KQED/KQET

KQED: San Francisco, California KQET: Watsonville/Monterey/Salinas, California
Branding	KQED
Channels	Digital: KQED: 30 (UHF) KQET: 25 (UHF)
Subchannels	9.1 HD 9.2 KQEH (SD) 9.3 PBS World
Affiliations	PBS (1970–present)
Owner	Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc.
First air date	KQED: April 5, 1954 KQET: May 17, 1989
Call letters' meaning	Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Sister station(s)	KQED-FM, KQEH
Former callsigns	KQED: None & KQET: KCAH (1989-2007)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: KQED: 9 (VHF, 1954-2009) KQET: 25 (UHF, 1989-2009) Digital: KQET: 58 (UHF: 2007-2009)
Former affiliations	KQED: NET (1954-1970)
Transmitter power	KQED:777 kW KQET: 81.1 kW
Height	KQED:437 m KQET: 698.6 m
Facility ID	KQED: 35500 KQET: 8214
Transmitter coordinates	KQED: 37°45′19″N 122°27′6″W / 37.75528°N 122.45167°W / 37.75528; -122.45167 (KQED) KQET: 36°45′22.9″N 121°30′4.9″W / 36.756361°N 121.501361°W / 36.756361; -121.501361 (KQET)
Website	www.kqed.org

KQED is a Public Broadcasting Service-member public television station in San Francisco, California, broadcasting digitally on UHF channel 30 (Ex-Analog Channel 9). This channel is also carried on Comcast cable TV and via satellite by DirecTV and Dish Network. Its transmitter is located on Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

It is one of the most-watched PBS stations in the country during primetime.^{[1][non-primary source needed]}

Noteworthy KQED television productions include the first installment of Armistead Maupin's miniseries Tales of the City, Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs, and a series of programs focusing on the historic neighborhoods in San Francisco, such as The Castro and The Fillmore District. Ongoing productions include Check, Please! Bay Area, Spark, This Week in Northern California and QUEST.^[2]

History[link]

KQED was organized and created by veteran broadcast journalists James Day and Jonathan Rice on June 1, 1953, and first went on air April 5, 1954. It was the sixth public broadcasting station in the United States, debuting shortly after WQED in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The station's call letters, Q.E.D., are taken from the Latin phrase, quod erat demonstrandum, commonly used in mathematics.^[3]

KQED's World Press was an hour-long weekly roundup of international news analyzed by a panel of political analysts debuted in 1963. Panel members, who were political science analysts, who specialized in each specific global area, each brought a newspaper for round table discussion. ^[4] It was founded by San Francisco Supervisor Roger Boas,^{[citation needed]} who brought his long-term interest in government, politics, television and business to the show. The program "summed up the foreign reaction to such events as the Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam War, along with thousands of other events that have shaped the decade of the sixties."^[5] What started as a local public access program with no financial support became the longest lived continuous discussion program televised on on 185 stations.^{[citation needed]}

In its early days following sign-on, KQED broadcast only twice a week for one hour each day. Despite the very limited schedule, the station was still losing money, leading to a decision in early 1955 from its board of trustees to close down the station. Its staff got the board to keep the station on the air and try to get needed funds from the public in a form of a televised auction, in which celebrities would appear to auction off goods and services donated to the station. While the station still came a little short, it did show that the general public cared to keep KQED on the air. Since then, the auction became a fund-raising tool for many public television stations, though its usage waned in recent years in favor of increased usage of special pledge drives throughout the year.^[6]

Channel 9 had a sister station, KQEC, which broadcast on Channel 32. KQED had inherited the station in 1970 (as KNEW-TV) from Metromedia, but found they could not operate it without losing money. Various PBS and locally produced programs from KQED would air erratically and at different times of the day on KQEC. In 1988, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked KQED's license to operate KQEC, citing excessive off-air time, further charging dishonesty in previous filings with regard to the specific reasons. The alleged dishonesty was in reference to KQED's claim of financial woes for keeping KQEC off the air for most of 1972 through 1977, and again for several months in 1979 and 1980. After being revoked from KQED, the reassigned license was granted to the Minority Television Project (MTP), one of the challengers of the KQED/KQEC filing.^[7] The KQEC call letters were changed to KMTP-TV under the new license.

