Acid House Flashback # 9

"Elevation (Move Your Body)" - Xpansions - 1990

The Okapi Miami-Dade Voting Guide

Like just about everyone, I am completely exhausted, but extremely hopeful, regarding the upcoming election. I can't imagine how many hours I've spent surfing political blogs, or how many evenings I've spent with Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews and the whole CNN Roundtable. And, today, early voting in Florida begins. So, for my peeps in Miami, who are less politically addicted than I, and who trust my leftist liberal elite opinion....here's how I'm voting. Now, get your ass to the polls!

PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT

Barack Obama / Joe Biden

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, DISTRICT 18

Annette Taddeo

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, DISTRICT 20

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, DISTRICT 21

Raul L. Martinez

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, DISTRICT 25

Joe Garcia

STATE SENATOR

Dan Gelber

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 102

No One

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 106

Richard L. Steinberg

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 107

Luis Garcia

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 110

Nancy L. Stander

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 111

Frank Morra

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 112

No One

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 113

Javier Betancourt

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 119

Michael Hanley Calderin

STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 120

Ron Saunders

CLERK OF THE CIRCUIT COURT

Harvey Rubin

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 1

Summary: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to delete provisions authorizing the Legislature to regulate or prohibit ownership, inheritance, disposition, and possession of real property by aliens ineligible for citizenship.

Vote YES!

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 2

Summary: This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

Vote NO!

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 3

Summary: Authorizes the Legislature, by general law, to prohibit consideration of changes or improvements to residential real property which increase resistance to wind damage and installation of renewable energy source devices as factors in assessing the property’s value for ad valorem taxation purposes. Effective upon adoption, repeals the existing renewable energy source device exemption no longer in effect.

Vote YES!

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 4

Requires the Legislature to provide a property tax exemption for real property encumbered by perpetual conservation easements or other perpetual conservation protections, defined by general law. Requires Legislature to provide for classification and assessment of land used for conservation purposes, and not perpetually encumbered, solely on the basis of character or use. Subjects assessment benefit to conditions, limitations, and reasonable definitions established by general law. Applies to property taxes beginning in 2010.

Vote YES!

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 6

Provides for assessment based upon use of land used predominantly for commercial fishing purposes; land used for vessel launches into waters that are navigable and accessible to the public; marinas and dry stacks that are open to the public; and water-dependent marine manufacturing facilities, commercial fishing facilities, and marine vessel construction and repair facilities and their support activities, subject to conditions, limitations, and reasonable definitions.

Vote YES!

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NUMBER 8

Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to require that the Legislature authorize counties to levy a local option sales tax to supplement community college funding; requiring voter approval to levy the tax; providing that approved taxes will sunset after 5 years and may be reauthorized by the voters.

Vote YES!

COUNTY QUESTIONS

Home Rule Charter Amendment Regarding the Offices of Manager and Mayor: Shall the Charter be amended to transfer the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the County Manager to the County Mayor and provide that the County Manager shall assist the Mayor in the administration of county government only to the extent directed by the Mayor?

Vote YES!

Home Rule Charter Amendment Relating to Salaries and Service of County Commissioners: Shall the Charter be amended to provide that County Commissioners shall:• Devote full-time service to the office of Commissioner and hold no other employment; and• No longer receive the $6,000 annual salary established in 1957, but receive instead the salary provided by state statutory formula, adjusted annually by the county’s population (currently approximately $91,995), used by other Florida counties, including Broward County?

Vote YES!

Charter Amendment Providing Alternative Process to Qualify for Office of County Commissioner or Mayor: Shall the Charter be amended to permit candidates for the office of County Commissioner or Mayor to qualify for office by either submitting a petition signed by specified number of registered voters or paying a qualifying fee?

Vote YES!

Home Rule Charter Amendment on Ordinance Initiative Petitions Requiring Clerk Form Approval and Public Hearings: Shall the Charter be amended to provide that the Clerk, not the Board, shall approve initiative petitions proposing passage or repeal of an ordinance as to form and require the County Commission to hold a public hearing on any such petition at the next County Commission meeting subsequent to the Clerk’s approval of the petition?

Vote YES!

Charter Amendment Relating to Approval as to Form of Initiative Petitions: Shall the Charter be amended to provide that the Clerk of the Circuit Court, rather than the Board of County Commissioners, approve citizen initiative petitions as to form?

