Some education reform Mexico!

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A sign on a Mexican bus stop

How applicable is this propaganda after the bizarre incident involving the 42 43 college students who were ambushed with a surprise 'field trip'?

The billboard reads as follows:
With the participation of your communities you get back EDUCATIONAL/LEARNING SPACES. 
The Education Reform Program is on the move. www.sep.gob.mx

Mexico is full of this double-speak crap. 
The gov't publicizes all sorts of non-stop TV and radio commercials and announcements of purported modern achievements and patriotism. Anything, though, that can be verified by the 'eyeball test' like adequate standards of living, judicial due process and drinkable agua ain't among them.

Presidente Nieto 

makes Washington trip

Slater on skin whitener and call me in the morning

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While shopping at a southern California Walmart - or is it still Wal-Mart? - I came across this nifty item -- on the Ethnic shelf, no less. What makes this, both, funny - and slightly off-putting - is that it is from a bygone time. Or, at least, I thought it was a relic (outside of the Caribe where they still swear by this shit). Sure, I can see its practical uses in, say, Ferguson, Missouri; New York City, all of Florida and, yes, Los Angeles...and wherever black men are unaccountably killed by paramilitary "peace officers".  
Peace.

That dependable German quality

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Advertised on the side of my electric shaver:

I'd be pissed too. You?? (Israel Occupation)

(Jerusalem Post on how Jews feel)

Noam Chomsky (Murderous Israel)

Chris Dickerson - Bodybuilding Hall of Fame Induction 2014

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Here's amateur footage of legendary bodybuilder Chris Dickerson being inducted to the Hall of Fame earlier this month at the annual Independence Day Mr & Ms Muscle Beach. I specifically entered this year because of it and felt privileged to have met the man. Click here to read about how I fared in my first Venice Beach show (link opens in a new window).



@TWPTilden

Are there black people in Argentina?

Josephine Baker wondered so and got this fabulous reply: You and I. 

Stephen King

At least somebody is protecting their border

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According to the Examiner report below, the presidents of Mexico and Guatemala (beautiful countries, by the way, I've been to them both) recently confirmed a pact on July 7th to, essentially, aid further illegal immigration to the United States of America. Say whuh?!

(Examiner article)

When the natives vowed to take back their lands who would've thought it would come via a "humanitarian crisis"? 

The employability of higher education

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Sadly, I can relate.

Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. 
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-- Aristotle

Damn they GOT his bald head ass

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Ray Nagin, Former New Orleans Mayor, Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison.

sooo...how ya like them apples?

Two thoughts for 4th of July

oorrrrrrr

Which would you prefer?

The superiority of God's chosen people

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To those "chosen few" who believe their shit smell like filtered water I say, as I've said to the following woman:

@DellaReeKennedy Correction: there is such a thing as Israeli illegal acts -- a whole laundry list of them, in fact.

@TWPTilden

Why It Pays to Taste Words and Hear Colors

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Personally I feel black...and like the taste of pink.

Secret weapon: Pornography ?

According to the essay "Pornography as a secret weapon" by Lasha Darkmoon, the overreaching effects, and in some ways, purported concentration, of xxx-movies is to go beyond sexual arousal and stealthily desensitize the gentile morals of Western civilization. 

Can I get a Zion, whoop, whooop?!

While many Americans may claim not to practice religion or order their lives according to it - or swear by atheism/spiritualism - they nevertheless fail to realize, outside of Christmas and school prayers, just how much Christian teachings have influenced American daily life from hospital care and city planning to dating rituals, holidays, or the shunning of male frontal nudity. 
But why pornography? 
Read the article. 

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Melissa Provo, THIS IS NOT RACISM

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UPDATE: Middle School teacher Mr Barron was allowed to return to the classroom following the two week's suspension/investigation into much ado about nothing. The School Board issued a spin rather than an apology.
Michigan junior high school history teacher Alan Barron has been suspended (with pay or, as school administration insists, "on leave") owing to teaching that Jim Crow segregation was so normal at one time in America that actors used to routinely perform in blackface, a term probably lost on today's youth, and complemented his lesson with a video.

