Entries from February 2008
Old Town Camarillo: A Brief Photo Tour
February 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Categories: Camarillo · Photography
Tagged: Camarillo, Photography, Radiator, Tires
Review: Graciela Iturbide Exhibit at the Getty Museum
February 23, 2008 · 10 Comments
Mrs. TacoSam and I went to the Getty Museum on Saturday, February 23, 2008, to do some chilaxin on a Saturday afternoon, look at some art, and simply to just unwind from the long week. We saw the photography exhibit entitled Danza de la Cabrita (The Goat’s Dance) Photographs by Graciela Iturbide. Iturbide is a famous Mexican photographer who studied under the master of photography and cinematography Manuel Alvarez Bravo.
To see a short slideshow of my photos from our day at the Getty, please click on this link.
Although the quality of the photographs was excellent, I had mixed feelings about this Exhibit for various reasons. There are two main series of photographs. One series is on the indigenous people of Oaxaca and documents how they slaughter hundreds of goats in an annual ritual at private haciendas. A little boy is selected to do a ritual dance before the slaughter, hence the title. (more…)
Categories: Getty Museum · Graciela Iturbide · Photography
Tagged: Getty Museum, Graciela Iturbide, Photography, Review
No to Genocide!
February 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment
I received this message in my email inbox from a good friend and thought I’d pass this along to everyone:
Last year it was brought to my attention that Fidelity Investments, the firm that handles the investment of the retirement funds for the priests of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is one of the major investors in two Chinese petroleum companies that are providing funds for the genocide that is taking place in Darfur in Sudan. The Council of Priests for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles sent a letter to the Chairman of Fidelity Investments asking him to sell these stocks so that our money is not being invested in companies that have so little concern for human rights.
This week I was contacted by the organization, Investors Against Genocide, with some very good news. Thanks to a recent ruling by the Securities and Exchange Commission, for the first time shareholders of many mutual funds will have a voice in whether their savings are invested in genocide. Industry insiders have termed the scope and breadth of this challenge to the mutual fund industry to be “unprecedented.” (more…)
Categories: Genocide · Investments · Money
Tagged: Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Genocide, Investments, Money
Signs: El Tecolote
February 20, 2008 · 4 Comments
Signs. I love looking at signs. I have loved looking at (and reading) signs since I was a child. A very simple way to communicate an idea to many others. Here is one of my favorite signs from the local area. Click on the photo for the large view.
Categories: signs
Tagged: El Tecolote, Night Owl, signs
Los Lobos Interview
February 20, 2008 · 2 Comments
Great Los Lobos interview followed by a live acoustic performance of La Pistola y El Corazon.
Categories: Los Lobos · Music · Musica
Tagged: La Pistola y El Corazon, Los Lobos, Music
Prayers Needed
February 13, 2008 · 6 Comments
I have never made a request like this, until now. A life was taken today. Senselessly. A life ended too short. My heart is broken and filled with sadness. A young boy, in eighth grade, was shot yesterday in a classroom in Oxnard. According to news reports, the victim had long been the victim of school bullies for his failure to “fit in” because of his style of dress and because of his alleged homosexuality.
Yesterday, February 12, 2008, while in the school’s computer lab, a fellow student pulled out a gun and shot Larry in the back of the head and back. I don’t know what happened in that classroom and I don’t want to speculate on motive. All I know is that 2 lives have been lost–the victim and the 14-year old shooter (who sits in jail).
This afternoon, I found out that Larry was declared brain dead from his gunshot wounds (per news reports, he is being kept alive on a ventilator so his organs can be harvested). I closed the door to my office and cried. Larry did not deserve to go out this way. No child deserves to die in this manner. May God rest Larry’s soul. I hope that he now finds the peace that he so desperately sought on this earth. For privacy reasons I cannot disclose the connection, but Larry was not just a random person to me or my family.
With humble respect, I ask that you please pray for Larry’s soul.
RIP Larry. You will not be forgotten.
Larry King’s photo from the School Yearbook (from KNBC):
Categories: Lawrence King · Life · Sadness
Tagged: Lawrence King, Life, Sadness
