Adam Sunny Flanders

Just got a greenhouse for my plants! It’s pretty small, but big enough for me to stand in and definitely enough room to accommodate all my plants and more. I was able to get some stevia seeds to germinate while still in my apartment at UMaine and now the plants have really taken off, along with some lemon balm, which smells just like lemons if you touch it! I use stevia exclusively to sweeten my tea and I drink a lot of tea. Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola have been releasing some drinks with stevia in them, such as the SoBe Life Water and Zero-Calorie Vitamin Water. There are at least 4 brands of stevia currently on the market: Stevia in the Raw (which I buy), PureVia (Pepsi Co.), Truvia (Coca-Cola), and Sun Crystals (McNeil Nutritionals). The sweetener comes directly from the stevia leaf and so it’s completely natural. Some studies have shown that it may actively stave off diabetes. It has been used for centuries in South America and for several decades in Japan, with no side effects.

My Beallara orchid just bloomed again. I have posted a photo of it in my Flickr account, along with a photo of my stevia and lemon balm plants and my greenhouse, with me in it, lol. I just got some Lovage and Belladonna seeds. I’ve been wanting to grow Belladonna because it is a major novelty plant with some interesting attributes, such as deep black berries and purple leaves. If you’ve seen Practical Magic, you’ll know it’s considered to have magical properties and is very toxic – you may recall from the movie that Jillian uses small amounts to put her boyfriend to sleep, later killing him with it by accident. In fact, every part of the plant is extremely poisonous. But I think it will be a challenge to grow. It requires cold stratification to get it to germinate, so I will need at least a month in the fridge before I can plant them in soil. The number of plant species I have growing is only surpassed by the number of animal pets my little sister has, haha!

I think we’ve won the first step to nationwide marriage equality! I’m so happy. Today goes down in history. Opponents of equality couldn’t produce a single ground to oppose marriage equality, not a single valid witness, and even admittedly by them, absolutely no evidence.

MR. OLSON: “The Romeer case that says you
can’t take away rights and make them unconstitutional
impossible to recover except by amending your state
constitution. And the Lawrence case that says that the
sexual orientation of individuals and their private
conduct is a protected right. You cannot then in the
face of all those decisions by the United States Supreme
Court say to these individuals we are going to take away
the constitutional right to liberty privacy association
and sexual intimacy that we tell you that you have and
then we will now use that as a basis for not allowing
you the freedom to marry. That is not acceptable. It’s
not acceptable under our constitution. And
Mr. Blankenhorn is absolutely right the day that we end
that we will be more American.”

As I type this, the final hearing in US District Court is being held concerning Perry v. Schwarzenegger AKA the Federal Prop.8 Trial. There is a live feed of the statements (in the form of a up-to-the-minute transcript) on Pam’s House Blend, and the full court-authorized transcript will be available by the end of the day.

It is expected that Judge Vaughn Walker, who is openly gay himself, will rule that Prop.8 is unconstitutional. This will begin the process of achieving nationwide marriage equality. That said, both the plaintiffs and defendants have vowed to take this case to the US Supreme Court, and that will be the final word, and, if favorable, will result in federally-recognized marriage equality in every state, regardless of votes or state laws. With DADT, ENDA, and SNDA also about to be decided, it is certainly an exciting time in history for the gay rights movement!…

UPDATE – Closing Argument

“Now, you can have a religious view that this
is not acceptable. You can have a religious view. It
was true in the loving case. The argument was made that
it’s God’s will that people of different races not be
married. It’s in the briefs and it was in the testimony
in this trial, that people honestly felt that it was
wrong to mix the races, that it would dilute the value
of the race and do all of these terrible things. People
honestly felt that way. But they were — they were —
they were permitted under the constitution to think
that.

“But they are not permitted under the constitution
to put that law, that view, into the law, and to put
that view into the constitution of their state in order
to discriminate against individuals.

