Via Wasington Post: How one man’s idea for the AIDS quilt made the country pay attention

Twenty-nine years ago, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded on the Mall for the first time, with 1,920 panels. Today, it has grown to more than 49,000. The project was the idea of Cleve Jones, a San Francisco gay rights activist. This article is adapted from Jones’s book “When We Rise: My Life in the Movement,” which is being published Nov. 29 by Hachette Books. 
 

Cleve Jones, founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, sits on the floor in front of a quilt panel in San Francisco on Mar. 29, 2001. (Eric Risberg/AP)

 

I could see it so clearly in my head, and it was starting to make me crazy. All I had were words, and apparently the words I had were insufficient to paint for others the image in my brain: the Mall, covered in fabric stretching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. But whenever I began to talk about it, I was met with blank stares or rolling eyes.

Even the word had power for me. Quilts. It made me think of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. It evoked images of pioneer women making camp by the Conestoga wagons. Or enslaved Africans in the South, hoarding scraps of fabric from the master’s house. It spoke of castoffs, discarded remnants, different colors and textures, sewn together to create something beautiful and useful and warm. Comforters.

I imagined families sharing stories of their loved ones as they cut and sewed the fabric. It could be therapy, I hoped, for a community that was increasingly paralyzed by grief and rage and powerlessness. It could be a tool for the media, to reveal the humanity behind the statistics. And a weapon to deploy against the government; to shame them with stark visual evidence of their utter failure to respond to the suffering and death that spread and increased with every passing day.
I couldn’t shake the idea of a quilt.

My friend Joseph and I started making quilt panels. We made a list of 40 men whom we felt we had known well enough to memorialize, and we began painting their names on blocks of fabric. We talked about how much land would be covered if the bodies of our dead were laid out head to toe, each panel the approximate size of a grave.

For more than a year, activists had been working to organize a mass march for lesbian and gay rights to be held in October 1987 in Washington. I was determined to unfold the quilt on the Mall at the march.

As the annual Gay Freedom Day celebration approached in San Francisco, we asked Mayor Dianne Feinstein for permission to hang the first five squares from the mayor’s balcony at City Hall, overlooking the main stage and Civic Center Plaza. To our surprise, she readily agreed.

We had a name now: The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.

On Sunday, June 28, 1987, more than 200,000 attended the parade and celebration. The day was dedicated to the memory of people who had died of AIDS. Everyone in the plaza could see the multicolored quilt sections hanging from the mayor’s balcony. I finally had more than words to describe my vision. People could see it now. They lined up at our information booth to get copies of our first brochure with instructions for creating memorial-quilt panels. Those brochures would travel back to the home towns of all the visitors. Across America, people began to sew.

[Your lifetime risk of HIV by race, state and sexual preference — in four charts]

 

On Oct. 11, 1987, the second National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights drew perhaps 500,000 people. The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded at dawn, with 1,920 individual panels, just a small fraction of the more than 20,000 Americans who had already lost their lives to AIDS.


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Via FB:

Via Philosophical Atheism / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba:

Via Daily Dharma / October 11, 2016: Finding Happiness

Happiness is not happiness unless it is shared. For happiness is the one thing in all the world that comes to us only at the moment we give it, and is likewise increased by being given away.

—Clark Strand, "The Wisdom of Frogs"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / October 10, 2016: Unfamiliar Territory

Using meditation or therapy to try to shut down parts of our experience is ultimately counterproductive. We do not have to be afraid of entering unfamiliar territory once we have learned how to hold experience within the gentleness of our own minds.

—Mark Epstein, "Stopping the Wind"

Via Ram Dass / October 9, 2016:

 

Getting straight not only applies to people but to things as well, such as favorite music, disliked foods, special treats, avoided places, all your toys, etc. Everything must be rerun through your compassion machine.

Via Daily Dharma / October 9, 2016: On Wishful Thinking

It isn’t the loved ones and gain, per se, that need to be renounced; it’s the unrealistic hopes we place in these things. Wishful thinking can easily become more compelling than the longing of the bodhi heart.

—Pema Chödrön, "Cutting Ties: The Fruits of Solitude"

Via Lions Roar: Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It

An ancient set of Buddhist slogans offers us six powerful techniques to transform life’s difficulties into awakening and benefit. Zen teacher Norman Fischer guides us through them. Illustrations by Keith Abbott.

There’s an old Zen saying: the whole world’s upside down. In other words, the way the world looks from the ordinary or conventional point of view is pretty much the opposite of the way the world actually is. There’s a story that illustrates this.

