Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Changes at Rutgers after Clementi’s Suicide

Regarding in the NY Times:


Thanks for this this overly long discussion  of how Rutgers has changed since the suicide.  What comes to mind is the current problem with cost of college and (like chick-Fil-A issue) how perhaps young people should start picking college/university on not only how good they are academically but how comfortable students are—you can’t learn if you are in fear of your mind or body.  

Let’s have colleges change their policies to make LGBT people welcome.  What a concept—free enterprise/capitolism??

Friday, September 21, 2012

LGBT persons in nursing homes


This is a generic issue.  

I have thought I’d have no problem in a nursing home at my age, no one would care about my sexuality—I of course have not been “active” for years anyway.  But I would stay in my house as long as possible because it is easier, and actually cheaper for me and the goernement/social security/medicare/medicaid, etc.  That is the blessing and question about Triangle Square in Hollywood and the one they are planning in Philadelphia.  Most retirement places now have regular apartments or rooms and then a section for later when you need assistance, etc.  But except for these two, they are expensive and of course these two are gay-friendly.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

OTHER publications in other causes/how much good did they do? A note to Tracy Baim.


I am going to ask others, but thought I’d bring up my question—to myself—about how publications affected individuals in other civil rights efforts.

When I went to LSU in 1950, I had already been to the first efforts of the YM/YWCA and Methodist church to start getting young Southerners ready for racial desegregation and perhaps racial integration-summer camps in NC and Ohio—ironically Miami University of Ohio where Paul Ryan went.

So perhaps I was “ready” to find resources that fit my thoughts and interests. I found in the old LSU Library issues of the first black publication I had seen: Negro Digest. I read it and even did what it asked readers to do: write advertisers to thank them for placing their ads in this publication. What I wonder is: Do young LGBT people seek and find LGBT material today, perhaps now online?

It is also interesting that when that publications ended. I think it was replaced by Ebony—both are Johnson Pub magazines. I didn't find Ebony as interesting. I am sure for most black readers it was more entertaining and interesting—only later came Jet.  

It was good when ONE and The Ladder, etc., were joined later, in the 1960s and ’70s, by Drum, Advocate, and then the local newspapers. I never saw a black newspaper in those days even though I am sure they might have served the community better than the Digest and maybe even Ebony.

I see OutSmart Magazine from Houston and am amazed at its high quality and good articles. But I still think Houston needs an old-style newspaper.

What we will never know is how much good these publicatins did. Did they change many peoples ideas, lives? Where are the people today who read the Negro Digest? Are they better personally and as citizens? Were these publicatins necessary to get black and LGBT publications where we are today?

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The New Normal

RE: Phil Dragotto’s query:

I”ve seen the N.Y. Times article and a video clip regarding The New Normal. Does anyone know what station it's on? Is it on basic cable or a premium channel, such as HBO?"

It is on NBC, so except for Utah, your local TV channel should have carried it last night—as it did the new “Friends” man’s show (Go On) and I think it said the show would be repeated tonight.



gay paper sold/journalists honored: RE Press Pass Q, September 2012


Once again, I am hopeful that the bigots are upset if they see and know the news that you have compiled this week. 

First, that major New York publications are doing so well, including Gay City News, that they have been rescued (bought).  By the way, which Cal State did Goodstein attend? She might want to know that Cal State Northridge is now the home of the Homosexual information Center archives (including the Blanche Baker Memorial Archive. To make it even more complicated, it is part of the Vern & Bonnie Bullough Collection on Sex and Gender—Vern taught there and worked closely with ONE/HIC.

And once again it seems that our cause/movement/community is being torn apart by a few people pushing their own agenda—getting their particular part awarded the Gay Housekeeping Seal of Approval. How silly. What is wrong with “Unity”?  And while it is troubling that black journalists still can't seem to work well with other civil rights movements, I would agree that any credential or title should NOT be gay or Asian, etc, but cover all journalists.

It is good to see honors going to people like Burroways and Luongo.

But once again, I find it hard to understand how any journalists or editors can possibly be asking how they can find resources.  Have they never heard of Gayellow pages?

Finally, how great to see the lasting power of our publications—in large cities like Denver and smaller areas like Topeka (Liberty Press).  And we remember pioneers who have left us such, as Fertig, who inspire the younger LGBT journalists.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Election year coverage in current Gay & Lesbian Review/Barney Frank—and Congratulations on your coming 100th issue


I like the picture of Barney Frank on the cover of the latest issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review.  I like what he says in his article—it is hard to understand how LGBT people can vote—not be—Republican this year.  And other articles cover issues that politics affects or are affected by politics and inform us of issues we may not have thought about.  Obviously AIDS is one example.  How we are affected by EEOC is another—especially, as the interview with Chai Feldblum points out, the Macy decision and Trans issues.

Another such issue is covered in the article on marriage in Spain.  I would never have thought that in the celebration of that victory there are unsolved problems such a the fact that two men cannot adopt a child: the laws require a mother’s name on the birth certificate.  I also am reminded of how we get results we didn't want, such as the sort of victory on marriage (years ago—how fast we forget!) in Hawaii didn’t bring victory. Rather, it almost brought us an Amendment to stop same sex marriage, sort of stopped by passage of the lousy DOMA Act.

It is funny but silly that it seems bigots fighting LGBT issues in France try to get the public against them by calling them American.  In the same vein, there are two separate philosophical issues covered in articles that still need to be understood. Most of us don’t see the problem, but apparently the distinctions are important.  One (again in France) is the distinction between informing someone of something and educating them.  Another is, again, the issue of gender being a social construct.  Such discussions will not be found in “timely” LGBT publications.

What maybe found in them would be  discussion of Marilyn Monroe being a lesbian.  Something that I am constantly seeing as an issue now, and in judging our founders and leaders, is that some did not want to put “sex” into the early public discussions.  But Hal Call and others did. It is relevant in politics of a sort, as Bayard Rustin’s life proved. He was of course not liked because he was homosexual—he operated in a black area so color in a sense was not the issue.  But it seems that JFK called him an “old black fairy.”  A side of Kennedy we don’t understand since he had living in the White house is homosexual friend.  But it was his actually having sex and getting arrested that hurt him—so that he almost didn’t have the chance to make the March on Washington a great success.

I can understand that some people are Republican. The primary concern I have in voting regards the Supreme court—who makes the next appointments will affect us for generations beyond just who is the president.  Another point, to get back to Barney, is his saying that the hard thing is to see moderate Republicans being kicked out of office by extremists rightwing Republicans.  There are lots of questions some of us would like to ask Mr. Frank.  But what only truly nutty LGBT people would raise is how he was in his work. Only jealous people seem to find reason to attack him.  And he was what we want—someone who happens to be homosexual and is judged by how he serves ALL of the voters/citizens.

And it is sure strange when you think of how Communism both helped started our movement and then had to be kicked out to let it grow and be successful, and harry Hay being hauled before the HUAC to testify, to read about a woman spying in/on the Communist arty in the late 1940s and being a closet Lesbian (Angela Calomiris).  You wonder where David Schine is today—and how closet cases like Roy Cohn could do what they did.  

But it just may be that what gets this issue discussed is the whole page ad inside the cover—“Historical Gay Book Collection For Sale.”  There are “issues” with LGBT archives in Houston, and part of the  problems is the MCC selling an archive placed with them for safe keeping. Most asked is the question of  who bought the material—there is no public knowledge of who bought it or how much was paid.   So the ad and person involved is  maybe inadvertently being connected to the problem.  

Finally, letters to the editor are still what I like in publications. This was the most-read section in ONE / Tangents, followed closely by the news.