Same-Sex Marriage Legal in Vermont

When states legalize same-sex marriage they legislate sexuality, create possessive legal contracts structuring love, and assimilate queer identity into the capitalist order.

That said, I'm happy to see Vermont used its legislature to legalize same-sex marriage.

Kyle's New Sex Blog

Hey Ya'll!

If you haven't heard enough from CPR, it's cause I've been setting up my new radical queer sex blog at queerradical.com!

Check it out!

Sign Petition to Support Tamms Prisoners

TAMMS Supermax Prisoners are screwed by Illinois. Sign this petition in support of them. For more info, read below from Julie Hamos, State Rep for the 18th District in Illinois :

End Human Rights Abuses at Tamms Supermax Prison Today

Prisoners at Tamms supermax prison are held in permanent solitary confinement. There is no communal activity, no contact visits, and no phone calls. Men never leave their cell except to shower or go to solitary exercise in a concrete pen.

Suicide attempts, self-mutilation, and severe mental illness are common at Tamms—this is an expected consequence of the harsh punishment of long-term isolation.

Incarceration at the supermax was approved by the Illinois legislature as a short-term “shock-treatment” program for men already in prison who cause harm to guards or other inmates. Instead, Tamms has become a warehouse and a human rights disaster:

• - One-fourth of the population has lived in this extreme solitary confinement since the prison opened almost 11 years ago.
• - There are no clear procedures for being transferred to Tamms and there is no way to earn your way out.
• - Most prisoners in Tamms do not deserve to be there for this lengthy period. Many were not placed in Tamms for acts of violence, and have not had disciplinary problems at Tamms.
• - Long-term isolation creates barriers for successful reentry to society, or to other prisons, where these prisoners will return.
• - There is no correctional justification for placing seriously mentally ill men in a supermax for extra punishment.

Identical treatment at Guantanamo Bay has been judged by Attorney General Eric Holder to be too isolating for prisoner safety. All prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now provided social interaction and phone calls, in compliance with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Convention.

Shout Out to the Bank Robbers--Down With the Rich!

On page 25 of today's New York Times, Al Baker writes that bank robberies are on the rise in New York City! I'd like to send a shout out to these modern day heroes who are working with their masks and guns to liberate money wrongly given to banks by the federal government bailouts. According to the article, after suspects are arrested and go to Riker's Island, they trade secrets back and forth about how to perfect their skills as bank robbers. Prisons are educational institutions for America's liberators of ruling class wealth. All I have to say of these bank robbers, is please friends, make sure a good chunk of that money goes to good causes--liberation struggles, ecological defense, and the needs of people within your community.

The Rich Steal From the Government; The Government Defends the Rich

The violent conflict between rich as poor is as obvious as it is infuriating. According to today's New York Times, The American International Group, beneficiary of a $170 billion bail-out, is preparing to dole out $100 million in bonuses to executives as thousands around the country lose their homes to foreclosure, struggle with their first days, weeks, and months of homelessness, and fail to find gainful work. Our economy is crashing, families are struggling to live, and the rich continue to steal from the poor, the people, those who pay taxes.

We cannot rely on the government to get us out of the mess. The government continues to allow the rich to steal from the poor: our labor, our homes, our lives. We cannot rely on the benevolence of foundations controlled by the ruling class to provide funds for us to get at the root issues that are worsening poverty in the United States.

We need to take power into our hands, take the land, take the resources we need, take the spaces consolidated and privatized by the wealthy. Through privatization, the rich have gained control over land, water, and air. The time to liberate these resources is now.

The contradictions between those who have and those who have nothing have rarely been as apparent within the United States. After a decade of murdering Arabs, bailing out corrupt bankers, imprisoning black and brown people, and destroying public health, education, and welfare, the ruling class is making a mockery out of the courage of good people.

The time to defy the rich, the ruling class, the government has rarely been as ripe as it is now. If we want to survive the cataclysmic environmental and economic collapse the ruling class is bringing on, we must take the wealth they have stolen from humans and the earth and put it to sustainable, healthy, and egalitarian use. We cannot surrender everything to the rich.

Revolution in the Backyard

OK, so after a year of failed reform, an attempt to democratize a hierarchical organization, aid in the Republican and Democratic National Convention Protests, and work fairly critically and aggressively, I'm taking the revolution outside, to my back yard. Over the years I've had many friends argue that gardening is an important piece of their spiritual and political practice. Turning lawns into food sources, they claim, helps with issues as vast as climate change, finding alternatives to capitalism, and preparing for a likely ecological and imminent economic collapse. I want to see for myself.

So, outside I go, with a hoe in my hand, to join my roomie Jessi in her gardening efforts.

Jessi started our first backyard garden last year. It produced zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. This year, I want a bigger garden that can provide sustenance for the summer and perhaps some fodder to can for next winter.

My Mom and Grandma have always canned food in the summer and have amazing salsa's, pickles, and soups for the whole next year. Their tradition, coupled with backyard gardening, makes sense for me.

Oh, and as I bring this up, I want to remind Denver CPR readers that Ashara Ekundayo has organized the Soul'd Roots Conference, March 13-15th. This event looks amazing.

"Soul'd Roots" is a 3-day intensive, March 13-15, 2009 where invited educators and youth will engage in activities aimed at fostering health, solidarity and green sustainability in Denver's Black and Brown communities through multi-media workshops and panels focusing on food traditions and security, social networking, and arts activism. We are excited about our cross-generational opportunity to learn from each other through traditional and contemporary methods of struggle. Our goals include a desire to shift our thinking from capitalism and immediate gratification, to a slower way of developing social, psychological, physical and spiritual health through interaction with the land and each other as we live in community together. We are planting the seeds in the winter, and looking forward to our crop at our public conference, "Soul'd Roots, Pt. 2," slated for August 5-8, 2009.

A few of the events are public and you should check these out:

Events Open to the Public include; Friday, March 13 – 600pm – 830pm,
at 2895 W. 8th Ave, Denver, 80204 “Take Back the Land” Community Gathering on Immigrant Rights &
Land Justice w/ Max Rameau (Miami, FL) Wine & Cheese Fundraiser for Sister of Color United for Education –
Tix $20

Saturday, March 14 – 700pm – 10pm, at Solar Café & Community Space, 2615 Welton St. Denver 80205, Reception & Panel: “Protest, Brutality & Ink” – Jordan T. Garcia w/ Cheyenne Hughes, Favianna Rodriguez, Terrance Roberts, Jesus Barraza, and Melanie Cervantes + Booksigning w/ Author: Favianna Rodriguez, “Reproduce & Revolt” – Suggested Donation $5 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Sunday, March 15 - 200pm – 500pm, at New Hope Baptist Church, 37th & Colorado Blvd. Denver, 80205, “Community Eat-In & Food Politics Talkback” with Eco-Chefs; Bryant Terry, Shannon Francis, Faatma Mehrmanesh, Dylan Moore, Marilyn Meginity, and Others. – Tix $7 - $10 (sliding scale) RSVP Required – 303.446.8800 SOCUE has been building, supporting and sustaining health and healing with hard-to-reach populations and communities for 20 years through their “Art in Motion” and Promotor@ programs in which community artists, organizers, and health advocates are encouraged to draw from their own cultural wisdom, innate strength and comprehensive training to teach families, neighbors and co-workers about health promotion, risk reduction and health care access around topics such as; human sexuality; STD’s and HIV/AIDS; domestic violence; substance abuse; harm reduction; client advocacy; curanderismo and other culturally relevant practices.

