From the SN&R blogs.

What Ted learned at straight camp

A good-sized crowd gathered at the Sierra 2 Center on December 15 to hear SN&R contributor Ted Cox talk about his experiences in the world of “reparative therapy.”

That’s a thoroughly discredited cluster of “therapies,” that supposedly decrease “unwanted same-sex attraction” while increasing “opposite-sex attraction.”

We usually refer to it around here as “praying away the gay,” but according to Ted, it also involves beating up pillows and something called “safe” hugging and holding.

Ted is unapologetically straight. He went undercover in several local ex-gay ministries as part of a project for a graduate writing program. He’s since spent a couple of years looking into the phenomenon of “turning straight.”

A straight man pretending to be a gay man who wants to be straight isn’t nearly as confusing as some of the “therapies.” For instance, in “healing touch therapy,” a straight man holds a gay man tightly in his arms while telling him he’s a “golden child.” In this way, said gay man will become straight.

Ted called it “the gayest thing I’ve ever done.”

Compiled from Kel’s Hot Flash.

Newspapers pass the hat

Don’t forget to tip your local reporter.

That’s what The Miami Herald is telling its online readers, announcing a new experiment to save journalism.

The Herald began last week to include a special link at the bottom of each of its online stories, leading to a credit-card form and the message: “If you value The Miami Herald’s local news reporting and investigations, but prefer the convenience of the Internet, please consider a voluntary payment for the Web news that matters to you.”

The Herald is a McClatchy paper, but Sacramento Bee spokeswoman Pam Dinsmore says there are no immediate plans for the local daily to put out a virtual tip jar.

But given a chance, I’d toss in some change now and then, especially if it meant supporting work like that of Kick Ass author and Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen. Or if it meant an end to the Bee’s obnoxious multilayered front-page print ads. This morning, it was a sheet of CVS Pharmacy ads, stuck to the page by a Jackson Rancheria Casino sticker, all obscuring the masthead, headlines and half of the stories on A1. Print news isn’t quite dead, but the Bee is trying damn hard to bury it.

Compiled from Snog.