly about enhancing sexual interaction as a vital part of their lives, including mentioning the use of erotic products as one of the elements in this improvement. This younger generation has experienced homoerotic relations in a context where the opportunities for encounters, though scrutinized and discriminated in the wider social universe, can be found in particular social niches (like groups of friends, or other spaces of sociability) and were these relations can be express themselves in some form. Theirs is also the generation that witnessed the emergence of the first signs of the gay and lesbian political movements within Brazil and internationally, and the generation that was targeted by a new consumer and entertainment market, especially among the urban middle class, which legitimized the public presentation of homosexuality, albeit tinged with politically correct' stereotypes, such as the virile gay man or the feminine lesbian.
Future generations will perhaps have another conception of their own sexual trajectory, since their affective-sexual relations unfold in a universe in which the experience of sexuality is both accentuated and blurred with what Eugenio (2006) describes as a kind of hedonistic consumption, particularly notable among some middle-class youth sectors. Female homosexuality among today's younger generations is lived and narrated in a context where there seems to be more tolerance and more spaces available for encountering partners compared to previous generations. At the same time this visibility' is accompanied by a profusion of discourses for explaining the self. It is not enough to like other women: there is an entire generational vocabulary explaining this desire, a vocabulary that affirms this position vis-à-vis others and thus differentiates itself from other positions - heterosexual, bisexual - at the same time as it foments the conditions for ambiguities. An entire universe of classifications that imposes itself on the reflexive gaze of the subjects. These classifications are produced in the present and affirm various contemporary possibilities for being lesbian.'
In a study on the trajectories of feminist lesbians in the US from the baby boom generation - that is, those born after the Second World War - Arlene Stein (1997, p. 200) reflects on the paths open to the new generations:
Many younger women coming of age and coming out today are also reconstituting lesbian identity, in ways that tolerate inconsistency and ambiguity. They simultaneously locate themselves inside and outside the dominant culture as they pursue a wide range of projects. Their strategic deployment of lesbian/gay identities is balanced against their recognition of the limits of such identities.
One aspect that calls attention when we compare the positions of these different age groups - the women over 60 and the women aged around 40 - is the subtle transition that begins to take place in their discourse in terms of the possibilities for practicing lesbianism. In the interview with the 60-year old Roberta, the transition from a sexuality shaped by the idea of pre-defined roles to a more spontaneous' sexuality is recalled as a passage marking social evolution in general, the overcoming of wider social prejudices that allows a different experience of female homosexuality today. Among the other older interviewees, references to changes in homosexual relations are marked by the women's recollection of how difficult it was recognize their own homosexuality in their youth. They lacked the means to do so, since it was something that was neither considered nor spoken about. The process of constituting a homosexual trajectory was lengthy and involved forming a closed network of female friends that provided the space to engage in homosexuality and distance themselves from their families of origin. In their opinion, young women today have many more opportunities than they had.
Among the interviewees aged around 40, who also think that today's young women benefit from greater social acceptance of female homosexuality, the process of constituting a homosexual trajectory depended less on the formation of an exclusive network of female friends. Their relations very often traversed mixed networks of friendships, while sexual experimentation is experienced as a process over which they pay particular attention, focusing on the search to improve their sexual relations. The dualism of being a dyke' or being a dyke's girlfriend' harks back to an older context. This dualism seems to have begun to be questioned around the time when the interviewees in their early 40s began their own sexual trajectories. I would argue that the feminist discourse in Brazil at the end of the 1970s and the start of the 1980s played an important role in allowing women to escape the rigid boundaries found in relation to sexual behaviour, including those among lesbians. But although overcoming the rigidity of being a dyke or being feminine can be seen as one of the prominent changes in the social landscape of the 1970s and 80s, it should again be stressed that this novelty did not spread equally to all social sectors.
Another point worth emphasizing is the value attributed to maturity. In both of the interviewed age groups, there is a widespread belief that the accumulation of affective and sexual experiences over the course of life is important to the process of self-affirmation. The meaning of this affirmation changes in tone according to the generation. Among the older women, self-affirmation emerges at the moment when they can look back on the obstacles they overcame so that today, at the age of 60, they have an independent and autonomous life. A life that includes a return to family relations. Some of the women are busy looking after their parents, now very old and infirm, who had remained distant from them for much of their lives. In the case of the 40-year old women, maturity is seen as a recent achievement or something still in the process of being acquired. Maturity is seen as an opportunity to reflect on their choices, including sexual, and merges with the process of seeking to enhance the quality of relations. In both generations, there is a valorization of stable, long-term partnerships and a condemnation (made with respect to younger generations) of momentary and fleeting sexual interactions.
In this sense, these women are similar to the heterosexual women of their generations who also value maturity as a synonym of life experience (Alves 2004) - though, as we saw at the start of the article, these straight women also refer negatively to the passage of time insofar as it represents a decline in their power of sexual attraction in the heterosexual erotic marketplace. This sexual devalorization does not appear in the discourse of the homosexual women interviewed in this research.
Simões (2004) argues that the image of the coroa, or old geezer,' the elderly male homosexual, should not necessarily be seen in a negative way. Old age acquires different tones among male homosexuals according to the individual trajectories constructed by particular age groups. Male homosexuals now reaching middle age have different trajectories to previous generations and this fact will also directly influence the way in which they will experience old age.
This is the group which possesses a wider range of choices in the field of sensory experiences, ranging from non-alcoholic drugs to more relaxed attitudes towards sex. This is what promoted the explicit recognition of homosexuality as a legitimate life-style, founded the movement for homosexual rights, and transformed resistance to the police at the Stonewall Inn into a powerful symbol, the anniversary date for the large public gay pride' parades. By tragic irony, it also the group that has most suffered from the devastating effects of the HIV-AIDS epidemic. The group will begin to reach its senior period of life with its own history of paths and confrontations, which will lead to new conceptions of aging and homosexuality. (Simões, 2004, p. 434.)
Exploring the relations between old age and homosexuality does not mean searching for something specific to the aging process of homosexuals. The senior phase of life does not acquire unique traits because the old people in question are gay or lesbian. It is their life trajectories, marked by the shared experiences of particular age groups, that potentially lends distinctive features to aging.
ALMEIDA, G. E. Da invisibilidade à vulnerabilidade: percursos do "corpo lésbico" na cena brasileira face à possibilidade de infecção por DST e Aids. Thesis (Ph.D. in Collective Health) -IMS, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2005.
ALVES, A. M. A dama e o cavalheiro: um estudo antropológico sobre envelhecimento, gênero e sociabilidade. Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 2004.
BOURDIEU, P. Razões práticas: uma teoria da ação social. Campinas: Papirus, 1996.
EUGENIO, Fernanda. Corpos voláteis: estética, amor e amizade no universo gay. In: MENDES DE ALMEIDA, M. I.; EUGENIO, F. (ed.). Culturas jovens: novos mapas do afeto. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2006. p. 158-176.
FACCHINI, R. Entre umas e outras: mulheres, (homo)sexualidades e diferenças na cidade de São Paulo. Thesis (Ph.D. in Social Sciences) - Institute of Philsophy and Human Sciences, State University of Campinas, Campinas, 2008.
GAGNON, J. An interpretation of desire. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004.
GOLDENBERG, M. Coroas: corpo, envelhecimento, casamento e infidelidade. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2008.
GUIMARÃES, C. D. O homossexual visto por entendidos. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2004.
HEILBORN, M. L. Ser ou estar homossexual: dilemas da construção da identidade social. In: PARKER, R.; BARBOSA, R. Sexualidades brasileiras. Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumará, 1996. p. 136-145.
HEILBORN, M. L. Dois é par: gênero e identidade sexual em contexto igualitário. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2004.
HEILBORN, M. L. Homossexualidade feminina em camadas médias no Rio de Janeiro sob a ótica das gerações. In: VELHO, G.; DUARTE, L. F. D. Gerações, família e sexualidade. Rio de Janeiro: 7 Letras, 2009. p. 77-88.
LACOMBE, A. "Para hombre ya estoy yo": masculinidades y socializacion lésbica en un bar del centro de Río de Janeiro. Buenos Aires: Antropofagia, 2006.
LINS DE BARROS, M. M. Testemunho de vida: um estudo antropológico de mulheres na velhice. In: LINS DE BARROS, M. M. (ed.). Velhice ou terceira idade?: estudos antropológicos sobre identidade, memória e política. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1998. p. 113-168.
LIRA NETTO. Maysa: só numa multidão de amores. Rio de Janeiro: Globo, 2007.
MUNIZ, J. Mulher com mulher dá jacaré: uma abordagem antropológica da homossexualidade feminina. Dissertation (MA in Social Anthropology)-Museu Nacional/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 1992.
PLUMMER, K. Telling sexual stories: power, change and social worlds. New York: Routledge, 1995.
SIMÕES, J. A. Homossexualidade masculina e curso da vida: pensando idades e identidades sexuais. In: PISCITELLI, A.; GREGORI, M. F.; CARRARA, S. Sexualidade e saberes: convenções e fronteiras. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2004. p. 415-447.
SIQUEIRA, M. S. Arrasando horrores: uma etnografi a das memórias, formas de sociabilidade e itinerários urbanos de travestis das antigas. Thesis (Ph.D. in Social Anthropology) - Centre of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 2009.
STEIN, A. Sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
VELHO, G. Projeto e metamorfose: antropologia das sociedades complexas. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1994.
1 Simões (2004) undertook research on old age and male homosexuality, while Siqueira (2009) produced a doctoral thesis on elderly transvestites and their life trajectories.
2 An acronym standing for Gays, Lesbicas e Simpatizantes (Gays, Lesbians, and Sympathizers), referring to spaces where gays and lesbians meet to socialize.
3 Successful Brazilian singers, also known for attracting a large lesbian following among their fanbases.
4 The interviewees state that this bar was located in Barra da Tijuca, a region of the city that was less populous in the 1980s than it is today. The bar was also a venue for live music and was identified by the women as a free territory' for the gay public, including lesbians.
5 The research script used by Heilborn (2004) does not contain any questions on sexual practices. This undoubtedly also contributed to the absence of the theme in the accounts given by the interviewees.
6 Maysa was a famous Brazilian singer. She died in a car accident in 1977. A major commercial success in the 1960s, her trajectory is seen as an example of a woman who broke the rules of her time, since she abandoned a marriage to embrace an artistic career (Lira Netto 2007).
7 Carmen Dora Guimarães (2004), in her work O homossexual visto por entendidos, provides an analysis of the category entendido' (someone in the know'). The study examines male homosexuality in Rio's southern zone in the 1970s. The native category entendido' is used in this context to distinguish a specific type of male homosexual, different from the bicha' or queer. The bicha' uses more feminine gestures and clothing, while the entendido' does not share this same gender performance. This differentiation is reflected in a hierarchization of the male gay world. In the case of my interviewee, the term entendida' is used generically as a synonym of lesbian, irrespective of the woman's gender performance.


