Here is a video I produced.  But since Youtube wouldn't allow me to upload more than 15 minutes, I had to break it down into 4 parts.  Here they are:

Pollution of Kawai,Hawaii

I can't go on vacation without doing a story.  I took a lot of beautiful pictures in Kawaii, Hawaii, but so does everyone else.  This is more important, so I did this video.  I'll bore everyone with my pictures later

Soy Del Pueblo - Fast 4 Families

Belem, Lisbon, Portugal - The Alfama Fado Music - Scenes of Spain - Jorge Aruzaga a Spanish Hunger Striker

My husband and I spent a month in Portugal and Spain.  Here are videos I did of Belem an historical area of Lisbon, Portugal.  I was most impressed with the Berardo Collection Museum. Its collection covers all the major movements of the 20th and 21st century.  We stayed to very nice young men who took us to hear Fado Music in the oldest part of Lisbon, the Alfama. Next video are scenes from Madrid, Spain, I emphasize the Royal Palace and its gardens with a musical accompaniment by a street violinist.  Finally I interview Jorge Aruzaga a young Spanish hunger striker protesting the government's handling of the grave Spanish economic crisis

Videos I did for AllCare Alliance discussing why we need single payer health care

Here are some of my most recent videos:

Here is another reason why we need single payer health care

Yesterday Occupy Long Beach joined 350.org's national day of protest to stop fracking to extract oil from tar sand.  In March there was a similar demonstration in Los Angeles.  This is a video I produced of that demonstration.

Coalition for a Safe Environment Video

In this video I produced Jesse Marquez of Coalition for a Safe Environment discusses the environmental impact of the 710 Freeway expansion to allow more diesel truck traffic to and from the Long Beach/Los Angeles Port

My most recent video is of a demonstration in support of Best Western employees after they had been fired in order not to comply with Long Beach Proposition N, which gave them a living wage, and 64% of Long Beach voters passed it.

Recently I have been doing videos on labor issues.  This is a demonstration in support of Walmart workers.

I started to do videos with this slide show.  Where I discuss A exhibit of street art at LA Museum of Contemporary Art and capitalism.

This is one of my first videos that I did when I started to do full videos

I have been reading an old school mates blog and realized I hadn't discuss in my blog my earlier life. I shall begin with Dan Lieberman who was my first husband. I met him in San Francisco, we went to Europe together back in 1965 - 1966. We spent a whole year there. We had saved $1000. There was a book out then entitled "Europe on $5 a Day" We prided ourselves on living in Europe for less. We flew into Luxenburg on Icelantic Airlines. We first drove a car for a company that we were to deliver in New York. Then we took Icelantic Airlines to Luxenburg. It was less than $200 for one of us. We got to Luxenburg and hitch-hiked to Paris. We didn't stay very long in Paris, maybe a couple of days, because we were going to go back, so we thought later. It was in late April near Easter. We got picked up by 2 Greek guest workers who were working in a Sacandinavian country. It was a Mad Hatter drive to Paris on two lane winding roads at what I felt was 50 miles an hour. We left Paris and hitch hiked to the south of France. While in Bieritz we decided to stop taking chance with rides and bought ourselves this Vespa.

I have been reading Gunter Grass’s biography. It is an open window into the soul of a young Polish/German Nazi and his repentance, slow rebirth, and maturation as a great German writer and intellectual. I read the Tin Drum, many years ago and still remember its gnome protagonist. I see where Gunter took scenes from his life and used them in the Tin Drum, and as he notes does in his other novels, which I now want to read. The tragedy of the biography, is that his experience as a true believer describes so many of us, and how I doubt we will learn from his and other German’s lives, who thought they were free while they followed Hitler and his propaganda machine. Will we have to suffer total defeat, before our fellow Estadounidentes learn that war is not the answer? His writing is detailed with introspective descriptions of his life as 14 years old Nazi Youth, 16 year old German soldier, 17 year old wounded prisoner of war, culinary student, miner, and grave stone cuter. This is where I am in his life now. His language describes German life in human detail and made me realize how much we all are the same. Most profound for me was how mundane the Polish Germans were as they slid into genocide. I once knew a German young man who said to me, there is a little Nazi in all of us, and I can see that in Grass’s biography. One learns of German life after the war, now he is discussing the change in the German money from one species to another while working on repairing the marble facade of bank. He notes, “They changed the money to make us consumers.
I have also included my photos of my backyard patio. I did them last year. I worked hard to create this little garden. Most of my plants are in pots including and orange tree.

Winter Flowers of Willmore City

I took these photos in my neighborhood which is the oldest part of Long Beach, California.

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