Train Mama

Animaniacs

2009-01-15T21:13:00.002-05:00

One of my fave shows from my high school years tells it like it is: the universe is big and we're not.

Take it away Yakko--

And so...what's the point of it all? (Yakko, Wakko and Dot don't have a song to answer that)

Oscar Grant III

2009-01-08T09:52:00.002-05:00

Mr. Grant, a 22-year-old, was shot point blank, in the back by a police officer in Oakland. Mr. Grant was lying face down on a train platform, then the cop, Johannes Mehserle, shot him. Witnesses captured the event on their cell phones and posted it online. Here are search results for vids of the shooting on youtube.

This is despicable. Mr. Grant was a young, Black man whose murder at the hands of a police officer adds weight to already disturbing statistics.

Cops have power. They have the guns, they have the law, they have the authority and as such they must be held accountable. Too often these maverick cops get away with murder, acquitted. Too often we hear the excuse that the cops were stressed, under pressure, in a risky situation. That is no excuse. No wonder some demonstrators in Oakland turned to rioting. Aren't YOU pissed off?

Here's the article from the NY Times. And a touching piece from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Fart on the Pope

2008-12-23T10:44:00.004-05:00

So I've pasted a whole article from the Guardian online by Tom Kington and Riazat Butt titled "Pope urges defence of heterosexuality". My comments are in the brackets. Let me preface this by saying:

I REALLY HATE WHEN ANCIENT WHITE RICH MEN TELL ME WHAT'S RIGHT OR WRONG!

GRAGGGGAHHHWASAWAGGHHH!!!!!!!

The pope has sparked controversy by saying defending heterosexuality is as important as saving the world's rainforests from destruction. [there are MORE heterosexuals now living than ever before in the history of mankind. How exactly are homos endagering heteros? How? Heteros have all the money, the power, the guns!!!]

Speaking in a holiday address [spreading cheer] to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, Benedict said yesterday the church viewed the distinction between men and women as central to human nature, and "asks that this order, set down by creation, be respected".

The church, he said, "should protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man was needed, he said," adding: "The tropical forests do deserve our protection; but man, as a creature, does not deserve any less." [I just hope every vatican-abiding catholic out there does their duty and breeds. PLEASE, breed yourselves ad infinitum, hyper-populate the cities you live in, WE NEED MORE PEOPLE on this planet. Seriously. Don't stop until every square inch of the globe is paved over and covered by heterosexual catholics. Only then will mankind be safe.]

Benedict focused his attack on what he described as "gender" theories, "which lead towards the definitive emancipation of man from creation and the creator".

Homosexual groups in Italy called the speech an unfounded attack on homosexuality and, more specifically, on people who undergo sex changes. "What keeps the pope awake at night is the idea that human beings might be able to seek out their own sexual identity in a bid to have a happy life," said Franco Grillini, head of Gaynet.[an organization that fishes for gays]

"The speech has no scientific basis," [no shit] said Aurelio Mancuso, head of Arcigay. "A divine programme for men and women is out of line with nature, where the roles are not so clear."

The Catholic church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. [but heterosexual acts such as homophobia and persecution of queers AREN'T]It opposes gay marriage, and in October a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound". [yup, queer people ARE wounded, we are fucking bleeding over here and who is holding the sanctimonious knife? Breeders like El Papa in Cuckooland]

Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said today that the pope had not wished specifically to attack homosexuality [Pope just wanted to GENERALLY attack homosexuality] or sex change operations in his speech. "He was speaking more generally about gender theories [Which gender theorist's work is he mad about? Judith Butler's? Jacques Lacan's? Julia Kristeva's? Show me his reading list, damnit!] which overlook the fundamental difference in creation between men and women and focus instead on the role of cultural conditioning," he said.

Mike Egan, chair of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: "It's all part of a fundamental mistake, to say that there's something abnormal about homosexuality. It's like being left-handed. There are much greater threats to marriage and family life. [yeah, like McDonalds. McDonalds makes you fat and then your wife leaves you and your family thinks yr ugly. McDonalds is the devil.]

"There are people among bishops and clergy who think the official line on homosexuality is not true and the more official pronouncements there are, the deeper the hole the church is digging for itself. I would say to gay Catholics, the man is right on lots of other things and hang on in there."[hang on in there? Is this the best you can do, bitch? I'll remember that next time a christian is waving a God Hates Fags sign at the funeral of a kid beaten to death for being gay]

Catholic bishops in England and Wales are encouraging a more pastoral approach to homosexuals.[pastoral? Like with lambs and dwarves and fields of flowers?!] Last month they issued a leaflet [leaflets aren't pastoral] urging clergy and parishioners to welcome and respectful of gay men and lesbians. Its reading list did not include Vatican statements and omitted papal documents denouncing homosexuality.

The leaflet was called, "What is life like if you or someone in your family is gay or lesbian in their sexual orientation? ... and what can your parish family do to make a difference?" It acknowledged the "oppression" suffered by homosexuals.[This anti-homophobia leaflet is just a step, though, there's gonna be a newsletter, a YayGay jingle and a limited edition collectors plate to hang on yr gay wall!]

"As a group that has suffered more than its share of oppression and contempt, the homosexual community has a particular claim on the concern of the church," it said.

The leaflet cited comments received during a survey suggesting that the church acknowledged it may have played a role in victimising and marginalising gay and lesbian Catholics. These included: "The continual message from the church is that homosexuality is so, so dreadful. Our gay son just hasn't stood a chance"; and, "My brother is gay; the church has been very intolerant of him."

If you wanna read the original article without commentary, here it is.

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

2008-12-18T11:19:00.003-05:00

Why do I love this so much? I think it's because I find werewolves sexy. Tracy Morgan is awesome.

Adolf Hitler Campbell

2008-12-18T10:37:00.002-05:00

A mommy and a daddy in America had a little boy and decided to name him Adolf Hitler Campbell. Life is hard for them because sometimes people don't wanna write the kid's name on birthday cakes. Imagine you're working at Carvell and a cute little boy is having a birthday and his name is Osama Bin Laden Woodcuff and you have been asked to write his name on the cake. If you do it, then the cake will end up exploding and demolishing a tall building. If you don't, then you're a biggot and you're no better than Dick Cheney.

This story is totally inspiring. Like, I think that my bf and I should name our future kids Coretta Scott King Barreto and Jesus Christ Pamatmat.

Like, wow. Like totally.

Oh and the other great thing about this family is that one of their other kids is named Aryan Race. Oh yeah. They are SO political. Those kids are gonna have so much fun growing up with those names. They will be loved by all.*

*this statement has not been reviewed by jews, blacks, latinos, native americans, asians, and smart whites; guarantee of love not included.

J'aime les francais

2008-12-17T09:41:00.003-05:00

Je suis desole, mais je suis sur que je ferais beaucoup des erreurs parce qu'il y a un longtemps que je n'ecrit pas en francais. Domage. Eh bien:

J'aime la france. Je n'ai jamais voyage la bas, mais j'en voudrais. Les mecs francais sont maigres et beau. J'aime la nourriture francaise. J'aime aussi le socialisme. Si on a besoin d'aller au medecin, a la France c'est un service de l'etat, mais aux EEUU ce service coute trop.

Je voudrais devenir citoyen de la France. Envoie moi les formulaires!

What's fatty, salty and highly processed? We are!

2008-12-17T09:31:00.004-05:00

Yuppers. According to a new survey, Americans love being obese (1/3 of the population), living by the ocean, and getting plastic surgery. Although I guess if most of the "plastic surgery" is in the form of botox injections, it's not really surgery or plastic, but I really do not like semantic arguments (today). USA! USA! USA!

So yeah, we're turning into beef empanadas who enjoy really pretty views of hurricanes. Ahhhh.

The survey is called the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States, in case you wanna do some research.

Here's the article from the beautiful and sexy Guardian in the UK. Purrrr.

The sucky thing about HEROES last night

2008-12-16T10:50:00.003-05:00

...is (spoiler alert!) how I don't care about Syler's mommy-daddy issues because they haven't given us enough info. Syler's just going around acting bonkers. First he's good, then he's in love, then he's evil and in love, now he's just evil and full of anger. He's like a more destructive version of me in my mid-twenties, and that's just annoying. If I don't know specifics of how they "made him," of his suffering, then how can I care? I can't and don't. But I hope he kills all the characters I hate first.

The other sucky thing is they always kill the black men. Always. Except it seems the African guy with the power to see the future is still alive. Is the Haitian alive?

What's not sucky is how Hiro and Ando are like this black hole of comedy. Like, any character that ends up in a scene with them gets sucked into a clowny land. I mean, when Hiro bowed respectfully before punching Freezy Blond in the face? And then she topples backward like a totem pole? That was funny. That character will never be funny again unless she's in a room with Hiro or Ando.

Hiro and Ando are the best. The whole show could use more of their kind of light-heartedness. It's all so serious, the stakes are always so high--save mankind or die, and spend all the time in between mulling over tough problems. I mean, that's okay. Sometimes the stakes are high. That's life right? We're all trying to survive on our path towards inevitable death, but there's no reason we can't crack a joke here and then, or trip on a banana peel, or fart or whatever.

Please make someone rip out Mohinder's vocal cords. Please. I hate his narrations: poetry, beauty, meaning meaning meaning--shut up!

There's a Black Man in the White House, and there's a...

2008-12-11T10:20:00.002-05:00

...woman and an Asian man and a Black woman and there's all kinds now. Obama wants Carol M. Browner for a climate post, Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, for energy secretary and Lisa P. Jackson, a New Jersey official, to head the E.P.A.

I know skin color proves nothing, but damn it feels good to see faces in power that I recognize. Don't get me wrong, I've never met any of these people, but when I open up the paper and am like, "oh, those people look like a slice of my social life," it's just satisfying. I'm glad that not every person Obama has appointed is an old white man, and I'm a little scared to say that because I don't wanna offend the old white men that read my blog. I also do not wanna offend the people who read my blog who love old white men.

Old white men are great. They have taught us all how to use and keep power, and that's important. Some old white men, like Jim Henson, even taught us to share things, like love and puppets, and if you combine using power with sharing, then you learn to share power. And that's super important, too. Yayyyyyy!

Only Child Syndrome (Part 18.6)

2008-12-10T11:38:00.005-05:00

When I was a little boy, my mama said I was very special because she wanted me to feel good about myself. I did. I felt really good about myself. I felt so special that I was almost sure, in my heart, that I was Jesus.

When I was a little boy I thought I was Jesus. I thought I would grow up with the burden of being the second coming of Christ. I figured sometime in high school I would receive an official visit from an angel who would confirm the news. So I waited. And I waited. And I did good deeds: I mowed the lawn, smiled often, refused to make fun of nice people, prayed all day, and said "thanks God" anytime something good happened. I always behaved in a way that was better than other people (the son of God has high standards).

Because I was Jesus it was very easy for me to tell right from wrong. It was also very easy for me to tell when people were being bad and were going to hell. I thought: most people are going to hell because they are evil, they listen to the dark side, and they make fun of me for wearing pink short-sleeved button-down shirts tucked into black baggy pants. Kids especially are evil.

I wasn't ever nor will I ever be Jesus, but I was and still am a big dork. For example, it makes me proud, now that I'm grown up, that I can remember the details of my nerdy childhood clothing, picked out by mama, of course. Taunting helps to engrave memories into your soul with surprising meticulousness. This kind of pride is dorky.

It also makes me proud that I can say that while I'm definitely not Jesus, I am still better than most.

Milk That Movie!

2008-12-09T16:12:00.003-05:00

You probably think the film MILK starring Sean Penn and directed by Gus Van Sant is super relevant because it addresses the recent passing of proposition 8 in California. In the movie there’s all this hullaballoo over Prop 3, so it’s really easy to insert 8 in place of 3, especially because all you have to do is add a couple of semi-circles to the 3.

MILK is all about how wrong gay people are nowadays. It’s about how if you’re whining for acceptance into the married status-quo you’re totally off track. If you think about the way in which the guy from the Advocate refuses to endorse Harvey Milk because Milk is too “gay” and the Advocate (although it’s a homo publication) is more concerned with fitting in, and keeping feathers unruffled—if you think about this moment in the movie, you’ll see that basically the whole marriage equality campaign today, which is promoted by gays with money (i.e., like the Advocate guy in the movie) is a classist, conformist concern.

Queer teens still get bullied and even killed. Queer people still get fired for being queer (ask any transgendered person how easy it is to get a job if you’re not 100% “passable”). Queer youth get kicked out of their homes. Queer seniors get shunned from nursing homes. Crimes against queers go unprosecuted. Those are the injustices we should have marches about.

