I’VE TOUCHED ON THE SUBJECT in a couple small ways lately. I don’t have much more than that to say now…except to remember out loud that when I lived in Miami Beach for a few years—a place that brought me great happiness as an adolescent aged boy—Haitian gente were as common as Cubanos, just part of the everyday. No doubt, the island of Quisqueya (Hispaniola) cannot be further from Florida than where I happen to live now.

And then I think of how much I miss Florida….

How will Haiti and Haitians come out of this? Will the big players in the First World take their revenge and remove any vestiges of independence from the only nation to rise from a successful revolution of slaves? Shock Doctrine in hyperdrive? I don’t know. But we can learn a lot about our world just by watching—and truly seeing—Haiti, I think.

Here is a video featuring the voice of Telesur and Narco News Authentic School of Journalism reporter Reed Lindsay that gives a small street level glimpse of Port-au-Prince, Haiti:

And here is some more reporting by Narco News vatos:

• Nobody is Coordinating the Aid
(Haití: “Nadie esta coordinado la ayuda”)

• Video Footage of Immediate Aftermath of Earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti

Hope you and your family are well. And warm.

Art by David Siquieros

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY and Feliz Dia de las Madres to all you mothers out there, who so often are the ones making sure to keep the children safe and strong. My own mother was the constant in my life. And even after nana (my maternal grandmother) split with her husband (my grandfather) it was nana who took us in. And she took us in because my mother needed a place to live, after splitting with my own father. In my nanita’s case (paternal grandmother), mi abuelo Felipe died and once again, it was a mother who took care of her son. On my mother’s side, it was Mollie who jumped on a ship and came to the US, fleeing nazi violence in Eastern Europe. All down la linea on both sides…it is women who moved us forward when we may have faltered.

The men never seem to last long, for many varied reasons. Tatarabuelo Alejo, the Zapata-esque pulquería worker, died shortly after 40. My abuelo, Felipe Emilio, died early of diabetes and it was mi abuela (Lucha Quintana) who kept things going. My own father had jungles in México to explore or maybe Califas needed him more. But these things happen in a world. Today we focus on the women: they sacrifice so much to take care of us…and too often receive blame for what goes wrong. In the better moments, the children give back, remembering what they owe. As was with the case with cousins Geno, Roberto, y Vicente who joined the US Army to bring us into the US. That’s how Nanita got her green card. And there is good reason Mexicanos celebrate la Madre.

Like the earth, like the waters, like the sky—like mama nature herself who loves us down to our bones and even when we’re bad, or wrong, or all alone…

Happy Mother’s Day. You are appreciated.

THE RICH PEOPLE ON TELEVISION work very hard to convince us that we need to stay poor. They spend tireless hours under hot lights and thick makeup as they play their roles each day. As they spin the drama, and create the impression that we need to keep mowing their lawns and watching their babies and sewing their ties and walking in line. That we like things the way they are, and that it’s a fair place because we have the lottery, American Idol, and the illusion of possible millions one day if we just keep working hard.

And all you really need to do to stay clear on this is remember that every single one of those fools on the set working as an anchor makes so much damn money in a day that you’d be hard pressed to spend it. Unless maybe you got the work on your teeth done that would if you could afford it. I’ve worked in (NYC) TV only a little, but enough to know what kind of salaries these mouthpieces pull, and they are phenomenal. But they are just flunkies for the even bigger rollers, of course. People like Rupert Murdoch (who has been busy rehabilitating his image to the Left after finishing help BushCheney destroy almost everything in the world). And people like him manage, support, and groom the faces on TV and together, they all work hand in hand with the executive and judicial and legislative branches to keep Their World safe.

The Press probably meant something a long time ago. Probably something like what blogs mean now. I do believe that. Which is why we have to be ever vigilant now to guard the integrity of our voices and agendas. The TV Stations and the Papers have been co-opted by greed, by those who profit from a world fueled by greed. And the same fever is now causing so many TV people to lose their minds. Glenn Beck, O’Reilly, putos like Rick Santelli, this dandified jerkoff in the image to the left—all these idiot uppercrusters. The unmitigated stones they have to rant about us, about our fate, to argue so intensely for the system that now threatens to fall upon you and me. And sucking up space in the current cacaphony, they have the nerve to raise their voice to sell us a spot hoisting their tassled seat across town so their nose can be up in the sun while we breathe in their fetid high-class omelette and espresso fart fumes. 

Why would we trust them? They are nothing more than rich brats who see a scary juncture ahead of them, and more importantly, in front of you and me. They see a possibility that the great imbalances that keep them on a sunny crest and so many of us in sodden rooms at the foot of the hill may be whittled away. And they are scared. Terrified. Watch them contort! It’s tremendously educational, though not how they may imagine.

These pendejos were never scared one bit of dropping cluster bombs where children would find them. They were not in the slightest bit scared that entire communities were being drowned in New Orleans and poisoned in the govt trailers given them afterward. They are not scared one bit of our nuclear facilities, still not properly guarded or protected from their imaginary global jihadalicious food fights. They are not scared of floating secret prisons and torture being undertaken in the name of the US.

No. But they are actually freaking the hell out over the idea that their superdestructive hyperadvantages and well-practiced manipulations of the system may be tamped down a bit. I listen to them in this light, and grin.

