‘I do not promise happiness, and I don’t know what it is. You New World people are, what is the word, hipped on the idea of happiness, as if it were a constant and measurable thing, and settled and excused everything. If it is anything at all it is a by-product of other conditions of life, and some people whose lives do not appear to be at all enviable, or indeed admirable, are happy. Forget about happiness.’
—The Manticore (from The Deptford Trilogy), Robertson Davies
1.
Uganda’s new anti-LGBT law doesn’t mess with me, you might think. CNN reported The United Nations and United States on Wednesday added to international outrage over a hardline bill passed by Ugandan lawmakers that criminalizes simply identifying as LGBTQ+, prescribes a life sentence for convicted homosexuals and a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” President Yoweri Museveni, calling homosexual people “deviations from normal,” has previously called LGBTQ people, “mercenaries” and “prostitutes,” likening homosexuality to a form of “social imperialism.” That country’s far away—India or Africa, right?—and shit like that will never reach our freedom-loving shores. Uhhhhh….
A slate of proselytizing, activist U.S. religious groups have for years campaigned in parts of Africa, especially in countries like Uganda, and sown the seeds for even more hard-line measures there, according to the Washington Post. In Texas, Greg Abbott signed a bill to ban hormone and puberty blocking treatments, as well as surgeries, for transgender minors. A new bill introduced in Oklahoma would make it a felony to provide transition treatment to transgender people younger than 26. Over the last three years more than 150 bills in at least 25 states are slated to ban transition care in young adults.
A great read on keeping up with this issue in the states is the Substack by Erin Reed called Erin In The Morning. Check out this post on her methodology and how anti-trans risk has devolved over the last three years. Here is her map of the most up to date version (as of 5-19-2023) of anti-trans legislation across the country.
I’m a-thinking these folks pushing their dope on the world should just stick to their MAN/WOMAN missionary position lifestyles, ditch the proselytising, and leave everyone else alone.
2.
If all Democratic candidates for office refuse to be bullied or intimidated, and are as articulate, well-informed, and imperturbable as Gavin Newsom, we’d stand a chance of taking back the House and retain the Senate and Presidency. I have to add that the silence from the President and other Democrats about the orange man’s recent court date that included 37 felony counts is a bit strange. Lee Papa said it best in his post on Wednesday: This isn't that hard: Talk about the fucking crimes. That's it. Talk about the crimes. Talk about how fucked this all was when it comes to national security. Ask if people feel okay about nuclear secrets laying around the bathroom of a country club that was infiltrated by spies. Ask if they feel safe with that happening. Keep shoving this up the fucking asses of any Republicans who defend it. We're not talking about a love letter from Kim Jong Un. We're talking about documents that say, "Oh, hey, here's where the US is weak, enemies, so you can probably blow shit up here." And ask what kind of fucking asshole does this shit and what kind of assholes say it's all fine. Get angry about it, Democratic leaders. Let the public know that Trump's accused of doing something really shitty and harmful and he's pretty much admitted that he did it.
3.
An interesting article in the Guardian on Ukrainian-born musician Eugene Hütz, leader of the New York-bred band Gogol Bordello, where he talks about a new documentary, Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story, and the war in the Ukraine. IMDB says of the film; With Ukraine's sovereignty and cultural identity under perilous threat, punk icons Gogol Bordello, are using their music as a rallying cry for a nation. Through never-before-seen photo and video archives spanning two decades - including concert performances, backstage moments and intimate interviews - this film follows the epic journey of Eugene Hütz, Gogol frontman and one of the greatest storytellers of our time. A Romani born in Ukraine, Hütz fled his homeland during the Chernobyl disaster. Now, after years of exorcising demons through his music, he is going home to face down the biggest demon of all. A wild punk-rock-doc that explodes off the screen, Scream of My Blood is a testament to the power of speaking your truth, no matter the cost.
Of the war he says, “What kind of surprise can it be when the war has actually been going on for nine years? (dating it back to the Russian annexation of parts of the Donbas region and Crimea in 2014) This was ignored, as if this was some small-time guerrilla war in a neighborhood. It was actually the two largest countries in Europe at war. I don’t consider myself a gifted strategist, but for those following the story, the answer is obvious. It will end with the defeat of Russia. Anyone who ever thought that Russia would somehow accomplish the delusion of grandeur they set out for has clearly never met one single Ukrainian.”
4.
I wrote a bit about baker Don Guerra and Barrio Bread back in October of 2021. Word around town is the business is struggling a bit as we’re heading into the summer slump. Apparently they still have long lines in the morning but the crowd really dies off after that. (On the upside, we like it around here now as there’s less traffic and congestion, and only the true die-hard desert dwellers are left to pant and hydrate) The New York Times gave him some ink in 2021, too, where they wrote, In Tucson, a city better known for flour tortillas than levain, Mr. Guerra is a star of the local-grain movement. Lots of craft bakers talk about growing local-grain economies, using grains harvested and milled a relatively short distance from their ovens — the locavore ethos applied to baking. Mr. Guerra has been doing it for years, working with southern Arizona grain growers, the Indigenous San Xavier Cooperative Farm and other groups.
Won’t you go by soon and pick up some their very-fine bread? You can always overbuy and freeze the stuff so help a great Tucson business out. You can find their weekly offerings here…open Tuesday-Saturday from 9am until the bread runs out in the Broadway Village at 18 S. Eastbourne Ave, Tucson, Arizona, baby!
