Moni's 2011 Women's NCAA B-Ball Bracket

The UConn Huskies streak ended at 90 games, but they are still the defending two time NCAA women's champions and seeking a threepeat.   But there are more than a few teams that believe they have what it takes to knock the Huskies off their accustomed positions as queens of the NCAA championship throne.

The usual basketball royalty grabbed the Number 1 seeds in the women's NCAA tourney.  UConn, Stanford, Tennessee and Baylor with the Huskies getting the Number one overall tournament.

That 90 game UConn winning streak didn't include any wins over Tennessee, but the Huskies may have to go through the Lady Vols to get to their eighth NCAA title.    I'm also happy to see my Lady Cougars get their first invite to the tournament since the Chandi Jones era in 2005, but we're in the Dallas Regional and looking at a potential second round matchup with Houston homegirl Brittney Griner and her Baylor.Lady Bears. 

Speaking of the Lady Bears, they are also facing a potential fourth battle with bitter rival Texas A&M with a trip to Indianapolis on the line.   The same is true for Stanford, who has beaten UCLA three times in the Pac-10 this year as well. 

It's going to be an interesting road to the Final Four in Indianapolis.

Philadelphia Region

1st Round
UConn, Kansas State, Georgetown, Maryland, Penn State, DePaul, Iowa State, Duke

Sweet 16
UConn, Maryland, Penn State, Duke

Elite 8
UConn,  Duke

Philadelphia Region Champion
UConn

Dayton Region


1st Round
Tennessee, Marquette, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Miami (FL), Arizona State, Notre Dame

Sweet 16
Tennessee, Ohio State, Miami (FL), Notre Dame

Elite 8
Tennessee, Notre Dame

Dayton Region Champion
Tennessee

Spokane Region

1st Round
Stanford, Texas Tech,  North Carolina, Kentucky, Iowa, UCLA, Louisville, Xavier

Sweet 16
Stanford, Kentucky, UCLA, Xavier

Elite 8
Stanford, UCLA

Spokane Region Champion
Stanford

Dallas Regional

1st Round
Baylor, Houston, Wisconsin-Green Bay, Michigan State, Georgia,  Florida State, Louisiana Tech,  Texas A&M

Sweet 16
Baylor, Wisconsin-Green Bay, Florida State, Texas A&M

Elite 8
Baylor, Texas A&M

Dallas Regional Champion
Baylor

Final Four Teams
UConn, Tennessee, Stanford, Baylor

Championship Game
Tennessee, Stanford

NCAA Champion
Stanford

Trans Murder Rocks Brazil

Brazil is the largest country on the South American continent.  It is not only one that is fast becoming an emerging economic powerhouse, they hope the upcoming 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics will demonstrate that fact to the world.

Brazil is also one of the largest nations to have a female president in Dilma Roussef.

Brazil has another distinction it's not proud of.  It is a very dangerous place to live if you're a transwoman.


Brazil is Roman Catholic, and thanks to the hate speech against transpeople implanted into the Vatican by its former advisor Paul McHugh and disseminated from Pope Benedict XVI, hate crimes and violence against transpeople in Catholic countries such as Brazil has spiked up.

According to local TBLG rights groups in the country, there were over 250 murders in Brazil last year involving TBLG people.   One of the names we'll probably be reciting later this year at the Transgender Day of Remembrance is Priscila Brandao. 

Priscila's mother wanted her trans child to have a better life than pursuing sex work in the mean streets of Belo Horizonte, so a year ago she asked her brother in law to give her a job.     

Just eight months earlier before her life was cut short the 22 year old transwoman was interviewed with her mother expressing a bold hope for the future and a determination that she would succeed at her job as a mattress store manager in Belo Horizonte.

Now she's dead, shot seven times by three men as the crime was caught on surveillance tape.   One of the men has been arrested..

(trigger alert for violence)



A hate crimes law has been proposed in Brazil, and activists in the country are pushing President Rousseff to support its passage.

It won't bring Priscila back, but it's a step in reminding Brazilians that all its citizens are valuable, including its trans ones.

Happy 99th Birthday Bayard Rustin!

Today is not only St Patrick's Day, but the 99th birthday of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, who was born in West Chester, PA on this date in 1912.

Rustin was one of our trailblazing leaders who was an advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on the principles of non violence, helped Dr. King organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, a behind the scenes leader in the Civil Rights Movement, a trustee on University of Notre Dame's Board of Regents in the early 70's, a founder of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and a human rights and election monitor for Freedom House.

He not only was a civil rights movement hero, Rustin was also a trailblazing leader in the gay rights movement.   He testified on behalf of New York's Gay Rights Bill and said this in his 1986 speech the 'New Niggers Are Gays':

 Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new "niggers" are gays. . . . It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. . . . The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people

He died on August 24, 1987 due to a perforated appendix.

According to the New York Times, Rustin once wrote that 'The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.

Feel you on all of that Brother Rustin.    Hope we are throwing a serious party for your Centennial birthday next year or the planning for it is in the works.. 

And for you haters, especially in the African-American community who ignorantly assert that gay peeps have 'done nothing for our people', the life of Bayard Rustin is a powerful rebuke to that bull feces.

Happy birthday, Bayard Rustin.

Damn, Minding My Own Business

Every now and then I just want to have a nice peaceful day in my online discourse (stop snickering) and just read various blogs, comment when I feel like it and just chill.

Yesterday turned out not to be that day.    I had fools stepping to me that I eventually had to pimp slap.

And I was trying so hard to show my Kingian love side yesterday (stop snickering)  but people just had to get in my cybergrill and make me go Marcus Garvey on them.

First there was one person who had a problem with a particular paragraph in my GL fatal flaw piece I posted to my Facebook page

In communities of color, whites and especially gay and lesbian white people are already perceived as having disproportionate amounts of societal privilege because that's the face you have continually presented to the world at large.   If a civil rights issue is being decided in a legislative committee or comes to a vote in a referendum and the only spokespeople advocating for it or lobbying for it have been white, the thought percolating through the POC's head is 'why should we give wealthy whites any more civil rights than we have and are still struggling to get?'

This person kept focusing only on that section of the post, insulted me, and kept on about it until my patience ran out and I finally blocked her.

A few hours later I posted a Facebook comment asking what happened at Marafest 2011 AKA the NCTE event, when Babs tried to clown me.

I don't think so.   Moni don't play that.

I reminded her of a encounter we had in the Longworth House Office Building Cafeteria in May 2007 when she poo-pooed the intel Dawn and I had gotten from our on the Hill contacts that transpeeps were going to get cut out of ENDA.

A few months later she and the rest of the community drinking the Quisling Kool Aid weren't laughing at the 'crazy NTAC people' anymore.

So much for my nice peaceful day on the Net.     Well, maybe next time.