So flurries of articles are written assuring us that The People support them. That we support the crumbling status quo. They lie about polls. They lie about everything. In their mind, they fight in the service of a holy divide and so every last con job is sanctified. And with the fire of End Days blazing in they ojos, they come on TV in hordes, spitting passionate palabras ’bout the end of time. 

The end of their time. Just add that word in when you listen, if you are unfortunate enough to listen to them or read these modern missives mailed straight from the royal reading room. The end of their time. Measures that finally push back against the disgusting profit motive run amok sans soul or wisdom are not an indicator of the end of anything but perhaps a modicum of serious imbalance. Not the end of your and my world or THE world. They are scared of the end of their world. The world that allows them soft, fluffy cushions for all their well-powdered parts and a high buffshine on their gold accoutrements while at the same time, through labyrinthine mechanisms and legal device, profiting from our being charged ungodly amounts of fees and interest for barely keeping up on payments that don’t even touch the principal. The world that keeps them well stocked with cutting edge sunroofs and skylights, air and water purifiers, top-notch linens and school systems while the rest of us muck about in the polluted water, underfunded schools, and whatever is left over. These well-manicured and well-fed and well-suited scarecrows scream to preserve a way that keeps a doctor by their side and an overcrowded emergency room in town for us. They come on TV and yell and wave their arms about so that they can keep a world in place that insures them a fifty thousand dollar smile while we suffer with broken teeth for want of some medical attention that doesn’t compete with the cost of a small car.

And many listen to them! It’s quite the caper they’ve been pulling over time. It’s time it ended.

What do they fear? More than us funding a collective pool that helps us all (Social Security, College Grants, Universal Health Care, etc), they fear such philosophies taking root in the public square. They fear actual morality becoming part of our American Way. It’s one thing if we all espouse greed and superficiality and big numbers in the bank. After all, then we are at their gate waving signs that glorify them and their lives! Like the hip-hop artists that settle for validation of the only kind ever dangled in front of their eyes, who get paid and then offer soulless rants praising the motions of the system that crush their own kind. When we are but more hungry capitalists believing in this crooked game, these fatcats can just peek their head out the window as they move a hand through their $300 hairdo and smile to see us moving our sweaty bodies around to the beat of their drum. 

We’re All in This Together and Share the Wealth for the Common Health are philosophies that stalk awful close to their gated green gardens and shiny onyx auction-bought carvings. These elites don’t give a shit about the Common anything. Hell, they don’t even believe in borders. They only get on the border issue because they fear the same thing, once again. Too many poor people, or too many people not interested in upholding “the White Christian Power Structure” pollutes this mix only because it might begin to sway the pillars that keep them high above the mob. But look at how they invest, from where comes their monies, and in what places they jet, and where they own houses. What borders restrain or contain them?

We are not even part of the conversation, in reality. We are not in most of the ones that matter. We are to be managed. That’s what all that superblunt talk about what we “watch on our TV screens” and how it should and does influence our thoughts. Bush was very useful in a way. Once we get past the revulsion and clean the puke from the couch cushions, we can sit back and peer into his thought process. Because he was raised on the teat of the stankfoul elite creepshow beast. But never got the silver tongue, see, peeps? This is very useful. Because he spills to us their thinking without the gloss it normally has. Remember him talking about how raising taxes only really hurts the proles? Clearly, I’m borrowing from Orwell for a reason here, but that’s what he said nonetheless. That rich people can afford to hire accountants who keep their money safe.IN other words, our President told us that the most successful in the US understand they have the right to game the system so that we carry their slack.

Instead of refusing to look at the creep because his term in the Oval Office is up, we ought to study the rich punk’s words. Because see, they have a lot to do with the greater problems we suffer now and have suffered behind for years. So we ought to find a way to stop rich people from stacking advantage upon advantage upon advantage when it all means weights on the scales that the rest of us shrink under. Because if that’s really what America is about, what the USA is about? If it’s really all just about getting everything you can stuff in your hands and not getting caught, and not minding who it harms? Well, the proles can play that game too. We might not use accountants, though. But what’s good for the goose is good for the ten wet hens in the caboose, so you choose. Do your philosophies predicate that someone’s gotta lose?

The telescreens work one way only, the conversations are neutered. Even when we discuss such pivotal and worldshaking events such as this economic crisis. We are still not talking honestly. So much dialogue in the service of maintaining so many divisions. And the Dems are afraid. Timid. They need a good strong kick from the left. And then another. What is all this bowing and capitulating and treading soft for the Neoconjobs? Don’t the Dems know the best way to get beat is too come on like a beat dog?

Oh. But that’s reasoning as if those rich people are my neighbor, too. As if they want to run the nation in a way that chips away at their ivory, too. As if what they enjoy every day they want for me and you. 

I’m glad this class warfare is coming out into the open. Because it’s always been here. And the systemic separations between us, the happiness hoarded by means of stolen and siphoned resources, the entrenchment of philosophies that keep our People Power scattered—these things won’t be healed until the problem has manifested in an undeniable and aggressive fashion. I think we can safely say this has happened. So we ought to make sure the right conversations are happening and that our wants and needs are not papered over again with propaganda.

