- This is Felipe, and he now works as a gardener for the uber-wealthy owner of a tech firm in San Diego. He works 15-hour days and is thought of as a second-class citizen, but if the current administration leading the United States had its way, Felipe never would have had the chance to be where he is today as a true migrant success story. It may sound silly, but if Mexican Presidente Felipe Calderon has his way, you’ll be hearing about these very migrant “success stories” as a means of combating what Calderon terms the growing “harassment” of Mexicans in the United States. He plans to direct a campaign to fight back against this perceived harassment, and personally I have to ask what the heck he’s talking about? You mean that just because some of our leaders want to build more and bigger walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, beef up border patrols, deport all illegals without them having a shot at citizenship and prosecute anyone who dares employ an illegal immigrant, you think we’re anti-Mexican? OK, so maybe Fred Thompson is. And maybe the entire Republican Party is, more or less. But labeling us anti-Mexican, very harsh. Don’t mistake the bitter, hostile, militant anti-immigrant views of a few as the views of all of America, Presidente Calderon…..
- You’re missing the point, United Nations, so allow me to help you refocus. The U.N. held a four-day summit this past week in Brazil to address the issue of U.S. control over how people around the world access email and Web sites. In other words, non-Americans around the world are pissed at how much control we have over the Web and they want their share of the power. No real decisions or conclusions were reached during the summit, but I think the U.N. is missing the issue here. How’s about addressing how to eliminate any and all emails on the following subjects and keep them out of the inbox of every user: enlarging your crank with Viagra or similar drugs, improving your mortgage rate, claiming a king’s fortune in a remote African country from a distant relative of the king who has inherited it, earning an online degree, finding sexy singles in your area or signing up for a new credit card with a low introductory APR. If you can figure out how to permanently eradicate those emails and start prosecuting those who send them, then I’ll give control of the Internet to anyone you want to have it.
- Pick a position, any position, Hank Clinton, and stick with it. The current frontrunner (it pains me to say that) for the Democratic presidential nomination can't seem to choose one stance on issues like immigration and Social Security reform and stick with it. Her closest rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, have called Hank out for this and her response is to say that they’re “slinging mud right out of the Republican playbook.” Umm, Hank, sorry to point this out, but accusing your rivals of slinging mud is not actually denying their accusations and saying that they’re wrong. At the most recent debate in Las Vegas, Obama and Edwards ramped up their attack on Hank, who clearly learned a thing or two hundred from husband Bubba when it comes to lying and evasiveness. “What the American people are looking for right now is (sic) straight answers to tough questions, and that is no what we have seen from Sen. Clinton on a number of issues” Obama proclaimed. Well, aside from not being a master of grammar, Barack, you’s put that good. In response, Hank replied: “I think the American people know where I stand.” Sure we do, Hank. You stand wherever is most convenient and most likely to go over well with the people you want to vote for you. Oh, and also-rans like Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich…. you guys might want to look at the fact that you all were excluded from large portions of this debate and virtually irrelevant throughout as a clear indication that it’s time for you to stop wasting time and money campaigning. Just drop out now, guys, because your chances to win the Democratic nomination are about the same as mine right now.
- Things may be getting worse for TV viewers, but that doesn’t mean there’s much of a hurry to end the writers’ strike that is slowly crippling the TV season for nearly every show on the air. Even as many shows are going into reruns sooner than expected, representatives for the Writers Guild of America and the studios who want to continue stiffing them on payments for the sales of DVDs and digital versions of shows that are sold, the next meeting between the two sides isn’t going to happen for another week, Nov. 26 to be exact. While a recent poll shows that 63 percent of Americans support the striking writers, a few months of reruns and lost seasons for shows like 24, now indefinitely delayed from its January return, and Lost, facing the same fate, could turn this from Americans supporting the little guys in their fight against The Man into Americans being pissed at everyone who has anything to do with this strike. By the way, in case you haven’t kept up on it, the Lost dilemma is whether to run the eight episodes currently in the can as is, without any further shows filmed, or to hold these eight so they can be shown along with the rest of the season, whenever it comes. According to tvguide.com, the show’s executives and producers say there’s a mini-cliffhanger at the end of episode eight which is resolved in the following episodes, but if the first eight are aired and then there’s a huge, several-month gap, that story won't get resolved and viewers could get snippy about it. Maybe my cynicism is unwarranted and these negotiations next week will be productive, but so far there’s been nothing to indicate that this will be the case.
- For all the good points of being a movie star, there are some drawbacks, as Uma Thurman is finding out. It seems that one adoring fan became a little too adoring, going to the extremes of harassment, stalking and felony coercion because he believes that he and Thurman are meant to be together. Jackson Jordan says he knows this because years ago, he saw one of her movies and their eyes connected. Mr. Jordan is obviously mentally ill, so I won't go too hard on him here, but I have to ask something. I’ve seen Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel in movies lately, does that mean I’m meant to be with them? But seriously, it has to be disturbing to be such a prominent public face and know that there are mentally unstable people out there like Jackson Jordan who will threaten to kill themselves if they see the object of their stalker-ish affection with another man. If I were Uma, I’d be calling on my sword and martial arts experience from Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2 just in case Jackson somehow doesn’t end up in jail for his crimes. After all, he did try to sneak into her trailer on a movie set in 2005, shower her with emails and live in his car on the street outside her Manhattan apartment. A Hattori Hanso sword might come in handy just in case Jordan takes his advances to the next level.
- Not every protest can be hundreds of thousands strong. Sometimes it takes a single convicted soul to take a stand and….stop eating. Yes, the hunger strike is a popular tactic for dissidents, not because it makes any measurable impact on what they are trying to change, but because it draws attention to them and to their cause, thus hopefully increasing the possibility of change. It’s also a great weight-loss plan, so expect to see Don Shula and Kirstie Alley on TV pimping it some time soon. This week’s Hunger Striker of the Week is Elvira (no, not that Elvira, idiot) Arellano, a migrant-rights advocate recently deported back to Mexico after taking sanctuary in a Chicago church for nearly a year. Arellano is hoping that her hunger strike will pressure the Mexican government to demand that its citizens receive better treatment north of the border, a cause that Mexican President Felipe Calderon has himself been espousing recently. “I want our government to listen, to act, to defend our migrant families,” Arellano said. Well, Elvira, I wish you well in your social activism, as well as finding someone to give your old fat jeans to when you drop all that weight on your abstinence from food.
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