Craig's Corner

I work as the Executive Director of a gay specific organization, so in a culture like ours where you are what you do – virtually every social interaction is a coming out opportunity. Back in the mid-90’s when I was the Executive Director of a gay specific social services organization – it became so tiresome that on airplanes and in some general conversation I found it easier to say that I ran a social services group rather than give the full name. It only happened a handful of times, but it was telling how bad I felt whenever I didn't fully disclose. Twenty years later I no longer self-censor, which is a liberating experience even when people have issues. Last week I was on vacation and part of me didn’t want to be the activist for those who displayed ignorance or discomfort about me and my work. I was on holiday, but being who you are doesn't take a vacation.  It was my 18 th cruise. Floating from Point A to Point B ... watching the horizon go by is one of the things ...

I read nearly two dozen books a year. I was an early adopter of the Kindle because my reading isn’t evenly spread throughout the year – I tend to binge read while traveling or on holiday. Schlepping 10 books in a bag became old very quickly…especially since I’m a light packer otherwise. Now I download books to the iPhone and use the Kindle app – much more convenient! In today’s social media technology environment – being able to travel, vacation and have electronic gadgets to read books is a whole series of luxuries known as #firstworldissues. Traveling has its own array of #firstworldproblems. In a post 9/11 world where all but one major airline company went through bankruptcy, fees have become the solution for balancing the books. CNN/Money reports that $31.5 billion was earned by airlines in 2013 – up from $2.8 5 six years earlier. Annoying as those fees are – they are democratic. If you want more legroom – pay the fee. If you want to bring a lot of stuff, pay a fee. If ...

I am a little bit spoiled. I have expectations that things will work a certain way – and when they don’t, I have less patience than I wish I did. This is especially true with technology. I’m of an age where I know the complexities it takes to make things happen, but am so accustomed to having it that I have little patience when there’s an interruption in the Cable TV, the high-speed wifi Internet, etc. I have to remind myself of the progress in my own lifetime – the computer on Apollo 11 that took the first men to the Moon is less powerful than what I carry around in my shirt pocket every day.   Frustrated as I may get when tech doesn’t work as I think it should, nothing compares to the angst that the American political system can generate. I don’t think of myself as one of those Angry Tea Baggers fuming against the government. The Government has a role to play in our lives. The Founders pretty clearly laid out in the Constitution how intrusive it should be. Over the histo...

Zombies are in. Or so I’m told. They’re not just for Halloween anymore either. Hollywood has perpetrated a fascination with the dead and un-dead with TV shows like The Walking Dead , Supernatural and Game of Thrones. There are plenty of movies too. It’s a genre that isn’t a favorite of mine, though I will admit to enjoying TNT’s The Last Ship this summer which was less about zombies and more about a disease killing people mysteriously with one ship of people left to save the world. The Michael Bay series set a dark scenario where an unknown illness killed people indiscriminately. Almost on a parallel timeline news from Africa emerged about the current Ebola outbreak. It seems that fiction is stranger than truth. Thousands of people in West Africa have died from Ebola. Sierra Leone had 121 deaths in one day. The disease is no longer confined cases and deaths are now reported in several countries, including the United States. In August (2014) an American missionary was air...

I used to play football. For a week in 8 th Grade before I quit. They started me on a Varsity team though I never had exercised regularly in a game I had never watched and didn’t understand was way too much for my changing body. I was a new school in a new town and was having new feelings. I played tennis instead. In high school in order to meet the athletic requirement I became the Manager of various teams, ultimately earning “Manager of the Year.” I won that either for my skill in juggling a variety of sports or through dumb luck in not being hit by the pucks hurled at me as I carried a 10 gallon water bucket across the ice while the guys practiced. I once followed baseball for a few years until I realized I was more fanatical about the statistics than the game itself. It’s all to say that I’m not a big sports fan. I’m not ignorant of the games either. While I do skip over the dedicated section of the paper, I try to keep generally up to date on the overall – so that when the Red...