The heat’s been on

New Zealand’s heatwave is in the process of ending, though its reported demise has been somewhat exaggerated: It’s not gone quite yet. Nevertheless, the heatwave really is ending.

The picture with this post is a screengrab of the reading from our weather station at the highest temperature yesterday afternoon. 31.4 degrees is 88.52F, and it felt hotter still. At around the same point today, the temperature was 30.2 (86.36F). This isn’t “hot” by my Illinois-born standards: At least once every summer we’d have temperatures that would hit around 104 (40C), so to me that is hot. All that proves is that what anyone thinks is “hot” is relative.

Because it seldom gets as hot in New Zealand as it’s been recently, people aren’t used to it. They don’t have a frame of reference, and they often don’t have means of coping, like air conditioning, and there aren’t usually “cooling centres” for such people to use in the hottest part of the day, as there are in Chicago. So, people in New Zealand very often have no easy means of coping with high heat, and that’s especially true for poorer people and those who much work outside.

News reports were filled with stories about coping, like fruitpickers working mostly in the earlier morning, when it’s cooler, and stopping early in the afternoon. I also saw someone on TV explaining how to use net curtains (called “sheers” where I grew up) to allow daylight in, but keep some of the heat out. Instead, we closed our curtains on the side the sun was pouring in, something we don’t do on cooler days. The dark actually made it feel cooler.

It was too hot to do things outside, but it was also too hot to do anything downstairs, where there’s no air conditioning. I have to do a lot of work next week, so it’s a good thing the heatwave is ending, because all I have are a couple fans to cool me in my office.

The temperature sensor for the picture up top is located out of the sun, but on the side of the house that’d hottest in the afternoon, so it’s no surprise that it recorded high temperatures. But the reported temperatures in our area yesterday were always similar to what we were recording, at most only varying a degree or so. Today, however, there was a larger gap between what we measured and what the reported temperature was—maybe three or found degrees at one point. That’s not unusual, actually: Auckland seems to have a lot of microclimates all over the place. The other day, the reported temperature for Auckland was upper mid-20s (26 or 27), but 30 was reported in parts of Auckland. So, other areas experience what we do.

I mention all that because what’s reported and what we see are often different, and sometimes quite different, and people experience that same thing in other areas of the country, too. That just reinforces the fact that when trying we’re to find out about a place we’re unfamiliar with, it’s important to find out what people really experience, not just what’s reported in official or semi-official places.

Update – February 3, 2019: The high at our house today was 29.6 (85.28F), so the temperatures really are trending downward.

Update 2 – February 4, 2019: I spoke too soon. Today the high at our house today was 31.6 (88.88F), meaning that the high temperature today was the highest since we began monitoring it. Oh, well.

Once was smooth jazz

The things you find on the Internet, eh? Something on a site somewhere, a video on YouTube, pretty much anything can lead to somewhere else, including a memory of a different time. Or maybe it’s more information about something. In any case, it’s kind of an adventure.

The video above is Vox’s latest episode of its Earworm series, this one about is about “smooth jazz”, a category of popular music that some people loved and other people absolutely loathed. I did both, depending on what it was and who the artist was. But I think one of the most important points mentioned in the video was that it was music that people listened to at work, to help them get through the day. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing.

My own connection was different, though. In my Interet Wading post back in October (last item), I mentioned listening to Chicago’s WNUA 95.5 which at the time played “New Age” music. Their tagline at the time was “Music for a new age.” There’s a little more to that story.

In the late 1970s, I started listening to a radio station called WMET when it switched to an AOR (Album Oriented Rock) format. By the 1980s, after some format changes, and a name change, I’d moved on.

In the late 1980s, I heard about WNUA, but didn’t really start listening to it regularly until around 1990, by which time it was shifting to smooth jazz. It was actually quite pleasant to have on in the background in the evening, especially when my partner at the time and I would sit around and talk.

Thing is, all those radio stations I mentioned were the same one, it just changed several times over the years. Actually, so did I.

I couldn’t possibly remember what radio station I listened to regularly after WNUA, but I remember it as being more or less Top 40. But, of course, in late 1995 I left Chicago for New Zealand, and that meant new radio stations and a whole lot of music I’d never heard before (like some of Hot Chocolate’s songs, as I mentioned in this past Sunday’s Weekend Diversion).

All of this came about because YouTube suggested the video to me (I subscribe to Vox’s videos), and I watched it. There was a very brief mention of WNUA, and that led me to look it up, and that’s how I remembered something I’d long forgotten—that WNUA had been another radio station I listened to, WMET (I think, but can’t be sure, that I may even have listened to WMET’s predecessor, WDHF).

Had I not watched the Vox video above, I’d never have looked up the radio station, but because I did, it reinforced something I talked about in October and something else I talked about this past weekend. And it connected not just those posts, but also my memories.

The things you find on the Internet, eh?

Auckland to Chicago non-stop

Air New Zealand has announced that it will fly non-stop from Auckland to Chicago, and from Chicago to Auckland, three days a week. The cost is about the same as a flight with a stopover (usually Los Angeles or San Francisco), however, the flight is 15 to 17 hours. That’s a long flight. Still, it IS direct.

Long as this flight is, the Qatar Airlines flight from Doha to Auckland is the longest in the world, and Qantas’ brand new non-stop flight from Perth to London is longer, too [see reactions to the first flight]. Qantas flight is the first direct flight connecting Europe to Australasia, and Air New Zealand’s will be the first to connect Australasia and the middle of the USA.

This is not the end, of course. Qantas is planning a non-stop flight from Sydney to New York, and there will be more. Part of the whole point of Boeing’s Dreamliner is that it has extremely long range: VERY long flights are possible.

Back in the 1990s, I joined Boeing’s “World Design Team” which was, mostly, a brilliant way to build enthusiasm for the project, but which also asked people for their input into the new plane (which at the time was not yet named; Dreamliner wasn’t my first choice, to be honest, though I’ve long since forgotten what was).

Back then, they asked us about what we wanted (more legroom), and whether we wanted longer non-stop flights or faster flights (I wanted faster). Theoretically, a sub-orbital flight could fly much faster and arrive much sooner than a conventional flight, though there are difficulties. But the Dreamliner, capable of flying farther and using less fuel that older aircraft (like the 747s), would be cheaper to run than a suborbital plane, so that’s what we got.

Will it work? I think eventually it will, but I’ve seen no evidence that there’s a huge demand for VERY long haul flights at the moment, but maybe there will be in time. After all, seven decades ago, the “Kangaroo Route” took passengers seven flights and four days to fly between Australia and London, and people used it. However, 15-17 hours is a VERY long time to be cooped up in a flying tube, maybe too long for most people right now.

I have to admit, the ability to never set foot in LAX again is a HUGE attraction of the direct flight, but, even so, I don’t know I could stand it. I’d rather a shorter flight, a stay of a few days, then flying on to Chicago. The bigger truth, though, is that I’d much rather not fly anywhere near that long—not even long enough to fly to the USA. Flights to Australia are about all I can handle these days.

