By David Silbey. (Guest Post! Ian Lekus is a lecturer in LGBT Studies at the University of Maryland and an LGBT Thematic Specialist for Amnesty International USA. He is writing Queer and Present Dangers: Sexuality, Masculinity, and the Sixties, to be published by the University of North Carolina Press. He’s here to tell us about a bike ride that for him brings together memory and hope, the past and the future, in equal amounts. Thanks, Ian.)
Pedaling 65 miles under cool blue skies, at the very beginning of a New England fall, I have plenty of time to ponder all the history that brought me back to Cape Cod for my second Harbor to the Bay AIDS Bike Ride. The September before, I had committed myself to my greatest physical challenge to date: biking from Sagamore to Provincetown in support of Community Research Initiative’s cutting-edge work to make HIV medications safer, less expensive, and more accessible to all who need them. More...

By David Silbey. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is putting together “a network in all 50 states” to jump-start his Presidential run in 2016. This is a warning shot across the bows of Republican rivals like Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, but also taking a lesson from the Obama 2012 campaign, which built a large organization very earlier, especially in the swing states. Some of the paid Obama campaign staffers, in fact, never left Ohio after 2008, but stayed there for the next four years. That ground game is perceived to be one of the major reasons why Obama won re-election. Paul is trying to imitate that early start. More...