Who cares about marriage?! Except maybe people with assets. Okay, okay, queer couples with citizenship/deportation issues have a huge stake in the issue—perhaps the most legitimate stake—but really how do we expect heteros to be all like yeah, get married, woo hoo when they can’t even accept that their own child might be gay and when they think that talking to teens about using condoms or dental dams if they have sex with someone of the same gender is some kind of recruitment tactic?

It just seems that the marriage equality movement has left behind a whole lotta queers who aren’t middle-class or upper-class or white or urbanites or adults (yet). If I were a single, financially strapped, 19-year old Mohican dyke living on a farm in Wisconsin, worried about her future I’d be so damned pissed about the marriage equality bullshit, but I would go see MILK and I’d get some good ideas about how to improve my world.

Under My Foot

2008-12-09T13:40:00.003-05:00

Nothing is happening. Nothing happens. Very rarely does something actually happen. Today, nothing. Tomorrow, who knows. I know some of you are probably thinking, wow, that's profound, but trust me, it's not. You have the same thought every morning, I bet, as you roll along to work.

This morning was the most stupid thing, but in the end it was not an important or meaningful thing, just a thing like any other: stupid, but not stupid enough to really matter.

This morning I was barefoot in my apartment as is my right. One should be free to be barefoot always. It airs out the toes and gives one a sense of complete ownership of the floor, and I don’t know about you, but when I feel like I truly own something, I experience a total rush of contentment, of peace: my floor, my computer, my shoes, my feet.

In the kitchen I was standing barefoot, enjoying total contentment, making oatmeal. I felt a tickle at the bottom of my foot, right around the arch. Nothing particularly noteworthy, just a minor tickle. But noticeable enough that I looked down and wondered, “maybe it’s a piece of celery from that soup.” Chopped celery has the kind of bumpiness that would make the bottom of my foot feel a slight tickle. Having chopped celery on the floor is not a good idea when you have two cats. They could eat the celery and have an allergic reaction (but only if they are allergic to celery).

When I lifted my foot, it wasn’t celery, it was a cockroach. The roach was trying to hide in the shade of my arch. It freaked out, swirled in a fast circle that was meant to confuse me (and it worked!) and disappeared under the oven. That was it. It's too bad I didn't kill it because now it's making babies under the oven, but I think I get Karma points for letting it live, so it's not a totally diappointing day the way most days are.

Happiness, Children, Happiness

2008-12-08T15:20:00.002-05:00

You know when you learn something that has a profound effect on your life and you feel really happy and so you wanna share that knowledge with everyone because you're convinced it'll make them happy, too? It's kinda like what Christians feel when they open their hearts to The Bleeding One (TBO) and go on missions around the world to convert people.

Well, I'm here to convert you to meditation. I think it's key to lasting happiness and peace. There's tons of kinds of meditation. I've been practicing techniques based in Tantric philosophy (which has limbs in Buddhism and Yoga, but I'm in the Yoga branch of it).

Still, I don't have time right now to teach you everything. I wish I did. I wish I could help you be happy, because I know you want to be happy, but the thing is, meditation is something you practice and only YOU can find the inner peace/happiness/contentment/divinity (you can call it so many things). Each person has this contentment inside themselves. Well, maybe psycho killers don't and that's what makes them slaughter, but the rest of us do, I'm sure of it. Anyhow, all that to say: I've been meditating; it makes me happier; it might make you happier too if you practice with dedication.

Google meditation, find a simple technique, and get going! It totally beats communion wafers and there's no oppressive dogma.

Love,

TM

Happy Sunshine Go-Go-Go!

2008-12-06T09:44:00.003-05:00

Being happy is one of my favorite things because then I don't feel like my life sucks and then when I'm happy and I think about the decisions I've made in my life I don't hear the voice of my mother and her evil relatives telling me that I'm a loser and that I'm making them all cry because I'm such a loser. Being happy makes my relatives die. In my imagination. And then it's a feedback loop: I get even more happy, "Oh my god, no more pesky Aunties and Uncles judging me from inside my head! I'm free!" It reminds me of when I would take two pills of ecstasy after the first pill of ecstasy had worn off. happy Happy HAPPY!

But when I'm happy and sober, like I was all day yesterday, I get really scared because I know that the happiness will eventually go away.

When I was little and I used to go to the beach I would splash around in the water all day and take in as much sun as possible, and even when my parents were already in the car, even when they had started the ignition and threatened to abandon me in the Atlantic Ocean I would still be in the water splashing because I just didn't want the happy day to end.

So I guess what I'm saying is that being happy sucks cuz eventually you're gonna get yanked outta the water by your pissed off, wet father and someone's gonna yell at you.

Later I'm gonna blog about how I've found the key to lasting happiness (I'm serious). Stay tuned!

Up and Dow and Up

2008-12-05T15:07:00.001-05:00

Ugh. I’m so depressed. It’s 3:08 pm and the DOW is up 127.68 points. What the hell. And there’s even front page articles all over all the media sites announcing that the jobless rate is the highest since the disco era. I mean, come on people, stop believing in a debt-society and let the stock market crash. My life is a damn zombie movie. Everytime I think the zombies are finally dead, they start rising back up. Or like a birthday cake with those candles you can never blow out. Or like a rigged carnival game that you can never win. Damnit! I just wanna win the game. I wanna win, and I wanna blow out the flame, and I wanna kill the fucking zombie already. Die, DOW, die!

And sometimes...

2008-12-05T13:44:00.004-05:00

...the other thing I do is I read articles in the New York Times ('sup Times!), about natural disasters in other parts of the world and I wish with all my heart that those people in that part of the world weren't suffering, that I could somehow take away their suffering and cast it upon us right here in Manhattan, USA. Like, I know we had 9/11 and that was all deadly and stuff, but it made people good for a while. It made people care. Like people actually looked at each other in the street and smiled because they were like, "Hey brother, I survived this and you did, too. Let's make peace in our lives. We have so much to be thankful for. Enjoy your donut."

But now everyone's a bitch again. This is why people who suffer deeply are really, really nice. And I want people to be nice, so I would gladly take away the tsunamis and the quakes from the people in other countries and I would give them to America. If I was God, but like God as a man living in the States, that's what I would do. I would give people something to be truly sad about so that they can realize that life's cool and stop being so cunty.

Bad Puppies

2008-12-05T13:08:00.003-05:00

I swear, these days, I don't care about anything except desctruction. Like, why won't the stockmarket just collapse already? I want it to die, dramatically. And climate change? Please oh please run your cars--go outside right now and run your cars for no reason other than to ruin the atmosphere. The more fires we feed, the more ashes, the more phoenixes.

I secretly wanted John McCain to win because I am a disaster addict. Because if the flood of shit is rising up above our heads and filling our lungs with gunk, then I’ll been proved right: we DID need to save the environment, stop our polluting, and elect better officials. I want the dumbfucks to hurt even if I hurt, too, just to show 'em how wrong they've been. Rub their fucking chihuahua faces in their own, catastrophic turds.

(OMG, is this what it's like to think like a suicide bomber: let 'em hurt even if I hurt, too? I've hit rock bottom.)

Fans of Porn, Activate Orgasm!

2008-11-30T10:25:00.003-05:00

About a month ago, Little Rabbit introduced me to www.cam4.com. Forever be thankful to the Bunny. It's a really hot sight if you like to watch naked, ordinary people on their webcams performing. It's got men, women and couples. You watch them, but they don't hafto watch you. If you sign in, you can chat with the exhibitionist of your choice.

There are tons of sexy folks from Italy, Spain, Turkey. It's got a high concentration of people from the Mediterranean, but I'm not complaining about that. If you like to get off online, check it out.

Hey Only Children!

2008-11-30T10:20:00.003-05:00

When was the last time you left a party feeling completely comfortable with your social skills? I swear, everytime I hang out with a group of people larger than 3, I end up feeling like I'm a little bit retarded. Just a little bit off. Of course, as many of you other singletons will admit, part of that comes from realizing that through most of the conversation I've been thinking myself superior to everyone around me. So for a while, I think I'm better and then upon reflection I think "Holy caca, I'm dysfunctional." Is there a pill we can take for this see saw effect? Like an only child syndrome pill?

Rick Keller's "Black Man in the White House"

2008-11-26T09:03:00.002-05:00

Presented by Groove Junkies, this jam's hittin my groovefeet. Turn up the volume and watch out for my favorite verse:

Rosa sat so Martin could walk
And Martin walked so Barak could run
And Barak ran so that children could fly
Now fly, children, fly.

Put it on a platter and serve:

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-11-24T23:14:00.002-05:00

...your upstairs neighbor is drunk Friday, Saturday and Sunday and screams at the landlord about the temperature in his apartment and slams his apartment door repeatedly and concludes his tantrum by playing Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley at a floor-shaking volume and the police shows up.

When a belligerent drunk with chilly feet thinks he's being oppressed and must stand up for his rights, it's a sure sign of recession. If he winds up making buttons and T-shirts to further his cause, then it means we're in a full blown depression. I'll keep you posted.

Wurk it out with Fedde le Grand

2008-11-22T08:17:00.002-05:00

I'm only 32, I'm not ancient, but sometimes I feel the years, especially if I'm at a club or bar filled with 20-somethings. Anyway, maybe that's why I only discovered Fedde le Grand back in May: because I'm now officially behind the times.

In an effort to bring out the kid in us, here are some vids for you. Turn up the volume, cut a rug--don't be shy! You know you love dancing in yr underwear when no one's looking...so go for it babies. Bring the diva out!

My new boyfriend is in this vid. I should share it with my friend Nandita over at Indians for Male Shirtlessness.

And finally, the creeps. You know you get the creeps. Dance 'em out, honies!

Ayurveda

2008-11-21T09:39:00.003-05:00

I've been seeing an Ayurvedic practitioner for the last 3 months and I highly recommend it.

Long story short: After 6 months dealing with recurring diarrhea and not sleeping well because of the churning in my stomach, I decided it was time to try alternative medicine. Ayurveda seemed a natural fit because it's based on what you eat and it uses herbs and spices to balance your body.

Within the first 2 weeks of following my prescribed dietary regimen, my stomach turned into happyland and I started sleeping like never before. My practitioner prescribed herbal supplements that she gets from India. They are...well...they're not my favorite part and you can get a huge benefit just from following a customized Ayurvedic diet without having to take the supplements, but I'm gonna keep going with the herbs for at least another month. The thing is, they're stinky. Also, unlike western medicine, you don't immediately feel an effect. So, it's like you're swallowing these stinky pills all day, watching your body progress at a snail's pace. But they DO work.

If you're a Cubanito like me, you probably grew up drinking all kinds of medicinal concoctions made from leaves and roots growing in your backyard pharmacy, so the idea of using plants and spices and food as holistic medicine is not that farfetched to you. If you're a gringo, you're probably like, "what kind of witchcraft is this?"

Anyway, if you've ever wondered about holistic medicine, I highly recommend looking into Ayurveda. It's done wonders for my stomach and my sleeping.

Governor Paterson

2008-11-21T09:14:00.003-05:00

And finally, Governor Paterson's plan to slash social services and increase tuition at state schools in order to patch up New York State's big ass deficit did not pass. That's good news...but there's still a big ass deficit to fill. Paterson was unwilling to tax the wealthy, and while I whole heartedly disagree with his stance, it's unclear how his plan's opponents in Albany feel about taxing themselves, er, the wealthy. At least, it was unclear to me from the NY Times article that reported this news. If I had time while at my day job to dig around for more information, I would.

That's all.

The Pissiness Continues

2008-11-17T12:08:00.002-05:00

The NY Times, reporting on the states' budget defecit crisis, has this to say about New York Governor David Paterson:

in New York, Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, has proposed $5.2 billion worth of savings, principally cuts to Medicaid and education.

How does that sound to you, fellow New Yorkers? Doesn't that piss you off?

SPO

2008-11-17T09:38:00.004-05:00

In the words of Angie Stone, I'm "So Pissed Off."

We've all been hearing about how states are running into crippling defecits and many states are considering increasing taxes and/or cuts in spending. Reading about this issue in relation to New York, I came across a disturbing quotation from Governor Patterson of New York:

[T]he higher we tax even the wealthy, the more we lose population and the less job creation there is. We're pretty resigned to the fact that we're going to have to do this with spending cuts.

So basically Governor Patterson wants to lend a hand to rich people by making life tougher for middle- and low- income families who depend on state services. After all, he doesn't wanna backstab his golden friends. This Democrat sounds like a Republican, implying that a "trickle down" theory of social justice is better than a few annoyed millionaires. Meanwhile, we folk at the bottom are paying the bill for Paterson's McCain/Bush-inspired economic bailout. Can we impeach him, please?

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal.

Luis Carlos de la Lombana

2008-11-13T09:34:00.006-05:00

This guy is starring as Segismundo in Repertorio Español's La vida es sueño:

Oh my lord. He is a very sexy individual. And he's in a play I like. And I do speak the Spanish...I bet he's straight, so I'm not gonna start stalking him (I only spy on the gays), but we must take a moment of silence today to admire this handsome man.