So, I’m probably not the target market for these new flights, and that means I may never get the chance to fly on a Dreamliner that I “helped” to “design”. I think I can live with that.

I have not received compensation of any kind for this post.

Harry, they did it

The video above is an ad, and one that will have a great deal of popularity among fans of the Chicago Cubs. It should be popular: It’s very well done.

The video begins with old video footage of legendary Chicago Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray, then switches to modern video, especially of Game 7 of the World Series yesterday, layering archival audio on top to make it seem as if Caray was calling the game. It was a pretty awesome idea—kudos to the creative who came up with it (and for keeping the sponsor’s presence to a few product placements here and there).

Caray died in 1998, nearly two decades ago, but believed to the end that one day the Cubs would win the World Series. He was a symbol of the long wait: Ever optimistic, but having to endure years of disappointment. And that’s why the video works so well: Cubs fans have been waiting a long time—generations, as I said yesterday. The ad successfully uses Caray as the symbolic focal point for the expectation, the stress of that final game, and the sheer joy at the win. More than a few Chicago Cubs fans may, like me, have had some unexpected water in their eyes when watching the ad.

Like a lot of fans, last night I was thinking about all the Cub greats of the past, especially those who didn’t live to see the Cubs finally win. I thought about Harry, and also his predecessor, the voice of the Cubs in my childhood, Jack Brickhouse. They were kind of missing from the celebrations, though they were in the thoughts of a lot Cubs fans. This ad kind of balanced things out, I think, linking the past and the present.

Still, this is all about a sports team’s victory. Anyone who’s ever backed a sports team has probably experienced the joy of their team being triumphant. I’ve experienced that many times: The Chicago Bears, the Chicago Bulls, and even the Chicago White Sox (the last one because, Chicago…). And, of course, there’s also been the New Zealand All Blacks.

However, as far as I know, no living Cubs fan has ever experienced the team winning the World Series. Yes, it’s just a game, and professional sports is big business with little connection to the realities of ordinary people’s lives. But not everything in life has to be Deep and Meaningful, and not everything has to be serious or have a bigger purpose. Some things transcend all of that, and sport can, for some, be one of those things.

So, however irrational it may seem, and even though there are so many very serious and very important problems and issues that this win won’t fix, we Cubs fans are nevertheless filled with absolute joy right now, and we deserve to be.

I won’t raise a Bud in celebration, but I appreciate them for having made a nice video. I’ll celebrate in some other way—then get back to those very important problems and issues.

Just not today.

Because, Harry, they did it.

‘Long-suffering’ no more

O.M.F.G.!!! The Cubs won the World Series?! ""Long suffering Cubs fans" no more! #worldseries #chicagocubs #winners

A photo posted by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Nov 2, 2016 at 10:00pm PDT

So, the Chicago Cubs have finally won the World Series, for the first time since 1908. Huh! I always thought they could, I fervently hoped they would, but nevertheless was surprised when they did. A life-long wish has been fulfilled: We’re no longer “long-suffering Cubs fans”.

I know a lot of Cubs fans, but I don’t know any who were alive when the Cubs last won the World Series. I bet none of them knows anyone, they don't know anyone who does, and so on. What we’re talking about is generations of Cubs fans who never knew what it was like for our team to win the World Series, but we very well knew the phrase, “wait until next year!”.

I remember my dad watching Cubs games on TV when I was a kid, and complaining about one thing or another. My mother didn’t really care about baseball at all, but pretended she liked the Phillies—mostly to tease my dad. But the sound of Cubs games on TV is part of the summer soundtrack of my childhood.

As an adult, I lived and worked a couple blocks down from Wrigley Field—worked on Addison, and, toward the end of my years in Chicago, lived on a street between Clark and Halsted streets. Both were a short walk from Cubs Park, and when night games began, we got residents’ permits so we could park on the street on game nights.

I also remember even earlier years, when I worked much farther north, and when I took the El past Wrigley Field on my way home, I’d see the now-famous white flag with the blue “W” (as in the photo above, actually), as well as the blue flag with the white L. I liked the white flag better.

Even so, I didn’t often watch the Cubs on TV once I got out on my own, mostly because, apart from weekend games, I was working when they played. However, when I lived in Chicago I did go to some games, and Nigel went to one with me the first time we visited Chicago together.

So, like a lot of Illinoisans, my whole life has been entwined with the Cubs. Maybe them being lovable losers helped us learn how to cope with losing and move on. Maybe not. But for the first time in any of our lives, THIS year we were able to watch our team win a World Series; like so many folks have been saying since the win, “all is forgiven”.

I may have cheered and whooped a little too enthusiastically at the win, and I may, quite possibly, have shed a tear or two at the enormity of finally seeing something I’ve waited for my entire life. That’s not really surprising: “We lubs da Cubs”.

And we’re “long-suffering” no more.

Cubs won here, too

Yep, even in Auckland. ⚾️👍#cubs #chicagocubs #worldseries #espn

A photo posted by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Oct 26, 2016 at 6:41pm PDT

The fact that the Chicago Cubs are in the World Series is amazing enough. But it turns out that I get to watch the games here in New Zealand, too. It’s pretty awesome living in the future.

Seeing the Cubs in a World Series is something I always hoped to see, but never expected to. They’ve been “also-rans” for most of my life, after all. Still, there was something to the “loveable losers” tag for a team that just couldn’t quite close the deal. That’s why no matter what happens in the World Series, I feel like they’ve already won.

I don’t watch much sport of any kind on TV (actually, I go through periods where I don’t watch much of anything on TV…), and when I do it’s most likely to be something with New Zealand in it. That’s not always by choice.

Daytime US sports are played when it’s early morning here, and I’m usually busy doing other things—sometimes I’m not even up yet. Delayed broadcasts are often in the middle of the night. Major sporting events, like the World Series, are played later, afternoon our time, which is better.

The bigger issue is that there’s just not that much American sports I want to watch: I cheer for Chicago teams and a few select others from time to time, but it’s probably fair to say that I’d only go out of my way to watch Chicago teams play, if the timing is right. And, that assumes they broadcast any games with Chicago teams at all.

For a few years, ESPN used to broadcast a Cubs game on Queen’s Birthday holiday weekend—but that stopped so long ago I can’t even remember how long it’s been. The timing was a coincidence, but the fact it was on a holiday meant I was home and able to watch the game.

In the years since, it’s seldom occurred to me to see if a Chicago team’s game was being broadcast, so I have absolutely no idea how often that happens. Still, when it’s a big event, like this year’s World Series, even I check out to see if it’s on.

And that’s the thing about these modern times in which we live: I can watch the World Series live, or any political event in the USA, or many other things. And, although it’s not perfect or complete, there are often perfectly legal ways to watch what Americans are watching either when they do or shortly afterward.

