Happy New year

Happy New Year!

I am not one of those people who 1.goes out on New Year's Eve and 2.makes new year resolutions. We are just trying to figure out what to do about dinner tonight so we can get food and get back in before the drunks get on the road.

However, I did have a startling revelation this week. My friend, Risa D'Angeles does a fabulous weekly horoscope, Night Light News. Last week the horoscope talked about not feeling guilt for changing things to make the world better. Yes, that was eye opening for me, the queen of guilt. Then I realized if I would stop judging myself harshly, maybe I could do the same thing for others and not judge others with that same critical voice.

D'oh!

So happy new year! May 2007 be fabulous for all of us except Bush.

Disgusting

I am in the middle of walking the dogs. This business about Saddam being hung within hours is really bugging me. I am not for the death penalty in any way shape of form. Having had a number of brushes with friends and relatives who have been murdered, I was firmly committed to having those people serve life sentences for their acts.

Killing Saddam doesn't bring Pat Tillman back. He is dead at the hands of the army he served. There are still no complete answers to why we lost him.

There is still no plan for why we continue to be in Iraq and no plan for all those Marines the idiot in chief is going to use in Iraq as fodder to escalate the violence. I don't know why there is this need for blood lust. As a Scorpio, I know revenge but I usually prefer the petty kind.

I have no vote in this whole proceeding. The carnage will escalate today and the bombs will continue to explode. Lives will continue to be shattered while that jackass sits in Texas, clearing brush and ignoring Gerald Ford's funeral. Of course this is all happening with these people in charge, they have no respect for life and a high regard for death, as long as it isn't theirs. Disgusting.

The day after

I think I am stoned on cookies. I am having a hard time putting sentences together and am just fixated on the box of sparkley cookies sitting on the table. Must...eat...another...one.

As usual, my Christmas day was spent with family. We feasted over presents and pork on Christmas morning. One of my nieces works in the bra department of the local Nordstrom's so she had us roaring over bra fittings for the large and small woman. Yes, but we seem so normal.

By the end of the prime rib feast at my sister's, I needed to be in a room by myself. No jokes, no tv, no relatives anywhere to be seen. Just the dogs and cats. OK, maybe Jo.

Today was spent in catatonic bliss. Waking up for a half and hour and then going back to bed, because I could. This is what the holidays are really about, gluttony and sleeping.

Gloria Christmas

My grandmother was a constant all of my life until her last day here. She was a loving, funny woman who fed us tortillas right off the grill with butter dripping down our arms. My siblings and cousins can still get a look on our faces remembering those times.

For Christmas Eve, Grandma would put on a Mexican buffet of unbelievable proportions. All of us would trek over there and hang out, eat and watch my grandma open her presents. It was an all evening laugh fest, filled with chile, tamales, ham, tortillas, rice, beans and plenty o' dessert.

When Grandma died in the 80's those festivities went away. While living in New Mexico, I realized I was missing that part of Christmas. So I started making phone calls to my cousin's, my mom and my aunt to regroup and get this party started again. I decided that my generation had to be in charge of the food so we could learn how to make the food and keep the traditions alive.

Then I threw in a new twist with an ornament exchange. You know when you can steal ornaments from someone else then they have to pick a new one or steal from another. With my family it can get a little wild. Like last night there was the reappearance of the yule stool, a turd ornament.

Last night was particularly special for us because we had cousins there who we hadn't seen in about 30 years. I won't go into the long, sad story of family hurts but I will tell you my heart was full of joy getting to see my cousins, one of the kids and the rest of my family all carrying on in the true grace of real family values. I could also feel the spirits of my grandmother, my father and uncle enjoying the laughter and love in the room.

And it wasn't even Christmas Eve. No wonder I love this time of the year the most.

Wedding bell blues

Big news here in the Golden State. The state Supremes are going to review the case for same sex marriage next year. The SJ Merc has an article detailing the upcoming legal battle.

In this story, the writer quotes the fabulous Shannon Minter from the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Shannon did an incredible job arguing our case in the Appeals court earlier this year. We lost that one and that is why the Supremes will be hearing the case.
Shannon summarizes this situation:

"Every day that goes by,'' he said, ``our couples are hurt in so many different ways by not being able to legally marry.''

Amen brother.

Shannon talked about how some of the litigants are in their 80's. That would be our lesbian godmothers, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, otherwise known as just Phyllis and Del. They were the first couple married in San Francisco and have been together for over 50 years. I adore those two women. I love listening to their stories and the fights they have won for us over the years. As far as I'm concerned the lgbt movement is nothing without them.

So now how about lgbt Latinos and marriage. I am on the board of the National Latino Coalition for Justice, NLCJ. We are working on bringing the conversation about marriage into the Latino community in the same way the Black Justice Coalition has done in the African American community. Here's that key piece of organizing successfully. Have the right outreach people. Send Latinos to the Latino communities and send African Americans to the black churches. It's that simple. We can construct the right messages for our communities, we look the same as the people we are speaking with and share much of the same history.

