Sorry so tardy

I'm busy dammit. Too busy pretending I'm a yeti who must heave virtual snowballs at a penguin tossed in the air by a Killer Whale to be updating my blog. I'v got my priorities, you know.

Anyhow, since the last columns posted, I've penned and published two. One about Sheriff Lee Baca (aka King Chuckabubba) on the road selling his sales tax idea and another about plastic bags in the LA River. It's more interesting than it sounds. Both can be accessed on the badly organized Daily News "Mariel Garza" page here.

Hey, I speak Portugese!

That rascally salsa column is evidentally making its way across the globe. I recently stumbled on this (illegal) translation on a brazilian web site.

Por Mariel Garza Saturday, 07/02/04 - Los Angeles Daily News

Esqueça os seminários de treinamento em diversidade e sensibilização cultural. Tenho a solução definitiva para todos os nossos problemas sociais.

É algo simples, que reúne pessoas de todas as culturas em um local onde são julgados não por como mantêm a rigidez, mas como se soltam. Onde, por algumas horas, as divisões raciais, as rígidas regras de interação social e o politicamente correto são suspensos.

Isso se chama “salsa” e pode salvar o mundo. ...

Obrigado Brazilia!

I :-( Spam

Those weird spams with random words and gibberish that are suddenly filling up my e-mail accounts prompted me to track down their origins. Here's the result.

Got racism?

I do. As a white girl, I have rarely encountered overt racism that's reserved for those browner than I. Usually, it's of the variety of "so what kind of name is Garza? Oh, Mexican. Hmmm." But the last few months of writing op-ed pieces for the Daily News, I have been called a dirty Mexican, not to mention a stupid girl, an astonishing amount of times.

Today, a rabid reader named Doug sent me this viscious diatribe about my column on Cesar Chavez Day two Sunday's ago. Here's a link to the column.

And here's a choice excerpt from Doug's rant:

I see your people defecate in our parks, piss behind the walls of our homes near bus stops and I see them deal drugs. I don't want them here and you don't fool me a bit. You smell as much as they do. You're not honest. They don't come here and raise their own standard of living. They dilute our standard of living. Have you ever seen one blade of grass in front of an apartment where live?

Nice stuff, huh? He sure put this dirty Mexican in her place.