The Choice America is Making...

It is going to be a very long two weeks...

So in the interest of my own sanity, these will be my closing thoughts on the choice we as a nation are making.

As we approach the actual day of the 2020 election, it is very hard to be excited about it. Mostly I, like the majority of Americans just want this to be over. Yet we all know that this will not be the case. Donald Trump will drag this out as long and as painfully as he can, regardless of the electoral outcome. November 2020 will make November 2000 look like a walk in the park. 

Pundits and historians will be debating and discussing for decades to come, the question of just how did we get here? Entire textbooks will be written to study the dynamics of racial and economic disaffection combined with foreign interference, and disinformation, that enabled Donald Trump in 2016 to win the electoral college by a mere 77,000 votes while losing the actual election by nearly three million votes to Hillary Clinton. 

The record of the Trump administration is and will always be a story of the numbers.

 The millions of tax dollars funneled directly into his own pockets and that of his children. The tens of millions of jobs destroyed by Trump’s inability to stop running for President and actually DO the job of President.   The number of farms and businesses pushed over the cliff of bankruptcy by Trump’s inept and reckless trade war. The numbers of a skyrocketing Federal Budget Deficit and National Debt thanks to Trump’s “robin hood in reverse” tax cuts for the very wealthy and corporations. 

But most all it will forever be a story of the body count. The hundreds of thousands of dead Americans from a pandemic that Trump, knew about, and did nothing to stop. Other than deny its existence, dispute its severity, and when that didn’t work; tweet out wild conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation in hopes of muddying the waters of public understanding. All in a desperate attempt to avoid his own responsibility as President. 

Late 21st Century students of American history will, much like late 20th Century students of German history, struggle to understand how a rational nation that had contributed so much of what is good and great to world, could have allowed itself to fall into a sewer of mindless, racist populism and gleefully wallow in it for years. While embracing a dangerous and aggressive ignorance, to deny the reality unfolding right in front of them. 

To run through the horrific catalogue of reasons Donald Trump and those who enabled and supported the damage he has done must be consigned to the dumpster of American history, would take another 4 years. Just as repairing that damage will take far longer than the span of a Joe Biden Presidency. 

So two weeks out from election day I will simply say this:

By every conceivable metric the Presidency of Donald John Trump has been a colossal failure. To say otherwise is, to be completely divorced from reality. To advocate for, or to embrace four more years of this is, either delusion to the point of self-harm, or to knowingly and willingly support the destruction of our nation and the end of the great American experiment in representative democracy as we have known it for over 230 years.

This isn’t about Liberal or Conservative. This isn’t about Republican or Democrat. This is about Right and Wrong. This is about who we are as Americans and who we are not.

If you love your country, you must vote for Joe Biden. It’s that simple.

From The New York Times Editorial Board

It is no coincidence that the New York Times editorial board piece reads with the Cadence of the Declaration of Independence. It is worth reading in its entirety. With all deference to the NYT which owns this content, I have re-posted it here.
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CORRUPTION, ANGER CHAOS, INCOMPETENCE, LIES, DECAY 

END OUR NATIONAL CRISIS

The Case Against Donald Trump

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 

THE VERDICT :

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests.

He has shown a breath-taking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds. 

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain.

We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counselled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.

Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose. The resilience of American democracy has been sorely tested by Mr. Trump’s first term. Four more years would be worse. 

But even as Americans wait to vote in lines that stretch for blocks through their towns and cities, Mr. Trump is engaged in a full-throated assault on the integrity of that essential democratic process. Breaking with all of his modern predecessors, he has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, suggesting that his victory is the only legitimate outcome, and that if he does not win, he is ready to contest the judgement of the American people in the courts or even on the streets.

The enormity and variety of Mr. Trump’s misdeeds can feel overwhelming. Repetition has dulled the sense of outrage, and the accumulation of new outrages leaves little time to dwell on the particulars. This is the moment when Americans must recover that sense of outrage.

It is the purpose of this special section of the Sunday Review to remind readers why Mr. Trump is unfit to lead the nation. It includes a series of essays focused on the Trump administration’s rampant corruption, celebrations of violence, gross negligence with the public’s health and incompetent statecraft. A selection of iconic images highlights the president’s record on issues like climate, immigration, women’s rights and race.

The urgency of these essays speaks for itself. The repudiation of Mr. Trump is the first step in repairing the damage he has done. But even as we write these words, Mr. Trump is salting the field — and even if he loses, reconstruction will require many years and tears.

Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.

He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.

He has shown no aptitude for building, but he has managed to do a great deal of damage. He is just the man for knocking things down. As the world runs out of time to confront climate change, Mr. Trump has denied the need for action, abandoned international cooperation and attacked efforts to limit emissions.

He has mounted a cruel crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration without proposing a sensible policy for determining who should be allowed to come to the United States.

Obsessed with reversing the achievements of his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, he has sought to persuade both Congress and the courts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act without proposing any substitute policy to provide Americans with access to affordable health care. During the first three years of his administration, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 2.3 million — a number that has surely grown again as millions of Americans have lost their jobs this year.

He campaigned as a champion of ordinary workers, but he has governed on behalf of the wealthy. He promised an increase in the federal minimum wage and fresh investment in infrastructure; he delivered a round of tax cuts that mostly benefited rich people. He has indiscriminately erased regulations, and answered the prayers of corporations by suspending enforcement of rules he could not easily erase.

Under his leadership, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has stopped trying to protect consumers and the Environmental Protection Agency has stopped trying to protect the environment.

He has strained longstanding alliances while embracing dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whom Mr. Trump treats with a degree of warmth and deference that defies explanation.

He walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a strategic agreement among China’s neighbours intended to pressure China to conform to international standards. In its place, Mr. Trump has conducted a tit-for-tat trade war, imposing billions of dollars in tariffs — taxes that are actually paid by Americans — without extracting significant concessions from China.

Mr. Trump’s inadequacies as a leader have been on particularly painful display during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of working to save lives, Mr. Trump has treated the pandemic as a public relations problem. He lied about the danger, challenged the expertise of public health officials and resisted the implementation of necessary precautions; he is still trying to force the resumption of economic activity without bringing the virus under control.

As the economy pancaked, he signed an initial round of aid for Americans who lost their jobs. Then the stock market rebounded and, even though millions remained out of work, Mr. Trump lost interest in their plight.

In September, he declared that the virus “affects virtually nobody” the day before the death toll from the disease in the United States topped 200,000.

Nine days later, Mr. Trump fell ill.

The foundations of American civil society were crumbling before Mr. Trump rode down the escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. But he has intensified the worst tendencies in American politics: Under his leadership, the nation has grown more polarised, more paranoid and meaner.

He has pitted Americans against each other, mastering new broadcast media like Twitter and Facebook to rally his supporters around a virtual bonfire of grievances and to flood the public square with lies, disinformation and propaganda.

He is relentless in his denigration of opponents and reluctant to condemn violence by those he regards as allies. At the first presidential debate in September, Mr. Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. He responded by instructing one violent gang, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by.”

He has undermined faith in government as a vehicle for mediating differences and arriving at compromises. He demands absolute loyalty from government officials, without regard to the public interest. He is openly contemptuous of expertise.

And he has mounted an assault on the rule of law, wielding his authority as an instrument to secure his own power and to punish political opponents. In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.

The full scope of his misconduct may take decades to come to light. But what is already known is sufficiently shocking:

He has resisted lawful oversight by the other branches of the federal government. The administration routinely defies court orders, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly directed administration officials not to testify before Congress or to provide documents, notably including Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

With the help of Attorney General William Barr, he has shielded loyal aides from justice. In May, the Justice Department said it would drop the prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn even though Mr. Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. 

In July, Mr. Trump commuted the sentence of another former aide, Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation of Mr. Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, rightly condemned the commutation as an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption.”

Last year, Mr. Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of his main political rival, Joe Biden, and then directed administration officials to obstruct a congressional inquiry of his actions. In December 2019, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Mr. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanours. But Senate Republicans, excepting Mr. Romney, voted to acquit the president, ignoring Mr. Trump’s corruption to press ahead with the project of filling the benches of the federal judiciary with young, conservative lawyers as a firewall against majority rule.

Now, with other Republican leaders, Mr. Trump is mounting an aggressive campaign to reduce the number of Americans who vote and the number of ballots that are counted.

The president, who has long spread baseless charges of widespread voter fraud, has intensified his rhetorical attacks in recent months, especially on ballots submitted by mail. “The Nov 3rd Election result may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED,” he tweeted. The president himself has voted by mail, and there is no evidence to support his claims. But the disinformation campaign serves as a rationale for purging voter rolls, closing polling places, tossing absentee ballots and otherwise impeding Americans from exercising the right to vote.

It is an intolerable assault on the very foundations of the American experiment in government by the people.

Other modern presidents have behaved illegally or made catastrophic decisions. Richard Nixon used the power of the state against his political opponents. Ronald Reagan ignored the spread of AIDS. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying and obstruction of justice. George W. Bush took the nation to war under false pretences.

Mr. Trump has outstripped decades of presidential wrongdoing in a single term.

Frederick Douglass lamented during another of the nation’s dark hours, the presidency of Andrew Johnson, “We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man, we shall be safe.” But that is not the nature of our democracy. The implicit optimism of American democracy is that the health of the Republic rests on the judgement of the electorate and the integrity of those voters choose.

Mr. Trump is a man of no integrity. He has repeatedly violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Now, in this moment of peril, it falls to the American people — even those who would prefer a Republican president — to preserve, protect and defend the United States by voting.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/16/opinion/donald-trump-worst-president.html?fbclid=IwAR0hU6yUBNRalkcFbg7n7qCD_Fqhe4yHoK88M8COFSL1-tAFF4cCMrxn8z0

Remembering Matthew Shepard 23 years later...

Wednesday October 7th, 1998 was a fairly ordinary day in Chicago. I was working for a small consulting firm in the near West suburb of Oak Park, and had spent the day in a series of fairly productive meetings. So I felt pretty good when I got home from work. I was puttering around my apartment making dinner when I picked up the remote control for the TV and turned on CNN.

The lead story was a brutal attack of a young man in Laramie Wyoming named Matthew Shepard. Shepard, age 21, had been beaten into a coma and left tied to fence along a rural highway outside the city. The news report noted that the victim was a young gay man and was not expected to survive.

I remember walking down into “boystown” (the north Halstead area of Chicago, and the center of the city’s Gay community). There were lots of people standing around outside the bars, and restaurants along Halsted Street, talking about what had happened in Wyoming. A makeshift memorial had been set up on the corner of Halsted and Roscoe.

I walked into the 7-11 there on the corner and bought a small votive candle, lit it and placed it with the growing number of candles, handwritten notes and flowers that were being placed around a picture of Matthew that someone had printed off the internet. I stayed for a little while talking to people who were gathered there. Some people were angry, others sad, but we all knew that something in our own community had changed as a result of what had happened,  hundreds of miles away in a cold field outside Laramie, Wyoming.

