Last week I wrote about CBS's decision to air an anti-abortion commercial from the evangelical political organization Focus on the Family during this year's Super Bowl broadcast on February 7th.

By accepting the commercial, which will feature quarterback Florida Gators Tim Tebow's mother, Pam, talking about how her "personal faith" convinced her to carry her son Tim to term, against medical advice to terminate the pregnancy, CBS inexplicably reversed its long-held and inflexible policy banning "advocacy" commercials on the network.

In 2004, they famously rejected a commercial from the United Church of Christ because, citing a solid policy against running any advertising that "touches on and/or takes a position on one side of a current controversial issue."

The UCC commercial's message was inclusiveness, and featured a gay couple attempting to enter a house of worship but being turned away by a bouncer. The "controversial" tagline of the ad was "Jesus Didn't Turn People Away. Neither Do We," a sentiment supported by every Gospel of the New Testament.

The tagline of the Focus on the Family ad is reportedly "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life," a perky, wholesome slogan that neatly doubles as coded rallying cry for the rabid, occasionally violent anti-choice movement.

The response from the United Church of Christ was swift and to the point. One their website, they addressed the situation by noting that

"[w]hile CBS is reportedly saying that a bad economy now necessitates changes in its policy on so-called advocacy ads, this decision only underscores the arbitrary way the networks approach these decisions and the result is a woeful lack of religious diversity in our nation's media," says the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC's director of communications. "Because of its own economic circumstances, CBS is affording time to one religious organization while having suppressed another. This sounds as if the broadcasters think they own the airwaves when, in theory at least, they do not

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)'s Senior Director of Media Programs, Rashad Robinson went even further, saying

"CBS's decision to run a Focus on the Family ad during this year's Super Bowl can't and shouldn't be considered in a vacuum. CBS spent years denying a platform to an LGBT-inclusive church that wanted to share a message of inclusion with a national audience. Now, when it happens to be financially inconvenient for CBS to hold to the standard it had previously imposed, the network's expediency benefits a virulently anti-gay organization whose advocacy on these issues is the antithesis of that of the United Church of Christ."

When first challenged on the obvious hypocrisy of accepting one religious organization's commercial while rejecting another, CBS was cooly dismissive, replying that it would not comment on past decisions, an obvious reference to their ban on UCC's inclusiveness commercial.

On Monday, a coalition of women's groups including NOW, the Feminist Majority, the Women's Media Center sent a letter of protest to CBS. The letter proposed that

"by offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers."

On Tuesday, CBS spokesman Dana McClintock tepidly offered a statement to the effect that the network had changed its policy towards advocacy advertising. "We have for some time moderated our approach to advocacy submissions after it became apparent that our stance did not reflect public sentiment or industry norms on the issue."

Given the dire state of the economy, CBS's record-low prices for ad time during the Superbowl, and the indisputable fact that abortion is the most polarizing and divisive hot-button topic in the American popular discourse, it's jejune of CBS to expect anyone to believe that this was some forward-thinking move towards modernity on their part. It clearly comes down to which viewers CBS is prepared to offend and alienate when there's a $2.7 million payoff at stake during a recession. This should be good news for well-heeled right-wing religious and political groups everywhere.

On Friday, the network rejected a humor-driven commercial from the gay dating site ManCrunch.com, which features two apparently straight men who suddenly begin to make out in the heat of the moment as they celebrate a touchdown on television. The commercial is not pornographic, nor is there nudity. There will be more exposed flesh on the field than there would be on the screen. The production value of the commercial is comparable to many seen over the years on football's holiest of days.

In a statement about the rejection, CBS, sounding more like a book-banning Baptist librarian than a sophisticated, top-rated television network offered the following explanation:

"After reviewing the ad - which is entirely commercial in nature - our Standards and Practices department decided not to accept this particular spot."

The commercial for ManCrunch.com reportedly cost $100,000 to produce. According to spokeswoman Elissa Butcher, the company is

"100% serious. We have the money to pay for it. If the ad showed a man and woman kissing it would have been accepted. You see ads for erectile dysfunction morning, noon and night. It's discriminatory that they wont show this."

The one thing that the two commercials have in common is their potential for controversy.

On one hand there is the anti-choice ad from Focus on the Family, which is designed to shame and intimidate women who have made the excruciating decision to terminate a pregnancy. On the other, a comedic ad for ManCrunch.com, which uses humor to good-naturedly lampoon the devotion male football fans feel for the game.

