What is “the Americas?” When is it bigger than U.S? And why isolationism doesn’t work

It could be the biggest sticking point in our society’s perception of the rest of the Americas.

Our portion of the two continents is the United States of America, and I have always used the first part of the name to distinguish exactly what I’m referring to.

YET TOO MANY people want to merely use “America” to refer to the nation, when that really is the stretch from the western tip of Alaska to the southern tips of Argentina and Chile.

It’s as though acknowledging that there is more to the Americas south of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande somehow diminishes our nation, which is about as ridiculous an attitude as one can take.

That attitude is strongly at work in the move before Congress to have the United States (they'd argue America) drop out of the Organization of American States.

I could go on a lengthy rant. But the Los Angeles Times probably stated the issue better in an editorial they published this week. It definitely is worth your reading. And I shall return Monday with original commentary.

  -30-

NOTICIAS de LATINO: How long until “Latino” appears to be flawed?

The Los Angeles Times has updated their stylebook with regards to using the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic,” and it seems that the preference is leaning toward “Latino.”

The newspaper used its website to publish their new stylebook entry, which says that “Hispanic” is to be used only when quoting individuals who insist on saying the “H” word, or in referring to specific group names.

I GUESS IT’S like referring to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People by its proper name, even though the term “colored” is a bit dated when referring to African-American people.

Otherwise, “Latino” is considered by the newspaper to be the “umbrella term” for people living in this country whose ethnic origins lie in Latin American nations, although I like the part of their entry that says, “it is preferable to say that an individual is Mexican American, of Salvadoran descent and so forth, …”

Because that recognizes the true reality of the growing Latino population – it is a collection of many differing groups, and not a true mass that naturally blends together into one.

Yes, writing about this new policy is kind of self-serving, because it does follow very closely the policy I have tried to follow in the four years I have been publishing this weblog.

BUT IT ALSO makes me wonder about the continuing evolution of terminology. It makes me wonder some five decades or so from now how obsolete these commentaries are going to appear to some future reader (assuming there still are many serious readers).

I can’t even envision the terminology of the future. Let’s only hope it advances in ways that show a greater understanding of the population that by 2050 is expected to be a third of the nation as a whole.

Will this whole “Latino” versus “Hispanic” debate wind up sounding silly? Or will it take on the aura of the evolution from “Negro” to “colored” to “black” to “African-American” to who knows what term will come up in the future.

What other happenings were in the news as related to the nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population that currently is Latino?

CALL THEM STUBBORN: Arizona state officials were in court on Thursday to argue on behalf of their Legislature’s attempt to impose laws giving local authorities greater power to enforce federal immigration laws.

Those state laws took effect one year ago on Friday, but were largely put on hold by a federal judge until a lawsuit challenging their legitimacy is resolved (likely several years from now).

That is what had state officials, at the instruction of Gov. Jan Brewer, in court on Thursday. They’re trying to get the injunction that puts their offensive law on hold lifted – so that Arizona can take steps to being for Latinos what Alabama and Mississippi used to be for African-American people.

Their claim about the federal government not properly enforcing existing immigration laws comes across as a political smokescreen. Their real hang-up is that they want laws enforced in an improper way.

THE LATEST BEISBOL FLOP: It’s that time of year again. Baseball teams are making trades  in anticipation of Sunday’s deadline in hopes of a late-season jolt – which is why the San Francisco Giants worked out a deal to take Carlos Beltran off the hands of the New York Mets.

The Giants are gambling that a change of scenery will make Beltran (a Puerto Rico native) the star that the Mets were expecting back in 2005 when they offered him a $119 million contract to play for seven seasons.

Instead, he has been competent at best, and weak at worst – which is why the Mets merely got a minor league pitcher in return, and the Mets had to kick in $4 million to the Giants to help cover his salary for the rest of the season.

And why the worst nightmare for baseball fans in the borough of Queens would be if Beltran winds up making a World Series appearance this autumn while their team struggles this season to play .500 ball.

  -30-

El Gallito getting busted at the White House for immigration reform is getting old

I don’t doubt the sincerity of Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., when it comes to supporting immigration reform. But I’m starting to wonder about the congressman’s tactics.

GUTIERREZ: Did we need an encore?



