Brooklyn Barangay

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Engaging My Core, Trusting My Gut & Chronic Illness

Engaging My Core, Trusting My Gut & Chronic Illness

I have a conflicted relationship with my gut. When I started my period, my gut totally betrayed me. I had unbelievable pain, pain that woke me up and made me bend over double in a hot shower at 3am, pain that made me get up and drive in my pajamas to get Advil, pain that made me grip the handle of the bathroom door and hope I didn’t pass out. Pain like this, during my period, during ovulation,…

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Going Home, walking between borders and Living in the House of Trump

Going Home, walking between borders and Living in the House of Trump

It is obvious that Trump and his followers doesn’t think we belong here. Who do I mean by “we”? Brown skinned immigrants. His wives are immigrants, but he never talks about dirty Russians or suspicious Eastern Europeans. Black Americans, people who disagree with his politics – obviously also other. My kids always use “American” as short hand for white American. I ask, do you mean “white…

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Balikbayan - On Returning Home

Balikbayan – On Returning Home

Balikbayan translated Balikbayan: root words (at the root of it) = Balik: to return, to go back Bayan: a town, the nation, the “People”, the homeland,  Balikbayan = Specifically: A person who returns to the Philippines, usually after an extended time living and working abroad. Generally: a person who returns to their homeland. Radically: A person who returns to the People, Balikbayan box – A box…

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Street Tactics & Law on the Streets

Street Tactics & Law on the Streets

This time the night was warm compared to the bitterly cold night that we last marched. That night we marched for Eric Garner, a previous night we marched for Mike Brown. When we marched for Baltimore, it was warmer and the NYPD was hot. The cops were out in force –  helicopters flying overhead, riot gear, white shirted detectives, street cops, and paddy wagons. I saw an old friend from law school…

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How to Stop the Over-Consuming Addiction in Our Children

How to Break the Over-Consuming Cycle in Our Children

I was raised in a over-consuming culture. I would dare say, that most of us were. The US/capitalist structure needs constant consumption to survive. So we associate the buying of things, things we don’t need, with well-being, prosperity, and happiness. Reflect on these things: retail therapy, the orgy of gifts during December holidays, President Bush exhorting people to shop after Sept. 11 to…

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The Murder of Walter Scott, Abolition, And Alternatives to "Carceral" Reform

The Murder of Walter Scott, Abolition, And Alternatives to “Carceral” Reform

Another blatant murder of a Black man, Walter Scott, by the police state. The narrative hasn’t changed, the police murder a Black man, Mr. Scott, and then cover it up with all the power of the state, the murderous cop plants a taser next to the victim, to bolster the cop’s story that the cop was “fearing for his life.” and the state’s  initial response was that this shooting was justified.This…

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"Wait, white people can be terrorists, too?"

Wait, white people can be terrorists, too?

This what my son asks, when I explain that the KKK is a white terrorist organization. As my previous post of explains, we try to not use the word “terrorist” in our home. http://brooklynbarangay.com/2012/09/12/september-11-and-why-we-dont-use-the-word-terrorist-in-our-home-2/. The basic reason is because terrorism is really just code – code for white supremacist logic about who is “civilized” and…

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What Happens When Your Kids Are Raised In "Foodie" Culture

1. They Invent dishes. Like the one below. My son calls it Pastrami Sushi.

              2. They think about presentation when they make their snacks. When creating said dishes, my son declares – “I need a condiment on it.“I ask, “what did you choose?” He answers: “I put a drop of soy sauce on each one for decoration and a touch of olive oil.”  After invention of snack, my kids say, “cheers”…

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Mike Brown and Talking to Our Children About Racism & Walking With Them To Fight It

Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin and Talking to Our Children About Race

Here’s the thing - recently I have heard people talking about WHEN they should talk to their kids about race, as if our children will first hear about it from us – but our society and culture ALREADY teaches our kids about race. EVERY SINGLE DAY. The experience is different depending on the skin you walk around in, but the truth is – ALL our kids are learning their respective places in the racial…

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Requiem for Mexico; Thoughts on NAFTA, the US, and The Narco-State

Requiem for Mexico; Thoughts on NAFTA, the US, and The Narco-State

Yesterday, my family and I attended a rally for the 43 missing student teachers, likely massacred, from the southern city of Iguala. The state, including the Mayor and his wife, have been implicated, along with the drug cartels. We stood in the bitter, cold, breathing incense, and broken-hearted by a poet’s words describing the torture and mutilation of one of the student’s killed.

I couldn’t…

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Heart of a Rower But Built Like a Coxswain

I grew up in the South, far from the Northeast where rowing, crew, and regattas are part of growing up. So I really didn’t know anything about rowing until I walked into Brooklyn Crew, an indoor rowing studio. I didn’t realize that I was entering one of the most masochistic sports out there, a sport that expects you to sprint for 2k meters, plowing through high lactic acid levels, and throwing up…

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Sweating Collectively & Why I love Fitness Classes

I tend to be a bit lazy. If I try a new workout routine and it says to do 8 intervals, often I will stop at 7. (I used to stop at 1, so I am improving!) But CLASS? In a fitness class, I find my inner competitor, Type A, personality really helps  out. That young woman, with cut abs, and defined tri-ceps? I want to be just like her. I push myself to lift more, go longer, and feel accomplished when…

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Running a 9 minute/30 Second Mile After Just 3 Weeks of Heart Rate Training on My Rower

Running a 9 minute/30 Second Mile After Heart Rate Training on My Rower

So after several weeks of heart rate training (see previous posts) on my Concept 2 rower, I decided to see if I could do a 10 minute mile. Reminder, I am NOT a runner. I have tried running sporadically over the years and never could get into it. But I had 15 minutes before my  fitness class, and wondered what I could do after all of this intensive, heart rate training. So I warmed up on the…

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Week 3 = Just can't do it! FAIL and Regroup

So Week three of my heart rate training , from the UK site, I downloaded, is what they call the “consolidation period”, which for me was the just can’t do it period. Remember, I successfully completed the other weeks. Here is what I was supposed to do:

3  4 minute rows in the TR (Transport zone) This is at 80% of my maximum heart rate, at 165-176 beats per minute.I actually did complete this! It…

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Broken Butterflies, Empty Homes and the Price of Forced Migration

http://wp.me/p2G21q-ex

A recent family tragedy in the Philippines really brings home the profound dislocation and loss that is the other wing of migration. That’s why the butterfly symbol for migration is based on broken assumptions. Assumptions that people come to the US because they want to, rather than forced to by the ravages of global capital. Only people in the 1st world can imagine migration without the…

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10 Tips to Get Over School Gym Class PTSD

How I Got Over Gym Class PTSD

From the movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. All my middle school photos have been burned!

Gym Class PTSD? Do YOU Suffer from it?What is it? It is the trauma induced by middle class and high school gym class. For me – it all began in the locker room. First, we are all awkward 6th graders, just getting our periods – and then they make us change in front of all the mean girls and put on ugly polyester gym…

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Week 1 Heart Rate Training = discovered that I could be working much harder

Ok, so the training program recommended by the UK Concept 2 site (http://indoorsportservices.co.uk/) suggested these 3 workouts for Week 1:

1 row for 20 minutes at 147 – 159 bpm (this is the upper end of my aerobic zone)

2 rows for 8 minutes at 147 – 159 bpm

1 row for 20 minutes at 147 – 159 bpm

Initial impressions:

After a 5 minute warm-up, I was sweating enough for my heart rate monitor to…

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