LA Weekly: 
EQCA Needs Town Hall Meetings

Patrick Ranger McDonald, who recently wrote an extensive piece for the LA Weekly about Equality California and its soon-to-be gone leader Geoff Kors that presented pro and con views on the org and Kors, has a follow up blog post today about EQCA hiring a head-hunter firm.

It really says quite a lot about what is still monumentally wrong with EQCA that more than two-years after its elitist style of organizing directly impacted the loss of Prop 8 and gay marriage in California, the org is not holding any regular public meetings, no open forums soliciting advice from average gays about what we want from the org and its new executive director.

One of Patrick's sources, Richard Zaldivar, whom I've never met but who share my concerns about persuading EQCA to get out of its ivory tower and start democratically engaging with the community beyond its A-gay donors, nicely states some very simple advice that EQCA should quickly heed:

Whatever happens, The Wall - Las Memorias Project Founder Richard Zaldivar, a Latino gay rights and AIDS activist who was also quoted in the Weekly cover story, still wants EQCA board members to reach out to the gay community and seek its input by holding town hall meetings.

"It is good to know that Equality California has retained a search firm to recruit an executive director," Zaldivar writes in an email to the Weekly. "It is my hope that Equality California meets with all (LGBT) community stakeholders to help guide a search for the appropriate and capable candidate to lead this organization. It is my hope that the candidate for the job is from our California community and is culturally sensitive to its emerging populations."

So far, EQCA, which receives millions of dollars from the gay community every year and makes decisions that impact the lives and rights of some 850,000 gay and lesbians in California, has yet to make any public moves to suggest it will follow Zaldivar's advice.

How long must we wait for the A-gays running EQCA to get over their pathological fear of meeting with the ordinary gays they claim to represent? No one is helped by the intransigence of EQCA to public forums.

SF Mayor Asterisk Zapped 
at Gay Museum Opening

Mayor Asterisk got zapped Thursday night at the opening of the gay museum in the Castro, and I can now say I know what Ed Lee looks like when he is deeply pained. He had just cut the ribbon outside the storefront museum, and was no more than 4 feet away from me when I zapped his media-op. My loud message that he could not ignore: 'No more back room deals! No more backroom deals!' The mayor was not happy with me.

Only his second full day as the titular mayor, and already heckled. Democracy, and the subverting of it in the now-banana republic of San Francisco, demand a voluble addressing of how we got the interim leader we must contend with until November's election.

It was a night of repeating that phrase, sometimes loudly, not just at Mayor Asterisk, who, like Barry Bonds will always have an asterisk and questions associated with his ascension to the top of the heap and the process that got him there, but at other pols including my pal Bevan Dufty and his mayoral campaign manager.

I told Bevan we need to know what he's getting out of the deal that was cut for Ed Lee, and he denied there was any backroom deal or that he got anything out of it. Bevan said all my talk about backrooms made him think of sexual sleaziness. Yeah, okay, but I intend to dog him about his role in the screwed up process.

That massive ego Cleve Jones tried to approach and speak with me, but I shooed him away with both of my limp wrists blowing outward and he smartly moved on.

When I saw Supervisor David Campos and repeated my chant, he gave me an honest smile and said, "You're right." Yeah, he has a clue, plus he can publicly admit a damn deal went down, but I  wanna see how he'll craft an effective response to the shadiness of Rose Pak, Willie Brown and Steve Kawa. Show me the way, David, my Latino gay brother, to progressive political redemption.

Who else did I single out for an earful? Mayoral wannabee and current city attorney Dennis Herrera, who when Steve Kawa said jump on drafting legislation that would allow Ed Lee to become interim mayor, then get his old job and pay and benefits package back, despite what the city charter says, Herrera asked how high. His response to my demand for no more backroom deals? "Michael, you are so wrong about what happened. There was no deal." Yeah, and I'm gonna win an Oscar this year for best gay zapper.

One fun part of the evening was being surrounded at one point by four of the most adorable young gay men, two of whom I know. Jackson Bowman with the Elizabeth Taylor eyes from the HIV prevention council and his furry-faced friend Marcus. They appreciated my zapping of the pols and had the best laughter I heard all night.

