Having to deal with among the worst drivers in the world — Korean drivers in Korea Town — I’m rewarded with beef dumpling buns from Hannam Chain Market. You can see the dude taking some of the veggie buns out from the steamer. I also bought some steamed peanuts. They’re sorta like boiled peanuts that I loved to eat in Louisiana.
Another good part about schleping my grandmother to her doctors appointments is seeing the old LA buildings. Here’s the First Congregational Church on 6th Street by Lafayette Park.
So most Dodger fans can’t get SportsNetLA, but who cares? (A horse’s ass is better than yours!) The season hasn’t even started, so really what’s to watch?
But the biggest Dodger news this offseason isn’t Cubans with hilariously long surnames signing with the Dodgers, the new channel or even Zack Greinke trying to avoid going to Australia by faking a hamstring injury. No.
Of course anything related to beef jerky reminds me of Cibo Matto, so here is them performing this song among others on the PBS show “Sessions at West 54th” back in the late 90s.
Since we’re supposed to be getting rain from tomorrow to Saturday night, I figured I’d go for a jaunt alongside the beach. It was low tide so I could walk along the rocky beach. Some people like Runyon Canyon. Some like Griffith Park. I say fuck the whole lot of them. I’m a San Pedro/Palos Verdes boy. So suck it!
I’m sure this abuse of sex workers goes on everywhere, but Molly Crabapple at Vice exposed the goings on in Arizona.
Project ROSE is a Phoenix city program that arrests sex workers in the name of saving them. In five two-day stings, more than 100 police officers targeted alleged sex workers on the street and online. They brought them in handcuffs to the Bethany Bible Church. There, the sex workers were forced to meet with prosecutors, detectives, and representatives of Project ROSE, who offered a diversion program to those who qualified. Those who did not may face months or years in jail.
Things already look problematic here. The workers who were detained were not allowed to speak to lawyers. In fact, they were not considered arrested at all. They were merely lawfully detained in a program. Whatever that means.
So what is this program?
Project ROSE is the creation of Dr. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz. She is the director of the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research and a tenured professor at Arizona State University, where Monica Jones is a student. Once, she and Monica had even debated Project ROSE…
At first, Project ROSE may seem similar to the many diversion programs in the United States, in which judges sentence offenders to education, rehab, or community service rather than giving them a criminal record. What makes ROSE different is that it doesn’t work with the convicted. Rather, its raids funnel hundreds of people into the criminal justice system. Denied access to lawyers, many of these people are coerced into ROSE’s program without being convicted of any crime. Project ROSE may not seem constitutional, but to Roe-Sepowitz, “rescue” is more important than rights.
In November 2013, Roe-Sepowitz told Al Jazeera: “Once you’ve prostituted you can never not have prostituted… Having that many body parts in your body parts, having that many body fluids near you and doing things that are freaky and weird really messes up your ideas of what a relationship looks like, and intimacy.”
Taxpayers foot the bill for this program with money going to the officers conducting the raid, to the church that serves as the “staging area”, to the Arizona State students who serve as volunteers for the program.
Here’s a story that Al-Jazeera America did on this:
I have no clue who the hell they are, but apparently they are the most distinctive pop music artist in my state. I guess I could look them up on YouTube, but I can pretty much guess I will be disappointed.
While all the little fagolas were happy about getting married, a more serious matter has emerged. Both chambers of the Arizona legislature passed a bill that allows businesses to discriminate against gays in the name of religion. The religious right bastards are real happy.
Arizona is not alone in this. Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee have also proposed this “religious freedom” law. Only Arizona was backwards enough to pass it.
Governor Jan Brewer hasn’t signed the bill yet, and both US Senators McCain and Flake (both of whom are republicans) have urged her to veto the bill in the name of business. You know, because this would cause a loss of money to Arizona businesses and potential lawsuits. Not because it’s the morally correct thing to do, but the money.
I don’t care what or whom you believe in whether it be God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Confucius or whatever. But anything that allows another human being to be allowed to be treated like a subhuman is morally reprehensible. Whether they call themselves Tea Partiers or the Muslim Brotherhood, they’re all scoundrels.
Maybe I should get in on the racket and start my own religion where all the homo brothers, sisters and in-between will get into heaven. Heterosexuality will be considered an abomination, but you know how it goes: hate the sin but love the sinner. We also won’t get into how old the earth is — a real lady never gives her age.
This is yet another attempt at a podcast. This time I have a co-conspirator: Brendan. In this one we talk about:
Oscar nominated films (aka talk shit about American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club and August: Osage County)
Our love of True Detective
The editing of Grantland
My need for a new baseball team to root for
Other things I can’t remember thanks to the whiskey haze
The music selections include:
Mogwai – San Pedro
Karen Finley – Tales of Taboo (Radio Mix)
The Mae Shi – Revelation Party
John Parish and PJ Harvey – Is That All There Is?
We didn’t know what to call it. “A Podcast with No Name” seems stupid. Brendan likes “Macro-Aggression” mostly because I think the term “micro-aggression” is really fucking retarded. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
One bit of warning. This was our maiden voyage and we were armed with some whiskey and coffee. Just be warned. And sorry Faith.
You can play it on this page, play it in a popup window or download the damn thing. Look at the choices below!
Over the last two weeks I’ve had an aunt from Dallas come to town and some relatives from Korea I’ve never seen before visit.
Usually when my aunt comes from Dallas, she takes my grandmother to her various appointments giving me some time off. This time she fucked up her shoulder on her first day here, so no rest for the wicked. She’s wound up a little tight, so it means having to do my best impression of a whirling dervish for a couple of weeks.
Then we had relatives from Korea: my maternal grandfather’s sister (great-aunt?) and her second daughter (aunt?). They were nice and impressed that I was able to speak and understand Korean. The daughter bore a striking resemblance to my mother which was a bit strange.
The whole lot of them are gone now. Meanwhile I’m left with a slight cold: just a runny nose. Oh, and a grandmother who just fucked up her good (left) knee.