We arrive at many junctures. The Epic Religious Battles rage on and seem to be crowding each other on a global level. The Petroleum Wars are upon us all. Nuestra planeta has had about enough of our abuse, and it’s important to realize and admit that many of these Elites have already been pouring massive dollars into their own disaster contingency plans. That’s why they want to funnel more money to their own banks and convince us that taxes are a burden and not an investment. They are investing, all right. But not in the People. Only in their small clans. That’s why people like the Bushes and Cheneys and Clintons (let’s remember some of Bill’s great deeds on Welfare Reform) are fine if our foundations fall apart in the coming storm. They can afford not only accountants to see them over tax gaps that trip up the rest of us, but vehicles, properties, and possessions that will allow them to filter out, avoid, and step over the toxic mire they and their kind produce daily, the very swamp fluid that threatens eventually to envelop us if we do not do the simple math and shake up the formula.
-

UPDATE MARCH 6; Mediamatters says it politely.

I’M SURE MOST OF MY READERS have been following the story of the South Central Farm in Los Angeles for a while. Searching my archives back to 2006, I was very surprised to see I did not write on it, as I thought I had. Then I remembered that I included an image about the resistance to the takeover in my Oppression vid. So that is what was in my mind.

Anyway, via Digby, I learned that the movie made about it  has been nominated for an Academy Award! This is fantastic. Because now this story can get to more people. It’s a good story. About buena gente. And the age old battle waged by the ruling classes against those just trying to feed themselves and live.

THERE ARE FEW THINGS as refreshing as the sensation of a stereotype being exploded before your very eyes. Here today to apply a brilliant shade of eyeshadow to the often-referenced machismo of The Latino and Mexicano Male iconry are l@s muxes straight from Juchitan:

JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) – Attaching flowers to a ribbon headdress, pulling a lace slip under an embroidered skirt and draping a necklace of gold coins over his head, Pedro Martinez puts the finishing touches on the traditional costume of Zapotec women in southern Mexico.

“When I get all dressed up like this my father always says, ‘Oh Pedro! You look just like your mother when she was young,” beams Martinez, 28, gluing on fake eyelashes in front of a mirror.

Martinez spent two hours in the hair salon he owns getting ready for this weekend’s festival of the “muxes,” indigenous gays and transvestites in the town of Juchitan who have found a haven of acceptance in Mexico’s macho society.

The muxes (pronounced moo-shes), mostly of ethnic Zapotec descent, are widely respected in the southern town where a dance and parade that crowns a transvestite queen and celebrates the harvest has been held annually for the last 33 years.

Anthropologists say the tradition of blurring genders among Mexico’s indigenous population is centuries old but has been revived in recent decades due to the gay pride movement.

Several dozen muxes were blessed by a Catholic priest at a mass before joining visiting transvestites and other townsfolk at a raucous party on Saturday night. The muxes wore either traditional local costumes or ball gowns and high heels. [...]

Some of the muxes, a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish for woman, or “mujer”, dress as women year round and others are gays who only don women’s clothes at the annual party, or not at all.

The area around Juchitan, a laid-back town near the Pacific, has a history of women playing leading roles in public life.

“The legend here is that mothers pray for a gay son who can take care of them when they are old,” theater director Sergio Santamaria, 56, said over a traditional breakfast of iguana soup and sweet corn tamales.

—Mexican transvestite fiesta rocks indigenous town

I so enjoy the acceptance in these stories. Not only a refreshing blast of love and truth in the face of so much backward fear, hate, loathing, ignorance in our own USA culture (especially as demonstrated as of late by the Mormon Church and others who pushed for Proposition 8/”Prop Hate”), but also a beautiful contrast to what I’ve too often witnessed personally in my own life.

I am grateful I did not take on some of the attitudes I saw demonstrated in my youth. Homophobia staked out a visible presence there. I watched supposed role models start fights with people because they felt that threatened by the presence of gayness. It was amazing.

I never connected to that reaction. Not a bit. Maybe it was another thing where if my (adoptive not biological) father was against a thing, I more or less aligned with that thing. But no, I just think part of my nature could never be like that. The truth is, in my life, I more often felt persecuted by the Male Expectation I felt peering at me through invisible crosshairs than a part of it. In the Male Role world, I was always an outlier, a spy, a fraud. I’m not into and have never been into so many typical “Male” signifiers and activities and maybe that’s because I associate these things (football, visiting strip clubs, hunting, racing, talking luridly about girls you’re with, idiocy, etc) with the stack of unspoken rules that come with being in that club. All the ones that screamed in your ear about how NOT to sit, stand, speak, dress. Ugh. Hell, remember, I’m the kid who took Typing and Home Ec in high school, rather than the highly-sought after Auto Shop. But it’s not just about ducking from the heavy, suffocating, dull, half-dead box that is opened for the Adult Western Male to fit into, it is also about celebrating the non-rigid, the emotional, the intuitive, the fluid, the flamboyant, the colorful—the Feminine aspect of myself.

It is a given to most of us paying enough attention that there is a prevalent misogyny in our culture. Normalized to the extent that hostile and violent imagery against women is a regular presence and energy in our media. In posters, in jokes, in titles, in ideas. From the slightly dismissive to the outright derogatory to the blatantly vile and vicious. Our focus is often (and should be) on the women targeted by this hate, the women who suffer under this stream of threat and this actuality of violence. It should be focused on the actors and co-conspirators as well. Aside from those who take direct part in that hate or violence, another important piece of this is the effects of this misogyny upon the male in general. What misogyny does to the male identity and psyche and sense of peace and self-love. After all, the Female is not hated in a vacuum. So, too, is the Feminine, entire. And that cannot be walled off to one gender. This loathing, this hatred points back to what we know to be part of our natural being.

