This is my favorite subject to write about.
I had a plan for new year's. 1. Go to Rachel's house. 2. Get drunk. 3. Wake up with a hangover. It was a simple, foolproof plan that had plenty of room for flexibility. Due to a situation out of my control, my carefully detailed itinerary (see 1-3) was derailed. From out of the train-crash remains emerged a moderately stasifying plan devoid of alcohol. The important part (friends? LOL) remained. I suppose.
So I went over to Rachel's house after a shopping spree at Traget (bought a present for my mum). We hung around for a while and listened to Pink Floyd, went to the store and picked up our Jack.
After some camera antics, it was 10 minutes to midnight and I was getting kinda excited, you know? Generally, when you spend new years with Mexicans everyone gets excited and breathey and grabs some champagne or cider and migrates to the TV to watch the spanish-language coverage of the New Year countdown in whatever city. It's exhilirating. I'm generally a very cynical and boring person. Everything is ridiculous to me. Everything. Ever. Except new years. When the count hits zero I want to scream and jump around and hug everyone. That's what you do. You give every person in the room a hug. It's the rules. A hug. No?
Well, New Year's came and went with Jack and Rachel puzzling over the camera/computer/tv situation. (the didn't figure out... I found out that it wasn't compatible with Rachel's Mac after reading the manual)
It was awful. I felt horrible. Like something was going terribly wrong- I mean, there was a mention about no New Year's kiss (I wasn't worrying about that all) and I had a good time filming music videos for strange Swedish and German bands... but it felt wrong, in my core, to not make a big fat deal about the New Year.
I don't know if it's a Mexican thing... Every Mexican family I've spent New Year's with made a super huge deal about it. Tamales, clunking down the street with our suitcases, screaming, dancing, fireworks, crackers and poppers, booze and singing... Is it a Mexican thing?
Is it customary for white folks to just... ignore those ten seconds before the clock hits twelve and New Year begins?
It really hit home when my mom called me at 12:00. She was shouting.
"Feliz Año!!! WHOOO!!! YAHHHH!!!" I could hear my brother shouting in the background. It was so odd, so out of place, to hear those sounds. It was bloodcurdling. The horrible shame with which I'm sure many immigrant's children are acquainted bubble into my chest like bile. THe humiliation of wild, loud, uncouth family made me wince. My mom asked to talk to Jack, to wish him a Happy New Year. I tossed him the phone.
My friend's familiar cultural insesitivity proved my fears correctly. He was perturbed by my mother's insanity and was undoubtedly relieved when the call was dropped. I started to question him about his obvious disgust, but I dropped it because he was suffering from some unfortunate chemical side effects of a biological situation outside his control.
Since I had work early the next morning, I left immediately after we had some cake.
I walked home in the dark, breathing in the New air and dodging truant bullets. I hugged my mom and my brother. It felt good. So good. I was back in my element, the dark sweet sea of my own culture. There were tamales in the kitchen. Corn meal, beans, cheese and jalapeños. The vegetarian ones were tied together by corn husks. It was the progressive meeting the traditional meeting the truth. The TV flickered Latinos in NYC celebrating the dropping of the ball for the second time in the New Year.
And I ate tamales and hugged my brother, celebrating my second New Year's of the night.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
People Die
People Die
penstroke fatwah
boys will be toys
fuck my religion
nationalist potatoes
sister's blood
brother's bloodbath
people live
and people die
i been trying
been trying so hard
to resist the
indelible border
where people live
and people die.
i have no priorities
fair trade workhouse
injustice in justice
ice in our smiles
but people live
and people die
bob marley cigarettes
guevara masks
fighting the man
is like mud wrestling
with sea monsters
but people live
and people die.
penstroke fatwah
boys will be toys
fuck my religion
nationalist potatoes
sister's blood
brother's bloodbath
people live
and people die
i been trying
been trying so hard
to resist the
indelible border
where people live
and people die.
i have no priorities
fair trade workhouse
injustice in justice
ice in our smiles
but people live
and people die
bob marley cigarettes
guevara masks
fighting the man
is like mud wrestling
with sea monsters
but people live
and people die.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Poem of the Day
Bajej or The Sky is Your Smile
Your mouth is a seashell.
