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PETA where are you?

Sign A Petition To Ban Cruel Kangaroo Experiment March 11, 2011 A proposed experiment by the University of Wollongong in New South Wales has animal lovers seeing red, and a petition has been set up to voice disapproval over the experiment, which school officials have not yet decided on. According to the petition, the experiment aims to measure and study the farts of Kangaroos – which are notable because they don’t release any methane gas, unlike other grazing animals. The goal of…

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Saturdays like this one

It was back to music class this morning after a respite for Mardi Gras and it was good to see all the little people who just months ago were strangers and are not part of the repertoire of our lives. Afterwards, we stopped by friends uptown and wound up in the pool where Tin wanted to go underwater and then didn’t want to stop going underwater – good sign for our future of summers at…

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On disciplining your child

My Father’s Drums Through closed doors and double-glazed windows all over the neighborhood. The one true American art form, he called it, records turned up so loud the floorboards buzzed. No rock and roll allowed. No three-chord progressions in this house; no rudimentary hook, no bridge, no lame refrain, no silly haircuts please, we are musicians. Bashing along with the hi-fi he banged through our days and nights with a rat-a-tat rage, the fury fired…

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What they don’t tell you

I have written extensively before about my loathing of mothers who have said to me over the years, “you can’t know until you’re a mother.” Blech. I hate the superiority of that statement, the you versus them, the mommy club. It really strikes me like a club over the head. But last night, I ran into this exchange from the opposite side. I was chatting with friends, one with two biological children, one with an…

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What do a 20-dollar bill, a thought and an image have in common?

Last night at Swirl just in conversation I said three cuss words – $60. Oh well, I’m trying but the jar is getting rich off my inability to turn off the cussing spout. Meanwhile, a while back I wrote that I’m trying to change my life a thought at a time. Well, during Mardi Gras I didn’t meditate once, but yesterday I finally did and it opened up my day because I was able to…

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When melody shuts down

I went last night to watch the Sacred Harp at the Fairgrinds Coffee Shop, put on by the New Orleans Afrikan Film Festival and was impressed to see a packed house. Only the film itself was about an hour too long for me because I didn’t find anything sacred in scared harp singing other than from an historical point of view. Someone said there were no black people singing sacred harp and I thought well,…

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Calm before the storm

I’m sitting here looking out the blue blue bayou and thinking of Japan. It’s nighttime there and people are dealing with stranded transportation systems, telephones and communication systems down. And dead loved ones. In one second your life is turned upside down. How people endure tragedy – natural to human made is still a mystery to me – a testament to the human spirit. I still haven’t gotten my own Federal Flood/Katrina tattoo – nor…

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The wrap

I’m sort of surprised after listening to It’s New Orleans! podcast on gay life in New Orleans that there is no history written about this subject, but stay tuned because Frank Perez’s book In Exile will be out soon. I’m also surprised that it’s 2011 and being gay still has to be defined, has to be labelled, has to be out there – different and queer.

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