Hasta La Gadget!

Everyone is always so quick to judge, especially parents. It’s so easy these days, with 24-hour news feeds, apps, and the internet to read or hear a story pertaining to the misfortune of a child and assume the parents were negligent in some way. We obliterate them within seconds of hearing a child was hurt – or worse – and without any facts, criticize their parenting skills and ask how they could have let that happen.

Well, of course, I have made rash remarks about other parents before getting the facts because it makes me feel better as a mom. It’s easy to say that you would never let your child do something that would put them in danger, only to realize that you have but been lucky enough to have had nothing happen to them. It’s actually a typical day for me with my youngest, who, by all other accounts, is the most daring and adventurous little man. He’s fearless, which is terrifying for me and makes my days filled with worry, extra precautions, and the anticipation that a trip to the ER is on the verge.

So was the case about three weeks ago. It finally happened. It didn’t make national news and my son is fine, but it happened. I took my eyes off of him for too long and my worst nightmare happened. My bold two-year-old let himself in the pool while I went to get his floaties.

He was right there.

Then he wasn’t.

When I realized where he had gone, I ran over to where he struggled beneath the surface of the water and I pulled him out. LET ME JUST SAY, the fear on his face while he tried desperately to swim under the water, will haunt me forever. Once he was out, he coughed up all the water he had swallowed. I was with some friends and we did everything we knew to make sure he was comfortable and safe.

Here’s the thing, I’m a trained water safety instructor and lifeguard. This shouldn’t have happened to me. I’ve been a mom for nearly a decade and I would never call myself neglectful. I was getting his damn floaties when he walked away from me so quickly. He didn’t jump in, he got in slowly and quietly. I know I’m not a bad parent, the kind the media would have painted of me had he drowned or had some serious condition from secondary drowning. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the overwhelming fear of secondary drowning that accompanies a near drowning experience; again, something I’ve been educated on for nearly 15 years. Because I wasn’t quite sure how long he was under for, we made an evening trip to the emergency room to have some chest x-rays done and to rule out secondary drowning.

Thank God he was fine.

But it was a close one. I’m not sharing this to warn people about the crazy shit that can happen to our kids, but to let other moms know that you can be a damn near helicopter parent and still, bad thing will happen. Scary, near death experiences can still happen to non-neglectful parents. It happened to me, and it changed me forever.

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On June 24th, we all woke up to the Brexit future. While we knew it was plausible, for many it didn’t seem probable and for some it was not discussable. In recent weeks, however, I had the opportunity to informally discuss post-Brexit scenarios with a number of high-level decision-makers and advisors, in the public and private sectors. Here some thoughts I thought might be useful to share more broadly.

While staying in the EU would not have guaranteed an easy or predictable road for the UK, Brexit has killed the business-as-usual future. In the new bigger picture, the key uncertainties turn around the dynamics of the exit negotiation table and the evolution of the broader international context.

Without stability on both sides of the table – UK and EU – the exit may be rough, turbulent and prolonged. According to the Lisbon Treaty, once the UK officially informs the EU that it wants to leave – triggering Article 50 of that treaty – then formal negotiations must be concluded within two years. What is less certain, because there is no precedent, is how much informal negotiating might happen before Article 50 is formally invoked.

Outgoing UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will leave invoking Article 50 to his successor, who is not expected to be in place before October. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, meanwhile, has stated that he wants the formal process to begin quickly. But some insiders I spoke with wonder if the informal negotiations could drag on for months or even years.

On the EU side, the urgency to start the negotiations is understandable. If the preparatory dance is allowed to spill into 2017, when we will have presidential elections in France and federal elections in Germany, the dance partners and their mindsets could change.. There is also the simmering possibility of more referendum demands, with candidates including the Netherlands (Nexit) and Sweden (Swexit).

On the UK side, the incoming prime minister will need to create a negotiating position that commands broad support, given the closeness of the vote and the starkness of regional polarization – Scotland and London voting heavily to remain in the EU, with Wales and other parts of England tipping the balance. Some expectations of citizens who voted leave may prove challenging to satisfy. And whatever deal is eventually agreed could take as much as a decade to implement.

