January 17, 2026

Dismantling White Supremacy - Sacrifice Your Privilege

Sacrifice Your Privilege

October 14, 2025

What parents & grandparents may not know about Bad Bunny

I used to teach ESL at a blended learning high school with my classes being set up online. 3 years ago, I decided to introduce "Famous Bilinguals" to my classes: Leonardo DiCaprio, Author Sandra Cisneros, and Senator Tammy Duckworth. The next quarter, I asked my students who they wanted to talk about. Immediately and unanimously, they said Bad Bunny! So I learned about him for my students.

His father was a truck driver and his mother an English teacher. He has two younger brothers. The name comes from a childhood picture when he was in a bunny costume being grumpy. Later, when he started a social media account with that name, it stuck.

He's an LGBTQA+ ally, and appeared in drag in the music video for his hit, "Yo Perreo Sola" (I Twerk Alone). The song's theme is about respecting women's independence. A few days before he made his first appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (2020), a trans-woman was murdered in Puerto Rico. During that appearance, Bad Bunny wore a t-shirt that said: "Mataron a Alexa, no a un hombre con falda" (They murdered Alexa, not a man in a skirt.)

Bad Bunny's music is a blend of Latin Trap and reggaeton. That's what gives him such a unique sound with hip hop, rap from the American south, reggaeton which uses both electronic and traditional reggae instruments. Bad Bunny is not only an internationally-recognized artist, he's also a decent human being.

I'll definitely be watching the 2026 half-time show - the first one in years. It should be really good!

October 11, 2025

Portland tour guide for the National Guard

I saw this satirical video on FaceBook. (not sure how to embed it)

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1691448981522362


(not sure how to embed it)

September 14, 2025

Sick of the Silence

I recently moved back to Oregon, and for the first time in over 40 years of voting, I registered as nonafiliated. I'm so disappointed in the do-nothing Dems. I feel like I'm a ship at sea hoping and praying to finally see the steady beam from a lighthouse, instead of sparce, dim flashes.

I'm sick of the silence. I talked to a friend of mine in the UK yesterday and learned that the narrative of Charlie Kirk's assassin being from the left is what the UK media is also reporting. When not actively called out and LOUDLY challenged, these lies don't stay on American soil, they go around the world. (Yes, I corrected that misinformation for my friend.)

I'm sick of the silence. On Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade suggests that we should start euthanizing the homeless, and he still has a fucking job!!!!! There should have been a LOUD cacophony of outrage responding to that! Instead, it's just another day that ends in Y.

My Great Aunt once told me that in our family, you don't become a Democrat, you're born one. Now, I'm wondering where that party is - the party of FDR, JFK, & Johnson. Too many of them have sunk into the deep pockets of billionaire donors and corporations, and they've let silence win the day.

I'm sorry if this post is negative. I'll probably get flamed or might even have it taken down. But I've watched our steady march to more and more extreme right-wing radicalization for over 40 years, and I'm just so tired and discouraged.

February 16, 2025

An Open Letter to Regretful MAGA Voters (Rant: don't expect it'll make a difference with the MAGAs, regretful or not)

Dear MAGA Voter,

You can regret your vote all you want. You can post all the tearful apologies your want. None of them mean a damn until you can answer one question:

What are you going to do about it?

Investigative journalist, Greg Palast, reported on the Thom Hartmann Program (Jan. 24, 2025) that “According to the Elections Assistance Commission’s official numbers, 4,776,706 voters were wrongly purged from the rolls. . . . Without voter suppression tactics, she [Kamala Harris] would have won.”

Hundreds of thousands of Harris volunteers turned out to hand out flyers, put up yard signs, canvas neighborhoods, phone bank and even more – all to stop Trump! Then tens of millions of us did our parts by voting for Harris. Yet millions were denied the right to vote and millions more had their ballots thrown away. So again, I ask.

What are you going to do about it?

So far, all you’ve done is enable Trump’s return to the White House. No apology is going to make up for that.

Only action will.

You can start by helping your neighbors and those in your communities who are hurt by the monstrous policies being rolled out. Yes, that means everyone who's being hurt, not just people like you. Next, you can vigorously campaign to get the MAGAs out of your state legislature and start fighting to unseat the MAGAs in the House and Senate.

