On Saturday, May 14, LPAC’s Founder Urvashi Vaid passed away. We have lost a fierce fighter and friend. Urvashi’s activism, vision, and determination changed the progressive movement and improved the lives of marginalized people across the United States. We are heartbroken by this loss and will miss Urvashi deeply, but will look to her example as we continue to strive for equality and social justice. Our hearts are with her partner Kate Clinton, her family, and everyone who knew and loved her.

You can read an obituary from The Washington Post here. We would also like to share a few remembrances of Urvashi from those of us at Team LPAC.

LPAC Board Chair Laura Ricketts:

Urvashi was a bold, brilliant, strategic and innovative advocate and activist. She was a community builder and a movement maker who inspired all of us to do more because we all deserved more. When she didn’t inspire us, she pushed and pushed and pushed us to do more. I have never met anyone with more passion and drive, and all for a better, more just and equitable world. She was unapologetically direct and unreservedly candid, always true to herself and speaking her truth, never shying away from conflict or afraid to stand up for what is right. Being a more reserved and diplomatic Midwesterner, I think this is what I admired most about her. She was also very loving with a whip smart sense of humor. Urvashi is a legend and a treasure. The impact of her legacy is immeasurable. I feel blessed to have known her and to have learned from her, and honored to have worked alongside her.

LPAC Executive Director Lisa Turner:

It goes without saying that Urvashi Vaid was a powerhouse activist and advocate. She was also kind, and generous in complimenting those around her. I cannot think of a time when I was in a room with Urvashi when she didn’t say something validating about me or my work and why I should be sitting at the table. Some of the most meaningful and important work I have done on behalf of social justice is because Urvashi opened a door and pushed me into uncharted waters. I will be forever grateful to have been in her orbit.

LPAC Board Member Alix Ritchie:

To be in a world without Urvashi is almost inconceivable – even for those of us who were marching along with her in her fight with cancer. And I say marching, because that is what she did – about almost everything, but especially for the equality of LGBTQ people and very specifically for women, gay or straight. I remember avidly discussing the ideas about bringing more lesbians to the table when political decisions are being made about their lives and their relative invisibility in the LGBT world – all of which led to the creation of LPAC. Urvashi was unrelenting in pushing all of us to be better, to just get more done. And we are all better for having been pushed! We have all been blessed by having Urv in our lives, and none more than Kate, who deserves every bit of love we can send her way right now.

Former LPAC Board Member Diane Felicio:

There was nothing like seeing Urvashi “in action.” Her entire self: body, eyes, voice, and soul were transformed. Urvashi, the message, the action, the cause became one. That was one of her many superpowers – she would use herself, in her entirety, to grab us, to make us look and see the injustices she refused to ignore, to propel us into action. It was a privilege for me to sit around the same table as Urvashi, to learn from all that she embodied, to share the floor with her at LPAC events, and to have countless one-on-one discussions as we crafted the future of LPAC. It is impossible for me to chronicle all that I absorbed from Urvashi, but I know this, anytime I think I am fighting hard for transformational change, I know I have to fight harder, because she would. She would always do more.

Former LPAC Board Member Emily Giske:
I got a call from Urvashi out of the blue and she suggested starting a new PAC, which eventually would became LPAC. I told her “let do this!” Urvashi made LPAC happen. A call from her was a calling card for good, exciting, important work. Urvashi was excellent at making things happen for the good of our community.

The post Remembering Urvashi Vaid first appeared on Lesbian.com.

If you’re old enough to remember “In Living Color,” you’ll recognize Michele Karlsberg from the sketch about the hard-working Jamaicans. Well, she wasn’t in the sketch, but she certainly embodied its punchline as an Italian ice vendor, T-shirt peddler, salami slicer, camp counselor and stock trader, to name only a few of the things she did before starting her own marketing and management firm with clients like lesbian comedian Kate Clinton.

Her choice of career isn’t surprising as her new career choice entails a wide array of activities that draw on her rich history.

What do you do and why?

I bring a unique combination of offerings to effectively carry out publicity and marketing campaigns for writers, organizations, businesses and entertainers. This year, I celebrate 25 years of publicity services. Marketing and management uses multiple resources in communications and marketing to tackle client challenges, whether at the local, regional, national or international level.