Still, I don’t watch as much television as I used to, and seldom watch TV in the afternoon, so if the Cubs weren’t in the World series, I wouldn’t be watching it at all. Those are the realities in this situation.

But the bigger reality here is that seeing the Chicago Cubs finally make the World Series has made me stop thinking about all the things I thought I’d “never live to see”. Well, that had some help, of course: We have marriage equality. We elected the first African American president twice. Maybe we’re even about to elect the first woman president, too. Yep, it’s pretty awesome living in the future.

Now, if they could just get those teleporters invented…

For the record, I saw the Cubs win today’s game. The next game is Saturday our time, which is quite convenient.

Remembering Kit Duffy

Kit Duffy in April.

This morning, I was working on a new post and decided to go to the original source, which was on Facebook. I arrived just minutes after the official announcement that a dear friend and former colleague from my activist days, Kit Duffy, had died. I was frozen for quite a few minutes.

This post is a revised and extended version of what I posted on my personal Facebook.

Kit had recently had heart surgery and had several complications. One of her friends visited her in hospital and posted updates to Kit’s timeline, which meant all her friends could be kept up to date. Things didn’t seem to be going well, and I feared that she might not make it. She apparently died peacefully, which is what we all hope for when our time comes.

I met Kit when Chicago's Mayor Harold Washington appointed her as his liaison to the city's LGBT communities, and through her work she practically copyrighted the term "straight ally". Since I was a grassroots LGBT activist at the time, our paths crossed MANY times. We had a lot of wonderful chats during those years, and I learned so much from her: She wasn't just a friend, she was an important mentor, as she was for so many activists in that era.

More recently, we reconnected on Facebook, as I have with so many old friends, and we shared a lot of fun and laughs along the way. I am so very grateful for that, and so sad that we never had the chance to meet up again in real life.

She was a very important part of the struggle for the civil and human rights of LGBT Chicagoans, and throughout the state. "Kit's fingerprints are on almost everything we have in the gay community in Illinois today," another former activist colleague, Rick Garcia, said for Kit’s obituary in Windy City Times. "I really think that she is the midwife of the successes we have in Illinois,” he added. I agree.

She was a friend to so many, and she was respected even by people who disagreed with her politics, which is a testament to her, I think, and so very rare these days. She was one of a kind, and I honestly don't think we'll see someone like her again.

I'll miss Kit terribly, but I'm happy that she didn't suffer.

Farewell, my friend—and thank you for everything.

The photo of Kit above is a cropped version of a photo she posted on Facebook last April, as she took part of Chicago’s mayoral election. She remained true to her progressive politics and values to the very end.

See also: “Kit Duffy, liaison for change”, part of Windy City Times’ AIDS@30 series.

When the ‘good guys’ are wrong

Recently, Roger Green has sent me links to several things he knew I’d be interested in, which isn’t unusual; sometimes I send him links, too. Yesterday’s post was inspired by something he sent me, and today’s is based on another. It turned out, however, that this post is about what can be wrong with the Left’s political discourse: Lack of accuracy. We MUST be better than our adversaries each and every time.

The piece Roger sent me was about Democratic Illinois US Representative Dan Lipinski, written by David Nir for Daily Kos: “This Democrat sits in a blue seat—and he wants to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage”. There was a lot wrong with it, and it was typical of what frustrates me so much about commentary on the Left.

The piece says:

“According to a 2014 candidate questionnaire put out by the conservative Illinois Family Institute and just unearthed by the Washington Blade, [Dan] Lipinski supports an amendment to the constitution that would outlaw same-sex marriage.”

That’s true, but hardly news: The Illinois “Family” Institute [sic] is a notorious far-right anti-gay activist group that routinely ranks politicians. The fact that the Washington Blade only just now found out what Illinois folks knew (or could have known) in 2014 doesn’t suddenly make it news. The Blade’s own report also points out that very often Lipinski votes “present” rather than actually voting against the LGBT people of his district, which hardly makes him an evil monster.

Nir continues:

“What's really insulting is that Lipinski represents a solidly blue district in the Chicago area that Obama won by 56-43 margin, so Democrats can and should do better. Pathetically, the establishment has long propped up Lipinski, even going so far as to remove the home a potential primary challenger from his district back in 2011. (Lipinski's father, Bill, was also a congressman; he handed his seat to his son years ago by retiring after the filing deadline.)”

Let’s unpack that. First, it’s absolutely true that the Chicago and Cook County Democratic establishment DOES prop up Lipinski, and plenty of folks in Illinois Democratic politics are plenty pissed off about that. But it’s entirely irrelevant.

What Nir and the Blade both ignore is that Lipinksi’s district is very conservative, and has been for decades (I lobbied his old man, Bill, and had him marked as not supporting LGBT issues). The district IS Democratic: It’s voted for a Democrat for US Representative for most the past 55 years, and it’s also voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in the last six elections. However, the district was also one of only two (out of nine) Chicago Congressional Districts to vote for Reagan in 1980. They did it again in 1984, and then for Bush the First in 1988.

Rather than having mainstream Democrats as neighbouring districts do, Lipinski’s district is made up of what Chicagoans used to call “white ethnics”, folks also once called “Reagan Democrats”: Nominally Democratic, mostly working class white people who are very socially conservative (and often conservative religionists).

What all this means is that even though the Democratic establishment propped up the Lipinskis, a true progressive Democrat is unlikely to do well in that conservative district. A more progressive Democrat could do okay there—but they’d be unlikely, statistically speaking, to topple an incumbent: In most districts, challengers are unlikely to defeat an incumbent of their own party, and that’s true of both parties. In an open primary with no incumbent, a less conservative Democrat would have a chance, but only just.

All of this is knowable stuff. If Nir or the Blade had done a little research—hell, they could have consulted Wikipedia for a very accurate look at the district—they would have known that Dan Lipinski mostly reflects his district, and that's why he’s outside mainstream Democratic Party values.

So, Nir and the Blade made a political argument not related to the facts, then compounded that with something that’s too common at the farther ends (Left and Right) of political discourse, namely, to declare that because a thing was true once, it must always be true. To me, that’s just plain silly.

Yes, for the 2014 elections Lipinksi backed a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality, and that’s a reprehensible thing. However, two things about that: We don’t know—and neither Daily Kos nor the Blade suggested—that it’s still Lipinski’s position following the US Supreme Court ruling mandating 50-state marriage equality; it seems unlikely that he’d still back that now. At most, he might back a “let states decide” amendment, something that wouldn't affect his own LGBT constituents, since the Illinois legislature already passed marriage equality—Illinois did decide.

The other important thing here is that it’s impossible for a Constitutional Amendment banning marriage equality to happen: That ship sank decades ago. So, backing such an amendment is merely pandering to his socially conservative voters. Sure, it’s vile and not what a real Democrat would do, but neither is it the greatest threat to the republic or even the Democratic Party that we’ve ever seen.

