i just dropped all my o/t munny to attend ROLLERCON at the end of the month with a buncha derby girls from across the globe in las vegas. the weekend is both legendary and heresay.

Why the Imp in Your Brain Gets Out
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: July 6, 2009

...Efforts to be politically correct can be particularly treacherous. In one study, researchers at Northwestern and Lehigh Universities had 73 students read a vignette about a fictional peer, Donald, a black male. The students saw a picture of him and read a narrative about his visit to a mall with a friend.

In the crowded parking lot, Donald would not park in a handicap space, even though he was driving his grandmother’s car, which had a pass, but he did butt in front of another driver to snag a nonhandicap space. He snubbed a person collecting money for a heart fund, while his friend contributed some change. And so on. The story purposely portrayed the protagonist in an ambiguous way.

The researchers had about half the students try to suppress bad stereotypes of black males as they read and, later, judged Donald’s character on measures like honesty, hostility and laziness. These students rated Donald as significantly more hostile — but also more honest — than did students who were not trying to suppress stereotypes.

In short, the attempt to banish biased thoughts worked, to some extent. But the study also provided “a strong demonstration that stereotype suppression leads stereotypes to become hyperaccessible,” the authors concluded....

Aries Horoscope for week of July 9, 2009

Miracle of miracles: A pointless pain in the butt will soon stop bugging you. Meanwhile, an annoying itch in your heart is subsiding, and may even disappear. As a result of these happy developments, you will be able to concentrate on a much more interesting and provocative torment that has been waiting impatiently for your loving attention. Actually, it's an ancient torment dressed up in a new package. But as before, it's a torment you've never had the right name for. That's about to change, however. You're finally ready to find the right name for it, and when you do, you'll be halfway toward a permanent cure.

stolen from the_marvin

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.

I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, and a prison cell with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.

I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon, a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.

I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.

I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to her mother.

And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.

To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.

I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home.

-Mahmoud Darwish, from Unfortunately, It Was Paradise.

holy crap. this is amazing.

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Michael Jackson: The Man in Our Mirror
Black America’s eulogies for the King of Pop also let us resurrect his best self

By Greg Tate
Tuesday, June 30th 2009

...Whatever Michael's alienation and distance from the Black America he came from—from the streets, in particular—he remained a devoted student of popular Black music, dance, and street style, giving to and taking from it in unparalleled ways. He let neither ears nor eyes nor footwork stray too far out of touch from the action, sonically, sartorially, or choreographically. But whatever he appropriated also came back transmogrified into something even more inspiring and ennobled than before. Like the best artists everywhere, he begged, borrowed, and stole from (and/or collaborated with) anybody he thought would make his own expression more visceral, modern, and exciting, from Spielberg to Akon to, yes, OK, smartass, cosmetic surgeons. In any event, once he went solo, Michael was, above all else, committed to his genius being felt as powerfully as whatever else in mass culture he caught masses of people feeling at the time. I suppose there is some divine symmetry to be found in Michael checking out when Barack Obama, the new King of Pop, is just settling in: Just count me among those who feel that, in Michael Jackson terms, the young orator from Hawaii is only up to about the Destiny tour....

JET Interview
Michael Jackson: Nearly 21 but has no marriage plans, dates but not steady, fears love-sick fans, talks about racism and develops own lifestyle.

August 16, 1979
By Robert E. Johnson

...Of all his travels, he says his most emotional and moving experiences came in travels in Dakar, Senegal. “I’m going to raise my hand (to God) on this one,” he lit up like a light. “I always thought that Blacks, as far as artistry, were the most talented race on earth. But when I went to Africa, I was even more convinced. They do incredible things over there….They got the beats and the rhythm. I really see where drums come from. It makes you think that all Blacks have rhythm….I don’t want the Blacks to ever forget that this is where we come from and where our music comes from. And if we forget, it (Black history) would really get lost. I want us to remember.”

From No One Is Illegal Montreal

July 1, 2009 – Montreal

To the members of the community of Akwesasne --
To all members of the Haudenosaunee --

We write to publicly express our respect, solidarity and support with the continued struggles for sovereignty and self-determination by Haudonausanee peoples.

