blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

Dear friends, Quietly, globally, billions of bees are dying, threatening our crops and food. But if Bayer stops selling one group of pesticides, we could save bees from extinction. Four European countries have begun banning these poisons, and some bee populations are already recovering. But Bayer, the largest producer of neonicotinoids, has lobbied hard to keep them on the market. Now, massive global pressure from Avaaz and others has forced them to consider the facts -- and in 24 hours, Bayer shareholders will vote on a motion that could stop these toxic chemicals. Let’s all act now and shame the shareholders to stop killing bees. The pressure is working, and this is our best chance to save the bees. Sign the urgent petition and send this to everyone -- let's reach half a million signers and deliver it directly to shareholders tomorrow in Germany! http://www.avaaz.org/en/bayer_save_the_bees_db/?tta Bees don't just make honey, they are vital to life on earth, every year poll...

Plant the Seed...Bandit Queen Press! Pea Flowers & carrots window garden: peas, flowers & carrots growing spinach in the kitchen!  Integral to the Bandit Queen Press movement is incorporating the quantum-- and in this case, it's finding out what I can grow in my Copenhagen apartment. The best way I can describe what I have been going through lately is to say that I feel as though a switch has been turned on, a genetic switch if you will, that is driving me to get my hands down in the soil, to plant, to marvel at the wonders of seeds-- The good news is, the kids love it. They respond to it in very much the same way they do to knitting or any other skill that harkens back to a time when the body, mind & soul would often engage in the ancient act of human creativity. So right now the 5th graders have all planted string beans. We have been recording its growth and learning about the magic of plants. We're going to go to the forest soon and...

Grandma Badass Hildred Balbirsingh is my grandmother. She is half African and East Indian*. Her father, it has been told, was a Baboolal. I shared the same birthday with her mother, Francis Lopez, who was creole (African). Her parents were born, raised and had worked on a cocoa plantation in Santa Cruz. Her father, although East Indian, married her mother because in those days, in the crazy dynamics inherent in colonialism, it was considered "marrying up" for an off-the-boat Indian (coolie, a derogatory term used for people of East Indian descent in Trinidad) to marry a Black local. (I want to take Colonialism and choke it ). My grandmother loves the pope. I don't think she likes the new one much. She grew up during world war ii, you know? She likes jesus and mary.  I always loved that I could tease her about her beliefs.  I always asked her why she wanted so much to be like every one else. Why didn't we both, she and I, just run away? In Trinidad, she ...

This is a little over 13 minutes of some interesting things to contemplate.