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Words by Mr Mark Jacobs
As far as ghouls go, Mr Paul Wesley, 29, is a particularly good-looking example. But the star of the hit teen drama The Vampire Diaries, in which he plays Stefan Salvatore, a Mr James Dean-type bloodsucker with a heart of gold, prefers Count Orlok from the 1922 horror Nosferatu: "Because he was so mangled and warped. I almost feel as if when older people hear the word 'vampire' they cringe and think, 'Oh great, teen bullsh** and pretty girls running around.' But a vampire used to be hideous, a monstrosity. That's interesting to me."
I brought my sisters to a signing. They know me as idiot Paul, brother, moron, so when they saw these girls getting excited that I was there they couldn't fathom it
Mr Wesley, who boasts natural fangs of his own (he attributes them to night-time teeth grinding), was already an acting veteran when he secured a role in The Vampire Diaries. As a teenager he transferred New Jersey high schools to accommodate a role in the daytime soap opera Another World, and later dropped out of university to work full time. The risks paid off: an avalanche of TV roles followed, including recurring parts in Wolf Lake, Everwood and Army Wives.
Prolific is one way to describe Mr Wesley's career so far, but it isn't just down to luck, with his perseverance playing a big part. "One year I had a really bad experience where I didn't get a pilot that I really wanted and it psychologically damaged me. I had to retrain myself to have the confidence to go in and do what I do as an actor," he continues. "I know there are always going to be ups and downs - I don't care if you're Johnny Depp or Ryan Gosling - you're always aspiring."
When The Vampire Diaries debuted in 2009 it was considered an improbable success despite its eye-candy cast and the pedigree of its creator, Mr Kevin Williamson (Dawson's Creek, The Faculty, Scream). It was also accused of being derivative of another teen vampire drama that was at the peak of its popularity. But Twilight is completing its cycle, meaning Mr Wesley is firmly in the business of starring in the next slavishly followed pop culture phenomenon. "We were able to carve a little niche," he says, adding that his character's tormented greaser style is beginning to affect him: "I've started wearing black biker boots non-stop, which is all Stefan wears..."
the work
The Vampire Diaries, 2011
Mr Wesley as the vampire Stefan Salvatore in the supernatural drama series
People's Choice Awards
From left: The Vampire Diaries co-stars Mr Ian Somerhalder and Mr Wesley at the award ceremony, LA, January 2012
Television: Out of the Box Celebration
Mr Wesley with The Vampire Diaires co-star and wife Ms Torrey DeVitto, LA, April 2012
Naturally, for a show with a teenage target audience, there have been mall riots, including a particularly intense signing session in Atlanta, Georgia (where the show is filmed) in 2010. "They really love my character," Mr Wesley says of his fans, and then laughs. "It's overwhelming. I brought my little sisters to a signing. They know me as idiot Paul, brother, moron. When they saw all these girls getting really excited that I was there they couldn't fathom why anyone would be interested."
And what of his plans for the future? "We have six-year contracts. I hope the show will go on for that long but it's such a peculiar business," he says, adding that he would eventually like to get behind the camera. "I always thought The OC would be on for years and then it got cancelled after the fourth season. We're all looking at other things to do in the future and searching for different roles," he continues. For Mr Wesley this looks set to be in Hollywood: we'll see him next as a DEA agent in the upcoming Southern hit man action-comedy The Baytown Disco opposite Mr Billy Bob Thornton.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bozemanites Enjoying White Slopes
The fresh snow that has fallen on Southwest Montana over the past couple of weeks has put smiles on both skiers & boarders; and ski area operators alike. The early season openings have not just benefited Big Sky, Moonlight, and Bridger; but ski areas across the state.
A snowstorm prior to Thanksgiving followed by frigid single-digit and sub-zero temperatures ushered in the ski and snowboard season in Montana. Accumulating natural snow caused several resorts to open for the holidays to the delight of skiers and snowboarders anxiously eyeing the slopes.
Memories of several consecutive winters of scant early season snow faded fast with what Big Sky Resort touted as "the best conditions in 10 years." Thanksgiving Day saw the lifts start turning for the season at Big Sky.
via Several Montana Ski Areas Enjoyed Thanksgiving Opening – OnTheSnow.


