End of Trans Military Ban, July 1st, 2016.

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The Pentagon — the largest U.S. employer of transgender people — will announce the end of its ban on trans troops July 1, USA Today is reporting.

Transgender activists have long fought for the lifting of the ban, as many trans people — an estimated 15,500 — are already serving in the military. Most have not been open about their status, as they could face discharge. A few have come out and remained in the service, however.

“Top personnel officials plan to meet as early as Monday to finalize details of the plan, and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work could sign off on it by Wednesday,” USA Today reports. Defense Secretary Ash Carter would have to give final approval.

Finishing the work involved with lifting the ban will still take another year. Each branch of the military will have a year “to implement new policies affecting recruiting, housing and uniforms for transgender troops,” according to the paper.

The Advocate has the full story, and video. All I can say is it’s about godsdamn time.

The Pulpit Stomp, O Those Filthy Sodomites!

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

After the June 12 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Anderson posted a video in which he said there are “50 less pedophiles” in the world. Forty-nine people were killed in the mass shooting at the gay nightclub.

Anderson has been reaping the consequences of his words, and he is not happy about it.

“It’s war. You know what the filthy sodomites have done toward our church and us, and our friends and our fellow pastors that actually have the guts to say what needs to be said? Here’s what they’ve done in the last few weeks,” he told his congregation. “They got our PayPal account shut down so that we can’t take anymore online donations. We set up with another company, GivLet, they got that shut down. Qgiv, they got that shut down. BitPay, they got that shut down. They shut down our iTunes podcast. They shut down Brother Jimenez’s PayPal account. They shut down Brother Romero’s PayPal account… The landlord of Pastor Jimenez is saying, ‘hey we’re not going to renew your lease.’”

[…]

Anderson was clearly angry that these words have come back to haunt them.

“I mean these people are dedicated,” he said, about LGBT rights activists. “These people are researching, they’re finding out where we bank, they’re finding out who we do business with. They’re trying to get us shut down on all fronts, and you know what, let me tell you something, I’m sick of it.”

He then jumped up on his podium and started pointing at the audience.

“And you know what, if you’re not gonna back us up then get out of here, we don’t need your help,” he said, before launching into an invective-filled rant calling LGBT people “dogs.”

I guess that whole “reaping the whirlwind” business isn’t okay if it’s aimed at them. Full Story Here.

Battle at the Greasy Grass.

Indians charge Custer’s cavalry. (Courtesy National Anthropological Archives/Smithsonian Institution)

Indians charge Custer’s cavalry. (Courtesy National Anthropological Archives/Smithsonian Institution)

140 years ago, on June 25th, 1876, the Battle at the Greasy Grass was fought. Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were camped at the Greasy Grass along side the Little Bighorn River. What was one of the few victories of Indians against the colonial military is historically described as a tragedy, the horrific slaughter of a noble man and great military leader. Poor Custer. Certainly, at the time, the battle at the Greasy Grass was depicted as a tragedy to be avenged, those animals (Indians) needing to be put down, and we were. It wasn’t long after Greasy Grass that much more effective arms were granted to the military, repeating rifles rather than single shot, etc. Crazy Horse was killed in captivity by soldiers. That was followed by the Massacre of Wounded Knee. The U.S. has held a grudge over the Greasy Grass for all these years. Everywhere, there are monuments littered of those who slaughtered countless Indians, including Custer, but there are no monuments to the valiant fighters of the Greasy Grass, of those who saved and protected so many lives, as there were six to eight thousand Indians gathered at the Greasy Grass.

Ruth Hopkins has an article at Last Real Indians, Fighting with Spirit, How Greasy Grass Was Won.

ICTMN has an article, The Battle of the Greasy Grass 140 Years Later: The Complete Story in 18 Drawings.

The Lakota Times (subscription only) notes that “The Battle of Greasy Grass/The Battle of Little Bighorn”will begin at 2 p.m. on June 25th. Admission for Learning Forums is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $9 for students, & half off for members (includes museum admission). The Journey Museum is located in Rapid City at 222 New York St, 2 blocks east of the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center right across from the Club for Boys.

A 2010 article from Smithsonian Magazine highlights the Battle at the Greasy Grass from the point of view of the victors, a rare case when the victors are Indians.

Happy Victory Day.

Jim Boyd has walked on.

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Jim Boyd, musician and Colville tribal chairman has walked on. Jim was well known for his music as a member of the bands XIT, Greywolf and Winterhawk, and for four songs in the iconic Indian Country classic movie Smoke Signals. Jim Boyd was also instrumental in the recent historic canoe journey and intertribal gathering, which has brought profound joy to so many people. Also instrumental in that effort was Virgil Seymour, who also walked on recently, another great loss to the Colville people.

