WHY: It is estimated that by 2030 the construction industry will have a workforce shortage of nearly 3 million people. Challenges of this scale call for bold action. The leadership of the Nor Cal Carpenters Union and BuildIT and BuildOUT California invite you to join us for the historic launch of their new partnership dedicated to recruitment and training in the construction industry that is all inclusive and leaves no one out of the opportunity to build a great family supporting career. This program will become the ‘model of success’ to be replicated across the United States and beyond.
Speakers at this event to include:
Rafael Mandelman, President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Jay Bradshaw, Executive Officer, Nor Cal Carpenters Union
Paul Pendergast, President, BuildIT/BuildOUT California
Peter Tateishi, CEO, Associated General Contractors of California (AGC of CA)
Emily Cohen, Executive Vice President, United Contractors (UCON)
Lori Dunn-Guion, Senior Vice President, Swinerton
Nick and Danielle Colina, Anco Iron & Construction
BuildOUT California/BuildIT is the world’s largest industry association dedicated to the sustainable development of LGBT/Allied businesses, professionals, and tradespeople in architecture, engineering, construction and large-scale redevelopment. BuildOUT/BuildIT are engaged with 8,588 businesses and individuals on a weekly basis The Nor Cal Carpenters Union (NCCU) is a large regional council of the Unite Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC) representing over 37,000 skilled craftspeople in Northern California. It comprises 22 affiliated Local Unions and focuses on advocating for its members through organizing, political engagement, contract enforcement, and training. The NCCU also emphasizes the importance of partnerships with signatory employers and provides various resources and support for its members.
“Undeclaring” Indigenous Peoples Day is so typical of Trump’s mono dimensional thinking, and of course, a slap not only against First Peoples, but also a middle finger to Joe Biden. It’s also a back of the hand to everyone in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley and our rich Indigenous heritage. Literally, our city was built on Tribal Land.
In San Francisco and other cities with historic roots in Italy, Columbus Day is a huge celebration, known as Italian Heritage Day. Also, for Spain — who launched Columbus’ voyages of discovery — it marks that country’s national day: also a point of pride. I take part in both observances, but am also acutely aware of the dichotomies. History is not a pop-up book of only pretty pictures.
However, to also note the contributions of, and suppression of, Native Peoples by additionally making it Indigenous Peoples Day allows for something this administration seems hell bent on destroying: the truthful, and yes often painful discussion of our history— as a world, a hemisphere, a country, a nation. It IS possible for education to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can hold two facts together in our brains without our cerebrums exploding.
Trump’s action has nothing to do with “saluting the rich heritage of Italian Americans”, and everything to do with his insatiable appetite for revenge on a diet of ignorance and nastiness. It’s his only menu.
For 1492, the case can be made of a world unbridged by discovery, cultural diversity and education. For 2025, and a planet spanned by centuries of experience and education, we have no excuse. Trump’s only span is a short attention one, and the only thing he does with bridges, is burn them.
As of April 2025, President Donald Trump holds the lowest 100-day approval rating of any U.S. president in the past 80 years. A recent ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll reports his approval at just 39%, down from 45% in February. This surpasses his own previous low of 42% during his first term in 2017, which was the lowest recorded at that time since World War II .
Prior to Trump, no president since the advent of modern polling had a lower 100-day approval rating. For context, President Joe Biden’s approval stood at 57% at the 100-day mark in 2021, while Barack Obama enjoyed 63% in 2009 .
Trump’s historically low approval ratings are attributed to widespread public dissatisfaction with his policies, including recent tariff implementations and concerns over economic instability. Despite strong support among Republicans, his approval among independents and younger demographics has significantly declined.
When they say “Trump has the lowest first-term polling in 80 years,” it means you have to go back about 80 years — around 1945— to find anyone close to as low.
The president back then (in 1945) was Harry S. Truman, who became president when FDR died in April 1945.
At the start of his presidency, Truman was actually quite popular because of the end of WWII.
However, by 1946-1947, Truman’s popularity plummeted — especially because of postwar inflation, labor strikes, and economic uncertainty.
In fact:
• In 1946, Truman’s approval rating dropped as low as 32% according to Gallup. • That is lower than Trump’s current 39%, but Truman’s collapse happened later, not right at the start of his presidency.
