@RyanNewYork

Great video out by the Obama campaign showing how much the...

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:48:00 -0400

Great video out by the Obama campaign showing how much the President has done for the LGBT Community.

“You’re gonna need a strong advocate in The White House. I am that strong advocate.” - President Barack Obama

Join Obama Pride.

atomvincent: This is what it looks like to be on the wrong side...

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:10:13 -0400

atomvincent:

This is what it looks like to be on the wrong side of history.

Bigots were thinner then!

Cory Booker’s bizarre take on Bain Capital on...

Tue, 22 May 2012 10:30:00 -0400

Cory Booker’s bizarre take on Bain Capital on Sunday’s Meet The Press has been talked about lots over the last 48 hours. We now know that Cory took over $500,000 from the financial services industry during his campaign, including at least $40,000 from Bain partners. Not small change for a Newark mayor’s race.

My colleague Evan Moody performed sentiment analysis on Twitter to see what users of the social network thought about Booker’s statements. The results show that overwhelmingly, Twitter users thought Cory was wrong on Bain and support the President’s view that it’s fair game during the campaign. The big red spike is bad news.

I clearly agree with the vast majority of Twitter users and hope Mr. Booker comes around.

Hey Gay Community: No need to amplify every single crazy anti-gay thing some podunk pastor says. You're giving them a voice, they don't have.

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:11:00 -0400

"Ignorance of crowds overrides the occasional wisdom of them."

Mon, 21 May 2012 17:33:31 -0400

“Ignorance of crowds overrides the occasional wisdom of them.”

- Ryan J. Davis

"I know I’m supposed to say that there’s this great contrast and Obama hasn’t done..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:46:09 -0400

“

I know I’m supposed to say that there’s this great contrast and Obama hasn’t done enough, but I feel Obama was faced with some real problems that we hardly remember anymore: the extent of the financial crisis. I happen to think he has made great strides.

You know, people find a lot wrong with health care legislation, Fareed, as do I, the bill that’s passed. But I keep remembering something that Lyndon Johnson said. Once we pass it, we can always go back and amend it. And I feel it was an accomplishment to get a health care bill.

”

- Historian Robert Caro, appearing on Fareed Zakaria’s show, on what LBJ could teach Washington today.

Watch and read the full interview here.

Watch this video for a terrific example of a Tunisian integrated...

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:16:23 -0400

Watch this video for a terrific example of a Tunisian integrated campaign designed to spur voter participation. The video doesn’t spend too much time on the digital component, but the offline stunt was absolutely brilliant and inspiring.

"I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 09:39:03 -0400

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”

- Virginia Woolf, The Letters: Volume Three, 1923 - 1928

I’m with you Virginia.

(H/t Adam T)

Pretty hilarious and spot-on satirical video by Tom Scott on...

Sun, 20 May 2012 20:21:49 -0400

Pretty hilarious and spot-on satirical video by Tom Scott on what mind uploading will look like in 2050, after corporations and government regulators get ahold of it.

The Singularity won’t be ad free.

You’ve got to listen to this terrific Radiolab podcast on...

Sun, 20 May 2012 16:25:00 -0400

You’ve got to listen to this terrific Radiolab podcast on Alan Turing, one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century, who was prosecuted for being gay and eventually took his own life in 1954. He’d turn 100 in June.

Turing is the father of artificial intelligence and the modern computer. He also was responsible for cracking the Nazi Engima code, helping to end World War II.

Turing’s story reaffirms how far we’ve come on gay rights since the movement began. Just over fifty years ago, a war hero’s life was destroyed just for being gay in England. Now gays serve openly in militaries around the world and countries that criminalize homosexuality are theocratic outliers. That’s progress.

Andrew Hodges’s Alan Turing: The Enigma is on my bookshelf to read this summer.

Listen below or click here to listen at Radiolab.

More information on the slate statue of Alan Turing pictured above.

Hope you’ll join me at The Deconstructive Theatre...

Sun, 20 May 2012 14:06:11 -0400

Hope you’ll join me at The Deconstructive Theatre Project’s summer rooftop gala on June 2nd. Should be a great event and at $35, you won’t find a better deal to start your Saturday.

adamjthompson:

Click here to purchase tickets.

Click here for more information.

The Deconstructive Theatre Project’s summer rooftop celebration is coming up on June 2.
Please join me for the sunset, drinks, food, live music, and a silent auction. I’d love to have you New Yorkers there to celebrate with us.

All contributions are tax-deductible and support The Deconstructive Theatre Project’s production, education, and outreach programming.

http://www.deconstructivetheatreproject.org/time_passes/

barackobama: Mitt Romney being Mitt Romney.

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:56:31 -0400

barackobama:

Mitt Romney being Mitt Romney.

A remarkably beautiful story of a lesbian couple, one who serves...

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:23:00 -0400

A remarkably beautiful story of a lesbian couple, one who serves in the military, told via a familiar social network. Kudos to Freedom To Marry and all involved in producing this, it’s powerful and deserves an audience.

To learn what you can do to help repeal DOMA, click here.

FACT: The number of students who have to go into debt to get a bachelor’s degree has risen from 45% in 1993 to 94% today.

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:38:10 -0400

FACT: The number of students who have to go into debt to get a bachelor’s degree has risen from 45% in 1993 to 94% today.

"I’ve always thought it was something that was still holding the country back. What people do in..."

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:22:00 -0400

“

I’ve always thought it was something that was still holding the country back. What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That’s their business. It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination plain and simple… I think it’s the right thing to do, so whether it costs him votes or not – again, it’s not about votes. It’s about people.

It’s the right thing to do as a human being.

”

- Jay Z, endorsing marriage equality.

Watch the video here.

"It’s also worth pointing out, as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has, that as a Yale sophomore in 1965,..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:04 -0400

“It’s also worth pointing out, as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has, that as a Yale sophomore in 1965, George W. Bush reportedly stuck up for a reputedly gay student. Bush heard the student being called “queer,” told the taunters to shut up, and apparently also said, “Why don’t you try walking in his shoes for a while?” That’s the kind of instinctive compassion Mitt Romney failed to show when he was a few years younger than Bush was.”

-

I guess GWB wasn’t always such a bad guy.

——————

Romney’s bullying: How bad was the “vicious” incident reported by the Washington Post? - Slate Magazine

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to...

Thu, 10 May 2012 10:52:51 -0400

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”

“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.”

5 Mitt Romney Quotes On Marriage Equality “I stood up to fight...

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:16:00 -0400

5 Mitt Romney Quotes On Marriage Equality

“I stood up to fight same sex marriage. I was one of the nation’s leading advocates of traditional marriage.”
“I opposed then, and I do now, gay marriage and civil union.”
“I am proud of the fact that I and my team did everything within our power and within the law to stand up for traditional marriage.”
“From day one, I’ve opposed the move for same-sex marriage and its equivalent, civil unions.”
“When I am President, I will preserve the defense of marriage act and I will fight for a federal amendment defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.”

For the first time in my life, I have a President who believes...

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:37:31 -0400

For the first time in my life, I have a President who believes that I should have equal rights. Yeah, that feels good.

glaad:

Today during an interview with ABC News anchor Robin Roberts, President Obama announced his support for marriage equality.

The last time North Carolina amended its constitution on...

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:11:27 -0400

The last time North Carolina amended its constitution on marriage was to outlaw interracial marriage. History will judge yesterday’s vote just as harshly.