During the early 1990s, when the state of California reintroduced the death penalty, the KQED organization waged a legal battle for the right to televise the forthcoming execution of Robert Alton Harris at San Quentin State Prison.^[8] The decision to pursue the videotaping of executions was controversial amongst those on both sides of the capital punishment debate.^[9]

KQED was co-producer of the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel, Tales of the City, which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January 1994. The original six-part series was produced by Britain's public-service Channel 4 Corporation with KQED and PBS' American Playhouse. The six-part miniseries featured gay themes, nudity and illicit drug use in this fictional portrayal of life in 1970s San Francisco. Although the program gave PBS its highest ratings ever for a dramatic program, PBS bowed to threats of federal funding cuts and announced it would not participate in the television production of an adaptation of the second book in the series, More Tales of the City.

On May 1, 2006, KQED, Inc. and the KTEH Foundation merged to form Northern California Public Broadcasting.^[10] The KQED assets including its television (KQED TV) and FM radio stations (KQED-FM) were taken under the umbrella of that new organization. Both remain members of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), respectively. With this change, KQED and KTEH are considered as sister-stations today. KTEH would change its call letters to KQEH and rebrand to "KQED Plus" on July 1, 2011 after research found that most viewers were unaware that KTEH was affiliated with KQED.^[11]

On November 11, 2010, KQED and NBR Worldwide, LLC, the owners of PBS' Nightly Business Report, reached into an agreement to open a bureau in the Silicon Valley in order to enhance coverage of NBR.^[12]

On January 4, 2011, KQED expanded its broadcasting areas to include both San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria,^[13] as then-PBS affiliate KCET left public broadcasting at the end of 2010.^{[14][15][16][17]} Those areas are currently available only via cable.

Programming[link]

KQED currently airs most of its programming on television 24 hours a day. On a typical weekday, the station is dominated by children's programming in the mornings and in the late afternoons, with news and other programming between noon and 4pm and after 6pm. Prime time programming includes programming carried by PBS. On Saturdays, several cooking shows and other home programming airs during the daytime, with movies or special programming during the evenings and overnight hours. On Sundays, children's programming airs during the morning, with reruns of popular shows during the daytime and prime time.

For many years, KQED has carried PBS Newshour ever since its debut. The program would eventually open its West coast studios at KQED in 1997 to extend coverage throughout the United States.^[18]

Children[link]

Although KQED and KQEH airs many children's programming distributed by other stations including WGBH and WNET, KQED did not distribute any children's programming until 2007, when Raggs became the first children's programming to be distributed by the station. Raggs would first be tested on ten public television stations, including KQED and its partners (but not counting its partners), and eventually in 2008, KQED would distribute the program nationally. However, Raggs was not distributed by PBS itself, but instead by American Public Television.^[19]

On May 11, 2009, PBS announced another show, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!^[20] with KQED as the presenting station.^[21][22] Unlike Raggs, Dr. Seuss's latest show is considered the first children's program not by American Public Television, but instead distributed by PBS.

Digital television[link]

All channels are available on Comcast;^[23] AT&T U-verse offers KQED and KQEH, but not KQED World.^[24]

KQET[link]

KQED's television programming is repeated in the Monterey/Salinas/Santa Cruz market on KQET analog channel 25 and digital channel 58, licensed to Watsonville.

KQET was first aired on May 17, 1989 as KCAH, a locally-owned PBS member station that served the Monterey area. In the late 1990s, San Jose PBS member station KTEH acquired KCAH, making it a satellite of KTEH.

KCAH changed its call letters to KQET on August 12, 2007, months after the merger of KQED and KTEH. On October 1, 2007, KQET switched programming sources from KTEH to KQED.^[25]

KQET terminated its analog transmissions on May 9, 2009, and has now moved its digital signal from its pre-transition UHF channel 58 back to UHF channel 25, its historic analog frequency.

