#I grew up during the AIDS crisis; got told I was gonna give people AIDS for kissing girls during kindergarten

[jessielefey]

tl;dr here it is in nifty song from AS IT WAS HAPPENING, please note how it posted on youtube -- a site that existed to be posted upon -- *before* the US finally got off its ass on the national level instead of us having to chip off state by state.

This is what the fight is like

Sooo, apparently the extremely tenuous and recent nature of the LGBTQ+ community's legal right to exist was not actually super widely known to a lot of people on Tumblr?

Which clarifies some stuff in retrospect. I have so often wanted to grab people by their lapels and shout, "Stop picking on someone for not meeting your entry requirements! We need everyone we can get, you asshole! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THEY HATE US OUT THERE?"

Aaaapparently... no, they did not know. Or they knew and were a conservative psyop preparing the ground for our loss of legal rights. Fun times!

So: Look, it is bad. Shit is scary. They really do hate us out there. You're not wrong.

But: This is what we've always fought. This boat we're in with its antique fittings and strange markings on the floor is a battleship. Work has always been going on in the basements, and when shit gets tough, we clear away clutter and roll out the cannons.

I found this chart a couple weeks ago and hung onto it because it felt like the map to my first 25 years on this earth:

[Image description: A graph titled "Same Sex Marriage: Public Polls since 1988." It is from FiveThirtyEight's NYT column. It records the percentage of US Americans polled who would say yes or no to legalizing same-sex marriage, from 1988 to 2011.

The two lines begin with roughly 10% saying yes in 1988, and 70% saying no; the two lines gradually draw closer over the years, until by 2011, the percent saying finally dips under 50%, and the group saying yes makes a tentative reach for the majority. End of image description.]

After some great social change has happened, when everyone has admitted that gay marriage is very cute and Pride is a colourful parade, hooray, people like to pretend that it was just natural and inevitable and happened on its own. People just became less prejudiced! Courts just decided on a case! Governments just passed a law!

In reality, it was a vicious fucking fight, every fucking time. Every fucking where. There are a lot of people who deeply, sincerely believe that a hundred years ago, society had good rules about sex and gender and intercourse and marriage, and that changing those rules has made the world worse. They don't always agree on the specifics, but they can work together far enough to fight anyone with new ideas.

This is why we are a community. Even when we don't have the same experiences of attraction or identity, even when we don't do the same things, even when we have wildly different ideas of a good time. Because when these groups take aim, we're all under fire, and none of us is responsible for why they hate us.

In some ways I think it's a miracle that there seems to be a generation that did not grow up, as I grew up, constantly glued to news reports about What Percentage of Society Hates Us this month. I can't imagine who I'd be if my brain and heart and soul hadn't been tied up, that whole time, in the political question of whether I'd get to dream of a decent future.

I think that it will give us strength to have people who can imagine a world where no one hates us. Who believe in it so strongly they can taste it. That's my prediction: If you didn't know this was coming, you'll be a boon to us, because we have always needed joy so fiercely, in this fight, to keep us going on. We have needed drag queens and punk bands and "her wife" and safe space stickers. Parade floats and wedding days and little dogs with rainbow collars, badges and banners and meetups, because more than anything else we need to fight our own despair, and our fear that the world will never get any better than this.

It will. We know it will. We can taste it.

Look up to the history, organizations, and people who've got us this far for information on what forms of activism will actually advance our political goals. Look to the side to make sure the comrades within reach are keeping their heads above water, and that you're keeping enough joy going to stay alive. Look back to see who's more vulnerable than you are that you might have forgotten or been tempted to leave behind. Look after each other. Look after yourself.

We can do this.

To your battle stations.

[meg2md]

I like to ask my oracle deck what my focus should be on each morning and today it told me to focus on my support networks. It’s relevant because I’ve been trying to connect with some kind of (any kind of) spiritual network to draw strength from so I’m not always leaning on my friends. I grew up Catholic but I honestly don’t believe in the Catholic God. One of my best friends is currently struggling because she believes in something but can’t give it a name. That’s definitely NOT my struggle right now. I WANT to believe in something, whatever it is.... but right now I just don’t. I’m very, very agnostic. 

What I do believe is that no religion can possibly be entirely correct, but also that no religion can be entirely wrong, either. They’re just different paths to the same location.... different perspectives on the same phenomena. 

In any case, I’ve been really drawn to these cards because at best, they provide a medium for me to connect with whatever spiritual presence is out there (if it exists). At worst, it forces me to introspect!! Win/win, IMO. I’ve been very impressed with my readings so far, though. They’ve always been exactly what I’ve needed, and while I know there’s a certain degree of bias that comes from reading them, readings I’ve gotten for certain situations would make absolutely no sense in other situations. For example, two days ago I was in a really dark place. My reading was entirely swords (two and three of swords, indicating blocked vision and emotionally tumultuous states). Later in the day I did a reading for my boyfriend, who I have been very worried about (being a resident during the COVID crisis and all that), and I got the brightest fucking cards in the deck, telling me the best thing I can do right now is give him love and communicate with him. It could have said HAHA HE IS GONNA GET SICK AND DIE. But it didn’t. I literally drew the lovers card.

So today after drawing an oracle card that asked me to focus on my support networks, I asked my tarot deck where I was at with all this spirituality stuff. I talked to it for awhile about how I wish I had a source of strength to draw from. I decided to do a strength/struggle/advice spread. It was surprisingly on point.

My strength: four of swords - stillness and mental power. It depicts a lamb with four swords poised above it, but there is sunlight emanating from the lamb’s center. It can stand for solitude and recovery. My biggest strength has always been my resilience, my ability to turn inwards and build myself up from the shambles I break into - “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” 

My struggle: X, wheel of fortune - destiny, or changes and turning points. I struggle with both of these things: my belief in fate/destiny/higher purposes, and with change. I’m solid, I’m strong, but I like things to be unmoving. And here I am, while my world falls apart and burns around me, my parents getting older and I can’t see them, my boyfriend potentially risking his life on the wards as COVID cases spike dramatically and we run out of PPE.... Here I am trying so hard to believe that there is something out there, but it’s such a hard shift for me because I have always been so content in my agnosticism. It’s never been an issue - I don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s OK! I live for today and for the people whom I love! But now things are changing too fast and I’m scared, and I want something to hold on to.

Advice: VIII, justice - decisions and karma, implying a heaviness or weight surrounding the choices I’m making, urging me to not “shun the divine concept of divine balance, or karma”. The emergence of truth. I take this card as advice that I should keep trying to search my soul, keep reaching out for whatever might be out there. At best, I find what I’m looking for - spirituality, purpose, a “God”. At worst, I’ve made my strong self a little bit stronger by introspecting and clarifying what I want and how I’m going to get there.

There it is, a reading dominated by major arcana amidst a major life change while I dramatically try to change my perspective on spirituality. (Keep in mind I’m very new at reading cards and rely heavily on the manuals that came with my decks.) And think about it... imagine if my “strength” and “struggle” were flipped. That would have made NO sense for me right now. NONE! My strength is not change, not destiny. It really is my self-reliance, dedication, and perseverance. 

Anyway, back to medicine - I studied for 8 hours today which is HUGE for me. I decided to shun Kaplan in favor of UWorld. I’m doing 62 questions per day, starting to read all of First Aid 2019. Chugging through class busy work and online lectures. Classes are wrapping up - we have three exams next week, then three weeks of multisystems with weekly exams. Dedicated starts soon - it’s only one month. Step 1, a test that will determine a lot of my future, is in just more than 2 months. My baseline was only 221 on NBME 18 and I’m hoping for >250 to be competitive so I can match in the same city as my boyfriend in a competitive academic residency that will give me the abortion training I want. 

Now, more than ever, I could use a well of strength to draw from.

[ashavant]

The American University System: Oppressing the non-elite.

So let me get this straight...in the 70's there was a community outcry to lower the amount of tax money that got put towards college tuition for future generations? American tax payers used to cover over 70% of college costs, allowing the young students straight out of highschool the ability to work a minimum wage summer job to literally pay their entire tuition. Those with part time jobs while in school were not very common. This allowed for an ability to succeed without the unnecessary baggage of financial stress and lack of sleep at 18 years old while taking 14+ credits, which for those of you who dont know is a true 40-60 hour work week alone. All of this hard work and achievement paved the way for these kids to enter adulthood as educated, debt free, and with the world at their fingertips. Not to mention, they had the incredible privilege of not having to become a self sufficient adult in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the depression...

Compare that romantic reality to our drastically different reality today. I will use my experiences as an example for this, while probably on the extreme spectrum of experiences, they are valid and carry merit nonetheless. I was always told as a child, "you have to go to college, its not an option" Yet, when i graduated highschool, my parents grew quiet. I grew up in a 5 person household in Orange County, CA (one of the most expensive places to live in the country) in a family who made roughly $40k a year, give or take (thats poverty folx). My step-father was an electrical contractor so income was often spuratic. Anyway, needless to say they had not one penny saved for my college tuition. My parents failed to put a single penny aside for anything regarding my well-being honestly. With no car, no money, no job, and no idea when or how I could recieve a college education, I was kicked out of my parents at 17 years old with nowhere to go. I couch surfed and was able to get a couple jobs, one at a crafts store and one at a sandwhich shop. After 2 long years of working my way out of homelessness, all I wanted was to start college! So, at age 19 I applied for financial aid. However, I was told because I was under 25 I needed my parents tax information. Well, my parents never filed on time and were incredible dodgy with communication. So, after months of going back and forth I ended up paying out of pocket for a full time coarse load at a community college. I was able to work my jobs and pay this, but with nothing left over for rent or food. I ended up getting kicked out of my place, had to apply for foodstamps, and had to start over from square one. Little did I know I would have to wait 5 years before I could finally give college another shot.

I had almost given up the idea of higher education. I was making good money in the food industry at this point and had a nice company car and a great home with an awesome roommate. But then, I met a boy. We traveled the country for three months with his bluegrass band and saw 32 states. Afterwards, we again found ourselves broke and homeless. We hunkered down, worked 80+ hour weeks, saved up, and moved to Portland Oregon, "where young people go to retire". Little did we know, retire would be the LAST thing we did when we got there. Cost of living was rising in Portland, but still nothing compared to Orange County, CA. We got good food jobs and nested for about a year. My boyfriend (we will call him N) got great grades in highschool and high test scores in his exit exams, so in 2014 he chose to get back into school as a Music Composition Major at age 26. His journey is a whole other terrible story. I wanted to return to school so badly, but knew I had to wait until I was old enough to not warrant my parents tax info. Finally, at age 24 I filed my FAFSA and went to a career counselor. I was directed in the career of Civil Engineering. Having no prior knowledge of this career or topic, I dove in blindly headfirst. I chose a community college due to the fact that I barely finished highschool and did not take ant exit exams. To my surprise, I did very well in my college settings. After one year I was able to transfer to a university! Me! I WAS GOING TO A UNIVERSITY! I could not believe it, and was soo excited. I had no clue how hard this would be, not the work, but just surviving through it. I should mention here that I have a mild dissability. I have endometriosis which is a chronic illness linked to hormones, ovarian cysts, and all that jazz which can result in disabling pain and in my case an emergency surgery from time to time. I also suffer from a mild form of PTSD. So, with those alone handling high stress loads can be very hard on my mental and physical well being.

