Parental Acceptance and Fond Memories of My Parents.

Today would have been my late parents' 64th wedding anniversary.   They are pictured above on their wedding day. Ironically, my husbands' parents were also married on June 3, 1950, at approximately the same time of day as my parents.  Talk about weird coincidences.  Not surprisingly, I thought of my parents frequently today and the way they were wonderfully supportive and accepting when I came out in mid-life after 24 years of marriage.  Sadly, not all LGBT individuals are as lucky as I was and, in honor of my parents, in April 2011, I endowed a permanent scholarship fund (contributions are tax deductible) in their honor and in honor of Hampton Roads Business OutReach ("HRBOR") which I helped found shortly after my father's death.   I miss my parents everyday.  Here are highlights from a post I wrote back in 2011:

I provided the initial funding to establish the scholarship for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to honor my parents who always valued education and who were unwavering in their support of me when I came out. In fact, when I was telling them that I was gay and made a remark that I hoped that they would not disown me, my father - not always the easiest of individuals to get along with - was indignant that I'd even think such a thing about them. He honestly could not conceive of any decent parent who would disown their own child merely because they were gay. Unfortunately, many parents do not follow my late parents' example. And as a result, LGBT youth make up a disproportionate percentage of homeless youths because too many parents prefer to cling to religious based bigotry or worry about what others will think rather than stand by their children.

Other LGBT youths, if not disowned and homeless, nonetheless can find themselves cut off from family resources and may never have an opportunity to got to college. Sadly, I know a significant number of individuals who suffered this disheartening experience. It's a tragedy. I sincerely hope that this scholarship will help offset such bigotry in small part and over time will grow and provide benefit for more aspiring LGBT youth each year. 

Please consider making a donation - either in honor of my parents or my marriage to my husband. 

Bleak Friday - And Year - For Many Virginians

One hears Republicans at the state and federal level blathering disingenuously about wanting to create jobs and promote economic growth, yet in their quest to never raise taxes - and preferable give tax breaks to the wealthy - they enact budgets that ultimately have the exact opposite of the goals they pretend to support.  And as The Commonwealth Institute reports, past decisions and GOP backed budgets when fully analyzed present a less than rosy picture for Virginia.  Here are some excerpts:

Official state estimates predict the amount of money it takes in to pay for education, health care and other services will increase moderately over the next few years as personal income ticks up.

But a closer look at the numbers, adjusting revenue projections to account for one-time revenue bumps and reduced federal spending, changes that picture and puts Virginia back into shortfall territory, without enough revenue to meet the routine needs of Virginians.

Official state revenue forecasts may have Virginia with $700 million more than it needs to meet its technical budget obligations for Fiscal Year 2014-2016. Or, the sluggish economy and past decisions made to balance the budget may have the state facing a cumulative shortfall of over $300 million by the end of Fiscal Year 2016.

Key factors influencing the 2014-2016 budget:

• Recent revenue windfall masks problems.
  • In 2013, Virginia got a one-time, $290 million windfall from non-withholding tax payments – almost three-times more than expected.
  • That windfall helped balance the budget, but masked revenue shortfalls in other areas, including sales, corporate and individual income tax withholdings.
  • Without the bump in non-withholding, Virginia would have missed its FY 2013 revenue forecast
  • Backing out the one-time revenue boost from the formula used to calculate future revenue growth has Virginia facing a shortfall of about $300 million by the end of FY 2016.

• Sequestration, sluggish economy starting to hit state.
  • Recent employment gains in the state have been below expectations and well below typical recovery patterns.
  • Virginia’s individual income tax withholdings and sales tax revenue slowed in the spring and summer of 2013.
  • The federal government accounts for 1 out of every 12 jobs in Virginia. Nationally, that figure is 1 out of every 27 jobs.
  • With two wars winding down and federal lawmakers aiming to reduce the national debt and deficit, it’s likely that military spending will decrease regardless of the details of sequestration.

• Years of cuts have starved vital services while costs remain.
  • State spending in key areas is now below pre-recession levels, even before considering inflation cost increases or cost increases driven by population growth.
  • Support for public education is down by $479 million, or 8.5 percent compared to pre-recession levels. Yet enrollment is up 3.6 percent.
  • General fund support for the state’s colleges and universities is down $140 million – 8.4 percent – but enrollment is up 24 percent.