Men (as boys) are “asked” to join the oppression (under great threat of both social humiliation and physical violence and over and over, too) and to do this of course, we must snuff out/suppress the Feminine in ourselves. This is, of course, a great pain and loss to a human. And as this loss cannot be mourned by implied decree, this pain becomes a bitter, perverse mess that is blind to itself. And so men not only join the hate against women, but they then envy women for their freedom (to still be allowed) to be expressive, emotive, beautiful, affectionate, relaxed, vulnerable. And the loathing to self-loathing ties to envy ties to sorrow and loss and is given ground, and men are emotionally insane when modeled as instructed. And they act out this insanity even when they don’t know why. It is because they have too often been prevented from even knowing who they are to begin with.

I’ve never wanted to be a part of typical men, men groups, or Man Roles. That’s why people like Pedro Martinez to me, bedecked in color and flowing robe and smiles and ribbon, seem so much healthier to me than men buttoned into suits and then pews and pushing propositions. (On a mundane level, part of my being puzzled as a child growing up was also why the “boys” and “mens” sections had all the boring clothes! I could never figure that out.)

Part of undoing misogyny and sexism, and a huge part it seems to me, is men revealing to other men that we are sold an illusion. The “man” some (and a system entire) would have us be is an unnatural and dangerous one. It is a maimed beast; a muzzled, anguished, and hungry creature. Even the ideal is lonely and half-blind. The Myth of Man is a fanged, bereaved, lie. His is the shifting shape of oppression and self-denial with a wolfskin slung over one eye. It is a shroud. Even for those men who feel it makes them more so. For if a man cannot love the feminine aspect of himself, nor can he love a woman. And if he is hiding from that half of himself, he cannot fully see a woman. And if he would abdicate half his power, he is weak to the point of failing.

It is a spiritual thing, of course. Not even a social thing. For me, I’ve always seen my Artist priorities as rising above any imagined “Male” Role priority, and so I’ve long been comfortable with costume and decoration and wearing makeup and masks and just about any way of expressing whatever it is I feel needs to be celebrated or given shape in a moment. (More comfortable than in many typical settings!) And of course I’ve had to become comfortable (or be ostracized at times) for remaining expressive, intuitive, emotional, flamboyant/theatrical and given to many behaviors that violate the Male Code. And yet of course, there is still the work of untangling some of the corrosive and binding threads that our patriarchal/misogynistic culture has sewn into my form.

I love that the same (Zapotec) Indians who gave the world Emiliano Zapata gives us the Muxes! How perfect.

I like this too:

DUAL-GENDERED GODS

Native people in the Americas with ambiguous gender were often regarded as wise and talented, said Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.

“They were seen as have having a kind of spiritual power that comes from being more like the ancestors who are mothers and fathers at once, and more like the divinities who may be dual gendered,” Joyce said.

Anthropologists have found evidence of mixed gender identities across Mesoamerica, from Mayan corn and moon gods that are both male and female and Aztec priests who ritually cross dressed.

The Spanish conquest in the 16th century and the Catholic Church snuffed out much of that tolerance.

——Mexican transvestite fiesta rocks indigenous town

Because Colonization (and Patriarchy, too) are about control. And thus, Prop H8. And thus stiff collars and the Western Modes of acceptable and authoritative dress. And thus stark unforgivable lines. And thus dichotomized stances and laws that no person lives under comfortably and organically, unless they crave unnatural and aggravating wires strapping them down to the earth, making up for all the strength they have abdicated and would have used to guide and know themselves otherwise….

—–

this post originally posted here: where you can see comments, etc. Some browsers, etc, have issues with the link because of the “¡” character in the URL, so i’ve created this duplicate without that symbol, but didn’t want to break the link to the old post.

THERE ARE FEW THINGS as refreshing as the sensation of a stereotype being exploded before your very eyes. Here today to apply a brilliant shade of eyeshadow to the often-referenced machismo of The Latino and Mexicano Male iconry are l@s muxes straight from Juchitan:

JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) – Attaching flowers to a ribbon headdress, pulling a lace slip under an embroidered skirt and draping a necklace of gold coins over his head, Pedro Martinez puts the finishing touches on the traditional costume of Zapotec women in southern Mexico.

“When I get all dressed up like this my father always says, ‘Oh Pedro! You look just like your mother when she was young,” beams Martinez, 28, gluing on fake eyelashes in front of a mirror.

Martinez spent two hours in the hair salon he owns getting ready for this weekend’s festival of the “muxes,” indigenous gays and transvestites in the town of Juchitan who have found a haven of acceptance in Mexico’s macho society.

The muxes (pronounced moo-shes), mostly of ethnic Zapotec descent, are widely respected in the southern town where a dance and parade that crowns a transvestite queen and celebrates the harvest has been held annually for the last 33 years.

Anthropologists say the tradition of blurring genders among Mexico’s indigenous population is centuries old but has been revived in recent decades due to the gay pride movement.

