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Not at all what I expected...

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I just completed a series of grueling tests to see what kind of learning disorder I have. I’ve known that I have some sort of spatial-pattern-perception deal that makes it difficult to do things like draw, cut a straight line with scissors, paint, sew, make clay pots, use a measuring tape or a ruler…anything that requires using my hands to follow a pattern or recreate anything in the natural world in some kind of art medium. I’m cool with that. I enjoy the creations other people have made for un-art or mechanically inclined people like me. I also figured that the tests would show that I have dycalculia, which is a math/numbers disability. Math has been the bane of my scholastic existence since the second grade. I just didn’t get it, and I struggle with it now. I don’t want to go into how comepletely confused and stressed out I become by the words, “solve for x”. Just typing that freaks me out. However, the preliminary tests revealed that I scored “low average” in mathemati...

Angela goes on yet another HULK SMASH rant

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Here's the situation--the website oaklandlocal.com published an article titled : " 75 Percent of Juvenile Arrests in Oakland are Black Males, says report ", which I urge all five of my readers to check out. All right, I'm just messing with you--I do know that I have more than five readers on most days except today. Zero readers. I would be upset if it weren't for the fact that a whole lot of stuff has been going on in this country lately, and most of you probably have a lot better things to do besides read my crazy rants. Back to the subject at hand: I had a pretty good idea of what the article was going to be about, and since I have an extremely bad habit of reading the comments posted on articles like these (yeah, I know; I need to stop doing that), I figured I would probably get pretty P.O.ed by some of them. Wanna read a few? No? Too bad, I'm spreadin' the sufferin'! Joe smith   on   October 13, 2013 at 7:38 am   said: Reply  ↓ ...

Joining some celebs in thanking my teachers

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( Unfortunately, I can only remember three names in this video, and that's James McAvoy, Minnie Driver, and Juliette Lewis. I recognize a few of the others. The guy holding the sign is really familiar, but his name escapes me. The rest of the actors are completely unknown to me, probably because I don't keep up with a lot of popular entertainment. Help me out with the names of these people, folks!)  Thank you, Mr. Peterson, my history teacher in summer school at Luther Burbank Senior High , who, in 1975, challenged all of us to question history and how it has been taught. He was a very tall and imposing man of Swedish descent whose thunderous voice instantly silenced us when he strolled into the classroom at 8 am sharp. And he told us something that no history teacher had the audacity to say before or since: "Forget all the economic arguments you've read in your textbooks about the causes of the Civil War. There was only one way the wealthy plantation owners...

Thoughts as a result of the #MarchOnWashington

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Georgia's 5th District Representative John Lewis looking up while speaking in the Great Hall of the Libary of Congress on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington 2013  By Djembayz (Own work)  Note: I wrote this as a reaction to an article on Ebony magazine 's website that discusses the exclusion of youth in the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington . I was five, and rather irritated by parents' constant "shhhh" to me and my sister when we said we wanted to watch something else. Of course, I didn't see the significance of the event at the time. I was more interested in Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons, and, as I noted in my response to the article, my first day of school. As of now, I'm waiting to see if my comment will be approved for publication, a necessary process that doesn't bother me in the least. The site has probably been hit by the deluge of the typical Internet troll brigade who love to espouse the doctrine of ...

Oh, really, Mark Millar and Todd McFarlane?

Note: This piece is being written in a drop-kick, in your face manner that I rarely show on this blog. But what follows is extremely my typical AngieAriespissedofftomboy rant. People who've known me for many years (family and friends from elementary through high school) know this side of me quite well. The rest of you...well, don't say I didn't warn you. My poor mother. She named me Angela in hopes that I would live up to all the angelic virtues that have been linked to that appellation. But the heavens conspired against her; I was born with the planets aligned in the opposite of her peaceful (well, somewhat peaceful), diplomatic and rigorously justice-loving sign, the forever-ladylike Venus- influenced Libra. I came into this world as an Aries, war-like, bossy, extremely impulsive and a natural defender of those who didn't seem to know how to turn their hands into fists (which baffled me for years). Mom didn't know that about me at first, of course. According to...

Sanford, Florida G***amn*!

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I want to tell you the stories my mother told me about growing up in Central Florida, but I can't. I'm too emotionally and physically exhausted. All I can say is that it's been almost 60 years since she left her hometown. Somethings have changed: there's a mall, and bigger streets. But people in Central Florida know what's up as far as racism is concerned, and they try not to make many waves.  So I'm posting this video of Nina Simone singing "Mississippi "****amn!" that overwhelming expresses how I feel about the my mother's birth state. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. The Oakland Baha'i Center is hosting a devotional meeting for ending violence in Oakland in the morning at 930 am. I will be there. The violence HAS TO STOP. I was supposed to be writing two articles for the Oakland Baha'i Examiner on the subject, but that trial and its damnable verdict threw me out of writing mode. Yeah, so I allowed it. I'm human. And black....

Angela's short, hilariously pathetic stint as a radio DJ

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Life on Mars by Dexter Wansel The song in the above YouTube video was the intro and exit music to the one hour radio show that I nervously put together for Cosumnes River College when I was taking broadcast communications classes there from 1976 to 1978. (By the looks of it, CRC's broadcasting program has upgraded considerably!)  I happened to see the song on YouTube and laughed out loud as the memories came flooding back. Dexter Wansel's song was the best part of my show. The rest of it was a mess; I was so flustered that I could barely cue up the records that I had on my playlist. It wasn't the first time I was in a radio broadcasting booth, though. I managed to wander into to the student-run station at Bates Technical School in Tacoma , Washington when I was still a student at Baker Junior High School  (now "Middle" school, and good Lord, the principal looks young enough to be one of my son's friends!) I have no idea what I was doing at Bates because ...

My message to California State Senator Jim Nielsen, Fourth District

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First, Senator Nielsen's message to me: Senator.Nielsen@outreach.senate.ca.gov :36 PM (7 hours ago) to undisclosed recipients Dear Ms. Shortt: Thank you for contacting my office to convey your support of Senate Bill 622 (Monning), a bill to add a one-cent-per-ounce tax on various sweetened beverages.  I appreciate hearing from you and having the opportunity to respond. SB 622 passed the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on April 24 by a vote of 5-2. The bill subsequently passed the Senate Health Committee on May 1 by a vote of 7-2 and is now awaiting a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee.  I voted in opposition to this bill when it came before me in the Senate Health Committee. This tax is supposedly intended to compel individuals suffering from excessive weight gain or obesity to pay for the cost of the health services their related health risks may require; however, the tax also falls unjustifiably on those who ...