• Bills to be paid.  During the recession, the state nearly depleted its rainy day fund. Replenishing that fund at its new increased level will take years and is also a legal obligation that reduces budget flexibility and the amount available to invest in key priorities.

 Other disturbing findings have been released in respect to Virginia's wage levels that are troubling:

In 2012, hourly wages for workers at every wage level were below their historical peaks. In other words, when you adjust for inflation, low, middle, and high earners alike earned less per hour in 2012 than they had at some point in the past decade or so.
What varies, however, is how far wages have fallen and for how long.
Wages for all workers  in Virginia peaked somewhere between 2001 and 2010. For lower earners, those peaks occurred longer ago than for higher earners, whose wages peaked much more recently. That means lower wage workers were taking hits not just during the recession, but well before it began, while high wage workers saw their wages rise, even during the recession.
- See more at: http://thehalfsheet.org/post/68170755977/in-the-dark#sthash.yFu71OWG.dpuf

In 2012, hourly wages for workers at every wage level were below their historical peaks. In other words, when you adjust for inflation, low, middle, and high earners alike earned less per hour in 2012 than they had at some point in the past decade or so.

What varies, however, is how far wages have fallen and for how long. Wages for all workers  in Virginia peaked somewhere between 2001 and 2010. For lower earners, those peaks occurred longer ago than for higher earners, whose wages peaked much more recently. That means lower wage workers were taking hits not just during the recession, but well before it began, while high wage workers saw their wages rise, even during the recession.

As a result, lower-wage workers are now even worse off relative to their higher-wage counterparts. For example, the bottom 10 percent of earners – who make up to $8.18 an hour – had wages in 2012 that were more than 10 percent below their 2004 peak. But the top 10 percent of earners – who make more than $47.97 an hour – were only 2 percent down from their peak, which they just hit in 2010. 

It goes without saying that the GOP nationally and in Virginia opposes increasing the minimum wage even though  most of the increase in wages would be immediately re-injected into the economy.  As for Medicaid Expansion, which the Virginia GOP likewise opposes, the Commonwealth Instutite found that it would pay for itself, expand the number of Virginian's with health care access, and create jobs:

Virginia has many options to ensure that expanding Medicaid can pay for itself and provide coverage to nearly 400,000 uninsured Virginians. That’s because Virginia currently funds a wide range of services for the uninsured with state general fund dollars. To the extent that Medicaid would begin paying for some of those services with federal dollars, it would both reduce state costs and provide funding for unmet health needs in Virginia.

While expansion is forecast to cost the state $1.60 billion from 2014 to 2022 – with most of that cost coming in the later years – the $1.64 billion in savings from expansion would offset all of the costs and ease state budget pressures.

Over the next nine years (2014-2022), savings would come from six key sources:

• $637 million from reducing indigent care funding by 50 percent.

• $292 million from insuring patients treated through Community Service Boards for mental health and substance abuse issues.

• $290 million from covering the inpatient hospital care for state prisoners.

• $173 million from slowing growth in premium increases for the state employee health insurance plan.

• $142 million from capturing savings from other provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

• $104 million from replacing general funds with federal funds used to support programs for low-income people who currently do not qualify for Medicaid.

 Given that its policies are wrong for most Virginians, how does the Virginia GOP manage to cling to power?  It plays on the racism, religious extremism and overall bigotry of the party base and induce the ignorant and short sighted to vote against their own long term best interest.  One has to wonder when the Hell these folks are going to open their eyes.

University of Missouri-Kansas City Created Scholarship for Gay Students

All too often young LGBT individuals continue to find themselves disowned by family and cut off from financial resources as they seek to further their education and enroll in college.  I have personal friends who suffered this sad fate and this reality is part of what motivated me to provide the initial endowment for the George D. and Marion Phelps Hamar/HRBOR scholarship nearly 2 years ago to aid LGBT students in financial need.  Apparently, the University of Missouri-Kansas City seemingly recognized the unique needs of LGBT applicants who have been cast out by "godly Christian" parents and left to their own devices for financing their education.   The result is a scholarship at that university.  Here are highlights via the Kansas City Star:

For all the increasing public acceptance of same-sex marriage (in Washington and elsewhere), for all the backlash against antigay bullying, for all the popularity of a TV show like “Modern Family,” which features a same-sex couple …

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/08/4169302/tuition-and-tolerance.html#storylink=cpy

It’s still not always easy being gay. Even on a college campus.  After all, if your parents just found out you’re gay and aren’t exactly cool with it, your days on that campus might be numbered. Especially if they’re footing the bills.