Bottom line is: I love what I do. If I could share my knowledge with others to help them move onward and upward then I am one happy gal. I am dedicated to building community and what better way than promoting books, organizations, businesses and the spoken word. I will always help bring forth new and established voices. I like publicizing the voices that need to be heard.

What did you do before you started your company?

Many things. I was a HSBC foreign exchange clerk, held an administrative job in advertising, worked at a health insurance company, babysitting, travel agent, patient liaison at a hospital, tour escort, camp counselor, pizza maker, T-shirt vendor for the Philharmonic Orchestra, traded penny stocks, sliced salami, production coordinator for 125 adult sophisticate magazines, worked at a toy store, sold Italian ice and was a patient liaison at a local hospital.

How did you come up with the idea for your company?

I was sitting in SFO airport in 1989 and an attendee of the annual Outwrite Writers Conference approached me and asked if I freelanced and if was I available for hire. My business is the result of that question.

What’s the single most important piece of advice you received when first starting your company? What would you tell a young entrepreneur in turn?

Work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself and never give up. I would tell anyone, especially the young to take chances. Yes, at times, it is not only about what you know but also who you know. Make connections, be that go-getter. Also, keep an open mind about teamwork.

What aspect of business ownership came as the biggest surprise to you?

How much attention is truly paid toward your own business. It is a 24-hour attention getter. You might not be at the desk, in a meeting or making phone calls, but the bottom line is it’s all day long. Your business is your subconscious.

What do you find most rewarding about owning your own business?

The travel and constant discovery.

Where do you see yourself and your company in five years?

When I first started my business, I did envision my name on a building in Manhattan, but now I will be very happy if my business in five years is as rewarding as it is today. If I can maintain the work, relationships and successful campaigns then I will be doing fine in five years.

What resources would you recommend to someone who is contemplating starting her own business?

Mentors. The importance of mentoring relationships becomes evident as you recognize the value of networking and maintaining relationships throughout your professional career. The value of a good mentor is immeasurable. If not for those who gave me an education in communications, I would not be where I am today. I thank them every chance I get.

What would you say is the single most important key to sustaining a business long term?

Honesty.

What obstacles did you face in establishing your company and how did you overcome them?

I was the only obstacle. I would tell myself I can’t do that. To get through any obstacle, I just told myself move aside and get out of your own way.

To connect with Michele Karlsberg, visit her on Facebook or Twitter.

The post Enterprising Women, Michele Karlsberg first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Lesbian comedians talk about why it’s important to come out of the closet.

The post It’s in to be out: A lesbian comedian mash up first appeared on Lesbian.com.

My little brother, Jim, once won a blue ribbon at a summer science fair. He played a pre-taped screech of the opening of our old refrigerator door causing Franklin, his pet hamster to do double time on his hamster wheel, thinking some iceberg lettuce was coming his way. Jim proved Pavlov right, and inadvertently predicted some later family food issues. Nonetheless we were proud of him.

The summer of 2012 was one of the biggest science fairs ever.

When the physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, it was 3 a.m. in the Brown University Physics lab. My friend, the I.T. go-to-gal there, said they had a champagne fueled all-nighter to honor the discovery of the Higgs field and the long work of one of their own labmates, a particle physicist who had worked on the boson for fifty years.

The confirmation of the discovery will help particle physicists understand the basic building blocks of matter and could open up a “new” physics beyond current theories.

It was another early morning when the Mars Space Landing spacecraft robotically and safely landed a third payload on Mars. The Curiosity, twice as long and five times as heavy as the two previous payloads, successfully completed the seven minutes of terror descent into the Martian atmosphere and nailed its landing in the Gale Crater. The scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab also popped some late night corks and rightly saluted their accomplishment.

What a pleasure to celebrate the achievements of real physicists and engineers!

The current state of anti-science is fact-free-and-proud, rife with assertions from the schvitzing climate change deniers, the we-only-go-back-4,000- years Creationist Theme park rangers, and the because-I-said-so social scientists.

Now I am not a scientist; I don’t even play one on TV (though for Halloween one year, I did dress up as Marie Curie). Though wildly excited by science news, I can barely grasp the implications of these mind-boggling discoveries. But one political science principle I do understand: For every scientific achievement there comes the inevitable opposite, but not at all equal, anti-science backlash.

The Higgs boson has been called, “the God Particle” and despite the fact that the phrase makes fact-based scientists’ skin crawl and blotch, expect recriminations from the I-don’t-need-no-stinking-beaker set: “How dare you reduce God to a particle? I and everyone in my church know that God is a big big Big Deal.”