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Bijou Phillips Hospitalized In Need Of Kidney Transplant
Bijou Phillips was hospitalized with a blood infection on Wednesday, and is now in need of a kidney transplant.
The actress and model, whose father is The Mamas & The Papas musician John Phillips, was reportedly battling an illness recently, and took a turn for the worse yesterday. After a fever spiked, she was rushed to a hospital in Santa Barbra, where she is currently getting treatment. But a kidney transplant is said to be crucial to her recovery.
Keeping watch over the 36-year-old Phillips in the hospital is her husband, Danny Masterson. As Gossip Cop reported, Phillips and Masterson wed in Tipperary, Ireland in October 2011 after dating for many years. The two tied the knot before family members and friends in a castle. Masterson's actor brother, Chris, was the best man.
The couple has one daughter together, Fianna, who just turned 3 earlier this week. Phillips and Masteron are practicing Scientologists, and while Scientologists don't believe in certain drugs, such as anti-depressants, there is nothing barring them from medical procedures. The Church of Scientology notes that its adherents seek "conventional medical treatment for illnesses and injuries," and when ill are advised to "obtain the needed examination and treatment of a qualified medical professional."
Phillips is in stable condition right now, according to TMZ. Gossip Cop has reached out for more information. We'll have updates as appropriate.
UPDATE: Masterson says in a statement, "Bijou was born with small kidneys and has been quietly dealing with kidney disease for the last five years, including being on the transplant list. In an effort to heal her body she has led a stress-free life with a vegan diet, which eventually wasn't enough, and she's been privately having dialysis. She recently found out one of her friends is a match and is optimistic that she will have a transplant soon."


