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Showing posts with label Gabrielle Giffords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabrielle Giffords. Show all posts

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Equality Forum: SundayOUT

You might think that, after my unpleasant experience attempting to volunteer for the Equality Forum last Friday, I'd be done with the event entirely. However, on Sunday I dropped by their "SundayOUT" festival. For at least the second year in a row, they held it outside of the Gayborhood, taking it to the Piazza in Northern Liberties. Admission was $10.00 and, to be honest, it wasn't worth it. Let me quote one of my Twitter pals, @gregs, who got there after I left and tweeted this: "Sunday out? more like sunday yawn. Overpriced drinks & food, lack of vendors and orgs."

This should give you an idea of the scope of this: when I took this photo I was sitting on the concrete steps at the foot of the stage.

The tables were lined up in three or four rows. Some were from organizations, others were vendors selling t-shirts, jewelry, etc., but there wasn't much on sale that remotely interested me. There were no food stands at all, save one or two restaurants and a table with someone selling cupcakes. No junk food at all or even a stand selling bottles of soda (although there were two stands for high-priced beer and some mixed drinks). My theory is that the facility's management wanted people to eat and drink at the restaurants located there and thus restricted the types of vendors allowed.

To the quote above by my Twitter pal, I would add "a lack of entertainment."

Monday, January 24, 2011

Come ON, Twitter...

I know Twitter (and Facebook) probably uses keywords to help you identify people/places/things you might want to follow/friend/Like, but you just have to wonder about their automated processes when it comes up with something like this. I saw a tweet that mentioned Daniel Hernandez, the 20-year-old intern to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who helped save her life when she was shot in Tucson, attending tomorrow's State of the Union address. Turns out he has a Twitter account. When I clicked on the link to his page and saw this, I was flabbergasted. Check out the "Similar to" suggestion in the bottom right-hand corner:


In what world is a student/intern similar to a drag queen from a TV show? I don't think this would fly in Bizarro World. This is nothing against Pandora Boxx -- and hey, tonight is the Season 3 premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race, and I'll be watching. But these Twitter/Facebook suggestions are virtually useless. Sure, I've complained about this issue before and I know nothing will change, but some things are just too weird to let pass without comment.

And by the way, someday I think I'll have to write about those shootings in Tucson and the issues that surround it. But not right now. If you know me you can probably guess a lot of what I will say, anyway.