Ground-breaking feminist activist and early proponent of women’s studies at UC Berkeley, Marsha Hudson Ph.D., 80, died at her home in Santa Cruz on Dec. 14, 2025.
In 1969, when higher learning was still largely the province of men, Marsha, a graduate student in the Comparative Literature Department, posted notices across the Cal campus proposing a feminist literary salon in her Berkeley apartment. The purpose was to discuss women’s literature, since female writers were largely ignored in the classroom.
Marsha eventually brought her salon to campus and founded the Comparative Literature Women’s Caucus, an activist collective that established the first women’s literature classes in Comparative Literature, conceived and taught by graduate student women. Caucus members helped produce the first major translation anthologies of women’s world-wide poetry, encouraged women to write feminist dissertations on women authors, and researched discrimination against women in the department.
This energy resulted in the creation of a women’s studies major and program at Cal, an effort led by Gloria Bowles, Ph.D. Comp Lit, and eventually an interdisciplinary department now known as Gender and Women’s Studies.
On hearing of Marsha’s death, Lisa Gerrard, Emerita Faculty in UCLA Writing Programs, wrote, “Marsha was my first friend in the Comp Lit Department, and we stayed close for many years. She was a bravely outspoken critic of the patriarchy and a model for how women could work together with generosity and kindness instead of with the competitiveness fostered by academia and the culture at large. Thank you for all you’ve given us, Marsha.”
Judy Wells and Marsha Hudson at Bateau Ivre, Berkeley in October 2014. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection
Another early Comp Lit colleague, Ann Freeman, Emerita Professor of English, San Mateo College, echoed this sentiment: “I am thinking about how much she did for all of us, as our leader and raiser of consciousness. But I am also thinking about how far she went in her own personal growth, her inner strength and spiritual development. I am grateful to have known her.”
Marsha received her B.A. at Cal in 1968, a double major in English and Anthropology. In her sophomore year, she was arrested in the Free Speech Movement demonstration and had to take a semester off from school to pay the $166 fine as she was solely self-supporting throughout her entire academic career.
She received both her M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) in the Comparative Literature Department, supporting herself with jobs ranging from legal secretary to topless dancer-barmaid. As Hudson stated in her personal essay, “Dancing in a Cage,” in The Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution: Essays from Marsha’s Salon (McFarland 2005), “Patriarchal stereotypes prevailed in respect to women’s work whether I was clothed and behind a typewriter or unclothed and carrying a beer. … In either capacity men perceived me in terms of my utility to them and related to me according to their projected fantasy.” Marsha did not mince words in defining patriarchal culture.
Editors of Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution at Cody’s Bookstore on Fourth Street. Left to right: Doris Earnshaw, Marsha Hudson, Judy Wells and Bridget Connelly. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection
When Marsha finally qualified to be a university instructor in the Comp Lit Department, after completing her M.A. and passing her Permission to Proceed to the Doctorate exam, she reflected that her topless dancer-barmaid job was more lucrative than her academic post! She received her Ph.D. in 1978 on completion of her dissertation on American poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser, known for her commitment to social justice and feminism.
Marsha did not obtain her life-long dream of being employed as a full-time academic professor of literature and poetry (similar to many Ph.D.’s who also did not obtain full-time jobs in the late 1970s in the humanities). Pained but undaunted, she developed a career in the financial services industry rising to the level of senior-vice president with responsibility for an $11 billion portfolio. Hitting the glass ceiling in that career, she returned to her academic roots, teaching composition, critical thinking, and women’s studies part-time at various California colleges, ending with Santa Cruz.
Marsha embarked on a third career as a certified gestalt practitioner and dream worker, studying under the (late) Jeremy Taylor, using his archetypal projective method and Jungian methodology. With her Comparative Literature background in classical and modern poetry, Marsha liked to make the connection between the figurative language of poetry and the metaphorical imagery of dreams.
Marsha’s core belief about dreams was, “I agree with Sandor Ferenczi that ‘dreams are the workshop of evolution’ and that the more we bring our dreams into our awareness and share them with others, the more we are participating in our personal and collective evolution. Today dream working is more important than ever across the planet at this critical juncture brought on by climate change.” For many years she facilitated dream groups, workshops, and individual sessions from her home office in Santa Cruz.
Marsha Hudson in 2015. Courtesy: Judy Wells Collection
In 2018, Marsha co-founded The Love and Power Institute for Planetary Sustainability in Santa Cruz with her partner Norman Brown, Ph.D. The Institute’s stated mission was “to support the evolution of human consciousness as a critical path toward resolving the global climate crisis.” They recognized a missing link in most environmental and justice movements: the inner emotional world of human beings, and sought to facilitate workshops to help people become more empathic in order to create a more loving human presence on the planet. And to change the conversation around traditional emotional roles for men and women.