This goes far beyond you regretting one vote because you didn’t just vote for Trump in 2024. You voted for him in 2020; you voted for him in 2016. You have voted for and supported your MAGA state legislatures while they have gerrymandered districts, purged voter rolls, and tossed out ballots.

Yes, you and you alone are responsible for having brought a coup d’état to America. So get up, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. You owe restitution to your country; you especially owe restitution to each and every disenfranchised voter.

That is your only path to redemption. Anything less, and your tearful apologies will remain meaningless. If you are truly sorry for what you’ve done to our country, then show us! Otherwise, there will be no grace extended to you or to anyone else who voted to put a Nazi-loving fascist in the White House. So one last time, I ask you:

What are you going to do about it?

December 15, 2024

Thoughts and Prayers

***SARCASM FOLLOWS***

I honestly don't get what all the hullabaloo in the media is all about with this CEO's death. I mean, really!?!?! It's just some old guy on the street! Not like it's the dozens of children who die school shootings evey year. No, children dying doesn't even make the evening news anymore. But one stupid businessman is wall-to-wal coverage for days if not weeks!

Well, I would like to offer his family and all the other CEO's who have been negatively impacted by this unfortunate incident my sincere thoughts and prayers which is a hell of a lot more than the thousands of dead Americans got from their insurance companies.

As far as the gun violence committed by some rando? Well, that's what the rest of us live with day in and day out. We can't go to the grocery store or a movie theatre without being vigilant and knowing where the exits are.

Welcome to our reality. This is the world you and the politicians you've bought and paid for have created for the rest of us! So glad to have you join us!

Don't think for a minute you're safe behind those locked gates with all your armed guards. Clearly, you're not! If you're still clinging to that belief, maybe you should try out some of those pharmaceuticals you're so busy peddling to the rest of us to help you out with those delusions.

February 3, 2017

Broken Flag by Patti Smith

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Broken Flag Lyrics

Nodding tho the lamp's lit low, nod for passers underground.
To and fro she's darning, and the land is weeping red and pale.
Weeping yarn from Algiers. Weeping yarn from Algiers.

Weaving tho the eyes are pale, what will rend will also mend.
The sifting cloth is binding, and the dream she weaves will never end.
For we're marching toward Algiers. For we're marching toward Algiers.

Lullaby tho baby's gone. Lullaby a broken song.
Oh, the cradle was our call. When it rocked we carried on.
And we marched on toward Algiers. For we're marching toward Algiers
We're still marching for Algiers. Marching, marching for Algiers.

Not to hail a barren sky. Sifting cloth is weeping red.
The mourning veil is waving high a field of stars and tears we've shed.
In the sky a broken flag, children wave and raise their arms.
We'll be gone but they'll go on and on and on and on and on.

Songwriters
Smith, Michael / Albarn, Damon

September 12, 2012

Amazing what a short memory we have

especially after Sarah Palin's map with crosshairs on it and message to her Teapublican followers, "Don't retreat, instead - Reload!" Gabby Giffords prophetic words followed, "We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. People do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

We can sit here all high and mighty in "the land of the free and home of the brave" and spout platitudes about how free speech is a universal human right all day long. Sarah Palin was doing nothing more than exercising her right to free speech, yet how many of you were outraged when the consequences of Palin's words rang out in Tuscon.

Reality check: Words have consequences.

Reality check: Freedom of speech is not world wide. Not everyone holds our values. It's jingoistic to expect that they would.

The only reason this film received the notoriety it did was because it was promoted by Pastor Terry Jones whose own free speech act of burning a Quran incited a riot that resulted in the death of 12 people in Afghanistan. So while you condemn Sarah Palin for her free speech inciting violence, you defend a scumbag like Terry Jones for his free speech that everyone knew ahead of time would have violent and potentially lethal consequences for Americans abroad? How's that double standard working out for you there?

We live in a country where we enjoy the right to free speech, but that does not let us off the hook for being responsible for our speech acts. It's time we get out of our comfy little sandbox, grow up, and start taking responsibility for what we put out there. The world is what it is, not as we would have it. And words do have consequences - sometimes deadly ones.