"I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Three months after suffering a stroke, Prairie Home Companion writer and broadcaster Garrison Keillor is more than ready to poke fun at the experience.

"I'm feeling fine," he said in an interview aired Wednesday on CBC's Q cultural affairs show. "If you're going to have a stroke, a minor one is the way to go."

Keillor, speaking from his studio in St. Paul, Minn., described why he drove himself to the hospital in Minneapolis after suffering a stroke this September.

"I didn't want to be any trouble to anybody, so, I got behind the wheel of my car," he said. "I felt a little odd, but I drove very carefully, very slowly, in the right-hand lane.

"And I got to the emergency room, and I stood in line as other people came up to the triage desk and talked about minor skin irritations and a mole that needed to be looked at and a possible ankle sprain. I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Keillor, author of Lake Wobegon Days and Life Among the Lutherans, has made a career out of satirizing his Calvinist upbringing, including its emphasis on never making a fuss.

"Sexually risky behaviour" NOT "Sexual orientation" for blood donations in Sweden

Sweden will lift its ban on gay blood donors as of March 1, 2010, but will restrict donations to gay men who have not had sex with a man for a year, national health authorities said Tuesday.

"Men who have had sex with men will no longer be permanently barred from donating blood," the National Board of Health and Welfare said in a statement released on World AIDS Day.

Sexual orientation will no longer determine whether a person can give blood. Instead, people who have engaged in "sexually risky behaviour" can be barred as donors for one year.

"Unscrupulous uses of the Olympic marks"

Police answering a 911 call about a home invasion in East Vancouver Wednesday found no break-in suspects when they arrived but did discover 107,000 ecstasy tablets, some imprinted with the Olympic rings symbol.

"The officer saw large bags of multi-coloured pills in plain view, which the officer believed to be consistent with ecstasy," Desmarais said.

Some of the tablets were stamped with peace signs and some with the Olympic rings.

Vancouver's Olympic organizing committee has vigorously pursued unlicensed use of the Olympic rings symbol in the past and a spokesman said it was aware of the Vancouver police seizure.

"This illustrates that there are and will be unscrupulous uses of the Olympic marks," said Bill Cooper, VANOC's director of commercial rights management. "Like the Vancouver police, we will continue to be diligent in our surveillance and rigorous followup."

[ Who cares about the ecstasy when the Olympic logo is being misused! ]

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"How long does this battle have to go on?"

The fallout from the blocking of three gay films at the border has reverberated across Parliament Hill. Queer MPs are universally outraged by what they see as a return to the era of Little Sister's struggles.

On Nov 20, an official with the Canada Border Services Agency flagged three films destined for Inside Out's Ottawa screenings — I Can't See Straight, Clapham Junction and Patrik, Age 1.5. The material was approved after the festival was over, and the delay left organizers scrambling to find replacement copies of the films to screen.

"It just seems so spiteful, so intolerant," says Davies. "I'm shocked that still, in this day and age, we're fighting a government who's determined to censor material for the queer community. What right do they have to do that?"

Ugandan law targeting gays is vile and hateful

The Canadian government is making its strongest defence yet of human rights for gays and lesbians, calling a proposed Ugandan law that would imprison and even execute homosexuals "vile and hateful."

The condemnation comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to join leaders of Commonwealth countries at a meeting in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend.

The Ugandan "anti-homosexuality bill" is already spurring international calls for the country's suspension from the organization.

Peter Kent, minister of state for foreign affairs, said "Our position is that the proposed Uganda law is reprehensible, vile and hateful and it's appalling that such legislation would be brought to the parliament of a commonwealth democracy. "

... The new Chairman of the Commonwealth from Trinidad & Tobago doesn't seem much better.

CLICK HERE to read about the upcoming Commonwealth Summit.

CLICK HERE to see details about the Legal status of homosexuality worldwide as shown in the map above.

Focus on THIS family!

This movie was featured on a recent episode of In The Life, PBS's magazine show about gay, lesbian and transgendered issues.

In 1999 Reverend Greg Stewart preached about the dire need in Los Angeles County for foster and adoptive parents. Soon after, he and Stillman White, his partner of more than 20 years, opened their home to some of these children. Their priority was to keep siblings together, regardless of age, gender, or chance for success. Over the next three years, the men fostered and then adopted five children considered “at risk”and in desperate need of love and support they have never known.

CLICK HERE to visit the movie's website.

Canada Customs up to dirty tricks again

Canada's border guards are holding prints of three films destined for a gay film festival in Ottawa, and they won't release them until they've had the chance to watch them from beginning to end.

That poses a problem for Inside Out, a Toronto-based film festival with an annual Ottawa satellite program. They intended to show all three films this weekend. Without the prints, they're left scrambling to find grainy lower-quality copies to show audiences.

The gay community and the CBSA (formerly Canada Customs) have a long and checkered past. Border cops spent two decades harassing gay bookstores, with books and magazines arriving in Canada delayed by months or even shredded.

Vancouver-based bookstore Little Sister's took them to court and in 2000 won a partial victory. At the time, the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged that material was routinely being stopped at the border because of its gay content, and ordered the government agency to stop.

Move over Cougar Town

I am a fan of the new show called Cougar Town starring Courteney Cox, but this one goes one better ... as Jimmy Kimmel explains:

Janet's new video

Despite all the hooplah around Michaels's death, Janet has released a new album that she says goes back to the upbeat, danceable, sexy stuff she did before. Watch this video and others in the Related Videos column and decide for yourself.