Florida Teens Giving Me A (Slight) Glimmer Of Hope

Articulate teenagers like Cameron Kasky are trying - and
might succeed - at doing bribed, stupid and dumb politicians
won't do: Create sensible gun laws that don't
violate the Second Amendment 

Teenagers across America, particularly in Florida, have been embarrassing the rest of us this past week, and I couldn't be more delighted that they're doing so.

As you sadly know too well, we had another mass shooting last week, taking the lives of 17 high school students and teachers in Florida.

As always in these cases, which now seem to happen every day, the people who are supposed to be the adults in the room, especially many politicians, fail us.

They're supposed to lead us, but instead offer empty thoughts and prayers, clutch their pearls over people with mental illness, and above all, quake in fear over angering the National Rifle Association.

The NRA has long since decided that their ability to provide - and make plenty of money - from making sure everybody has unfettered access to any kind of weapon is worth a few dozen people getting killed in mass shootings every year.

After the Parkland, Florida mass shooting, teenagers in Florida are having none of it. The dignified rage, the logic and the resolve of these kids are putting us all to shame.

Current politicians will continue to kowtow to the NRA and nothing will immediately change. The millions of dollars politicians get from the NRA will grease the wheels to Capital Hill, with a gentle additional push from timid voters. Want an AR-15 to shoot up a school, concert or church? Knock yourself out!

For now.

These kids not only those in Florida, but the ones that are now part of a groundswell nationwide, will soon be old enough to vote. They've taken an activist cue from older people who are resisting the Trump administration, the Nazis, the white supremacists that seem to be gaining strength in this country.

The resistance from high school students in particular gives me a glimmer of hope that these teenagers will change things.

Their anger is building. And their message is getting more powerful. There's lots of examples.

Parkland student Cameron Kasky, interviewed by CNN's Anderson Cooper, didn't mince words. Kasky did heap deserved praise on teachers, staff and first responders, but has no patience for the thoughts and prayers crowd.

"Everything I've heard where we can't do anything and it's out of our hands and it's inevitable, I think that's a façade that the GOP is putting up."

Kasky pressed on: "After every shooting, the NRA sends a memo saying 'send your thoughts and prayers.' This is the only country where this kind of thing happens. I've heard from other people, and they don't have gun drills. We had to prepare extensively at Stoneman Douglas. This something that can be stopped and will be stopped.

"There is a segment of this society that will shrug this off and send your thoughts and prayers but march for hours over a rainbow wedding cake."

That last line crystalizes the hypocrisy in the GOP more than anything. (By the way, the entire Kasky/Cooper interview is definitely worth the watch. 

As Wired notes, teenagers are more savvy at social media, and media in general, and know how to fight back against lies, gaslighting and self-puffery.  These students, amid the shock and terror of the attack, literally began to fight back against the NRA and their politician patsys as the rampage was ongoing.

David Hogg, a Parkland senior and reporter for the school's paper, interviewed students barricaded in a culinary classroom during the shooting. "No amount of money should make it more easy to get accessibility to guns," one frightened student told Hogg in that room.

Many of the students are wonderfully through with respecting some of their elders. But only the elders that are failing them.  The teens, gloriously, are not afraid to be blunt.

Professional idiot and, I guess, right wing pundit Tomi Lahren spewed the usual talking points, saying liberals and morons and the mentally whacked out are to blame for Parkland, not guns.

This prompted one student to respond on Twitter: "A gun has killed 17 of my fellow classmates. A gun has traumatized my friends. My entire school, traumatizes from this tragedy. This could have been prevented. Please stfu  tomi."

Yeah, Tomi, probably best to listen to that student. I would, if I were in your shoes.

Here's another Twitter post from a Parkland student named Sarah Chad:

"I don't want your condolences you fucking piece of shit, my friends and teachers were shot. Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead. Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won't fix this. But gun control will prevent it from happening again."