It was during so that Assistant Principal, Melissa Provo who, according to various reports, either happened by or was sitting in during the lecture, ordered the video stopped immediately. As per her logic, by teaching about racism the lesson was, itself, racist. The icing on the cake? Mr Barron is retiring in a couple of weeks -- after more than thirty years of teaching in the local school district. Only he won't be able to attend the going-away party because, pending investigation whilst "on leave", he's barred from school grounds and functions. 

Maybe Mr Barron should've stuck to encouraging "dialogue" on man sex and lesbian licking. At least he would've been flown out to appear on the Ellen show (and Anderson Cooper, Oprah, LOGO, Bravo channel, etc).

For what it's worth, it seems no one in the community but the principal sides with MS Provo's assessment.

(Read the article here)

Sanction Russia? Sanction Israel!

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The BDS Movement (short for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions), in case you haven't heard, calls for the above actions against Israel's incorrigible and destructive policies against Palestine. Pro-Palestinian supporters are encouraged to target companies and products that "profit from the violation of Palestinian rights as well as Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions." 

The American Studies Association (ASA) has caught on and so has many European companies who are, finally, regrowing a set of balls. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation divested itself of all stock in the private security company G4S as did the United Methodist Church. Most recently the (American) Presbyterian Church, while not full subscribers to BDS, has just voted to rid itself of stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola Solutions for those companies' involvement in ongoing Israeli-only re-settlement projects.

On cue, PM Netanyahu framed the protests "anti-Semitic". Of course. Only that cry ain't very accurate at all, is it Bibi? 

Rbrt MP 03.03.2014 22:39

The term Semitic refers to the Semitic tribes, which jews people are only a part of it. Semitic refers also to Palestinians. So no, it's not anti-semitic.

There you have it! 
Stop supporting this Muslim apartheid. 

the African-American pride flag

supports a free Palestine

@US_Campaign

The passing of Horace Silver, jazz pianist

1928-2014

Composer & jazz pianist (and saxophonist) Horace Silver was born in Connecticut to Portuguese emigres. More associated with hard bop, a variation of bebop, his music is known for having a distinctive bluesy and, sometimes, gospel essence to it.

Official website of Horace Silver

Stuck between two countries (US/MX)

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Also known as Hell on earth. There's a movie, starring Tom Hanks, where he plays a man who lives in the airport terminal because he has no documented country of citizenship. This is like that only far less cute. If one enters Tijuana via ground transport (or tours downtown) chances are very, very, very high that one will encounter the literal wasteland that is home to the unfortunate lot, both, stuck from making a living in Mexico and entering America.

At any time of the day individuals stand and call up to passers-by begging and pleading for alms to be thrown their way

These people, homeless, forsaken, dirty, rejected, live under the bridges in Tijuana's river. Like trolls. I suppose water once flowed through it (or maybe it still does during specific times of the year) but I've only ever seen a steady stream of waste churn through. In fact, the walls on either sides are decorated with large murals so I guess artists wouldn't do that if they expected the work to be covered by shit water. And that's about as pretty as it gets. The other, living images are a painful eye-sore.

tale of two cities 

or Upstairs, Downstairs

Typically the lost souls are illegals deported back to Mexico -- but with no connections to the land whatsoever besides nationality. That means no family, friends, jobs, resources. Some of them have grown up in America without, unfortunately, ever becoming American. Go figure. Criminals, junkies, vagabonds wouldn't be an unwarranted generalization. However some do have skills/trades; they're simply without any wherewithal to apply them. At any time of the day individuals stand and call up to passers-by begging and pleading for alms to be thrown their way.

I guess artists wouldn't do that if they expected the work to be covered by shit water

These rejects - because it's a fact: Mexico doesn't want them either - establish tent cities along the river. At night they start camp fires which stink up the air. 

In Playas de Tijuana, the westernmost section of the city along the coast and one of the preferred areas for expats, some homeless people (and regular beach goers too) start stinky campfires on the beach. A neighbor told me the homeless used to sleep under the boardwalk until authorities ran them out. Now, the homeless break off parts of the boardwalk, and whatever else is flammable, for their heat! At this rate, in a year the boardwalk will be as snaggletooth as Broom-Hilda.