The hard part for the lgbt community is getting us to the table at the beginning of the efforts. We always know when we are added as an afterthought. That doesn't help the trust needed to be successful.

I personally think the key to this whole battle will be the successful organization of our friends in the faith communities. This will be the front line of public debate. The biblically correct will bring out all the cannards about Adam and Eve vs Adam and Steve. How quaint, how stupid, and unfortunately, effective. I think we have to be very supportive of getting every ordained person we all know to come out righteously for our equality. Only then can we shift the conversation to equality and away from bumper sticker sayings.

The case probably won't be heard until fall of '07. The final word will come 90 days after that hearing. Until then, buckle your seatbelts and don't repeat any bumper stickers.

My little man

One of my year round Christmas presents, my little man.

Waaah

When I started this blog this year it was with the intention of getting back to do regular writing like in my former life as a journalist. It was just to have fun, write about things that interest me and join the blogosphere.

Since then, I have become obsessed and corrupted by statcounter. Apparently instead of enjoying myself and just goofing off with this new toy, I have become valid if only someone reads this blog. I have succumbed to the bane of competitive writing. It is all about the number of hits I get on this site. Ego, ego, ego has taken over so, while continuing to write about things that interest me, I must check all the time to see who has visited.

But this begs the question of chicken v. egg. If a writer writes and no one reads the writing what does that make the writer?

I was talking to my friend, Reverend Holly Beaumont tonight. I was whining about no one reading my blog. Her response? "Now you what it is like to write and preach a sermon and then have someone say to you 'Sorry I missed church this week, we went to the lake.'" Amen, sister.

But since much of my part of the world is slowing down for various holidays, so goes the blogosphere. No time to read or write much, let alone pay attention to these ramblings.

Oh well, I will just continue plodding along and try to remember to have fun. Sheesh, I am an old Eeyore.

A few random thoughts

Gore/Obama anyone?

I will be interested to see who announces their Presidential candidacy before the end of the year. John Edwards will be announcing in the lower 9th ward soon. I would also bet that my former Governor, Bill Richardson will get out of the blocks soon too. Giuliani right after the first of the year, I'd wager.

Rosie O for Price is Right?

Evan Low for State Assembly? Oh wait, he hasn't even been on the Campbell city Council for a month yet. I got a little ahead.

The gas prices keep going up so BushCo is punishing us firmly and reminding us who is really in charge.

Can anything happen related to LGBT rights without HRC sending out a press release? Today it was commentary about the new Log Cabin director. Oh boy, I so don't care. If the public only knew about the behind the scenes scandals, I wonder if the money would keep flowing.

The L Word comes back in two weeks. Now we can see how stupid Bette will fix her kidnapping her baby situation. Carmen is gone but Marlee Matlin and Cybill Shepherd are joing the cast. Sigh, no Latinas.

Don't forget New Orleans.

Find some way to make your community better.

Have fun.

Let someone merge in on the road.

Be kind to animals.

Be kind to children.

Be kind to people older than yourself.

Be grateful for one thing today.

He never had a chance

Today's NYTimes has an interview with Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander Litvinenko.

Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the former K.G.B. agent who died of radiation poisoning in London, said Friday that he began to worry about the safety of Russian exiles like himself in July, when the Parliament in Moscow, with little overseas fanfare, approved a law legalizing strikes beyond Russia’s borders against those the Kremlin considered to be extremists or terrorists.

Read this

Every time I see Bush or Rumsfeld on tv with their smug ass faces telling us that they know better, I want to do a number of things. Bitch slap, scream at them, the usual run of the mill responses.

The San Jose Mercury is running a series of articles about the life of a local man who came back from Iraq with a traumatic brain injury. This is what those aholes have done to our country and citizens. Please read this.

Column

Leonard Pitts. columnist from the Miami Herald had written an exquisite piece of equality for all people. Start your weekend right with this lovely read. You may find yourself humming after reading it.

My my

My my, seems the good rev Dobson is a plagiarist. He had a ridiculous column printed in Time mag with his asinine analysis of Mary Cheney's pregnancy. I know there are a lot of people riveted on every word he says. Luckily there are millions who don't give a crap.

According to Pam over at the Blend, he swiped a paragraph from another author without any acknowledgment. Then Americablog points out that two scientists have sent letters to Dobson demanding that he never reference their material again and that he, um, lied about their outcomes.

Bad, bad man.

Time has a lot of 'splainin to do.

Mea culpa

I finally got my Time mag today and was immediately immersed in the article about Alexander Litvinenko. It is a long, thorough article about the spy vs spy story involving, basically the whole world. A while back while writing about this story, a reader questioned what Putin's motive was if he, in fact, had Litvinenko murdered.