I have one serious concern about Lipinski, though: His sponsorship of the pro-discrimination “First Amendment Defense Act” which seeks to specifically permit anti-gay discrimination by anyone who claims they have supposedly “sincerely held religious beliefs” mandating discrimination against LGBT people.

Let me be clear: I truly wish that a real Democrat would challenge Lipinski and knock him out; it disgusts me that a rightwing, anti-gay politician like him can claim to be a Democrat and get away with the fraud. Illinois, the 3rd District, the Democratic Party, and the US House all deserve a real Democrat, and not a fraud like Dan. However, the voters in that district clearly have other ideas, and it’s their right to elect whomever they want. Whether I think he’s a fuckwit is totally irrelevant. So is the opinion of Daily Kos, the Washington Blade, HRC, or anyone else.

So, my concern here isn’t really about the DINO Dan Lipinski, but rather about sites on the Left ignoring facts—knowable things—to try and score partisan political points without reference to facts, context, or any of the other reality-based tools that they should be using.

This matters because the rightwing media in the USA uses lies, smears, defamation, and distortion with giddy abandon in order to score partisan political points—especially on LGBT issues. Media on the Left must always go out of its way to be better than the Right—more accurate, more factual, and paying attention to context.

We MUST be better than our adversaries each and every time.

When a friend leaves

This morning when I logged on to Facebook, there was a message waiting. My friend Grant wanted to let me and a mutual friend of ours, Vernon, know that a woman who had been one of our activist colleagues in Chicago had died. Bad way to start a day.

Ninure Saunders lost her battle with cancer that morning (Chicago time), apparently, after what had been a valiant, though long and tiring, struggle. When I didn’t see any new posts on Facebook for quite some time, I suspected that she might not be doing well, though I had no idea who to contact to ask.

Ninure and I met more than 30 years ago—in 1982—when we both worked at a telemarketing firm. We became friends, and she and I, and another guy we worked with and became friends with, would sometimes get together for drinks after work. At the time, I really didn’t know many other people in the city.

She’d been plagued by health problems her whole life, including arthritis that gave her a lot of pain and eventually led to her needing a walking stick. She also had bad eyesight, and was pretty much legally blind, though she did have sight.

One night after work, she and our friend and I were hanging out at my tiny apartment. We were drinking vodka and Kool-Aid (hey—don’t judge: I was in my early 20s!). For some reason I still don’t really understand, we thought it would be a good idea for her to mix the drinks for us. The euphemism “over served” was a bit of an understatement, and it was the only time in my life when I was drinking and lost time. We laughed about that for years afterward.

Sometime later, we both volunteered for the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the grassroots organisation I gave many years to and have mentioned before. We eventually both became officers—me treasurer, then secretary, she was membership director then female co-chair.

There are many stories from those days, not all of them pleasant, of course—war stories never are all positive—but I think another friend from that era, Tim, summed it up well on Facebook:

“Our old Illinois Gay & Lesbian Task Force group from the 70s & 80s keeps getting smaller. When we, all of us, weren't driving each other nuts, we could unite and battle like nothing you've ever seen. Not bad for a rag tag bunch of volunteers. Wonderful memories. What a fighter she was. RIP.”

And she WAS a fighter—and an effective one. She contributed to far too many victories to count, and was passionate about justice and fairness. She had a quick wit, a warm openness (she loved hugs) and was a great person to have in-depth political discussions with.

She was also a devout Christian, one of the areas where we diverged, even then. I was still a Christian in the early years of our friendship, but not like she was. More importantly, she also lived her Christianity to the best of her abilities, and it informed her commitment to social justice.

One time around the mid-1980s, I was complaining about some religious right person saying or doing something awful against LGBT people (some things don’t change…), and I said that the guy clearly wasn’t a real Christian. She gently chided me: “You can’t know what’s in his heart,” she said, adding that he might come right, basically. I took that advice to heart for decades, and really only changed in recent times when I noticed that radical right folks who called themselves Christian were condemning mainline Christians (my own background) as being “fake”. Times change.

We changed, too, and drifted apart in the very late 1980s, though we eventually became friendly again in the 1990s, then even later, friends on Facebook. So, I was aware of her declining health, though she clearly didn’t want to dwell on it.

I miss those early days, and especially the early days of our activism. It was all still fun and exciting back then, even if we tended to lose more battles than we won. Tim’s right: We really COULD “unite and battle like nothing you've ever seen”, and also laugh about it all. It kept us from despair.

So, goodbye, Ninure. I’m sorry we never got the chance to have one last hug, but at least your pain and suffering have ended. I’m grateful for the fun times we had together, and I thank you for making my life better. I may not share your religious beliefs, but I’ll say the closest appropriate thing I can sincerely say, quoting from the late Irish comedian Dave Allen: "Thank you, goodnight and may your God go with you." She would have appreciated that.

The photo of Ninure up top is from Facebook, though I have no idea who took it. I'd use one of my own, but I'm not sure where my photos from those days are at the moment. If I find them, I'll probably change the photo to one of my own.

Old and new

Well, this year is only four days old and I’ve already skipped a day of blogging. Old habits, eh? This is precisely why I try for an average of at least one post per day, not literally one post per day. I’ll catch up, starting now.

I didn’t blog yesterday because we ended up being busy all day. We met up with some friends from my homeland—folks who, until yesterday, I knew only through the magic of the Internet (podcasting, initially, then through social media). They were in New Zealand for a cruise around New Zealand and on to Sydney.

Yesterday was their last day in Auckland, so we picked them up and took them to Takapuna. We strolled along Takapuna Beach (which is particularly nice), then around around the shops in Takapuna before stopping for lunch.

We took the long way back to drop them off, driving through Herne Bay and stopping in Ponsonby for a coffee. Got them back to their hotel with plenty of time.

I’d been chatting with one of them about their trip for months ahead of time, and he asked me if there was anything that I’d wanted to bring back with me that I’d been unable to, because if it fit in a suitcase, he’d be happy to bring it. There wasn’t, and after some thought I suggest he bring me a Chicago Tribune, because that’s something I rarely see any more—in fact, it’s now only when I go there for a visit.

It wasn’t always that hard: Years ago, when the now-defunct Borders was newly open, they used to carry foreign newspapers and every once in awhile I’d buy a Chicago Tribune. I don’t remember how much they were, except they cost as much as a book, so I didn’t get one very often, so I made the reading of it last as long as I could. This was in my early years in New Zealand, so being able to get the paper was nice. As the chain started to struggle, they stopped carrying foreign newspapers, and then less and less of anything else until the chain was sold to an Australian company who closed them all down, though reopening some locations as their Whitcouls brand, none of which are even half the quality that Borders used to be.

