I’m Not The Only One

I’m not a huge sports junkie, but I do enjoy an occasional game once in a while.  However, I prefer watching it online as opposed to attending a live game.  The main reason for this preference comes not just from the price of concessions or tickets, the loud and obnoxious team “supporters, surly asshole ushers who think you’re trying to sneak into the expensive seats when you’re actually just lost, or even leaving my home to go watch the game.

What I really hate about attending live games is what takes place before the game: the demand that everyone there stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and the playing of the national anthem.  Sure, some people will drag out the tired, old argument that soldiers died abroad so that I could have the “honor” of reciting the Pledge. In truth, U.S. troops have mostly died to protect the economic interests of U.S. corporations, overthrow foreign governments, destabilize entire regions, complete Manifest Destiny and punish 11 states for seceding.  Very little of that troop deployment had to do with actually defending Americans from external threats, and indirectly, our “right” to mindlessly recite a pledge and honor America’s theme song when instructed to do so .

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The other day I wondered how many American parents still raise their children to believe in Santa Claus?  More importantly, if so, why?

First off, since American culture is exported throughout the world, our depiction of Santa Claus is also exported around the world.  The American Santa Claus is often viewed by many non-Americans as the expression of mainstream American values such as materialism, commercialism and the commodification of goodwill.

In fact many Europeans see our fat jolly elf as a perversion of their Saint Nicholas.  Christians throughout Europe are not only rejecting Santa Claus, but are launching campaigns urging parents not to raise their children to believe in him. Check out this billboard in Scotland.

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The other day I came across the term “voodoo economics” while reading some nonsense written by Paul Krugman.

The term really gets under my skin for two reasons.  But before I get into that, a brief explanation as to to what voodoo economics refer and a history of the term. (more…)

Remember John Rocker?

In 2000, John Rocker was a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, and was actually enjoying a pretty successful career.  But that same year he said the following in a Sports Illustrated interview:

“Imagine having to take the 7 train [in Queens] to the ballpark [at Shea Stadium], looking like you’re in Beruit riding next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old Mom with four kids. It’s depressing……The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?”

That pretty much ruined his career.  He later apologized for the remarks, and upon playing the Mets later that year at Shea Staium, New York fans chanted “asshole” when he came onto the field.  Three years late his MLB career came to an abrupt end.

Fast forward 10 years.  It appears African-Americans are once again breaking the color barrier, not only in the White House but in bigotry and color prejudice as well.  In a move that probably makes John Rocker proud, Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter, who is African-American, used an interview in USA to spew his own hateful thoughts for Latino baseball players, particularly those with dark skin, wide noses, thick lips and kinky hair. (more…)

Sorry I haven’t been blogging the last 30 days or so.  I’ve actually been swamped with freelance work and in this economy, you have to take wherever you can find it!

But in the spirit of the holiday season,  I’ve been bombarded with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”.  I’ve received mail from my creditors, my health insurance providers and all manners of junk mail wishing me a happy holiday.  I do support the separation of church and state (as does the U.S. Constitution) so I can understand the public sector communicating in this way, but when the private sector does it (like a customer service rep or a supermarket or store employee) it just comes off as a politically correct, neutered move.  And since I have a Hispanic surname, I get bilingual correspondence wishing me the equally lame “felices fiestas”.  And yes, when I am told happy holidays, I do respond with Merry Christmas.

I know that social conservatives who use God as an excuse to rob us of our civil liberties see the prevalence of “happy holidays” as a sure sign that the atheists, pagans, Jews and other hell-bound liberals have declared a war on Christmas.  I just don’t see it.  I’ve even received political propaganda from local Republicans accusing incumbent Democrats of “hating Christmas” simply because these elected officials wish the constituents happy holidays in their correspondence.

But let’s get back to the separation of church and state.  After all, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.  Just making Christmas a legal holiday is a violation of the Constitution.  No one is proposing we make Hanukkah or Ramadan a national holiday.  And Christmas’ legal status is not even an American tradition as it was not only not a Federal holiday until 1870, but in colonial times, was outlawed.

So if I could make a proposition to the rest of America…

How about the private sector not censor itself and say Merry Christmas and in exchange, Christmas will no longer be a legal holiday?  No doubt Lou Dobbs will consider this the final blow in the war against Christmas.

Poor Carolyn Maloney!  The Congresswoman’s campaign for U.S. Senate died before it was even born.  Poor, stupid Carolyn Maloney!