Marsha’s background in feminism, leading women’s groups, teaching, gestalt therapy, and dreamwork and Norman’s background in leading men’s groups, years of psychotherapy practice, teaching, and commitment to feminism, and their mutual love of the natural world, made for an effective and loving partnership, that ended all too soon with Marsha’s sudden death in December 2025 from pancreatic cancer.
On hearing of Marsha’s passing, another Comp Lit colleague, Carol Urzi, attorney, wrote, “She was a huge and courageous soul, so influential to me and so many others, by her outspoken leadership. I’m sure that, in recent years, she continued to influence people’s lives in her Love and Power Institute.”
Survivors include Marsha’s beloved partner/husband, Norman Brown, Ph.D., and her many colleagues and friends in her endeavors over a lifetime.
Recently, an archive on founding women’s studies in the Comparative Literature Department has been established at the Bancroft Library at Cal by Gloria Bowles, Ph.D., Bridget Connelly, Ph.D., Carol Urzi, M.A. J.D., Kathleen Weaver, M.A., and Judy Wells, Ph.D.
A Celebration of Life is planned for Marsha Hudson on Sunday Feb. 15, 2026, 2 p.m. to 4-4:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Santa Cruz County, 6401 Freedom Boulevard, Aptos, CA 95003 (831-684-0506).
Alfred Lambremont Webre , Staff Writer – NewsInsideOut.com
Stephan: We are now seeing yet another, quite predictable fascist move by tyrant Trump and his billionaire buddy, Jeff Bezos. Trump is secretly working with Bezos who owns Amazon to stop Amazon from publishing or putting up for sale books that are critical of Trump. Concurrently, we see Bezos gutting The Washington Post, once one of the most important papers in the United States. Reporters, columnists, and editors have walked away from the paper by the dozens. Controlling media, publications, and education, to stop criticism of a fascist administration is one of the universal moves of aspiring dictators.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA— In a Legal Demand Letter for $25,000,000.00 USD in Compensatory and Punitive Damages against Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com by the major Los Angeles, California, Litigation Law firm of PARKER-STANBURY LL.P., Attorney and Author Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd, a dual Canadian and American citizen, reveals that, at U.S. President Donald John Trump’s secret direction, billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner Of Amazon.Com, is suppressing Author Alfred Lambremont Webre’s Books sold at Amazon.Com.
Several such books of Author Alfred Lambremont Webre reveal hard evidence documenting Donald Trump’s participation in a high-level international criminal conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, thereby ending American Democracy & the American Constitutional Republic.
PARKER-STANBURY LL.P.’sDemand Letter against Trump-Bezos conspirator Jeff Bezos reads, in part, as follows:
“(b) Defendants Amazon.com, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Jeff Bezos published 25 premiere books, in eBook, Paperback and Hardback status, and many foreign languages and had sold 8505 books since September 26, 2009, through Sept 26, 2025, for total revenues in excess of $24,000.00USD. Shortly after January 20, 2025, when Donald John Trump held a series of […]
The nice thing about Donald Trump bluntly stating that he wants to rig the midterms is that this makes it impossible to ignore him.
Rigging a democracy isn’t easy… at least not if you want to be subtle about it. Just ask Republicans, who have been playing the voter suppression long game for decades. Like a grandmaster slowly moving chess pieces into position, they put in place one policy after another to disenfranchise people unlikely to vote for them.
We could go on and on and on with examples from a variety of GOP-led states. Once Republicans get into power anywhere, you can be virtually assured that some kind of anti-democracy bill is going to get passed to make sure they stay that way.
But, like we said, it takes a long time if you don’t want to make it too obvious what you are up to.
First, you have to win an election in a census year; then you gerrymander the state legislature to secure a veto-proof majority, get anti-democracy judges onto state supreme courts, pass legislation to secure your interests, go through litigation, block ballot initiatives that expand voting rights, etc.
Donald Trump, however, isn’t subtle, and he is too old and in too much legal jeopardy to play the long game.
That is why he isn’t shy about making it very clear that he wants to rig the midterms to maintain the GOP majorities in Congress.
And that’s a good thing (not his plan to steal an election, of course, but rather, that he is saying it out loud) because it gives people time to prepare.
Just as importantly, nobody can pretend that it isn’t happening.
Take Trump’s appearance on the podcast of his former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino on Monday, where the president made it quite clear that the states he lost should not be allowed to run their own elections.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,’” Trump stated. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
The president’s justification for this unconstitutional power grab are the false claims that noncitizens are voting illegally and that he won the 2020 election.
Both claims have been thoroughly debunked – both by independent experts and Republicans.
Of course, that won’t stop Trump from continuing to spread his Big Lie, especially not in light of the epic shellacking the GOP is heading toward this fall.
For the president, it’s all on the line. If Democrats control the House, he will get impeached (again), and his lawless administration will be subject to aggressive oversight.
And it is quite clear that Trump is prepared to do just about anything to prevent that from happening.
