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Diversity Drives Innovation
by Entrepreneurial Engagement Team | October 9, 2017
Comcast NBCUniversal continues to support founders from all backgrounds through Black & Brown Founders partnership
Black & Brown Founders Project is in Philadelphia for a special two-day event – its largest ever in the city – filled with enlightening speakers, collaborative networking, and a celebration of Black and Latinx entrepreneurship. The event runs all day October 9th and 10th at Quorum at the University City Science Center, with additional networking opportunities into the night.
Speakers include Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Backstage Capital Founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Course Alchemy Founder Danielle Leslie, and over 130 more of the most successful Black and Latinx entrepreneurs, investors, and creatives from across the country. Events include keynotes, open-ended panels, and constructive workshops.
Topics at the Philadelphia event span hiring employees, marketing and storytelling, building an investor community and raising funds, and the future of tech in Philadelphia.
Black & Brown Founders was started by Aniyia Williams, Founder & CEO of Tinsel and 2016 Code2040 Entrepreneur-in-Residence. As Williams launched her company, she found that the "bootstrapping" ethos of startup culture wasn't the same for her and other aspiring entrepreneurs of color. Black & Brown Founders addresses those barriers by sharing knowledge and resources.
With a commitment to the belief that the best ideas and innovations come from diverse collaboration, Comcast NBCUniversal has partnered with Black & Brown Founders to bring the indispensable series to Philadelphia.
"For our communities to thrive, technology must be accessible to everyone. That's why Comcast NBCUniversal is so proud to partner with Black & Brown Founders Project to bring hundreds of diverse entrepreneurs to our hometown of Philadelphia – and help them find ways to make their own hometowns even stronger," said Jessica Clancy, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility Comcast NBCUniversal.
Despite being one of the most diverse cities in the country, Philadelphia's entrepreneurial and executive community is not reciprocally represented by Black, Latinx, and other ethnic groups. While people of color constitute 55% of the population, a 2016 Census Bureau survey found that just 15% of Philadelphia businesses are operated by non-white owners.
Comcast NBCUniversal hopes to address these disparities across the city by supporting Black & Brown Founders and other organizations that promote diverse business investment and give more groups the support and resources they need to start their own companies. Comcast NBCUniversal is committed to supporting entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. In 2011, Comcast Ventures established the Catalyst Fund, a $20 million fund focused on investing in early-stage technology startups led by minority and women entrepreneurs.
Antonio "Tony" Williams, Government & External Affairs at Comcast NBCUniversal, will be among the contributors at the event. His panel "How to Plug Into Philadelphia's Tech Ecosystem" will address how to access the broader startup ecosystem in Philadelphia from a Black and Latinx perspective.
Filed Under: Press Releases Tagged With: diversity, innovation, networking
Startup Scene: Austin, Texas
by Entrepreneurial Engagement Team | September 29, 2017
Through the Table Talk Dinner Series, Comcast NBCUniversal's Entrepreneurial Engagement team takes us across the United States to meet tech entrepreneurs who build innovative products and influence startup culture in their cities. Authentic conversations between founders and product and innovation leaders at Comcast NBCUniversal helped create this series of stories about cities, like Austin, where tech and entrepreneurship is thriving.
Most of us know Austin through the lens of South by Southwest, the legendary annual conference and festivals that celebrate the convergences of the interactive, film and music industries. But, Austin's collaborative community of entrepreneurs has built a creative, emergent tech economy with plenty of opportunity for newcomers.
Still, the city's startup scene faces challenges and decisions – some universal, some unique to Austin – like whether to choose IPO or acquisition, team-up with corporate partners, or seek seed funding, and how to harness the power of the local community.
Austin-based entrepreneurs, CEOs, business leaders, developers, and startup champions from Comcast NBCUniversal recently gathered at Second Bar + Kitchen to discuss these ideas, tech trends and the city's emerging industries. Local founders shared their startup stories and learned about ways Comcast NBCUniversal works with startups – like the recent partnership and acquisition of iControl, an Austin-based home automation company.
