This Too Shall Pass

(Thanks so much for your patience yesterday. The situation has calmed down somewhat, but I still have more issues there to resolve. But for the time being, I'll be picking up where I left off on the blog.

This month hasn't been an easy one for me. I lost a loved one, I'm having to sever a relationship, and it's almost the two year anniversary of my grandmother passing away.

This morning, I reached back into the Nevada Progressive archives for this. In a sense, I feel like my life is in this limbo again. Yet eventually, this too shall pass. I have to keep reminding myself of that.)

So I was helping with voter registration earlier today when I got the call. My dad called to tell me my grandmother had just passed away. And I didn't quite know what to do next.

We've known for some time that my grandmother was getting worse. It was becoming increasingly obvious by the time of her last hospital visit, when the decision was made to place her on hospice. I knew that at some point, she would have to leave us.

I just wasn't expecting this to occur today. I just didn't want to think it could happen so soon. But alas, it happened.

Even when one feels best prepared to deal with tragedy, one is never fully prepared when it finally happens. So it happened. She's gone. And I'm pretty much an emotional mess.

Yet somehow, I'm still here. And somehow, I'm continuing my day. Maybe it's because I know she is in a better place now. And maybe it's because I don't know what I'd be doing now if I had not been helping with voter registration when I got the call.

Sorry for the personal 411, but I just need to release what's been building in me since this morning.

Life Intervenes

Please excuse this latest interruption. I was planning some more stories today...

But life intervenes. Those closest to me know what's going down. It's a saddening and difficult situation. However, it's a situation that I'm working hard to resolve.

It's not often easy to say goodbye. It's often even more difficult to ask someone to exit one's life. And it's even more difficult when one is exposed to the underlying issues causing the strife.

I'm hoping to resume my regular work schedule at some point this week. But for the time being, life intervenes. I'm hoping I won't have to take too long of a break to resolve this issue.

Closure

Last night, wedding bells were heard across California. While the US Supreme Court's dismissal of the Prop 8 law suit is now widely known, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to vacate the stay yesterday came as an interesting surprise. And once that happened, marriage equality finally returned to California for good.

Four years ago, I still had raw wounds over what had occurred.

Prop H8 had passed in California. And even though I didn't have any immediate marriage plans, I nonetheless felt like all my future hopes and dreams were ripped away from me. I didn't know what to do... Until I got active in working to undo the damage.

Yet even though I'm seeing progress in my new home state, I still have raw feelings about what happened in California last fall. I still have wounds that are only starting to heal.

The yard signs that were stolen from my front yard. The homophobic insults coming from my own family. The belligerent Yes on H8 paid canvassers trying to bully my dad into taking away my civil rights. The "urine yellow" Yes on H8 signs being sprinkled all over my neighborhood by the anti-equality churches. These are my memories from the campaign.

The married couples wondering if their marriages were still "legally valid". The couples that waited too long and missed the chance to get a "limited edition marriage". The kids who were bullied in school before and after the election. These are still memories I have from the first days after Prop H8 passed.

Beating myself up constantly about why I didn't do more to stop this oncoming tragedy. This is the guilt I still have over my failure to do enough to stop Prop H8 from passing.

This was the ghost that was constantly haunting me. That's why I was taken aback when this happened.

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This week's marriage equality rulings have already been incredibly momentous. Yet even though they do remind us of all the work that must still be done to secure full equality in Nevada and nationwide, I must admit that yesterday's big news finally provided some major closure for me.

Shortly after the 2008 election, I felt sub-human at times. Why was it OK to campaign to strip away my civil rights and the civil rights of so many other Californians? That's why Judge Walker's 2010 ruling was so monumental... And why Wednesday's SCOTUS decision was such a relief. It finally provided closure.

One political campaign over one ballot initiative may not seem all that life changing at first. But when one looks at Prop 8 and all the other marriage ban initiatives, it's incredibly difficult to continue thinking that. Even though I was not in a relationship at the time, I truly felt like my dream was stolen from me. And I wondered when I could ever have it back.