Three Kick-Ass Cultural Spaces + 1 Badass Smarty Pants Video Lecture Series: Philoctetes Society, Mess Hall, and 16 Beaver

For those of you who are getting bored with the same-old same-old half-assed, pseudosmart crap on PBS (how many fucking times can you watch Charlie Rose), you've got to check out the lecture series broadcast online by The Philoctetes Society. From rambles about jazz with Bela Fleck to discussions about biography with the likes of Simon Winchester (The Madman and the Professor) and Judith Therman (The New Yorker), you will not be disappointed with the intellectual breadth and rigor of the panel participants!

The Philocetetes Societ describes itself as follows:

The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process.

The Center creates and supports projects, public forums, research and information gathering which foster cooperation and dialogue among diverse disciplines, while seeking to create public awareness of these efforts.

To achieve its mission the Center holds roundtable discussions with participants from various fields (neuroscience, psychology, mathematics, psychoanalysis, humanities and art, philosophy and theology), offers a forum for presentation of works in progress, and is developing a data base on imagination with the aim of becoming a clearing house for all available literature on the subject.

The Philoctetes Society reminds me of a high brow version of some of my other favorite cultural spaces in the U.S.

On Chicago's North-Side (Rogers Park), there is an incredible venue called Mess Hall, run by artists who bring in amazing folks to do lectures, performances, workshops, etc...

Mess Hall is an experimental cultural center. It is a place where visual art, radical politics, creative urban planning, applied ecological design and other things intersect and inform each other. We host exhibitions, discussions, film screenings, brunchlucks (brunch + potluck), workshops, concerts, campaigns, meetings (both closed and open) and more.

Another New York-based space I love is 16 Beaver.

16Beaver is the address of a space initiated/run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. It is the point of many departures/arrivals.

So many smart spaces in a country that prides itself on stupidity! I wish more of these spaces promoted their series via online video.

If you have an awesome cultural space near you, drop me a line!

Fist in the Mouth

For those of you that don't know my friend Clayton, too bad for you. For those that do, you should check out Fist in the Mouth, his absolutely adorable blog. He has a great post Foods That Affect Your Pee.

Debt Collectors Ravage the Dead; Only Zombie Army Can Stop Them

Imagine, you just got put 6 feet under or scattered in the wind. Some Rabbi or Preacher just finished off your sermon and your loved ones celebrated that you'd finally rest in peace.

But not for long.

The New York Times reported today that getting payback from the relatives of corpses is the new frontier of debt collection. Not even the dead and grieving are safe from the greedy claws of money lenders.

So if your lover just killed himself cause he couldn't pay off those cards and thought everybody would be better off, guess what? Boy he was wrong. The phone starts ringing and the capitalist creeps start knocking on your door.

According to The NY Times:

Dozens of specially trained agents work on the third floor of DCM Services here, calling up the dear departed’s next of kin and kindly asking if they want to settle the balance on a credit card or bank loan, or perhaps make that final utility bill or cellphone payment.

Neither grief, morals, nor common sense stand in the way of collection agencies.

Only an army of zombies could stop these lenders from their necrophiliac collection mandates. Please bankers. Stop fucking the dead.

Denver's Best Sex Toy Shop!

OK, so since I'm a localist and just bragged about Good Vibrations, I figured I should also send a shout out to Denver's best women's-centered/queer friendly sex toy shop: Hysteria.

Whether you're looking for vibrators, butt plugs, lube, rubbers, strap-ons, or other resources, Hysteria's friendly staff has always been super helpful, kind, and welcoming to sex-toy novices and pros alike.

Not only that, they did some great work with The Colorado Anti-Violence Program's pancake breakfast last year!

Blushing and Giddy: Couch Potato Revolution Appears on Good Vibrations!

Hands down, Good Vibrations is my favorite online (and in person, when I'm in the Bay Area) place to buy sex toys, books, and safer-sex supplies. I blushed and turned giddy when I saw their online magazine featured a short article on my post How Men Can Get Off With a Woman's Vibrator!

Big thanks to Kuono for the story!

Non-Profits Destroy Social Movements

When the government came up with this whole 501C3 scam, they smartly figured out how to fuck up social movements my burning out awesome people by focusing their energy on running a business rather than revolt. Radicals should be opening squats, growing food, and burning down banks rather than filing foundation reports, massaging the fucked-up egos of spoiled board members, and licking ruling class ass.

Recently, I convinced myself to think you could change a fucked up system from the inside out. This is what doctrinaire anarchists refer to as "reformist" thinking. Stupidly, I've wasted years trying to "reform" so-called progressive organizations from oxymoronic, hierarchical tendencies in "democratic" organizations. You can't make a good omelet out of a bad egg. Non-profits can't be fixed. You can use their resources, pay the bills, and even do amazing projects within them, but when it comes to advancing progressive social change, real change, radical systemic change, you can't do that under any I.R.S. structure. Nope. You gotta take the hard road and do it yourself, with community, without a pay check, just like people have done it for centuries. Revolution is not a job.

Think about it. If a bunch of folks jobs feeding people depend on other folks starving, do you really think the comfortably employed will work to end hunger? They might lessen it, but they need people to go hungry to get a check.

I can't tell you how many people in the progressive non-profit sector feared a Democrat landslide in this last election because they were being bankrolled by anti-Bush sentiment. It felt like the non-profit "activists" needed a fascist president to justify our income fighting fascism.

It's sick.

The revolutionary flames that should be burning through this country are being snuffed out en masses by 501 C3s, professional "activists," greedy non-profit executives, and lackluster boards filled with ruling class creeps justifying their creepiness by "giving back."

I'd love to see a mass boycott of this whole system so we could have some real alternative economies and Democratic structures in the USA.

If folks need day jobs, fine, go work for Greenpeace, but in the evening, consider revolt.

In Colorado Another Politician Wants New Borns to Die From AIDS

My friend Bart just forwarded me this article from the Denver Post about dip-shit, Anti-Christ moralist David Schultheis, a Republican from Colorado Springs:
who voted against a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV because, he said, it would wrongly protect women and their unborn children from the consequences of "sexual promiscuity."

What? What? Are you telling me this Colorado Springs man, probably a Creepy Christian, wants kids to die because their mothers got laid or shot up some dope?

Why do men like Schultheis want people dead to prove their point? This fucker's probably from the denomination known as "The Church of Jesus Christ Should Have Shot Mary Magdalene in Her Whorish Crotch"

Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!

According to this article, just a few days before, Sen. Scott Renfroe from Greely argued:

homosexuality is an "abomination" and a sin comparable to murder in a debate over a bill extending health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Fuckin-A Fascists! Why do you want people unlike you to die?

With Holy Roller penis-knockers like these running around, all I've got to say is, let's raise the corpse of Jesus in Colorado to set these dip-shits queer.

What a bunch of murderous thugs.

Bored in a Meeting? Tell Your Most Scandalous Story!

Late night over drinks, "What's your most scandalous story," is one of my favorite questions to ask and my favorite questions to answer. It cuts to the chase, it assumes friends have more dirt than they wear on their sleeves. In a culture where everyone's trying to cover their secrets up, it makes people just uncomfortable enough to make things interesting.