Jim has walked on, but I will look to the stars, listen to his voice, and whisper thank you.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fFWrfI1YLU

Native Music Icon and Colville Chairman Jim Boyd Walks On.  Jim Boyd’s Passing the Second of Two Devastating Losses for Colvilles.  ‘There are No Words’: Reviving Canoe Culture on the Upper Columbia River.

Pride Pasta

I chose fettuccine noodles for this recipe, rather than other forms of pasta. You’ll see at the end that they remind me of ribbons and show a bit more color than a spaghetti or linguine version, being wider and having more surface area. I also tried different sauces for the rainbow-colored pasta, and the trick is to use a clear sauce or dressing, because anything white or opaque, like alfredo sauce, ended up taking on some of the color that eventually migrates from the noodles. Also, choosing a chunky mozzarella cheese with black olives was deliberate, to help show a sharp contrast and make the noodles “pop” more; other cheeses would have dulled the appearance of the whole presentation and too many add-ins could also detract and change the color composition. I would, though, recommend slicing the olives because leaving them whole as I did here was mostly a pain in the neck when it came time to actually eat the dish with a fork…they looked good whole, but rolled around and avoided the fork in that form.

When testing the storage and transport of this dish, I’d recommend eating it within four hours of tossing it together. If you’re taking it to a potluck, cook and color the noodles at home but try to compose the salad on site. But, if you need to transport it composed, it should be fine and not mix too many of the colors when the noodles move and get jostled. I threw one set of noodles with dressing, olives, and cheese into a resealable bag and took it to my cabin with me. All of that movement didn’t change the presentation too much that first day, but on the second day a few of the colors were transferring between the different noodles and the white of the mozzarella chunks were graffiti-ed with stripes of color that made them look like confetti. So, while the recipe will last for days in the refrigerator and still taste good and look colorful, I’d recommend consuming it the same day you throw it all together. Carb-load for all of those Pride activities and have a wonderful time celebrating this community.

Pride Pasta
Ingredients:
1 package fettuccine noodles
salt for water
liquid food coloring
1 cup Italian dressing (add more to taste)
mozzarella cheese (cut into chunks)
black olives (sliced is preferable)

6 quart-sized resealable bags
2 tablespoons water
paper towels

Instructions:
Bring a pot of water to a full boil. Add salt and fettuccine to water and stir, fettuccine tries to stick together. Do not add olive oil to the water if you normally might, because the oil will affect the coloring process later on. Allow the noodles to cook anywhere from 7 minutes (as recommended on the package) to 16 minutes (which is my preference). Drain and run cold water on the noodles to cool and rinse away some of the starch.

Add 2 tablespoons of water to each of the six quart-sized resealable bags. Then, add the following for the six colors of the Pride flag:
Red: 20 drops coloring
Orange: 15 drops yellow coloring, 5 drops red coloring
Yellow: 20 drops yellow coloring
Green: 20 drops green coloring
Blue: 20 drops blue coloring
Purple: 15 drops red coloring, 5 drops blue coloring

Split the pasta into 6 sections and put a section of pasta into each bag, being sure to seal it securely. Then, mix the coloring and noodles together for a minute before setting each bag aside for 5 minutes or so.

Section by section, give each bag one last mix before dumping the pasta into a strainer in the sink. Run water on the pasta to rinse the color away, feel free to really agitate it with your hands…the fettuccine is pretty sturdy.

Remove pasta from the strainer and onto a paper towel. Blot with another paper towel to try to remove as much liquid as possible. If there’s still a lot of color bleeding off of it, put it back into the strainer to rinse longer.

Repeat with each color of pasta, being sure to rinse the strainer completely between colors.

For assembly, feel free to leave the noodles in their colored sections or mix them up as I did in the video. Either way, they’re playful and brilliant. Add things to the pasta, but in the case of all these colors, remember that less is more. Enjoy. And Happy Pride, friends.

This looks a bit scary to me, but fun! I think I’d prefer Pride Pancakes, well, because pancakes. Via Lavender Magazine and Tablespoon.

The Case for Queer Superboy.

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…One of the (many) consequences of the CCA and Wertham’s ideology is the reenforcement that queer characters are somehow “adult” and “inappropriate” by default. “What about the children?!” bigoted pearl-clutchers ask.

Yes, what about the children — namely, the queer ones? Do they not deserve the representation — something curative in the face of adversity — that their straight and cis peers get every day on TV, film, and comics?