That's truly the message of these discriminatory initiatives. These votes to take away people's rights dehumanize people. There's a reason why LGBTQ youth suicides and anti-LGBTQ hate crimes spiked after Prop 8's passage. That's why this one political campaign over this one ballot initiative mattered so much. It threatened not just the well being of families, but also the lives of many others with dreams of starting their own families in the future.


Now, I live in another state with its own marriage ban initiative that needs to be overturned or repealed. And one day, that will happen. And one day, LGBTQ Americans across the country will be able to fulfill their dreams. But at least for now, I'm finally experiencing some closure.

Farewell, Gus.

It may seem like a long time ago. But back in July 2009, I started this blog. And I didn't come out of nowhere. I was helped along the way by some great people back in "The Homeland", Orange County, California.

In particular, there was someone who inspired me greatly. In fact, he inspired me to start this blog when I moved here in 2009. And he taught me so much when I lived in OC and witnessed firsthand what he did.

Yesterday, Gus Ayer passed away. And I'm still in shock.

He sacrificed his own re-election campaign in Fountain Valley to try and elect Debbie Cook to Congress. He was the mayor and a city council member in Fountain Valley.

I could always count on Gus to make me laugh and to cut through the bullshit and tell it to me straight. He was my mentor and in my innermost circle of friends. [...]

This is a significant loss for progressives and environmentalists in Orange County.

Just to let you know what Gus worked on in the 2012 campaign cycle: Sandy Genis elected to the Costa Mesa City Council Jill Hardy elected to the Huntington Beach City Council Diana Carey elected to the Westminster City Council Helped to defeat Measure Z in Huntington Beach Worked on the anti-Charter initiative in Costa Mesa Worked on saving Coyote Hills in Fullerton and won at the ballot even though outspent 10-1. Worked on defeating an anti-open space initiative in Orange and won!

Gus's last project was defeating the Poseidon desalination project in Huntington Beach and we will be carrying on that fight now with a vengeance and in Gus' memory.

Gus often seemed like an unstoppable force for positive change. I won't ever forget how he masterminded a longshot campaign against a long-time "tea party before tea party was cool" Republican Member of Congress. His candidate, Debbie Cook, held that powerful OC Republican incumbent to just 53% of the vote, and she did so with no national Democratic assistance. Gus ran that campaign like a pro. And he showed me how a campaign could be run well and run without the kind of cynicism one often finds behind the scenes in big ticket campaigns.

Gus was also on the ground floor of the Netroots. I first met him on Daily Kos. He was also a pro at online rabblerousing. And when he saw a void that needed to be filled in Orange County, he started OC Progressive. And he invited me to join his new project. That was the launchpad from which I started this blog.

It's hard to think of a world and a blogosphere without Gus. He was a mentor to me in California, and he inspired me to start my own rabblerousing here in Nevada. He will be sorely missed.

Farewell, Gus.

You may have known him as Aeolus, I just knew him as Gus. He worked tirelessly for progressive efforts thru out Orange County and California. He was a force to be reckoned with, he liked fighting the man, he liked being the underdog and he loved being a thorn in the side of those who wanted to do harm to our environment. he liked a good fight.

And he loved big. He had an amazing family, he was so proud of his sons, his adopted and biological. And he just had a way of making you feel welcome. I always knew if I need someone to talk to I could call Gus.

We lost more than a friend today, we lost so much today and I would write more I think if I could just stop crying. But I wanted to mark this loss somehow, I needed to. [...]

You were one in a million Gus and I know so many others who will miss you just as much as I will. You were like a Father I didn't have, I'm sure you were to so many. I just can't wrap my mind around the fact I won't see you again.

Farewell, Gus. You may be gone, but not forgotten. And really, you're not completely gone. Your legacy lives on, even in places you never expected.

How I Got My Start

Since arriving here in California, I've been reminded of my own personal history. Believe it or not, I wasn't always... Oh hell, yes I was. Still, I like to think I've matured in the last three years that I've lived in Nevada.

My first big blog gig was at Calitics in 2007. I pretty much covered the OC beat... And raised a whole lot of hell. I'm still proud of the hell-raising I did over a proposed toll road through a state park to the beach.