As if you need more, a teen at the school was quoted as follows:  “I’m not a Russian computer, so I can’t vote but will push elected officials on gun control."

High school students across the nation are planning a walkout from their classes sometimes in March to demand changes to gun laws. They all know that almost nobody wants to repeal the Second Amendment. Most of the students don't want that.

But every Constitutional right has its responsibilities as well. You can't just do whatever you want, including mass murder. These teenagers understand this, because it's common sense.

Too bad the NRA and their puppet politicians don't understand this. Or pretend not to. The activism of teenagers across the United States give me a glimmer of hope that this will one day change.

Annual Google Search Video Reflects An Exhausting 2017

This wonderful woman was among the many iconic people
featured in Google's annual searches of the year video.

At the end of each year Google releases a sort of year-in-review video of top news events and top search subjects during the prior 12 months.

This year's Google search video which is at the bottom of this post, is surprisingly emotional, at least to me.

I guess 2017 was even more trying than I thought, what with the constant political upheaval; endless string of disasters; scandals, sexual and otherwise; and more encouragingly, a sharp uptick in citizen activism.

It seems we had only the Great Eclipse of 2017 to distract us from all the messes we endured.

The year was surely reflected in some of our most frequent Google searches:

"How far do North Korean missiles go?" 
"How do wildfires start?"
"How to help flood victims"
"How to be a strong woman."
"How to make a protest sign."
"How to run for office."
"How to be fearless."

I think we all want to know the answer to that last Google search on the list you just read.

I like how toward the end of the video, Google tries to encourage to keep going, keep doing what's right, as other people in the video's closing half minute or so do.

I wish everyone a calm and happy 2018, and I hope we all find the best answer to the last and most poignant Google search question in the video you are about to see: "How to move forward."

A Letter To My Young Nieces In The Era Of Trump

My nieces Sydney and Alex are "nasty women"
in the best possible and young women like them
will get us through the Trump years, just you wait. 

This open letter is to my nieces Sydney and Alex, who are super sharp college age young women. This letter, from an old white man in Vermont who is thinking about Donald Trump, is also to all young women and girls.  

Dear Sydney and Alex: 

With the election of Donald Trump, you might not feel like this is a great time for a woman to rev up her young adult life.

Once again, old white men decided that a woman's place is not in the House, Senate or White House, but someplace subservient. Which of course is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Oh sure, there were many reasons Hillary Clinton was not elected president, but her being a woman was one of them, as we all surely know.

This time, the old, white men who had such an influence on selecting a president brought us one that really doesn't appreciate women, to say the least. The misogyny during the campaign was breathtaking.

Women are right to worry about what a Trump presidency will bring. Women are right to worry about the future. After all, the Powers That Be seem to want to go back to the days when women were truly considered second class citizens.

But you'd be wrong to give up in despair.

This is a setback, definitely.  But remember, Syd and Alex, you are "nasty women." You know what I mean. During one of the debates Trump snarled that Hillary Clinton is a "nasty woman." Women embraced that moniker as a badge of power, strength, purpose and morality. All of which made me cheer joyfully.

The nation remains full of young, nasty women, like you, and your numbers are growing.  This old white guy knows that what the nation needs more than anything is legions of nasty women.  The more the better.

Here's the dirty little secret: Old white men who voted for Trump are VERY afraid of nasty women.

Because women, particularly the "nasty"ones, are what will get us through this situation. Your uncle Jeff and I are a gay couple, part of one of the groups targeted as not worthy by some of the Trumpeters. Jeff and I and other LGBTQ people aren't necessarily the principal targets here, at least compared to Latinos, Muslims and African Americans, but we've nonetheless been put on notice.

Nasty women like you also know that love Trumps hate. Alex, I'm particularly happy you posted the following on Facebook:

"To Donald Trump, Mike Pence and their supporters.
I am a woman and I love you.
I support black lives matter and I love you.
I am a feminist and I love you
I am Christian and I love you."

