Post Midterm Thoughts

 

Remembering the first "Zoom Meeting" 45 years later...

 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, Jon 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, later renamed as 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, now, more than four decades 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 Zoom meeting.

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 for 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 ACBB / National Telemedia Council . That mission, which took a gigantic step forward in 1981 continues today. Now as the International Council for Media Literacy You can find out more about the IC4ML and it's mission and legacy on their website,:  https://www.ic4ml.org.

 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, the lessons of the Interconnect are even more important today than they were four decades ago.

Still 45 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.

Remembering Matthew Shepard

 

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 nearly  three decades  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

25 Years Later... Remembering a September Morning.

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

This weekend the media, and the blogosphere will  undoubtedly be full of all sorts of remembrances and commentary around the 25th  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 a 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 in the Middle East  with the American and British Armed Forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, they deal with the effects September 11, 2001 on a far different  and more directly personal level than most people ever will.

So I, along with  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.

Pride and Prejudice...

   Well it's June... So you KNOW what that means.

Like the 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  inside and outside the  LGBTQ community. Inside the community, the question is; does some of the imagery of Pride celebrations hurt the cause of equal rights? Also, in the wake of legal victories such as Marriage Equality; some ask  do we even need pride celebrations anymore?

While 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.

States in the USA where you can be fired for being Straight =0
States in the USA where you could have been fired for being Gay = 28
Countries that will execute you for being Straight = 0
Countries that will execute you for being Gay = 11 (actually 12 Uganda just re-joined the list)


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 LGBT 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 has been changing dramatically in the past few years.

But until those recent advances, 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.

 
The Celluloid Closet - Trailer

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 LGBTQ kids who have been told that they are going hell simply for being who they are?  = Too many to even try to count.

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.

In 2026 one would think such battles would be long over, but in the light of LGBT rights victories in the U.S. over the past few years, the American Talibangelicals have turned their sights to new targets; Trans Kids and Drag Performers.

The rhetoric on the American cultural Right Wing,  would have you believe a man in a dress and high heels reading  books to kids, is a greater threat than the LEADING cause of death for children in the United States: Gun Violence.

Are Pride celebrations good or bad for the cause of equality? The answer is both. With visibility comes closer examination.  

Opponents of equality love to show images of drag queens, leather daddies and shirtless men   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 coverage is often complicit. CNN loves to show the drag queens and Gogo boys, but when straight allies like the CEO of Kaiser Permanente, the largest non-profit health care company in the U.S. .rides on a float in the SF Pride parade every year, with over 1,200 employees, their families, friends and colleagues, you'd think we all were invisible.

You never see CNN asking Tony Perkins, head of the certified Hate-Group, the "Family Research Council" on Fox News about the deadly cultural fetishization of guns and violence towards minorities on the cultural right, and how that had led directly to lethal antiemetic and homophobic attacks.

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!"

1986 Pride Television Coverage

Now more than three decades  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 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.

So this month we will see joyous crowds 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.    And this year  Pride is more important than ever. We have a President, and administration  sees America's diversity as a threat, and seeks to use the LGBTQ+ community as a boogieman to distract gullible voters from his own failures and corruption.  

So in this Pride Month , it is still vitally important  to add our voices voice to the chorus celebrating the diversity of Americans and the American Experience.

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 you can be the person that every fiber of your being is screaming for you to be. A world where yes, you can fall in love and (if they want to) get married, and even live happily ever after...

Happy Pride Everyone.

When The Seeds You Plant, Sprout Up…

I have always been a fan of the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner, or as it is more affectionately known; “Nerd Prom”. Like the Al Smith Dinner during Presidential Election campaigns, it provides a welcome opportunity for overly serious and self-important figures in politics and media to endure some good-natured ribbing.

Sadly, the dinner has become a point of controversy. At the 2011 dinner, where President Barack Obama famously roasted Donald Trump, who was in the audience. Obama’s remarks, mocked Trump’s political aspirations and "birther" claims, and is widely cited by observers and advisors as a pivotal, humiliating moment for Trump that motivated him to run for president.

Donald Trump famously boycotted attending the dinner all through his first term as President. Leaning in hard on his traditional criticism of any and all negative coverage of him as being “fake news”.