So, getting a Trib was a real treat, but it wasn’t just ANY edition, but the SUNDAY edition! With all those sections! And the funny pages! New Zealand newspapers don’t have funny pages—in fact, they don’t even run comic strips.

But wait—there’s more! They also brought a tin of Marshall Field’s Frango Mints—definitely a treat from home. Although Field’s itself was subsumed into the Macy’s empire, Macy’s kept Frango mints and, possibly to combat falling sales, re-branded the candies as Marshall Field’s Frango Mints, complete with the old Marshall Field’s logo, and using the version of the recipe developed by Field’s in 1929—returning the candy to Field’s roots. I’ve seen nothing about whether this has helped revive sales, but my mints came in a nifty metal tin that I’ll keep, and that sort of thing matters.

And for one last bit of nostalgia, they brought a Chicago flag Christmas tree ornament. I was overwhelmed! The gifts were so thoughtful and spot-on, and certainly made me very happy (the photo above is what they brought me).

And that’s the big fun day we had yesterday, complete with background details, even. This week will be a pretty quiet week, filled with various projects around the house, then more family arrives in about a week, staying through the following weekend when we’ll celebrate my birthday.

Mid-December to mid-January is our busiest time. It’s understandable, I think, that I may have days when I don’t have time to blog. There’s too much new stuff going on, you see.

The reason is that I haven’t mentioned any specific details about our friends is that I don’t usually refer to friends or family by name or provide many details about them unless I have their permission to do so. I’m pretty public on the Internet, but I have no right to make that decision for others. Obviously, none of this applies to public personalities.

Illinois history

Today was an important day for my native Illinois: Today, Illinois became a free state as Governor Pat Quinn signed the Religious Freedom & Marriage Fairness Act into law.

It was a LONG time getting here, as I well remember. I haven’t blogged much about it*, but I was an LGBT grassroots activist from the early 1980s to the early 1990s with the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force (IGLTF), at the time Illinois’ only statewide LGBT civil rights organisation. It was an interesting time.

In 1986, Chicago attempted to pass an ordinance to protect the civil and human rights of LGBT people. It failed under obstinate opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. That failure led to reorganising that—ultimately—led to the adoption of the city’s Human Rights Ordinance only a couple years later.

However, it was only a few years ago—2005—that Illinois finally passed a state law banning discrimination against LGBT people. That’s something IGLTF had been working toward since the 1970s (well before I came along). Then, the state enacted civil unions in December 2010. They began officially on June 1, 2011.

That’s the stuff anyone could glean from the news media or through a little diligent research. There is, of course, more to it.

On October 14, 1989, IGLTF announced that it would introduce a bill to establish a “domestic partnership registry” which would have allowed opposite-gender and same-gender couples to register their relationship officially. At the time, marriage equality wasn’t seen as even remotely possible.

The motivation behind that was that IGLTF had surveyed its membership to find out what they thought the most important issue was. We assumed it would be civil rights protections, but recognition of gay relationships topped the list, comfortably. There were also practical implications. Tim Drake, who was in charge of state legislation at the time, explained it to me this way: “At the time, there were corporations and unions beginning to push for the rights of gay employees—but, if they wanted to create an employee benefit for a gay spouse, there wasn't a mechanism in place for them to do so. We thought having a statewide registry would give them something to point to, instead of having a dozen different definitions.”

IGLTF gathered together all the domestic partnership legislation of that time and drafted a bill. After the public meeting in October 1989, IGLTF was ready to move forward. Even so, we knew that the bill wouldn’t go anywhere—we wanted to start the debate. As Tim Drake said at the time, “We’re introducing [the bill] now to start the education process, which will be a long process.”

So, we sought out the most “gay friendly” legislator, someone who wouldn’t suffer any political harm. That person was Ellis Levin (no longer a state representative) who represented the most heavily LGBT—and arguably most liberal—district in the state. He balked. In fact, people who were at the meeting with him told me that he "threw a tantrum", claiming we were “ruining” his career. We weren’t buying it; instead we insisted he introduce it, and eventually he did. We were right, of course: Sponsorship wasn’t used against him.

As we’d planned, the bill was never called for a hearing, since it was merely introduced to give us something to organize around. Even so, as Tim put it, “our bill became the impetus for the successful registry in Oak Park.”

That was the earliest ancestry of the bill that was signed into law today. We all knew it would happen some day, but I don’t think any of us could imagine it would be “only” some 24 years later.

Since that time, IGLTF disappeared and many of the activists involved with it retired from activism, some (like me) moved away, and some, sadly, have died. But I think it’s important to remember where we come from and how we got to a place, and this is part of the story.

Finally, a personal note. The new law means that when Nigel and I go to Illinois to visit family and friends, we’ll still be married when we get there. This is an important thing. But there’s something that’s even more important to me: I’m equal.

I’m a native Illinoisan: Born there, grew up there, educated there and lived the first 36 years of my life there. In fact, the only reason I left was that my state and my country didn’t recognise my relationship. They both do now. I don’t know if things would have been different if this had been the law 18 years ago, whether Nigel would have moved to the USA instead, but I do know this: For the first time in my life, I’m equal to all my heterosexual family and friends in Illinois. Whether we ever live there or not, we now—FINALLY—have the same opportunity as everyone else.

The same opportunities as everyone else: Isn’t that part of what equality is all about? That’s what we were fighting for all those years ago, and I have to say, it feels pretty awesome to see it actually happen.

Thank you, Illinois and everyone who made this happen. I knew we’d get there eventually.

* In fact, as near as I can tell, the only time I talked specifically about my time as an activist was when Robert Bork died.

Related: Windy City Times coverage.

In tenth place – and fifth

With everything going on, I missed mentioning a link between Auckland and Chicago (other than me): Both cities are in the Top 10 Cities for Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel” for 2014. They are NZ’s and the USA’s only cities in the top 10.

For Chicago, the attractions are, of course the architecture and museums, but also the festivals, Second City and Wrigley Field. It’s a wide-ranging list, and, I think, a pretty good one.

Lonely Planet says about Auckland, “food, arts and exploring the coastal hinterland are all excellent reasons to extend your stay in New Zealand’s biggest and most cosmopolitan city,” and talks about some of the attractions. I’d add that since Auckland is located on an isthmus, the sea features prominently (one if Auckland’s nicknames is The City of Sails), and many fine beaches are easily accessible.

The top ten cities are: 1 Paris, France, 2 Trinidad, Cuba, 3 Cape Town, South Africa, 4 Riga, Latvia, 5 Zurich, Switzerland, 6 Shanghai, China, 7 Vancouver, Canada, 8 Chicago, USA, 9 Adelaide, Australia and 10 Auckland, New Zealand.

New Zealand didn’t make the list of Top 10 Countries (clearly an oversite…), but neither was Australia, so it’s all good (I’m joking…). The West Coast of the South Island was listed at 8 in the Top 10 Regions list.