For those of you not in New York or just not following the news, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat whose oddly gerrymandered Congressional district includes a portion of western Queens and the ultra-snooty east side of Manhattan (Tudor City, Murray Hill and Carnegie Hall).  Her Congressional website declares, “I think our district is one of the most diverse and exciting places anyone could hope to represent in Congress.”

She was staging a fund-raiser last week for a then-not yet announced campaign to run for the U.S Senate seat in New York.  Running against the incumbent Senator, Kristen Gillibrand, Maloney decided to talk some smack about Senator Gillibrand, focusing on her stance against bilingual education, a covert conspiracy by white liberals to disenfranchise Hispanic immigrant children into making sure they’ll never be able to fill out a job application in English, or anything else for that matter.  Puedes decir, “Home Depot”? (more…)

You’d probably call me crazy if I told you a book written eight years ago focusing on the flaws of the Clinton Presidency would have a greater wealth of relevance for Americans today than it did when it was written.  But Rob Nelson’s Last Call: 10 Commonsense Solutions to America’s Biggest Problems conveys serious issues facing our country (ironically, issues that have gone unresolved since 2000) and unintentionally puts the last eight years with George W. Bush in context.  The author draws examples from his own life, his experience working with the Clinton administration and being the co-founder of a Gen-X grassroots organization that was once 30,000 strong to illustrate then ten most pressing issues (which are actually far worse than they were when Clinton left office) to which he offers radical yet sensible solutions.

It’s almost impossible to not hear many Americans these days, especially liberals, look at the turmoil of the Bush Administration and long for the days when Bubba was in office. Bill Clinton’s Presidency as a result has become romanticized, with Bill’s less noble moments vanishing from public memory.  Written way back in 2000, Nelson frowns on what he considered to be the lame duck Presidency of Bill Clinton (needless to say, this book was published before George W. Bush became President) that failed to serve the Americans of the future.  This eight-year old critique offers a refreshing view of the Clinton Presidency, debunking the existence of the so-called “budget surpluses” of the Clinton years, Clinton’s signing of the Defense of Marriage Act which basically refused to acknowledge gay marriage, and continued air strikes in the Middle East and Africa.

The book focuses on the U.S. national debt, something that is often ignored in the discourse of national politics because it isn’t very well understood.  Most Americans don’t understand why it exists and understand even less how it will absolutely cripple the economy 10, maybe even 20 or 30 years in the future.  The U.S has borrowed trillions of dollars from banks around the world and pay about $300 million a year in interest payments alone.  At the end of the day, all debts must be repaid, Nelson argues, and the leaders of the present have decided America can gleefully live beyond its means, doling out funds to as many special interest groups as possible, and stick future generations with the tab.  As the then-twenty-something Nelson says, he was born at the beginning of the end of the American Dream. (more…)

Last Sunday was the birthday of Jose Celso Barbosa. While he is relatively unknown to most Americans, he died a hero in his native Puerto Rico. Founder of the Puerto Rican Republican Party and the movement to make Puerto Rico a state, July 27th is a legal holiday on the island.

This particular Jose Celso Barbosa Day was more politically heated than usual, as the pro-statehood Republican Party rallied for their gubernatorial candidate in Barbosa’s name.

Jose Celso Barbosa (1857-1921) accomplished a number of firsts for Puerto Ricans. He was the first mixed race person to attend Puerto Rico’s Jesuit Seminary and in 1880 graduated from Michigan University to become the first Puerto Rican to have a medical degree and the first Puerto Rican to have a degree from an American University.

After the U.S. defeated Spain in 1898 and seized Puerto Rico, Barbosa was one of the first advocates for statehood even when the U.S. barely knew what to do with their new war prize. He founded the Puerto Rican Republican Part, solidifying his legacy as the father of the Statehood for Puerto Rico Movement. He also began Puerto Rico’s first bilingual newspaper, perhaps a testament to his eagerness to have his island join the United States as an equal and shed its centuries-long history as a subservient Spanish colony.

While I would love to see an independent Puerto Rican nation, I do favor statehood as a second choice. Anything is better than remaining a colony. I believe the best solution for Puerto Ricans is for Washington to force them to choose only between independence or statehood. (more…)

With the Oregon and Kentucky Democratic primaries behind us, only three primaries remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.

Most gringos are absolutely confused about Puerto Rico’s inclusion in this primary race, mostly because they think Puerto Rico is somewhere in Mexico.