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21 July 1744 was the marriage date for my great great great great great great grandparents: Gideon MURCH and Elizabeth BASTIN. And it was a Tuesday.
Gideon was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon, in 1721, in the last few years of George I's reign. He lived through the reigns of two more Georges, but only a year after Gideon and Elizabeth's marriage came the attempt to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne.
In later records, Gideon is described as a weaver. Throughout his lifetime, there were several improvements in looms and weaving in general: one of the first was the 'flying shuttle', which made its appearance in 1733. John Kay, who invented it, placed a shuttle at each end of the loom, and one single weaver could knock the shuttle back and forth with amazing speed (previously it had been pushed backwards and forwards, and often needed two weavers). Gideon would have been 12 when the 'flying shuttle' appeared, and was probably an apprentice.
Further innovations in weaving came throughout Gideon's life; he saw the beginnings of how everything had to go faster, be bigger. The 'spinning jenny' came in 1764, the 'water frame' shortly afterwards (a powered textile machine).
Gideon appears in numerous nonconformist records, baptising his children as Protestant Dissenters. He was definitely looking for something. I wonder what his wife thought?
Sunday, 21 July 2013
On This Day: 21 July
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New Movies: 'Dark Skies,' 'Snitch'
This week, two new flicks hit theaters. The first is a spooky thriller about a family terrorized by a mysterious force, while the other is an action tale about a father determined to save his son.
'Dark Skies'
Something is after the Barrets. A series of highly unusual and terrifying events forces this young family to confront their attacker—whoever or whatever it is—head on.
Directed by Scott Stewart
Starring Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, Jake Brennan
With his son facing a 10-year drug-related prison sentence, a father agrees to go undercover for the DEA and infiltrate a notorious cartel.
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Susan Sarandon, Michael K. Williams, Barry Pepper


text: stomach fat burn food Archive 19 Dec 2016 Top 10 foods to avoid belly fat By admin Body Fitness, Health 0 Comment Essential food diet is needed for healthy life, here listed out the top ten foods to avoid belly fat: 1.Apple Subjects in a Brazilian health improvement plans who ate three apples a day while slimming down lost more weight than the individuals who did not eat apples. 2.Black pepper Hot peppers warm up your body. Read More


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Includes all content from the Countdown 2015 magazine in French, Spanish, and English on one CD-ROM. Describes progress made and challenges ahead in implimenting the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action by 2015. The 104-page magazine includes 31 articles from a diverse set of authors, addressing topics such as HIV/AIDS; maternal health; population, poverty, and development; women's rights; and resources for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Also includes a pull-out section and data chart ranking countries' current reproductive health status and progress made towards the ICPD goals.
Developed in collaboration with Population Action International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Español, Francés, Inglés


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Eagle Creek Software Announces 1000 Jobs Coming to South Dakota
Eagle Creek Software Services, is setting up shop in South Dakota. Reprentatives of the Minnesota based consulting company, Governor Dennis Daugaard, and USD President James Abbott made the announcement Wednesday, March 13th, in Vermillion.
Eagle Creek provides technology information services to Fortune 2000 clients. They provide those services from within the United States. Over the next three to five years, 1000 jobs, paying from $40,000 to $60,000 will be created. The first 200 jobs will be in Vermillion. A partneship with the University of South Dakota is an intregal part of the companies stategy. They need educated information technology workers for their jobs, so scholarships, and career tracks(internships) are part of the mix.
The first full class of students at the USD Eagle Creek IT Consultant Academy will start this fall. A new building for Eagle Creek will be open in 2014.
If you are interested in applying for the IT Consultant Academy here is the contact point:
The company will announce locations for their other South Dakota expansions at a later date.


