Second White House Staffer Resigns Amid Domestic Abuse Claims
Speechwriter David Sorensen has resigned two days after the departure of Rob Porter.
www.advocate.com/politics/2018/2/09/second-white-house-staffer-resigns-amid-domestic-abuse-claims
Daily Archives: February 9, 2018
Gay (1746)
一式9万円の「アルマーニ標準服」 泰明小の校長「価格の条件付けず、交渉もしなかった」
一式9万円の「アルマーニ標準服」 泰明小の校長「価格の条件付けず、交渉もしなかった」
高級ブランド「アルマーニ」がデザイン監修をした服を、公立小学校が標準服にしたことが波紋を広げている。その「アルマーニ標準服」を率先して導入した区立泰明小学校の和田利次校長が2月9日夕、中央区役所で記者会見した。
和田校長は、アルマーニ側に「価格条件を出さなかった」と語り、いくら以内で作ってくれといった具体的な条件・要望を出していなかったことを明かした。着替えやベストなども合わせて一式そろえれば9万円、という価格が判明した際にも「高いと感想は伝えたが、値下げ交渉はしていない」と語った。
保護者から異論が出ていることについては、「きちんと話を進めてくればよかったのかなと、いまは、反省している」と述べた。しかし、「後付けではございますが、少しずつご理解をもらっている」として、導入を見直す考えはないと和田校長は語った。
そもそも、「アルマーニ標準服」は、どんな風に誕生したのか。
もともと、「名の通ったブランドと協力したほうがいい」と考えていた校長は、2015年の夏から秋にかけて、銀座にある一流ブランドに声をかけ始めた。
最初に話をもちかけたのは「おそらく……バーバリーさんかと思います。相談というより、電話をして…。学校の標準服を請け負ってくれるような組織はありますかと、そんなような依頼をしたと記憶しているんですけども…」。
「バーバリーさんとシャネルさんに連絡したかなあと思う。エルメスさんにも連絡したかなという気がしています」。
そう、校長は語った。
いずれも、世界に名だたる高級ブランドだが、交渉は校長が直接電話をかけたのだという。こうしたブランドからは「お話しとしてはわかりました。お待ちくださいといって、そのままのところがほとんど」だったという。
また、松屋や三越にも相談。三越には「できませんと、お断りされました」と話した。
アルマーニはどうだったのか？
ただ、アルマーニについては、知人を通じて紹介を受けた社員に連絡。この社員が学校を訪れたことから、交渉が始まったそうだ。
交渉は、校長が「一人でやっていた」という。
アルマーニとの交渉は、日本の支社が本社（ミラノ）にひとつひとつ確認を取りながら進めるため、「ダメになるかと思うぐらい時間がかかった」と校長は語る。
校長はしかし、2017年の夏前までは、教育委員会に事態の経緯を報告しなかった。PTA役員などに説明したのも、「おおよそのことが決まってから」（校長）だった。その理由については、「アルマーニから、ハッキリしない話は外には出さないでくれと言われていたので、話ができなかった」と、校長は釈明した。
価格「条件出さず」
校長はアルマーニとの交渉で、「具体的な価格の条件は出さなかった」と話した。
「現行の価格表をお示しして、あまり高くない方がいいという話はしました。そのため、価格がどのぐらいになるかは、わかりませんでした」
いざ、現在の価格が示されたとき、どう感じたのか。
校長は「価格が示されたとき、正直、安くないな、高いと思いました」と語る。
「もう少しなんとかならないのかな」と要望したが、「アルマーニのデザインとしては、妥当な価格だ」と言われたという。
校長は「アルマーニのデザインで、素材や色合いが現状の標準服よりはるかによい。トータルでみたときにこのぐらいするのかな」と語った。
ただ、デザイン料や素材の原価など、金額の内訳については「聞いていません」という。
アルマーニとは、どんな契約を結んでいるのか。
「アルマーニさんとは、契約はございません。アルマーニの名前を標準服以外には使いませんとか、そういう覚え書きはございます」と語った。この覚え書きには、アルマーニと校長のサインがあるという。
また、販売元である松屋については、「松屋さんとは長い付き合いです。契約書も覚え書きもあったのかどうかも…。いまはもうないと言った方がいいのかもしれません」と語った。
「非常識なことはしていない」
記者からは「価格の条件を出さないというのは、公立校の交渉としては、手順が違うのではないか」という質問が。
これに校長は「こちらからこれぐらいの価格でやってくれと言えればいいが、今回はアルマーニさんにすべてデザインをお願いした。製造販売のルートも含めて松屋さんにお任せしたので…」と回答。
「非常識なことをしたとは思っていない」と語った。
保護者の負担になるのでは、という質問には「各ご家庭の経済状況を把握しているわけではありません」「どの程度の負担になるのかわからない」としつつも、「本校の保護者の方なら、それぐらいは出せるんじゃないかと思っております」と回答した。
会見では、ほかのブランドと交渉する手もあったのではないかという指摘も出ていたが、「私には思い浮かばなかった」と話した。
また、ある記者が「公立校の標準服は、貧富の差を学校現場に持ち込まないという側面もあるのでは。高価なアルマーニの標準服が、本当に適しているのか」と質問すると、校長は次のように帰した。
「私は適していると思ったからこそ、話を進めてきました。非常に生意気な言い方をさせていただきますが、泰明小でなければ、私はこういう話は進めません。銀座の街にある学校だからこそ進めてきたんです。アルマーニデザインの標準服が、泰明には合っている」と語った。
ちなみに…校長は「アルマーニの服は、一着も持っていない」そうだ。
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HRC Mourns Loss of Celine Walker, a Transgender Woman Murdered in Florida
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HRC is saddened to learn the loss of Celine Walker, who was fatally shot in a hotel room in Jacksonville, Florida.
