In San Antonio, a city not about The Alamo

There is music here. A tango of polkas played with accordion. There is kindness that fills the ache of lovelost that this city repairs in your soul from its people. It's not the margaritas, it's the people who make you smile and laugh again. I don't know where this comes from, exactly, but I know that
part of it is from being hated for so long, and how love is the only response to make it better.

This city is not about the Alamo, but the alamo -- the cottonwood trees the mission was named for, and the wet of fall and faces who have come this far. This is not a perfect city, no, it is troubled too. But when I saw this yesterday, I had to take this photo because Day of the Dead is coming on November 1st. And in the days leading to this, our Halloween of telling those who have passed that they will get their favorite meal and drink that day, maybe a cold cervezita, here is my San Antonio. (Upside down cause I can't fix it, but hey, it's the calavera doing it).

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Mary Alice, wife of Henry Cisneros, finds her voice in San Antonio as women battle for Free Speech in the Streets

She's a delicate bird of a woman, petite and beautifully apparelled. I know her husband, and she looks up to her supremely intelligent, charismatic, but scared of the status-quo husband. I suspect that she became a San Antonio councilwoman as a result of his lanky shadow. No matter. Yesterday, la Mary Alice stood up to the Man along with Councilwoman Lourdes Galvan and voted on the side of the Constitution and women's rights as one of two women on the San Antonio City Council who recognizes that anti-war or anti-immigrant protestors should be able to march on the streets without having to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege. While the city-wide Fiesta! bacchanal takes over the streets for weeks. With a vote of 9-2, the San Antonio City Council overwhelmingly voted to pass a new "Parade" Ordinance yesterday despite the organized protest of free speech advocates - mostly women - who believe that the City Council is violating the First Amendment of its citiz...

A battered woman from San Antonio loses her reporting job

Gina Galaviz , 43, KSAT-TV's I-love-the-police reporter, "has been fired" from the television station , according to the San Antonio Express-News, and I'm quoting verbatim here from Jeanne Jakle's byline, "after she was charged with assault following a fight with her boyfriend," Ronald Aguillen, 46. Ok, so we in San Antonio know about the time in 2004 when Gina filed charges against another boyfriend, the former SWAT cop, who was a councilman at-the-time, Ron Segovia . There were allegations of an apple being thrown at her nalgas, which humiliated her, and that he also pointed a gun at her. It was not the first time, she told me. Tough-guy Segovia got off - I think he had three attorneys representing him if I remember correctly, and in this city, like too many, the cops are in bed with the grand jury - they need and depend on each other, and this grand jury decided there "wasn't enough evidence to pursue a criminal case against him." Seg...

Today is Tuesday, May 3rd, and so much has happened. A brain tumor. More yoga and walking. A little less combat. Weight dropping. Spirit rising. Back in the city, where I belong. Looking for good photos to give you, organizing my crazy files. And a new President! So much to say, more than beating up on him -- that will only take us so far. Time to hit the streets, challenge the fears that he represents. Don't be afraid, no tengan miedo. If I survived a massive brain tumor -- big as a grapefruit -- we can survive and transcend this. More tomorrow. One day a week from now on.

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