http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYWngP7RkJ0

A spontaneous yet somewhat organized protest against the passage of Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage initiative, funded primarily by Mormons and the Catholic Church. Want to be in politics? Fine. Give up your tax-exempt status.

Some clips I shot last Saturday at the Prop 8 protest Nov. 7.



A couple explains their predicament:


Author Simon Sheppard weighs in:


A MUNI worker gives us his honk of approval. (Apologies to all commuters.)


Hunks for Equality! "Out of the bars and into the streets!" A classic, but it didn't work so well in the Castro, where the march ended.


Still, it unleashed a new generation of activists, who, with all their new gadgets, seem to have their collective act together. I'd estimte 50,000 participants statewide.

Of course that's not more than the alleged 500,000 that tipped the scale, temporarily, against us. But there's a reason I wore my mighty Mouse T-shirt that night. The meek shall inherit the earth, by any means necessary.

Sunday's protest at the Oakland Mormon church made headlines and TV news stories. The next local Prop 8 protest will be Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 a.m. at City Hall, and in simultaneously in nearly every state of the U.S. Rightwing Christians, Mormons and others are poised to restrict our rights nationwide. See the locations for nationwide protests at www.jointheimpact.com

I recommend more shirtlessness in protests. in groups of five, each with N O o n 8 painted on their chests like football fans.

Seriously, religious groups breaking the law by pushing legislative agendas need to be taken to task. Activists and bloggers and have already formed a donor list of Yes on 8 businesses for your boycotting pleasure. Many are pushing for the revocation of the Mormon Church's tax-exempt status.

Sign up with 150,000 others at www.mormonsstoleourrights.com

Find out about more local protests at http://protest8sf.wordpress.com

So, last Pride I bumped into Tommi Avicolli Mecca, activist and writer of note, and he mentioned an anthology. so I popped off what I thought a rather appropros piece I'd written years ago.

The thing about submitting to anthologies is, they're like dropping a baby off at a church. You don't hear back for a long time, and by then, it doesn't even seem like it's yours. I forget I even submitted to them.

But this one's been popped out pretty quickly; only a few months. And it's pretty good; Avanti Popolo: Italian-American Writers Sail Beyond Columbus, a poetry and short essay anthology put out by Manic D Press. It's edited by James Tracy.

I'll be reading a short short story, "Papers," about an imagined exodus due to political extremes. I wrote it at the time of the impending Bush regime, but it still holds some relevance, should the dark forces of vitriol from the GOP do any damage this season.

Anyway, it should be a fun event with half a dozen writers and a good crowd. Enjoy North Beach.

Monday, October 13, 2008, 7 pm
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus, San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 362-8193

Always make you think these two are just a tad precocious!



riffing on the "bad Disney movie" theme envisioned so clearly by Matt Damon...

A round-up of McCain-Palin lies

1) Sarah Palin said, "thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere." In fact, she was in favor of the bridge until Congress effectively killed the bill, but then kept the $200 million and built, instead, a road to nowhere.

2) Palin was an effective mayor who managed the city well. In fact, she hired a city manager to run the city, left the city of 7,000 people $22 million in debt, and was nearly recalled for trying to fire the librarian and chief of police for political reasons.

3) The rally in Virginia drew a crowd of 24,000 people. In fact, it was about 8,000.

4) Sarah Palin, in her first trip out of North America, visited Iraq on a "life-changing trip." In fact, she visited the Kuwait-Iraq border, but never entered Iraq. Also, although the campaign said she'd visited Ireland, it was only a refueling stop.

5) Barack Obama supported a bill in Illinois that taught sex ed to kindergartners. In fact, it was a program to help children recognize "good" touches from "bad" touches in an effort to help stop pedophiles.

6) Obama will raise taxes on the middle class. In fact, Obama will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year.

7) Sarah Palin has fought against earmark spending in Alaska. In fact, she applied for $256 million in federal earmarks, and received $346 million dollars. This is, per capita, ten times the national average, and in spite of the fact that because of Alaska's oil rich economy, Alaskans were each given a $1,200 energy rebate check - money that WE paid to THEM with OUR soaring energy costs.




--

In other sad news, David Foster Wallace died.

More gristle with which to tame the self-proclaimed "lipsticked pit bull" and her senile master. Copy/paste relentlessly:


By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

On www.cyclizen.com, check out a few fun pics from SF's LGBT Pride, with Mikes on Bikes, drag queens and entertainers. A great day, if not a bit foggy.

Here's your last opportunity to be in the 'Milk' movie directed by Gus Van Sant.



March 9, all day, they'll be recreating the 1978 Gay Freedom Day march/parade. This was before Harvey Milk was assassinated, and a very festive occasion, so they'll need a lot of people. Sign up at www.milkmarch.com

But before you think of getting dressed up in some wild stereotype of '70s drag, check out these videos of the real 1978 march. Folks were rather ordinary-looking, for the most part. Lots of jeans and t-shirts, of course. Still, sweet and historic; a few festive drag queens and hunks.



The videos were uploaded by Don Frazell, who's been converting old films for the GLBT Historical Society. They've got an amazing collection. In this one, you can briefly see Harvey Milk.



See more historic gay footage going back to the 1940s (!!), including Sylvester performing, a few riots, personal home movies, and lots of other fascinating stuff, HERE.

The last time I was an extra in the Milk film, it was near my home, but late, somber, and it was for the historic first candlelight march.

This time will be all day, sunny (I predict) and a lot more fun.

From the NY Times:

As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope. In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices "flip" from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburg, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayoral candidate in 2006 — even though he's pretty sure he voted for himself.) Most famously, in the November 2006 Congressional election in Sarasota, Fla., touch-screen machines recorded an 18,000-person "undervote" for a race decided by fewer than 400 votes.

The earliest critiques of digital voting booths came from the fringe — disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks — but the fears have now risen to the highest levels of government. One by one, states are renouncing the use of touch-screen voting machines. California and Florida decided to get rid of their electronic voting machines last spring, and last month, Colorado decertified about half of its touch-screen devices. Also last month, Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, released a report in the wake of the Cuyahoga crashes arguing that touch-screens "may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process." She was so worried she is now forcing Cuyahoga to scrap its touch-screen machines and go back to paper-based voting — before the Ohio primary, scheduled for March 4. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat of Florida, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, have even sponsored a bill that would ban the use of touch-screen machines across the country by 2012.

Here's to a new year and new hopes and dreams coming true. Here's to ousting corrupt politicians, and electing new ones.

I'm off to an afternoon NYE party, then later to a private party a friend of a friend throws every year at his Napa ranch. Despite all the local events I listed in the BAR, I'm not going to a single one, although some of them sound like fun. Enjoy yourself tonight, and in the new year.

For more stuff, visit the real blog, www.cyclizen.com.

And buy my books!!

So, it's my 46th birthday. Argh. No big deal. I'm taking a few minutes to sluff off at work (the paper's out, so it's our "slow" day).

I shuffled a bunch of the hot sexy dudes among my friends; to warm me up, cuz it's cold an rainy here in SF (ah, winter in the west coast), and well, it's my birthday and I can.

Of course, I didn't get my wish -Christopher Meloni naked in my bed; wait, make that clothed for me to unwrap - but hey, i have so many other nice things to be thankful for.

Now be careful when befriending and flirting. They are not all gay or single. But ain't they purty?