Gutierrez was among a group of activists who earlier this week decided to protest outside of the White House. They believe that President Barack Obama ought to be using his authority more in ways to get incremental measures to benefit immigration reform – instead of giving up on account that he can’t get the total package due to opposition from the conservative ideologues who dominate the GOP these days.

PROTEST, IN AND of itself, is not a crime (even though some people in our society seem to think it ought to be).

But what got Gutierrez in legal trouble was the fact that White House officials (for the past decade since the World Trade Center) are eager to control movement of people around the presidential mansion.

There are parts of the grounds adjacent to the White House where people are not allowed to stop and stare. It amounts to “keep moving,” similar to the way people must behave when they are near a federal correctional center.

So Gutierrez’ “crime” is that he and other activists decided to sit down while occupying an area where they were supposed to keep moving.

ALL OF THE activists, including the congressman, were taken into custody by the U.S. Park police and charged with disobeying an official order. It is such a minor charge that the matter is considered resolved after Gutierrez paid a $100 fine the same day.

I’m sure Gutierrez is going to claim he did this as a statement against inaction on immigration reform. I don’t doubt he means what he “says” when he sits in front of the White House.

Perhaps we’d be better off if more people were willing to take some sort of action on this issue, rather than sit on the sidelines.

Yet I have to admit that my initial reaction to learning of Gutierrez’ arrest this week was something along the lines of, “That, again?!??”

BECAUSE I COULDN’T help but remember a previous protest outside the White House in May of last year. Same issue. Same protest location. Same act of disobedience. Same reaction by the police.

In fact, it also had the same result – the same charge and same outcome. Luis Gutierrez is now out another $100 to make his statement against inaction on immigration reform.

About the only difference I could tell was one line in a Reuters wire service report about Gutierrez’ latest arrest – he was released from police custody in time for him to arrive on Capitol Hill and participate in the House of Representatives’ last vote of the day on Tuesday.

At what point does repeating a stunt just to get arrested become cheap, and thereby cheapen the “statement” that he’s trying to make? Because the last thing I’d want to see happen is Gutierrez become the clown prince of the immigration reform movement.

SO MAYBE WHAT I’m saying is that I’d like to see Gutierrez behave more like a congressman pushing for public policy, rather than the loudmouthed activist of three decades ago who got the nickname El Gallito.

The spirit of a cocky bantam rooster can be of use on this issue. But the bureaucratic mess of our immigration policy is in desperate need of a cleanup.

Letting people who are desperate to find ways to downplay the issue’s significance turn Gutierrez’ repeated arrests into a tacky punch line would be a disservice.

  -30-

Vergara a racist? A nit-wit? Or clueless just like too many of the rest of us?

I must confess. When I read my Sunday newspapers this weekend, I skipped over the Parade magazine supplement. The one with actress (and Colombia native) Sofia Vergara on the cover.

Officially, the cover touted a story inside that in many ways is the typical puff-piece for an actress with a new film and television series to promote (she plays the wife of a character played by actor Ed O’Neill).

BUT BACK TO Sofia, who officially is being touted in this story for a few poignant comments she made about watching a brother slowly kill himself with drugs – despite her attempts to help him.

Unofficially, this story is drawing attention among Latinos for a differing reason – one that has some Latinos claiming she’s being racist, if not outright ignorant.

It’s about a half a paragraph located about two-thirds of the way into the piece, and is obscure enough that I had to read it twice before I found the “controversial” part, which goes: “When I started auditioning  for American acting roles, they didn’t know where to put me. A blond Latina? In L.A., they’re used to Latin women looking more Mexican. But if you go to Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, everybody is blond.”

She’s being demeaning to Mexican women, some say. Others think she’s promoting some false image of blond Latinas by claiming “everybody” in those South American nations isn’t dark.

THERE ARE EVEN those using the Internet to remind us of Nazi-era German exiles who fled to the South American continent to hide from their pasts (although just as many also fled there to escape the tyranny of their homeland).

Sofia a closet Nazi? I doubt it. Sofia a bigot? Not likely, because I do believe (as I read it) that she’s touching on a reality that many people don’t like to acknowledge – the fact that many people don’t comprehend that Latinos come in so many different shades and colors.

It is the reason why the Census Bureau isn’t completely cracked when they say that Latino (or Hispanic) is not a race in-and-of-itself.