I responded with a typically American response, "Of course I know what I am talking about." In fact, I know only what I read from a multitude of sources. Time pointed out the error of my ways. I can count to 100 in Russian, I don't speak the language. I have read many books and seen a great deal of Russian art, I have never been to Russia and seen Russian art in the Tretyakov museum.

This blog has given me a chance to remember how much I like to write, what in fact, I learned in college. Many people in the blogosphere are experts in areas of great concern. Glenn Greenwald is a lawyer and writes about the law. I am an expert only on what I find of interest. That is not to say I am an expert on everything I am interested in but merely an expert on what I pursue in knowledge.

Thus, I have become a student of hockey. I can now carry on a conversation about icing, boarding, fighting and whether a player is playing well or my team sucks. I even read "Ice Hockey for Dummies" this summer. Any chance I get, I'm off to see the Sharks.

Ask me a question about politics and I can probably have a pretty informed opinion unless you ask me about the politics of Columbus, Ohio. National, state and local I can pop up with something to discuss and explore. I have spent hours on the phone with Ms Marinucci. She gets her payoff this month for being such a good friend with a dozen home made tamales.

Yeah yeah what's the point? I don;t know if I have one but I have been taught to make amends when wrong. So I doing the public, national and international flagellation for acting like a know-it-all American. I guess there is more to learn.

Yeah baby

I started to write about some holiday downer and then came to my senses. Since I have been invited back for a second job interview after Christmas I am now officially deliriously happy.

What a nut case I am acting like a dissertation on death and dying is nice reading less than 2 weeks before Christmas. Time to go shopping I say! Oh wait, I am almost done shopping. Time to finish the Christmas cards, wrap presents tomorrow, watch the Sharks, oh yes, I get to have fun.

Ruby the now tail less cat is doing well, the two long haired dogs have been shorn of their hair, some long lost cousins are coming for our Christmas party at my sister's house and life is good. I am going to Sharks game Saturday night, my cousin's family is coming over Friday to see our animated tree and Christmas village (see picture), I have gas in my car and presents under the tree. Yeah baby, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

Virgen de Guadalupe

Yesterday, Dec 12th was the feast day of the Virgen of Guadalupe. For most Mexicans, she is considered the patron saint of Mexico. I would include myself in that group.

While my grandparents were devoted to San Martin de Porres and St Jude, I had always felt much more drawn to Mama Lupe because of her maternal image and desire for good things to happen for her people.

Today I have an old calender picture that belonged to my great grandmother and have various images of her around my house. She has, of course, a heavenly look on her face but I also feel the warmth and concern of the dark skinned mother.

A few years back, my cousin lost his son in some sort of freak incident. Looked like SIDS but wasn't. Anyway, we were all devastated with this loss of an 18 month old child. The aftermath was painful with months of loss of faith, doubt about the future and frustration with having a huge gap in all our lives. I kept praying to the Virgen asking for some help.

I went to Mexico for the feast day with my co-worker to stay at her parents house in Juarez. What I saw was an amazing display of devotion and faith. Thousands of people were dancing, singing and praying both inside and outside the Cathedral in Juarez. Additionally, there were a number of crosses in front of the Cathedral calling attention to the women who have disappeared around Juarez.

There was a large painted picture of the Virgen in the plaza that I stopped to visit with there. I asked Mama to help my cousin and bring that baby to them. She promised she would do that but I had to promise to always help the Mexican people. Fair enough, I was given talents to help people and these are my people so I should help my family.

Riley will be four next month. She came to my cousins within seconds of her birth. I go over and see her at least once a week.

Yesterday I had an interview with an agency that works for immigrants. They already asked me back for a second interview. Thanks, Mamita, I promise to help the family.

Latest Litvinenko

My head is spinning from all the developments of the Litvinenko poisonings. Here's the latest from the NY Times. London, Moscow, Hamburg, where will this go next?

spy vs spy

More information about the Litvinenko poisoning indicates more clues pointing towards Moscow as the source of the radioactive materials used. According to WaPo, there was a press conference held in Germany shedding more light on this puzzle.

Now Moscow is investigating the death in London while the Brits are in Moscow investigating. The Germans have found traces of the polonium 210 in Hamburg. From yesterday's press conference:

German radiation experts said Sunday that they had confirmed the presence of polonium-210, the substance that killed Litvinenko, at two locations in Germany and were 95 percent certain that traces found at other locations had come from that radioactive isotope. Final tests were needed to confirm its presence at some locations, German officials said. Officials did not specify exactly where the polonium-210 had been found.

Since I watch CSI all the time, I am wondering if there is a fingerprint identification to the polonium. Can the traces which have been found be tracked back to the same contamination that Litvinenko died from? So if it is the same element, does it have the same exact composition as what was in Litvinenko's body and can only be made at a particular nuclear plant, say in Russia? Where is Gil Grissom when I need him to answer my questions?