Several dozen muxes were blessed by a Catholic priest at a mass before joining visiting transvestites and other townsfolk at a raucous party on Saturday night. The muxes wore either traditional local costumes or ball gowns and high heels. [...]

Some of the muxes, a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish for woman, or “mujer”, dress as women year round and others are gays who only don women’s clothes at the annual party, or not at all.

The area around Juchitan, a laid-back town near the Pacific, has a history of women playing leading roles in public life.

“The legend here is that mothers pray for a gay son who can take care of them when they are old,” theater director Sergio Santamaria, 56, said over a traditional breakfast of iguana soup and sweet corn tamales.

—Mexican transvestite fiesta rocks indigenous town

I so enjoy the acceptance in these stories. Not only a refreshing blast of love and truth in the face of so much backward fear, hate, loathing, ignorance in our own USA culture (especially as demonstrated as of late by the Mormon Church and others who pushed for Proposition 8/”Prop Hate”), but also a beautiful contrast to what I’ve too often witnessed personally in my own life.

I am grateful I did not take on some of the attitudes I saw demonstrated in my youth. Homophobia staked out a visible presence there. I watched supposed role models start fights with people because they felt that threatened by the presence of gayness. It was amazing.

I never connected to that reaction. Not a bit. Maybe it was another thing where if my (adoptive not biological) father was against a thing, I more or less aligned with that thing. But no, I just think part of my nature could never be like that. The truth is, in my life, I more often felt persecuted by the Male Expectation I felt peering at me through invisible crosshairs than a part of it. In the Male Role world, I was always an outlier, a spy, a fraud. I’m not into and have never been into so many typical “Male” signifiers and activities and maybe that’s because I associate these things (football, visiting strip clubs, hunting, racing, talking luridly about girls you’re with, idiocy, etc) with the stack of unspoken rules that come with being in that club. All the ones that screamed in your ear about how NOT to sit, stand, speak, dress. Ugh. Hell, remember, I’m the kid who took Typing and Home Ec in high school, rather than the highly-sought after Auto Shop. But it’s not just about ducking from the heavy, suffocating, dull, half-dead box that is opened for the Adult Western Male to fit into, it is also about celebrating the non-rigid, the emotional, the intuitive, the fluid, the flamboyant, the colorful—the Feminine aspect of myself.

It is a given to most of us paying enough attention that there is a prevalent misogyny in our culture. Normalized to the extent that hostile and violent imagery against women is a regular presence and energy in our media. In posters, in jokes, in titles, in ideas. From the slightly dismissive to the outright derogatory to the blatantly vile and vicious. Our focus is often (and should be) on the women targeted by this hate, the women who suffer under this stream of threat and this actuality of violence. It should be focused on the actors and co-conspirators as well. Aside from those who take direct part in that hate or violence, another important piece of this is the effects of this misogyny upon the male in general. What misogyny does to the male identity and psyche and sense of peace and self-love. After all, the Female is not hated in a vacuum. So, too, is the Feminine, entire. And that cannot be walled off to one gender. This loathing, this hatred points back to what we know to be part of our natural being.

Men (as boys) are “asked” to join the oppression (under great threat of both social humiliation and physical violence and over and over, too) and to do this of course, we must snuff out/suppress the Feminine in ourselves. This is, of course, a great pain and loss to a human. And as this loss cannot be mourned by implied decree, this pain becomes a bitter, perverse mess that is blind to itself. And so men not only join the hate against women, but they then envy women for their freedom (to still be allowed) to be expressive, emotive, beautiful, affectionate, relaxed, vulnerable. And the loathing to self-loathing ties to envy ties to sorrow and loss and is given ground, and men are emotionally insane when modeled as instructed. And they act out this insanity even when they don’t know why. It is because they have too often been prevented from even knowing who they are to begin with.

I’ve never wanted to be a part of typical men, men groups, or Man Roles. That’s why people like Pedro Martinez to me, bedecked in color and flowing robe and smiles and ribbon, seem so much healthier to me than men buttoned into suits and then pews and pushing propositions. (On a mundane level, part of my being puzzled as a child growing up was also why the “boys” and “mens” sections had all the boring clothes! I could never figure that out.)

Part of undoing misogyny and sexism, and a huge part it seems to me, is men revealing to other men that we are sold an illusion. The “man” some (and a system entire) would have us be is an unnatural and dangerous one. It is a maimed beast; a muzzled, anguished, and hungry creature. Even the ideal is lonely and half-blind. The Myth of Man is a fanged, bereaved, lie. His is the shifting shape of oppression and self-denial with a wolfskin slung over one eye. It is a shroud. Even for those men who feel it makes them more so. For if a man cannot love the feminine aspect of himself, nor can he love a woman. And if he is hiding from that half of himself, he cannot fully see a woman. And if he would abdicate half his power, he is weak to the point of failing.

It is a spiritual thing, of course. Not even a social thing. For me, I’ve always seen my Artist priorities as rising above any imagined “Male” Role priority, and so I’ve long been comfortable with costume and decoration and wearing makeup and masks and just about any way of expressing whatever it is I feel needs to be celebrated or given shape in a moment. (More comfortable than in many typical settings!) And of course I’ve had to become comfortable (or be ostracized at times) for remaining expressive, intuitive, emotional, flamboyant/theatrical and given to many behaviors that violate the Male Code. And yet of course, there is still the work of untangling some of the corrosive and binding threads that our patriarchal/misogynistic culture has sewn into my form.

