#resist #insist #persist

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. 

With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. 

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. ~ Arundhati Roy 

addressing the colonized mindset - then & now

We must understand what we could lose if the actions of this Trump administration go unchecked. It's on all of us to save our country and world from the rampaging destruction of these nihilistic authoritarians and greedy kleptocrats. 

always remember, never forget

As we celebrate and honor those who have died in service of the United States of America - our nation and its values - we are reminded that freedom and peace are the end goal here. 

Not war which we pray will be outlawed and made obsolete. We are eternally grateful for those who gave up their lives and risked much to keep us safe and protect us. May their sacrifice fuel our efforts to make this world ever better. 

July 4th | creature comforts

On the wonder |wander |world blog my daughter Mahala and I collaborate on, we wonder what Fourth of July celebrations would look like this year.

George Washington, Mount Rushmore, Black Hills - Scott Olson/Getty Images

As the [dis]United States of America gear up for Independence Day celebrations this weekend, we wonder what in the world we are offering as well wishers on this occasion.

let's go Greta!

Climate activist Greta Thunberg was in New York City tirelessly inspiring us all to go on strike and demonstrate actively for climate change.

In events leading leading up to her appearance at the UN Summit, we all watched as she called on our world leaders to do something now.

"We are not just some young people skipping school," she told thousands of school strikers in Manhattan, on a day when millions around the world demonstrated for action. "We are a wave of change. Together, we are unstoppable."

feeling like a don - Trump | unloved & unloving

Every citizen of the United States of America is affected by Donald Trump. Whether we voted for him or not we are stuck with him for now.

This recent rally of his in North Carolina  was yet another powder keg. Setting off fireworks in many camps and dividing an already fractured country even more.

“Send her back” echoed Trump’s widely criticized tweets from over the weekend, when he said Ilhan Omar and three other congresswomen of color should “go back” to their home counties, where the “governments are a complete and total catastrophe.”

It was just so wrong on so many counts. 😭 We need to be better than opting to chant derogatory insults like #SendHerBack. 

#damnTrumpism 
#shameonTheDonald 
#pretendpresident
#foreverlyingfool
#STOPthisbully
#endhisWHITEsupremacy

Typical of the Donald to ignore that fact that these same women are not just American citizens but that they are elected officials of this country too. 

It is hateful behavior and demeaning to all human beings when our country's leader is such a petty puny tyrant. Picking away at so many with utmost impunity is an absolute abuse of authority. 

Whatever this buffoon expects to achieve by such dastardly behavior stumps us all. Even his own party's most expert spin artists have failed miserably to cover his fat ass and potty mouth. 

Every waking day in office he poisons our well. Long after he is dead and gone we will have all his horrors to recount. Whether we can outlive them or heal the rifts of this nation will really be up to us. 

Not him. Never the likes of him. 

casa azul

“Never in life will I forget your presence. You found me torn apart and you took me back full and complete”. ~ Frida Kahlo

The creative universe of Frida Kahlo is to be found in the Blue House, the place where she was born, where she painted as she convalesced, and where she died. 

Why vote?

American politics has gotten so warped and deluded. In this Trumpian era it is positively surreal.

Being a rebel, relocated as I may be, I refuse to be stumped by disgruntled disillusion.

To float my cork, I make sure I get my weekly dose of Tea Leoni as Madame Secretary, Elizabeth McCord.

Yes. Why not?

profane horrors

As New York City prepares for the 45th Annual Village Halloween Parade, we cannot help but draw parallels between this showy shindig and impending elections.

Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.

sun & moon & stars rejoice

September 1 is Mahala's birthday and my labor day. Twin celebrations that have brought us a world of joy that expands and deepens with each unfolding year.

I love you!

Here we are - stalker mom staking out her prey.

We got bit by the travel bug.

Happy Birthday! 

‘Resistance’ handbook for America’s snowflakes

This year Independence Day celebrations are pretty dismal in the United States of America. Too many of us are still reeling from the upsetting news of our incarcerated immigrant children.

Children are seperated from their families. Locked up in heavily guarded secret locations. Forced to represent themselves in immigration court. At the mercy of a broken and bigoted government.

The UCLA handbook specifically defines “Trumpism” as a movement that consolidates power through white supremacy, misogyny, nationalism, xenophobia, corporatism, and militarism.

Published by the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at the University of California Los Angeles, a publicly funded institution.

The organization calls on urban planners to abide by four simple rules:

1. Refuse to design, plan, or build systems that divide and oppress communities, including the proposed wall between the US and Mexico.
2. Declare spaces ‘sanctuaries’ to undocumented immigrants, while planning sanctuaries for all victims of injustice.
3. Commit to abolishing mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex, while expanding ‘abolition’ to all systems that promote racial and social exclusion.
4. Reflect critically and historically on the political economy of planning to understand and resist our complicity in systems of racial capitalism and patriarchy.

“We can begin by calling hateful ideologies by their proper names and working to delegitimize and eliminate them.” ~ UCLA

Keep a watchful eye people of the world. We are the vanguard of the future.

independence, freedom & its blessings

day by day

phase by phase

as seasons come and go

where does each year take me

Thanksgiving vs. Black Friday

On this special day we give thanks for our countless blessings - a life well lived and filled with love. 

Only in America do we then rush off on a mad shopping spree the day after. 

Instead of immersing ourselves and imbibing of this bountiful cornucopia - we flock like lemmings toward sales of just about anything and everything. 

Spurned on by lack we get all aquisitive and competitive for material things of no consequence. 

Yet we act like they should matter the most.  Ah the inate insanity of the human being.