What Do Lesbians Do? They Have Brunch on Saturdays

Yes, It's true, I organized a monthly Lesbian Brunch group. We called it Dyke Brunch. Our political agenda?

To eat, and visit with our friends. It lasted for five years and some. Third Saturday of every month save December, when we met the first Saturday to allow for Holiday Activities.

Some months there were as few as nine of us, and we all got to talk to everybody. Other times there would be thirty , and once, once fifty-one of us. Women came from very far away to brunch with us. we had kids, some of us, and they loved the option paralysis and let's try it all, but just one spoonful of three things on a plate approach. I learned that people eat chicken at breakfast. I learned that not all fresh squeezed orange was oranges, it was frequently tang. I learned that cheeze whiz does not make a good replacement for Hollandaise Sauce. That is a base falsehood.

We had grand times, with parties and events at people's homes, or gardens, movies, and so on. If someone wanted to plan a bowling night, they picked a date, passed out fliers, and people who were interested went. Pool parties, childcare sharing, visits to the Forest Preserves or the Lake, We had a lot of fun. We expanded to include family and friends, and even had a PFLAG group. I liked the paddle boat and kite flying days. I love to kayak. I can't do that anymore. (PFLAG = Parents & Friends of Lesbians And Gays) which see at: http://www.ocpflag.org/

After five years and some months at the same smörgåsbord every month, the repetitive food was making us crazy, and slowly we stopped going, even me.They were very nice to us, we arrived at ten AM, and were usually gone by two-thirty or three. We over tipped the employees,so there was always hot coffee in a thermos at every table. Life was good and we all had a grand time. And we got older, and moved on.

NOW, You DO IT: I started with my friends and their friends, who called their friends. I started announcing it six weeks before the date and placed notices in the local gay bookstores and haunts.

It turned out that a local smörgåsbord was willing to set aside tables for us if we came regularly. Pick Someplace BIG, You will Grow. Men and women don't always mix well. Start a separate women's group. For several months, we were relatively small, under twenty or so. During our years of being huge, we called to give then an estimate of our numbers. An office worker put the list of names & contact info and birthdays into an Excel program, and everyone got a copy. The big pain is the updating of the list quarterly. Make sure everybody kicks in for tips and for the secretary. (Yes, pay the secretary. It is WORK.) If you think you want to be the secretary, STILL pay yourself by the Hour, $10.00 is an fair and honest rate, and you Will earn it.

If you want it badly enough you will call three friends tomorrow and start doing the talking. Don't vote on where to go. Just find a place that is there and open at 10:00 A.M. every third Saturday, or First Saturday, whenever you choose. People follow directions better than they make decisions. Keep the "Power" for yourself, or give it away and watch the group die. It May come to pass that the restaurant will start comping your meals for bringing them so much business. Let Them! You have. Make sure phone numbers, e-mail addreses and birthdays are collected from newcomers. Don't use your PDA, use a steno pad. It never dies because of battery trouble.
Good luck with your Brunch! tell me how it works out!

Google "Gay and lesbian Community Centers" to advertise, call them and ask that a note be posted.

Hughes' Tax Dodge Benefits Humanity

Howard Hughes' Feelthy Lucre!

The Hughes Tool & Die Making company was inherited from his dad, but he built it into a monster that paid virtually no taxes. The year the patent holder of a drill bit decided to establish Howard Hughes Aircraft Corporation, with himself as sole owner, he also established the not-for-profit Howard Hughes Medical Institute, with himself as executive director. He and some very slick corporate lawyers then transferred ownership of one hundred percent of the stock in the Aircraft Corporation to the Medical Institute. Over the decades, Hughes paid a fortune to lawyers fighting for the Tax Exempt status which his foundation eventually enjoyed.

During his life, Hughes did actually fund a few millions of dollars to the fund, to substantiate that it was legitimate for tax purposes, and also because he wanted to know how the human body worked. He was an engineer. They are the folks who make things work. He wanted to understand the human body at the most intimate level, cells were made up of smaller things. What things? What he wanted to understand was the genesis of human life. An eternal question, he was in a position to try and find out. He didn't have the language for it, but he wanted to map the human genome system. Back in the 1940's! He was a contemporary of Richard Feynmann,thinking WAY ahead.

Hughes was healthy, but developed an uncommon form of hypochondria. He lived a life in fear of germs, and it got worse with age. Hughes was quite a kook, as he got older, on the subject of germs. It became an absolute terror for him. He was seriously mentally ill, but when one is massively wealthy (that's "Feelthy riiich to the rest of us) one can buy sanity and protection from help and care. Poor People don't have that right.

But the Hughes Aircraft Corporate structure was self-sustaining long before Hughes retired. They always had a hand in Government pockets. The Government Contracts kept rolling in. The corporate executives understood the Hughes method; that you back every candidate for public office, and then you "support the winners." The Aircraft foundation was making airplanes, airplane parts and engines for the Korean War, during the "Cold" War, for the Vietnamese War. Right along, the corporation was accumulating money for Hughes. With Hughes out of the way, more probably got accomplished. So even at the end, while he twiddled his thumbs, his money kept on making money. Actually, with foot long fingernails, that would have been impossible, but when a multi-billionaire says not to cut his nails, who you gonna call?

After Hughes died, following court battles about "who gets the money", (and the lawyers laughed all the way to the bank,) a Court decided that the major part of Hughes' estate would go to the institute. Then things really started rolling.

