Beacon Broadside

Holiday Reading Link Roundup, and a 20% Discount for Beacon Broadside Readers

Several Beacon Press books have made it onto Holiday gift-giving lists. Here's a quick look at a handful of them. You can get 20% off any of these titles, or any other Beacon Press book, at the Beacon Press website by entering the code BROADSIDE at checkout. This discount is good until January 4, 2010.

The Progressive Book Club recommends Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm by Steven I. Apfelbaum on its list of Ten Books to Help You Understand the Climate Crisis.

Telling the story of how a depleted Wisconsin corn farm was transformed into a diverse, self-sustaining ecosystem, the ecologist offers a real-life example of how humans might begin to heal a ravaged planet.

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 The always amazing Kate Clinton (whose hilarious book I Told You So would itself make a great gift), lists Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage by Nancy D. Polikoff as one of her favorite books of 2009 in the Progressive magazine. 

[It] was a great read for me-- one of the last unmarried, childless, petless lesbians this side of the Mississippi, who is constantly asked, “Sowhenyagettinmarried?” Polikoff writes a helpful critique of the same-sex marriage movement. After a nifty summary of legal history in marriage and social movements, she argues for greater forms of family diversity and presents concrete proposals to shift legal priorities to individuals, whether in or out of relationships.

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Planetizen, a "public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design, and development community," recommends On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of Land by Eric Freyfogle.

In On Private Property, Freyfogle implores the reader to accept and appreciate the complexity of property rights and put away "the simple story about individual landowners pitted against big government."

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Pegasus Bookstore in Berkeley recommends Love in Condition Yellow by Sophia Raday on its nonfiction list.

In this touching, inspiring memoir of her bi-partisan marriage to a conservative Oakland police officer, Raday, a Berkeley peace activist, shows us how difference can strengthen a marriage, and how mutual respect and open communication are keys to making any relationship thrive. A sweet, engaging story!

Video: Kate Clinton the Wiseass White Woman

If you can't see the video in your reader, click here.

Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So, is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. You can see this and many other vlogs at kateclinton.com.

You can also check out Kate on the Progressive this week "reviewing" Bruno.

Kate Clinton: Stonewall 40

Today's post is from Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So. Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. This post originally appeared on Clinton's CommuniKate blog.

On an early morning flight from Orlando, after appearing at the 19th Annual Gay Days at Disneyworld, I was “sirred” twice by a cab driver and flight attendant. All before 7 a.m. I would have thought the brand new faux leopard Croc flats I was sporting would have thrown them off. Or that the “Gay Day” banners everywhere would have heightened their threat levels to rainbow.

Usually I find mistaken identification an embarrassment or irritant. In past years I would correct quickly with "That's Ma'am not Sir," and then try to lessen their discomfort. But this 40th anniversary of Stonewall, I wear the gaffe as a badge of pride. I stare them down. Even if they seem remorseful, I don't help them through their moment. In solidarity with the unsung butch lesbians who were with the fags and drag queens at the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969, I have been doing my own version of butching it up.

It used to be hard to find a NY gay person of a certain age who did not claim to have been at the Stonewall Riots. I am a New Yorker of that certain age, but I most certainly was not at the Stonewall Riots. In 1969 I had just graduated from a small Jesuit college in upstate New York. Insert "Class of 69" joke here.

I was a member of the Gay Resistance. I was trying not to come out. Because of that resistance, I could not and then would not hear the news of gay liberation spreading upstate from Greenwich Village. Though pre-internet, the Stonewall message quickly reached upstate gays in the anti-Vietnam war, women’s liberation and civil rights movement. Before long even my little town in upstate New York had out gay activists organizing, educating and agitating.

Re-Gifting: Kate Clinton's Anniversary

Today's post is from Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So, forthcoming from Beacon Press. Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. This post originally appeared on Clinton's CommuniKate blog.

In a quiet ceremony held earlier this month, I celebrated my twenty-eighth year of performing. Please, no gifts.

On the night of March 21, 1981, on a challenge from my best friend, I did my first show in my hometown Syracuse, New York at a woman's club called Ms. Adventure. When my friend, Rita, started heckling me about five minutes in, I stopped. “Rita, what are you doing?” She was older, a photographer, always in black turtlenecks because she fancied herself a beatnik. “It's comedy; we’re supposed to heckle.” Though I was three semesters retired from my teaching gig, I still had my study hall monitor mojo and shut her down expertly. “Cut it out.” She slumped.

Many years and dry heaves later, I marvel at my career. It certainly was not one of the options on the jobs checklist on sixth grade career day. Other: lesbian comic.

The same year I began my career, Pope John Paul and President Ronald Reagan began their careers. Together they were Forgive and Forget. It was also the year that gay men started dying from AIDS. Then it was called “the gay cancer.” Those three events and the thematic variations on them have been intertwined touchstones in my routines for 28 years.

Black History Year

Today's post is from Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So, forthcoming from Beacon Press. Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. This post originally appeared on Clinton's CommuniKate blog.

The Inauguration of Barack Obama was the first presidential inauguration I ever attended. Without protesting. On our inaugural pilgrimage to DC our train from NYC was on the track behind then President-elect Barack Obama's train making whistle stops from Philadelphia through Wilmington and Baltimore, so we were delayed by "presidential activities on the route" by three hours. The conductor said, "Complain to the White House," and usually grumpy commuters laughed. Already with the no-drama Obama!

We stayed in Adams Morgan with our gracious hosts, Nancy Polikoff and Cheryl Swannack. They had been studying inaugural road maps in the Washington Post for weeks and were our unerring GPS advisors. In addition to the thrill of the inauguration, the big DC topic was logistics - surface roads, alternate routes, estimated travel time, metro closings, car pooling, taxi hopping. Our hosts were so expert, I am confident they could handle the logistics of getting us out of Iraq.

On Sunday we attended the MCC DC church for a Martin Luther King Day concert with their Gospel Choir. Founded in 1992, the choir is composed of people of varied religious experiences who love to sing and share God's love through song. And can they sing! Choir Director Shirli Hughes, in her selection of songs and soloists, completely captured the full circle joy of the life of Martin Luther King and the inauguration of Barack Obama. In their gorgeously simple church, Michele Lanchester ripped through We Shall Not Be Moved. After the service she agreed to sing it at our saging ceremony the next night at Dupont Circle. "If it's not too cold," she added. Her pipes are a gift, so I understood.

The brilliant community organizer Jose Rodriguez had the foresight to get a park permit for an inaugural week of actions in Dupont Circle. At one entrance he and his cohorts had installed a giant blowup of George Bush and provided shoes for people to toss. Shoe Bush was a huge cathartic hit. Jose let us use the stage for an hour and at 6 pm Dupont Circle began to fill. Park police estimated 2,000. We kept the crowd warm with some world dance music, playlisted by my in-house deejay and girlfriend.