After a while, other friends opined on the City Hall crapola of the past month or so, and also suggested counter-chants. "No more bathroom deals!" was suggested by Rafael Mandelman, who ran for the District 8 seat and lost. Guys I didn't know endorsed backrooms for gay sex and just more sex in general for the gay community.

Memo to the pols who lust after Room 200 at City Hall: The electorate you face is very familiar with ranked choice voting. Get ready for a new kind of mayoral race.

MLK/Milk Celebration at Trigger Bar;
Ad Features Head-Target Imagery

(This poster is taped up around the Castro. Credit: Petrelis Files)

 

Even if the Tucson tragedy had not happened, I would still have major issues with an event marking the Martin Luther King, Jr, holiday with a January 15 fundraiser starting with the imagery used and the name of the bar hosting it. Money raised will go to the key organizing group the Stop AIDS Project, and a portion of the profits shared with the SF Food Bank, the SF LGBT Speaker's Bureau, and Hands On Bay Area.

Here we have nonprofits marking National Day of Service with a money-making event in a bar, a commercial venue I never associate with King and for an activity many don't equate with public service for the betterment of humanity, and the poster for the fundraiser is illustrated with the heads of King and Harvey Milk highlighted as if they were targets.

And the really galling thing is that the name of the host establishment is Trigger. Yeah, the Trigger club on Market Street is the place, and because of two madmen with guns who pulled the triggers, King and Milk were assassinated and the last thing I want to do is be near any event for King's weekend at an venue having to do with weapons.

Is there any sane gay or straight person who genuinely believes King and Milk would approve of any group marking their lives and legacies at commemoration time at bar and one based in gun culture? Was the assassins' shooting gallery unavailable?

Tone-deafness is the only way to describe some key elements behind this project. I don't know how the organizers and promoters of what is officially named "The Power of One; Igniting Our Community" could be so insensitive with so many aspects.

The promoters inflame us with their wording, and after decades of the Stop AIDS Project and other components of AIDS Inc endlessly igniting fires of controversies with their social marketing campaigns, we need to douse the pyromaniacs behind the fundraisers and ads with cold water and fire extinguishing foam.

Let's stop with gay blacks in the cross-hairs, and the walking, ticking time-bombs used to describe people infected with syphilis, and the "Don't Be A Bitch" ads, and the target imagery of King and Milk, along with the flaming language, and practice some peace, love and understanding in how we organize and come together.

Castro Hosts German 
Film Festival This Weekend

The inaugural edition of the German Gems roster of new movies transpired on a single day at the Castro theater last January. I attended the screening for Margarethe vonTrotta's new work "Vision," based on the life of Hildegard von Bingen starring the great European actress Barbara Sukowa, and enjoyed the film and screening immensely.

Organized by Ingrid Eggers, the former program director of our local Goethe Institute, German Gems was a brief return to the annual showing of German films in chilly January, which was the month she used to hold the Berlin and Beyond festival that she started several years ago. With her retirement from the institute, that festival was moved to warm October to coincide with a German film showcase in Los Angeles.

I caught only one film at the revamped Berlin and Beyond festival, "Pope Joan," a big-budget multi-country-produced epic that was in English, and co-starred John Goodman, formerly of TV's comedy "Roseanne." The film was a gorgeously costumed and decorated portrayal of the controversial Catholic woman's life and rise to head the Vatican, and was very entertaining.

However, the new organizers put on thick and annoying airs of kitsch and stultifying haughtiness. The former welcoming attitude when Ingrid run the festival was gone and sorely missed, but there is good news to share.

Ingrid is back at the Castro this weekend, with cold and rain predicted, elements that only add to the deep and thoughtful Germanic nature of some of movies shown. The new edition of German Gems has expanded to three days, allowing Ingrid to program more movies.

The line-up includes the new film from Percy Adlon ("Zuckerbaby," "Last Five Days") on opening night at 7 pm, "Mahler on Couch," about a famous visit the compose made to Sigmund Freud, and a bevy of narrative features and off-beat documentaries, with one looking at something I never knew existed - river surfing. The above photo is from "Keep Surfing," showing on Saturday at 2 pm.

