A Picture of a True Imbecile

Here’s the story that tells the reason for his imbecility.

A Hapsburg, LeBron and Martha Stewart Walk Into A Bar…

Carles Puyol (right) who looks like he just stepped out of a Hapsburg family portrait, heads Spain into the World Cup Final. As a descendant of the Hapsburg’s, Puyol will be looking for some payback by cracking some skulls against the Netherlands on Sunday

My guess is that since LeBron James missed not having a signing day presser coming out of high school, he’s making up for lost time with “The Decision”. Great column on the LeBron “saga” that  mercifully ends tonight.

When the folks at NASA aren’t trying to reach out to the Muslim world, they’re conducting valuable research.

Forget Wife Swap, how ’bout an old-fashioned spy swap? Makes me want to re-read The Cardinal of the Kremlin.

So now these “elites” will become embittered and “cling to martini glasses or environmentalism or antipathy towards people who don’t think like them or anti-American sentiment or anti-capitalism sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Right POTUS?

Unbelievable pictures of Monterrey in the aftermath of Hurricane Alex.

Holy poncho Batman! Martha Stewart had lengua, easily the most underrated “cut” of beef.

Caught this on PBS last night, I might or might not have almost shed a tear because of Jackie’s courage in the face of such bitter hatred.

[Photo Credit: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images Europe]

Today in Houston…

The Mexican National Soccer Team (FIFA ranking: 17), will square off against Angola’s team (FIFA ranking:85) at Reliant Stadium. It’s a friendly match which means that

• It doesn’t count for anything except extracting my countrymen’s hard earned lawn-mowing money
• No Barkleyesque elbows will be flung in the direction of Angolan athletes.

Because it is my beloved Tri that is playing, expect to see this in the stands,

[Photo credit: Me. Took it during a México v. Belize match at Reliant Stadium]

The festivities will em, kick off later today.  No news if the wonderful folks at the so-called Minuteman Project will stage a whinefest.

That’s today in H-town, yesterday there was a protest led by none other than “local activist”, one might say “community organizer”, Quanell X.

As one might have guessed the protest had to do with racism, perceived or otherwise. Recently, a Bellaire officer, Jeffrey Cotton was acquitted of aggravated assault on Robbie Tolan, a Bellaire youth. Sgt. Cotton shot Tolan while the latter was in his front yard. By all accounts it was a misunderstanding, since Cotton believed that Tolan had stolen a car (the officer punched in the wrong tag number).

A confrontation ensued with the boy’s mother and the officer believed Tolan was reaching for a weapon and opened fire, wounding the young man. Personally, I believe the situation could have been avoided if Tolan had simply followed orders and waited for the misunderstanding to get cleared up.

Maybe it’s just me but if a cop tells me to do something, I’m going to do it and not put up any resistance. Remember folks, there are more of them than there are of you and they carry radios (not to mention guns). Besides, if you’re free of wrongdoing then that will come out in the wash, why aggravate the situation?

Quanell the Tenth decided to stick his nose in all this because Tolan is black and Cotton is white. At the protest, Mr. Tenth said,

This cop is a criminal, this cop should be in jail. If you shoot one more black man in Bellaire in cold blood, then your damn city will go up in flames.

I find his tone very interesting. Yes, it is possible that Cotton’s demeanor was influenced by the fact that Tolan is a young black man. Young black men and the police don’t seem to get along very well. I don’t find it outside the realm of possibility that the officer might not have been so trigger-happy if Tolan was white.

That said, Quanell the Tenth just made it more difficult for young black men in Bellaire. His passionate and extremely careless threat just paints a very negative image of blacks in the minds of Bellaire residents. In their minds, he’s painting an image (if not reinforcing) of black men as being violent, hot-tempered and not too hesitant to making threats. That’s a disservice to the very people he claims to represent.

To me, it’s very similar to when Muslims get their knickers in a twist when anyone suggests that some professing Muslims have violent tendencies.

As I’ve said before,

If someone says that you have a tendency to get out of control, and you don’t like it, then probably it’d be better if you didn’t get out control with your reaction…

Senator Barack Obama wins the 2008 Student Council Election

That is ABC’s projection at least. If this inevitability holds up (and it will), Sen. Obama becomes the first biracial individual to be elected President of these United States.

What I think interesting about this whole deal is the focus on how we as a nation have come a long way in exorcising our racist demons of years past. Tonight I watched/heard a black U.S. Congressman say on national television that (I’m paraphrasing) America is ready to bury its race burden.

Really? I agree, racism (regardless of the criterion) is an evil that should be buried and done away with (one day it will but not by our efforts) but is this nation ready to bury its race burden?

Not judging by this election. Not when a large number of people vote for a candidate based mostly (if not solely) on the basis of the color of his skin (or half of his ancestry).

A black person voting for Barack Obama on the grounds that he’s half-black is just as racist as a white person voting for McCain on the grounds that he isn’t half-black. A Mexican voter voting for a Mexican candidate just because of his ethnicity is equally injurious. Racism is racism no matter who it’s coming from.