Whether it's Truth or Dare or Cliff or any other game that makes people reveal something new about themselves and how they relate to the world, it works to get everybody eager and excited.

This is what social movements need to do more of. We need to know more dirt on each other. How often do we sit in a never ending meeting, yacking about social movements, and unwilling to reveal the slightest details about ourselves, our addictions, our desires, our flaws.

People aren't interesting in their heroism, perfection, and smooth social graces. We're interesting in how we smell, where we break-down, and in the depths of our disabilities, perversions, and social failures.

Perhaps this is why folks love tragedy so much--they love to watch a hero fall.

So the next time a meeting is dragging on at your office, I suggest you play a coffee drinking game of I Never.

I never had sex with a co-worker on the conference room table.

Ok, guilty...You know who you are...Drink up.

Shout Out to Fire Witch Rising for Hillarious Commentary on the Closing of The Rocky Mountain News

Check out Fire Witch Rising's funny post about the closing of the Rocky Mountain News!

She's so good!

Roy and Silo: Powerful: Mary Tremont's Poster of Cute Gay Penguins!

Ok, so I guess I'm on a Just Seeds kick again! This poster collective puts out some of the best work of anyone working in print. Check out this friggin' adorable poster Mary Tremonte did of Roy and Silo, the gay penguins at the central park zoo.

Stealing from the Just Seeds Blog, Mary writes:

This is a reworking of a print I made in 2007, the first of a continuing series on queer animals. Roy and Silo are male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park zoo, who were sexual companions for over six years. Zookeepers noticed them sitting on egg-shaped rocks while other penguins were incubating, and they were given a fertilized egg. Roy and Silo patiently incubated it until it hatched. There are dozens of documented cases of same-sex penguin couples in captivity and the wild. After I first created this print, I found that Roy and Silo's story was made into a children's book And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell. This book has been banned at libraries in conservative areas throughout the United States.

All of this brings us to present political struggles over basic civil rights based on gender and sexuality, with Prop 8 and pending legislation in Allegheny County, where I live. Opponents of legal protection for same-sex couples and genderqueers often use the argument that it is 'not natural,' or a behavior rather than an inborn trait, such as race. These examples of biological exuberance counteract those views.

Speaking from the heart, I am always looking for new signifiers and icons, as General Idea did with poodles and baby seals in the 1980's. Respect your spirit! Love is powerful!

Rock on Mary!

Rumor has it one of those gay penguins started doing it with a woman. Now, I don't mean to disrupt just how awesome it is that there are gay penguins, but I think I'm more psyched that they're pansexual penguins too!

Hot Dog!

US Military Interventions Since WWII

Check out Josh MacPhee's poster, US Military Interventions Since WWII. Josh is an anarchist artist whose work decorates the houses of radicals, teachers, artists, and cultural workers alike. Check it out!

Bill Maher's Racist Remark on Afghanistan: "Maybe They're Not Ready For Freedom?"

On Real Time With Bill Maher, Maher just speculated that folks in Afghanistan are not ready for freedom. This wreaks of bizarre social Darwinism, racism, xenophobia, and cultural superiority. The idea that some people are better equipped for freedom, democracy, and human rights infuses so much of American Society. People here really think that the U.S. is superior. I'm disgusted by this attitude. With the U.S. rape rates exceedingly high, police violence rampant, the largest prison population in the world, a pathetic health care system, and a couple brutal wars (one on people in Afghanistan), the U.S. has clearly failed to be ready for Freedom.

But that's the government. That's the people in charge. People, every day folks, whether in Kandihar or Denver are longing to be free from the violence of the United States, imperialism, and brutality.

How Men Can Get Off With a Woman's Vibrator

I can't tell you how many women have told me that the Hitachi Magic Wand is their favorite sex toy. It's a humongous vibrator that looks like an egg beater. It's gigantic, much larger than the clitoris, and legions more ferocious than the hand.

But the Hitachi is not just for women. What I like most about the Hitachi is that if you stick a toy up your bum, say something like the Aneros or a medium sized butt-plug, men can actually use the Hitachi to press into the toy and get the most incredible orgasms via the P-Spot (prostate...the male g-spot). It's super fun and super hot.

Few acts can give a man such an erotic, heightened, ecstatic experience. Check it out, if you haven't.

My Top Six Words That Others Might Find "Kind of Offensive:"

My friend and I spent a couple hours on the trip back from Mississippi hashing out language--what's fucked up to say and what's not. I'm not much of a believer in the idea of "good" and "bad" language. We talked a ton about words like "lame," "sick," and "blind" and what fell into the category of ableist language and exactly how one should respond. I'm not sure we agreed on any conclusions other than the idea that being aware of the cultural/oppressive contexts of language matters.

Not long after the conversation, I received this comment from Brittany, an offended reader bothered by my post, How to Spot a Gay Man in Mississippi.

thats kind of offensive..i dont use the word dyke.

At first I wondered why she was more offended by the word dyke than by the rash generalizations about Mississippians I made. Then I wondered what it was about that word that offended her...particularly from a queer person. I asked and have not heard back. I really wish she elaborated.

Additionally, I wondered what "kind of offensive" meant. Was it that she was not sure if it was tasteless? Did she want a conversation about degrees of offense or was she just being polite.

There are many words that I don't use and perhaps I find them "kind of" offensive when others find them quite normal.

In talking to my friend on the way back from Mississippi, she asked me what words I use that others might find politically offensive. So here it goes. I present:

My Top Five Words That Others Might Find Kind of Offensive:

1) Queer: I like this word, not only because it describes my own sexuality and many others that don't quite fit in, but because once upon a time it was a phrase used to oppress and now, us queers use the phrase to say, "fuck yeah, we're oddball, pervert, badasses, and if you wanna fuck with us, you better watch the fuck out."

2) Faggot: I got called faggot so much as a kid that I began to enjoy the term. Its more risky than queer, more flamboyant, and more in your face. When the gay and lesbian mainstream is all about marriage and property ownership, faggots are all about sexual revolution and wrecking convention. I'm a faggot baby, so give it like you mean it.

3) Cunt: I can't think of a word that describes the vagina, clit, clit legs, labia, cooch better. Well, hmmmm, maybe cooch, but cunt just sounds so hot. (If you don't like the word, of course, I'd refrain from saying it around you. Just let me know.)

4) Dyke: I love dykes. Amen. I love dykes for friends, lovers, and collaborators. Dykes are so much rougher, queerer, and funner than their polite co-queers from the island of Lesbos. Dyke is tough, like a motor-biker, a construction worker, or a muscular woman with a strap-on named Big Red rushing at me from across the room.

5) Slut: This word does a great job describing sex positivity, radical desire, the inherent economic relationship between fucking bodies, and a general loose sensibility I embrace.

drumroll...and for an extra one...

6) Bisexual: So many gay men refer to bisexuals as "fence-sitters," "unable to leave the closet," and "indecisive." Now that trans-politics have taken off, "bisexual" as a term has become unpopular in queer communities, replaced by words like "queer," pansexual," and ambisexual." I like the word because it's all that a lot of kids know to use for themselves, trying to come out in small towns.

Different Faces of Homelessness: Tonight's Homelessness Marathon Broadcast

Free Speech TV will be broadcasting LIVE from The Homelessness Marathon at 7pm Eastern Time, February 23rd, 2009.