Ok, so I was a 24 year old first generation college student (first person in my family to go to college) disabled lower class person wanting a higher education. Seems logical right? Well, once I got accepted to the university, I chose to change my major to Architecture, I had taken an intro class for general ed and fell inlove. My beginning of my first year was great! Lots of lectures and reading. Aside from my tuition multiplying literally 3x from my community college tuition which did not affect my financial aid disbursement, I was fairly stress free. Now keep in mind, my partner and I are both working 20-30 hour weeks to make ends meet while taking 12-14 credits. Its basically having 2 full time jobs. Anyway, the last term of my first year came around-my first studio class. I was so excited! Time to actually do architecture! I got the syllabus and was told was supplies were needed to be successful in the class. I was also told that doing all of the requirements for the assignment would result in a C grade, if any grade above that was desired extra work had to be put in. I thought, no biggie, bring it on. The next thing she said was, "absolutely no sleeping in the studio!" Thats when I had a feeling I was gonna be in trouble. After class I went to the art store got my supplies. I almost started crying as they read my total to me: "$682.80, please." And that was with my student discount and not including all of the future supplies I would need just for that term, which I will tell you now after all the drawings and models ended up being about $2,000. That is a whole lot. These studio classes also require many all-nighters just to have enough time to complete the assignments. Many times, due to having to work outside of school I could not complete my assignments or had to do them with less craft and care than I would like just to turn it in. This year, I recieved less in financial aid, my rent has gone up significantly, tuition went up, and there are new grade requirements: if you get anything less than a B-, youre immediately dropped from the school of Architecture. So, not completing assignments isnt an option anymore. This last term costed my much less money, but once I told my instructor I was out of money, his response was, "well, this is Architecture school." What the fuck am I supposed to do with that!? A roll of Velum (drafting design paper) costs $50-$70 pencils are $2 a piece, models cost like $100 each, the list of tools go on and on. I am already paying $10k a year for tuition, ensuring at the very least $70k of debt including my masters degree which you need to get your Architecture license. And at least $100k with the $500 a month I need to borrow a month for rent. I should not need to add thousands more of that for supplies my school should be providing. And this insane pressure of pulling all nighters to get done the amount of assignments it would take us to do in a whole week last term in 2 days!

The moral of this very long story is that college is not meant for those of us trying to climb the life ladder. Its meant for the already elite. Its meant for kids right out of highschool with parents who make enough money to pay their tuition, their rent, their whole lives! Meant for kids who travel to Europe for the summer instead of working 60 hours a week to make up for the money lost during school cuz you physically cannot work more than 25 hours. Its meant for kids who can call their mommies and complain about how mean their teacher is, not for those of us who cry every night about being afraid of ending up back on the streets in the snap of a finger. Its meant for kids who can work and think about school all day every day, not those of us preoccupied with being able to pay all of our bills and being able to afford food and health insurance.

HOWEVER, even if you are like me, worse, or better, YOU CAN DO IT! I have a damn 3.7 GPA. I may only get 3 hours of sleep a lot, cry almost weekly, probably have lost years of my life due to stress, and feel scared for my health, but shit IM FUCKING DOOOOIN IT! Even though our government, or school presidents, and pretty much everyone in power disagrees, you are so worth it and you are so capable of success no matter how much harder you have to work than everyone else. Because we have to work so much harder now, we will get to party that much harder when we make it. I WILL GRADUATE IN SPITE OF THE SYSTEM! I WILL SUCCEED IN SPITE OF THE SYSTEM! I WILL CHANGE THE FUCKING WORLD CUZ I AM A BADASS AND CAN DO ANYTHING YOU PRIVELEDGED FUCKS CAN DO, JUST BETTER!

[jennymanrique]

Diary Of A Pandemic: The Caregivers

Nurses have carried the weight of 16 months of pandemic care in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Photo by Shutterstock

In Texas, at least 10,500 people died in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities during the worst of the pandemic. Through it all, nurses have had to fight the virus twice as hard - on the job and among their families at home.

Through the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many nurses in Texas assisted living facilities, hospitals and nursing homes were diligent in taking care of elderly residents and patients, even as their own relatives were battling the virus at home.

Yes, vaccinations have recently helped stem the unprecedented health crisis in these facilities, where Latinos are a significant portion of the frontline workers. But it will be some time before these essential workers can overcome the emotional toll of the experience.

Texas Health and Human Services Commission data shows that between April 2020 and April 2021, nearly 9,000 Texans died in nursing homes -- a rate of 175 per week. Another 1,550 died in assisted living facilities. These figures account for roughly one of every five COVID-19 deaths reported in Texas.

Nationwide, such centers have long reported problems. The Center for Health and Community at the University of California, San Francisco, found that in the last 20 years, nursing homes have had serious problems with patient care. Even before the virus, 75% had shortages in staffing registered nurses. And 63% were found with infection control violations.

“Nurses are part of high-risk (for COVID) minority groups due to lack of tests, face masks, gowns or personal protection equipment (PPE),” said Charlene Harrington, emeritus professor of nursing and sociology at UCSF and the study’s leader. “Since some receive low salaries and hold several jobs, they cannot stay home if they are sick.”

Experts recommend minimum staffing of one nursing assistant for every seven residents. Some facilities employed one nursing assistant for every 10 or even 15 residents during the pandemic, Harrington said. “This was emotionally hard for everyone as they couldn’t bring outside help.”

“Nurses are part of high-risk (for COVID) minority groups due to lack of tests, face masks, gowns or personal protection equipment. Since some receive low salaries and hold several jobs, they cannot stay home if they are sick.”

With the vaccine rollout, Texas lawmakers unanimously approved Senate Bill 25 to allow residents in nursing homes to add an "essential caregiver" -- anyone who can spend at least two hours a day with them in registered facilities.

The initiative followed recent Texas Health and Human Services Commission recommendations to expand visitation statewide in nursing facilities and other long-term care settings.

“The forced isolation was particularly hard on residents with dementia and their families,” said state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, the bill’s author.

Groups like Texas Caregivers for Compromise pushed for the legislation and are now anxious to see it implemented. “The reopening is not optional,” said Mary Nichols, one of the group’s advocates. “While we should be cooperative as facilities get implementation of the guidelines in place, they should be able to give relatives some specifics about when they will comply.”

palabra. spoke with many Latinos on the front lines, in care facilities and COVID units, during the pandemic. While performing essential work, many were also caring for elderly relatives at home, helping them through COVID infections, quarantines, isolation and depression.

We’re highlighting here the personal accounts of a few who speak for many:

“I was afraid the virus would clot my blood or clog my lungs and I would die”

Rosario Passmore

Until three months ago I was working at the Windcrest Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Fredericksburg, TX. It is a town where my neighbors are mostly Germans and Hispanics.

Before the pandemic, I worked an 8-hour shift taking care of up to 25 patients. Since I always worked in cardiovascular units or intensive care, I liked working with the elderly in adult daycare, mainly with those who had overcome heart attacks.

But with the arrival of COVID my shifts grew to 12 hours. I was assigned to the COVID unit and I could no longer move freely to other parts of the nursing home. I got a raise of $3 an hour, although, in other COVID units such as the ones in hospitals, nurses like me were paid double. But the admissions were closed at my facility and there was no money. There was room for 120 people, but we had only about 60.

There were many COVID-positive cases and those infected spent at least 10 days in isolation. They closed the entire nursing home. No one could come in. Family members who wanted to see patients did so from the windows. I often brought a tablet (computer) so they could chat with relatives. But when someone was dying there was no possibility of saying goodbye.

The elderly were very desperate. They missed the outside world. Sometimes we let them go for a walk for just half an hour.

At first, the relatives brought food packages and we waited 24 hours before touching or distributing them. But we stopped receiving things from outside for fear of risking a transmission.

Disposable surgical gowns, shoe covers, and N95 masks that we ordered … began to arrive around April. Everything had to be insulated. We looked like astronauts.

I had only one Latina patient who suffered from Alzheimer's and lived with great anxiety. She only found calm when walking in the garden. But when she had COVID, her activities came down to eat in the room and conversations on a tablet with her three children. I was the one helping them to connect. After a few days off, I returned and learned she was gone. Her relatives thanked me for being with her for so long, dressing her, and feeding her.

The Health Department made constant inspections and took weekly COVID tests. They were very annoying for my nose but I got used to it.

When I got home I would undress in a room furthest away from everyone, put my clothes in the washing machine, go in and out through the back door. I would eat in the kitchen.

I live with my 30-year-old son, the oldest of two, who graduated as an electrician in San Antonio. He eventually ended up taking care of me when I got infected. He would leave my food outside the bedroom door.

That was in December. Despite the strict mask policy, some nurse aides and drivers bringing supplies lowered their guard. They no longer kept their distances. A relative of one of them tested positive, and after three days I began to feel the symptoms.

I saw that COVID affected my patients’ lungs. So I kept quarantined but I did breathing exercises. I was afraid that, like it happened to other nurses, the virus would clot my blood or clog my lungs and I would die. COVID was tough: I didn’t want to eat. I still have back pain, a stomach ache that feels like an ulcer.

My brother passed away at that time. Although his test came back negative, he was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated with antibiotics and inhalants. After leaving the hospital, he went missing for two days and we found him dead. We are still waiting for the autopsy results to find out what happened.

A cousin in El Paso also got infected. He died four months ago, but my aunt never received his corpse. The funeral homes there were full, even up to a month ago.

My mother is 81 years old. She was born in Mexico, in Ciudad Juárez and lives in El Paso. She used to visit me for a month every year, but during the pandemic, her doctor would not allow her to come because I am a frontline worker.

I was offered a higher-paying job at a nursing home in Kerrville, Texas, where there are fewer patients and everyone is already vaccinated. There is still a COVID unit here and we are admitting people, but the elderly who come from hospitals are quarantined for 10 days or until they test negative.

I got the Johnson and Johnson shot but I am still wearing PPE.

In June, I'm going to Los Cabos, a trip that I had to cancel last year. I can't wait to spend more time with my family, having a BBQ or going out for a drink with my friends. We Latinos are all about family and hugs. I'm sick of this mask.

“Even though some residents tested positive, they were in denial”

Lupe Weaks

After 20 years of working in nursing homes, I recently decided to join a nursing travel agency. I learned there was a shortage of nurses in San Antonio, and moved there. Since then, I have been helping in the COVID unit of an assisted living facility. I grew up Catholic in a Latino family from Guadalajara, Mexico. My parents always told me: if there are people you can help, don't turn your back on them.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was working at River Hills Health & Rehabilitation Center at Kerrville. It was a 12 hour shift, three days a week. Then I had four days to relax at home. The lockdown was strict, not allowing any visitors, and testing of all of our employees. The relatives of our residents constantly called late at night saying: “I tested negative, let me in.” There was a lot of explaining, but we were very cautious and held strictly to our rules.

