The Mad Professah Lectures

Ricardo Lara has been declared the winner of the California Insurance Commissioner race, defeating former Republican (and current Independent) Steve Poizner. Lara is an openly LGBT state Senator and as of today he leads Poizner 52%-48% (or 400,000 votes) with nearly 10 million votes tabulated:
Lara becomes the first openly LGBT individual elected statewide in California!

Hat tip to Equality California.

Dr. Ref Rodriguez was just elected this week to fill the District 5 seats on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board of education. He defeated incumbent Bennet Kayser by a surprisingly large margin of 7 points (53.5% to 46.5%). Rodriguez was endorsed by the Victory Fund, which supports only LGBT candidates for elected offices around the country.

Rodriguez is well-known for founding the Partnership to Uplift Communities Schools, commonly known as the PUC Schools, which run many charter schools in the state of California. The Rodiguez-Kayser battle was the most expensive of those contested on May 19th, with the California Charter School Association spending millions of dollars to defeat Kayser, who was aligned with the United Teachers Los Angles (UTLA), the teachers' union.

As KPCC put it:

As was the case in the primary, voter turnout was low as predicted: 7.64 percent of registered voters turned out in the school board election and 13.93 percent in City Council District 4. 

In the school board election, the low turnout gave special interests more influence in the results than had voters turned out in decent numbers. California Charter Schools Association Advocates' PACs spent over $2.2 million, primarily to support charter school administrator Ref Rodriguez. The teachers union, UTLA, spent about $1.3 million while calling on its 31,000-plus members to campaign for its favored candidates. 

The District 5 election got so fierce that I had people knocking on my door (twice) for Kayser even though I am not in District 5 (I'm in District 2 currently held by Monica Garcia).

Because of the ill-advised Charter Amendments that passed earlier this year, Rodriguez will serve a 5.5 year term, coming up for election in June 2020.

Openly gay Robert Garcia was elected the first openly gay mayor of Long Beach, and at age 36, its youngest by defeating Damon Dunn with 52.1% of the votes cast yesterday.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

In Long Beach, City Councilman Robert Garcia won the mayor's race outright with 52% of the vote. Former NFL player Damon Dunn got 47%, a difference of about 1,900 votes. About 17.6% of Long Beach voters turned out for Tuesday’s election.

That was a better turn out than in Los Angeles County where a mere 13.19% of registered voters completed ballots. Openly gay Sheila Kuehl is going to be in a November run-off to become one of the "five little kings" that run Los Angeles County by winning 36.18% to Bobby Shriver's 28.80% in the 3rd Supervisorial District. Openly gay Jeffrey Prang will also be in a run-off to become the L.A. County Assessor by coming in first  in a large field with 18.06% of the vote. Hilda Solis will replace Gloria Molina in the 1st Supervisorial District.

This book was recommended by one of my friends whom I would classify as a hopeless romantic. It is a YA book, i.e. written for "young adults" or teens. It is also a heartwarming story about a beautiful friendship between two teenage boys, one gay and one straight. The book has won numerous awards and is a quick, enjoyable read, even if you don't usually read "that kind of stuff."

Here's the blurb from the book cover:

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone who would be interested in reading a well-written, realistic story about the lives of two Latino teenaged boys. I don't want to say anything more about the story or the characters' fates because one main pleasure of this book is the sense of wonder as the story unfolds.

Read this book!

Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.
Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Paperback: 359 pages.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster.
Published: February 21, 2012.
Read: September 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A-.

Interesting news out of Cuba today. There is an international LGBT conference being hosted there this week.

More than 400 advocates from across the world will travel to Cuba next week to attend the first international LGBT conference that will take place in the Communist country.  

The sixth International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) Regional Conference will take place in the beach resort of Varadero. A number of parties and other events are scheduled to take place in nearby Havana, the Cuban capital, during the gathering.  

Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who is the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX,) is president of the local committee that organized the ILGALAC conference.

