The Japanese national broadcaster, NHK recently aired two programs on their English Language service on the Nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which occurred two years ago last month.  

 Natalie Mayoraga, AKA Natalie Marie is a prominent voice for the Trans community co-hosting the weekly Out Loud on Portland's own community radio station, KBOO.  She is also active with 

This article contains episode 1 spoilers

Thank you, Aq Baron, whoever you are, for posting scanned images of the Mercury News police blotter for Atherton, CA--the town that lard built.  It is famous today, by virtue of being the second most expensive city in America.

Here is at least a sampling of what was recently reported to the police:

Coghlan Lane, 7:33 p.m. Friday: A woman told police someone was at her door and that when she asked who it was, no one answered.  Police responded and determine the stranger outside had delivered package (sic).

Heritage Court, 12:44 a.m. Thursday: A woman whose finger got stuck in a drain was reported to be conscious and breathing.

 Warning:  THAR BE SOME MINOR SPOILERS!

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE UTOPIA IN ALL IT'S GLORY, WITH NO PRECONCEPTIONS.  JUST GO WATCH IT.

 A look back at 2012 and a look forward at 2013.
 

 There are two Americas.  

Click here to view the interview with Terry Martell about the Pixie Kitchen and how she came to posess some of the actual Pixies that used to live at the kitchen.  Sadly, it is long gone, but the Pixies have been rescued.

Let's start with:

"SOME Pixilated FACTS ABOUT THE FAMOUS... PIXIE KITCHEN

Our First Year -- 7,000 people visited the Pixie.  This year over 320,000 people will pass in Front of the Big Mirrors in the Hall.  If we count entering and leaving, this figure will be 640,000.

The Mirrors were brought from Pittsburgh--and Freight and Crating cost almost as much as the Quoted price on the mirrors."

Morgan Page is a multi-disciplinary artist and social worker based in Toronto.  She is the author of Brazen: the transwomen guide to safer sex.  While it's primarily aimed at trans sex workers, it's full of useful information for anyone in the trans community or their partners.

Joe Hubris talked to her at the 2012 Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.

Click here for the interview.

Click here to view the first ever Joe Hubris Show: Stand to Urimate

WARNING:  This video contains images of realistic prosthetic penises.

Stand to Urimate, L.L.C. provides a variety of products primarily for transmen.  Joe Hubris spoke to them at the 2012 Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.

 WARNING:  This article contains spoilers.

Television is American.  It is as American as Apple pie.  It may have once been the bastard step-child of the dramatic arts, but god dammit, it was our bastard step-child.

See Departed Ram by Lisa Black at the Rogue Taxidermy show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Silver Lake opening May 4th.

Front:  

Right:

Left:

Photos by Lisa Black.

Comments to Joe Hubris

The BBC Program Panorama featured an amazing episode on Homs.  Sadly, Americans cannot watch it.  Those of you outside the US can do so here.  Reporter Paul Wood traveled three times to the city without the permission of the Regime.  At one point, he had to follow a two-mile-long tunnel with a clearance of less than five feet to cross the front line.  

Receiving a Hubry takes something special.  Winning a second one is monumental.  The political party that brought us the Terri Sciavo case has decided that there is no area of personal life into which they are unwilling to inject their elongated, appendage-like nose.

There's been a ramen-shaped hole in the heart of philly since Aoi closed a few years ago.  Fortunately for all, Ben Watanabe, the former owner of Aoi has teamed with Yakitori Boy to bring us back to the tonkatsu promised land.

Philadelphia Trolley Works and 76 Carriage Company offers a variety of horse-drawn services to the public.  Their primary business is carriage tours of Independence Mall.  They also provide carriages for weddings and other special events, and an authentic, antique hearse for funeral processions.

This March 11 will mark the one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and nuclear disasters.   Japan continues to struggle with the after effects.

 Does all evil begin with a lie?

That's the question that Joe Hubris will be posing to revellers May 21st, at this year's Trenton Avenue Arts Festival.  The festival is the premiere cultural event in East Kensington and is famous for its Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby.

Come to Joe Hubris' table and discuss the above question, buy an Information vs. Injustice tee shirt and enjoy some street philosophy.

Email for more info.

Cherry blossom viewing is the singular cultural event in Japan.  As if the Fourth of July were combined with Chinese new year and Mardi Gras and celebrated with a suspension of open-container laws in any convenient urban park.

 Repression just got a little harder.  Perhaps, it got a lot harder.
 
