I'm still someone who frequents the local library, who finds the rare jazz and blues albums, and enjoys the physical feel of a beloved book. My transient housing situation has made me select books based on their friendship, and glean the unnecessary. When I buy a place, every room will have bookshelves, and some bookshelves will lead to other rooms.
After the advent of Shaun of the Dead, with all of its zombies and laughter, I really doubted that another film could come along that would make me rethink that the whole zombie-film-vehicle was overdone:
Juan of the Dead generally follows the plot-points of 2004's Shaun of the Dead,
but plot itself seems beside the point. The story's just the vehicle
for the acid-like burn of dark Cuban humor, which lifts the movie above
the fold of genre films. The action is quick, the actors have chemistry,
and the jokes about Cuba's atheism, machismo, government, tight-knit
communities, and nonchalant city operators are frequent and oh-so-un-PC.
The sun-washed feeling of downtown Havana jumps off the screen, and the
gore is campy enough not to make stomachs turn. Suddenly, it feels like
every other zombie film should have been set in Cuba—that Cuba is the
only place where anyone could be counted on to survive a supernatural
phenomenon and even laugh.
I am curious as to why nobody saw the potential for this before. Zombies? Cuba? Of course it makes sense! What's an apocalypse, if you've already survived several?
The theme of escape from Cuba seems to be a continuous one across many films. Una Noche, Juan of the Dead and others all deal with the escape of Cuba, to the point where several actors from Una Noche claimed asylum while promoting their film in the U.S. Yet, defecting is only seen as the option for the young. Juan, from Juan of the Dead decides otherwise.
As the film progresses, though, there are just too many zombies to
kill, and that's when Juan, Lázaro, Vladi, and Camila decide to take to
the seas. Made from one of the old jalopies for which Cuba is known,
their "boat" is cherry-red and confidence-inspiring. But when it's time
for Juan to jump in, he demurs, staying waist-deep in the blue water.
Camila and Vladi are young and should start new lives in Miami, but
he'll stay. It's not so bad in Havana. He'll sort it out.
In film class, we watched a rare Cuban film called La Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) (1976), that dealt with slavery in the sugar mills and one landowner's decision to invite 12 slaves to dinner, to teach them Christian virtues. The film ended with hope, that one could escape from the slavery and terrible conditions. The defection was seen as a choice of life and death, but the only option was to keep running for freedom.
One of the things I've learned through my immersion in Latin American culture, is that underneath the upheaval and bloodshed, there is an underlying passion and resilience. Yes, you laugh at the terrible things. Because if you stop laughing, you start crying. I've been told I have a dark sense of humor, but it seems that I've got nothing on the makers of Juan of the Dead.
While the Florida legislature had allocated $1.5 million to 30 rape crisis centers in the state, Gov. Rick Scott used his line-item veto power to cut the funding.
The Governor claimed the funding was “duplicative, since, as a state,
we already fund sexual violence programs.” But Jennifer Dritt, the
executive director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, said
individual centers could lose between $30,000 and $100,000 each and
don’t have enough funds to serve the 1.2 million women in Florida who
“already have been victimized.”
I feel like a lot of people don't realize the magnitude of the problem of sexual assault. Statistically, 1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault at some point in their lives. At least, that's the reported amount. It's within your rights to choose not to report a crime, especially when the justice system is formulated to place the blame on the victim. Yet, these facilities should be available for people to get tested, etc...
I mean we can all agree that violence against women is bad right?
And we can all agree that survivors of domestic abuse need assistance,
right? So why are Republicans opposed to funding that assistance?
Hang ups in this current version of the bill is additional provisions
supporting undocumented and LGBT survivors.
Do we really want perpetrators to believe that it is okay to victimize, as long as the person is undocumented or LGBT? I find this sort of double standard to be very troubling. Undocumented workers in this country already struggle with little protection from the law. Is this the sort of provision that we want to enshrine, a permanent underclass? I should hope not.
Edit: Sadly, related:
Scholars believe that abuse rates in the ultra-Orthodox world are
roughly the same as those in the general population, but for
generations, most ultra-Orthodox abuse victims kept silent, fearful of
being stigmatized in a culture where the genders are strictly separated
and discussion of sex is taboo. When a victim did come forward, it was
generally to rabbis and rabbinical courts, which would sometimes
investigate the allegations, pledge to monitor the accused, or order
payment to a victim, but not refer the matter to the police.
The article continues about the degrees of intimidation experienced by families who speak up about abuse, within the Orthodox Jewish culture. And while I know that the Orthodox Jewish experience is very different from the total Jewish experience, it's still troubling that abuse is not only swept under the rug, the social controls punish the victim.
When visiting Los Angeles en route to Mexico, my friend Manuel joked that I was another "undercover Mexican."
Which is true - I've never been extra-specially screened at airport security or stopped on the highway for being Latina. My fair skin and Midwestern accent often belie my surname, to the confusion of cashiers and DMV's alike. I only truly experienced being a minority, when I arrived at college, and was expected at meetings of minorities, on a Dutch-American campus.
But many of the recent GOP candidates seem to believe that to be a party member, requires you to be Caucasian, male, and nothing else. This limited perception of who is accepted into what is supposed to make up one half of the political system in the U.S. seems to be acting like a fringe group.
The media's reaction is always that Latinos' number one issue is
immigration. And it's not immigration. It's the tone in which people
talk about immigration. All of the sudden, you can be a third or
fourth-generation Mexican American from Colorado and not really realize
you're Mexican until someone pulls you over and asks you for your
papers. That's a catalyst for political awakening. I use that as an
example because in the 2010 election [in Nevada], Sharron Angle, who was
running against Senator Reid, basically said that her path to victory
was to vilify Latinos. A hundred percent of the media she posted was
racially tinged. And that mobilized nine out of ten Latinos to vote
against her. But they still voted for a Republican candidate for
governor. Yes, they paid attention because of [Angle's] tone, but when
it came to other candidates they voted on the issues.
Due to the oppressive nature and political turmoil of many Central and South American countries, Latinos do seem primed to agree with more Conservative political leanings. My own father grew up in a tumultuous time in Chile, witnessing book burnings of 'dangerous texts' that were found in people's personal libraries. So, it's understandable that protection of civil liberties, and less influence by a corruptible government would be higher priorities on his political wishlist.
They still have that immigrant experience where they came from countries
or their parents came from countries that were so horrible that they
still see the vast amount of opportunity and America's potential here.
If I'm a candidate, how did I package that message of, 'These are my
policies on education so that your child can achieve and overcome the
hardships you're facing today'?
If the GOP could get past their fear of the 'other', remember that their ancestors were once immigrants themselves (Irish and Italians took a long time to be considered 'white'), and actually address the issues at hand (education, unemployment, poverty, etc...), they might stand a decent chance in the upcoming elections. As it is, all of the barely concealed racial and sexist overtones to their policies serve to ostracize the people who would otherwise support them, and polarize the party.