In 1998 I had just moved to Chicago after being overseas in South Korea. I was in the middle of my own “coming out” process,  and was gathering up my courage to have “the talk” with my parents when I went home for Thanksgiving in a few weeks time. I will admit the news of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder shook me up. Suddenly the decisions I was making to live openly and honestly as who I was, had potentially fatal consequences.

On an intellectual level you always knew that there were “gay bashers” out there. People who were so conflicted about their own sexuality that they felt the way to “cure” themselves was to attack others for what they feared most about themselves. Yet now those hypothetical risks, were not so hypothetical.  What's more, those consequences now  had a face, and a name.

As I walked home, my thoughts turned to Matthew Shepard’s parents. What must they be thinking and feeling? Had they known Matt was gay? Did it really matter? Years later I would have the great honor of meeting Judy Shepard,  and hear her tell her own powerful story .

Now more than two decades  years later, I marvel at how my own life has changed. I see how the progress that has been made means  that the world is not as bleak and dark a place as it seemed, on that October night in 1998.

 Yet I am still saddened and angry that there are many people in America who honestly feel that Matthew Shepard got what “he had coming to him”. That demonizing , discriminating against, and even murdering Gays and Lesbians is somehow “doing God’s work”.

People with a vested interest in keeping LGBT people as the one group it is still safe to hate. People who seek to profit, personally, politically and even economically from fomenting deadly hatred and fear of others. Bigots whose actions and beliefs are the farthest thing from being Christian, yet claim to have a monopoly on what they claim God thinks and who they claim "God hates".

I really don’t have a point to make here, other than to say it’s important to remember Matthew and so many others like him who have died as a result of hatred and bigotry. If you want to get involved, here are a few great places to start...

The Matthew Shepard Foundation: http://www.matthewshepard.org/

The Trevor Project: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

The Ben Cohen Stand Up Foundation: http://www.standupfoundation.com/

The We Give a Damn Campaign: http://www.wegiveadamn.org/

The "It Gets Better" Project:  http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

Thanks,

Dave

Trump Voters: Time to Pick Who in Your Family Dies.

One of the biggest criticisms of Donald Trump has been the lack of any clear national plan or stategy for dealing with the Covid 19 pandemic.  Supporters of the President have always countered by saying the President is a genius who has a plan,  and the rest of us just don't understand his strategy  and how great it is.

It turns out supporters of Donald Trump are right about one thing.   The President DOES have  plan.  The “new” strategy the Trump Administration has for dealing with the Covid pandemic was revealed by the President at the ABC News town hall. Donald Trump said when we achieve a “Herd Mentality” (Population Immunity) the virus will “go away” even if there is no Vaccine.

Sigh… I wish this was “fake news” but this is actually what Trump is doing.  

 You know what? Okay, fine. Let’s go with this. 

To achieve the level of population immunity that Trump says will make the virus go away, you will need to infect nearly 70% of the US Population,  and then that 70% will need to have developed antibody immunity to the virus, meaning they can’t be re-infected.  So to be clear. Donald Trump’s PLAN is for 215,000,000 Americans to get Covid 19, and that will solve the problem.  

So 70% of the population need to be infected with a virus that has a  fatality rate  of 2.97% . 

What that means is, Donald Trump’s ACTUAL PLAN is to KILL SIX MILLION THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED AMERICANS. 

You know what? Lets be generous! Lets say all the wild unscientific, proven to be false claims by Trump are actually true. 

• Let’s say that hydroxychloroquine and Convalescent Plasma are treatments for the Virus.     (They aren’t).
• Lets say that the fatality rate is less than HALF of what is really is.                                             (It isn’t, it really IS 2.7%)
• Let’s say that to achieve population immunity you don’t need to infect 70% of the population. (You do). 
• Let's also say that everyone who gets covid and survives is now immune to getting it again.  (They aren't).

Giving Trump all those HUGE fact free assumptions, what would his “Plan” for herd mentality (Immunity) look like?   Let's do the math...

So here is the  question;  If you support Donald Trump,  who in your community has do die?   Seriously, give me names.   Because  the FACTS are  under Donald Trump's  plan some people you know are definitely going die . It's not politics, it's math.  So lets take a totally random US City, like.. say...  Pensacola Florida.

Pensacola Florida is a beautiful place on the Gulf Coast of Florida. the 58th largest city in Florida and the 757th largest city in the United States with a population of 52,411 people. So under Donald Trumps  genius plan,  34,067 people will need to get infected with Covid-19 and under the rosiest of scenarios taking as true  ALL of the optimistic and fact free assumptions on treatments, antibody immunity and a low death rate;  we are  still looking at over a thousand people dying.  

Given the relatively low population and geographic size of the city, and Trump's claim that masks "might be bad", and everything should just reopen;  if you live in Pensacola, Florida the statistical  probability of someone you know being among those more than a thousand dead is around 50%

So go ahead, make a list of all your family and friends,  Then take 65% of them,  then take 1% of those names.   Then for everyone on that list,  flip a coin.  Heads they live, tails... They die.    THAT is what a vote for Donald Trump REALLY is a vote in support of.    But hey,  some sacrifices  have to be made for Donald Trump's plan to work, right?

So Keep America Great!  Oh, and  start picking your names.   

A Look Back... My life beyond borders.

 As we all deal with the confinement and limits of a world in the grips of the  Covid pandemic,  I  look back across the last  three decades of my life,  and a quote from the late, great  Douglas Adams comes to mind:

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be."

Remembering That September Morning...

 (The following is an updated repost  of an entry from Sept. 11th, 2011)

Today the media, and the blogosphere will undoubtedly be full of all sorts of remembrances and commentary around what is the 19th  anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.

