The demonizing of Latinos continues.  Page 9 of Newsweek pictures 4 gang members.  All 4 are Latinos from different gangs.  So all the gangs in the US are Latino?

...for those who are only interested in Latino baseball players and nobody else.  Baseball, should just be Baseball.

...could be ours.

Want to have more visitors, then improve your grammar.

Usually a rational mind will bypass trash news as...well, trash news and skip to the next page.  My mind works like this: I don't give garbage a second thought.  Unfortunately, these days where pranksters, racists and right out loons get coverage, make headlines and steal elections, we have to counter moments of idiocity with reality-based perspective.  So, a few days ago when I read that THEY (and we all know who the ever-present, ever-scheming, ever-persistent and ever-powerful THEY are, because it is always THEY or THEM; no one specific - just THEY), were blaming Hispanics - 'deportable' Hispanics - as cause for the California fires.

Now, I don't drink coffee on a usual basis - I was 30 when I tried my first cup.  So, excuse my use of verbage and grammar and style here as I am not fully awake.  Sometimes, I think I write better this way (pre-awake writting), as there is less hinderance.

Let me get to my point...ahem, my post for today.  Okay.

A fake CNN site has posted that the infamous - in some minds - group MeCHa (go get the link yourself, please) are the perps for starting the Great California Campfire.  Now them ol' boys in Nashville, TN may have themselves enough whisky, but they sure have not had their fill of racism.  You know, a prop such as this can steal an election.  All they need to do is peg this on a undocumented immigrant being of Hispanic origin and case closed. There is a nut in the Whitehouse again! (And for those who want to talk about Global warming as a contributing factor, you can just forget about those dry winds, arid soil and foilage contributing to this mess.  They are just not as scary as a Hispanic with a molotov.)

UPDATE:  Also, notice in the link the title:  cnnheadLIEnews.com.  And here is the working link for that site.

UPDATE II: Looks like John Alfred Rund, has been arrested on suspicion of starting some of the California fires (what I find suspicious is that there seem to be numerous incidents of independent fires being started).  There is talk of John being associated with the MinuteMen, but that seems to be bogus as the source looks to be from Craigslist.  However, there is mounting suspicions lingering.

About 60 Mexican firefighters crossed the border to help fight the California wildfires — then returned home as a separate blaze roared up on the Mexican side.

About 30 firefighters each from the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Tecate headed north Sunday when the wildfires started in San Diego County, said Capt. Marco Antonio Garambullo, Tecate's Fire Department director. One of the California blazes burned more than 200 buildings just north of Tecate.

Mas

About 60 Mexican firefighters crossed the border to help fight the California wildfires — then returned home as a separate blaze roared up on the Mexican side.

About 30 firefighters each from the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Tecate headed north Sunday when the wildfires started in San Diego County, said Capt. Marco Antonio Garambullo, Tecate's Fire Department director. One of the California blazes burned more than 200 buildings just north of Tecate.

Mas

About 60 Mexican firefighters crossed the border to help fight the California wildfires — then returned home as a separate blaze roared up on the Mexican side.

About 30 firefighters each from the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Tecate headed north Sunday when the wildfires started in San Diego County, said Capt. Marco Antonio Garambullo, Tecate's Fire Department director. One of the California blazes burned more than 200 buildings just north of Tecate.

Mas

This is not a gossip site, or an entertainment site.  So you won't find links to pictures of young women in a beauty pageant.  I just will not link to bikini-clad women and further degrade our hermanas, madres, and hijas.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has been a celebrated author (and one of my favorites), for some time now.  Oprah has recently 'discovered' him and consequently has bumped him up Amazon's top seller.

Liza notes that the combined buying power of US Latinos equals that of Mexico.  Where then is the economic burden?

Jennifer over at Calitics, is posting some interesting info about San Diego fires:  It's happening again. During the Katrina aftermath, African Americans were "looting" shops and stores, while whites were "finding food." Border Patrol denies, of course, that they are trying to find undocumented immigrants.

We want everyone to be helped of course.  Los Blogueros is documenting good information for the Spanish speaking caught up in the California fires.

This happened a few days ago, and I couldn't believe what I had just read.

