gratuitous xmas picture of the day

Athough I've been feeling quite humbugish, I wanted to spread some xmas cheer...yes, that is santa and he is riding a what looks like a stork.
Taken at this year's Macy's parade.

Number 18,301

Red, White and Blue

Is the title of this piece by Georgia O'keeffe @ the Metropolitan Museum...i spent the weekend in NYC with some really good friends. Had thanksgiving dinner in manhattan and caught an off-off-so-off-broadway-it's-in-the-south-bronx show. I will never tire of this big and brash city. It slaps you in the face when you come in, not to be rude, but to remind you to turn your senses up on high. I fell like I have only experienced .001% of what the city offers. I can't wait to go back.

Rant and Rave 2005 Birthday Edition

Rant and Rave: 2005 Birthday Edition

Rave: It’s my birthday!
Rant: It was my birthday like 4 days ago.
Rave: Yay! I’m fulfilling my dream by getting into a doctoral program
Rant: Yipes! I’ll finish when I’m 40
Rave: I have an awesome girlfriend who loves me.
Rant: She’s over 1500 miles away
Rave: Grey hair is sexy
Rant: Grey hair in other places is not sexy
Rave: Everyone’s tired of Dubya
Rant: We’re stuck with him for another 3 years
Rave: The crazy "god power" mom
Rant: she's for real
Rave: Harry Potter is back!
Rant: Still no Harry Potter teen sex with Hermione
Rave: Madonna’s new album
Rant: Madge needs to lay off the leotard
Rave: my precious ipod
Rant: Having technolust for the nano
Rave: AVE ROMA
Rant: Why did they do Caesar like dat?
Rave: Thanksgiving in NYC
Rant: 4 hours in a bus to get to NYC
Rave: Birthday Cake!
Rant: Too many candles melting on it


Picture of the day...

full moon

Full moon on my way home...

cut and paste president

From Sadly No

Here's a snippet from two speeches by our dear leader made a month apart.

Speech #1 Oct 6, 2005
Third, the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.
Speech #2 Nov 11, 2005
Third, these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.

Here's another set
Speech #1 Oct 6, 2005
Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus -- and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.

Speech #2 Nov 11, 2005
Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews -- and against Muslims, themselves, who do not share their radical vision.

I can see why he was a C student. No original thoughts, no creative ideas, repeat the same bullshit over and over again. He's like a salesman selling a product he doesn't believe in anymore. Does he even know what he is saying? We are watching the destruction of a man and his party. Frankly, I can't get enough of it. Supposedly the speech today was to be his a big policy speech about Iraq and how democrats are assholes for reminding people that he lied to the country. As the beloved Ann Richards once said about his daddy, "put a fork in him, he's done".

picture of the day...

reason #3457 why I won't be moving to Texas any time soon

Texas bans gay marriage

"Texans know that marriage is between a man and a woman, and children deserve both a mom and a dad. They don't need a Ph.D. or a degree in anything else to teach them that," said Kelly Shackelford, a leader Texans For Marriage, which favored the ban.
I love how the bigots throw the anti-intellectual card..."you don't need a degree"..when they have to justify their bigotry.

Texans voted 3 to 1 for this measure, that is a sobering fact. Well, what do you expect from a state that has a town called White Settlement that refuses to change its name. The gay movement (what's ever left of it) need to figure out how to talk to people like black ministers and latino union organizers. I am always amazed how white gay leaders just don't understand why people of color won't join in the struggle. The Elizabeth Birches of the world need to make the connection. Oppression, is oppression, is oppression. How did Maine do it? They did it by calling it by it's name: Discrimination, plain and simple. The campaign in Maine, reframed the issue. Make the voters realize that they were being bigots by voting for the measure. The No Nonsense campaign was an utter failure. Where did the campaign say anything about it being about what it was, pure and simple homophobia. Instead, the campaign allowed the religious right frame the issue.

"That's where the victory was won, from the pulpits of the state of Texas," said state Rep. Warren Chisum, a Pampa Republican who wrote the amendment. "The people of Texas have spoken and they intend that marriage should be between one man and one woman."

The pulpits are our gallows, people, we need to wake up.

can i tell you a secret...

I stumbled upon this website several months ago. The artist asks people to send him secrets about themselves on a postcard and posts them on his site. It's marvelous. It's alot like notproud.com, people confess their sins. Being the voyuer that I am, i love reading about what people will to themselves and each other. I guess I get a little thrill reading about these sins...makes mine tame. We all have things to confess, no?

cristo moreno

or the purple christ (el senor de los milagros ) was the name of the procession that I came across today on my way to Dupont Circle. It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue and the air was crisp. There was a huge religious procession crossing Connecticut Ave. that made it look like the streets of Mexico City or Lima. It was an old fashioned religious icon procession that had men in purple capes with huge decorated Catholic banners, viejitas with rosaries, a band with a tuba, and incense, alot of incense. The clouds of incense that surrounded the procession smelled sweet and it instantly triggered memories my catholic upbringing. It was as beautiful as it was poignant. I waited almost an hour as the men and women in purple robes carried the platform as it swayed. The procession crossed one of the most busiest streets in DC to enter Adams Morgan, which is the Latino neighborhood of DC. I was impressed on the organization and the devotness of the marchers. The band was a brass ensemble, playing marching tunes that were a mixture of the uplifing and sombre. I got a kick out of the mostly white spectators that kept asking me what was going on. I'm not a practicing catholic anymore, but I couldn't help but feel an affinity to the group of people walking the street, whose ancestors kept an ancient tradition alive that at one time was considered heretical. As the silver laden icon of the black christ came by I thanked it for reminded me how milagroso life really is.

just for the record, i do not own a wife beater

You are a Gender Nazi. Your boundary-crossing
lifestyle inspires awe in your friends and
colleagues. Or maybe they're just scared you
will kick their asses for using gender-specific
language. Either way, the wife-beater helps.

