Today is Veteran's Day and I wish we weren't celebrating it. We humans are still so barbaric, because we still haven't figured out how not to end our conflicts in war. Nor have we learned the lesson that violence creates more violence. I wish we didn't have to celebrate this day because we no longer had wars. That it was a faint memory of history, like we remember the Trojan War or the Peloppenesian Greek civil war. I only see that every war we are in only causes another war. That the lives of young men and women are not protecting this country, which is the myth, but uses as the foundations for another war. It is so frustrating to hear people use their deaths as an excuse to justify wars. I don't believe they are dying for me, I see it as propaganda to justify an unjustifiable war. But many people in this country don't see it this way. It so sad. I fee that these deaths are in vain, because their violent deaths will not solve the problem of my security. The money we are spending this war could have been used to feed, cloth, and cure the sick of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. If we did that we could counter the AlQueda and the Taliban's lies. Killing the people in these countries is only alienating people and creating more terrorist.

I am listening to a book on tape "A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmail Beah. It only reaffirms my educated view that war creates only killing machines and more violence. Ishmail was recruited into the Sierra Leona army at 13 years old after his entire family is killed and his village burned and pillaged by rebels. He becomes like those who killed his family a cold, heartless murder. He is one of the lucky ones who is rehabilitate, but it takes a long time to do this. It is difficult for him to be anything other than a killer. His armor of hate and anger are eventually penetrated, and he is rehabilitate. However a lot of soldiers in every war are not and we create tormented souls. No I don't like Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and all those other days we remember wars, because we haven't learned anything by remembering them.

This past Saturday Barry and I took a couple of friends, Dick Speciese and Lynn to dinner at La Traviata Resturant. It is down the street and around the corner from my our house. They feature an opera singer. We went there because we wanted to celebrate Dick's birthday and he likes opera. The opera singer was good and he enjoyed himself. The dinner, music and conversation was lovely. After dinner we went to a Day of the Dead art exhibit at Long Beach's Second District Art Gallery. I have encluded photos of both.

I love Day of the Dead more than Halloween. It is a time in Mexican culture that we commemorate those in our family who have died. We place photos of our deceased with the things they liked most in life from food to objects on alters. These alters are covered with bright Marigold flowers and candles. Incense is burned in front of them.
The tradition comes from Potzcuarro, Michoacán Mexico. In Potzcuarro there is a small island where the people bring food, drink, and music to the graves of their loved ones. They pray for their dead and hold a vigil where they eat, drink and play music at their deceased grave sites. Day of the Dead is as much as for the living as it is to remember the deceased love ones. I visited Potzcuarro at New Years in 2006. I couldn't get to visit on November 1 or 2, which is the Catholic All Saints Day and when the people of Potzcuarro go and pray for their deceased. Part of the tradition is the making of brilliantly colored sugar skulls and special sweet bread. Brightly colored paper mache skeletons participating in daily activities also decorated these alter. To remind the living that, “life is a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” (To poorly quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth) or as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday, “Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return” The Calaveras also make fun of death, with a hangman’s humor. Most people don’t understand this and consider it macabre. It is a way of relieving the terror of our own demise, and makes us remember that we should live this life to its fullest.


I am an atheist and don’t believe in an afterlife, but have come to the existential realization, that we need to make sure that when we leave this life we did more good than harm. I owe it to the next generation that I lived an unselfish life and tried what I could to stop war, poverty, and hunger. As a teacher I was compassionate, understanding and helped my students. As a wife I made my husband happy. That I loved the stranger and realized she/he was like me, humans with the same wants, needs and loves.

I learned of the Day of the Dead here in Los Angeles and have been going to Day of the Dead celebrations for years. We have made alters at school and last week I went with some friends to the Hollywood Cemetery Annual Day of the Dead art exhibit. Not only did families setup alters but also artist that made political statements. These included alters that mourned the deaths of hundreds of women in Juarez Mexico, the hundreds of undocumented workers who died of thirst as they now cross the boarder in an unforgiving desert, and of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan from soldiers to civilians. It was a sobering experience, but also as in Mexico filled with lots of color, music and food. Some of the face paintings were works of art, and I have attempted to photograph some of them. It was dark when I arrived and was unable to get good shots of the alters, because I forgot to take a tripod.