I love that the same (Zapotec) Indians who gave the world Emiliano Zapata gives us the Muxes! How perfect.

I like this too:

DUAL-GENDERED GODS

Native people in the Americas with ambiguous gender were often regarded as wise and talented, said Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.

“They were seen as have having a kind of spiritual power that comes from being more like the ancestors who are mothers and fathers at once, and more like the divinities who may be dual gendered,” Joyce said.

Anthropologists have found evidence of mixed gender identities across Mesoamerica, from Mayan corn and moon gods that are both male and female and Aztec priests who ritually cross dressed.

The Spanish conquest in the 16th century and the Catholic Church snuffed out much of that tolerance.

——Mexican transvestite fiesta rocks indigenous town

Because Colonization (and Patriarchy, too) are about control. And thus, Prop H8. And thus stiff collars and the Western Modes of acceptable and authoritative dress. And thus stark unforgivable lines. And thus dichotomized stances and laws that no person lives under comfortably and organically, unless they crave unnatural and aggravating wires strapping them down to the earth, making up for all the strength they have abdicated and would have used to guide and know themselves otherwise….

PUT OUT YA PLATO! We have a variety of flavors today, going to dip briefly into areas in the main of the stream as well as some news from tha Blogarrio™. 

As we’ve already talked about, John “Chickenshit” McCain’s is not quite getting that when it comes to us Latinos/Hispanix, the road to the White House will not be reached via Avenida Pander! Yet, the lesson is coming home to him anyway.

Oye, perhaps not every single Latin@ cares as much about Immigration reform as much as I do or some of the amigos y amigas  I chill with do, but believe it that enough of us do notice when hypocritical stances get nuestra gente harassed by police, raided and terrified, killed in prison, or deported. Believe that, Pinche McCabrón! These are new times and your base can no longer be the top 1 percenters or that fearful horde that now lumbers after the slimy tracks of ya Straight Crock Express. We are all people out here. We matter. We remember.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Cindy Florez can’t always remember the name of the man who will get her vote for president, but she knows his party and that’s enough.

“I will vote Democrat,” the 23-year-old hotel housekeeper said, in broken English, moments after registering to vote at a John McCain campaign booth in a Latino neighborhood market.

It’s an insult-to-injury moment for the Republican presidential candidate. And when it comes to McCain’s relationship with Hispanic voters, it’s not the first.

The man who once took a big political risk by joining with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was embraced by Hispanics is now struggling to win these same voters, and falling perilously below the level of support that helped lift President Bush to the White House.

The candidate who won nearly 70 percent of Hispanic voters in his last bid for Senate in border-state Arizona is watching a first-term Illinois senator run away with those voters.

—McCain missing the mark with Hispanics

NEXT UP, if you have time, interest, and ability, consider lending your hand to the cause of Democracy in this fine nation of immigrants that is the USA:
 

(KSL News) Latino organizers are recruiting volunteers to help first-time immigrant voters learn the ropes of casting their ballots. They want every vote to count in such a high-stakes election.

“Latinos throughout the country will be looking for candidates who want to treat people with compassion, who want to address the issues our communities are facing, not for those who want to build tent cities,” said Tony Yapias, with Proyecto Latino de Utah.

Post and video here. Might not wanna read the comments there, though. Sounds like a McCain/Palin rally by the end. Ay. By the hostility and anger, you’d think that “first-time immigrant voters” atually means “Cackling Fence Hopping Welfare Stealing Criminal” instead of “Legal Citizen Performing Important American Duty and Right For First Time Needing Assistance.” But that’s what happens when your brain tissue gets rank and stagnant with self-administered septic effluvium. Words come apart and everything looks ugly. Muy triste.

• BARACK OBAMA busts out with a new health care vid. Hang in for the “Soy Barack Obama” at the end part. It’s fun.

The article where I found this video talks about how the Obama campaign is “shifting from immigration, its recent topic of choice, to health care and taxes” and I’m sure sorry to hear that in light of all that’s been going down in the last half year or more, especially in the last few months.

Related, I talked to a blogmigo today from The Sanctuary, and we are thinking it may be a good idea to start talking to our contactos in the MSM again on this survey ignorando that McCain is doing, todavía. Stay tuned for info if we do, I’ll letcha know wassup.

 THIS COULD BE NOTHING AT ALL or it could develop into something worth watching. I have no reason to think so…it just struck a chord of curiosity in me. These are tense times for Latin@s all over. I pay close attention to anything like this. 

DES MOINES, Iowa – The administrator of the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs has abruptly quit his job. 

Walter Reed, the director of the Iowa Department of Human Rights, says Armando Villareal turned in his resignation on Sept. 29 and left without further explanation. Reed’s office oversees the Latino affairs division. 

Salvador Alaniz, a member of the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs, says Villareal’s departure was a surprise. 

The Latino Affairs Division has become more visible in recent years with the growth in Iowa’s Hispanic population. 

• EL BLOGARRIO: Manuél contributes some beautiful pumpkin arte for Yes We Carve. La Mala, La Poeta kicking it live esta noche in NYC. Problemchylde (Sylvia) informing us with no hesitation that The Revolution Will be Horny! Kai breakin’ down the Economy con estilo! XP’s open letter that Yo No es un PC! Kyle tells the tale of the Illegal Gringa. Y Duke at the Sanctuary telling us of Sheriff Bizell’s longing for the Good Ole South and why that’s a problem for Elizabeth Dole!

