Congratulations to BananaPajama, who won passes to see Ice Cube’s latest movie, Ride Along.
By the way, isn’t it odd that Ice Cube, the guy who rapped about how much he hated the police, has portrayed a cop gazillions of times onscreen?
I’m sure there’s something psychologically deep to be uncovered there, but I’m going to skip that opportunity because I’ll be too busy cranking up AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.
Back in the day, nobody was more intimidating than Ice Cube. Then he entered a mid-career phase of playing the cuddly teddy bear. But recently, he’s returned to being the toughest mofo on the block.
You can see his latest incarnation in Ride Along.
I’m offering you the chance to win passes to a screening of the movie in one of the following cities:
Chicago
Dallas
El Paso
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami
New York City
San Jose
The film is about a fast-talking guy who joins his girlfriend’s brother—a hot-tempered cop—to patrol the streets of Atlanta. The guy gets entangled in the officer’s latest case, and to prove that he deserves his future bride, he must survive all kinds of hijinks over the next twenty-four hours. John Leguizamo is around to represent la raza.
All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) about anything you please. Just make sure to tell me what city you plan to see the movie in, so I can allocate the passes.
If you win, I’ll email you the tickets. By the way, I won’t make your contact info public, so don’t worry about that.
I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so.
If you’re lucky enough to win, just remember to tell ‘em where you’re from.
This year, I became a father. I can assure you that nothing that monumental and awesome is going to happen in 2014.
But among the few downsides to parenthood is the fact that one has less time to update blogs. So I’ve written less this year. In fact, I’ve missed out on a few stories that I normally would have been all over.
For example, there was this little tidbit from the fine state of Texas, where a Latina politician tweeted her hatred of immigrants, her support for apartheid, her belief that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks, and her opinion that Muslims are “vermin.” Why yes, she is a member of the Republican Party. Why do you ask?
Now, I would usually get a lot of mileage out of a self-loathing Hispanic with strong anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic tendencies who also appears to be a paranoid lunatic. But what new parent has the time?
So here’s hoping that in the new year, the little guy will give me a breather now and then to write about such characters. I can’t wait.
I was at a wedding reception when I saw her — a blonde woman trying in vain to get down with Kool & the Gang’s Jungle Boogie. A man seated near me gestured to the woman and pronounced her, “the whitest person I’ve ever seen.”
We all knew what he meant, of course. She couldn’t dance. She was awkward. She was way uncool. And he summed up all that negativity with the single word “white.”
To continue reading this post, please click here.
So it looks like many of the bugs have been worked out, and Obamacare is more or less chugging along.
Or is it?
According to some commentators, the key to the ACA’s ultimate success or failure is, as with many aspects of American society, none other than Latinos.
This is because “as the youngest, fastest growing, and least likely demographic in the United States to be insured,” Hispanics “represent a huge opportunity to inject a broad swath of young, healthy adults into the healthcare system.”
However, a mix of “cultural barriers, mixed-status families, and the delayed launch of Spanish-language enrollment tools” could limit “efforts to encourage Hispanics to get coverage.”
So will Latinos accomplish what the GOP could not? Could Hispanics kill Obamacare?
Well, I find that hard to believe, since Latinos are among the biggest supporters of so-called socialized medicine. Unless, of course, we have been GOP spies all along who are intent on undermining Obamacare from the inside.
Wow, that’s either the best or the worst political thriller of all time.
Well, Obamacare has rolled out, and the results thus far aren’t exactly spectacular. This fiasco has illustrated the vast gap between liberals and conservatives.
Now, I’m not talking about ideology, or even about Obamacare specifically. I’m referring to the differing mindsets of the opposite ends of our political spectrum.
Simply put, conservatives are perennially more confident and exhibit greater faith in their causes. Liberals, in contrast, seem perpetually on the verge of giving up.
So once upon a time, and by that I mean just a few months ago, it looked like comprehensive immigration reform was going to happen, and soon. After all, you had Democrats fresh off an election triumph. And Republicans had finally caught on that you don’t repeatedly insult the fastest-growing demographic in America (Latinos) and expect to win.
But then government shutdowns and botched healthcare websites and Ted Cruz all happened. And now we have reached the point where people are asking, “Hey, whatever happened to that whole immigration reform thingy?”
The answer is that all that forward momentum was “no match for the absurd illogic of today’s Washington, where political imperatives, voter preferences, and even the desires of moneyed interests are powerless to move House Republicans off a default stance of ‘no.’”
So there you have it. I’m glad we spent all that time and energy on something so very, very doomed.
I’ve written before about the bond between Latinos and Jews. There’s even an official alliance to foster this connection.
And now we have statistical evidence that this bond is growing stronger. According to a study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), anti-Semitism is on the decline among Latinos. About 14 percent of American-born Hispanics hold anti-Semitic views, which “represents a welcome decline” from 2011, when 20 percent of Latinos had issues with people named Goldstein and Silverman.
Of course, 14 percent is still way too high, but at least it’s moving in the right direction.
Now, if you had any doubts that Latinos and Jews are strongly linked, consider this related news story out of my home state of Wisconsin. Apparently, a few weeks ago, a severely inebriated man in Janesville exited a bar late one night and “overheard two men on the street speaking Hebrew. He confronted them, demanding they speak English.”
The drunk guy then hit both men “because he believed they were speaking Spanish.” This member of the English-only league has since been charged with two counts of battery with a hate crime enhancer.
No, it’s not an uplifting story. In fact, it sounds like an Onion headline. But clearly, to some Americans, it doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or Latino — you’re marked for a beat down.
It’s a good thing, then, that Hispanics and Jews have each other’s backs.
Another Hispanic Heritage Month has ended. Yes, there were lots of mentions of Cesar Chavez, as well as a few other well-known Latinos. But I’m always amazed that one influential Latina is never brought up. I’m talking about La Malinche (1502–1527).
Now, in Mexico, the story of La Malinche is a big deal. The woman’s reputation “has been altered over the years according to changing social and political perspectives,” and Mexicans think of her as everything from an “evil or scheming temptress” to “the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or simply as the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people.”
But here in America, you are to be forgiven if you’ve never heard of her. I only encountered her story a few years ago myself. So who was she?
Our babysitter is a recent immigrant (from Africa). She was confused about the concept of Halloween, so she asked me to explain it to her.
Halfway through mentioning the various aspects — ghosts and goblins, people watching horror movies, children going door to door for candy, adults getting drunk, women dressing trashy — she asked, “I don’t understand how that is all one holiday, and what do pumpkins have to do with anything?” She’s right. This is one seriously schizophrenic party.
And I didn’t even get into the roots of the holiday, which are in the pagan celebration of Samhain. And of course, I was remiss in not mentioning the Latin American custom of Dia de los Muertos, which has established more of a presence in the United States over the last few years, largely because of the booming Hispanic population (you’re welcome).
But regardless of how you celebrate today, be sure to maintain the spirit of the holiday. You know, like the kids do.