I then moved onto The Liberal OC, and I had a chance to grow some more and learn from the pro's on how to properly "muck-rake" and get to what's really happening in local politics. While I sometimes behaved as the local blogs' "wild child", I like to think I was at least of some use. I still won't forget my experience investigating the strange goings-on in Dana Point City Hall.

My final posts in OC were for an upstart blog. It was quite fun to be at the ground floor of something for a change, and my colleagues there encouraged me to dig deeper into the kind of policy wonkiness that you've all come to know and love me (hopefully!) for now.

Trust me, I didn't quite take a short & easy path to ProgressNow's, Desert Beacon's, & The Nevada View's respective blog rolls. Before Elizabeth Halseth, there was Diane Harkey. Before Yucca Mountain, there was Trestles. Before the beautiful train wreck that is the Nevada Republican Party, there was the grueling machine that was the Orange County Republican Party. Before I began experiencing the true "fabulosity" of Nevada politics, I had to learn my way through the hurly burly of Orange County politics.

And I appreciate all my old friends (and even some old foes) who helped me reach the point I'm at today.

Do We Really Bowl Alone?

17 years ago, Dr. Robert Putnam suggested that America was losing the key to our past greatness. Specifically, he felt that we were losing "social capital" as communities built upon in-person social intercourse were being replaced by human islands isolated from each other by "individualizing" technology, such as TV, video games, and the internet. He (in)famously argued this case in his 1995 essay, which later became a full book in 2000, Bowling Alone.

Sometimes, it seems like Putnam may be right. As we spend more and more of our time plugged in and online, it's easy to feel less connected to the world outside... Especially in regards to the neighborhood just beyond one's own back yard. And when one thinks about the consequences of this disconnect, it becomes quite a scary thought...

But what if this isn't true? Earlier this month, there was huge uproar over SOPA and PIPA that led several internet communities to "strike back" and essentially force Congress to drop the (supposed) anti-piracy legislation (at least for now). And in the wake of that, there was actually a very interesting discussion on MSNBC about the new forms of social capital started by Dr. Melissa Harris Perry.

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Perhaps Putnam is wrong, and social capital in America really isn't dead. After all, look at Facebook. Look at Twitter. Look at YouTube, and UStream, and social gaming sites. Look more closely at the internet, and notice the new home of social capital.

I can personally attest to the value of this new social capital. In the last week, I had a problem at home mushroom into a personal crisis. What had been a water heater that busted was quickly turning into a fiasco that put my very home and personal freedom in jeopardy. I was losing a whole lot of sleep this past week, and I was seriously nearing my wit's end.

So what was I to do? Sure, I made some calls. I contacted family members, and a couple of them offered help. But ultimately, it was when I reached out to "my family" on Facebook that I found an outpouring of concern, support, and ultimately critical help that diffused this personal life crisis. (Yes, you know who you are... And you're always more than welcome to take a bow and remind me why you light up my life.) ;-)

Some may look at web sites like Facebook and YouTube and see a bunch of silly people doing silly things, but I see more than just that. I see life lines. I see kids at risk of suicide whose lives are saved. I see folks who may otherwise feel isolated in "Rural America" find communities that they never knew existed. And I see new forms of social capital emerge to breathe new life into our fragile democracy.

As you know, it's not that often that I turn this much to personal issues, but I do have a point here that will take us back to the bigger picture. In the next 9 months, we'll probably hear from plenty of big media pundits about how new technology changes the dynamics of this upcoming election. The Nevada GOP finally did something right in agreeing to post caucus results on Twitter. Campaigns will be relying more on YouTube to release "viral videos" that allow for less expensive advertising. And volunteers will be corralled more via sophisticated social media venues, like the platform emerging at President Obama's web site, in a more effective manner than ever once just imaginable.

However, there's more. There's far more value to social media and the reemergence of social capital than most had originally thought. Perhaps instead of dividing and isolating us, new technology is allowing us to build new communities and rediscover the value of civic engagement. And perhaps instead of worrying about how the internet is making us lose what we liked about our country, we can use the power of the internet to make our country even better.