I would switch this "This week’s People gives us more proof that Latinas are the new “it” girl..."  to this "This week’s People gives us more proof that white boys are the new “it” boys..."  It depends on who you see as the deciding factor. 

Marisa Trevino posts at the Huffington Post

Stolen painting + Trash +  Passerby = $1 Million famous Painting by famous artist Rufino Tamayo.

Living Dominica has a snapshot of the world's oldest blogger. Olive Riley was born on October 20, 1899, making her, it's believed, the oldest blogger in the world. 

Here is wisdom:  One must know from where he has came to know where he is going.  Louis Mendoza has applied such knowledge and is blazing the roads across America in search of the Latinization of America.  And from my conversation with him he didn't have to search hard.  From little towns to big cities he has stopped and talked with Latinos of all backgrounds. 

I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with him in a small Starbucks around Times Square, New York City.  And below are some of the things we had talked about. 

He sees our 'continental ethnicity' as not just American as in the United States but all of the Americas - North, Central and South.  In the past it was one group or the other, like the Puerto Ricans of New York, the Cubans of Florida, the Mexicans of Chicago, but now we have groups here from all over Latin america and we should be learning from one another.

When I asked him about such words as Latino or Chicano he stated that it's okay for us to identify ourselves as one or the other.  "I can do both and understand my connection with somebody else and respect our differences.   Something in the US makes different equal less than...(we) are not necessarily in competition with one another...society is so competitious that they wanna say white is better than black, or this way is better than that way - different, should just be different."

He rides a bike across America because it 'forces him to go slow and experience the notion of migration;' an experience very different from a car.  He has noted that in small towns change is very profoundand and that new immigrants sustains the lifestyles of previous generations by enabling them to keep their buisinesses when their children are seeking new lifestyles.  In fact, smaller towns are very welcoming to immigrants.  This is a significant contrast to what we read and see in newspapers and television.

I look foward to a book (or two?) by Mr. Mendoza.  His observations are fresh and first hand; void of idealogies, politics, or prejudice.  His trip around America is as much as it is global as it is personal.  For only, he knows what lessons he has learned and how this trip has made him see differences in America, as much as in himself.

At this point in time I think he is over at Florida, and will start heading west to complete his journey.  Go visit him:  A Journey Across Our America, because he may have already visited you.  And if you are lucky, he'll be coming to a town near you.

In addition to MySpace and Facebook, Obama is doing outreach on other social networking sites such as BlackPlanet, MiGente, and AsianAve.  Although, these site target ethnic markets and don't enjoy as much news coverage as the above mentioned sites, they are VERY popular among the targeted ethnic group.

He is talking with the owner of the sites (all owned by same parent - Community Connect), to make sure his page is not associated with x-rated or other undesirable pages.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to meet Louis Mendoza.  He is traveling the country and documenting his experience as he interacts with Latinos from small towns to big cities.  I will post some notes from our conversation later tonight.  Go check him out in the meantime, over at his blog.

Is this coordinated:  FDA votes to ban cold medicine to children under 6?  They claim that reasons being are that they are afraid that parents are not giving the corect dosage or is not being used as directed. 

I am very suspicious of this, not to mention infuriated.  This desicion has come on the heels of Bush vetoing healthcare for children, as on the eve of the country's debate concerning health care.  What are parents to do who are already strapped for time and cash - run to the doctor for every sniffle...go to vodoo witchdotors?  Our children are in danger.

 

 

Puerto Rico Police Accused of Corruption

By MICHAEL MELIA – Oct 6, 2007

MAYAGUEZ, Puerto Rico (AP) — Mistrust of police has been ingrained for years in this bleak coastal town, where a basketball court mural shows a girl running from a baton-wielding officer under the slogan: "To be poor is not a crime."

So there was some sense of vindication when the FBI arrested 10 officers this summer, accusing them of planting drugs on residents of housing projects and other poor neighborhoods in one of Puerto Rico's worst police corruption cases.

The reach of the scandal became apparent this week when the local Justice Department recommended throwing out cases against 51 people accused of drug offenses in Mayaguez, a town on Puerto Rico's western shores.

The police unit in Mayaguez considered residents of housing projects near their precinct as "targets of opportunity," said Luis Fraticelli, the top FBI official in Puerto Rico, in an interview with The Associated Press.