Once there was a Zen master who was called Bird’s Nest Roshi because he meditated in an eagle’s nest at the top of a tree. He became quite famous for this precarious practice. The Song Dynasty poet Su Shih (who was also a government official) once came to visit him and, standing on the ground far below the meditating master, asked what possessed him to live in such a dangerous manner. The roshi answered, “You call this dangerous? What you are doing is far more dangerous!” Living normally in the world, ignoring death, impermanence, and loss and suffering, as we all routinely do, as if this were a normal and a safe way to live, is actually much more dangerous than going out on a limb to meditate.


While trying to avoid difficulty may be natural and understandable, it actually doesn’t work. We think it makes sense to protect ourselves from pain, but our self-protection ends up causing us deeper pain. We think we have to hold on to what we have, but our very holding on causes us to lose what we have. We’re attached to what we like and try to avoid what we don’t like, but we can’t keep the attractive object and we can’t avoid the unwanted object. So, counterintuitive though it may be, avoiding life’s difficulties is actually not the path of least resistance; it is a dangerous way to live. If you want to have a full and happy life, in good times and bad, you have to get used to the idea that facing misfortune squarely is better than trying to escape from it.

This is not a matter of grimly focusing on life’s difficulties. It is simply the smoothest possible approach to happiness. Of course, when we can prevent difficulty, we do it. The world may be upside down, but we still have to live in this upside-down world, and we have to be practical on its terms. The teaching on transforming bad circumstances into the path doesn’t deny that. What it addresses is the underlying attitude of anxiety, fear, and narrow-mindedness that makes our lives unhappy, fearful, and small.

Transforming bad circumstances into the path is associated with the practice of patience. There are six mind-training (lojong) slogans connected with this:

1. Turn all mishaps into the path.
2. Drive all blames into one.
3. Be grateful to everyone.
4. See confusion as buddha and practice emptiness.
5. Do good, avoid evil, appreciate your lunacy, pray for help.
6. Whatever you meet is the path.

Read the complete article and more here

Via JMG: BREAKING: Obama Administration Formally Accuses Russia Of Attempting To Interfere With 2016 Elections

October 7, 2016 BREAKING NEWS

The Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration on Friday officially accused Russia of carrying out a wide-ranging campaign to interfere with the 2016 elections, including by hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee and other political officials.

The denunciation, made by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, came as pressure was growing from within the administration and some lawmakers to hold Moscow accountable for a set of actions apparently aimed at sowing discord around the election.

The DNC publicly disclosed the intrusions in June, saying their investigation determined Russian government hackers were behind it. That was followed shortly afterwards by a major leak of DNC emails, some so embarrassing that they forced the resignation of the DNC chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on the eve of the Democratic national convention.

The administration also blamed Moscow for the hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the subsequent leak of private email addresses and cell phone numbers of Democratic lawmakers. A series of other leaks of hacked material followed, all of which are suspected of being conducted by Russia-sponsored hackers.

More from NBC News:

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in an extraordinary gloves-off statement.

“Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there.”

And from CNBC:

U.S. intelligence officials are “confident” that Russian government directed these attacks on American political organizations, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security said in a joint statement.

“The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” the agencies said in a Friday statement.

While this activity is “not new to Moscow,” the U.S. intelligence community and Department of Homeland Security said it would be “extremely difficult” for hackers to actually “alter ballot counts or election results,” because of the “decentralized nature” of the U.S. election system and the “number of protections state and local election officials have in place.”

Make the jump here to read the original and more on JMG

Via lgbtqnation: Donald Trump: ‘I’ll overturn the shocking gay marriage decision – trust me’

By LGBTQ Nation

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Donald Trump

In a recent interview with Pat Robertson’s television network, Donald Trump blathered that antigay conservatives the world over can rest easy knowing that he’s committed to overturning the Supreme Court’s landmark decision that struck down state bans on same-sex marriage nationwide. 

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody asked the GOP presidential frontrunner what he thought of the Log Cabin Republicans calling him “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency.” 

Told that Evangelicals want to trust his stance on traditional marriage, Trump responded:

“I think they can trust me on traditional marriage… and frankly, I was very much in favor of having the court rule that it goes to states, and let the states decide. And that was a shocking decision for you and for me and for a lot of other people, but I was very much in favor of letting the states decide and that’s the way it looked it was going and then all of a sudden out of nowhere came this very massive decision and they took it away. But I was always in favor of state’s rights; states deciding.”

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Via Sri Prem Baba – Awaken Love / Flower of the Day: 10/07/16:

“Liberdade é o que o ser humano mais anseia na vida. Mas o que é liberdade? Muitos confundem liberdade com a satisfação de impulsos instintivos e egoístas. Não compreendem que esses impulsos representam justamente o oposto - são verdadeiras prisões. A liberdade não tem nada a ver com as conquistas do ego. Ela é sinônimo de espontaneidade; e a espontaneidade sempre se manifesta com sabedoria e compaixão, portanto não pode machucar ninguém.”

