Upcoming 2011 Houston Unity Banquet

I won't be there because of other family commitments and haven't attended one since 2001, but one of the Houston trans community's signature events will be taking place at the Sheraton Brookhollow Hotel on April 30.

It's the Houston Unity Banquet, and the proceeds from this event go to support the Peggy Rudd Transgender Scholarship Fund. 

The banquet is a production of the Houston Transgender Unity Committee, an amalgamation of all the Houston area trans specific organizations.and tickets are $50 in advance and $60 at the door 

The keynote speaker this year is DRED AKA MilDRED Gerestaint, who I had the pleasure of meeting a a recent performance event she was part of at the University of Houston.

It should be an interesting event, and maybe I'll have the opportunity to attend it next year.

Houston Snubbed For Retired Shuttles

On the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first space shuttle flight NASA decided which four cities will get one of the four retired space shuttle orbiters once the program finally comes to a close with the launch of the final shuttle missions..

There were 30 applications submitted for the shuttles, and when the smoke cleared, the shuttles were dispersed in the following manner.  

Atlantis will go to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Discovery to Washington DC, Endeavor to Los Angeles and the Enterprise which never flew in space to New York.


I can understand KSC because the majority of the missions were launched into space from there.  DC makes sense because it's the home of the National Air and Space Museum.   The California Science Center in Los Angeles even makes sense because it was designed in that state plus it's only fair that one be on the West Coast.  

But New York?    Hell, naw.   It doesn't have the history or the deep connection with the United States space program like Houston does.   Johnson Space Center and NASA Mission Control are not only in the Houston metro area in Clear Lake City, but the astronauts train at JSC.  Four of the shuttle astronauts who died in the Challenger and Columbia accidents were Houston residents.    We had a downtown rally April 6 and a petition drive that collected 90,000 signatures that demonstrated our desire to have one of those shuttle here

And don't even go there with the disrespectfully snarky 'Texas got the Columbia in 2003' comment.

If any place deserves one of those shuttles, it was Houston, and the decision is getting bipartisan condemnation from local and state politicians.    Of course the Lone Star conservafools are blaming President Obama, which if it came down to politics, their partisan Hate on Obama antics may be one of the reasons we didn't get one in the first place.

And by the way, Houston and Harris County voted for Obama in the 2008 election.

Mayor Annise Parker definitely thinks politics had a hand in the shuttle snubbing..  

"This is certainly disappointing, but not entirely unexpected as the Administration has been hinting that Houston would not be a winner in this political competition," Mayor Parker said in a statement. "I am disappointed for Houston, the JSC family and the survivors of the Columbia and Challenger missions who paid the ultimate price for the advancement of space exploration.   "There was no other city with our history of human space flight or more deserving of a retiring orbiter. It is unfortunate that political calculations have prevailed in the final decision."

Yeah, needless to say we're more than a little pissed here about how this played out. 

2011 Men's Final Four-David vs Goliath

My brackets are a mess just like everybody else's after this upset filled tournament, but we now know who the four teams left standing are that will be competing for the spot in the NCAA b-ball championship game later today at Reliant Stadium.

It's setting up as a David vs. Goliath matchup, with the David's being the small conference teams of VCU and Butler versus the power conference bluebloods of Connecticut and Kentucky. 

It's also cool that we'll have that theme going into Monday night's NCAA Championship game as well.   VCU and Butler will play one semifinal while UConn and Kentucky will battle in the other game.

And as always in the Final Four, there are the dramatic storylines.    VCU won five games to get here with torrid three point shooting and a dynamic young coach in Shaka Smith    The Rams are tackling a team in Butler who is not only in their second consecutive Final Four, but narrowly missed winning it all last year against Duke in their Indianapolis backyard when a desperation half court three point prayer at the buzzer rimmed out.    Can the Bulldogs get the title they narrowly missed out on?  

One of the Goliaths is the Kentucky Wildcats.   They are college basketball royalty that hasn't won a NCAA championship since Tubby Smith coached them to their seventh title in 1998.    This team wasn't expected to do much after having last year's Elite Eight squad lose five players to the NBA, but has shocked people by making it to Houston.

UConn battled its way out of the brutal Big East and rode the hot shooting of guard Kemba Walker all the way to Houston

They also are attempting along with their female counterparts to accomplish a unique double for the second time.  Back in 2004 UConn won both the men's and women's NCAA basketball titles in the same year, becoming the first Division I school to accomplish that feat.   Can they uphold their end of the deal?  

It's also a rematch of a Maui Invitational tournament game that UConn won back in December .   But now the rematch takes place with a spot in the championship game on the line and the Huskies and Wildcats playing their best basketball.   Who goes home early and who cuts down the nets Monday night?


Should be a lot of fun to watch.
.  

One Woman Performance By MilDRED At UH Tonight

TransGriot Note:  Pleasant surprise to discover that MilDRED is living in Houston now.  Always wanted to meet her and finally have the opportunity to do so tonight.   MilDRED Photo by Rita G

The University of Houston Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in collaboration with the UH Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, UH Womens Resource Center and UH LGBT Resource Center present:

I AM THE ONE I ALWAYS WANTED TO MARRY: A One-Woman Performance by MilDRED Gerestant. (http://www.dredlove.com/)

This thought-provoking performance questions the naturalized binaries of gender and sexuality, while highlighting...the performativity of these categories. Using poetry, music, comedy, and movement, MilDRED expresses the way in which discovering her male persona, DRED, has refashioned the gendered notions of her sexual and spiritual self.

Haitian-American and internationally-known MilDRED is an actress, lecturer, and workshop presenter best known for her mystical one-woman shows.

LOCATION: University of Houston, Dudley Recital Hall, Room 132
ADMISSION: Free

Endorsed by: DiverseWorks, Houston Gendermyn, UH Department of Anthropology, UH Global.

For information contact Sima Shakhsari: sshakhsari@uh.edu

2011 Major League Baseball Season Opens

In a few hours major league baseball will begin to be played in stadiums  all across the nation.  The 162 game marathon to determine who will end up in the World Series representing their respective leagues begins.

As always, I'm rooting for my home team, the Houston Astros.   They will start the season being the guests of the defending NL East Division champs the Philadelphia Phillies and the experts not expecting them to be competitive in the NL Central Division..

But change is in the humid air here.  It will not only be a season in which we'll no longer have Roy Oswalt or Lance Berkman in Astro uniforms, the transition to a new core group of Astros players such as Hunter Pence and All Star center fielder Michael Bourn has begun.    The Astros Triple A franchise is now in Oklahoma City and Drayton McLane, the current Astros owner may be in the process of selling the team to a (thank God) Houston businessman..

We won't get our major league season opener here in Houston until April 8 and the Florida Marlins come to take on my fave baseball team at Minute Maid Park.  

But as it does every Opening Day, hope springs eternal in all baseball fans.   Everyone starts 0-0, and with a few breaks, some consistent play and a few long winning streaks interspersed throughout the season who knows?    The Astros have a history of being a second half team and if they can stay close to the division leaders or even get off to a better start than the 0-8 one they did in 2010, they could contend.

Like I said, hope springs eternal in a baseball fan.   Go Astros!