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LGBT Community Protests Extremist Hate Speech After Orlando
I AM DONE protestors stand against religious bigotry and hate speech on June 26 to declare that "Love Beats Hate." I AM DONE Facebook photo.
Samsom Park, Texas – A fundamentalist pastor west of Fort Worth carried hate speech and religious intolerance of LGBTQ people to a new low in the wake of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub Massacre. Donnie Romero, leader of Stedfast Baptist Church, a small, independent, exceedingly angry group, stirred opposition by declaring that the cold blooded murder of LGBT people in Orlando, Florida on June 12 was God's judgment upon the victims.
In starkly bigoted language, Romero went on to declare that his only regret about the massacre was that no one had finished what the shooter had started. Anticipating that members of the LGBTQ community might picket his small storefront church, Romero publicly declared that since members of his church were Texans who had weapon permits, protestors just might get shot.
The Rapid Response group, I AM DONE, organized a protest of Romero's religious bigotry and carried out the direct action across the highway from Stedfast Baptist Church on Sunday morning, June 26. An estimated 50 protestors from across North Texas, protected by police from four local municipalities including Sansom Park, where the church is physically located, Lake View, Lake Worth, and Fort Worth, sang, chanted call-and-response, waved signs proclaiming Love, and read the names of the Orlando victims through a bullhorn during the church hour. The Texas heat was oppressive, but the protest was deemed successful since Romero's hate speech had been answered forcefully but peacefully.
The following are the remarks Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle of Brite Divinity School delivered at the protest, entitled: "Lament, Discover, and Repair."
The Orlando massacre has forced America to stare into the abyss of our broken society. We have recoiled from what we have seen: not only the brutality of fear and loathing that took so many lives at the Pulse nightclub that night, but also the sickening complicity of a national culture that has set up the conditions for the slaughter of our people for generations.
Our feelings of remorse and loss are real and sharply painful; our burning anger is hot and real, as well.
But we cannot allow the abyss of race hatred, misogyny and heterosexist privilege to paralyze us with fear or anger — not again!
If others must continue the endless finger-pointing, let them. Not us, not again, not now!
We have a gaping hole in the American character to fix, and it will take all of us to do it, queer folk of faith, faith-free queer folk and allies alike. The spiritual resources that belong to American LGBTQ people are at hand, and we must discover how to use them to heal our broken hearts, our troubled minds, and to repair the ruins that yawn up at us from the abyss that bears so many names:
Mother Emanuel A.M.E.
Sandy Hook Elementary
The Upstairs Lounge Inferno
Wisconsin Sikh Temple
Aurora, Colorado, and
Virginia Tech, and more.
The Rev. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite Divinity School, flanked by other ministers, ended the protest with prayer. Other ministers attending included Chaplain Aaron Burk, the Rev. Mark Weathers of University Christian Church, the Rev. Heather Dunham of Universal Life Church, and the Rev. Russell Dalton with Brite Divinity School. Tammye Nash, Dallas Voice photo.
We must act according to the sources of our power, no matter what makes us afraid. The practice of lament clears the spiritual space that makes effective action possible.
Sadness can empower our souls as well as dis-empower them. We can erect shrines that tie us to the past, or we can discover the power to lament as a people until hope takes the place of despair.
Phyllis Trible, the ground-breaking author of Texts of Terror who told the stories of the wrong done to biblical women, has said that mourning alone changes little. But true change comes from insight, a change that can inspire individuals and even a whole generation to repentance.
She writes: "In other words, sad stories may yield new beginnings."
God knows, we have sad stories, and plenty of them. What we must find is the courage to cry out in public acts of lament that change despair into hope.
Rabbi Denise Eger, lesbian and president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, shows us how to turn sorrow into a new kind of power for good:
"Sister that I never held near,
Brother that I never embraced, our memory is almost lost:
The one we don't talk about.
The loving one who never married.
The one for whom no Kaddish was said.
Your loneliness calls out to me:
I know of your struggles, we are not strangers,
And if my path is easier, I will not forget who walked it first.
We call you to mind, but did you not sometimes think of us,
Your children, lovers across the years,
Those who would follow and would think of you and bless your memory
And call you to mind?
With David and Jonathan, we will not forget you,
With Ruth and Naomi, we will not forget you,
In the name of God you are our sisters and our brothers, and we ask that you be remembered for peace."
When we cry out to God from the depths of our collective sorrow, as my friend, Dean Joretta Marshall, of Brite Divinity School says, we begin to discover new possibilities for memory, compassion, empathy, and vision.
As we collaborate publicly in acts of lament when we are overwhelmed, we discover new ways to collaborate together in "life-giving hope."
Protests are important, but they do not capture the spiritual power of crying out together so that our despair may turn into hope, and inspiration gives our activism fresh ideas to address the venom the LGBTQ community faces, much of it inflicted in the name of religion.
Sorrow is not a destination. We need movements, not monuments or shrines, movements of "life-giving hope." So, together, before all the world, with our enemies included, we cry out until despair begins to transform into something new.
We remember before God the tens of thousands of our LGBTQ family martyred in years gone by. We remember those who died in the Inquisition, the Middle Passage, the Witch Craze, the Holocaust, and the struggle for civil rights.
We refuse to forget those, driven to despair by a world that hated them and who they loved, who took their own lives rather than face any longer the intolerable.
And we cannot forget those who lived out their days lonely, repressed, and afraid to reach out for affection and comfort, too hurt to give or receive the love they craved.
To us, in the memories we share in our seasons of lament, they have all become the martyrs of God, signs that we must make the world better than they found it. In the name of love, we pray, "O God, remember the sacrifices of these martyrs, and help us to bring and end to hate and oppression of every kind!"
We say and we believe that "Love Wins!" But in the struggle to repair the world, we have learned that love must be ferocious to win the new world we seek for ourselves, our children, and for everyone.
The story of the struggle for our human rights has lessons to teach, and one of the undeniable lessons of our history is that LGBTQ people have never been "given" anything. The heterosexist society in which we live never surrenders its power willingly. Our freedom has had to be won.
If our great theme is LOVE, from the right to love the one we choose, or the love of country that inspired us to defy Don't Ask, Don't Tell, to the love of human life itself because we are a people who are represented everywhere — in every group and race, and in every known social demographic from the beginning of recorded history — then we know from our own collective experience that love must be fierce in order for it to survive.
There is something divine in love like that, a divine imperative that will not be forestalled any longer, or postponed, or sidetracked. From the days of our forebears in the 19th century, we began to network across the boundaries of nations, to count the ever growing number of ourselves, and to realize that we were a powerful people united by a new sense of the possibilities of love.
Today, we are strengthened by amazing allies from every walk of life who understand that their future and ours are bound up with us in a contest to determine whether diversity and pluralism will prevail in our world, or whether patriarchal fear of immigrants, gender non-conformity, non-Caucasian people, and non-Judeo-Christian faiths — fears intensified by the rejection of the leadership gifts of women — will drag us backward.
Our most powerful ally in LGBTQ history, President Barack Obama, has shown us what a love with real backbone looks like. Like many of our allies, the president had to evolve in this thinking about what justice and equality for LGBTQ people called him to do. Once he got there, to the place of true equality and justice, he became our full-throated advocate.
His spiritual mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., taught him to face challenges with "the fierce urgency of now." We LGBTQ people found that vision to resonate powerfully with our experiences of struggle beyond any counted cost, and, inspired by President Obama, we have recast Dr. King's idea in our own way. We serve a vision inspired by "the fierce urgency of love."
"The fierce urgency of love":
Love that refuses to be anemic in the face of hard times.
Love that has a spine, and bows before no opponent.
Love that will not back down, and will not back up.
Love that knows how and when to get loud and be proud.
A love where Everybody is Somebody, and nobody is a nobody.
Our activism at its best is motivated by the fierce urgency of a love that will not permit churches, synagogues, and mosques to remain silent on the sidelines of the struggle for justice, for silence in the face of injustice is its own form of spiritual violence.
The fierce urgency of love compels us to give no free passes when religious leaders of any stripe breathe out venom and hatred toward marginalized people. That is why we oppose religious intolerance to the same degree we oppose political and economic harms done to LGBTQ people in North Texas and anywhere else.
We have learned the lessons of ferocious love: that hate speech from any pulpit or from any rostrum in a governmental chamber is the ammunition that kills and maims real people, as surely as any bullet. We cannot permit any leader to hijack religion and force it into the service of oppression of any kind any longer without our calling out such an outrage.
As Rev. Dr. Cody J. Sanders, the pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church near Harvard Yard, a proud gay man says:
"For LGBTQ people, the mechanisms of oppression have nearly always been waged first against our souls. But it never ends there. This spiritual violence has led to innumerable suicides, hate crime violence beyond what we know through the collected statistics, and the marginalization of LGBTQ people in the very institutions they should feel most at home: their families, their churches, and their communities."
Sanders calls for spiritual reparations for the harm done to the souls of LGBTQ people, a fierce love of God and neighbor that seeks to heal the hurt and repair the broken world. Like Sanders, in the name of love, we must fiercely call for real and practical actions:
For LGBTQ homeless youth in our cities,
For effective ways to prevent LGBTQ suicides,
For funding for LGBTQ seminarians so that they can become faith leaders throughout America,
For the recruitment of qualified LGBTQ candidates to run for public office,
For literacy in LGBTQ life and history, and engagement between established cisgender and straight clergy with queer leaders in their communities, and especially
For churches and religion-based non-profits to stand up to their denominations and parent organizations when they participate in anti-LGBTQ discrimination by thought, deed, or silence.
Sanders concludes with the forthright demand of a community that knows how to stand tall and true, and has the courage to repair a broken world even in the face of spiritual opposition:
"Churches owe LGBTQ people a spiritual debt," he says, "for the decades upon decades of violence against our souls. It's time to start paying up."
The Hebrew prophets sounded like that, didn't they? That is an important dimension of the spiritual heritage of the LGBTQ human rights movement that was first born and nurtured in churches and synagogues in the pre-Stonewall era, and right up until this very day.
I work alongside lesbian, gay, and straight colleagues of courage at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, who like Cody Sanders, want to transform the world in which we live. So, with the whole Cloud of Witnesses, from the time of the Hebrew Prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Prophet Muhammad, to the millions of LGBTQ people and our allies right here and right now, together with the Prophet Isaiah, we say:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
when you see the naked, to cover them,
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
Our greatest asset as a Queer/LGBT community, you see, lies in far more than our numbers, our economic strength, and our political allies. It lies in our spirituality of collaborating hope, hope forged in the furnace of our tests and trials, made powerful by the vision of a better world than we have ever known.
Our enemies are real. Their guns and their words spit fire and death. They misunderstand, sometimes with lethal consequences, who we are and what we contribute to the common world in which we all dwell.
But we know wherein our power truly lies, for as our Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde, taught us, "When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
Rise up, then!
We LGBTQ people were never meant to settle into paralysis, depression and despair on the far side of the pit our adversaries dug for us. It is time to build a bridge across the abyss that swallowed up our Orlando sisters and brothers. Bring your energies, your tools, and your resolve. We have at hand the resources of a rich spirituality, and a fierce, divine love.
There is a world to repair.
July 2, 2016 Posted by unfinishedlives | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Anti-LGBT hate crimes, Brite Divinity School, Donnie Romero, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Florida, GLBTQ, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, I AM DONE, LGBTQ, LGBTQ clergy, Mass shooting, Orlando, Protests and Demonstrations, Pulse Nightclub, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Stedfast Baptist Church, Texas, transphobia	| anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Brite Divinity School, Donnie Romero, Florida, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Mass shooting, Orlando, Protests and Demonstrations, Pulse Nightclub, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Social Justice Advocacy, Stedfast Baptist Church, Texas, transphobia | Comments Off on LGBT Community Protests Extremist Hate Speech After Orlando
Suspected Murderer of Gay Texan Arrested in Indiana
David James Brown Jr., 22, suspect in the brutal murder of a Texas gay man
Delphi, Indiana – A prime suspect in the murder of a gay Texan whose body was found near his burned out truck last weekend has been arrested, and awaits extradition back to Texas. Click2Houston.com reports that 22-year-old David James Brown Jr. of Conroe was apprehended and taken into custody on November 17 without resistance by authorities. The Dallas Voice adds that the arrest was made in a CVS Pharmacy parking lot. Brown has been charged with capital murder.
Marc Pourner, 28, was found dead from blunt force trauma to the head in a stand of trees in Montgomery County, Texas on Saturday night. Evidence suggests that Pourner was gagged and bound prior to being bludgeoned to death. His truck was completely burned out near where his body was found. Many, including his father, Mark Pourner, suspected that the crime was motivated by anti-gay bias, and now that an arrest has been made, Mr. Pourner is sticking to his earlier suggestion that his son's death may indeed have been associated with Marc's sexual orientation. The Dallas Voice adds that the proximity of young Pourner's murder to the recent vote in Houston defeating the HERO Ordinance thanks to a heated, heterosexist and transphobic media campaign contributed credence to the anti-gay hate crime speculation on the case.
Marc Pourner's body was found in Montgomery County, Texas on Saturday night