Echoes, curves, irony.
Your eyes are coals.
Hot, cold, severe.
Your limbs are mountains.
Rocks, earth, life.
Your bones are trees.
Lithe, lean, porous.
Your muscles are rivers.
History, change, spontaneity.
Your heart is an oasis.
Lush, green, and hidden.
Your mouth is a seashell.
Echoes, curves, irony.
Your eyes are coals.
Hot, cold, severe.
Your limbs are mountains.
Rocks, earth, life.
Your bones are trees.
Lithe, lean, porous.
Your muscles are rivers.
History, change, spontaneity.
Your heart is an oasis.
Lush, green, and hidden.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Things to Explain to Billy and Sally
(that don't involve homosexuality)
1. Evil
2. Racial Supremacy
3. Fascism
4. Political Dissent
5. Murder
6. Theft
7. Unwanted Pregnancy
8. Cross-species Breeding
9. Torture
10. The Occult
CANNOT DISCUSS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES: gay people
1. Evil
2. Racial Supremacy
3. Fascism
4. Political Dissent
5. Murder
6. Theft
7. Unwanted Pregnancy
8. Cross-species Breeding
9. Torture
10. The Occult
CANNOT DISCUSS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES: gay people
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Mahmoud Amadinejad
Did anyone watch the Columbia Uni. thing? They INVITED President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to their school for him to speak. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever, EVER witnessed. It showed three things.
1. Americans are ignorant.
2. Americans are rude.
3. Americans are stubborn.
When Ahmadinejad showed, he was booed from the crowd. Alright, fine. People boo Bush and Clinton all the time. Fine. Then, the president of the university introduced him. It was a fucking fiasco.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification, in defiance of agreements that you have made with the U.N. nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions, and threaten to engulf the world in nuclear annihilation? (Applause.)
Let me close with a comment. Frankly -- I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, as at one of the meetings at the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
Who the hell does this jerk think he is? When you are providing a forum for someone to speak, framing the discussion with comments like these is ridiculous. It's intellecutally bankrupt to think that if you don't agree with someone's policy you should degrade and insult them before they begin their speech. I was disgusted.
The questions the "scholars" asked were ridiculously superficial.
"Do you really want to destroy Israel?"
Of course, Ahmadinejad (who is definitely not the backward moron they show him to be) goes into the details of a one-state solution where Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians can live happily. You know, reading my history book reminds me so much of the current Palestinian problem- the way the Creek and the Seminole kept being forced further and further west. It seems the same is happening in Palestine. Even as thousands of Palestinians are killed and are forced into refugee camps, no one seems to be worried about their well-being. If it were up to me (and Ahmadinejad, apparently) the Israeli settlers would be told to fuck off. Lucky for them, they've got fundamentalism supporting them.
Again and again, they demanded that Ahmadinejad give a simple yes or no answer. In this situation I don't think a simple yes or no answer is possible. Of course he wants the destruction of "Israel." Israel as an apartheid, just as South Africa was an apartheid. Apartheid always demands destruction.
"Why are women and HOMOSEXUALS persecuted in Iran?"
He of course goes into what most Muslim fundies would say about women. No one bothered to debate this because of course arguing with religion isn't allowed. In any case, he talked about how Iranian women were happier than men blah blah blah. Lots of fundie bullshit. When they asked about queers, he said there were no queers in his country.
Instead of outrage or booing, Ahmadinejad received laughter. HOW FUNNY it is, to say that queers, who are often murdered in Iran, don't exist. What REALLY pisses me off is that conservative pundits (who would gladly side with the Christian reconstructionsists to make being queer a crime) decried Ahmadinejad's position on queer folk. How could he say that? Gays are just people after all. PSH. CNN and FOX both gave the same goddamn bullshit report about the speech. I have lost ALL faith in CNN. All of it, I'm sorry. Both are equally full of shit.