I truly believe that true progress would be marked by a total disregard for a candidate’s ethnicity or skin color. Color blindness is not making a huge deal of the melanin a person’s genes are programmed to express. Color blindness is looking past this, not focusing on it as has been done ad nauseam throughout this laborious election process.

Congratulations to Senator Obama on winning what has become, the world’s most important popularity contest. He should thank the press for delivering this victory to him, I would (tonight, ABC’s Diane Sawyer found it a Sisyphean task to contain her glee).

Judging by the amount of people present at his victory party, methinks the President-elect needs a bigger Jeep than this one (click on the pic and watch the celebratory hilarity ensue):

Just so long as he keeps the tires properly inflated…

Sarah Palin Mannequin Raises Question

Caught this story on Drudge,
Halloween Palin Prop Sparks Controversy In WeHo

Apparently a West Holly wood man thought it a great Halloween idea to hang a mannequin dressed as Sarah Palin (picture from the story):

According to the story, Chad Michael Morisette, who hung the mannequin by a noose, had this to say about it,

It should be seen as art, and as within the month of October. It’s Halloween, it’s time to be scary it’s time to be spooky.

Now is a good time to remind everyone that if this country were nearly half the neo-con fascist theocracy that folks in some quarters believe it to be, Mr. Morrisette would have been cast in prison and then summarily shot. And oh yeah, his family would be charged for the bullet, but I digress.

No doubt, this election season has been a trying one for all involved. Race, unlike any previous election, is inevitably a focal point due in large part to the fact that one of the nominees is half-black.

In this election you have racists voting for Senator Obama because he is half-black and racists not voting for Senator Obama because he is half-black. These 2 groups of people have more in common than they realize.

I don’t intend to stir the simmering racial pot but a question if I may:

Would a mannequin of Senator Obama hanging from a noose, say in the Deep South, be seen as “art” or as a vicious “hate crime”?

Judging by the irrational hysterics that went on last year in Jena, Louisiana (and parts beyond) methinks the latter…

Oprah: Biased? No Question. Racist? Hmm…

I create feelings in others that they themselves don’t understand. — Lightning McQueen

Well that’s one thing Barack Obama has in common with the Pixar creation. At least when it comes to the popular Ms. Winfrey, who said this after the Senator’s recent acceptance speech,

What I saw with Barack Obama was something that was transcendent and I felt transformational for me as a human being and for this country.

Hey, I hear you O! I’ve already given the best reasons that qualify Mr. Obama for the Presidency:

1. He took the time to take pictures with the Texas football team
2. He wears Asics

Those 2 trump what has been told to me : “he gives a good speech”, “he reminds me of JFK”, “he’s for change”

So now Oprah (unabashed Obama honk) is in the news for refusing to have Sarah Palin on her insanely popular show. Granted, O will have her on after the election (probably provided that the GOP doesn’t win) but not anytime before.

This prompted the good impartial folks over at ABC to ask the following question:
Is Oprah Biased? Host Won’t Interview Palin

Well of course she’s biased ABC (takes one to know one?) but the better question is, “Is she racist?”

I know it sound preposterous (it’s impossible for libs to be racist) but let’s play a bit of “A Time to Kill” pretend.

You have an immensely popular white talk show host who is endorsing a young, charismatic “biracial” GOP Presidential candidate (For example, George Prescott Bush, right). The Dems have a woman VP candidate on their ticket but said talk queen refuses to have her on the show.  Now imagine that the Democratic VP candidate is black.

How long would it take for the race-hustlin’ Sharptons and Jacksons of the world to cry bloody racism?

A shade longer than it took Mr. Cruise to leap into O history…

[For the record Ms. Winfrey, I don’t think you’re racist]

Leonard Pitts on Poor Whites

Mr. Pitts is a capable and distinguished columnist. For what it’s worth, I tend to disagree with him more often than not. This of course does not mean that I don’t respect the man and his work.

His latest column,
Poor whites are being conned, makes for an interesting read.

A snippet,

Which is a desription [sic] that fits many in Appalachia — and also a vast swath of African America. So for me, the story here isn’t simply the old, familiar tale of the nation’s stark racial divide, but also another tale, just as old, less often remarked, of how the white poor and the black poor have long been kept at one another’s throats as a means of keeping them from looking too closely or clearly at the ways both are maniuplated by the forces of money and power.

Dr. Zinn also addresses the origins and sordid purpose of this in his classic, A People’s History of the United States. Mainly he deals with the topic in a chapter titled, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom”.

A sample,

The need for slave control led to an ingenious device, paying poor whites–themselves so troublesome for two hundred years of southern history–to be overseers of black labor and therefore buffers for black hatred

For other posts on Dr. Zinn see below,
“Dennis Prager and Howard Zinn have tea”

“A People’s History of the United States”

Never fear, Doudou Diene is here!