This way, Segismundo, to safety!

Crucifixion got you down? Yes? Then let me take you out to dinner.

Jaws tuh thuh Floor!

2008-10-23T20:47:00.002-04:00

So you thought you were special? Then you watch this vid and guess what, you ain't. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE UNDER 18. 18 AND OVER ONLY!!!

This is messed up, but oh so liberating to see. You gotta at least watch till the bunny fucking, okay?

Click away...

HEAT

2008-10-21T17:41:00.004-04:00

It's totally hard to remember that our Earth is warming while those distracting financial numbers are flopping around like a limp hooker, but we really need to think about the environment, especially during our election season. I mean, what good is a healthy credit market if it's too dry for wheat to grow?

Always finding ways to back me up, PBS will air a new documentary tonight called HEAT. It takes a look at the politics around global warming--yeah, there are politics involved in Nature now and if you care about your place on the planet, I hope you think about the environment and the way we're treating it. I wag my green thumb at you.

HEAT's supposed to take a critical look at both presidential candidates' positions on warming. I hope to watch it; you should take a look at the trailer by clicking here. Again, it's tonight, 10/21, from 9pm to 11pm. PBS is fond of repeating their programming, so it'll probably air again if you miss it.

Demented Latinos

2008-10-21T09:31:00.002-04:00

The NY Times reports that findings indicate Latinos in the US are more likely to develop Alzheimer's than people from other cultural backgrounds.

Well, if you're Latino, you're probably like, "no duh, Sherlock. All the viejos in my family go cuckoo for coco puffs." Every single one of my mother's siblings has developed Alzheimer's except (as far as we know) her youngest brother...any day now...

At 72 My mom has shown plenty of symptoms so far. She's always been a little...kooky--seeing ghosts and angels, talking to Jesus (and, yes, Jesus has talked back). I think it's the excessive amounts of café she drinks. She has a shot of espresso every hour, every day until about 7pm. She's been getting worse, although it's hard to tell how much of it is her...kookiness...and how much of it is authentic dementia.

That's the thing, I mean, latinos are kinda nutty to begin with (vis a vis our puritanical stoic Gringo pals). I mean come on, our families work themselves to the bone and are made up of 90% caffeine and 80% porkfat. Add to that the trauma of leaving your family and loved ones in another country and the whole language barrier stuff and you've got a recipe for mental breakdown. Still, other groups of people fit this description, so...Why Latinos?

Is it our sexy moves? Our piercing eyes? Our curves? Or could it be the dreaded ñ? That letter after n that no other alphabet pronounces? The ñ is cursed, I tell you! Oh and we weren't satisfied with just one strange letter in our alphabet--oh no, we had to go and add the double L and the double R and we even turned CH into a letter. CH! I mean, no wonder we get demented.

The NY Times doesn't even mention the corrosiveness of our alphabet. Their interviewees suggest that these statistics might be because Latinos have higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes than others in America. Whatever. A genetic cause has been ruled out because Latinos come from an ethnically diverse gene pool and high levels of crazy-town show up whether you're Mexican, Cuban or Chilean.Here's the whole article.
I'm telling you--it's the café and the excessive telenovelas and the alphabet. If you want to save your relatives' brains, burn the Bustelo factory and promote Maxwell House. Tear down Telemundo and turn on Showtime. And for sanity's sake, make them speak Gringo!

F You, Mom and Dad! F You A Lot!

2008-10-16T09:39:00.002-04:00

Just kidding (sort of). But seriously, I don't really mean that--not all the time.

You know, the volatile mix of Psychology and Parenting magazines makes it really hard to be a happy adult. I mean, everytime I read an article about good parenting, it's so hard not to be all finger pointy and call my parents to bitch them out: "you fuckers, you didn't do it right! You fucked me up! I should kill you! You should've read this article by Dr. Bighead, but you didn't and now I have emotional stress and anxieties that are irreperrable and I suck at spelling and it's all your fault. You poisoned my soul."

Today I read an article by Colleen Davis Gardephe about raising only children; I found it on Parents.com. It's particularly meaningful to me because my parents didn't do any of the things she recommends. [Here's an excerpt. I've inserted my megalomaniacal commentary in brackets]

many onlies are verbally precocious and high achievers at an early age, [I was a gifted kid!] it's sometimes hard to know what behavior is age-appropriate for them. It's also difficult to know when you're pushing too hard and when you're not pushing enough. By the age of 7 or 8, only children are like little adults. In their opinion, kids their own age are immature [I was SO DAMN MATURE, when I was one I was, like, drinking metamucil out of a bottle]. Slow down, and make sure your only child has a childhood [childhood is for immature losers].

Don't ask for perfection [but they did, they DID ask for it]. For most only children, perfectionism seems to go with the territory [the only territory I had was Perfectolandia]. Only children want so much to please their parents, and because they peer with adults, they take on adult standards [adults rule!], says Carl E. Pickhardt, PhD, author of Keys to Parenting an Only Child [Carl's an adult; he rules!]. While it's fine to want the best for your child, it's important not to make your goals and anxieties his [your goals and anxieties were mine, mom! They were a gift I didn't want but I opened the gift and I pretended to like it and eventually I wore it for the yearbook picture. I want my childhood back!].

Don't get me wrong, the article is interesting, but it doesn't do me any good now. The only thing we adult only children can do now is to love our fucked upness and to stop blaming our stupid parents.

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-10-01T11:16:00.002-04:00

“Everything’s frozen in place,”

said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s lobbying association, shortly after the stock market closed on Monday.

This is from a New York Times article about how construction and real estate in NYC are coming to a standstill. Here to kick off the demise, a symbol of monetary ambition, Madonna:

Gwen Ifill Smear Campaign

2008-10-01T10:11:00.003-04:00

Oh boy, here we go. Earlier this week, in a conversation with friends, I predicted there would be a smear campaign against Gwen Ifill, who is moderating the VP Debate tomorrow night. My reasoning? Bigots would assume that Ifill's Blackness will trump her femaleness and her professionalism and that she'll ask Obama easy questions because he's part Black. The rest of that line of thinking would have Ifill being unjustly cruel to Palin.

The smear has begun. Ifill is writing a book that profiles young Black leaders such as Cory Booker (Mayor of Newark), Deval Patrick (Governor of MA), and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama. Of course, the book also profiles Barak Obama, and for reasons I can only assume involve deep-seeded bigotry as well as demoralized political ambition. Ifill has been touted as being too pro-Obama to be deemed a fair and impartial moderator.

Give me a break, Republicans. Touting Ifill's book as "Pro-Obama" when in fact it's not just about Obama is a grave misrepresentation. Even worse, however, is thinking that Sarah Palin can't hold her own in a debate if Ifill is remotely pro-Obama. That's just sad. Sad, sad, sad because it shows how little faith you have in Palin's ability to be a leader. You think Palin has never been in a situation that is slightly unfair? Do you think she's a quivering excuse for a female? I mean what is it? Why are you so worried about protecting Sarah Palin that you would turn against Gwen Ifill? And do you think, assuming Ifill is, as you imply, pro-Obama, that it's going to help your cause to smear Ifill's name with misrepresentations and false accusations? If Ifill is already as unprofessional as you imply, woulnd't a smear campaign make her even MORE biased? May Allah, Jesus and joyous Krishna help you.

I sure wish conservatives would go to therapy so they could learn the concept of projection. Then I wish they'd go to kindergarten to learn about cooperation and fibbing.

Here's the article I'm reffering to, by Bob Unruh writing for WorldNetDaily.

Róisín Murphy in New York City for the first time!!!!!!

2008-09-26T12:25:00.004-04:00

Finally she owns up to her responsibilities as my wife. After all these years, Róisín. The concert is at Mansion in New York city on October 24th. I've already got my tix, do you have yours?

Seriously, Róisín Murphy is one of my favorite singers. Here's her latest vid for Movie Star. Lobsters rape!

Work work work...rest rest rest

2008-09-26T12:10:00.004-04:00

Why move on if you are happy where you are? Why fight if you'd prefer to surrender? Why feel that you must do something when nothing is a perfectly fine thing to do? You have lately gained a lot of momentum. You won't lose it if you now stop pushing quite so hard. Indeed, you could do with a chance to draw breath, to check the extent to which change is starting to happen and to adjust the plan you have been following. It may not take as much as you think to achieve as much as you are hoping for.

That was my horoscope for today. I'm a Taurus. Sensual, which makes me rather fixed (let's sit in the park and eat chocolate all day!) Hard to get moving but watch out once the bull runs. My favorite horoscope guru is Jonathan Cainer in the UK. That's him over there on the right. Check him out at www.cainer.com.

One Only Child to Another

2008-09-22T19:28:00.003-04:00

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the first prominent black female, science fiction writer. She wrote:

I've been telling myself stories since I was four years old. I was an only child, shy and often alone. Telling myself stories was my way of entertaining myself.

I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial--a hermit in the middle of Seattle--a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

Quoted from the back matter and supporting materials for the Grand Central Publishing edition of Parable of the Sower.

The L Words

2008-09-09T10:36:00.003-04:00

Loser.

It doesn't take much for my mind to fall into the that deep, familiar groove: you're a loser, you haven't accomplished anything so give up now. The sound of doubt deafens. Almost everyday. It isn't fair for my brain to do this to me. It isn't fair for anyone's brain to do this, and yet, there it is--that relentless fugue.

Well last night I called mama and was chatting about nothing alltogether that important when she said something out of the blue that came down on my like a sweet sunshower:

"I was thinking," she started, "I wanted a kid for 20 years. 20 years I thought to myself, 'I want to have a kid.' It never occurred to me that it wouldn't happen. And when I was 40, I had you. You can't give up on what you dream about in life. It could take as long as 20 years, Alex. It could take longer. But what you know is meant for you, know it and never let it go. Your dreams are yours."

Sometimes that woman astounds me.

Love.

On a more serious note, it took mama 20 years to get knocked up? 20!!! Did she know how easy it really is to get knocked up, I mean, it's not exactly a lifelong career goal, you know? Okay, okay, she wasn't a slut and had to find the right man and all that shit, but really? 20 years? Okay...

It's a Brand New Day

2008-09-02T13:10:00.002-04:00

I actually don't know if this photo has been doctored, but it's damn funny. And then it gets scary. Governor Palin, showing her true colors.

Fowl

2008-08-26T21:42:00.003-04:00

Every morning Pacific Supermarket piles its bags of discarded vegetable parts and fish tails and broken plastic containers onto the sidewalk near the subway entrance. By the time the garbage collectors have taken the bags away, some rotting goo has leaked onto the sidewalk. The concrete there has been stained and sticky and stinking for months.

Some days the smell is unbearable. Cooked in the summer sun, it reaches the underground tunnel leading to the subway hub. Pure rot. Animal, oil, vegetable, bone. A puddle of half-decayed matter. What no one wants to look at, what's supposed to be wrapped up in plastic and trucked to a landfill--there it gathers on our sidewalk.

NOrmally, I rush by that area. Breathing that air stings. Today, for the first time in a long time I looked at the mushy spot. It was colored rust and was not just an oozing puddle but a spreading mass, some urban mold armored with cracked chicken bones.

When I looked at that mass, I couldn't help but gasp. Pigeons pecked at it. Days and days of rot and there they were, picking at the reddish slop.

Have people stopped scattering their stale bread? Is wheat that expensive that now even pigeons feel the heat of the recession?

You know you're in a recession when Pandas riot

2008-08-26T21:34:00.003-04:00

You read correctly. Pandas rioted in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Actually, it was a bunch of people dressed as Pandas. I feel obliged to capitalize "Pandas" because Pandas deserve that kind of respect.

Hipsters organized an absurd mass gathering of people dressed as Pandas. Police were alerted and showed up with riot gear before the Panda People arrived. Panda People arrived and demanded to be allowed to stand on the sidewalk dressed as Pandas. Police attacked. Panda People rioted. Here's a clip:

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-07-28T09:26:00.002-04:00

1) not 1 but 2 major Barnes and Noble behemoths close their doors. The one at Astor Place by NYU (I think I've mentioned this one before) and as I learned yesterday, the one at 6th Ave and 21st street. Wow. When the Dunkin' Donuts start to go out of business, head for the hills.

2) cops chase a fugitive through your backyard in Queens (again). Sunday morning at 5AM about 30 cops descended on our neighborhood, entering our building's back yard, chasing a fugitive. I don't know what the guy was wanted for, but he ended up on the roof. he was roof-hopping. It was crazy. They caught him, though. The first time this happened was during the early evening about a month or two ago. It's getting crazy in our once-safe neighborhood as the solidly middle class and working class families living there lose their footing. Everyone's on edge these days.