Attached are photos of the Island in Potzcuarro Lake where the tradition started, an alter at school and photos of people dressed in Calaveras costume at the recent Hollywood cemetery. I have decided to share these photos through and email since I can not do it on Facebook so I decide to send them in an email. I hope you enjoy them.

This is Ilorona. She needs a good home. The photo was take many years ago in my condo. She would periodically run away because she was being hurrassed by my other cat Oreol. When I moved in to my husband's house about 4 years ago, I couldn't find her to bring her. Every time I went back to see my tenants, I would call for her, but she never answered. Then this week I went back to get the rent and as I was driving out of the underground parking I saw her walking in the garage. I jumped out of the car and called her. She stopped in her tracks and started to cry, that's why I call her Llorana. It means Cryer or one who cries in the femine. I brought her home and she is now living in my computer room. She needs a better home, becuase her tormentor still live with me and I am afraid he will attack her when I leave her out of the room. So I am looking for a good loving home for her. Any takers?

We went to the city of Potzcuarro. The regional dance is the Dance of the Old Men. These are young street dancers performing in one of the main Plazas in Potzcuarro
Potzcuarro is in the Sierra's of Mexico. It is also a lake with about 5 islands. The tradition of the Day of the Dead comes from these islands. This is one of the islands.
Outside of Gudalajara is the artisan town of Tlaquepaque. Here Barry is out side of the gallery of one of these artist with one of his statues.
This is Barry and I on a street of Tlaquepaque

Encontrada and Riely sleeping in my living room. I found Encontrada abandoned and running scared in front of my house. She turned out to be a sweet loving dog. Pitbulls have bad reputations, because here she is with a young little boy we ran into at a peace demonstration. He fell in love with her and like petting her. She has gone on a lot of peace demonstrations with us against the war. I call her the Pit for Peace.
I love this photo of her sleeping under her blanket one cold winter night.
This past Christmas we went to Mexico. This is an arch in Guadalajara.
This is a photo of a street in my favorite colonial Mexican city of Guanajuato.

My husband and I are going to Europe again. We are leaving on July 17, 2007 and returning on August 21, 2007. We are going first to Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Moscow for a River Cruise and then Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and back to Amsterdam. I shall probably be posting more photos and if this works some videos when we get back. I have primarily posted this for people I want to visit and want to know more about me. So if you want to learn more about me, before you meet me continue reading and viewing my blog.

I'm leaving for Europe again tomorrow June 23, 2006. I haven't written in this blog for a long while. Many things have been happening in my life. I got married. Barry Saks, my husband and I also took our family on three day cruise to Ensenada. They loved it. I should have published some of the photos I took before the wedding and on that trip, but I haven't had the time. We got married on April 14, 2006. It was a Friday in our home, and we boarded the cruise ship the Paradise an hour later. It was only about a mile away from our house.
I have been living with him for a year, and we decided it would be a good idea to get married. Now we are going on another cruise to Europe. Although I am looking forward to this cruise, I really would have perferred go at another time. I'm only getting one week off from work, and I don't like the fact that we will only stay one day in each city. We board the ship in Barcelona, Spain, but I will not be able to see the city, because when we come back we have to come directly home, so I can get ready to go to work on July 5, 2006. The cruise was originally my sister Judy's idea, after we put a down payment on the cruise she decides she can't afford it and loses her $500 deposit. We decided to go do it anyway and I didn't want to lose the deposit. I would have preferred to go at the end of August when I have 2 weeks off. I would also have preferred to fly into cities and stay in them longer.
The photo I posted before this were taken on June 11, 2006 when my best friend Dr. Margret Oakes came to visit me from Las Vegas. She was beginning her summer vacation. She teach at the University there and decided to come down and visit. We had a great Sunday after noon. We had a great breakst at the Long Beach Museum of Art which has a great ocean view. Then we went to Shoreline Village and took a water taxie around the city. I have enclosed a photo of the Long Beach AquBus and the others are of Naples Canal. It is a hidden treasure of Long Beach, which I love to take visitors to. The gandola makes it even more romantic.

