Medals or Bullets: possible fates in fiction vs. reality

While many readers of my last two novels have asked for a third companion piece about the later lives of Reid Conniff and Everett Forrester, I have yet to write so much as a sentence of such a project. But with historic and contemporary events reflecting what could be parts of their lives, the ideas keep forming like distant clouds. And by noticing current events, the fate disabled character Everett could be become one of either athletic glory or fatality from the end of a police gun.

First the Paralympics return, following the Rio, Brazil Olympics. Already, controversies have begun.
 

The Brazilian edition of Vogue magazine published photos of two soap opera stars that had been Photoshopped to make them look like amputees.

In ads for the Rio Paralympics, able-bodied models were hired, and then their limbs were Photoshopped to make them resemble amputees. This MetroNews article explains.  

Of Ice Buckets and Telethons: Chapter Excerpt, Message of Love

Unless you've been completely offline for months, you've seen dozens of Ice Bucket challenge video clips; your friends, celebrities, everyone.

Some criticism arose over the waste of water, and other snarky truths, only to be countered by the point of the millions raised for ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), as well as awareness; and that's true, too.

But as my coverage of the original AIDS Rides proved, it's tough but needed to ask where the money's going. Sometimes, how much is being spent on a cure is questionable, if not absent.

Treatment, sure, and that keeps the pharmaceutical companies happy.

In the controversy over HIV prevention, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has come under deserved scrutiny for dismissing Gilead's AIDS treatment pill Truvada, an HIV prevention pill, as "reckless." AIDS activists who critique testing requirements and its stance are calling for the resignation of Executive Director Michael Weinstein. 

What the Traffic Will Allow

As any blogger does, I'm interested in which topics interest my readers. I should not be surprised that one post, "The Body Electric," that continually gets the most views is about hunks, particularly model and veteran Alex Minsky.

Not surprisingly, when a man poses nude or nearly nude, as Minksy has done (repeatedly, thank goodness), I should also not have been surprised that the top search phrase for my blog, most recently, has little to do with my novels about a gay couple, one of them who is a paraplegic, but about the hottie.

For the record, and the guys who keep typing "Is Alex Minsky gay?", no, he is not. He is hot, and a self-described "modely model" who appreciates his gay fans.

Minsky has also generously shared info about another handsome veteran, Christopher Van Etten, a double amputee who has posed nude for photographer Michael Stokes. Check out more (possibly NSFW) photos on Stoke's Tumblr.