Dennis Mathew, Comcast NBCUniversal Vice President of Wholesale and Xfinity Home, and his team spent years searching for the perfect home automation partner before finding Austin-based startup iControl. In March, Comcast NBCUniversal acquired the company and its game-changing technology to be the driving force behind Xfinity Home services.
"Through the people at this dinner and companies represented, we see the strength of the Austin tech community," Mathew said. "Establishing connections to the entrepreneurs and influencers and the work they're doing will create opportunities for Comcast and for the community."
Tom Chmielewski, now Executive Director of Xfinity Home Wholesale, was one of iControl's (first named YouControl) original team members and is a true veteran of Austin's startup scene. He's witnessed a shift in how entrepreneurs there move through the business-building process.
"A lot of startups in Austin don't go for an IPO anymore," Chmielewski said. "You get acquired by bigger companies and it really helps if they already have a presence in Austin."
Since the acquisition, iControl now has over one million customers and is shaping Comcast NBCUniversal's Austin IoT Center of Excellence.
"We started with nothing and now we are the fastest growing home automation company in the industry," Mathew said.
Other Table Talk guests shared triumphs and pitfalls, and their hopes for Austin's ever-growing tech industry. Many, including leaders from Austin accelerators MassChallenge and Capital Factory, lauded the city for its entrepreneurial culture of collaboration and support.
"As entrepreneurs, we're big believers in the startup community – it's the backbone of the American economy and innovation is what will grow our economy," said Utz Baldwin, co-founder and CEO of Plum, an inventive light dimmer and app that reimagines the power of the light bulb.
"We are believers in paying it forward," he said. "Our door is open to other founders looking for advice because we've had so many people help us along in our journey."
Baldwin and Plum strategically targeted the lighting industry – a market ripe for change. To fund their venture, Plum raised over $7.5 million via crowdfunding, becoming one of the most successfully crowdfunded companies to date.
Other entrepreneurs compared their experiences raising seed funding to scale their business. Jonathan Gill, founder and CEO of Backtracks, an imaginative analytics platform for music and podcasts, cited the need for more Austin-based seed stage investors.
"Austin has great tech talent, great entrepreneurs, low cost of living, but our investors are enterprise Series A, B and C," Gill said. "Seed stage investors would change the pace of innovation."
Like many Austin companies, Backtracks is pouncing on an underserved market. The platform gives podcasters incredibly in-depth insight into their audience – a longtime blind spot for the booming industry.
Lisa Pearson, CEO of sports and entertainment data company Umbel, is hopeful that more women rise up in Austin's entrepreneur community. Pearson has made a career of taking startups from the ground floor to worldwide audiences.
"Umbel was at an inflection point that a lot of startups face, where there is great tech, but the commercial side isn't there yet," she said.
Pearson pivoted Umbel to focus on the sports and entertainment industries, where marketing has been historically imprecise. The shift has paid off and now Pearson and Umbel have big plans to become the largest sports and entertainment data company in the market.
What Pearson has learned is that in Austin, you don't have to go it alone.
"There's a real commitment to entrepreneurship here and so many emerging companies," she said. "There's a lot that we can do better, like being more in tune to macro trends across the country and hosting stronger consumer brands – but there's an incredibly supportive tech ecosystem and plenty of resources to address those changes."
For more startup stories and information on how Comcast NBCUniversal supports entrepreneurs, sign up for our newsletter.
Filed Under: Startup Stories Tagged With: Austin, NBCUniversal, startup, Table Talks
Danielle Cohn On The Blind Entrepreneur Podcast
Danielle Cohn, Executive Director, Entrepreneurial Engagement for Comcast, talks LIFT Labs, storytelling, and empanadas on The Blind Entrepreneur podcast.
TBE was created by Philadelphia native Johnathan Grzybowski to help entrepreneurs execute their vision and to guide millennials to profitability. The interactive business podcast provides entrepreneurs and business professionals the insight to further execute their vision by listening (and even watching) to the stories of entrepreneurs that have experienced failure, struggles in business, success, and going further inside the mind of the entrepreneur's internal process.