Mr. Pourner told Click2Houston, "I'm ecstatic there's an arrest made. Now I want to be attending a trial and shortly after that I want to be attending an execution." He went on to say that Brown and his son were only acquaintances, but that he would make no more statements about a motive in the case as long as the investigation was proceeding, other than his feeling that sexual orientation bias may have played a part in the killing. The family have announced their intention to begin a scholarship benefiting LGBT students in memory of Marc.
Friends, family, and some Montgomery County Sheriff's Department deputies attended a Wednesday night vigil to share memories of Marc, and to underline their concern for his family and the LGBT community in the Houston metro area, which is currently on alert because of the crime.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, Brown was best friends with Marc Pourner's boyfriend. Authorities are saying that it is still too early to make a hate crime determination.
November 23, 2015 Posted by unfinishedlives | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bludgeoning, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Houston HERO ordinance, Indiana, LGBTQ, Texas, Vigils	| anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bludgeoning, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Indiana, LGBTQ, Texas, Vigils | 2 Comments
TDOR 2015: Brite Divinity School Hosts a Packed House to Commemorate the Fallen
"You Did Not Know That We Were Seeds": The Spirit-Power of Gender Non-Conforming People
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Brite Divinity School
[Nota Bene – Fort Worth, Texas – In conjunction with DFW Trans-Cendence, Brite Divinity School opened its doors to a full house to remember historic high numbers of transgender murders during the past year, especially transgender women of color (TWOCs). Here in full are the remarks Dr. Sprinkle made at this year's TDOR.]
Tonight is unlike other nights. Tonight, transgender and cisgender people alike sift for hope in the ashes and plant seeds in the ground, in anticipation of a harvest of hope that will come tomorrow. For tonight we mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Our Jewish sisters and brothers yearn for and proclaim their liberation from slavery once a year, too, and have done so in good times and bad for thousands of years. Jews around the world call their commemoration of the Exodus "Passover." On Passover when the Seder meal is set and the family and their guests are all seated at the table, the youngest child capable of reciting it asks the ritual question, "Why is tonight different from all other nights?", and an elder of the community answers the child by asking another question, "What differences do you notice about tonight rather than all other nights?"
So, like a child, I ask you a similar question that I hope will lead you into the spirit of curiosity and ritual power. "On the
DFW Trans-Cendence & Brite's Carpenter Initiative for Gender, Sexuality, and Justice sponsored this year's TDOR.
Transgender Day of Remembrance, why does this night differ from all other nights?" As on Passover night, that child-like question is the Gateway of Life from the past and present into a future that is still forming. Like a child, then, I, a cisgender ally of the Gender Non-Conforming Community, ask all of you, the gathered Transgender Nation, what is the answer to my question? How can a somber memorial to fallen Transgender sisters and brothers like this instruct all of humankind in the ways of transcendent life, even in the very face of violent death?
Well, as you can see, I am no longer a child, at least in years, and in experience as gay man. You will allow me, I hope, this one speculation, at least: the answer lies somewhere at the intersection of life and death, and then in life beyond death. It lies, I submit to you, in the motif of overcoming death, of dying and rising that is so familiar to all the great religions, and so personally part of the daily lives of all queer people, especially in the lives of our transgender sisters and brothers—and all those as well who transcend the arbitrary binaries constructed and policed by normative culture and society.
The first answer to my question about the Spirit of the Transgender Day of Remembrance comes from transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith, the founder of TDOR. She established this night in memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman killed in 1998, to commemorate all gender non-conforming people whose lives were lost to violence during the previous year. Gwendolyn Ann Smith answers my question this way: "The Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice." So says the founder of this memorial day.
Yes, we gather tonight to remember and to mourn historically high numbers of transgender people cut down this year by unreasoning hatred, ignorance and fear. More transgender women and men died this very year, according to the records kept in this country and around the world, than at any other time since the earliest time transgender deaths by violence were officially recorded. You and I understand, of course, that even these stunning numbers of the fallen are a severe undercount, with many, many, TOO MANY more unreported and therefore unnamed tonight. And we can no longer, leave out the commemoration of the many transgender youth and adults who died this year from suicide, driven to take their lives by despair, and discrimination, by the rejection of their families and one-time friends, and by the feeling that nothing could ever get better. Nevertheless, in the spirituality of overcoming despair, the names of the women and men we know stand for all the least, and the last, and the lost. Like Gwendolyn Ann Smith taught us, we name the names we know, one-by-one, and our tears push us to the work of justice.
This year, a new acronym entered our vocabulary to describe the decimation of the Transgender Community: TWOC, "Transgender Women of Color," in order to acknowledge how the intersection of ignorance, racism, misogyny, and patriarchy issue into an even more sinister form of transphobia, the irrational attempt to erase the lives of African American and Latina Transgender Women, many of them still in their teens and young adulthood. We have particular reason to mourn two of these TWOCs this year. They are Texans, Ms. Ty Underwood, 24, of Tyler, Texas, found shot to death in her automobile after it crashed into a light pole in January, in all probability as she attempted to flee from her assailant; and Ms. Shade Schuler, 22, whose badly decomposed body, dead of gunshot wounds, was dumped, ironically enough, on a side street near the Medical District in Dallas, Texas to roast in the late July heat of the Lone Star summer. By the time Ms. Shade was reported murdered in Dallas, the 11th Transgender Woman of Color, and the 13th murder of a transgender woman overall, more transgender murders were on record by July 2015 than all the recorded transphobic homicides the entire previous year.
The second answer to my child-like question, "Why is tonight different than all other nights?", is that we meet tonight in the eye of an unprecedented storm in the unending contest between justice and injustice, between heteronomative desperation to hold onto control of human lives, and non-normative struggles to attain some measure of equal treatment under the law. We gather tonight in the midst of unprecedented social change. This year, the bent arc of history toward justice has heartened some of us, frightened others, and unleashed a fury of transphobia and violence against our transgender friends and family.
Like a Texas Two-Step danced in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the U.S. Supreme Court Marriage Equality decision in June was counterpointed earlier this month by the defeat of the Houston HERO equal rights ordinance in a deeply transphobic vote. An apathetic majority of eligible Houston voters stayed home, and allowed a screeching, well-funded few to demean and scapegoat transgender women, and in the devil's bargain, to shatter the fragile sense of security so important to the whole transgender community.
Those of us like me, cisgender allies, must face up to the added responsibility we bear to our sisters and brothers who refuse the restrictions of binary society. Yes, same-gender couples, lesbians and gay men, can now marry in all fifty states. The Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, struck down a major obstacle to equal treatment under the law, and we still celebrate that milestone in the human rights struggle. But if that means that cisgender gay men and lesbians can enter legal marriage (as if all of us wished to, anyway!) while ignoring the travesty visited so continually upon the trans community, then we deserve none of the rights that judicial decision gave us. What about the "T" in "LGBT"? Are transgender and intersex people, such vital allies of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities, no more than an afterthought or a bargaining chip in the battle for the right to marry?
Gay men and lesbians, who bear the majority responsibility in the coalition of LGBTQIA people, have to understand, that none of us are free and equal until ALL of US are free and equal! Transpeople have fought for liberation since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. They are our "Marine Corps." Transpeople stormed the Stonewall Inn along with the queer homeless street kids of Greenwich Village in a struggle that gay men and lesbians were too timid to initiate by ourselves. That is history, and we are accountable to that history of liberation today. No one is safe and secure until all of us are safe and secure, and surely gay men know that above all, since only gay men continue to be murdered at the same rate in this country as transgender women of color. Check the statistics if you doubt it. The most endangered queer people in America today are gay men and transgender women. We cannot, must not forget our allies in the transgender community.
The third answer to my question about the difference of tonight among all other nights is that, even in the face of such unprecedented violence and bigotry against the transgender community, there is much to celebrate and much hope to share. We cannot remember all this pain and woe without also marking the advances that have been so hard won since 2009. I will list six of these positive milestones briefly:
The 2009 "coming out" of transgender celebrity Chas Bono, the child of pop idols Sonny and Cher.
The star power of Laverne Cox, transgender woman of color on the hit 2013 television show "Orange is the New Black," and her 2014 cover photo on Time Magazine titled "The Transgender Tipping Point."
President Barack Obama's executive order on July 21, 2014 making it illegal to fire or harass transgender employees of federal contractors, for the first time explicitly protecting transgender people in the federal government.
The much publicized transition of Olympic triathlete Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner in July of this year.
The White House announcement on August 19, 2015 that it had hired its first transgender staff member, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, as Outreach and Recruiter Director for Presidential Personnel.
The launching of the first U.S. House of Representatives Taskforce on Transgender Equality, along with the first-ever Capitol Hill forum on violence against transgender people, this past Tuesday, November 17, 2015. The Taskforce will be chaired by Rep. Mike Honda (D-California), proud grandfather of an eight-year old transgender granddaughter, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), whose son is transgender. Anti-transgender violence, said Chairman Honda, "is a national crisis. …After 21 deaths of transgender individuals because of violence this year alone, Congress must take notice and act."
There are actually four questions the youngest child asks of Jews and their guests at the Passover seder, questions that flow from the child-like question that started it all. By now you know I have crafted my offering to you tonight along the same lines: four questions and four answers. Questions and Answers building to a climax of liberation and hope, no matter the darkness of the night. So, here is the fourth answer to the question, "How is tonight, the Transgender Day of Remembrance night, different from all other nights?"
Tonight, you see, is not just a night of mourning and lamenting, or of outrage and somber celebration, though it is also these things, as well. This night of the Transgender Day of Remembrance is a ritual night when the Spirit-Power of All Gender Non-Conforming People is summoned and renewed, giving strength for the struggle ahead.
Transgender people possess a Spirit-Power, one they must never surrender—one that they have to share with all humanity. Transgender people know about change, transformation, transition, and new creations by experience of themselves. The Transgender community as a collective has amazing strength, developed in the face of adversity, a tenacity and zest for life that cannot be contained, you see, in only one lifetime. Though external transphobia strikes down so many, and internalized transphobia even more through personal trauma and suicide, the heartbeat of the Transgender people is strong and enduring, as only a people acquainted with oppression can fully understand. It is as old as the aboriginal recognition of Two-Spirit people among the indigenous tribes of North America, as world-loving as the Pagan faiths, as wise as the great religions of the East, and as time-honored as the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—but it is not limited to any of these. It is a spirituality that understands in the marrow of its transgender bones how a person cannot be other than they truly are, that appearance and reality are not necessarily the same, and that living and loving are more powerful and enduring than anything that adversity can send against what is authentically humanity.
At the vigil for Ms. Shade Schuler in September of this year, a white gay man, Ted Van Trabart said, "We're here today to say that black lives matter and trans lives matter, and we're all children of God, and there's equality in that." Then, according to the report in the Texas Observer, Minister Carmarion Anderson, a black transgender activist, showed the gathering a small piece of wood she had retrieved from the spot where Ms. Shade's body was found, where she and Dr. Jeff Hood, alumnus of this very school, carried out a service to lay her soul to rest. Minister Anderson said, "Each time I look at [this piece of wood], it empowers me to keep going, even when I want to give up."
Yes, the Spirit-Power of Transgender people transcends the bondage of gender conformity and all constraints placed upon the human spirit in favor of a new and more promising Exodus for themselves and for all humankind. Slavery is over. Freedom has come. Where we live, according to our Transgender Friends, is in this awkward, difficult, promising time between the already and the not yet. It is just a matter of time until justice comes, and in the mean time, liberty will not wait. The Observer reported that someone else was carrying a sign at the vigil for Ms. Shade that night, one that read, "You Tried to Bury Us/You Didn't Know We Were Seeds."
Tonight is different because we announce that what we have sown in sorrow are the seeds of a new humanity, transitioned by love, transcending despair, raised in hope, stronger than death. The lyrics of The Hymn of Promise, (Copyright Hope Publishing Company) penned in 1986 by Natalie Sleeth before the death of her spouse, best answer the child-like questions we bring forth on this night of nights for me, and I offer them to you in closing:
In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There's a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Doane College Alumni Reunion, First Plymouth Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, Feb. 3, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gndx39q7QM
November 22, 2015 Posted by unfinishedlives | Brite Divinity School, DFW Trans-Cendence, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, LGBTQ, Special Comments, Texas, Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), transgender persons, Transgender women of color, transphobia	| Brite Divinity School, Carpenter Intiative, DFW Trans-Cendence, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Hate Crimes, Shade Schuler, Texas, Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), transgender persons, Transgender women of color, transphobia, Ty Underwood | 4 Comments
Texas Gay Man Brutally Killed by Blunt Force Trauma
Marc Pourner, bound, gagged and beaten to death in rural Mongomery County.
Montgomery County, Texas – The body of a gay man was found murdered in a stand of trees in Montgomery County, north of Houston, on Saturday. His truck was also found at the scene by Sheriff's Deputies, burned. Authorities told KTRK Television 13 that the victim, identified as 28-year-old Marc Pourner of Spring, Texas, may well have been restrained prior to his murder.