The station broadcasts from Fremont Peak near San Juan Bautista. KQET's subchannels are multiplexed:

Radio[link]

Publishing[link]

In 1955, KQED began publishing a programming guide called KQED in Focus. The program guide began to add more articles and took on the character of a regular magazine. The name was later changed to Focus Magazine and then to San Francisco Focus.^[26] In 1984, a new programming guide, Fine Tuning was separated off from Focus, with Focus carrying on as a self-contained magazine.^[27] In the early 1990s, San Francisco Focus was the recipient of number of journalism and publishing awards, including a National Headliner Award for feature writing in 1993. In 1997, KQED sold San Francisco Focus to Diablo Publications in order to pay off debts.^[28] In 2005, San Francisco Focus was resold to Modern Luxury Media, who rebranded the magazine as San Francisco.^[29]

References[link]

External links[link]

• KQED Official website
• California Connected Official website
• This Week in Northern California Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KQED
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KQED-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KQET
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KQET-TV
• KQED-TV (analog) coverage map
• KQED-DT (digital) coverage map
• Forum discusses proposed changes to KQED's bylaws, which would eliminate members' voting rights.
• Results of Member Elections include the elimination of their voting rights
• KQED Workers Authorize Strike
• Programming information

KQED may refer to:

• KQED (TV), a television station (channel 9 analog/30 digital) licensed to San Francisco, California, United States
• KQED-FM, a radio station (88.5 FM) licensed to San Francisco, California, United States

This disambiguation page lists articles about radio and/or television stations with the same/similar call signs, frequencies, channels, or branding. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Robbie Basho (August 31, 1940 – February 28, 1986) was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and a proponent of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.

Biography[link]

Basho was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was orphaned as an infant. Adopted by the Robinson family, Daniel Robinson, Jr. attended Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and went on to study at University of Maryland College Park. Although he played trumpet and sang in middle school and high school ensembles, his interest in acoustic guitar grew during his college years, as a direct result of his friendships with fellow students John Fahey, Ed Denson, and Max Ochs. In 1959, Basho purchased his first guitar and immersed himself in Asian art and culture. It was around this time that he changed his name to Basho, in honor of the Japanese Poet, Matsuo Basho.^[1]

Basho's vision was to see the steel string as a concert instrument and to create a Raga system for America. During a radio interview in 1974, promoting his album Zarthus, Basho discussed his music in detail. He described how he had gone through a number of "periods" related to philosophy and music, including Japanese, Hindu, and Native American. Zarthus represented the culmination of his "Persian period". Basho asserted his wish, along with John Fahey and Leo Kottke, to raise the steel-string guitar to the level of a concert instrument. He acknowledged that the nylon-string guitar was suitable for "love songs", but its steel counterpart could communicate "fire".

Basho credited his interest in Indian music to hearing Ravi Shankar, whom he first encountered in 1962. Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to a freak accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" experiment caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.^[2][3]

Guitar style[link]

Robbie Basho's dexterous, finger-picked guitar technique was influenced heavily by Sarod playing, and the studies he undertook with the Indian virtuoso Ali Akbar Khan. Basho employed unusual open tunings, including a number of variants on "Open-C" (CGCGCE) and played a 12-string guitar, in order to recreate the drone that is a notable feature of his beloved Indian Classical Music. Basho's guitar melodies were often created using Eastern modes and scales, but his work contains a broad range of noticeable influences, from European Classical Music to Blues (in his earlier period) and Ballad styles of America.