Too many people do conjure up an “Indio” image in their heads when the word “Latino” is used, then somehow try to use anything different as a way of discrediting Latinos as a whole (as though “Latino” is a scam of sorts, rather than a real group of people diverse by themselves).

SO AS FAR as “looking Mexican?” As one whose own ethnic origins derive from Mexico, the smart-aleck in me says this world would be a lot more beautiful if everybody really did look Mexican. Since Mexicans themselves have so many different looks.

You’d still have quite a variety.

Insofar as her crack about South American blondes, I’m wondering if Sofia is merely guilty of watching too much Spanish-language television – where all-too-often the people who appear on camera are the blondes of Latin American nations.

Maybe she’s forgotten the masses who remain in Colombia. Or maybe she wasn’t paying that close attention when she lived there as a child (coming to this country in 1993 to take a job with Univision as a glamorous-looking host of fluff television programs).

THEN AGAIN, TOO many people in this country have a knack of looking around them without really seeing what is there. That kind of attitude can come up all too often when racial issues are at stake.

So perhaps Vergara is more like the rest of us than we’re comfortable admitting. Except that most of us will never be paid even once (let alone twice) by Pepsi Cola to do their ads.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: I can’t help but ask. If Vergara’s show “Modern Family” has her as the voluptuous bride of Ed O’Neill, does that mean that she is now the trophy wife of O’Neill’s former “Al Bundy” character? And does this mean that “Married… with Children’s” Peg and her kids are now trying to get a clue about where their own lives are headed?

Immigration reform becomes just like economy – not Obama’s fault, but not part of solution either

President Barack Obama on Monday used his common theme while speaking to the National Council of La Raza.

OBAMA: He needs to fight

He would like to take action in the area of immigration reform that would bring federal policy more in line with the real world (instead of the hostile vision that too many conservative ideologues have). It’s those ideologues who are keeping him from acting.

THE PRESIDENT IS correct that when it comes to immigration, and many other issues that involve ethnicity, it is the ideologues – in the form of the Republican officials whom they got elected to office – who are causing the problems.

I do believe on a certain level that Obama is sympathetic to our concerns, whereas many of these ideologues are not.

But listening to Obama tell the group on Monday, “I need a dance partner here, and the floor is empty,” makes me wonder if he really believes what he says, or if he knows he’s just giving us “half” the story and hopes we don’t know enough to find the holes in his account.

Obama does have political obstacles these days on this issue.

BUT BY BEING unwilling to use his authority because he’s afraid of the political fight that will arise, he’s showing that (at best) he’s timid. Too timid to be worth anything to us.

The problem with the Republican rhetoric being spewed these days about Obama and Latinos is that they try to ignore the fact that they are the obstacle that the president is afraid to challenge – instead trying to make him appear to be apathetic.

It is why GOP efforts to “turn the tables,” so to speak, on Obama aren’t going to be all that favorable. The best they can hope for is to make some Latinos so disgusted that they don’t bother to cast ballots. Ideological trash-talk is going to force many to ultimately vote against whoever wins the Republican presidential nomination for next year’s election cycle.

Now having said that, I also must admit to having some problems with those Latino activists who want Obama to impose some sort of short-term solution. Coming up with a way to impose a change through executive order won’t accomplish a thing long-term.

BECAUSE ANY SUCH order Obama gives would ultimately be among the first things rescinded when some future Republican official gets elected president (which is going to happen someday, it isn’t natural for the office to stay in one political party’s hands for too long).

An executive order would be used by the ideologues to stir up even more hostililty toward immigration reform (as though the ideologues need more reasons to be hostile).

So when Obama told La Raza, “The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works,” he’s merely telling the truth.

If anything, Obama is showing that he’s not the hard-core liberal spewing alien ideas that the conservative ideologues want to believe he is.

THE PROBLEM IS that there are some people who will never want to give so much as a millimeter of concessions on this issue. For Obama to be part of the solution, he’s going to have to show a willingness to take them on.

It’s a lot like the Congressional activity that ultimately resulted in the Civil Rights Act taking effect nearly five decades ago. The Southern Democrats of old were determined to fight this issue to the death, and many left the political party because they thought their northern colleagues sold them out by aligning with Republicans to pass the act,.

Now, the children (or grandchildren, in some cases) of those people are providing the bulk of the backing for the movement that wants to keep the convoluted mess that comprises our current immigration policy, or openly oppose even the lamest attempts (such as California’s version of a DREAM Act, which really does nothing) to benefit those individuals.

