A headline in a news story the other day asked ‘Is Obama losing the Catholic vote?’ The story sought to answer a question that might interest political strategists more so than the American public. It is a curious thing, the relationship that Americans have to government and to religion. Depending on the political environment, Americans rush to any and all sides of any debate involving both.
Category Archives: Culture
Drugged and Ignorant
I have stopped paying attention to most people who think they know what they are talking about when it comes to the situation in Mexico and Latin America regarding the drug threat. In almost all the public pronouncements of know-it-alls from presidential candidates to the lowliest of citizens, they seemingly all profess to know how to best handle the border against drug smuggling. Fences. Lampposts. Sensors. Armed guards. Pilotless drones. Moats. Walls.
Morons. Few ever consider that the fault lies on this side of the border.
Time + Ideas = Success
I recently sat down with a mid-career HispanicLatino who wanted my advice about where he stood in his professional life. At the age of 35, he is in a job that he sort of likes, but not really. I asked him if he had other interests than his job and, of course, as I feared, he responded energetically with a list of activities related to entertainment and sports.
This is a reasonably young man who had he had better schooling and better counselors should have his own medical practice. But he spends his truly invaluable time seemingly irrationally – a product of the kind of neglect that seems to be a societal curse these days for even the brightest of HispanicLatinos. By the time they mature and are ready to raise families, young men and women such as these who remain unfocused end up underperforming for themselves and for the country as a whole. But perhaps there is madness in their method. Continue reading
A People More Worthy than a Monument
An insistent wind under a pewter sky inconvenienced the crowd of about 150 that last week had come to break ground for a new Tejano monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol. The statue commemorating the role of one of the original populations of Texas is just about complete and will be laid and dedicated on March 29.
Around me huddled in the cold were faces and names I had not seen nor heard of in a long time. Some of the activists of the past had joined the leadership of more establishmentarian types to make the monument a reality – a reality that will end hundreds of years of exclusion of HispanicLatinos from any presence on the grounds of the capitol of a state in which they are 40 percent of the population. As unbelievable as it sounds, in all of the commemorative statues, plaques and other monuments at the Capitol, not one – not one – pays respect to the population that settled and organized the land as Tejas that later became Texas.
It was impossible to look around me and not think of an era ending so much as a new era blowing into being in which a new history far different from the one of the past takes hold. Continue reading
Tim Tebow, South Carolina and ¡Rob! What Would Jesus Do?
Three quick thoughts on a Friday. The sitcom that premiered last night featuring Rob Schneider as ¡Rob! marrying into a Mexican-American family will have a short run. Stock language. Stock stunts. Stock everything. Notice anything different between it and what preceded it, The Big Bang Theory? As much as I had hoped it would click and as well-intentioned as its supporters no doubt are, the show lacks minimal interest. One of the previews for the program suggested it was a HispanicLatino version of the revered All in the Family. It did not even begin to approach that old sitcom that broke new ground and even set people to think. It should be of note that the strongest character in ¡Rob! was Eugenio Derbez, a successful Mexican actor of his own right. In previous attempts at capturing the HispanicLatino angle, Hollywood fails on the core issue: Trying to stuff the HispanicLatino experience into an American model while tripping up on language. Viewers got robbed.
Enough with Tim Tebow. Anyone who shows off his religion as much as he does makes me nervous. The comment sections of any story on any news site on this guy seem fairly certain there is another story there that in time will come out. The not-so-hidden references to his allegedly unknown sexual orientation are a bit disquieting. I pray he is not gay. If he is, this circus will last 75 years. I hope that the Denver Broncos, a team I ordinarily like, lose badly this weekend for purely selfish reasons. Continue reading
Another Front in the War Begins in Arizona
Back when Richard Nixon began the culture-wars that have led America to its current political paralysis, he and his cynical advisors used the friction between a generation bent on change and the so-called silent majority to win elections. Thus came to be the modern-day Republican Party that exploited the nation’s fears about a new culture dominated by acid, amnesty and abortion and then took advantage of the resentment against movements seeking to affirm women’s rights, the civil rights of minorities, protection of the environment and the rights of gays and lesbian. The culture-wars were anchored by the infamous “southern strategy” that was – and is – racist to its core.
Instead of incorporating the change that a generation born of television, openness, wealth and mobility were going to bequeath on the nation and bending it to produce a positive result, the Nixon cohort sought to abuse the divisions of a culture-war that after so many bitter years has been won by the generation of change on every front. Nothing punctuates the victory over reaction than the pre-Christmas lesbian couple selected in San Diego for the traditional kiss by which the Navy celebrates the returning home of a ship. Seen around the world, the kiss should be seen here for what it is: The end of the Nixonian culture wars. Nevertheless, a new war is being stoked by Nixon’s political descendants who put HispanicLatinos in the cross-hairs of history. Continue reading
Etched in Stone: The Mayan End of Time
A year from today on Dec. 21, 2012, time in our world is going to end. This is attributed to the Mayan astronomers and priests who are not around to explain themselves, much less to defend their letting us in on the secret of an attendant possible demise. What a really nasty thing to do, letting people know months ahead that the end is near. Like knowing that your beloved pooch is going to get run over by a car next year. Hurtful and insensitive.
Newt: Not America’s BFF
When writing, it takes effort and discipline to not hurl labels at people. By now, though, Newt Gingrich has revealed himself for what he is: Aside from being labelled as unstable by people who worked with him, he has all the makings of a budding fascist. Gingrich’s attacks on the judiciary are nothing less than breath-taking. His suggestions that judges be hauled before legislative committees by police to explain their decisions speaks to a time and place that the History Channel deals with every day.
From the ashes of war perhaps light
The images of U.S. troops leaving Iraq after a senseless, tragic waste of lives and money that left America nearly bankrupt is a blunt and brutal lesson for HispanicLatinos. Except for the families who suffered the direct loss of loved ones, few individuals should walk away more sobered than HispanicLatino men and women in charge of businesses. Business owners intuitively understand the impact of an $800-billion war debt to a struggling economy.
Demean Sports? No Longer Cricket.
Last week I was one of the 500 million viewers who watched a global megaevent. I do not know how many of those viewers were in a bar, but that is where I found myself, among a pack of well-mannered sports fans enthusiastically enjoying the competition between Real Madrid and Barcelona, two European soccer – that is to say – football powerhouses whose clash goes by the name of el clásico. Half a billion viewers would make anything a classic. The Super Bowl draws about a quarter of that size of an audience if it is lucky. Of course, the Olympics and the World Cup eclipse everything else.
But this post is not about the relative irrelevancy of American football, which I also follow religiously, on a global stage. That is a tedious subject. Rather it is about sport itself and its new relevancy.