I was pretty surprised to read this actually.  I knew there was bias in media, but I guess I hadn’t thought about how much of it there really was until this article and the linked one here at USA TODAY opened my eyes.   As  I mentioned in my post regarding D (please click here to scoot back to that post) it’s really not so important that D was transgendered or that Ms. Figueroa was Hispanic.  What matters is that these are people.  They are valuable, they are not throw away.  They all deserve to get as much respect, attention and justice as we can give them seeing that their perpetrators preferred to treat them as objects of contempt.

And the media bias is really troubling.  Why is it that this kind of bias exists.  Perhaps the quote by Michael Bass, as I have copied in here from the USA TODAY article holds the key:

     Michael Bass, senior executive producer at The Early Show
on CBS, echoed on Thursday comments made previously by television
producers when asked about whether they favor stories about white
women.
    "It’s the story that drives our decision (on
coverage) rather than the gender or race," he said. Bass said his staff
heard about the case from the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia, "though we
look at the web, too. … It’s possible someone in our group saw it
there first."

So in some sense the coverage (and perhaps any attention from the authorities?) was a function of consumption - that is - consumer consumption of news.   And if that’s the source driver for news choice, then, what does that say about our society?  Maybe it says we still have a long way to go to accept all our citizens as people.   Maybe it says that you have to be "pretty" to get justice.  I don’t really like those conclusions; they scare me.  They bring to light that our society, (as blessed as it is here in the U.S.A. and as grateful as I am to live and work here), has a ways to go to accept, support and love one another.   I think Marin Luther’s dream (which you can hear by clicking  here) still has some room before it’s reality - for all of us: white, Hispanic, transgendered, gay, Asian or any other denomination you’d like.

A new on-line community might fill a void for you: Transdentity. Transdentity exists as a supportive community for the creative exploration of identity for all individuals. The site hosts a forum, chat line and bulletin board. The chat line can be found on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Undernet system. The channel is #transdentity. You can get to Transdentity’s chatroom by clicking on this link here.

When the log-in screen pops up type in your nickname (use the one you have at Yahoo if you’d like!), then type in #transdentity for you Favourite channel. If a pop up window appears with a Java Security Warning, asking you to accept or deny, click accept. The site is secure and shouldn’t pose a problem (or hasn’t for me anyway).

How do you use IRC and what is it? IRC is one of the original chat systems, predating Yahoo Chat. If you used Yahoo, you can easily use IRC. If you have an Internet connection, then it’s easy (and free) to get to IRC and Undernet. IRC is a simple chat system that won’t take you any time at all to learn about it if you’ve used Yahoo. You can use a java web client like the link in the previous paragraph allows or you can download a standalone IRC chat program (like you may have with Yahoo Chat, Skype or AIM). Download a chat client (for free) at MIRC (http://www.mirc.com). Of if you have the Firefox browser (getFirefox) you can download the Chatzilla plug-in to access IRC as well from this link here. You can learn about IRC here at this link: IRCInfo (dead link) or at this link here IRCHelp. You can learn about Undernet at this link here: Whatis Undernet

—————————————-
Update for 11-27-07:   Transdentity is back online.   See update from Glenda herself  in her comment below.

Update for 9-24-07: It appears that the Undernet IRC Channel #transdentity and web site has been taken down

   My spouse makes hellacious potato salad. In fact, her potato salad is so hellacious that it is a hit with anyone who eats it. But, being the health conscience parent that I am, I needed to figure out a better potato salad. Salad of love (my honey’s potato salad)
wins hands down. Salad of Science (my potato salad) tastes like it was made in a food science lab. I’ll let you guess which one tastes
best.