Check it out at Dish 9415 and online at http://freespeech.org


Coming to Pass Christian, Mississippi to shoot for The Homelessness Marathon, we imagined taping loads of B-Roll of homeless folks to use in the broadcast. The funny thing about making television is that things don't always work out as expected. Homelessness looks really different in small towns than it does in big cities.

I think we all expected to see folks pushing shopping carts up the street, sleeping in cardboard boxes, passed out on grates, asking for change, and out in public holding signs that say "I'm Homeless. Help." Rather, what we've seen are the destroyed foundations of thousands of homes, many quite lavish, others poor. We've heard tales of rich people being the first to receive government assistance (sound familiar) and poor people still waiting to be evicted (familiar too).

We've seen the bright green, frightfully new MEMA Trailers sitting next to houses smashed up by the storm. Many folks may be pushed out of their houses in the next few months because the government is reclaiming the trailers (stealing homes). For people who've been waiting around for promised government grants to come through that never did, they're shit out of luck.

So what's going to happen to folks displaced by the storm? They'll be evicted, thrown out on the street, and joining millions of others left to die by a state that has more money to kill people in other countries than to help folks here.

So where are homeless folks? Tonight, during the live radio cast, I hope to get a better idea, to hear directly from the people most impacted by Katrina, those stranded outside with nothing left, broken and destroyed by the state. You can check out our broadcast at Free Speech TV.

As for iconic images of the homeless as seen above, they will be scarce in our broadcast. Rather than objectifying folks, we'll be providing a live, national platform for people to be heard. Hope you can check it out.

Five Reasons the Civil War Could Erupt Again

All these brainless white people chatter about how America is in a post-race era because Obama has taken charge of the country. Here are my top five reasons this country is spinning ass-backwards into a sinking pit of quick-sand poop, a Civil War reenactment of grotesque proportions where poor Southerners fight gay Northerners and nobody gets laid.

1) At the gas station last night, here in Mississippi, a creepy gas station attendant with prominent skinhead tattoos looked at me and whispered, "Oh great, another Colorado Bitch. Fuckin' Yankees."

2) Mississippi still has a Confederate Flag stuck slap dab in the middle of the state flag just to remind the rest of the Union that the South's gonna do it again.

3) GOP Governors, convinced that taking handouts is as bad as sodomy. have united in a front to refuse money from the Federal Bailout while folks in their states suffer.

4) Long Island assholes love to talk shit on the South--both the "racist rednecks" and the "dirty Mexicans." (Why do hurricane's never strike up there?)

5) Like Robin Hood on opposite day, the bankers just ripped off public funds and gave to the rich. Do they want to get spanked by the masses?

There's about to be a national prison riot and this Titanic of a nation is about to sink into the Arctic which is melting so fast it's pouring out of my spigot in Mississippi. Guess what ya'll. We're totally screwed and the whole mother is going down.

How to Spot a Gay Man in Mississippi?

They have guts, facial hair, and very masculine tattoos. I try to give them the eye and they smile and wave. So I'm dying to figure out how to spot a fellow-traveler, a big ole' homo, a hot and hairy big-bellied bear man in Mississippi. All these Southern men look like bears and all their wives look like dykes. I love this place, but somehow, I get the feeling that if I try to take a bear to bed (or for that matter his dyke wife), he might end up pulling out the bible, burning a cross, or kicking my ass from bed to a rope dangling from the nearest oak tree. So somebody tell me--which of this trade is fair trade and how do I tell the homos from the nonos.

Urgh, I want a big Southern Man

The Economy is Dead - Art Is Alive: Props to Dylan Miner

I just checked out Dylan Miner's new print: Arte está viva…La economía está muerte. I sure hope Miner's on-point with this one. While our economy is indeed dead, the proposition that art is alive slaps the face of decades of proclamations about its death. Good news that its alive and serving folks through Just Seeds. I just hope that the rest of the art establishment catches up and starts serving the dying, starving, sick, and oppressed--the vast majority of people in this wacky world trying to get by without getting screwed.

Kudos to Dylan and the Just Seeds folks for their ongoing art for social, economic, and environmental justice.

Lotsa love!

The South Won't Do It Again: Thoughts on the Confederate Flag

Hanging out during Mardis Gras in Pass Christian, Mississippi, a city draped in Confederate Flags, I get a gut feeling that a deep love of old Southern values has not died. Unlike Virginia and Tennessee, Rebel Flags do not accompany American Flags. Rather, they stand alone, proud symbols of a defeated cause, a depressing cause, a cause as pathetic as it is forgotten.

Nobody knows better than these Confederate Flag waving Rebels that the South cannot do it again, that Mississippi, one of the nation's poorest states, has been forgotten. From slavery, to lynchings, to a government that prefers to invest Katrina Relief money into ports rather than people, Mississippi cannot help but view itself as a dying phoenix, burnt to ashes, longing to rise again, clinging to its despicable past to distract itself from the violence of the present, a violence caused by Northern neglect.

The Confederate Flag often causes anger in Northern people who believe their regions excel in social justice. What these self-righteous folks forget is that the North has a history as bloody and violent, as racist and deadly as the South. From police violence in San Francisco and New York to fast-rising hate groups like World Church of the Creator in Chicago,no part of this occupied nation founded in genocide and slavery lacks a bloodbath history and a reprehensibly racist present.

The Confederate Flag symbolizes poor, broken white people's desires to live the lives of slave-owners again. Disturbing? Yes. Threatening. Not particularly.

M ore threatening to people of color are the criminal bankers siphoning the people's money, violent cops, pre-prison schools, and the prison industrial complex. The tawdry impotence of the Confederate Flag and the broke white folks who wave it have little to do with the racism, genocidal tendencies, and violence our system continues to fuel itself on. These Rebels are victims too.

Update from Mississippi about Homelessness Marathon

I have a few moments to write so pardon the rush job.

We just finished shooting short docs for The Homelessness Marathon. We arrived back at the hotel we're staying at where Kevin and Erin are starting to log and capture footage from today's interview with Jeremy Alderson, AKA Nobody, founder and host of The Homelessness Marathon and other incredible community activists.

Seeing the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav has been troubling. Knowing that so many people are without homes, stuck in MEMA trailers they're about to lose to a state whose bureaucracy has failed the people should compel all people to action.

This week I read an article in The Nation that discussed the term Kafkaesque. The government's massive failure to release money to the survivors of Katrina in Mississippi is a glaring reminder of how dysfunctional bureaucracies fail people.

We're all tired but excited for Monday night's broadcast that will be available on Dish 9415 and freespeech.org.

We're off to chill out. More updates later.

Airport Check-in Person Talks Dirt on the U.S. Economy and the Corporate Media

Kevin and I just got to Denver International. We had a long conversation with the woman at the check-in counter about how screwed up all the foreclosures are. She was indignant that at a hearing with bankers a homeless woman was only given 1 minute to talk about her struggle.

You can tell the political climate in the country has changed when the folks at the airport enjoy talking shit on the economy and the corporate media.

Well, off to check-in!

Headed to the Annual Homelessness Marathon TV Broadcast

Gentle Readers--

Thanks for understanding the lag. I've come down with a nasty cold and have been in recovery. That being said, I've done my best to sleep it off and hell or high water I'm headed down to Pass Christian, Mississippi to shoot the annual Homelessness Marathon Radio Broadcast with Free Speech TV. The show will be available on our regular channel on Dish Network (9415) and live online (fingers crossed) at Free Speech TV Monday 7pm EST-10pm EST.