The island’s current relationship with the U.S. is an ambiguous one whose status resembles that of a colony. Puerto Ricans living on the island do not pay federal income taxes but pay Social Security and Medicaid taxes.  Anyone who believes the Clinton campaign’s lies about Latinos not willing to vote for a black person for President will find that Puerto Rican electorate will defy their misconceptions even further, especially when one recalls that Puerto Rico overwhelmingly voted for Rev. Jesse Jackson as when he ran in the Democratic Presidential Primary back in 1988.

Real Clear Politics wrote about Puerto Rico’s involvement in the 2008 Primary race, offering a lot of insight into this matter.  And for those who don’t think Puerto Rico will make a significant impact in this race, bear in mind that the island has 63 delegates, more than Montana and South Dakota combined (48). (more…)

No, that wasn’t a typo.  Xenophobes like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have long insisted that Latinos, especially those who don’t speak English very well, should watch English language television news.  But a recent article in the Washington Post indicates otherwise.

“Schwarzenegger is wrong, and so is this new consensus. The error is particularly obvious in cities with the largest immigrant populations, especially Los Angeles, the town the governor calls home. Schwarzenegger could discover ample evidence of this all by himself — simply by turning on his television.

Extremely well-informed gringo reporter Joe Mathews offered the following:

“On most nights here, the most timely, serious and civic-minded local news is not available on the Internet, the radio or any of the half-dozen English-language stations that broadcast nightly shows that purport to be newscasts. At 11 p.m. each night here, the best newscasts in the market appear on two Spanish-language channels, Univision’s flagship KMEX and Telemundo affiliate KVEA.”

“If immigrants took Schwarzenegger’s advice and flipped off Spanish stations in favor of English-language news, they wouldn’t have nearly as good an idea of what was happening in their adopted city, state and country.”

Mathews goes on to compare one night of newscasts among Los Angeles affiliates of Telemundo and Univision to newscasts on the same night of LA affiliates of CBS, ABC and NBC.

Take a recent night, after a typical day of Los Angeles news. English-language TV led with the weather (it was raining, which is not as unusual as you might think during an L.A. winter), then moved into splashy reports with dramatic footage of a gang shootout and possible hostage situation in a city neighborhood. Less than eight minutes into the newscast, trivia took over. The CBS affiliate’s third piece involved new questions about the death of Marilyn Monroe. The NBC affiliate dwelled on a hepatitis scare at a party for celebrities and swimsuit models, then attempted a brief consumer-oriented investigation about people’s need to replace their tires more frequently. The ABC affiliate gave five minutes to movies and entertainment, from an Oscar preview to a sit-down interview with Jon Stewart.

“In Spanish, viewers got fewer soft features and more deeply reported, longer pieces. KMEX mentioned the gang shootout but provided far more context, interviewing local residents about recent crime and about how local businesses and schools were affected by an hours-long neighborhood lockdown as police searched for a suspect. KMEX also aired a detailed report on a major beef recall from a local firm, a couple of pieces on local politics (including a roundup of what city and county leaders had done that day) and a four-minute examination of key policy issues in the presidential campaign. The Oscars went unmentioned. KVEA’s half-hour newscast, ” En Contexto” (which means what it sounds like), was even more substantive. It gave a thorough review of local political and government news, then delved deeply into nearly 20 minutes of explanation of rising home foreclosures and mortgage problems. (Yes, Spanish-language viewers were callously left to figure out that it was raining all by themselves.)

“This was no fluke. The next night, KMEX broke the news that the LAPD had more Latino officers than white officers, and KVEA ran a piece on the pay and working conditions of security guards. Meanwhile, their English-language rival KABC was finishing another Oscar preview and beginning a heartwarming story involving dogs.

“There’s no comparison in the coverage,” says Josh Kun, a communications professor at the University of Southern California who closely follows Spanish TV. “For people here, there are two places to look for better news: BBC News and Spanish-language news.”

“Why the difference? As English-language news organizations — desperate to stop the declines of their audiences and ad revenues — cut back on news-gathering, they devote their time and resources to entertainment, celebrities, pets and crime (or, best of all, stories that combine all four). But Spanish-language TV producers, who serve a clearly defined, growing audience, have space to tackle weightier topics.

“The result: The sharpest coverage of state and local issues — government, politics, immigration, labor, economics, health care — is now found on Spanish-language TV. They compete hard on serious stories. As a labor reporter for the Los Angeles Times in 2006, the only competitors I routinely saw at major union stories were reporters for KMEX, KVEA and La Opinion, a Spanish-language daily newspaper. These outlets tell their viewers more about how the state and the region work, they are more persistent in demanding explanations from public officials, and their reports routinely include more interviews with more sources from more perspectives.