Obama’s apathy comes across as dignifying the ideologues in a way they do not deserve. The sooner that Obama works to make people realize that these people are the extremists, the quicker it will be that the real majority makes sense of the situation.

  -30-

This may be more scary than the so-called drug wars taking place along the border

Much of the negative news and scare stories coming from the U.S./Mexico border region around Ciudad Juarez focus on the idea of a lawless community where innocent bystanders get shot down for no real reason.



SANTA FE BRIDGE: Scene of unknowing crime. Photograph provided by Texas A&M University.



Yet a recent report off the Reuters news wire service strikes me as being more terrifying, in large part because it puts innocent people at risk of prosecution by authorities, while also getting unknowing individuals involved in drug-trafficking activity.

FOR IT SEEMS that people connected to the drug trade are watching the border region between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso – going so far as to break into their cars to plant narcotics, then break into them again once the drugs are moved across the border.

The motorists often have no clue they’re being used in such a way. But they are the ones who wind up having to take the brunt of the punishment if Border Patrol or Mexican authorities manage to find the drugs.

After all, it is a likely-enough response by those law enforcement types to be skeptical when someone who is found with drugs in their car says, “That’s not mine!”

Even if those people ultimately are able to convince authorities that the drugs weren’t theirs, it is a lot of legal hassle that must be endured. Most people would get overwhelmed by the legal process to the point that they’d wind up being convicted of something – regardless of what the “truth” might be.

IT WOULD SEEM that Ana Isela Martinez was one of the fortunate ones. She was an El Paso school teacher who was traveling back-and-forth across the U.S./Mexico border so often that she had clearance to use special lanes that would – in most cases – let her pass with minimal scrutiny.

It was rotten luck that Mexican authorities asked to check her trunk, when they found two duffel bags loaded with marijuana. It took her eight weeks before she could convince authorities she was not guilty, during which she spent time in Mexican jails.

She may be free now, but Reuters reports that she lost her job and her immigration status (a Mexican citizen with a U.S. visa and the permits that permitted her to work in Texas) is now in flux – all because she came to the attention of police.

What makes this particular scam so unusual was the amount of time that was put by the narcotics traffickers into observing people to see who might be in a position to have their vehicles used.

THEY WERE UNKNOWINGLY watched for their travel routines on both sides of the border, and FBI officials say that an El Paso-based locksmith made the keys that allowed them access to the vehicles (which is possible once the vehicle identification number of an automobile is obtained).

My point is that there had to be people on both sides of the border involved in this particular scam. This is just as much a U.S. crime as it is a Mexican one. Which is how we ought to be regarding just about everything that happens in the more-than 1,900-mile-long area that comprises the U.S./Mexico border. It means we ought to be working together to try to resolve the problems that afflict the area.

Instead, we all too often want to act as though the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande is some impenetrable area, and that building structures such as Border Walls will somehow further isolate the area.

Too many people who want to think of “Mexican problems” spreading into the United States ought to realize the problems are really bi-national in nature.

  -30-

Rice and beans aren’t inherently any more humorous than grits or greens

I can’t say that I’m offended by Rod Allen, the Fox Sports Detroit broadcaster who does Detroit Tigers games who felt the need to make trite jokes at the thought of so many Latin-American and Latino ballplayers on that ballclub.

If anything, I more have to groan at the thought that someone who makes his living by speaking (even if it is just to offer up trivial observations about baseball and the Tigers – who may well win their division this season) thought he was being humorous the other night.

WHAT GOT ALLEN into trouble was the Tigers’ broadcast of their Thursday gave against the Minnesota Twins.

While catcher Alex Avila was at-bat late in the game, he pointed out that seven of the Tigers nine players were either from Latin American nations or were U.S. born of Latino ethnic backgrounds.

Which led to his attempt at humor by saying, “they’re gonna have to get some rice and beans for the postgame spread tonight.”

Ugh!!!!!!

THE NATIVIST NITWITS who are using various websites to defend Allen (because they always want to believe that Latinos somehow deserve abuse) by claiming that many people of Latin American backgrounds do have rice and beans as staples of their native diets.