This week, his FBI (with the involvement of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard) raided an election center in Georgia to secure documents and materials related to the 2020 election.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Trump is looking to create some kind of pretext to allow the federal government to be more involved in the administration of the midterms.
Fortunately, since he does so with a complete lack of subtlety, people are taking note.
“Republicans should not, in fact, ‘nationalize the voting.’ If you were worried about election integrity before, this would make things infinitely worse,” said former Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI). “Decentralized elections are one of the greatest protections against large-scale fraud and abuse.”
He pointed out that, in order to achieve Trump’s goal of nationalizing elections, Republicans are pushing the passage of the “SAVE Act,” a voter suppression bill GOP lawmakers want to attach to must-pass legislation this year.
However, Schumer made it very clear that the measure would be “dead on arrival” in the Senate, and that no Democrat would support any legislation that contains it.
While we have criticized the Democratic leader in the past, it’s nice to see that he is paying attention in this case.
Of course, Trump’s overt declarations of wanting to subvert US democracy make it impossible to ignore the threat he poses to free and fair elections.
Klaus Marre Klaus Marre is a former congressional reporter and current senior editor for US politics for WhoWhatWhy. He writes regularly here, and you can also follow him on Bluesky and Substack.
Berliners stand atop the Berlin Wall as it opens on November 9, 1989, marking the collapse of an authoritarian barrier that once defined a divided Europe and signaling the rapid unraveling of a system that could no longer sustain institutional control. Photo credit: AP Photo
We Have 10 Years. Here’s What Happens If We Fail.
Substack preview hooks Most dictatorships fall quickly. A small number survive long enough to bind state systems to power preservation. The difference comes down to the moment resistance ends and preservation begins.
America is crossing the critical threshold separating dictatorships that fall quickly from dictatorships that last generations. The November election will determine whether your children grow up in a democracy or inherit a system that takes decades to dismantle.
Most authoritarian systems fail within their first decade. Elite fracture breaks these systems, military loyalty erodes their foundations, succession crises destabilize their grip on power. But a small number survive that critical window. When they do, they persist for generations.
The difference between failure and persistence comes down to whether the system crosses a specific threshold before resistance can prevent consolidation. Nazi Germany lasted twelve years, Fascist Italy persisted for twenty-one, but Cuba has endured since 1959. North Korea has maintained control since 1948, Russia has operated under consolidated authoritarian rule for more than two decades with no vulnerability.
We are watching that fatal threshold gets tested right now.
Donald Trump raises a clenched fist before a crowd framed by American flags, projecting dominance and grievance as political loyalty is transformed into mass choreography rather than unity. Photo credit: AP Photo
Four Actions That Pushed America Over the Critical Threshold
In February 2026, four separate actions moved the United States from democratic stress testing to authoritarian consolidation. These are documented government actions matching the exact pattern authoritarian systems follow when converting temporary power into permanent control.
Don Lemon was arrested. A prominent journalist critical of the administration was taken into custody. Regardless of stated justification, arresting a high-profile media figure for speech-related activity crosses the boundary from press criticism to press prosecution. Every journalist covering this administration now calculates legal risk before publishing. The calculation happens in the pause before hitting send, in the choice between accurate reporting and personal safety.
Heavily armed law enforcement advances alongside riot police with ballistic shields as citizens exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, reflecting a crowd control posture in which constitutional expression is met with militarized force rather than civic engagement. Photo credit: Reuters
Trump shut down the Kennedy Center for two years. A major cultural institution operating since 1971 as a living memorial with independent management was closed by executive decision. Your access to independent cultural spaces now depends on whether they criticize the administration. When the curtain falls at the Kennedy Center, the principle that public institutions serve the public rather than the president falls with it.
Trump is suing the federal government for $10 million over IRS actions. The sitting president uses personal litigation to target the federal agency that disclosed his tax returns, an agency he now controls. The distinction between your personal legal disputes with federal enforcement collapses when the president erases that boundary. He sues the government he runs, the government he runs will decide his lawsuit.
Trump threatened to have Republicans take over state election administration. The president publicly stated his intent to federalize or control state-run elections through party mechanisms. Whether your vote gets counted now depends on federal approval of the outcome. Elections become auditions where results must satisfy the audience in power.
All four occurred within weeks of each other in early 2026, thirteen months into the administration. This pattern defines authoritarian threshold crossing.
Russia Wrote the Modern Playbook, America Just Followed It
Russia shows the contemporary route to authoritarian persistence. This model matters most right now because the approach requires neither revolution, military coup, nor constitutional crisis but only systematic pressure applied to the right institutional boundaries at the right moment.