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Tulsa Fuel & Manufacturing Collinsville, Tulsa County, Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) have begun the Remedial Design at the Tulsa Fuel & Manufacturing Site.
Current Status
Recently, you may have seen environmental con-tractors
working on the site. As part of the Reme-dial
Design an American Burying Beetle Survey
was performed to see if this endangered species
is present on the site. The survey will be followed
with additional field work, this winter, to verify waste
locations and volumes. The field work will consist
of soil, waste, sediment, surface water, and ground
water sampling. In addition, a visual waste survey
will be conducted to identify waste locations and
volumes on adjacent properties. The analytical in-formation
obtained from the field work will be used
to develop engineering plans to help guide future
cleanup actions at the site.
The Tulsa Fuel & Manufacturing site is an abandoned 60 acre for-mer
zinc smelter, located in Collinsville, Tulsa County, Oklahoma.
The former zinc smelter was active from 1914 through 1925 and
helped meet the demands for zinc during World War I. The Tulsa
Fuel and Manufacturing site is located outside the city limits of
Collinsville on the west side of "old" Highway 169, approximately
1.3 miles south of downtown.
The smelting operation utilized nine furnaces, which were be-lieved
to be fueled by nearby natural gas wells. Other primary
structures of the smelter included a mechanical kiln, a condens-er
and a laboratory. A two million gallon capacity reservoir was
used in conjunction with the condenser room during smelting
operations. Large amounts of ore were stored on site. The site
was placed on the National Priorities List in 1999 after a lengthy
process showed that arsenic, cadmium, lead, and zinc on the
property was a threat to human health and the
environment. There are approximately 200,000 cubic yards of
smelter waste on the smelter property. The waste includes bro-ken
retorts and condensers, slag, building debris, ash, and bricks.
Site Location and History
Site Update: October 2011
TFM Site Map
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality: www.deq.state.ok.us/lpdnew/sfindex.html
U.S. EPA Region 6 Superfund Division: www.epa.gov/region6/superfund
Site information is available for public review at these locations
Collinsville Public Library
Reference Section•2nd Floor
1223 West Main Street Collinsville, OK 74021•(918)596-2840
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quaity
Central Records
707 N. Robinson Oklahoma City, OK 73101•(405) 702-1188
Site Information Resources
U.S. EPA Region 6
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75202-2733
(214) 665-8131
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
U.S. EPA Region 6
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75202-2733
(214) 665-2108
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality
707 N. Robinson, PO Box 1677
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73101-1677
(405) 702-7167
E-Mail: email@example.com
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality
707 N. Robinson, PO Box 1677
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73101-1677
(405) 702-5126
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Public Involvement Opportunities
One of DEQ's goals for site cleanup is to continue reaching out to the citizens of Collinsville and ensuring
opportunities for public involvement in the decision
making process. Your input is important to us. We will continue to update you about DEQ's Remedial
Design progress for the site through periodic fact sheets and holding informational open houses.
Once DEQ has the necessary data it will complete the Remedial Design and plan the cleanup of the site as outlined in the Record of Decision. Once the planning is complete, the Remedial Action will begin. The Remedial Design will be completed in about two years.
The overall cleanup strategy for the site is to reduce impacts to soils, sediments, surface
water, and ground water by consolidating and capping waste material and impacted soils and sediments onsite. The cleanup will protect human health and the environment by eliminating exposure routes at the site.
Tulsa Fuel & Manufacturing Collinsville, Tulsa County, Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have begun the Remedial Design at the Tulsa Fuel & Manufacturing Site.
Site Update: October 2011
Next Steps
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The NFL offices took care of disciplining a couple of players that the league's officials decided not to penalize during Week 12 games.
Steelers cornerback William Gay was fined for plastering Browns quarterback Jason Campbell in the head with a hit that somehow avoided being penalized by an officiating crew that presumably has at least a passing familiarity with the league's rulebook. Dolphins defensive end Cameron Wake finds himself in a similar predicament.
Wake delivered a blow to Panthers quarterback Cam Newton's chin on the first play of the day, leaving Newton spitting up blood while the game went on without any penalty to Wake. The league disagreed with referee Scott Green's crew belief that Wake's hit fell within the rules and has confirmed with PFT that the Dolphin pass rusher has been fined $15,750 for roughing the passer.
Newton remained in the game and led the Panthers to a 20-16 comeback victory, making Wake's fine insult added to insult.


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Downtown Marshall Will Be Lit Up With More Than A Million Lights For The Holidays
It's a holiday tradition that has been happening for more than a quarter of a century in downtown Marshall and the switch will be thrown that will light up more than a million lights at the Wonderland of Lights Festival on Wednesday of next week.
The festival is filled with lights and features horse drawn carriage rides, an ice skating rink, kids play area, special nightly and weekly performances along with a 5k run this year.
Wonderland of Lights Festival officially opens Wednesday the 21st with a performance from the Marshall Symphony Orchestra at 5:30p followed by the new Washington Square Variety show at 7p. The variety show is a nightly show in front of the Harrison County courthouse and is filled with local talent and special artists and lasts nearly an hour each night.
While the lights are the biggest attraction, other things you can take part in is the City of Marshall Christmas Parade on Saturday, December 1st at 5:30p and a 5K run on Tuesday, December 4th at 6p.
The main attraction though at the Wonderland Of Lights Festival is the Harrison County Courthouse building with more than 150-thousand LED lights alone! Visitors will be treated to a light and music show that begins at 6p and the entire downtown area has more than a million lights with over 400 lighted Christmas displays. While checking out all of the lights, visitors can also do some holiday shopping along the Street of Dreams that features pulsating colored lights and skate on the areas only outdoor ice rink.
Check the Marshall Chamber of Commerce website for a complete schedule of events, ticket information and hours.


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"Fishing Grotto pond can be a bit spotty, the rainbow trout mainly found in the pond are stocked twice a year by the Bow Habitat Station or also known as the Sam..." Grotto Mountain Pond
"Fishing this creek in Cochrane, I have learned myself that this creek is one that many people overlook. There is no walleye in the creek, the species that call..." Jumpingpound Creek
"This lake was drained for construction, no longer there...." McDonald Lake
"Correction there is walleye in this lake. I know this because I have caught them. When I was younger I've heard of brown trout where stoney creek flows in, but have..." Burntstick Lake
"There are no catfish, lake trout or chinook salmon. There are rainbow trout, perch and suckers...." Alford Lake
"There are no catfish, brown trout or northern pike. There are rainbow trout,perch and suckers...." Phyllis Lake


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Set up your mobile phone for Internet
The Internet connection can be used for many functions in your mobile phone, such as using the Internet browser, receiving e-mails and installing apps. You'll be able to access the Internet as soon as you've inserted your SIM into your mobile phone. If this isn't the case, we can send an Internet configuration to your mobile phone or you can set up your mobile phone manually.
1. Find " Access point names"
Press the settings icon.


