Well social media here we come! Beck’s Cafe is now tweeting on twitter. You can follow us there if you like, our twitter address is http://twitter.com/BecksCafe and we’ll be feeding Beck’s Cafe’s RSS feed to our Twitter site as well so you can stay up to date for what’s percolating here. Of course, you could skip Twitter and just RSS us too by clicking on our RSS feed for Beck’s Cafe http://beckscafe.com/feed/
Whatever works best for you!
I work with quite a few Iranians. The women are kind souls and the men can be comically bellicose. But, to a person, they all want to see a revolution in their country. That means something different to them than to us I think. They seem to be okay with the violence if it means that the current regime is ousted. They don’t want Iran back…they want Persia back. The live story of this historic moment is happening at http://iran.twazzup.com/
It’s pretty amazing using Twitter. Since Twitter can work via SMS messaging, the Iranian government can’t shut down the communications network that has popped up to support the unrest revolution that is happening. Go take a look at http://iran.twazzup.com/ and, if you are on Twitter, don’t forget to make your icon green in support of Iran Freedom by visiting http://helpiranelection.com/
(photo courtesy of Rob & Ale Photostream)
Now this is something I never expected to see, “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy“. First some background about my experience.
My experience in Evangelical Church circles had been a mixed blessing on social justice. On one hand there was a tremendous life of the church on Sunday. Vibrant and moving worship. Excellent preaching and teaching. Strong support for most members. Miraculous answer to prayer at times. And effective children’s ministry. But the lack of actual practice of Micah 6:8, the social justice piece of the gospel, was troubling:
6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord really wants from you: He wants you to promote justice, to be faithful, and to live obediently before your God (NET Bible)
It’s such a big part of the Gospel I often wondered, “shouldn’t we have more attention on that piece?”
So the headline “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy” really caught my eye, and the results even more so. Check these out:
Now granted, the survey does focus on churches who are welcoming and affirming of the LGBT community already so perhaps there is some bias. I wonder what the effects would be on a broader range of churches. Still, I found the connection between a church being welcoming and affirming and being more open to helping the oppressed and down trodden unexpected. Perhaps opening our hearts to one group makes cold hearts thaw towards others.
You can read the press release on the study at The Task Force’s website here.
If you’ve got enough coffee left, you can read the whole study at the Institute for Welcoming Resources website here.
Oh and if you are in Massachusetts, a great welcoming church for Christians is First Presbyterian of Waltham. There are others too, if you do a search on you favorite search engine under “Open and Affirming” you should see a list. Keshet is a good choice to find resources if you are Jewish.
(Graphic image courtesy of Bemky and used under Creative Commons License)
“An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” has been re-introduced for the 2009 legislative session in the House by Representative Carl Sciortino and Representative Byron Rushing (HB 1728) and in the Senate by Senator Benjamin Downing (S.1687).
The hearing date July 14, 2009 and you can submit your testimony by July 10th by clicking to MTPC’s site here. But alot has been going on to get us to this point and let’s hear from just three of our community on this.
Back on April 7th, 2009 MTPC led a lobby day that had large attendance and many key speakers. To say it was a moving experience is an understatement. While the facts of the story have been covered at Pam’s House Blend, on a post at MTPC, on a post at the Interfaith Coalitions Website, and finally at Boston’s Bay Window article here, what about putting another face to the story? Well, that’s just what Michelle, Paula and Rebecca did, while enjoying salad and calzone together after the lobby day. Let’s listen in to their discussion; the results may enlighten you to a more human side of this story:
- One question we have to ask each other (queue diet cokes being sipped) is, why did we attend the lobby days in the first place?
- I think we all had different expectations going into this, but, what did you hope to accomplish?
- [between bites of wonderful Ceaser Salad comes another question] Was this your first time at this or had you attended before?
- So, what were your first impressions?
- What were the results of some of your conversations with our representatives and senators?
As we finished up our chat, slipped our dirty dishes into the garbage and got ready to head home, Paula had one last thing to say to finish up our roundtable discussion, Paula capped our discussion by saying, “Even though we are transgendered we are people too! That is all we ask is to be treated like people and be protected under the law as all citizens are entitled to”.
Amen sister!
Though it’s been around for 51 years, Club Passim was not a place I ever went to. I’m not sure why though I have some ideas I can share over coffee sometime. But Thursday night a dear friend Denise emailed and said, “Hey, what are you doing…want to go to a concert at Passim in Cambridge?”
Friday night commuting is a nightmare so I had to think about it for, oh, 32 seconds.
“Yeah sure I’ll go this will be fun”. And so we attended and saw these two amazing folk singing women:
Holy COW were they good. And so now the brief review…since as usual I am running late! And speaking of running late, getting to Cambridge from the South Shore was only 2.5 hours worth of commute on a Friday night. Talk about sucking. But the ride was oh so worth it.
And of course, even walking in Cambridge I got lost. I’m sure I looked like a tourist, eyes squinting, walking up one street after another in Cambridge, asking directions and only by accident stumbling into Club Passim. But find it I did.
The food at Passim is great. The restaurant that is co-located with them is called Veggie Planet. Seeing that I’m on the Cavewoman diet and actually losing weight this fare was right on target for my palate. We had the Caeser Salad on some kind of veggie pizza thing. I was good and had water to drink. And it was very good. The post-salad coffee was good too: robust, dark and soothing. And the wait staff was friendly and smiled. And for once in the past month it actually was not raining in Massachusetts…Halleluijah!