So, when it was announced that Trump would be attending this year’s Dinner at the Washington D.C. Hilton, the expectation was that his remarks would be highly combative and critical of the Media. His press secretary Caroline Levitt, interviewed shortly before the Saturday’s event began even said she expected “shots to be fired”. Referring one assumes, to the speech Trump was going to give later on in the evening.

Well, be careful what you wish for Caroline.

By now most people know what happened Saturday night. At 8:34 pm, Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old man from Torrance, CA was confronted by security near the main screening area of the Washington Hilton; while the dinner has just gotten underway inside the main ballroom. He ran past the security checkpoint and is alleged to have fired at least one shot. He was chased and subsequently apprehended.

The suspect never reached the actual ballroom and no one inside the event was injured.

The incident prompted the Secret Service to immediately evacuate President Trump, the First Lady, the Vice President and the various members of the Trump Cabinet who were in attendance. The event was then ended and Trump went on to hold a performative press conference back at the White House where he cited then incident as a reason his proposed new Ballroom adjacent to the now demolished East Wing was needed for reasons of security.

Really… He actually said that.

What is most interesting in the aftermath of Saturday’s incident is the public reaction. Yes, folks are decrying the preponderance of political violence in America, as well we all should. But the predominate reaction seems to be one of … skepticism. Social media was immediately flooded with memes suggesting the entire event was staged by the Trump Administration.

I don’t believe the attempted attack on Saturday was some sort of “false flag” operation. Clearly Cole Allen, is a disturbed young man who claimed he didn’t recognize the country he was living in, and felt compelled to take drastic and violent action because of it. In a “Manifesto” investigators found in his home, Allen is purported to have written:

“I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes... Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”

What has been interesting to see, is the voracity of the responses suggesting the whole thing was staged to help Trump’s dismal approval ratings. Responses originating not just on the left but on the far right as well. In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s shooting, social media had been full of posts by MAGA supporters now questioning if Trump’s previous assassination attempt in Butler, PA during the 2024 campaign had been staged.

The Trump Administration having an adversarial relationship with the Truth, is not a new phenomenon. It goes back to the very first day of Trump’s first term, when then Press Secretary Sean Spicer lost any hope of credibility in his fist ever White House briefing when he made the ridiculously false claim that the crowd at Trump’s inaugural earlier that day had been" the biggest one ever…, PERIOD!"

That was followed a few weeks later, by White House official Kellyanne Conway telling “Meet the Press” that the demonstrably false statements that Trump was making were not lies, but were “alternative facts”. Setting the stage for Trump to basically disregard any truth he didn’t care for as “fake”, and claim any statistics or election results not favorable to Trump were “rigged”

.

All culminating four years later on January 6th, when unable to face the fact that he lost the election, Trump urged a mob of his supporters to do exactly what 31-year-old Cole Allen tried to do last Saturday. Affect change through political violence.

The fact that so many people are ready to believe that Trump orchestrated last Saturday’s attack as a way to help himself, is nothing less than the logical and very predictable end result of the constant attacks on facts, truth and … reality by Trump and his various MAGA mouthpieces over the past 8 plus years.

Political Violence should never be seen as a viable method of change in a civilized democratic nation. Yet the easy acceptance by a large percentage of Americans of the idea that Saturday’s attempted attack was merely political theatre produced by Trump to make him look heroic; Is the Trump Administration reaping what it has so enthusiastically sown.

When you make attacking truth, facts and reality the hallmark of your Presidency, you lose the right to be outraged when wild conspiracy theories come back to haunt you.

A Letter to My Hometown...

Dear Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

Recently a high school classmate asked me if I would be attending our class reunion later this year. I really wasn’t sure how to answer that. As I honestly hadn’t made a decision. For years, the idea of attending an SPHS reunion struck me like asking a Titanic survivor if they were interested in attending a commemorative North Atlantic cruise.

It has been said that your hometown is the fire out of which the person you are today was forged. I find I struggle with that sentiment, and probably always will. My relationship with you, my “hometown” is, as Facebook might describe it… “complicated”. So, I thought it’s a good time to clear the air about a few things.