text: WEEE Country Compliance Lifesize is committed to fulfilling its social and environmental responsibilities as a global corporate citizen. As a manufacturer, these responsibilities include ensuring that our products are safely and efficiently manufactured and properly disposed of according to WEEE compliance. Manufacturing Standards We ensure all our products used worldwide meet the requirements of the Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation enacted together by the EU and Japan, even though compliance is not required. China has also enacted similar legislation, and all products shipping directly into China are China RoHS compliant and specifically labeled as such. To build these systems, Lifesize employs the services of a world-class electronics manufacturing partner, whose manufacturing operations were awarded the ISO 9001/9002 (Quality Management) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) certifications. These designations involve rigorous documentation and inspection by accredited auditors to certify that processes are in place for quality, environmental and regulatory compliance. Recycling Information Even with top-flight manufacturing standards, electronic components can pose an environmental hazard if not disposed of properly. Lifesize supports and adheres to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and implementing regulations which entitle Lifesize customers that purchase new video conferencing equipment to: Send old equipment for recycling on a one-for-one, like-for-like basis (this varies depending on the country) Send the new equipment back for recycling when this ultimately becomes waste Contact us for details. Are you a treatment facility or recycler seeking information on disassembly and recycling of a Lifesize product? As part of compliance with the WEEE Directive, we provide recycling information for all types of new equipment put on the market in Europe after August 13, 2005. Contact us to request it.


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European Commission - Press release
Commission fights corruption: a stronger commitment for greater results
Brussels, 6 June 2011 - Today the Commission proposed a set of measures to address more vigorously the serious harm corruption causes to European societies – economically, socially and politically. Four out of five EU citizens regard corruption as a major problem in their Member State. Corruption is estimated to cost the economy of the EU €120 billion per year1. That is one percent of the EU GDP, and represents only a little less than the annual budget of the European Union. This makes it clear that there is a need for firm political commitment to fight this crime. The Commission is today taking a first step, by setting up a new mechanism, the EU Anti-Corruption Report, to monitor and assess Member States' efforts against corruption and encourage more political engagement. This will help Member States to better enforce legislation and fully implement their international commitments, as well as to improve the coherence of their anti-corruption policies and actions.
"The fight against corruption needs priority attention. While there is quite sophisticated legal frameworks at international and European level, we have seen that implementation among EU Member States is very uneven. It is clear to me that there is not enough determination amongst politicians and decision-makers to fight this crime. Our Anti-Corruption Report can generate the political will to act by giving a clear picture of anti-corruption efforts and achievements, but also pointing out failures and vulnerabilities across the 27 EU Member States. At the same time, we should make sure that there is a stronger focus on corruption in all relevant EU policies. Fighting corruption successfully is a constant struggle, and the measures we propose today are only one part of a more comprehensive response to the challenges that corruption poses to our societies. I take those challenges very seriously. That is why I will propose further actions along these lines in the coming years, such as new rules for confiscating criminal assets, a plan for how to improve the gathering of crime statistics, and an strategy to improve criminal financial investigations in Member States", said Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Home Affairs.
Although differing in nature and in extent, corruption harms all Member States and the EU as a whole, lowering investment levels, hampering the fair operation of the internal market and reducing public finances. Whether it takes the form of political corruption, corrupt activities committed by and with organised criminal groups, private-to-private corruption or so-called petty corruption, the abuse of power for private gain is not acceptable and can have serious impacts. The core of today's initiatives is the establishment of a new evaluation mechanism to assess anti-corruption efforts in the EU. This EU Anti-Corruption Report will identify trends and weaknesses that need to be addressed, as well as stimulate peer learning and exchange of best practices. It will be issued by the Commission every two years, starting in 2013, and be based on inputs from a variety of sources, including the existing monitoring mechanisms (by the Council of Europe, the OECD and the United Nations), independent experts, stakeholders and civil society. In parallel, the EU should negotiate its participation in the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) to create synergies between both mechanisms.
To address corruption more effectively, Member States should better implement the anti-corruption legal instruments already in place at the European and international level. The EU should also put greater emphasis on corruption considerations through all relevant EU policies, both internal and external. The Commission will therefore follow up today's initiative by proposing modernised EU rules on confiscation of criminal assets later this year, a strategy to improve criminal financial investigations in Member States in 2012, and an Action Plan for better crime statistics. The Commission together with EU agencies such as Europol, Eurojust and CEPOL, as well as with OLAF, will step up judicial and police cooperation and improve training of law enforcement officials. It will work towards modernised EU rules on public procurement and accounting standards and statutory audit for EU companies. It will also adopt a strategy to combat fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU in 2011. In parallel, the Commission will put a stronger focus on anti-corruption issues within the EU enlargement process and - together with the High Representative - in our neighbourhood policy. Greater use of conditionality will be made in our cooperation and development policies.
The anti-corruption package adopted today consists of:
Next steps
The set of measures adopted today are part of a wider agenda to protect Europe's licit economy, as set out in the EU Internal Security Strategy in Action presented by the Commission in November 2010 (IP/10/1535). This autumn, the Commission will also propose a revised EU legal framework on confiscation and recovery of criminal assets and an Action Plan for how to improve the gathering of crime statistics.
For more information
Homepage of Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Home Affairs:
Homepage of DG Home Affairs:
This figure is based on estimates by specialised institutions and bodies, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, Transparency International, UN Global Compact, World Economic Forum, Clean Business is Good Business, 2009, which suggest that corruption amounts to 5% of GDP at world level.
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MIDDLEBURY — The Addison Central Supervisory Union has hired David Boucher to serve as its new business manager. He most recently served as chief financial officer at Rice Memorial High School.
Boucher officially begins his job with the ACSU on Sept. 2. He was one of 20 applicants for the position, according to ACSU Superintendent Peter Burrows. Boucher will replace former Business Manager Laura Nassau, who left this past June to take a similar position with the Chittenden South Supervisory Union.
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MIDDLEBURY — The Addison Central Supervisory Union has hired a new business manager, a move officials hope will stabilize a position that has seen a lot of turnover during the past year and a half.
Gail Conley, ACSU interim superintendent, confirmed the hiring of Laura Nassau, who most recently served as business manager of the Chittenden East Supervisory Union (CESU) in Richmond. She has served in that capacity since 2002.
MIDDLEBURY — The Addison Central Supervisory Union (ACSU) has hired a consultant to serve as its financial officer in the wake of two recent searches that thus far have failed to yield a new business manager.
Gail Conley, ACSU interim superintendent, confirmed the district has hired former Essex North Superintendent Wayne Murray to serve as the district's financial officer on a part-time basis while the search for a new business manager continues.
BRISTOL — Addison Northeast Supervisory Union recently hired seasoned school finance veteran Edward Gomeau to take over as its business manager. In July, Gomeau will take over an operation that has been plagued with deficits over the past two years.
Presently in his fourth year as director of finance and operations for New Haven Public Schools in Connecticut, the new business manager touts a hefty history in the field of fiscal management.
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Bob Bondurant
Bob Bondurant
I love the interior in this car
Heart pumping antifreeze as I stand here.
Lloyd Banks
Ford needs to just re-release this car with a tweaked version of the GT500's engine and call it a day. Maybe some updated ICE. This thing still looks so damn sexy and on point. I can't believe it's already 10 years old.
Here's some pictures from the gt rally a while back at vir
Last edited by rq1trackaddict; 09-21-2012 at 01:50 PM.
Just wondering, was GT40 built by European Ford specially the British division?? I ask this because from the photos and videos, i only see them in right hand drive... (except Jay Leno one)
I am not a Mac user unless under duress. - John Carmack
Some pictures from the rally last year at miller
Last edited by rq1trackaddict; 09-21-2012 at 01:51 PM.
The dinner, awesome wall picture
More miller
More miller
Last edited by rq1trackaddict; 10-02-2012 at 05:43 PM.
More miller
In town
More in town
Some pictures from the rally at vir
Heffner twin turbo beast
Last edited by rq1trackaddict; 09-21-2012 at 04:58 PM.
Some video of the GT1 start up at vir
I this thread, easily the best Ford(s) ever made
Audi TT FAQ -- Outback EJ20Y swap
Originally Posted by Wayne Campbell