Filed Under: Startup Stories Tagged With: entrepreneur, Philadelphia, podcast, stories
Meet The Millennial Who Created Athena, A Safety Wearable For The 21st Century
by Entrepreneurial Engagement Team | August 28, 2017
Some members of generation Z are within their highest risk years for rape and sexual assault, and females ages 16-19 are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. As these children of older millennials start college looking to address the issue of assault at its root (and taking measures to ensure their safety), one Philadelphia company has innovated the self-defense industry via a safety wearable.
Athena is a device created by ROAR for Good which connects users to loved ones with the push of a button. When activated, which is done by pressing the button on the device, a user's location is shared with loved ones. Users are notified within the app that they are being "checked on" by friends and family and Athena gives a short vibration letting the user know whenever a friend or family member begins watching over them.
Athena has two modes: SilentROAR, which sends a distress message without an alarm and Alarm Mode, which sounds an alarm to emergency contacts. Athena also has 911 calling capabilities and via the ROAR Personal Safety app, users also have access to self-defense videos, general safety awareness tips, and the latest news related to gender equality.
During a six-month solo trek through South America, ROAR for Good Co-founder and CEO Yasmine Mustafa listened to countless stories from women who had experienced assault or abuse. Then, a week later after returning to Philadelphia, a woman was brutally raped one block from her apartment. For 35-year-old Mustafa, the idea for developing a wearable safety device was born after learning many women do not like existing self-defense tools.
Though the global non-lethal weapons market is expected to reach over $8 billion in the next three years, Mustafa discovered the industry itself hadn't innovated in nearly a century. Pepper spray and electroshock weapons (Tasers, stun guns) had also all been made by men for men and were simply "shrinked and pinked" in an order to sell these same products to women. All these factors led Mustafa to the conclusion women needed a self-defense product created by a woman:
"Whether they were afraid of accidentally using their own self-defense tool on themselves or that they would be overpowered and their device used as a weapon against them, existing safety tools were just not cutting it for many. After realizing that existing solutions did not account for women's needs, my co-founder and I banded together to devise a solution that was stylish, could help deter an attack, would alert help when needed, and couldn't be used against the person wearing it. That solution is Athena."
ROAR for Good transformed the self-defense industry with innovation grounded in unmet female consumer needs: safety, discreteness, and empowerment. In fact, the design of Athena as a modular device that users can clip anywhere came from the input of over a dozen personal defense instructors & police officers. Recently Comcast NBCUniversal purchased 180 Athena devices for their annual TECHWomen conference and Athena devices are being used in pilot programs at Philadelphia universities. RapidSOS has also recently announced a partnership with ROAR for Good to make it easier to send a precise location, emergency type and real-time health information to first responders during a crash or a medical emergency.
Mustafa shares two questions which shaped their business strategy: how can ROAR for Good help make a difference by helping women live their lives boldly today, and what can they do to get to the root causes of violence so that society no longer needs safety devices? Mustafa added:
"I believe that technology is a great equalizer in helping the underserved. It's helping blind people see, deaf people hear, disabled people walk again to name a few. The concept of "balancing" the system drives me personally and has inspired me to build a business that's a force for good."
Christine Michel Carter is a global marketing strategist for innovative, category leading companies.christinemichelcarter.com
Filed Under: In The News Tagged With: Athena, ROAR, safety, women
Meet ROAR For Good
Philadelphia startup takes on the devastating impact of sexual assault through wearable technology and a mission of education, awareness, and prevention.
In 2014, Yasmine Mustafa spent six months travelling alone through South America. Along the journey, she repeatedly heard stories from women across the continent who had been sexually assaulted. When she returned to Philadelphia, a woman in her neighborhood was attacked while feeding a parking meter.
These experiences compelled Mustafa to action, founding ROAR for Good with Anthony Gold, her good friend and business partner. Their mission was to start a movement that would change the conversation about rape culture and violence against women, and reduce assaults.
