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Calendar.
August 30. 11:30 a.m. Edgewater Mutual Aid
August 31. 11:00 a.m. Edgewater Presbyterian Church
August 31. 3:00 p.m. Viet Vo
September 1-3. Elmwood Park
September 7. 11:00 a.m. Edgewater Presbyterian Church
September 7. TBA. Mary Beth
September 9. 1:00 p.m. Homeland Security Fall Religious Observance Safety and Security Briefing
September 13. 8:30 a.m. Chicago Presbytery Assembly at Garrett Theological Seminary
September 27. 10:00 a.m. Session Records Review Meeting at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago
Announcements.
Gerry became President of Evanston Nouveau Rotary Club on July 1, 2025.
Gerry became a Rotary Foundation Paul Harris Fellow and sustaining member.
Gerry was appointed Clerk of Session on February 13, 2022 and re-appointed each year since.
For business related to the former publications Gay Chicago Magazine, Chicago Phoenix, and Opus Media, please refer to legal counsel.
Gerry is currently on leave as editor of GoPride.com—Chicago’s LGBT news site.

President of Evanston Nouveau Rotary Club 2025-26
Recent reading.
Did you know? Gerry reads every single day for at least one hour. He’s even successfully done this through two stays in the ICU at the hospital.
As of August 8, 2025, Gerry has read 1,578 days in a row or 227 weeks in a row, non-stop.
Recent writing.
Go forth and set the world on fire? Pour the gasoline
To set the world on fire is not to destroy it. It’s to light it up with the Truth.
They kept going like Job; people who faced devastation but endured
When I think of Job, I think of others across history who have walked through devastation and somehow carried on.
A message for an activist feeling alone
You feel attacked. Even by your allies at times. You feel like you’re standing alone.
Slavery exists today. Here’s where you’ll find it
If a person cannot walk away without being crushed by debt, violence, or threats, they are not free.
Yes, the Civil War was about economics. The economy was slavery
It is nonsense to claim that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
WWII Japanese occupation in the Ilocos region
My great-grandparents, grandparents, and relatives lived under that shadow, and their stories connect me directly to those dark years.
Words held our nation together; where are the words for now
If only our leaders would see language not as a weapon to divide but as a thread to weave us back together.
Did you know? There was an Ilocano independence war in the 1700s
Ethnolinguistic tribes throughout the Philippine archipelago are increasingly interested in delving into their unique pre-colonial roots that made them unique to the Tagalogs—whose language and culture was forced on them.
Poem for Ava Michel Hudson; I didn’t know you, I didn’t know your name
Stability collapsed under the weight of daily erasure, in a uniform that boxed you, in pronouns that froze your breath.
Lack of prophetic voice on Gaza by Protestants repeats Pope’s silence during Holocaust
The Vatican got it wrong during World War II. Are we mainline Protestants repeating history with our lackluster messaging about Gaza and Trumpism?
In memoria della zia Beth
My father’s first cousin, Elizabeth Farinas Callejo Laici of Porto Recanati, Italy, has passed away.
'Billy Budd' was subversively gay; new opera makes it explicit
It was my favorite of Herman Melville's novellas. The gayness in it was unsaid subtext. A French stage production brings the secret out into the open.
Did you know? America almost ended HIV/AIDS housing program HOPWA
“This is just cruel,” said David Fields, a longtime HIV/AIDS housing advocate and case worker in Wisconsin and now doing similar work in Chicago.
An asylum-seeker mom and kids at the grocery store doors
Morning observation at the Green Bay Road Jewel in Wilmette, Illinois.
CBS cancels Stephen Colbert; definitely Trump bribe for media merger
It’s the highest-rated show on late-night television. Colbert has been voice for anti-Trumpism.
John MacArthur is dead; put his name on Bibles, said gays, women should be quiet
May his theology of exclusion die with him.
Rescissions vote aims to finalize cuts to NPR, PBS; endanger public journalism
Public media is necessary in a democracy, especially in a capitalist society that values commercially-driven messaging.
Cuomo is kneecapping Dems by challenging Mamdani; he’s protecting party elites
This is the branch of the Democratic Party that will sabotage the people’s choice to keep themselves in control.

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black lives matter
Please support: Black Lives Matter NAACP Color of Change