This annual broadcast is an incredible event that brings the voices of homeless folks, advocates, and activists to radio listeners and tv viewers across the nation and puts pressure on local and national politicians and business people trying to screw the poor.

Our crew will be arriving in Houston Texas this afternoon and driving to Pass Christian. Tomorrow we will be up early to start filming interviews with a variety of folks at advocacy groups and Jeremy Alderson, the coordinator of the event.

The week should be interesting. Check back here for travel updates, observations, and other tidbits. I'll post as I have access!

Somebody Should Run Over the Automakers Before They Steal More

Guess what General Motors, cars are going out of style. If the government bails you out, it's because you're yesterdays news and they're backwards. Stop asking for money when you spent the last 100 years slowing down technology to help out your buddies in the oil industry.

Listen Obama, instead of wasting more money on this unscrupulous, ecocidal industry, why don't you give the $14 billion they're asking for to community bike shops who can barely raise a thousand dollars. Why don't you give the $14 billion to Detroit's schools, community spaces, and art's centers? Why waste it on yesterday's aristocracy?

Focus on the Family's Dobson Declares War on the Civil Rights of LGBTQ People and Women

What creeps me out about Religious Right zealots like James Dobson is that not only do they prescribe bizarre "moral" codes for their cultist Christian followers, but they also have a broad disdain for civil rights and civil liberties.

In James Dobson's February Newsletter, he waxes on about his enthusiasm that the United States has a black president and then goes on to declare war against the civil rights agenda of the new administration.

In frightfully militant words, this war-mongering Christian states:

We at Focus on the Family® and Focus on the Family Action™ will do our best to defend the values and principles that have characterized this ministry from the beginning. Though our "army" may be smaller, certainly in Congress and in the state houses of government, we will continue the struggle. One of my favorite historical personalities was British Prime Minister during World War II, Winston Churchill. He said during the darkest hour when his country was facing defeat and enslavement, "Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

These Christian war-mongers are the greatest threat to the safety and security of queer people, people of color, and women in the country. They impose their ideology by attacking people's psychological well being. They have declared psychological warfare against women and the LGBTQ community and framing their debate in terms of war will stop at nothing to advance their cause. Until this neo-fascist regime loses power, all queer people and women are at risk of attack by their "army."

Is Friendster Having a Comeback as A Clandestine Social Networking Site For Hipster Terrorists?

This is the million dollar question for those of us who were introduced to social networking via Friendster, the social networking site that fell out favor after installing stalking functionality. We wait and wait for it to come back, maintaining profiles, keeping our information on the site, wishing it would be hip again.

Alas. Myspace kicked Friendster in the pie hole and now Facebook beat Myspace to a pulp. So what happened to Friendster? Well, let's just say, I think it's the super-secret, hip underground space where menacing bomb-throwers conspire to swarm the American Empire wearing designer hoodies and riding fixed gear bikes.

Cops Defile Valentines Day in Annual "Sweetheart Sting"

Is it just me or is the idea of police defiling Valentines Day by showing up at suspects houses pretending to be flower delivery people a tasteless crime against love?

According to the Denver Post:

Northglenn police arrested 16 wanted people in a Valentine's Day sweep in which officers posed as delivery people to contact suspects.

Apparently, these creepy cops show up in a van that says "Flower Delivery."

If this annual sweep is their idea of a good time, I think they should eat a box of butt-chocolate candies. No wonder cop suicide rates are so high.

CIA Wimps Use Robots to Blow Up Pakistani Peasants: This Isn't War--This is a Video Game

Anyone who read the NY Times article U.S. Airstrike Kills 30 in Pakistan and saw that the CIA is flying drones over Afghanistan and Pakistan to kill insurgents realized quickly that this is not a war we're fighting. It's a video game.

In America's new style of war, a handful of Play Station nerds sit off-site in a bunker somewhere eating pizza and blowing up peasants. While real peasants are sitting down for dinner, holding hands in prayer, a gigantic "drone," ala remote control plane, flies overhead, shoots out missiles, and blows the peaceful family to smithereens.

This is a South Park fantasy atrocity born to life through the cowardice of the CIA and the American Military.

Shame on this murdersome government, too scared to fight.

It's no longer the sexist phrase, "Fight Like a Man." Now it's gender neutral and more insidious: "Fight Like a Robot."

In other news for America's Wimpiest, the U.S. Military is planning on giving immigrant military recruits citizenship status. Their justification: Americans are too culturally inept to be diplomatic in other countries. One has to wonder if this bribery is occurring because American citizens know so-well since Vietnam that our military is corrupt and fails to serve the constitution.

Even from the perspective of World War II soldiers, deemed as heroes by most Americans, the U.S. military strategies are little-more than chicken-feces, knee quivering embarrassments to this "great" country.

These wars suck and people should not fight in them. It's even worse to send immigrants off to die for citizenship status in this genocidal nation. I'm headed upstairs to send my drone to fetch me brunch.

Happy Valentines Day to Heartbroken Queer Freedom Fighters, Lovers, and Friends

Valentines Day: a day of love and possibility, shame for single folks, gloating for coupled folks, and awkward scheduling for the polyamorous. I am happily in love today--in love with the concept of radical, queer sex, polyamory, self-righteous anarchist puritanism, hedonistic defiance, and political rejection from the progressive mainstream (who as you probably know is cheating on democratic structures and having a love affair with authoritarianism and the IRS via 501c3s.)

This year, failing to collectivize an organization I deeply love, I once again remember that political failure is normal, striving for beautiful things doesn't always work, and political breakups within movements are painful. Because I feel a bit heartbroken from my misguided love affair with liberalism and the non-profit industrial complex, this Valentines Day, I cry a little.

Nonetheless, I'm happily in love with Hillary and about a dozen other friends, am constantly inspired by folks working for social change (winners and losers alike), and long with all my heart for the romantic possibility of an egalitarian world. With these things, I am in love and will live and die for them.

This evening I am going on a date with my dearest, sweetheart Hillary, pedaling back from some fancy restaurant to a slow-dance party where Denver's finest, queer punks, anarchists, and misfits will gently rock the night back and forth like awkward middle-schoolers in love.

Ah, sweet Denver. Ah, sweet Love.

Militant Iraqi Art Show and the Connection Between Militancy and Art

Today's NY Times Front Page reported that "In Iraq, Militant Group Takes on a New Role: Patron of Arts."

According to the article, Sheik Mazin al-Saedi stated:

"The goal was 'to show the entire world that we are not as the media portrays us, a movement that believes only in bearing arms and knows no culture other than that of violence.'"

The militants titled the show "Beacons of Humanity." I hope that major U.S. Art institutions decide to bring the show to the U.S.

From my perspective, the world would be a lot better off in more spaces were open to militant movements' art. Al-Saedi is correct in his thinking that the media portrays militants as rash, violent thugs with little-to-no sense of culture, when in reality, militant movements often consist of the best read, most aesthetically advanced elements of society.

Perhaps this is why, so often, the greatest artists and intellectuals are also involved in militant struggle and ideas. Roque Dalton, Walt Whitman, Cherrie Moraga, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, and Mark Rothko are several classic examples.

