Listening to our LGBT brothers and sisters

There seems to be a convergence of experiences and insights for me lately:  

1) I've been listening to Story Corps podcasts, marveling in the simple wisdom of this medium and the magic of listening.  

2) I saw the movie Milk, about assassinated San Francisco city supervisor and gay activist Harvey Milk, and his message about coming out:  we cannot achieve equality until everyone comes out.  I take that to mean not only the gay community, but allies as well. It's easy to sit out the revolution under the cloak of polite society, but this will not achieve equality.  

3) Prop 8 passed in California, and it has sparked activism on a much larger scale.  

4) A few parents at the high school where I teach have complained about the presence of the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club, for which I am advisor.  I am constantly trying to find the balance between making our club and the cause visible while advocating for civil rights and tolerance, and creating a sanctuary for LGBT kids and allies to meet and socialize without having to out themselves if they aren't ready to do so.  I know the temptation to lay low, under the radar, and try not to attract the ire of those in the school community and outside of it, those who wish to maintain the status quo of oppression, shame, bullying, name-calling, and intolerance.  

5) Another teacher at my school told me recently that he estimates that 20% of our staff are actively opposed to the GSA and our advocacy at the school.  This surprises me (though it shouldn't) and definitely these colleagues don't express their opposition to me directly.  I often say that if they could only hear the stories I hear, listen to the pain and fear in the voices of students who suffer under this oppression--they might feel differently, at least so far as to do their part to put an end to the verbal harassment and bullying that goes on under their noses. 

So I am launching a project.  I will gather these stories, make the voices heard, at least in my own small community.  I began by interviewing a college student and graduate of our high school, former president of the GSA, activist and advocate in San Francisco.  I don't know yet how this project will manifest itself ultimately.  I will post some of the transcripts on this blog as I gather and transcribe them.  If each of us who hopes to achieve equality for our LGBT brothers and sisters would take on some small part, even if it's only listening, maybe we will be a force too great to be ignored.  

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead!

November 4, 2008; America celebrates the end of the 

Reign of Bush.  To Axelrod and Plouffe:  "We thank you 

very sweetly for doing it so neatly. . . . Let the joyous 

news be spread, the wicked old witch at last is dead."

Brand New Day!

What an amazing week this has been, with the election of Barack Obama, the sense of relief that The National Embarrassment will be out of office in 2-1/2 months, the pride that we have achieved a measure of racial equality at last.  Online and text messages were flying, A. and I were crying as we watched his acceptance speech.  Anna emailed from Italy, Teri from the Netherlands. Z. called from France the next day, joyfully shouting "President Obama!"  into the phone.  The entire world is celebrating.  The National Embarrassment looked teary when he gave a statement on Wednesday. He pledged to cooperate, the very thought of which is such a foreign concept that I'll be amazed to see if he really does it.  I almost feel pity for him.  He is so thoroughly reviled around the world, except by the most die-hard ditto-heads and zealots. But a new day is dawning. We can hold our heads up again. Let's all pitch in and help.  

And let's keep working to defeat bigotry and overturn Prop 8.  

The Moment At Which I Wanted To Throw Some Furniture At The TV

My 25 year old daughter, while traveling and working in Europe and Ghana last year, had her health insurance policy cancelled because of a clerical error.  Her automatic payments stopped, for some reason we are unable to determine, and thus the policy was cancelled for lack of payment.  Now she can't get health insurance, because her last policy ended because of non-payment.  While in Ghana, she contracted a parasitic infection, for which she is not being treated. But, of course, she has no insurance.  So I am digging into my retirement savings to pay for her health care.  

Last night in the debate with Biden, Palin touted McCain's health insurance plan, saying she hoped people would use his proposed $5000 tax deduction to go out and purchase health insurance.  I propose that every member of congress be given a $5000 pay raise, along with cancellation of their health benefits.  How many minutes do you think it would take for them to pass universal health care??

Alaska: zealots, entrepreneurs, and snake-oil

Watch Katie Couric's interview of Sarah Palin if you haven't already.  