Anyway, the President in Iran doesn't even have that much power. The blame should go to Ayatollah Khomeini, who is the evil mastermind behind all this.
"Why do you deny the Holocaust?"
He replied that he didn't deny it happened. It was a horrible tragedy. He said that certain aspects of it merited further research. The man is a goddamn Physics professor in Iran. He's a fucking scientist. D: The white folk were all "there's been enough research." Of course there hasn't been enough research! There can never be enough scrutiny of any event in the course of history. At any rate, Ahmadinejad seems more interested in the aftermath: How Europe and America, along with displaced Jewish folk created the Israeli state and didn't bother to think about the Palestinian people.
"Why are you building nuclear bombs? Will you stop?"
He wasn't building nuclear bombs, he said. They didn't even have enough material to make them. It was for strictly peaceful reasons. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) had approved what they had done and Iran was completely honest about its nuclear program. On all the conservopundit (and even CNN-s not-so-conservopundit) shows talked about what a LIAR he was. Ahmadinejad was a LIAR. That's ridiculous. I personally went on the IAEA website and looked up Iran's status. Iran has been totally helpful in terms of its nuclear program. Completely. See it for yourself:
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2007/ebsp2007n014.html#iran
The only reason Iran is having trouble is because America and Israel refuse to see a Middle Eastern country prosper.
Look at it this way: Iran is a very young democracy. Think back to America's early days as a democracy. Women, black folk, queers, Natives, and laborers had no rights. ZERO rights. If you weren't a white male straight property owner, you were invisible before the law. Most states had laws prohibiting queer sex, women voters, and all sorts of horrible measures to ensure male white supremacy. How horrible and drastic was the genocide of the Native Americans?
Iran is a young democracy. Although its aggresions towards women and queers are inexcusable, it must be allowed to prosper. The only way to a wider, more accepting society is through a) exposure to global ideas, b) education, and c) industry. If there is something to be said for the market, is it's propensity to allow the free flow of ideas. In order for Iran to prosper it must open its doors to the world.
That will never happen if ignorant, selfish, self-righteous Americans stand boldly and stupidly in front of the doors, isolating Iran and the millions of women, queers, and political dissenters that are trapped inside.
To read a full transcript of the speech and interview go here:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php
1. Americans are ignorant.
2. Americans are rude.
3. Americans are stubborn.
When Ahmadinejad showed, he was booed from the crowd. Alright, fine. People boo Bush and Clinton all the time. Fine. Then, the president of the university introduced him. It was a fucking fiasco.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification, in defiance of agreements that you have made with the U.N. nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions, and threaten to engulf the world in nuclear annihilation? (Applause.)
Let me close with a comment. Frankly -- I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, as at one of the meetings at the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
Who the hell does this jerk think he is? When you are providing a forum for someone to speak, framing the discussion with comments like these is ridiculous. It's intellecutally bankrupt to think that if you don't agree with someone's policy you should degrade and insult them before they begin their speech. I was disgusted.
The questions the "scholars" asked were ridiculously superficial.
"Do you really want to destroy Israel?"
Of course, Ahmadinejad (who is definitely not the backward moron they show him to be) goes into the details of a one-state solution where Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians can live happily. You know, reading my history book reminds me so much of the current Palestinian problem- the way the Creek and the Seminole kept being forced further and further west. It seems the same is happening in Palestine. Even as thousands of Palestinians are killed and are forced into refugee camps, no one seems to be worried about their well-being. If it were up to me (and Ahmadinejad, apparently) the Israeli settlers would be told to fuck off. Lucky for them, they've got fundamentalism supporting them.
Again and again, they demanded that Ahmadinejad give a simple yes or no answer. In this situation I don't think a simple yes or no answer is possible. Of course he wants the destruction of "Israel." Israel as an apartheid, just as South Africa was an apartheid. Apartheid always demands destruction.