Discography[link]

• 1965 The Seal of the Blue Lotus (Takoma)
• 1966 The Grail and the Lotus (Takoma)
• 1966 Various Artists: Contemporary Guitar (Takoma)
• 1967 Basho Sings (Takoma)
• 1967 The Falconer's Arm I (Takoma)
• 1967 The Falconer's Arm II (Takoma)
• 1969 Venus in Cancer (Blue Thumb)
• 1971 Song of the Stallion (Takoma)
• 1972 The Voice of the Eagle (Vanguard)
• 1974 Zarthus (Vanguard)
• 1978 Visions of the Country (Windham Hill)
• 1979 Art of the Acoustic Steel String Guitar 6 & 12 (Windham Hill)
• 1981 Rainbow Thunder: Songs of the American West (Silver Label Recordings)
• 1983 Bouquet , MC (Basho Productions)
• 1984 Twilight Peaks , MC (The Art of Relaxation)
• 2008 Bonn Ist Supreme, CD Live! (Bo'Weavil Recordings)

References[link]

^{[1] [4]}

External links[link]

• Robbie Basho Archives, biography, discography, tunings, notes, articles, spotlights
• Robbie Basho Archives + [Steffen Basho-Junghans]
• Yahoo! discussion group
• Robbie Basho at Allmusic
• Robbie Basho tribute biography & music sample

Anna Halprin at the University of San Francisco November 2010.

Anna Halprin (born Anna Schuman on 13 July 1920) helped pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance and referred to herself as the breaker of modern dance. ^[1] Halprin, along with her contemporaries such as Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, John Cage, and Robert Morris, collaborated and built a community based around the fundamentals of post-modern dance. In 1950s, she established the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop to give artists like her a place to practice their art. Being able to freely explore the capabilities of her own body, she created a systematic way of moving using kinesthetic awareness.^[2] Many of her works since have been based on scores, including Planetary Dance, 1987, and Myths in the 1960s which gave a score to the audience, making them performers as well.

Halprin was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1972. In order to understand her ailment, she documented her own experiences and compiled the information to make her own healing process called The Five Stages of Healing.^[3] In 1981, she applied The Five Stages of Healing to her community and developed large community pieces. Halprin stated "I believe if more of us could contact the natural world in a directly experiential way, this would alter the way we treat our environment, ourselves, and one another." ^[4] Halprin has written books including: Movement Rituals, Moving Toward Life: Five Decades of Transformational Dance and Dance as a Healing Art. She currently does research in connection with the Tamalpa Institute, based in Marin County, California, which she founded with her daughter, Daria Halprin, in 1978.

She was the co-creator with her husband, the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, of the RSVP Cycles, a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines. A documentary film about her life and art, Breath Made Visible directed by Ruedi Gerber, premiered in 2010.

"Halprin continues to be sought after as a teacher because of her ability to lead dancers gently into new territory for their own choreographic invention." ^[5]

Early years[link]

From a very early age Anna Halprin was exposed to dance due to her grandfather's involvement in religious dancing.^[6] At 4 years old, Halprin's mother enrolled her in ballet class to satisfy young Anna's urge to dance. Quickly realizing that the structured environment was no place for a mind and soul as creative as Halprin's, her mother withdrew her from the class and put her into a class that was more focused on movement. At the age of 15, Anna Halprin began studying the techniques of Ruth St. Denis and Isadora Duncan. In 1938, she attended University of Wisconsin under the direction of one of her lifelong mentors Margaret H'Doubler. H’Doubler emphasized the importance of personal creativity and highly encouraged the study of anatomy in order obtain the most effective ways of moving.^[7] Halprin abandoned the stylized forms of modern technique to create her own way of reproducing the art of everyday life.^[8] Merce Cunningham shared the same need to reject the emotional expressiveness of modern dance. However, instead of using chance as a way to make movement like Cunningham did, Halprin turned to improvisation to investigate ways in which individuals could make a community.^[9] Because of H'Doubler, Halprin understood the conception of where invention in dance begins, and from this she could help form the basis of the next generation's ideas of postmodern dance. ^[10]Her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, whom she met in college, was also interested in the collaborative process.

