Beach Dawg

Bradley loves the beach. It won't be long now before he and I make our way back to Fire Island and open the summer cottage.

The 1979 Gay Rights March on Washington

Photo: Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky at the 1979 Gay MOW. I took this picture at the 1979 MOW. More of my photographs and personal memorabilia from the march will be on display in Philadelphia in April at the William Way Gay and Lesbian Community Center as a part of the Philadelphia Gay Pop-Up Museum exhibit.

Dan Gives Another Excellent Tour

This morning Dan lead a tour for about 25 men from the William Way Center Gay Men's Senior's Group at the Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts. Many participants commented on Dan's extensive knowledge and all seemed to enjoy the tour.

David (Davy) Jones Last Performance The Monkees Live DayDream Believer J...

Brings a tear or more to my eyes...

Fight For Education Day Rally

Students from Temple, Penn and other colleges rally outside PA. Governor Corbett's office and at the Philadelphia School Board to demand no cuts to education on Thursday, March 1, 2012.

CCP Students Support Faculty Demand For A Fair Contract

Community College of Philadelphia faculty display over 1,500 postcards signed by students in support of the faculty - rally for a fair contract Thursday, March 1, 2012.

Community College Of Phila. Faculty Rally

CCP Faculty rally on Thursday March 1...they are trying to get a fair contract in an age of austerity for everyone, but the rich.

Santorum's War On Sex

Charles M. Blow in the New York Times:

James Madison, “Father of the Constitution” and fourth president of the United States, wrote in 1822 that: “Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” Santorum’s stances are not about our Constitution, but his. He views personal freedoms as a personal affront. His thinking exists in a pre-1960s era of aspirin-between-the-knees contraception and read-between-the-lines sexuality. The kind of conservatism that Santorum represents has been described as a war on women, but I would rephrase that. It’s a war on sex beyond the confines of traditional marriage and strict heterosexuality in which women, particularly poor ones, and gays, particularly open ones, are likely to suffer the greatest casualties.

Interesting Emma Goldman Info

Photo: Occupy Philadelphia Encampment At Dilworth Plaza From the Wiki entry...an interesting read indeed:

...she viewed the state as essentially and inevitably a tool of control and domination. As a result, Goldman believed that voting was useless at best and dangerous at worst. Voting, she wrote, provided an illusion of participation while masking the true structures of decision-making. Instead, Goldman advocated targeted resistance in the form of strikes, protests, and "direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code".

Hummm...makes me feel less guilty about not voting given the terrible "choices" we are usually presented with... and...

Goldman was also an outspoken critic of prejudice against homosexuals. Her belief that social liberation should extend to gay men and lesbians was virtually unheard of at the time, even among anarchists. As Magnus Hirschfeld wrote, "she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public." In numerous speeches and letters, she defended the right of gay men and lesbians to love as they pleased and condemned the fear and stigma associated with homosexuality. As Goldman wrote in a letter to Hirschfeld, "It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life."

Making Demands On Politicians

Photo: Occupy Philadelphia on the march with a police escort. The American political system is broken. Money has corrupted it and made it impossible for candidates of principle to have any chance of running for, much less winning significant elections, such as for senator or president. Voting is an exercise in futility. Nevertheless, for some of us it's still worth fighting the battle to restore democracy and end the plutocracy that the US has become. We feel that this is the only real way to fight for the underpriviledged and the forgotten, even if our tactics often result in the unwanted attention of the police. Part of the battle is calling on those in power to do the right thing, even if it's unlikely that they will. For example, there is no reason why our current president can't support marriage equality, other than his own cynical political calculations. But he won't ever, unfortunately, unless people pressure him to do the right thing.