• LASTLY, not all of us pray and hope for hurricanes to blow into Mexico, as one anchorman intoned over the TV while I was in Denver for the DNC. 

A hurricane set to hit the west coast of Mexico has weakened slightly but remains “life-threatening”, meteorologists have warned.

The US National Hurricane Center has downgraded Hurricane Norbert, with wind speeds of up 110 mph (175 km/h), from Category 3 to 2.

Norbert is due to hit Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in the Pacific on Saturday.

Forecasters have warned of torrential rain and the threat of mud slides.

“Preparations to protect life and property in the hurricane warning areas should be rushed to completion,” said a public advisory from the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Mexican authorities have issued warnings and are preparing an emergency plan.

Meteorologists said the hurricane was likely to produce rainfall of up to 10 inches (25.4 cm) in some parts of southern Baja California which could result in “life-threatening flash floods and mud slides”.

My thoughts, good energy are with you, México! Am lighting una vela. 

And hope all my friends out here in blogworld are doing well today. It’s cold here!

I AM IN ” AIRPLANE MODE” which means no signals are being sent out, but I can write a draft of this post and post it when we hit the ground. It is 9:43 am. I am not on the intended flight, but have been moved to a different series of flights, given one extra layover and one extra plane. Part of wanted to get frustrated and annoyed but I just didn’t have the energy. So I went with the flow.

Amazingly enough I am getting used to all the flying around. I have actually been flying since I was un niño pero over the years I somehow grew less comfortable with the whole ordeal. But I have been flying a lot more since UMX gained more notice and gente have been flying yours truly to various functions and events, sometimes when I’ve won something such as MTV’s Choose or Losey attempt to co-opt “Citizen Journalism” and I was chosen to rep Oregon for 2008, or when I was given a grant to attend Ykos07/Netroots Nation in 2007, or flown to NYC Immigration Strategy Meeting as one of the top Latino bloggers in the cosmos. I’ve become a regular pinche jetsetter. This last time I didn’t even unpack. I just sort of “reshuffled.”

The Mac Store was closed so I need to check out a place in St. Paul. I can’t do video without my laptop and Coño!–I now say to myself with a smile, as I realize I forgot to bring my FCP install discs. Ay. Well, guess even if I get the laptop fired up, I will be using a very fundamental setup. Quicktime Pro or something.

It’s so bright outside, here thousands of feet up in the air. Hard to remember that a violent storm is ripping into the coast as I type this. Hard to believe I am purposely going to surround myself with all the gaiety of a Republican celebration. Glad a couple UMX readers have offered airport rides and other hospitalities. I am sure that these will come in handy so mil gracias, gente.

Meanwhile I am feeling tired so I think I will siesta. Paz y Justícia, amig@s.

–

UPDATE: I’ve landed and it’s now el segundo de septiembre. Last night I had some drinks with a 50-something year old Republican who, at the end of the night picked up my tab “because I can.” She lives in Arizona and we discussed the Spanish language. I talked about the Treaty of Hidalgo Guadelupe and Polk, Slidell and some other junk which sort of blew her mind that (I guess) I knew some history. She said “most people can’t back up their arguments” with history. It never crossed my mind to point her to my blog. She made a joke about my tattoos. She liked my long hair. She had the most contrived laugh I’ve ever heard and everytime she made it I felt sad.

HURRICANE GUSTAV bears down and threatens destruction to the gulf coast. Here are some links to take action and stay informed. If you follow them you should find all you need. 

– Volunteer, discuss, get updates: http://gustav08.ning.com/ 

– Gustav info wiki: http://gustavwiki.com/

– Andy’s blog post: http://tinyurl.com/6oqh8d

– Kevin’s blog: http://slanttruth.com/2008/08/31/hurricane-gustave-information-and-links/

 2.0-style news:

– Official NHC alerts: http://twitter.com/GustavAlerts

– (slightly overwhelming) Twitter stream on Gustav: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Gustav

UPDATE: (from amigo robvato) ICE has put out statements that it will not arrest anyone at any checkpoints and that the undocumented should evacuate along with everyone else. And it’s not just NOLA, but the entire region. Some Spanish language media is sending the ICE message out.

UPDATE: Kyle blogs on migrants’ vulnerability in this crisis.

UPDATE: GOP cancels all but business and formal procedures for first day of RNC convention.

Stay safe, gente.

FEDERAL OFFICIALS HAVE BACKED OFF of their earlier warning against eating tomatoes, after kicking a massive dent in the tomato industry with the national alert. This week, we’re told, the danger lies in the jalapeño pepper.

The precautionary recall followed a July 21 notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking consumers to avoid eating raw jalapenos, the new suspect in a salmonella outbreak that has infected 1,220 people in 42 states. The FDA determined tomatoes now available in the domestic market are not associated with the outbreak, and lifted its nationwide tomato warning on July 17.

But it’s not just jalapeño peppers themselves.

H.E. Butt Grocery Co. has voluntarily recalled fresh jalapeno peppers, fresh pico de gallo and prepared items containing raw jalapenos from its HEB and Central Market grocery stores.

 

And they’re even talking Cilantro!