San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop[link]

After World War II, Lawrence Halprin’s work called him to stay in San Francisco permanently. Anna Halprin wrote in a letter about her new journey saying she was ready “… to live a resourceful life with a connection to the soil and to the common pulse of ordinary people.” ^[11] In order to ease the transition, Lawrence built wife a deck outside of their home for her to dance upon. Later this deck became a place of learning for herself, her children, and her students. After performing in New York at the ANTA Theater in 1955, Halprin was disappointed after watching a Martha Graham group and one of Doris Humprey's. She thought everyone looked too similar to Graham and Humphrey and that it stifled and room for creativity. Thus, Halprin founded the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop in 1959 along with several others, including dancers Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti, and artists John Cage and Robert Morris. The purpose of this organization was to give her and others the opportunity to delve more into more explorative forms of dance and move away from the technical constraints of modern dance.^[12] During the span of twenty years, she developed a working process that gave people the liberty to move freely with emotion and with a feeling a community. This technique came to be called human potential growth; the aim was to maintain the link between non-verbal behavior and examining the use of language and physical expression.^[13] In addition to the workshop, Halprin continued to perform, dancing about "real life" in pieces such as "Apartment 6" with fellow dancers, John Graham and AA Leath.

Kinesthetic awareness[link]

Halprin's course of investigating her own way of creating movement called for understanding the limits of the body and the reactions the body makes when an initiation is made.^[14] In her own words she describes being aware of one’s kinesthetic sense “is your special sense for being aware of your own movement and empathizing with others." ^[15] She compiled a group exercises named Movement Rituals that shape the way she and her students moved their bodies through space and time. Her movement patterns are based on the dynamic qualities such as swinging, falling, walking, running, crawls, leaps, and various ways of shifting weight. In the 1960s she developed the RSVP Cycles with her husband, Lawrence Halprin, which breaks down the creative process with the use of scores. It stands for Resources, Scores, Valuaction and Performance. She says, “I wanted to create something for a group of people to do in which they’re given the opportunity to explore the theme and find out what’s real for them…” ^[16] It was her hope that through formalized scores such as the "Planetary Dance," (a formation of 3 circles, going in different directions, in which you're told to run, walk, or stand still)the process of creativity would be sparked in both dancers and non dancers. Her training programs, which take can take up to a year, allowed participants to concentrate on the movement of each body part "taking the body apart" and then later on in the program, reassembling it to move as a whole.

Working with the terminally ill[link]

In 1971, Halprin was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her colon; this sudden shift in her life inspired her to investigate and create associations to make a personal ritual that helped her healing process. She used the investigative and therapeutic tools she had learned from Fritz Perls in order to understand and duplicate the psychological behaviors put into performances. ^[17] The disease also inspired her to release her emotions through dance in pieces such as "Darkside Dance". Afterwards, she ceased to perform publically. Her quest for healing encouraged the community around her and, with her daughter in 1978, she co-founded the Tamalpa Institute. Together, they created a non-profit research and educational arm of the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop that offers training in a creative process integrating psychology, body therapies, and education with dance, art, and drama, as a path toward healing and resolving social conflict.^[18] Her "Life/Art Process" inspired workshops dedicated to therapeutic, transformational, and psychological needs. Using tools of the body, movement, dialogue, voice, drawing, improvisation, performance, and reflection, she was able to provoke others to explore themselves and use art as a therapy to heal themselves. On occasion, participants return to the Mountain Home Studio to dance on the deck that started it all in Halprin's very own home In 1970s and 1980s she purely focused on collaborating with other individuals that were terminally ill or in recovery from an illness. In 1987, she was invited to the Cancer Support and Education Center to work with individuals with cancer. There she would lead them through a series of body awareness exercises and have them make visualizations of themselves through an artistic medium. These exercises aided their struggle to create energy. Over the years, she continued to work with terminally ill patients. One work she created that embodied her healing principles was Circle the Earth in spring of 1981. The “creativity is based on an open-ended score that guides the group in an experience of gradually intensifying creativity, and culminating in the actual performance.”^[19] Halprin, along with her illness based dances, began making dances concerning critical and social issues. She no longer wanted spectators watching her work because she wasn't there to entertain. Instead, she wanted people who could realize the dancers were there for a purpose- "to accomplish something in ourselves and the world" which is why her dances had these political issues. ^[20]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Anna Halprin's Official Website
• Anna Halprin's entry in "Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia"

