Why I Like Graffiti

Last night in the Delancey subway stop, there was a huge tag on the white tiled wall and all it said was

"I AM SEAN BELL."

Anyone have a pic?

OMFG

Look at her face! LOOK AT HIS FACE!!!

I cannot wait.

Bringing The Hate: Suave

"89% Of moms admit they've let themselves go. 100% can get themselves back."


"Motherhood isn't always pretty" -- but it damn well should be. Otherwise, we should cover our women in long black robes -- I hear it's slimming.


Fuck that raising a child shit -- get your ass in line, Fatty. Also, your hair isn't very shiny. Do something about that, will you?

("Admit"? "Admit"? Fuck, how about "confess" or "apologize for.")

Cops Free To Kill Whoever The Fuck They Want

Claiming "a lack witness credibility" (overwhelming Blackness) a judge let three cops walk, even though they'd shot Sean Bell to death for no apparent reason (overwhelming Blackness).

He was walking out of a strip bar, which was his bachelor party -- he was getting married the next morning to the mother of his child.

The cops opened fire on his car, and one or more of the 50 rounds they fired at him, killed him.

Times article, AP article.

Because Otherwise I Have The Word "Fascists" On My Body. Forever.

T.M.K.F.


(Plans for new "ink." I figure if I have 4, then I'm kewl enough to call it "ink.")

Told You So. Now Rock Out.

Hey, remember how I wrote about that band, La Strada, and everyone was like, "..."?

Well now someone else has written about them: The L Magazine has named them one of the "eight NYC bands you need to hear."

What's that you say? You're ready to trust my taste in music? You're sorry you ever doubted me?

That's ok, I forgive you. Just get your ass to Union Hall this Friday by 10pm.

Chances are I'll be merry on red wine, but don't push your luck.

(Photo from the L Magazine, Zandy Mangold)

Madonna, Oracle.

"I don't care if people worship turtles or frogs - if they're good people, that's all I care about, and he (Cruise) is a good person. I think he gets a raw deal, just as I think the orphans in Malawi get a raw deal; just as I think a lot of marginalized people get a raw deal."


That would be Madonna, speaking about Tom Cruise.

Yes, that's right. Tom Cruise has it as bad as orphans in Africa. AIDS, Genocide, Abject Poverty, WHATEVER.


DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG PEOPLE LAUGHED AT HIM FOR BELIEVING IN XENU!?!

A really long time, people. Like, still. Like, right now, I'm laughing.

WORSE THAN AIDS.

Forget The Soup, Bless The Cheesecake

After Pharaoh had changed his mind once more, and called back the Jews to Egypt, Moses mourned. He knew that because of Pharaoh's pride, God would bring down the harshest of all his plagues, a curse so heinous, his own people even began to pity their oppressors.

Moses told the Jews that on that horrible night, to protect their families and their firstborn sons, they must slaughter a lamb. They were to brush the blood on the lentils of their houses so that when the Angel of Death passed through the land, it would know to pass over their homes and spare their sons God's anger.

Only after cries of terror and mourning echoed all over Pharaoh’s great land,
including inside the royal palace, did Pharaoh finally consent, and let Moses, once Pharaoh's own brother, and his people go.

I remember learning the story of Passover when I was very young, eight or so, and how angry it made me. I couldn’t not understand how a God who was supposed to be all love, all forgiveness, could also be a murderer – thieving lives in the dark of night.

First I was told that god only took the firstborns after nine other plagues – clearly he didn’t want to do it. Then I was told that this was only the First Testament God, who was apparently a way more harsh and you know... wrathy God. (I didn't find him to all that different in the sequel.)

Thus it was that Passover planted the seeds that ended up in me not believing in the God of Moses.

GOOD THING I BELIEVE CHOCOLATE MATZO CRUNCH!!

Seder was at mine this year, with 4 new family members (and one brother looking great in a Yarmulke) and if I believe in anything, it's dinner parties where wine, laughter, and talk about how much we all need Obama to win goes on and on and on. (I was also very pleased with my new vintage tablecloth and that I knew how to turn on my vaccum this morning after being out till 3:30 AM -- the point where I don't know things anymore).

Two things that may be of use for you:

1. A recipe for chocolate caramel Matzo crunch. It's like Matzo brittle, but better. My brother's girlfriend made this and knocked my socks off.

2. A little nod to the West Wing and one of my favorite episodes, "Evidence Of Things Not Seen," since we're talking about faith, which is...:


CJ: The substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.

Toby: I think what he's asking is why, on most other nights, do you think the world's going to hell in a hula hoop, but tonight...

CJ: We dip twice and eat gefilte fish?

Toby: Suzy Creamcheese, do not attempt the Haggadah.

CJ: I know how to bless the soup, too.

Satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

When you don't have a tv, but then you happen to catch a snippit here or there, it's hard not to think you're watching a satire of what tv would be like if the world was run by misogynist, shallow, hateful, cynical people. Like what you're seeing is someone's idea of a joke to be used in the background of a movie.




(I apologize for the ads!)

Like, I Miss This

Where is the contemporary equivalent of this show? Where's the show about smart, awkward girls and their existential crisis? "Wife Swap"?

