on moving and being moved.

it really moved me to see all the support rallied in jena, louisiana. the issue that galvanized this nation, and just the mass suppport, i'm sure, keeps mychal bell hopeful. what enraged me was that the entire town, in fear of looting and violence closed down and went away for the day ... and of course, were directed by their own preconceived notions of what a peace and justice movement looks like. as a whole, that town needs a freedom school. shit.

speaking of injustice, today is the 34th anniversary of martial law's inception in the philippines via Marcos. due to the current administration's various human rights violations victimizing about 1,000 educators, community leaders, and plain folks like you and me within the last 5 years, martial law has been informally reinstated by gloria macapagal-arroyo. the philippines is still in a state of unrest.

and, my lord, the fighting monks of myanmar. i became, i'll say, emotionally preoccupied upon seeing this. how can you not be moved by this picture--of "the longest sustained display of dissent in Burma" :


and despite allowing playboy bunnies and movie stars personal tours of the World Trade Center site, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been prohibited to lay a wreath on the work site. while the WTC folks say that the request was denied due to heavier construction in certain areas (and yes, i ride the train through the site often, they are in a heavier stage of development), Bush said some pretty dumb and tacky things in response, heaviliy implying terrorism and that the accountability of 9/11 falls on Ahmadinejad. it's embarrrrrrisssing how our president is such a racist, embodying the very North American sentiment that terrorists = all brown men. disagree? wellps, the inability to perceive people within an ethnic enclave as individuals is straight up racist.

Bush needs to attend the Jena Freedom School, too.

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teh personal (and not so much):
on my way to houston tonight, and DANG! i am excited to work with jiny ung, who has done an amazing job just producing this event. and in preparing my travel playlist, thanks to kb, i really loves me that alicia keys' "no one" song. you can listen to it legally on her myspace. (i've been listening to this on repeat the entire time i've been typing up this entry.)

i will be performing at this event next week, so please try to come to FiRE's 1st Open House to celebrate our embryonic 6 months of organizing in the NYC area. we're really excited about this, sicne we were able to gather an all-Pinay line up! FiRE has been responsible for an amazing portion of my personal growth in the last year, and I couldn't be more grateful to those women for creating this group together.

other than, updated my frontpage. i seem really accomplished. ha!

6 hours til i head to the airport!
still loving my peoples! have a fantastic weekend. <3