Amateur Porn Op-Ed - Online

This piece was supposed to be in the current issue of Capital Xtra, but in the end, that delicate balancing act between advertising and content happened, and my piece was apparently the last one cut. It was shuffled to the website, and can be found here.

There was a bit of back-and-forth in the editing process of this piece, where one editor wanted to put some line in about body fascism which went against my personal opinions and I had to have it stricken, and there was this whole other angle to consider that was tough, but I had eighty words to do it in. Somehow, I think I managed. And then the other editor "punched up" some of the language a bit more to make my elegant phrasing "edgier." But that's the way this game goes. Nevertheless, I think the message was an important one, and I'm glad it's getting out there and generating discussion in the comment threads.

Pride Guide 2008

It's June, which means that it's time for the Outlooks National Pride Guide, and once again, I have written the Ottawa contribution. This is always a challenging piece to do, because the deadline for this Pride Guide is always early May, but the Ottawa Pride isn't until the end of August, so it's usually a case of a lot of events and plans are still up in the air. Nevertheless, I always have fun with these pieces because the Pride Ottawa people are always great to work with.

This is also the last issue being overseen by Roy Heale, the founding publisher of Outlooks.  I've always had a great working relationship with Roy, and he's always encouraged my career and he was happy when I moved to Ottawa from Calgary because it meant that they finally had a correspondent in that city. He's also been one of the chief architects of the plan for the magazine to continue to profile as many of the gay and lesbian Parliamentarians as possible, and I hope that his successor will feel the same way. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Roy for being such a great publisher and editor, and I wish him all the best as he heads down to Buenos Aries. I'm also looking forward to meeting with Brett Taylor, the new publisher this week when I'm in Calgary.

The Pride Guide entry can be found on the Outlooks website here, or you can download the full issue in .pdf format here.  (The piece is on page 16).