After consulting focus groups, user surveys, and law enforcement, they devised Athena: a smart wearable, personal safety device that – at the push of a button – emits an alarm and alerts authorities and selected contacts of an emergency.
"We found that many women don't want to use existing self-defense tools, not just because they're intimidating and combative, but because women are concerned of having such devices used against them," said Gold.
Athena is wearable tech that easily and inconspicuously clips onto clothing or jewelry. The device is paired with an app that allows users to notify close contacts of potential danger or even ask them to keep an eye on their whereabouts.
ROAR is not just a product-based company – it's a community and a movement focused on awareness, education, and empowerment.
"The sad truth is that no device is going to solve this issue," says Gold. "That's why we reinvest a substantial portion of our revenue into organizations that educate young men and women about empathy, respect, and healthy relationships.
"If we sell a lot of Athena devices yet have no societal impact, then we failed."
Indeed, ROAR's mission of change and prevention-over-profits is part of the reason why women of all ages across the world have chosen to own an Athena.
"People connect with our mission and that we are a female-led company focused on empowerment. It means something to them," Gold said. "We need more male allies stepping up and making a difference, even just learning how to be a better bystander. We call these 'women's issues.' These aren't women's issues. They're societal issues and we need to start getting more men involved and acknowledging that change is needed."
Part of that education is included in the ROAR app, where users can read curated stories that inspire and find information about sexual assault issues, ways to get involved, and, most importantly, resources to empower women and make a difference.
After a remarkably successful crowdfunding campaign in late 2015 (raising $300,000 – over 650% of their goal), the Athena device began shipping to patrons this spring with incredible reviews. For now, ROAR's goal is to get Athena to as many women who need it as possible, relying on direct sales and a recent push toward retail and partnerships.
Comcast NBCUniversal partnered with ROAR to test Athena with college students and its own employees. Comcast sponsored a number of devices, many of which will be distributed to Philadelphia-area college students through a collaboration with Campus Philly.
"The unfortunate truth is that one in four female college students will be a victim of rape or attempted rape. That is sickeningly unacceptable and needs to be dramatically reversed," Gold said.
Athena devices will also be given to attendees at the upcoming Comcast NBCUniversal annual TECHWomen Conference. Women in technology will come from across the country and all spheres of Comcast NBCUniversal to provide a diverse pilot group for ROAR.
"We're helping ROAR by not just giving advice, but buying, trying, and pushing the limits of Athena," said Danielle Cohn, Executive Director of Entrepreneurial Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal. "It's very important for us to be a first customer for startups to help encourage and improve burgeoning products."
Mustafa and Gold are already planning the next iteration of the Athena, which will include new features, such as built-in GPS, advice the team heard from business leads at Comcast and elsewhere.
"The market is moving toward embedding this technology directly into clothing and making safety more ubiquitous," Gold said. "We are looking at every way possible we can make a difference and help transform society."
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Filed Under: Startup Stories Tagged With: Athena, ROAR, safety, students, women
A Fresh, Data-Based Approach to College Applications
by Entrepreneurial Engagement Team | June 22, 2017
Philadelphia Startup College Money Search Offers A New View
School is out for the summer and for some high school students that means it's time to begin the college search. This process can be arduous with some many factors to consider: Reputation, degree programs, location, culture, and, of course, cost. Financial aid expert Debbie Schwartz founded two companies that take the uncertainty out of the application process by helping families chart a carefully-designed course to college.
Through Road2College and College Money Search, parents and their ambitious students can easily research scholarships, loans, standardized test scores, and rankings with sound financial advice.
"Families should be more strategic about where students apply," Schwartz said. "Just going for the best school a kid can get into no matter the cost isn't always the best choice and doesn't just affect them for four years, but long after they graduate."
Founded in 2014, Road2College offers advice and anecdotes from parents and experts who have first-hand experience guiding families and students applying to and attending college.