"They would drive by and they didn't like the kid or whatever, so they would decide to go plant drugs on him," said Fraticelli.

I found the quote below of interest, but of no surprise.  Traveling to Central America and the Caribbean, I was often confronted with the same reflection, because it was rather extreme in those regions.  Further thinking about it the same can be easily applied to America with it's antonymous suburbs and slums.

In Latin America … we continue to be two nations, the term used by Disraeli to describe mid-nineteenth-century England caught between industrial development and social backwardness. We are indeed two nations: Brazil rather wryly calls itself ‘Belindia’ - part Belgium, part India. In Latin America, the Mercedes and the mule, the skyscraper and the slum, the supermarket and the garbage dump, the baroque and the barock n’ roll all coexist, and the television aerial is the new cross of the neighborhood parish.

I believe that [civil society’s] principal challenge in Latin America is that of creating bridges between these two nations, advocating human development as the starting point for sustained economic development, with the understanding that global problems can only be resolved by tackling local problems: the village, the isolated community, internal migration, small farms, trades, neighborhood roads, rural schools, vocational training, and traditional craftsmanship.

This is real interesting.  A project where owners of land near the boarder can set up a small shack that enables migrants crossing over the border to interact via a computer terminal.

Casa Segura proposes private property owners on the border to create a life-saving beacon in the desert, a platform for engaging with the anonymous individuals crossing their land in search of a better life, and a non-aggressive means of protecting their homes.

Inside the small solar-powered structure migrants can find water, some food and a touch screen. Drawing upon traveler graffiti, pictograms, and the Mexican tradition of ex-voto painting, migrants are invited to use the interface and share something about themselves and their journey with the homeowner and anyone who's interested. Migrants can either draw, write messages, or make a pictogram from ready-made graphical icons.

The comment was:  "Say what you like, that is truly an invasion. Why on earth are we letting this happen?"

Once again, another county is faced with decisions on immigration.  Once again, they make pass the wrong law.

To say that the GOP has stepped in mud because of their rejection of the immigration reform bill may be saying too much.  We forget that there are some Latinos (who actually do vote, as opposed to a large amount of those who immigrate here and don't), are actually against immigration. 

But to say that the GOP has stepped in mud because they failed on providing health care for America's children, helping with children's education, an unsuccessful Oil War, lies, supporting our troops, the environment...oh, and immigration, wouldn't be saying too much at all.

What is it with Latin Americans and images?  If they are not tearing them down they are worshiping them.  Is it something in the culture or something deep with our souls?  (Come to think of it, as I look around my apartment I have a few statues myself).

I remember my trips to Honduras and Dominican Republic.  There were posters plastered everywhere of the president of the country.  As if passersby and citizens were being reminded of just who was in charge.  Okay, maybe that is particular to the style of government.


Recently, in Mexico they tore down a statue of ex-president Vincente Fox. The ultimate Latin American symbol receives the ultimate Latin American act.

From Venezuela to Nicaragua, the people are saying good rithens to Columbus and are renaming the day "Indigenous Resistance Day."

A bronze statue of Columbus, was torn down by activists three years ago, and was almost repaired and put back until the renaming of the site:  Avenue Columbus is now Avenue Indigenous Resistance.

As more Latin Americans migrate here we may see the same want for change on the now infamous holiday.  But, the total vilification of Columbus be challenged as it was in the 90's and other parts of Latin America, who see Spain's coming as part of their heritage.

One day, all our follies and idiocies will be on display for all those to come and see for ages and ages.  France done it.  Maybe they want to learn from their past.  I don't know if we will see one here anytime soon.  Though we sure as heck qualify.  We should call ours the Immigration Circus - 'cause we sure know how to run a show when it comes to immigration!

...in a museum.  Yup.  "Envision a world with poverty museums -- places where children would go to learn of a dismal way of life extinct, of malnourishment, illiteracy and premature death."  Sound like a pipe dream?  It's called Microloaning, and it works.

2006 Noble Peace prize winner Muhammed Yumus, founder of Grameen Bank gives priority to poor folk and loans them money.  And repayment is done on the terms of a handshake, and not collateral or legal papers -- 'the system is built on trust'.