Residents were allowed to watch TV. We encouraged them to learn more about COVID on official COVID sites online, to explain how serious it was, because some believed in conspiracy theories.

Even though some tested positive, they seemed to still be in denial. They suffered from depression and anxiety. They said: “I know I don't have it, I don’t have diarrhea. For keeping me here I am gonna get it.” We were constantly talking to families on the cellphone, explaining the need for quarantine. Connecting them on FaceTime with loved ones cheered them up a lot.

I told them: “Stay in your room, you are safe. Practice breathing, drink water, be grateful now until you are tested again.”

We needed to check the temperature, oxygen, and vital signs twice in a shift. We changed uniforms in an isolation room and threw away biohazard uniforms. I had 10 patients on my charge. They got tested once a week.

When the peak of the disease was more intense, I was covered head to toe. I wore my N95 super tight on my face, put on gloves, and wore the big paper suit hoodie (PPE). Some patients appeared to be afraid because they couldn’t recognize us.

We constantly wiped down everything with Lysol -- the doorknobs, the surfaces.

When I would get home from an overnight shift, I undressed right outside my door. Entered in panties and bra and put everything in the washer, and ran to the shower. This was all to protect my husband. I got tested twice a week.

I think the measures in both places I’ve worked were above and beyond. If someone showed signs of respiratory distress, I called 911 immediately and the patient was sent out to an ICU. When they were safe they came back here or went with their families. Some lost their lives because they had underlying conditions like high blood pressure or heart conditions.

I was vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson and so was my husband. Despite that, I am still regularly COVID tested. It doesn't matter, the care continues.

Now that visits are allowed again, we just received two visitors. But they can't stay in the same area. They must wear masks. And they can only see one family member at a time.

Some patients are allowed to walk out of their room, but not to visit other patients in other rooms.

Even though more people are now vaccinated, we will probably go one more year with the mask rules. We check for side effects of the vaccines and tell residents to drink a lot of fluids and if they have symptoms, they have to isolate themselves in their rooms again. So far, they complain about their muscles being sore, and that’s it.

As for my family, I lost my mom to a heart attack. She was from Guadalajara and my dad from San Diego, where I was born. My family lives in California, and nobody contracted COVID. I checked on them constantly and they told me the rate of infection was a lot higher because people from Tijuana come to work and travel back and forth. I just said to them: be careful, right now try not to travel and always wash your hands.

“It was devastating to see how one person dies after another. I had to seek therapy”

Fabiola Merlin

I have been a nurse for five years. During the pandemic, I was working at the University Medical Center in El Paso, the largest hospital in a 250-mile radius in the county. We admit people from El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, in Mexico, from New Mexico, and from around the entire state of Texas.

I was driving up from Juárez to work. At first, I was afraid of not being able to cross the border, but since I was an essential employee, I was allowed to cross daily. The entire hospital ended up being a COVID unit. In March, when everything exploded, nurses and doctors were very scared, always in fear of exposing ourselves and our families.

We did not know how to handle the situation. We lacked PPE. We did not have enough gowns, and the N95 masks were also insufficient. There was a cleaning process we came up with to reuse them five times. It was very uncomfortable because after cleaning the masks, they smelled pretty bad. When we started to receive N95 masks donations, things got better.

We brought in quite a few portable oxygen and BIPAP machines (to push air into the lungs). But we didn't know how to use them, so respiratory therapists had to come to teach us.

When patients lack oxygen they start to get confused because their lungs become too saturated and they need to be oriented. I had to tell them: this is what you need to be alive, if you take off your mask, you can die.

It was easy to become too close to them, getting to know their family through video calls. There is a close relationship with the patient when you see what COVID is doing to their bodies. It is strong and sad. One hopes that something good comes out of all the care you did, but it is not like that.

There was a Code Blue for emergency situations every minute, and it was out of control. The hospital had to order more black bags for the deceased. Several times, after I got home, all I could do was cry. I didn't know how to get that pain out. It was devastating to see one person die right after another. I had to seek therapy.

The unit I was working at had 29 rooms with single beds. But with the COVID wave, the hospital became saturated and we had to double the capacity.

My patients were between 30 and 80 years old, and mostly Hispanic. I think the risk factor in our community is that we have bad diets and bad habits are predominant. Young people have hypertension or chronic diabetes.

I am an only child. My dad passed away many years ago and my mom is 70. I avoided seeing her as much as possible, but I ran errands for her and left fruits and veggies at her door.

I spent so much time with my fellow nurses that it would have been irresponsible to actually visit my mom. I never saw her, and that was very difficult. As Hispanics, we are very tied to family.

I lived with my boyfriend, but in the first months of the pandemic, we began to sleep in separate rooms. I constantly disinfected the house, the doorknobs, and the shower.

Recently, on my days off, I worked registering vaccinated patients on the Texas official website. They were very organized at the beginning vaccinating health personnel, but the doses began to get scarce and many older adults with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, or immunological problems had to postpone their appointments.

My mom already received the second dose of AstraZeneca a month ago in Juarez, but they are very slow in Juarez covering all the elder population.

Now I work in another hospital and although our challenges continue, I think the biggest lesson I learned was to enjoy life. Being healthy is something I value a lot now.

“No one knows how difficult it is to care for a frail relative, much less if she is depressed.”

Vicky Morales

For eight years I have been seeing my family every Sunday for lunch or to play the lottery. But when COVID hit, my interaction with my parents was limited to running errands for them and seeing them sporadically, always wearing masks.

My father Espiridion, born in Mexico, in Nuevo Laredo, turned 84 and my mother Juanita, from Zacatecas, is 76. My father complained: “take off that mask, we want to see you. You are not going to get infected and you are not going to infect us.” We then decided we would just call them on the phone. They were suffering a lot of anxiety and depression.

A tumor was detected in one of my mother’s kidneys and she had surgery to remove it. I had to quarantine myself before going to take care of her for almost two months.

Her recovery was complex. But perhaps the most difficult thing was taking care of someone who had never had to ask for help with anything. My mom has always been very independent and strong. She always cooked for everyone and was always on the go. In recent years, her knees and heels hurt a lot from surgery on her foot, but except for taking a little more time to rest, she never needed our care.

My sister Irma and my brother Martin came from Fort Worth to visit mom in Laredo. We were in the second wave of COVID and because of New Years' celebrations, we anticipated more cases. Our family did not have dinners or anything. We were taking great care of ourselves. We don't know how, but at the beginning of the year, my mother tested positive.

My dad tested negative, fortunately, they had been sleeping in separate rooms. My dad would leave her food and things at the door, so not seeing anybody caused her even more depression.

At first, she could not breathe and they gave her infusions, but two days later her pressure rose a lot and I had to call 911. They sent some (emergency medical technicians) to check her and her heartbeat was out of control. I followed the ambulance to Laredo Medical Center, but it was very distressing. They didn't let me in.

They kept her there for about three days in intensive care because there were no more beds available in the COVID unit. She was alone in a room but when she left she was very upset because no one had come to see her.

When she was discharged, the nurse told her that she must feel very blessed: Of the seven people who came on the day she did, nobody else went home.

Of the six siblings in our family, I was the only one who could work remotely, so I moved to my parent’s house to take care of mom. Watching my parents lose their routines was very difficult. My dad would go out every morning to have coffee with his friends, run errands home or pay bills. My mom used to hang out at an adult health center where she liked to make coffee for others and play the lottery. With the shutdown, she lost that social life. On top of that, one of her friends died of COVID. That depressed her even more, enough so we had to medicate her. I think she recovered easier from kidney surgery than from COVID.

My 58-year-old brother, our only brother, was infected in winter, at the same time as my mother. He was hospitalized in Fort Worth for two months, and we were not allowed to see him either. The doctors told us to make rosaries because he had fibrosis in his lungs and they couldn't do more for him. But, miraculously, he recovered. He recently got out of the hospital. Finally, in spring, he was able to walk again.

My dad is a Korean War veteran and has received assistance from volunteers at food pantries during COVID. But other than that, I don't think any government agency did anything, even contact tracing, for them.

My father has already received the two doses of the vaccine, Moderna, and my mother just got the OK from her doctor to be vaccinated.

I think this strong experience, which has not ended, made me admire nurses more. No one knows how difficult it is to care for a frail relative, much less to deal with their depression, and much less in a pandemic.

Originally published here

[horusath-blog]

