The show provided me with great music and good old friends from the radio station days; Zak Moses (Flotation Walls), Jeff Fernengel (Tree of Snakes), Miles Curtiss (Marvin the Robot), and Chris Burney (The Sun). It was odd in that I had so many of my music friends around me; I of course have always been the person who didn’t know the new bands. I am still the person who rifles through the CMJ lists not recognizing most of the names but that doesn’t mean I don’t love going to the shows.

Tim Easton has never failed in moving me. He played for four hours last night and consistently pleased with only one exception. My favorite song of his, Dear Old Song and Dance (downloadable for free), started wonderfully and beautifully but it was cut short. It was terrible, like saving your favorite dessert for last and then just before you get to it finding that your roommate ate it.

I wish I’d had some money on me, for if I had I would’ve bought some of his CD’s. So if you are like me and enjoy good music but never seem to be the one that discovers it, I encourage you to go discover Tim Easton and of course Rumba Café.   Rumba Café has a great laid back lay out, good beers, and awesome music…and I just might be there tomorrow night to see The Flotation Walls.

Michelle Obama is an independent strong woman. Her education is solid with her bachelors from Princeton her JD from Harvard. She has worked in politics, in non-profits and in higher education. If Michelle has worked hard along side of Barack as she continued to raise two daughters and maintain her own career why do we not applaud her as we did Hillary Clinton? Why aren’t people screaming “Two for the price of one!”?

We applaud barrack Obama for his accomplishments. Who would have ever thought a black man had a realistic chance of becoming president? Who would have ever thought that a black man could win the Iowa caucuses? Iowa, a state with a 2% African-American population where 27% of those incarcerated in the state are African-American. He won Iowa?!

Who would’ve thought Hillary could show her self to be a strong force to be reckoned with in the ol’ boys club? Who would’ve thought she could still stand strong as a politician on her own two feet after being knocked down so many times?

Michelle has demonstrated her ability as a lawyer, as an advocate, as a community organizer, as a mother, as a black woman who went through the aristocratic hoops of an education, political, and social system that has fought so long to keep both women and minorities out. She is someone who has fought through the glass ceiling in ways that Barack never did as a man, and Hillary never did as white. If Michelle is diplomatic and strong enough to successfully weave in and out so many places why aren’t we saying, “two for the price of one” ?

Why aren’t we screaming “TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!”?

Last years winners were quite amazing. Then I realized I was in for some competition but I still couldn’t help but get excited about it. The scholarship was based on a essay with the following requirements:

“The focus of this essay should be your long-term goals and aspirations, as well as the challenges you face in meeting these goals. Judging will also assess creativity, motivation, and inspiration. Your essay may also include your family background, scholastic achievements, educational and career goals, commitment to the Hispanic community, financial need, and any other relevant information. The essay should be limited to 500 words.”

It is hard to get that all down in just 500 words. I did my best and unsuccessfully tried to not get my hopes up. In the end I was not selected for the honor. I am sure the women they did select are amazing Latinas and I tip my hat to them. Now if only, they had listened to Matt Ortega. Below is my essay.

(more…)

The Lorain County incident turned out to be an international monitoring group photographing a polling place in Grafton. The Allen County incident was reported to the Defense Department as suspicious people in a gold minivan with California plates. It turned out to be four Latino males doing a film project, according to state EMA records.”

Cincinnati Enquirer

When Reverend Wright’s sermon on Hilliary Clinton first hit the news I wondered what he could have possible said to offend so many people. In fact I still wonder.

Here is a brief excerpt (for the full transcript and video go here):

I am sick of negros who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home. Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people!

Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons. Hilary ain’t had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C-student sitting in the white house.

What about this sermon is untrue? What is so offensive? I am more offended that these things can’t be said loudly. I am also offended that to Obama’s response (full transcript and video here), right-wing radio accused him of throwing his grandmother “under the bus”. Obama’s speech reminded me of three things. He reminded me of my father, my friend, and of myself.

I can no more disown him [Reverend white] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

My father often refers to me in terms I hate. Terms, that make me wince in pain. His racism sometimes overt but more often then not covert, is always there. I know however, that my father loves me. My father is just as much a part of me as my mother. The history that made him is also my history. My friend is still my friend. She may not understand how hurtful it is when she wants to ignore racism as I have it thrown in my face, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, that she isn’t loyal to me. It just means that she has experienced the other side of the coin, the side with white privilege that doesn’t have to question any of this.

Obama’s speech echoed for me perhaps in a way it did for others that are like me. Those like the India María; ni de aquí ni de allá.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

We are divided by being “not enough” of one and then being told we are too much of the other. We are divided by ethnic and racial lines and sometimes by religious lines too. It is not a world I want my children to grow-up in. My children will be mixed too. They have to be, because I am. I think Obama shows us our real American future and it frightens us. Our children will be mixed, they will be the children of immigrants and non-immigrants, of black, white, brown, yellow parents too. They will be the children of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus. They will be monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. And our children will reject and reform the world that puts them in boxes.

Quite honstly, I think that the more you mention someone’s color, the more we are driving a wedge. It bothers me when people even mention it, because it doesn’t matter. If you really want to move on from racism, my opinion is that you forget about color and just deal with the person. I guess that is what is so unusual to me about the site and the church. I don’t recall the catholic sites or jewish sites talking about the white values and the white way.

