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Wednesday, 17 January 2007
She Lives, She Breathes
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
5:58pm Wednesday 17Jan07

I'm alive. I got rid of my cold but my energy level has been so pathetic I've been conking out way early.

Managed to drag my ass to a book launch Monday night. Only because I'd given my word that I'd go. It was good and inspiring and I want to find out more about Gary Freeman. I checked out the website about him, he is currently being held in jail fighting extradition to the United States for some assault charges against a Chicago cop back in the 1960's.

It's all pretty stupid when you look at it. The man has led an exemplary life here in Canada and has raised beautiful, educated children. He was a librarian for goodness sake! And he's being held in jail for close to three years now for assault charges from a time when the white American cops were more than a little shady and definitely racist and it was a time in American race relations where black men and women were being harassed and hosed and arrested on trumped up charges and murdered and and...

The best part of it all is that there are still charges against him. I learned recently that there is a statute of limitations (is that the term?) in the States on rape. After a certain amount of years have passed (not sure how many) you can't be charged for raping someone. And they're still chasing after Gary Freeman? The cop is alive. He probably went on to harass and scare and terrorize other young black men (Gary was 19 at the time). But boy oh boy mustn't let a nigger get away.

There has to be a time when the powers that be in Canada look at a situation, taking it all into account (civil rights violations, racism, police corruption, J. Edgar Hoover and the CIA) and say No, we're not going to let you take this person. He's in our country now, we'll keep him. And let him live his life and tell his story and remind us that it wasn't that long ago and all that much hasn't changed.

I'm going to read more of the website when I have some more time and less limited energy and write more.

George Elliott Clarke read some of his own poems at the book launch and reminded me of when I was in my early twenties and reading black writers for the first time and feeling alive and connected to my people that came before me and built a path for me to write on.

I have to admit that I've been coasting. Living my day to day life, not participating in the black things that made me feel good and aware and mindful of who walked before me and who is continuing to walk. I knew most of the names mentioned at the launch: Martin, Malcolm, Bobby Seale, Assata Shakur, Mumia. But there were some names I hadn't heard and if I'd been more diligent in my studies, i would have.

I guess I could say that I've allowed myself to forget. You get lackadaisical and lull yourself in to a false belief that if you're a good person that's enough. But it really isn't. There are still huge crimes committed against my folk around the world out of greed or an overall lack of caring and whatever else falls in between.

People are getting upset that Oprah built a school for poor little black girls in Africa and that there aren't very many white girls included. Fuck off! If Oprah could educate every little black girl in South Africa she still wouldn't scratch the surface. All those motherless and fatherless children and the poverty and the AIDS Epidemic. Fuck right off!

I woke up a couple times last night, turned on the lamp, and jotted down the words that woke me up. Words about Gary Freeman, words about slavery and the civil rights movement and the systematic ways that blacks continue to be kept down. This morning I talked into my digital recorder as I walked to work and I've come to the conclusion that I need to read and learn and figure out and ultimately write about what I learn and see. Not with a militant black anger but with a sense of calm and understanding and focus. All of our leaders that meant a damn were killed. It's time to remember that. Better yet, it's time to stop forgetting.

EY

Posted by Shelley-Lynne Domingue at 6:47 PM EST | Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Friday, 12 January 2007
Writing? What Writing?
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Friday 6:04pm 12Jan07

Made it to work today because I had a meeting. Two hours later of swimming upstream in a sea of futility. It was laughable. Seven of us meeting with a tenant rep a sure indication that too much woman power is being spent on the issue. Agreeing to do still more work that none of us has the time for. Sigh! Sometimes customer service is pushed too damn far. The tenant rep agrees that no one on her side wants to take responsibility. Yet again, our team takes it.

The boys were a bunch of brats today trying to keep me amused in my sickness and wearing me out all at the same time. I expended all of the energy I possess today so as much as I'd like to sit up and write I just can't. Maybe I'll wake up later and have something to say, but I doubt it.

I have the nerve to be developing a sore throat with my full on cold. Dammit all. It's not even a real winter, why am I sick?

EY

Posted by Shelley-Lynne Domingue at 6:22 PM EST | Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Thursday, 11 January 2007
Fighting off a cold
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 6:14pm 11Jan07

Been fighting off a cold all week and finally caved in this morning. Stayed in bed sleeping for the bulk of the day and with little miss Zelda who was suffering from sympathy illness. She kept her eye on me and patted me with her paw. Too cute.

Why isn't there anything good on television when you're lying in bed sick as ten dogs? I'd even watch an episode of CSI, any town CSI. Caught an episode of Bridezilla and marveled once again how anyone manages to make it to the altar. I swear if I was a bridegroom with a bride like any of those psycho's I'd be leaving their asses at the altar.

Oprah of course had to have the tear jerkingest show on like I needed to tumble out all those tears with my runny nose and rib bruising cough! Yeah Thanks Oprah!

What kind of freak craves chicken wings and beer when they have a cold? This freak! Too strange. Like I could smell or taste it.

Flipped over to General Hospital for a minute to admire the beauty of Maurice Bernard, the guy who plays mob boss Sonny Corinthos. Now that man is my type. Dark hair and dark eyes and those dimples. That is what does it for me. He has the nerve to have the same birthday as me. Sigh! Even when a girlfish is sick a little eye candy is what the doctor ordered. Now if only I could find someone like that to nurse my little girlfish soul back to health. Not that I like being around people when I'm sick but if he's really really quiet and attentive and that gorgeous, well I wouldn't hurt his feelings.