Vote YES!

County Charter Amendment Creating Uniform Countywide Fire and Rescue Service and Preserving Existing City Service: Shall the Charter be amended to require that the Board of County Commissioners provide a uniform, countywide system of fire protection and rescue services for all incorporated and unincorporated areas of the County with the exception of the cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Coral Gables, and Key Biscayne which may provide for fire and rescue protection services in those cities?

Vote NO!

If you want to vote early...which I think is a great idea if you're not going to be happy about waiting in line for hours on November 4th, click here for a list of early voting sites, and click here for a list of what you'll need to bring with you.

One Crazy Golden Girl

All I ever needed to know in life, I learned from "The Golden Girls."

Thank you to Rodrigo and Jason for passing this gem on, and making me spray chocolate milk all over my monitor.

Happy Genocide Day.

Never Can Say Goodbye

So, the reunion was a blast, as predicted. A lot of people couldn't make it, thanks to tight budgets and the coming Depression II, but it was really great hanging out with a least part of "the gang" again. We visited most of our old haunts around the city, and discovered a lot of new places. Some highlights....

* We had a great breakfast at Pamela's Diner in the Strip District. I miss fun kitschy diners like Pamela's.

* We attended the Friday night meeting of the current gay youth group in Pittsburgh. A few of us shared our stories of coming out way back in the olden days of the 1980s. And, we heard from the new generation about coming out today. It was such a great experience...that is, until I realized that the new generation was born in the 1990s.

* The Mattress Factory. Possibly the coolest thing about Pittsburgh.

* Our reunion happened to coincide with Pittsburgh's 250th Anniversary Celebration. The fireworks display was like the opening to the Beijing Olympics. 17 launch sites around Downtown. Crazy cool. And, I'm not even a fireworks person.

So, until the next one in 2028...

A Big Gay Reunion!

Tomorrow, I'm going home. It's really home, in more ways than one. I'm going to Pittsburgh for my 20 year reunion. It's not my high school reunion, which I wouldn't even consider attending. It's a weekend reunion of my gay youth group. I'm going home to walk down memory lane with the people who saved my life, and helped me to define myself. I can't wait!

To celebrate our 20 year reunion, I've reposted a little story that appeared here at the Lair a couple of years ago....

In 1988, a small group of disenfranchised, but glamourously resourceful teenagers, myself included, formed a Gay youth group – Pittsburgh’s Growing Alternative Youth. Our mission was to welcome, educate and empower the next generation of Steel City queers, as well as to greatly expand our social circle and dating possibilities. We took up a campaign of guerilla marketing – infiltrating high school libraries and stuffing any medical or psychology book with an index reference to “homosexuality” with flyers for the group. We networked at Gay cruising spots and outside Gay bars. We posted flyers in the womyn’s bookstore and the universities’ student unions. We grew from meetings of 4 or 5 to a weekly attendance of over 60 in just a few months.

A local Gay minister and activist, Lou, helped us get organized and encouraged us to take on the world. We had weekly speakers, presenting a range of topics. Herman, a charming, elderly African-American gentleman came to tell us what Gay life was like for him in the 1940s. Kathy, a licensed counselor, came to speak to us about ways to improve self-esteem, and Don, in a 2-part workshop, “Eroticizing Safer Sex,” taught us how to protect ourselves in a newly dangerous world. We watched “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Desert Hearts” and planned monthly under 21 parties at local Gay bars.

In 1990, Chris, my roommate, and a member of the youth group with a long history of depression and self-esteem issues, ended his own life. I think many of us felt that we had failed him – failed to be a good enough family when his family wanted nothing to do with him. We failed to take him seriously when he joked about suicide and when he made theatrical attempts that we thought were “just for attention.” Jason and I were the leaders of the group, and after Chris’ death we lost interest, and the group fell apart (some time after it was reincarnated into a less educational, more social entity).

But, I look back now, and I don’t see failure anymore. I often meet Gay people in their 30s and 40s who are struggling with issues that we were able to address in our teens. Through Growing Alternative Youth and with Lou’s help, we learned more about Gay history and culture before we could legally enter a Gay bar, than many middle-aged Queers know. We had opportunities to grow at a time when, unfortunately, many Gay people are stifled by internalized homophobia.

I realize now that we didn’t fail Chris. We more likely succeeded in keeping a lot of other Gay kids from following in his footsteps.