Meanwhile, New Zealand has been ranked in fifth place on the 2013 Legatum Prosperity Index ranking of 142 countries in eight areas. New Zealand ranked first in the world in Education (which is ironic, with the current government threatening changes that could drastically lower that ranking), second for Social Capital and also Governance and fifth in Personal Freedom. It’s lowest rankings were Entrepreneurship & Opportunity as well as Safety and Security, both at 15, Economy at 17 and Health at 20.

I can’t really comment on whether I think the rankings are valid, particularly whether the weighting of the various factors makes sense, but it’s interesting, nevertheless. The report can be downloaded from the Legatum Institute [Direct link to the PDF].

Internet Wading: Learning history

Bass Reeves

I’m as passionate about history as I am about politics. Of course, the study of the politics requires the study of history, but there’s far more to it for me: History is alive. Sometimes, it’s also hidden.

History is nothing more or less than telling the stories of people from the past. It’s not about dates and events alone, but about the people who live through them—their hopes and fears and dreams, their triumphs, their failures and everything else that marks the passage of their lives.

The problem is that so much of history is hidden. Professional historians focus on what interests them (and fair enough), and also sometimes skip over things that don’t mesh well with their beliefs or prejudices. This is how so much history of minorities is lost.

Thanks to the Internet, I’m always finding out things I never knew. Sometimes these end up in blog posts, as for example the story of the UpStairs Lounge that I wrote about back in June. Most often, however, they don’t. This post is about some of those things I learned that I never knew.

Let’s start with something easy, and kind of contemporary, shall we? The complete history of Twitter as told through tortured descriptions of it in the New York Times”. This shows how the NY Times’ perception of Twitter evolved over the years, mirroring public awareness generally. I think we’ll see more of this sort of “instant history” chronicle in the future, now that everything that happens is recorded somewhere—including on Twitter.

Okay, that was nice and easy. Now, a Founding Father I never heard about: Peyton Randolph. The National Constitution Center’s Constitution Daily blog published an article, “Peyton Randolph: The forgotten revolutionary president” on the 238th anniversary of his early death in 1775—at the same age I am now. He was twice president of the Continental Congress, and from a prominent Virginia family, but I’d still never heard of him. Now, I have. So have you.

Next to the American Revolution, the Civil War is the most “popular” for ordinary people to read about. I was a small child when the centenaries of various Civil War events arrived, and with the Civil Rights Movement happening at the same time, the war was seared into my mind at an early age. But it was all so old—black and white, grainy, distant. Until now: A couple digital artists have painstakingly retouched famous photos from the Civil War—in colour and with sometimes excruciating detail. I thought the re-touched photos made the people in the war much more real than they’d seemed before. Some of them are downright amazing. For me, it really did bring history alive. This history wasn’t hidden in the literal sense, but the retouched photos sure made me see it in an entirely new way

A link shared on Facebook—I forget who shared it—led me to a story about the Dunning Asylum in Chicago, once known as a “tomb for the living”, and a name that parents could threaten children with to immediately alter their naughty behaviour. Yet, I’d never heard of it—nor, apparently, have a lot of other people. Lost history on so many levels—including the fact that perhaps 38,000 people were buried there and forgotten. A sad and scary story.

And let’s round out this found history sampling with something I saw just today: The real life inspiration for The Lone Ranger was almost certainly a Black man named Bass Reeves who was born a slave. He had a Native American companion, rode a white horse, frequently left a silver coin and was responsible for capturing some 3,000 fugitives. There’s so much more to the story, of course, but why the fictional character was made white isn’t really a mystery. Personally, I like to know more about that part of the story.

And those are a small sampling of the sorts of things I run across all the time—these are just the ones I thought to save the links to. Hopefully I’ll remember to keep doing this. After all, I’m sure that others haven’t heard these stories, either.

May Day and me

May Day (also known as International Workers' Day) always seemed sinister when I was a kid. It took me decades to learn it wasn’t.

Growing up during the Cold War, it wasn’t hard to find May Day scary. TV news reports showed a parade through Red Square in Moscow, with the masses marching, waving huge red banners or carrying portraits of Marx, Lenin and whoever the Soviet leaders of the day were. The crowds seemed so fervent, so committed to their ideology. It wasn’t hard to be convinced that all the US propaganda was fact.

But it turned out the origins of May Day were much closer to home.

May Day began as a remembrance of the Haymarket Riots in Chicago, which happened on May 4 1886. During a peaceful rally supporting workers striking for an eight-hour day, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police. That, and the gunfire that erupted afterward, killed seven police officers and at least four of the crowd. Dozens were injured.

A “red scare” followed, with police often brutally cracking down on socialists, anarchists and activists for workers’ rights. The bomber was never identified, but authorities tried and convicted 8 people for conspiracy—in a trial widely regarded as unjust. Four defendants were executed by hanging, the other four were pardoned in 1893 by the progressive Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld (who was defeated in the next election, largely because of his support for labour).

In 1889, a privately funded statue honouring the dead policemen was erected in Haymarket Square. It was damaged several times, and was actually blown up twice by the Weathermen (in 1969 and 1970). Each time the statue was damaged, it was restored. In 1972, it was moved to the Chicago Police Headquarters (later to its training academy), but the pedestal remained empty for decades. In 1992, bronze plaque was placed on the spot where the wagon from which speakers addressed the crowd had stood. In 2004, a memorial sculpture—depicting a 15-foot speaker’s wagon—was unveiled.

Growing up, and believing the anti-socialist propaganda of the local, state and federal governments of the day, I had no reason to learn the real story of the Haymarket Riots, so I didn’t know it was the reason behind the selection of May Day as a day for workers. For that matter, I didn’t know the truth about social democratic countries.

Now, of course, I live in a social democracy, with its mix of market socialism, welfare state progressivism and market-focused capitalism. I’ve seen firsthand that social democratic programmes condemned in the USA, such as national healthcare, are actually good things that benefit society, and that such things are not evil, as I’d been taught to believe.

Still, on May Day in New Zealand we don’t break into a rousing rendition of “The Internationale”. I bet most Kiwis, like their American cousins, probably don’t even know what that is. Our Labour Day holiday—celebrating the 8-hour workday—is at the end of October.

The video at the top of this post is of Arturo Toscanini conducting a version of “The Internationale” in 1944. It’s part of a film featurette to honour the Allied victory in Italy in World War 2 in which Toscanini conducted Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations”, adding “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the USA and “The Internationale” for the Soviet Union (until that year, “The Internationale” was the national anthem of the Soviet Union). In the “red scares” of the 1950s, US censors had other ideas about all this and deleted “The Internationale” from the film. The complete, uncensored version is on YouTube, of course (and, oddly enough, “The Star-Spangled Banner” follows “The Internationale”). The music was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with the Westminister Choir and the tenor Jan Peerce as soloist.

