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Op-Ed

  • My blog break turned out to be a bit longer than it should have, sorry. But if you have been following the Twitter/venusplusx feed you know I’ve been very busy with activists everywhere as we see, finally, an energizing of the forces for good despite the pain of getting to our destination. And it is…

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  • Today in hundreds of cities and towns across the world transgender and gender-nonconforming people and their allies pause to honor our fallen heroes. The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith—a transgender graphic designer, columnist, and activist—to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. It occurs annually on…

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  • Yesterday, I revisited my pre-election theory that progressives and all non-Republicans will see the greater good of a Republican takeover of the Senate and their increased footprint in the House. And I promised to riff on a few memes to substantiate that soon after. (Part 1 here.) There’s nothing to fear since these election results are actually bringing…

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  • The far right believes they have a chance to remake the world into the christian, capitalist theocracy they have always wanted. Even liberal media says, “If they win this election cycle they will do things that would reverse history for 75 years!” But none of that’s going to happen. Just before the U.S. Election a week ago, I…

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  • The far right believes they have a chance to remake the world into the christian, capitalist theocracy they have always wanted. Even liberal media says, “If they win this election cycle they will do things that would reverse history for 75 years!” But none of that’s going to happen. There are only two possible outcomes. Either . .…

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  • A primitive man who lived in a cave a long, long time ago once abstracted the idea that you can make a living, even a very good living as a shaman. He was largely self-appointed to intercede between and on behalf of other men and the existing natural resources. Most important, he consulted on what…

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  • As reported last night by Rachel Maddow (see video below), at the urging of an anti-abortion religious group, the School Board in Gilbert, Arizona, is tearing out pages from a high school honors biology book. It is the first action taken after a law in Arizona passed two years ago that requires all textbooks “to…

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  • As we reported last week, tomorrow, November 1, kicks off “Beyond Extreme Energy Week of Action” in Washington, DC, and cities across the United States and abroad, and we hope you will somehow participate in or otherwise support these efforts. Did you know that the U.S. government is the largest energy user at $25 billion per…

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  • [pexyoutube pex_attr_src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4L_z7Gefo” pex_attr_width=”500″][/pexyoutube] As a follow up to yesterday’s discussion of the decriminalization of sex work, take a look at this video of a sex worker ally drilling down to the issues. While perhaps relying too much on sensational memes based on unreliable data that says most sex workers are sex-trafficked children, she makes a durable case…

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  • Highly-acclaimed, reader-supported news site, Truthout, has once again zeroed in on a pressing matter of social justice, the continued criminalization of sex workers. Mike Ludwig‘s news analysis, well worth a full read, weaves together several different threads of this issue in terms everyone can understand. Ludwig points our attention to “a great leap forward” in New…

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