Top Five: Why Jesus Would Be Pissed at the USA

1) Jesus would be pissed if he saw these bankers getting billions of dollars in bailouts with homeless people dying on the street. Watch out Wall Street! Jesus has a flame-thrower and he's coming for you!

2) Jesus would be pissed off at all these mega-churches with fast-food restaurants and finger pointing preachers. Watch out Mega-Churches! Jesus has a bulldozer and he's coming for you!

3) Jesus would be pissed because of all the corpses that have piled up in the name of our flag: Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Palestine, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, the list goes on and on. Even worse, Jesus would think, "Damn, I thought the cross was the nastiest way to die...look at all these poor suckers! Watch out Pentagon! Jesus has his ass on a missile and he's flying towards you!

4) Jesus would be pissed off because the United States supports Israel which acts like Rome. As a Palestinian Jew, Jesus would be sick of the self-righteous Zionists who try to use the Holocaust as an excuse for a new genocide. Watch out Israel, Jesus is Palestinian and he's walking towards you!

5) Jesus would be pissed off because the United States builds borders and fear and war machines. Jesus liked crossing borders freely. Watch out Homeland Security. Jesus just met with Bin Ladin and he's headed towards you!

For Valentine's Day: MSNBC's Top 5 Hetero Romance Tips + One Queer's Top 5 Guide to What Hetero Men Should Know!

MSNBC is busy using Valentine's Day to bolster conventional notions of gender, heterosexuality, desire, and love. This time, they're justifying the creepy gender binary with so-called "scientific studies" that help men please their women. As always, the article is written for men.

According to the article:

Gals want looks and smarts. While you men can't control those two characteristics much, take heart: Money and character are also important to women.

Even though hetero dudes might be ugly and stupid, rest assured that money matters. Just find yourself a a woman and buy her. Buy her a dinner. A ring. A house. Her body? Wait a minute, suddenly your significant other sounds like a sex-worker...I guess it's OK if it's consensual...

Oh, wait, the economy tanked so I guess you can just use your positive disposition. If you've not been emotionally destroyed by poverty and succumbed to national depression, you still might please your mate.

(Mate is such an unfortunate term...It makes heteros sound like breeding swine.)

OK, so here is my own top 5 list!

THE TOP 5 THINGS HETERO MEN CAN LEARN FROM FAGS LIKE ME THIS VALENTINE'S DAY!

1) Bend over baby, you've got a nice rump and nobody to go out with.
2) Inside that rump is a walnut shaped do-hickey called P-R-O-S-T-A-T-E that will make you feel like one of those snake-handling holy rollers on acid.
3) Now that you've found your prostate and Jesus inside, turn around and give me that come-hither finger wag on mine.
4) Uh, first grab the lube...Ok...Much better.
5) I don't care if you tested negative three years ago and have only been with your virgin girlfriend since. I like my sausage wrapped!

Director of National Intelligence claims economic and environmental crisis will lead to terrorism, another word for self-defense.

February 12th, 2009, Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence published The Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It's findings probably won't shock you.

The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications. The crisis has been ongoing for over a year, and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom. Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the Great Depression. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism. Though we do not know its eventual scale, it already looms as the most serious global economic and financial crisis in decades.

So why exactly is Blair alluding to the 20's and 30's? Well, you guessed it, it ain't Al Quaida. It's class war.

In the 20s and 30s, millions of people worldwide realized that thieves controlled the capitalist system. Their answer? Mass organized demonstrations, revolutions, and a proliferation of Independent Media via self-published newspapers that threatened to tople corrupt power. In Russia, it did. Well, same as now, sometimes chickens do come home to roost. (Sorry Malcolm and Ward, I just couldn't think of a better phrase...)

The Director of National Intelligence is...well...intelligent enough to know that if a robber enters the house of a gun-owner, the thief might not leave alive. Same with bankers who steal from the Treasury and homeowners. Same with a government that sent its children to die overseas. Same with an international public fed up with U.S. Imperialism.

We are sitting on a powder-keg that's sitting on a nuclear weapon that's sitting on anthrax that's sitting on depleted uranium. In short, the United States Government and its capitalist daddies have created conditions that justify violence and many people around the world are ready to explode.

Mr. Blair's assessment of American benevolence extends well beyond mine. He writes:
We are nevertheless in a strong position to shape a world reflecting universal aspirations and values that have motivated Americans since 1776: human rights; the rule of law; liberal market economics and social justice. Whether we can succeed will depend on actions we take here at home—restoring strong economic growth and maintaining our scientific and technological edge and defending ourselves at reasonable cost in dollars without violating our civil liberties. It will also depend on our actions abroad, not only in how we deal with regions, regimes and crises, but also ATA FEB 2009–IC STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD 45 in developing new multilateral systems, formal or informal, for effective international cooperation in trade and finance, in neutralizing extremist groups using terrorism, in controlling the proliferation of WMD, developing codes of conduct for cyberspace and space, and in mitigating and slowing global climate change.

So even though Blair and I strongly disagree about history (get real Blair, in 1776 our forefathers were slave owners and Indian butchers, not social justice--human rights oriented saints), he's right that the best way to combat terrorism is to combat the reasons for terrorism: economic disparity and escalating global climate change. If this unequal economic system continues, the blood of the ruling class will flow. Its happened before when people concentrated (stole) wealth and it will happen again. Oh, and by the way, this shouldn't be called terrorism when it's really self-defense.

MSNBC Reports Women Armed With Pink Panties Target Hard-line Hindu Patirarchs. Why Don't We Loose Americans Do The Same to the Southern Baptists

Legend has it that certain friend of mine, who shall go nameless, once had hot sex at the right-wing terrorist training camp, Focus on the Family, and put her panties on the projector in the screening room. While her individualistic (well, actually couplistic) act could be seen as a small act of resistance, MSNBC reports:

Thousands of Indians, many fuming over a recent assault on women in a pub, are vowing to fill bars on Valentine's Day and send cartons of pink panties to a radical Hindu group that has branded outgoing females immoral.

A "consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women," founded by four Indian women on social networking Web site Facebook has, in a matter of days, attracted more than 25,000 members with over 2,000 posts about the self-appointed moral police.

The women said their mission was to go bar-hopping on February 14 and send hundreds of pink knickers to Sri Ram Sena, the militant Hindu group that has said pubs are for men, and that women should stay at home and cook for their husbands.

Thousands of Indians, many fuming over a recent assault on women in a pub, are vowing to fill bars on Valentine's Day and send cartons of pink panties to a radical Hindu group that has branded outgoing females immoral.

So my question is: why don't women, no let me reframe that, why don't all us dirty American hussies get wads of our sexiest, dirtiest underwear and send it to the Southern Baptist Convention this year? Those Right Wing rape-mongers deserve to be drenched in the sexy fluids of U.S. self-identified whores!

Happy News From Oakland: 28 Misdemeanor Charges Dropped in Oscar Grant Rebellion

According to illvox:

Over 130 people have been arrested in connection with protests surrounding the murder of Oscar Grant III. This morning, the first arraignments were to be held for over 30 people charged with misdemeanors and felonies at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland. Charges for 28 individuals charged with misdemeanors were dropped, while one person with a misdemeanor and two people with felonies are still facing their charges in court today. The next arraignments for those arrested in connection with the Oscar Grant Rebellion are February 9th, 13th, and 17th. The Oakland 100 Support Committee requests that supporters keep the pressure on until all charges are dropped.

