san francisco

Culture

No Fireworks, Only Candles: Our Work as Americans and Muslims

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I have no desire to set off fireworks, jump into a car and yell out the window while waving fists and flags. If I were in New York City, I would light a candle at the memorial and keep vigil. In San Francisco, I pray in a room lit only by a streetlamp, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done.

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Sexuality/Gender

AIDS Anniversary: Thirty is the New Eternity

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The 30th wedding anniversary calls for pearls, various websites say. And yet, we have no weddings really, from the federal point of view. So what does the 30th mean? Is it the beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? The eschaton? For some, AIDS/HIV is one of the mythic horsemen of the apocalypse. The Salvation Army writes of the “three horsemen of the Russian Apocalypse—AIDS” Others write of the “hybrid horseman of the apocalypse: the global AIDS pandemic.” We debate whether an HIV-positive diagnosis—or even an AIDS diagnosis—is the end of the world. And we write of “the virus at the end of the world.” The victories seem somehow pyrrhic.

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Culture

Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

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If there is any communal rite of passage at Burning Man, it is the Temple Burn on Sunday night, the event’s finale. Not everyone comes out for this event; some would rather dance to techno music or chat up a neighbor on the next bar stool instead of joining tens of thousands of Burners sitting on the ground quietly waiting for the temple to burn down, taking all their messages and their pain—they hope—with it.

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Culture

Will San Francisco Ban Circumcision?

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The San Francisco Campaign against circumcision has allied itself with “Intact America.” Its activists have dubbed themselves “intactavists.” In San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride Parade a group representing BANG, the Bay Area iNtactivst Group, makes their point in a vivid manner: they don puffy penis costumes and carry a poster of an indignant-looking infant asking, “You want to cut off what?”

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