The primary motivation for moving back to the United States nine years ago, was to be closer to my parents. Having a number of lifelong friends who recently had lost one or both of their parents, I was keenly aware that I had fewer days ahead with them than behind.

So instead of being 4,000 miles and a 9-hour flight away in London, or 2,000 miles and a 6-hour flight way in San Francisco, for the past year and a half we were 940 miles and a 2-hour flight away in New York City

Then Nine months ago, We moved back here. The original reason was my dad’s health taking a prolonged downward turn back last June. When he passed away suddenly on his 87th birthday in early July, the reasons for moving back shifted to being here for my mom, but the overall context remained the same.

Now I find myself once again living back here. Granted, we live in Madison, not Sun Prairie, but it is still living in Dane county, some 30 plus years after I left. Which has been an odd experience. It’s like one of those Science Fiction movies where someone travels in time then gets back to the present and notices how the timeline was changed. Things are mostly familiar, but there are glaring differences that make it clear that the place you returned to, is not the same place you left.

The first thing you notice, is how much BIGGER the city is. Growing up here there were 5 elementary schools, one Jr. High and one High school. Now there are 10 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, 2 high schools and 2 of whatever Phoenix Academy  & Sun Prairie Virtual School are.

The area of Madison where I live in is also completely unrecognizable from when I was growing up. What is now a sprawling cityscape of strip malls, Costco, and apartment complexes, used to be just cornfields and a dive bar called the Twilight.

On a previous trip back here in 2022, the front page of the Wisconsin State Journal sports section had a full-page story on the first ever football game between the Sun Prairie East Cardinals and the Sun Prairie West, Wolves. A game that was played not just on Ashley Field, but rather AT Ashley Field IN the Bank of Sun Prairie Stadium.

My family moved to Sun Prairie when I was in first grade. I went from Pier Elementary School in Fond Du Lac, to Northside Elementary in the fall of that year. I remember at the time, thinking how, Sun Prairie with its proximity to Madison felt like a real “city” compared to tiny, small town Fond Du Lac.    In time, however, that feeling would wear off.

I have said my relationship with Sun Prairie is a complicated one, and that is very true. But let me be clear, I feel very lucky to have grown up here. It was a wonderfully safe, and yes for the most part, fun place to be from. Sun Prairie Public Schools, while certainly not perfect, were better than most and gave me a well-rounded education that has served me in life. I had and continue to have amazing and wonderful friends here. Friends who played a huge role in my becoming the person I am today.

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin is and will always be my ‘hometown’. It is where I am from.

But…

One of the nice things about getting older is that old friends can be honest with each other. So here goes...

I am from here, but I have never ever felt like I belonged here.

Growing up here you made it very clear, that … “noticeable individuality” was something that would make life difficult. It's safe to say that back then, I was not someone who was in with the "popular kids". My varsity letter (yes, I have one) was in Extemporaneous Speech. (Yeah, I know... you actually can letter in that, who knew?)

So, I didn't fit in very well. I was an awkward kid with mild stutter, who wasn’t at all interested in sports, had a graduate school level vocabulary and interests that greatly differed from most of my classmates.

And for better or worse, in the 1980’s, Sun Prairie was not a place that smiled upon being "different". As a result, it became clear that I would always be on the outside looking in. Consequently, moving back here has been an emotionally mixed experience. Part nostalgia and part PTSD.

Don't get me wrong, I had (and still have) amazing friends here and great memories. Yet “back in the day” (as the kids say), the “vibe” was quite different. Growing up here as a gay kid was a daily exercise in terror.

The ultimate put-down was to say something was "gay" or to be called a "fag". You saw kids who were even slightly effeminate or "different” tormented on a daily basis. Sun Prairie High School, while providing a very good public education, was (like most American High Schools), stratified to the point of making the caste system in India look like outtakes from “The Breakfast Club”.

In my Junior year, I was one of the editors of the school newspaper, the Cardinal Courier. An organization called “The United”, (a groundbreaking non-profit organization that provided support and counseling services to Gay and Lesbian teens in South Central Wisconsin) contacted us. They wanted to buy an ad in the paper advertising their crisis counseling phone line. The reaction was… stark.