What this tells me is all the nasty women like you, Alex and Syd, will be the ones that lead us out of the darkness in a purposeful, peaceful way.  I wish old white guys like Jeff and I would finally realize that it's always women who make things work when things go to hell.

You know, Rosie the Riveter in World War II. The labor organizer Mother Jones. The simple, honest grace and intelligence of Anne Frank and young Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai. The "when they go low, we go high" moral clarity of Michelle Obama. And so, so many others.

You will surely get down and depressed at times during the Trump era, but let me explain something else:

I don't normally lecture young women this way, but really, listen to your mother. She's a strong, assertive, smart woman who's trained you well to take on the world. She's a really nasty woman. Thank God.  And you're lucky to have a father who insists on letting you be you.

Everyone should be so lucky.

In her gracious concession speech, Clinton spoke to you, and girls much younger than you:

"Now, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling but someday, someone will - and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.

And to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams."

Hillary Clinton was wrong about some things, but she was so very spot on here. Clinton, like me and your Uncle Jeff, understand the world needs you and all the other nasty girls and women more than ever.

Pop star Katy Perry, a strong woman in her own right who backed Hillary Clinton, is correct when she tweeted after the election. "The revolution is coming," and "Rise up."

I can feel that revolution approaching in a thunderous roar from millions of wonderful, nasty women.

It's up to you, Syd and Alex, to be part of this coming revolution of young women who will finally change the world for the better. I know it will happen.

Your Uncle Jeff and I can't wait to see what you do.

Love, Uncle Matt.

Amazing Broadway Support For Orlando: "What The World Needs Now Is Love"

An awesome collection of Broadway luminaries has
just released a benefit song for Orlando shooting victims
and LGBT advocacy in Orlando.

My husband Jeff told me last night I should find out about "Broadway For Orlando," and effort to help the LGBT community after the Orlando shooting.

Great suggestion, Chief! (I call my husband Chief.)

Broadway for Orlando is something absolutely wonderful.

About 60 Broadway luminaries gathered in a recording studio on June 15 - just three days after the Orlando shooting - to record the Burt Bacharach and Hal David classic "What The World Needs Now Is Love."

Watch the stirring video of it at the bottom of this post. If their performance of this song doesn't move you at least a little, nothing will

Among the broadway luminaries taking part were Lin-Manuel Miranda (from "Hamilton); Kristen Bell, Gloria Estefa, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Idina Mezel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rosie Perez, Sara Bareilles, Wayne Brody, Rosie O'Donnell, Bernadette Peters, Carole King, Chita Rivera, Tommy Tune and Matthew Broderick.

Broadway for Orlando could not have chosen a better song for this effort, with the lyrics:

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone."

As a gay man, I'm thrilled to live in a changed world in which most people accept us for who we are, that I was able to marry the love of my life, even though he's the same gender as me. Things are much better than they were even a decade ago, never mind 30, 40, 50 years ago.

My favorite aunt was Aunt Irene. She was smart and funny and cool, always tooling around in her Ford Mustangs.

Aunt Irene also drank herself to death. I know now she was a lesbian, and back in the day -1950s, 1960, 1970s -  there was no way she could be who she was.

I have no proof of this, but I'm convinced the fact she couldn't openly live her life killed her.  Hate, intolerance and ignorance is a terribly efficient killer.

Years later, people bravely started coming out as gay, and when most reasonable people discovered they knew gay people and those people were just fine, the anti-gay balloon began deflating

This paved the way for people like me. I don't have to be alone and hidden like Aunt Irene. I'm proud of my husband, and who I am. Jeff and I have built a sweet life together. You know, love, sweet love, as the song goes.

But the love, as Broadway for Orlando tells us, it is not just for some, but for everyone. Or should be anyway.

Broadway stars record "What The World Needs Now
Is Love" to benefit the Orlando LGBT community. 

I know there's a lot of people like Aunt Irene. I mean still, to this day.