None of this will occur in a vacuum. The negotiations table stands on shifting global sands – economic and governance landscapes are in flux. . A fresh financial crisis cannot be ruled out. Some posit Brexit might trigger far reaching de-globalisation and exacerbate geopolitical disputes in other world regions. Even without such extreme scenarios, instability in the Middle East, rising pressures on migration from Africa and Russian relations will continue to shape the immediate European neighborhood, which Brexit cannot escape.

The new global context of the exit negotiations is characterized by shifting powers and technological transformation. Technological revolutions – digital, robotic, artificial intelligence and bio – will continue to profoundly reshape the global economy, international trade and the competitive dynamics within generations and between societies. These global shifts are beyond the control of any one government and redefine the challenges for every government in delivering prosperity, jobs, equality and security.

Although opinions diverge on the prospects of job creation, a plausible scenario is a future of ‘jobless growth’, where wealth and consumption increase but citizens have fewer opportunities to earn a stable income through paid and permanent jobs as automation moves up the skills ladder. Surgery by robots is already reality. On the other hand, as entrepreneurship and value creation shift to the digital economy, self-generated livelihoods will become increasingly common. But can the rising freelancer economy enable societies as a whole to flourish? The nature of work and global economic activity will be fundamentally transformed over the next 20 years. Without better and more collaborative policies, demographic- and digital- divides and dividends could result in greater social and intergenerational inequalities.

In response, revenue and redistribution mechanisms will need to be rethought – the concept of a guaranteed minimum income is already being considered by some countries. New policy challenges will include how to tax knowledge and generate revenue from the freelancer economy; enable access to private data in the public interest; ensure fair trade in intermediaries (e.g. digital templates); and, rethink intellectual property in the context of the global digital commons?

Technological evolution is stripping away the advantages of being big, resource-rich, and medium skilled or low-cost labour, leaving the capacity to innovate as the only source of competitive advantage.

As ideas on new economic, social and governance models emerge to respond to these global shifts there is a risk for increased polarisation, resulting for example in economic protectionism, deteriorating social cohesion and trade wars amongst nations.

The EU and UK will not only have to work their divorce arrangements, all sides will also need to continue to cooperate on supporting societies to cope with and flourish from these wider technological, economic and geopolitical shifts.

The UK’s leave campaign won on the slogan “take control”. But in reality, no nation can really fully control its own future in a more connected and interdependent world. And no island or region can flourish alone. In deciding to leave the European Union, the UK may have created tough questions for both sides of the negotiating table: who are “we”, what do we want to “become” and are we prepared to keep collaborating to navigate the turbulence ahead?

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Conservatives often excoriate the “liberal media.” The Media Research Center, a content analysis organization, brands itself as a vehicle to “expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the left: the national news media.” After an unflattering political cartoon featuring his two daughters, then Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz bewailed how “desperate the liberal media is to attack and destroy me.”

If the media is so unabashedly liberal, logic would dictate that liberals would praise the institution, yet the left is just as quick to lambaste “the corporate Media” (often referred to as “the conservative media”) as the right is to upbraid the “liberal media.” Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders maintains: “The media is an arm of the ruling class of this country.” He asserts: “I think what you have is a corporate media, which by definition has conflicts of interest.” The liberal organization known as Media Matters dedicates itself “to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

It would seem impossible that both sides are correct. However, in its simplest form the media is simply a means of transmitting information. It is not an organism capable of existing on its own. Media is rather an all-encompassing term. Ideologues of all political persuasions cherry pick those parts of the media they don’t like, while ignoring those which are sympathetic to their causes.

Surveys show that the overwhelming number of American journalists are left- leaning. A 2015 poll taken by Indiana University Journalism professors David Weaver and Lars Willnat showed that Democratic journalists outnumber Republicans Journalists by more than four to one and that an overwhelming 90% of Washington correspondents vote Democrat.

This is a natural result of a free market system. Individuals with a liberal mindset tend to gravitate toward careers like Social Services, theater, academia, and journalism. Alternatively, those who gravitate toward industries like construction, oil gas, as well as coal, and agriculture tend to be conservative.