I'm looking forward to the cinematic treats that will be up on the silver screen, but it won't be just the movies that will satisfy. I expect and anticipate a warm, very relaxed and hearty welcome from Ingrid and her staff and her volunteers. Those qualities, and a whole lot more, were what drew myself and many others to the diverse programming she put on at the institute and the old Berlin and Beyond festival.

When Ingrid held programs at the institute she made it into a salon, one full of good conversations and with a hostess presenting the best cultural and political ideas of her native country, and making her guests hungry for more discussions and activities about German arts and heritage. You can count on that salon feeling, expanded a few times in the enormous Castro movie palace, this weekend.

The city of San Francisco and German film fans are damn lucky to have Ingrid living in our midst, and bringing us new movies in a welcoming atmosphere that reflect her personality. There will be German gems on the Castro's screen this weekend, but the real gem of it all will be the woman responsible for putting it together - Ingrid Eggers.

NRA = $242 Million;
Versus Brady Center = $6.5 Million

I had an inkling the National Rifle Association and its affiliated NRA Foundation were flush with funds, but until today I didn't know exactly how many millions flow through these non-profit advocacy group. Thanks to the 2008 IRS 990s for the NRA and the NRA Foundation posted at GuideStar, I can share important figures on them.

However, before we get to the numbers I wish to point out that neither the NRA nor the foundation on their sites make any IRS 990s available for public inspection, and they also don't link to the tax filings at the GuideStar site. A small, but important, fiscal transparency problem in need of pointing out.

The 2008 NRA filing shows revenue was as $247,976,782 while assets were listed at $131,342,619.

Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA received a compensation package totaling $1,281,635. The leader of the NRA Foundation, Wilson Philips, was paid $664,907.

For the NRA Foundation, the 2008 tax filing shows $24,517,087 in revenue and $58,141,105 in assets.

Combining the revenue amounts for both group gives them a total of $242,493,869, and their joint assets comes to $189,483,724. Two nice and healthy chunks of change.

At the other end of the political spectrum on guns, the Brady Center and its affiliate the Brady Campaign are no match financially for the NRA.

The 2008 tax filing for the Brady Center reports revenue of $3,122,840 and assets of $2,395,940. For the Brady Campaign, its revenue was listed $3,397,792 with assets at $381,668.

Unfortunately, the center and campaign share the same lack of disclosure as their sites as do the NRA and its foundation.

The combined revenue for both arms of the Brady groups is $6,520,632, while the collective assets come to $2,777,608.

In terms of executive compensation, the president for both Brady non-profits, Paul Helmke, came to $249,555, and the public face and director of the groups, Sarah Brady, was paid $141,112.

Let's recap. NRA's total budget equals $242,493,869 with assets of $189,483,724 and the Brady group's budget was $6,520,632 and had assets listed at $2,777,608.

I don't mean to be flip about the enormous gulf between the gun advocates and the control activists, but it's clear the NRA totally outguns the Brady Center in terms of financing, and in America's gun politics money is power. That has got to change.

NYTer: SF Gay Shadow Mayor Kawa
Amending a Law for Ed Lee?

(Steve Kawa. Credit: Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal.)

Reporter Gerry Shih covers San Francisco politics for the Bay Citizen, and some of his piece for that outlet also run in the Bay Area section of the New York Times that appears on Fridays and Sundays. I'm not sure exactly how to describe his gig with the Gray Lady because on one hand he's not on staff, while on the other hand he's not a freelancer, but his work regularly appears in the Times.

In any event, he's been providing a unique view in recent weeks to the many power-plays and backroom deals swirling around City Hall as our Boy-King Gavin Newsom and his buddies manuvered to maintain their grip on the levers of municipal power, and Shih has now given an interview to Holly Kernan of KALW Radio in which he sheds more light on the shenanigans.

Reading how gay shadow mayor Steve Kawa worked to amend local laws behind-the-scenes to keep his desired choice for titular mayor happy and employed after the November election, I couldn't help but think of a banana republic because it's ever-more clear to me that is the state of San Francisco.

From KALW's coverage of the Ed Lee selection as our new mayor, bolding mine:

KERNAN: And so this was essentially a political coup orchestrated by Newsom’s office, Rose Pak, and reportedly former mayor Willie Brown.