College Money Search, Schwartz's newest startup co-founded with college data guru Michelle Kretzschmar, is in its first year of helping families understand how to find the right school – and prudently finance an education – through proven analytics.
"We teach people how to research the schools that students should be looking at, the colleges where they can receive the most scholarship money and have the best experience," Schwartz said.
College Money Search offers educational classes, financial resources, and a "money list" with a personalized algorithm for students to find schools that will offer the best financial packages based on their aspirations, backgrounds, and academic records.
"A lot of companies focus on consolidating and refinancing student loans after graduation because that's where the profits are," Schwartz said. "We want to reach and help families as early as possible so they understand what's ahead and don't end up in debt."
Much of Schwartz's college planning philosophy relies on a pragmatic approach that maximizes educational return for minimal cost.
"The media likes to focus on colleges that rank 'best,' which is subjective and adds emotion to the process," Schwartz added. "We are changing the paradigm of how people approach the process by using data to show there is actually more value in finding an affordable college, not just the one with the best brand name."
As college tuition continues to rise, there will be even greater need for careful financial planning. In Schwartz's own research, she found that college tuition was just 10% of household income when she attended school – now, it's a shocking 40%.
"The reason I started doing this is that debt is so pervasive and it affects multiple generations, the students and their parents," she said. "I always reiterate that it's not really student debt, it's family debt."
You can learn more about a new way to approach planning for college at CollegeMoneySearch.com or on the site's incredible Facebook community Paying For College 101, where parents and students from across the country ask questions and share advice.
Filed Under: Startup Stories
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The workshop is offered online March 10th, and will be available for on demand viewing after this date. All participants will received a printed booklet, and registrations must be received by March 4th. Cost is $275 per individual and $500 for groups of 2-4. Contact us for pricing of larger groups and visit our life science social media training page for information about other workshops.


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Sharp Decline in U.S. Birth Rate a Concern To Some Church Leaders
By John Lavenburg
(Photo: Pixabay)
NEW YORK — When Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodríguez of Denver moved to the U.S. from Europe, one thing that made the country "exceptionally beautiful" to him was the number of families with multiple children spending time together, a distinction he fears might be slipping away.
Bishop Rodríguez's concern stems from a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics published earlier this week. It shows that the number of births in the U.S. last year declined for the sixth consecutive year, to 3,605,201 — a four percent drop from 2019 and the lowest number since 1979.
"When a generation does not have enough children, we will not be able to guarantee the future and what the world will look like for our children and grandchildren in terms of societal consequences," Bishop Rodríguez told The Tablet via email. "Even worse: The decrease of births means a decrease in our capacity to love and to cherish life. That is very scary."
In conversations with The Tablet, Catholic leaders and experts on marriage and family life identified several factors — including declining marriage rates, later marriages, societal expectations, and contraception — as reasons for the decline.
The CDC hasn't published data for 2020, but the latest data from 2019 shows declining marriage numbers every year since 2016. From 2018 to 2019, the number dropped 5.5 percent from 2,132,853 to 2,015,603.
For Bishop Rodríguez, the culture around contraception is the biggest reason for the decline in the birth rate.
"When society has created a vision of the baby as an invader or even an aggressor who threatens personal plans, dreams, and accomplishments, a decline in our willingness to welcome them is expected," said Bishop Rodríguez, who serves on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, who also serves on the committee, told The Tablet that the contraceptive mentality "changes how people look at marriage, and it changes how people look at having families."
He believes the "ultimate consequence" of the decline is the replacement of the population.
The total fertility rate in 2020, which estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes, was below replacement — the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself (2,100 births per 1,000 women).
In 2020, the rate was 1,637.5 births per 1,000 women, a record low for the nation. The rate in the U.S. has been below replacement consistently since 2007.
Timothy O'Malley called this "terrifying." A society absent of children, he said, is one "without hope, without communion."
"When we live in an age without children present in society, functionally kind of erased, we also lose the capacity for hope," said O'Malley, author of "Off the Hook: God, Love, Dating, and Marriage in a Hookup World."