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/25/eveningnews/main4479062.shtml

In 1977, when I was 21, I moved to Fairbanks Alaska for the summer.  I had been working at a title insurance company in Santa Barbara in an entry level clerical position.  I posted documents, by hand, to ledger cards, and later located parcel numbers by reading the legal lot descriptions on the documents and finding the boundaries on a map.  I had worked there for less than a year, earning just above minimum wage.  Hoping to capitalize on my minimal experience, I applied for a job in a title insurance company in Fairbanks.  I was enthusiastically hired because of my "experience", and was quickly conducting title searches.  I was a quick study, but I certainly considered myself quite unqualified to do this work, since, after all, the company was issuing insurance policies verifying clean title based on my say-so. What's more, on some of the searches I was working on, I was able to document title history only for the previous 10 years, but no more.  When I asked my boss why I couldn't find documentation to validate title for these properties, he said, "Well, all of those maps and documents were destroyed in the big flood of 1967.  Just go back as far as you can and don't worry about it." The company was quite pleased with my work and offered to raise my pay by over 30% if I would stay (I was already making twice the salary I had been making in Santa Barbara).  But I didn't like the title insurance business, and I planned to go back to college, so I declined.  

This was my experience in Alaska in 1977:  there was plenty of opportunity for anyone with half a brain, and sometimes that was all the resume one needed.  The state was booming, oil money was everywhere, people were flying by the seat of their pants.  I was astonished that people with little or no experience were able to step into jobs they would never ever be considered qualified for in the Lower 48.  The climate was harsh, the population was sparse, the state and the economy were growing, jobs were abundant and sometimes hard to fill.  So entrepreneurs and ambitious snake-oil salesmen stepped in, and that was how things seemed to run.  

It's been 3 decades since then, but, judging by the state and national politicians that Alaska has produced, not much has changed.  Thus, McCain brings us Sarah Palin.  She wants us to know that "If Putin rears his head. . . " she'd be right there across the border, ready with her Early Response System, since, when Russia "comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go?  It's Alaska, it's right over the border." Yet she can't hold her own in an interview with Katie Couric.  

McCain-Palin

John McCain is a placeholder for the Republican right.  Palin is the real deal.  She, or anyone else in the religious far right crazy zone, is unelectable on top of the ticket.  Like Cheney, she's a stealth pick.  They don't vet her (Cheney wasn't vetted either); they keep her off the radar of press scrutiny.  My prediction: McCain, if he were elected, will be out in four years, maybe less.  The right knows about his health issues.  He refuses to release his full medical records to the public. Palin would be trotted out to appease the right, to play up the role of first woman VP, but she'll be protected from scrutiny.  And when the time comes, she'll step in, unvetted, unqualified, unelected.  Like Bush and Cheney, only scarier.  

But the economy is in freefall, and it's possible this crisis will spell the doom of this tragically cynical, manipulative, and unqualified ticket.  If there's a silver lining, there it is.

Sarah Palin

When I was a born-again Christian in the 70's, which, at that time, tended to merge the 60's anti-materialism, social justice, and peace movements into the teachings of Jesus, there was a parallel movement that was embracing a more radical viewpoint and was endorsing a sort of stealth campaign.  The church I joined in Isla Vista (near UCSB, Santa Barbara, California) in 1975 was the product of a recent split from another church, which advocated a top-down authoritarian leadership, end-times survivalism, communal living, and infiltration of political bodies, from school boards on up, by Christian activists.  The idea was that eventually the U.S. would have Christians in the highest levels of government, where they could begin to force change to what they believed was a corrupt and immoral society epitomized by the 1960's counterculture.  The church I was in split from the more radical faction because the leadership believed in a separation between our spiritual lives and political institutions.  So here we are, 30+ years later, and the hardcore, underground, off-the-radar work by these radical groups is coming to fruition.  George Bush's appointment to the presidency seemed like the ultimate coup for the religious right, but he's not really a church-going zealot in the same way that Sarah Palin appears to be.  I think the fact that she has little experience, thus little history, is actually a plus for the campaign.  Just watching the convention, and the pundits on the right enthusiastically crowing about her character, charisma, charm, etc. is exactly how they would want this to play out.  She appears to be an attractive and assertive blank slate, someone upon whom the sheep-like followers of the right can project whatever they want.  She touches on all the political buzz-words of the political and religious right:  God, guns, gays, taxes, anti-government, and anti-environmentalism.  She exudes confidence and strength, but, like all religious followers in this radically patriarchal system, most especially women who are trained to be submissive to men, she can be easily manipulated and controlled.  

The stakes are even higher than we imagined for this election.  I think most people don't realize just how radical these religious groups really are, even though most of their churches operate in plain sight.  Most Americans who call themselves Christians assume that these non-denominational evangelical groups are just another version of themselves.  But some of these groups are wrapped up with militia movements and extreme end-times theology (which makes environmentalism and global climate change non-issues in their eyes).  