In the wake of the Tunisian unrest, the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak is on the verge of collapsing after thirty-years of almost unchallenged power.  Democratic activists in both countries used Twitter, cell phones and the Internet to organize “flash mob” protests.  They were soon joined by working class Egyptians.  The Mubarak took the extraordinary step of shutting down the Internet and cell phone networks for the entire country.
 
Too late.
 

There are many well done shows on TV (Madmen comes to mind) which I do not watch.  A show has to have something more to get me to tune in.  For six season, Lost had that.  I was completely blown away by the first 2 season.

This show introduced me to Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who radically changed the world.  I am embarrassed to say I was unfamiliar with him, until the makers of Lost decided to use Easter Eggs to get people to google Philosophers, great classic and contemporary literature, and other cultural wonders.  This show had me online translating hieroglyphics.  It had me reading about ancient myths.  For those things, I give them my heartiest ovation.

There was a day, within the lifetimes of those among us, when there were no video games, no Internets, no Blue Ray, no DVRs, no FIOS, no Satellite TV, no DVD's, no VCR's, no cable, no broadcast TV, no Cd's, no MTV, no cassette tapes, no 8-tracks, no LP's no 45's, no 78's, no XM radio, no FM radio, no radio, period. 

In that day, the upright piano was the state-of-the-art in home entertainment technology.  In 1909, over 350,000 pianos were manufactured in the United States.  That's almost six times as many as in 2007, in a country with one-third the population.  The age of the piano came and went.  It, along with its partners the sheet music industry and the professional piano tuner, succumbed to the radio the gramophone, television, etc. 

The highlights of this decade have been too few and too far between. The lowlights, on the other hand...

9/11

The singular, headline event of the decade can be traced back to the fabulous fifties and our cold-war efforts to keep the Commies away from the Persian gulf.  Overthrowing the first democratic government in the Muslim world seemed so easy (and more importantly, so cheap) that the temptation to do it again would be too great.  There followed a pattern of supporting short term economic and global political goals at the expense of the human and civil rights of Muslims.  Sadly, America became a force for evil in that part of the world.  Even after the Soviet threat to the region was on the wane and then gone, we continued to support the most repressive governments in the world in a short-sighted effort to keep the magic stuff flowing. 

This World Series promises to be epic.  The best two teams in the league face off and there are almost too many back stories to list.

There are the cities.  One is the faded former center of American political and economic life.  One is the megalopolis capitol of the world.  One feels the shadow of the other.  One has too many threads flowing to pay more than a passing glance to the other.

There are the teams.  One is the most successful sports franchise in history, with 40 pennants and the beneficiary of the most famous curse in baseball.  The other has a history of winning that has been over-shadowed by another curse and the all-time record for losses.

2002 was the year the Raiders returned to the Superbowl.  It was bad luck and perhaps a sign of things to come that the coach on the other side of the field was the man who had put together the team.  Jon Gruden brought Tampa Bay its only Superbowl title after bolting the Raiders the previous year.  Even without Gruden, the team had been good enough to get that far.  Since then, not so much.

30 years ago, American conservatives were in the ascendancy.  The devil-worshipping hippies were banished to the fringes of American culture, selling organic food and practicing yoga.  The former liberal mainstream of the Democratic party had suffered the body blow of the Kennedy assassination and had seen their great society eaten alive by the war in Vietnam.  Incredibly, they had escaped the shadow of Watergate and elected their most promising president in decades.

Since YouTube was her downfall, it was only appropriate that Kari Ferrell, the "Hipster Grifter" appeared at her extradition hearing via closed-circuit TV.  It's standard procedure for the waiver hearings to be conducted without bringing the prisoner all the way to the CJC from State road.  Ferrell has taken grifting far.  She started out in her hometown of Salt Lake and managed to become one of their "most wanted."  She then managed to turn herself into a quasi-celebrity while stealing cellphones and duping hiptards from Prospect Heights to Park Slope.  And she was snared as only a hipster grifter could be.  A local musician who had been in contact with her lured her onto a Chinatown bus with a promise of a free ride to Portland.  When she arrived, officers from the 6th District were waiting.  She has since been held at the House of Detention here in Phi

Pro basketball fans from Astoria to Zigzag can take heart: the Blazers are back.  For those unfamiliar, here is a brief history of the team.  Born of fire and steel in 1970, the Portland Trailblazers have seen their share of ups and downs over the years.  The original team of Geoff Petrie, Rick Adelman and Sidney Wicks gave way to the Walton/Lucas Championship year.  Then came the Billy Ray Bates years, then the Sam Bowie draft.