To be honest I really don't like to dwell on the topic. Not out of any sense of personal pain, but more out of respect, for those people I know who were far closer to the events of that day than I was. My experience that day was a somewhat surreal one.

I had gotten up very early and caught a flight from Chicago Midway to Houston. I was heading there for work. It was about 20 minutes into the flight, the seat belt sign had just turned off, and people where shifting about, getting comfortable. I had just pulled out my laptop to work on the presentation I was going to be giving later that day. Suddenly the seat belt sign came back on, and the crew announced that everyone was to return to their seats and prepare for landing, the flight would be returning to Chicago.

The Pilot then came on the speaker system to say that there was nothing wrong with the plane, and we were returning to Chicago because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had ordered the flight to return to "clear air traffic". He said that was all the information they had, and he apologized for the inconvenience.

Everyone on the plane thought the same thing. (Not terrorism.) Chicago Midway had upgraded to a new Air Traffic Control System earlier in the Summer and a few weeks prior, there had been a series of glitches that had delayed several flights.  Everyone groaned, made comments about "Government Efficiency" assuming it was yet another problem with Midway's system that was going to mess up  our day.

This  assumption that was bolstered when the captain came back on the loudspeaker  and announced  that we were not returning to Midway but rather we were diverted to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The woman sitting next to me was happy about this thinking at least it might be easier to get on the next flight out to Houston. I nodded, and said "I hope so", thinking of how I might salvage the rest of my schedule that day and make my afternoon meetings on time.

It took us about 30 minutes of circling over O'Hare before we could land. Sitting in a window seat I watched as the line of planes waiting to land stretched to the far horizon and oddly enough, no planes were taking off. I commented on this to the woman next to me, and she said "wow Midway's systems must be really screwed up!" I laughed and said that what we get for Ronald Reagan having fired all the good Air Traffic Controllers. She laughed and said she had forgotten about that.

We landed and had to wait an additional 20 minutes to get a gate. but finally pulled up to a jetway , and we all lumbered off the plane into the gate area I was getting annoyed because people were not clearing the area in front of the door but were all standing around the televisions that were tuned to the CNN Airport Network. I was about to say a loud "excuse me!" when I happened to look up at the TV and saw CNN  replay footage from ABC of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

CNN then cut to live shot of a column of smoke and ash where the World Trade Center Towers were supposed to be, but weren't. I called my office and my boss told me not to come in, The area in downtown Chicago around the Sears Tower was being evacuated. I called my parents and let them know I was not in Houston, got on the CTA Blue Line and went home.   The rest of that day I did what most Americans did, watched the news, and when the images became overwhelming, I put on my roller blades and went blading along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

It was brilliant sunny day. One of those late Summer, early Fall days that you get in Chicago that make you appreciate what a beautiful city it is. As I stopped at Oak Street Beach and admired the downtown Chicago skyline, I didn't think that somehow the "world had changed". But rather I found myself thinking how the United States had  sadly, finally  joined the rest of the world.

Before that that morning, Terrorism was something that happened in other places, Israel, Lebanon London, Belfast , places far away. Even the first World Trade Center bombing for many people, didn't seem like international terrorism. After all, the people responsible were caught when they tried to get the deposit back on the rental van they had used. (How sinister could people that dumb be?)    That is what changed I think, it was the moment America lost the illusion that somehow our two oceans would keep us safe from global terrorism.

For friends of mine who lived in New York on that day,  I understand  that  today  is a much different  experience for them.   A  friend of mine is  a New York City Police Officer  who  lost an arm in the attack that day.   Another friend of mine worked  for an investment bank housed in the  North Tower,  she had a doctors appointment so she didn't go into work  that morning.   For her, today  is a reminder of  the  friends and co-workers  she lost  that day.

For the numerous friends of mine who have served, and currently serve in the Middle East  with the American and British Armed Forces, they deal with the effects September 11, 2001 on a far different level than most people ever will.

So as people all over the world will remember the events of that day, pray for those who were lost, and show solidarity and support for friends and family for whom this anniversary is far more personal than political.

God Bless America, God bless us all.

The Annual Pride Debate...

Well it's finally the end of June... so we all know what that means...  Like  rainbow flags going  up on Market Street in San Francisco, the annual debate over the merits of LGBT Pride celebrations re-surfaces like a perennial weed that just won't stay down.

 It's a debate that rages both inside and outside the broader LGBTQ community.  While inside the community,  the question always gets asked ; does some of the imagery of Pride celebrations hurt the cause of equal rights?

In addition, in the wake of significant legal victories for LGBT rights, especially around Marriage Equality; Some are asking do we even need pride celebrations anymore?   

Critics and opponents of  equality love to point to that same imagery as evidence of Gay folks wanting "special rights", and then pull out their favorite chestnut, of asking why are Gay Pride Celebrations acceptable but Straight Pride celebrations are not?

Sigh.... Really? It's like asking why isn't there a "White History Month". I get tired of trying to explain to people who really do know better,  just how stupid they sound whey they try to make these types of arguments. But fine, since clearly there is some "genuine" confusion out there as to the reason for LGBT Pride celebrations , allow me to clarify.

• The number of states in the USA where you can be fired  for  being  Straight = 0
• The number of states in the USA where you can be fired for being Gay (up until last week!!)  = 29
• Number of countries that will execute you for being Straight = 0
• Number of countries that will execute you for being Gay = 10

Growing up, how many books, songs, television programs, and movies did you see that featured straight couples meeting, falling in love and living happily ever after?   Pretty much all of them. Ask someone who is Gay how many positive images in popular culture they had growing up that affirmed who they are? The answer is, none, or at best few, if any at all.