Freaky Singleton Strikes Again! Mayor Bloomberg Declares: "Not enough therapy in NYC to fix this catastrophe!"

2008-07-09T08:53:00.003-04:00

I am a friggin' freak. Last night at a rehearsal I got so upset that I completely shut down, stopped talking and had pissy face on. AND I couldn't look anyone in the eye for fear of snapping.

Pissy face makes everyone uncomfortable. A couple of castmates asked me if I was upset with them. I wasn't, but couldn't articulate what was pissing me off. Really I just wanted to throw a fit in a corner and cry.

Then rehearsal was over. I got on the train home and realized "oh, I'm pissed at myself for not having had a 'perfect' run-through of the show. I messed up a bunch of times and now I hate myself. This makes total sense. But now everyone thinks I'm mad at them. I'm not. I like them; I just don't like myself." Ah perfection, my ultimate goal in life--for everything I do to be flawless as a 19th century, ceramic Japanese tea cup.

Crazy Only Child Syndrome strikes again.

Let's see, I've got a whopping $2,000 to my name. How much therapy does that buy? Probably not enough.

Posh Nosh B'Gosh

2008-07-02T00:24:00.003-04:00

Wow. Some friends recently told me about the Brit mini mini series, Posh Nosh. A satire on cooking shows and a dysfunctional family ripe with class tensions. Quotable: "By all means buy stock cubes if you have low self esteem." It's like the subtext of the Barefoot Contessa's show on Food Network. Here you go...

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-07-01T09:29:00.002-04:00

...people are stealing manhole covers to make an extra few bucks. You can get 10-15 dollars for each metal cover. Read the article, from USA Today, here.

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-07-01T09:28:00.002-04:00

...grave robbing is on the rise. That's right. Grave robbers are increasingly stealing bronze vases and grave markers to seel as scrap metal. Read the article here.

NNNOOOO, Canada!

2008-06-18T08:42:00.004-04:00

Remember the post about the dead waterfowl in a Canadian lake? Well, there's more to Canada's waterways than meets the bird's eye.

Canada's laws allow for lakes and rivers to be reclassified as waste dumps for use by mining companies. Yeah. How ridiculous is that? This way, the bodies of water, no longer offically called "lakes" or "ponds" or "rivers," are exempt from pollution regulations. It's like, if I change your name from "Phillip" to "BoyCow" that means I can castrate you and barbeque your assmeat. Sounds crazy right?

Basically, a mining company can knock on the government's door "That shouldn't be a fish-filled pond. No way. That should be downright a pond-o-carcinogens, that's what I say." And the government will respond "Oh boy, a pond of cancer-goo. We shoulda thoughta that before. Please, take it. We got too much clean water here in Canadaland and folks're becomin' jealous." Come on, Canadians. Fight for this. The contaminants will NEVER stay in one place. You know better. They'll leach into your groundwater and into your waterways and your cancer rates will skyrocket. Make me proud, Canada.

Read the article here and have a box of tissues handy.

Source: CBS News Canada

Too Much Drinking in Denver

2008-06-16T19:14:00.003-04:00

Just returned from a work trip. Drank too much, too many nights, after 15-hour days working. Oh, Denver. Listen to the Porter and temper your consumption!

Macduff
What three things does drink especially provoke?

Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it takes
away the performance: therefore, much drink
may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

Only Child Syndrome Symptoms

2008-06-16T18:52:00.003-04:00

Number 1: Love and Attention
It's impossible for me to tell if someone likes me unless they pay me lots of genuine attention. But it has to be real. Not the fakey crap you get with daily chit-chat. Not, "how's the weather" kind of conversation, but true focus and care. Of course, not getting that attention immediately makes me question my worth, at least until I reason my way out of the psychotic downward spiral of my self-esteem, which is often accompanied by an equally psychotic determination to hate everybody.

Number 2: Misanthropy
It's easier to turn from people, to be solitary, than it is to socialize. Now, we all need a combination of socializing and solitude, all I'm saying is that singletons turn towards solitude more often than most. It's our healing place, the place from which we examine our interactions and sort out our feelings and opinions. People often times are surprised to see us at parties telling jokes and having fun; generally we're seen as antisocial. Sometimes we are. Sometimes we hate you. But not just you; we hate everybody.

WARNING: If you're an only child and reading this, you probably think--oh that's so true, we're so alone and different. Look, we may experience particular social anxieties more acutely than others, but our thoughts and feelings (no matter how INTENSE) aren't unique to us. Everyone has a hard time working in groups, socializing, sharing, cooperating. I'm sorry to burst your victimbubble, but you're not an alien. You're not unique. You're just as human as the people with siblings. If you get out and tell people your feelings about your social awkwardness, you'll start to realize that. By all means, enjoy solitude, but realize that it's by socializing that you learn most about what makes you human. And it's by practicing social skills that the intensity of group settings becomes lessened. Also, drinking and drugs help. Just kidding. Sort of.

Over and out.

Michael Pollan Gives Us Hope

2008-06-06T10:01:00.003-04:00

Here's a wonderful piece by Michael Pollan in the Guardian. Pollan addresses the dismay many of us face in dealing with climate change my making adjustments to our personal lives, a feeling he encapsulates in the question: Why bother?

After citing farmer/writer Wendell Berry, Pollan offers one of the most concise assessments of our collective, American passivity in the face of man-made climate change:

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we're living our lives suggests we're not really serious about changing - something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking - passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists - that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It's hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

It's an inspired article, but then I expect nothing less from someone as articulate about his passions as Michael Pollan.

You know America is number 1 when...

2008-06-03T12:26:00.003-04:00

...a middle-aged man who has just been knocked flat by a bike messenger in New York City's garment district pulls his bloodied glasses off his face and pleads to the onlookers with cellphones "No no no, I'm fine, please don't call an ambulance. I don't got health insurance. Please. I'll get up."

And got up he did. Now that's patriotism.

In the face of a possible concussion this man didn't let the blood run down his face, whining for help. No. He did what every American without health insurance SHOULD do: He reached for the pipes on some scaffolding and pulled himself up. Get up, America. Stop complaining about your restless leg syndromes and your diabetes and get the fuck up and go to work. I for one know that I would hire that bloody-headed man in a snap. He's a loyal citizen and I bet he's a loyal worker. I bet he didn't even think of taking advantage of my tax dollars by dragging himself to a free clinic. Uh uh. That man went right back to his job, wiped his head with some towels and kept on with his day.

People like him are the heroes who make America number 1.

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-06-03T12:21:00.002-04:00

...California plans to cut $4 billion to public schools at the start of their new fiscal year this July. Many states will experience tremendous cuts to public services this summer as old budgets are replaced by recession budgets. Here's the article from the NY Times. Whatever, though. If you can't afford private education, you should stick to manual labor. Americans don't need to be readers and thinkers; we need to be doers. Work Hard and Stop Thinking!

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-06-02T08:26:00.004-04:00

...in broad daylight, at the corner of a busy intersection, near Union Square park, a man stands outside a display window of your favorite comic book store (Forbidden Planet), pulls down his pants and takes a dump. Yup. Full-on 2-girls-one-cup pile o'caca outside the store as dozens of New Yorkers whizzed by for their evening commute.

It's been a while since New York City has let out its wild side. Many may cringe, but piles of caca, puddles of vomit, and streams of fresh piss were common in the city before Mayor Giuliani, and I've mixed feelings about the return of public defecation. It's gross, but it's what I loved about the city when I first got here. And many of my friends felt the same way too. That is, you never knew what you were going to see. Sure, I'm glad I don't have to hurdle past man-dung, but the forces that eased my walks also neutralized the city's character.

For the last 10 years, the city has been stripped of its spontaneity: name-brand stores, all carrying the same name-brand products, the same trees, the same style of sky scraper, and lots of similarly-clad folks all trying to fit in. Industrialization at its apogee. The New York I fell in love with, however, was full of people who didn't give a fuck about fitting in: public poopers, public sucker-fuckers, home-cooked fashionistas and the occassional nudist. It seems the tide is turning and the faint scent of pubes and poop is in the air. Be still, my heart.

Hooray recession! Bring it on, Bush! I just hope our President gets the chance to pull us deeper into the muck before his term is over. Them maybe I'll really love New York City again.

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-05-29T09:07:00.002-04:00

...there are 3 more people begging for money in your neighborhood than there were last month.

Taking a stroll around Jackson Heights I am amazed by how many people were asking me for money. About one person per block. Our homeless/beggars used to be limited to 1 sleepy and mentally-disturbed man; a woman on crutches; and an older gentleman parked outside the subway station. We've got and extra 3 now: a youngish man in sneakers and his female companion, and an older latino who seems to be a little off his rocker.

Burning Glades

2008-05-19T10:03:00.003-04:00

Photo credit: TIM CHAPMAN / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

The Everglades is burning. Mama's house is surrounded by a clouds of smoke and the temperature is in the 90's. She's having trouble breathing. There's been a severe drought in Florida, and in spite of water restrictions and these intense fires, people keep watering their lawns. Mama's yard is now brown and crunchy, but not all her neighbors have refrained from watering their grass. Many lawns are still plush and vibrant.

Another day suffering through South Florida's corrupt resource management practices and skewed priorities. There's just not enough water and land for people to be whetting their appetite for middle-class accomodations. Let the grass die, it's not that big of a deal. Come on, cubanitos, get with the program. Fidel Castro thinks you're a bunch of self-serving, ignorant money-grubbers. Prove him wrong by coming together to keep your water safe.

You know you're in a recession when...

2008-05-14T09:40:00.003-04:00

Let's play a game. All you need to do is fill in the blank. I'll go first:

You know you're in a recession when...someone's fancy new car on your Queens, New York street is sitting on cinder blocks at 7AM and the tires have been stolen.

What's going on in YOUR neighborhood?

Go, Frisco, Go!

2008-05-07T09:27:00.003-04:00

San Francisco recycles. A LOT! The concrete debris from construction sites (demolished buildings, for example) is recycled into sidewalks. The leftover paint people have after remodeling an apartment gets recycled into three basic colors and sent to non-profits in the US or Mexico. They've got an infrastructure in place for turning food waste into compost, which in turn gets sent to farms throughout California. That last one is especially important for other cities to emulate, considering how much food gets shipped into urban centers. Urban composting is the least we could do to give back to our small- and mid-sized farmers.

San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, is determined to take it up a notch, though. The city keeps about 70% of its garbage from ending up in landfills, and he's bent on making it 75%. Now if only he could add more affordable housing to his city I'd consider moving (New York City is only at 30.6%--come on Bloomberg, ramp it up!).

Click here for the full article from the New York Times.

Salmon

2008-05-02T13:00:00.002-04:00

California and Oregon have banned ALL fishing of Salmon this year for the first time ever. There are almost no chinook salmon left on the west coast. The entire industry has collapsed. The Governator has declared a state of emergency so that fishing communities can receive government aid.

It's never too late to eat more veggies, folks.

Source: The San Fransisco Chronicle

Pond Scum

2008-05-01T13:02:00.002-04:00

Hundreds of mallards migrating back to Canada this spring have died after landing on a partially frozen pond near an oil sands processing plant. The pond was filled with toxic chemicals.

Syncrude Canada Ltd owns the pond and the oil sand factory. Each year as migrating birds return, the company fires up noise-making cannons around the pond so that migrating birds won't be tempted to land there. This year the cannons weren't firing. (And if ya don't know, oil sands are pretty much what they sound like. They contain crude oil which will be turned into a bunch of stuff like gasoline, fertilizer and plastic.)

Really? A neo-petroleum company pollutes a bunch of water and all they gotta do is put up some noise-makers? That's it? Hundreds of mallards died. What happens when the company goes belly up I mean let's face it, most companies eventually move, abandon factories, or go bankrupt. So forty years from now there'll be a toxic pond surrounded by rusted noise-cannons killing whatever birds are left and possibly harming other wildlife including (gasp) humans. That's great. Really sustainable development there, Canada.

Note: in a typical year "only" about 24 mallards die. Now that's a number we can live with. Oh yeah!

Genetically Modified Crap

2008-04-28T08:24:00.004-04:00

And the great business cycle goes on.

If you study the history of goods, you notice a sinister trend. Take clothing for example. The shirts I inherited from my uncles (who last wore them in the 1980's) are in perfect condition, while the shirts I purchased as a young adult in the late 1990's long ago fell apart. Clothes I've purchased in recent years lasts about 2-3 years before seams come apart, buttons fly off and the fabric itself wears thin. This is perfectly planned by businessmen and businesswomen. The idea is that if you design products to break people will have to buy more of those products. We've seen this happen with cars, computers, cell phones, and...food.