A Star in the Desert

"ALI?" The colonel's voice boomed through the crowded hallway. "WHERE THE HELL IS ALI?!" The shout cut through the clamor, and suddenly every face in the hallway turned towards Ali. She tightened her grip on the stack of papers in her arms and quickly pushed her way through the masses, keeping her eyes firmly at the ground the entire way. Slowly, the commotion began to kick up again. "Here, sir", she mumbled when she reached him. The colonel started in an exaggerated fashion. "Christ girl, I told you to stop sneaking around me like that!" "My apologies, sir", Ali deadpanned. The joke was a favorite of his. Ali was barely 5'2, and the colonel towered over her with his 6'3 frame. Though at this point, the colonel was the only one who still saw the humor of it. "Hahaha...no, you're right, no time for jokes. Follow me." The colonel started walking, long strides at a time. The entire E ring of the Pentagon was in chaos and, if Ali suspected right, the rest of the building along with it. Something had happened, something big. Nobody knew the whole picture, but the details were slowly filtering in. Mission failed, targets escaped...men dead. "What do you got for me? I'm being pulled apart here, getting all kinds of interference about what happened." Ali struggled to keep up with his pace, while trying to keep a stack of papers from falling out of her hands. "Sir. It's been confirmed that we've lost Delta Team B." The colonel abruptly stopped and turned around. It was all Ali could do to keep herself from bumping into his chest. He stared down at her. "As the great apostle Paul once said: come again? "It was during the Falluj-" "Yeah, yeah, I know what they were doing", the colonel said, angrily waving his arms as if he were swatting an invisible fly. "Christ Ali, how about I put you on the intercom, let the whole wing know why don't you." Ali didn't say anything. She'd gotten used to the colonel's outbursts. It wasn't the first time she wondered how this man, who was so quick to lose his composure during a crisis, had risen to the rank of colonel. The colonel ran his hand through his hair. "Christ almighty, they're gonna be all over me..." He looked back at Ali. "Tell me you got something. Anything." Ali nodded patiently. "We're not exactly sure what happened, bu-" "Oh, Jesus", the colonel moaned. "BUT", Ali continued, "we have a helmet recording from one of the members of Delta Squad B." The colonels eyes lit up as if Ali had turned into a pot of gold. "Recording? What does it say? Why wasn't I told?" "The tech guys are still working on it", Ali said. "The footage was heavily damaged." "Alright, alright..." The colonel was calming down. "That's good. We got something to go by. Right, where are they?" "The tech bay, sir." "Bring them all to central. I want this done under my watch. Got it?" Ali nodded. "Yes sir." Ali's full name was actually Halimah. Her parents had come to the US when she was two, escaping the regime of the communist hating president Zia. Though not a full-blown communist himself, her father had ties to certain groups that were considered 'subversive'. Better to be safe than sorry. She had a double Masters in International Politics and Law from Yale. They had first approached her during her final year in college. It had all been a very covert affair: coded e-mails, meetings in dark rooms, and of course the dozens of tests they put her through (mostly to root out any potential communist leanings, if Ali were to guess). In the end, she had been offered a job as a desk clerk at the Pentagon. That was five years ago. Then, a position higher up presented itself. They needed someone who could speak Pashto for a highly classified function. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. That's how she ended up with the colonel. The first thing the colonel did was shorten her name to Ali. As he'd told her: "Nothing personal girly, I just don't have the time to run through the whole goddamn alphabet whenever I need to call you." As far as her parents and friends knew, she was still a regular desk clerk. By the time Ali returned to the central command room with the technicians it had already filled up with dozens of people swarming around like a hive of angry bees. The chamber was structured like a large oval. Rows of desks with computers and other technological equipment on them filled the majority of the space. The front wall was covered by a large screen. For the moment, it only showed a rotating American flag on a black background. At the back end of the chamber was an elevated platform, providing any person standing on it with complete oversight of the entire room. That was where the colonel was standing.  He looked up when Ali and her group entered the room, and clapped his hands twice to draw the attention of the room. "Alright folks, the tech crew is here. Let's get them set up and get this party rolling." He addressed the technicians directly. "I want that recording up and running on the double. Got that?" He was answered by a few diminutive "yes sirs" and some nods. The colonel beckoned Ali. "Ali, with me." When she reached him, he was just signing off on a document. "Get that to Nelson", he told another aide. He turned his attention to Ali. "What's the down-low? How much time they gonna need?" "From what I gather, they've finished most of it, sir", Ali said. "Need to clean it up a bit and it should be ready to go." The colonel nodded. "Alright...alright. That hound Nelson has been breathing down my neck all day. Won't be able to hold him off forever, need to give him something solid." Nelson Frankman was the chief of staff. He was the highest authority the colonel had access too. Ali knew that, with a case like this, Frankman would take over sooner or later. Hopefully they would be able to get the recording running before that. The colonel looked at a tall bespectacled woman who was hunched over a table with a group of other people . "Sarah? What's the status on the media?" Ali recognized her as Sarah Brands, head of public relations. "Nothing yet sir", Brands said, her head never rising. "We're on the lookout for any leaks. So far so good." "Good, good... " The colonel's hands were gripping the chair in front of him, the white on his knuckles clearly visible. "Still can't believe this shit", he murmured at no one in particular. "Goddamn lost an entire Delta squad. How the hell does that even happen?". His right index finger started tapping on the plastic of the chair. "Leak in the intel...? Can't be. Maybe...no...FUCK!" Ali took a step back at the sudden outburst. Every head in the room turned towards the colonel. The colonel glared at them. "The hell you all staring at?" Instantly, everyone tried to appear as busy as possible. "Anything I can do sir?", Ali asked, trying to help him get his bearings back. The colonel looked at her like he'd seen her for the first time. "Ali? Yes...yes, get me a list of Delta B's members and their backgrounds." Always prepared, Ali pulled out a sheet of paper from the stack she was holding and handed it to him. "Right here, sir." The colonel quickly scanned the document, nodding while reading. "Andrei Moretz, Clancy Johnson, William Bard, Ahmed Khu...Khuda..." "Kudiadadzai, sir", Ali helped. "Right. And Tom Harris, squad leader. Christ, they're some of the best we got. If we lost one of them it'd be bad enough. All of them? Might as well send me to the firing squad right now." The colonel had a penchant for dramatics, Ali knew. It was best not to push when he had his moments. Still, to lose an entire Delta Squad...perhaps he was right to be so anxious. "I'll go check on the techies", Ali said. The colonel nodded absentmindedly, turning to read another document that had been shoved under his nose by an aide. Just as Ali was about to make her way to the front of the room, one of the technicians, a tall, spindly man with a cartoon t-shirt, stood up. "It's done." The words cut through the commotion in the room like a knife through butter. Slowly, the room grew to a quiet. The colonel was gripping his chair so hard that Nancy could see it's legs vibrate. "Alright", he said, a barely perceptible tremble in his voice. "Let's see it." The technician quickly returned to his seat and started clicking with his laptop mouse, all the while mumbling to himself. "Just...upload it here...broadcast it to...there...here we go." The flag on the screen flickered, before disappearing entirely. Images briefly flashes across the screen, but they were too unclear for Ali to make out what they were. She could feel butterflies in her stomach. Finally, the footage stabilized, and the recording began to play. It seemed to be taking place in a dark alleyway. The ground was covered in sand and dirt. Ramshackle buildings lined the street, many showing signs of battle; bullet holes, or partially collapsed roofs. Two figures in specialized military uniforms were quickly making their way through the alley, their bodies hunched and their rifles help up in front of their faces. Ali had to remind herself this was footage taken from a helmet cam, so there were three people there. But Delta Squad B had five members. They must be behind the camera. Suddenly a voice spoke up. "Damn this shit." "I heard that Clancy", another voice snapped. It seemed to be coming from the lead figure at the front. "One more beep out of you and I swear I'm calling in a friendly fire incident." "That's Harris", the colonel said to no one in particular. "But this ain't right, top", the voice that was identified as Clancy Johnson continued.  "These folks, they didn't do no-" "Fucks sake...", another voice from behind murmured. "Hey man, up yours Bill" The colonel nodded to himself. "Bard. That makes four" The squad leader spoke again. "That don't matter shit Clancy. Boss says we go after their families, that's what we do. End of. Now shut up and keep your eyes open. We're almost there." Suddenly the other man at the front raised his hand to signal a halt. "Contact." "Moretz", the colonel mumbled, but his tone made the statement sound like a question, as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing.  Ali barely heard him, her attention wholly taken up by what was happening on the screen. A figure was standing roughly fifty feet ahead of the soldiers, in a small patch of shadows out of the moonlight. The front end of a rifle came into view just beneath the camera. The squad leader raised one finger and bent it to point at the figure. "Ahmed." Sounds of movement came from behind the camera. A figure hurriedly passed by the camera's right side until he'd reached the front of the group. He started addressing the figure in a foreign language. Ali realized it was Pashto. She felt the colonel's hand grip her shoulder. "What is that, what's he saying?" "He's demanding that the individual step out and indentify himself." The unknown individual began slowly walking forward, until he was fully out of the shadows. Ali could hear a low murmur begin to rise in the room. The pressure on her shoulder increased, but Ali hardly felt it. The figure was clearly not of Afghani or Pakistani descent, or even Iranian for that matter. He had a vaguely Asian look to him, though if someone had told her he was an American she strangely would not have disagreed. He wore a simple red shirt with a loose fitting blue vest over it, but they were ragged, as if they'd been torn apart and sewn back together several times over. But what really startled Ali were his muscles: they were unbelievably large. The man looked like he could lift a truck with one arm. "What...", Ali heard the colonel mumble beside her. In the footage, the soldiers were trying to keep their cool, but Ali could hear a similar level of confusion. "The fuck...", Bard breathed. "Top? What do we do?", Clancy asked, his voice low and urgent. The squad leader motioned them to be quiet. "Ahmed, again.", he said to the squad member to his left. Ahmed repeated his demands from before. The man before them did not react, staring at them motionlessly. "What is he, stupid?", Moretz demanded. Ahmed shrugged, in so far as his equipment allowed it. "Guess he's not a local." "I could have told you that much", Clancy murmured. "Shut it, boy scout", Harris snapped. "Alright, we don't have time for this. Moretz, take him out. Headshot only, don't want to wake the whole street" "Sir", was the curt reply. The figure to the right of Harris took aim, and then fired a single round at the stranger. The sound of the shot echoed through the streets. Again, the man failed to react. There were no signs of impact, no blood or staggered movement. Suddenly Ali felt the colonel lean forward. "What is he holding?" Ali hadn't even noticed the fact that the man had two fingers raised before his face. Something was wedged between his middle and index fingers, something small and dark and... Ali felt her stomach turn. "It's the bullet." Slowly, more and more people in the room came to the same realization, and the murmur began to rise in volume. "Goddamit, keep it down, or I'll haul you out myself", the colonel roared. Despite his bravado, Ali could see his hands shaking. The commotion in the room had made Ali miss some of the dialogue between the members of Delta Squad B. "Top?", Bard said. "I'm thinking", was the response from Harris. "I say we go full auto on this Houdini motherfucker", Moretz snarled. Clancy scoffed. "And get the whole village down on our heads. What are you, stupid?" "One more time, Clancy, I swear to god..." "Can you sons of bitches shut up", Bard hissed. "We got bi...oh shit!" The unidentified man slowly started walking towards them. "Ahmed, again", Harris said, his voice grim. "But top, he's no-" "Just do it, dammit!" Once more, Ahmed addressed the man in Pashto, but like the last time, the man gave no signs of understanding any of it. He continued his march unabated. "Alright, that's it", Harris said. "On my mark, turn this fucker into Cheddar." The man was now thirty feet away from them. He had a look of cold determination on his face that gave Ali goose bumps. "Hold it", Harris said. Twenty feet. Ali could make out a canvas of scars on his body. The most prominent of these were a series of puncture marks  on his chest that looked like he'd been shot multiple times over. Ten feet. The man put his hands together and cracked his knuckles, the sound oddly loud in the quietness of the alley. "Take him out!", Harris shouted. "Hyooow" Just as the bullets started flying through the alleyway, the man leaped with a shout, rolling and turning in the air like a trained gymnast, going high, too high to be humanly possible. For a second, the camera lost track of him as he vaulted over their heads. And then he was right in the middle of the group, and chaos broke loose.   "Hold your fire, HOLD YOUR FIRE", Harris was shouting. They all scrambled to get away from him, but the man had already grabbed Bard. In one quick motion, he pressed his index fingers on the sides of Bard's helmet, breaking through the reinforced material as if it was cheap plastic, and hit his temples with his fingertips. Before any of them could react, the assailant jumped away again. Bard stumbled in place like a drunkard, trying to get his bearings back. He was still wearing the remains of his broken helmet. "Fuck, where'd he go?! Bill, you alright?", Harris said. Bard had stabilized his movements. "Yeah...yeah I think so." He raised his rifle. "Alright, where is that fu-". Before Bard could finish the sentence, his head exploded. Ali remembered accidentally eavesdropping on a conversation her dad had with an old friend from Pakistan. She had been twelve, and she'd been trying to sneak into the kitchen for an afternoon snack. The living room door had been left slightly ajar, and just as Ali was trying to worm her way by, her father's friend was telling him about what had happened to an acquaintance of them who had been captured by the Pakistani government. The details had been gruesome, and suddenly Ali hadn't felt so hungry anymore. She'd quietly made her way upstairs, back to her room, and laid on her bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. She never told anyone about it. Now, fifteen years later, she felt that horribly familiar feeling come back as she watched William Bard's head explode in a rain of flesh and pieces of bone. The conference room erupted in a whirlwind of commotion. People were shouting and screaming. Some had jumped out of their seats, or fallen on the ground, as if a flash bang had been set off . Ali saw one of the technicians throw up all over his laptop. In contrast, the colonel stood motionless as a statue, his eyes fixated on the screen. Ali forced herself to continue watching as well. In the footage, pandemonium had similarly broken loose. Bullets were flying everywhere, as all the while Harris was shouting at them to close ranks and hold their fire. The video feed was getting erratic, as Clancy's head was turning a different direction every second, trying to find their target. A muffled grunt behind him made him whirl around. Moretz was kneeling on the ground, gripping his stomach. Clancy moved towards him, constantly looking around him. "Andrei? What's going on?" Moretz had an anguished look on his face. "I...I don't know. He...he was here, and...I..." His stomach started expanding furiously. He started screaming and clawing at his midsection. "Fuck! Clancy, Clancy help me man, I ca-" A second later, his stomach burst open in a deluge of blood and intestines. "Jesus fucking....oh dear Jesus." Clancy fell to the ground as the blood rained over him. He desperately scrambled back on all fours. The camera was dotted in bloodstains. "What the fuck top, what the fuck is going on?!" Ahmed was heard shouting off screen. "I...he must be carrying some kind of miniature explosives", Harris said, his voice sounding like he'd just run a mile. The camera frantically tried to locate his position as Clancy was trying to get back on his feet.  "Just fucking don't let him get nea- uahaaaaaa" The sentence transformed into a scream, and seconds later the by now all too familiar sound of erupting flesh echoed through the alleyway. When the camera finally found him, all that was left of squad leader Sam Harris was a shredded pile of meat. The camera abruptly lowered two feet as Clancy fell to his knees, hurling violently. "Fuck this...Clancy, I'm sorry man, I got a wife and kids man." The helmet cam jerked up. Ahmed was running back the way they came, disappearing into the shadows. Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice came from the dark. "Atcha!" The sound of Ahmed's boots on the dirt stopped. "NO. Please, I got a family man, I...I...pa..pwaghuuuu." The clatter of his rifle hitting the ground could be heard, followed by a low thud. All the while, Clancy hadn't moved. The camera was fixated on the pile of vomit on the ground. The sound of feet hitting the ground came from behind him, and a small cloud of dust sprang up. It must have cut through Clancy's haze, because he stumbled back and jumped up. He raised his rifle at the raggedly dressed man before him, his arms unable to contain the shaking anymore. "Why man?!", he screamed hysterically. "Why the fuck are you doing this?!" The man didn't answer. He slowly started walking towards Clancy, one step after the other. Clancy frantically started shooting, not even trying to maintain accuracy as his rifle swung all over the place. "Hyooow" The man leaped through the air and landed behind Clancy. As Clancy frantically turned around, his face ran right into the man's outstretched finger, which hit him right between the eyes. Clancy quickly jumped back. His left hand was feeling around his face, picking at his brow. "What the fuck did you do to me?!" The man didn't say anything. Clancy frantically raised his rifle again."FUCK YOU MAN. YOU'RE FUCKING DEA-" Finally, the man spoke. His voice was cold and monotone. "Omae wa mou...shindeiru." Clancy's arms started shaking more heavily. "What?! What was that? What did you say? Fuck you want, man?!" The man slowly turned around and started walking away. "Wha..." Suddenly, Clancy dropped his rifle. His hands rose to his head. The camera flailed around wildly as Clancy started screaming. "No...no...je-bluaerghh" The helmet cam flew through the air amidst a rain of blood and brain matter, before it landed on the ground. A heavy thud followed shortly after. The man could be seen walking back down the alley he came from, until he was swallowed up by the shadows. From there, the footage stayed the same; a dark, dusty alleyway in between a series of war-torn buildings. For a moment, there was absolute silence in the central command room. A sense of general unease hang in the air, clinging to Ali like a second skin. What the hell had they just witnessed? Rather than be panicked or frightened, Ali felt oddly numb. It was all just so...surreal. Eventually, one of the technicians broke the silence. "It uh...it kind of goes on like this for a while", he said, indicating the screen. The scenery had not changed. Every now and then, a small gust of wind would blow up some sand. The colonel didn't react. He was still staring at the screen, his jaws clenched firmly together. A small pool of blood began to appear on the ground surrounding the camera. Someone stood up. It was an older man. His white hair looked disheveled, as if he'd been running his hands through them repeatedly. He began power-walking his way to the door, keeping his head down. Others, galvanized by his example, similarly rose from their seats to exit the room. "NOBODY LEAVES THIS GODDAMN ROOM TILL I SAY SO!" The colonels voice boomed through the room with the force of a fighter jet's engine. Instantly, everyone stopped moving. Finally, the colonel let go of the chair he'd been holding on to throughout the ordeal, and stood up straight. "Sit", he growled. "You, techies. Cut the feed." After a brief shuffle of movement, everyone was back in their seats, and the screen at the front of the room once again showed the static image of the American flag. The colonel took a deep breath. "I don't know what the hell we just saw", he began. His voice was impressively steady, Ali thought. "But I damn well know this: nothing of what we just saw leaves this room. Zero. Zilch. As far as everyone's concerned, Delta Squad B were killed by an IED. They'll be given the works: posthumous purple hearts, state funerals, recompense for the families. Not a goddamn beep about any of...this."  He looked over at the technicians. "Send me a copy of that video. Then destroy the rest. Got that?" The group mumbled their confirmation. The colonel turned his attention back to the rest of the crowd. "Some of you might be thinking that this is a matter of national security. That we need to inform the higher-ups pronto. Well, here's the deal; that's none of your goddamn business. It's mine. So if any of this gets out, any of it, not only will you get fired, I will personally see to it you will never get employed anywhere outside of your local 7-Eleven. " He let the words simmer for a bit. Everyone seemed to be avoiding each other's gaze, like students avoiding a teacher's attention for a difficult question. Finally, the colonel spoke again. "You may leave." As people slowly started filtering out of the room. he turned to Ali. "Ali, go with the techies. Make sure those little rats don't blindside anyone. I want any copies other than mine gone." Ali nodded. "Yes sir." The colonel had already turned away to talk with the other senior officials that had stayed behind. When they stood outside in the hallway, Ali closed the door to the central command room. Then she turned to the technicians. "Head back to the tech bay. I'll meet you there. No wandering, got it?" Despite the fact that they were all significantly taller than her, they kept their eyes down and nodded. After they had left, Ali found a secluded corner in the hallway and pulled out her cell phone. After double checking to make sure no one was around, she pulled up her quick dial menu and chose the third option, and then put the phone to her ear. A male voice answered. "Daniel Selzer, New Tork Times." "Dan? It's Ali. You're not gonna believe what I got for you."