Teachers and classmates that I had thought would be somewhat progressive were suddenly “seriously concerned”, angry even that we might be “promoting the homosexual lifestyle”, and even potentially pushing some poor confused soul into it, just by running an ad for a crisis counseling hotline.

The experience taught me a very clear lesson; Sun Prairie, while not a bad place to grow up, would be a very very difficult place to be grown up. There would never be a first date, a dance or a kiss stolen at a locker in between classes. To even attempt such a thing would be suicide. Literally.  

There was no such thing a Gay-Straight alliances, or “Safe Spaces” for LGBT youth. As much as my classmates would never want to admit it today, had a student in our High School class “come out” publicly as Gay or Lesbian, the response would have been quite simply, to bully him or her to death..

When I see  movies and streaming series' like "Heartstopper", "Young Royals", "Love, Simon", or any of the scores of high school romance series' coming out of Asia, I can only smile and be grateful that in some ways and in some places society has moved on.

Thankfully one of the “alternate time-line” changes you notice coming back here is the daily reality for a gay kid at Sun Prairie East is, (at least to a certain extent) far better today.   I recently saw on Social Media at Sun Prairie  even has it's own LGBTQ Pride celebration.  

Yet even now decades later, driving around town still prompts very real memories of that feeling of being on the “outside looking in”..

So I didn't choose to live IN Sun Prairie, I do live right next door on Madison's far... FAR East side.   As much as I would have liked my Parents to have moved to California, the aftermath of the Covid pandemic made that big of a move, impossible. And with my Dad buried here, it is not reasonable to ask my Mom to leave. So, here she will stay, and We will as well.

Yet at the end of the day, I am grateful to be able to say that I am from here. But I am also able to make peace with that fact that I did not, still do not, and never will, belong here.

Not a bad thing, just the truth. Who knows? I may even go the reunion. If for no other reason than to see who it is we all have become.

Go Cardinals… I still hope you beat the Wolves.

Love,
Dave

Truth Worth Sharing...

California based speaker and consultant Marc Puckett, recently posted this on LinkedIn.  It's worth sharing.

It doesn’t happen all at once.
There’s no announcement, no warning, no moment where life taps you on the shoulder and tells you:

“Look closely… things are changing.”

It happens quietly.

You’re busy — working, raising kids, paying bills, rushing through days that feel too short.
And then one afternoon, you go home to visit your parents…
and something soft inside you shifts.

You notice the small things first:

Your father gets up from the couch a little slower.
Your mother asks you to repeat something she once would’ve heard clearly.
The house feels the same —
but the people inside are aging gently, silently.

You notice they hold the railing when they go downstairs.
They double-check the locks before bed.
They sit more than they stand.
They nap more.
They walk a little closer together.

You realize things you never thought about before:

Who changes the lightbulbs now?
Who carries the heavy groceries?
Who helps them understand the new phone they’re afraid to break?

And suddenly, the roles you’ve always known start shifting.

The hands that raised you
now tremble when pouring tea.
The voices that soothed you
now need reassurance themselves.
The people who once felt invincible
now feel beautifully, heartbreakingly human.

You begin to understand something deeper:

Growing older isn’t just happening to them —
it’s happening to you, too.
And love starts to look different.

It becomes:

• driving them to appointments
• fixing things they didn’t want to ask help for
• listening to stories you’ve already heard
• staying a little longer instead of rushing out
• calling even when you’re tired
• appreciating all the little sacrifices you once overlooked

Because now you finally see it:

Your parents aren’t just aging.
They’re winding down a chapter they spent decades writing —
a chapter filled with you.

And the quiet truth is this:

They won’t say it out loud,
but they’re hoping you’ll walk through their door a little more often.
Not to fix anything.
Not to bring anything.

Just to be there.

To sit.
To talk.
To laugh.
To listen.
To remind them that they’re still needed…
still valued…
still loved.

One day, you’ll realize these are the visits that matter most.
Because time moves fast.
But moments with aging parents?
Those are the memories that stay soft forever.

Love them while you still have them.

What a Scout is Not....

