Banal Hemorrhage

Uncertainty is a way of life for me. At work, I don’t assume I know the right way to proceed. Because I don’t. All I know is what  has worked in the past, under different circumstances, with different people. That’s not enough for me to be like, “yeah, this is what needs to be done.”  And yet, many leaders I have met exude certainty. And for some of them, it works. They sell me on their vision and their tactics and I gladly serve that higher purpose. The true test for me is when they screw up, which will happen to everyone. This will be the mark of a true leader. Will they respond to data and change course? Or will they produce a Friends spinoff feauturing Joey? That’s why I can’t stand President Trump. He is not one to show uncertainty. He has never admitted to being wrong. He never changes course. I have no faith in his ability to learn and adapt. From the very beginning, I would not follow this guy to an open bourbon bar.  Sometimes I envy the simplicity of knowing

These are a collection of the colorful, and often savage, sayings of my people. For all I criticize my people sometimes , I have a lot of respect for their wordplay and creativity. Growing up in Venezuela was, for the most part, a great experience. The weather was nice, people were very hedonistic, and I had a very comfortable life. Perhaps a bit too comfortable, if I do say so myself. Which I just did. The first one is "Camaron que se duerme, se lo lleva la corriente. [Shrimp that sleeps, the current takes.]" It is a cautionary tale about not being on top of things. Lest you be taken by the current. Thing is, a little bit of current hopping is not bad. What else is life, just constantly fighting against the tide? Nah, can't subscribe to that magazine. By the way, "Can't subscribe to that magazine" is copyrighted by Banal Hemorrhage productions. The second one is dark as hell. "Cria cuervos y te sacaran los ojos. [Raise crows and they'

A lot of the people I grew up with say that there's no racism in Venezuela. Somehow, they reached adulthood and failed to notice the lack of representation of non-light-skinned people. The paler the pigment the more you'd be seen in a leadership position (admittedly anecdotal observation on my part). The beauty queens, our second most famous export, didn't fit the mold of the majority of Venezuelans. They tended to be lighter in complexion. Incredibly racist jokes abounded in my private school, spread with gleeful ignorance (and the security of not having many people of color around us to hear them). Chavez rallied the poor, and the poor were dark skinned. Chavez supporters were called "ugly", "monkeys", and many more names. I am not a supporter of Chavez, but I can see how he coalesced his army. The study referenced in this article , puts Venezuela smack dab as the most racist country in the Americas. The question in this survey was someth

Roxanne and I joined the Salvation Army once. We thought it would be fun to be ringing that bell and  get money for charity. And it was fun, initially. We didn’t know anything about the organization, so we started googling the organization. One of the most salient characteristics of this organization was their religious based tenets. This is how they feel about homosexuality, and this is AFTER finding themselves in hot water about the issue:    “The Bible teaches that God's intention for humankind is that society should be ordered on the basis of lifelong, legally sanctioned heterosexual unions. ... A disposition towards homosexuality is not in itself blameworthy nor is the disposition seen as rectifiable at will. ... Homosexual practice however, is, in the light of Scripture, clearly unacceptable. Such activity is chosen behaviour and is thus a matter of the will. It is therefore able to be directed or restrained in the same way heterosexual urges are controlled. Homosexua

I don’t believe my mom set to destroy the patriarchy, I think the patriarchy was just an inconvenient hurdle on the way to her goals. But destroy the patriarchy she did. Over and over again. One of the first women petroleum engineers, the first to work on oil rigs, one of the first to not change her last name, the first to many, many things. I imagine the amount of paperwork that had to be changed because of her mere existence and it always makes me flash a wicked smile. The most amazing thing about her is how humble she is about all of this. Throngs of women have looked up to her for generations and all she’ll ever admit to is being a hard worker. There’s more to her, though. She’s always a steady snowball that simply knows how to move forward. I wish that certitude of hers had splashed down to me through her DNA strands. Alas, the only thing I’m certain of is that she has always and will always be my hero. My she-ro. Most people that meet her, remember her. And not just bec