Adventures of Isabel

The Sun Sets on 2007

from my back porch. 

(Squint and you can see the Golden Gate Bridge)

From my bedroom window.

Happy New Year everyone. More posts in 2008.

Christmas itself being inescapable, I decided to at least flee the city.

I drove down to the Central Valley with a friend from the Documentary Film program.  As a shooting day, it was a bit of a disaster. He was hoping for footage of the state mental hospital in Atascadero, but, as it turned out, [...]

People keep asking me if I’m going home for Christmas, and I never know exactly what to say. The simple answer is that my family isn’t Christian, which is generally enough to stop that particular line of inquiry dead in its tracks. But the more complicated answer is that, really, I don’t even have any [...]

I’m pretty sure only one person will really appreciate this (and you will very quickly know who you are, my friend) but since I’ve been too busy and burned out to do any extra-curricular writing these last few days, I figured I’d post this:

One of the most common critiques of Rizal’s narrative of nationalism comes [...]

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about death squads today — mostly because of an interesting article by Greg Grandin I read this morning, but also partly because of correspondence with friends from Davao, partly because it’s a change from working on papers, and partly because I am clearly a somewhat disturbed person.

In the article [...]

Winter 2001: Minnehaha falls, frozen. Me, so acclimated I’m not even wearing gloves.

I’m not going to pretend there aren’t things about California that make me want to spit nails. People, for example, who actually think talking about chakras is a reasonable way to chat me up. Or endless discussions about feelings that never actually [...]

More details about the Bloke Metges eviction:
(via old friends from Euskadi and Catalunya who I ran into on the street in Berkeley, proving that this is, indeed, a small world.)
Cooking up free pizza in the wood-burning oven at Metges, 2002

I was pleased to hear that it took hours for the police to get into [...]

President Arroyo was just awarded the “Medalla de Oro” from Universidad de Alcala in Spain, in recognition of her work to improve the human rights situation in the Philippines.
This makes me, quite literally, feel sick.
Yes, she abolished the death penalty. But to me, that seems a little irrelevant when she has condoned hundreds of extrajudicial [...]

Continuing my series of desk portraits, here is the wreckage of my desk as I near the home stretch of a marathon last-minute paper revising session:

It may not be a system of organization that works for anyone else, but I seem to have done alright for myself with it so far.

Now, if I can [...]

Free community bicycle shop in CSO Metges, 2003

CSO (Squatted Social Center) Metges  in el Forat de la Vergonya in Barcelona was evicted after 6 years. 4 people (and I don’t yet know who) were beaten up in the process.

The eviction happened Tuesday morning, though I’ve only now gotten the news. 
 
This house was one of my most [...]