It should be noted that Cuba has national legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, something the United States does not have. Additionally, Fidel Castro personally apologized for the island-nation's previous persecution of gays and lesbians by the communist regime.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Municipal elections in Long Beach occurred yesterday and the results were somewhat surprising. The front runner, Bonnie Lowenthal, finished 3rd, missing the run-off. The top candidate was also the youngest, 36-year-old Robert Garcia, who happens to be openly gay. Damon Dunn, who placed second is only two years older, African-American and would be the city's first Black mayor if he wins the run-off.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports on the political earthquake that hit Long beach yesterday:

According to unofficial vote totals, Garcia, the 1st District councilman, had 25.4 percent of the vote, far short of the 50 percent mark required to win outright. Dunn had 22.3 percent. 

In third was Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, who received 19.6 percent of the vote. The result is the first election loss for a Lowenthal since Rep. Alan Lowenthal won election to City Council in 1992. 

Finishing the top five was 6th District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, with 15.5 percent of the vote, and Long Beach City College Trustee Doug Otto, at 13.6 percent. None of the remaining five candidates reached 3 percent.

The run-off will be June 3rd, the date of the statewide primary election. Dunn raised the largest amount of money and appears to be aligned with the city's business interests while Garcia was endorsed by the outgoing Mayor, Bob Foster.

Javier Gonzales was elected mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico last night with 43% of the vote. He is the first openly gay Latin mayor to be elected to head New Mexico's capital city. He is the son of a former Santa Fe mayor.

Gonzalez, 47, faced off against another openly LGBT candidate for the position, City Councilperson Patti Bushee.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports:
Hat/tip to TowleRoad

One of my favorite events of the year in Los Angeles is the Outfest Fusion film festival, the LGBT people of color film festival. I reviewed the shorts program in 2013, 2012 and 2011. This year the opening night film is Patrik-Ian Polk's Blackbird which stars Mo'Nique and Isaiah Washington. I am going to see this film this weekend at the Pan African Film Festival.

Here is the schedule of the  program, which will start in exactly four weeks.

Well, this is a surprise! Today the New York Times has a front page, above the fold (most prominent placement), story entitled "Poor Black and Hispanic Men Are the Face of H.I.V." by Donald G. McNeil Jr. The key point is that 25 percent of new infections are in men who are either Black or Latino.

Here's an excerpt:

Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city’s health department. 

Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers. 

The prospects for change look grim. Critics say little is being done to save this group, and none of it with any great urgency. 

“There wasn’t even an ad campaign aimed at young black men until last year — what’s that about?” said Krishna Stone, a spokeswoman for GMHC, which was founded in the 1980s as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. 

Phill Wilson, president of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, said there were “no models out there right now for reaching these men.” 

[...] 

According to a major C.D.C.-led study, a male-male sex act for a young black American is eight times as likely to end in H.I.V. infection as it is for his white peers. 

That is true even though, on average, black youths in the study took fewer risks than their white peers: they had fewer partners, engaged in fewer acts of sex while drunk or high, and used condoms more often. 

They had other risk factors. Lacking health insurance, they were less likely to have seen doctors regularly and more likely to have syphilis, which creates a path for H.I.V. 

But the crucial factor was that more of their partners were older black men, who are much more likely to have untreated H.I.V. than older white men.

The fact that the HIV epidemic is becoming browner and younger has been known by HIV activists for quite awhile but it is useful that the mainstream media is starting to pay attention and send the message to the wider population.

I'm somewhat surprised that my friend Phill Wilson is quoted saying there are "no models" for reaching young Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), when he runs the Black AIDS Institute which is a national organization focused on creating, studying and promulgating such models.

In Los Angeles, In The Meantime Men is an organization which focuses on HIV prevention in young Black men and Bienestar focuses on HIV prevention and treatment in the Latino community.

I think what Phill meant to say was that there are no widely adopted or generally accepted models for reaching the communities the article is focused on.