Women Born Transsexual

Today Tina and I went to the Fort Worth Modern for a retrospective of Andy Warhol’s last decade of work.

Andy was the first artist I was fascinated with, in part because of his use of such a wide variety of tools and processes.  His pop art was at a nexus between the worlds of pop culture, advertising and fine art.

Prior to being nearly murdered by Valerie Solanis in 1968 he surrounded himself with interesting people who represented an under ground culture that I was attracted to.  A culture  I knew I was born to be a part of.

Andy wasn’t why I picked up cameras and chose photography as a medium in which to work, that cultural honor belongs to the film “Blow-Up” and to the members of Black Star/Magnum and the brave members of the Bang-Bang Club as well as those who photographed for Liberation News Services.

Unlike some who dismiss Andy as a minor artist I think he was a major creative influence for many in the post-WW II Generation.

There are many undocumented transsexual and transgender refugees in the US. Our Christo-fascist influenced government considers the persecution of TS/TG people to be a matter of cultural differences and not  gross violations of human rights.  We send undocumented TS/TG people back to their countries of origin rather than granting them refugee status based on the dangers they were often fleeing.  Too often those who are sent back are murdered.

There has to be a better way.

From Worker’s World: http://www.workers.org/2010/us/arizona_apartheid_0506/

Besides the ones in Arizona itself, protests in the United States and abroad greeted a new Arizona anti-immigrant bill that was signed into law on April 23.

New York, April 23. WW photo: John Catalinotto

In New York City on April 23, the Bail Out the People Movement demonstrated on a day’s notice in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Varick Federal Detention Facility in downtown Manhattan. Even as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, some 50 people, including one woman whose spouse had recently been deported to Trinidad, were holding signs and chanting against racial profiling and in solidarity with immigrants’ wishes to gain legalization.

The group chanted many slogans that defended immigrants’ rights as part of the rights of all workers.

Throughout the April 24-25 weekend, government officials and public figures spoke out against the new law. President Barack Obama called the law “misguided,” and raised the possibility that the Justice Department would take some action against it. The law doesn’t go into effect until 90 days after it was signed, on July 21, if it is not overturned before then.

Obama’s criticism appears directed at gaining support for a new federal immigration law, like the one that Sen. Charles Schumer is preparing to propose. This proposed law would regulate immigration so that conditions are more stable, but in a way that is prejudicial against immigrants who don’t have legal papers and is harmful to all workers. Schumer would make legalization an onerous process with no guarantees, militarize the border and make all workers carry biometric identi-

fication cards.

Rep. Raul Grijalva from Arizona called on the president to not cooperate with the new law and also for a boycott of his state. Other public figures joined rank-and-file calls for a boycott of Arizona, including San Francisco city officials, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the editors of La Opinión — the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S.

Rank-and-file groups have targeted Arizona’s Major League Baseball team, the Diamondbacks, as part of the boycott. This provides a target for protest in every city the team is scheduled to play in, with protests already set in Chicago.

The Port Truckers held a news conference on April 24 at the downtown Federal Building in Los Angeles — which is also ICE headquarters — to announce that they would be boycotting Arizona until the legislation in repealed. They urged other truckers to do the same.

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER – British Petroleum once downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic accident at an offshore rig that exploded, causing the worst U.S. oil spill in decades along the Gulf Coast and endangering shoreline habitat.

In its 2009 exploration plan and environmental impact analysis for the well, BP suggested it was unlikely, or virtually impossible, for an accident to occur that would lead to a giant crude oil spill and serious damage to beaches, fish and mammals.

At least 1.6 million gallons of oil have spilled so far since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, according to Coast Guard estimates. One expert said Friday that the volume of oil leaking from the well nearly 5,000 feet below the surface could actually be much higher, and that even more may escape if the drilling equipment continues to erode.

“The sort of occurrence that we’ve seen on the Deepwater Horizon is clearly unprecedented,” BP spokesman David Nicholas told The Associated Press on Friday. “It’s something that we have not experienced before … a blowout at this depth.”

Continue reading at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100501/ap_on_bi_ge/us_louisiana_oil_rig_explosion