In 1977 I spent a summer in Alaska, and was looking for a church to attend.  I checked out a small non-denominational congregation in Fairbanks, where I was living, and had a bizarre experience as I found myself in the middle of a holy-roller service, with people crying, shouting, speaking in tongues, fainting, throwing themselves to the ground, etc.  I eventually attended some evangelical-style Catholic masses and bible studies, which were radical by Catholic standards but nothing like the possessed little holy-roller church.  Alaska--the frontier, steeped in oil-money (the oil pipeline had just been completed that spring), mecca for misfits and those looking to make a quick buck--seemed to be to be a perfect growing ground for this kind of extremism.  It's no surprise to me that the the VP hand picked by the religious right come out of this environment.  

Are those of you who voted for this drunk embarrassed yet???

Surge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTMp-YNaDdg

WE are the change we have been waiting for.

I understood, when I saw McCain's "The One" online ad, with the out-of-context sentence fragments from Obama and the image of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the waters, that the McCain campaign was issuing a coded message to the religious right:  Obama is the antichrist.  This is all over the blogs now, and is an attempt to rally the religious base, which is starting to understand in some corners that their faith has been co-opted as a political tool by those who do not necessarily share their core values.  The shame and the irony of the McCain campaign is that he's attempting to sell an image of a moral change-agent and maverick, while employing all of the same ugly, venemous, slanderous and immoral tricks of his predecessor.  The out-of-context statement--of Obama saying that "We are the change that we have been waiting for"--is in reality an echo of Ghandi's statement that "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  The operative word, which the commentators and pundits pointedly ignore, is WE.  Obama is talking not about his personal ambition, but about a movement.  Here is the community organizer rallying us to empowerment and action.  The right sees so much of politics in terms of black and white, and ascribes motives to Obama's actions which do not match his rhetoric.  I don't think Obama is the messiah, nor do I agree with him on every position, but what he is asserting, and what I believe is the most compelling reason to vote for him, is that the people will accomplish vital changes, work for peace, and break the stranglehold of the corporatocracy only by the power of our democracy, by the strength and conviction of our collective voices.  We need someone who can put a face to that movement for change, not one who claims the monarchical mantle to enforce it by fiat.  It is our responsibility to hold him, as President, to this high standard.  WE THE PEOPLE; this is the WE to whom he speaks.

Elephant Seals & Math Students

In just 2-1/2 weeks I return to work, and in 3 weeks I will encounter my new batch of students. This is what they will look like when I gaze fondly at them from my podium and try to teach them math.

Bridges

"We build too many walls and not enough bridges."

--Isaac Newton

Then and Now

Beautiful baby on De la Vina St. 

1985 and 2008

Let the Iraqis vote

This is what I want the Sunday morning political talking politirobots--did you know that the word "robot" comes from the Czech work "robata", meaning "forced labor"?--to ask the flag-waving, pro-war, pro-100-years occupation, self-described saviors of freedom and bringers of democracy in Iraq:  since you're so proud of the "democratic" elections and surge-induced success in Iraq, can't we just agree to hold a special election in Iraq and let the people decide if they want our troops there?  If not, why not?  If it's all about democracy, as they claim, there should be no argument.  But, of course, the warmongers can't agree to such a sensible action, because everyone (who isn't dumbed into deplorable ignorance by Fox News and Rush) knows that the majority of Iraqis want us out.  

But why not ask the question a thousand times and watch them squirm?  

Why not push McBush on this issue?

Yosemite, January 2008

NO NO NO (that's right)

The Republics seem to be the party that is, as a general knee-jerk response, against things, except for war and standardized testing.  No taxes, no social security, no universal health care, no gays, no immigrants, no functional levies, no safe bridges, no dissent, no ideas, no nothin'.  For the youth, just say no to everything.  Abstain.  No information.  No, no, no, including no to original thought, because that would be unpatriotic.  No free speech either.   No Habeas Corpus. No creativity in the teaching profession.  Even Bush's signature federal program has the word "NO" in it:  "NO Child Left Behind".  NO.  NO.  NO.  They are the party of finger-wagging, scolding, nay-sayers.  LET'S VOTE 'EM OUT; YES!!!

Go here, be inspired, get involved, send money

http://www.momentusinternational.org

Ain't She Somethin'?