Anti-gay bigotry killed those 49 people in Orlando's Pulse nightclub. It also kills people quietly.

It's the so called Christian parents or churches or relatives who find out a kid is gay and rejects him or her.

The Trevor Project, an advocacy group for gay youth, tells us suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 24, and LGBT are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers.

Gay kids who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to attempt suicide as their gay peers who report no or low levels of family rejection, says the Trevor Project. 

Then we have the small but odious band of people in the U.S. who call themselves Christian and regularly try to beat the gay community down.

There's so-called Pastor Steven Anderson, who celebrated the deaths of the 49 people in Orlando shorting after the massacre.

There's also alleged Pastor Roger Jimenez, who wished the 53 people injured in the shooting at that gay nightclub would just die already because most of them were gay. (The owner of the building that leases space to Jimenez's "church" is so upset with the comments that they're kicking him and his church out.)

These are extreme examples, of course. But this kind of rhetoric is dangerous. Most people wouldn't act on these bigoted speeches, but a few wackos could.

I feel relatively safe being who I am, but not completely safe. I know there are hateful bigots that want me dead. Or to at least go away.

The hatred that still lingers. Statistics are iffy, but between 20 and 30 people are murdered in anti-LGBT violence annually. Most victims are people of color.

So yes, Broadway for Orlando is exactly right. What the world needs now is love, sweet love for everyone.

I'm also grateful Broadway for Orlando is continuing to publicize and push this so hard to raise money for The Center in Orlando. I noticed the Broadway luminaries got together again to perform "What the World Needs Now Is Love" on the Maya and Marty show on NBC last night. 

Sirius XM Rado host Seth Rudetsky and his husband, producer James Wesley decided on Monday, June 13 to organize the benefit single, People magazine reports. By Wednesday, the recording was done.

"We started making calls, and suddenly we had tons of theater actors along with an orchestra and the services of a fully-staffed recording studio, all willing to donate their time and talent......
Our community of artists has banded together as we always to to show we can end this cycle of violence and intolerance. Love will prevail," Rudetsky said.

You can go to BroadwayRecords.com or iTunes to download Broadway for Orlando's "What the World Needs Now Is Love," for $1.99.

Even more importantly, when you see hate or hear hate speeech against the LGBT community or anyway, counteract it. Do something loving. Tell the haters why they're wrong. You might not change their minds, but you'll  put them on notice.

Here's the spectacular video of Broadway for Orlando's "What the World Needs Now Is Love"

Michigan City, State Officials Thought Giving Children Lead Poisoning Is OK If It Saves Money

The nation's worst scandal, lead poisoning due
to Michigan government ineptitude or worse,
is not getting enough attention

UPDATE:

Under mounting pressure MIchigan Gov. Rick Snyder requested the Obama administration declare a federal state of emergency in Flint over the poisoned water crisis.

Obama quickly made that declaration Saturday.

Of course, it was the Snyder administration's actions that ultimately led to the mass lead poisoning of Flint's children because of the bad water, as Snyder and his minions were trying to save money.

Of course, "saving money" led to this tragic and expensive disaster.

The emergency declaration will free up $5 million to federal aid, which would go toward trucking clean water into town and distributing water filters in the hopes that will help.

Obama was forced to deny Snyder's request for a disaster declaration which would have freed up more money to rescue Flint from its bad water.

However, disaster declarations can only be made if there was a natural disaster. This was man made. Flint would have been better off, in one sense, had a big tornado trashed the city. Instead, conservative politics trashed the city, with Ma Nature havng nothing to do with it

I'm all for Obama's decision to declare a federal emergency in Flint, The people there need all the help they can get. But as a taxpayer, I resent the politicians who, in trying to demonstrate how "fiscally conservative " there are, ended up costing taxpayers like me and you all this money to help Fiint.

Meanwhile, Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders said Snyder should resign from his position as governor because of the Flint Water Crisis.