The way in which it happens with food, however, is a little more notorious. As my boyfriend recently explained after having read Bittman's In Defense of Food, the only way to get people to buy more food is to make the food less nutritious ("broken," in a sense; incomplete). This creates two lucrative, self-perpetuating cycles: 1) the food you eat fills you up less and your body, ever wiser than your mind, says "eat more so we can get all our nutrients" so you buy more food and 2)this makes it possible for a host of vitamin and supplement industries to fill the nutrition gap not just by selling vitamins, but also by putting vitamins into our food (usually these products are labeled "fortified"). So you buy cereal and it's fortified with vitamin D and B12, but you still won't feel full because the cereal is devoid of most other nutrients, so you buy more food. You eat more. We eat more.

It's no surprise, then, that the businesspeople responsible for genetically modified (GM) foods like corn, soy beans, (and on and on) are in fact providing a substandard food while spending millions convincing the world that GM crops are superior.

Recently, one of the "benefits" of GM crops--that they increase food productivity and can therefore help end world hunger--has been proven untrue. GM soy is less productive than conventional soy. In one recent study conventional soy produced more than GM soy. That's the bottom line, so why do we need GM crops? Well, we consumers don't, but the men and women at the top of companies like Monsanto want to be as rich as possible. Making GM soy that's resistant to Monsanto's weed killer, RoundUp, is a smart business strategy. They make the chemicals AND design the plants that depend on those chemicals.

Still, it becomes more and more clear that conventional crops are better (and less expensive in the long-run). In the study the GM crops needed way more fertilizer. Apparently, when you make a soy plant resistant to a weed killer, it becomes less able to draw nutrients from the ground. Over the course of many years, GM crops cost farmers more money than conventional crops...and who finally pays for the added expenses? Consumers.

Companies like Monsanto are spending millions to convince farmers and consumers that GM crops are better. In fact, GM crops decrease harvest yields and make farmers dependent on a specific brand of weed killer and/or pesticide AND force farmers to spend more on fertilizers. Hmmm.

In light of this study (which Monsanto tried to bury): The study shows that rats fed GM food developed smaller kidneys and variations to the composition of their blood (problems that rats eating non-GM food did not develop). What benefit is there to supporting the GM industry?

What to do? You could buy organic products, for starters, and you can NOT buy GM fruits and veggies. Although the US does not require GM food to be labeled as such, there's a way to tell if your fruits (and some veggies) are genetically modified by looking at the numbers on the stickers (known as the PLU code):

Conventional Fruits (those grown with pesticides and fertilizers) have a 4 digit code.

Genetically Modified Fruits: have a 5 digit code, starting with the number 8

Organic Fruits: have a 5 digit code, starting with the number 9

Conventional Apple: 4283
Genetically Modified Apple: 84283
Organic Apple: 94283

Know what you eat.

Food Shortages, Local Economies, and Trains

2008-04-22T10:29:00.006-04:00

In case you haven't heard, there are food shortages all over the world. The most dire effects of this year's rice and wheat shortages have barely begun to make their mark in the US, but (as you'd expect) have been wreaking havock in smaller nations. In poor countries food riots are already underway. But even in wealthy ones, trouble has begun.

In Japan, there's no butter or rice, and when they're available, they're terribly expensive. In New York City and the West Coast of America, major retailers have begun to run out of rice, oil and flour, and they have put restrictions on how much flour and oil each customer can purchase. And yes, people all over the planet are hoarding. Most major rice exporters such as Vietnam have STOPPED EXPORTING the grain in order to secure their domestic supplies. Consumers who can afford it are buying up grains and oil in vast amounts in preparation for the onslaught of shortages.

But rather than speculate about what's to come, let me just brief you on what's already here and why, in case you're wondering:

The umbrella issue is oil. We have reached peak oil. I'm not being alarmist here--the CEO of Shell and other experts both liberal- and conservative-minded agree. Google it and you'll find tons of info. Demand has outstripped supply--that's peak oil. We're in it. The price of all petroleum products WILL continue to rise (with maybe a lull here or there as little oil fields are discovered and used up). Petroleum products include pesticides, fertilizers, gasoline, heating oil, diesel, plastics, foams, vinyl, and jet fuel--bye bye Miss American Flights. Shipping costs have risen and this affects EVERYTHING we consume in America. Why? "Made in China" is printed on most every non-edible object in our lives. And we want oranges in places where oranges don't grow, so those have to be shipped. And we want spinach in New York City when it's not spinach season, so we get it shipped from warmer climates. And we want to add fertilizer and pesticides to our crops...oil oil oil.

Now let's look at the more specific problems that are exacerbated by the rising costs of shipping and petroleum products:

There's one big issue going on with Rice: Water. Too many droughts in too many countries. Rice needs water, ergo--no rice crops. And so we've got shortages and whatever rice there IS now costs a bundle. It's only gonna get worse. India, to use another example, is ONLY exporting Basmati (already a premium rice with a premium price, and set to get more expensive as supplies dwindle). There have been rice riots all over Asia.

The wheat problem has to do with two major issues: droughts and Ethanol. Since oil has peaked, we're beginning to use ethanol. Ethanol production has already diverted wheat to the making of fuel for our cars. That's wheat that won't be made into bread or other food. Do you wanna drive your hybrid to the mall, or to eat a bagel for breakfast? Ethanol production is causing major problems. The loss of wheat crops to drought, plus the diversion of wheat grains to making ethanol, plus extra shipping costs is making baked goods expensive. And yes, major wheat exporting countries have stopped selling their supplies so they can have enough grain to feed their OWN citizens.

And what about cooking oil? Blame ethanol (all that corn is now going into the tiny fleet of hybrids in the West). There's less corn available for making oil, so, oil becomes expensive. Just like gold. Gold is expensive because it's rare. Make cooking oil rare and it becomes expensive.

And what about butter in Japan? Why is there no butter in Japan? Most butter comes from cow's milk. Most cows eat feed. Feed is made of corn and wheat (and pumped full of vitamins and hormones that are byproducts of the petroleum industry--see how it's all linked?) Corn and wheat are in short supply and what little there is has become very expensive. So, cows aren't getting enough feed to produce enough milk to make enough butter to supply Japan. Oh, and beef is more expensive now, too.

So what's the solution to all this crazy talk, Alex? Localized economies. You eat what you grow in your own town. When there's no spinach, then you don't eat spinach. In short, we need to learn to live under the motto: you can't always have what you want. We need to invest in local farms (something that's already taking root! yay!), stop investing in Agribusiness alltogether, AND we need to invest in our railways. Bring the railroads back to life so we can ship things across America AND so we can travel without spending a bundle on gasoline or diesel or jet fuel.

Many of our grandparents lived in a time when food was local and railroads were reliable and affordable. They remember. So it's not outside of Americans' reach to make sure Americans have enough to eat in the coming decades of global scarcity. Demand this. It's our land, our country, and it could feed us and support us if we took care of it. Now is a great time to learn to garden, or hell, to buy some land and start up a little organic farm of your own.

Coffee

2008-04-17T22:10:00.004-04:00

For several months I hadn't had any coffee. Then for the last two months I started drinking this dark Sumatran blend every morning. Whatta way to live--I mean that's luxury right there.

Then today I didn't have any caffeine at all.

Do you ever wanna rub your wrists against a cheese grater? That was today for me. All day. I was salivating at the appliance section of Bed Bath and Beyond: so many ways to chop myself into indistinguishable bits.

Or I could just have some fucking tea.

Where are all the public service announcements warning people about caffeine? There should be some.

Papa Donkey

2008-04-14T22:06:00.002-04:00

The F train back to Manhattan is empty. I’ve got an entire album of music nagging my head, although my earbuds are not in my ears. The Music won’t stop. I give up. I won’t try to make it stop, I’ll just let it play.

What a busy head I’m in. Brain racing, train clanking, heart pounding—thoughts are an ailment. A wall between me and what the world around. I can’t se or experience properly with thoughts. I’m too smart, that’s the problem. Too conceited about being too smart. Too smart and conceited to stop thinking, so I think on and on—connecting dots, reliving the day, killing my enemies in fantasies, killing myself in fantasies, apocalypse apocalypse APOCALYPSE!

Phew.

I decide, the best way to deal with this racing mind of mine is to pay attention.

The man across from me is wearing a denim jacket over a black shirt. The black shirt’s too short so his bulbous belly spills out over his lap. Im afraid to stare at his bellybutton. What if he catches me? I often stared at my father’s round belly moving slightly rising slightly with each shallow breath as his body sunk into the couch. His posture has always been atrocious. Mamá called him maletudo—which sounds like maleta—so in my mind I imagined my dad carrying a bundle of luggage on his back like a mule.

When I was 9, my friend Sebastián was over for lunch. My dad joined us for the meal, after which Sebastián chortled, “your dad eats like a mule.”

My mom had a talk with his mom and I don’t remember hanging out with him again. Even though I agreed; dad did chew with his mouth open and made smacking noises with his lips.

My father the mule.

Miguel Bosé

2008-03-31T08:32:00.002-04:00

This song by Miguel Bosé is called Amante Bandido, and you can look that up if you want to know what it means.

As a kid growing up in the 80's, this was one of the few songs of the era that I was able to listen to without getting an earful of mama's admonishments. She was a true Reagonite and believed that most American music was Satanic. Ever the loyal son, I bought into the fear as well. Latin music was totally fair game, though, so I didn't worry about burning with the Devil when I listened to Miguel Bosé. Instead I fantasized about rubbing my penis on hia painted belly:

So he ends up turning into Indiana Jones, as far as I can tell, but what's that Jim Henson creature that he also plays? Is that his alter-ego? I honestly have no idea what the fuck is going on in the video. Library Drama, Action Adventure, Muppet Fantasy--this video is everything and nothing all rolled into one.

Single, Sole, Solitary...

2008-03-30T21:27:00.003-04:00

Only child syndrome or single child syndrome, or bratty bitchiness. Call it what you like, we probably won't notice, although if we do we'll never forget it.

See, we (only children) are often in our own little bubbles, even when we're in a group of people we can withdraw into our imaginations, voices in our heads, images, or distractions: the grain of the table at the restaurant where our friends are celebrating a birthday; the smell of the wine; the smirk on so-and-so's face when he said hello to you. It's very easy to get distracted from the activity of a group when you spent your childhood making up your own amusement.

What I'm trying to say, although not as articulately as I'd hoped, is that while we can completely disconnect from a group environment, we often pay obsessive attention to the details of that environment...when we decide to, in any case. We're always paying attention, maybe not to you but to your outfit or facial expressions or tone of voice or the color of your hair. Maybe we're thinking about what we ate earlier that day. And yes, sometimes we're paying attention to our good ol' reliable thoughts.

Our attention is obsessively tuned to SOMETHING. It's just not often the something that everyone else is tuned to.

Easter is Love and Understanding

2008-03-29T08:24:00.003-04:00

Of course on Easter Sunday mama called. I was worshiping my inner self at a Yoga class, though, so my phone was off. In her lovely message she said:

Alex I was calling to say hello and for you to have a happy day on this day of resurrection when our Lord Jesus Christ died for you--

Click.

I couldn't listen anymore. I just couldn't. Don't preach in voicemail messages, people. Just don't. Any parents out there reading this, don't preach. Don't leave messages for your 32 year-old children telling them what to do, what to eat, how to behave or how much Jesus loves them. Your children already blame you for all their problems. Don't make them hatechu.

Or maybe your kids wanna be kids forever and they're into that preachy shit and you like to enable them. There's nothing wrong with enabling another consenting adult. Last night I bought a homeless man a bottle of wine. It was good wine.

And by the way, only zombies rise from the dead. Don't let Jesus in your home, he'll bitechu.

Róisín Murphy Knows Me Better

2008-03-29T08:19:00.002-04:00

Here's the video-gram I just received from my wife, Róisín Murphy. It's called You Know Me Better. And yes, dress-up is our favorite game.

Christina Aguilera Lyrics

2008-03-27T08:26:00.002-04:00

Finally, the lyrics to Christina Aguilera's Ain't No Other Man. I've been hunting for these for quite some time.

Trust me, if you've ever heard the song, you might want to strap on a pair of depends before watching below....

Safe Chemicals

2008-03-26T10:44:00.004-04:00

Okay okay okay. I need your help. Let's increase awareness. Ready?

Chemicals created throughout the 20th century were introduced into all the products and much of the food (and consequently the air, dirt and water) without much knowledge about their potentially harmful effects.

And now, decades later, we realize some of these chemicals (DDT, PVC, et al, et al) never should have been used. Some caused birth defects. Some take eons to degrade. Some mix with others and produce super chemicals, and by "super" I mean really toxic. Our bodies carry a chemical load that human bodies didn't carry a century ago. Man-made chemicals. (Remember the stories about rocket fuel toxins in breast milk?)

The NY Times's Science section published an article about "Green" chemicals. Companies are rushing to make environmentally sound chemicals.