Transgender advocate Monica Roberts writes on her TransGriot blog that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was called to the location after Walker’s body was discovered at a local hotel on Sunday evening.
Sadly, Roberts also reports that police misgendered Walker because they claim to not refer to victims as transgender. As a result, Walker was not identified as trans until several days after her death was reported. A friend of Walker’s also made a plea on Facebook for media and police to stop misgendering transgender victims.
Investigators are still looking for a suspect in Walker’s death and urge any witnesses to call Crimestopper at 866-845-TIPS (8477) with any information.
Walker, 36, is now the fourth known transgender homicide victim reported this year.
HRC Foundation and the Trans People of Color Coalition released a report documenting the senseless acts of violence that made 2017 the deadliest year on record for transgender people, particularly for trans women of color.
To learn more about HRC’s transgender justice work, visit hrc.org/Transgender.
Gay (2504)
Birmingham’s ‘People Power’ Movement Wants To Turn Europe’s Biggest Council Upside Down
Birmingham’s ‘People Power’ Movement Wants To Turn Europe’s Biggest Council Upside Down
“It’s like Prime Minister’s Questions but no one is watching,” is how Sunny Sangha describes meetings of the Birmingham politicians that his campaign wants to replace.
People Power Brum (PPB) aims to field 101 “everyday heroes” to fight for every seat in the city council elections in May, in a bid to win a “people’s majority” in Britain’s second largest city, by casting out party politics and completely redrawing it.
To drum up interest and find recruits, PPB has been taking people to the monthly council meetings, explaining its functions and then talking through what they have seen.
“People have been stunned by the playground politics,” Sangha says. ”The councillors are playing the spectacle of politics… personal attacks, insults trading, booing, hissing. Tories on one side. Labour on the other.
“Regular Brummies just come to that and they’re gobsmacked.”
It’s not the people, he says, it’s the system. PPB is looking for revolutionaries.
From Monday until the deadline for nominating candidates in April, it is holding weekly meetings to recruit people to be independent candidates.
One 27-year-old woman who attended the council meeting trips has put herself forward. Another applicant is a middle-aged Black Carribbean women who used to work for the council.
If elected, the councillors would have no whip and be only held to the “People’s Pledge” that says they should “return power to the people, by making Birmingham the first city in the world to implement liquid democracy, where everyone is included and empowered to drive society forward.”
“Liquid democracy” is a model of representation where voters have far more say in what authorities do and elected officials are more like delegates than representatives.
Sangha envisages a system where citizens, not politicians, propose ideas and initiate referendums and even give their votes to other people they trust to make the right call.
He advocates this political earthquake with broad statements. It’s fitting as its genesis was at the embodiment of broad statements: a TED talk.
Sangha, 27, spoke in front of 1,400 people at Birmingham’s TEDx event in October, preaching liquid democracy and saying: “The way power flows in the world right now is very similar to the way water flows in the canals of Birmingham, not very much.”
People excitedly came up to him in the lobby afterwards, discussing his speech.
From this and other events, the core of PPB emerged. They are all volunteers like Sangha, who works on it in his spare time around working for a migrants and refugee charity.
Sangha’s analogies are lofty. He talks about the campaigns of Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron, who founded a party to make himself President of France, but says PPB will take things “one step further” by electing candidates on the specific platform of changing the body they’re joining.
The precedent for the campaign is more modest. In 2011, a group of independents stood for election to the council in Frome, Somerset and won a majority on their first go. They still control it now. They called it “flatpack democracy” and wrote a book that Sangha has poured over.
Frome is a town of 27,000 people. Birmingham is a city of 1.1 million people, the biggest population of any local government district in Europe.
Britain’s centralised government limits the freedom of its local authorities. Sangha knows this is an obstacle but says: “Birmingham being more participatory would certainly do no harm to the city in terms of getting more power from London.”
When asked for examples of party politics holding Birmingham back, Sangha says he doesn’t know any.
“People don’t need examples to see how party politics gets in the way… When they see people arguing with each other, the whole vibe is not one of constructive problem solving.”
The detail of what this revolution would look like is scant for now.
