FORD LIES ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATION RESOLUTION

At Ford’s upcoming annual meeting May, 11 in Wilmington, Delaware, a shareholder resolution will be voted on by all shareholders that simply asks Ford to “amend its written equal employment opportunity policy to exclude any reference to privacy issues related to sexual interests, activities or orientation.” Citizen Action Now is calling on all concerned shareholders to vote for this resolution. In an attempt to avoid letting shareholders vote on the resolution, Ford pleaded with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to omit the resolution from the ballot. They falsely insisted they wouldn’t be able to recruit on college campuses unless they had this policy. The SEC rightfully rejected Ford’s distorted claims and so should Ford shareholders.  Conducting interviews on this topic is Tom Strobhar, President of Citizen Action Now, who said, “Ford made one thing clear. They will lie to their shareholders to further placate homosexual groups. Concern for what Ford calls, ‘certain religious groups’ appears to be non-existent.”  The resolution, proposed by a doctor from Illinois with the assistance of Citizen Action Now, makes a number of salient points:

1. It would be impossible to discern a person’s sexual orientation from their appearance.
2. It is inappropriate and possibly illegal for employers to ask about sexual interests and employees to talk about them.
3. There is a perceived link between sexual orientation policies and companies that pay domestic partner benefits.
4. Homosexual acts have been condemned by major religions for thousands of years.
5. Those who engage in homosexual activity are at significantly higher risk for developing HIV/AIDS.
6. Marriage between heterosexuals has been protected and encouraged for its societal benefits by a wide range of cultures and faiths through the ages.

“Considering Ford’s eagerness to please homosexual groups lately, it is easy to understand why they wouldn’t want this type of resolution read and voted on at their annual meeting,” said Strobhar, who contends that Ford management told the Securities & Exchange Commission they feared a boycott of their products by homosexual groups if they implemented the policy. They seemed decidedly less concerned about an ongoing boycott by “certain religious groups.” See www.boycottford.com for more information.  “Ford is free to be one of the most pro-homosexual corporations in the country,” said Strobhar. “Unfortunately for Ford shareholders, the last five years of catering to homosexuals has coincided with billions of dollars of lost market value and declining market share. Some analysts have even suggested Ford could go bankrupt if it continues on its present course.” Citizen Action Now is calling on Ford shareholders to vote for the resolution and Ford to:

1. Tell the truth
2. Show some respect for the institution of marriage and organizations that support marriage between one man and one woman
3. Stop giving shareholder money to organizations promoting same sex marriage and advertising in homosexual publications
4. Drop the sexual orientation clause from the hiring policy. Tell current and prospective employees to leave discussion of their sexual interests at home.
5. Stop paying domestic partner benefits to those engaging in homosexual sex
6. Return Ford to its former glory as one of the world’s premier auto makers.



Tom Strobar is President of Citizen Action now  and author of the first shareholder resolution against child pornography, religious bigotry, fetal tissue research, abortifacient drugs and domestic partner benefits.  Strobhar is the author of numerous articles on pro-life and pro-family business matters, including the only pro-life shareholder resolutions to appear on corporate ballots in 1991 through 2005. Strobhar has served as chairman of Life Decisions International (www.fightpp.org) and has been a Board member of the National Association of Christian Financial Consultants. 

A graduate of Columbia University, Mr. Strobhar has the dubious distinction of being described in Pat Buchannan’s newsletter as “a one man wrecking crew.” Glamour magazine described him as “The Financier,” “a major Washington power player,” and a “financial whiz.” Instrumental in changing corporate policies at American Express, AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway, General Mills, Target, and others, Strobhar has launched a new initiative: a petition challenging the pro-homosexual policies at Allstate, Ford, and Walgreens.

Katie Couric jumps ship: Today host to anchor CBS Evening News

Photo: An image made from television shows Katie Couric on the Today Show Wednesday.

