Guest Post: How to Survive and Thrive? Under Trump

CN: Satire, Trump, disturbing images Everywhere that I turn this week I find advice, demands, and grief over the direction 73,455,333 American voters have steered us. It is a dark hour, but it is not the only dark hour. Our elders and ancestors have walked through dark times, so I asked some of them to share […]

Guest Post by Lenore Dingus: Haudenosaunee-Seneca Perspective on Resiliency and Persistence

Indigenous peoples have come full circle from thriving to surviving, and back again. Everywhere that I turn this week I find advice, demands, and grief over the direction 73,455,333 American voters have steered us. It is a dark hour, but it is not the only dark hour. Our elders and ancestors have walked through dark times, […]

Why is Indigenous Peoples Day so important? 

By Lee Dingus, a Pittsburgh based Haudenosaunee – Seneca artist and educator, Founder of Echoes of the Four Directions Why is Indigenous Peoples Day so important?  Indigenous People’s Day recognizes the resilience of my ancestors and the legacy I carry with me, my grandmothers. It is a day dedicated to the impact colonialism had on my […]

Guest Post: Where Oh Where Has the Pittsburgh Gay Nightlife Gone?

By Jazmine Butterfly  As I was out last night I realized everything is gone! The 90s in Pittsburgh were epic! …I mean at least to me they were! There was so much TGBLQ nightlife that we had a schedule on what bars were hopin’ on any particular night.  Take for instance tonight is Thursday everybody […]

Open Letter to Pittsburgh On-Air Radio Talent From Father of Black Trans Teen

Protect Trans Kids

Sean O’Donnell and his family have had a rough year coping with a transphobic neighbor’s harassment. They’ve responded by holding her accountable in multiple courts of law and by supporting the #ProtectTransKids projects. Hearing the transphobic ad airing in Pittsburgh’s media market is a step too far. After he learned that the staff at KISS […]

Guest Post: Ukrainian Kokum Scarf and Indigenous People

Kokum Grandmother Scarrf

First published on Facebook by Lenora “Lee” DingusNod-doh-wa-ge-no (Seneca) Artist of Echoes of the Four Directions This Is a kokum scarf or grandmother scarf. Kokum means grandmother in Cree. Today It’s a piece of cloth used in powwows by jingle dancers “as a method of prayer while dancing with pow-wow dresses, It was all so […]

Guest Post for International Lesbian Day: A Boomer’s Bar Life in Pittsburgh

I first met Sue B. a few years ago on social media. She and my wife had mutual friends so we began corresponding and dining out together back when we did those thing. I begged and pleaded with her to put her recollections of queer women’s history into writing. There’s very little first person documentarian […]

Guest Post: Pumpkin spice is white culture

My friend Ashley shared this on Facebook. It struck me hard, so I asked her to submit as a guest post. She agreed. ~ Sue I don’t make fun of pumpkin spice stuff (which I have, like, once a year) because it’s “feminine”. I make fun of it because it’s white culture. I also make […]

Guest Blog Post: Fever sale? How COVID-19 is affecting this particular arts-based small business.

Small Business COVID-19 Coronavirus

I’m coping by trying to focus on practical, actionable, data-driven preventative measures we can take to assist the most at-risk people in our families and communities. The following is a post I wrote last Thursday, March 12, on the Facebook page for my business, Etna Print Circus. I chose to share it with a couple […]

Phat Man Dee “I remember the Holocaust so that I can see it happening to other people and speak against it.”

Phat Man Dee International Holocaust Day of Remembrance

A guest blog post from Phat Man Dee on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2020   As a child it never occurred to me that people would not remember the Holocaust. After all, who could forget something that stole so many branches of my family tree? It was this deep understanding of horror in my […]