While Verizon is taking in massive profits and paying its execs richly, it’s trying to force outrageous cuts on workers—which amount to $20,000 per family.  That’s why 45,000 employees in Verizon’s Northeast wire line division have been on strike since Aug. 7, and they need our support.  Don’t let Verizon destroy the bargaining rights and living standards of its union members!

Verizon’s demands include: freezing pensions for current workers and eliminating them for future workers, allowing contracting out and offshoring of more jobs, slashing sick leave, gutting health care plans for current and retired workers, and eliminating disability payments for injured workers.

Click here to demand that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam value employees’ work and share his corporation’s success with those who make it possible. Click here for a list of picket sites in the New York and New Jersey area.  You also can click here to sign and tweet an act.ly petition demanding Verizon drop its outrageous concessionary demands.

An Open Letter to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam from Sublimefemme:

Dear Mr. McAdam,

I am a Verizon Wireless customer and I stand in solidarity with the 45,000 workers who are on strike.  Although I have been a satisfied customer for many years, I will cancel my account with your company if you do not fairly treat your workers at the bargaining table.

Over the past four years alone, Verizon has made $19 billion in profits while paying its top five executives $250 million in compensation and bonuses. It’s outrageous that you are demanding huge givebacks from workers at the same time.

With middle-class families already struggling, it’s time for Verizon to share its success with the hardworking Americans who made it possible. This is not a time for corporate greed. It is time to do the right thing.

Verizon kicked off bargaining with dramatic concessionary demands and has not budged. And you continue to refuse to bargain seriously with the CWA and the IBEW.

That’s why 45,000 of your employees aren’t at work but will return once you agree to bargain fairly.

Please you drop your unfair demands and return to the bargaining table to negotiate a new contract in good faith.  If not, I will take my business elsewhere.

I swear I used to have a pair just like them!

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011
New York, NY – Sex workers take the stage on Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 7:30pm at Public Assembly (70 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY) to tell diverse stories through video, performance art, narrative, puppetry, burlesque, comedy and more. The event starts with a curated selection of short videos about sex work around the globe, and then features an all-star lineup of eleven performers. Tickets can be purchased for $12 in advance at www.sexworkercabaret.com or at the event for $15.

A sex worker, someone of any age, race or gender who trades erotic services for resources, is far more than fodder for tragic news blips. As artists, actors, writers, organizers, parents, siblings, neighbors and coworkers; listening to, rather than talking about, sex workers is critically humanizing. “Whether we work by choice, circumstance, or coercion, all of our voices are important — and dealing with the challenges and violence that sex workers face will not work until sex workers themselves can speak to solutions,” says activist Dylan Wolfe of SWOP-NYC.

Producers Sarah Jenny and Damien Luxe are proud to present this Sunday evening cabaret showcasing some of the most vibrant creative talent in the sex worker community. The cabaret is in homage to both Annie Oakley’s Sex Workers Art Show (1997-2009) and the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Art Festival (2005-2011), and intentionally takes place during LGBTQ Pride month, a time to reflect on the importance of community and resistance.

A diverse array of performances will be presented by A, Aimee Herman, Audacia Ray, Ceyenne Doroshow, Essence Revealed, Inbred Hybrid Collective, The Incredible, Edible, Akynos, Lady Moustaché, Mariko Passion, Venus Flytrap, and Zachary Wager Scholl. The video artists featured in this event are Brown Meshugana, Gina Carducci & Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Laura Murray, Leanne Gillard, Ms Virilia Crush, & Mée Rose, and the Red Umbrella Project.

Come listen to tales of self-determination, and bear witness to survival and celebration as sex workers eloquently — and at times raunchily — speak their truths, and tell stories from their points of view.

For more information, please visit www.sexworkercabaret.com.

I think the first time I “got” femme was when I saw Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.   Looking drop-dead gorgeous in her clingy slip, Maggie fights with Brick about their living arrangements and hisses, “I’m not living with you. We occupy the same cage that’s all!”   Me-YOW!   La Liz could deliver a line like nobody’s business.