However, this only accounts for the so-called mainstream media. Liberals would be correct to point to a conservative media bias. For example, they can point to the influential talk radio sphere. In 2015, Talkers Magazine ranked four of the top five most influential radio talk show hosts as conservatives. The top two were conservative raconteurs Rush Limbaugh who raked in 13.25 million listeners weekly and Sean Hannity who pocketed about 12.5 million listeners. Fans of these programs eschew mainstream media sources, believing they are accruing the unvarnished truth from these sources. Limbaugh jokes: “There is no need for a truth detector. I am the truth detector.”

Americans no longer receive their news from a single source. The media is now fragmented. Liberals can listen to NPR, read The New York Times, and watch MSNBC. Conservatives can listen to conservative talk radio, read the Wall Street Journal, and watch Fox News. Accordingly, they choose to use the media as an echo chamber rather than a place to garner information. With so many different choices of media, many Americans engage in “confirmation bias.” They search for sources which will fortify their preformulated beliefs, rather than challenge them. A liberal is more likely to watch an interview on Democracy NOW with progressive linguist Noam Chomsky, whereas a conservative is more likely to watch Sean Hannity interview conservative commentator Denish D’Souza.

It has become conventional belief that the media is supposed to be objective. Yet objectivity is unattainable. By choosing which part of a story to emphasize, which sources to use, and the order of the stories, media organizations exhibit bias.

During the early days of the Republic, the media was expected to be biased. In fact, it was blatantly partisan. The nation’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, an exponent of an expansive Federal Government, founded The Gazette of the United States with friend John Fenno. Hamilton used his office to award printing contracts to Feno. The Publication made no attempt to be neutral. It advocated for Hamilton’s viewpoint.

Hamilton’s rival, U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who advocated a limited-purpose Federal Government, countered by co-founding The National Gazette with publisher Philip Freneau. Jefferson granted Freaneau authority to print State Department documents.

Throughout much of the Nineteenth Century, newspapers were mostly partisan propaganda machines. Many news reporters actually doubled as aides to politicians. In 1884, the Republican Los Angeles Times did not even report the election of Democrat Grover Cleveland as President for about a week. The newspaper had published an editorial supporting the Republican Presidential nominee James G. Blaine titled: “Six reasons Blaine will be triumphantly elected.”

Republicans can draw uproarious applause by using the media as a boogeyman. This is a tactic used often, sometimes by moderate Republicans to galvanize their more conservative base. At the 1964 Republican National Convention, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who many Republicans viewed with suspicion for his moderate politics, brought down the house by berating: “Sensation-seeking columnists and commentators, who couldn’t care less about the future of our party.” In 1992, President George H.W. Bush would often try to relate to conservative voters by quoting a bumper sticker which read: “Annoy the media. Re-elect the President.”

Democrats have also used the media as a boogeyman. In 1994, Bill Clinton lashed out at the negative media coverage that he halted air transportation at Los Angeles International Airport so he could get his haircut on the runway aboard Air Force One. Clinton told KMOX radio in St. Louis, Missouri: “Did you know there were press people on the aircraft carrier? Did you know that the carrier had been fully reimbursed out of the private pocket of a White House staff member who was so upset about it? No. Why didn’t you know about that? Because the press reporting it didn’t say so.”

In 1990 Massachusetts Democratic Gubernatorial nominee John Silber answered a seemingly innocuous question asked by Natalie Jacobson of WCVB-TV in Boston about his biggest weakness this way: “You find a weakness. I don’t have to go around telling you what’s wrong with me. The media have manufactured about 16,000 nonexistent qualities that are offensive and attributed them all to me. Let them have their field day. You can pick any one of them.”

The term media encompasses everything from newspapers to talk radio to television to any other means of transmitting information. The person who transmits the information will have a bias. That is unavoidable. All sides of the political spectrum can point to some facet of the media as being partial and against them. For liberals, that can include conservative talk radio hosts, FOX NEWS, The Drudge Report, ect. For conservatives, that can include MSNBC, NPR, and The New York Times. Some sources suffer from crosscurrents of indignation from the left for having a corporate bias and from the right for having a liberal bias.

A true consumer of news must employ an analytical prism when trying to find the truth behind any story. It is often better to view contravening sources and research their validity rather than gathering information as the gospel truth from any source. As the essayist E.B. White phrased it: “I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular.”

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As this month of June 2016 winds itself down, I find it a bit sad that all the visibility, the happiness, the support, even mixed with this year’s tragedy, that occurred during PRIDE month is, at least on the calendar coming to an end.