Salad of Love (also known a pile ofstuff whipped into a pot that magically produces potatoessalad)

* 1 bag potatoes boiled, then peeled (boiling ‘em first makes the peeling easier)

* Throw in two eggs while potatoes are cooking, to make them hardboiled

* Take peeled potatoes, cube ‘em and then toss into a bowl

* Shell eggs, dice, toss in same bowl with potatoes

* Finely chop &5 carrots and toss in

* Finely chop about 6 celery stocks & toss in

* Finely chop one onion, dice it up, toss it in to the same bowl

* Toss in some extra macaroni, or any other edible substance that has not grown mold or generated a smell reminiscent of your local waste management station.

* Toss it all together - if you use your bare hands it’s best.

* Take your fav mayo and put in about 5 big spoonfuls (big being your definition of big spoon)

* Add in some Italian dressing - just make it go around in a circle on top….your guess is as good as anyone’s as to how much is the best amount

* cover, refrigerate overnight - then whip out the next day at lunch and eat!

Calories? who the heck knows, and who’s counting! Serving size? By the plate! Taste? all children give this a thumbs up.

Salad of Science

(From page 107, Weight Watchers, “Simply The Best” recipe book)

Ingredients
(measurements are precise)

- 1/4 Cup plain non-fat yogurt

- 2 tablespoons reduced-calorie mayonnaise

- 2 teaspoons minced dill

- 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

- 1 celery stalk, diced up

- 1/2 red bell pepper, seeded & diced

- 2 hard cooked eggs chopped

- 2 scallions thinly sliced

- 2 small red potatoes, cooked and cubed

In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, dill, vinegar and black pepper. Add the celery, bell pepper, eggs and scallions; toss with a pair of salad tongs to lightly coat. Ad the potatoes and toss gently, again with the tongs.

Calories? 130

Service Size? One third of the batch as listed, serves 3. Taste? All children look at me questioning if this is potatoe salad, egg salad, or craft paste.

You may recall my Asiatics "disappeard" (see Link above).   My digital camera has returned, so hopefully I’ll be able to nab the culprit (at least on film!).  It’s likely the deer.  It’s not like we live in the boonies, but, with reduced predators deer need to go someplace.  Apparently they need to eat someplace too!

Maybe I should get in on this deal to re-release big-game predators into the U.S. ecosystem…

This is a great read with excellent advice - had to share!  (now I guess I need to take that advice).

I’m so messed up right now I can barely think straight, let alone string together words cogently enough to make sense. I have no idea
why these “dips” happen. The best I can make of them, they happen when I don’t take care of myself, burying my being transgendered deep inside me to the degree that it drives me to a depression that I can’t really deal with. I know there are medications for this soft of thing. And my therapist has recommended them on more than one occasion. So why not avail myself of them and get back to some normalcy? Mainly, I think, because I don’t like the side effects, the increased tendency for suicide, the unknowns of taking them for so long. So I chose to ride out these periods and then I come to my senses after two days of not sleeping, of hiding, and realize I’m really in a bad sorts, pull myself together and drag myself up and out and see that the sun really is shining, the air really is filled with oxygen and that maybe things aren’t so bad after all.

Expressing my transgendered nature really does help me in these situations. Generally, it’s about crossdressing. In doing that, I am able to bring some level of congruity between my body and my mind and that makes all the difference, calming me, making my little world line up and then letting me sort of just go on with life. That going on with life is what most if not all folk who are transgendered really want. They just want some measure of peace and then to live and work and love. It’s pretty simple stuff really. I don’t know a single transgendered man or woman who would ask to have Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID). The general complications that it causes are just mind boggling. MOST of those complications are the result of societal pressure that being transgendered is somehow so weird that it demands stomping out or to be relegated to some sensational talk show. Many of those complications are caused by the transgendered persons own fears as well.

So it’s nice to be out and about. I don’t feel particularly comfortable in my own skin right now, but I’m not in some darkcavernous place at least.

Though French Toast was fun for a "season" the real draw in my kitchen was (and still is) PANCAKES.  Pancakes are the ONE thing I can trust to get my brood up and around the kitchen table TOGETHER.  They may mutter something vaguely distinguishable as English when they ask for "coffee", or  look at each other through bloodshot eyes and grunt, acknowledging there is another body in the room.  But the key is we are all together around the table.  Pancakes get us there.