SHIH: Yes. This was something – Mr. Lee’s name had been bubbling for weeks at City Hall – but nobody kind of thought it was realistic, simply because he had refused to do the job. He said he wanted to keep a city administrator’s job. He’s a low-key, kind of quiet guy, likes to stay out of the limelight, doesn’t like any of the political drama. But Steve Kawa, Mr. Newsom’s chief of staff, kept pushing him for weeks and kept seeing what his concerns were.

One of them was he was afraid – Mr. Lee was afraid – that he would lose his city administrator’s job. And so Mr. Kawa in mid-December approached the city attorney's office and had them draft legislation that would allow Mr. Lee to return to his job after he served a stint as mayor.

Kawa, not Newsom, was pulling the strings behind the City Hall curtain to install Lee and went so far as to City Attorney Dennis Herrera's staff to look at rewriting the municipal code.

The KALW interview doesn't say if the Kawa-supported legislation has passed the Board of Supervisors, but Shih in a January 6 piece for the Bay Citizen reported this:

The critical stumbling block for Lee, several people said, was his concern about a rule in the city charter that prohibited elected officials from taking appointed positions within a year of leaving office. Lee, who is putting two daughters through college, was confirmed to a new term as chief administrator in December. He told officials he did not want to risk forfeiting the remainder of his five-year contract as city administrator, worth $1.25 million.

As his anxieties became clear, Newsom’s staffers asked the office of Dennis Herrera, the city attorney, to begin quietly drafting a charter amendment to allow Lee to return to the administrator’s post after he served as mayor, according to several City Hall officials. The amendment still needs board approval.

Why do I have a sinking feeling the new board is easily going to give Kawa the desired legislative outcome he wants? Democracy is being subverted in San Francisco not only with the terrible and dangerous way in which a titular mayor was chosen, but also with the shocking announcement and inauguration yesterday of the former chief of police George Gascon as the new district attorney.

Let's see what the progressive members of the board have to offer up as alternatives to the Willie Brown and Rose Pak machines.

HRC's SF 'Action Center' 
is Now Just a Store

George Orwell would have chuckled a few times over how the Human Rights Campaign skewed the English language when describing their clothing/housewares/useless junk outlet on 19th and Castro as an action center. The closest it came to being a space to organize or politically strategize was when gay tourists took action and whipped out their wallets to spend money on items emblazoned with the HRC equal symbol.

In December, when the group announced it was taking over the lease for what had been Harvey Milk's camera shop and genuine action center for the community, HRC's release stressed the supposed action center aspects of its commercial venue.

That was last month, and now HRC is now longer pretending their store is anything but that and the empty words action center have been dropped from the sign on their old store's window:

This is one of the banners in the Castro storefront that will soon start peddling HRC merchandise:

As I was snapping photos, HRC store workers and volunteers were going in and out of what used to be Harvey's shop, and I took this picture of the still under construction interior that is starting to fill up with t-shirts:

It feels quite strange to be saying something nice about HRC, but here goes. I like that they're finally being honest about the proper word to define their store. Now if only they would get with democratically engaging the community beyond their A-gay donors and Democratic Party bosses, that would really please a lot of gay folks.

DailyKos Warning Over 
My Corrupt Lez Diary

I'm not sure exactly what the DailyKos web site editors consider to be homophobia language in a recent diary I posted about three corrupt lesbian politicians receiving patronage appointments from Arnold Schwarzenegger last week, but I received this notice about the diary:

You've Been Warned...

2011-01-07 19:10:40
Neither radical queers nor gay bashers get a pass for posting homophobic language.
I understand the above warning (posting is no longer allowed until this is acknowledged).

3 corrupt lez pols get cushy 6-figure Schwarnzenegger jobs

by MPetrelis [Unsubscribe]

Fri Jan 07, 2011 at 02:24:02 PM PST

Would not surprise me if the site's editors object to my use of lez in the diary title, and I'd be most curious to see what would happen if I tried to create a diary about the LezGetReal site. The only choice I have at this point, according to the warning is to acknowledge it, if I want to post again at DailyKos.