For me the idea of PRIDE really is something that lasts year round.

It makes no difference to me whether what started out as a celebration of being different; first being LG, then LGB, then LGBT; then LGBTQ; and adding LGBTQIA. Bring on the alphabet I say, as my own sense is that PRIDE is not only about a member of a certain group – although that is in itself important, but the PRIDE to just being you! Being authentic, no matter what that may mean to you, and learning to accept yourself, without having to meet some one else’s expectations.

PRIDE has become focused on the nature of one’s sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. Through my entire life, while I was hidden, living in fear, shame and confusion on how and where did I fit in, I knew that these my gender identity and sexual orientation were only some of my identities and did not truly represent the entirety of who I am. I had so much trouble understanding why society seemed to teach me that I needed to hide, and that how I knew myself to be was wrong, and bad. Hiding my truth created shame in me, and I would do anything to not let anyone find out my truth.

As you know, for people like me, who hide some aspect of their identity, it usually does not work out well. We lie to ourselves and then share these lies with others. We learn to do this so well, we may not even be aware we are doing it.

We may feel we are incomplete, and never be able to face it, to deal with it, to share it. We may struggle with not having pride in who we really are.

Until……

…there is that point that that we can hide no longer.

Even then, the road is challenging and we need to see and be inspired by those who have travelled similar roads before us.

…

I know I could not be where I am today without all those who led the way before me. It is easy for me now to get up on a soapbox and announce to anyone who will listen that nothing is impossible. I did not believe this for well over fifty years myself. However, I know that it is like taking a step off of a cliff.

In my book I wrote about it.

I, too, was reaching the edge of a cliff and was preparing to take a leap. However, I did not have a parachute strapped to my back. No matter how much I was preparing to take this leap, I had no equipment, no security, and no idea where I would land.

I reached the point in my life where taking this leap was no longer a matter of choice. It was necessary. I spent years, no decades, hiding and in denial, not only to myself–but to every- one I ever knew. It was exhausting. It impacted every waking moment of my life. I could never answer the simple question, “Who am I?”

I was ready to take the leap to live authentically.

For me, achieving self-acceptance that I am transsexual and was ready to do something about it, this cliff was quite high; I had no idea where the ground was.

As I leaned over the edge (speaking metaphorically here) the question at hand was whether my life was ending or beginning or was the reality that it was both? I did not feel like a Phoenix, triumphantly rising from the ashes of my previous being. After all, I was not a youngster, and I had lived a lot of life.

I could not turn back. I could no longer stay where I was. I had to leap.

…

It is now more than five years since I took the leap. I know I have been lucky and had a safe landing. I know not everyone does.

Without PRIDE, and seeing those who have landed and been open and free to be themselves I am not certain that I would have taking my own leap of faith.

No matter what letter or identities you may want to add to the growing acronyms that represent the PRIDE communities, I think that at some point in our lives, we all need to take a leap of faith that it is not just OK to live our authentic life, but that we must. Not only for ourselves, but how can we model and encourage others to take their own leaps without fear of abandonment.

This message is one not just to be celebrated only each June.

PRIDE lasts all year long!

###

Grace Stevens transitioned at the age of 64 and holds a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology. She is the author of No! Maybe? Yes! Living My Truth, an intimate memoir of her journey to live authentically. Grace is available for speaking with Live Your Truth: Discover Paths to Improved Performance. Grace’s new book Musings on Living Authentically will be available soon. Visit her website at: http://www.graceannestevens.com/. Follow Grace on Twitter: www.twitter.com/graceonboard .

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Days after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, leading British politicians face infighting with their parties, anger from voters and confusion over what their future holds. The political chaos of Brexit has now left what Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called “a vacuum of leadership” in Britain. 

The Brexit vote has already caused Prime Minister David Cameron to resign, opening up a battle for who will take over the Conservative Party. Over the weekend, the opposition Labour Party also descended into turmoil as a number of prominent party members revolted against leader Jeremy Corbyn. 

While the “remain” side deals with an expected backlash from their loss, leaders of the victorious “leave” camp are also coming under fire amid economic crisis and accusations of broken promises. Former London Mayor Boris Johnson and U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage have both been on the defensive in the wake of the vote, as many of the warnings regarding Brexit’s effect on the economy come to fruition.