Right.

From a marketing standpoint, they need to do this in order to keep selling their poisons, er, products. The companies making the green chems will pitch them to consumers and governments as benign, and many in our generation will fall for the ads, and then our grandchildren will conduct research that proves these green things are venoms. The business cycle does only cares about the human body to the extent that those bodies shop. Short of causing sudden death, anything goes when it comes to new products.

A note: I'm interchanging "products" with "chemicals" here because, well, these new green chemicals will end up in our products--in plastics, on food, in our IKEA furniture.

So please please please, be a voice against this naive, baby-boomish idea that we can make good, wholesome chemicals. Promote the idea that the best way to live, is to live with what we've got, with what already exists in nature, in the QUANTITIES in which it exists (plants make CO2, but too much of it kills people and glaciers, so...). So talk about this issue. Mention it with kindness around the water cooler so that your co-workers remain informed and aware, and most importantly, help your co workers focus on the truly benign way to live: sustainably, with as few chemicals in your life as possible.

Here is the NY Times article.

Electricity

2008-03-23T22:41:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite pastimes is living without electricity. I refuse, for example, to use pneumatic chisels in my stone carving class, opting instead for the hammer-and-chisel-struggle of centuries ago. The only way to appreciate MichaelAngelo is to work by hand.

As with stone, so with bread. Bread you buy at the market is most likely machine-made--even the organic loaves. People making bread at home enjoy the satisfaction of watching the bread rise inside the sanitized compartment of a bread machine after the dough has come together in the same bread machine or--for a more rustically modern feel--in a food processor. That mixing a dough in a food processor is somehow a concession because, after, all, you're not using an automatic machine, or buying a loaf from a market of mass-produced foodstuff--that's atrocious. I never want to be one of those people. I prefer mixing the dough by hand, feeling the gritty clumps of flour stretch and stick and gather together, binding with moisture. I need to know how the dough feels, to smell it, scrape it from underneath my fingernails, watch it rise, and most importantly: to hear it rise.

If something can be done without electricity, I prefer any method of making any thing that is independent of machines or electricity. The more independent the better. To live without electricity is to live fully. My favorite moment out of all my thirteen years in New York City was the summer of 2003, when there was a blackout spanning several days. I ate fresh fruit and coal-fired pizza. I spent the day painting and conversing with my boyfriend without having to wait for commercial breaks or the quiet of late nights when most everybody else is asleep. I don't hate electricity, however; I simply sometimes choose to ignore it.

But I don't own a bicycle.

Watered-Down Drugs

2008-03-10T15:25:00.002-04:00

The Associated Press probed the US's drinking water and found traces of pharmaceuticals in almost every single city where water was tested. We've known this for years, though. Toxins in, toxins out. We take pills, we pee out chemicals, the treatment plants remove our urine and feces from the water, but not all the chemicals, and the "clean" water gets pumped back into our rivers, reservoirs, water tables. That same water then makes it back through the tap. Brilliant, isn't it? We're drinking a watery concoction the effects of which are "not yet understood."

We are a a highly creative species, always making things out of what we find on earth. The thing is the Earth is completely interconnected and finite. It's essentially a giant terrarium. Anything we create, anything we put into our terrarium, stays there for quite some time. It has nowhere else to go, so our chemicals, be they drugs or pesticides, perfumes or natural flavorings--they all end up stuck within our terrarium. They end up in our water, our soil, our oceans, our air. They find their way into the bloodstreams of animals, even the human ones.

Here's the whole article. Enjoy.

Spring Skin

2008-03-05T22:00:00.003-05:00

Here come the calves. Oh New York City is warming up again and people are showing their skin. Today on the E train was a ball-of-dumb wearing shorts. It’s too cold for shorts, but damnit if I didn’t stare at his calves for an uncomfortably long amount of time. It’s all I could look at on the entire train. Reading A People’s History of the United States was out of the question. It was all about dum dum's calves. Dumb for wearing shorts when it's too cold, but God bless him for being such an idiot.

His calves were out of shape, medium thickness, pale brown, and as hairy as a pubescent boy’s chin, and damn damn damn--after the sexlessness of winter, I wanna fuck those calves. Oh yeah. Lube them up and rub my dick all over them. Kidding of course. Of course. Of course.

This time of year, one exposed body part is all it takes.

Happy almost spring, New Yorquinos!

Love,

The Calf-Master

We're moving again

2008-02-26T16:38:00.002-05:00

And if I hafto look at another apartment in this cluttered town
I'll buy a truckload of carboard and fuck all
I'll build a luxury cardboard condo on the Jersey shore
And I'll have cardboard floors and cardboard walls
A cardboard car for getting to and fro
A cardboard lover and a cardboard bed
And we'll make cardboard love, oh yeah

And OH, I hope I remember to bring lotion for the chaffing
And OH, my cardboard lover, wet with affection, will flop on the cardboard floor
Lovemaking will break him
Salt water will spray on my cardboard walls
And my cardboard bed
My condo will fall
And I'll realize maybe finally at last, I hope
That when life gets ridiculous I get more ridiculous than life

I have doubts

2008-02-25T12:13:00.002-05:00

I don't think anyone should vote just based on their sexual identity. In other words, a candidate's standing on queer rights issues is important to me, but it's not the only thing that's important. Neither Hillary nor Obama do it for me in terms of their relationship to the queer community. Both lack a strong commitment to us. They rub elbows with people who hate us, etc. So I have my doubts when it comes to this issue as to who I think would be the better Democratic nominee. Still, I--aw fuck it, just watch the video below:

Tina Fey is my new girlfriend, by the way. She and I and Johnny Dep had an orgy at Lucy Liu's house. Yum.

Sacrifice:In absolutely no way whatsoever has my mother learned to love herself.

2008-02-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

A hen will eat less, sit more, and brace herself against weather in order to keep her eggs warm. Eventually, she teaches her chicks to scratch the soil and peck for bugs; to roost at night in high branches, away from foxes; to screech when they spot trouble; to huddle when it's cold. She teaches them to survive and then lets them go so she can tend a new brood.

If human mothers spent their lives raising new babies, would their children have better survival skills? Any Mormons care to comment?

If one has a chance to study the effect of a mother with genuine self-love, one can see that there is nothing more conducive to giving a child the experience of what love, joy, and happiness are than being loved by a mother who loves herself.

--Erich Fromm, "Selfishness, Self-love, and Self-interest," 1958

Self sacrifice is not the foundation for happiness. Altruism is. Altruism begins with the self. Easily confused with selfishness, true altruism embraces all living creatures and their homes. The true altruist is unattached to results and therefore cannot be selfish.

Pig Brains

2008-02-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

As if there weren't enough reasons to avoid the pork industry...

The New York Times has reported on a new neurological disease that's afflicting pork factory workers who handle the pig brains. Symptoms include fatigue and numbness in the legs.

What happens is that people working at the head table (that's the table where they strip the brains out of the pig heads and pack the brains up for shipment to China and the deep American south) these people were using a method that exposed them to large amounts of particulate brain matter, which then triggered an immune response in their bodies. Their bodies were recognizing the pig brain particulates as foreign bodies. The immune system destroys foreign bodies by creating antibodies. The problem is that pig brains have a lot in common with people brains, so the workers' antibodies started attacking their own brains, leading to neurological problems. Ugh.

My favorite paragraph from the article:

The person blowing brains was separated from the other workers by a plexiglass shield that had enough space under it to allow the heads to ride through on a conveyor belt. There was also enough space for brain tissue to splatter nearby employees.

Source: The New York Times, article is here.

Cuban Christmas Food

2008-01-06T17:40:00.000-05:00

Wow. It’s been a really long time since the last blog post. Woops!

In the interim, I’ve went to Miami. I was there for the Holy Days, staying with mama. She made tons of food and fretted about it all the time. What is it with Cuban mothers? They’re just like Jewish mothers. You’re either too skinny or too fat, and I fall into the too skinny so every female in my family tries to stuff me silly full of turrón, flan, beans, rice, chicken in all it’s forms: as a fried cutlet, grilled, bbq’ed, ground and stir fried as hash, or (my favorite) braised in a wine sauce.

And oh the roots! We eat our body weight in starch every day. Cubans love roots, we call them viandas, and every meal comes with a side dish of viandas. Yuca with garlic. Boniato, which is like sweet potato, only less sweet and white instead of orange, and is fried or boiled. Güawí (that’s the phonetic spelling), which is nutty and creamy.

Mama made güawí fritters that were sweet and had anis seeds in them. They were crispy creamy deliciousness—better than doughnuts. I was having them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever. She also made black-eyed pea fritters that were mouth-watering and she made plenty of plantains, which she fried, boiled, mashed, refried, turned into chips—any way that plantains could be prepared, she prepared them.

One night for dinner everything on my plate was fried except the black beans. I had rice with black beans, fried chicken, fried yuca, fried plantains, and fried buñuelos. Buñuelos are these pretzel-shaped donuts made from a root-based dough, served with an anis-seed syrup. They’re so good and creamy.

The other great thing about Cuban holidays are the treats you get to eat all day long. Turrón, for example, is a kind of nougat that comes in many different forms. Inevitably, there are nuts in turrón. Usually almonds and hazelnuts. Always super sweet. There are also dried figs, dates, and salted cashews. Usually there's also a big pile of shelled walnuts and hazelnuts that you pick at but you have to use the shell-cruncher (what's the official name? Nutcracker?) and then pick off the shell before you enjoy the nutty yumminess.

The last thing: fresh pineapple juice. Mama pressed it herself and added NOTHING else to it. It was sweet and light and refreshing all on its own. Okay one more: fresh Florida avocados. These things are like five haas avocados put together. They are huge and such a vibrant, light green--ugh! Again, creamy. Creamy is Cuban.

Okay. Enough about food. I’ll post again a story about mama or papa or both and promise to have you staring at the screen wide-jawed at the absurdity of my parents soon. Till then.....

Oh, by the way, if you're in New York City and want some delicious, authentic Cuban food, my top choice is Margon Restaurant. It's a hole-in-the-wall on 46th street between 6th and 7th Avenues, and is cheap and delicious. It's not a fancy restaurant in the least, and it reminds me so much of my family in Miami. Try it out.

Oh, by the way # 2: the picture is of yuca with garlic--yum!

Mushrooms and Hair!!!

2007-11-15T10:51:00.001-05:00

If you've been living in a bubble, you should know that there was a big fat oil spill in San Francisco's Bay recently. Well, to cut to the chase, volunteers are using mats made of human hair to soak up the oil. The mats then will be seeded with oyster mushrooms, which will grow on the mats, absorbing the toxic gunk and turning the pile of hair and oil into compost. Isn't that the best news you've ever heard?!

How exciting that this is even possible. How exciting that there's a non-toxic solution to the spill! Rather than spray the water and beaches with oil-absorbent chemicals, which is like using poison to clean up poison, there's this better way of cleaning spills. Oh I'm so rooting for this method to become the standard when cleaning oil spills and for people to figure out other healthy ways of dealing with toxic messes.

Hooray Lisa Gautier, who is leading this effort....you MUST read the article here.

Source: SF Gate.com

Writers Guild of America Strike

2007-11-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

If you don't watch the video above, the gist is that the producers aren't giving the writers of TV shows and films their fair share of DVD sales and Internet Downloads. The DVD percentage that the writers currently receive has not changed in about twenty years.

Enter the New York Times, whose liberal facade is a joke to anybody who still reads it. NYT just ran a piece today that offers readers alternatives to their favorite cable shows while the Writers' Strike continues. Are your favorite shows going into reruns because of that pesky strike? Then here are some other shows you should check out (these may also be on reruns, but you may have never watched them before). If you like 24, they suggest you try LA Ink.

Okay, NY Times--or more specifically NEIL GENZLINGER, the "article"'s writer--keep digging your own grave. Rather than tell readers--"hey, this writers' strike is going on, here are the issues at play, here's how you can take a stand," you're giving them more TV options? And you even joke about it in the title of the article: "Go On, Bold Couch Potatoes, Click Into the Unknown." Not only do you recognize the inaction of the couch potato, but you're encouraging it when you should offer the couch potato some options--sure, there are other channels to watch, but some of the couch potatoes out there may want to get involved in the writers' strike. The NY Times and Mr. Genzlinger, however, don't want to go down that road, they only want their readers to indulge mindless apathy. At this point, watching reruns or other shows is tantamount to crossing the picket line.

Day by day the New York Times--which incidentally is composed of WRITING, of WORDS, of the same matter as the scripts and screenplays of the members of the WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA--day by day that publication becomes less relevant and begins to sound more and more like Entertainment Weekly hosted by Bobby Bush. Fine. Let the Style Section become the standard for all other sections. When the old guard who continues to read the NY Times dies, you can be sure the members of my generation will not pick up the slack in readership. We get our news and entertainment from better outlets.