Thankfully this is changing in surprising ways and places. The advent of LGBT positive content in Asia  has led the way.    Yet for decades,  Gay characters in movies and television were either creepy villains or camp comic relief. If you doubt that, you really should check out the groundbreaking HBO documentary, "The Celluloid Closet". It shows clearly the disparity in popular culture where messages about sexual orientation were concerned.

Then there is the area of religion. The number of straight kids who have been told they are going to hell simply for being heterosexual = 0. The number of LGBT kids who have been told that they are going hell simply for being homosexual = too many to even try to count.     In the light of LGBT rights victories in the U.S. over the past few years, it is easy to laugh at the various American Talibangelicals who shrieked hysterically how the US Supreme Court ruling on Same Sex marriage back in 2015, would result in nothing less than some sort of Gay, Nazi... apocalypse. 

As laughable as  this stuff  seems today in  hindsight, but  for a young person struggling with issues of identity and self acceptance,  these toxic messages of hatred and bigotry can still  cut right through you .

To my Straight friends, I have to ask, how many times have "respected" public figures, politicians, pundits and clergy gone on national television demanding that everyone be given the chance to VOTE on your civil rights? 

 How often has someone told you that not being able to discriminate against you was somehow an attack on them? When was the last time you heard a member of the Supreme Court saying that simply by being allowed to exist, you were "an attack" on the moral fiber of America?

Anyone?? Yeah...I didn't think so... I have a flash of the obvious for you, every month is "Straight Pride Month."  There is a word for someone who truly feels that equal rights for people they don't like is somehow an attack on them. That word is "Bigot".    Saying LGBT people are human too, isn't an attack on straight people. Those people who really think it is, are, quite simply, bigots. People who say LGBT Pride celebrations need to be stopped, are in fact, the exact reason they all started in the first place.

Are pride celebrations good or bad for the cause of equality? The answer is both. With visibility comes closer examination. Anti-gay bigots love to show images of drag queens, leather daddies and nearly naked porn stars dancing on parade floats, and scream "See! it's not about equal rights! They just want to recruit your kids into THIS!!"

They never show the families, advocacy groups, welcoming and inclusive religious denominations, and workplace affinity groups who participate in Pride parades. After all, that wouldn't fit their desired narrative.

Media outlets are complicit in this, by the way.  CNN loves to show the drag queens  and semi-naked boys in their coverage, but when straight allies like the CEO of  the largest health care company in the United States rides  on a float  in the San Francisco Pride  parade every year, along with over 1.000  LGBT employees, their families, co-workers  and friends,  you'd think they were all  invisible.

Likewise, critics of  the concept of LGBT Pride , never talk about the rates of divorce, unplanned pregnancy, child abuse and neglect and domestic violence in Straight relationships.  You never see  folks like Tony Perkins, head of the certified Hate-Group, the "Family Research Council" on Fox News talking about Mardi Gras, or  "Girls Gone Wild" on Spring Break.That would be admitting something of an inconvenient truth.  It's much easier to just point at a group of shirtless men on a flatbed truck or women on motorcycles and say that they are the real threat to families.

I have always said that Pride celebrations are not really for the people who attend them. Instead they are for the people who cannot attend them. Growing up as a Gay kid in a small town in South Central Wisconsin, there were times when I was convinced I was the only gay person on Earth. The constant message from popular culture, religion, family and peer groups was "boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married (or not) and have kids and live happily ever after". There was no happily ever after for someone who felt what I was feeling.

Then, for one weekend in June, I would turn on the TV News and see thousands of people just like me, in places like New York, San Francisco and Chicago saying "No, that's not true, you are not alone, and there is a big wide world out here beyond Sun Prairie Wisconsin. So hang in there .... we're here and we're waiting for you!"

Now more than thirty years later, I watch coverage like this,  and it seems so endearingly cheesy. Yet at the time, it was a lifeline to people like me, living with the fear and isolation of being "in the closet".

Pride Celebrations are the original  "It Gets Better Project". 

My straight friends never needed to be told that being straight was okay, and that they were okay because nobody ever told them they weren't. Pride isn't about celebrating being Gay, it's about publicly showing that being LGBT is just as much a part of the the human experience as being straight is. I for one would love to see the day when Pride is obsolete. When that scared closeted gay kid, in some small town doesn't need to be told that he or she is fine just the way they are.

Even though this year in 2020 crowds will not be gathering in places like Market Street in San Francisco, Oxford Street in London, Halsted Street in Chicago, and Fifth Avenue in New York City, Hillcrest in San Diego, Montrose in Houston, and so many more. There still is much to celebrate 

The recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court finally added LGBT Americans to the federal workplace protections offered through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A ruling that though 56 years in the making, still was split 6-3. With 3 members of the court still believing it would be just fine to fire someone on the basis of who they love. So in this 50th Anniversary of Pride, it is still vitally importing to add my voice to the “virtual throng” celebrating LGBT Pride.

If for no other reason to let that one scared  kid know, it really does get better. There is a world where  "boy meets boy" and "girl meets girl", where they fall in love and (f they want to) get married, and yes, even live happily ever after...

Happy Pride Everyone.

The Journey of a new "Broadway Baby"...

As the United States  grapples with the  effects  of the  Covid-19 pandemic there have been a number of  cultural causalities.  One of the biggest being the  2020 Broadway Theater Season. 

Theater,  especially the Broadway Theater is the stuff of dreams.  Ask most any performer on  the Great White Way  and they will tell you stories of a kid  somewhere in America who watched the Tony Awards on TV  or  Great Performances  on PBS  or in more recent years clips from shows  on YouTube; and dreamed of being up there  one day themselves.

