Some parts of this piece have been percolating for a bit. There are a lot of things here that are just always gnawing at the back of my mind, waiting for the right story to come together for me to share. In fact, I even thought about writing it last week, but the truth is,…
Tag: Racism
World AIDS Day: A Tale of Two Pandemics
In the time of AIDS, when condom use was necessary… I am quoting John Ginoli, the founder of Pansy Division, the first openly gay punk band. Someone who had been at the forefront of the queercore movement in the 90s. It was on an episode of the podcast Out in the Bay that I listened…
Lizzo Twerked with Madison’s Flute (Caturday)
We actually learned a lot this week. Those of us who didn’t know, found out that Lizzo is actually an excellent flute player. She doesn’t just do it as a gimmick. I’m reminded of the times David Byrne sang an operatic aria or two at his concerts and did just an ear-blisteringly awful job. We…
Banned Books Week 2022
It’s Banned Books Week again. I wish I could just tell a nice story about how valuable some books that might be controversial were to me when I was growing up. Or even a nice piece about how hard it can be to let go when you’re a parent, to trust your kids and give…
The Nazis are Getting Worse
The Sound of Music was my introduction to Nazis. I can remember watching that scene as a small child, and feeling frightened. I can remember asking about what the flag meant and my mother explaining it. Even without seeing the clip I can recall how chilling the anger is in the scene. The only thing…
Language Pet-Peeves
This won’t be one of my more structured pieces. Let’s call it language pet peeves, but instead of my language pet-peeves, it’ll be YOUR pet-peeves that I, in turn, am peeved by. If you need a minute to reread that sentence, I’ll wait. Let’s dive into it, because there are some fun ones. Peeve the…
Writer’s Notebook
Defeating Writer’s Block by Writing about it I’d been thinking a lot about what I wanted to write for today. I’d made a few attempts at things to write, but as I’ve faced many times in the last few months, and written about a few times, I’ve had trouble coming up with ideas. And trouble…
Banned Books Redux?
New Book Bannings A couple of months ago, during Banned Books Week, I wrote that banning books is really about protecting fragile adults, not children. Since then, it seems like there’s been an explosion of efforts to restrict access to books, especially books about queer topics. My own school district in Florida has dealt with…
What it Means to Ban a Book
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” The only book my parents ever took away from me was Catcher in the Rye. There are a lot of reasons someone might want to take that book away from a child. But none of those were the reasons my parents confiscated it from me. My…
Antivax Racists are Trying to Repurpose the Yellow Star of David
By Erika Grumet When I was a kid, I would occasionally encounter people with numbers tattooed on their arms. I don’t remember a time when Nazis and what they had done to Jews (and by extension, my own family) weren’t a part of my consciousness. I heard the stories first hand from the survivors, in…