The victim's father, Mark Pourner, who identified the corpse of his missing son on Saturday, told journalists that Marc was a well-liked bookkeeper for Randall's Food Market, "a good friend to many and a man with a big heart." Speaking to an interviewer for KTRK, Marc's father said that the "speed and cold efficiency" with which his son had been killed indicated to him and the family that whoever did this had killed before, and, in all probability, would kill again. When questioned about a possible motive, he said that the family believed this was a hate crime murder, and that his son was openly gay.
Pourner's roommates and friends grew worried after receiving a "disturbing phone call" Thursday night, and when he did not report for work last Friday, they alerted the authorities. About Magazine News reports that "a person of interest" tipped off the Sheriff's Department, leading to the discovery of the body. The corpse showed evidence of blunt force trauma to Pourner's head, and signs of having been tied and gagged. A source described as close to the investigation says that an arrest in the case is near at hand.
Speaking to Project Q on behalf of the Sheriff's Department, Lt. Brady Fitzgerald described the investigation and the area where Pourner's body was discovered:
"We responded to that area and we located the burned vehicle. The body was close to the vehicle in a pathway," Fitzgerald said. "It's a residential area that is sparsely populated. It was thick in the woods where they discovered the vehicle itself and the body. It would obviously have to be intentionally placed there." When questioned about the details of the investigation, Fitzgerald went on to say, "We are still looking into the case. If he was murdered in reference to him being gay, it would be a hate crime and that's the way it would be investigated if that was a motive." Though he would not affirm that an arrest was imminent, Fitzgerald did tell Project Q that there was no evidence that Pourner had been robbed.
An online campaign has been started to pay for the expenses of the funeral.
This homicide takes place in the context of a heated election in nearby Houston focusing attention on the LGBT community, and in the wake of a series of violent attacks against gay men in Dallas that have taken place within the last month. Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project, said, "It would be folly for Texas authorities to divorce this savage, anti-gay homicide from the homophobic and transphobic campaign against the HERO ordinance in Houston, and from the fallout after the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in late June of this year. The LGBT community in Houston is on high alert following the demeaning heterosexist election, and the possible correlation between this killing and the outbreak of anti-LGBTQ violence in Dallas is coincidental only to those who intentionally look the other way." Sprinkle went on to say that physical violence spikes after media attention like the Marriage Equality decision and the defeat of the equal rights ordinance in metro Houston.
November 17, 2015 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, Dallas hate crimes, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Houston HERO ordinance, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Texas, transphobia, U.S. Supreme Court, Unfinished Lives Project, Unsolved LGBT Crimes	| Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, Dallas hate crimes, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Houston HERO ordinance, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Texas, transphobia, U.S. Supreme Court, Unfinished Lives Project, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes | 1 Comment
The Arc of Justice Bends Like A Rainbow: Heartbreaks, Memories, Dreams
Dallas, Texas – To contribute to the spiritual discussion about the events of this June: the outrageous attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and the victory of Marriage Equality in the U.S. Supreme Court, here is the text of my Sunday sermon for 6/28/15:
A Sermon for Pride Sunday, June 28, 2015
The New Church – Chiesa Nuova
Psalms 85:7-12
The Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Professor of Practical Theology, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas
"They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered." These words are among the phrases of Friday that are imprinted into my consciousness and yours, too, I suspect. You will recognize them as the conclusion of the Majority Opinion of Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision striking down the bans that forbade marriage to millions of same-sex Americans in 14 states, including our own. "It is so ordered . . ."
But these are not the only words that won't go away from my mind. Words from cries, and joyous shouts, and eulogies, from late last week and from the recent events of our lives that have culminated upon us this very June like "a thunderbolt" as our President, the Honorable Barack Obama said when he made his historic remarks in the White House Rose Garden celebrating the victory of Marriage Equality for all 50 states.
Here are some other stunning words our President used just this past Friday, 6/26/15, the same day LGBTQ people and our allies danced on the steps of the United States Supreme Court, and at the crossroads of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs right here in Dallas. Immediately following his Rose Garden remarks, he boarded Air Force One to fly down to Charleston, SC beside our First Lady Michelle, to eulogize slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the other eight members of his flock, cut down by hatred in a Bible Study/Prayer Meeting at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Do you feel the whiplash of it? Having to deliver words of celebration at one moment, and then words appropriate to the outrageous deaths of Black Americans because of race hatred, as best we can tell—All in the same day?
Our President tried to make sense of it all from the stage of the University of Charleston, to find a way forward for the nation:
"Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete" he said. "But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.
"Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual. That's what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society."
President Obama continued:
"To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change, that's how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong, but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.
"Reverend Pinckney once said, 'Across the south, we have a deep appreciation of history. We haven't always had a deep appreciation of each other's history.'"
History, you see, is hard to make sense of when you are in the middle of it, like we are this morning—When we are struck by a two-sided thunderbolt of history, one side damp with tears of joy for decades of struggle to win against homophobia and heterosexism for LGBTQ human equality, but the other side wet with the tears of unfathomable grief because of America's "original sin," the sin of racism.
You and I and our President are not alone in trying to make sense of it all, trying to sort out our emotions about the events of 6/26/15. On Friday, my friend Professor John Blevins who teaches at Emory University put it this way on his Facebook wall:
"Not sure" Dr. Blevins wrote, "how to temper the feelings of the Supreme Court ruling with the reminder that today in Charleston, SC there is a funeral for an African-American man and local church pastor who would have supported and cheered this ruling were he not gunned down in cold, calculated, hate-filled violence. We progress and regress. But I want to believe– have to believe– that Love Wins. Yes, the Supreme Court ruling offers some sense of that but so does the testimony of Reverend Pinckney– both in his life and in his death. We should remember that."
Whatever else and whoever else we are this morning, we are the Church, and we are called upon to remember our heartbreaks, to dance with our dreams in our hearts around the Table of Jesus Christ, and to learn with appreciation from the history of others. We are the New Church, the Chiesa Nuova, founded on the memories and merits of St. Francis of Assisi. We are straight, bi-, and gay, trans- and cisgender, multiracial and multilingual, and we share something vital and living with Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston. We have been given a common task: to speak the truth alongside one another until all the bad news comes to redemption in the Amazing Grace of God. We, Mother Emanuel and New Church together, are called by the God of Life to remember the steadfast love of Jesus Christ, and to set all events of celebration and sorrow in the context of a future in which LOVE WINS, not just for some of us, but for ALL of us!
The Church must engage the events of these jumbled up, joyous and heartbreaking days, and re-tell them to a hurting society both in words and deeds of effective love. We are the storytellers! Who else besides the Community of Faith remembers and re-tells the stories of the justice prophets of Israel and the evangelists of the early Christian movement? Who else remembers and re-tells the stories of the Underground Railroad, and Jim Crow, and the struggle for women's right to vote and equal pay; who else remembers and re-tells the breathtaking saga of the time of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, and the first brave voices of the sexual minority here in North Texas, of the lesbian Lavender Menace, and the life-and-death struggle against HIV/AIDS, of Harvey Milk's famous call, "I'm Here to Recruit You!", and of the first legal "I Do's" spoken on the steps of the Records Building right here in Dallas between Lesbian couples and Gay couples set on letting the whole Lone Star State know that LOVE Wins!
If others want to tell the stories of our times in differing ways, let them. We welcome the stories and the histories of others, and we must grow in appreciation of those histories because we are all members of the One Human Family. But, in humility, and with our knees trembling from awe and joy, we of the Community of Faith must continue the tradition of telling the Good News in the midst of a world were goodness is not so obvious an outcome at all. Like our grieving sisters and brothers at Mother Emanuel, in English, Español, and the other tongues of our languages, the Church has this task: to interpret the events of everyday life, great and small, in the harmonies of the love of God. It is our responsibility to pull together the threads of the rulings of the Supreme Court, and the horror of the slayings at home and abroad, and to weave out of them a roadmap of justice and mercy so the human race can see a way forward in the storm, and find rivers of cool water in dry places—sweet destinies of deliverance and Amazing Grace for all the sorts and conditions of our fragile humankind.
Put succinctly, it is our mandate to follow the example of Jesus the Christ: to read aloud the ancient stories of God's people, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives, freedom for all those oppressed, recovery of sight to the blind, and then to roll up the scroll, and announce: "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine that you would live into a world where Don't Ask, Don't Tell would be repealed? Where DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, and Proposition 8 would be overthrown? Where Marriage Equality would become the law of the land in all 50 states of the USA, and Justice Anthony Kennedy could pen these words on behalf of the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court?
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."
Did you ever imagine that 150 years after the Civil War, that 52 years after Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, and 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, you would still be living in a world where young Latino/Latina "Dreamers" are still in peril of being deported from the land that has become their home, where a black teenage girl in a bikini could be wrestled down and choked at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, where we must confront that reality over and over again that, no matter what we say, black, brown, female, and transgender lives mean less than white male lives? Or that the peaceful welcome of a church sanctuary could be desecrated by the cold, violent hand of hatred?
Well, that is the world we have, isn't it? Filled with joys and sorrows. Where by the grace of God we must rededicate ourselves to bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice in this time and place we have been given. That is what the Community of Faith must be about in our lifetime. President Obama, standing squarely in the tradition of the Black Church, concluded his eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, saying:
"…History can't be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against progress. It must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, how to break the cycle, a roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind. But more importantly, an open heart.
"That's what I felt this week — an open heart. That more than any particular policy or analysis is what's called upon right now, I think. It's what a friend of mine, the writer Marilyn Robinson, calls 'that reservoir of goodness beyond and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.'
"That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is possible. If we can tap that grace, everything can change. Amazing grace, amazing grace."
Since Love Wins, since Love must win for everybody, let us throw a party where everyone is invited to celebrate with us, where everybody is somebody and nobody is nobody, and then roll up our sleeves and get to the work at hand!
Love Wins! Thanks be to God! Amen.
June 30, 2015 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Brite Divinity School, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Justice Anthony Kennedy, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Mother Emanuel AME Church, President Barack Obama, Racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia, U.S. Supreme Court	| African Americans, Brite Divinity School, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Justice Anthony Kennedy, LGBTQ, Marriage Equality, Mother Emanuel AME Church, President Barack Obama, Pride Sunday, racism, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, The New Church - Chiesa Nuova, transgender persons, transphobia, U.S. Supreme Court | 1 Comment
Transwoman Murdered in East Texas; Transphobic Hate Crime Suspected
Ty Lee Underwood, 24, shot to death in a suspected transphobic hate crime in Tyler, Texas.
Tyler, Texas – The Dallas Voice and multiple Texas news sources report that a 24-year-old transgender woman was shot to death January 26 in Tyler, an East Texas city 90 miles southeast of Dallas. Police detectives have few leads on the murder of Ty Lee Underwood, and none of them are substantial, according to KYTX Channel 19, the local CBS affiliate.
Tyler Police spokesperson, Detective Andy Erbaugh said that a woman called 911 early Monday morning to report that her children heard shots fired in the Twenty-fourth Street area of North Tyler. Investigators arrived to find Ms. Underwood dead at the scene. She was either in or near her automobile at the time shots were fired at her, and three of them found their mark. She tried to escape her attacker(s) by driving off, when the auto got stuck in a grassy area, according to Erbaugh. Her vehicle had jumped several curbs and had broken off one of its mirrors, finally colliding with a telephone pole. Tyler Police are seeking help from the public to apprehend those responsible for Ms. Underwood's death. "We will follow any leads that come in, we will follow them completely because this was a senseless murder," Erbaugh said.
Ty Underwood was a nursing assistant at a local rest home facility, and had been recently accepted by the nursing program at Kilgore College in Longview, Texas, according to The Advocate.
While investigators are not publicly speculating about a motive for the murder, Ms. Underwood's friends suspect that her killing was a hate crime targeting her for being a transgender woman. Her roommate, Coy Simmons, said, "This has to be a hate crime, this has to be a hate crime, nothing else because that was an upstanding person with a good heart." Simmons went on to describe his friend as well regarded throughout the community. "She was lovely, just a lovely person. Very real, down to earth person who didn't deserve this, did not deserve this at all," he said to KYTX reporters.