The Virgin Mary

I am back from a whirlwind trip to Columbus, OH. No snow on the ground here, thankfully!

While I have been trying to catch up on my non-plane reading, I was noticing the Mary Cheney turbulence in the force. Of course the conservatives are going nuts over her and Heather bringing a child who will be loved into this world. I guess this is a case of Heather is one of the two mommies, too.

I had some random thoughts about this unfolding story. Like what was Mary Cheney doing being pregnant and going out to hunt with her daddy? Another errant shot from her daddy and that is the end of the road!

Also, I know this is a very personal decision to make about having a baby. Whether the decision is about adopting, insemination or ending a pregnancy, these are all very personal decisions. So if this baby is going to be raised by two women and has not involved any men except for the initial donation, why are all these gay men talking about it as if they would know more than a lesbian? Guys, get out of the way and let the women speak!

I will make the same point I made in an earlier post, with all the crap going on in the world, aren't there more important things to be concerned about than this baby?

Next gift

Well I am running on Mexican time on this one. Not that I try to be Señora On Time with news. Well here is the next Christmas present, Mary Cheney is pregnant. The baby is due in late spring which means she is well along in the pregnancy, like way before the elections. Hmm, I guess timing is everything.

No!

How embarrassing! Check out this story of gas on a plane.

Elian's house

While in Miami I spent a fair amount of time reading Cuba Confidential by Anne Louse Bardach. This book is about the Cuban community in Miami, Elian, of course Castro and all the politics of these intersections. One of the reasons to read the book is because my friend, Jorge, who I was staying with, his brother is the mayor of Miami. His brother was one of Elian's attorneys. His brother, Manny, was in the house negotiating with the Attorney General's office when the feds came crashing in the door to get Elian.

I got Jorge to drive me over to the house where all this transpired. This is the picture of the house. There is a photo on the right hand side of the palm tree in the middle of the yard. The photo is of Elian's mother, Lizbeth Broton, who died on the trip over the Florida Straits.

More Litvinenko

Anne Applebaum has a must read column on the Russian poisonings, the current state of the KGB and various details about former KGB agents. She provides this description of the mystery of Russia:

In other words: Though we don't know who killed Litvinenko, we have learned that London is a more exciting place than we thought it was. We have learned that the complex plots of Dostoevsky novels merely reflect Russian reality. And we have learned that the old KGB lives on in new guises.

The country that spans 11 time zones, brought us Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, Stalin and Putin remains a mystery for those of us who are non-Russians.

Early gifts

Amazing what winning an election will get ya. Another of the slew of holiday gifts arrived yesterday, John "The Moustache" Bolton is leaving the UN. Plus the idiot in chief is throwing temper tantrums about Bolton's exit. The NY Times has some priceless remarks. This is from Bush's statement:

“They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time,” Mr. Bush said. “This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation.”

Uh, mirror over here for the President please. By the way, that majority Senate support doesn't exist. It's just another one of your hallucinations.

Being the spoiled guys, they still wanted their own way:

Mr. Bolton wanted very much to stay at the world body, administration officials said, and Vice President Dick Cheney backed exploration of some way to bypass the Senate. But that course was almost certain to inflame tensions between Congress and the White House, and in the end, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bolton gave up.

Waaaah. See ya later sucka, don't let a UN resolution hit you on the ass on the way out.

Brain less

Back from Miami. I am delirious from the time change. I can't think but I am tormented by the thought of poor Lance Bass, that he is single again. Yeah right, like I care. Maybe tomorrow I can string some thoughts together. Or maybe I will just have to put up more Christmas decorations.

Miami

So I have no job, haven't had one in over 7 months now. But here I am in Miami at my friends Jorge and Dylan's house.

Thanks to the magic of electronic communication, I have now listened to the Sharks game in Detroit, finally got on to my blog and am up-to-date with my email. And I have a tan, had key lime pie and sat on Miami Beach the last two days.

Miami has a special tropical beat to it. There are so many nationalities and cultures here, it just vibrates at a different speed than other places I've been to. Driving is an adventure. Jorge says you don't make signal changes because that would give away your strategy. Red lights are just a suggestion.

Today was also the 50th anniversary of Castro's revolution in Cuba. He was not sighted at the military parade celebrating both his birthday and the revolution. Yesterday I was at the beach and was thinking what if Castro is declared dead, how would I know? Yes, in MIami I had that rocket scientist thought. Like there wouldn't be a massive explosion from the Cuban emigre community in the streets of Miami. Duh. From the Miami Herald coverage about the

There is more on the Russian poisoning in London. I'm still following it but, hey I am in Miami and will get back to this on Monday with pics.