"We lose the joyfulness that comes into existence when a child is around. The playfulness of life. The fact that life is not always totally and absolutely serious. With a declining birthrate, that's something all of us lose as a society," he told The Tablet.
O'Malley, the director of education at the University of Notre Dame McGrath Institute for Church Life, identified economics as another factor that contributes to a declining birthrate.
The U.S. birth rate fell in 2020 to its lowest level since 1979. (Photo: Getty Images)
Economic Reality
He said that for some people the economic reality is real that having kids is really expensive and "there's not a lot of monetary support." On the other hand, he noted that there are other people "that think you need to have way more money to have kids than you actually do."
Another contributing factor to the decline is later-in-life marriages.
"If you're getting married at 28, 29, 30 years old, that's fewer years in which you're fertile," O'Malley said. "I think most people don't understand that."
In the Diocese of Brooklyn, Christian Rada, director of marriage, family, and respect life education didn't absolve COVID-19. Rada told The Tablet that the diocese has received more calls for marriage counseling through the pandemic. At the same time, domestic violence has increased and people have lost their jobs.
"The idea of bringing life into this world was the last thing that's on people's minds," Rada said.
As far as the church's role in reversing the birth rate trend of recent years, Rada acknowledged especially younger couples aren't in the pews as much anymore, therefore it's important for the diocese to post programs, classes, opportunities, and facts about marriage online and on social media where it'll reach them.
Deanna Johnston, director of family life for the St. Philip Institute in Tyler, Texas, told The Tablet that at the parish and diocesan level there needs to be more of a focus on maintaining communication and investing in couples after they're married.
"If we just treat marriage like a hoop to jump through, or marriage prep as a hoop to jump through, and not as the parish community is investing in you and the couple, and we want to walk with you not only to the wedding day, but we want to walk with you through those first five years especially, and then we want to make sure that we have things in place," she said.
Bishop Paprocki also said a shift in the church's approach needs to take place. He wants the church to start recruiting for the sacrament of matrimony in the same way that it does for the priesthood and religious life.
It's something he's committed to in his diocese. Bishop Paprocki recently appointed an associate vocations director focused on the married state.
"In our current society, we have to recruit young people basically to say, 'you should think about the sacrament of matrimony' and to teach what is the sacrament of matrimony," Bishop Paprocki said. "And the beauty of giving yourself totally in love to your spouse and then wanting to have children and love your children and bring them into the world and give up yourself for the sake of your family. That's not going to happen automatically."
A new pastoral framework for marriage and family life ministry from Bishop Paprocki, Bishop Rodríguez, and the rest of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth is ready to be presented at the U.S. Bishops' June meeting, according to Theresa Notare, the associate director of the natural family planning program, part of the USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth.
Notare told The Tablet that while there's a "remarkable" amount of creativity from dioceses in tackling the topic of marriage and family life, she hopes the document will help create a consistent vision across the diocese that brings along some that are "doing the same old, same old, and not doing their best to plant the seeds for the Holy Spirit to water it."
She also recognizes it'll take more than a pastoral framework for change.
"When you're talking about something as significant as marriage and as deeply personal as having children that's a real journey of faith," Notare said. "We have to find better ways to encourage our young people to have hope in the future, embrace the gifts God gave us, and to get married."
O'Malley wants to see church leadership lobbying politicians on the importance of creating some sort of economic benefit, or support, for having children, so the economics aren't as much of a deterrent. And, also place an emphasis on parish communities.
"It's not just urging people to have a lot of kids, which is often what you hear, but then there's no support network," O'Malley said. "Have lots of kids is great but make sure your neighbor down the street is someone you can drop those kids off to when you have to run out with the other kids who just broke their arm. These are the kinds of things that are needed."
Tags: Birth rate, fertility, St. Philip Institute

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The paranoid style in American politics is alive and well.
It was thriving on both sides of the Potomac Monday at separate Second Amendment rallies offering a cast of characters including militia members, a fundamentalist Mormon family, a sheriff, a Patrick Henry re-enactor and a pistol-packing transsexual.
