Wurtz Pictures

Since Jason is too lazy to post pictures, I will do it for him...



Click picture for link to the albums.

A Political Comic That Actually Made Me Laugh

I feel like politics can be so depressing or tense these days. This comic actually made me laugh, which is a good change of pace. You should check it out too!


Enjoy!

Teaching in "the Trenches"

I came across an excerpt of the new book Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America in the most recent issue of U.S. News and World Report. The clip featured two profiles of young men who are teaching at Locke High School in Los Angeles. If I have my facts correctly, Locke is one of the feeder schools for Horace Mann, where our very own Nittle-Face teaches English.

The article and some bonus bits can be found here. Cheers to Nittle and to everyone else who is out there teaching our children.

[Nittle's Note: Horace Mann feeds into Crenshaw and Washington, both high schools currently under close watch by the state, like Locke. While Mann is in the Hyde Park/Inglewood vicinity, Locke High is in Watts. Peace. Haven't read the article yet, but can't wait! Thanks for posting, Mandy.]

Check out Nadra's post on Racialicious...

BANANAS, OREOS AND COCONUTS: WOULD YOU IDENTIFY AS WHITE ON THE INSIDE?

by Nadra Kareem

L.A. Happenings

Lots of great things coming up in the near future. Keep up to date with the new feature: "L.A. Happenings," located on the sidebar. If you know of other events, please post them, so we can keep it fresh.

Notable Additions:

April 25-26: Coachella, now featuring PRINCE!
April 26: Sly and the Family Stone. Holy Crap. The Original funk.
May 7: Former President Jimmy Carter at Vromans
May 29 & May 31: REM and the Cure at the Bowl, respectively
June 10: Billy Bragg! a very rare west coast appearance
June 12: Badu + Roots
June 20: Fela Kuti's son, Seun Kuti performance for free with his father's band
August 24-25: Radiohead

An Open Letter to White Feminists

This article has been making the rounds on several feminist blogs that I read. I have no idea how I feel about it, so I thought I would post here and see if anyone else had a reaction besides me.

It does make a laundry list of the ways the white feminist movement is failing other parts of the feminist movement. Even though I am white, as a genderqueer feminist I could already make my own list of the ways the current feminist movement is failing me. and other genderqueer feminists.

Overall, I'm not sure how productive the discussion that Jessica Hoffman has tried to start here will be. But it is at least worth a read.

Cheers.

Saying the "R" Word

Today I saw a journalist from a major news outlet almost admit that the United States economy is in a recession. I have been driven insane by the fact that despite every indication that our economy is in a downward spiral, folks from NPR to the Tucson Weekly to the LA Times have been reluctant to admit what is going on. For months and months I've heard and read, "These things would seem to indicate a recession," or, "with all of these results, you'd think the American economy was in a recession" or even, "the last time this happened, the American economy was in a recession".

I understand that it can be hard to publicly admit failure, but give me a freakin' break. As the folks in AA say, admitting you have a problem is the first step. Our country is in financial crisis. Not saying it out loud doesn't make it go away. The sooner we can talk about the disaster, the sooner we can work on fixing it.

It's not like we're fooling anyone. The rest of the world is aware of our financial troubles. And we're not fooling most of the general public either, seeing as they are the ones who are having their homes foreclosed on and who can't get a job.

I don't know if our next president will help any of this, but one would hope so.

Enough bitching. Off to think of less depressing things.