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i dont want it on vita unless its an HD remaster with cross play.
Sony... Well, there is no Crisis Core on PSN, but if you have a PSP, you can buy a physical copy. Phantasy Star Portable 2; physical PSP only.I think Sony is genius, but I am not happy with them. There is some nasty shit you can do with your Vita and the PSM SDK (rectified by the $100 price tag in November) but I still don't buy their reasoning for not having Phantasy portable 2 available on PSN. I think they think that I'll buy PSO2 on Vita if I don't bust my nut all up in PSP2, and will end up paying more child support to them-- sorryThey want to sell new games, and probably figured out our buying habits.
Operation Suzaku aims to bring Final Fantasy Type-0 Westward -- Source: Nova Crystallishttp://operation-suzaku.com/"The one year anniversary of Final Fantasy Type-0 has brought with it a new fan movement. The goal of this initiative is to change Square Enix's position on bringing the title to the west. But it's much more than that.Operation Suzaku is not just a petition. The group behind it plans on even more action, with details to be shared at a later date. More importantly, their focus is *only* on Final Fantasy Type-0."
why do people keep assuming type 0 would be on a portable system when theres psp remasters on ps3
Will FF Type-0 be localized for North America and Europe? If so, when?Hajime Tabata: Due to market reasons, we are taking a clean slate in terms of our plans. We feel strongly about bringing this title to the fans in North America and Europe, so if an opportunity arises that can become a conclusive factor, we are prepared to go into consideration right away.


