Stevi's Habitat

The MLS Road Trip is a journalism project geared towards exploring, understanding and sharing the soccer culture in the United States and Canada through daily pictures, video and writing in one 51-day trip. Most of what we cover has to directly do with soccer fans and the soccer experience in our young but great league, however we will also talk about the food, culture, landmarks or anything else cool that we see in the 12 major cities that we are going to be visiting. As our disclaimer on the left says, we are simply reporting what we see just as you would see it in the real world, uncensored. We hope that our experience inspires you to embark on your own soccer pilgrimage, become a fan of the beautiful game or at the very least just attend a game in person. This website is not just for us, it is for you, the fans. The fans are the most important part of the game, without them it couldn’t exist.

We believe that support like this can only be found in one sport: soccer. Because of the non-stop play and relatively short total game time, soccer fans can be as loud as they want and as creative as they want for the duration of the game. There are no timeouts, no stoppages, no breathers. When was the last time you saw a 100-foot banner of Yoda unfurled at a basketball game? When was the last time you went to a baseball game and everyone stood up and sang for the duration of the game? Have you ever been to a basketball game that featured the competitive sport of streamer-throwing? The fans in soccer go hard for 90 minutes and create an amazing product. Our job is to document this product in order for it to live on. Forever.

Follow the MLS Road Trip: http://mlsroadtrip.com

Who wants a brand skankin’ new album? Well that’s why you’re here now isn’t it? The OC Supertones have been hard at work this entire last year, and the time has now come to put out our best, most fun, high energy, creative, encouraging, Spirit-filled, God glorifying, danceable, singable ska album we’ve ever done!!! That’s right kids… this album will be 100% certifiable grade-A ska. Most of the songs are either already written or at least close to done, and let me tell ya… we have NEVER been this excited about a Supertones album. It’s like we all took some good healthy time off from the band, got re-focused, and came back with the best stuff yet!

Just a couple years ago in 2010, the original 4 members (Mojo, Jason, Tony, and Chief) got back together for a short summer reunion tour with NO intention of doing anything else.  But somehow there was such a great response and so many people were being encouraged and ministered to, that we decided to keep the door open and play a few more shows. One thing led to another, and about a year and a half ago, God started giving inspiration and creativity to Mojo and Tony (the main songwriters). We all knew right away that this was the next missional season in the life of the band. And why wouldn’t we share this gift with the world?

We talked about what kind of album we wanted to make. Words like fun, exciting, energetic, life-changing, and yes, ska. We make no apologies. We are going back to the roots of what started this band. We’re not trying to be arty, emo, or sophisticated on any level… we want to make the greatest ska album of all time (At least we’ll give it a shot)! But most of all, we wanted to put out a distinctively Christ-centered album. Like every show, every album, and every thing we’ve ever done, the Supertones mission statement is to reach the lost with the hope of Christ, and to build up and encourage the Church. And that is exactly what we intend to set out to do. We believe that this album will be the most encouraging in your relationship with God that we’ve ever done.

Read more & support the project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theocsupertones/oc-supertones-new-album

WHAT DO WE WANT? WHEN DO WE WANT IT? Well, we want there to be more women TV writers. In fact, a good number of you probably want to BE women TV writers. And, now. We would like that now.

Here is my argument for why hiring women writers is a sensible thing to do. There are a lot of reasons why a particular writer might not get hired to work on a staff: lack of talent, inability to write to specifications, combativeness, slowness, and offensive hygiene. In no rational world does the sex of the writer deserve to be on that list. (Note that even the most outrageously large breasts are unlikely to interfere with typing.)

To me, that’s the argument. Simply that. Done. Anyone opposing it has to make the claim that gender is in inherent block to getting the job done — a difficult task in our modern era and given so many counterexamples.

But even I, on occasion, find myself arguing for more women writers using very different reasoning. This reasoning: you need female writers to write realistic/compelling/strong female characters, or to supply a “female point of view.” And that argument, Gentle Readers, has the potential to do more harm than good.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/jane-espenson/women-tv-writers_b_1322537.html

One day, California wakes up and every single Latino has inexplicably disappeared. No business owner, doctor, nurse, soldier, teacher, entertainer, athlete or politician can be found. No bus driver, farm worker, cook, gardener or nanny. All gone. California — the ninth largest economy in the world — grinds to a halt because Latinos have vanished. Chaos and tragedy follow. This scenario is what Sergio Arau’s satiric film, “A Day Without a Mexican,” explores.

This modern-day fable provides a cautionary tale on the assumptions we make about the 11 million unauthorized immigrants who live and work in America every day.

An oft-repeated mantra used to malign these “economic refugees” — a term that more closely defines who they actually are, rather than the inflammatory “illegal immigrant” — is that they don’t pay taxes. They send their kids to our schools, and they don’t pay taxes. They earn their wages, and they don’t pay income tax. Such incendiary assertions are coded language designed explicitly to generate a negative reaction. The facts, which most people don’t know, refute such claims entirely.

Read More: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/opinion/garcia-illegal-immigrants/index.html