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The scariest night of the year
The 4th of July is just around the corner. Remind me to tell you sometime about when some friends of mine and I left LA for a long, drunken 4th of July weekend at the Sunrise Lanai condos in Palm Springs not far from where I live now, and as the fireworks lit up the…
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1,112 and Counting
It is June 1st. That may not mean anything to you other than “oh yeah… summer’s here.” But to 13.9 million (13,942,200) adults in the US (number reported by the UCLA School of Law – Williams Institute, December 2023) who identify as LGBTQ+ it marks the beginning of a very significant month: the month we…
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Come Fly With Me
I do not understand. When two sides have opposing views, you can generally look at the views in question, even when one side’s views are opposite your own, and see the reasoning that led to the adoption of that view. A good example would be the question of abortion; I think it should be legal,…
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Fancy Steak Dinners
This weekend is the Super Bowl, where teams of grown men in tight Lycra knickerbockers bump into each other on a lawn trying to get a “foot” ball with their hands to the edge of the opposing team’s side of the grass, which is known as the end zone and features a gigantic fork stuck…
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Don’t forget the pets
Good morning: the devastating pictures coming out of Los Angeles make it hard to begin with that salutation, because for many Angelenos it is anything but a good morning. As an Angeleno myself who went to school within sight of Altadena, I am heartbroken. It’s one thing watching the aftermath of a disaster in some…
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Going to the Dogs
Last month, Subaru ran a commercial on tv entitled Support the ASPCA® When You Get a New Subaru During the Subaru Share the Love® Event. The commercial opens with a young-ish girl who looks to be in her early twenties sweeping a dimly lit hallway. One can make out that there are kennels on either…
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Crawling for Justice
In the winter of 1990, the Congressional legislation to turn a proposed Americans with Disabilities Act into law had stalled in the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation. A lot of the systemic oppression that disabled people faced then (and still in many ways face today) is neglect rather than outright discrimination. If you (or society…
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The Right to Access and Assistance
Disability Pride Month is celebrated every July to draw attention to the disability community and to highlight the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the people on the planet, are living with…
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The Myth of Patient 0
On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) entitled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles,” describing five cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. Two of the men had died. Click…
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It’s time for the spring pasta harvest
If, as they say, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, that was certainly true here in the Coachella Valley. High winds at the beginning of the month gave way to gentle rain showers yesterday as we feasted on a sumptuous Easter repast of glazed ham, potatoes au gratin, and…
Your mileage may vary.