It turns out that the world is much more interesting than American propaganda led me to believe. History is almost never a simplistic binary story in which one side is all good and the other is all bad. Humans, and our stories, are far too complicated for that. So, the struggle for workers’ rights or the attempts to stop them, the Haymarket Riots and the origins of May Day, or even socialism itself—none of these are simplistic morality tales. They’re far more interesting.

Equality in Illinois?

My native Illinois may enact marriage equality next month, a little over two years since it created marriage-like civil unions. The move comes in the wake of three states enacting marriage equality at the ballot box last month, and polls consistently showing most Americans support marriage equality, as do most Illinoisans.

This week the Chicago Sun-Times said in an editorial that “It’s time for gay marriage in Illinois. Not in the distant future. Not in the near future. But now.” The Chicago Tribune has not yet editorialised on the proposal, but in the past it has supported marriage equality.

Now wingnuts, anti-gay hate groups, bigots and religious extremists have come together to “The Coalition To Protect Children & Marriage," a hilariously ironic name, since marriage equality is what protects children and marriage, not preventing marriage equality. The far right opponents are veritable who’s who of extremists (mostly religious, some secular), anti-gay bigots and far right crackpots. The group is led by a Republican ex-state legislator who was once the leading anti-gay bigot in the Illinois House of Representatives, until her extremism became too much even for her staunchly Republican district and she lost her own party’s primary. She now heads the group founded by Illinois’ leading wingnut crackpot, the completely irrelevant Phyllis Schlafly, whose career is now made up of desperate attempts to convince people she and her stone age ideas matter to anyone other than her fellow wingnuts. The reality is, she hasn’t been relevant in Illinois or US politics for a generation.

So, what we have on one side, supporting marriage equality, are mainstream voters and the political and media establishment. On the other is nothing more than the usual cabal of the crazy, extreme and bigoted, a cadre of negativism that mainstream people don’t want anything to do with. This bodes well for Illinois.

If the Illinois General Assembly does enact marriage equality next month, Governor Pat Quinn has pledged to sign it into law, and that will be that: Illinois doesn’t permit binding referenda from citizens, so all the negativists and haters could do is get an advisory referendum on the ballot—basically, a taxpayer-funded opinion poll.

We have passed the tipping point in the marriage equality debate. Even if the Illinois legislature doesn’t enact marriage equality next month, it is inevitable that it will, sooner rather than later. Time and history are on our side, something even the shrill negativists and haters know. The power of love is unstoppable.

Voting from overseas

Yesterday afternoon, I emailed off my FPCA (Federal Post Card Application), which all US citizens living overseas (temporarily or indefinitely, military or civilian) are required to file in order to vote in the November election. My prompt came, to be honest, from a phone call from a volunteer with Democrats Abroad here in New Zealand.

As a citizen living overseas indefinitely, I only get to vote for Federal offices, and this year for me that means only President/Vice President and US Representative (there's no US Senate race in Illinois this year). I vote using the address I was last registered to vote in the US, the NW side of Chicago (Jan Schakowsky's district—YAY!!).

So, to register, I went to the website of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and on to the page for Military/Overseas Voters. I downloaded the FPCA as a PDF from a link on that page, filled it in, printed it out and signed it. Then, I scanned the signed form and emailed it to the election officials.

Today I received an email reply telling me that my email ballot will be sent by the end of the week. I’ll again print out the ballot, mark it, and mail it back to them. They also send a formal ballot by post, and if I send both back, only the formal ballot is counted.

This year, they’ll also have an “Online ballot access and marking system”:

“With this system, any eligible military/overseas voter with a valid Federal Post Card Application on file with the Chicago Board of Elections will be able to log in to access and mark his or her ballot. After completing this process, the voter then may print out the ballot and the supporting documents to mail the ballot and documents to the Chicago Board of Elections.”

What I don’t get is how this differs from just sending the ballot by email, as they’ve done for many years (the first time I used that system was 2008). Maybe it’s just a way that doesn’t require email. I should know next week, when the service is due to go live.

All of this is done in accordance with Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which require that states must permit absent uniformed military voters and overseas civilian voters to use absentee registration procedures and to vote by absentee ballot in all elections that include one or more federal offices. However, there has been a change requiring that the FVCA must be filed for every federal election cycle—every two years—where before it would be could for four (in some states, longer).

Not every jurisdiction makes it as easy as my old one does—in fact, some states seem to go out of their way to make it difficult for overseas citizens to vote. For many overseas voters, the best way to register to vote is to go to Vote From Abroad—it's from the Democratic Party, but they help everyone, regardless of affiliation.

I know that there are some people who don't think I should be “allowed” to vote because I live overseas, and others who wonder why I'd bother. The answer to both is the same: Voting is my fundamental right as a US citizen, a right that relatives have fought (and some have died) to preserve and protect. To me, not voting dishonours all those who have fought to preserve our democratic rights, including relatives and strangers alike.

While some people may not like HOW I vote, they have no right to tell me NOT to vote. There are some things that simply transcend politics.

Deadlines for overseas Illinois voters: The registration deadlines for ordinary absentee voters (those overseas temporarily): Monday, October 8. The deadline for Illinois voters overseas indefinitely (federal office only ballot): Moday, October 29. Ballots must be postmarked by November 5 and must be received by the Commissioners in Chicago by Tuesday, November 20.

I posted a less detailed version of this on Facebook.

SNAP! Gutiérrez on the ‘food stamp president’

In this video, US Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D-Illinois-04) good-humouredly explores the facts and figures behind Newt Gingrich’s declaration that President Obama is “the food stamp president.” In the process, Gutiérrez exposes how shallow Gingrich’s intellectual depth really is, something that’s always fun to watch. Gutiérrez concludes his remarks with the one obvious fact that seems to elude the Republican candidate and his allies: "Hunger knows no race or religion or age or political party. Hunger is colorblind."

I’ve long been a fan of Luis Gutiérrez. I knew him primarily as Alderman for Chicago’s 26th Ward, where he was a leading champion of Chicago’s Human Rights Ordinance and other progressive causes. The Human Rights Ordinance banned discrimination against GLBT people in Chicago a couple decades before the state of Illinois finally followed suit. In so doing, it extended human rights protections to roughly a third of Illinoisans. It was a very big deal.

Gutiérrez ran for Congress in 1992, and I was a little concerned because it would me the loss of a progressive leader in the Chicago City Council. However, he carried that leadership to Congress where he champions many of the issues I most care about, including comprehensive immigration reform.

So, that’s why I’ve admired and respected Rep. Luis Gutiérrez for a 25 years. This video gives just a little hint of why.

Chicago Cubs: It Gets Better

It’s the turn of the Chicago Cubs to do a video for the “It Gets Better” project. The San Francisco Giants were the first MLB team to make such a video.

Older gay people often smirk and deride these videos, saying “It’s just a PR exercise!” Or, they’ll criticise the people in the video, asking “where are the stars?” Those are actually valid points—but totally and completely irrelevant.

