seamus it ever was

“If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin we should make sure they can’t pull the trigger on a gun.”

“If you have any doubt as to why you should feel that fierce urgency of now, think about what happened 3 weeks ago.” 

If you’re transgender in America, you’re far more likely than other people to be unemployed, homeless and poor. And there’s a 4 in 10 chance you’ve tried to kill yourself.

It can be a confusing and lonely life.

One woman who’s been through it all is Ruby Corado. She’s a 45-year-old transgender woman in Washington, D.C., who is now trying to help others along the difficult path.

Corado is the founder and matriarch of Casa Ruby, a nonprofit agency located in a yellow brick rowhouse in the nation’s capital. With a deep, rich laugh, long red tinted hair and manicured nails, she holds court on the front porch, sitting in a purple plastic chair.

Corado greets the trans men and women who come here, looking for help with housing, health care, legal services and jobs. Corado calls them her sons and daughters, because she knows why they’re really here.

“Most of the people who come to Casa Ruby don’t have a family that accepts them, or that loves them for the most part. So we have a family here, and it is the concept of a chosen family,” she says.

Casa Ruby Is A ‘Chosen Family’ For Trans People Who Need A Home

From ‘Choreographing My Past’ by Shoccara Marcus

Art galleries are generally quiet, hushed spaces, but at the Los Angeles County Museum a show called Islamic Art Now is sparking some heated discussions as visitors ponder the photographs, paintings and neon sculptures on display.

“A lot of the artists that you see in this gallery, they have double consciousness,” UCLA professor Ali Behdad explains. “Many of them are caught between a certain tradition … and that tradition for the most part is Islamic — Islamic culture — on the other hand, they are secular and they are very much Westernized.”

These artists are from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Israel. According to the show’s catalog, they are Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Many are ex-pats.

Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East is indeed about beauty. It’s also about values, religion and a clash of cultures. And its provocative, dramatic, powerful images linger in the mind.

At LA Museum, A Powerful And Provocative Look At ‘Islamic Art Now’

Group 1: The richest of the rich are in charge. They aren’t Republicans, they aren’t Libertarians… they are Privileged Plutocrats.

Group 2: The poorest of the poor. They aren’t Democrats, they aren’t Blue-collar Republicans. They don’t have the luxury of time (and, often education) to think about politics. They are simply trying to survive. And, they are likely homeless, children, people of color, or undocumented immigrants.

Then there’s “the rest of us:” Democrats, Republican, Independents, and an entire horde of political movement “wanna-be”s from The Tea Party to The Green Party.

“The rest of us” are actually split into two groups (with a few exceptions) who have all bought into the narrative the Plutocrats and their hired political and mass media henchmen have been selling us. When it comes right down to it, we are well divided down the middle: those who like what the current President (Clinton, Bush, and Obama) is doing, and those who don’t. “Us” verses “them.”

Group 3: Us.

Group 4: Them.