A great many (though not all) LGBTQ people realize that they’re queer at a young age. Maybe it’s through childhood crushes on fictional characters or an intrinsic knowing that they’re not the gender they’ve been assigned. Many who discover their identities later in life wish they had the language and representation to understand themselves at an earlier age.

Media needs more representation of young LGBTQ kids — Lumberjanes and Steven Universe and Boy in Pink Earmuffs can’t carry that burden alone. That’s why I argue that Jonathan Samuel Kent, current Superboy and ten-year-old child to Lois Lane and Clark Kent, should be queer.

The full article is at Comics Alliance. There’s also The Case For Gay Miles Morales.

Rainbow Love.

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The outpouring of love, solidarity, and shared grief over Orlando continues. I still can’t see images such as the one above without crying, but there is one that made me smile – the NYPD Rainbow Cop Car. Yep.

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One week after the brutal mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Gay Pride event hits the streets of New York City Sunday. In solidarity with the LGBT community, the victims of the Orlando shooting, and their families and friends, the NYPD has given one of its patrol cars a rainbow makeover.

The NYPD took one of its 2016 Ford Explorer SUV’s and gave it the perfect makeover, with rainbow NYPD badges on the hood and front guards, a multi-colored light bar, and rainbow striping on the roof, wheels, and side panels.

As reported by CarsGuide, where it normally reads, “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect” on the sides of the NYPD’s patrol cars, the rainbow car has the message, “Pride, Equality, Peace.” On the back windows are the moving words, “Our love goes out to Orlando.”

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at a press conference on Thursday, saying the new rainbow patrol car is a symbol of the NYPD’s solidarity and deep connection with the LGBT community.

“When we celebrate pride we do it with particular passion and this year we have an obligation to our nation in the wake of Orlando to show what pride and inclusion looks like and the whole city will be celebrating and standing up for and with our LGBT community,” he said. […] On its Facebook page, the NYPD posted an image of the rainbow car (pictured top) with a note reading, “One of our newest trucks in the fleet ready for this Sunday’s Heritage of Pride March. NYPD cops won’t just be marching in the parade, they’ll be protecting it.”

Via Inquisitr.

The United States is not a Christian country anymore.

SAB

That’s according to 59 percent of white evangelical Protestants recently surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution. And that number has jumped 11 points in just four years, from 48 percent in 2012.

Evangelicals’ growing conviction that the U.S. is losing its Christian identity, and that the country now is headed in the wrong direction, comes as politicians debate immigration and cultural change during the 2016 election season.

[…]

While a strong majority of white evangelical Protestants agree that the U.S. has lost its Christian identity, Americans overall are split on the question — 41 percent say it was Christian and remains so, and 42 percent say it was in the past but is no longer. Relatively few (15 percent) say America never has been a Christian nation.

The white evangelical Protestant community feels its cultural dominance in America has been lost, said Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, who attended the press conference.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me.

“Over the last four years a growing number are seeing that it’s lost irretrievably,” he said. “That has massive implications for our politics going down the road.”

Americans also are split on whether American culture and the country’s way of life have mostly changed for the better (49 percent) or worse (50 percent) since the 1950s.

And, the PRRI/Brookings report said, “no group of Americans is more nostalgic about the 1950s than white evangelical Protestants,” with 70 percent saying the country has changed for the worse. Americans also split politically on the question: 68 percent of Republicans agree things have gotten worse, while nearly the same share of Democrats (66 percent) say times are better.

Oh, that 1950s nostalgia, for an America that never was. Nothing screams racist white privilege quite like 1950s love.

But Americans agree the country is moving in the wrong direction — a belief that crosses the political divide and has inched up from 65 percent in 2011 to 72 percent. And most (57 percent) believe they should fight for their values, even if they are at odds with the law and changing culture.

That’s fairly obvious, with all the current hysteria over anti-bigotry legislation.

There’s more at RNS. The PRRI survey.

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit…

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit, Fuck it. The chain has begun, with far-right, racist leaders all over* cheering Brexit, and whipping up similar sentiments all over Europe. I’ll just give you one small quote, and you can go read the rest, I hate beginning the day with despair.

— And the leader of Germany’s right-wing populist AfD Frauke Petry said in a Facebook post the Brexit was a warning that “if the EU does not abandon its quasi-socialist experiment of every greater integration then the European people will follow the Brits and take back their sovereignty.”

Yeah! Can’t have that whole humans being compassionate and caring stuff going on, oh no.

*Including American racist moron, Trump.

Full Story Here.

Stonewall: Where [White] Pride Began.