When I was growing up in Illinois, my dad watched baseball, as countless other fathers did and still do. Sometimes I watched those Chicago Cubs games, too, or parts of them. But I saw baseball as a largely hostile, overtly and overly “macho” place where I wasn’t really welcome, and I felt that way even before I really understood why.

So hearing the Cubs Manager say, as Mike Quade did, “The Chicago Cubs organization celebrates you for exactly who you are, gay or straight” would have been completely and totally unimaginable to me as a kid and teenager. Had I heard such a message, I know I would’ve felt a little less alone, a little less isolated.

The times have gotten better since then, but GLBT kids still struggle to come to terms with their identity in a world that, despite improvements, is still largely hostile toward them. Hearing the message from Mike Quade is great for them, as is hearing Cubs Pitcher Ryan Dempster tell them, “Stay strong and be true to yourself. It gets better.”

Fathers hearing those messages may realise that a kid who is gay or lesbian is valued by the Chicago Cubs, and that just may help them to value their own child, as well. Small changes make big change, after all.

This is not an out-of-the-blue action for the Cubs, either. After the Ricketts family bought the Chicago Cubs, and out-lesbian Laura Ricketts joined the board, moves were made to make the organisation more, well, modern. The team even had a float for the first time ever in Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade, which passes just a couple streets away from Wrigley Field.

So to the whiners and whingers, I say, simply, shut up unless you’re doing something constructive to help. We all know that the Cubs will catch flak from the local members of the anti-gay industry, so if they get a little positive PR spin out of participating in the video project, that’s fine by me: The point is still that they’re issuing a positive message of support to GLBT youth—AND adults.

Go Cubbies!

The members of the Chicago Cubs organization in this video, in order of appearance, are: Mike Quade – Manager, Bob Dernier – First Base Coach, Ryan Dempster – Pitcher, Marlon Byrd – Outfielder; Darwin Barney – Infielder and Laura Ricketts – Board of Directors.

A good day for love

Yesterday, my native Illinois officially became the latest US state to offer civil unions, giving same-sex couples all the state-level benefits of marriage—without allowing them to actually get married, of course. Several hundred people took out licenses on the first day they were available, and today the first couples became legally joined. A special ceremony with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was held in the city’s Millennium Park (as covered by Windy City Times, with photos).

Let me clear: This is very important for the couples who, until June 1, had no way to have their relationship recognised by the state of Illinois. When I read the Chicago Tribune account, I was struck by one fact: How long the couples profiled had been waiting for official recognition: From 10 to 47 years—nearly five decades waiting to be treated like a citizen. Talk about the enduring power of love! That’s probably longer than most marriages last.

Even so, civil unions are not marriages, which have universal legal recognition throughout the state. Illinois still needs full marriage equality or, if the “m word” so troubles delicate souls, then Illinois could convert all existing marriages to civil unions and get the state out of the marriage business altogether.

Naturally, the anti-gay industry is in full froth mode (when are they not?). Anti-gay extremist “Porno Pete” LaBarbara, who is head of an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group, is organising a campaign to try and get a referendum on the ballot to amend the state constitution to outlaw any recognition of same-sex relationships, including civil unions. It’s a legally pointless vanity exercise, which would cost hard-working Illinois taxpayers a lot of money just to assuage Porno Pete’s ego—well, that, and so Porno Pete can use it to raise ever more money, which is kinda the whole point.

Illinois doesn’t have binding citizen-initiated referenda; instead citizens have only advisory referenda—the Illinois General Assembly must take action, which it won’t. That fact makes the bald hatred and bigotry of Porno Pete’s group even more evident. The proposed wording of their referendum statement makes it obvious: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” [emphasis added]

Note the way it apes the tone of the wording in the Preamble to the US Constitution; that’s no accident. The anti-gay industry tries to wrap itself—and it’s hatred—in the US flag, apparently thinking no one will be able to see what hate-filled bigots they truly are. But if this was really about their peculiar religious views, they wouldn’t oppose civil unions, too. Their true agenda is that that they want zero recognition of same sex couples (outlawing civil unions for heterosexuals, too, doesn’t fool anyone about their true intention). In fact, many leaders of the anti-gay industry (AFA, FRC, and others) are openly advocating criminalisation of homosexuality itself and active discrimination against GLBT people, even if that means breaking the law to do it. Yeah, those people are such good Americans—they must be added to Mt. Rushmore at once!

So today we see an important step on the road to full equality for gay and lesbian Illinoisans. Yet we are mindful that it is not yet full equality, and also that there are still enemies waging a culture war to take away even this.

Hatred, bigotry, prejudice, religious intolerance and religious chauvinism have always been with us. But so, too, has love. Today, we have a true victory for the enduring power of love. We must all ensure that love, not hatred, always wins.

Weekend Diversion: Ministry

This week’s choice is one that could be outside the mainstream, but it isn’t. Ministry in early 1980s was a band that was sort of a New Wave synthpop blend, and then in the late 1980s/early 1990s morphed into an industrial thrash metal band. I only liked the early version.

I first encountered Ministry in the legendary Chicago record store, Wax Trax!, which was located at 2449 North Lincoln Avenue, north of Fullerton Avenue in the city’s DePaul Neighbourhood. It was the home of New Wave, punk rock and industrial metal—and a significant selection of dance music, too. The first commercial Ministry’s album, With Sympathy, was released in 1983.

Ministry released four 12” singles through Wax Trax!, which is where I found them. I used to listen to With Sympathy back in the day, and later got the 12” versions of "All Day" and "Every Day is Halloween". I never bought one of their metal albums.

Wax Trax!, meanwhile, was an institution. It had been founded as a record shop in 1974 in Denver by Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, then sold in 1978. They opened a new store in Chicago in November of that year, and released its first record in 1980. Among the many records they released were 12 inch versions of Laibach’s Opus Dei, a song that was the Weekend Diversion last week.

The business went bankrupt in 1992 and was bought by TVT Records of New York. Jim Nash died from AIDS-related complications on October 10, 1995, but his life partner, Dannie Flesher, continued until 2001, when TVT closed the business and he retired from the music business. Flesher died of pneumonia on January 10, 2010.

Ministry continued until 2008, when the band’s founder, Al Jourgensen, retired the name. He reportedly hated With Sympathy, alleging it was the way it was because he’d lost creative control. I always thought his attitude was unfortunate. As the music review on iTunes aptly put it, “Al Jourgensen must be more insecure about his past than a superstar linebacker of childhood courses in ballet.”

This week’s song, then, is a sad selection: The band I liked changed completely, the place I bought it went out of business, its owners died, and the unique vibe created by that store is now part of Chicago’s—and my own—cultural history.

The video above is an audio-only recording of the extended mix of "Work for Love", from With Sympathy. There don’t seem to be any music videos of the song, so I thought I may as well use the extended version, because that’s exactly the sort of thing I went to Wax Trax! to buy.