[theconservativebrief]

Sen. Chris Coons, a run-of-the-mill Democrat from Delaware, is rarely noticed.

But at the height of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s bitterly contested Senate confirmation fight, Coons has become one of the Senate’s most important players.

It was Coons who played a central role in convincing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) — a crucial Republican swing vote in Kavanaugh’s confirmation — to pressure Republican leadership into allowing a week-long FBI investigation on multiple credible accounts of sexual misconduct by the judge.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) confers with Coons and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on September 28, 2018. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Coons opposes Kavanaugh’s confirmation for the reasons many Democrats do — and particularly now that Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto University professor who grew up in the same area as the judge. (It’s an allegation Kavanaugh denies.)

Coons has repeatedly said he thinks the Senate didn’t learn its lesson from Anita Hill. “I believe that 27 years after the hearings into professor Anita Hill’s allegations, we must show that at the highest levels of power women are respected when they bring forward allegations of sexual assault.”

Now, hours before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to proceed with Kavanaugh’s nomination on the Senate floor, Kavanaugh can only afford to lose one Republican senator’s support, and Flake remains undecided. The last time Flake felt that way — last Friday — he turned to Coons for advice. The two were expected to meet on Thursday to discuss the report.

Coons, who has worked to build credibility across the aisle, didn’t have a plan or “secret scheme” for that meeting, he said. Instead, he said he’d try the human approach. “I’m just hoping to say, how’s it going? How is your day?”

The stakes could not be higher. A Supreme Court seat — and a generation of doubts about the court’s legitimacy — is hanging in the balance. Kavanaugh represents the partisan blindness in Washington at its peak. If Coons can convince Flake, a conservative Arizonan, to stick with him, it will be by drawing inspiration from the last person to throw a wrench into the Senate’s plans, a Republican lawmaker also known for his close relationships with senators across the aisle: the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.

As the Senate barreled toward a final vote on Kavanaugh, Coons found himself nostalgic for the era when McCain, who passed away in August after a year-long battle with brain cancer, could work with former Vice President Joe Biden.

Coons appeared dejected after learning that Flake intended to vote in favor of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in a Judiciary Committee vote on September 28. On Thursday, Flake was still undecided on the final vote. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

On Thursday afternoon, Coons began telling a group of reporters, almost unprompted, about watching Biden’s moving speech for McCain last year. “I went home and said to my wife, ‘Wow, what an amazing speech, wasn’t this great?’ His wife looked at him and indicated it was his turn to fill Biden’s shoes. “That’s your job now,” she told him.

When he wondered how, she said, “Well, who is your John McCain? It took Joe decades [to build that relationship]. Who are you traveling the world with?” The first person he thought of was Flake. Coons and Flake, like former Delaware Sen. Biden and McCain, have developed both a personal and working relationship in Washington.

Their friendship seems to be based as much on official foreign trips — a unique kind of camaraderie that only US senators enjoy — as on any particular legislative common ground. (The pair did get a bill to stop wildlife trafficking, a result of their travels together, passed and they have teamed up on a Russia investigation-related resolution.)

But it’s not just Flake. Coons has also worked with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). This week their bill — a $60 billion foreign economic development proposal — passed the Senate floor and is on its way to Trump’s desk, in what Coons said was his biggest legislative accomplishment of this cycle.

Both Flake and Corker are Republicans, but they’re vocal Trump critics. Both are not running for reelection this year, and both have been demoralized by the Trump era.

Coons’s colleagues couldn’t be more fond of him. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) said she considered Coons a mentor. She thought Coons wanted to carry on the tradition of McCain — one of the Senate’s elder statesmen, somebody who takes young senators under their wing.

“He feels that he’s gonna do the same thing,” Cortez Masto told Vox, “whether you’re an R or a D.”

She traveled with Coons — and Jeff Flake — on her first overseas congressional trip earlier this year. Coons made a point to sit down at the end of every day with Cortez Masto and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), another freshman senator, to chew over what had happened that day.

“That was something he took on. It just shows you he cares,” Cortez Masto said.

The Delaware senator, who has a master’s degree in ethics from Yale Divinity School, also chairs a weekly prayer breakfast with Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). It’s that kind of thing that has earned Coons such widespread respect even in such divisive times.

“He’s a prince,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with the Democrats, told Vox. “He’s one of my favorite people.”

King recalled that, when he was first elected to the Senate in 2012, Coons was the first senator to call him. He offered his congratulations and made himself available for any advice that King might need when he came to the Capitol. “I don’t even know how he got my number.”