Grameen Website.

This is bullshit; this crap needs to be addressed.   Ah-nuld!  The 3 Caballeros (Arnold, Fabian Núñez, and Antonio Villaraigosa) are more interested in traffic signals than human lives.

This is real cool.  People-powered democracy.  Upload your video and ask the presidential candidates the questions that are important to you!

On 10Questions.com anyone will be able to directly pose video questions to the candidates for President and choose which ones they most want answered. Candidates will be able answer in detail and without the time limits imposed by traditional televised or on-stage debates. And citizens in turn will be able to give the candidates feedback on whether they actually answer those questions.

Sponsored by NYTimes, MSNBC and yours truly along with other 40 other bloggers.

Still in the dusting off phase here.  Have many links, gizmos and widgets still to add to the site.  And a couple of posts are pending since a few weeks ago (you know who you are).  I may get to knock off a good chunk of it by end of this week.

Federal government can't make a decision.  States left to defend themselves.  What a mess!

One of the best tools in a hacker's toolbelt is the social hack.  It's not a coded script or a secret tech savy procedure.  No.  One of the most powerful tool is picking up the phone and impersonate a user to get password information.

So, it's no surprise when Cubans have to get around the illegalities of the internet not by using technological hacks, but social ones, like logging into a computer in a hotel with a foreign name.

...you go broke.  When I was a kid sneakers reached and surpassed the $100 price tag in the same breath.  Nowadays, a $400 sneaker is not uncommon.

It is no secret that ironically, poorer kids try to make up for their financial disadvantages by spending more on clothes and footwear than higher income kids in an effort to at least look like they are not poor.  Unfortunately, by participating in this narcissism they are creating habits that will further contribute to their financial downfall.

Average income of whites and other races: $53,292.

Average income of blacks: $34,485.

Expenditures on footwear by whites and other races: $274
Expenditures on footwear by blacks: $440.

[...]

Why do these differences exist?  Aside from simple differences in preferences, signaling is one possible explanation.   Suppose that high income confers status.  Other people judge your income based on your conspicuous consumption and your group's income.  Under plausible conditions, the authors show that if your group's income is already high conspicuous consumption has a low marginal product.  Put differently a black man who wears a very expensive suit gets a bigger increase in status than a white man who wears the same expensive suit because the baseline income prediction is lower for the former.

(hattip)

Over 10 years ago, scientists had discovered that 'nitrogen oxide through manmade chlorofluorocarbons damages the Earth's natural ozone layer.'  They had won a Nobel  Prize in chemistry (and more recently Al Gore). 

I remember when I was a kid all the rave was CDC awareness and ridding your can of Lysol from them.  It seems with a decade behind us we've forgotten about our disastrous contributions to the ozone layer (which by the way has a double record breaker last year).

Unfortunately this phrase has been removed from current day arguments.  It seems that the marketing of the anti-global warming party has shifted this field of science into a pseudo-science.   And solid science has taken a back seat to the machinations of interest groups (example - Ford motor company funded a video - 'Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.’

This is an old argument.  The counter arguments (like the video above) are creative and tiring.  We proved this crap over a decade ago that we are responsible for jacking up the ozone layer.  We need to 'run the camera backwards' to 1995 and start the argument from those facts.  It was undeniable then, and is still undeniable.

This is my contribution for today:

Last week, I gave notice to Earl Hutchington's appearance here to talk a little about his new book:  The Latino Challenge to Black America. Below, is his answers to a couple of questions that derived from the topic matter of the book.

Q:  Why did you right this book?
A:  It evolved out of a series of articles over time on black and Latino relations, immigration issues, and changing ethnic relations in America.

Q:  How do you hope Blacks and Latinos, or anyone else who reads your book may benefit?
A:  The Latino Challenge to Black America explores the hot button issues of illegal immigration, prison and gang violence, the clash in the schools, the battle for political empowerment and racial stereotypes between and among blacks and Latinos toward each other. It's a guide book on the issues that conflict and divide blacks and Latinos as well as a signpost toward cooperation and bridge building and problem solving between the two groups.

Q:  Has there been a positive reaction or negative reaction to your book?
A:  It's all been positive---so far!