Here’s the recipe I’ve used for years, and just thought I’d share the pancake love with ya’ll:

These are from scratch :)  WHAT no Aunt Jemima?   Nah, I gave her the day off for this recipe.  This recipe is adapted from the recipe "Old Fashion Pancakes" on page 94 of "The New Laurel’s Kitchen".  Note, these are hearty whole wheat pancakes.  A few go a LONG way!

Ingredients:
1 Cups whole wheat flour
1 Cup white flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 egg whites
2 3/4 c. 1% fat milk
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil or 2 Tablespoons applesauce (this makes the pancakes moister.  The oil makes a yummier pancake, but the applesauce is a bit healthier and cuts the calories some).

1. In a LARGE bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients.
2. Beat the eggs lightly & combine with the milk, then add to the dry ingredients & stir briefly.  Stir in the oil (or applesauce).
3. Heat the griddle. It should be hot enough so that when you sprinkle water drops on the surface, they dance or bubble about.  I find that on an electric stove, a setting of about 6 makes the surface hot without making it too hot that the cakes burn on the outside and then are mushy on the inside (sort of a stuffed pancake thing - very gross tasting unless you are hungover from the night before, then you have no idea whether your eating your tongue or your pancake).
   1. You probably won’t need any grease on the griddle unless you, a loved one, or a friendly neighbor have used it to smelt iron ore or burnt the surface horribly in some heat fetish for cooking food to a blackend char ("say honey, how about some Cajun blackened pancakes today?").
   2. Pour the batter onto the now nicely hot griddle.  I put 2 Tablespoons down and they come out nice and big and deeelicious.
   3. How the heck do you know when to turn them?   Well, after the initial pouring down onto the hot griddle top, the edges of the now nicely cooking cake should be a dry brown and the top should be all bubbly like the surface of Venus.  That means the heat has cooked through the batter!   Turn quick with a large spatula.

I always heat up some real maple syrup (not that bizarre food fad from the food lab, Maple Like Syrup they have in the asiles of our local grocery stores!).   Real maple syrup is not cheap - BUT - when heated a little goes a long way.  Give it a shot, hey it’s only a couple of bucks you cheapskate!!

If you feel very adventurous, once you try this recipe for a while, play with your food :)   Add blueberries or other lovelies to the mix.  Note, the more stuff you add, careful to add enough milk to keep the batter pourable, or else it hardens like concrete!

Okay, so who could be the culprit. The day commuting woodchuck that has her daily apples from our apple trees? Hmmm, she might be able to get up on her hind legs. The coyotes? No, he’d be chasing the day commuting groundhog. It could only be deer (well, it could be elk, but we don’t have elk in these parts). Hmm, once my digital camera has been fixed I’ll have to see if I can get a pic of the perp, bud in mouth!

These were way too funny to pass up posting over my steaming mug of hazelnut coffee…see the whole list at this link here

1. The Swiss
  Spaghetti Harvest

In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks
  to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded
  spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti
  crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants
  pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers
  were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could
  grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically
  replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin
  of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

15. The Case of the Interfering
  Brassieres

In 1982 the Daily Mail reported that a local manufacturer had sold
  10,000 "rogue bras" that were causing a unique and unprecedented
  problem, not to the wearers but to the public at large. Apparently
  the support wire in these bras had been made out of a kind of copper
  originally designed for use in fire alarms. When this copper came
  into contact with nylon and body heat, it produced static electricity
  which, in turn, was interfering with local television and radio
  broadcasts. The chief engineer of British Telecom, upon reading
  the article, immediately ordered that all his female laboratory
  employees disclose what type of bra they were wearing.

