Azurite Midnight

for people who think there are just too many labels

’Firefly’ Alum Ron Glass Passes Away At Age 71

Ron Glass, a prolific TV actor known for playing Ron Harris in the sitcom “Barney Miller” and Shepherd Derrial Book in “Firefly,” has died. He was 71.

When asked over and over why she was supporting Clinton, Steininger always had the same answer: experience. Clinton had the training and knowhow, she said, and Trump didn’t.

Trump’s presidency is “not going to affect me because I am going to die soon,” she said. “It’s my children and my grandchildren that I am concerned about. Because our country is going to be set back. That’s what Trump promised to do. A woman’s right to choose is out the window. Health insurance he’ll do away with. Same-sex marriage he is opposed to.

“We made a lot of progress in my lifetime and it looked like we’d make a lot more,“ she added. “Now, we are not.”

…

For Steininger, who has been sporting a handmade “Hillary ’16” sign on her walker since the caucus, early voting was the first milestone in her “plan,” as she called it. Beginning with her Christmas letter, she told her friends and family that she decided she had “to stay alive to vote for Hillary.”

With Clinton losing, Steininger said she isn’t sure she’d live long enough to complete that plan. And as the clock ticked past 11 p.m., then midnight and finally 1 a.m., Steininger’s hope faded and her body began folding in on itself.

“I want (Hillary) to know I did what I could and I am sorry,” she said. “There will be a woman voted president of the United States. It won’t be Hillary, but sooner or later there will be a woman voted president.”

HIV needs to be a part of the conversation when we talk about Mike Pence and ‘Hamilton’

After his speech to Pence, Brandon Victor Dixon asked the Hamilton audience to donate to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, an organization that works with several social service providers that benefit people living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. It’s “red bucket” season on Broadway, in which several theaters are collecting funds for the organization. Friday night at Hamilton was part of their Fall 2016 fundraising drive. As patrons left the theatre, queues of people exiting out into the street donated to BF/ECA volunteers holding red buckets. No reports mentioned whether Pence donated to BC/EFA. He did not immediately respond to Mic’s request for comment.

The Hamilton cast is currently led by Javier Muñoz, an HIV-positive out gay Puerto Rican. Whether people know about his HIV status, his presence on the Hamilton stage serves as a loud reminder that 1.2 million HIV-positive Americans are part of the tapestry that Dixon described in his message to Pence. For queer men of color like Muñoz, the stakes in the fight against HIV are particularly high. Queer black and Latino men face staggering rates of infection and government opposition, or even neglect, will lead to the infection of thousands more.

While Donald Trump hasn’t laid out plans to help people with HIV or to combat more than 40,000 infections in the United States in 2015, his running mate has adopted an almost sinister opposition to HIV treatment and prevention. Pence was an architect to an entire HIV outbreak in his home state of Indiana by gutting funding to Planned Parenthood, which was the only available HIV testing site for much of the state’s southeast counties. After the outbreak, Pence declined to listen to public health experts and implemented a needle exchange program that lasted only 30 days.

Aside from his actions, Pence’s words also don’t bode well for those living with or at risk for HIV acquisition.

“Keep politics out of theatre!”

“Keep politics out of music!”

“Keep politics out of comedy!”

“Keep politics out of film!”