I wonder how upset most college presidents would be if all of a sudden — overnight — their football programs were ripped apart like the NCAA did Penn State University on Monday. Earlier this week, the top college enforcement organization eviscerated football from a football-crazed campus. Were that to happen at other schools, I would not be surprised if a fair number of college presidents might not let out a cheer, privately, of course. You see, football is out of control at most colleges. Football programs are nothing more than revenue-producing businesses that push power at the expense of college presidents and faculty members to coaches of teams most of whose members do not ever graduate.
Tag Archives: Hispanic
The America of the Future: What HispanicLatinos Make of Themselves
The United States is always in the act of becoming, remaking itself. Like all nations, America’s population replaces itself through the generation of a new people, except that unlike other nations it has done so in the context of an inventive society endlessly progressing somewhere. No one has ever laid out a plan for America. It happened as the result of hard work, freedom, perseverance and luck. Were the American continent 2,500 instead of 3,500 miles from Europe, history would almost certainly have been different. Indeed, geography is crucial for any nation. Left alone for a decisive period, American society was able to adopt the values of a progressive culture that made it special for a long period of time. Now, its geography and a great demographic moment are remaking a country hard to recognize from even two decades ago, and the role of Hispanic or Latinos is watershed.
Gun Control and Reality
I go back and forth on this gun control thing. Growing up in rural Texas with a father who hunted and who during the Cuban missile crisis got his rifle out of the closet and got it ready, I favor the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. I cannot imagine that the founders who, however elitist, did not recognize the dangers of new settlers making their way unarmed through the wild forests of a new country. It is nonsense to think that individual citizens cannot protect themselves. And I cannot imagine that anyone would think that citizens cannot use whatever means to defend themselves against oppression. Think Hafez al Assad in Syria and his father, Bashar al Assad, or Joe Arpaio of Arizona for that matter. I am glad Hispanics or Latinos have the Second Amendment as their last resort.
On the other hand, the violence wrought by handguns and the possession of larger weapons really is a wholly different matter. But how do you control the possession of arms so that someone like the shooter in Denver today would not have been able to do the damage he did this morning?
Latino Veterans: An untapped source within the Hispanic community
More and more Hispanics or Latinos are coming to understand their unique placement in the flow of American history that at this moment calls on them to understand their growing responsibility for the fiscal fate of the country. Two groups within the HispanicLatino community know and feel the mounting obligation the best: College-educated professionals and veterans. Individuals holding college degrees most often are the ones who rise to play leadership roles within the community. But the vast numbers of HispanicLatino veterans – many of them having put their lives on the line for the country – are as cognizant and are especially important today. They, more so than most, know what is at stake in a pivotal election in which they can make a decided difference.
Education: A way to balance the books
The great and constant plaint from Hispanics or Latinos is and has been education. Their grievances have as their origins actual discrimination that kept many of them out of school or condemned as many or more to schools through the years with insufficient resources to maximize their community’s talents and potential – much to the nation’s detriment. Were the average household incomes of HispanicLatinos to equal overnight that of the average white, non-HispanicLatino household, the nation’s fiscal condition and outlook would be quite different.
Bloomberg: A National Hero
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a national hero, not the wannabe fascist overseer of an emerging nanny state as his critics maintain. Sigh. Had the HispanicLatino community a leader with the stature and political and financial standing of a Bloomberg and his bravura! Bloomberg, of course, has taken aggressive stances on smoking and other public health issues, and he now wants to eliminate the super-sized sodas ballooning the national waistline. Some of the criticism coming his way so far has not come from the seriously overweight HispanicLatino community.
Say it isn’t so, Rupert: Romney Going Negative on HispanicLatinos
Regular readers of this blog know that some weeks ago I wrote that the Romney campaign might have decided tactically to give up on the HispanicLatino vote. Nothing otherwise explains Romney’s lame performance at the NALEO conference in Orlando three weeks ago. I suggested that Romney might now allow his friends at the SuperPacs to run an anti-HispanicLatino strategy in selected states to whip up working class whites a la Willie Horton to make up for any lost share in traditional GOP HispanicLatino support.