University of Missouri-Kansas City officials started talking about what they could do to help in that situation, and four years ago created a scholarship for gay students who suddenly find themselves facing a financial crisis. Two students got the scholarship in 2009-10, the first year. The following year: one. This school year? Three.

“This year was the greatest need we’ve seen,” says Kristi Ryujin, UMKC’s assistant vice chancellor for diversity, access and equity. “We have a long way to go still.”

The Pride Empowerment Scholarship is thought to be fairly unusual. The annual breakfast that raises money for it is Thursday; the event is sold out.  National Public Radio White House correspondent Ari Shapiro, who was on campus in March for a pride event, tweeted afterward: “Real privilege to speak at UMKC tonight. The school raises $ to help students whose parents kick them out for being gay. Bravo.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/08/4169302/tuition-and-tolerance.html#storylink=cpy

Since the scholarship was first offered, eight students have been awarded it. Files says he’s aware of the situations of this year’s other two recipients. One family basically said, “Don’t call us anymore.” The other was of the we’re-cutting-you-off variety.

One of this year’s recipients had been living in a “camp space,” Ryujin says.  The scholarship goes beyond financial assistance. Ryujin’s office keeps tabs on students and connects them with other campus resources, such as the university’s counseling center. UMKC also has an LGBTQIA Resource Center and a Pride Alliance student group.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/08/4169302/tuition-and-tolerance.html#storylink=cpy

Kudos to the  University of Missouri-Kansas City!  Meanwhile, if any readers would like to contribute to the scholarship I founded, click on the image of my parents on their wedding day at right and make a contribution via the Hampton Roads Community Foundation which administers the scholarship.  Be sure to identify the Hamar/HRBOR scholarship as the intended recipient of the tax deductible donation.

Today's GOP: Ignorance is Strength

I frequently bemoan the lobotomy like process that seems to be sweeping the GOP and driving thinking individuals - at least those not motivated most by personal greed - out of the party. The result is a party base that is increasingly ignorant and delusional - something the base seems to even revel in. And, in my view, it's not a coincidence that this exultation of ignorance has coincided with the rise of the so-called Christian Right - a group synonymous with ignorance in my view - within the GOP. In keeping with this almost worship of ignorance and superstition, the GOP is increasingly hostile to both public education and higher education which are viewed as places for "indoctrination" and where the falsity of the beliefs held dear by the Christianists is exposed. Paul Krugman looks at this sad state of affairs in a column in the New York Times. Here are highlights:

One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education. First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education. And after World War II, public support, including the G.I. Bill and a huge expansion of public universities, helped large numbers of Americans to get college degrees.

But now one of our two major political parties has taken a hard right turn against education, or at least against education that working Americans can afford. Remarkably, this new hostility to education is shared by the social conservative and economic conservative wings of the Republican coalition, now embodied in the persons of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.

About that hostility: Mr. Santorum made headlines by declaring that President Obama wants to expand college enrollment because colleges are “indoctrination mills” that destroy religious faith. But Mr. Romney’s response to a high school senior worried about college costs is arguably even more significant . . . Here’s what the candidate told the student: “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And, hopefully, you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

For the past couple of generations, choosing a less expensive school has generally meant going to a public university rather than a private university. But these days, public higher education is very much under siege, facing even harsher budget cuts than the rest of the public sector. Adjusted for inflation, state support for higher education has fallen 12 percent over the past five years, even as the number of students has continued to rise; in California, support is down by 20 percent.

One result has been soaring fees. Inflation-adjusted tuition at public four-year colleges has risen by more than 70 percent over the past decade. So good luck on finding that college “that has a little lower price.”

Another result is that cash-strapped educational institutions have been cutting back in areas that are expensive to teach — which also happen to be precisely the areas the economy needs. For example, public colleges in a number of states, including Florida and Texas, have eliminated entire departments in engineering and computer science.

The damage these changes will inflict — both to our nation’s economic prospects and to the fading American dream of equal opportunity — should be obvious. So why are Republicans so eager to trash higher education?