If you have ever been involved in the Boy Scouts  (Now rebranded as Scouting America) you may remember reciting the Scout Law.  A twelve point list of the character traits Scouting seeks to instill in Youth.    The law begins with the phrase  "A Scout is..." 

 Two years ago, I received a wonderful alumni recognition award from a part of the Scouting America organization I have been involved with for many years. It supports American youth who live overseas with their families, both with U.S. Military and regular civilian expats. For years the focus of the Youth in the program was largely US Military dependents and so there was a very close and cooperative relationship between Scouting and the Department of Defense, supporting the morale and welfare of American families stationed overseas.

Attending a conference in Frankfurt, Germany where I received the alumni award, I was with many members of the military who are involved in the Scouting program. A good number of them were expressing their hope that Donald Trump and the GOP would win the 2024 election. Lamenting how logistical support for Scout programs overseas by the US military MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) division  had in their perception, been reduced under the Obama and Biden Administrations, and expressing their belief that a 2nd Trump administration would reverse that trend.

This past week it was reported by National Public Radio that Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth wants to end the century-old partnership between the U.S. military and Scouting. Pushing for the military to sever all ties with Scouting America, saying the group once known as the Boy Scouts is no longer a meritocracy and has become an organization designed to "attack boy-friendly spaces," according to documents reviewed by NPR.

In a draft memo to Congress, which sources shared with NPR but which has not yet been sent, Hegseth criticizes Scouting for being "genderless" and for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. The NPR Reporting goes on to say the military has provided support to the Scouts for more than 100 years, assistance that was formalized in 1937. But in one memo, Hegseth says, "The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys."
 

The proposal calls for the Pentagon to no longer provide medical and logistical aid to the National Jamboree, which brings in as many as 20,000 scouts to a remote site in West Virginia. It also states that the military will no longer allow Scout troops to meet at military installations in the U.S. and abroad, where many bases have active Scout programs.

Congress requires the Pentagon to support the scouting program's Jamboree, a gathering of thousands of young scouts held every three or four years. 

The U.S. military lends trucks, ambulances and medical teams, and puts on aviation and skydiving demonstrations, all at no cost to the Scouts. For the military, it's both a training exercise and an opportunity to recruit highly motivated, civic-minded kids.

But the law includes an exemption: the Secretary of Defense can withhold support if he determines providing it would be "detrimental to national security." Drafts of a report to Congress obtained by NPR show Hegseth invoking that clause — accusing Scouting America of fostering "gender confusion."  His memo to the House and Senate Armed Services committees argues the Scouts have strayed from their mission to "cultivate masculine values." 

It also claims that with international conflicts and a tight budget, sending troops, doctors and vehicles to a 10-day youth event would harm national security by diverting resources from border operations and protecting U.S. territory.

Seriously?  Support for the National Scout Jamboree somehow will leave Americas borders wide open to God know what??  Ok then….

 I will for the moment, resist the urge to find those individuals who two years ago were pining for a 2nd Act for Donald Trump and scream at them; “SO? IS THIS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR??” at the top of my lungs. Instead, let’s dispel a few myths that tend to surround this conversation. The biggest actually coming from the Left side of the political spectrum. That Scouting is in cahoots with the military to indoctrinate America’s youth into becoming  brownshirt stormtroopers for Conservative American imperialism.

Uh, No. Not even remotely. And anyone who has ever actually BEEN in Scouting will tell you Scouting is and has always been a nonpartisan organization. 

Over more than a century, Scouting has worked constructively with every U.S. presidential administration — Democratic and Republican — focusing on building future leaders grounded in integrity, responsibility, and community service.   On the right side of this particular campsite the myth is that Scouting is supposed be some sort of he-man training program to “cultivate masculine values”. 

So it is worth taking a look at what Pete Hegseth and his boss consider to be those values. 

 Lets start with Pete “Warrior Ethos” Hegseth.   Pete Hegseth secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017, But Hegseth's record before becoming a full-time Fox News TV host, in 2017, bears examination:

A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

In a separate letter of complaint, from 2015  a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

So apparently misogyny , bigotry racism and drunkenness are core "values" for Hegseth.  