Seven weeks created a loss in sales, but also long-term fear among consumers. While officials now suspect jalapeno peppers might have been the culprit, or fresh cilantro, tomatoes received the biggest hit in consumer confidence. Tomatoes still haven’t been totally cleared of suspicion by officials.

So that’s tomatoes, jalapeños, fresh Pico de Gallo, and cilantro! I know what you’re thinking. Next week they will tell us that corn flour and chorizo are deadly. But no, it’s already far worse than that.

CDC food safety chief Dr. Robert Rauxe warned the AP of the results of a new test. “We’ve been working hard to isolate the deadly bacteria and we’re positive now that the Salmonella resides solely in the realm of the Corrido. Listening to corridos, and especially while eating pico de gallo, or even burritos, can result in swift hospitalization.”

—CDC targets Mexican Economy by Fearlisting Cultural Foods

 

Okay, so that last quote hasn’t been vetted. And the truth of it is that while the effect is but gravy in this case, (about $100 million dollars worth of gravy so far), tarring Mexico and Mexicans with the Disease brush is (perversely, considering it was the white europeans who brought devastating illness to Mexico) an old, old game.

Lou uses an age-old White Supremacist method of equating the darkies with contagion. Buchanan does it, too, in his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.  …

But yes, the contagion, the filth, the dirtiness, the disease. Buchanan used the idea to suggest that all the brown people handling your burgers in fast food joints are giving you secret gifts of disease. Dobbs calls Mexicans lepers and stands by his “Facts®,” even when it is clear that his information is entirely false.

So what’s it all about this time? Some people, who spend their time understanding food in a much more focused and holistic way than the decrepit and crony-infested FDA does, offer another picture of what agendas are moving behind t he scenes:

NaturalNews) Watching the FDA trip over its own clumsy self while groping for answers on Salmonella is a sad affair. Following the FDA-encouraged destruction of tens of millions of dollars of perfectly good tomatoes, this confused, bewildered agency admits that tomatoes may not have been the problem after all, and it has now set its sights on destroying the peppers industry. Is there no vegetable safe from the destruction of the FDA?

Tomatoes don’t harbor salmonella, by the way. Neither do peppers, onions, cilantro or spinach. Salmonella only festers in factory-farmed animals, folks, and that means the real source of contamination is no doubt some animal factory upstream from the vegetable processing centers. So why isn’t the FDA going after the animal factories that likely caused this whole fiasco? Because making Americans scared of their vegetables is a great way to advance the FDA’s food irradiation agenda which would destroy virtually all the medicinal phytonutrients in plants.

 

There it is. One more missing piece in the puzzle. The FDA’s mission to turn live foods into dead foods. 

The USDA, you see, has zero recognition of the difference between living produce and dead produce. To uneducated government bureaucrats, pasteurized or irradiated vegetable juice is identical to fresh, raw, living vegetable juice. They believe this because they’ve never been taught about the phytonutrients, digestive enzymes and life force properties that are found in fresh foods, but that are destroyed through heat or irradiation. This, the USDA is operating out of extreme ignorance when it comes to food and nutrition.

Even a simple leaf of spinach contains hundreds of natural medicines — phytonutrients that help prevent cancer, eye diseases, nervous system disorders, heart disease and much more. Every living vegetable is a powerhouse of disease-fighting medicine: Broccoli prevents cancer, beet greens cleanse the liver, cilantro removes heavy metals, celery prevents cancer, berries prevent heart disease and dark leafy greens help prevent over a dozen serious health conditions while boosting immune function and helping prevent other infections. But when you subject these fruits and vegetables to enough radiation to kill 99.9% of the pathogens that may be hitching a ride, you also destroy many of the phytonutrients responsible for these tremendous health benefits!

This means that while irradiating food may decrease outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, it will have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of people who get sick from other infections (and chronic diseases) due to the fact that their source of natural medicine has been destroyed. For many Americans, you see, salad greens are their one remaining source for phytonutrients. Given their diets of processed foods, junk foods and cooked foods, there are very few opportunities for these consumers to get fresh, phytonutrient-rich foods into their diet. And now the USDA wants to take that away, too, by mandating the irradiation of all fresh produce.

However you look at it, it’s becoming clear to more and more people that growing our own food will soon be a necessary component of health and safety, not to mention a general feeling of security. As the food economy is repeatedly hatcheted by a fumbling and stumbling FDA; as plants, slaughterhouses, and restaurants are hit hard due to ICE raids (hate to bury this here, this is breaking news), food preparation and cleanliness is suffering, supply is faltering and at times drying up, and most importantly, our food is no longer viable in many important ways. I mean, how do you feel lately about food? Do you do like I do? Buy the healthiest you can afford and don’t think about the rest? With every new bulletin about the meat/food/vegetable industry hammering into your feeling of growing unease?

If your home doesn’t have a garden, make one. If you don’t have a yard (hello!) then begin thinking on how to foster community gardens, or grow even the most basic vegetables in containers. The time for thoughtless consumption is a thing of the past, more and more the exclusive domain of the elites and those 1%ers who think this world and all its bounty is theirs to pillage endlessly and without conscience or consequence.

Remember the (terrible) movie Waterworld? In that movie, soil was worth more than gold, and a little orange tree worth killing over. I’d not say we’re there…yet.