text: Meeting global needs – managing climate change business risks Energy is the foundation for modern life and the gateway to opportunity and development for developing nations. Energy powers technology and enables progress throughout the world. It provides heat for homes and businesses; power for hospitals and clinics to run advanced, life-saving equipment; fuel for cooking and transportation; and light for schools and streets. In 2040, the energy sector will need enough supplies to sustain the lives of 9 billion people and a world economy more than double that of 2014. Expanded economic output and roughly 2 billion additional consumers by 2040 will mean that global energy demand will likely grow by about 25 percent over 2014. To put this growth in perspective, this increase is equivalent to the total energy used in North America and Latin America today. Given the importance of energy, it is in the interest of every government to increase access to reliable and affordable supplies for its citizens. That is why consumers should be concerned with policies that could have an adverse impact on energy production. Such restrictions could also impact the rate of economic development and the ability of nations to develop. Growing energy demand will require diverse investment Technology is the key to expanding supplies of energy to meet global needs. Such innovation requires significant investments and sustained research and development, the result of which will be affordable and abundant energy production with reduced environmental impact. It is also important to recognize that energy is a long-term, capital-intensive sector of the economy. As a major participant in the global energy industry, ExxonMobil must anticipate and adapt to trends and changes in our industry so that we can make sound business decisions and invest our shareholders' money wisely in projects that remain attractive in the long term. Every year, we prepare a long-range analysis of global energy trends. We call it the Outlook for Energy and it looks at how people use energy, how much they will use in the decades ahead, and what our industry must do to meet the needs of billions of people. Our current Outlook for Energy covers the period 2014 to the year 2040. It provides a strategic framework to aid evaluation of potential business opportunities. Like all credible forecasts, we see fossil fuels continuing to shoulder the bulk of societal needs in the future. We also see a future marked by a shift to lower-carbon fuels. With this shift will come a plateau in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and we project that new technologies will open up new energy options, such as unconventional oil and natural gas in North America. Risk assessment The company employs a robust process for evaluating investment opportunities and managing our portfolio of operating assets. ExxonMobil requires that all business units use a consistent corporate planning basis in evaluating capital expenditures and developing business plans. The company also tests investment opportunities against a broad set of economic assumptions, including low-price scenarios that could be representative of a carbon-constrained environment, to confirm that the investment will perform acceptably across a broad range of economic circumstances during its lifetime. The geographic and asset diversity of the company's portfolio further helps to reduce risk and enhance profitability across a wide variety of economic conditions. Capital plans and our asset portfolio are reviewed extensively with ExxonMobil's senior management and the Board of Directors each year. The company's energy and environmental perspectives, including those relating to climate, are also reviewed with the Board annually to help the directors understand financial and other risks associated with the corporation's investments. Projects are evaluated under a wide range of possible economic conditions and commodity prices that are reasonably likely to occur, and we expect them to deliver competitive returns through the business cycles. We apply prudent and substantial safety margins in our planning assumptions to help ensure robust returns. The company also stress tests its oil and natural gas capital investment opportunities, providing a further margin of safety against uncertainties, such as those related to technologies, costs, geopolitics, availability of required materials, services, and labor, etc. Stress testing provides us an opportunity to fully consider different economic scenarios in our planning an investment process. The Outlook for Energy is reviewed annually, and updated to reflect changes in views and circumstances, including advances in technology and changes in government policies. Financial risk We use a simple cost of carbon as a proxy mechanism to help model the potential impacts of a broad mosaic of future GHG policies. For example, in most OECD nations, we assume an implied cost of CO2 emissions that will reach about $80 per metric ton in 2040. Developing nations will have a wide range of policy costs with the wealthiest ones reaching about $35 per metric ton. This GHG proxy cost is integral to ExxonMobil's planning, and we believe the policies it reflects will increase the pace of efficiency gains and the adoption by society of lower-carbon technologies through 2040. Such policies are also likely to accelerate the growth of lower carbon sources of energy like natural gas and renewables, while suppressing the supply of coal. A key strategy to ensure investment selectivity under a wide range of economic assumption is to maintain a diverse portfolio of oil and gas investment opportunities. This diversity in terms of resource type, corresponding development options (oil, gas, natural gas liquids, onshore, offshore, deepwater, conventional, unconventional, liquefied natural gas, etc.) and geographic dispersion is unparalleled in the industry. The company does not believe current investments in new reserves are exposed to the risk of stranded assets, given the rising global need for energy. Physical risk While most scientists agree climate change poses risks related to extreme weather, sea-level rise, temperature extremes, and precipitation changes, current scientific understanding provides limited guidance on the likelihood, magnitude, or time frame of these events. Anticipating the likelihood of an event at the regional or local level in comparison to global averages is even more difficult. Nevertheless, ExxonMobil robustly engineers its facilities and operations with extreme weather considerations in mind. Local climate, as well as potential changes in local conditions over the life of the investment (such as changes to sea level or permafrost), are carefully assessed and considered. Given the spatial and temporal uncertainties of many extreme weather events, particularly with respect to future changes in climate, facilities are generally engineered to be resilient to extreme event "tails," with the inclusion of additional safety factors built in to cover a number of engineering uncertainties.


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Vaughn Gittin Jr's Ford Mustang - SEMA 2015
Parked toVaughn Gittin Jr's Drift Car
byDIMA MEDIA
Vaughn Gittin Jr's new Ford Mustang Drift Car Photographed at SEMA 2015
Vehicle Info: 2016 Ford Mustang


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Embroiled in court cases on both sides of the Atlantic, Rory McIlroy has bemoaned the off-course distractions that have forced him to replace winning golf titles with making trips to lawyers' offices.
The Northern Irishman remains without a victory in 2013 as he returns to Dubai this week to defend the last title he captured, the World Tour Championship, and has slipped from No. 1 in the rankings to No. 6.
In the intervening 12 months, he has become tied up in legal wrangles against his former management company, Horizon Sports Management, and the other against his former sponsor, Oakley.
"I've seen more lawyers' offices and more lawyers this year than I care to see in my entire life," McIlroy said. "It's not something I ever want to go through again, and I'm making sure that I won't go through it again. As a golfer, you want your mind as clear as possible, and it's hard for that to happen when you've got other things that are going on that, firstly, you don't want to happen, and secondly, you don't feel should be happening. It has been a distraction and I haven't had to deal with it as much as some of the guys around me."
McIlroy, whose relationship with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki has also made the headlines this year, said he was taking some advice from Tiger Woods about how to handle his off-course issues.
"Sometimes you have to say 'no' and sometimes you have to put yourself first and say 'no,' and I need to do this for myself to maintain the level in my game," McIlroy said. "It's something Tiger actually said to me last year. He said you have to remember what got you here in the first place, and you know Tiger, it's 'no' 99 percent of the time for him."
McIlroy won last year's World Tour Championship at the Jumeriah Estates course when he birdied the closing five holes to overcome Justin Rose and end the year with money titles in Europe and on the US PGA Tour. He still has two more tournaments left in 2013, the Australian Open in Sydney and the Tiger Woods-hosted World Challenge at Thousand Oaks.