Then we have Pete's boss.  Donald Trump  who incidentally as  President of the United States is also the honorary President of Scouting America.    Over the years Presidents have spoken at the National Scout Jamboree in that capacity,  both in person, or by pre-recorded video.   In 2017, when it was Donald Trump's turn to address thousands of America's young people gathered in West Virginia what did he have to say? Trump spent several minutes rambling about trophy wives,  his electoral victory and attacking  his predecessor.

Apparently values like civic duty, helping others,  and being a good citizen were not important enough to find their way into Trump's remarks. 

 

I am not going to post any of the video from that speech, you can find it online yourself if you want to relive the rantings of narcissistic sociopath. It was beyond embarrassing. It was an insult to everything Scouting is supposed to stand for.  So we have two individuals, Both accused rapists, both people who revel in racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and endless self aggrandizement, and one, (Hegseth), with a history of being drunk at work. Both now claiming that Scouting doesn't embody American values.

Scouting's relationship with the Department of Defense has been beneficial to both organizations and to the country as a whole. Scouting has long been a part of military recruiting efforts. As many as 20 percent of cadets and midshipmen at the service academies are Eagle Scouts, according to statistics from Scouting America. Moreover, enlistees who've earned Eagle get advanced military rank and better pay. That practice would end. 

The potential impact is causing friction at the Pentagon. In the Navy for example, up to a third of the Navy's officers in training,  have some scouting background  Passive support to Scouting America through access to military installations and educational opportunities aboard military installations serve as a crucial recruiting and community engagement tool for all branches of the military. 

 

But more that that.  The partnership between the US Military and Scouting overseas has played a crucial role in supporting the  families of  American Service personnel deployed all over the world.  With Far East Scouting Council and the Transatlantic Council providing programs and services that support the morale and welfare of Americans posted overseas. Something I know first hand.  Having been an active volunteer in both organizations.  

Anyone who grew up a "military brat" or was an America Expat as a kid,  or a  military spouse of a soldier deployed overseas knows the stress of that life.  Constantly having to move from one duty station to another.  Sometimes uprooting your family every 18 months.  Having to get resettled in a new place, make new friends,  integrate to a new community and school is challenging under the best of circumstances.  Throw in having to do this in an entirely different country and culture,  and connections to home become even more important. 

 In many American expat communities both military and civilian Scouting provides that link and helps ease those transitions for American citizens and their families  posted overseas. the MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation) partnership between Scouting and the Department of Defense has been a critical component of that mission. 

 

Scouting has always been a major part of  my own life,  and when I was an American student living and studying in Germany in the 1980s   I was able to maintain my connection to Scouting through the Transatlantic Council. Helping to deliver Scouting programs  and even working at a Scout Summer Camp during the Summer all through college.   Providing both outdoor adventure and leadership / character development programs for American youth living all over the world.

The Current Scouting America executive for Transatlantic Council, Joshua Dick summed the issue up very well saying; 

 " Transatlantic Council’s ties to our military community run deep. For decades, our programs have supported the children of U.S. service members, providing stability, leadership development, and a sense of belonging. We are here to support our Scouts, their families, and the communities they are part of. We are profoundly grateful for your continued support, flexibility, and commitment during uncertain times. Your dedication enables our Scouts to learn, grow, and thrive – no matter where they are in the world.

In moments like these, our Scouting values matter more than ever. We encourage all members of our community to remain engaged, support one another, and continue demonstrating active citizenship in their daily lives. Keep supporting your units, lifting up your fellow volunteers, and, above all, continuing to deliver strong, meaningful programs for our youth."

The core mission of Scouting is not to create "Trump Youth" living out some  desperate fantasy of  an American "Alpha Male Ethos" . The mission of Scouting is and has always been to build character in youth.  With a clear focus on three things:  Duty to God,  Duty to Country and Duty to Self.  In that order.

With their fabricated war on "woke"  Hegseth and Trump are  sad, flawed  small minded bigots who are  terrified of America's diversity.  From attempts to rewrite the history of the Civil War to literally justify slavery,  to removing references to African American soldiers from US  Military  memorials overseas, and now an attack on Scouting as some sort of threat to America's masculinity,  Trump,  Hegseth and  the entire Trump 2.0 Administration  have provided a clear example of  everything that a Scout is not.