It would seem to have less to do with the "quality," or not, of the ManCrunch ad than with CBS having already decided where its priorities lie. They clearly don't lie with women, or progressives, or with any group that happens to find itself on Focus on the Family's no-fly list.

The tagline for the Tebow commercial--"Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life"--is particularly ironic, given that Focus on the Family has likely destroyed at least as many families as it's "celebrated" in its relentless pursuit of what amounts to fundamentalist Christian social eugenics, all at the expense of keeping existing families together through education, acceptance, respect, tolerance, and love.

Last year Focus on the Family contributed $727, 250 to help defeat Proposition 8 in California at a time when they were making preparations to lay off nearly 20% of their employees, which seems an odd decision for an organization that allegedly "celebrates families."

In light of yet another grotesque double standard flip-flop on CBS's part, it might behoove the network to stop hiding behind a specious platform of how up-to-date they've recently become regarding "advocacy ads" and just admit that they have a financial stake in appeasing the Religious Right.

Either that or admit they're simply afraid of them, afraid of applying the same standards to a right-wing religious conglomerate as they've always applied to left-leaning, liberal groups and progressive churches whose message of tolerance and inclusiveness they've deemed "too controversial" for primetime.

It's clearly more lucrative for CBS to radically alter a long-held policy, at whatever ethical cost, than to just do the right thing.

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Soho House New York Wellness Week

Day 4: FINAL COUNTDOWN

And so, on this penultimate day of January, Soho House New York's Wellness Week comes to an end, as all good things must. But who's to say we can't have wellness week every week? If there's one thing I've learned from my happy meeting of all the excellent holistic teachers featured in these posts--I didn't even get to talk about Dr. Alejandro Junger's candid chat on Tuesday night, not that he needs any more press from me, or about the awesome vibrating guys from Station fitness, though I hope to feature them in the coming weeks--it's that lasting wellness is not something you can achieve with sporadic spurts of dedication. It's a gradual process that requires daily engagement. In the case of health, slow and steady wins the race, and this is anathema to the general human preference for immediate gratification.

Self-care seemed to be the pervasive theme, whether it manifested as administering your own belly rubs, or simply being in-tune enough to know when you need to reach out for a professional's help. The most important thing to realize is that each of the therapies I experienced--as is true for most of holistic medicine--are not miracle cures; they simply work to fortify your body's own functioning. But this improved state of being is only lasting insofar as you manage to keep away from doing things that actively harm your body's ability to perform, as so many of us are wont to do when we're in the thick of it, only to come searching for some magic pill to make the aches and pains and allergies and sickness go away. Unfortunately, none exists. And where would be the fun in life if actions had no reactions and a simple pill could make it all better? Feel free to quote me the next time I ask you for an Advil.

When I queried SHNY's Guy Chetwynd why he and his staff chose the end of January for their first ever Wellness Week, he offered these savvy insights into our collective psychosis.

"Everyone comes off their New Year's Eve champagne hangover with a laundry list of uncompromising resolutions: 'Never drink champagne again.' 'Never eat chocolate again.' 'Be asleep by 7:30pm with kids.' 'Two hours of cardio...a day.' And three weeks later, we've all slid back to our old routines, and we're as unhealthy as ever. Wellness Week was designed to give everyone a chance to revisit the resolutions they'd made and jumpstart their health routine with a variety of healing treatments. By gaining a bit of distance, and harnessing the holistic view of the alternative therapies on tap this week, the hope is to make reincorporating some of the more manageable resolutions a bit easier."

It's true, the American version of resolution making seems to be an exercise in futility, if only because we are a bit over-eager to improve ourselves and end up setting unattainable goals. And so, this idea of giving everyone a second chance to do it right--of bringing everyone back to square one, just as we were beginning to let it all slide--is quite an interesting one. Out of the gate, we're all gung ho about punishing ourselves with stringent rules for 2010 to compensate for all our indulgences in 2009. But the confines are too rigid, and it's only a matter of time before we revert to old habits, searching again for the illusory cure-all that can absolve us of all responsibility for taking care of ourselves. Isn't it time we inject some sanity into this crazy ritual?

The real goal should be to make small changes that can truly promote wellness because they are lasting. SHNY trail blazed a path for us this week. But to continue the healing process, we'll need to remind each other and ourselves to come back to center as needed, to recalibrate and find where a happy medium lies, and to make ours a daily commitment as we strive to gain permanent health.