Here's the stupid NY Times Article. But before you click consider whether you actually want to increase their page hits.

Crap Rises From the Ashes

2007-11-09T15:40:00.000-05:00

What happens when government and businesses mingle? Too much shit to fit on a web page, Alex.

Well here's another mutant child of such a marriage--disaster capitalism.

We've been seeing it in New Orleans and Florida, we've seen it in Iraq, and now we're gonna see it in Greece. Disaster capitalism is when a disaster clears the field of local competition so that big businesses can come in and take over. After the mega fires in Greece this summer, which destroyed communities and forests alike, government-ass-kissing developers of resort hotels and second-home suburbs are making headway into taking over prime (and now, charred) real estate.

Basically, the fires put the locals out of business, so they have no money and no way to rebuild their towns. The government isn't opening its pockets, so, enter big business, which has money and power. Unfortunately, big business doesn't help local economies, so the people most screwed over stay fucked. Fire charred their land....the government is burning their dignity and hope.

Out with the old in with the new=No justice, no peace.

Source: The Guardian

Dream Back to Eden

2007-11-08T10:08:00.000-05:00

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, declares that global warming is a scam. The most memorable statement: "The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril."

Global Warming IS a scam. We don't need to rethink our relationship to the environment any more than we need to stop dumping pig shit into waterways or pumping carcinogens into the soil, or filling the air (and our babies' lungs) with industriul caca.

Global Warming is a hoax, so...relax. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Imagine a world where the air is pure, where forrests abound and coral reefs frolic under the waves as polar bears dance with northern lights. Keep your eyes closed and imagine.

Animal Lives

2007-11-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

Our cats, Yucky and Luna, have been begging for food since 2PM. Feeding time is still two hours away.

Yucky tends to be loudest in her demands. No, not demands, more like supplications. She begs. She whines. She pleads, "Pleeeeeaaase." Yucky uses about 5 different sounds to ask for food, all of them annoy me and I know if she just understood how to tell time from a clock or if she was sensitive to the complicated lives of humans, that she'd back off a bit. She'd foster patience and self-restraint. But then she'd be a human with an animal's life.

How simple to be an animal. Eat, sleep, run, hide, fight, mate. That's it. That's life in six monosyllabic words.

How much more complicated our lives seem to be in comparison. We all have the same basic needs as Yucky, but we've created intricate systems of communication and value by which to fulfill them. Jobs, promotions, money, investment, double-entendre, alcohol, computers, space missions, pharmacies. The list is as large as there are nouns in our language.

Pop It!

2007-10-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

Okay okay okay. The subject is Poppers.

Yes, they take what would just be a boring old orgasm to a meditative, cosmic experience out of this planet. Seriously. The poppers heighten the orgasm and next thing you know, you feel like you're connected to the entire planet.

If you don't already know it, a few sniffs of poppers makes your sphincter open up to lengths and thicknesses you once could only dream of. It makes impossibly-sized dicks and dildos completely feasible AND deliciously soothing. In short, it makes your ass hungry. Ladies, if your man wants to do you in the butt and you're afraid of the pain, trust the gay boys on this--wrap your nostril around a bottle of popperliciousness and sniff your way to anal heaven.

And then there are the visions. Goddamn those poppers make sex out of this world. It's the closest thing to sex on Ecstacy, not that I would know about such things. One of my favorite popper-fuck visions came when I was doing myself in the ass with a nice long dildo. I was feeling the popper-high and pounding my ass, and I had a smile on my face from ear to ear. As I orgasmed, I felt my soul reach out of my body as though it was a mass of lithe roots, writhing and pulsating. The roots merged with all the roots of all the trees in the earth. Together this mass of tangled roots gave birth to every plant and flower. And I could feel in my gut the longing a plant feels for the sun, and the happiness that comes with absorbing its rays.

Have I ever had an orgasm like that sober? No. But I've come close. The trick to amazing SOBER orgasms is in the breathing. The problem with breathing-centered orgasms is that if you're with somebody who is not into focused breathing and meditation, then you're not gonna get far. It's easier when you're having sex with another person to just snort the poppers and get the "out of this world" sensation. The breathing-centered orgasm is easiest, I find, by myself.

Now, if any hot yoga papi out there wants to take me on for some au naturel tantric sex, bring it on, baby, just leave me your email and let's chat it up.

My brand of choice for poppers, by the way, is Jungle Juice Platinum. It goes straight to my ass.

Wanna know a little more about poppers? Do a fucking google search, you lazy ass! Or you can click here to start your research.

Less Great Lakes

2007-10-22T14:29:00.000-04:00

Last week I posted about the drought in the south and how it's shrinking Lake Lanier, the principle water source for metro Atlanta, which has about 3 months of drinking water left. Buy stock in Evian NOW!

The Great Lakes, no surprise, are also shrinking. The culprit? You guessed it: drought. Less rain AND less snow affects the water levels in all the Great Lakes. In turn, lower water levels increase the cost of commerce. Cargo ships navigating through the lakes have had to reduce the amount of cargo they carry or risk getting their bottoms stuck in the muck. Each individual ship carries less, so MORE ships are being added in order to carry the leftover cargo. At the end of the day, consumers will be paying for the extra shipping costs.

It's not just mother nature, people, it's us. There's too many of us, draining too much water, and causing too much damage to the climate system. Fight for change: buy local products made close to home and of course, VOTE for candidates who, unlike Mr. Bush Baby, give a shit about our natural resources.

Source: New York Times online

Masturbating Tip

2007-10-19T16:43:00.000-04:00

This one's just for the guys. Forget about the full-handed jack-off. This minimalist masturbation technique is sure to get your eyeballs rolling to the moon.

The head at the end of your shaft--that's the glans. It's full of nerve endings. Some areas of the glans are more sensitive than others, but for most guys the tippy top of the penis is the MOST packed with orgasmolicious nerve endings.

So, grab your dick tips and lets begin.

Give yourself 30 minutes or more to spend on self-pleasure.

Get yourself nice and hard--NOT by touching your penis. You can look at porn, fantasize, read a dirty novel, look at the neighbor sunbathing next door--just NO touching, not until you're already hard. This part's important because it makes the dick tip super sensitive.

Then, once you're there, you stimulate ONLY the very tip of your dick. That would be the area right around the urethra. Play with it using a light touch at first. Figure out if you're more sensitive around the hole, below the hole, to one side of the hole. But you can only stimulate that spot. Use your finger tip. Rub, pat, tap, even pinch the tip of your dick. Try different speeds of stimulation. Hold your shaft if you need to but only in order to keep your dick steady while you stimulate the tip. NO STROKING.

Done right, this will drive you insane with pleasure and will allow you to get very close to orgasm without actually coming. Not that you WON'T come at all, I mean eventually you probably will. But don't fret if you don't at first, just commit to at least 10 minutes of dick tip stimulation before you move to stroking your shaft.

For those overachievers out there--see if you can make yourself come just by stimulating the tip--it's a wild and amazing ride. I personally can only rarely make it all the way without grabbing my shaft and jus going at it. The pleasure is sometimes too intense and I feel like I'm gonna die if I don't blow my load, so I give in and go to the finish line. But I have to say, I never looked at masturbating the same way when I tried this technique.

Hope you like it.

How To Tame Your Toddler

2007-10-15T20:10:00.000-04:00

Here's what young papa taught me today on the 7 train about parenting.

His lil' twit was sitting next to me kicking and flailing for papa to give him a sugary Starburst square. He screamed and cried until papa started opening the package. Then he screamed and kicked cuz papa was taking too long. Then papa gave him a treat and lil' twit cooed with delight.

A few chewy minutes later he started to scream and cry (although does it count if there aren't tears?). Then papa opened another candy and popped it in his son's mouth and lil' poopie chewed away with glee.

Then little poopie was done. So he started to play with the strap on papa's coat. Papa noticed and moved his coat out of reach so lil' plop fart wailed in pain and papa gave him his very own, un-opened treat. But lil' plop fart couldn't open the treat fast enough so papa took it away and lil' plop fart yelled and cried and screamed and kicked as papa opened the candy wrapper. Finally papa popped a sugary square into lil' cavityhead's mouth and all was well again.

The moral of the story? Give kids candy and they'll shut up. Remember the plant from Lil' Shop of Horrors? That's what a kid is like. You appease it by giving it what it wants.....

Just don't run out of candy.....(and as a sidebar: what a damn racist movie/musical this is! I mean come on, evil Black plant from outerspace? Okay...)

Atlanta Prays for Hurricane

2007-10-15T12:34:00.000-04:00

At this point, a sloppy, wet hurricane would be a welcome sight in Atlanta, Georgia. The city has got 3-4 months of water left. Yup. You read right. They're undergoing a drought so bad that if no rain comes (and fall/winter is the dry season down there, so...) then the whole town will be in a major state of emergency.

Right now they're at a level 4, which means extreme conservation measures have been put into place. At issue is the water level in Lake Sidney Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, fed by the Chattahoochee River.

What gets my fires burning is that no one talks about or thinks about conservation until the situation is super dire. They've got 3-4 monhts o fwater left and now they're talking about shutting down car washes, but they're not sure because well, loss of business, etc...Okay, it's a sensitive issue and nobody wants to force workers out of a job, so....put them to work enforcing the new water restrictions!!!! Train car wash workers to do something else and give the business owners a hefty tax break and get them to open up a different kind of business. I mean COME ON.

Water is always an issue. We can't live paycheck to paycheck, so to speak, when it comes to the liquid that sustains life. Nobody should be allowed to water lawns. Ever. Period. End of story. People should landscape their gardens with LOCAL plants and grasses, especially of the drought-resistant variety. Otherwise, your house should sit on a plain old pile of dirt. If nothing will grow there without a hose, then it shouldn't grow there in the first place.

Alright, I could go on an on, but just to prove my point about how nearsighted people are, here are the last two paragraphs from the relevant article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. These should have been the FIRST two sentences:

"Our culture has to change," [...] "We have been a water-rich region all of our lives, never having to worry about water.... The attention that is paid to water goes away as soon as we start having rain again.

"We're going to have another drought after this one," [...] "When we can't guess, but we can be assured we'll have another drought that's actually worse than this one.... With that in mind, our planners have to start looking at this in terms of how many more families, how many more businesses, how many more gallons of water can we allocate out of the Chattahoochee River."

Sources: Truthout.org and ajc.com

Tremenda Fletera (a.k.a Skeeza)

2007-10-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

Yo, this takes me back to my high school days in Miami in the early 1990's. Mellow Man Ace's Mentirosa. Alaba'o, man--I can't believe I didn't find this on Youtube sooner. And just so you know, it's SO Miami. It's got Spanglish galore (yup, I used to talk like that, mixing words here and there) and it's got telenovela drama.

Have a listen. You should listen all the way para que puedas agarrar what the lady says.

Cojanlo suave, people.

GORE, UN: GREEN PEACE PRIZE

2007-10-12T10:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, so by now you all know that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, which he shares with the UN 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yay. A way to continue bring added attention to climate change is always a plus, right? Take the Live Earth concerts--okay, so they sucked up a bunch of electricity and were all about celebrity endorsements, but trees need Cameron Diaz and Sting as much as people do, right?

It's REALLY difficult for me to feel wholeheartedly happy for Gore and the UN Panel for SO MANY reasons. First of which is the fact that Gore is wealthy, and yes, he's got a big mansion, flies in jets, drives around in fancy cars (or gets driven in them, pardon me), and while he's doing more than most in his income bracket to ensure that his carbon footprint is dutifully filled in, his celebrity obscures the hundreds of activists who regardless of their wealth live below their means in order to ensure a healthier planet.

On the other hand, he's a climate ambassador, and he's getting tons of good work done increasing awareness of climate change from the bottom up--a philosophy which explains his use of celebrity and his decision to donate his share of the Nobel money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, whose mission is "to persuade the American people — and people elsewhere in the world – of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis" (from their website).

As for the IPCC, I want to keep this brief, so look it up yourself: study after study has found the IPCC's temperature and sea level projections to be too conservative, if not downright naive. Again, how great that climate change has such prominent leaders behind it, but how sad that those mascots don't represent the cutting edge of environmental science and activism.

A friend of mine gave the award news it's proper political twist. This morning she texted all her friends with the message: "Al Gore got the peace prize! Oslo REALLY hates W." Most sentient citizens of earth do.

How about YOUR 2 cents?

You Can't Stop the Music

2007-10-05T15:52:00.000-04:00

This poor lady now owes multi-million dollar record companies a total of $220,000 in copywright infringement fees for having downloaded songs from the internet and allegedly having also shared those songs with others also via the internet.

YIKES!

In an informal pole I conducted amongst co-workers and friends (totalling about 20 people) only one claimed never to have downloaded songs illegally off the internet.