In fact, one of the problems often encountered by Latin American ballplayers in their early days of living and playing ball in the United States is adjusting to the diet often found in this country – particularly in those minor league towns where the locals might actually think that a Taco Bell chalupa is a real ethnic dish – instead of just slop stuffed in a stale tortilla.

So yes, I will concede that it is true that many of these ballplayers (if given the chance to eat what they want, regardless of its availability) might include some Spanish rice (which varies in composition based on the country of origin) or some type of beans.

That fact doesn’t in any way make Allen’s comment less boorish in nature.

THE PROBLEM IS that Allen seems to think that humor comes from some aspect of a person’s character or behavior. As though we’re supposed to laugh at those silly Latinos because they might want rice or beans to eat as a side dish to whatever main course they eat for a meal.

What is inherently funny about rice or beans?

If anything, I’d think that people eating grits is a more humorous image that someone eating Spanish rice (which at least has flavor compared to the plain white rice that too many people eat).

But I’m not about to start making grits jokes (or gags about collard greens) because I can see how it would appear to be condescending to others.

WHICH MAY BE the best way to describe this situation. Allen isn’t offensive so much as condescending.

So what should happen in response?

The Detroit Free Press newspaper reported that Fox Sports Detroit officials said there would be something resembling a “clarification” about what Allen meant to say.

I haven’t heard yet what, if anything, Allen had to say. Although I expect it will be some sort of convoluted statement that really doesn’t say anything, but that people will point to as evidence that the issue has been addressed.

IF ANYTHING, THE best “revenge” toward people who want to find trite jokes in the presence of so many Latin-Americans and Latinos playing professional baseball might well be if the Tigers go on to win their division and do well in the playoffs.

For while some still consider the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins in the running for that particular division, it is the Tigers who are best positioned right now to win if the Cleveland Indians fail to maintain the same level of play they had in the first half of the season.

If the Tigers actually win the American League championship and make it to the World Series, perhaps there can be a victory banquet of sorts – with Spanish rice and beans on the menu.

Which, let’s be honest, is much more of a delicious culinary experience than mashed potatoes and corn.

  -30-

Latinos want answers, not more rhetoric

OBAMA: Will he act? Or just listen?

Last week, it was activists gathered at the White House for yet another Hispanic Policy Conference, by which President Barack Obama tries to give the impression that he’s listening to the concerns of the growing Latino population and that he really, really cares about us.

Next week, he’ll travel to the National Council of La Raza, which is having its annual convention. The president will try to do his best to show his concern.

YET REPUBLICAN POLITICAL operatives aren’t delusional when they pick up traces that a significant share of the Latino electorate thinks Obama is filled with cheap talk that he’s afraid to turn into reality.

It may well be true that what he’s afraid of is antagonizing those very political operatives whose own agenda includes (in many cases) keeping down the Latino electorate.

But what we’re looking for is a sense that someone is willing to acknowledge our concerns.

That is what the National Association of Latino Elected (and appointed) Officials is getting at in issuing a statement this week that says Obama should be using these opportunities with Latinos as more than just a chance to get a few of his words broadcast on the Telemundo and Univision Spanish-language television networks.

BECAUSE THAT IS the appearance the president gives these days.

NALEO officials basically gave the president the equivalent of that old, and crude, cliché that goes something like, “poop, or get off the pot.” It’s time for him to define what actions he can take on behalf of Latinos and specific issues of concern to us, rather than merely give us the reasons why the Republicans are the obstructionists who are stopping serious reform from taking place on a myriad of issues.

We already realize who our enemigos are on these issues. What we want to know is if we can count on the president to be among our allies.

“We encourage President Obama to embrace the opportunity provided by his attendance at the (La Raza) annual conference to announce meaningful progress on key policy issues of most importance to this segment of the (U.S.) population,” the group said.

THOSE ISSUES INCLUDE passage of the DREAM Act that would enable long-time U.S. residents (but citizens elsewhere) to be treated like the long-timers they really are when it comes to trying to get higher education or serve in the U.S. military.

But it also includes using his presidential authority to hold in check those people whose ideological hang-ups are so intense that their way of countering the DREAM Act is to push for deportation of all these younger individuals before they can get that education that would allow them to fulfill their potential on behalf of our society.

“The administration must establish a more uniform and transparent process to ensure stronger protections for these hard-working, law-abiding youth,” NALEO officials said, in their statement.

