Not that that was in any doubt, of course.

I only posted a couple of things, besides my introductory post - both of which I also posted here.

I didn’t make too big of a splash, but that’s okay. One of my fears was that I was going to be the one to blow up the blog - it seems at least one of the guest bloggers does it every other rotation, starting with Roy, who was a guest blogger the first week. But, thankfully, it wasn’t me… one of my guest co-bloggers, Ren, of Renegade Evolution, stepped up to the plate and took that on, in this thread - 588 comments! (I still have no real idea what the whole thing was all about).

There was a good conversation in my Benefit of the Doubt post at feministe, which I didn’t really join in that much, for one reason or another. Stress at being in an unfamiliar place among unfamiliar people for an entire week (this can really send us introverts for a loop), plus also, because it was a guest posting gig, I felt like a guest host (I even called it that in an email to Jill of feministe), and so refrained from injecting myself or my opinions into the conversation too much. Also, and I hate to admit it, for some reason I had a really had time finding my posts again. Sigh, I’m such a Bad Blogger.

Still, as a result of that thread I have started a religion called IlykaPele-a —celebrating the goddess of fire, lightning, dance and ferocious advocacy.  (I added the a because I am not exactly appropriating the Hawaiian goddess of similar name.)

[edit] There was also a good conversation on the post about skinny people way back when, both at feministe and Maat’s Feather. I learned, or was reminded, that for the shows (Soul Train and others) staffers went out into the crowds and actually choose people to come in, I guess to establish a “look”. Anyway, it’s explained better here.

I have some links.

The Ladies of La Patrona: Humanity’s Hope

As Central American migrants cling to rickety old trains with the hopes of making it North they are exploited by police, corrupt officials, and gang members.  But a small town on the outskirts of Cordoba in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, offers a welcome respite. The Ladies of La Patrona, who have very little means, give all that they can to the migrants passing on the trains. Why? Just because it’s right.

Radical Knowledge: Where are all the bloggers of color?

This question makes the rounds in blogland oh, every three or four months. Invariably, a white blogger is the one doing the asking and a whole slew of white folks are speculating about the answer.

I don’t usually make a point of paying attention to those conversations. Knowing that I’m a blogger and I’m right here, makes it really hard for me to pay attention to all the garbage that usually gets spewed out (i.e. they’re too poor to blog, they don’t care about blogging, they aren’t educated enough to blog, they don’t have the time to blog etc). But this time I read such interesting commentary from different bloggers of color, I was inspired to try to unravel some of my own thoughts about the “where are they” conversations.

On Myths and Monsters

When it comes down to it, those are the things that run the machine. These caricatures and invented mythologies are what NEED to be spun around humans when you justify not treating them with any sort of consideration or respect.

R. Mildred… in lolcat

No quotes. It’s mostly all visual and, of course, hilarious.