https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGPx4xJHvM

The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, Community Relations Service, has produced this twelve minute video aimed at the law enforcement community, to help them in their interactions with the transgender community.

An excellent video, aimed directly at cops, informs them on what they might encounter when contacting the transgender community, and explains the terms they need to understand.  While the video focuses on M to F transgender, the basics of how to interact apply to all members of the transgender community, as well as anyone who is LGB.

Good job, DOJ!  And thank you!

Join us at theSOURCE for a new kind of Book Club. Instead of everyone reading the same book, the Bring Your Own Book Club is all about variety. Each month we pick a theme and each member reads a book of their choice on their theme to talk about.

This Month’s theme: “Required Reading.” What book did you love from college or hate in high school but have discovered again as an adult? Let's bring life to that old stodgy cannon. If you didn’t love “A Separate Peace” bring a book you think should take its place. 

Please RSVP here so we know how many we have coming. :)

Wednesday, September 7, 6pm till 9pm

208 W. Main St. Suite B, Downstairs in the Montgomery Square building, Visalia

Well, this is insulting. "Lesbian and transgender hillbillies".  Rush Limbaugh has launched the right-wing media circus into a full foaming-at-the-mouth freak-out over the 15th Rural Pride Summit, held last Thursday, August 18, 2016, at Drake University Law School in Iowa.

Really, Rush? You're freaking out about this NOW?  We held the first west-coast Rural Pride Summit here in Visalia, the heart of the nation's number one agricultural producing county, last month, but it took Iowa to make you notice? Harrumph!

I think it goes to show you how far the mighty "El Rushbo" (as he calls himself) has fallen. After all, it took until the 15th summit for him to notice, and it was apparently the Drake University Law School's press release that caught his eye (or some staffer's eye, assuming he still has staffers. He's been losing advertisers at almost the same rate that Republicans have been abandoning The Donald lately. Staff salaries have to be taking a hit.).

Tulare County - crickets. Drake University Law School - OMG! They're trying to infiltrate rural America with lesbian and transgender hillbillies!!!!!!!!!!!

I suppose California doesn't evoke rural America like Iowa does.  It's only natural, after all. Say "California" and people from anywhere other than the Central Valley will think 'Hollywood' or 'San Francisco'.  The idea that the single largest dollar producer of agricultural products is a California county (yes, us. Tulare County) doesn't resonate with much of the country. Probably especially so with the narratives of the Farm Bureaus of the mid-west.

And to think, as I opened my article in the July 16-17 edition of the Visalia Times Delta's Inspire edition, "Lesbian farmer. Gay dairyman. Bisexual equipment dealer. Transgender farm worker." are people who really do exist. That seems to have come as a surprise to Limbaugh and his crowd, and you know how the right hates to be surprised with the truth. It really disrupts their thought processes, and throws their entire world-view into chaos.

While El Rushbo opened his segment with the freak-out about Rural Pride, he continued later in the same broadcast attacking homeless transgender individuals, ranting about attempts to end discriminatory practices at shelters.  It doesn't matter to the wingnuts (Limbaugh's primary but shrinking audience) that people are being attacked and killed for being transgender, it's more important to them and him that churches and shelters be able to discriminate. "So here comes the Regime, once again, with a full-fledged assault on religion." Yeah, which religion is it again that has as one of it's tenets to turn away the homeless and the poor?  And directing how Federal aid dollars are spent, and Federal law is enforced, is an "assault" on religion. Another harrumph here.

One sign you're winning the culture war is when the losing side starts using terms like "third-rate Iowa law school".  The Daily Wire's Amanda Prestigiacomo attempts to channel the late Senator William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece Award, focusing on alleged waste of government funds, headlining her post "This Might Be The Dumbest Thing Feds Have EVER Spent Your Tax Dollars On"!  Twitter users couldn't help but join in, as well. Search the hashtag RuralPride for some stellar observations.

I feel a bit like someone holding a raffle ticket, where I missed being the grand prize winner by one number.

Image: DonkeyHotey/Flicker H/T NCRM 

Originally posted to my Visalia Times Delta Community Blog, Alternating Currents, Aug. 21, 2016.