L.A. MAYOR 2013: Eric Garcetti Sworn In!

My hometown has a new Mayor! Eric Garcetti was sworn in as the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon before a crowd of Angelenos in Grand Park. Garcetti, 42, is the youngest person to be sworn in as mayor in more than a century and is the first Jewish man to serve in that capacity. Garcetti is the second consecutive Latino mayor of Los Angeles, succeeding Antonio Villaraigosa. He earned a hard-fought electoral win over Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel on May 21.

Congratulations, Eric!

Celebrity Friday: Oxy Alum Jacqueline Nguyen Joins 9th Circuit

Wow, this is good news! On Monday May 7th, 2012 the United States Senate voted 91-3 to approve President Obama's nomination of Jacqueline (Hong-Noc Thi) Nguyen to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Nguyen becomes just the second Asian-American on the federal appellate circuit (one level below the U.S. Supreme Court), after Denny Chin, who is on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (in New York).

Previously, Nguyen had made history as the first Vietnamese-American federal judge when she was approved by the United States Senate on December 1, 2009 by a vote of 97-0. Nguyen graduated with a degree in English literature from Occidental College in 1987, followed by a degree from UCLA Law School in 1991. Barack Obama attended Occidental College as well from 1979-1981 before transferring to Columbia University.

The muted debate over the approval of the Nguyen nomination is in stark contrast to the protracted and vituperative debate over the nomination of U.C. Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to the same bench last year, which ultimately ended in Liu asking the President to withdraw his nomination to the 9th Circuit after a successful Republican-led filibuster and subsequent nomination and confirmation to the California Supreme Court.

It should be noted that there are no Americans of Asian or Pacific Islander descent on the U.S. Supreme Court, despite the fact they make up 5.6% of the population, according to the 2010 Census. All but one of the nine current members of the Court were a federal appellate judge prior to their elevation to the nation's highest court.

Occidental College Celebrates 125th Anniversary

Occidental College, one of my employers, is celebrating its125th anniversary today. Oxy's most famous attendee is Barack Obama, who was at the school from 1979-1981.



Congratulations, Oxy!

My Former Student Is In Sunday's New York Times

My goodness! One of my students from last year's CSP19: Gay Rights in the Obama Era, Josh Erdman (pictured above, right), is quoted in today's New York Times in an article entitled "For Gays, New Songs Of Survival":

THERE is no better place to witness the growing pains of pop music than on the video-sharing site YouTube, where for the past year Josh Erdman, 20, and Bill Klute, 19, both sophomores at Occidental College in Los Angeles [emphasis added], have been posting clips of themselves singing covers of pop songs by Miley Cyrus, B.o.B, Kelly Clarkson and other Top 40 regulars. Shot mostly in Mr. Erdman’s dormitory room, where the walls are adorned with posters of Lady Gaga and from the television series “True Blood,” the videos have the simplicity and sincerity of a campfire singalong. After several of the clips received over 100,000 views, the two men began to add a small stamp to the videos that reads “Legalize Gay,” a line that Mr. Klute cribbed from a T-shirt he bought at American Apparel.

“We weren’t sure if we were going to express our orientation with these videos,” said Mr. Erdman, a member of Occidental’s Queer Straight Alliance. “But we wanted people like us to know we’re out there.”

After finding “We R Who We R” on a music-sharing Web site a couple of weeks ago, they updated the stamp to read, “Legalize Gay ’Cause We Are Who We Are.”

“The lyrics obviously spoke to us,” Mr. Klute said. “What these artists are doing means the world to the gay community.”

The article even links to their YouTube channel, KoverBoys. I am amazed! 

MOVIE REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right

Decided to go see The Kids Are All Right starring Annette Bening and Juliane Moore as a lesbian couple on our 2nd wedding anniversary at the shiny, new L.A. Live Regal 14 Theaters in downtown Los Angeles. Mark Ruffalo stars as the sperm donor (I prefer the term sperm dad or "spad," being one myself) which resulted in the couples two kids, played by Mia Wasikowska (last seen in Timothy Burton's Alice in Wonderland) and Josh Hutcherson (who has starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth, Zathura, Bridge to Teribithia).

The film was written (with Stuart Blumberg) and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, a lesbian mom herself.

The Kids Are All Right is a heart-wrenchingly real depiction of American family life, especially from an LGBT perspective. It is also laugh-out-loud, gasping-for-air funny. However, as I told my husband on the way out, "There's an awful lot of heterosexual sex in that movie for a lesbian comedy!" He pointed out that there's a fair amount of depiction of gay sexuality as well, with multiple kisses and affection between Jules(played by Julianne) and Nic (played by Annette), not to mention the entire "gay man porn" subplot.