The quintessential Coons moment came this April. Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia couldn’t make it to a critical committee vote on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s nomination because of a friend’s funeral. It looked like the committee would need to stay in session until almost midnight to wait for Isakson’s return — and Isakson has been struggling with Parkinson’s disease, which he first made public in 2015.

So Coons, though he opposed Pompeo, voted “present” on his nomination instead of “no” in the Foreign Relations Committee. That allowed Pompeo’s nomination to move ahead to the Senate floor, without forcing Isakson to rush back to Washington simply to arrive at a foregone conclusion. Corker, the committee chair, was nearly moved to tears by Coons’s gesture.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hugs Coons after a vote in April on the nomination of Mike Pompeo for secretary of state. Alex Wong/Getty Images

“That’s the kind of guy he is,” King said. “Chris is one of the most serious, conscientious, principled people I think I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t say that lightly.”

Coons talks with nominees for ambassadorships to African countries in 2013. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Coons has found himself a central player in a drama that could reverberate through Washington and the rest of the nation for decades — but it was originally a shock that he got to the Senate at all.

In 2010, when Coons was 47, he had never been elected to an office higher than county executive and yet he decided to run for Senate. He had spent his life volunteering in South Africa and Kenya, working on homeless issues in Washington, DC, then practicing as a private attorney in Delaware.

O’Donnell supporter Bill Ward (left) and Coons supporter Bob Baur hold campaign signs in front of the debate hall at the University of Delaware on October 13, 2010. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

He ran to replace Sen. Ted Kaufman, a Democrat who had served for two years after Joe Biden left his Senate seat to become vice president. He was considered a huge underdog against his likely Republican opponent, Mike Castle, who had been in Delaware politics for decades, serving as governor and in the House.

Castle was a moderate Republican, in a relatively centrist and business-friendly state, set to face a comparative unknown in Coons. The polling showed Castle leading Coons by nearly 30 points during the early months of 2010 and maintaining a double-digit lead for most of the year.

But this was 2010, and Castle lost the GOP primary to Christine O’Donnell, who had leaned hard into the Tea Party wave overtaking the Republican Party that year. But while her abrasive conservatism won O’Donnell the GOP primary, it proved to be a loser with the broader Delaware electorate. Coons wound up beating O’Donnell by nearly 17 points in the general election.

It’s impossible to prove, but some wonder if Coons’s quasi-accidental senator status has contributed to his dedication to bipartisanship — and his seizing of the moment amid the Kavanaugh drama. One theory on Coons, told privately by Democrats, is that he has struggled to make a name for himself and now sees an opportunity in his friendship with the wayward Flake.

There is also a more generous interpretation of Coons: a man sincerely trying to find a middle ground with his friend at the nation’s greatest hour of need. But a man who is also painfully naive about the realities of today’s polarized Washington.

Republicans, for their part, begrudgingly give Coons respect for the way he has courted Flake during the Kavanaugh crisis. As one Senate GOP aide put it: “Coons expertly seduced Flake.”

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at a 2010 event to support Coons, then a candidate, in Wilmington, Delaware. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Democrats and Republicans have been talking past each other on Kavanaugh since his nomination was first put forward.

After being briefed on the FBI’s report investigating the allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh, Republicans declared they’d learned “nothing new” and it was time to carry through with confirming their Supreme Court nominee.

Meanwhile, Democrats decried a broken process. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the investigation a “cover-up,” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the report was his worst fears about a constrained and politically tainted investigation realized.

Coons speaks to reporters on Thursday after reading the report on the FBI investigation of Kavanaugh. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Coons has sat somewhere in the middle, seemingly the most generous with what has come of the final report. He said it fell short of his expectations, but added that he was happy there was at least some kind of inquiry.

“Senators are now in a better position to reach conclusions then they were a week ago,” Coons said. “There will be folks disappointed who say this does not clearly and completely exonerate Judge Kavanaugh, there will be folks disappointed that say this does not clearly corroborate Dr. Ford. That’s in the nature of both an investigation and a compromise.”

Whether Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court or not, one thing is for certain: His friend and colleague Flake will be gone come January. That is beginning to weigh on Coons, that he may soon be left without any partners across the aisle.

“I’m genuinely struggling with the idea of a Congress without Jeff Flake, without Bob Corker, without John McCain,” Coons told reporters. “I am actively looking with senators with whom I can work with in the future because if I don’t have hope, I don’t know how I can come back here.”

Coons talks to journalists as he heads for a vote this week. Capitol police have increased their presence around senators as protesters demonstrate nearby. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Original Source -> Chris Coons’s friendship with Jeff Flake is Democrats’ last hope to stop Kavanaugh

via The Conservative Brief

[demitgibbs]

Gay Adoration: Why We’re Crazy for Actress Zoe Kazan

Why aren’t more gay men professing their love to Zoe Kazan?

I wonder this after doing just that. I dote on the 33-year-old film and theater actress – star of “Ruby Sparks,” “Revolutionary Road” and HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” – like she’s my best girlfriend. Like we have history. Like we sip cosmos and talk about what it was like to play Meryl Streep’s daughter in “It’s Complicated.”

I don’t know Kazan, but I love that she’s so committed to being the best LGBT ally she can be that she follows me on Twitter after ending the interview by telling me, “I will say, just FYI, if you ever feel like I’m not being the greatest ally, please write me on Twitter. I really do feel like I want to do the best job I can.”

I love her socially-conscious Twitter feed. Love her latest statement film, “The Big Sick,” based on the real courtship of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his now-wife, Emily Gordon, and the turmoil it causes when his family discovers Emily is white. I love her longtime boyfriend, the also supremely talented Paul Dano. And when Kazan tells me she wants to shine a spotlight on gay actors and prefers a gay actor play her romantic interest should she ever play a lesbian role herself, I love that too.

“I have never had a gay man profess his love to me before,” Kazan demures, somehow not kidding.

Universal gay adoration is inevitable as Kazan calls on powerful, white, cisgender filmmakers to make a mainstream gay rom-com, and talks about Dano’s onscreen kiss with Daniel Radcliffe and her very human reason for advocating for the LGBT community.  

Q: Growing up in Los Angeles, California, what was your earliest connection to the LGBT community?

A: I think I was really lucky to – yes, to grow up in a neighborhood that was very diverse and inclusive, and to grow up in a family that had those values. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, not as progressive of a time as now. I’m sure children today have it a lot better. But I went to a really progressive school with a lot of gay teachers and that wasn’t treated special or different. It just… was. Yeah, it just was. And I had two teachers who died of AIDS in the early and mid ’90s and that was something that was talked about really openly at my school. The school advocated for them and there was a real warmth and inclusiveness. I grew up a bit outside of the reality of the world at large at that point, so when I got into high school – and, again, this was the ’90s – people would be like, “That’s so gay,” and it was a rude awakening.

Q: Is it fair to say that because of your upbringing you’re woke when it comes to gay issues and queer stuff?

A: It is to my benefit as a human that everyone has equal rights and that gay people are treated with respect in the world. That’s the way in which it feels like my issue too. It matters deeply to me. So, if that’s woke, then I guess so. Not a word I use personally but, yeah, go for it!

Q: In addition to a post regarding gay musician Perfume Genius on your Twitter…

A: Oh my god, I love Perfume Genius! Honestly, all I wanted was to go to his concert and Paul didn’t make it happen. It’s a real point of contention in our relationship right now.  

Q: Ha! You are socially and politically active on Twitter as well, with posts about Planned Parenthood, feminism and one regarding the lack of acknowledgement about Pride month from Trump and his administration. It seems like this is a part of you even though you’re not gay.

A: I care deeply about it. Part of that is, as a feminist, I always sort of rankle when people are like, “I have a mother, I have a daughter” – no, you should care about this because of basic fundamental rights for, like, a huge portion of our population. I feel the same way about LGBTQ relations where, like I said, those rights are important to me as a human.

After this administration came into power in November, one of the first things I thought about was actually what happened to gay people under Reagan – the way he ignored the AIDS crisis and how that resulted in so many more deaths, especially in the gay community. And I really felt this thing of, well, yes, our rights recovered from that and our society recovered, but there was a huge cost and not everyone made it. And I thought of that when people were saying, “We’ll get through these four years.” I thought, “Well, not everybody will get through it.” And I think a lot of Republicans think of Reagan as a beaming icon of Republicanism. In fact, during the Democratic Convention, Democrats kept referencing him as being a good example of Republican values that Democrats also shared and I was like, does no one remember the AIDS crisis? He f*cked up.

Q: We tend to forget what history told us.

A: And also what casual bigotry results in. We’re saying that right now with the rise of hate crimes in this country and what happened to that poor Muslim girl (17-year-old Nabra Hassanen was assaulted and killed on June 18 after leaving a Virginia mosque). I know that’s not the direct responsibility of our president, but I am 100 percent certain that the atmosphere of hate that he has engendered set in those man’s actions.

WATCH:

Q: Let’s talk about compassion, and how your new film, “The Big Sick,” is steeped in it. As a gay man, I found myself completely empathizing with these characters in ways that I didn’t think I would. For you, how do you think the overarching themes of forbidden love and familial acceptance of another’s partners may resonate with LGBT audiences?

A: One thing that really speaks so much to me about the film is how much Kumail loves his family. He loves them and part of what is dividing them is a generational divide and their relationship with religion. I would guess that a lot of gay people growing up in really religious communities might feel like their religion could be a source of division between them and their families based on what some Christians, for instance, think of gay people. There’s a part of you that feels like they’ll love you no matter what and there’s a part of you that feels like they might excommunicate you from the family. I’m very moved by the scene in which he tells them that he’s not going to leave his family after he reveals himself to them. It feels really potent to me and I’m glad it spoke to you.

Q: When do you think we can have two gay people as leads in a major romantic comedy?

A: There’s no reason that time can’t be right now. And considering the current climate in this country politically, vis-à-vis Muslims, this feels as risky a movie as a movie with two gay leads. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But Kumail and Emily were brave and told their own story, and a lot of people took a chance on them and got behind them. And they just tried to do the best job they could of telling their story. They weren’t just striving for representation – they had one story they were burning to tell.

I would just encourage everyone out there who is like, “Maybe my story isn’t mainstream enough,” to just do it. Work really hard. They worked on this script for three years before they brought anybody else on. This movie was started because Kumail was at some standup thing that Judd Apatow saw him at and Judd came up to him and was like, “Come in and pitch me every story that you have.” And Kumail went in and pitched and Judd was like, “That’s the one.” We need our allies. Especially people in power like Judd – straight, white men. We need them to step up and be like, “I’m gonna help you tell your story.” So to all the dudes out there in power: I think everybody is hungry to see a story that hasn’t been told a million times, and truly there’s no reason that can’t be right now for many more different kinds of people who are traditionally not as represented in popular culture.

Q: Not to put this weight on you, but you did write yourself a lead in “Ruby Sparks,” so surely you can just make this happen too, right?