What connected them all is a belief that our constitutional republic is being undermined by the Obama administration. As one typical rallying cry vented: "It's not about guns—it's about freedom!" And they let their freak flag fly.
At the Virginia rally, the armed participants were almost outnumbered by the press, creating a militia petting-zoo atmosphere. Foreign and domestic reporters fell all over themselves to interview what they saw as self-appointed members of the lunatic fringe.
This crowd didn't need signs; they had assault rifles to get their primary point across. Earnest members of the crowd discussed conspiracies ranging from JFK to 9/11 to Timothy McVeigh, all ending up with guns protecting us from global government. But there was a specific irony undercutting their intensity—namely that President Obama, who attendees say is threatening their Second Amendment rights, signed the law which made this first armed rally in a national park possible.
I asked two attendees from North Carolina why the Second Amendment protest seemed so apocalyptically urgent, given that gun laws have been loosened in recent years.
From guns to God to gays in one synaptic spasm—the culture-war trifecta. That's impressive by any standard.
I was surprised to see one more or less mainstream conservative group represented, the William F. Buckley-sanctioned Young Americans for Freedom, now led by its executive director John Marks, who I'd last seen on TV ably debating wingnut Democratic Representative Alan Grayson. I asked Marks what brought him to the armed rally.
When a speaker named Eric Stinnett compared the current state of the nation to 9/11 United Flight 93—making the Obama administration the equivalent of al Qaeda hijackers, which he dubbed "Commie-Kazis," I think I could see Marks wince upon realizing there was a YAF banner in the camera shot.
The rally by the Washington Monument was supposed to be the straight-laced, less dangerous Second Amendment gathering, fit for senior citizens, children, and the Washington press corps. But sincerity and strangeness ran neck-and-neck.
The anti-Obama forces shared the stage with others engaged in an unexpected—and unintentional—celebration of America's endearing strangeness.
When a child ambled up to me covered in buttons with images of the Constitution with the slogan "Miss Me Yet?" images of child-labor law infractions danced in my head. But when the kid's father appeared, wearing a long beard and hat, I assumed this was some kind of Amish tradition and my heart softened, not wanting to pass cultural judgments.
Turns out the man, Mark Easterday from Kentucky, was a self-described fundamentalist Mormon and a proud bigamist ("my second wife is in Kansas tending to her mother"). He is concerned for the future of his children, Elijah and Hannah; both Bush and Obama have let him down. But he has a prescription: "I'd like to see Ron Paul as president and Sarah Palin as vice president… they would understand that the power is in the people and I believe they would work to turn this country around." What would they do? "Bring our troops home. One of their jobs is to defend our borders and I don't think we belong in other countries. The Muslims don't want us there. They've got to sort out their own differences." He'd also like to see a return to the gold standard.
Just over the Mormon fundamentalist's shoulder was a post-op transsexual named Nicki Stallard, a member of a gay pro-gun-rights group called Pink Pistols, offering a half-standup, half-serious statement of Second Amendment principles. The onetime Navy seaman's speech went off the rails a good deal of the time, but she ultimately won over the crowd. It was a welcome sign of pluralism enduring in the Petri dish, alongside the strains of super-patriotism and paranoia.
Democracy can be a dirty business; dissent is patriotic, no matter which party is in power. The danger is when dissent crosses over into demonizing the current president and his administration. It comes when losing an election starts to feel like living under tyranny. On a date when we mark both the start of the American Revolution and the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, we owe it to ourselves to keep a sense of perspective. Our political opponents are not our enemies; they are fellow Americans. And cultivating fear is contrary to celebrating freedom.


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They called him a pirate—he called himself a liberator. To the Americans he was a hero—to the English and Canadians he was an outlaw. He used his own sons and daughter to attack and burn their large passenger ship operating on the St. Lawrence River and supported the ragtag army of discontents that attempted to invade the Canadians. No one but his daughter could rein him in.