I'm going to climb back in my bed with my steno and attempt to write down some words for my daily 3 hour goal. I managed an hour and a half of writing last night despite feeling sick, sick, sick! ole ole.

I've got a meeting tomorrow at work so I'll have to get my sick ass in there but at least it's Friday. The weekend is looking like a lot of sleep. Sucks to be me! Well it's not that bad, so many worse things could be going on with me.

EY

Posted by Shelley-Lynne Domingue at 6:39 PM EST | Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Tuesday, 9 January 2007
Books
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 5:27pm 8Jan07

Recommended a book to a girl friend whose mother passed away a couple days after Christmas. The book is Motherless Daughters written by Hope Edelman. The only book I've ever come across that focuses on the impact of a daughter losing her mother. I mention it here for any women who may be reading who have also lost their mothers.

You become really sensitive to other women who lose their mothers after you've lost yours.

I still haven't decided what I have to say about 50 cent and his new venture. There was an article in the The Globe and Mail yesterday about his G-Unit Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster's Pocket Books/ MTV Books. Reading the essays in bell hooks Remembered Rapture and her comments about the industry catering to mediocrity especially in the black community, do I even want to touch this with a ten foot pole? Do I want to get the pole dirty?

And there's the part that mentions that 50 cent wants to raise literacy levels of young male blacks. sigh! But what grade level do these books cater to, I wonder. 50 cent gets a top billing and a co-author credit on all the books in his G-Unit imprint despite not having written a word. He brainstorms ideas with the writers and then sends them off to do the real work of writing.

Yeah, okay, he's trying to be a role model, as wobbly as that is. He's trying to inspire kids to believe that with a little hard work they too can make beaucoup bucks. He's a brand. Good for him, more power to him, really but fuck his shit is insulting, isn't it?

Could you just imagine the meetings? "So Mister Fiddy, or shall I call you Mister cent? We'll put your name above the author's name on every book that comes out under your imprint. We'll make millions. No sir, you don't have to write a word. Just show up at the book launch and that will motivate your non-reading people to pull out their pennies and buy YOUR books. Of course you can offer ideas to the writers, having an idea is the same thing as writing after all."

50 cent is a fucking hero! He's showing kids that you can be an author without ever having written a word (spitting in the face of all starving artists everywhere). You can sit on the shoulders of your own people and get them to write the stuff while you laugh all the way to the bank. Of course there is always someone that will agree to it in a misguided belief that this is a stepping stone to serious fiction. 50 wants to be a mogul and good for him, I have nothing against that, but doesn't he see that this is no different than record companies pimping their artists talent and bitch slapping them when they ask for their fair share?

Yes kids, it's only bad when the white man does it to the black man. But when the black man does it to the black man (or woman) well, I guess that's enterprising.

Raising the level of literacy. Maybe in a few years Harvard will give you an honorary degree in literature, eh 50? You da fucking man!

EY

Posted by Shelley-Lynne Domingue at 6:16 PM EST | Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
My Dream - to rescue animals
Topic: Inspiration


My black cat Saki used to kiss me full on the lips! If I had the land and the resources I would want to rescue animals. I couldn't let this article pass by. EY


Colombian nurses animals back to health

By INALDO PEREZ, Associated Press WriterSun Jan 7, 10:07 PM ET
Through the bars of his cage, an African lion named Jupiter stretches his giant paws around the neck of Ana Julia Torres and plants a kiss on her puckered lips.

It could be a kiss of gratitude: Since Jupiter was rescued six years ago from a life of abuse and malnutrition in a traveling circus, Torres has fed and nursed him back to health at her Villa Lorena shelter for injured and mistreated animals.

"Here we have animals that are lame, missing limbs, blind, cross-eyed, disabled," said Torres, 47, who relies on donations and her own modest teacher's salary to run the shelter in a poor neighborhood in the southern city of Cali. "They come to us malnourished, wounded, burned, stabbed, with gunshots."

Torres said her work rehabilitating animals began more than a decade ago when a friend gave her an owl that had been kept as a pet. Later, when she asked her students to bring their pets to school, she realized many families illegally kept wild fauna from Colombia's biologically diverse jungles in their homes.

The number of animals under her care grew, and today Jupiter is among 800 recovering creatures at Villa Lorena — from burned peacocks and limbless flamencos to blind monkeys and mutilated elephants.

Most of the animals are caged, though some, like iguanas, roam freely around the impeccably clean grounds enclosed by a 13-foot wall. Inside is a monument that the state governor dedicated in recognition of Torres' work.

Torres said many of the animals were rejected as infants by their parents in the wild or found abandoned on the streets of Cali, a city of 2 million.

Others were rescued from cruel treatment by owners. One mountain lion kept illegally as a pet had its two front legs cut off by its owner after it clawed a family member's face.

Torres said that of all the animals she has cared for, she is proudest of having rescued Yeyo, a now-deceased spider monkey who had suffered violent, drunken beatings at the hands of an alcoholic owner.

"The monkey would scream every time it was beaten, until one day the police came and found the wall covered in blood," she said.

Two veterinarians saved Yeyo from death, though it lost an eye and its teeth from the abuse. Yeyo remained terrified of people, cowering in the corner of the cage at the sound of footsteps, she said.

Torres said she opposes exhibiting animals in circuses and has therefore kept her shelter closed to the public.

"We want the animals to live in peace," Torres said. "All their life they were shown at circuses and shows — this is a paradise where they can finally rest."


Posted by Shelley-Lynne Domingue at 6:23 AM EST | Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

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