A Tale of Two San Franciscos
By Joel P. Engardio -- It looks like the swampy soccer field riddled with gopher holes in Golden Gate Park will finally get fixed. But it will remain a battleground for San Francisco's soul. Tech newcomers versus retirees. Parents versus no kids. Sports players versus bird watchers. The rough, grassy area behind the Beach Chalet polarized them all. While everyone talked about a soccer field, the real debate was over identity. Is San Francisco a city of apps or should it be preserved in amber?
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The Lavender Scare
By Joel P. Engardio -- The students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School weren’t entirely bored with my guest lecture on the history of media and political campaigns. They laughed at the vintage TV ads, especially the “I Like Ike” cartoon from 1952. But they had no idea who President Dwight Eisenhower was. Hormones and a warm, spring day can explain the lack of interest in dead presidents. Two boys in the front row held hands the entire time I spoke.
I wanted to stop the lecture and tell the affectionate boys they should thank Eisenhower if they’re going to the prom together. The Glee-era high school experience they enjoy today is connected to Eisenhower’s purge of gay people from the U.S. government 60 years ago.
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Dogs Gone Wild?
By Joel P. Engardio -- We love dogs in San Francisco. About 150,000 live here, which means we have more canines residing in The City than kids. But in finding park space for all those dogs to play, there's an escalating debate: Are they our best friends or dogs gone wild?
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Google Glasses at the Supreme Court?
By Joel P. Engardio -- On the same week the Supreme Court heard its two historic cases on gay marriage, Google announced the first lucky test subjects who would get to try Google Glass -- history-making eyewear that puts the Internet in your field of vision. None of the justices were selected, but maybe Google should lend them a pair before they reach a decision in June.
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Helping the Middle Class
By Joel P. Engardio -- Today's price to live in San Francisco is $1 million for a modest home or thousands a month for a market-rate apartment. That's the reality of supply and demand when 800,000 people want to live on a tiny peninsula where Tartine scones and a Bi-Rite Creamery can be found on the same Mission District block. It's especially tough on middle class families fleeing San Francisco. We have fewer children than any major American city and the ones we have are often relegated to sleeping in converted closets. We can do better.
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Tree Wars
By Joel P. Engardio -- In San Francisco, there are plans to cut down large numbers of trees and replace them with native grass because ancient San Francisco was naturally treeless. The issue is ripe for parody because the call for tree destruction is coming from environmental activists who favor native plants. Meanwhile, many longtime residents and retired homeowners concerned with loss of windbreak and property value play the role of unlikely tree-huggers.
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Harvey Milk Airport?
By Joel P. Engardio -- I'm a gay man inspired by Harvey Milk, but renaming SFO after him is a bad idea.
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Joel Engardio interviewed on "Face-to-Face with Stu Smith"
Joel Engardio appears on the "Face-to-Face with Stu Smith" show. San Francisco cable TV. Engardio discusses San Francisco politics, his background and his run for supervisor. September 2012.
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Harvard Law School Lecture: Negotiating End of Life Care
Joel Engardio introduces end-of-life care topic for the Harvard Law School negotiation workshop as an example of handling a difficult conversation. January 2012.
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Gays at Harvard: After Injustice, A Rainbow
Joel Engardio tells the story of Harvard's infamous gay purge. Graduation week falls on the purge's anniversary. Engardio imagined how a commencement speech could acknowledge the injustice and subsequent rainbow. The text was published in USA Today, a few days before Engardio graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School on May 26, 2011.
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It Gets Better
Joel Engardio's video submission to the "It Gets Better Project" dedicated to giving hope to LGBT youth confronted with harassment and thoughts of suicide. It was created in 2010 in the wake of a rash of LGBT suicides across the United States. This video is from October 2010.
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How Jehovah's Witnesses Helped Kill Prop 8
Mormons took a lot of abuse for helping pass Proposition 8 in California, where 52% of voters banned the right of gay couples to marry in 2008. But will anyone thank Jehovah's Witnesses for their role in getting the law declared unconstitutional?
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Learning True Tolerance: NPR essay
Joel Engardio's NPR essay "Learning True Tolerance" broadcast on Weekend Edition Sunday as part of the "This I Believe" series.
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Jade Ribbon Campaign speech
Joel Engardio gives a tribute to his late boyfriend Dr. Mark Lim, who died of liver cancer at age 31 caused by Hepatitis B. The speech is part of an event by Stanford University's Asian Liver Center and Jade Ribbon Campaign to raise awareness of the "Silent Epidemic" of Hepatitis B and liver cancer in the Asian American population. Engardio spoke at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco on November 20, 2003.
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The Silent Epidemic
A silent epidemic more deadly than HIV -- liver cancer caused by hepatitis B -- threatens to engulf the Bay Area Asian American community.
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O'er the Castro
When Gilbert Baker set out to create the first gay pride flag in 1978, his vision of the rainbow was a little different than what everyone else sees in the sky. Baker saw fuchsia. And turquoise, too. So he went to his sewing machine and made an eight-color rainbow flag with hot pink at the top. But for two decades, Baker's famous flag only had six colors. Find out why and what the flag — regardless the number of stripes — means for LGBT history.
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