A: (Laughs) I have to say I do think that my mind is turned more toward, “How can I be more responsible in who I’m putting in the spotlight?” Trying to think about casting that way. Trying to think about my writing that way. But I also think everybody’s gotta do it for themselves. I think back to writing “Ruby Sparks” and it’s crazy to me that at 25, or however old I was when I wrote that, that I was like, “Oh, we’re gonna get it financed, we’re gonna make this film,” without any sense of, “I shouldn’t be raising my voice.” I think a lot of people struggle with that, and it’s hard to do. It’s not easy. It requires a huge amount of hutzpah, but I think it’s more important now than ever.

Q: To speak out on issues?

A: And to have faith in yourself. One thing that is really hard for me is, I don’t think I give myself full power of what I already know. I will ask for permission or feel I need someone to come from on high. So, I would just stress that there are a lot of ways to get a film financed and there are actually so many people now who are finding ways to do that through creative channels, so don’t wait for someone to do it for you.

Q: If you were to play a lesbian in a romantic comedy, who would you want to cast as your romantic interest?

A: Robin Wright. I just love her. Or Juliette Binoche. Some beautiful woman of the generation before me. No – honestly, if I were going to make a movie I would probably find someone who’s actually gay. I think in terms of trying to be a good ally you want to give people an opportunity who don’t have the spotlight on them as much and who don’t have as many opportunities. I think that some people are marginalized for whatever reason for their sexuality and I would probably make an effort in that direction.

Q: Speaking of onscreen gayness: Paul famously kissed Daniel Radcliffe in “Swiss Army Man.” As his longtime girlfriend, how much say do you have as to which gay men he kisses on screen?

A: Very little! And honestly, I didn’t even know they kissed in that. I really didn’t! And then I saw some clips from it and I was like, “Oh, you guys make out.” And he was like, “No, we don’t.” And I go, “Yeah, you do.” He’s like, “But we’re saving each other’s lives!” He said something that made it seem like it was the purest love. (Laughs) It was so sweet. I loved that movie, and I love that scene! Kissing underwater – it’s so romantic.

Q: You have the best taste in rom-coms. What kind of romantic comedies won’t you do?

A: I have to say that when “The Big Sick” came along I was really not looking to do another romantic comedy. Like, I’ve done it. Also, it’s not really what I got into acting to do. I love to do parts that feel more transformative to me – much more of what I’ve gotten to do on stage from what I’ve gotten to do on film. Stuff like “Olive Kitteridge” is where my true hunger lies. So, when they called me and were like, “We have a script. It’s a romantic comedy. They want you to come in,” I read it and was like, “Oh, this is so good.” It felt like a movie I hadn’t seen before.

You know, it’s hard sometimes when you’re a working actor and you need to make a living. Sometimes a script comes to you and you’re like, it’s a little bit sexist, there’s something kind of racist in here, but I guess I can improv around it or I just won’t say that line. But now I have a much harder, faster rule when scripts come to me and the representation doesn’t feel totally great, and around gay issues too. I just don’t want to be an irreverent torchbearer for something I don’t believe in, especially now.

Chris Azzopardi has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. Reach him via his website at www.chris-azzopardi.com.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/08/09/gay-adoration-why-were-crazy-for-actress-zoe-kazan/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/163993050775

[cynthiajayusa]

Gay Adoration: Why We’re Crazy for Actress Zoe Kazan

Why aren’t more gay men professing their love to Zoe Kazan?

I wonder this after doing just that. I dote on the 33-year-old film and theater actress – star of “Ruby Sparks,” “Revolutionary Road” and HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” – like she’s my best girlfriend. Like we have history. Like we sip cosmos and talk about what it was like to play Meryl Streep’s daughter in “It’s Complicated.”

I don’t know Kazan, but I love that she’s so committed to being the best LGBT ally she can be that she follows me on Twitter after ending the interview by telling me, “I will say, just FYI, if you ever feel like I’m not being the greatest ally, please write me on Twitter. I really do feel like I want to do the best job I can.”

I love her socially-conscious Twitter feed. Love her latest statement film, “The Big Sick,” based on the real courtship of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his now-wife, Emily Gordon, and the turmoil it causes when his family discovers Emily is white. I love her longtime boyfriend, the also supremely talented Paul Dano. And when Kazan tells me she wants to shine a spotlight on gay actors and prefers a gay actor play her romantic interest should she ever play a lesbian role herself, I love that too.

“I have never had a gay man profess his love to me before,” Kazan demures, somehow not kidding.

Universal gay adoration is inevitable as Kazan calls on powerful, white, cisgender filmmakers to make a mainstream gay rom-com, and talks about Dano’s onscreen kiss with Daniel Radcliffe and her very human reason for advocating for the LGBT community.  

Q: Growing up in Los Angeles, California, what was your earliest connection to the LGBT community?

A: I think I was really lucky to – yes, to grow up in a neighborhood that was very diverse and inclusive, and to grow up in a family that had those values. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, not as progressive of a time as now. I’m sure children today have it a lot better. But I went to a really progressive school with a lot of gay teachers and that wasn’t treated special or different. It just… was. Yeah, it just was. And I had two teachers who died of AIDS in the early and mid ’90s and that was something that was talked about really openly at my school. The school advocated for them and there was a real warmth and inclusiveness. I grew up a bit outside of the reality of the world at large at that point, so when I got into high school – and, again, this was the ’90s – people would be like, “That’s so gay,” and it was a rude awakening.

Q: Is it fair to say that because of your upbringing you’re woke when it comes to gay issues and queer stuff?

A: It is to my benefit as a human that everyone has equal rights and that gay people are treated with respect in the world. That’s the way in which it feels like my issue too. It matters deeply to me. So, if that’s woke, then I guess so. Not a word I use personally but, yeah, go for it!

Q: In addition to a post regarding gay musician Perfume Genius on your Twitter…

A: Oh my god, I love Perfume Genius! Honestly, all I wanted was to go to his concert and Paul didn’t make it happen. It’s a real point of contention in our relationship right now.  

Q: Ha! You are socially and politically active on Twitter as well, with posts about Planned Parenthood, feminism and one regarding the lack of acknowledgement about Pride month from Trump and his administration. It seems like this is a part of you even though you’re not gay.

A: I care deeply about it. Part of that is, as a feminist, I always sort of rankle when people are like, “I have a mother, I have a daughter” – no, you should care about this because of basic fundamental rights for, like, a huge portion of our population. I feel the same way about LGBTQ relations where, like I said, those rights are important to me as a human.

After this administration came into power in November, one of the first things I thought about was actually what happened to gay people under Reagan – the way he ignored the AIDS crisis and how that resulted in so many more deaths, especially in the gay community. And I really felt this thing of, well, yes, our rights recovered from that and our society recovered, but there was a huge cost and not everyone made it. And I thought of that when people were saying, “We’ll get through these four years.” I thought, “Well, not everybody will get through it.” And I think a lot of Republicans think of Reagan as a beaming icon of Republicanism. In fact, during the Democratic Convention, Democrats kept referencing him as being a good example of Republican values that Democrats also shared and I was like, does no one remember the AIDS crisis? He f*cked up.

Q: We tend to forget what history told us.

A: And also what casual bigotry results in. We’re saying that right now with the rise of hate crimes in this country and what happened to that poor Muslim girl (17-year-old Nabra Hassanen was assaulted and killed on June 18 after leaving a Virginia mosque). I know that’s not the direct responsibility of our president, but I am 100 percent certain that the atmosphere of hate that he has engendered set in those man’s actions.

WATCH:

Q: Let’s talk about compassion, and how your new film, “The Big Sick,” is steeped in it. As a gay man, I found myself completely empathizing with these characters in ways that I didn’t think I would. For you, how do you think the overarching themes of forbidden love and familial acceptance of another’s partners may resonate with LGBT audiences?

A: One thing that really speaks so much to me about the film is how much Kumail loves his family. He loves them and part of what is dividing them is a generational divide and their relationship with religion. I would guess that a lot of gay people growing up in really religious communities might feel like their religion could be a source of division between them and their families based on what some Christians, for instance, think of gay people. There’s a part of you that feels like they’ll love you no matter what and there’s a part of you that feels like they might excommunicate you from the family. I’m very moved by the scene in which he tells them that he’s not going to leave his family after he reveals himself to them. It feels really potent to me and I’m glad it spoke to you.

Q: When do you think we can have two gay people as leads in a major romantic comedy?

A: There’s no reason that time can’t be right now. And considering the current climate in this country politically, vis-à-vis Muslims, this feels as risky a movie as a movie with two gay leads. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But Kumail and Emily were brave and told their own story, and a lot of people took a chance on them and got behind them. And they just tried to do the best job they could of telling their story. They weren’t just striving for representation – they had one story they were burning to tell.

I would just encourage everyone out there who is like, “Maybe my story isn’t mainstream enough,” to just do it. Work really hard. They worked on this script for three years before they brought anybody else on. This movie was started because Kumail was at some standup thing that Judd Apatow saw him at and Judd came up to him and was like, “Come in and pitch me every story that you have.” And Kumail went in and pitched and Judd was like, “That’s the one.” We need our allies. Especially people in power like Judd – straight, white men. We need them to step up and be like, “I’m gonna help you tell your story.” So to all the dudes out there in power: I think everybody is hungry to see a story that hasn’t been told a million times, and truly there’s no reason that can’t be right now for many more different kinds of people who are traditionally not as represented in popular culture.

Q: Not to put this weight on you, but you did write yourself a lead in “Ruby Sparks,” so surely you can just make this happen too, right?

A: (Laughs) I have to say I do think that my mind is turned more toward, “How can I be more responsible in who I’m putting in the spotlight?” Trying to think about casting that way. Trying to think about my writing that way. But I also think everybody’s gotta do it for themselves. I think back to writing “Ruby Sparks” and it’s crazy to me that at 25, or however old I was when I wrote that, that I was like, “Oh, we’re gonna get it financed, we’re gonna make this film,” without any sense of, “I shouldn’t be raising my voice.” I think a lot of people struggle with that, and it’s hard to do. It’s not easy. It requires a huge amount of hutzpah, but I think it’s more important now than ever.

Q: To speak out on issues?

A: And to have faith in yourself. One thing that is really hard for me is, I don’t think I give myself full power of what I already know. I will ask for permission or feel I need someone to come from on high. So, I would just stress that there are a lot of ways to get a film financed and there are actually so many people now who are finding ways to do that through creative channels, so don’t wait for someone to do it for you.

Q: If you were to play a lesbian in a romantic comedy, who would you want to cast as your romantic interest?

A: Robin Wright. I just love her. Or Juliette Binoche. Some beautiful woman of the generation before me. No – honestly, if I were going to make a movie I would probably find someone who’s actually gay. I think in terms of trying to be a good ally you want to give people an opportunity who don’t have the spotlight on them as much and who don’t have as many opportunities. I think that some people are marginalized for whatever reason for their sexuality and I would probably make an effort in that direction.

Q: Speaking of onscreen gayness: Paul famously kissed Daniel Radcliffe in “Swiss Army Man.” As his longtime girlfriend, how much say do you have as to which gay men he kisses on screen?