At the 100-day mark, Truman was still relatively popular. So technically: no president at the 100-day mark in the past 80 years was lower than Trump.
Summary:
• Trump now has the lowest 100-day first-term approval in 80 years. • Truman (80 years ago) eventually fell lower (into the 30s), but not at the beginning. • No one at the 100-day mark had a lower number until now.
Media Contact: David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com
“The Play’s the Thing” Palm Springs Young Playwrights Festival Announces 2025 Winners www.psypf.org
Winning Plays to Be Performed June 8 at Palm Springs Cultural Center
23 April 2025 – Palm Springs, CA: “Never be afraid to sit a while and think.” The words of playwright Lorraine Hansberry remind us of the quiet power of reflection and storytelling. This spirit of thoughtful, bold creativity comes to life again as the Palm Springs Young Playwrights Festival (PSYPF) announces the two winning playwrights for its 2025 season: Kayla McCarty of Ramona High School for her play Seven, and Peyton Taylor of Valley View High School for The Kellogg Murders.
“Seven”, written by Kayla McCarty (18), Ramona High School, Riverside, explores the haunting stillness of purgatory, where seven souls must confront the weight of their sins. Only one can rise toward grace; the others descend into darkness.
“I’m honored to be participating in the 2025 Palm Springs Playwright Festival,” said McCarty, an incoming Acting BFA student at Carnegie Mellon University. “Being recognized for my work as a playwright, after years in musical theatre, is incredibly meaningful. ‘Seven’ came from a place of deep reflection—and I’m grateful for the chance to share it.”
“The Kellogg Murders”, by Peyton Taylor (17), Valley View High School, Moreno Valley, is a dark comedy in which jealous cereal mascots Corn Flakes and Wheaties embark on a revenge-fueled spree against their sugary competitors—until a determined investigator begins connecting the crumbs. Packed with outrageous characters and whip-smart satire, the play skewers brand culture and nostalgia with tongue firmly in cheek.
“I’ve loved every minute of theatre during my high school years, and experimenting with playwriting has been one of the most exciting parts,” said Taylor. “Even as I head to UCR to major in psychology, I never want to lose my connection to the stage. I’m so grateful to PSYPF for this opportunity.”
Each winner receives a $500 scholarship to support their artistic education, as well as professional mentorship from acclaimed writer and director Jack Kenny. Palm Springs resident and Hollywood veteran, Kenny brings a wealth of experience from Hollywood and Broadway to guide the young playwrights.
“These two young writers embody the fearless creativity and insight that define PSYPF,” said David Youse, Founder and Executive Director of the Festival. “Both ‘Seven’ and ‘The Kellogg Murders’ are wildly different yet equally compelling. One offers profound psychological and spiritual introspection. The other, a biting and hilarious satire. It’s thrilling to provide Kayla and Peyton with a platform—and a community—that will nurture their artistic growth.”
A seasoned actor and producer, Youse has rich background in television and theater. He has guest-starred in over 30 television series, including recurring roles on Chicago Hope, The Days of Our Lives, Beverly Hills 90210, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and The Young and the Restless. He is notably remembered for his appearance on Criminal Minds, one of the highest-rated episodes of the series. His other television credits include Southland, Torchwood, Without a Trace, and Star Trek: Enterprise. In film, he is best remembered for The Broken Hearts Club, directed by Greg Berlanti.
As a producer, Youse founded Four Things Productions, aiming to raise awareness and funds for various non-profit organizations through theater. His premiere production was a celebrity-driven staged reading of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, directed by Academy Award winner Joel Grey, which inspired the 2010 Broadway revival. Other notable productions include Charles Busch as Katharine Hepburn in Matthew Lombardo’s Tea at Five and Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias, directed by Judith Ivey. These productions have raised significant funds for charities such as The Ali Forney Center, The Goodman Special Care Clinic, The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center
Returning this year as a mentor is Jack Kenny, a name synonymous with storytelling across stage and screen. With a distinguished career that includes creating NBC’s The Book of Daniel and FOX’s Titus, running the hit Syfy series Warehouse 13, and writing for fan-favorites like Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Kenny brings a wealth of experience from Hollywood’s frontlines. Kenny’s extensive Broadway and Off-Broadway acting experience, including performances in Fiddler on the Roof and The Normal Heart, combined with his Juilliard training and decades of television writing and directing, provides festival participants with mentorship that bridges every dimension of the theatrical arts.
