Top Online Reads & Sees

Students See Hard Future if Free Fares Are Ended
Sharon Otterman, December 17, 2009, The New York Times

When Alejandro Velazquez, 15, was selecting a high school last year, he decided on Washington Irving in Manhattan because of its strong Spanish-English bilingual program. It was a 40-minute trip from his home in the Bronx, but his mother assented, in part because he could travel free.

His family’s calculus, he said, would have been different had he needed to pay $40 a month or more to get to and from school, a reality that will begin next fall if budget cuts passed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board on Wednesday are carried out. ...

7 Soldiers Cited in Pregnancy Ban on Soldiers in Iraq
MSN Lifestyle, msnbc.com staff and news service reports, December 22, 2009

Four female and three male soldiers in northern Iraq have been reprimanded for disobeying a ban on pregnancies, but the general in charge of troops there has backed off an earlier threat of courts-martial and prison time for such cases. ...

Hairstyle How-To: Sleek Evening Ponytail
By Danilo, Pantene celebrity hairstylist

This no-fuss, sophisticated style is easy to create at home and works well for both the office and all of your after-work events. Get more hair inspiration here.

A ponytail is a quick style that can be enhanced with jeweled combs or decorative pins. Since more attention will be drawn to your face, compliment this simple style by playing up your eyes. ...

DirecTV Thrives On 'Deception,' Lawsuit Alleges
By Bob Sullivan, Friday, December 18, 2009 MSNBC The Red Tape Chronicles

A lawsuit filed this week by Washington state against DirecTV could have a secondary purpose: It could serve as a textbook for consumers on tricks companies play to take their money.

The suit filed by Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna alleges so many forms of misbehavior that he thinks DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite TV provider, has "built deception into their business model." ...

Food History: How Your Favorite Foods (and One Appliance) Were Invented
By Lauren Donaldson, MSN Delish

Did you know one of your beloved candies was intended as an anti-smoking treat? Or that chocolate chip cookies were discovered by mistake? Check out the strange beginnings of some of your fave foods and one appliance you probably wouldn't want to live without. ...

Incubus

My former boyfriend held my fighting fingers
as he ran his buzzer through my forest.
The soft hair fell like ash, black wisps floating
from between my thighs and onto dusty steps;

yet, trimming was not enough of a sacrifice
for him, and so I sat in the bathtub, slicing
away the uneven remnants of my Eden,
now a child’s garden, or a scalped peach.

Your coochie’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom,
He said, touching me. I’m going to eat you.

In my womanhood’s white coffin, I sat, crying
over my burning vagina’s new name,
its desert gleaming with water like the tears
that coat my cheeks when night falls,
and I’m twelve again, fearing vampires.

Copyright Xiomara A. Maldonado 2008

Poet Timothy Donnelly's comments on me and "Incubus"
Xiomara Maldonado is an ambitious, forceful, outspoken poet with a fine sense of form, pacing, and dramatic moment. Particularly memorable is the poem "Incubus," which ventures into daring territory but manages to do so with great artistry and insight. Its complex portrait of sexual objectification and infantilization suggests the speaker's own bewildered complicity in the dramatic event at the heart of the poem, while the description of the other in the poem as her former boyfriend (italics mine) suggests that the speaker, strengthened, has found the wisdom to move on. I’m also fond of the poet’s wide-ranging allusiveness - it makes for an interesting counterpoint to her exuberance and street smarts.

Astor Place

Yesterday, we did what we always do--
wander and walk, her with her happy
pigeon-toed gait, me with my heavy feet,
the words between our bumping beats
as fine as a strand of her hair.
We talked books and boyfriends
and avoided the subject of falling.
When we could use taro cold
and coconut warm ceramic cups
of bubble tea as props,
our conversation thickened heavy
as my pony-tailed hair, the space between
filled with sips of thought, swallows before talk.

Copyright 2009 Xiomara A. Maldonado