Robert StGenis Voice empowered

  This is written on the morning of June 15, 2021, the day California is lifting restrictions. According to the New York Times, which has been tracking with at least daily updates throughout the pandemic, as of 6/14/2021, California has had 3,803,531 cases or 9,626 per 100,000 residents. According to the US Census Bureau, as of April 1, 2020, the population of the Golden state is 39,538,223. Based on these numbers, roughly 10.4% of the state's population had a positive Covid-19 test. Some argue how cases are counted, whether someone who has more than one positive Covid-19 test is being counted more than once, but then again, there are those laying on their death bed with Covid-19 insisting it does not exist. This resulted in 63,149 deaths or 160 per 100,000 people. You would think it's harder to argue deaths, though as I just mentioned above, not only do some people deny COVID really exists, but some say things like "well they had a heart condition, had cancer..." The...

Most recently, I've been writing almost exclusively on my junior and senior years of high school. While laws and in turn, parents, were more permissive, my experiences were not the ordinary; good, bad and otherwise up for discussion. The 80s were all about excess and our generation probably screwed it up for future ones, or saved you, depending on how you look at it. There were a great deal of questions about testimony given and statements during the hearings... I thought it was highly questionable then, all the more now, that most people remember without a doubt who attended a high school party 30 years ago, let alone what might have gone on in a bedroom they were not in at the time. I do believe and have had experiences where certain things stand clearly in my mind. If you read Being a Junior , I remember that the guy that entered my bathroom stall had a classic London Fog or similar rain coat and black or dark brown curly hair. I remember I had a patchwork patterned sweater w...

I don't even recall exactly how Laura and I rented a cabin in the Poconos, though I had a failsafe fake ID and a credit card. My parents seemed to most of the time allow me to do most things without much concern, even at 17 years old and still in high school. Laura came up from Toms River and we traveled some 75 miles or more into the Poconos in Pennsylvania. My close friend Steve in Baltimore whom I knew from the beach (in DelMarVa they refer to "the beach" while "down the shore" is purely a "Jersey thing") at the Sea Colony and his Catholic School buds were coming to the Poconos on a school trip and I was determined we would all be there. We met on February 1, 1986 or perhaps it was the Friday evening prior, January 31 which would be logical. (I only know this because I wrote it on the back of photos. I hardly have that good of memory!) Laura & Steve We all had a great time, to my best recollection, but I had to get them back to...

I used to serve on Victory Campaign Board of Victory Fund. The  Victory Fund  is much like Emily's List with it's objective being in increasing the presence of openly LGBTQ elected officials at all levels of government throughout the US. Now, they, or at least their nonprofit institute, is reaching beyond the US, at least at training people to run for office. It was taking their Campaign & Candidate training, which was some of the more memorable, intense 3 days of training I may have ever taken, that not only brought me into the Victory Fund, but also led me to leave my career in Real Estate and become a political consultant, starting as a Campaign Manager for a state assembly candidate who was a Mayor of a Southern California town and on my team in the training. I still maintain friendships from my time with the organization and may well get involved again at some juncture. It is a commitment, but it always proved to be rewarding. I think it was the first year I was ser...