Here’s a roundup of where the United Kingdom’s major Brexit campaigners now stand after the referendum.

David Cameron

Cameron promised the referendum during last year’s election as a way to stave off pressure from UKIP and quell dissenting voices from within his conservative party. This gamble proved to be a disaster for the prime minister, who fervently backed the losing “remain” camp. Cameron announced on Friday he would resign by October — setting the stage for a leadership battle for who will be the country’s next PM. 

In the short term, Cameron remains as the country’s prime minister and will oversee some of the preparations for Brexit. On Monday, he announced to parliament that the government would form a special unit of government workers to provide recommendations of how to exit the EU. 

Cameron has made clear that he will not be the one to handle the process of Brexit, however, and has refrained from triggering Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon treaty that initiates a two-year negotiation period for Britain to leave the union. The prime minister also ruled out the possibility of a second referendum, after an online petition to hold another vote gained significant media attention.

Jeremy Corbyn

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is currently grappling with serious challenges to his leadership, after a revolt from within his party over the weekend. A number of Labour MPs are openly criticizing Corbyn for refusing to do more to support the “remain” campaign during the lead-up to the referendum, some going as far as to call his actions “sabotage” and demand he step down. 

At least 19 members of the party have resigned from Corbyn’s shadow ministry team since the vote, and shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn was fired. Corbyn will face a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, as Labour Party opponents mount an effort to oust him from the party’s top job.

Corbyn has had a contentious relationship with many Labour Party politicians since he was elected last year, which the fallout from Brexit has pushed to a boiling point. On Monday, Corbyn spoke to a rally of supporters in London’s Parliament Square to call for unity in the party, while allies pledged to ensure he stayed on as leader.

Nicola Sturgeon

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been one of the few politicians in either the “remain” or the “leave” camps to come out after the referendum with something of a plan in place, as well as support from her party. Sturgeon has vowed to keep Scotland in the European Union and says she will talk to officials in Brussels about ways to make that happen.

Scots voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU during the Brexit referendum, and many in the country have since expressed their anger that Scotland will be pulled out of the union against its will. Sturgeon may push for a second Scottish independence referendum that would allow the country to remain in the EU while breaking away from the United Kingdom.

Polls in the wake of the Brexit vote show a surge in support for Scotland’s independence, though a referendum in 2014 saw the majority of the country reject the idea. 

Sturgeon has also floated the notion that Scottish parliament could potentially veto the Brexit decision and challenge the referendum on a constitutional basis.

Boris Johnson

Former mayor of London Boris Johnson was a prominent face of the “leave” campaign, and now stands as a favorite to succeed David Cameron as prime minister. In the wake of the vote, however, it has become evident that Johnson and the anti-EU camp lack a cohesive plan to implement Brexit.

On Monday, Johnson’s promise that the United Kingdom would retain access to the EU’s single market even after it left the bloc appeared to be shot down. Such a notion is a “pipe dream,” according to EU diplomats speaking to The Guardian. EU leaders also stated on Monday that there will be no informal talks on Brexit before Britain invokes Article 50, countering Johnson’s claims that there was no rush to start the process.

Johnson has been largely out of the public eye in the wake of the vote, staying at his house in the countryside and writing an opinion piece for Britain’s The Telegraph that pledged “Britain is a part of Europe, and always will be.” In the piece, Johnson also denied that immigration anxieties played a leading role in why “leave” won the vote, despite using anti-immigration rhetoric during the campaign.

Nigel Farage

UKIP leader Nigel Farage was a controversial and outspoken presence for the “leave” campaign, at times garnering condemnation from both sides for his scare-mongering and xenophobic attitudes toward immigration. Following the Brexit vote, however, Farage has had to walk back some of his claims and attempt to reframe the economic crisis facing Britain.

On Sunday, Farage denied that the drop in British currency’s value and dire forecasts for the future of the U.K. economy were the result of Brexit.

A much-circulated video the day after the vote featured Farage walking back the “leave” campaign’s prominent claim that the U.K. could spend 350 million pounds a week on the national health service if it left the EU and didn’t have to pay dues to the union.

“It was one of the mistakes I think that the ‘leave’ campaign made,” Farage said on “Good Morning Britain.”

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