After a fragile democratic opening in the 1990s, consolidation proceeded through capture rather than outright abolition. Courts were subordinated without being eliminated; they continued to function while judicial independence eroded until verdicts aligned with executive preference. Independent media was not banned but marginalized, purchased, or subjected to selective prosecution until coverage became predictably compliant. Regional autonomy was not abolished but administratively neutered until local governance served central power. Elections continued but stopped functioning as accountability mechanisms, began operating as performance legitimacy. Russians still vote, the votes still get counted, but the counts stopped mattering.
The decisive variable is whether governance serves power preservation rather than public function.
This approach does not announce itself or produce a dramatic moment of visible takeover. The system shifts in increments, each one defensible in isolation, justified by crisis, efficiency, or national interest. Small adjustments compound; the ratchet only turns in one direction.
Russia has operated under consolidated authoritarian rule for more than two decades, placing it well beyond the historical norm for authoritarian persistence, firmly in the territory of generational entrenchment.
Russia executed these exact mechanisms between 2000 to 2004. The United States just executed all four in less than a month.
You are watching the final threshold test.
Why Saying We Are Not a Dictatorship Yet No Longer Applies
The most common response to threshold analysis has been that we are not yet in a dictatorship, making these concerns alarmist. That response died in February 2026.
The United States in February 2026 has not fully consolidated, but the decisive threshold has been crossed. The mechanisms that prevent authoritarian control are being systematically dismantled rather than stressed. Stress testing finds weak points; dismantling removes the structure entirely.
History shows that once this boundary is crossed, reversal depends on whether institutional resistance breaks or holds in the immediate window that follows. That window closes at the 2026 midterm elections, now nine months away.
What Is Happening Right Now: The Markers Beyond the Big Four
The four threshold-crossing actions form part of a documented pattern of boundary elimination.
Inspectors general across multiple federal agencies were removed, replaced starting in January 2025 at rates exceeding any previous administration (seventeen watchdogs fired in a single night). Federal judges face public attacks for rulings against executive actions. Journalists covering immigration enforcement, federal operations, executive misconduct receive subpoenas, investigation threats. Business leaders who initially expressed concern about executive overreach have gone quiet. Corporate criticism has become rare. The silence spreads like a stain.
The 2026 midterm elections are the last checkpoint where electoral correction through normal democratic processes remains possible.
Dictatorships Either Fail in the First Decade or Last Generations
Across modern history, dictatorships follow two distinct paths. Many emerge during crisis, dissolve within a short period, while others bind state systems to power preservation, persist for decades.
Short-lived dictatorships rely on coercion without durable alignment. They fail when elite cohesion breaks, armed forces withdraw support, or succession becomes unstable. These systems commonly persist for fewer than ten years before internal contradictions destroy coherence. The center cannot hold; things fall apart.
Enduring authoritarian systems follow a different route. Personal authority converts into administrative obedience, courts lose independence, media becomes compliant or marginalized, elections continue but corrective power disappears. Once governance itself serves power continuity, removal becomes rare, often requires external force. The system no longer needs the strongman because the strongman becomes the system.
Dictatorships do not unwind gradually; they either fail in the first decade or they last generations.
Why Nazi Germany Lasted Only 12 Years
Nazi Germany consolidated power rapidly after 1933 but lasted only twelve years. During that time, the regime murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust, killed millions more through war, genocide, systematic atrocities. The ruling order tied its survival to expansionary war, its defeat followed military defeat rather than internal reform. The brevity of Nazi rule does not diminish its catastrophic human cost but shows that even short-lived dictatorships can inflict generational trauma. Twelve years sufficed to destroy a continent, murder millions, proving that duration does not determine devastation.
The Two That Did Not Fall: What Cuba and North Korea Did Differently
Cuba has remained under authoritarian rule since 1959. Its persistence rests on early elimination of political pluralism, centralized economic control, party penetration of state institutions. North Korea embodies near-total entrenchment. Since the late 1940s, authority has passed within a single family, reinforced by comprehensive information control, pervasive surveillance, total isolation from external influence. No competing institutions exist, no alternative legitimate sources survive.
Both systems exceed historical averages because reversal became improbable within their first decade of consolidation.
Why the 2026 Midterms Matter More Than Any Election in Your Lifetime
The decisive variable is whether governance serves power preservation rather than public accountability. Once that boundary is crossed, time favors the authoritarian system. Every day that passes without reversal strengthens the new order.
The historical window for authoritarian consolidation runs roughly 18 to 24 months from the moment power becomes centralized. The 2026 midterm elections fall at month 22 of the current administration. That timing represents the last moment where electoral correction remains possible through normal democratic processes. After that window closes, reversal requires force.
If the midterms function as accountability mechanisms, removing enough members of the governing coalition to force institutional correction, then reversal remains possible through constitutional procedures. If they fail to function this way (either because election administration has been sufficiently compromised or because capture is sufficiently complete that electoral results cannot produce governance changes), then reversal will require external force of the kind that takes generations to organize, execute. The velvet revolution gives way to the long defeat.
What happens between now and November 2026 determines whether your children inherit a democracy under repair or a dictatorship that outlasts their entire lifetimes.
