February 19, 2011 archive

Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training, so the end of winter must be nearing.  Ojala! That’s good, because your bloguero has an acute case of seasonal affective grumpiness (SAG) that just won’t quit.  Tonight there is a high wind warning.  That means gusts of over 60 mph.  If Winter is going out to go out like a lamb, at the moment it’s acting like Rodan.  But enough about him and your bloguero, here’s what this week brought to read and look at:

Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Union Workers features a great historical video and Pete Seeger singing Solidarity Forever.  Normally, your bloguero would have cross posted this, so consider it a gift if you read this far.

Almost Spring Haiku.  Things started to melt, your bloguero was inspired. Briefly.

Futbol, Galeano, Mexico a story by Uruguayan genius Eduardo Galeano about football and Mexico and some context by your bloguero.

Hello Cruel World!, an invitation to blog readers who might be looking for a new place to hang out to visit Port Writers Alliance blogs.

Haiku  that wonder about what one tells oneself, about one’s inner voice.

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  See you next week. if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.  

CHOWING DOWN

 

The Japan Food Service Association said that sales at restaurants around the nation rose by 0.5 percent in 2010.

Overall, the number of customers at restaurants around the country dropped, but sales per customer increased.

Thanks to discount promotions, sales at fast food restaurants increased 2.1 percent, but earnings at izakaya and family restaurants dropped.

A trio of Japanese food companies announced a joint effort to sell processed meats in Vietnamaimed at middle- and upper-class consumers. The firms hope to sell ¥300 million worth of goods by 2013.

Just twelve short days ago, many of us participated in the annual rituals surrounding the Superbowl. As in the very first AFL-NFL World Championship Game held at the Los Angeles Coliseum on January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers prevailed in the 2011 spectacle, albeit less convincingly as during their much earlier 35-10 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. Some referred to the 1967 championship as the Supergame, and only later was it renamed Superbowl I. In 1967, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr won MVP honors, an honor recently bestowed upon his present-day counterpart, Aaron Rodgers.

Although the song was composed in November of 1966, this week’s selection was released on January 9, 1967, six days prior to the inaugural Superbowl game and although it rose no higher than #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, it is ranked #63 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  It was also rated as the eighth best song of 1967 by Acclaimed Music.  This song was this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group’s only Top Forty hit, selling more than one million copies, earning Gold Record status.

CHOWING DOWN

 

The Japan Food Service Association said that sales at restaurants around the nation rose by 0.5 percent in 2010.

Overall, the number of customers at restaurants around the country dropped, but sales per customer increased.

Thanks to discount promotions, sales at fast food restaurants increased 2.1 percent, but earnings at izakaya and family restaurants dropped.

A trio of Japanese food companies announced a joint effort to sell processed meats in Vietnamaimed at middle- and upper-class consumers. The firms hope to sell ¥300 million worth of goods by 2013.

I was recently banned from Daily Kos for posting a comment that contained a poorly and irresponsibly described traumatic story from my youth, when I was 13 years old, living in Queens, New York City. Up until recently, I refrained from telling people that I was the victim of a targeted ambush “Racist Hate Crime,” although I clearly was. I don’t like to describe myself as a “victim” … I don’t like to think of myself as “victim” I knew it was, when it happened, I just never wanted to become bitter, afraid, or filled with rage. The incident scarred me, in no small way, even though I came out of it, relatively physically unscathed, save for a minor bruise to my right cheek, but my psyche, however, was dealt a severe blow. I will attempt to explain, herein, a more responsible, respectful and clear version of the incident, and the role I personally played. RadioGirl posted a diary, discussing Racism, and within that diary, my comment was one of the prominent items she discussed.

She described my story as “chilling.” She was right.

This was I was 13/14 years old, when I was jumped by 5 black kids. Yes, it was an admittedly harsh story. My tone in telling it, was, fr om my perspective, “matter of fact”, or “raw” or “detached” … and this apparently unnerved certain members of that community.

I posted my comment on:

* Thu Jan 27, 2011 at 09:32:25 AM PST

Two days (48 hours) later, a slew of comments were posted in response, commencing on

Sat Jan 29, 2011 at 09:54:20 AM PST, 48 hours after my comment was posted. I did not actually see those responses until a week later, on Fri Feb 4, which was several days after I had been banned. I had no idea they were even there, which is why I never responded.

Mostly, because of my real life demands, not the least of which was the fact that Friday Jan 28 I was up all night with my 83 year old dad, who suffers from early stages of dementia, who had another “new” ailment, ending in the morning with me having to take him to the ER, yet again.  

Scarlet Letter

Injustice at Every Turn (pdf) is a 122-page report of data gathered in 2008 by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality concerning quality of life issues for transgender people living in this country.

Housing insecurity for transgender and gender non-conforming people is a crisis. Respondents reported direct discrimination by housing providers and negative housing impacts of discrimination in other critical areas of life such as employment, health care and criminal justice. Accordingly, respondents were forced to employ various strategies to secure places to live.

Previous “turns” have covered the basic data about who transpeople living in America are in Who we are — by the numbers, Part I: Education, Part II: Employment, Part III: Health Care and Part IV — Family.

Still to come are the analysis of the data on public accommodations, identification documents and police and incarceration.