OK, we can breathe easier in regards to the problem of racism here in the United States,
U.N. racism investigator to visit U.S. from Monday

According to the story, Mr. Diene*,

will…gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance

Not sure what this gentleman hopes to accomplish on this visit, which by the way starts today. What is he going to tell us? That racism exists in America? What else? Grass is green? Most of America doesn’t like the New York Yankees and Duke Basketball?

Isn’t it obvious that racism is alive and kicking especially now during our election cycle? You have whites that are not voting for Barack Obama only because he’s “black” and you have blacks who are voting for Barack Obama only because he’s “black”.

Of course, most people will only see the former case as an example of racism while the latter as an example of people supporting one’s own.

Mr. Diene’s trip might not be a total waste of time if he addresses the true root of the disease known as racism instead of merely the symptoms, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Also working against him is America’s typical blah attitude towards the U.N., which the article does note,

the United Nations has almost no clout when it comes to U.S. domestic affairs and is widely perceived by many as interfering.

*No relation to,

Obama’s Hispanic Voting Block?

On our last visit to my native México we stopped by a convenience store and purchased some items one usually purchases at such an establishment, ice, drinks, snacks etc.

My dear sister (who along with her husband also were visiting there) bought me a pastry. A very delicious and thus unhealthy pastry. A pastry which if it were sold in the United States would be subject to much controversy.

The name of the pastry is “Negrito” which is Spanish for “little black boy”. The wrapper for this treat used to have a spear-wielding, bone-through-the-hair, dancing black boy (if you can stomach it, click here). Bread giant, Bimbo, is the company which makes it.

The wrapper housing today’s “Negrito” features a black boy (think Huey from Boondocks) on a skateboard. Who says México hasn’t outgrown colonialist attitudes? By the way the pastry is sold here in the States but understandably so, it is called something else.

Saw it at the local Wal-Mart a few weeks back and I can’t recall what it is called.

Some find it hard to believe that Mexicans are racist (melaninist to be fair). Probably because,

1) it is not understood how a people who are typically on the short end of discrimination can also discriminate others

AND/OR

2) Some mistakenly think us inferior and so can’t understand how one group of inferiors can regard another group of inferiors as well, inferior.

Elderly Women in front of a Counter in a Small Town

During the winter break of my first year of college I worked as a cashier at a now defunct truck stop in a small town.

The memories I have from said time are lively to say the least. Two incidents are still vivid in my mind after “all these” years.

If you hung around this blog long enough you know that I am Mexican. No, not of Mexican descent only (that is Mexican-American) but actually born in México.

Personally I can’t recall being discriminated against because of that, at least directly. I know there are people who think Mexicans inferior and all that but I haven’t directly been the target of such ignorance.

To be fair, I probably don’t fit the image most people might have of Mexicans for I’m not dark-skinned or swarthy or perhaps even wear a sombrero (If that is your impression of us, well you haven’t been exposed to very many of us). The accent I did have when I first started speaking English on a daily basis, is by all accounts gone.

The 2 incidents which I recall are in this vein. The first involved an elderly inhabitant of the aforementioned small town. The woman, she couldn’t have been younger than 70, and her sister came to buy something or other and as they were paying me they laid out their cash on the counter to count it (after all isn’t that what a counter is for?).

Now the women were Anglo and probably grew up during a time in this country were racism was not only extant but acceptable. As they finished coming up with the cash to cover their purchases one of the women turned to the other and dropped this line,

Put your money away before a Mexican comes and steals it

Now I found this amusing though I didn’t react visibly. My initial thought was, “This woman doesn’t know I’m Mexican or if she does she doesn’t care”.

I know such an incident might send some of my compatriots (real or pretend) scrambling for the nearest phone so they can call some civil rights group and demand so-called justice.

At the end of it I dismissed it as the ignorance of a woman who grew up at a time when such ignorance was believed and perhaps even encouraged. What question did arise in my mind was the following,

Were (are) Mexicans really viewed as thieves? Just waiting to part a fool from his/her money?

The other incident involved a couple of elderly Mexican women. Sometimes I would have to work the graveyard shift (Midnight-8am) and the middle of the night would bring bus after bus of gamblers (the vast majority Hispanic) going to or from the casinos in Louisiana (gambling is not legal in Texas).

One night a bus disembarked and sure enough it was a bunch of elderly Hispanics. Understand that working this shift is hard for it is somewhat unnatural to be awake during these hours. I probably didn’t look as awake as I could have been.

So these 2 Mexican women roll up to the counter to pay for whatever it is they bought and one of them tells the other one in Spanish,

This guy doesn’t even look like he’s awake

Of course she was referring to me and I let her know (in Spanish) that I was quite awake. The reaction was priceless as they always are when one commits such a faux pas. The woman was understandably embarrassed (unfortunately, I’ve been in her shoes and believe me it’s embarrassing) yet didn’t offer an apology.

She merely said, “Well you do look half-asleep”.

I know Pearl Jam sing about an “elderly woman behind a counter in a small town” but as for me the ones in front of a counter have proven more entertaining.