“At a time when our nation is engaged in critical discussions about the future of our economy, we can hardly afford to ignore the tremendous talent, contributions and potential these young ‘DREAMers’ represent for the future vitality of our economy,” NALEO officials said.

NALEO ALSO WANTS Obama to have the Justice Department monitor local governments that try to impose voter restrictions that have potential to single out the Latino electorate – whether it be those states that demand photo identification when one wants to cast a ballot or those that pen in Latino voters to the bare minimum of electoral districts.

But doing all these things would mean antagonizing those political people who want to use the process to advance their ethnic hang-ups, rather than work for the betterment of our society.

But that also is why it is delusional when GOP leaders start talking about how the Latino vote is going to swing over to them in 2012. Unless there are some serious shifts in attitude, the Latinos who leave Obama will mostly sit on the sidelines come the next election cycle.

So is a memorandum from Republican National Committee political Director Rick Wiley truthful when he says Latino disillusionment with Obama could cost him the electoral votes of states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico?

OF COURSE, IT is.

Then again, Latino disgust with the ideological logic relied upon by too many Republican officials (no matter what the latest round of GOP broadcast ads say) could also be what costs that party’s presidential hopeful and ensures that we get Obama, the sequel, come 2013.

  -30-

Fundraising effort in Arizona for border wall against Mexico borders on comical

Learning of Arizona’s effort beginning Wednesday to raise money so they can erect a barricade along the state’s entire border with the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua makes me wonder what will come next.



This Texas sentiment will spread to Arizona

A Jerry Lewis-style telethon; perhaps featuring Rush Limbaugh as its host as he engages in one of his ideological rants while trying to get people to dig a little deeper into their pockets to come up with the money to keep the “Mexican scourge” from entering this country?

EVEN INTO A state that was once a part of Mexico, and where the Spanish influence is a permanent part of the state’s character.

What is at stake is yet another measure passed by the Arizona Legislature meant to feed the mentality of those people who are desperate to believe that the growing Latino population of this nation is a problem that must be dealt with.

It also feeds off the notion of a border wall, a barricade whose biggest proponents want to cover the entire 1,900-plus-mile length of the U.S./Mexico border.

Federal officials actually approved creation of such a barricade, although there are large swaths of the southwest where the barricade is little more than wire, or just some posts indicating where the border lies.

ARIZONA OFFICIALS TOOK the lead in saying they want to complete the wall – or at least the portion of it that is Arizona’s southern border with the two Mexican states.

Now because it is a federal government project, it would be improper for state government to just directly take over the work. It also would be wrong for state taxpayer dollars to be used for any such construction.

That is why the law that took effect Wednesday specifies that the state can only use money received through private donations to do work, and will have to receive permission from the landowners whose property ends at the U.S./Mexico border.

Which is why we now have a brand-new website, called www.buildtheborderfence.com, that is meant to make it easier for people to donate their money to the ideologically idiotic project.

NOW ANYBODY WHO has read my past commentary on this issue knows that I think the whole idea of a border wall is stupid. Not only does it create the wrong image (way too reminiscent of the Berlin Wall, which was the failed Communist effort to keep the rest of the world out of their portion of Berlin back in the days when Germany was West and East), it also is a waste of money.

A lot of money, actually. A Government Accountability Office report from 2009 estimated that such solid barricades would cost $3 million per mile to build.

The reality is that the border region consists of large swaths of desert which is a fairly uncross-able barrier in and of itself. It is a dangerous trip – one more risky than those Cuban exiles take when they try to make the 90-mile plus trip from Havana to Key West in some dinky device that barely deserves to be called a boat.

Just as we don’t really know the number of people now living in this country without a valid visa, we don’t know for sure how many people died while trying to walk across the desert. Many probably perished, and their physical remains remain undiscovered in the sand.

THE IDEA THAT building anything along the border will significantly change the circumstances is foolhardy.

Which means that anybody paranoid enough to go to the website and actually make a financial contribution towards an Arizona/Sonora-Chihuahua border wall is evidence of that old idiom, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

  -30-

Latino candidates alone won’t ensure that GOP gets future Latino voter support

On the surface, the new Republican plan to reach out to Latino voters sounds nice.

The Republican State Leadership Committee this week said it plans to spend about $3 million during the upcoming election cycle on a new project meant to bolster the GOP’s chances of success in 2012 and in the future.