5.
We hear stories everyday how our long-time newspaper institutions have either sold out to giant publishing mega-corporations or have shuttered altogether. We used to have two newspapers in Tucson (The Citizen and the Star) and the Tucson Weekly used to be a robust and thick news and arts source that I would anxiously await to pick up every week…I haven’t picked one up in several years. But regarding the news side, the Substack News@Knight reports that Both INN and LION Publishers have reported a surge in the number of local news outlets, and their improving financial outlook. That growth stands in stark contrast to the layoffs and bankruptcies we have been seeing in the media sector as a whole. There have been cuts at Gannett, the Los Angeles Times and The Athletic, while BuzzFeed News shut down and Vice filed for bankruptcy. A recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that media job cuts in the U.S. in 2023 have been higher than any other year on record.
Amidst that national downturn, we are seeing a true ray of hope in local nonprofits, and you could feel the good vibes at INN Days (not unlike the energy at last fall’s Independent News Sustainability Summit). The local news nonprofit universe was relatively nascent a few years ago, but is now maturing. We are seeing growth in local philanthropy, reader revenue and individual donors – and also an increasing awareness of how important local news is to our democracy.
Our own Tucson Sentinel is part of the vanguard of Local Independent Online News Publishers, a member of the prestigious Institute for Nonprofit News, both which are mentioned above, and has gained a national reputation for delivering solid, hard-hitting local news. Since their launch, they've posted more than 32,000 stories.
There are other independent online news groups that are thriving from 501(c)(3) nonprofit status supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers, such as the Kansas Reflector and Prescott Indivisible. Please help support you local news…as the Washington Post says, Democracy Dies in Darkness.
6.
Just have to repost Heather Cox Richardson’s post where she writes When the Republican Study Committee calls Biden’s policies—which have led to record employment, a booming economy, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor— “leftist,” they have lost the thread of our history. The system that restored the nation after 1933 and held the nation stable until 1981 is not socialism or radicalism; it is one of the strongest parts of our American tradition. This is in response to a 175-member group of far-right House members who released their 2024 “Blueprint to Save America” budget plan. It calls for slashing the federal budget by raising the age at which retirees can start claiming Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, privatizing Medicare, and enacting dramatic tax cuts that will starve the federal government.
They want to slash government spending down to the bare minimum and Richardson goes on, The last time the level of government spending was at that 8% of GDP was 1933, before the New Deal. In that year, after years of extraordinary corporate profits, the banking system had collapsed, the unemployment rate was nearly 25%, prices and productivity were plummeting, wages were cratering, factories had shut down, farmers were losing their land to foreclosure. Children worked in the fields and factories, elderly and disabled people ate from garbage cans, unregulated banks gambled away people’s money, business owners treated their workers as they wished. Within a year the Great Plains would be blowing away as extensive deep plowing had damaged the land, making it vulnerable to drought. Republican leaders insisted the primary solution to the crisis was individual enterprise and private charity. JUST. VOTE. BLUE.
Tiny Tidbits of Goddamn!
1. Pat Robertson’s dead. There are few more responsible for the ushering of Christian-conservatism into the mainstream, now the Republican playbook. He blamed gays for 9/11 equating them with Nazis and Satanists, said Haitians deserved the 2010 earthquake, blamed the 2017 shooting in Las Vegas as “disrespect” for Trump, called Black Lives Matter activists anti-Christian, prayed for the deaths of liberal Supreme Court justices, and claimed Kenyans could get AIDS via towels. “Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is doing to evangelical Christians. It’s no different…It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-biased media, and the homosexuals who want to destroy all Christians. Send me money today or these liberals will be putting Christians like you and me in concentration camps.” This man spread hatred and was the epitome of human garbage—good riddance. Goddamn.
2. Elderly orange man (Florida Man) stops at local bakery after being charged with 37 felony counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of classified documents and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. A guy’s gotta have a donut. Goddamn.
3. Them Southern Baptists are crazy…delegates at the denomination’s convention this week voted overwhelmingly to finalize the expulsion of two churches with female pastors; one in Southern California (TOO LIBERAL!) and the other in Louisville, Ky (TOO LIBERAL?). The convention is scheduled to vote later Wednesday on a proposal to amend its constitution to more clearly and strictly ban women from leadership roles. Goddamn.
4. Stand Indivisible Arizona is an organization that, as it says on their website, exists to enhance the general welfare of Arizona communities by facilitating educational opportunities for our members and the general public, identifying and challenging governmental issues that negatively impact the welfare of our communities and promoting active participation in organized advocacy initiatives. Arizona Rep. David Schweikert, who won a seventh term in the U.S. House last year, and who in 2020 had to pay a $50,000 fine and admit to 11 violations to settle a long-running investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee, has kept refusing to meet with members of Stand Indivisible so…the group met with a life-size cardboard cutout of him on a Phoenix sidewalk Wednesday to address their concerns. They’ve spent years unsuccessfully trying to get a sit-down meeting with the Republican lawmaker. U.S. Navy veteran Nick Prestera says Schweikert’s Scottsdale office is really a fortress that is always locked. Goddamn.
And now…
Great newsletter this week, Gary. I didn’t know about the latest Hütz documentary. And thanks for letting people know that Barrio Bread could use a community boost. ❤️