The basic premise is that the two kids, Joni (played by Wasikowska) and Laser (played by Hutcherson) become curious about their father and make contact with him. Since Joni is 18, she has to make the call to the sperm bank, at the request of her rambunctious 15-year-old brother. But it is another member of the family who ends up making a significant connection with Ruffalo's Paul, who is played with excessive charm.

As a matter of fact, all the acting is superb, with Annette and Bening leading the pack. Annette's Nic is fragile, funny and domineering, but fiercely loves her family. Julianne's Jules is spacey, beautiful and (often inadvertently) hysterically funny. This film should get them both back into the Oscar nominations discussion, and may even win one or both of these beautifully aging actresses (Annette, 51; Julianne, 49) that little gold statuette they have been denied for years.

The writing is astonishing. All of the characters are flawed, but also appealing in some way. Just like in real life. Although some critics have taken issue with the degree of accuracy or fidelity in the depiction of lesbian sexuality as well as the non-depiction of people of color in a positive light,

overall I would argue this is a must-see film for most regular film goers.

(On a side note, it was pretty surreal to watch the final scenes of the movie and yell out "Hey, that's Occidental College!" Joni goes off to college, and the place she picks just happens to be the place at which I teach and work. Go figure. It's silly, but that familiar aspect, as well as the distinctive shots of Los Angeles gave the film an especially high emotional resonance with me.)

Running Time: 1 hour, 46 minutes. MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use.

Plot: A-.
Acting: A+.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A (4.0/4.0).

Eric Lee To Talk About Prop 8 At Oxy TUE OCT 6

Dr. Eric Lee, Executive Director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will be giving a public talk at 7pm on Tuesday October 6th at Occidental College about "Proposition 8: The California Divide."

Barack Obama Named Time's 2008 Person of the Year

Time magazine has named Barack Obama their Person of the Year 2008. In their lengthy article on the soon-to-be 44th President of the United States, they also include pictures from a 1980 photo shoot of "Barry Obama" as a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles (where MadProfessah teaches now) taken by photographer Lisa Jack for her colege photography portfolio.

Obama Talks About Learning About Gay Folk At Occidental College

In an excusive interview with The Advocate newsmagazine presidential candidate Barack Obama mentions learning about gay people by having a close friendship with an openly gay college professor at Occidental College!

Here are the excerpts:

Q: What event or person has most affected your perceptions of or
relationship to the LGBT community?

Well, it starts with my mom, who just always instilled in me a belief that everybody's of equal worth and a strong sense of empathy -- that you try to see people through their eyes, stand in their shoes. So I think that applies to how I see all people.

Somebody else who influenced me, I actually had a professor at Occidental -- now, this is embarrassing because I might screw up his last name -- Lawrence Golden, I think it was. He was a wonderful guy. He was the first openly gay professor that I had ever come in contact with, or openly gay person of authority that I had come in contact with. And he was just a terrific guy. He wasn't proselytizing all the time, but just his comfort in his own skin and the friendship we developed helped to educate me on a number of these issues.

Q: Did you have a chance to ask him about being gay?

I'm sure we did, but as I said, he was really comfortable in his own skin, and the relationship was a strong friendship and I never felt as if I had to get over any mental hurdles to be close to him or to learn from him. He's probably somebody who had a strong influence.

Q: How old were you then?

Eighteen ... 19. It does remind me, though, I remember in my first two years of college that was when I first saw students who were self-identified gay and lesbian come out and start organizing around gay issues, so that would have been in 1979 and '80. I think what's encouraging is just to see how much progress has been made in such a relatively short period of time.

The professor's name was actually Lawrence Goldyn, and an openly gay Occidenta alum and blogger named bernalman over Daily Kos wrote a diary discussing Prof. Goldyn and the gay climate on campus in the late 1970s.

As a gay man who went to Occidental with Obama, it was great to hear Obama mention that he was mentored on LGBT rights by Prof. Lawrence Goldyn. Goldyn was one of the few out professors at Oxy back then-- not only out, but Goldyn had written his doctoral thesis on homophobia in the legal system.

Back in the late '70's and early '80's, before the era of high school gay-straight alliances, one started college having never heard anything about homosexuality or gender identity in school. Back then at Oxy, posters for gay awareness week and for support group meetings would be defaced and torn down. A gay student was beaten in his dormitory. It was uncommon for a straight student to profess any interest in LGBT issues. Yet in my first year at Oxy, in 1978, some straight students wore buttons opposing the Briggs Initiative. And out gay and lesbian professors began educating students like Obama.

Hat tip to openly gay Professor Rodney Hoffman at Occidental Colllege for altering me to the Oxy-specific aspects of Obama's interview on LGBT issues with The Advocate. As the current openly gay head of the Mathematics Deartment at Occidenta College this is an interesting way to start the week!