“The Spanish-language TV broadcasts are, for lack of a better word, more American.

“On a recent night, KVEA did eight minutes on the Iraq war, spent five minutes on deplorable working conditions in Southern California car washes and had reports on narco-traffickers and the latest key legislation in the state legislature and Los Angeles City Hall. Meanwhile, the CBS affiliate had a reporter doing a trend piece on “night spas” that are open until midnight, and ABC was running an item on high-tech fitness equipment.

“It’s enough to make one wonder if it isn’t time for our political leaders to turn off the English-language TV and encourage good citizens to learn Spanish, the language of civic-minded news.

This is no mystery to anyone who gets their news from Spanish-language television.  It has literally been years since I’ve sat down and watched English-language network news shows.  When I do watch news in English, it is from one of the 24-hour cable news channels.  Unfortunately, Mathews left out FOX, whose affiliates in New York, WNYW, offer the most coverage of anything superficial.  Watching the news on WNYW makes me gag.

Mathews also forgot to mention how hard-hitting the morning news can be on Spanish-language television in comparison to that of any English-language news affiliate.

Despite the aforementioned oversights, I think Mathews wrote a great piece, an expose even, that should open the eyes of the non-Hispanic public to the inadequacies of their own TV news shows.

Now, if only Spanish-language news shows could do something about their lack of racial diversity.  I don’t know about the Telemundo or Univision affiliates in other cities, but in New York our Spanish-language news is inexplicably given to the Latino community mostly by blonde-haired blue-eyed anchors with German surnames.  To look at a Univision or Telemundo newscast, you would think they were filming the show not in New York, but perhaps Berlin or Copenhagen.

I’m not sure why these two networks are less willing to hire news staff of color than English-language networks, but it might have something to do with their owners and CEOs: Univision is owned by Haim Saban, an Egyptian Jew who is now an Israeli citizen and Telemundo is owned by NBC and the network’s president is a man named Don Browne.  People forget that you don’t need to be Latino to own or oversee a Spanish-language media company.  You just need a lot of money.  Though both networks were started by Latinos in the 1950s, they have both been sold off to the highest bidder over the years.

Is it just me, or does the mainstream news media say “Hispanic” when referring to politicians and other white-collar people but say “Latino” when describing gangs or inmates or other blue-collar people?

Problem is, it’s not just gringos who do this. I got these photos off two websites, one from a Hispanic organization and one from a Latino organization. Can you guess which organization had the picture of Cuban-American talk show host Cristina Saralegui and which site has the picture of Puerto Rican-born reggaeton singer Tego Calderon?

Can any Hispanics or Latinos (whichever one you happen to be) shed some light on this subject? Es demasiado confusing! I think the light-skinned members of our group prefer Hispanic and the dark-skinned members prefer Latino. How can two terms be so interchangeable so distinct at the same time? Or are they? Gringos are invited to opine with your own comments on this subject as well. Is this like the Latino equivalent of the “better taste, less filling” argument?

Personally, I like Latino and distrust any term that is created by the U.S. government, contains the word “panic” and is grossly Eurocentric.

For more background on this subject, please read my previous post.

As of last Monday, Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Richardson dropped out of the race after finishing fourth in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, citing that he was running low on campaign funds and could not afford to stay in the race and campaign in other states.

I know that in my last post I said I would discuss why I will vote for Barack Obama, but I felt that because Bill Richardson got so little media attention, I’m going to make this post about him instead. To be honest I’m glad he dropped out out the race. Originally Richardson had my vote (and not because he is half Latino) because I was impressed by his diplomatic background. Right now the biggest problem facing this country is the ongoing invasion of Iraq. We can’t count on the Bush Administration to clean up their own mess, and personally I think President Bush is just waiting for his term to end so he can pass the mess on to the next President to clean up. (more…)

For those of you who do not know, I hate Rudy Giuliani, or as my mother calls him, Ghouliani (I concocted a first name, Doody Ghouliani, but then thought that was too juvenile to put on this blog). You can read my laundry list of grievances with Ghouliani if you already haven’t.
I visited Ghouliani’s Presidential campaign web site and was amused to hear of his 12 Commitments. Funny to hear the word commitment from a man who is on his third wife. (more…)