Transgender rights advocates throughout the region are angered and on high alert, following Ms. Underwood's brutal shooting. Leaders of the East Texas PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and TAG (Tyler Area Gays) are calling on police to bring this case to a swift, decisive conclusion. North Texas transgender activist Nell Gaither, President of the Trans Pride Initiative, says everyone in the Metroplex LGBT community should be aware that the level of violence against trans people is alarmingly on the rise. Ms. Underwood's murder is the 15th homicide of a trans person of color since June of last year. Ms. Gaither posted on Facebook, "The increase in violence is really disturbing. And this is just the murders. If there is an increase in murder, there is likely an increase in harassment, assault, sexual assault, and other violence as well."
Should this murder prove to be an anti-LGBT hate crime as suspected, it will continue a string of bias-related violence in Tyler commencing with the horrendous slaying of Nicolas West in October 1993. West, 23 at the time of his murder, was kidnapped at a Tyler city park, then driven out to a remote area of Smith County where he was force to strip and kneel in a clay pit where he was tortured and finally shot to death, as reported by Unfinished Lives Blog. The medical examiner's report found West had been shot 15 times. It took seventeen years for Tyler to recognize West and acknowledge the injustice done to him. In 2010 a plaque was belatedly placed in the park where he was abducted. Perhaps local outrage will mount sufficiently that Ty Underwood's murder will not be ignored for so long in the Rose Capital of Texas.
Smith County is offering a $1,000 reward for a tip leading to the apprehension and arrest of those responsible for Ty Underwood's murder. Anyone knowing of a lead should report it immediately to the Tyler Police hotline at (903) 531-1000 or Tyler-Smith County Crime Stoppers at (903) 597-2833.
January 30, 2015 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, East Texas, East Texas PFLAG, GLBTQ, gun violence, LGBTQ, Nicolas West, Texas, Trans Pride Initiative, transgender persons, Transgender women, Transgender women of color, transphobia, Tyler Area Gays (TAG)	| African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, East Texas, East Texas PFLAG, GLBTQ, gun related violence, LGBTQ, Nicolas West, Texas, Trans Pride Initiative, transgender persons, Transgender women, Transgender women of color, transphobia, Ty Underwood, Tyler Area Gays (TAG) | 3 Comments
Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!
Dallas, Texas – May the blessings of joy and peace be yours this Holiday Season to all our Friends and Subscribers! We look forward to a time when the worldwide LGBTQ community is free from fear and violence. We who believe in Justice cannot rest. We who believe in Justice cannot rest until it comes.
Your Unfinished Lives Project Team
December 26, 2014 Posted by unfinishedlives | Happy Holidays, Texas, Unfinished Lives Project	| Happy Holidays, Texas, Unfinished Lives Project | Comments Off on Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!
Gay Hate Crime Killer Denied Parole for Eighth Time in Texas
Paul Broussard (l) as he appeared in 1991, and Jon Buice in prison uniform [Equality Texas photo image].
Huntsville, Texas – The convicted murderer of a Houston gay man has been denied parole for the eighth time by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Jon Buice, the member of the infamous "Woodlands 10" who dealt the fatal stab wounds to 27-year-old Paul Broussard, was returned to prison on Tuesday to finish out his 45-year sentence, after the Parole Board deemed him unfit for release, according to the Conroe, Texas Courier. Broussard and two friends were attacked by the gang of ten youths outside a Houston gay nightclub on July 4, 1991, and Broussard died as a result of his injuries. Court documents said that the Houston banker was beaten by a nail-studded two-by-four, repeatedly kicked with steel-toed boots, and stabbed three times before he succumbed.
All the assailants were convicted, and served various sentences in Texas for the crime. Because of Buice's role in this particularly heinous anti-gay hate crime, he received the longest sentence, and is the only one of the Woodlands 10 still in prison. The case received national attention because of the brutality involved in Broussard's cold blooded murder.
Buice, who has been described by his supporters as a "model prisoner," was granted parole in July 2011, but because of new evidence presented to the Parole Board at the time, his reprieve was revoked before his release. That evidence has remained confidential to the board, but as in the case of his 2014 parole denial, whatever it was has kept him incarcerated. By special agreement, Buice will come up for review annually.
Broussard's mother, Nancy Rodriguez, once again appeared before the board to encourage it not to grant parole to her son's murderer. Every year, she travels from her Georgia home to Texas in order to keep Buice behind bars. "It's something I do for my son's memory and because I want justice," Rodriguez said. Since 1992, Rodriguez has been aided by Victims Advocate Andy Kahan to ensure that Buice serves the majority of his sentence. In a statement to The Courier, Kahan said, "This was a particularly vicious, senseless crime that centered on hate. We appreciate the parole board taking the stand that convicted murders need to serve the majority of their sentence." Rodriguez and Kahan have set a goal to keep Buice behind bars for at least 27 years: one year in prison for every year of Broussard's lifetime. "That was Paul's entire life before Buice took it from him," Rodriguez said to The Courier.
Kahan pointed out to the Parole Board that it is rare for release to be granted to convicted killers before serving out the most of their sentences. He said that the savagery of the crime was the reason the board chose to deny parole this time. Buice has served 22 years so far.
Gay activist Ray Hill, a chief advocate for Buice's release, contends that Buice is reformed, and that a 45-year sentence is too long for a person who was 17 at the time of the crime. Buice's lawyer, Tim Habem, refused to discuss the arguments he presented for his client's parole, but vowed to return next year "for another swing at it."
Every Sunday, Nancy Rodriguez says she misses her son's calls. Every Christmas, the holiday he always honored by coming home to see her, is especially hard. "[Paul] was a good student and a good son," she said. "I just miss him."
October 25, 2014 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Jon Buice, LGBTQ, Paul Broussard, stabbings, Texas, Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Woodlands 10	| Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Jon Buice, LGBTQ, Paul Broussard, stabbings, Texas, Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Woodlands 10 | Comments Off on Gay Hate Crime Killer Denied Parole for Eighth Time in Texas
Gay/Queer Hate Crimes Blog Reaches 600k Milestone!
Dallas, Texas – An amateur blogsite sparking interest and conversation on hate crimes perpetrated against LGBTQ people has broken through the 600,000 visitor mark this month! The 600k mark was crossed on Wednesday, October 15. Unfinished Lives Blog, established in 2008 by a Baptist theologian and divinity school professor to keep the stories of LGBTQ hate crimes victims before the public, has touched many more people across the globe than its originator could have imagined six years ago. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, the author of Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), and a Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School of Fort Worth, Texas, said, "This blog was and remains to be a labor of love done on a part-time basis. It is breathtaking to me how many people around the world have been touched by this site." In response to the question of where the emphasis for the Unfinished Lives Project will be going in the future, Sprinkle said, "We will be lifting up more international stories of queer folk struggling to live securely and safely internationally. Human rights is a world-wide issue. At the same time, our primary focus will be the United States, where the murders of people in the sexual minority, especially gay men and transgender people of color, have hit historic high rates."
At this milestone, the Unfinished Lives Project Team, along with Dr. Sprinkle, invite their readers and supporters to revisit the original purpose of the blog:
Dr. Sprinkle shared that Unfinished Lives Blog has been shared throughout the Human Rights activist and LGBTQ communities, and is a resource in several cases for academic classes dealing with ethics, sexual minority issues, and LGBTQ literature and history. This milestone is a chance for the creators of the blogsite, as well as many others who labor for the cessation of all bias motivated violent crimes against marginalized people, to rededicate themselves to the work of justice for all people.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of loyal readers, followers, and supporters of this work of love and justice!" ~ The Unfinished Lives Project Team
October 16, 2014 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Brite Divinity School, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Stephen V. Sprinkle, Texas, transphobia, Unfinished Lives blog, Unfinished Lives Project	| Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Brite Divinity School, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Stephen V. Sprinkle, Texas, transphobia, Unfinished Lives book, Unfinished Lives Project | Comments Off on Gay/Queer Hate Crimes Blog Reaches 600k Milestone!
Charting the Future of Ministerial Ordination for LGBTQ People: When the Unthinkable Becomes Commonplace
(Note: This article first appeared in the Huffington Post on June 11, 2014. The original posting can be accessed here, and we encourage you to do so.)
A quiet revolution is taking place in once anti-LGBTQ denominational circles. Women and men who are widely known to be openly partnered and "practicing" queer people are being ordained as ministers in churches once ardently opposed to the ordination of gays and lesbians—and are being celebrated for it. The recently unthinkable is becoming commonplace, and none too soon.
Late May and June is prime ordination season, with Pentecost Sunday as the day of choice for many. Graduation Day has come and gone by then in seminaries, and Ordination Day approaches. In Texas, the storied "buckle on the Bible Belt," this season I have watched as several recently authorized women and men knelt for the laying on of hands in their sponsoring congregations, and their same-sex partners have participated in the ordination of their beloved spouses as openly and joyously as any traditionally married partners would: attending the service, organizing the reception, and in some cases participating in the liturgy itself. Denominational officials presiding at these ordinations are seemingly as happy to carry out their duties at these LGBTQ ordinations as they are for those of their "straight" ordinands. What a difference a year or two makes!
Make no mistake about it: the genuine acceptance of LGBTQ candidates for ordination in traditional and mainline contexts is revolutionary. Though closeted gay men have been ordained for generations, and more recently closeted lesbians as women's ordination came online, stigma often haunted any clergy person suspected of being a member of the sexual minority. Not long ago, authorizing boards were battlegrounds. Gay and lesbian candidates for ordination were rejected outright, and anyone already ordained by "don't ask, don't tell" systems who was perceived to be "different" was subject to church trial and defrocking. The bittersweet evidence of this sad history is on display at the Shower of Stoles Project, where over a thousand liturgical stoles and other sacred items of those defrocked and hounded into exile are archived in testimony to the injustice aimed at LGBTQ clergy. Today's spirit of openness is unprecedented. Though some ordaining boards are still rejectionist, each year the evidence mounts that once-ostracized queer people are moving from the periphery of their religious groups into leadership positions. The outrageous, wasteful loss of gifted religious leadership based on heterosexist, homophobic, and transphobic prejudice may be finally nearing its end for many traditional Protestant communions.
Of course, there are exceptions, like the struggle now taking place in the United Methodist Church. But the prophetic leadership of the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Alliance of Baptists, and, of course, the Protestant Episcopal Church is demonstrating that just as women's ordination caused none of them to collapse, just so, the ordination of LGBTQ women and men of faith strengthens the communions to which they belong. Even the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is coming on board quietly now, region by region. Though Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy seem unmoved by ordination developments among Protestants, their hierarchies are monitoring what is happening for queer folk as closely as they have watched the ordination of women, one of the great movements of the Holy Spirit in late 20th and early 21st century ecclesial life. Surely, the "Grandmother" of all LGBTQ ordaining bodies, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Churches (MCC), must be smiling at these developments.
Ordination: Celebrating the Gift of Ministry, by Stephen V. Sprinkle
I wrote a book about ordination to Christian ministry in 2004 when the open ordination of lesbians and gay men was virtually unheard of, save in one or two denominations. The Bad Ol' Days of secrets and ambushes over sexual orientation and gender variance were awful to live through. So much hurt and needless pain! Now, however, with the advent of a new day in ordination, anyone called by God and willing to prepare for a life of service in the church has a shot. Today, I celebrate what is coming to be, not what once was, and I live in hope of a clergy more realistic, faithful, and humane than I once knew. LGBTQ sensibilities have never been the most distinctive or predominant qualities of who queer clergy were, as important as sexual honesty and orientation are in anyone's life. The "Otherness" of gay people is a gift to the church's ministry, among the many gifts bestowed by the One Spirit, as L. William Countryman and M.R. Ritley said in their book, Gifted By Otherness. The obvious gifts of effective ethical leadership, compassion, courage, intelligence, skill, and devotion to God have always been what really counted in the formation of clergy. Now that the noisy clamor of bigotry in North American Protestantism and culture is dying down, the churches' ordaining bodies are more able to discern how often LGBTQ people display the true ministerial character that the 21st century church so desperately needs. While we must never forget the struggles that have brought us to this new era, we do not need the distraction of placing blame for what has been. Instead, straight and LGBTQ people must chart the future of ordination from this time forward, together.
Today's ordination of LGBTQ women and men, though officially unobtrusive, is a welcome antidote to the old toxic hatreds of the past. As these gifted ordinands take their places among their peers in ministry, the presence and witness of LGBTQ clergy will become less remarkable and more commonplace. Oh, how I welcome that development! But until the old has fully passed away, and the new is fully come, I cannot help pausing to reflect, to remember the pioneers who brought us this far along the way, and give thanks for the colors of the rainbow. For "there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone" (1 Cor. 12:4-6, NRSV). ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Founder and Director of The Unfinished Lives Project
June 27, 2014 Posted by unfinishedlives | GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Religion Page, LGBTQ, LGBTQ clergy, LGBTQ Ordination, Mainline Protestant Churches, Shower of Stoles Project, Texas	| Alliance of Baptists, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Eastern Orthodoxy, ELCA Lutheran Church, GLBTQ, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Religion Page, LGBTQ, LGBTQ clergy, LGBTQ Ordination, Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Protestant Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church and Homosexuality, Shower of Stoles Project, Texas, Unitarian Universalists (UUA), United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Churches (MCC) | Comments Off on Charting the Future of Ministerial Ordination for LGBTQ People: When the Unthinkable Becomes Commonplace