"Why are women and HOMOSEXUALS persecuted in Iran?"
He of course goes into what most Muslim fundies would say about women. No one bothered to debate this because of course arguing with religion isn't allowed. In any case, he talked about how Iranian women were happier than men blah blah blah. Lots of fundie bullshit. When they asked about queers, he said there were no queers in his country.
Instead of outrage or booing, Ahmadinejad received laughter. HOW FUNNY it is, to say that queers, who are often murdered in Iran, don't exist. What REALLY pisses me off is that conservative pundits (who would gladly side with the Christian reconstructionsists to make being queer a crime) decried Ahmadinejad's position on queer folk. How could he say that? Gays are just people after all. PSH. CNN and FOX both gave the same goddamn bullshit report about the speech. I have lost ALL faith in CNN. All of it, I'm sorry. Both are equally full of shit.
Anyway, the President in Iran doesn't even have that much power. The blame should go to Ayatollah Khomeini, who is the evil mastermind behind all this.
"Why do you deny the Holocaust?"
He replied that he didn't deny it happened. It was a horrible tragedy. He said that certain aspects of it merited further research. The man is a goddamn Physics professor in Iran. He's a fucking scientist. D: The white folk were all "there's been enough research." Of course there hasn't been enough research! There can never be enough scrutiny of any event in the course of history. At any rate, Ahmadinejad seems more interested in the aftermath: How Europe and America, along with displaced Jewish folk created the Israeli state and didn't bother to think about the Palestinian people.
"Why are you building nuclear bombs? Will you stop?"
He wasn't building nuclear bombs, he said. They didn't even have enough material to make them. It was for strictly peaceful reasons. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) had approved what they had done and Iran was completely honest about its nuclear program. On all the conservopundit (and even CNN-s not-so-conservopundit) shows talked about what a LIAR he was. Ahmadinejad was a LIAR. That's ridiculous. I personally went on the IAEA website and looked up Iran's status. Iran has been totally helpful in terms of its nuclear program. Completely. See it for yourself:
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2007/ebsp2007n014.html#iran
The only reason Iran is having trouble is because America and Israel refuse to see a Middle Eastern country prosper.
Look at it this way: Iran is a very young democracy. Think back to America's early days as a democracy. Women, black folk, queers, Natives, and laborers had no rights. ZERO rights. If you weren't a white male straight property owner, you were invisible before the law. Most states had laws prohibiting queer sex, women voters, and all sorts of horrible measures to ensure male white supremacy. How horrible and drastic was the genocide of the Native Americans?
Iran is a young democracy. Although its aggresions towards women and queers are inexcusable, it must be allowed to prosper. The only way to a wider, more accepting society is through a) exposure to global ideas, b) education, and c) industry. If there is something to be said for the market, is it's propensity to allow the free flow of ideas. In order for Iran to prosper it must open its doors to the world.
That will never happen if ignorant, selfish, self-righteous Americans stand boldly and stupidly in front of the doors, isolating Iran and the millions of women, queers, and political dissenters that are trapped inside.
To read a full transcript of the speech and interview go here:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php
Sunday, October 21, 2007
On Dumbledore
Maybe this is silly, but I thought I'd give Dumbledore's coming-out party a quick go-over. Such an iconic character in English-language literature deserves it, I think.
First of all, let's categorize the two distinct groups that are responding to this literary event: those who approve and those who don't. Let's begin with my favorites: The people who are celebrating. These include the true-blue fans who stand by JK as an author. These guys are generally open-minded and see the outing as further development in a world that was left fairly unresolved at the close of the series. It is nothing more than that... and perhaps a new, awesome pairing for creepy, obsessive fanfiction writers. The other folks who are also celebrating are GLBT activists who foresee a future for GLBT characters in mainstream Young Adult's fiction.