THAT EFFORT IS being called the Future Majority Project, and it is meant to create the chance for Republican political majorities by bolstering the political party’s perception amongst the growing Latino population.

Specifically, the project includes provisions to look for at least 100 Latinos who would be willing to run for seats in state legislatures across the United States. Getting those people to build up some experience at the state government level could result in a future governor or legislative leader of the Latino ethnic persuasion who doesn’t flinch when the word “Republican” is spoken.

Or, as the project’s leaders see it, those Latino officials may well serve a stint in their respective state Legislatures, then decide to try to move up to Congress. The people being trained now could be the future leaders of the federal government.

And by realizing that Latinos need to be sought out, it could be the effort that breaks the developing notion that Latinos are Democrats by default because the open hostility of many GOP partisans chases them off of thinking of el elefante as an alien being.

BUT I CAN’T wonder how insincere this effort truly is, particularly since in state after state, I have seen the efforts to redraw the state Legislature district boundaries in ways that are meant to bolster the status quo’s chances of remaining in place.

There are too many places that have growing Latino populations that could easily justify the creation of legislative districts that would bolster Latino voter support, only to see little being done toward that goal.

Could it be that we’re going to get certain types of Latinos who get recruited? Perhaps people who are willing to spew the same ideological tripe being offered up by the conservative elements of the Republican Party as it exists now.

I know that many conservative ideologues tried to claim some sort of significant victory when Florida voters picked Marco Rubio to represent them in the U.S. Senate instead of a Democrat. But Rubio has turned out to be more or less what I, and many Latinos, would have expected.

HE’S GIVING THE conservative ideologues his backing to the point where he has little credibility among Florida’s Latino population itself. Rubio has become a tan-face, giving comfort to a certain segment of the population. But he’s not any kind of candidate who will inspire Latinos to want to swing themselves over en masse to the Republican Party.

I’m not saying those particular individuals don’t have a place in political life. They do fill a certain niche.

But they should not be thought of as any kind of trend that the GOP is somehow becoming more sympathetic to the growing Latino population. They don’t represent all of us any more than Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., does.

In fact, the most interesting political fight I have heard of in recent weeks also generates out of New York. Anthony Weiner’s personal behavior caught the nation’s attention.

BUT NOW THAT he’s gone, there are Latino activists who think the fact that his district won’t have an incumbent in 2012 makes this the perfect excuse to hack up his congressional district, with the Latino elements being used as the base of a new district that would ensure New York adds another Latino member of Congress.

Yet the powers-that-be don’t want to change anything. They want to pick someone new to take over, and someone most likely non-Latino. They want things to stay the same

Which, if you speak honestly about it, is the same thing that the Republican Party wants in offering to spend $3 million to find new Latino legislators – different faces spewing the same old GOP rhetoric

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: I couldn't help but notice the official spin being read by Chinese communists off the official news agency in this report about redistricting and political shifts in the United States.

A bold adventurer? Or too much time on her hands?

I’m not trying to mock Diana Nyad. But there’s something about the 61-year-old swimmer’s latest stunt that just strikes me as foolhardy.

Nyad will be in Havana next week. But she’s not staying for any length of time. She’s using the Caribbean nation capital city as a starting point for what she hopes is a 102-mile swim across the Straits of Florida to Key West.

IN SHORT, SHE’S going to make that trip that so many Cuban exiles have made, and many more have died trying to make, all in hopes of finding “freedom” in the form of life in the United States.

But Nyad won’t be sailing across on a boat or raft. She’s going to swim it.

The New York Times reported that if her swim goes the way it should, she will be in the water for about 60 hours. Every 1.5 hours, she will stop to tread water for a few minutes, while also swallowing a liquid protein mixture.

Which means she will have a boat alongside her to provide assistance and aid – and rescue if something serious goes wrong (or if sharks find her form to be too appealing for her continued safety).

NYAD ACTUALLY MADE this swim once before, back in 1978. Then, she swam inside a shark cage. This time, she’s doing it sans cage.

She’s making this swim because “it’s there.” The fact that she once made an equal-length swim from Bimimi to Florida hasn’t taken this desire from her.

In fact, she also tried making the Cuba-to-Key West swim last year. But weather and currents pushed her so far off course that she had to give up after about 50 miles.