Actor Regé-Jean Page (center) talks to Prof. Jonathan Handel (left) and USC Gould student Kristopher Coombs.
Hollywood came to USC Gould this week when actors and producers with the new ABC legal drama, "For the People" held a screening of the Shonda Rhimes television series.
More than 100 law students watched the screening and took part in a Q&A with actors Wesam Keesh and Regé-Jean Page. Jonathan Handel, USC Gould lecturer, moderated the discussion.
The series follows brand-new lawyers working on opposite sides — for both the defense and the prosecution — as they handle the most high-profile and high-stakes cases.
"This role is the pinnacle of my professional career," said Keesh, who shadowed a public defender in Los Angeles Superior Court to prepare for the role.
USC Gould students gather with actors Wesam Keesh and Regé-Jean Page.
Set in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Federal Court, aka "The Mother Court," the series was created by Paul William Davies, who earned a law degree from Stanford. He clerked for a federal judge before a nearly decade-long stint as a litigator at O'Melveny & Myers.


More than 14,000 people have chosen Pine Grove as their final resting place.
Established in 1858, more than 14,000 people have chosen Pine Grove as their final resting place. Now occupying 28 acres, Pine Grove serves as a sanctuary for each of those people and the many visitors who come to visit their loved ones.
Our founding fathers had a strong vision. They wanted to create a peaceful and serene environment to ease you through your sad and troubled times and help you say goodbye to your loved ones in a quiet and friendly atmosphere.
Our philosophy remains the same. Our cemetery is "dedicated to the deceased" and we offer you the promise of dignity and respect in the care of your loved ones as well as in serving you and your family. Pine Grove's board of directors and staff continue to identify new ways to maintain the cemetery's high level of standards.
To learn more, call, email or visit the cemetery office. Also be sure to download our mobile app where you can search burial records, obituaries and even locate gravesites of loved ones within the cemetery.