For More Info on the Oakland 100 go to: Support the Oakland 100!

There are many more folks facing charges. Show them support!

CNN Reports on Obama Helping Homeless Woman; NY Times Reports on Obama helping Millionaires. Why did Millionaires Get Bailed Out First?

According to CNN, homeless woman Henrietta Hughes approached Barack Obama for help at a town-hall meeting in Fort Myers Florida.

Just days after the Treasury Department proposed two-trillion dollars for bankers, the President answered, "We're going to do everything we can to help you, but there are a lot of people like you."

Obama set up a meeting between Hughes and his staff.

According to the article:

Chene Thompson -- the wife of state Rep. Nicholas Thompson, R-Fort Myers -- offered Hughes and her son a house in nearby La Belle rent-free, according to a spokeswoman, and she is interested in taking it.

What's remarkable is not only the political pandering in helping one homeless person while letting millions die, but also realizing that millions are dying as the government gives handouts to bankers.

Obama was frank when he stated "there are many like you." Perhaps this is why the Democrats and Republicans have first strived to save the minority population-- the top 5% of the nation's wealthiest people--the bankers and ruling class who control 70% of the nation's wealth.

It's hard not to recall Allen Salkin's words in his New York Times article, You Try to Live on 500K in This Town:

Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.

Well, I'm glad to know the administration has its priorities straight in setting a cap on bail-out money at $500,000 when women like Harriet Hughes, not lucky enough to directly approach savior-Obama, will be raped prostituting themselves on the streets so as not to freeze to death tonight.

NY Times Article About New Secretary of Energy Fails to Mention Reduction is the Only Way to Prevent of Ecological Collapse

In elementary school, I was taught the 3 r's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. What I liked about this simple phrase, particularly the first 2, was that it was logical, simple to follow, and would ultimately save the planet.

The NY Times reports the following:
Steven Chu, the new secretary of energy, said Wednesday that solving the world’s energy and environment problems would require Nobel-level breakthroughs in three areas: electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops that can be turned into fuel.

We do not require Nobel-Level breakthroughs, as much as teutonic shifts in our consumption pattern. We'll learn more from indigenous communities who have successfully sustained themselves for millenia than from all the Nobel Laurreattes in the world.

Problems riddle both Chu's priorities and the Times article. The Secretary of Energy fails to mention reduction as the most important strategy in stopping the world's energy and environmental crisis. Why?

The idea of reduction is rarely popular. It requires people cutting back on their commodities, and most peopel prefer more than less. Chu's desire for scientific solutions that will allow Americans to maintain absurdly large levels of consumption will lead us towards certain ecological catastrophe and further wars.

In justifying the dangerous and absurd "clean coal" fantasy, Chu cites nitrogen fertilizers as a life-saving wonder of science:

Dr. Chu, who once called coal “a nightmare” in the way it is currently used, said the United States must also lead the world in finding a way to burn the fuel cleanly, because other countries with big coal reserves, like India and China, will not turn away from coal.

But Dr. Chu said such developments were not impossible. At the turn of the last century, he noted, scientists like Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch made Nobel-winning discoveries that allowed the development of cheap nitrogen fertilizers, saving Europe from starvation.

What Dr. Chu negelects is that those same fertilizers have contaminated the vast majority of North American and European waterways leading to a dramatic escallation of cancer. In celebrating scientific breakthroughs, he neglects to mention the scientific fantasies that never worked, that led to deeper crisis, that brought us into this mess to begin with.

Electric batteries need lithium and solar power needs basic metals. Both of these require extensive mining. If history is our guide, mining has devestated the environment, caused massive wars, and enormous labor exploitation.

Currenlty, biofuel is an unlikely candidate as we're already spending much to much of the earth's resources growing monocrops for fuel rather than a diversity of healthy foods. In order to grow enough crops to sustain biofuels, we would lose significant portions of space to sustain ourselves and ultimately use up the resource of the land.

Chu's philosophy as Secretary of Energy should prioritize persuading the public to use less, funding public educational campaigns about the perils of excessive consumption, and mandating strict regulations on energy use. It is noble that Chu is trying so-called green solutions, but the politics of optimism and scientific daydreaming are interferring with the harsh reality that if people are to survive, we have to do away with the industrial infrastructure we've grown to depend on.

Boulder High's Student Worker Club Stops Protesting Pledge of Allegiance and Starts Campaign To Rename School After Obama

What kind of weirdo world are we living in. The "Student Worker Club" at Boulder High School is pushing to name their high school after Barack Obama. I mean, come on ya'll, what happened to the days kids snuck off campus to conspire against the government while listening to Dead Prez?

According to the Denver Post, Ben Raderstorf, president of the club said:

"We think the election of Barack Obama is one of the most significant events in our country and shows the progress we've made in this country," Ben said Wednesday between classes. "We think he is deserving of recognition like this."

I'm sure Barack Obama will be happy to know that the creepy white paradise of Boulder has honored him by renaming their school; however, doing so appears to be another act of classic Boulder cultural appropriation. Obama's victory is white Boulder's. Yuck.

According to the Post, Mr. Raderstorf is proud because the Student Worker Club has moved beyond being an organization that boycotted the "Pledge of Allegiance," to the following:

"We've reinvented ourselves," he said. "We want to build up the school. It's quite the opposite" of the situation with the 'Pledge of Allegiance,' he said, explaining that renaming the school Barack Obama High would never be considered unpatriotic.

"We initiated this campaign in order to honor the momentous achievement of this African-American, inspire the community with his ideals of unity and hope, and reflect the progressive spirit that is shared by both Barack Obama and our school environment,"

Caught up in Obama Mania, Mr. Raderstorf neglects to note that Obama's policies are far from progressive. Escalating in Afghanistan and off-shore drilling hardly demonstrate a progressive agenda.

I don't know Mr. Raderstorf. I mean, I appreciate the idea that you want to fill your community with hope, but don't you think examining the racist impact of rezoning laws in Boulder might be a better place to start? It's one thing to promote naming the school after Obama. It's another to challenge white supremacy in that creepy racist town.

Baseball Star's Barebacking Girlfriend Sues Roberto Alomar for Unprotected Sex

According to The Associated Press:

An ex-girlfriend of Roberto Alomar filed an explosive lawsuit alleging the former baseball star insisted on unprotected sex for four years despite having AIDS.

This is perhaps the strangest AIDS story I've ever heard. Instead of caring for her partner, Ilya Dall demonized and criminalized him. If she didn't want to have unprotected sex with him, she shouldn't have.

According to the article:

Dall said the two began dating in spring 2002 and had unprotected sex for the next four years. She said that on several occasions during that time, Alomar refused to get tested for HIV, despite severe fatigue, sores on his mouth and throat, a constant cough and an infection of the esophagus that is associated with AIDS.

Well, guess what Ilya, if you have a partner who is showing symptoms of AIDS, rather, if you have a partner at all, perhaps you should start using rubbers. Furthermore, if you have a partner who has fallen ill, perhaps you should care.

Dall tested negative. Its strange that she would sue for $15 million rather than breath a sigh of relief.

PEOPLE: Like you haven't heard this a thousand times. Bare-Backing is a terrible idea. Don't do it with your partner. Don't do it with a stranger. Like Nancy Regan says, "Just Say No." Or rather, just grab a friggin' condom...even if you're doing it with a hot-ass base-ball player like Roberto Alomar.