Last year, I was excited to hear a movie was going to be made about Stonewall. I wasn’t so excited when I heard it would be directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Patriot). Then I thought to myself, well, how bad could even Emmerich do, it’s a great story, filled with amazing people. Optimism really doesn’t pay off. After last September, I heard many negative noises about the film, and promptly forgot about it.

Did you see Stonewall? Based on its abysmal box office performance, it seems safe to assume you did not. The terrifically abominable thing — just a badly-planned and shoddily-executed work from start to finish — premiered last September and grossed just $187,674.

Stonewall is offensive on two counts: Not just for being a lousy movie, but also for whitewashing history. The 1969 Stonewall riots, as has been well-documented, was a landmark event for LGBT rights; two of the most prominent protesters were trans women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.

But Stonewall director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Patriot) wanted his movie to appeal to the masses, he explained to Buzzfeed, and in order to get that mainstream appeal, he created a fictional protagonist, Danny. Danny is gay but, in Emmerich’s words, “very straight-acting.” He is cis and he is white. He moves from Indiana to New York City and, in the film, is the brick-throwing rebel that incites the riots that sparked a movement.

:Gobsmacked: So Emmerich thought a white, cis-het appearing, apple pie and mom guy would magically appeal to the ‘mainstream’. Who did he think was going to be the major audience for a movie about Stonewall? This reminds me of the often blank reaction people get when they realize that indigenous people are still around – Stonewall was in 1969, and no, not everyone there and involved is dead, let alone long dead.

Perhaps it will not surprise you to know that many, many LGBT individuals and allies objected to this act of erasure — Johnson makes little more than a cameo, Rivera is M.I.A. — and over 20,000 people signed a petition promising to boycott the movie altogether.

No, that doesn’t surprise me at all.

One might think that Emmerich, nearly a year out from his film’s release and subsequent commercial and critical failure (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 9 percent) would, upon reflection, realize his errors. Or not! In an interview with The Guardian pegged to the release of sure-to-be-cinematic-masterpiece Independence Day: Resurgence, Emmerich “sighs at the memory of his passion project’s reception.”

“My movie was exactly what they said it wasn’t. It was politically correct. It had black, transgender people in there,” Emmerich said. “We just got killed by one voice on the internet who saw a trailer and said, this is whitewashing Stonewall. Stonewall was a white event, let’s be honest. But nobody wanted to hear that any more.”

Stonewall was a white event. Did I say I was gobsmacked before? No, Stonewall was not a white event. It wasn’t even close to a white event. Titus Montalvo, a Stonewall vet, put the crowd at 70% Hispanic and Black. That’s not overwhelmingly white, but I suppose to an Independence-minded Emmerich, that constitutes a white event. Mr. Emmerich, please, stick with your idiot pleaser popcorn flicks, and consider staying very, very quiet about events such as Stonewall. No one appreciates your continued whitewash.

Full Story Here.

Cool Stuff Friday: Kid Stuff!

Sometimes, the very best stuff is kid stuff. Now, this first is something I would just love to do, but I don’t have the equipment, know-how, or understanding of how to do this, and do it safely, buuuut, if any of you enterprising science-y people can pull this off, please please take a photo and send it to me.

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Tasha Sturm, of Cabrillo College did this hand print on a large TSA plate from her 8 1/2 year old son after playing outside. Is that cool, or what? You can read more about that at Microbe World. I so wish I could do this.

Next up, a kickstarter for a book about a dog and her owner moving to a new place, because everyone knows that moving to a new place can be very unsettling, especially when you’re a child. There’s a bit of a twist…

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Vivian the Dog Moves to Brooklyn by Mitch Boyer + Vivian the Dog.

And yesterday, Siobhan blogged about a new children’s book, Introducing Teddy.

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Starting as a Kickstarter project, this picture book features Thomas the teddy and Errol who are best friends. They do everything together, riding bikes, playing in the garden, and eating in the tree house. But one day, Thomas doesn’t feel like playing. Even a visit to the park won’t cheer him up. When Errol asks what is wrong, Teddy says that he is worried that if he tells Errol that Errol won’t want to be his friend any more. After Errol reassures him, Teddy admits that he has always felt in his heart that he is a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. When the two meet Ava, she demonstrates that girls can be anything they want, including inventing robots and wearing their hair without a bow. It’s a gentle look at gender identity.

This is Walton’s first picture book and it is inspired by her father’s transition from male to female. In the picture book, she makes sure to keep everything at a level that small children can understand. It’s a book that speaks to gender and will also work for children who may not be transgender but feel that they don’t fit into the limits that society puts them into. It’s a book that celebrates being who you are and not being afraid to tell others what is in your heart.

You can read more about the book here.