Image by Dari Oberholster from Pixabay 

School of Hard Knocks

In Grand Island, Neb., the school year ended with a bang. Make that a stomp.

The final issue of the year of the Northwest High School student newspaper, the Viking Saga, included a story on how Pride month came to be, and an editorial opposing Florida's Don't Say Gay law. Three days later, school administrators shut down the 54-year-old publication. Though officials aren't being transparent about the reason, one school district employee wrote in an email that it was "because the school board and superintendent are unhappy with the last issue's editorial content."

These Nebraska officials feel as warmly toward a free press as Vladimir Putin.

The local newspaper, The Grand Island Independent, is doggedly pursuing the story. It ran a photo of two of the Viking Saga's former staffers, one of whom is transgender, holding a Progress Pride flag outside their high school.

That picture and the saga of the Saga underscored for me that, no matter how heavy-handed Nebraska school administrators—and Florida legislators—get these days, they've already lost. If queer youth, supported by allies, are out in rural America, they won't go back.

The genie is out of the bottle. And he's fabulous.

The officials, on the other hand, are putzes.

The Grouch

Image:  Atlas Obscura

Just Sayin'

Atlanta police are looking for the man who spray-painted swastikas this week on the city's rainbow-painted crosswalks.

Could the spray paint be hair dye? Rudy Giuliani found himself in Atlanta this week . . . 

That'll Do It