York County, Pennsylvania – A mother in Pennsylvania is suing her town’s school district and six students over bullying she says led to her 15-year-old son’s suicide. Zachary Kirchner took his own life in the basement of his family home in southeastern York County, Pennsylvania in April 2021. He had told classmates he wanted to kill himself. His death followed years of harassment by students and neglect by school administrators in the Red Lion School District, according to the lawsuit filed by Kirchner’s mom, Hope Amspacher. “Student defendants relentlessly harassed, belittled, and broke down decedent by telling him to ‘Kill […]
Minor-league baseball player comes out
Chicago – Although scant attention was paid to the announcement by American press, the UK LGBTQ website Gay Times recently reported a story about a team member of the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, a White Sox-owned Single A Team player who recently announced he’s gay. “This may be my most personal thing I ever share, and it’s that I’m proudly and happily part of the LGBTQ+ community,” Anderson Comas posted to his Instagram account on February 19th. The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers are owned by the Chicago White Sox and identified as a Single A Team, which is more or less a […]
My Path Has Changed
Welcome back to Trans Lives. It’s been a while since I have written to you all and I miss you. COVID really put a damper on life for us all. In December 2021, after having all my shots including my booster, I still tested positive with COVID. My time with COVID was very mild and I tested negative after a week. The question I ask myself lately is whose path will I follow, mine or God’s? Well, that question has been answered, and I know whose path I will follow. I feel life’s journey and sometimes is never the way […]
How Life Insurance Can Make Life Easier
Hints for neatening up one of life’s loose ends Life insurance. The very mention of the term conjures up images of smooth-talking salesmen and glossy brochures. The truth is that life insurance is about security. It provides a financial cushion to those closest to you so they can carry on seamlessly after you are gone. Life insurance can also make administering your estate easier, saving your loved ones time, money, and a lot of stress. The simplest policies pay a lump sum upon your death. This money can be enormously useful in settling your affairs. For example, proceeds from the […]
Why I was an Awful Jimmy Carter …
… in my high school mock election As a high school junior in 1976, I was selected to play former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter in our mock presidential election. It taught me a lesson in politics – and the performative nature of candidacy – that is as true today as in the assembly hall of my Louisiana school nearly 50 years ago. My parents thought I should do my homework on Carter before the school event. They drove me to the local Carter for President headquarters where a campaign worker not much older than me offered an enthusiastic overview of […]
Back to The Grind
The craft of witchery So, it appears that COVID is over, and things are getting back to normal, whatever that means. For me life has changed, and somethings have remained the same. I am still happily married, and I can honestly say we are closer than we’ve ever been. I think that the people who are married and make it through transition wind up with a stronger and closer relationship. I also no longer take being married for granted. I really do love my wife; I just wish I would have known then what I know now. On the work […]
How Will the New SECURE Act 2.0 Impact Your Retirement?
New laws, new opportunities The 2019 Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act altered the nation’s retirement-saving landscape. A follow-up package, SECURE Act 2.0, takes the changes even further, plus has many new additions. In this article, I’ll discuss how you can utilize these new opportunities to strengthen your own financial preparation for retirement. You’ll have more control over taxes with RMD changes – The SECURE 2.0 Act changed a wide variety of retirement regulations, with many changes impacting Required Minimum Distributions (commonly referred to as “RMDs”). If you’re unfamiliar with this term, RMDs are amounts you must […]
Meet Mr. Mayhem Leather Bear 2022
David Sugar of Baltimore, Maryland was sashed Mr. Mayhem Leather Bear 2022 during the annual Bears, Bikers & Mayhem event held on May 5th to 8th in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Baltimore, David discovered the leather community in December of 2013 when he was asked to deejay for the ShipMates leather club’s annual Daddy Christmas fundraiser. David pledged the ShipMates in 2017 and began his leather journey. The […]
The Language of Catering Explained – Part 1
One of the most daunting tasks about planning a wedding is hiring a caterer. There’s a lot of money involved, and caterers have their own language, which can be difficult to understand. Here, then, is a glossary of the wedding industry language used by caterers, and how to use it to get the wedding you want. Off-premise – The caterer travels to your location – home, wedding venue, wherever – with all that they need to set up, prepare, and execute your event. They generally bring staff, kitchen equipment, food, and beverages. In Maryland, they need a special license if […]
Resilience or Perseverance?
As I look forward to resuming this column and thought about the last five years, I wanted to ask: Think back to 2018, or even early, 2019 – what was your life like? What kind of changes do you see, now, in how you handle relationships, work, or mundane everyday routines? This does not mean we dismiss changes over time, in whatever context they may appear. Getting older, accumulating different experiences, making new connections, losing others, are all what passage of time brings. But we all lived through an unexpected period of illness, quarantine, working “remotely,” isolating, masking, or vaccines, […]