There is another group of people who are pissed at JK. This includes the conservatives. Their reactions range from disappointment to righteous anger. What pisses me off the most is the disappointment. How could a talented writer obviously in touch with Christian values be supporting the sinfulest of all sins? The Bible says to hate homos, and Dumbledore just isn't hateable. LITERARY DISCONECT AGGGH. Obviously this is just another example of Mammon-worship. Just another good writer gone bad, pandering to the extreme left by outing a character who was obviously not meant to be a homo. Right? A particularly nasty woman commented on a news blog that she was sick of "these people trying to shove their false values down our children's throats." (meaning tolerance, I guess?)
Obviously, their minds are closed. Who cares, right? Well there's another block of folks that are mad at JK. The author of these books has not been radical enough, they say. And that she's doing it to make money.
I don't think it's a problem if she's just doing it to rake in movie tickets or whatever. Maybe it's not wrong that she left GLBT issues out of the hard copy. It might have been harder to get her books into the hands of kids if she hadn't. In today's cultural climate gays and lesbians are far "worse" than wizards and magic... there are many lessons about tolerance, love, racial equality and liberty present in JK's books. It doesn't all have to be about GLBT people. Anyway, the point is that we've just scored a major cultural point. The majority of people who read HP love Dumbledore. He is wise, strong, intelligent, talented and successful. And he's gay. Period. His sexuality isn't the focus.
The waters are gradually warming. GLBT characters present in the context of children's books are closer now. Dumbledore is a pioneer: he has shown that young readers will continue to embrace a character regardless of his sexual orientation or identification.
Hopefully the next JKR will have the needs of GLBT folks in mind and will include a GLBT character as kind, hard-working, courageous, ambitious, and wise as Albus Dumbledore.
First of all, let's categorize the two distinct groups that are responding to this literary event: those who approve and those who don't. Let's begin with my favorites: The people who are celebrating. These include the true-blue fans who stand by JK as an author. These guys are generally open-minded and see the outing as further development in a world that was left fairly unresolved at the close of the series. It is nothing more than that... and perhaps a new, awesome pairing for creepy, obsessive fanfiction writers. The other folks who are also celebrating are GLBT activists who foresee a future for GLBT characters in mainstream Young Adult's fiction.
There is another group of people who are pissed at JK. This includes the conservatives. Their reactions range from disappointment to righteous anger. What pisses me off the most is the disappointment. How could a talented writer obviously in touch with Christian values be supporting the sinfulest of all sins? The Bible says to hate homos, and Dumbledore just isn't hateable. LITERARY DISCONECT AGGGH. Obviously this is just another example of Mammon-worship. Just another good writer gone bad, pandering to the extreme left by outing a character who was obviously not meant to be a homo. Right? A particularly nasty woman commented on a news blog that she was sick of "these people trying to shove their false values down our children's throats." (meaning tolerance, I guess?)
Obviously, their minds are closed. Who cares, right? Well there's another block of folks that are mad at JK. The author of these books has not been radical enough, they say. And that she's doing it to make money.
I don't think it's a problem if she's just doing it to rake in movie tickets or whatever. Maybe it's not wrong that she left GLBT issues out of the hard copy. It might have been harder to get her books into the hands of kids if she hadn't. In today's cultural climate gays and lesbians are far "worse" than wizards and magic... there are many lessons about tolerance, love, racial equality and liberty present in JK's books. It doesn't all have to be about GLBT people. Anyway, the point is that we've just scored a major cultural point. The majority of people who read HP love Dumbledore. He is wise, strong, intelligent, talented and successful. And he's gay. Period. His sexuality isn't the focus.
The waters are gradually warming. GLBT characters present in the context of children's books are closer now. Dumbledore is a pioneer: he has shown that young readers will continue to embrace a character regardless of his sexual orientation or identification.
Hopefully the next JKR will have the needs of GLBT folks in mind and will include a GLBT character as kind, hard-working, courageous, ambitious, and wise as Albus Dumbledore.
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