Now Nyad has every right to take on whatever stunt she thinks her body is up to. Under typical circumstances, I wouldn’t care what she did.

BUT THIS STUNT takes on the imagery of that trip that is legendary to the experience of the Cubano exile community in this country. Even though the 21^st Century reality of fleeing Cuba is to get from the western tip of the island nation to Mexico, then work one’s way through that country until reaching the Rio Bravo del Norte (a.k.a., the Rio Grande) and entering the United States through an official border checkpoint.

Because the Cubans are exiles and can demand political asylum. Anybody else from a Latin American nation who tried to do that would be laughed at before being ejected by the Border Patrol.

If you want the truth, I’m surprised the Cuban government is even permitting Nyad to enter the country. Her stunt, if she makes it, could serve as encouragement for many more Cubans who are eager to get out of the country.

Perhaps los Hermanos Castro who run that country think she’ll drown, which would serve their political purposes. Or maybe the Cuban government’s propaganda machine (which says the United States is entirely to blame for Cuba’s economic struggles) thinks they can twist Nyad into some crazy woman for even trying such a stunt.

PERSONALLY, I HOPE she succeeds in this swim – largely because I’d like her to get it (the first person to swim from Cuba to Key West without a shark cage) out of her system. Then she could move on with her life.

For what I fear is a mess of copycats who think they can do the same – even if they aren’t an individual who has spent the bulk of her life taking part in competitive swimming events.

Seriously, I can’t help but think that the statement that applies to this particular stunt is that old consumer warning, “Do not try this at home.”

  -30-

Partisan politics between Havana and Caracas all too revealing

The partisan political games being played these days by officials in Venezuela and Cuba would be humorous, if not for the reality that it illustrates when it comes to the Cuban people.

The “story” occurring this weekend is the fact that Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is in Havana, attending clinics where he can receive chemotherapy treatments that will keep him alive so he can strong-arm his way to another term as president come the 2012 elections.

WHAT DOES IT say that Chavez doesn’t trust the doctors or the medical establishment in his own country to treat him for cancer? It says that the conditions in Venezuela are pretty sorry that local medical people can’t accommodate him.

But the fact that he went to Cuba for treatment was meant to be a thumb in the eye of the rest of the world. Because while Cuban officials like to brag about the quality of healthcare they have and how it is accessible to anyone, the reality is so far from that.

I suspect that Chavez – who on Saturday said to reporter-types, “it’s not time to die, it’s time to live” – would have sooner chose death than consider coming to the United States, or any country sympathetic to the United States, to receive any medical care.

The truth is that Cuban healthcare is like everything else in that Caribbean island nation. It exists in theory, but many regular people just can’t get it.

IT’S NOT EVEN a matter of money. If they had the cash to pay for it, it still wouldn’t be available. Cuba remains an impoverished nation – the chief factor that prevents any talk of “revolution” from ever achieving a higher standard of life for its people.

It is true that Cuba doesn’t have situations like we have in the United States where people lack medical insurance, and therefore cannot receive certain treatment – no matter how ill they truly are!

All Cubans are equal. They all get nothing. Going about the Internet in search of materials about Cuban healthcare that go beyond the propaganda (both of the Cuban government and the conservative ideologues of this country) include many stories of ill-equipped hospitals where people have to bring their own supplies if they wish to be treated there.

Or else they get nothing other than unsanitary conditions, which ought to be considered intolerable by a healthcare system that likes to think it is the model for all developing nations of the world.

FOR THE MEDICAL facilities that are properly equipped are often the ones that are restricted to only certain individuals – most often foreigners (such as Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, who has used Cuban clinics to help him cope with drug addiction) who happen to be on the island when they become ill.

If they are able to come up with hard currency to pay the bill, then they have a chance of getting adequate (not necessarily excellent) medical treatment.

Which means the reason that Hugo Chavez can get chemotherapy treatments in Havana is because he’s not a Cuban. Maybe the fact that the Venezuela president is a political ally will get him a discount when it comes to paying the bill.

Or maybe it’s the Venezuelan taxpayers who are footing the bill for this particular round of treatment.

THE LATTER THOUGHT actually offends me more than the idea that Cuban residents who might need this same treatment likely have to resign themselves to death instead.

If only they were political people whose presence could help prop up the future of los Hermanos Castro, then Raul and Fidel would be willing to cover the tab to keep them alive.

  -30-