Greetings!

You are invited to join us as we begin our week of National Prayer for the Healing of AIDS, sponsored by the Balm of Gilead organization.

We will begin our week on Sunday, March 7, 2010 with a Service of Word and Holy Communion. It will begin at 11:00 am.

We are located at St. Michael's Lutheran Church, 6671 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa 19119. (215)848-0199

Blessings!
Pastor Andrena Ingram

You may visit us on the web at St. Michael's Lutheran Church

you may also get more information at: *Living* With HIV

CityPaper: A Voice For The Fallen: One man's quest to memorialize the 4,600 gay men who died of AIDS in Philadelphia.:

If Bartlett's wiki had a mission statement, it would probably go something like this: "To help those who lived through those dark years heal, and to connect that generation with those who came after."

"As I am gradually becoming an elder in the gay community, I'm trying to find that next way to connect these generations," Bartlett says. "This wiki is a tool to develop conversation between young generations of activists — gays, yes, but not just gays — also anyone who wants to start, live and sustain a movement."

In the summer of 1991, ACT UP Philadelphia converged with other LGBTQ, labor, women's rights and sundry liberal organizations in Kennebunkport, Maine, to protest then-President Bush's re-election campaign. They chartered a bus. Bartlett was riding. So, too, was a man named Harry Reed, a sanitation worker who came with a travel bar in tow, making martinis and handing out beers — which, as Bartlett mentions, is referenced on Reed's wiki entry.

"A lot of the people on that bus died that year or soon after, including Harry," Bartlett says. "I think we all knew he was sick then and that must have been scary." But they pressed ahead anyway. The movement was bigger, more important, than any individual, or any disease.

"That was a time when I realized I was born at a unique moment that allowed me to participate in a defining time in history," Bartlett says. "We can't possibly let all these stories disappear."

Link: Gay Networks in Philadelphia Wiki

Join us as we come together as people of God, to worship and lift up those infected and/or affected by the HIV/AIDS virus.

The global theme for 2009 and 2010 World AIDS Day is "Universal Access and Human Rights".

Service of Word and Holy Communion on November 29, 2009 @ 11:00 a.m.

St. Michael's Lutheran Church
6671 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, Pa 19119
(215)848-0199

All are welcome.

Pastor Andrena Ingram
visit us on the web: http://stmichaelsgermantown.org

St. Michael's Lutheran Church, 6671 Germantown Avenue, will join Philadelphia Fight (www.fight.org) to participate in National HIV Testing Day on Saturday, June 27, 2009 from noon to 4 pm. Speakers, literature and on-site HIV testing will be available. Other health-related information will be provided including resources for people who are living with HIV/AIDS, a healthy living table, and information about the SHARE food program, A community barbecue will be held during the event. The event is free and open to the public. Walk-ins welcome.

This program is a part of the15th Anniversary of National HIV Month during the month of June. The theme this year if Prevention, Treatment and Justice. Prevention because this is still the only way to stop the spread of HIV!. Treatment because HIV is not a death sentence! And Justice because HIV is caused by a virus, but the epidemic is caused by poverty, injustice and despair!

For more information, contact the church office at 215-848-0199.

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Lawmakers will be making decisions on our health care this summer. Get the facts!

Panel and Audience Participation

Special Guest
Congressman Joe Sestak, 7th Congressional District

Date: Sunday, May 3
Time: 1:30 PM
Location: Swarthmore College, Science Center, Room 101

Panelists:

Dr. Walter Tsou, M.D.
Former Philadelphia Health Commissioner
Marc Stier
PA Director of Health Care for America Now
Ellen Magenheim
Economics Professor, Swarthmore College
Dr. James Dixon
Former Philadelphia Health Commissioner
Chuck Pennacchio,
Executive Director, Health Care4AllPA

Directions
http://www.swarthmore.edu/visitordash/visitors_content_directions.php
From Route 320 turn onto Elm Avenue. Turn left onto Whittier Place, marked by stone pillars. Proceed to the end of Whittier Place and turn right into the Dupont parking lot, beside the Science Center, which has the slanted roof over a plaza. At the plaza, enter through the door to the left. Room 101 is on the right.

presented by:
Student Health Care Action Network and Citizen Access

HARTs Alive! is a newly formed support group for people infected by and affected by AIDS/HIV. It is a safe and confidential group, led by a religious leader who is living with the HIV virus for 20+ years. This is not a "religious" group per se, but a meeting of people of any denomination/faith or culture, who seek to talk with one another about the various issues living with this condition brings with it.

We will meet from 10 am - 12 pm, beginning April 15th and every week thereafter.

We hope you will join us! For more information, please call the church office (215)848-0199 and leave a message in the confidential mailbox of Pastor Ingram.

Blessings on your journey!

For a number of years now, Mayfair's Vogt Park has come under a state of disrepair. First, park-goers (now former park-goers) complained about clumps of hair and bugs in the pool. Soon, dog waste became rampant. Now, swastikas and other offensive messages have been found scrawled at the park. Sadly, it takes something like a swastika to finally grab the attention of community groups and city government. I can only hope that the recent vandalism carries a silver, or should I say green, lining, which means the city and community groups will work in concert to ensure the upkeep of this park. Philadelphia only has so many green spaces; let's keep them that way.