Said Sanders in a statement: "There are no excuses. The governor long ago knew about the lead in Flint's water. He did nothing. As a result, hundreds of children were poisoned. Thousands may have been exposed to potential brain damage from lead. Gov. Snyder should resign."

The nationwide anger at Snyder is really - finally - building now. This has become a national story, and the pressure on the Snyder administration is intensifying, which is great.

Saturday, when Sanders first Tweeted his desire for Snyder to resign, I retweeted and responded. "...or face criminal charges."

I don't think I've ever gotten so many retweets and likes from any comment I've ever made on Twitter.  This is out of about 17,500 Tweets I've posted since June, 2011.

I do think there will be a lot of investigations into Snyder and the managers he appointed to ruin run Flint.

I hope justice is served, and if there was indeed criminal wrongdoing by Snyder or anyone in his administration, they go to jail for a long, long time.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION FROM JAN. 7:

There's been an unfolding scandal in Flint, Michigan that I can't believe hasn't gotten more attention than it has.

An unknown number of children have suffered lead poisoning due to apparent incompetence and a potentional cover up by the ironically named Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

This bad acting might go up all the way to the Michigan Governor's office.

Luckily, the media - and the nation - are finally paying more and more attention to this crisis and scandal, but still not enough is being done.

They were involved in what was to be a money saving move to stop buying expensive drinking water from Detroit and take the water from the Flint River instead.

The only problem is the Flint River is wicked polluted and those pollutants are corrosive. So the corrosive water wore down lead pipes in the Flint water system, and people were drinking water heavily laced with lead for months.

The basic questions are: Did politicians know that kids and families in Flint, Michigan were being poisoned by high levels of lead in drinking water? And did they do nothing because it would have cost money to fix the problem? And would spending money ruin their conservative bonafides? And were those conservative bonafides more important than the health of Flint's children?

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder finally apologized for the fiasco over the New Year's holiday, but was he culpable in this, too?

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into this, and Dan Wyant, the head of the Michigan Department of Environment Quality (MDEQ) has resigned. The federal Environmental Protetion agency is also investigating.

The MDEQ continuously denied there was a problem for most of 2015 even as evidence mounted that there was a dangerous problem with Flint's drinking water.

None of this would have come to light had it not been for some dogged heroes. One was the Flint Journal and its parent media company, MLive, which pursued the story relentlessly. (Pulitzer Prize for them?)

MLive has a handy dandy chart that cuts through the complexity of this thing and gives you a flow chart of who were the good guys and who were the bad guys here.

There were major heroes to this story as well.  Michigan Public Radio kept at this, too.

A huge assist came from ACLU of Michigan, which kept hammering away to get documents proving the problem. Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards got involved and proved there was indeed a crisis with lead and contaminated water.

Other hereoes include Erin Brockovich, who used her fame to try to broadcast the problem to a larger audience. There were Flint residents like Melissa Mays who would talk about this to anyone who would listen.

Unfortunately, there were also a large number of villians here that covered up the problem as long as they could.

From 2011 to April, 2015, Flint city government was under the control of an emergency manager appointed by Snyder, rather than local government. This was because Flint's city budget had ballooned to $19 million.

No matter what the reason for the budget deficit - local incompetence, circumstances beyond anyone's control or a combination - the emergency managers were pretty undemocratic.

The managers reported directly to the governor, and not the people of Flint. The voters of Flint basically couldn't hold anybody accountable for their actions, since the mayor and city council were essentially just there for window dressing.

That lack of accountability helped lead to the debacle, many observers believe, since Flint residents had little ability to demand change or create change in leadership through the ballot box.

Potential villians, then, in this case include Snyder, who only belated came on board to say Flint's water was dangerous. There's Darnell Early, who advocated to switch the water source to the Flint River. He also says it's the Flint City Council's fault, but there's no record of that council deciding to take water fron the Flint River.

