Happy 60th Birthday Sea Monica!

Had to take a moment to give one of my fave people in the trans rights movement a TransGriot shout out on her milestone birthday.

Monica Helms is not only the creator of the trans flag, a 2003 IFGE Trinity Award winner and blogs at Trans Universe, she along with Angela Brightfeather  founded the Transgender American Veterans Association in 2003.   In addition to fighting for trans vets issues, she's also been busy in the ATL fighting for trans and 'errbody' else's civil rights as well.

I met her when I was just beginning to get my feet wet on the national level as an activist.   Because we had close to similar writing styles and similar views on a few issues it became tough for other people to differentiate between us in online discourse in the late 90's.  People started referring to us as Monica of the Air, because I was working for CAL at the time, and Monica of the Sea because she's a Navy vet.  That later got shortened to Air Monica and Sea Monica.

Well, couldn't let today slide without wishing Sea Monica a happy 60th birthday!       

Keep speaking truth to power, fighting for the community, and may you have many more birthdays.

WTF? Keith Olbermann Leaves MSBNC

While watching Countdown like I always do, I was shocked and stunned to hear that last night was Keith's final MSNBC broadcast.  

Media Matters David Brock has echoed what many of us on the left are saying about this travesty.

Fornearly eight years, Countdown with Keith Olbermann led the charge againstconservative misinformation in prime time. He was one of the few voices in themedia willing to hold the Bush administration accountable and fight the right-wing smears against progressives and their policies.
Keithis an innovator and an extremely talented broadcaster who showed there was amarket for progressive views on cable news. I'm sure we'll be seeing more ofhim soon, and I eagerly await hearing of his next move. And on this evening, Iwish him "good night and good luck."

 Anybody who tells it like it is the way Keith did about the right wing idiots in our midst and incurs their wrath is okay in my book.   

Goodnight and good luck yourself, Keith   MSNBC will definitely be less fun without you.

Happy Birthday To The FLOTUS!

In addition to today being the Dr MLK Jr, day holiday, it's also the day that Michelle Lavaughn Robinson Obama arrived on the planet .   The Princeton and Harvard Law grad, mother of two beautiful girls, happily married wife to President Barack and the statuesque and glamorous First Lady of the United States was born in Chicago in 1964.

Happy birthday Madame First Lady!    May you have many more.

Renee's Okay, Eh

Over the last few days, those of us who love checking out Renee's writing over at Womanist Musings and her regular tweets on Twitter have noted the absence of new insightful posts from her or her Twitter feed.

When you post and tweet as regularly as Renee does, it gets noticed when that creative flow suddenly stops with no warning.  It's understandable that people like me, her fellow bloggers, and her fans across the blogosphere start getting concerned.

Well, after several days of being waylaid by a nasty flu bug, she only just started feeling good enough to call me Thursday night after I left a few concerned phone messages..

She also popped open her laptop and noted the numerous concerned e-mails from people across the blogosphere wondering what was going on with our fave north of the border blogger.

She wanted me to convey to y'all that she's okay, rumors of her demise are just that, and she''ll hopefully be recovered and writing new posts around Monday.

So in a nutshell, she's okay, eh.