Q:  Is race in politics inherently bad?
A:  It depends on how it's used. If race is used to pit, polarize, and inflame ethnic groups against each other, it's bad. If it's used to educate and address endemic racial problems and conflicts , it's good.

Tired of old-style Latino organizations, the Latino Congreso looks to give us something more than ethnicity:  "Flowing into and through Latino and Latin American political gatherings like the Congreso is a new Latino agenda, one that transcends the more nation-state-based "ethnic" politics of a previous era."

This is an event that has captured what I've been trying to put into words since last year.  Roberto, explains more on his website.

I posted this story last week, but focused more on a piece of it (CAFTA), and didn't realize the importance of what was being said.  The above quote is a thought that was a long time coming.  As more Latinos immigrate here to the US, so too do their beyond the US thoughts import along with them.  These are not Latinos bogged down by nit-picking ethnic issues, but global-Latinos concerned about global policies.

This is the direction we should be taking - being progressive and contribute to the global discussions; entering it with dedication and sincerity.  If we give as much effort to national and global politics that we do to tamales and pastelles we may just do fine.

 

This was LNP #2, and it was great.  Go Listen.

Mexico's government thinks so.

This should be fun:

We are planning to have our second Latino Netroots podcast tonight
Thursday at 9 pm Eastern (8 pm central). We did the first one after the
Univision presidential debate and it was a lot of fun.

Tonight we will be joined by Marisa Treviño (Latina Lista), Liza  Sabater
(CultureKitchen), Louis Pagan (LatinoPundit) and Roberto  Lovato
(OfAmerica.wordpress.com).

Topics we plan to talk about are: the Latino Congreso in LA; mainstream
media and blogosphere coverage of the immigration debate (e.g biased?,
use of pseudo experts, what more can Latino bloggers do to influence
political discourse on important Latino issues? do we need our own
Latino "Huffington Post"?); Latino bloggers and the candidates, have
you been approached by them?; new political/tech startup:
PoliticalBase, and any other important issues that you all may be
bloggin' about.

I plan to stream the podcast LIVE in case anyone would like to listen
in. The live audio stream will be at:

http://shoutcast1.tidyhosts.com:9038/listen.pls

"Holy Dragonflies, Batman - it's a spy camera!" While NYC is anxious about street-cams monitoring civilian cars, they can put this thing right up your ass, and you wouldn't even know it. They have been used to monitor political events in New York city and leave observers confused.

They are also experimenting mounting monitoring devices on live insects and then controlling them remotely. "The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors."  The insect world has not commented.

Somewhere, between being diaper trained and balancing checks, I learned that when violence is used it is a sign of last resort.  Like a rat caught in a corner, his only escape is to go for the jugular.

That is what I thought when I read Jeffrey Feldman's entry today.

In an alarming trend that has received scant notice from journalists, more and more consumers of right-wing media have started using violent threats to respond to political opinions that differ from their own.  Once a rarity in American political discourse, it has now become commonplace for people who appear on right-wing media to offer dissenting opinions to subsequently receive emails filled with death threats, promises of physical and sexual abuse.

Isn't it a sign of exhausted resources that the last method of resort is barbaric action?  Depleted they find their  tool belt of schemes, machismo, and ideologies only to realize they amount to illusions of grandeur.  The mind reels for equilibrium in the face of facts, reason and justice, producing pumped fists, grinning teeth and insults.

Can't you see we got 'em on a limb?

It is the same reaction that gave way to an noose hung on a teacher's door in NYC today.  The mindless action void of reasoning could only mutter a symbol of apathy void of reason.

I remember Dr. Martin Luther King, and his method of peace and non-violence.  For those who search for counter measures, I say we need none.  The proof is in the pudding - we are winning already.

BLESSED ARE CUBA’S POOR, FOR THEY SHALL BE HEALTHIER?

Eating Liberally
Submitted by kat on October 9, 2007 - 7:49am.

• Republicans debate, but not on immigration. 
• Chavez romanticizes of the perfect Venezuelan citizen, and will tax the heck out of you if you don't try to be one.
• More weariness on global trading.
• Australia new haven for Latin American students.  They see it as 'friendlier.'

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
th