Informed

Reading Time: 6 minutes HERE’S ONE THING we know: Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is not a Mexican version of Halloween. Though related, the two annual events differ greatly in traditions and tone. Whereas Halloween is a dark night of terror and mischief, Day of the Dead festivities unfold over two days in an explosion of color and life-affirming joy. Sure, the theme is death, but the point is to demonstrate love and respect for deceased family members. In towns and cities throughout Mexico, revelers don funky makeup and costumes, hold parades and parties, sing and dance, and make offerings to lost loved ones.

The rituals are rife with symbolic meaning. The more you understand about this feast for the senses, the more you will appreciate it. Here are 10 essential things you should know about Mexico’s most colorful annual event.

Reading Time: 5 minutes We do not live in normal times, but rather in an age of morally compromised leadership. The Trump administration is preparing to send 5,000 U.S. military personnel to the United States’ southern border. There is no legitimate military purpose for this operation. Border crossings are near historical lows, and the so-called “caravan” of hungry, frightened migrants poses no risk to U.S. national security.

Instead, this operation is a political stunt. The administration aims to leverage the military’s credibility in support of its hysterical anti-immigrant propaganda campaign, which is itself a component of a partisan mid-term electoral strategy.

Junior military leaders thus begin in a morally hazardous position which will only grow worse with time.  The purpose of this piece is to outline those hazards and to advise junior military leaders on how best to respond.

Reading Time: < 1 minute Novelist and columnist Stephen Marche, author of a provocative essay in The Walrus magazine, called America’s Next Civil War. (Stephen Marche) According to writer Stephen Marche, all signs point to a burgeoning civil war in America.

Between a series of social and political upheavals, a stream of natural disasters, and Donald Trump’s presidential policy of breaking norms, Marche says it’s only a matter of time.

Reading Time: 2 minutes The Native American artist Charlene Holy Bear’s first foray into fashion came four years ago, when she made a last-minute decision to attend the annual Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, a pan-tribal festival also known as “North America’s largest powwow.”

“Everyone gets all dressed up in their traditional regalia,” says Holy Bear, a member of the Standing Rock Lakota Sioux Tribe who is known for her intricate beadwork. “I hadn’t had any time to prepare outfits for us but I wanted my 4-year-old son Justus to look really cool. He had a new pair of slip-on Vans and I suddenly had an idea, looking at the checkerboard design.” Over the course of the three-day road trip to the festival, Holy Bear started hand-beading the kicks and the finished product—a classic skate shoe tricked out with vibrantly intricate traditional Lakota beadwork—now has a waiting list full of street style–obsessed collectors clamoring for a customized pair.

Reading Time: 3 minutes “I do not support Trump,” she wrote. “I must learn from my mistakes and move forward.”

Ok…

And here’s the thing. At that moment, Caitlyn Jenner joined the ranks of privileged white women who are perfectly willing to follow along until Trump’s tyranny affects them. It’s ok until it comes home and for Caitlyn obviously trampling the rights of trans people was her come to Jesus moment.

She was fine with kids in cages.
She was fine with angry hostile racist rhetoric.
She was fine with sabor rattling with other foreign powers and ditching our long-standing foreign allies while palling up to the world’s most dangerous dictators.
She was fine with an alleged rapist supreme court nominee and mocking a sexual assault victim who came forward.

Hell, she was fine with “grab ’em by the pussy”. Maybe that’s because she didn’t have one when he was bragging about grabbing them.

But Transgender rights – she had to finally draw a line.

Reading Time: 3 minutes Obviously body-slamming a reporter (who was trying to ask a question about the ObamaCare repeal vote, by the way) is not the same as blowing them up with a pipe bomb. But it is absolutely beyond the pale of constitutional democracy. Celebrating such acts by the very top of the party elite does not bode well for the future of the GOP and American politics writ large.

Political violence is a thorny enough problem when it’s carried out by underground extremists. But it is a lot more dangerous when it becomes a tactic for a ruling party. If one cannot win free and fair elections, well then violence might serve just as well — and if it works, then there is no way to stop it.

Reading Time: < 1 minute Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.     Confluence Daily is the one place

Reading Time: < 1 minute When fascism starts to feel normal, we’re all in trouble.