Think about becoming a Students Run Philly Style mentor to a student from a local Philadelphia school. In the past students have competed in the Philadelphia Marathon as well as the Broad Street Run. I received this email from them:

IS DHS GETTING ANY BETTER?
ON WHYY’S NEXT IT’S OUR CITY TV12 PROGRAM DECEMBER 19:
AN UPDATE FROM COMMISSIONER ON REFORMS
SINCE DANIEAL KELLY DEATH IN 2006 TRIGGERED INDICTMENTS

PHILADELPHIA, December 16, 2008 — The next installment of WHYY’s It’s Our City will feature an interview with the commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services (DHS), Anne Marie Ambrose, and conducted by Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, on WHYY TV12 on December 19 at 10:00 p.m.

In the interview, Ambrose addresses the status of DHS’s reform plan in the aftermath of the death of Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old suffering from cerebral palsy. Kelly’s death in 2006 while under the department’s care led to nine indictments, including two DHS caseworkers. Ambrose discusses DHS’s efforts to improve supervision, first identified as a problem more than 20 years ago. She also discusses a performance management and accountability unit, which is being established. Finally, Ambrose talks about DHS’s efforts to recapture control over the disciplinary process from the union that represents DHS employees.

The episode will also be accessible on the It’s Our City Web site, www.whyy.org/city, on December 20 at noon.

It’s Our City is a multiplatform civic engagement project produced by the award-winning News and Information Service of WHYY, Greater Philadelphia’s leading public broadcasting station, in partnership with the Philadelphia Daily News. Davies regularly fills in for Terry Gross as host of WHYY’s renowned national radio program, Fresh Air, and on WHYY’s regional public affairs call-in show, Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane.

Longtime WHYY producer Alan Tu serves as managing editor of It’s Our City, which premiered in June. Wendy Daughenbaugh is the producer of the TV series.

Funded by The William Penn Foundation, It’s Our City evolved from WHYY’s award-winning The Next Mayor project, which, Philadelphia Magazine said, “managed a neat trick, creating a place where local political junkies can get a fix and the rest of us can get a clue.”

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Geeks Who Give is a growing organization working to coalesce and focus the energy and capabilities of the media, tech, and online entrepreneurial communities in Philly around giving back to the city, to those in need.

It's first event is tonight at National Mechanics in support of Philabundance and fighting hunger.

I'm a big fan of this effort and am very happy to see its emergence. I hope the Philly blogosphere, in all its diversity, talent and energy gets behind it.

According to Michael Lewis at the Wall Street Journal and John Lancaster at The New Yorker, it is an end of an era on Wall Street. According to experts, the effects of the economic crisis have yet to be fully felt and will be touching out into every part of America over the next couple years.

Nationally, fewer are giving to charity, in Philly we have a what appears to be tightening job market, horrific stories of crime and heartbreak, and city budget that is on the ropes, triggering Mayor Nutter to pursue cuts across the board that will certainly effect livability in the city, if not lead it to being less safe.

Monday night residents in Fishtown protested proposed cuts that would eliminate the local library.

WHYY's It's Our City interviews the Inquirer's Ben Waxman on the budget process.

Jim Kenney, City Concilman-at-large, calls for cooperation to see the cuts through for the survival of the city.

If you're not already involved somehow, now it is especially needed. And if you are looking for ideas online, there are many places to discuss them and pursue them. This being just one of many in an ever growing Philadelphia online community.

A few weeks ago I posted about blogs that write about mental illness over at my personal blog.

I'd like to paraphrase from that here and simply say that we each have friends and family dealing with these issues in our lives. Maybe even ourselves.

I tend to believe that blogs that deal with mental illness are some of the most courageous you can find. The fact that one of the best is published by a fellow Philadelphian is reason to share it here.

Here are two favorites:

The Trouble With Spikol: Ran by executive editor of the Philadelphia Weekly, Liz Spikol documents her fight against her illness and her takes on all matters that strike her to write.

Furious Seasons: Ran by a journalist, and psych patient Philip Dawdy, Furious Seasons wrestles with the ongoing, terrible state of psychiatric care.

Subscribe. Read. Relate. Comment.

Pennsylvania Blue Cross Merge: Executive Salaries

August 20, 2008

Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross would pay their top executives as much as $4.2 million more if they are allowed to merge.

Kenneth Melani, the chief executive of Highmark, who is expected to have the same job at the combined companies, would get a 31 percent raise, to $3.9 million from $2.97 million, including incentives, according to documents filed with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.

Independence Blue Cross CEO, Joseph Frick, who is slated for the role of chief operating officer after the merger, would earn $2.94 million, the same as his current pay. In 2006, Fricks pay was $1.6 million.

State insurance regulators last summer demanded detailed information on how much top executives would be paid if the merger, which would create a $22.5 billion insurance giant, were approved.

The two biggest raises after Melanis $930,000 are planned for Nanette DeTurk, chief financial officer, and David M. O'Brien, executive vice president for government services, both from Pittsburgh-based Highmark.

DeTurk, who is in line to be CFO of the combined entity, could get a $635,098 increase in total pay, which includes possible annual and long-term incentives. O'Brien, head of Medicare operations, would get a $556,184 raise under the plan.

Lance Haver, director of Philadelphia's Office of Consumer Affairs, said the raises were another indication that the Blues have lost their social mission and operate more like for-profit insurance companies.

If the reason for the merger is to better serve the public, then they don't need to raise executive salaries like this, he said.

The insurers have said that efficiencies from the merger, which would create the largest health insurer in state history and one of the largest in the nation, would spin off $1 billion in savings to benefit subscribers, the uninsured and other charities.

Part of the savings would come from the elimination of 745 to 1,200 jobs, the companies have projected.

Filings also showed the proposed senior leadership of the merged company. It gives a slight edge to Highmark, whose executives would hold nine of 17 positions.

State Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario said last month that his goal was to reach a decision on the merger by Dec. 31.