“I think, Your Honor, that this law is
discriminatory. The evidence is overwhelming that it
imposes great social harm on individuals who are our
equals. They are members of our society. They pay
their taxes. They want to form a household. They want
to raise their children in happiness, in the same way
that their neighbors do.

“We are imposing great damage
on them by the institution of the State of California
saying they are different. And they cannot have the
happiness, they cannot have the privacy, they cannot
have the liberty, they cannot have the intimate {SOERBS}
in the context of a marriage that the rest of our
citizens do.

“We have demonstrated during this trial that
that causes grave and permanent irrelevant reppable and
totally unnecessary harm. Because we are withholding
from them a part of an institution of marriage that we
hold — one of the language of one of those Supreme
Court decisions is intimate {PHAES} to the point of
being sacred, that right of marriage in the context of
the intimate relationship. We are withholding that from
them, hurting them. And we are doing no good. If we
had a reason, a really good reason for inflicting all of
that harm that might be another matter. But there is no
reason that I heard.”

Today at the E3, Nintendo announced their new portable gaming system, the Nintendo 3DS. I’m super excited for it – it will have 3D graphics without the need for special glasses. The lucky developers who have been able to use it in person have remarked that it’s incredible and that it seems like they can reach out and pick up the videogame characters with their fingers. It is believed the technology is a type of autostereoscopy, which was introduced in some Japanese cell phones earlier this year. It will also include a camera for taking 3D pictures! I’m also pretty stoked about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii and Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Nintendo DS.

Went to Sandy Point today with my little sister Ashley. Pics are posted in my Flickr account. Below is a video of Ash and ChiChi running on the beach. There were some Osprey (hawks) that started circling us because they saw ChiChi and Bebe running around on the beach, so we had to grab them quick and wait for the hawks to return to their nest.

In other news, a recent study suggests that lesbian couples make better parents than heterosexual couples. Or, atleast, their children are better adjusted and suffer fewer psychological problems. Perhaps we should outlaw straight marriage since it clearly harms children, LOL.

As would be expected, the fundamentalists here in the good ole’ USA have already begun attacking the McDonald’s Ad, even though the ad is only showing in France. O’Reilly and FOX Network used the ad to compare gays to Al Quaeda and asked a McDonald’s representative if there would now be an Al Quaeda ad airing, and also stated his opinion that a gay ad like that shown in France will never be shown in America.

Some have asked, What does being gay have to do with eating at McDonald’s? It’s a very ignorant question, IMHO. What does a gecko have to do with car insurance? Why, when Maine is the whitest state in the country, do we show ads here with mixed race couples? The point of McDonald’s ad is to show that their business accepts and affirms the gay and lesbian community. They are a business and many companies, starting with Budweiser in the US, realize that the GLBT community possesses a large amount of buying power.

When it comes to finances, large businesses are beginning to see that a same-sex couple, in general, has a lot more disposable income than a fundamentalist opposite-sex couple having several children. The bottom line for any business is money and it is economically favorable to be inclusive of GLBT individuals. In fact, discrimination often damages business. While the US is a bit behind the times and it will be a while before we catch up with countries like France, I wholeheartedly disagree with O’Reilly’s prediction that we will never see ads like this become mainstream in America. Lots of companies already air such ads on networks like LOGO and Bravo. Levi’s, Pepsi, Hyundai, the list goes on…

I thought this was a really cute ad and I wanted to share it. It’s too bad it’s only airing in France – I guess they figured we’re too conservative here in America to accept an ad like this. I can’t blame them – the US is one of the most conservative developed nations in the world.

The father’s statement to his son reminds me of my parents, lol. I’ve been fortunate to have a family that’s always been incredibly accepting – my parents even come to pride, which is coming right up! Portland Pride is June 19th and Bangor Pride is June 26th. I wouldn’t miss either one!

Speaking of family, my grandmother is doing much better and is in a really nice nursing home near my college, so I will be able to visit her whenever I want this Fall and Spring before I graduate!