A: Very little! And honestly, I didn’t even know they kissed in that. I really didn’t! And then I saw some clips from it and I was like, “Oh, you guys make out.” And he was like, “No, we don’t.” And I go, “Yeah, you do.” He’s like, “But we’re saving each other’s lives!” He said something that made it seem like it was the purest love. (Laughs) It was so sweet. I loved that movie, and I love that scene! Kissing underwater – it’s so romantic.

Q: You have the best taste in rom-coms. What kind of romantic comedies won’t you do?

A: I have to say that when “The Big Sick” came along I was really not looking to do another romantic comedy. Like, I’ve done it. Also, it’s not really what I got into acting to do. I love to do parts that feel more transformative to me – much more of what I’ve gotten to do on stage from what I’ve gotten to do on film. Stuff like “Olive Kitteridge” is where my true hunger lies. So, when they called me and were like, “We have a script. It’s a romantic comedy. They want you to come in,” I read it and was like, “Oh, this is so good.” It felt like a movie I hadn’t seen before.

You know, it’s hard sometimes when you’re a working actor and you need to make a living. Sometimes a script comes to you and you’re like, it’s a little bit sexist, there’s something kind of racist in here, but I guess I can improv around it or I just won’t say that line. But now I have a much harder, faster rule when scripts come to me and the representation doesn’t feel totally great, and around gay issues too. I just don’t want to be an irreverent torchbearer for something I don’t believe in, especially now.

Chris Azzopardi has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. Reach him via his website at www.chris-azzopardi.com.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/08/09/gay-adoration-why-were-crazy-for-actress-zoe-kazan/ from Hot Spots Magazine http://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2017/08/gay-adoration-why-were-crazy-for.html

[hotspotsmagazine]

Gay Adoration: Why We’re Crazy for Actress Zoe Kazan

Why aren’t more gay men professing their love to Zoe Kazan?

I wonder this after doing just that. I dote on the 33-year-old film and theater actress – star of “Ruby Sparks,” “Revolutionary Road” and HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” – like she’s my best girlfriend. Like we have history. Like we sip cosmos and talk about what it was like to play Meryl Streep’s daughter in “It’s Complicated.”

I don’t know Kazan, but I love that she’s so committed to being the best LGBT ally she can be that she follows me on Twitter after ending the interview by telling me, “I will say, just FYI, if you ever feel like I’m not being the greatest ally, please write me on Twitter. I really do feel like I want to do the best job I can.”

I love her socially-conscious Twitter feed. Love her latest statement film, “The Big Sick,” based on the real courtship of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his now-wife, Emily Gordon, and the turmoil it causes when his family discovers Emily is white. I love her longtime boyfriend, the also supremely talented Paul Dano. And when Kazan tells me she wants to shine a spotlight on gay actors and prefers a gay actor play her romantic interest should she ever play a lesbian role herself, I love that too.

“I have never had a gay man profess his love to me before,” Kazan demures, somehow not kidding.

Universal gay adoration is inevitable as Kazan calls on powerful, white, cisgender filmmakers to make a mainstream gay rom-com, and talks about Dano’s onscreen kiss with Daniel Radcliffe and her very human reason for advocating for the LGBT community.  

Q: Growing up in Los Angeles, California, what was your earliest connection to the LGBT community?

A: I think I was really lucky to – yes, to grow up in a neighborhood that was very diverse and inclusive, and to grow up in a family that had those values. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, not as progressive of a time as now. I’m sure children today have it a lot better. But I went to a really progressive school with a lot of gay teachers and that wasn’t treated special or different. It just… was. Yeah, it just was. And I had two teachers who died of AIDS in the early and mid ’90s and that was something that was talked about really openly at my school. The school advocated for them and there was a real warmth and inclusiveness. I grew up a bit outside of the reality of the world at large at that point, so when I got into high school – and, again, this was the ’90s – people would be like, “That’s so gay,” and it was a rude awakening.

Q: Is it fair to say that because of your upbringing you’re woke when it comes to gay issues and queer stuff?

A: It is to my benefit as a human that everyone has equal rights and that gay people are treated with respect in the world. That’s the way in which it feels like my issue too. It matters deeply to me. So, if that’s woke, then I guess so. Not a word I use personally but, yeah, go for it!

Q: In addition to a post regarding gay musician Perfume Genius on your Twitter…

A: Oh my god, I love Perfume Genius! Honestly, all I wanted was to go to his concert and Paul didn’t make it happen. It’s a real point of contention in our relationship right now.  

Q: Ha! You are socially and politically active on Twitter as well, with posts about Planned Parenthood, feminism and one regarding the lack of acknowledgement about Pride month from Trump and his administration. It seems like this is a part of you even though you’re not gay.

A: I care deeply about it. Part of that is, as a feminist, I always sort of rankle when people are like, “I have a mother, I have a daughter” – no, you should care about this because of basic fundamental rights for, like, a huge portion of our population. I feel the same way about LGBTQ relations where, like I said, those rights are important to me as a human.

After this administration came into power in November, one of the first things I thought about was actually what happened to gay people under Reagan – the way he ignored the AIDS crisis and how that resulted in so many more deaths, especially in the gay community. And I really felt this thing of, well, yes, our rights recovered from that and our society recovered, but there was a huge cost and not everyone made it. And I thought of that when people were saying, “We’ll get through these four years.” I thought, “Well, not everybody will get through it.” And I think a lot of Republicans think of Reagan as a beaming icon of Republicanism. In fact, during the Democratic Convention, Democrats kept referencing him as being a good example of Republican values that Democrats also shared and I was like, does no one remember the AIDS crisis? He f*cked up.

Q: We tend to forget what history told us.

A: And also what casual bigotry results in. We’re saying that right now with the rise of hate crimes in this country and what happened to that poor Muslim girl (17-year-old Nabra Hassanen was assaulted and killed on June 18 after leaving a Virginia mosque). I know that’s not the direct responsibility of our president, but I am 100 percent certain that the atmosphere of hate that he has engendered set in those man’s actions.

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Q: Let’s talk about compassion, and how your new film, “The Big Sick,” is steeped in it. As a gay man, I found myself completely empathizing with these characters in ways that I didn’t think I would. For you, how do you think the overarching themes of forbidden love and familial acceptance of another’s partners may resonate with LGBT audiences?

A: One thing that really speaks so much to me about the film is how much Kumail loves his family. He loves them and part of what is dividing them is a generational divide and their relationship with religion. I would guess that a lot of gay people growing up in really religious communities might feel like their religion could be a source of division between them and their families based on what some Christians, for instance, think of gay people. There’s a part of you that feels like they’ll love you no matter what and there’s a part of you that feels like they might excommunicate you from the family. I’m very moved by the scene in which he tells them that he’s not going to leave his family after he reveals himself to them. It feels really potent to me and I’m glad it spoke to you.

Q: When do you think we can have two gay people as leads in a major romantic comedy?

A: There’s no reason that time can’t be right now. And considering the current climate in this country politically, vis-à-vis Muslims, this feels as risky a movie as a movie with two gay leads. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But Kumail and Emily were brave and told their own story, and a lot of people took a chance on them and got behind them. And they just tried to do the best job they could of telling their story. They weren’t just striving for representation – they had one story they were burning to tell.

I would just encourage everyone out there who is like, “Maybe my story isn’t mainstream enough,” to just do it. Work really hard. They worked on this script for three years before they brought anybody else on. This movie was started because Kumail was at some standup thing that Judd Apatow saw him at and Judd came up to him and was like, “Come in and pitch me every story that you have.” And Kumail went in and pitched and Judd was like, “That’s the one.” We need our allies. Especially people in power like Judd – straight, white men. We need them to step up and be like, “I’m gonna help you tell your story.” So to all the dudes out there in power: I think everybody is hungry to see a story that hasn’t been told a million times, and truly there’s no reason that can’t be right now for many more different kinds of people who are traditionally not as represented in popular culture.

Q: Not to put this weight on you, but you did write yourself a lead in “Ruby Sparks,” so surely you can just make this happen too, right?

A: (Laughs) I have to say I do think that my mind is turned more toward, “How can I be more responsible in who I’m putting in the spotlight?” Trying to think about casting that way. Trying to think about my writing that way. But I also think everybody’s gotta do it for themselves. I think back to writing “Ruby Sparks” and it’s crazy to me that at 25, or however old I was when I wrote that, that I was like, “Oh, we’re gonna get it financed, we’re gonna make this film,” without any sense of, “I shouldn’t be raising my voice.” I think a lot of people struggle with that, and it’s hard to do. It’s not easy. It requires a huge amount of hutzpah, but I think it’s more important now than ever.

Q: To speak out on issues?

A: And to have faith in yourself. One thing that is really hard for me is, I don’t think I give myself full power of what I already know. I will ask for permission or feel I need someone to come from on high. So, I would just stress that there are a lot of ways to get a film financed and there are actually so many people now who are finding ways to do that through creative channels, so don’t wait for someone to do it for you.

Q: If you were to play a lesbian in a romantic comedy, who would you want to cast as your romantic interest?

A: Robin Wright. I just love her. Or Juliette Binoche. Some beautiful woman of the generation before me. No – honestly, if I were going to make a movie I would probably find someone who’s actually gay. I think in terms of trying to be a good ally you want to give people an opportunity who don’t have the spotlight on them as much and who don’t have as many opportunities. I think that some people are marginalized for whatever reason for their sexuality and I would probably make an effort in that direction.

Q: Speaking of onscreen gayness: Paul famously kissed Daniel Radcliffe in “Swiss Army Man.” As his longtime girlfriend, how much say do you have as to which gay men he kisses on screen?

A: Very little! And honestly, I didn’t even know they kissed in that. I really didn’t! And then I saw some clips from it and I was like, “Oh, you guys make out.” And he was like, “No, we don’t.” And I go, “Yeah, you do.” He’s like, “But we’re saving each other’s lives!” He said something that made it seem like it was the purest love. (Laughs) It was so sweet. I loved that movie, and I love that scene! Kissing underwater – it’s so romantic.

Q: You have the best taste in rom-coms. What kind of romantic comedies won’t you do?

A: I have to say that when “The Big Sick” came along I was really not looking to do another romantic comedy. Like, I’ve done it. Also, it’s not really what I got into acting to do. I love to do parts that feel more transformative to me – much more of what I’ve gotten to do on stage from what I’ve gotten to do on film. Stuff like “Olive Kitteridge” is where my true hunger lies. So, when they called me and were like, “We have a script. It’s a romantic comedy. They want you to come in,” I read it and was like, “Oh, this is so good.” It felt like a movie I hadn’t seen before.

You know, it’s hard sometimes when you’re a working actor and you need to make a living. Sometimes a script comes to you and you’re like, it’s a little bit sexist, there’s something kind of racist in here, but I guess I can improv around it or I just won’t say that line. But now I have a much harder, faster rule when scripts come to me and the representation doesn’t feel totally great, and around gay issues too. I just don’t want to be an irreverent torchbearer for something I don’t believe in, especially now.

Chris Azzopardi has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. Reach him via his website at www.chris-azzopardi.com.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/08/09/gay-adoration-why-were-crazy-for-actress-zoe-kazan/