Dashboard lets you edit your site yourself!

Dashboard is the name of my new, fully editable website service which allows you to log in and work on your website at any time from any computer with no special software or training. It works on a hosted framework with modularized components. Editing is a simple matter of clicking a module and adding your text. Page elements can be rearranged by dragging and dropping and it supports video and other multimedia. Some of the built-in features include:

• Integrated blog with comment moderation
• Integrated event calendar linkable to online registration and payment solutions
• Easy to create photo galleries and slideshows
• Secure contact forms
• And more!

Plans start at just a buck a day ($30/mo.) Several projects are rolling now, I’ll post links as soon as we’re live. Super exciting!

Powerful association sites

After more than a year of research and testing I’ve adopted two new providers for membership and nonprofit association-based websites. For members-only groups I am now offering a full implementation of GroupSites, a terrific web based service similar to Facebook. Groupsites gives your users the ability to create an online profile and share documents, chat, and exchange information regarding their association activities. Say goodbye to the cumbersome logins and links of Yahoo and Google Groups and enjoy the ease and simplicity of an association built to your needs.

Ning is an amazingly powerful online community builder which allows individuals to find, join and share in relation to shared interests. For nonprofits and other community-based organizations Ning offers an incredible toolset for connecting people and inspiring them to action. Some of it’s features include user profiles, member activity & status, multimedia, internal subgroup pages, fully-integrated blog, and a growing number of third developer apps which extend the core system exponentially. The service is free with ads or you can pay a small monthly fee to be ad free or even run your own ad program. It’s flippin’ amazing! I am now offering a full Ning website implementation package and have two Ning sites in development right now, I’ll post links to them as soon as we’re live.

Drag Queens and Astronauts

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots on June 27th in NYC. I recently heard a radio story about the moon landing on July 20th, 1969 and it suddenly dawned on me that the two events transpired within a month of each other. Presumably few people knew about the riots in New York and everyone watched the lunar landing but nevertheless, they are inextricably linked in the moment’s cultural zeitgeist.

Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson

Pondering that thought brought me visions of drag queens and astronauts. I wonder where Marsha P. Johnson was on the day of the moon landing. Barely a month after she fought back against police at the Stonewall Inn, did she sit in a smokey bar and watch Americans landing on the moon? It must have felt like the whole world was changing. Indeed, her longtime friend and fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera summed up the moment “I’m not missing a minute of this, it’s the revolution.” Appropriately, she and Marsha went on to found the organization STAR – Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
The progress in technology and civil rights since that summer forty years ago is amazing. I’d love to see what Marsha would make of today’s gay pride celebrations. But we haven’t been back to the moon or continued on to any other planets. And the gay rights movement is still trapped in the narrow minded, assimilationist tactics that characterized it in the late 60’s. Where are our flying cars? Where is the queer movement that looks beyond equality to actually honor and value the transgender heroes who stepped out of the shadows to fight for all of us?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. As we marvel over another successful shuttle launch comingled with the weekend’s Pride parade I’m grateful to Marsha P. Johnson … up there watching it all.

Heartbreaking protests in Iran

Neda Sultani is the name of a woman who was shot by the Iranian Militia as she left a peaceful protest with her music teacher in a pro-Democracy gathering in Tehran, Iran on June 20th. She was not politically aligned, she was not violently protesting or confronting police, she was simply an ordinary Iranian. She was shot by snipers and died almost instantly, she was 27. “Neda wanted freedom, freedom for everyone,” said Kaspeen Makan, her fiancee.

Basiji Mil

Cookie Dance!

My cool little cousin Bria (Gabriella) in Seattle is selling Girl Scout Cookies to go to Horse Camp. Check out her Cookie Dance:

Want to order some?: Email: brookenbria@gmail.com Please feel free to call and ask Gabriella any questions you may have on the cookies.  This is her 3^rd year and she has lots of information. Gabriella is a member of troop #2770.  The troop is full of fun and energetic girls & Moms and they have lots of plans for this upcoming year.  Including camping trip, horse back riding, sewing, plus lots of other fun suggestions.  A portion of the proceeds of the cookie sale will go directly towards Gabriella’s Girl Scout troop.

Cookie orders can be placed from January 9th – 25th. Cookies are distributed to troops in late February. Cash & checks are joyfully accepted (payments made when cookies are delivered)

Thank you for your support of Girl Scouts!