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Cabin Fever is hitting as the January weather keeps us indoors. Luckily, Ann Arbor has plenty to do in the winter. Here are some museums that make leaving the house well worth it. Bring the kids for an inexpensive, enriching activity that will keep you out of the cold.
Museum of Natural History University of Michigan
University of Michigan Museum Of Natural History Planetarium! Photo: UMNHM
The University of Michigan, Natural History Museum, is a FREE activity. Located downtown, enjoy exhibits that explore the natural world, from molecules to dinosaurs. This museum has something for everyone – the Exploring Michigan exhibit celebrates our state's rich geological formations, prehistoric life forms, and diverse ecosystems. Experience life-size dioramas of Michigan's varied habitats and wildlife and hands-on activities that engage people of all ages. The museum is informed by the University of Michigan researchers' findings, and throughout the museum, you'll see current research projects by U-M faculty at kiosks. For current exhibits, click here. For current planetarium and dome theater shows, click here.
Hands-On Museum
Toyota STEAM Park Photo: Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum seeks to create moments of discovery that inspire curiosity, exploration, and respect for STEM and the natural world. Ann Arbor locals have fond memories of taking their children to the Hand's Museum or even visiting it as a child. The museum is open Sunday, Tuesday-Saturday from 10-5. Admission is $16 or free for members. The newly finished Toyota Steam Park results from over two decades of work with Toyota. It features interactive mechanical exhibits, such as Window Maze Ball Machine, Airfoil, and a first-in-the-world digital Roulette Curve.
UMMA Exhibit. Photo: UMMA
The University of Michigan Museum of Art, or the UMMA, is another free opportunity to get out of the house and enjoy some art. The art is culturally and historically rich, with categories ranging from Photography to Asian Art to Decorative Arts and Designs. Visit the UMMA website for the current list of constantly changing exhibits. The exhibits are constantly changing! For current exhibits, UMMA Gift Shop always carries unique, curated products with new selections. Categories include Creativity, Ramen, Fine-Art, and Contemporary Design. The UMMA cafe offers salads, sandwiches, coffee, tea, and pastries. It is an excellent place to sit down and get some work done or take a quick break from touring the museum.
University of Michigan Computer and Video Game Archive
The University of Michigan Video Game Archive. Photo: CVGA
Located in the Shapiro Library on the University of Michigan's Central Campus, The Computer and Video Game Archive offers an extensive collection of video games, consoles, board games, and more from the 1970s to today. It is entertaining for everyone – from researchers to video game fanatics to newcomers. Try out the original Playstation or the Pacman table! To enjoy, reserve a spot at least two hours before.
Kelsey Museum of Archeology
Kelsey Museum of Archeology Exhibit. Photo: Kelsey Museum
The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology houses more than 100,000 artifacts, of which approximately 1,500 are on permanent display; in addition, the museum mounts 2–3 special exhibitions annually. As an exhibit museum at a public university, the Kelsey embraces a vigorous public outreach mission, engaging with residents and visitors of all ages from kindergarten through retirement. It also serves as the headquarters of the University of Michigan's Classical Art and Archaeology graduate program. To view their exhibits, click this link.
Ann Arbor is full of things to do during the cold winter, from restaurants to shopping and these great museums. If you have any questions about the city, I am here to answer!
For immediate assistance, call us at 734-845-9700 or email Andy Piper at andy@piperpartners.com.
How to Make Your Ann Arbor Home More Environmentally Friendly
According to Andy
Life in Ann Arbor
Greene Farms
Excellent service from a great team. Great experience. -Jesus Tome