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Some of the world's most prominent bankers have come out in favour of a global bank wind-down fund, a concession from the industry after weeks of fighting proposals for new taxes in the US and Europe.

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This Friday was complicated from the start, I won't deny it. In the morning, we were missing Claudio, a photography professor at the Blogger Academy, because an agent - who barely deigned to show him a card with the initials DES (Department of State Security) - arrested him. We had a little party at our house after the classes to celebrate the first anniversary of Voces Cubanas, which in its brief life now has 26 sites. I remember that in the middle of the hugs and smiles, someone told me to be careful. "In the system as it is today, there is no way to protect yourself from attacks from the State," I told him, with the intent to scare away my own fear.

Around six in the evening we were on our way to a family gathering. My sister was celebrating her 36th birthday; my father heard her first cry early in the morning on the day set aside to celebrate railroad workers. Even Teo, with his adolescent reluctance to participate in "old people's" activities, agreed to come with us. We were expecting the usual birthday party, with photos, candles to blow out, and "Happy birthday to you, Yunia, may you enjoy many more." But, the many eyes that were lurking had another plan for us. On Boyeros Avenue, a few yards from the Ministry of the Interior and Raul Castro's office, three cars stopped the miserable Russian Lada we had taken at a corner.

"Don't even think about going to 23rd Street Yoani, because the Union of Young Communists is having an event," shouted some men who got out of the Chinese-made Geely, which reminded me of a sharp pain in my lumbar zone. I lived through something similar already last November and today I would not allow them to put me head first into another car, with my son. A huge man got out of the vehicle and started to repeat his threats, "What is your name?" was Reinaldo's question which the man never bothered to respond to. From Teo's lanky body rose the ironic phrase, "He doesn't say his name because he is a coward." Worse still, Teo, worse still, he doesn't say his name because he is not recognized as an individual, but rather simply as a voice for others much higher up. A professional camera was filming our every move, waiting for an aggressive pose, a vulgar phrase, an excess of anger. The injection of terror was brief, the birthday found us bitter.

How can we emerge unscathed from all this? How can a citizen protect himself from a State that has the police, the courts, the rapid response brigades, the mass media, the capacity to defame and lie, the power to socially lynch him and turn him into someone defeated and apologetic? What were they thinking would happen on 23rd Street today that would make them arrest several bloggers?

I feel a terror that almost doesn't let me type, but I want to tell those who today threatened me and my family, that when one reaches a certain level of panic, higher doses don't make any difference. I will not stop writing, or Twittering; I have no plans to close my blog, nor abandon the practice of thinking with my own mind and - above all - I am not going to stop believing that they are much more frightened than I am.

Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

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WASHINGTON — Carly Fiorina's $2.5 million loan to her U.S. Senate campaign has given the former Hewlett-Packard CEO a considerable financial edge over her Republican rivals.

In all, Fiorina's campaign had $2.75 million in the bank to begin the year, according to a federal disclosure report delivered Friday. She is one of three Republicans vying for the right to challenge California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is seeking a fourth term.

One of Fiorina's GOP primary challengers, Chuck DeVore, had $226,364 cash on hand. The other, former congressman Tom Campbell, has to begin raising money after dropping his campaign for California governor Jan. 14.

All three Republicans have a lot of work ahead to catch up with Boxer, whose campaign estimates she has $7.2 million in the bank.

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic is giving audiences an added chance to catch music director Gustavo Dudamel this season.

Dudamel will perform an additional concert at 7:30 p.m. April 25, said the orchestra today. He will conduct the L.A. Philharmonic in the same program as his inaugural concert as music director at Walt Disney Concert Hall in October.

Now that the Tiger is in his cage, after roaming strip clubs and hotel bars freely for almost a decade, I think it appropriate to prevent others from being harmed by similar stealthy creatures.

But how do you pick out this animal from the pack? Does he have special markings? A deeper growl? A hairier back?

Grab your binoculars and notepad. We're going on a trip to collect information on spotting and avoiding the cheating male in the species. Feel free to post the "data" you gathered in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Your info might help others spot the next Tiger in the Woods!

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This blog and its content are for entertainment and informational purposes only and are not intended to replace or substitute for any professional financial, medical, legal, psychological or other advice. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional or medical advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified specialist.

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