Sangha says they will hold workshops to help their newbie political candidates learn how to campaign. If they win, he wants to use the volunteers who are coming forward to share the loaf of their work.
He concedes there’s no established way of doing this: “We’re looking to help forge that path.”
“You never know how things go,” Sangha adds. “This hasn’t been done before at this scale.”
When asked if there is a minimum number of seats he hopes PPB will win, Sangha says their achievements so far, “getting people thinking about how democracy can be done better, revealing how the current system is dysfunctional”, is enough.
He adds it would be “miraculous” if a brand new group contested every seat and won a majority on its first attempt in a council where Labour has two thirds of the seats.
“It’s definitely possible but we just don’t know. We’re putting something out there and we just don’t know how ready people are for this.”
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/birmingham-people-power-brum_uk_5a7da918e4b044b3821c80d9
Spotify kicks off Secret Genius video series spotlighting songwriters with Justin Tranter episode
Spotify kicks off Secret Genius video series spotlighting songwriters with Justin Tranter episode
Digital music service Spotify has launched Secret Genius: The Series to shine a spotlight on the unsung voices behind today’s biggest hits. Each episode, available in the service’s new audio-visual Spotlight format, will feature one songwriter revealing the creative process behind one of their hottest songs, recorded and made famous by another artist. At the climax of each episode, the featured songwriter will put their own unique spin on the chart topping tune they penned.
Kicking off the series is a moving episode featuring Justin Tranter, an out pop-songwriting powerhouse and GLAAD board member behind hits like “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy, “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, and “Good for You” and “Hands to Myself” by Selena Gomez.
In the episode, Tranter talks about growing up facing bullying and the outright discrimination he received at the hands of his school’s administration. For his breakout hit “Centuries,” Tranter says he drew inspiration from the legendary trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, who he calls the “godmother of the movement” and whose legacy the songwriter sought to enshrine via the Fall Out Boy hit that eventually became the theme song for ESPN’s college football season.
Check out the episode on your mobile device now!
This is the latest example of Spotify using its huge global platforms to spotlight LGBTQ issues and out music artists. Last year, the digital music service launched its Pride hub and worked with GLAAD to create a Spirit Day playlist.
Other featured songwriters in Secret Genius: The Series include another out artist, country music star Shane McAnally (“Follow Your Arrow,” Kacey Musgraves), as well as Poo Bear (“What Do You Mean?”, Justin Bieber), RuthAnne (“In the Name of Love,” Martin Garrix and Bebe Rexha), Savan Kotecha (“What Makes You Beautiful,” One Direction), Priscilla Renea (“Timber,” Pitbull and Kesha), Hit-Boy (“Backseat Freestyle,” Kendrick Lamar), Dave Bassett (“Fight Song,” Rachel Platten), Ali Tamposi (“It Ain’t Me,” Kygo and Selena Gomez) and Ricky Reed (“NO,” Meghan Trainor).
A recognized and respected songwriter, Tranter recently received a Golden Globe nomination for writing “Home” (performed by Nick Jonas for the animated movie Ferdinand) and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year for co-writing Julia Michaels’ “Issues.” He was named one of Rolling Stone’s “20 Biggest Breakouts of 2015” for his songwriting contributions to that calendar year’s pop charts.
At every step of his continued rise to the top, Tranter has not shied away from speaking out about LGBTQ inclusion in the industry. Accepting his Songwriter of the Year award at the 65th Annual BMI Pop Awards, Tranter made a call for inclusion of LGBTQ people and women of color in writing rooms. On red carpets for high-profile events like the Grammy and Golden Globes, Tranter is donning the ‘&’ pin and spreading the message to millions about the symbol for the GLAAD-launched Together Movement, which represents the power of the voices of marginalized communities uniting and standing together.
A post shared by justin tranter (@tranterjustin) on
In addition to pushing for LGBTQ inclusion in the industry, he is outspoken about the music business’ role in accelerating LGBTQ acceptance and equality. In 2017, he released a compelling video urging more LGBTQ visibility in music and highlighting its importance for trans people — who too often do not see themselves reflected in media – as part of Transgender Awareness Week. The video, released by GLAAD, featured RuPaul, McAnally, and the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.
That same year, he also hosted a Spirit Day concert with performances by Courtney Love and Adam Lambert to raise funds in support of LGBTQ youth. Among the special guests were Carly Rae Jepsen, JoJo, Haliee Steinfeld, Gigi Gorgeous, Chris Colfer, Tinashe, Betty Who, and Darren Criss.
In 2016, Tranter along with Julia Michaels and Blood Pop co-wrote GLAAD’s song “Hands,” released with Interscope Records to remember the 49 lives taken in the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting. The musical tribute to the victims of Orlando, featuring over 20 artists including Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears, and Adam Lambert, benefited Equality Florida, the GLBT Community Center of Central Florida and GLAAD.
Watch Justin Tranter’s episode now on your mobile device and stay tuned for an upcoming episode featuring out country songwriter Shane McAnally!
February 9, 2018
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