Fred Karger
Karger campaigning for President in Iowa
Personal details
Born	Fred S. Karger (1950-01-31) January 31, 1950 (age 62) Glencoe, Illinois, United States
Political party	Republican Party self-identified Independent Republican
Alma mater	University of Denver (B.A.)
Occupation	Political consultant Gay rights activist Actor
Religion	Judaism[1]
Website	fredkarger.com

Fred S. Karger (born January 31, 1950) is an American political consultant, gay rights activist and watchdog, former actor, and candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US Presidential election.^[2] Although he has not held elected or public office, Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant to the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.^[3][4] Karger was a partner at the Dolphin Group, a California campaign consulting firm.^[3][4] He retired after 27 years and has since worked as an activist on gay rights causes, from protecting the gay bar The Boom to using his organization Californians Against Hate to investigate the LDS Church's and the National Organization for Marriage's campaigns to repeal the state's same-sex marriage law.^[5] His running for the Republican nomination for president makes him the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Early life and acting career[link]

Karger was born in Glencoe, Illinois, the son of Jean (née Foreman), an active community volunteer, and Robert S. Karger, who owned a brokerage firm.^[13][14] Karger graduated from New Trier High School in 1968 and earned a B.A. in speech communications from the University of Denver in 1972. Karger moved to Los Angeles from Chicago and began acting. He appeared in a John Hughes-directed Edge Shave Cream commercial, as well as featured roles in Owen Marshall: Counselor at Large; Rich Man, Poor Man; Horshack! (a pilot for a spinoff from Welcome Back Kotter); and Airport – 1975. However, Karger continued to follow his passion for politics, and eventually landed with the Dolphin Group in 1977.^[3][4]

Political career[link]

Political consultant[link]

Karger's political career began with the Dolphin Group in 1977. He served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer through 2004. During his tenure, Karger helped lead the campaigns of California Governor George Deukmejian, Lt. Governor Mike Curb, the Presidential campaigns of Senator Robert Dole (R-KS), Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV), Governor John Connally (R-TX), Senator Charles Percy (R-IL) and dozens of other federal, state and local candidates. He managed statewide and local ballot measure campaigns, judicial campaigns, and served on several campaign finance and steering committees.^[3][4]

Karger consulted on behalf of real estate developers, farmers, consumer product companies, the hospitality industry and a variety of other business in their dealings with local, state and the federal government.^[4][15]

2012 presidential bid[link]

Wikinews has related news: Wikinews interviews Fred Karger, U.S. Republican Party presidential candidate

On April 10, 2010, Karger held a press conference at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in New Orleans, to announce that he was "seriously considering becoming a candidate for President of the United States in 2012 as an Independent Republican."^[16] He attended the SRLC with other potential candidates for the Republican Presidential ticket such as Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Gary Johnson.^[17] This was the day after GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced forming his 2012 exploratory committee; Karger declared himself the "Anti-Romney" candidate, and later stated that he "plans to run a campaign specifically designed to throw a wrench into Romney's run."^[18] Since making his announcement, Karger has been to Iowa and New Hampshire several times, holding town hall meetings, talking to voters, as well as meeting with political, LGBTQ, AIDS organization leaders and the media.^[19][20]

On July 18, 2010, Karger announced he had formed an exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2012.^[8][21]

In November 2010, Karger aired a weeklong ad campaign in Iowa which was described as the first television commercial of the 2012 presidential race. Steve Scheffler, an Iowa delegate to the national Republican National Committee, has said Karger is part of the radical homosexual community.^[22] His campaign has made use of the slogan "Fred Who?"^[23]

Karger has stated that his "budget is five to six million, which is, of course, a congressional race budget", and has also indicated that his "goal in running" is "to inspire the next generation through his candidacy."^[24] Karger's candidacy has been described as a long shot,^{[25][26][27][28][29]} with one interviewer indicating that "[t]he question on the minds of many" is "does he think he has a snowball’s chance? The answer to that is, yes and no."^[24]