On her 15th anniversary on Today, Katie Couric told viewers Wednesday she was leaving NBC to join CBS and become the first woman to solely anchor a U.S. network evening newscast. "I wanted to tell all of you out there . . . that after listening to my heart and my gut . . . I've decided I'll be leaving Today at the end of May," she said. "I really feel as if we've become friends through the years." The 49-year-old Couric, the longest-serving anchor in Today show history, is expected to replace Bob Schieffer on the third-rated CBS evening news broadcast in September. Following a months-long guessing game that has consumed the TV industry, Couric chose the 15th anniversary of her first day as Today co-host in 1991 to say that it's time for a change. "It's been such an honour and a privilege to occupy this seat for as long as I have," she said. "Sometimes I think change is a good thing," Couric added. "Although it may be terrifying to get out of your comfort zone, it's also very exciting to start a new chapter in your life." Co-host Matt Lauer told Couric that it was "hard to imagine being here and not having you sitting next to us." The bold move simultaneously forces NBC to find a new team for Today, television's most profitable news program, and gives CBS News president Sean McManus a major success in his effort to lure more stars to his beleaguered news organization. Meredith Vieira of the daytime chat show The View has emerged as the leading candidate to team with Lauer. Vieira, a former CBS News reporter who won a Daytime Emmy as host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, had previously turned down offers to return to news since joining The View. If a deal with Vieira can't be reached, the top in-house candidates to replace Couric are Today weekend anchor Campbell Brown, NBC reporter Natalie Morales and news reader Ann Curry. Couric, Lauer, Curry and weathercaster Al Roker have formed TV news' most successful morning team in history since 1997, with Today riding an unprecedented 10-year ratings winning streak. During that time, morning news programs have simultaneously grown in influence and have become important entertainment vehicles. The job required Couric to both interview presidents and don goofy costumes on Halloween. Couric's NBC contract extends to the end of May and she's expected to remain at Today through that ratings sweeps month. The lure of trying something new and making history in the evening proved enticing to Couric, who is also expected to contribute to 60 Minutes. She spurned a more lucrative offer - about $20 million US a year - to remain at NBC and accept CBS' bid at a salary near her current range of $13 million to $15 million, according to a non-network person close to negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity. With Schieffer filling in during the year since Dan Rather's exit, the CBS Evening News is the only network evening newscast rising in the ratings. But it's still in third place behind NBC and ABC.

BIOGRAPHER AND AUTHOR ILIL ARBEL IS IN DEMAND

Photo: Author and writer extraordinaire, Ilil Arbel holding her favorite buddy.

 

Ilil Arbel is working, as usual, on many projects at the same time. She is researching and interviewing for personal histories for her regular column that appears on the New York Monthly Herald and the World Jewish News Agency. She is translating two early Israeli novels from Hebrew to English, which will complete her ambitious project of The Aliyah Trilogy, which has started with her latest book, The Lemon Tree. She is working on her The Life and Times of Hillel the Elder, a long-term and rather controversial project many do not believe she will ever complete. To which she answers rather defiantly  that Marguerite Yourcenar has worked for over twenty years on her Memoirs of Hadrian, a work in the same vein, which gives Ilil fifteen more years to work on the book without hearing any complaints. To lighten things up a bit, she has also been requested by the distinguished Angela Thirkell Society to write (and serialize) the first real sequel to the works of this beloved author – a project which is pure fun but will probably trigger the wrath of some purists. And since all that is being done while keeping a fulltime job at the highly respected publishing house of Matthew Bender, and devotedly looking after two extremely demanding cats, Morticia and Roger, who definitely consider themselves her joint bosses, you will realize that Ilil is really busy these days...

HONORING KOFI ANNAN

Photo: US Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

Actor Michael Douglas presented UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with an award for his dedication to ridding the world of landmines, marking the first international day to honour the cause. Annan said in his acceptance speech Tuesday that "the goal of a world without landmines appears achievable in years - not decades as we used to think." "Having been so effective in laying mines, we must now become even better at clearing them," he said, accepting the award from Adopt-A-Minefield, the world's largest non-governmental donor to programs to eliminate landmines. The UN General Assembly established the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action to focus attention on efforts to eliminate millions of mines in 82 countries. Mines kill or maim between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually, according to UN figures. Douglas and Annan joined Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and singer-songwriter Moby in a fundraising dinner that raised thousands of dollars for Adopt-A-Minefield.

"The United Nations is the leading international body working to make the problem of landmines a history lesson for our children," said the Oscar-winning actor, who campaigns for disarmament as a UN messenger for peace. "Tens of thousands of lives have been saved and millions more improved as a result of the decision and commitment of this man and the inspiration that he leads," Douglas said of Annan. Douglas said Adopt-A-Minefield was clearing minefields and helping survivors in 11 countries, and had raised over $17 million in the last six years.-By E.  Leder

TIGER WOOD IS ALWAYS "THE FAVORITE"!!

The eyes might be the windows to the soul, but on Tiger Woods's impenetrable brown eyes, the drapes are almost always drawn. So rarely does the world's No. 1 golfer reveal any hint of his inner feelings in public, that when he does - when the guard comes down, by accident, and the well-rehearsed answer momentarily deserts him - it is like a clue to a great mystery suddenly revealed. Yesterday at the Masters, where Woods is the favourite once more, a question about the failing health of his father brought a catch to his voice and a swiftly-controlled film of what might have been, for all we know, tears. It was a moment of sadness, of pride, of defiance ... and if he were about to put the tee in the ground for the final round of the season's first major championship on Sunday right then, you would not have wanted to be the one standing between him and a fifth green jacket. He had been asked how it is, for him, to watch Earl Woods fight the prostate cancer that first was diagnosed in 1998, and which returned with a vengeance in 2004 spreading to other parts of his body. And that the man who taught his son to play and to be a champion - who cried with him in a memorably fierce embrace after Tiger buried the field here in 1997 - has not seen him play in almost 18 months. "I'm very proud of my dad, very proud of my dad. He's a tremendous fighter, got an unbelievable will, and you know ... hopefully, he's passed a little bit of that on to me," Woods said. "I think that's kind of how I play. I guess my competitiveness on the golf course, that's how it comes across. It's will. I got a lot of that from my dad."

