http://www.positivelite.com/

Yesterday, December 1, 2009, marked the official launch of a very important social network and online community.  It is also very exciting to note that this important media launch was planned to coincide with World AIDS Day.  What a great idea!  You will come to know the importance of this as you read on.

PositiveLite.com is a brand new e-magazine for HIV positive gay men and their friends. It is the product of many months of work, development, and planning by Brandon Williams and Brian Finch who are both ‘out’, long term surviving HIV positive men living in Toronto.

The website will provide something over and above the typical blog that we see everywhere on the web these days.  PositiveLite.com is different than other websites as it is an online social space where readers and members have access to unique perspectives of people who live with HIV/AIDS, as well as those who have been affected by it in so many other ways.  Contributors on PositiveLite.com represent many aspects of our everyday reality, as community members, thinkers, and friends.  I myself, as a friend of many who are HIV positive, find spaces like this site to be inspirational and important in lieu of today’s neo-liberal zeitgeist.  In other words, this online social space, as a voice for people affected by HIV/AIDS, is long overdue.  Here is a place where those living with HIV/AIDS make sense of their lives with discourse, personal stories, art, social media, multi-media, and humour.

It is the first of it’s kind in Canada, bringing together several published, well-known, and respected HIV positive voices such as: Life-Coach Brandon Williams (http://www.btscoaching.com), social advocate, writer, and humourist Brian Finch (http://acidrefluxweb.com), Montreal lawyer Ken Monteith (http://talktothehump.blogspot.com), Toronto stylist Phillip Minaker, advocate Robyn Pardy, HIV health & treatment specialist Devan Nambiar, Toronto columnist Derek Thaczuk, blogger and facilitator Bob Leahy (http://www.hivstigma.com/blogs/bob/),advice columnist John Maxwell, columnist Corey Washington, internet gossip columnist Perez Sheraton, internet gamer and self-confessed gadget geek Sebastien Goulet, and astrologist Soul Garden (http://www.soulgardencollective.tv/).

I hope people sign up for membership on PositiveLite.com (www.positivelite.com).  I am betting there will be daily entries that will educate, provoke, and certainly entertain its readers.  From what I have seen so far on PostiveLite.com, blog entries are taking multiple forms in both written and visual formats.  You can bet there will be much creativity being utilized and explored while this social media site evolves.

This is also going to be an online space offering social networks and workshops for people to take part.  It offers the ability for members to become reflexive parts of this energetic community.  I am certainly looking forward to seeing how this site will evolve over time.  The contributors come from various diverse backgrounds, all with content that is aiming to be collective and mutually constructive.  This website has the promise of constructing new meanings and descriptions of how people not only live with HIV/AIDS, but thrive in so many aspects of their everyday realities.

It is also very exciting to note that PositiveLite.com has aligned itself with media organizations important to Toronto and Canadian LTGBQ communities such as Shaun Proulx Media (www.GayGuideToronto.com), OUTTV’S The Shaun Proulx Show), and The AIDS Committee of Toronto.

Congratulations to Brandon, Brian, and everyone involved in this project.  I wish you the greatest of success!

Richard Birch

PositveLite.com logo used with kind permission.

According to Slap Upside The Head:

“Canada’s only gay and lesbian television channel has filed a complaint with the CRTC over treatment by a local cable provider.

OutTV says that not only does Shaw Communications exclude the channel from their “All In” package and make it a by-request-only subscription (the only specialty station to receive this treatment), but they have also moved the station’s channel number multiple times, first from 100 to 200, then to 370. Worse, the last move put the station immediately beside adult offerings: Channel 371 is Hustler, 372 is Playboy, and 373 is Red Light District.”

It is unfair and unethical to constantly move the OutTV channel and damages their business and credibiiltiy. In addition their is no adult content on the channel and thus it should not be showcased along with sex oriented channels simply because the channel is geared toward a gay/lesbian audience.

Please contact the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to voice your concern over Shaw’s homophobic and unfair treatment of OutTV.

Sexy y divertida suena la tercera edición del reality Coverguy que se transmite por el canal canadiense Out Tv. Este reality busca al mejor modelo masculino.La primera etapa se hará en un hotel en Toronto donde los jueces seleccionarán a los chicos con más actitudes para el modelaje. Luego, durante 4 semanas consecutivas estos chicos, gay y heteros, convivirán y pasarán una serie de experiencias. Además, se seleccionará a un ganador por semana, con audiencia en vivo y ante las críticas de los jueces. Los cuatro finalistas modelarán la nueva línea de ropa interior de Ginch Gonch y el ganador obtendrá un contrato de modelaje con esta marca, además de una menbresía por un año en el Goodlife Fitness Clubs y será portada de varias revistas.

Esta tercera temporada trae mejores chicos dispuestos a todo por ganar el contrato de modelaje y conquistar a los jueces. Entre estos tenemos a John Nightingale (modelo canadiense y editor de la revista Jim Armstrong),  Nina Arsenault, juntos al anfitrión Mathieu Chantelois, por lo que este reality está teniendo muy buena audiencia. Y es que con estos chicos el rating esta asegurado.

Hier matin, en zappant la télé, plusieurs enfants du Québec en vacances, relâche scolaire oblige, sont peut-être tombés sur la chaîne pour adultes SexTV, même si leurs parents n’étaient pas abonnés. C’est que le cablôdistributeur, Vidéotron avait décidé de débrouiller cette chaîne depuis mercredi dernier, sans avertissement, pour attirer de nouveaux clients au service Illico dans la région ville de Québec.

Vidéotron affirme que le timing n’est pas le meilleur. L’entreprise n’a pas pris de temps à réagir, vers midi la chaîne SexTV et également OutTV (une chaîne destiné aux gays et lesbiennes) ont été rebrouillées à nouveau pour les non-abonnés.

Je tiens à vous rassurez tout de suite, j’ai déjà été abonné à SexTV, une chaîne de télé qui ne coûte pas plus cher que de s’abonner à TSN ou RDS et qui ne montre ni plus ni moins de peau que TQS et son émission Portfolio.