[Mr. Santorum is] right to feel that our higher education system isn’t friendly ground for current conservative ideology. And it’s not just liberal-arts professors: among scientists, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans nine to one. I guess Mr. Santorum would see this as evidence of a liberal conspiracy. Others might suggest that scientists find it hard to support a party in which denial of climate change has become a political litmus test, and denial of the theory of evolution is well on its way to similar status.

But what about people like Mr. Romney? Don’t they have a stake in America’s future economic success, which is endangered by the crusade against education? Maybe not as much as you think.

After all, over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers. You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an undertrained work force.

And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity?

So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education.

It's a depressing picture and one that the "greatest generation" would find troubling I suspect. But not so if one doesn't want an increasingly archaic religious ideology challenged.

College Students Using 'Sugar Daddies' To Pay Off College Debt

Given that the GOP cares nothing about the terrible economy, the unemployed and under employed and is happy to gut college loan assistance programs while giving tax breaks to the very wealthy, a development scrutinized in a Huffington Post piece might well be the new unofficial GOP program to pay one's way through college when all else fails: become a sex worker and exchange sex for assistance from "Sugar Daddies" or "Sugar Mommies" as a means of paying down often staggering college loans (law students may be even more in need of this approach given the bleak market in the legal profession). The piece looks at a website called SeekingArrangement.com where students can look for those willing to pay for their college. While depicting itself as a "dating site," as the Huffington Post piece makes clear, sex is what's really for sale. And SeekingArrangement.com is only one of such sites. And the students in search of financial assistance are both gay and straight. Here are some highlights:
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Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. An increasing number, according to the the owners of websites that broker such hook-ups, have taken to the web in search of online suitors or wealthy benefactors who, in exchange for sex, companionship, or both, might help with the bills.
*
The past few years have taken an especially brutal toll on the plans and expectations of 20-somethings. As unemployment rates tick steadily higher, starting salaries have plummeted. Meanwhile, according to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor of psychology at Clark University, about 85 percent of the class of 2011 will likely move back in with their parents during some period of their post-college years, compared with 40 percent a decade ago.
*
Enter the sugar daddy, sugar baby phenomenon. This particular dynamic preceded the economic meltdown, of course. Rich guys well past their prime have been plunking down money for thousands of years in search of a tryst or something more with women half their age -- and women, willingly or not, have made themselves available. With the whole process going digital, women passing through a system of higher education that fosters indebtedness are using the anonymity of the web to sell their wares and pay down their college loans.
*
"Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," says Brandon Wade, the 41-year-old founder of Seeking Arrangement. Of the site's approximately 800,000 members, Wade estimates that 35 percent are students. "College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time."
*
Wade sees his company as providing a unique service, a chance for "men and women living through tough economic times to afford college." He bristles at the notion that he's merely running a thinly veiled, digital bordello, choosing instead to describe his site as one that facilitates "mutually beneficial relationships."
*
At The Huffington Post's request, Seeking Arrangement listed the top 20 universities attended by sugar babies on the site. They compiled the list according to the number of sugar babies who registered using their .edu email addresses or listed schools' names on their profiles. New York University tops the list with 498 sugar babies, while UCLA comes in at No. 8 with 253, and Harvard University ranks at No. 9 with 231. The University of California at Berkeley ranks at No. 13 with 193, the University of Southern California ranks at No. 15 with 183, and Tulane University ranks at No. 20 with 163 college sugar babies.
*
When Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, conducts research in various legal brothels in the state, she finds women hailing from a variety of different backgrounds. . . . . Brents equated modern-day college students seeking online sugar daddies to a phenomenon among young, working women nearly a century ago. During the 1910s and 1920s, some young women who worked at minimum-wage jobs during the day would supplement their meager paychecks by meeting up with male suitors at night. They'd swap companionship and sex in exchange for either a clothing allowance or rent money. Such women, explains Brents, never referred to themselves as prostitutes.
*
There's more to the article. Frankly, it's a very sad state of affairs but I guess somewhat understandable given the current economy and the unwillingness of the GOP to assign any value to the lives/prospects of ordinary citizens. The ultimate irony, of course, is that the Christianists and evangelicals of the Tea Party are the ones helping to create the circumstances where a site like Seeking Arrangement.com can flourish. WWJD??