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Olson, Arthur P.
You are here: Home Olson, Arthur P.
Locator, Placer Claim No. 12 above Canyon on Manker Creek, 7/27/98, witnesses Oxelgren & Strawn,TMDR, p. 33; On Hera, brother s are Oscar & Arthur, shot 200 ducks on Lake Hudson, fall 1898, Golden Cross, p. 66; Deed, Purchased Hill's Bidarky claim on Busby Island, Aug. 29, 1899, PWSMDR, Book 2, p. 254; Notice of assessment work, p. 255; Built most complete and sanitary cabins along with Swan Johnson at Lake Klutina, 1898-99, Golden Cross, p. 82;
Voter Roll for Election of July 1, 1901, Crary Scrapbooks, Vol. 1; contractor, Ran for first City Council. The Valdez News. 1:14. 6/8/01. p. 1; Elected to First City Council with Wood, Osgood, Levy, Crary, McHie and Olson. The Valdez News, 7/6/01, p. 1; celebrated 36th birthday with whist party and supper at the Grand Hotel, The Valdez News. 1:29. 9/21/01, p. 4;


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HomeWorld NewsWorld War 3 may be the next great hardcore shooter
Aug. 26, 2022 at 8:18 am
World War 3 may be the next great hardcore shooter
One of the video games getting an exact buzz out of this yr's Gamescom in Germany is a bold present-day military shooter. World War three is being made by the group at The Farm fifty-one, a mid-sized unbiased developer out of Poland. If they can pull off what they envision, we might be looking at one of the subsequent huge franchises for hardcore enthusiasts.
The fiction of World War 3 posits a close to-future worldwide struggle with the European theater as its epicenter. The group has introduced sensible maps modeled after places which include Warsaw, Berlin, and Moscow. But they've long gone a step further, promising an unparalleled level of constancy inside the manner it models hands and equipment.
From the sport's Steam web page:
Armor vs. Projectile
Downplaying Global Warming
Cause Of Global Warming
Science Of Global Warming
The maximum genuine bullet vs. Armor system in the FPS style was executed through years of studies and development with navy professionals. Ballistics, a weight gadget, full-body cognizance, automobile physics, and an intensive customization device all affect the gameplay in a meaningful way.
I've performed my fair proportion of Arma 3, the infantry simulation from Bohemia Interactive. I can tell you from revel in that authenticity isn't necessarily the way into each gamer's heart. Another in-improvement title, Escape From Tarkov, supplies a similar level of realism. But it additionally has a record of technical troubles that, at instances, could make it more frustrating than it should be.
The Farm fifty-one appears to need to break up the distinction between simulation and arcade. Watching its latest trailer, I'm reminded of the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in addition to Battlefield 4.
What has certainly piqued my interest but is the metagame. The builders intend to build a strategic map for enjoyment. They say that players' performance in struggle will impact the assets they're given to both holds or take territories, on the way to sooner or later amplify to the entire planet.
The sport reminds me of the ambitious Heroes & Generals, a World War II shooter with a comparable strategic layer. It's a pretty famous sport in its personal proper, even though nonetheless pretty niche. With its ripped-from-the-headlines topic and a seemingly nuanced take at hardcore gameplay, it feels like World War 3 has the ability to appeal to a much wider target market. These Days international warming is a scorching topic and little marvel, seeing as the earth grows warmer with each passing year.
For a long-term now, the effect of man's industrialization and technological development has quietly but continuously eked away on the sensitive stability of the planet's ecosystem and ecosystem, however inside the remaining 30 or so years, the pace of this damage has markedly extended!
In lots the same manner that Big Tobacco once vehemently denied the affiliation among cigarette smoking and lung most cancers, for the longest time, some multi-billion-dollar-a-yr industries have additionally been wondering about the existence of global warming and misleading the public approximately its fact.
In reality, the Bush II years were particularly devastating to Environmental Protection Rights but staggeringly beneficial for people who would take advantage of the loss of such protection.
In what can satisfactory be described as an orgy-fest of self-congratulatory backslapping, many a heavyweight lobbyist for industries including oil, coal, mining, logging, aviation, vehicle producers have left the Bush Whitehouse grinning just like the proverbial Cheshire cat because they had gotten firm warranty that pesky environmental laws could by no means get within the way of business as normal!
An instance of ways the Bush II Administration misled the general public into believing they were in reality worried about protective the surroundings turned into the sneaky manner in which they enacted laws consisting of The Clean Skies Act.
The Clean Skies Act added in February 2003 seemingly appears to strengthen already existent environmental laws consisting of The Clean Air Act, however, which in reality truly weakened and undermined them.
The Clean Skies Act gave pollutant industries a whole lot of leeway, letting them spew an additional 42 million extra heaps of pollutants into the surroundings and raised caps on greenhouse gasoline emissions.
Soon after Bush II came to power, the situation got so awful that once decades of effective provider, two of the maximum senior enforcement officers in the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) resigned, mentioning an enterprise that becomes pursuing contrary desires defensive the surroundings.
Former US VP Al Gore isn't any stranger to these strategies. As possibly the maximum broadly recognizable face within the combat against worldwide warming, he has been scoffed at and ridiculed utilizing the identical people who would have us trust worldwide warming is nothing greater than a fable!
Recently in 2007, numerous scientists have long passed on public record citing claims of a Gestapo-like environment of intimidation to supply figures and reviews that belied the true extent of global warming!
The exceptional extraordinary-multiplied fee of world warming occurring today is because of the number of greenhouse gases being spewed into the atmosphere. The most notorious greenhouse fuel is carbon dioxide (CO2), as it so takes place to be the biggest unmarried contributing element to global warming (CO2 contains greater than 75% of all greenhouse gases). So what's spewing all that CO2 in the air? Put–humanity and his toys!
Some of the largest greenhouse gasoline pollutions encompass cars, strength manufacturing; planes; transport, and the diverse manufacturing industries dotted everywhere worldwide.
This article is intentionally no longer an in-intensity treatise of the system of worldwide warming, however having said that, here's a brief explanation:
The rays from the sun are made from shortwave solar radiation, which bypasses through the surroundings and is then absorbed via the earth, thereby warming it. Part of that absorbed power is contemplated again to the atmosphere as long wave infrared radiation, which is trapped via the greenhouse gases. This trapped heat ensures that the earth is about warmer through 33 degrees Celsius than it would in any other case be.
This trapped warmness is really proper for us. For have been it no longer for those greenhouse gases and other materials in the environment that entice warmness, the earth might be as cold as Mars, which has no ecosystem to talk of for all intents and reason.
Over the beyond century, the earth has gotten warmer by using about 0.7 ranges Celsius. This might not look like a good deal until you consider that the difference between the common earth temperature nowadays and every other ice age is a trifling 5 tiers Celsius!
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Backup LB not present, other Alabama pre-scrimmage notes