When I was in my twenties I couldn’t imagine ever being as sexy and femme as Elizabeth Taylor–or even on the same planet as her.  (If Kitty Kelley is right that ET is “the last star,” then actually no one is on the same planet as Liz.)   Watching her old films, I was intrigued by her seductive combination of vulnerability and strength–and those legendary violet eyes. (I want violet eyes!!!)   Taylor is iconic for me not only because of her beauty and style, but also because of her resilience and willingness to admit her imperfections. My favorite Elizabeth Taylor quote? “The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”

Without a doubt, the actress’s most inspiring virtue was her passionate AIDS advocacy, which began in the early days of the pandemic when public figures (including President Reagan) failed to speak out or act to help people who were infected and desperately needed treatments.  (Actually, Reagan did ultimately give one speech about AIDS in 1987, prompted in part by Taylor’s personal plea.)  Deeply compassionate, Taylor fought against discrimination and for the lives and dignity of people with HIV and AIDS.  She was a champion for AIDS research and prevention, becoming the national chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and leading a global fundraising effort that has raised more than $233 million.

Here are two great ways to honor Taylor’s legacy of activism and continue the fight against HIV and AIDS:

• Support the Scientists Fighting HIV: amfAR is one of the world’s largest organizations dedicated to funding the “foot soldiers” on the frontlines of HIV and AIDS research, putting money into finding new and innovative treatments—and an eventual cure—for HIV and AIDS.
• Help People Living With HIV and AIDS: The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation has donated more than $12 million to organizations helping prevent the spread of the disease. Its grants go to groups working directly to help patients and to those living with HIV and AIDS.

Elizabeth Taylor died on March 23 of congestive heart failure.  She was 79.

There’s more I could say about all of this, but I have to go cook dinner and do my nails.

As many of you already know, my Van is a private person so I try not to put her and our life center stage in my blog.  But since Valentine’s Day is coming up–which I love as only a femme can; V-Day haters step away now!–I don’t think Van will mind me telling you a little of our own love story.   The truth is, she’s the best thing about my life hands down.  Even after 14 years, I’m a smitten kitten.

Van and I have often surprised each other in little or big ways on Valentine’s Day.  This tradition dates back to our very first V-Day together, when I told her that I couldn’t drive to her city as planned because of the epic snowstorm that was coming.  I was just too nervous to attempt that drive, I said.  Van was super disappointed, I could tell, but she was understanding and of course said she wanted me to be safe.

Then as soon as we got off the phone I hit the road.  You knew that was coming, right?!  Yes, I was crazy enough to drive through a raging BLIZZARD in my little Ford Escort with no anti-lock brakes. (I was a poor grad student then).  Seriously, I’ve never driven in worse conditions–snow, ice, terrible visibility, and wind so severe it blew my car all over the road.  It was positively harrowing.  But somehow I made it to Van’s apt in one piece.

I let myself in and immediately got to work cooking dinner, baking a heart-shaped chocolate cake, decorating the apt, and of course making myself gorgeous. There was a lot to do, but I knew I had enough time because Van would be working late. For a finishing touch, I took a bag of those Necco candy conversation hearts and made a trail from the elevator to the front door of her apt.  (Yes I know it’s cheesy and tacky–that’s the point!)

My little plan worked perfectly.  Van got off the elevator, sad about spending Valentine’s Day without me.  She was grumbling about the V-Day revelers who left all those candy hearts on the floor until she realized that the trail led to her door!  I still remember the look on her face when she opened the door to find me there.  Happy is an understatement.  What did my ensemble look like, you ask?  Mamie Van Doren with a dash of Susie Bright. (It was the 90s, after all.)

Now it’s your turn.  What’s the most romantic thing you’ve done for Valentine’s Day or the most romantic thing someone has done for you?  (For the record, I’m defining “romantic” broadly; I certainly don’t think it has to follow traditional ideas of what constitutes romance or romantic love.)