Then there's the guy who just resigned from his directorship at MDEQ, who kept saying for months Flint's water was safe, even as evidence mounted that it wasn't. The MDEQ spokesman, Bradley Wurfel, who also recently resigned, kept attacking the credibility of Edwards and his fellow Virginia Tech researchers, even though it turns out they were exactly right.

Were these potential villians just in denial, sticking to their original proposals because they made them and they "had" to be right?  Or was this an attempt at a coverup, trying to prevent word from getting out that the water was unsafe?  Preventing, that is, until they could come up with a Plan B, or figure out a way to shift blame to somebody else?

In any event, documents uncovered showed indications of high levels of lead in the drinking water by July. Yet, this information was suppressed until at least September, and people kept drinking the dangerous water.  Officials tried to poo-poo the situation as a harmless "seasonal change" whatever that is.

Was this situation a "missed opportunity" to release information as one state official said, or was it a coverup?

"Everyting they looked at, they found a problem, and they never told anyone," Edwards said of the MDEQ, according to MLive.

It's certainly not over for soe of Michigan's leaders who might be culpable in this fiasco.

Even celebrities have gotten involved. Filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore is asking U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate Gov. Snyder. 

Cher actually Tweeted that Gov. Snyder should be executed over this, which definitely seems a little over the top.

What's way, WAY more over the top is how elected leaders could know something is wrong with the water, that children were being permanently damaged by lead and possibly other contaminants in the drinking water, and still drag their heels.

Again,  it smells like elected officials, including Snyder, might have made their political futures with a fiscal conservative brand more important than the children of Flint, Michigan.

Snyder is refusing to say what he knew and when he knew it in regards to Flint's water, says NBC News. 

If this isn't a scandal of immense proportions, I don't know what is.

Let's hope the Justice Department investigation actually gets some answers, and here's hoping that MLive, Michigan Public Radio and other media outlets- local, national and international - keep the pressure on to get completely to the bottom of this.

Even worse than all this, Flint's water is still dangerous and nobody is really doing anything about it.

True, they're not taking water from the Flint River. They've switched back to Detroit. But the corrosion in the pipes from the previous Flint River water is still very likely leaching lead into the drinking water supply.

You'd think with an emergency declared, you'd get something like big National Guard tankers full of water in Flint to distribute clean water, Red Cross and other big volunteer groups helping, and people going door to door making sure people were drinking safe water.

But, nope. Flint is full of people who are in and near poverty. The economy has been very rough on Flint. In this nation's political world, poor people don't matter, so the residents of Flint, and their children, are still drinking dangerous water that is injuring them.

It's not like they can afford to drive to a suburban Big Box store and buy cases of bottled water. They have no cars and no money to do this.

I guess Snyder's administration's message to Flint is go screw yourselves.

How Hiding Spoons In Underwear Is Combating Exploitation Of Young Women. (Really!!)

The idea at first glance sounds frivolous and silly:  An organization dedicated to fighting the exploitation of women is suggesting young women and girls are who are being packed off into forced marriages hide spoons in their underwear.

Could this common dinnertime object
save women from exploitive forced marriages?  

You can't imagine how that would help until you dig deeper into the reasoning behind it.

Often, families in countries like Britain send their young female family members off to overseas forced marriages that might be financially lucrative for the family but devastate the lives of the young women.

The spoons hidden in the underwear set off the airport security alarms. The young women with the spoons are then invariably led, alone except for security personnel,  into a back room for a more detailed search for explosives or whatnot.

Away from their family members, the young women can then tell the security agents they need help to prevent them from being packed off to a forced marriage somewhere.  That's how they save themselves.

The spoon idea is the brainchild of a charitable group called Karma Nirvana, which says summer is the high season for shipping young brides to other countries for forced marriages. The kids are out of school, and less likely to be missed if they disappear from sight abrutptly.

I think the spoon idea is genius because it's an innovative way to help young women and it's so crazy sounding that it's bound to generate publicity. Which could only help expand Karma Nirvana's donor base.

More proof that activism and marketing don't have to be mutually exclusive