Hughes' personal physician picked out twenty doctors to pull the place into serious research mode. And the money came rolling in, and there was research on a huge scale. A decade or so passes, and they figure out, if they sell off Howard Hughes Aircraft Corporation, they can fill the bank account to the top, and make All the money work for research. I think it was General Motors Corporation who finally bought Hughes Aircraft. They paid pretty big millions. Think Billions in today's market.

With all that money the Institute went into overdrive, helping support sciences starting at the University, College and High School level, funding new science labs, instituting science scholarships for bright science and medical students at hundreds of educational facilities. Which brings us pretty much up to the present, when all those years of paying for education begins to pay off. Recently someone wrote of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

"The fortune that once belonged to a man afraid of germs and disease is now helping to fight them. The not-for-profit Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is one of the largest private medical research organizations in the US. Unlike most such organizations, HHMI directly employs the researchers it funds (through a multi-billion dollar endowment) and provides needed equipment and facilities. The institute concentrates primarily on such biomedical areas as cell biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, and structural biology. HHMI also supports science education through a grant program. "

Today, this day, the only entity that spends as much as the Hughes Institute spends on medical research and education is a little thing we like to call The United States Government.
But the Hughes Institutes' funded physicians are NICE to people.

Lake County, IL Museum Post

Someone Took Me to the Museum

I went to the Lake County , Ilinois Museum this past week. And I saw this lovely Guatemalan Hand stitched piece of Woman's Stitchery Art.Then I also saw a Record Album Cover from my childhood:

It was a warm reminder of my childhood. I enjoyed seeing it immensely. And this Cover from Another childhood favorite album


Outside, I saw the statue of the Lake County Wooly Mammoth:

I have loved it ever since it came here many years ago.It is much larger than it appears in this picture. It may remind you of "Manny" in _Ice Age_, the movie.

As we were leaving, I took a picture of the world's Most perfect red Petunia Plant:



Thanks for sharing my trip to the Museum! I had a great time, came home and went THUD and slept for four hours!

Nobel Prize for Pete Seeger?

Nobel Prize for Pete Seeger?

Who deserves it more?

There is currently a movement afoot to encourage the Nobel Prize Committee to award a Peace Prize to Pete Seeger.
http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/
Most of us know his songs and music if not his voice:

Essential Songs:

Where Have All the Flowers Gone
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
If I Had a Hammer
We Shall Overcome
Down by the Riverside
Waste Deep in the Big Muddy
Last Train to Nuremburg
What Did You Learn in School Today?
Guantanamera



To Quote from The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:

Pete Seeger’s contribution to folk music, both in terms of its revival and survival, cannot be overstated. With the possible exception of Woody Guthrie, Seeger is the greatest influence on folk music of the last century. Born in New York City, he was the son of musicologist Charles Seeger. He took up the banjo in his teens and in 1938, at the age of 19, assisted noted folk archivist and field recorder Alan Lomax on his song-collecting trips through the American South. He soon began performing on banjo, guitar and vocals.

In 1940, he formed a highly politicized folk trio, the Almanac Singers, which recorded union songs and antiwar anthems. They toured the country, performing at union halls for gas money, and recorded three albums. Woody Guthrie joined in 1941.The Almanac Singers broke up with the advent of World War II.

After a short stint in the army, Seeger formed the Weavers in 1948. They were a popular concert attraction who were at one point America’s favorite singing group. Their best-known numbers include such singalongs as “The Roving Kind,” “On Top of Old Smoky,” “Kisses Sweeter than Wine,” “Goodnight Irene” and “Wimoweh” (a.k.a. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”). Their popularity cut across all boundaries. As American poet Carl Sandberg attested, “The Weavers are out of the grassroots of America. When I hear America singing, the Weavers are there.”

During the communist witch-hunts of the early Fifties, however, the Weavers were blacklisted, resulting in canceled concert dates and the loss of their recording contract with Decca Records. Under congressional subpoena to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Seeger asserted his First Amendment rights, scolding the committee, “I am not going to answer any questions as to my associations, my philosophical or my religious beliefs, or how I voted in any election or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked.” Unlike many entertainers and writers who careers were ruined in the McCarthy era, Seeger stood his ground and persevered – even though he was sent to jail for defending his beliefs.

After leaving the Weavers in 1959, Seeger signed to Columbia Records. He recorded prolifically for the label. His popularity hit a new peak with We Shall Overcome, a live album recorded at Carnegie Hall that is estimated to have sold half a million copies.

A tireless champion of causes, Seeger has devoted himself to environmental issues, particularly the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River.

In Seeger’s capable hands, from the Forties to the present day, a concert isn’t regarded as a one-way proceeding but a group singalong. Indeed, Seeger’s gently assertive insistence that his audience sing out can be read as a larger metaphor for the necessary involvement of citizens to insure the healthy functioning of democracy in America. Seeger has recorded and performed tirelessly throughout his career, honoring the folksingers’ timeless commitment to spread the word and involve an audience. “My ability lies in being able to get a crowd to sing along with me,” he said in a 1971 interview. “When I get upon a stage, I look on my job as trying to tell a story. I use songs to illustrate my story and dialogue between songs to carry the story forward.”



December 4, 1994: Pete Seeger receives the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the nation’s highest artistic honor, at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

January 17, 1996: Pete Seeger is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eleventh annual induction dinner. Arlo Guthrie and Harry Belafonte are his presenters.

February 16, 1997: Pete Seeger wins a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album of 1996 for his album ‘Pete,’ on the Living Music label.

In his life, Pete has brought Music and singing into literally hundreds of thousands of homes and families. He has performed for Unions, Movements, people all over the planet, children especially. He has made the World Sing.

To sign the petition for A Nobel Prize for Pete go to this site:

http://www.nobelprize4pete.org/