An Atheist Prayer

Agains Holy Wars

Where is god when Muslim kill 3,000 in New York,
While Jews kill Palestinians,
And Christians declare war on Muslim babies?
Where is god?
Did he get lost in the Torah,
Or misplaced in the Koran?
Where is he hiding in the books of the Bible?
Was his message of peace and loving one's enemy written in Braille,
Which can not be read by religious men and women
Blinded by self-righteousness?
Did his children kill him
When they destroy each other in his name.
Where is god
When Jews declare jihad in his holy land,
While Muslim crusaders burn towers of human flesh,
And Christian soldiers rain fire
On the sacred shrines of the Muslim saints Hussein and Alli?
Oh how I pray and wish there were a god
Who confronted his orphaned children.
I wish there were an all powerful god
Who could destroy weapons of mass destruction.
I wish there were a god
whose infinite love would kiss men's hateful hearts.
I wish and pray there were a god
And the world would find him
And he would end this insanity.

This is from the Guggenheim museum' s balcony that over looks the Grand Canal. The sculpture is in stark contrast to it's surroundings, the old with the new. The hard edges of the black sculpture in contrast to the soft summer pastel hues of the buildings and canal

We had lunch near the Rialto Bridge. So I took this photo, but we did get to see the Lucian Freud art exhibit at a museum, whose name I don't remember that was in St. Marco's Square. Freud who was the grandson of Sigmund Freud painted these very anatomical nudes. They almost looked like studies from an anatomy class.

This is the hotel we stayed in Venice. It was nice, but I would have loved to have seen the Greek Islands. I was really looking forward to seeing them. Maybe we can take another cruise to them.

These are some more of my cliche Venice photos. The second day we were there we up in the morning and took a long walk from our hotel to St Marco. I shot this on my way to the Basilica.

Here is the Basilica. We never went in. There was such a long line we decided to walk around.

One can not go to Venice without taking the traditional gandola shot. So here is mine.

This is a shot that I took out from my video of the fire on the ship. We were about 3 hours outside of Athens, when the ship started to burn. We had just had breakfast and went back to our cabin to lay back before we got into Athens. I heard this horrible noise, like the gears were grinding on the motor. I said something to Barry, and he said it was probably a tugboat bring us in. I live in the largest port in on the West Coast, the Long Beach San Pedro port. And I have seen tugboats pulling ships. They make that kind of a noise. I went out to check it out and saw smoke billowing down the corridor. I told Barry let's get out of here the ship is on fire. I put on my life jacked and went to the deck, a long with the other 1600 passengers. This is when I took this photo. They kept us up on the on the fire, but they had to do it in first Italian, French, Spanish, German, then English. The reason was because the majority of the passengers were in that order, with the Italians being the largest group of passengers. However, because I speak Spanish I was able to translate to Barry what was going on. It usually took about a minute or two before they got to English. The other photo of the ship is of the damage the fire created. I shot that when we were getting off the ship and taken to Athens. They had to end the cruise, because the dining rooms and kitchen were burnt. The cruise line paid for our lunch and dinner in Athens, but we got there to late to do much but walk around a shopping area under the Acropolis, but not in time to visit it. The third picture is of an Athenian street dog. There were a lot of them, but I have never seen such laid back street dogs in my life. This guy was so comfortable he could sleep in the middle of the street in the most vulnerable position with his feet in the air. I thought this was extremely funny.

These are photos from the cruise Barry and I took. They are of the first port in which we stopped Ancona, Italy. It was a quaint small town. One thing I love about Italy and Europe, is all the old historical buildings and streets. You walk down the street and run into fountains that were probably built in the 16th Century. I am sitting at one of those fountains. Another is of Barry at an out door cafe. Italy is one of my favorite places. I love to go to their museums. I got my degree in Journalism, but my minor was history. My Sophomore High School teacher, Sister Inid, turned me on to history and I have been an avid student of it ever since. So the other two of the photos are of a statue at the Ancona Museum of Archaeology and the is of the Ancona Art Museum. It featured local artist. The other is of the ship we were on, the Costa Classica. If you scroll down you'll see the rest. I 'm still having problems posting photos and text on this blog. I primarily want to post photos.

I took a cruise to the Greek Island in August. The boat had a fire and the cruise was cancelled. I have video of it, but I can't put it on this blog. If I coud I would. The boat caught on fire about three hours out of Athens. We eventully landed in Athens, but it was to late to see anything. I never did get to see the Acropolis, it had closed by the time we got near it. We ended up in Venice for the rest of the trip. So here are the photos I took.