22. Arm the Homeless

In 1999 the Phoenix New Times ran a story announcing the formation
  of a new charity to benefit the homeless. There was just one catch.
  Instead of providing the homeless with food and shelter, this charity
  would provide them with guns and ammunition. It was named ‘The Arm
  the Homeless Coalition.’ The story received coverage from 60 Minutes
  II, the Associated Press, and numerous local radio stations before
  everyone realized it was a joke. The Phoenix New Times’s joke was
  actually a reprise of a 1993 prank perpetrated by students at Ohio
  State University.

For more of the fun, click here

My rationale for using VoIP was to make
business calls less expensive and, I admit, the cool factor was just
“there” for me. The wonderful thought of being tres chic
with my VoIP phone, bypassing the standard system, was alluring. Too
bad the hype hasn’t lived up to the facts. Still, VoIP phones, when
they’ve worked for me, have saved me alot of money. More on the “when
they’ve worked comment” later in this post.

VoIP stands for
Voice Over Internet Protocol. It is a way
for your voice to be transferred over the
same cable that you use to use the Internet
for web surfing, IM or chat lines or cable TV even. VoIP Phones let
you do useful stuff like check your voice mail from your computer (or
depending on which one you use any web browser you can fin), hold
conference calls, or even do video calls (but never, ever until after
the first cup of coffee). But the main immediate benefit is cost.
They are much cheaper than using a plain old phone.

Since we are all squeaky cheap, looking for
the next bargain to stretch our fashion dollars, what can you save?
Let’s look at a couple of examples. A standard local phone line
(affectionately known as a POTS line, Plain Old Telephone System)
costs roughly about $40.00 for a local plan from a standard phone
company (like Verizon or Bell South). Long distance, U.S. calling
will cost about .10 per minute. Let’s say you gab long distance (that
is outside your local calling area) for two hours per month. That
will run you about $12 more dollars per month, for a total charge of
$52.00 per month for a local provider. This does not include high
speed Internet (DSL or cable), this would be a dial up Internet
connection line only - good enough for email and very basic Internet
use.

Let’s say you try a standard national cable
provider, such as Comcast. If they don’t offer phone service in your
area, then you’d need to choose a local telephone company to provide
that. A very basic bundle package of phone coverage and high speed
cable Internet will cost you about $65.00 per month. Long distance
U.S. calling will again run you about .07 per minute. As in the above
example, if you gab long distance for about two hours per month,
you’ll spend another $8.40, brining the total package to about $73.00
per month. This is clearly a better telecommunications combo than a
standard phone line. But can you do better?

Finally, let’s say you try a price
aggressive, regional cable provider (like RCN). Just like national
cable providers they not only have a cable business but also a TV and
phone business as well (again through VoIP). since many cable
providers not only are in the TV business, but now also in the phone
business (yes, through VoIP phone systems). A very basic bundle
package of local phone coverage and high speed cable Internet will
cost you about $57.00 per month. Long distance U.S. calling will
again run you about .07 per minute. As in the above example, if you
gab long distance for about two hours per month, you’ll spend another
$8.40, brining the total package to $65.40 per month.

But can you do better? Providing you can
just get high-speed Internet access, the answer is likely yes.
There are a number of very good choices available to you…some
better than others. The outstanding review in PC World “Net
Phones Grow Up” is the place
to look, so I’ll let you all peruse that on
your own time. BUT, here’s my personal experience with two of the
more famous ones out now: Skype and Vonage.

Skype
is very interesting. Basically you download their software (for
free) then you plug in a headset to your PC’s USB port or microphone
in/speaker out jack and voila! You have a working phone
through your computer! If you call others that have Skype then it’s
free, and great quality. If you use your little Skype phone for
calling others who don’t have Skype, you can buy time in 10 or 25
Euro amounts (which is about one U.S. dollar, give or take). The
rates to call other countries is ridiculously low, generally .02 per
minute in U.S. dollars. I’ve gone to other countries and used Skype
from my laptop to call other countries and to call home. Skype
works just fine on a wireless connection as well (so if you are in a
coffee shop that has WiFi or maybe an airport with WiFi) so you can
call anywhere as well. Again, there are no hidden charges or adders
above the rate. Now the downside. When Skype works, it’s great.
When it doesn’t (about 15% of the time) it’s terrible - you either
get a bad connection or no connection at all. You have to keep
trying till something in that great PSTN (public switch telephone
network) in the sky “clears up”. I’d recommend Skype
though for sure, it will save you a ton of dough.