It is almost a cliche'  a kid being inspired  by live theater  and dreaming of  being part of that world.  So much so,  the Tony Awards  made it the centerpiece of  the opening number for their 70th annual ceremony in  2016.

As universal  as this idea as become  in the Theater world,  there are very few actual  stories that show us that journey,  Of a young child being introduced to the magic of  Broadway in a way that would forever change their life. 

Thankfully, New York writer/composer  Daniel Tobias  has stepped up to fill this need.

His latest book entitled Backstage Benny & The Majestic Park Theatre  has debuted as an Audio book .  It takes you along on the  action-packed, life-affirming backstage misadventures of 9-year-old Benny Beaumont,  as his Uncle takes him backstage at Broadway's  Majestic Park Theatre, where he is acting in a show.   

The story is told largely  from  the perspective of  9 year old  Benny,  which gives the narrative a wonderful child's eye view.    If you are looking for a  break from the daily onslaught of  bad news  in this time of  lock down and quarantine,  take a tour backstage at the Majestic Park Theatre with its cast of  delightful characters  (some quite recognizable)   and join young Benny on the start of his Broadway journey

Daniel Tobias was educated at The University of California, Berkeley, The Julliard School of Music, and The Bay Area Acting Studio. He trains with Country World Champion Richard McMurrich. Daniel lives just two blocks west of Times Square, the heart of New York City. He was a Lammy Finalist for his debut novel “The Next” under pen name Rafe Haze, and is the composer in residence for Eryc Taylor Dance.

I hope this will be the first of many  "Backstage Benny: stories from  Daniel Tobias.    While the actual Great White Way stays dark,  it is nice to be able to  virtually visit it through a child's  eyes.

The issue is, and has always been, Donald Trump

The words of the President of the United States, matter. Even the words of this President, matter a great deal, and that, is the problem.

On a call with all the nation's Governors yesterday Donald Trump told a lie. A big lie. A lie so ridiculously easy to disprove that it set a new bar, even for him. The Governor of Montana was telling the President about the critical shortage of testing supplies and capacity in his, and  many other states. Trump's response to to interrupt and claim that there was no problem with testing, and that the US had done more testing than any other country.

Wait.. What?!?

The sad thing is this really isn't news. Donald Trump lies all the time. The fact is you would be very hard pressed to find a press conference or public speech by this President that didn’t contain deliberate out and out lies. 

This began on day one. With Trump's insane claims of crowd size at his Inauguration, and that he actually won the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. The list grew from there on a DAILY basis. Donald Trump’s lying has become so normal that to a large extent we as a nation have leaned to just live with it,

Up until now it was mostly an annoyance, and fodder for cable news panels and late night talk show hosts. For the last three plus years, defenders of this President have routinely told us this was, “Trump being Trump”. That Donald Trump says whatever he wants because it “Owns the Libs!” and that’s okay, because look at the results! - Well, we all can see the results now.

Now, it is “Trump being Trump” that is literally putting American lives at risk.

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The important thing to understand is,  not the fact that Trump lies all the time, about even inconsequential things. The issue that is putting all of our lives and the national security of the country at risk, is WHY he lies.

Donald Trump will say ANYthing in the moment, that he thinks will make him look good, sound good, or absolve him from responsibility or accountability for what he has, or has not done.

For Donald Trump, these ridiculously false claims affirm his sense of self. What this means is, when Trump thinks, acts or speaks about this crisis, his focus is NOT, how can he help Governors and Mayors in their efforts to combat the pandemic. But rather, how can he shift blame for his failures to do so, on to them.

For Donald Trump, his focus is NOT what does he, as the head of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government need to do improve the lives of millions of Americans. But rather, what does he need to SAY, regardless of whether or not it’s true, that will improve his re-election chances.

For Donald Trump, his focus is NOT how best to physically, economically and medically protect the country. But rather, how best to politically protect himself, and to that end, Donald Trump will literally SAY ANYTHING that he feels helps him, and blindly disregard any FACTS that he feels do not. 

When Donald Trump says testing is not a problem... Know that yes, it is. When Donald Trump says states don’t need that many ventilators.... Know that yes, they do. When Donald Trump says his administration is doing a fantastic job and critical supplies are being delivered to where they are needed most.... Know that no, they are not. 

The fact that Donald Trump wants to put a positive spin on a crisis is not the problem, The problem is, Donald Trump will disregard facts, evidence and even science that doesn’t support that spin.

The United States now has more confirmed cases of Covid-19 than China did at the height of their infection curve. It did not, and will not “magically disappear”. It is not, and has not been “totally under control”.

The fact, that the President of the United States is incapable of dealing with the reality of this crisis, because it threatens his ego; is literally killing Americans.

How the 2020 Race has now completely changed

Hey there folks...

For the most part I have been silent on the 2020  US Presidential race, as I waited for the Democratic Primary process to run its course. Yet as is often the case in politics, global events have totally taken things in a new direction.    Nations around the world  have taken drastic  steps to try to stem the spread of the Corna Virus.   While the United States response  has been,  to put it mildly....lacking.

Partly because the President of the United States chose to igmore the warnings from health experts around the globe and in his own Adninistration.   As this wasn't a problem he could Tweet his way out of  he instead chose to downplay  it,  then deny it,  they try to blame it on his poltical opponents.

As the virus spread more widely across  Asia, Europe and the the United States.  Trump still stuck to his fact-free talking points  that the problem was going to just go away,  or was getting better,  or  was a "hoax".    Meanwhile  the United States was doing NO testing  and even had gone so far as to turn down help from the World Health Organization to begin tests.  

Then the Stock market took a nosedive.