DOUBLE YIKES!

Jammie Thomas, a single mother, will, unless she wins an appeal, be paying this for the rest of her life. Is that fair? Fuck no. What about everybody who ever made a mix tape for a friend in the 80's or who burned a CD for a loved one in the 2000's? That's copywrite infringement also.

It's the Recording Industry Association of America vs. The People of the World. Aren't piraters just a scapegoat for a money-grubbing collective of millionaire producers and record labels that are gonna die out soon anyway?

We should fucking NOT buy any albums for a period of time. Have rolling boycotts of music stores (on and offline) and see what they do.

Sources: AP via Yahoo news, CBS News online

Fasten Your Seatbelts

2007-10-05T12:06:00.000-04:00

It's bumpy already. The United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, calls this year's tally of climate related emergencies a "mega disaster." His office is responsible for channeling international funds to help countries with emergency relief for things like earthquakes, floods, etc.

Sir John suggests the planet is well into the first lines of its Dear John letter. Self-destructive creatures that we are, humans have opted to break up with millenia of relative climate stability and have hit the sack with the unpredictable, fiesty Climactica Changeus. Floods, droughts, mega hurricanes--WAY more orgasmic than the same old predictable seasons.

Sources: Duh, open your eyes, it's all around you, and guardian.co.uk.

This Land Is Your Land, But Not Your land

2007-10-03T09:42:00.000-04:00

As a little follow up to my post yesterday, here's more to think on in regards to legal and illegal immigration.

Apparently it's illegal to fly a foreign flag above an American one on a flagpole. So this bar owner in Reno, Nevada broke the law (probably unknowingly), by flying a Mexican flag on top. A vet decided to tear down the Mexican flag and conflict ensued. The best part about this article are the comments, and I've excerpted a couple in case you don't have time to click the link. The shocking thing is how much everyone's harping on the fact that this guy is latino, even though according to the news source he's a lawful US citizen. Which just goes to show how prejudiced the commentators are. Read on...

I was so happy that someone finally decided to stand up for Americans. The way the hispanic community disgraces our flag is horrible.

Next time they decide to march at the federal building make sure immigation is there, because it's only the illegals that demonstrate.

I would love to meet that guy and shake his hand. God Bless Him.

Rebecca Walker, Reno

Not that she's generalizing or anything. No. Hispanics disgrace our flag and our flag is so representative of who we are as a people that if it gets placed beneath another flag we'll be destroyed. Gimme a fucking break. I smell such a witch hunt brewing because white gringos are getting antsy that they're getting outnumbered. Not that there isn't truth to the problems in overpopulation that an influx of immigrants helps create; but don't we have better things to accomplish than ensuring proper placement of a single flag in Reno? Are we THAT enslaved to symbolism?

Here's another goodie:

I support the veteran who removed the American flag with his knife.

They don't deserve to get it back after illegally placing the Mexican flag above ours. If charges are brought against the veteran for theft, I anticipate a firestorm of protest.

This is disgraceful!

Ralph Weir, Carson City

Source: Channel 4 KRNV.com

Chertoff says Immigrants are DIRTY!

2007-10-02T16:24:00.001-04:00

According to Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff, illegal immigrants crossing the US border with Mexico are an environmental nuisance, much dirtier and damaging than the hundreds of miles of fencing his agency is having put up between America and Mexico. Immigrants may be environmentally bad, but Hummers aren't, which is why we should park thousands of hummers in Mexico so that illegals can drive over here safely and in an environmentally sound manner. Then they can leave their Pepsi cans, Poland Spring water bottles, and empty Dorito bags in the hermetic safety of their vehicles instead of littered along our desert.

In all seriousness, he points out that people crossing litter the desert with bottles, cans, clothes, plastics, pee pee, and caca. OH MY! First of all, he should visit any one of our national parks and he'll see much of the same. Second of all, he's using this argument to support "The Fence." Probably he hopes that liberal-minded folks who oppose the fence will buy into his pseudo-environmentalist argument.

It seems Americans have begun hunting illegal immigrants. I predict the witch hunt will get alot worse, especially if the economy busts from increased oil costs and/or climate change starts taking a bigger toll. Illegal immigrants have become America's scapegoat.

Myanmar/Burma

2007-09-28T09:48:00.000-04:00

Tens of thousands of monks have been silenced by the junta's soldiers in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Soldiers locked some monks in their monasteries, imprisoned others, and beat or killed an unknown number. The monks gave moral, spiritual weight to the people's uprising. After a week of peaceful protests, the junta sent in the machine guns. What's a mob of civilians and unarmed monks to do? Many chose to die for their right to protest peacefully.

Thus far Bush's plan involves economic sanctions againt the junta leaders, and this is what pisses me off. Didn't we used to be beacon of democracy. Isn't that one of the reasons our parents and grandparents came to this country? We sent our troops to Iraq under many guises, at least one of which was to "liberate" the Iraqui people, who had not at that point shown the kind of rebellious will power necessary to overthrow a dictatorship. The people of Myanmar have been showing that now for over a week. They are ripe for change, willing to die for the democratic right to protest peacefully. Isn't this exactly the kind of country we should help with a military presence? I think so. But we're maxed out financially, our soldiers stretched to the limit fighting for oil in Iraq, inadvertently provoking rebellion against democracy there when we could be providing assistance towards democracy's birth elsewhere--someplace like Myanmar , where the people are hungry for change.

They will stand alone. And we will let them (and democracy) fall again. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think we should. I don't think we should EVER occupy another country under the guise of spreading democracy, which is just a euphemism for empire-building. I think you enter a war when you are being attacked or when your allies are being attacked--otherwise, you're juts a bully. On the other hand, we could at least have sent to Burma peace-keeping troops so that soldiers wouldn't have an opportunity to slaughter peaceful protesters.

Source: Times Online (UK)

Methyl Iodide is this season's Methyl Bromide...I mean...er...Yay Tomatoes!

2007-09-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

If you've been following the results of the Montreal Protocol meetings, you'll know that Methyl Bromide is a naughty chemical that's number one on the list of ozone rippers. So, the Protocol is meant to reduce usage of ozone rippers and methyl bromide is being phased out globally over the next twenty some years. That's great news. Sadly, there are still loopholes through which nations can apply for excemptions and get a quota of methyl bromide to use. Happily, the quotas are reduced more and more each year.

Since US berry and tomato growers want a replacement for methyl bromide, the EPA is set to approve use of (drumroll, please) methyl iodide. Well that just sucks. Not only is methyl iodide linked to increases in cancer and respiratory illnesses, it's also a known neural fucker-upper s (that's when your brain gets chewed up from the inside out and you have trouble staying alive).

The methyl iodide is injected into soil so that it can kill everything and then tomatoes and berries are grown in that same soil. The thinking goes, "since we're not spraying it on the plants themselves, consumers are safe." Oh right, because toxic soil is nothing to worry about. Right. Because when a tomato plant is growing, its roots don't touch the soil, right? Because when a tomato falls to the ground it doesn't fall on soil, right? Because when it rains the rain water doesn't wash the methyl iodide into lakes and streams, right? Cuz rainwater knows better.

Just close your eyes and think of the berries. Sweet juicy berries. And ripe red tomatoes...mmmmm....all better. And take comfort, however small, in the fact that methyl iodide doesn' rip up the ozone layer. Ahhhhhh.

Keep Santa Out!

2007-09-26T10:52:00.001-04:00

The North Pole.

The Netherlands wants it. Canada wants it. The USA wants it. The Russians even flagged it.

Oh yeah, by the way, the Inuit already live in that melting part of the world. Inuit don't own tanks or fighter jets. They don't sit on a vast arsenal of nuclear warheads, so....they're resorting to good ol' fashined diplomacy.

"We must develop, for the sake of my people and the world at large, a formal international process focusing on the Arctic that includes indigenous people having meaningful voices," Aqqaluk Lynge, president of the Greenland chapter of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) told an international gathering of politicians, scientists, and religious figures here earlier this month[...]One of ICC's objectives is to keep the Arctic out of the hands of the military and encourage peaceful uses of the North Pole," says Lynge.

By far the most sensible statement about the North Pole region I've heard. Go Inuit for speaking out! Let's keep democratic oversight alive and make sure our pesky leaders listen.

Full article here.
Source: Christian Science Monitor

Róisín Murphy

2007-09-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

Without further ado...Let Me Know, by Róisín Murphy:

I love her, I do. But...I wish she'd consulted with me about that outfit before committing. It's too stifling.

And, did Madonna make it okay for singers to dance badly in their videos? Is it just a white-girl thing? Discuss.

Bush does not play well with others

2007-09-24T08:21:00.000-04:00

Well what a surprise. As United Nations' members gather this week to discuss global warming and brainstorm a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, Bush Baby reaches for his pacifier.

Our American Preemie has decided that he's gonna have his own meeting on Friday and doesn't have time for the UN. Besides that, he's gonna fix climate change his own way, further stripping the US's post WWII reputation as a nation that works with others towards common, benign goals. Didn't we used to uphold that quality as an AMERICAN value? Ah, well, it's the Bush age, and he's the decider and we're all individuals:

“It’s our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be,” said James L. Connaughton, the president’s chief environmental adviser.

It's our philosophy that GLOBAL Warming can be solved by a single spoiled brat and his plentiful corporate tit.

Bush needs a permanent time-out.

Source: The New York Times

Methyl Bromide Milkshakes? Yummy!

2007-09-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

Don't you love when it warms just enough in the fall to squeeze in another strawberry milkshake? American-grown strawberries get a nice coating of methyl bromide. Actually, most of the chemical ends is used in the soil where it kills EVERYTHING. Yup. The fields are completely sterilized then agribusiness goes to work planting them full yummy berries. But what's in the soil ends up on the plants, in the plants, on the fruit, in the fruit.

Methyl Bromide is super toxic and shreds the ozone layer. Thankfully, it's being phased out globally via the Montreal Protocol. In Montreal this month delegates from 191 nations met to renew/increase limitations of ozone-ripping chemicals and Methyl Bromide is considered to be the worst culprit. So why oh why isn't this dangerous chemical (it kills EVERYTHING in the soil. EVERYTHING.) closer to being completely wiped out? Mostly it's our fault. Yup. Specifically our love of strawberries.

The USA has applied for exceptions to the rules layed out by previous Montreal Protocols. The statistics are mind-numbing. If you don't read the article, just know this:

"the U.S., which has applied for 6,500 tonnes for 2008 and 5,000 tonnes for 2009, even as the rest of the developed world has dropped significantly to just 1,900 and 1,400 tonnes, respectively."

So, we'll use three times as much methyl bromide because...well...because of this kind of thinking on the part of agribusiness (the quotation is from David McAllister from Chemtura Corporation):

regulatory process already imposes a significant burden on producers, distributors, and users.Critical users have to submit justifications for their critical-use applications, some three years in advance of when that product might be applied, and to substantiate their requests with very extensive documentation. They then must be ready to answer questions about those applications, both from EPA officials and, in some cases, from the international community because of the Montreal Protocol levels.*

Oh, boo hoo Mr. Big Money interest. You gotta deal with red tape so that kids don't drink methyl bromide milkshakes and so that our Argentine pals don't sizzle under the gaping ozone hole. BOO HOO, Chemtura will just have to sell other baby-choking, breast-milk-poisoning chemicals instead. There's just SOOO much paperwork involved in poisoning the planet.

And I KNOW the argument that goes "we gotta protect our industry," but our industry doesn't protect US!! So agribusiness looses money and some jobs are lost because they can't grow as many strawberries without ruining the planet. Oh well. We weren't meant to be growing so many strawberries in the first place. Eat an apple!

*"Critical Use" is the term given to the loopholes created by the Montreal Protocol to allow nations to apply for exemptions to using Methyl Bromide. And this excerpt's from an EPA hearing held earlier this month. You can download the transcript here.

Ripped Seams

2007-09-21T16:49:00.000-04:00

The range of human behavior is terrifying. I'd rather be a sloth.

A man in England decided to piss on a dying woman. Oh yes. And not only that, but he put whipped cream on her head. And not only that, but he filmed the entire thing on his cellphone so he could post it on YouTube. He thought it would be funny. It makes you wonder do White kids get a chuckle from hanging nooses off trees?

The Wicked Witch was right, "What a world!"Humanity's seams burst. Are we still people? Still human? Wicked thoughts are human; are wicked deeds?

Happy Babe in Ecstasy

2007-09-19T00:28:00.000-04:00

Ooooo to be an infant at a giving tit!
Do you see his head
Cocked to the side and back
Barely sustaining the weight of his glee?
The milky froth trickling from the edge of his lips
(his tongue still lacks mobility
Or else not a drop would be spilled).
Happy babe in ecstasy.

--Carlo Seti