“Theatre demands truth—immediate and unfiltered,” said Kenny. “Mentoring these young playwrights isn’t just about shaping their scripts; it’s about helping them find and trust their voice.”
The 2025 Palm Springs Young Playwrights Festival takes place Sunday, June 8, at 12:00 PM at the Palm Springs Cultural Center (2300 East Baristo Rd., Palm Springs, CA 92262). Tickets are $10 for general admission. Students admitted free. Tickets available at: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6581051
The festival will be co-hosted by three past winners: Abigail Alldredge, Anthony Banuelos, and Erik Evans, continuing the festival’s tradition of fostering alumni engagement and mentorship.
The Palm Springs Young Playwrights Festival is dedicated to promoting creative writing in the theatrical form among elementary, middle, and high school students in Riverside County, CA. By offering mentorship, scholarships, and the opportunity for public staged readings, PSYPF invests in the next generation of storytellers, ensuring that diverse and fresh perspectives continue to enrich the world of theatre. For more information, submissions, and tickets, visit: www.psypf.org
Sponsors and Community Support: The 2025 Premier Sponsor of PSYPF is The Cherry Lane Alternative. Leading sponsors include:
Rowan Kimpton Hotel, Palm Springs – Peggy Trott, General Manager
Mark Twain on ‘idiot’ politicians and our current predicament
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 to 1910), known by pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, writer and lecturer whose writing indicates he seemed to know what was coming.
By Mark Twain edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin San Francisco Chronicle 15 April 2025
I have often wondered at the condition of things which set aside morality in politics and make possible the election of men whose unfitness is apparent. We have never had a president before who was destitute of self-respect & of respect for his high office; we have had no president before who was not a gentleman; we have had no president before who was intended for a butcher, a dive keeper or a bully, and missed his mission by compulsion of circumstances over which he had no control.
We are by long odds the most ill-mannered nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the planet today, and our president stands for us like a colossal monument visible from all the ends of the earth. He is fearfully hard and coarse where another gentleman would exhibit kindliness and delicacy.
He became so expert in duplicity, and so admirably plausible that he couldn’t tell himself when he was lying and when he wasn’t. The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.
He taught them that the only true freedom of thought is to think as the party thinks; that the only true freedom of speech is to speak as the party dictates; that the only righteous toleration is toleration of what the party approves; that patriotism, duty, citizenship, and devotion to country, loyalty to the flag, are all summed up in loyalty to party. Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being “loyal” to a thousand iniquities.
It is interesting, wonderfully interesting — the miracles which party-politics can do with a man’s mental and moral make-up. In the interest of party expediency they give solemn pledges, they make solemn compact; in the interest of party expediency, they repudiate them without a blush. They would not dream of committing these strange crimes in private life.
It is an accepted law of public life that in it, a man may soil his honor in the interest of party expediency — must do it when the party requires it. Where the party leads, they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals. Here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it & out of place — the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
We will not hire a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a school-teacher who does not know the alphabet. We will not have a man about us in our business life, in any walk of it, low or high, unless he has served an apprenticeship and can prove that he is capable of doing the work he offers to do. We even require a plumber to know something about his business, that he shall at least know which side of a pipe is the inside. But when a representative of ours learns, after long experience, how to conduct the affairs of his office, we discharge him and hire somebody that doesn’t know anything about it.
Those burglars that broke into my house recently are in jail, and if they keep on, they will go to Congress. When a person starts downhill, you could never tell where he’s going to stop.
People seem to think they are citizens of the Republican Party and that that is patriotism and sufficiently good patriotism. I prefer to be a citizen of the United States.
My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease and death.
In this country we have one great privilege which they don’t have in other countries. When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable the people can rise up and throw it off. That’s the finest asset we’ve got — the ballot box.
In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t.The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor.
The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
Every word of the text printed above was written by Mark Twain in novels, speeches, autobiographical dictations, interviews, letters, posthumously published notebooks, manuscripts and other sources dating from the 1860s through the 1910s.