The one honest emotion and instinct Donald Trump has, is above all else,  self preservation.  Seeing his re-election campaign against  "democratic socialism"  about to be totally derailed.  He  spoke to  the nation in a rare televised Oval Office address.

It did not go well....

So... here we are.  Stores cleaned out of hand sanitizer and (of all things....) toilet papaer.   Americans told to  "social distance"  themselves from other people, while thousands of people are told to work from home,  or if they can't work remotely  just stay home on  unpaid leave from their jobs.

The 2020 General election campaign is now ALL about Covid19. And here are the key questions that every campaign ad from now until November needs to ask, (Questions Trump is desperately trying to AVOID.)

1) He was briefed on the virus in January and did NOTHING why?

2) The Pandemic Response desk at the NSA as disbanded by HIM - Why?

(We know why.. because it was put in place by Obama and  the Organge Foolious' ego can't stand anything the Black Guy did. Still it will be fun to watch him squirm, splutter and sweat cheeto dust everytime a reporter asks the question.)

3) The World Health Org. testing kits were refused by HIM - Why?

The total incompetence of the Trump Administration in responding to this crisis IS now the entire context of the 2020 Race and it is a context that Trump can't Tweet his way out of.

In the past week Donald Trump has shown himself to the a direct danger to the health and security of the American People. And THAT is now what is on the 2020 ballot. Not "socialism" not any Biden verbal gaffes, not AOC and the green new deal and not any fictitious border wall that Mexico still isn't paying for.

The  2020  election is now a referendum on the leadership of President Donald Trump.

Trump's incompetence in responding to a global pandemic is now the question. on the ballot. If the RNC hopes in anyway for the GOP to survive 2020 , they should dump Trump AND Pence and nominate Bill Weld and John Kasich.

Sadly the Republican Party is now just a pathetic "MAGA" cult and is deaf to anything but Trumptweets and Sean Hanity talking points. So.... Good luck with that.

Meanwhile... over in Asia.

Back in 1982 a movie came out called  "Making Love".  It was the first major Hollywood movie to feature a gay love story as the main plot line. It was seen as ground-breaking for attempting to show same sex attraction as something oridinary and even normal. It was a huge controvesy at the time, The movie even was forced to have a "Warning message” at the very begining of it, letting you know there was gonna be icky gay kissing at some point in the film.

The media coverage of the movie was largely negative And many public figures spoke about how "dangerous" this movie was and how showing same sex attraction as anything other sick and evil was wrong. At the time, as a young man struggling with my own sexaulity those messages of hate and fear made a lasting impression.  I remember when the film came out, I was in middle school going through puberty and terrifed by the fact I was attracted to other boys, not girls.

While growing up , Gay charnacters in movies and TV were either 1) super creepy villians or 2) campy comic relief . The HBO documentary “The Celluloid Closet” brilliantly examines the history of LGBT representation in movies.

But recently  there has been an amazing  development  in Asia with a new surging trend of dramas with LGBTQ content. 

What started as a cult phenononon in Japan’s graphic novel (Yaoi) world has made the jump to the small screen. With more and more programs being produced each year. With so many running that it is hard to keep track of them all. 

Leading the charge are studios in Thailand which have produced some of the most popular shows.

These series's in some cases are so popular, that  the actors in many of these programs have become rock star level celebrities acoss Asia. Attending official “Fan Meet and Greets” where thousands of fans show up to see their favorite stars (often renacting scenes in character).  The plots for many of these shows tend to be pretty standard. Most are set on a college campus where a group of students meet, become friends and invariably chemistry sparks between various pairs, both same sex and opposite sex. 

What makes it interesting is all the romantic storylines are treated the same. The two boys fall in love and face the same ups and downs and the boy and the girl do.  Recent programs have had  storylines  tackle far more serious issues. Recent productions have dealt with Gay Bashing, HIV/Aids, sexual assault, workplace harassment, homphobia, family rejection, and even LGBT youth suicide. 

One recent series is “Until We Meet Again”, adapted from the Thai novel of same name. It’s the story of two college students who fall in love in 1988, but their families are furious when their romance is discovered and they try to forcibly separate the lovers, driving them to commit double suicide. Both of the Fathers, horrified by what has happeend bury the two lovers side by side with a red thread tied to each of their hands, connecting them. In hopes that in their next lives the two will find each other again. Which is where the story begins. Thirty years later, the two reincarnated lovers meet on their college campus and struggle to understand why they are drawn to each other.

It is really interesting how programs being produced in Asia are far bolder in the portrayal of same sex relationship than most anything currently being made in the US. Cable and streaming service shows like Queer as Folk, The L Word, and Looking were all  groundbreaking, but have since left the stage.  Leaving American audiences with the (admittedly very funny) yet increidbly santized WIll & Grace reboot.

( Now let me say; I love Will & Grace, but the most accurate desciption of the show I have ever heard was “Will and Grace is not a show about Gay people. It is a show about four people who are, for all intents and purposes married to each other (Will/Grace and Jack/ Karen) but will never, ever have sex.)

What makes many of these programs truly remarkable (even in the context of the "BL" genre.) is the very POWERFUL and POSITIVE message of inclusion and equality that runs through them

The content coming out Asia is wonderfully produced, well written, with amazing soundtracks, and talented, engaging casts that give truly remarklable performances. In terms of positive portrayals of same sex relationships, these programs are far ahead of anything that is currently being made in America or Europe. 

What I would give to have the 13 year old me be able to watch some of these programs. Yet the good news is, even while some places in the world desperately cling to their homophobia, there is progess.

Making Broadcast History 38 Years Ago...