GK-5962: WAITING FOR ITS TURN!
GK Dutta > DAILY BLOG > GK-5962: WAITING FOR ITS TURN!
Life is like a coin Pleasure and pain are the two sides, Only one side is visible at time, But remember other side also waiting for its turn.


Whitecoin (XWC) is a three year old decentralized global blockchain with a focus on cyber security, payments & secure communications.
Users who keep their wallet open to secure the network via staking will receive 5 XWC for each stake found as reward.
Everyone shares the bank history, so it's entirely transparent.
QUESTIONS? ASK THE WHITECOIN TEAM ON DISCORD.


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View Full Version of PW.com »
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Author, Matthew J. Bruccoli, Editor Scribner Book Company $29.95 (775p) ISBN 978-0-684-19160-7
More By and About This Author
A Life in Letters
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The Jazz Age
BEST JAZZ AGE STORIES
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Bruccoli's ( Some Sort of Epic Grandeur ) collection of 43 Fitzgerald stories includes 23 not featured in Malcolm Cowley's landmark 1951 collection, expanding the canon of a peerless American writer who was deeply ambivalent about the role of short fiction in his art. Published in commercial magazines (e.g., the Saturday Evening Post ), the stories brought their author as much as $4000 each--but also exacted a price, distracting Fitzgerald from work on his novels. Regardless, many of the stories are unequalled in achievement--inspirited with a delicate wit, a shrewd perception of character and a poetic sense of place--and lead us through Fitzgerald's rich creative chronology, from unforgettable evocations of the enchanting but ruthless social whirl of the young in the 1920s (``Bernice Bobs Her Hair'') to the exhaustion of spirit chronicled 16 years later in ``Afternoon of an Author.'' Among the 23 stories, nearly all of which have appeared previously in magazines, is one--``Last Kiss''--published for the first time in the author's final revision. Invaluable to Fitzgerald admirers, Bruccoli's collection should also capture a new generation of readers. BOMC alternate, QPB main selection . (Oct.)
Reviewed on: 10/01/1989
Paperback - 362 pages - 978-1-4474-0711-9
Paperback - 775 pages - 978-0-684-80445-3
Hardcover - 800 pages - 978-0-684-84250-9
Hardcover - 978-0-02-992032-9
Open Ebook - 180 pages - 978-1-4474-8051-8
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Bilingual People returns to Prague on the 24 th May to host its annual International Language Recruitment Fair dedicated to the Central Eastern Europe Region.
This is your chance to meet and discuss exciting employment opportunities where you can use your language skills with some of the largest recruiters in Czech Republic and across Europe Face to Face.
The event offers bilingual and multilingual professionals access to hundreds of available positions from leading international companies and recruitment agencies based in Prague, Czech Republic and across Europe, in employment sectors such as Customer Service, Accountancy & Finance, IT, Sales, Marketing and Translating/Interpreting, plus many more.
Meet Local and International companies that are interested in recruiting for people with language skills, both for positions in the Czech Republic, and also throughout Europe.
You will be able to meet leading employers as well as Recruitment Agencies under one roof, saving you time and energy when looking for your new job!
Attend various presentations and seminars throughout the day which will be aimed at given you advice on finding your perfect career.
The Fair will be held at the Clarion Congress Hotel, Prague 9, on the 24th May – for one day only.


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Five Reasons Why Cadillac Is Leaving New York City for Detroit
Four years after relocating to Manhattan, the legacy brand is returning to its roots.
byBasir Khan| UPDATED Sep 30, 2018 4:37 PM
Basir KhanView basir khan's Articles
Cadillac is packing up and leaving the Empire State in favor of its hometown, Detroit. The news comes just months after the luxury brand reaffirmed its commitment to remain in New York City—a decision that was announced despite the ousting of then CEO Johan de Nysschen. So why has the carmaker reversed course and headed to the Motor City? Let's explore the rationale behind the move.
Johan de Nysschen Has Left the building
One of the first things Johan de Nysschen did when he became CEO in 2014 was separate the physical presence of Cadillac from parent company General Motors. By doing so, he wanted to redefine Cadillac's corporate image and New York seemed like the appropriate place to do so. With plenty of luxury lifestyle brands such as Michael Kors already based out of the city, Cadillac would fit right in. It would also give the company the opportunity to hire top talent to rejuvenate itself. But with Johan de Nysschen no longer at the helm, there was more reason than not to regroup in Detroit.
Renting space in NYC is undoubtedly expensive. A commercial listing shows that property prices at 330 Hudson, where Cadillac's existing headquarters stands, hover around $72 per square foot per year. The company leased 34,000 square feet of space, according to Automotive News, for ten years. Sticking to simple math and assuming that price was locked in upon Cadillac's initial lease signing, that equates to nearly $9.8 million over the past four years. By vacating sooner than expected, Cadillac will break its lease six years early but is committed to helping the building owner find a new tenant in its place.
Cadillac Never Truly Left
The move, which is set to begin in six months time, will affect more than 100 employees, all of whom will be offered relocation to Warren, Michigan. Strategically, having its headquarters in Detroit again makes sense. Even after moving to the East Coast, Cadillac continued to rely on Michigan-based employees when it came to vehicle design, features, and pricing.
New Yorkers Don't Buy Cars Like Everyone Else
NYCEDC car ownership data shows that only 45 percent of households own a car in the Big Apple's five boroughs. Ownership is lowest in Manhattan, where only 22 percent of households own a car. The city relies on its public transportation system made up of buses, subway, taxis, trains, and ride-sharing services. Based on all of this, it never made sense for Cadillac to be in Manhattan—its the sole manufacturer headquartered on the island.
Rejoining the Team
General Motors cites wanting leadership "to be closer to GM's vehicle design and engineering hub in suburban Detroit, especially as GM prepares to roll out several new Cadillac models in coming years." It also won't have to worry about fitting in thanks to GM's existing campus. Meanwhile, Cadillac's brand-experience space will remain open even after it exits the building.
So, what does the future hold for the American automaker? Plans to introduce four new vehicles over the next two years, the most recent of which being the 2019 XT4 subcompact crossover. A new compact sedan is supposedly in the cards as well. Expect lots of moving trucks at 330 Hudson Street over the next few months because Caddy is coming home.


Busy trying to be the first to draw the turkey.
The Christmas cake, 1st prize in the ballot and a turkey was the prize for the highest score.
The Diocesan display for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.


Aeroflex, founded in 1937, designs, develops, and manufactures test and measurement products that are used in communication systems, networks and automatic test systems. Its customers are found in the aerospace, defense, wireless mobile, broadband communications and advanced manufacturing markets.
In 2014, Aeroflex entered into a merger agreement with Cobham plc, a UK company that designs and manufactures a wide range of equipment, specialized systems and components for the aerospace, defense, energy, and electronics industries.
MATsolutions offers a wide range of lab certified, pre-owned Aeroflex test and measurement equipment, and with our unique Buy with Assurance program, you can be confident when making your used Aeroflex purchase from MATsolutions.


The following table sets forth the principal holders of Banrisul outstanding common and preferred shares (classes A and B) and their respective shareholdings.
As of April 9, 2019.
The following table sets forth the amount of shares freely available to the investing public by type and class of shares issued by Banrisul.
2 Total shares issued by Banrisul, excluding those identifyied in #1, above.
The following table sets forth the relevant shareholding per company's share.
1Asset Management Company - Brazil.
Banrisul's former Preferred shares were automatically converted into PNA shares from the creation of two new classes of preferred shares, the PNA and the PNB, in preparation to the public offering that occurred on July 31, 2007, consisting only of PNB shares. The PNA shares can be converted into ON share or PNB share at any time, at the initiative of the shareholder, who has to indicate the number of shares being converted and the new type and class of share.


Welcome to the "eggceptional" Rain Rain Go Away! Giveaway Hop!
Easter is almost here! Time to stock up on candy! What better way to do that than with a giveaway hop?
Plus, be sure to visit all of the other bloggers participating in this hop!
You could possibly win more than one prize!
Just enter the form below!
This giveaway is Open for entry in the Continental US, from 12:00 PM ET on 04/02/19 and giveaway ending at 11:59 PM ET on 04/16/19. One entrant will be selected to win a $5 Amazon Gift Card! Winner will have 24 hours to respond to notification email to claim their prize or a new winner will be selected.


The saying "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is not without foundation. The first meal of the day should be nutritious and provide energy for the whole day ahead of you.
Protein is very beneficial for your body, and according to recent studies, it stimulates ghrelin secretion in the body. Ghrelin is a substance that is secreted when the stomach is empty, and when the stomach stretches, the secretion stops and it tells the brain to increase hunger and gastric acid secretion in order to be prepared for food. A recent study determined that a high protein breakfast is more satisfying than any other food due to the ghrelin output. To include more protein in your breakfast, eat boiled eggs, protein powder, yogurt, peanut butter or nuts.
Adding healthy fats to your breakfast can definitely improve your health and provide you with a boost of energy. However, this doesn't mean that you should eat bacon – we're talking about healthy fats found in avocado, almond butter and coconut oil. Add 1-2 tablespoons of healthy fats to your breakfast for start and you should be fine.
Steel cut oats are very different from rolled oats. They are not rolled into flakes, and are more similar to old-fashioned rolled oats. They contain a lot of fiber which will make you feel full for longer, and the low glycemic make-up will prevent sugar spikes after the meal. They are also an effective weight loss solution.
Vegetables aren't usually added to breakfast, but they can boost the fiber content of the meal and improve your digestion early in the day. Adding them in your breakfast will also get you closer to the recommended 2 ½ cups a day. Add some spinach, onion or peppers on your eggs to make your breakfast healthier.
Sweet breakfasts are great, but they increase your blood sugar levels in the morning almost immediately. This is why you need to go for balanced meals that will satisfy your sugar needs and keep you full for longer. Heat up the bowl or meatball marinara from last night's dinner and you should be fine.
Try these 5 breakfast suggestions and you should be able to lose weight easily.
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How To Tell If Your Stomach Acid Is Too Weak Using Just A Beet!


Some of the best meals are made from leftovers or what you have hanging around in the cupboard, fridge or garden! I've had some Jus-Roll puff pastry in the fridge for a couple of weeks now so it needed using up. So I made some tarts with the last big tomato leftover from last week's veg shop. Cut the pastry sheet into six squares. Run a knife gently round the edge of each, about 1cm from the edge, just cutting into the surface of the pastry but taking care not to go through it. Spread the pastry (avoiding the edge) with some wild garlic pesto (you could use shop-bought pesto or make your own tomato sauce by boiling down some tinned tomatoes with garlic and herbs) then scatter some small chunks of Violife Blu Wedge (vegan blue cheese or any other vegan cheese would do) then top it with slices of tomato and halved cherry tomatoes. These tarts take just a few minutes to knock up and bake in the oven at 180°C for 20 mins while you make a salad to go with them.
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