Vonage is
not what it’s billed to be. I found it harder to setup than Skype,
more expensive than Skype and, to really make my coffee bitter, I
found that every 10-15 minutes it would drop calls on me - even
though my high speed cable was always working! Set up is a box you
have to put into your house, and then you attach a regular phone too.
This means you can’t take Vonage with you without hauling the box.
To be fair, the box is small, about the size of a large paperback
novel. Tech support was always helpful but never solved my problems
(in contrast, I’ve never had to call Skype tech support). The rates
are okay, you pay $14.95 per month for 500 minutes worth of calls in
North America, then .03 per minute for calls everywhere else. In the
end, you pay a bit more for what Skype costs, but you get less
flexibility.

SO happy VoIPing shoppers!!

Educational Link-a-doo:

PCWorld.com “Net Phones Grow Up”

C/Net on Internet Phones

cute phone pic from http://www.stevenstoymaster.co.uk/

I read this about D in the link above & I thought to myself "this is just so wrong, this didn’t have to happen".  It didn’t.  The real issue here is discrimination based on someone being transgendered.  But D could have been Asian, Mexican, mentally ill or Islamic and the same thing may have happened.

A re-reading of The Parable of the Good Samaritan helps here I think:
The Good Samaritan

What’s really been rattling my brain is acceptance.  Self-acceptance, if your different.  And especially if your transgendered.  Self-acceptance is the number one issue.  I thought I had vanquished this dragon until I engaged in some very meaningful dialog with some trans-folk at an email group I’m a part of run by the very talented Lacey Leigh. 

As Lacey states it, so rightly in words I cannot, she says "The
greatest hurdle with being transgendered is self acceptance; once that
is achieved, everything else falls into place".   The equally gifted
Andrea James, on her site TS Roadmap, states it as well.  "Self-acceptance and coming to terms with your feelings
  are the first order of business in transition. If you are not emotionally
  grounded from the onset, you are going to have a difficult transition. Transition
  is a minor issue in comparison to self-acceptance".

As for me, I had thought that I’d have accepted or at least come to
terms with being transgendered.  I would have thought by now that I’d
be completely self-accepting.   But if the definition of self-accpeting
is loving ourselves  & accepting ourselves the way we are, then, I
don’t think I’m there yet.  I’ve got a ways to go it appears.  I’ve
traveled all over the world and seen many things in life, but, it
appears, I’ve not traveled to my own heart to see what’s there and the
work I need to do in accepting who I am as a transgendered person. 

I’m not sure exactly what that means,
but, I think it has to do with loving myself as much as I’d love
someone else.  I think it means giving myself room to be me, and
in that knowing and trusting that I won’t become this self-centered
shrew hoarding what she has till the last day.   The funny
thing is, in those moments when I’ve accepted myself the most, I’ve
been freer to give away the most.

some links that are helping me:
The
journey to self-acceptance

Self
Acceptance at TS Roadmap

The
Successful Crossdresser

Changing your self-image

Self-esteem what does the Bible Say?

Link: Laura5.com.

4/1/2007 Update
The site, Laura5, has been permanently disabled by the owner.

Well this is pretty cool. The Ivory Billed Woodpecker, once thought extinct is actually still alive!   I wonder if they’ll run a correction in the obituaries for the little wood eater!

… as long as they don’t find any live T-Rex’s thought long dead, I’m fine with extinct species making a comeback.