I guess appealing the warning is not an option, and that is the right of the site owners. It's their site and they make the terms of service, and decide if someone has violated the terms. That's the way of the web. I just wish the warning had been specific about which words were deemed homophobic.

Palin's Target Ad = 
Black Gay HIV Cross-Hairs Ad?

Much justifiable criticism is being directed at Sarah Palin and her PAC's web ad that targeted several Democrats who voted for health care reform, including the seriously wounded U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords:

How did the Congresswoman react to Palin's ad campaign, when asked by a cable news host? Giffords spoke the truth:

"When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."

As the Tucson tragedy and the aftermath were unfolding yesterday, I couldn't help but think back to my objections in 2006/2007 to an HIV prevention social marketing campaign, paid for by the city of Philadelphia. To put it mildly, I had major complaints against this ad from the campaign:

After tremendous criticism from gays of all colors and straight black leaders in Philadelphia then grappling with an increase of black men dying from gun violence, the city of Brotherly Love pulled the ads. Sadly, the creator of the ads himself gunned down in 2007. Here's another disturbing image from the campaign:

The Philadelphia health officials may have looked to San Francisco's Department of Public Health's ads that used similar violence and fear-based imagery to deliver a message. This is part of a full-page ad the SF DPH ran in the Bay Area Reporter in 1999:

I'll grant Palin a small degree of credit for refraining from either using an image of Giffords or any other politician targets by her PAC's ad, and thank goodness there was no photo of Giffords behind the cross-hairs. I cannot say the same about the gay HIV prevention ads in Philadelphia.

What I'm suggesting here is that the gay health authorities, AIDS prevention agencies and gay graphic designers have done more than their share in creating a hostile environment in which needlessly provocative, over-wrought and sizzling hot, violent rhetoric is the basis for public discourse.

Who's to say if the past two decades of such HIV prevention messages have in any way influenced the likes of Palin and the Tea Party extremists? There may not be a direct correlation between the gay ads and those of the SarahPAC, but if we as a nation are going to insist on dialing back the destructive and violent imagery and wording of politicians, let's not stop there.

Let's also put a stop to the cross-hairs and time-bombs and fear-mongering of campaigns targeting gay men regarding HIV.

WTF? AZ Republic: 
NRA Wants Guns at Shopping Malls

Late tonight, the day when six people were killed in a armed rampage at a shopping mall in Tuscon, Arizona, as a gunman critically harmed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others, the state's leading paper runs a story related to guns and violence, and not one word is said about the tragedies.

Heck, reference is made by an NRA leader to defend the right to carry guns in a shopping mall, site of the Tuscon killings and bloody attacks. Are the editors of the Arizona Republic aware of what transpired in their state today, and could they have shown some editorial smarts and either withheld this piece or amended it to reflect today's reality?

As if it's not bad enough the NRA lobbyist is quoted endorsing more guns in more public places, the merchants of blood and death want confiscated arms and bullets back in circulation instead of being destroyed, and getting more weapons on school campuses. I don't get the sense the NRA is at all interested in pausing and reflecting on the death and carnage in Tucson, even if the Arizona Republic were to delay its story and take into account new facts that came to light after the story was submitted.

Shame on paper for excluding the shootings and deaths. Shame on the NRA. From the Arizona Republic:
 

With the return of Republican Brewer and a new Republican supermajority in the House and the Senate, groups with more conservative agendas are especially optimistic that lawmakers will find time this session for their bills.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Matt Dogali said they are working on a bill that would clarify the criteria for a shooting done in self-defense.

"We are trying to change it so it says that if you are somewhere you legally have the right to be, such as a shopping mall, and you are put in a situation of imminent death or bodily harm, then you are legally able to defend yourself with lethal force if necessary," Dogali said.

The NRA also will lobby to require cities and counties to resell confiscated firearms instead of destroy them, as well as to require community colleges and universities to allow concealed weapons on campus.

Rep. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, already has submitted House Bill 2014, which would allow adults age 21 and older with a permit to carry a concealed weapon on a college campus. ...

Let us pray for the full recovery of the shooting victims today, for everyone involved and affected by the tragedy, and that some common sense and sanity breaks out in Arizona to curb gun violence.