On Life & Death

Perhaps by the time you read this diary, I will already be back in my cozy air-conditioned condo, enjoying a late night bubble bath and cup of green tea. It can be incredibly easy sometimes to insulate oneself from the brutal reality of the outside world... But for only so long. At some point, reality finds a way to disrupt one's insulated fantasyland. That's what's happened to me in the last month.

As I write this now, one of my aunts is changing the TV channel to get the latest updates on a mass shooting in a Seal Beach salon (not far from my dad's house, at least nine were shot and six killed). My grandmother sometimes remembers to eat, but other times won't eat as she closes her eyes and slouches on the side of the living room sofa. On Monday, my dad and I barely missed a car accident in Costa Mesa. And this morning, my dad was flipping out over his cousin just undergoing an open bypass surgery after barely surviving a heart attack (and she's still in the ICU now).

What's happening? Why does it feel like death surrounds me? It's hard to avoid depression when there's so much to be depressed about.

But then, there's this:



And this:



And I'm reminded of the strange sense of perfect zen calm I could always tap into here on the majestic Orange Coast. I enjoyed the best Italian lunch I've had in a long time in Laguna, and I noshed on pizza while seeing the surfers do their magic in Huntington. My dad and I experienced the start of the perfect sunset, as well as the departure of the perplexing marine layer. The Pacific Ocean really gives this place life, and I could notice this at every glimpse of the amazing coastline here.

It's been a strange juxtaposition. The climate and scenery feel like paradise, but the human suffering here has amounted to hell at times. I remember to smile when I see the sea gulls marching under the pier, then I return to my dad's house to see certain ungrateful relatives neglecting my ailing grandmother yet again. What a strange juxtaposition this is.

In this last week, I've had to confront some facts about my own life. After all, I'm not getting any younger. What am I doing? Have I been living successfully? What happens when my last remaining grandparent is gone? How will my father survive this? And what will happen to the tenuous bonds that barely hold my father's side of the family together? Are they already killing themselves? And are they even killing themselves softly?

This last Southern California Sojourn has left me with many mixed feelings, and it's made me rethink what I thought I knew about life and death. Who would have thought losing my grandmother would cause all this?

10 Years Later: My Own 9/11

September 11, 2001, is a day I can't forget... Even though it was a day that seemed to start like so many others had. While I was getting ready for school, America's beating economic heart and central political nervous system were under attack. And as I was starting what I just thought would be my second day of high school, my entire outlook on life would forever change.

That morning, I woke up as just another Orange County kid attending just another conservative Christian fundamentalist private school. In the following weeks, I would be relegated as "extreme" as that crazy "anti-American" extremist, Barbara Lee. Why? Well, I agree(d) with her.



It was my first experience of expressing dissent, and of paying the price for holding an unpopular point of view. In the immediate days following 9/11, there was a sense of national unity. And while it was helpful in many ways, on the other hand it allowed for the Bush Administration to embark on policy prescriptions that we would later learn to be quite harmful to our country. It was easy to go with the masses and cheer on "retaliation" against the "evildoers". It most definitely wasn't easy to point out what would happen once Congress gave George Bush a blank check to engage in endless war.

I was just trying to make sense of everything that was happening all around me... And it just wasn't making sense. Even as everyone else around me kept beating the drums for war more loudly, I kept wondering why we were doing this. My teachers and my own mother were asking why I sympathized with "terrorists". Other students just saw me as "the liberal weirdo". Nothing seemed to make sense then...

But it all comes together now.

Fast forward ten years, and now Rep. Barbara Lee's words ring more prescient and true than ever before. We're mired in multiple wars abroad, yet we supposedly can't afford to create jobs for the unemployed here at home. Nearly ten years after the USA (Un)PATRIOT(ic) Act passed, Americans are now asking where their freedom went. And now that memories of a nation so proudly patriotic seem so distant, Congress has reached a new low in unpopularity as seemingly anything and everything is being questioned.

In many ways, it feels like the tables have turned. Back then, I felt so alone in opposing what seemed so American as apple pie. But now, I'm trying to explain how things work to the very same people who are now losing faith in the entire American experiment. It can be sad to watch, but I can't lose hope that our people will recognize what needs to be done to restore our democracy.