(My favorites are "..If you stop to think about like, chewing... What it really is? How people just do it... Like, in public."and "I thought at least by the age of fifteen, I would have a love life. But I don't even have a like-life."

Now I'm Bitter.

I can't really talk about this, but I want everyone to read this, regarding how the story of Obama's "bitter" quote came out.

This is what I'm talking about when I blather on about the difference between journalists...

I'm stopping there.

But you should feel free to go on. And On.



Update:



Enough said.

7:30 AM And I Freak Out

Because I couldn't sleep last night, I was up at 5:30, and so far, all NPR has done is scare the fuck out of me with nonstop reports of a global food shortage.

People aren't growing food because there's no money in it -- they'd rather grow corn for ethanol subsidies (which, by the way, is bad for the universe), or, and this is even scarier, it just won't grow any more because soil is too hot.

Weren't things supposed to be less scary when Bush left office? And why are people so ridiculous about Obama being right? And what the hell is going on in New Orleans? And why does the creepy new Pope like America so much? And why are they tearing all the old buildings in my neighborhood for a stadium for the fucking New Jersey Nets? And are 4,000 more people going to die?


(For more on food, there's this Time story, and here's the NPR coverage)

To calm down, here's a photo of a wind farm. They make me think everything is going to be ok, because they look like the future -- also, peaceful. So they trick me into think that the future will be peaceful.

An Apology

Everyone who knows me knows that I think the internet is really only good for two things: the wires, and cat bloopers (because lord knows this crap isn't justifying the existence of a medium that is so far 125% promise and about .3% delivery).

I happen to be quite the connoisseur of cat bloopers. Since I feel my blogging has been particularly retarded as of late, I give you the below, which made me tinkle my knickers.

SPRING, MOTHER FUCKERS!

Things I Love About Spring:

1. Baseball -- obviously.
2. Iced Chai Lattes
3. Prospect Park
4. Pink Lemonade in old Newman's Spaghetti Sauce jars.
5. Dogs on parade
6. Listening to Sam Cooke with all the windows open


You?

I Cut My Hair Every 5 Weeks. What Does That Say?

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm a little obsessed with Mormons. It started because I used to watch my mom argue with the men who would come to our door pushing their religion like it was magazine subscriptions and tupperware (I think those were just bonuses). Full-blown obsession came when I read Krakauer's Under The Banner Of Heaven, then read the 'holy texts' of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, usually known as the D&C. Also, I worked with a Mormon, who kept me pretty amused.

Anyway -- what I loved about Under The Banner of Heaven is that it just laid out all the bare facts about Mormonism -- and I mean crazy-go-nutty shit that stretches the boundaries of reason. But the whole point of the book is that Mormonism only seems like poorly written bible fanfiction because the religion started after the modern printing press was around. If Christianity got started around the time of Industrial Revolution, we'd all be able to acknowledge THAT IT'S A FUCKING METAPHOR.(Joesph Campbell is really the go-to guy on how to talk about Christianity as a powerful metaphor that somehow got taken literally somewhere along the way, if you're looking for good reading on that.)

Anyway, theology aside, Fundamentalist Mormonism (FLDS) but also plain ol'Mormonism, interests me because has some of the best out-there-for-all-to-see, gee-shucks, golly-willakers, patriarchy and good ol' woman hating. Twisty Faster, one of my favorite Radical Feminist bloggers, pins the tail on the head when it comes to male hegemony:

“Patriarchy isn’t some vague intellectual conceit invented by radical feminists to pass the time in between trips to the Birkenstock store. It’s an actual humanitarian crisis, and it has actual consequences, even for you, even if you say it doesn’t."

Don't believe me?

A. Shut the fuck up. No, really.

B. Observe the TOTAL SHIT STORM going down on the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. A 16 year-old girl who was left at the "ranch" by her parents was "married" to a 49-year old man who repeatedly sexually assaulted her, beat the shit out of her and kept her pregnant, using her infant as blackmail, called for help on a borrowed cell phone, giving authorities a legal in to make a move . So far, 419 children have been removed, along with 139 women.

The girl who called for help told authorities that "church elders" threatened her that if she tried to escape,"outsiders would hurt her, force her to cut her hair and wear makeup and have sex with lots of men."

Cut her hair.

Wear makeup.

These women live in the dark ages -- and they're kept there by men who use religion, dogma, and sex as weapons. But don't worry! Merrill Jessop, who runs the Yearning For Zion "ranch" and is an Elder in the FLDS, "said that those at the ranch have no Internet or television access and have no way to know what has become of the removed children and women. He expressed concern for their well-being."


First off. Ranch? Look at this place:



Does that look like a ranch to you?

Secondly, I'm open to the fact that these raids are traumatic -- for the women and for the children certainly.



Going from a very strict family structure to a foster-system which will probably split up families and women who are used to relying on each other has to be discombobulating and upsetting. But... But there has to be a better life for women that than this, right?

I hope so.




A word about these photos:

They're taken from the Salt Lake Tribune
which always has a whole section of it's website for covering the FLDS and polygamy. I'm sure there's an argument to be made that these photos are intrusive, probably upsetting to the women and children, and as someone who knows how vulnerable you can feel when your photo is taken without your permission, I should know better.

No, I Am Not Having More Fun

yes i am