Coming out of the closet as gay is so circa 1999. Now it's all about coming out as an illegal immigrant.
Everyone is doing it: Fresno State University student body president Pedro Ramirez came out as illegal last year. Last month, former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas fascinated New York Times readers with the news that he's been an illegal immigrant all along, even while winning his Pulitzer Prize.
Now it comes out that illegal immigrants have not only succeeded on college campuses and in newsrooms, but in the very seat of California's power: The state Capitol. Today, MSNBC published a piece on "Sergio," an illegal immigrant who has interned for California State Assemblymen Tony Mendoza and Marty Block.
Their friends told them they saw the photo of Person and Yang, who were holding hands in the picture, at the counter of another ride at the park. However, the photo had been strangely doctored with a thought bubble that reportedly said "Were [sic] Fags!"
A federal judge has ruled that Oakland police officers performed unconstitutional strip-searches of two black men they pulled over as part of an unnecessary traffic stop, and must pay $100,000 to each victim as a result.
U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel found that Ofc. Ingo Mayer, in the presence of his partner and a parole officer, pulled over Kirby Bradshaw and Spencer Lewis with "no reasonable suspicion" to justify the traffic stop. Mayer then forced them to strip while he searched them in front of a gathering crowd, at one point asking Lucas if he had any "dope in your butt cheeks."
Ryan White, the nine-year-old Phillies fan who was tragically hit by a drunk driver after the Giants game last week, has been upgraded from critical to serious condition, his parents said Tuesday afternoon.
Ken and Roseanne White released a statement to the media thanking the community for its well wishes, and more importantly delivering good news about Ryan. Just last week, the young Pennsylvania resident was fighting for his life after suffering serious fractures to his pelvis, left leg and ankle, a laceration to his liver, and a traumatic brain injury. Now his parents say he is slowly improving.
"Currently, he is following some basic commands," they said. "In a matter of days, he has gone from giving us a thumbs up or a thumbs down to speaking in sentences for the first time this morning."
Anthony John Makk -- the gay Australian national fighting separation from his San Francisco spouse after his marriage visa petition was denied last week -- is not giving up yet.
Makk will now appeal the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' marriage visa denial that cited the embattled Defense of Marriage Act. The appeal will save him from having to leave the country or stay here illegally after his visa expires on August 25, but his attorneys do not know how long it will take to decide the appeal. It is also possible that Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys will exercise discretion and not start deportation proceedings against Makk.
Meanwhile, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has urged the Obama administration to reconsider its decision handed down Monday, according to a spokesman for Immigration Equality, the nonprofit representing the couple.
Yesterday afternoon, just after Mayor Ed Lee declared his candidacy for mayor, the Ethics Commission cleared Progress for All, the campaign that worked to get Lee into the election, of any illegal wrongdoing.
But right before making that decision, the commission was forced to discuss a Grand Jury report, "San Francisco Ethics Commission: The Sleeping Watchdog."
The Ethics Commission has long been criticized for overlooking what some believe to be illegal activity. And its decision regarding Progress for All's financial activity has become another example of a commission asleep at the wheel, City Hall insiders say.
"The Ethics Commission has clearly earned the Civil Grand Jury's title of sleeping watchdogs," says Aaron Peskin, chair of the local Democratic Party. "They are either complicit or they have their heads buried in the sand."
For those of us who needed a reprieve last night from the Mayor Ed Lee drama, and tuned out to watch a real bloodsport -- The Bachelor Pad -- here's a recap of what we missed.
After signing the paperwork declaring his candidacy for mayor, Lee showed up to the Castro Theatre for his first mayoral debate. But the usually popular mayor didn't get the warm welcome he's grown accustomed to while occupying Room 200.
Check it out:
Today is the 16th anniversary of Netscape's initial public offering. It occurs to me that many of you might be only vaguely aware of Netscape, and of what it meant to us in the mid-'90s. That's because many of you were toddlers, or perhaps not even born yet.
That's depressing and mindblowing, but it also has implications for the medium-term future that we're just now starting to understand. What happens when the younger generation grows up with entirely different means of communication and media consumption -- and even modes of thought -- than the older one did? We saw the results of a similar shift in the '60s, when the first TV generation came of age.
What are you people going to do?
Last week, we told you about the San Francisco gay blogger who was on a rampage to get us and everyone else across the nation to boycott any retailer still doing business with the decidedly antigay Christian Values Network.
His efforts have caught the attention of both sides. Blogger Roy Steele tells us his boycott has worked, and some retailers have agreed to sever ties with the Christian shopping web portal. And to prove this, the Christian Values Network has delivered a message of its own to Steele.
On Friday, Steele, who runs the gay blog Tie-Dyed Jive in the (415), received an awkward phone call from the Christian Values Network. Steele missed the call, but was delighted to have ruffled the group's feathers.
"They are threatening me -- and I say bring it on!" Steele says.
Prison is just that place where you have tons of time to kill (no pun intended) and not that many friends. So it makes sense that inmates in California prisons are finding creative ways to access Facebook and other social-networking sites. However, the state has caught onto this disturbing trend, and has asked Facebook to close the accounts of the incarcerated.
"Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring
process and continue to engage in criminal activity," CDCR Secretary
Matthew Cate wrote in a letter to Facebook. "This new cooperation between law enforcement and
Facebook will help protect the community and potentially avoid future
victims."
The Federal Bureau of Prisons National Gang Intelligence Center has
reported increasing instances of inmates with active Facebook accounts who are using them to send threats and unwanted sexual advances.