What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by

wild about harry...

uhm, not so much...John at americablog has 7 points how this is an incredible opportunity.
In essence:
1) Harriet Miers was killed by the neocon religious "right". The RR litmus test has been exposed for all to see.
2) Bush is now officially weak. The next SC nominee will be coming from a point of weakness.
3) The religious right is being set up. Neocon RR nominees aren't going to be approved, Bush will pick someone that the RR hates, like Alberto Coconut Gonzalez (YUCK).

It's incredible that this man squandered the world's goodwill and the trust and confidence of the american people in the space of 3 years. He's simply the WORST PRESIDENT EVER. Nothing more, nothing less. Hey redstaters, happy now?


Well, Harriet may be gone but we will always have her blog .

black sox paid off some karmic dues

wow, the sox won the series, the next thing we'll see that there will be indictments at the white house...Yay for the sox, my hometown team finally won ugly!


(notice the raza wearing sox jerseys?)

Rosa Parks
1919-2005
"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

fridays are mine

So it's been a month since I started school and I am still alive! I am taking 11 hours which is something I haven't done since my BA days. My classes are time consuming but not as challenging. It's probably because alot of the material isn't new to me. In doctoral programs, the classes start at a masters' level, so much of the stuff is review for me. I have grown to appreciate my master's experience because it gave me such a good preparation for this new adventure. I see alot of these students straight from undergrad and I notice how young and eager they are. It should make me feel old, but I recognize how hard it was to start off in a new school, new city, the work is hard and you have to preform as soon as you start. My fellow students are smart and funny, that's a good thing-humor keeps you sane. My fellow students are mostly female (like most of the profession) and white. Like my professors. The latinas who are in the program (i can count them one hand) keep to themselves. I try to connect with them but they don't seem to care or shy. Maybe it's a regional thing, chicanos are rare here, most Latinos are from Central America especially from El Salvador.
I have something to do every evening, weekends are spent working on papers, reading, getting ready for classes. So I look forward for some free time, I decided that fridays will be mine. I may want to see a movie. It must be the season of character actors. Looks like Capote is the one to see. The buzz is that Philip Seymour Hoffman is going to get an Oscar for this. I really liked him in Boogie Nights (which is one of my favorite movies). Charlize Theron (a.k.a. gorgeous)who played everyone's favorite lesbian hooker serial killer with a bad job (didn't she freak you out on how uncanny she was?) is playing a minnesotan miner also with a bad job. Sadly, i'll probably end up watching Discovery Health Channel. It's quite addicting, where else can you see kids with no faces, face eating tumors or extra heads! It's American like apple pie and disaster movies...watching others in their time of pain/crisis/suffering...plastic surgeries, super obese people, medical oddities, autopsies. I could write a good analysis about how watching this stuff is our attempt to forget about the our inevitable demise and that this denial has permeated all areas of our culture but there's a show on the harlequin baby in a few minutes.



picture of the day... i took this at coney island, new york

the business of country dancing

I went to a country bar this past weekend with my girlfriend and my friend. Not by choice, mind you, we went because a fundraiser was held there. I couldn't get away from stepping into one living in Texas, it was part of the culture there. Even if you didn't like country music, you knew who were the big stars and even hum a few bars of the songs. It was hard to avoid it, the music is piped in the grocery stores. The queer country bars Texas were known to be overwhelmingly white, working/middle class and racist. Most Chicanos I knew wouldn't step into those bars, unless they were dating white people who is into country (that is a whole other topic), we knew we wouldn't feel welcome. I figure that was a regional thing, being the south and all. Which brings us to our experience at the lesbian country bar in Maryland Saturday night. I might as well have been in Texas. All country bars look the same don't they? This one had country decor with wooden wheels on the wall and twisted rope. As soon as we stepped into the place, I noticed that we were the only people of color in this bar. But since it was a queer bar, I thought I would give it the benefit of the doubt. What really bothered me were all the rules- all the protocols in this place. It's all about conformity. You must dance in a circle, you must keep in step with everyone else, you must either follow or lead, and god help you if you stand out. If you did stand out you will be made an example. Case in point: my girlfriend and I decided to take the plunge and dance to a song, with the limited 2 step skills that we both had. As soon as we started to dance, a woman came up to us and rudely pushed us to the middle, telling us that we were supposed to follow the circle. Since we didn't keep pace with the rest of the mindless country dancing robots, we stood out and were shamed into the circle. It made me realize how much this culture values assimilation and conformity. Look at line dancing, with these regimented almost military steps to a song (any song really, they can line dance to gregorian chants if given the chance) ,there is no room for difference, no room for creativity. If you decide to add a little twist not only will you stand out, you bring on the ire of the similarly clad mostly white middle class lesbians who will make sure you know you are breaking the well established pattern by shaming you.
Needless to say, I dislike country dancing...

week in haiku

God said invade george
Crony gets nominated
worst president ever


(okay the last line is 6 syllables)


picture of the day

from Jessica Insandiego

homeland security

Via Republic of T

Collage of Protest

I've tried to post this thing three times, I hope it doesn't come up multiple times. I couldn't study knowing there was a protest going on! So I decided to hop on a bus to the White House to see the anti-war protest today. Even though it was about 3:30-4 o'clock, there were alot of people on the streets. My guess there were about 200-300K people, the march, I heard, took more than 3 hours to complete! Sadly, I'm sure the media isn't going to report it. Since it's hurricane obsessed.

shave your bush

by the white house, S24 march for peace and justice 

Worst President Ever

I wish the angle was a little better.