I was angry at first. How could my friend be so ignorant? So obtuse.

I told her we had the Greek Orthodox church, the Russian Orthodox Church. That I go to catholic mass in Spanish, a mass dedicated to the helping of Latinos. And my church runs the Latino Center of Hope.
I used to go to a German Lutheran Church that came into being to protect German cultures and beliefs.
And that our mutual friend wanted to attend a Polish Lutheran Church but can’t find one in Columbus.

We can’t disregard race, ethnicity, gender. While Obama won in Iowa , we should recognize that Iowa has a 2% African-American population and that 27% of the prison population in Iowa is African-American. We have to recognize that we need to support disenfranchised groups. This is why we unite as feminists in the womens movement, not because we are trying to drive a wedge but because we are trying to support each other in an unfair and imbalanced society…the same can be said for my church.

I thought I had made a good argument but she responded to my rebuttal with “I’m not saying you should disregard your roots, I’m just saying I don’t care what color you are.”

How can you not care? How can she not, as my friend, recognize that color is important in this society and that effects my life every day, even if she doesn’t care? I care what color you are because I recognize that it effects your personal experience. I care what gender you are, what country you are from, what languages you speak, because it effects your personal experience. Doesn’t she know that it is white privilege that allows her not to care about race, that allows her to not have to deal with it? How can my friend be so ignorant? I emailed another friend asking for advice on how to deal with the ignorance. And she responded, among other things, that my friend will never care until she decides to care and that it doesn’t sound like she wants to care.

I don’t really know how to convince someone that race matters. Or that I sting from within when my friend, a person I love, says she doesn’t care what color I am, and ignores a part of who I am. The best way to articulate why it is wrong to just ignore race as the problem, that I have seen yet, is from my friend who I went to for advice, and she put it in this light:

Ignoring race is like saying - you know, I don’t think we should mention money. Poor people will just be more marginalized if we mention that they don’t have money. Let’s just ignore it and focus on individual people- but not their circumstances.

While you are celebrating with your Irish-Ameircan friends, or your Mirish friends, remember to spill a little of your green beer for the undocumented Irish in the United States.

Today is a good day to remember that it is not just Mexicans or Latinos that are not legally in this country but Europeans, Asians and Africans, too. And a good day to remind people that it isn’t as simple as “getting in line” to come to the United States.

I want you to know and to spread the word that only “…147 new un-skilled workers without US citizen or legal resident family already here were allowed to enter the US last year [2006] legally and receive green cards.” -Migra Matters

And that there are undocumented Irish in this country who would like to be able to work legitimately, have drivers licenses and more importantly not live in fear. People sometimes see this as a race issue or an ethnicity issue and it isn’t.

“I was not very long there until, like water, I found my own level. ‘My people’ — the people who know about oppression, discrimination, prejudice, poverty and the frustration and despair that they produce — were not Irish Americans. They were black, Puerto Rican, Chicano. And those who were supposed to be ‘my people’, the Irish Americans who know about English misrule and the Famine and supported the civil-rights movement at home, and knew that Partition and England were the cause of the problem, looked and sounded to me like Orangemen. They said exactly the same things about blacks that the loyalists said about us at home. In New York, I was given the key to the city by the mayor, an honour not to be sneezed at. I gave it to the Black Panthers.” -Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

Next time some racist person makes the argument that the Irish were different than Mexicans, remind them that they aren’t different and send them to these links.

Voices from the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform/The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform “The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) is fighting for the voice of the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish in the immigration debate.”

Far From Home: A chronicle of the undocumented Irish in the United States (images of undocumented Irish in the United States).

Undocumented Irish in the US (Irish politicians try to lobby for the Irish in the United States)

Irish Immigrants Visit Congress to Ask for Rights

He is traveling around Asia. I am envious.

dumpster diving in bangkok

so i found a backpack in the trash, it’s a small one, and the smallest pouch zipper is broken, i will see if i can fix it myself tomorrow (it’s 330am now).. then across the alley i saw another thai dude dumpstering, he was a bum i think… at some super market he was dumspteiring, we pulled out 5 dozen eggs (doubt they are organic), and a bunch of white bread, and some microwavable pizza, and a mostly dranken bottle of thai wiskey.

we chopped (poker term meaning split 50/50) the thai wiskey(we drank it on the spot obvoiusly), and i took only 1 dozen eggs, doubt i can eat much more.

also on the way home, there is a bar where you aren’t allowed to take alchohol into, and there was a full, barely opened wine cooler, which i drank.

all in all it was great
i’ll try to put in pics tomorrow

I stopped by his party had a slice of pizza but skipped out on the beer and there was no wine available, which in the end I decided it was okay not to have a glass since I was going to be driving home.  My brother living on OSU’s campus and having made tons of flyers advertising free beer, had successfully drawn people he did not know and that did not mesh well with his sXe, freevegan, punk friends.  In fact, my brother smiled and said “I only know about 20% of these people”.

Tired and not really interested in the party I left.  In the morning I found that the four kegs contained O’Douls non-alcoholic beer, the wine was non-alcoholic but tasted so awful it was not served.  His party had been overwhelmed with young kids looking for free beer and to get drunk and everyone went home sober.  LOL.