“Libertad es lo que el ser humano más ansía en la vida. Pero, ¿qué es libertad? Muchos confunden libertad con la satisfacción de los impulsos instintivos y egoístas. No comprenden que estos impulsos representan justamente lo opuesto, son verdaderas prisiones. La libertad no tiene nada que ver con las conquistas del ego. Ella es sinónimo de espontaneidad; y la espontaneidad siempre se manifiesta con sabiduría y compasión, por lo tanto no puede lastimar a nadie.”

“Freedom is what human beings most long for in life. But what is freedom? Many confuse freedom with satisfying selfish instinctive impulses. They don’t understand that these impulses represent exactly the opposite. These impulses are the real prison. Freedom has nothing to do with the conquests of the ego. Freedom is synonymous with spontaneity. Spontaneity always manifests with wisdom and compassion, and in this way, no one is hurt.”

Via Daily Dharma / October 7, 2016: The Value of Ritual

Repetition is what allows something brand new to occur. Repetition, like the lapping of ripples against a rock, gently shifts the ground on which we tread, and so alters our relationship to the things we experience.

—Anne C. Klein, "Revisiting Ritual"

Via Sri Prem Baba / Flower of the Day: 10/06/16:

“Sometimes, we have not yet reached the point to transcend a bad habit, but we already have the maturity to make an intelligent austerity in relationship to it. I say ‘intelligent’ because it is an aspect that we already know, have studied and understood.  We know we need to make an effort to direct the vectors of our will to free us from particular negative impulses. Through austerity, our will increases and we feel stronger and stronger as we see ourselves making changes. Thus, our consciousness continues expanding.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / October 6, 2016:

Regardless of what happens, your self is, from the beginning, the spontaneous self-nature of Buddha.

—Koun Yamada, "Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Determination"

Via AmericaBlog: Mike Pence is a raging homophobe

Donald Trump’s choice for vice president, Mike Pence, is a homophobe.

I bring the point up, not only because tonight is the vice presidential debate between Pence and Hillary Clinton’s VP, Tim Kaine, but also because of what the former Republican governor and US senator from Virginia, George “Macaca” Allen, said on CNN today.

CNN’s Carol Costello told Allen that Trump was having a problem with minority voters, especially African-American voters, and Tim Kaine will most likely bring it up tonight; so, she asked, what should Pence say?

Allen replied: “Mike Pence should respond that our aspirations in America are for everyone, regardless of their race, their ethnicity, their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation — ought (sic) to have an equal opportunity to compete and succeed in America.”

And I thought to myself, that’s funny. Not simply funny that George Allen, who is a conservative and no friend to gay or trans people, is now wooing LGBT voters, but also funny that Allen is suggesting that Mike Pence thinks LGBT people should have a shot at the American dream.

Mike Pence most certainly does not.

Here’s my video response to all of this, via Periscope. You can also just read on below.





Pence, you see, is a Christian conservative (read: religious right), and pretty much against anything that could help LGBT people in America. Pence was against repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, against marriage equality, against ENDA, and against President Obama’s directive on transgender youth using the bathrooms of their choice in public schools. Pence is also for permitting people to violate civil rights laws and discriminate against LGBT people because of their supposed religious beliefs.
And finally, Mike Pence was even against HIV/AIDS funding. What did he want to spend that money on instead of AIDS? Curing gays.

So I think it’s pretty safe to say that Mike Pence won’t be sucking up to LGBT people any time soon.
Of course, Donald Trump isn’t all pink daisies either. Trump has promised to put judges on the Supreme Court who would overturn the previous decision-making marriage equality the law of the land. And while Trump’s people actively intervened to make sure the GOP convention platform didn’t include provisions the Russians didn’t like, Trump didn’t lift a finger when Republican convention delegates came up with the most anti-gay platform in history. Huffington Post’s Jennifer Bendery has more:

The GOP adopted its most anti-LGBT platform in history at its party convention this week in Cleveland. It advocates going back to defining marriage, legally, as between one man and one woman. It supports adoption agencies that refuse to serve same-sex couples; affirms “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice of trying to turn gay people into straight people; calls for banning transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity and endorses controversial legislation that would allow taxpayer-funded discrimination against same-sex married couples in the name of religious freedom.

So I’ve got my popcorn ready, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for Mike Pence to don a tutu and start quoting Harvey Milk.

Make the jump here to read the orginal article and more

Via Ram Dass

 

October 5, 2016

I think the message is that you don’t need to go to anywhere else to find what you are seeking.

Via Sri Prem Baba/ Flower of the Day: 10/05/16

“To be able to enjoy presence is one of the best things for a human soul in evolution to experience. Only in presence is one able to taste the nectar of bliss. However, in order to enjoy presence, it is necessary to heal the wounds from the past that are still acting in our systems distorting actual reality.”

Sri Prem Baba