What to Do Right Now: Actions That Can Reverse Consolidation Before November 2026
The threshold has been crossed. The question now is whether consolidation completes or whether coordinated resistance forces reversal. Here are the specific actions that can prevent permanent authoritarian entrenchment before the November 2026 midterms:
Apply economic pressure to silent corporations. Identify companies whose leaders have retreated after initially criticizing executive overreach. Organize targeted boycotts. Flood shareholder meetings with resolutions demanding public statements on the four threshold violations. Money talks, so make it scream.
Coordinate social media campaigns around specific officials. Target secretaries of state, governors, election administrators in swing states with pressure campaigns demanding public refusal of federal election takeover. Make their inboxes burn, make their phones ring, make silence more costly than speech.
Fund legal defense for targeted journalists with institutions. Direct resources to press freedom organizations, legal defense funds for journalists facing prosecution, and institutions resisting executive closure. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, similar organizations need immediate funding increases. Money buys lawyers, lawyers buy time, time buys survival.
Organize coordinated work stoppages at critical moments. General strikes remain one of the few tools that force elite attention when institutional mechanisms fail. Identify key pressure points: major court rulings, election certification moments, inspector general confirmations. The economy stops when workers stop, nothing else gets attention like an empty factory floor.
Mobilize international democratic pressure. Allied democracies have leverage through trade relationships, diplomatic channels, international institutions. Coordinate campaigns demanding that European Union leadership, Commonwealth nations, other democratic allies publicly condemn the four violations, threaten economic consequences. Shame works, but sanctions work better.
Support primary challenges to complicit legislators. The 2026 midterms represent the last electoral checkpoint. Identify members of Congress who have remained silent on or actively supported these threshold crossings, then fund primary challengers. Replace the complicit with the resistant.
Create parallel information infrastructure. If press prosecution continues accelerating, independent media needs alternative distribution channels, funding models, legal protection mechanisms. Invest in decentralized platforms, encrypted communication tools, international hosting for investigative journalism. Build the underground before the crackdown forces you underground.
Pressure judges through public attention without threats. When courts rule on the Lemon arrest, Kennedy Center closure, IRS lawsuit, or election federalization threats, organize mass public observation of hearings, coordinate legal expert commentary amplifying constitutional violations. Judges rule differently when the gallery is full, the cameras are running.
Authoritarian consolidation depends on elite compliance with public passivity. Break either one, the system becomes unstable.
These actions represent documented resistance patterns that either trigger early authoritarian failure or prevent consolidation from becoming permanent. History shows that coordinated economic disruption combined with elite fracture creates the conditions for reversal. Nothing else has worked consistently.
The 2026 midterms will determine which outcome occurs, but what happens between now and November depends on whether resistance becomes sustained, economically disruptive enough to force elite fracture.
The critical threshold was crossed in February. The next nine months will determine whether consolidation becomes permanent.
This is the first in a series tracking the specific markers that indicate whether American democracy can reverse authoritarian consolidation or whether the system converts into something that requires generations to dismantle.
Follow me on Substack for more: Glass Empires
We study the foundations of influence with control: how private motives shape public empires, how individual psychology scales to collective behavior, how power preserves itself once it takes root.
San Francisco boasts the Golden Gate Bridge, Telegraph Hill, Alcatraz, and Fisherman’s Wharf. But for the city’s LGBTQ+ community, few landmarks hold the emotional weight of the Castro Theatre. After two years of darkness, this beloved icon is about to blaze back to life after a gorgeous, meticulous renovation.
Community Jewel
The theatre first opened in 1922. The original owners, brothers Abraham, Albert, and Samuel Nasser, commissioned the creation of a 1,400-seat opulent picture palace in the Spanish Baroque style.
In the late 1970s, it became a repertory cinema, playing arthouse, foreign, and classic films. The theatre has served the local LGBTQ+ community through its programming and special events. In 1984, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus introduced its “Home for the Holidays” concerts at the Castro on Christmas Eve. In 1985, it hosted the world premiere of “Buddies,” the first major film about the AIDS crisis. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Castro Theatre became more than just an entertainment venue. It was a memorial chapel, a fundraising lifeline, and a defiant celebration of queer life in the face of devastating loss. In 1994, beginning with a screening of “The Poseidon Adventure” starring Carol Lynley, filmmaker and activist Marc Huestis presented legendary celebrity extravaganzas at the Castro, featuring Debbie Reynolds, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis, and Sissy Spacek, among many others. The 2008 film “Milk” used the Castro Theatre and Castro Street for filming, even restoring the theatre’s iconic marquee to its 1970s appearance for production and hosting the movie’s world premiere there.