Oh, and Roberto, I hope to see you in the streets fighting for all the folks screwed by the disease with a lot less money than you.

MSNBC Reports Judges Lock Up Kids to Make Millions of Dollars

MSNBC's article Pa. Judges Accused of Jailing Kids For Cash sums up this horrifying story succinctly:

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

At first, I was shocked to think that judges would be profiting locking kids up, but then, I thought better. We live in a country that has locked up 2.3 million people to expand prison industries in impoverished rural areas looking stimulate local economies ravaged by big box stores. We live in a country that replaces traditional workers with prison labor because it's cheaper. These Judges represent the extreme impulse to profit off of incarceration.

Judge Mark Ciaverella claimed:

“I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.”

Judge Ciaverella, I beg to differ. You have fulfilled the role judges play in our society. You have profited from the suffering of others.

Excavating Perfection: The Photos of Carolyn Gentile

Last night I met up with Denver photographer Carolyn Gentile at the Vine Street Pub, a friendly restaurant with an arsenal of handcrafted beers. It’s Stout Month at the Pub. Over beer and burgers, we discussed her latest photography

Traditionally, Gentile’s work displays a deep commitment to portraiture as she documents friends and lovers flirting, sipping coffee, and living lives of extraordinary beauty. Her portrait work serves as a family photo-album of Denver’s radical, underground, queer community.

“I’m still really amazed at getting to look at the details of how beautiful people are and how perfect everybody is physically,” She said.

Excavating aesthetic perfection in her subjects’ mundane rituals, she finds power in quiet moments of intimacy and solitude. Her work documents strong emotions, occasionally light-hearted, but often grave. Like the music of The Mountain Goats or the films of Jonas Mekas, Gentile’s photographs find ecstasy within private worlds.

Recently, she has taken her work from the domestic to the streets.

“Lately, I’ve been exploring street photography and am trying to work out how you do that in a casual way and still have formal success,” She said. “I’ve been going around neighborhoods taking portraits of streets, houses, alleys, and people in public settings.

Gentile handles her subjects like a fly on the wall, a fly who happens to rigorously compose images and madly loves its surroundings.

“I think there are so many beautiful neighborhoods in Denver and I love getting that on film.”

Whether she’s scrutinizing the rotating door at the 15^th Street Telegraph Building or obsessing over primary colors in abandoned alleys, she continues to document people within neglected landscapes.

“There are so many beautiful buildings in Denver and a lot of them are being torn down to make condos.”

Gentile’s photos are elegiac. As conformity threatens alternative queer cultures and wealthy white yuppies replace gritty urban centers with sterile, faux-lofts, she documents endangered architectural species of Denver with a deft sense of composition and an uncompromising devotion to excavating perfection.

Sadly, her work has gone unnoticed by an art world all too complicit in the destruction of our cities. Not rushing towards the commercial art world, Gentile continues to hone her craft, build her portfolio, and discover perfection in daily life.

Boston Globe Says, "Cheap is Cool." I Bet They're Not As Cool As We Are!

Boston Globe writer Johnny Diaz wrote an article, "Being Cheap is the New Rule of Cool."

Oh boy, Johnny, it sure is cool that folks are drinking six-packs rather than going to hipster bars, making coffee rather than going to Starbucks, and shopping at thrift stores. Uh, maybe you forgot that most of the country lives like this and outside of a few condescending, jerk-O rich folks, we've always been cool. So cool that we eat out of dumpsters. So cool that we ride bikes not buses. So cool that we're the first to get laid off, the first to go homeless on the streets.

Look Johnny, what's totally NOT COOL is that folks shopping at screwed up corporate chains like Wal-Mart are considered hot-stuff. This is terrible. It's corporations like Wal-Mart that got us into this economic mess to begin with by screwing over small businesses and local economies. I'd rather see the indignant, broke-ass masses burning Wal-Mart down.

What's not cool is McDonalds burning down the rain forest and bringing heart-attack inducing food into poor neighborhoods because corrupt organic chains like Whole Foods have a monopoly on health and use it to serve rich, white people.

What's not cool is people getting take out and not leaving a tip for the hard-working people behind the counter. Johnny, paying tips IS cool. It fuels the local economy.

Furthermore, if you think that being thrifty is cool, you should check out the escalating numbers of homeless folks, the social service budgets being slashed, the lay-offs occurring throughout the country.

Urgh. Well, I'm off to be cool.

Goldman Sachs CEO says,"Wall Street Lost Track of its Larger Public Obligations"

How stupid does Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs think we are? The New York Times reports that he stated:
"It is abundantly clear that we are here amidst broad public anger at our industry...Many people believe--and, in many cases, justifiably so--that Wall Street lost sight of its larger public obligations."

Lloyd, I can see the feces dripping from that creepy little grin of yours.

What public obligations are you referring to? Sweat shops? Funding ecologically catastrophic corporations? Under paying tomato pickers?

Wall Street has been clumsily deep throating the global public for decades by funding capitalist ventures that exploit labor and wreck the earth. Katrina Vanden Huevel's essay Slavery in the Union cites Goldman Sachs as having its 12 top execs bringing home $200 million in bonuses while being one of the private equity firms controlling Burger King's stock when Burger King bought tomatoes picked by migrant workers in Immokalee, Florida. The 12 top executives at Goldman Sachs, on track with their commitment to the public, took home twice as much money as all 10,000 tomato pickers in Florida.

Well, Mr. Blankenfield, if your public obligations involve being fair to the public, I have to wonder if you were drunk when you spoke to Congress, and if you are still drunk, I hope you black-out in a pool of hypocritical vomit.

Thief Says: "We are Americans First, and Bankers Second"

Micro-blogging the Banker Hearings today, the New York Times captured this choice quote from Wells Fargo's head thief John "Good God I Suck" Stumpf:

"We are Americans first and bankers second."

No, Mr. Stumpf, first you are thieves, then you are jerks, and finally, you are bankers.

John "Jerk" Mack of Morgan Stanley said,

“I know that the Americans are outraged about compensation costs.”

Yeah. You think?

In an act of grotesque understatement, Kenneth "Dug My Grave" Lewis of Bank of America said,

“We understand that taxpayers are angry” and they deserve to know how we are spending their money"

These butt-nuggets have no idea how mad Americans are. They have no idea what its like to go hungry, to sleep on the street, to be beaten by cops, and assaulted by strangers...not yet...

But if they keep stealing from the treasury, these Mafioso criminals will get mugged so bad they'll barely be able to blabber about their misguided patriotism.

Someone really ought to punish them. Obama should get out of the beds of bankers and into the streets with everybody else.

Gates Reviews Policy on Banning Photos of Soldiers' Caskets; Media Still Covers War Badly

The New York Times reports that Robert Gates is considering lifting the ban on publishing photos of dead soldiers' caskets.

While I'm always happy to see censorship bite the big one, I can't help but think that the media is a bit glib in its eagerness to photograph these caskets after doing such a terrible job covering the wars. At what point with the editors at newspapers realize that the death of their industry is due to the fact that they sold out to the state's censorial laws to begin with? When do they see that the death of print journalism is not entirely dependent on technological shifts, but editorial changes?

More sadly, when will Gates ban these wars that get the soldiers shot?