nuclear Shutdown News 8-17 (tags)
Nuclear Shutdown News August 2017
In Memoriam: Robert Miles Parker, 1939-2012 (tags)
Pioneering San Diego-based Queer artist and photographer Robert Miles Parker also founded Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO), dedicated to preserving San Diego's historic buildings and parks against redevelopment and gentrification. His recent passing in New York, where he had relocated, was memorialized by SOHO.
SB 48 Referendum: THE Epic Struggle for Queer Rights in California (tags)
Roland Palencia, executive director of the Queer lobbying group Equality California (EQCA), calls the radical Right's attempt to get rid of the FAIR Education Act, also known as SB 48, "the greatest threat in years to LGBT [Queer] Californians." The Act adds Queer people, people with disabilities and Pacific Islanders to the list of communities whose "role and contributions" to American and Californian history and society must be acknowledged in lessons and textbooks used by the California public schools. Radical-Right activists, including some of the same people who successfully eliminated marriage equality in California via Proposition 8, plan to make it a referendum on the very existence and legitimacy of the Queer community and will likely wage an ugly campaign based on many negative stereotypes of Queer people. Palencia's group is fighting back by setting up a broad, mostly non-Queer coalition, and he, EQCA regional field director George Zander and openly Queer San Diego Unified School District board member Kevin Beiser spoke at the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club August 25 to mobilize its members to join the campaign and help organize the grand coalition.
Openly Gay Fort Worth City Councilmember Headlines Queer Democrats' Freedom Awards (tags)
As a boy, openly Gay Fort Worth City Councilmember Joel Burns was bullied by schoolmates and driven to thoughts of suicide. One of his friends, a boy from Oklahoma, actually did kill himself. As an elected official, Burns spoke October 12 in the Fort Worth City Council chambers and talked about his past in a speech that was heard 'round the world through YouTube and the power of the Internet. On November 13 Burns came to San Diego as the keynote speaker for the 35th Annual Freedom Awards of the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club and talked about teen suicide and the need for renewed commitment on the part of Queer Democrats and progressives to elect officials whose actions will make Queer teens safer.
Pride Rally Reveals Queer Community’s Divisions Over Obama (tags)
The July 16 San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender pride rally, which opened the city's weekend of Pride events, revealed the deep-seated divisions within the Queer community over President Obama and the proper way of organizing. Stuart Milk, nephew of Queer martyr Harvey Milk, said he'd attended a meeting at the White House at which Obama endorsed virtually the entire agenda of the Queer rights movement — but Fresno-based activist Robin McGehee said that doesn't matter. McGehee and San Diego Transgender activist Autumn Sandeen, who joined together for a direct-action campaign against the White House over Obama's failure to seek repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that keeps openly Queer people from serving in the U.S. military, said that the Queer community should use nonviolent civil disobedience to confront Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic politicians who aren't delivering on their promises to the Queer community.
Michelle Jackson: Sign-Language Interpreter, First Female San Diego Leatherboys President (tags)
Michelle Jackson knew she was going to be interested in languages from the age of five,when her father took her across the border from San Diego to Tijuana and she heard Spanish for the first time. In college she studied American Sign Language (ASL) and ultimately made her living as an interpreter for the deaf community. It was a job she took to interpret at a San Diego Leatherfest that led her to the Leather/kink/BDSM community — and she's become an energetic activist in it, serving as Ms. San Diego Leather 2005 and recently being elected the first female president of the San Diego Leatherboys.
Stephen Whitburn: Progressive San Diego City Council Candidate (tags)
Zenger’s-endorsed District 3 City Council candidate STEPHEN WHITBURN is the real deal: an experienced journalist and progressive who’s seen more of the world than San Diego and knows from government in other cities what works and what doesn’t. Don’t be fooled by an opponent who offers nothing but charm, geography and experience at taking orders.
San Diego City Council Candidates Debate (tags)
San Diego City Council candidates Stephen Whitburn and Todd Gloria debated at the Hillcrest Town Council September 9. Both are openly Gay men and the debate was held in the center of San Diego's Queer community, but the candidates are otherwise quite different. Gloria emphasized his roots in San Diego and his extensive experience working as a staff member for elected officials, while Whitburn criticized Gloria's support from developers and said his own experience in journalism and the nonprofit sector would make him a better Councilmember.
San Diego Earth Day Hosts Local Candidates (tags)
Though poorly attended, the candidates' debates at San Diego's Earth Day in Balboa Park April 20 offered useful insights into how the aspirants for mayor, third district city councilmember and city attorney might use their jobs to help protect the city's environment — or not.
American Capitalism Beats American Democracy Again