 That will, during the years when Woods seemed to be battering his opponents into submission before they teed it up in majors, often was cited as the difference between him and, say, Phil Mickelson, who probably had equal talent but lacked the fire in the belly that characterized Tiger's triumphs. Now, from somewhere, Mickelson has learned how to win the big ones. And so, as they sat in their respective interview sessions yesterday in Augusta National's snazzy media building, they were acknowledged to be, by a wide margin, the most likely to duke it out in the long shadows Sunday evening, when the final holes of the Masters play their annual game of chicken with sundown. Of course, it rarely comes down to a duel; almost never has, in the two men's careers. Golf is not that orderly. But they are forced to size one another up, even as they do the same to the new-look National and its 7,455 yards of tree-lined peril, and the way it changes how they play the game. The reason they make such wonderful rivals, aside from the fact that they don't like each other much, is that they are so outwardly different. Try to imagine Woods, for example, carrying two drivers in his bag, as Mickelson did last week in winning the BellSouth in Atlanta and will again here - one heel-weighted for hitting draws, one toe-weighted for fades. "No," Woods said, when asked if he ever had. "Well, one driver was in two pieces ... but that's about it." He wasn't making fun of Mickelson's endless fascination with technology, though. "If it works, it works. He was, what, 28-under last week? It obviously works." Mickelson, meanwhile, is dead serious about this latest fling with distance and, if possible, control, both of which are going to be essential here. Many players have pooh-poohed the very idea of two drivers - would rather carry an extra wedge - but Mickelson is persuasive. "I'm taking out my sand wedge, because quite frankly, it doesn't matter how far I hit it, I'm not ever going to get it to where I can hit a sand wedge to any of these (par-4) holes," he said. "And if it's a par-5, the L-wedge (with 60 degrees of loft) is plenty of club for my third shot. "I had been working through the offseason to get this longer (Callaway FT-3) driver in play, and we got it dialed in to where I could hit a very long draw, but all of the finesse shots like carving it around the trees on the (dogleg left) 13th, the club wasn't designed for that." Hence, the second driver (he has written "Draw" on one head cover, "Fade" on the other), and if you're expecting Mickelson to apologize for using technology to replace what once was the art of shaping shots, you've come to the wrong guy. "As long as I can remember, we've used shafts to help draw or fade, we've used lead tape on the heel or toe, we've used the length of the shaft or the lie of the club, having the toe of the club stick in the air will cause a hook, having it sit flat will cause a fade ... that's all I'm doing." And if it works, be assured that a new trend will begin on the PGA Tour, where anything successful is immediately copied - and be assured, further, that high-handicappers everywhere will be convinced that if a $500 driver was money well spent, two $500 drivers would have to be twice as good. Even Woods, who these days wields a driver about the size of a loaf of bread on a stick, is not immune to technology, and it might be that Mickelson's fixation with distance drove Tiger to lean on Nike for better equipment, and a better ball. Maybe they are not so different, after all. Someone asked Mickelson, who laboured through a poor season in which his wife, Amy, had post-childbirth health problems, if he had any thoughts on Tiger's struggles while he deals with his father's grave illness. "I know that it can be almost a reprieve to have those four or five hours to yourself to go play golf knowing that you have to redirect your thoughts to playing each shot," he said. "And I think that you're talking about the best player ... not just the best player maybe in the game, but the best at doing that, at being able to block everything out." Note the word "maybe." They certainly are the two best, at the moment. Whatever causes the rivalry, long may it run.- By C Kole.

 

Three guests arrested in what police call 'baby shower gone bad'

A baby shower erupted into a fight among guests in which one man was shot and several other people, including the seven-months-pregnant guest of honour, were beaten with a stick, police say. Three people were arrested after the brawl, described by police as a "baby shower gone bad." Police said the shooting victim, Aristotle Garcia, got into a fight with a man who is dating his ex-girlfriend. The argument, over whether the woman let their five-year-old daughter drink beer, escalated and drew in two other people - Jazz Rivas and Juan Velazquez, said police Lieut. Cheryl Claprood. When the baby shower's hostess tried to intervene, Rivas began hitting some of the guests, including the 22-year-old mother-to-be, with a large stick, Claprood said. Velazquez fired a gun into the air, then fired it into the crowd, hitting Garcia in the stomach, according to police. Garcia, 26, was in stable condition at Baystate Medical Center. The mother-to-be was treated after the incident Saturday and released. Velazquez, 19, was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and armed assault with intent to murder. He had not been arraigned as of Wednesday morning.  The man Garcia was initially fighting with, Antonio Santiago, 25, pleaded innocent to similar charges on Tuesday and was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bail. Rivas, 22, pleaded innocent to three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and one count of assault and battery on a pregnant female. His bail was set at $10,000.