When an idea has found its time, it seems to show up everywhere. Who didn’t know about climate change a decade ago? Now, despite the best efforts of corporate idiots in the fossil fuel business, we learn more about it daily. No Milwaukeean over 60 can resist recounting deep snow and bitter cold of the old days.…
Millions of children and families across the US are deeply entrenched in the seasonal rituals associated with the return to school. From K-4 through college, young people are on the move. In more affluent school districts parents are filling exhaustive lists of expected school supplies and child demands for the right sneakers. Many, many more…
During the mayhem we call election season, US political parties — at least the two big ones — drag out their gay cousins and use us shamelessly. One party is more likely to look at us and tout what they have done for us, from marriage equality to insurance coverage. This party will point to…
Lub, Dub. Nearly 50 years ago I went to a party wearing flip flops, fishnet stockings, and grapes. Period. Lub. Because it was very cold the night of that New Years Eve costume party, my thin trench coat did little to keep me warm as I knelt in the back of a car on the…
Restoring order to my city after an evening of disruption appears to be the call of the day. It is the call from civic leaders, clergy, and community leaders. I do not advocate violence. I do not support destruction. But I do wholeheartedly support disruption of our collective comfort. We must take time away from…
In the mid-1980s, the AIDS epidemic prompted me to take the pulse of rooms for a different reason than I had as a pre-teen before I first came out or as a young adult when I first went out as a gay man. I had earlier tested spaces to decide if I could come out and…
River Queen, Castaways, Circus-Circus, The Factory — these were the names of bars I went to when I first started socializing as a gay young adult. They were not the first gay bars I went to, however. Oddly, my first encounter with one of these was with my mother who was naive to the fact that…
Commit themselves to their own, each other’s, and the group’s well-being. An important mentor in my life used to talk about how essential it is for a leader to be able to think about a goal, the individuals in the group working toward it, and the group as a whole. Over the years I have…
Commit themselves to their own, each other’s, and the group’s well-being. True: I cannot schedule a colonoscopy. I am apt to report that the challenge in doing this is the scheduling process itself, but I suspect that may not be the only reason. For the past several years I was reminded at my annual check-up…
Commit themselves to their own, each other’s, and the group’s well-being. Community is said to emerge when people engage in common practices, make decisions together, depend on one another, and commit themselves. I confess that it is this last word — themselves — that snags me most consistently in the definition. Perhaps a clue to…
Creating Community for Everyone 