A story in The Washington Post about a tweet by Rupert Murdoch supports my suspicion. “Murdoch was among 50 people who met with the former Massachusetts governor at the Union League Club in New York City (last week)….At the meeting, Murdoch pressed Romney and his aides to get tougher on Obama and asked about Romney’s stance on immigration. He later tweeted his thoughts in response to a follower who said Romney has brains but needs more stomach and heart…(Murdoch tweeted): ‘Romney has all these and more, but just to see more fight. And Hispanics a surrender to O. Cn not afford, hurts senate too.’”
Murdoch’s disjointed, contorted tweet implies that he walked away from the meeting with the impression that Romney has surrendered HispanicLatinos to President Obama, something Murdoch feels Romney cannot afford to do. But trailing 68-24 percent among HispanicLatinos in the polls, Romney might feel he has no option but to revert to a strategy that attracts voters scared and anxious about the economy and the nation’s new demography.
Chief Justice Roberts: A Catholic in the Making
I do not know John Roberts. Never met the man. I have been reading about him for years. Could not avoid him, really. Upon any vacancy or near-vacancy on the Supreme Court, Republican insiders incessantly pumped him as a rising jurist and, lo and behold, he now sits as Chief Justice. I do not know Antonin Scalia either. Observed him once at a reception. Said to be an intellectual. He seemed to be enjoying what he was eating and drinking.
Both men were raised Catholic, something I do know about, and it might shed light beyond Linda Greenhouse’s contribution in The New York Times and the notable, or not so notable, depending on your view, reporting of Jan Crawford of CBS about Roberts changing his vote at the last minute to uphold The Affordable Care Act. The reasons for his switch are as speculated upon as they are myriad in number. But I wonder if Roberts’ vote was the result of the good Catholic gene winning over the bad Catholic gene that burdens all Catholics, including Scalia, who no one can doubt from his increasing vitriolic and bitter dissents has let his bad Catholic gene run amuck.
Intensity after Court decision is not one-sided
I am often struck by the conventional wisdom that sprouts instantly on television after, say, a Supreme Court decision on health care. Conventional thinking is like angel dust to reporters who in the immediacy of an event have to say something that by the end of the day is repeated often enough during the 24/7 news cycle that it becomes fact.
So it is with the “intensity argument” that is supposed to give the Republican campaign of Mitt Romney a much-needed boost in the arm. Trailing in every state that is supposed to be competitive in a supposedly close election, Romney, it is thought by the conventionalists, received an injection of energy sure to change the dynamics of the campaign. I am not convinced. I doubt more can be done to increase the anger-level of the virulent anti-Obama camp. In contrast and perhaps as important is the fact that three million young Americans up the age of 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance policies. Add to that perhaps as many as five million grateful, anxious parents and anyone can begin to see that the intensity argument does not flow in one direction only.
The Unintended Paradox of Arizona
Nothing defines an individual more than a different identity being thrust upon him or her. It is more important than just one moment, and it in the long run might be pivotal for the country. It might convert a leaderless community into one of action — for America’s good..
The massive attention given to the Supreme Court decision on Arizona represents only a part of our passage into the new time we are privileged to witness, although many of us will have to adjust our vision to it, as if entering a room suddenly lit. The intense speculation over the HispanicLatino vote in the presidential race is but another component of the point of no return. Things HispanicLatino have become and will forever be, with growing strength, a part of the national consciousness. The Dream Act. The penetration of the HispanicLatino image into mainstream advertising. The changing demography. Unending elections and perennial electoral calculations. All are real departure points rooted in change but now intensified by the necessity of HispanicLatinos to prove their citizenship by showing their papers until the last remaining part of Arizona is declared unconstitutional.