Amy was the opener (starter?) and she was the more brooding and quiet of the two in her style. An excellent voice with terrific lyrics, Amy, who had been enjoying the kind hospitality of Toronto Pearson’s Airport earlier in the day (having spent alot of time there in the past I can tell ya it’s not so bad BUT 6 hours plus in any airport will make you want to go into a coma), literally got off the plane and into Passim and was there crooning away. She’s terrific kind coffee swillers so have a peak at her site here http://www.amycampbell.ca/ and enjoy!
Natalia, a friend of my friend Denise (so now I have another friend who has famous friends, not bad!) was her own genre. First, this woman can PICK an guitar. I thought she had like 5 instruments on stage not just one and she was fabulous in making her guitar do things that I didn’t know you could with a guitar. Her vocal range is incredible and her songs, even the sad ones, are very uplifting. She’s got a great sense of humour too. I’d highly recommend getting her music or taking in her act if you can. You can read all about Natalia here: http://www.nataliazukerman.com/
The night was terrific. Many thanks to my gal pal Denise for inviting me out to share her love for folk music. She took the train in from the South Shore and, bizarrely, met neighbors at Passim. How weird is that. Denise is growing by leaps and bounds lately in her life so a big shout out of love to ya gal! …. Both Denise and I were thinking of Sonia whilst we were folkin’ out at Passim and Denise told me Sonia was out protesting (?) Okay Sonia if you are reading this what were you doing, exactly? …. Whilst dining our friend June text’d in to say she was still buried at work (on a Friday night? I thought I was the only geek doing that?) so a big Beck’s Cafe HUG and MUG to our gal June; the hardest working, rock mama executive I know. By the by, June is a big supporter of Fenway Health and she tells me that her recent tour of their new facility was amazing, impressive and welcoming. So hop on over there too if you’ve got some coffee left in your mug
Northampton, affectionately known as NoHo, and Western Massachusetts wouldn’t really seem to be a hot spot of economic activity…but apparently it is! What a nice surprise 
You can see the promotional video here: Western MA a Place to Work
In a puzzling and shocking outcome, Professor Jennifer Berdahl of the University of Toronto reports that women who act like men get harrassed more at work than if women are just more stereotypically “womanly”. Dr. Berdahl reports that:
BEHAVING like “one of the boys” to get ahead at work may not be the best strategy for women. A study had found that alpha-females are more likely to suffer sexual harassment.
Women who display what many regard as traditional male traits - such as assertiveness, independence and ambition - are more often the targets of sexual harassment than “feminine” women, the Canadian research has found. The situation is worst in workplaces dominated by men, where women with so-called masculine personalities - described in the study as “uppity” - suffered more than twice the harassment of other women.
Of course this begs the question, what if a woman is simply more masculined traited would her acting more stereotypically feminine get her someplace or would that be seen as non-stereo typical too?
The report goes on to say that:
“The more women deviated from traditional gender roles - by occupying a ‘man’s’ job or having a ‘masculine’ personality - the more they were targeted,” Dr Berdahl said. “Although having a masculine personality would seem to help employees fit into male-dominated work environments, having such a personality appears to have hurt the women in this study.”
But why is this? Accroding to Dr. Berdahl, it appears that sexual harrassment is not so much about sex it’s about punishing gender role deviance.
You can find the full report at Pscynet here or if your cheap (like we are at The Cafe) go here for the summary.
As we all know, the economy is in pretty terrible shape and the U.S. Government Stimulus Package may help to keep it from getting worse. To that end, we thought everyone would find this article from Yahoo of
interest, “Stimulus Job Watch: Collected Tips and Opportunities for Job Seekers”
There’s a good bit of information in it about sectors that are being stimulated:
Read all about it at Yahoo Hot Jobs here: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-stimulus_job_watch-794
It’s true, Godiva has gone MOBILE. That means our chocolate fantasies can all be fulfilled RIGHT from the comfort of your smart phone! I tried the application out on a Blackberry Curve and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use. There are menu options for gifts in various dollar ranges, business gifts, gift baskets and, of course plain old CHOCOLATE. It’s all very cool and you can get your mobile Godiva here: http://www.godiva.com/mobile/default.aspx
You may not know about them now, but you most certainly will in the future. AGREAA stands for The Association for Gender Research, Education, Academia & Action. They have an interesting charter that is multidisciplinary in approach. In their own words:
The Association for Gender Research, Education, Academia and Action (AGREAA) supports those who enrich the understanding of gender and sexuality by providing community space dedicated to the discussion of gender, professional development opportunities, and increased access to information.
One of their first projects was the very interesting, Trans-Academics.org, “a place where people of all genders can discuss gender theory, the trans community and its various identities, both as a part of the academic world and day-to-day life.”
And AGREAA now has an award under their bonnet, the Richard L. Schlegel National Legion of Honor Awards, awarded to “recognizes individuals living in the United States who have exhibited outstanding leadership and significantly contributed to the dignity and freedom of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people”. Dr. Schlegal was a pioneer in GLBT rights. You can read a bit more about him and the award at American University’s site here.
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