In particular, we highlight our admiration for the courageous and ongoing community resistance to armed border agents at Kahwehnoke in Akwesasne. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is an occupier on Kanionke:haka lands, and we unequivocally support the demand of the people’s movement at Akwesasne to refuse the arming of any border agents. We also support the demand for free movement for all members of the Akwesasne community.

We understand the resistance at Akwesasne in the context of continued struggles for land and self-determination throughout the Iroquois Confederacy: from the ongoing Land Reclamation at Six Nations to the re-occupation of the Culbertson Tract at Tyendinaga; from the opposition to the Highway 30 expansion at Kahnawake to the restoration of the Confederacy Council.

Resistance to Canadian colonialism and neo-colonialism has meant attacks on Haudenosaunee people who refuse to submit to colonial rule. We have noted and learned from members of the Akwesasne community about Jake Ice who was killed by police agents in 1899. Recently, during the resistance at Akwesasne, the OPP attacked protesters on the Skyway Bridge at Tyendinaga, leaving members of that community bloodied, arrested and jailed.

We condemn all Canadian government, police and army attacks on Haudenosaunee peoples, including the continued criminalization of members of the Six Nations and Tyendinaga communities, where dozens still face charges and trials. The colonial Canadian courts and police cannot stand in judgment of the sovereign peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and all charges must be dropped.

No One Is Illegal-Montreal is a grassroots migrant justice, anti-colonial, no border group comprised of members from racialized and immigrant backgrounds. We are struggling for the self-determination of migrants and in support of the self-determination of Indigenous peoples. We are in active confrontation with a colonial system built on the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples, as well as racist anti-immigrant laws.

The CBSA, and the border they enforce, serve not only to divide Haudenosaunee peoples, and the community of Akwesasne, but also to enforce a racist immigration regime that deports and detains members of our communities. We struggle actively against those deportation and detentions, and against all borders and barriers to free movement.

This July 1, 2009, we join with others in a convergence on Akwesasne to show support for the Kanionke:haka peoples resistance against the CBSA. We also stand in opposition to the Canadian state and its policies and practices. We can think of no better way to spend our “Anti-Canada Day” than to stand in solidarity and to learn from you.

We continue to try to practice our own decolonization, rooted in the traditions and understanding of the Haudenosaunee – such as the two-row wampum treaty --and in a present and future where we can establish and re-establish relations based on values of mutual aid, solidarity and respect, in a common struggle against oppression.

In struggle and solidarity,
With respect,
No One Is Illegal-Montreal

this is kinda awesome.

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I've been weighing a lot of what Michael Jackson was and was not -- and the percerption of what s/he was and was not. I've been going through the voluminous musical and performative repertoire that was his genius -- absolute perfect genius -- in hopes of some clues but it is nothing but perfect entertainment and breathtaking work. The story is so heartbreaking, it really is, and I believe s/he passed totally heartbroken.

More love & therapy, less fame & enablers.

Plan B only plays away games in its fanciest of uniforms.

alright. about to leave for san luis obispo for a game with plan b against the central coast roller girls. should be a good game. i've seen them play before and they're pretty good but more importantly, pretty clean.

i geeked out and watched the most amazing bout ever between #1 gotham (new york) and #4 texas (austin) last night on the derby news network. they are amiable rivals as texas was the original all-women's flat track team and have been top in the country forever. it was neck-and-neck the entire game with a solid defense by texas only to get a 15-pt lead because the gotham jammer and a buncha blockers got sent to the box. fifteen minutes later, the same thing happened to texas and that's when gotham took it home (the only times there were three grand slams in the game). it only emphasizes my point that i've had my whole derby career that getting in the penalty box is dumb, avoid it if you can.

From the Huffington Post comes some good ish. You have to be under a rock to not know that major revolutionary protests for a real democratic election are happening in Iran.


Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising

"I'm always a little reticent to draw lessons from things still unfolding, but it seems pretty clear that ... this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media. I've been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted 'the whole world is watching.' Really, that wasn't true then. But this time it's true ... and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They're engaging with individual participants, they're passing on their messages to their friends, and they're even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can't immediately censor. That kind of participation is really extraordinary.

Traditional media operates as source of information not as a means of coordination. It can't do more than make us sympathize. Twitter makes us empathize. It makes us part of it. Even if it's just retweeting, you're aiding the goal that dissidents have always sought: the awareness that the ouside world is paying attention." -- NYU professor, Clay Shirky

via delux_vivens

am following bellacrow: There are millions of 20 and 30 something that feel they have nothing left to lose. And when they look back on the past 30 years realize that the fight is now.

(that's me on the flyer!)

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i live next to a truly amazing, downright famous sushi bar. last night, after a 14-hour day in the field, i treated myself to "colorful party" and some endless masu sake. uni nigiri was one of the pieces. its taste i did not find partcularly bad or gross. it reminded me of the smell of dozens of rotting urchin carcasses sprinkled over the harbor breakwater of the little town in downeast maine that the folks i called my grandparents took me to in the summer -- only it tasted like what the carcasses probably would have tasted like if they were fresh. then, i realized that the nigiri, being wrapped in a giant piece of nori was *not* masticating well. the uni swished around in my mouth while i tried tearing apart the nori with my molars. the nigiri piece was mouth-sized and the process was gradually coating all surfaces from my teeth to the back of my throat in the uni's mashed-potato texture. i started gagging and put three fingers to my lips to keep them shut. i totes almost ralphed all over the sushi bar.

never again, i tell you. never. again.

Radio Show Offers Advice and More to Mexico’s Poorest Immigrants
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, NYTimes.com
Published: June 8, 2009

FRESNO, Calif. — The voice trembled with anguish.

“Please,” Esmeralda Santiago pleaded, calling into a radio show here aimed at the poorest of Mexico’s emigrants, indigenous people from the southern state of Oaxaca. “This is for Sylvia Santiago. Please, if you can hear us, call. Our mother is worried because we have not talked with you in a while.”

Filemón López, the host of the show, listened and nodded. He had heard such heartache before. The woman spoke first in Spanish and then repeated her plea — breaking down in sobs — in Triqui, one of Oaxaca’s indigenous languages.

“When there is no communication,” Mr. López, himself a legal immigrant who once worked the fields, said during a break, “it causes such sadness.”

( Read more... )

it might not work but it would be the cutest statue evar! although, no peeing in a fountain, plz.

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Politician’s Novel Idea for Mexican Tourism: Statue of Swine Flu Survivor

By MARC LACEY
Published: May 25, 2009

MEXICO CITY — Édgar Hernández, the Mexican kindergartner who is the first person known to have contracted the swine flu now circling the globe, may soon have a statue erected in his honor in the mountain village where he lives.

Gov. Fidel Herrera of the coastal state of Veracruz said the statue of Édgar, 5, could help attract tourists to La Gloria, a poor village where hundreds of residents came down with mysterious flulike symptoms beginning in late winter, in what experts say may have been the beginning of the spread of the new influenza strain. As of Monday, the World Health Organization had tabulated 12,515 confirmed cases of swine flu, with 91 deaths...

He considers Édgar to be not “Patient Zero,” the source of a global outbreak, but rather the first person in the world known to have survived the virus.... Édgar, a personable boy who wears his hair slicked back with gel, suffered flulike symptoms in early March but recovered after what his mother described as a few listless days home in bed...

...La Gloria, where dirt roads outnumber paved ones, is about five miles from one of many pig farms in the area that Smithfield Foods Inc., the largest pork producer in the United States, operates with a Mexican subsidiary. Residents of La Gloria have attributed their sickness to the pigs, but scientists who have tested the pigs in recent weeks have found no evidence that they were the source of the virus. Smithfield had once proposed putting a pig farm in La Gloria itself, but residents protested the move, and ill will between the company and the villagers remains...

read the rest here