Dawn over Oakland, CA, January 2017.
It’s a new day, and way too many of us still feel super disoriented. After “What the heck?!” or other synonyms for “heck,” we many of us are turning to “What to do?” Or just plain doing, in multiple directions, every day, with a nagging sense of disorientation. Herewith I offer the best answer I can muster under the circumstances, in two parts: What to do? Part 1: Macro, today; and What to do? Part 2: Micro, tomorrow.
Thanks to the fortuitous location of the annual National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change conference, I find myself in Philadelphia, birthplace of American democracy, on the day this struggling, noble experiment will take arguably its greatest body blow.
(Last night in a call to my kids I said that today democracy would be developing the biggest zit in its 240-year US history*, and my Know It All Brother-In-Law later quipped that such a statement was an insult to zits world-wide.)
I “collect” specialized CA licence plates, and this one remains my favorite.
My sister-in-law, with whom I co-house, is a fundraiser for Democratic, pro-choice, women candidates. So naturally, elections in general are big deals in her house. And an election featuring the first-ever Democratic, pro-choice, woman presidential candidate? Well. She plastered an “I’m ready for Hillary!” sticker on the bumper of her electric vehicle days after Barak Obama was elected to a second term. If there were an “I was frickin’ born ready for Hillary!” sticker, that would have been on the bumper instead.
I find multitasking and code-switching a tad challenging. For this reason, three years ago, when I launched into a non-communications/ non-social media-ish job, I found myself essentially hanging up my bloggy spurs.
I did not, however, melt them down and make lawn art out of them. Fortunately for my neighbors.
Fig. A.
And yet! I now find myself, much to my delight, in the position of directing communications at this selfsame organization. This job is not only in the right ballpark (I was there already) but at the right position therein.
Hosana and not a moment too soon! Because in a scant few weeks we’re due for quite a political sea-change, something that – for me, and 65,844,953 others like me – looks to be more challenging than rivers being turned into blood, the dust of the land becoming lice, being strafed by swarms of flies, watching helplessly as livestock fall grievously ill, gaping in horror as festering boils break out on all of us everywhere, fruitlessly seeking shelter from thunderstorms of hail and fire, swatting back boatloads of locusts, enduring three days of darkness, or the tenth – which I can’t even speak of.
One of the reasons I don’t blog very often is that I’m at work generating a lot of this stuff. I’m not complaining.
The craven inhumanity of what's happening to asylum-seekers under the authority of US Customs and Border Patrol must pierce through the American consciousness with news of this seven-year-old girl's infinitely preventable death in custody. When those in power lose the capacity to recognize humanity in others, even the most vulnerable – a child! a second grade child! – we who do must and will hold them to account. Let us each do what we can to ensure this girl's life was not taken in vain.
"To our students who are transgender: We hear you. We see you. We support you. We will protect you.
At an age when self-identity is still being formed, telling a student that their identity is invalid because it does not pair with two specific chromosomes can be deeply damaging,” the letter states. “When coming to school feels uncomfortable or even unsafe, students are implicitly prevented from receiving the same education as their gender-conforming peers. Such policies can thus create lifelong emotional, psychological, and economic harm."
Opposing Changes Redefining the Concept of Gender - Year 2018 (CA Dept of Education)
cde.ca.gov
State Superintendent Torlakson, Washington and Oregon education officials oppose federal changes redefining the concept of gender.
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25 Things I Learned at Creating Change in Philly
With thanks to comrade West Philly Mama.
2,316 words | 10 min. read
Thanks the combo of parent + full-time employed person + I’m no longer crazy enough to go without sleep, my processing speed is like that of one of those old putty-colored, 128k Macintoshes, circa the mid-1980s. So! The notes below are what I finally compiled from last weekend, i.e. the post-inaugural one, as opposed from this past weekend, i.e. the most recent one following our first week of the
bull-in-the-china-shopattempted coup d’état (and if you need any convincing on that score, read Yonatan Zunger in Medium, thank you Kelly Wickham Hurst).Continue Reading →