Sunday’s sermon: Obamacare Makes God a Particle.

Descendants of conspiracy theorists who claimed the moon landing was some CIA shenanigans staged at a small studio in Torrance, California, will try to demonstrate thatCuriosity is a hoax. “See that shadow? Bigfoot.”

In the afterglow of Higgs boson and Curiosity, I wondered wistfully if they might be the last actual science we would ever see. Anti-scientists feel they already have all the fundamental answers to life’s questions. They are anti-curiosity and thus anti-life. Could it just be home-school baking soda volcanoes from here on out?

Meanwhile, you know that when the Earth’s heat gets even more unbearable, One Percent Airways will already have their summer schedule geared up for on-the-hour flights to Mars’s vineyard. They’re no dummies.

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. See more from the legendary Kate Clinton at KateClinton.com.

The post CommuniKate: The end of science first appeared on Lesbian.com.

If Sarah Palin asks again, I’m doing pretty good with “that hopey changey thing”.  I watched the Democratic Convention on CSPAN with USOpen breaks, except on opening night of football and that night there was some partisan bickering for clicker dominance. 

The post CommuniKate: DNC recap first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY KATE CLINTON

Really I don’t think I could have handled four nights of the GOP convention in Tampa. Thank goodness I was able to flip between tennis and the convention: The USOpen, The USClosed, US open, US closed.

It was like being in some horrible comedy club – Tampa’s Yuck Yuck [as in icky] Comedy Cellar. The opening acts were teabagging Governors, also-rans and up-and-comers roasting Obama, whom I choose to call President Obama. I don’t know if I was more disheartened by the stand-ups or the fact that they got such huge laughs in the hall.

The first night headliners were Ann Romney who wanted to talk to us about love, then Gov. Chris Christie who didn’t want to talk about love and mistakenly gave an angry acceptance speech. That made Condi Rice look like a reasonable person. The second night headliner VP nominee, Paul Ryan gave himself goose bumps and fact-checkers time and a half. The theme of the third night was “Awkward” and showcased Clint Eastwood, exhibit A of how the GOP will treat seniors and finally Mitt Romney, who succeeded by not being Clint Eastwood. Cue balloon drop and many many adorable blonde mini-mormons ignoring their parents.

The front of the house was chaotic and unfocused. Because the embedded media was fascinated with the train wreck of a convention, they never covered the backstage where all the cut-throat fund-raising and focused fat-cat deal-making was happening. The clever GOP ploy worked.

I am going to talk to an empty chair now.

The post CommuniKate: Recap of the GOP convention first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. See more from the legendary Kate Clinton at KateClinton.com.

The post CommuniKate: PUSAy riot! first appeared on Lesbian.com.

There seems to be a finite amount of freedom to go around. They gave some to the gays, so they’ve had to cut some from another group. Sadly they’ve had to take some from the ladies. Women are the new gays.

The takebacks include defunding Planned Parenthood, defunding contraceptives, de-personhooding women and other schemes to keep women down. It also doubles as a long-range GOP jobs program. Without childcare or pre-K programs, women with children have to stay home so men can take the jobs.

So called “rape jokes” are part of the takebacks. It’s about taking freedom — of assembly at a comedy club, in this case — away from women. Kudos to the courageous woman in the audience who said that rape jokes aren’t funny. Her statement is described as heckling. Her simple comment destabilized the daring Tosh. He responded by suggesting a gang rape.

I loathe the band of comic brothers [and sisters] with their mealy-mouthed chickenshit excuses for rape jokes. I loathe the equivalency examples in this national conversation: it would be as if a woman comic made a Bobbitizing joke, and some guy said that’s not funny and then she sicked all the gals with knives in the audience on the complainant. As if.

They talk freedom of speech, lecture about comic tradition and yes they have daughters and girlfriends and it pains them to defend their fellow comic Daniel Tosh but defend him they must.

To review: rape is not about sex. It’s about power and dominance. It’s true of prison rape, child rape, date rape which are also staples of comedy clubs. Comedy does club.

Do not even suggest that I don’t have a sense of humor. Get your rape joke heckle on. It’s apparently quite effective.

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. See more from the legendary Kate Clinton at KateClinton.com.

The post CommuniKate: Tosh point no first appeared on Lesbian.com.