crossword

Amazing Grace and Frankie

Across

1 It’s a good thing 6 Like a Marc Jacobs ensemble 10 to swallow 14 Boyfriend 15 Poet Adrienne 16 Peace Nobelist Wiesel 17 Where a queen may rule 18 Think tank output 19 “A” in radio lingo 20 Start of why Frankie said she would never get a hearing aid 23 Milk dispenser spouts 26 Nursery noisemaker 27 Place for orientation secrecy 28 Contemporary Christian 30 Title for Feinstein (abbr.) 31 It’s sold in bars 32 Capital in the Andes. 34 More of the quote 38 Spread out, as troops. 39 Kit candy bars 42 Child-care writer LeShan 45 Be a voyeur, e.g. 46 Paths through leaves of grass 48 Like some weights 50 Dick that isn’t a name? 51 End of the quote 54 “Star Trek” counselor Deanna 55 What to have in the hay 56 Lily Tomlin, for one 60 Make money 61 Sexual desire, e.g. 62 Penetrating weapon 63 Alison Bechdel cartoon character 64 Angry in., for example 65 Nuts don’t have this

Down

1 Cont. of Chad 2 Get a load of 3 ‘70s abductors 4 Like the orbit of Uranus 5 Hot dish for Susan Feniger 6 Manger, to Mary, and more 7 Be hard to find 8 He plays with B.D. Wong on “SVU” 9 Place to call for stats 10 Jane Rule’s “Desert of the ” 11 Puts out 12 Shuffle method 13 Stun with noise 21 Came upon 22 Keep an the ground 23 Gomer’s Sgt. Carter, for one 24 Wll descriptor 25 Hart Crane work 28 “Dad” of some lesbian families 29 Pop of pop 32 Tendency to get pissed 33 “It’s not only me who thinks this” 35 Tone of many Stein photos 36 Rainbow coalition? 37 Skin designs, for short 40 However, in verse 41 Digits used to “render unto Caesar” 42 Chewed the scenery 43 Bear the expense of 44 Busy in the office 46 Sinking ship’s call 47 Performs self service, with “off” 49 German white wine 50 The other Nemo creator Verne 52 Long-ago time, to Shakespeare 53 “Beginning With O” author Broumas 57 Maj. opposite, for Rorem 58 Hypotheticals 59 Fair grade

Take pride in being polite, Millennials

Millennial (n) mil-len-tee- uhl: a person born in the 1980s or 1990s, especially in the U.S.

by randall jobe

Of the 72.1 million Millennials living in the United States, I am fervently looking for any two, any day in the workforce who extend what for the generations before was considered “common courtesy.” Seriously, you sullen-faced, non-communicative, emojicrazy, semi slackers, would it kill you to take a little pride in your minimum-waged job sacking groceries at Whole Foods or refolding clothes at the Gap and make the decision to greet a customer with actual words of greeting! If you say “Please” and “Thank you” you get bonus credit!

Of course, adding insult to injury, you frequently commit the ultimate crime against the consumer. After being met by your initial silence, you force said consumer to throw out a sharp “Thank you,” to which you deal a condescending “No problem.”

“No problem?”

OK, you socially inept, entitled little turd, to even consider that there was a “problem,” and you in your infinite powers of forgiveness have decided to absolve me somewhere between throwing cage-free eggs in a bag while forgetting to remove the security tag from my sweater purchase sets my hair on fire!

“No problem” is the appropriate response as you move your laptop from the second table you’ve commandeered to set up your virtual office in Starbucks when someone asks to sit.

Now, as the Millennials age out, we’re awarded with Gen-Xers, right on their heels. Though they seemingly have stronger social conscious, like concern for the planet, feeding the hungry and protesting in the streets (hello ’50s, ’60s and ’70s) I pray that the adage that some traits “skip a generation” applies. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see lack of manners fall to the wayside along with male pattern baldness and promiscuity. Not likely, but one can dream.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. ¶

Celebrate Pride, but continue the fi ght

by nancy ford

Ukraine. Monkey pox. Uvalde. What a year 2022 has been already, and it’s not even halfway over.

Is it really time for Pride? Before we start blowing up balloons and jacking up our hair with glitter AquaNet, let’s do our perfunctory annual history lesson to remind us why we celebrate.

The rebellion at New York City’s Stonewall Inn, which exploded June 28, 1969, is considered the event that kicked off Pride, that highest of gay holy days when LGBTQs claim and celebrate their power and right to be who we are and love who we love. It was that night that patrons of the seedy, Mafia-run dive bar fought back — hard — to reclaim their dignity and civil rights from police and society in general.

Fifty-three years later, as demonstrated by ongoing discrimination, homophobia and various state-sponsored “Don’t Say Gay” efforts, the fight continues.

It would be unthinkable to share this year’s Pride message without lowering our collective rainbow flags to half-mast to honor the life of one of our community’s giants. In the battle for LGBTQ+ equality, Urvashi Vaid was a five-star general.

On May 14, the powerhouse activist passed on to that great Pride Parade in the sky. It’s impossible to accurately chronicle the role she played in the quest for LGBTQ equality.

She helmed leadership positions in the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prisons Project that addressed HIV/AIDS in prisons. She helmed National Gay Lesbian Task Force, orchestrated its policy think tank, and co-founded the annual Creating Change conference, now in its 33rd year.

She led the Ford, Arcus and Gill foundations. Beyond serving in these essential groups, Vaid also launched LPAC, which is considered to be the first lesbian Super Pac, in 2012.

“I’m involved in starting LPAC because I want to create a fresh politics, one in which the lives of ordinary working women and men, LGBT people and people of color matter, and because I believe lesbians must step up and lead in solving our country’s challenges,” she said.

Stepped up and lead, she did.

Urvashi eventually founded her own

Urvashi Vaid, then-executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, protests at then-President George Bush’s address on AIDS in March 1990. Photo via Associated Press

think tank, the Vaid Group, a consulting group that works to reduce structural inequalities and advance social, racial, gender and economic justice.

In her spare time (ha!), she authored the canonical Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012). Her subsequent appearances on nationally televised talk shows consistently blew back the hair of anyone who tuned in.

The woman stayed busy, but she was also a woman of balance, as proven by her choice of partner and spouse — the equally brilliant mother-of-lesbian-comedy, Kate Clinton. The two met at a conference (of course) in 1988. A couple of decades ago I briefly had the honor of being in the same room with them; the sheer power they radiated was palpable and not unlike the sensation of standing beside an open blast furnace (but in a good way).

Spiritually, Urvashi defined herself as “a HindJew.” I’m not sure if that particular melding of religious affiliations has its own set of pearly gates and angels playing harps. I prefer to think of Urvashi’s version of nirvana places her at the head of a heavenly march, protesting that all petitioners receive the same access healthcare, civil rights and services, regardless of gender, class, ethnicity, religion or sexuality.

Urvashi wasn’t at the Stonewall Rebellion that fiery summer in 1969. She was only ten years old at the time; she didn’t start her life of social activism until the next year at an antiwar protest, when she was 11.

“The gay rights movement is not a party,” she said in a speech at the 1993 LGBT March on Washington. “It is not a lifestyle. It is not a hairstyle. It is not a fad or a fringe or a sickness. It is not about sin or salvation. The gay rights movement is an integral part of the American promise of freedom.”

As we celebrate Pride this year, let’s stop and remember that without the influence and impact of Urvashi Vaid — and a handful of folks like her — there would be nothing to celebrate.

Rest in peace, General. ¶