The Signal

Marlene Pray (she/her) is a queer activist, sexuality educator, and community organizer whose work spans over three decades of LGBTQ+ advocacy, anti-racism, and social justice movement-building. She founded and directs the Rainbow Room, Bucks County’s LGBTQ+ youth center at Planned Parenthood Keystone, which has been a lifeline for queer youth in the region for 24 years.  A PhD candidate in Human Sexuality Education, Marlene has trained educators, organizations, and communities across the country on LGBTQ+ inclusion, racial equity, and youth empowerment. Her public service includes serving on Doylestown Borough Council, where she championed the borough’s LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination ordinance, and she continues to lead through board roles with the NAACP and NAMI Bucks County. Marlene lives in Doylestown and brings her whole self to the work — as an organizer, mother, homicide survivor, and earth-based celebrant committed to collective liberation. She joins me today to kick off Pride Month, to talk about its history as a riot, as protest, and as a demand, and what the fight for LGBTQ+ rights looks like today. Listen on Apple, Spotify, and iheart  ALSO LISTEN TO: How Local Journalism and Pro-Democracy Reporting Can Protect Main Street from Hate and Political Extremism, with Phil Williams Journalist Jordan Green on Why the Neo-Nazi Movement Is an Escalating Threat to US Democracy The History of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in America, with Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.  Follow us on BlueSky: @buckscountybeacon.bsky.social @cmychalejko.bsky.social

"I believe if we just give the AI revolution to tech billionaires we're going to have political unrest in this country." Ro Khanna is a Bucks County native who is a U.S. Representative in California’s 17th District. He is also vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Last month he wrote an article in The Nation, “AI for the People”, which laid out his vision “for an AI revolution that works for the many not just the billionaires.” He joins us today to talk about why he is an an AI-democratist, his policy vision for regulating this disruptive technology, and why we cannot allow Big Tech oligarchs to build a society where “AI ‘progress’ is defined by their wealth rather than by our democracy.” Listen on Apple, Spotify, and iheart  READ: AI for the People, by Congressman Ro Khanna “The Nation” Is Siding With Humanity, by Katrina vanden Heuvel and John Nichols What We Need to Ask Ourselves About AI, by Senator Bernie Sanders As AI Breathes Down Our Necks, It’s Time for a Luddite Renaissance, by John Nichols ALSO LISTEN TO:  Reading George Orwell in Trump’s America, With Laura Beers How Local Journalism and Pro-Democracy Reporting Can Protect Main Street from Hate and Political Extremism, with Phil Williams