They say the worst thing you can have in live television is “dead air”. Suddenly in front of a room full of government and media dignitaries, with broadcasting history literally hanging in the balance, that is exactly what we were facing. Dead air.

The date was Thursday, October 15th, 1981. Two days earlier, I had boarded an Amtrak train in Columbus, Wisconsin, along with Mike Daugherty, John Garrett, Tom Gehrmann, Chris Kerwin, Anne O'Brien, Becky Weirough, Glenn Zweig, Steve Funk, and Mike Kennedy, Now in the ballroom of the Capital Hill Holiday Inn in Washington D.C. a live satellite demonstration, linking our group of American kids, and a group of young people in Brisbane Australia had just gone on the air.

We were there along with other young people who shared the unique experience of being media users, not just media consumers. We were from the “Kids 4” television project in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Kids4 had been on the air since 1978, and was an educational partnership between the local public access cable channel and the American Council for Better Broadcasting (ACBB, now called the National Telemedia Council )

Joining us there in Washington, was a group from the KIDS ALIVE! Project in Bloomington, Indiana. Together, we were hosting a live cultural exchange via satellite with a group of young people from down under in Brisbane Australia, who hosted the popular children’s program WOMBAT on Australia's Channel 7.

The kids from the Australian television show went first, showing an amazing video montage of their studio, the gold coast of Australia and the stories they produced there at Channel 7 in Brisbane. Then it was our turn. Or so we thought. 

Kerri Brinson from KIDS ALIVE!, looked in the camera and cheerfully announced; “Well, here’s our video montage!”  And … nothing.

A technician from COX Cable Television, hurried into the room and whispered in the ear of a nearby adult that the Video tape player in the satellite truck, was not working, and therefore none of the prepared footage we had brought with us to Washington could be shown. So we proceeded to do what we always did when doing live television. We improvised. 

The kids from Indiana looked at us like we were nuts. They were not used to working live. One of the great things about the Kids 4 program is we started out doing all of our shows live. It was only after two years we switched to recording them first, then airing them.

Still, with a ballroom full of media dignitaries watching you , plus trying to fill time  with stuff off the top your head, AND cope with at least a 5 second time delay between you and the people you were trying to interview, it was bit tense, even by our standards. But the end result turned out to be something amazing and unexpected.

That one technical glitch turned what would have been a largely scripted exchange into an actual conversation.

Instead of following a script,  we talked.  Asking each other about school, about hobbies and what was it about working with television that interested them, as well as sharing our own experiences as kids learning to use media and not be used by it.

Of course at the time, it felt like a disaster.

Looking back on that day, thirty-eight  years ago, I marvel at how much the world has changed. At the time, what we were doing in Washington DC that day was not all that remarkable from a technical standpoint. Live satellite broadcasts were hardly unusual in 1981. Yet from a cultural and educational standpoint, the Kids-to-Kids interconnect was nothing short of revolutionary.

As much as I say that live satellite television was commonplace in 1981, that isn’t to say the mechanics of it were simple. The path of the satellite interconnect - from Washington, D.C. to , Brisbane, Australia was a complex series of relays starting with a signal carried by cable to trucks parked just outside in the courtyard of the hotel. From there, the signal was  beamed by microwave across town to PBS Headquarters .

PBS then sent  the signal to KQED In San Francisco via a  satellite, 22,300 miles above the Earth. Which THEN transmitted it up to another satellite which relayed it across the Pacific Ocean,  and  down to the an earth station near Sydney, Australia.

Finally from there the signal travelled via land lines to the studios of Channel 7, Brisbane, where the Australian children received it and responded. Their messages back to the U.S. travelled in the reverse direction using landlines and satellites back to Washington, to the on-site satellite dish located in the courtyard of the Capitol Holiday Inn, which fed the signal into the ballroom room where it was seen on  large screens by all of us there.

Whew! Did you follow all that? Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz. But here is what you need to know, everything that I just described, in all its complicated glory, the average teenager can now do with the phone they carry in their pocket. No trucks needed, no delay and now we don’t even think twice about it.

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The Interconnect didn’t radically change the media landscape, or advance broadcast technology. What it did do, was in the space of a few short hours make the world a remarkably smaller place. It showed that live satellite broadcasting could be used for more than breaking news and sporting events

More than that, it laid the foundation for the type of personal inter connectivity that today, we take completely for granted. I know this, because I do it nearly every day. At least three times a week I will face-time, or WhatsApp video call or Facebook messenger video call with friends and family scattered all over the globe.

From London, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to San Francisco, and  Madison, Wisconsin,  and dozens of points in between.  What is commonplace today,  was nothing short of history making on that day in 1981

The interconnect was the first global face-time session .

The greatest take away from that day for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of it, was the power of broadcast technology to bridge distances and connect people in new and exciting ways. It was, at least me, a life changing experience. A live demonstration of the power of broadcast technology to connect people and be a platform for sharing experiences and ideas, in (nearly) real time.

Media Literacy is more crucial now than ever before. Teaching young people how to harness the power of media, and connectivity as tools for education and empowerment is more important today, than it has ever been.

Teaching young people to be media users, not just media consumers has always been at heart of the mission of Kids 4 and The National Telemedia Council . That mission, which took a gigantic step forward in 1981 continues today. You can find out more about the NTC and it's mission and legacy on  their website,:  https://www.nationaltelemediacouncil.org

Those lessons of the Interconnect are even more important today than they were three decades ago. In a world where if kids in Sun Prairie, WI  want to talk to kids in Brisbane, Australia , all they need is a smart phone and a decent Wifi signal; 

Thirty-eight years on, it remains an experience that played a tremendous role in shaping my path in life I am so very grateful to have been a part of it.