I am on my way to Venice, Italy. I haven't been there since 1965. I am trying to keep awake, because the airport shuttle is going to pick Barry and I up at 4:30 PM. The last time I was in Venice, I stayed at a youth hostel with a curfew, but the day in Venice was long and filled with the beauty of history. It was a different world for this Chicana from Chicago. My best friend's in high school were all Italian, but they knew nothing of their origins. They never really talked that much about Italy, but for that matter I never talked that much about Mexico. It was so far away for both of us. We were what the Japanese Americans call the Sansi. I hope I spell that right.

My high school friends were Calabrase and Secilian. My best friend Jackie Landee was Italian. A racist, because she knew no different. She could be described as having, "el Nopal en su cara" or as I would say, "Her dark olive skin on which was written genetic code of centuries of Greek, Roman, and Muslim conquerers, was darker than mine. However she had the audacity to tell me that I should not have told some guy at Ahmad Jamal's, The Bird House's bar in 1958 that I was Mexican.

The tragedy of it all was that, most of my girlfriedns like myself, lost our language, history and ethnenticity. When I got to Italy many years later, I realized how much they had lost. I love Italy. Every city is a page of history. And now I am going back, but also, I will be crusing on a ship through the Greek Islands.

I am leaving about an hour . So I'm going to kill some time by trying to post pictures of my student.

These are more photos of Mexican dances. I have written articles about the history of Mexican dance, which I attempted to publish. I once wanted to write a book illustrated with my photos about the history of Mexican dance. I decided to try and write an article on the dance history of each region. I did get three articles published in a very small Latino California magazine Saludos and also in the Sept, 97 issue of Vista Magazine. It is a Sunday supplement for Latino readers. Some larger metropolitan news paper inserted it into their Sunday newspapers. I haven't attempted to publish anything any more, until now on my blog.

The Saludos magazine bought 2 of my articles. One was beautifully illustrated with my photos. It was about the Aztec dances of Mexico. They used the two black and white photos I have published here of the single male and female dancer. The other wasn't about Mexican folk dances, but about a Brazilian African dance the Capuerra. I wasn't that happy with the photos I took, but I was more interested in the history of the dance. It came with Angolan Africa slaves and is a ritualist marchial art ballet. It is danced to music that is played on original Angolan instruments. Break dancing came from the Capuerra.

The above black and white dancer was from a color original, which I can't find. The others are of a dance entitled Los Moors y Los Cristainos. I shot this when I was in Mexico in the 1970's. I forgot the year. I took a car trip with some friends from Sacramento, CA to Mexico City. I took these photos in the Sierras of Michiuacan, Mexico. It re enacts a battle between Christian Spain and Moorish Spain. And of course the Christians win. It is interesting how Spanish colonialism even imposed on the Indian populations of Mexico a history that still glorifies their Spanish conquerors. However the indiginous populations like those here in these photos have taken this story and recreated it in their own terms, even if it was just the costumes. They were all hand made and the close up of the helmet was to illustrate how they cut them and painted them from tin cans.

Barry says I should copyright my photos. Anyone can copy them and use them. But I doubt if anyone, outside of friends and family that will be interested in them. They are very ordinary descriptive scenes. They don't qualify as fine art, and I have tried to sell them.

Once in the 1970s when I was trying to get a job in San Francisco at United Press International as a stringer. I took a portfolio filled with scenes like these: Mexican dances in Sacramento and Mexico, people in the Latino Mission District of San Francisco. At that time I was photographing my community, in every city that I lived. While I was waiting in the reception area I saw a recent photo essay of the zoo with gorrillas hanging on tires from a tree. When the photo editor looked at my portofolio, he didn't say my photos were technically bad. Since I developed and printed them in a darkroom, I could see how the gray scale was off on some of them. No, he said, "Mexicans don't sell." He noted that I should look at their recent photo essay of the zoo. Yes, Mexicans don't sell, but gorrillas did.

It takes a lot of time to download and write a blog. I still have to do my lesson plans for the week. Also the editing screen I use to post my blogg, takes forever to type, proof read, and edit what you have written. The only way I have figured out how to save what I have written is by saving the entire document as a draft, which also takes more time. Well I'm learning. Now I am experimenting with writting this on Notepad and seeing if I can do a block copy to post on the blog. Let me see how this works. It works!