-
The Turd Reich
Last Friday I went to see tucson_weekly journalist Margaret Regan speak about her new book, Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire. She was at Antigone Books doing one of their typical Friday evening author appearances: reading selections from her book, discussing it, answering questions, and signing copies. It was during the question- ( Read more... ) -
Books I Read in 2014
I didn't make it to the nice, even number of 50, so I'll have to list the 47 books I read this year.
1. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod
2. The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abunimah
3. Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham Aidi
4. The Right to Stay Home: Ending Forced Migration and the ( Read more... ) -
Summer Sausage of Love
Every time climate change gets attention in some big way, I hope that, for once, the issue of our dietary choices--specifically how meat consumption contributes to climate change--will get the attention it deserves. Al Gore let me down eight years ago, and I'm afraid Pope Francis will be the next to do it. He's supposed to make a big pronouncement ( Read more... ) -
The Year Yuri Kochiyama and Tom Magliozzi Died
It's almost official: 2014 will have been the year that I had three different addresses and three different cars. I think I need a T-shirt that says, "I survived 2014." It's been kind of a crap year for a lot of reasons, but it seems to be ending well. -
Collin Dibbs
"What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity's use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it's not the laws of nature."--Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
I remember some years ago being very ( Read more... ) -
On Crap: The Avian and Work Kind
I feel as if I haven't written anything intelligent in this journal for over a year--maybe even a couple of years. (I would have to go back and check.) Everything has just been sorting out life, geeking out over the happy shit, droning on about the mundane shit, and grumbling about the annoying shit. Gone are the entries in which I weave together ( Read more... ) -
gravidity and parody
I finished reading Black Flower (that novel about a 1905 migration of Koreans to Mexico) earlier this week. Fiction never holds my attention well, but this novel was unusually engaging. Had Young-ha Kim never stumbled upon this bit of Korean and Latin American history, I think it would have been largely forgotten ( Read more... ) -
Obvious Child Abuser
Of the movies I've watched most recently, two of them were Obvious Child, a romantic comedy about a late-twenties comedian whose unexpected pregnancy prompts a decision to have an abortion, and Escape from Tomorrow, a rather dry attempt at guerrilla filmmaking and social commentary with a main character who is so unlikable it's hard to watch. I ( Read more... ) -
gender parody
No one has ever asked me about the roots of my interest in puns, intentional malapropisms, and other wordplay--no one except myself, anyway. I've always chalked it up to my old interest in hip-hop. Rap lyrics are often rich with wordplay. But one night while reminisching about some shit from our childhoods with clockworkalien, the topic of Garbage Pail Kids ( Read more... ) -
If These Narwhals Could Talk
After moving into my new place, I was in a flurry of activity to make the place functional, putting together furniture, arranging things the right way, and on and on. But then I stopped at that point. I didn't do the extra stuff, like put up pictures, set up a container garden, and so forth. I think I was resentful of the situation that required ( Read more... )