by itabix | Sep 22, 2016 | AIDS, Anger, Courage, Fighting Back, Memory, Queer, Sexuality
Rachel Maddow, last night: “Are the demonstrators free to leave [the area of confrontation]?” The NBC News reporter in Charlotte, NC, Tammy Leitner, “Absolutely. They are free to leave. They are choosing to stay here and engage with the riot police.” Well, no. If you...
by itabix | Sep 11, 2016 | 9/11, Memory, Vietnam Memorial
Two things today. Esquire has re-published the article by Tom Junod, “The Falling Man,” which was originally published in Esquire on September 2003 about a photograph, also called “The Falling Man,” of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center...
by itabix | Sep 5, 2016 | Courage, Courage, Fighting Back, Larry Kramer
At the Olympic Games in 1968 in Mexico City Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had won the gold and bronze medals in the 100 meter track event, raised their clenched fists during the US national anthem. Everybody understood them to be giving the Black Power salute....
by itabix | Aug 24, 2016 | AIDS, Anger, Gay literature, Winter Rain, Writing
Winter Rain is a story of kindness, of grief, of a person’s not being able to tell for certain what he or she is or what has happened, and yet it’s a story of a person’s need to go on. This is a book about people who live tough lives. Respect has to be paid. It is a...
by itabix | Aug 14, 2016 | Alcoholism, This website, Winter Rain, Writing
When he came up out of the ground, he hunched his shoulders and ran into the rain (it was all in his face) across the street to a bar. “A double.” He looked at his watch. He sat on the edge of the stool, more standing than sitting, took two quick sips, looked...
by itabix | Jul 29, 2016 | Assimilation, Celebration, Hillary Rodham Clinton, SCOTUS
That’s what she said. And so, my friends, it is with humility, determination, and boundless confidence in Ameria’s promise, that I accept your nomination for president of the United States. —Hillary Clinton, Acceptance Speech, the Democratic National...
by itabix | Jul 26, 2016 | Gay Pride, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Marriage, Queer, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Chris Hayes is said to have said, “Great political theatre,” just after Bernie Sanders proposed that the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton be accepted by the convention and just after the roll call of states was concluded. But it was much more than that. As Andrea...
by itabix | Jul 26, 2016 | Celebration, Fighting Back, Freeing yourself of it, Hillary Rodham Clinton, The future, Victory
I don’t know of anything so deeply moving as to be here, now, in front of the TV, at 5:46 in the afternoon on July 26, 2016, watching the roll call of states as the assembled delegates from the Democratic Party in the United States cast their votes, one state after...
by itabix | Jul 17, 2016 | Cemeteries, Coming to terms with the past, Gay literature, Provincetown, Race Point Light, Writing
When we’re in Provincetown, staying with our friend, Ed Stewart, we get into town by walking through the cemetery at Winslow Road and Jerome Smith Road, which holds mainly nineteenth century graves. Ed says it is “cemetery #2” because it is not the oldest one in town....
by itabix | Jul 10, 2016 | Coming to terms with the past, Marriage, Save the raw material, Stonewall Riots, The effects of bigotry, the South, Walking wounded
Elie Wiesel, who died this week, said in his Nobel Prize speech, “I have tried to keep memory alive […] I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” But it’s worse than that. If we forget what has happened to...
by itabix | Jun 26, 2016 | Assimilation, Barack Obama, Books, Celebration, Coming to terms with the past, Don't Tell Me to Wait, Fighting Back, Gay Pride, Stonewall National Monument, Victory
Monday, tomorrow, is the forty-seventh anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and today is the forty-sixth Gay Pride Parade in New York. Two-and-a-half million people watched last year’s parade, and organizers expect at least that many today. Click here for information...
by itabix | Jun 18, 2016 | Assimilation, Fighting Back, Marriage
#TwoMenKissing
by itabix | Jun 13, 2016 | Courage, Courage, Fighting Back, Orlando massacre, The future, Transgender, Walking wounded
It was one of those surpassingly beautiful scenes in late spring in New England—the sun gone now, the sky at dusk beyond the buildings still glowing white, and the people, residents of Boston, slowing down in crossing Copley Square and joining the group of men and...
by itabix | Jun 11, 2016 | AIDS, Celebration, Ceremonies, Charles Howard, Courage, Freedom, Gay literature, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots
Derek is an actor, in Maine for summer stock in the summer of 1984, when a young gay man named Bernie Mallett was murdered by three homophobic teenagers. Bernie’s murder changes the lives of LGBTQ people in Maine—the town is called Cardiff—and makes just about...
by itabix | Jun 10, 2016 | Assimilation, Barack Obama, Celebration, Coming out, Coming to terms with the past, Fighting Back, Freeing yourself of it, Queer, SCOTUS, Sexuality, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Elizabeth Warren. Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Presidency and, toward the end of her comments, spoke of Clinton’s character and what she has shown through the long primary fight. (counter 8:00) She won because she’s a...
