NEWS, REVIEWS & OTHER BAGGAGE: The Pedestal has published my reviews of Barbara Jane Reyes' Poeta en San Francisco and Chelsea Rathburn's The Shifting Line. Check 'em out.Georgia Tech student Ruth Malhotra, who was awarded my glittering "Homophobe of the Week Award" some months back, has won her free speech lawsuit against the university. Ruthie claims the college has been trampling on her rights to call fellow classmates faggots, feminist whores, etc. Now she can. I'm a proponent of free speech, so let me be the first (although I'm probably not) to call this self-loathing woman a crazy, right-wing, Christian fascist. Hey, she wanted an open dialogue! Discuss.
I really am just sick of the news. I've avoided watching it on TV for a week or so, keeping myself abreast by reading CNN or BBC online...but really just at a glance. Darfur is still in crisis, the "truce" between Lebanon and Israel appears to be a joke and the bombs keep exploding daily in Iraq (Where Freedom Is On The March!), but Dubya said troops won't be leaving while he's president. Which begs the question...why is he still president? And don't even get me started on John Mark Karr, the nutbag who claims he killed JonBenet. He's either lying or he's part of some bigger conspiracy involving family members. We'll see how all that shakes out.
I've been asked numerous times if I'm worried about flying to the UK in October after the discovery that terrorists were planning to use liquids to blow up 10 US-bound planes. I'm not worried. Stowing liquids in my checked bags will be a minor pain in the ass, but I'll live. However, they better have this shit sorted before my weekend in NYC next month. I don't want to check a bag for that, and if I have to buy toothpaste, etc. when I get there, I will be a pissy bitch.
In the WTF? Department this week: There are nearly 12 million illegal aliens working in America right now, who Dubya and Co. wouldn't deport if they were carrying nuclear missiles over their shoulders in a march on Washington. However, the feds want to deport a woman known as Monique back to her home in the Democratic Republic of Congo (another one of those countries that claims democracy, but ain't) who was tortured and raped by government police allegedly investigating the assassination of President Laurent Kabila in 2001. Monique was falsely accused of being involved in Kabila's assassination because she was considered a political opponent. A US circuit court refused to grant asylum because...are you ready for this...the rapes and prolonged imprisonment she suffered were part of a "legitimate investigation." The feds said she should be deported while acknowledging that she would probably face torture and death upon her return to Congo. What kind of misogynist, crazy bullshit is this? Just when you think think America can't become any more fucked up than it is, you get news like this. Of course, after seeing some of our soldiers act on their latent homosexual desires at Abu Graib, rape and torture seems to be the favored course of action for America. The U.S. Justice Department has asked the case to be reopened after an outcry from human rights groups.
And the beat goes on...la-de-da-de-de, la-de-da-de-da...
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