“The epicenter of LGBTQ culture in San Francisco”
Over the past two years, the Castro Theatre’s marquee went dark. But behind closed doors, new owners, Another Planet Entertainment (APE), poured more than $40 million into a labor of love. It’s not the first time the company has given new life to a local gem. In 2009, it reopened Oakland’s Fox Theater, a grand 1928 landmark that had sat dormant for decades, and turned it into one of the Bay Area’s premier concert halls. This project is not just a restoration, but a resurrection. They’re bringing back a landmark that’s witnessed decades of queer joy, activism, grief, and triumph. “The Castro Theatre is such an important space in San Francisco,” said Another Planet’s Senior Vice President, Mary Conde, recently. “It’s really the epicenter of LGBTQ culture in San Francisco and probably the world.” Conde says that when APE first met with the previous owners, it took a year to negotiate the contract to take over the site. “We had a lot of conversations. The model of being a reparatory film business wouldn’t keep them open much longer. They couldn’t sustain this model. And we wanted to create a space where you can be a successful repertory film house and show popular music and have drag shows and have podcasts and comedy shows and all types of entertainment.” “Our goal is to activate and re-energize the building with equity, inclusion, and community at the forefront,” Another Planet CEO Gregg Perloff said in a statement.
The new look
Renovations include restoring the frescoes, the 1937 Art Deco chandelier, and other classic features. A stunning gold proscenium, which framed the original screen, had been covered for the past 40 years. It’s been uncovered and re-gilded. The before-and-after photos give a taste of what to expect. As Conde explains, “From the 20s to the 80s, you could smoke inside. So, a lot of the original plasterwork was just preserved in nicotine, which was sticky and disgusting. But they found the right solution to get the nicotine out and preserve the paint underneath.”
Before and after photos of the Castros’ ceiling renovation (Another Planet Entertainment)
Renovations of details at the Castro Theatre (Another Planet Entertainment)
David Perry, a local author and board member of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, hails the renovation as “truly glorious.” “The original 1922 design by noted architect Timothy Pflueger literally glows. The challenge has been respecting the original design while ensuring the theatre is fully ADA-compliant and providing, for the first time ever, a complete air circulation, heating, and air conditioning system. Doing this inside a delicate, 100-year-old building meant extra care had to be taken, most of it by hand versus using heavy machinery.” There’s also a revamped sound and lighting system, along with restrooms. One of the Castros’ famed features was the old-fashioned Wurlitzer organ that rose from beneath the stage. That had been on loan since the 1980s but was removed in 2015. “The nonprofit Castro Organ Devotees Association raised the money to build a new state-of-the-art digital theatrical organ, one of the largest in the world,” says Perry. “Designed to the specifications of longtime Castro Theatre organist, David Hegarty, the organ will once again rise out of the pit before every film screening.” It features seven manuals (keyboards) and over 800 stops, making it likely the largest, most versatile console of its kind.
Diverse calendar
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Castro’s reopening is marked on February 6 with a screening of “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” It’s the 20th Anniversary fundraiser of the Castro Community Benefit. “This is more than a movie night; it is a homecoming,” said Andrea Aiello, Executive Director of the Castro CBD. “We are inviting the community to be the very first to experience the ‘New Castro’ while supporting the preservation of the queer history and culture that makes this neighborhood a global beacon.
Sam Smith performs their ‘To Be Free’ show in New York City
Priscilla is followed by a 20-night residency from British singer Sam Smith.
Miss Peppermint
Other names lined up in the first few months include Father John Misty, Perfume Genius, Jonathan Van Ness, CMAT, Miss Peppermint, Kim Petras, John Waters, Jessica Kirson, and drag superstars Alaska and Alyssa Edwards.
Expect podcast recordings, stand-up comedy, and movie screenings, along with the return of the beloved Frameline. The longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world celebrates its 50th anniversary from June 17–27. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the San Francisco Film Festival will also return.
“A sacred space”
Besides the something-for-everyone lineup, the theatre’s return means so much more to the city of San Francisco and to those who love this neighborhood. “The importance of the Castro Theatre to the film, music, and especially the LGBTQ communities cannot be overstated,” says David Perry. “It is, literally, a sacred space.” “During the worst of the AIDS years, it became a place of safety, calm, and refuge for many dealing with the pandemic. Its return is proof of the Castros’ resilience during those years, and a tribute to the legions of audience members and artists who have found a home here. Also, for the local business community, including the many restaurants and bars in the area, returning the Castro to business is a huge economic boost.
(Photo: Another Planet Entertainment)
“For the city at large, as we continue to recover from the long COVID hangover, the renovation and restoration of the Castro Theatre is a symbol of The City’s ‘can do’ spirit.” “The neon blade that spells out ‘CASTRO’ is our community’s welcome sign to the world. ” adds Perry. The author has endless, treasured memories of his own visits to the theatre. “I first came to San Francisco in October 1986, and I know that within days, I was sitting in that audience watching David Hegarty play, San Francisco, as the organ rose out of the pit. That was something I’ve repeated dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the years. He says that attending his first Sound of Music sing-along at the Castro and seeing the premiere of the new Tales of the City film, with Armistead Maupin taking the stage afterwards for a Q&A, are just two of his most memorable evenings. With such a diverse new program of events in a luxurious, restored setting, Perry looks forward to many more. San Francisco is the perfect escape, whatever the season. The Castro Theatre is an iconic part of its history. Its restoration preserves its splendor, while updating it for the modern world and protecting it for the future.
Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a veterans hospital in Minneapolis, was killed by officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol last month. He is being memorialized nationwide, but chaplains at Veterans Affairs facilities in Massachusetts have been barred from mentioning his name.
Chaplains of all faiths were told “not to mention VA nurses at all, let alone the name Alex Pretti, at worship or gatherings,” according to The Republican newspaper of Springfield, Massachusetts. Emails containing this directive were sent to chaplains at the end of January by the state office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The emails also instructed clergy not to offer counseling or support to VA nurses.
“It is inhuman, unconscionable, and unconstitutional to silence VA chaplains,” Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation(MRFF), said in an interview. “This is propelling the Constitution into a woodchipper.”
Since its founding in 2005, the MRFF has represented more than 100,000 service members and veterans opposing religious intimidation and coercion within the military and the VA. The organization is currently suing the VA over alleged Christian nationalist contracting favoritism, as well as Freedom of Information Act violations.
Weinstein says that “95% of our clients are Christians being attacked by fundamentalist Christian superiors for not being Christian enough.” Several have been chaplains, and some of those who have not gone along with religious bullying have had “senior chaplains essentially make them go sit and color in the corner.”
VA Response
Pete Kasperowicz, press secretary for the VA, said the silencing was not national policy. “All VA employees, including chaplains,” he wrote, “are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties.”
However, the Massachusetts VA policy appears to have been implemented at the Edward P. Boland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton. Several chaplains at the facility spoke anonymously with veteran reporter Jim Kinney out of fear of reprisals.
One “feared losing the ability to minister at all at the VA.” Another said they were “ordered to cease and desist in offering Pretti-related support and counsel to VA nurses. The chaplain was told he can only offer Mass.”
A clergyperson said a supervisor claimed that Pretti’s death was political, and so chaplains were given copies of the Hatch Act, which outlaws partisan activity by government employees. VA chaplains are government employees.
Weinstein served for seven years as a military lawyer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps and later as a lawyer in the Reagan White House. He said this invocation of the Hatch Act was an egregious abuse and a willful misinterpretation of the law.
“When you intentionally intimidate chaplains as to what they can and cannot counsel and pray about for fear of violation of the Hatch Act, it’s just bullshit,” Weinstein said. “Restricting the First Amendment rights of VA chaplains is what you would expect from a full-throttle fascist regime,” he said.
The anonymous chaplains told The Republican they believed the directive was coming from “on high” in Washington. Weinstein agreed that it was probably so.
The Washington Post reported that VA officials in Washington initially blocked Minneapolis VA employees from holding a memorial for Pretti, a decision later reversed. Staff members were also initially told not to leave messages of support for Pretti in some of the center’s public spaces.
The VA has barely acknowledged Pretti’s death, except in a social media post in which Doug Collins, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, sought to blame the death on state and local officials who were not involved in the killing. In contrast, Pretti, who was Catholic, is being honored by the Church for his “kindness and gentleness to patients.”
Union Response
Pretti’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), has been outspoken in expressing its grief, outrage and support for his family. AFGE issued a statement and has participated in vigils honoring Pretti’s memory as a dedicated nurse.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association organized candlelight vigils in his memory in Leeds and Worcester, two of the facilities in the state where staff members have been silenced.
According to the VA, chaplains are there to “serve people of all faiths and denominations as well as patients and families looking for non-denominational support. They are here to listen and offer spiritual and emotional support as you struggle with tough questions and ethical decisions.” Unless, of course, they have anything to do with Alex Pretti or, under the current policy, anything at all.
Source of Abuse
The censoring of VA staff and chaplains may seem surprising, given that Secretary Collins is a chaplain and a colonel in the Air Force Reserve. But Weinstein was not surprised.
“The primary animating jet fuel of the rise in religious abuses in the armed forces and the VA,” Weinstein said, “is Christian nationalism.”
“Service members and VA personnel call me up every day, desperate for help,” he said, and they wonder what they can do. “Action is the antidote to despair,” he tells them, quoting folk singer Joan Baez.
“I hope that people will take action,” Weinstein concluded, “because silence is collaboration. We must prioritize chronicling and exposing this tyranny as a powerful way to resist this unconstitutional darkness.”
Frederick Clarkson is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive, social justice think tank in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Federal immigration enforcement officers detain legal observers at gunpoint in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 3, 2026.
(Photo: Screengrab/Footage by Ford Fischer)
“We must not allow ICE to kidnap children and bring them to prisons where they profit off their pain, misery, and suffering,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro.