Hate Merchants At Mission America Attack Scholarships for LGBT Students

Linda Harvey (pictured at left) at Mission American once again proves that she's about as unloving and nasty piece of work as one can be when it comes to denigrating not only LGBT Americans but in addition anyone or any organization which endeavors to make life less of a Hell for those who suffer as victims of anti-gay bigotry. As Right Wing Watch is reporting, Ms. Harvey has gone on a spittle spraying rant against scholarships for LGBT high schools students and the National Education Association in particular. Harvey alleges that such scholarships offer a "financial incentive" and help "persuade youths to be in a deviant lifestyle" and engage in "risky behavior" Having endowed a scholarship for LGBT students myself in honor of my late parents, in my view Ms. Harvey is an utter douche bag and from a moral perspective is no different that the Islamic haters that the Christian Taliban in this country love to malign. Here's a portion of Harvey's screed:
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Harvey: The group’s website says they raise money for teen scholarships given to those kids who consider themselves homosexual. The past few years the scholarship winners have not simply been young people persuaded to be in this deviant lifestyle, but are students who have unfortunately bought the party line and become involved in activism projects like homosexual clubs and the pro-homosexual Day of Silence in their schools. And so now kids are given financial incentives to be actively engaged in both the political goals of homosexuals as well as the risky behavior. This is appalling. In these tough economic times many kids will be struggling to get money together for college and here we have a really sleazy connection for them to make. It’s just one more outrageous thing going on with our teachers’ unions.
*
What's appalling and sleazy are Harvey and those like her. It's precisely because of people like Harvey and those who embrace her hate-filled form of Christianity that many LGBT students find themselves in need of scholarships in the first place having been disowned and/or cut off financially by their Kool-Aid drinking parents and families. In describing my motivation for establishing a scholarship for LGBT high school students I said in part the following:
*
I provided the initial funding to establish the scholarship for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to honor my parents who always valued education and who were unwavering in their support of me when I came out. In fact, when I was telling them that I was gay and made a remark that I hoped that they would not disown me, my father - not always the easiest of individuals to get along with - was indignant that I'd even think such a thing about them. He honestly could not conceive of any decent parent who would disown their own child merely because they were gay. Unfortunately, many parents do not follow my late parents' example. And as a result, LGBT youth make up a disproportionate percentage of homeless youths because too many parents prefer to cling to religious based bigotry or worry about what others will think rather than stand by their children.
*
Other LGBT youths, if not disowned and homeless, nonetheless can find themselves cut off from family resources and may never have an opportunity to got to college. Sadly, I know a significant number of individuals who suffered this disheartening experience. It's a tragedy. I sincerely hope that this scholarship will help offset such bigotry in small part and over time will grow and provide benefit for more aspiring LGBT youth each year.

College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.

Further adding to the darken outlook for things in the USA is a new study that reflects that going to college may soon be difficult if not impossible for most Americans. Yet another gift from the GOP's focus on helping the rich and f*cking over everyone else while gay bashing whenever possible. I hope Daddy D is happy. I'm certainly not and thinking Americans should be livid. With lending dried up, even parents who might otherwise take out equity lines against their homes are likely to find this financing route unavailable. The effects of eight years of misrule just continue to keep on multiplying. It's a sad reality, but the GOP and the Christianists refuse to see that investing in the nation's population and youth are necessary for the country's long term prosperity. Focusing solely on cutting taxes and reducing programs is shortsighted at best. Here are highlights from the New York Times (click the image above for a larger view):

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The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

*

“When we come out of the recession,” Mr. Callan [Patrick M. Callan, president of the center] added, “we’re really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.” Although college enrollment has continued to rise in recent years, Mr. Callan said, it is not clear how long that can continue.

*

The report, “Measuring Up 2008,” is one of the few to compare net college costs — that is, a year’s tuition, fees, room and board, minus financial aid — against median family income. Those findings are stark. Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent of the median family income.

*

While tuition has risen at public universities, his report said, that has largely been to make up for declining state appropriations. The report offered its own cost projections, not including room and board. “Projecting out to 2036, tuition would go from 11 percent of the family budget to 24 percent of the family budget, and that’s pretty huge,” Mr. Shulenburger said. “We only looked at tuition and fees because those are the only things we can control.”

*

Mr. Shulenburger’s report suggested that public universities explore a variety of approaches to lower costs — distance learning, better use of senior year in high school, perhaps even shortening college from four years.