Karger officially announced his candidacy on March 23, 2011.^[30][31]

On March 31, 2011, Karger won the Saint Anselm College Republicans Presidential Straw Poll, receiving 25% of the vote of the Goffstown, New Hampshire, school's student body and employees. He defeated Mitt Romney by five votes.^[32]

Karger speaking at a rally in Iowa

In late April 2011, Karger attended the national convention of the Log Cabin Republicans in Dallas, Texas and declared to the conservative gay organization that he wants his presidential campaign to "open up" the Republican Party and send a message to young people and gay people: "You can do anything you want to do." Karger told OC Weekly that gay Republicans need to "stand up and be proud in a tough atmosphere."^[33]

In June 2011, he filed a formal complaint with Massachusetts authorities, accusing fellow Republican nomination candidate Mitt Romney of having registered and voted in Massachusetts when his primary residence was in another state.^[34][35]

He has been endorsed by The Real World: Washington D.C. cast member Mike Manning.^[36]

On July 13, 2011, Karger called fellow GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann a "liar, hypocrite, and bigot" when she refused to comment on allegations Bachmann's husband was using conversion therapy in his clinic to attempt to cure gays of homosexuality and saying that homosexuality was a choice.^[37]

The media refused to invite Karger to any of the debates during 2011 and '12, and thus he was only able to get on the ballot in a few primaries. Prior to California's, he only received 3,631 votes during the entire primary season.

Political positions[link]

Capital punishment[link]

Though once an opponent of the death penalty, Karger is now proponent of the practice, having affirmed his belief that the death penalty serves to deter crime and that it provides closure to victims of severe crimes.^[38]

Karger is opposed to the closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Israel[link]

Karger, who is Jewish, has compared his record on issues related to Israel with that of Menachem Begin, former Israeli prime minister and founder of the Likud Party.^[39] In 2011, he attended the AIPAC conference.^[40]

During his first trip to Israel as a presidential candidate, Karger met with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as well as with Nitzan Horowitz, the second openly gay member of the Knesset.^[41]

Military[link]

Karger supports ending the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.^[42][43]

Mormonism[link]

Karger is a critic of Mormonism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints due to that religion's opposition to same-sex marriage.^[44] He has stated ""If a President Romney got a call from the president of the LDS, he has no choice but to obey. It is obedience over family and country."" PolitiFact.com evaluated this claim by Karger as "Pants On Fire" wrong, citing examples of the LDS church proclaiming political neutrality and that prominent Mormons have widely diverging political views, both liberal and conservative.^[45]

Same-sex marriage[link]

Karger supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and making same-sex marriage the "law of the land".^[42]

Second amendment[link]

Karger is a supporter of the right to bear arms, and an opponent of gun control.

Voting age[link]

Karger has proposed a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution which would grant 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. He argues that such an amendment would encourage younger people to participate in the political process.^[46]

Other[link]

Karger says he aims to improve education and create jobs in the U.S.^[43] He also supports immigration reform.^[43] He is opposed to nation-building in the Middle East.^[40]

Career as an activist[link]

Gay rights activist[link]

After retiring from the Dolphin Group in 2004, Karger became a gay activist. Karger first organized a non-profit group called Save the Boom to save a historic gay bar in Laguna Beach California from the wrecking ball.^[21][47]

In July 2008, Karger founded Californians Against Hate to serve as a political watchdog of the major donors and organizations working to take away gay marriage in California through Proposition 8.^[48] Through this, Karger and Californians Against Hate published the Dishonor Roll, a list of the over-$5000 donors to Proposition 8.^{[citation needed]} Karger and Californians Against Hate have waged four boycotts of companies whose families gave large contributions to qualify and pass Proposition 8:

• Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel: San Diego developer Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to Proposition 8.^[49] Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel, Southern California’s largest hotel. Karger initiated a boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in July 2008, garnering the support of local gay organizations and UNITE HERE Local 30, the hotel workers. Hotel Marketing Director Kelly Commerford confirmed that cancellations resulting directly from the boycott had cost the hotel $7 million just in the first 8 months.^[50] Californians Against Hate estimates that the boycott continues to cost the hotel $1 million a month.^[51]
• A-1 Self Storage: Terry Caster owns A-1 Self Storage; he and his family donated a total of $693,000 to Proposition 8.^[52] Caster also claims that gay marriage would create a “sick society.”^[53] Californians Against Hate called a boycott of A-1 Self Storage effective November 20, 2008.
• Bolthouse Farms: William Bolthouse gave $100,000 to Proposition 8, so Karger and Californians Against Hate began the boycott of the company he founded, Bolthouse Farms. Bolthouse Farms settled after it made large donations to gay organizations and promised to attain a 100% on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.^[54]
• Garff Automotive: Katharine Garff, the matriarch of the Garff Automotive family, donated $100,000 to Proposition 8. In retaliation, Karger and Californians Against Hate initiated a boycott against Garff Automotive Group, which owns 53 dealerships in six states. The boycott settled two weeks later when the Garff family met with prominent gay philanthropist and WordPerfect co-founder Bruce Bastian and Karger and promised non-discrimination and donations to Utah-based gay and lesbian groups.^[55]

LDS Church and same-sex marriage[link]

Karger has stated that he considers his bid less about winning the presidency, than about getting the LDS Church to end its political campaign against same-sex marriage.^[18] He has picketed LDS stores and bookstores.^[18] Previously, Karger also filed a formal complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accusing the church of hiding the extent of its financial involvement supporting Proposition 8.^[56] Karger noticed discrepancies between the $2,078 worth of non-monetary contributions that the LDS Church had reported and all the activities that the church had undertaken to pass Proposition 8.^[3] Roman Porter, the executive director of the FPPC, announced a full investigation later that month. The investigation examined the church’s involvement in providing phone banks, a website and commercials for Proposition 8,^[56] ultimately finding the church guilty of 13 violations, which the LDS Church settled by paying a fine.^[56][57]

Complaint against National Organization for Marriage[link]

In October 2009, Karger and Californians Against Hate filed a formal ethics complaint with the state of Maine against the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), regarding political donor reporting.^[58] In response, the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices launched an investigation of NOM. Maine law requires a disclosure report from any organizations that raises more than $5,000 for a ballot question campaign. NOM had contributed $1.6 million to Stand For Marriage Maine, as of October 23, 2009, without revealing its donors' names.^[59] Karger has repeatedly called for a Congressional Investigation of the National Organization for Marriage due to its late and non-reporting of its federal 990 income tax returns.^[60]

Tobacco advocacy[link]

In the 1990s Karger worked for the tobacco industry to prevent smoking bans in California.^[61]

Orange juice boycott[link]

Karger encouraged Republicans to boycott Florida orange juice in protest of the Florida Republican Party's decision to reschedule its primary to January, thus upsetting the normal primary calendar. This was not the first attempt by a gay activist to boycott Florida orange juice; in the 1970s, gay rights supporters boycotted Florida orange juice to protest Anita Bryant's role as spokeswoman.^[62]

See also[link]

LGBT portal

• LGBT rights in the United States
• List of LGBT rights organizations

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (December 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fred Karger

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• Fred Karger for President official campaign website
• Rights Equal Rights official site
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Column archive at The Huffington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org

Articles

• Goldberg, Michelle (April 7, 2011). "Elder Statesman. Fred Karger is a gay, Jewish Republican, and he’s running for president. His plan is to embarrass the Mormon GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, and get the church to drop its support for gay-marriage bans". Tablet Magazine. http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/64243/elder-statesman/?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=7ea0f0005f-4_7_2011&utm_medium=email. Retrieved April 8, 2011. 
• In Fred Karger's Presidential Run, GOP Stands for Gay Old Party June 2, 2011