A group of Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday demanded the termination of US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, as new footage emerged in Minneapolis of federal immigration officers drawing guns on unarmed observers.
More than a dozen Democrats serving in the US House of Representatives stood outside the Washington, DC headquarters of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday and demanded that President Donald Trump fire Noem, who has taken heat for making false claims in recent weeks about Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both of whom were gunned down by federal agents last month.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) delivered a brief speech at the event where she described her home city of Minneapolis as being under “occupation” by federal agents sent by Trump and Noem.
“We do not exaggerate when we say we have schools where two-thirds of the students are afraid to go to school,” she said. “We do not exaggerate when we say we have people who are afraid to go to the hospital because our hospitals have occupying paramilitary forces. We do not exaggerate when we say our restaurants are shutting down because there are not enough people to drive the employees to work and from work.”
Omar went on to reiterate her past calls to abolish ICE, which she described as “not just rogue, but unlawful.” She also said that “Democrats are ready and willing to impeach” Noem if Trump doesn’t fire her.
Later in the event, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) spoke of his meeting last week with Liam Ramos, a 5-year-old boy from Minneapolis who had been detained at a Texas ICE facility before a judge last weekend ordered his release.
“While detained, he became lethargic and sick,” Castro said, speaking of Ramos. “His father said that he’d become depressed. He was asking about his mother and his classmates, and most of all, he wanted to go home. But he also said that he was scared of the guards… he had clearly been traumatized.”
Castro emphasized that, even though Ramos and his father have been freed from detention, there are still too many children being held at the facility, including at least one as young as two years old
“This is a machinery of cruelty and viciousness that Secretary Noem has overseen, the Trump administration has built, and people like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have been complicit in upholding,” he said. “We must not allow ICE to kidnap children and bring them to prisons where they profit off their pain, misery, and suffering.”
As Democrats were making their case for Noem’s removal, new footage emerged of federal immigration officers in Minneapolis pulling legal observers out of their cars at gun point.
In a video posted on social media by independent journalist Ford Fischer, agents can be seen swarming a vehicle with their guns drawn and demanding and its passengers exit the car.
Just now: ICE agents pull handguns and arrest observers who had been following them this morning in Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/s3uIwWS3AA
After the observers were pulled from the vehicle and detained by officers on the scene, one officer in the video claims that the people in question had been threatening them with “hand guns.”
An observer then asks the officer if he means that the people being taken into custody were waving firearms at them, and he replies that they were making fake guns with their fingers, not brandishing actual weapons.
As the officers left the scene, they were heckled by protesters.
“Put away your weapons you douchebag, nobody is threatening you!” yelled one.
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A group claiming that “Vilifying billionaires is popular. Losing them is expensive” is holding a March for Billionaires in SF on Saturday, seemingly hoping to tap some silent majority that actually loves the billionaire class.
So at group of people who are apparently sympathetic to the “long-suffering” billionaire class is organizing a March for Billionaires this coming Saturday, as Mission Local reported over the weekend. From all appearances, this is not satire, but a real, organized march by those who would genuinely hate to see the billionaire class taxed at a higher rate.
“Most made their fortunes building companies that employ thousands and solve real problems. Their wealth is largely stock in those companies, not vaults of cash,” the March for Billionaires website declares. “The Billionaire Tax Act has already pushed the founders of Google to leave the state, taking their economic contributions with them. By taxing unrealized gains and voting shares, the act would make it difficult for founders to retain control of their startups.”
Mission Local managed to get a statement out of these (anonymous) March for Billionaires organizers, and they appear to be dead serious, and not ironic or sarcastic.
“We sincerely believe what we’re saying,” organizers told Mission Local. “We think most American billionaires have had greatly positive societal impacts, directly and indirectly. We support wealth creation and oppose rent-seeking/extraction, anticompetitive practices, and regulatory capture.”
They also claimed they were remaining anonymous because of “some threats” online, and insist they are not funded by billionaires or “outside groups.”
For what it’s worth, the March for Billionaires is scheduled for this Saturday, February 7 (the day before the Super Bowl) starting in Pac Heights’ Alta Plaza Park at 11 am, then proceeding down Fillmore Street, and supposedly ending with a 12:30 pm rally at Civic Center Plaza. We would think this is certain to attract more counterprotesters than actual marchers, but who knows, and we do imagine they’ll get a fair amount of media attention.
Image: WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 13: Advocates pose as Monopoly men and wealthy DOGE supporters while protesting tax breaks for billionaires and the Republican tax plan, inside and outside the Ways & Means Full Committee Markup to advance the legislation in the Longworth House Office Building on May 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Stop Billionaires Tax Cuts Campaign)
A man in a Batman costume addresses a joint meeting of the City Council, city authorities and the Santa Clara Stadium Authority in Santa Clara, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2026. YouTube/City of Santa Clara
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