Retro Bud – he’s ready for the fiesta!
Monthly Archives: April 2007
Abramoff Net Widens to Snare JD
Things have been moving rather quickly in the Abramoff arena. He must be singing like a canary.
TPMmuckrakers have the latest:
In the current issue of the National Journal (not available online), Peter Stone reports that “two sources say that the Justice Department is making new inquiries into [J.D.] Hayworth’s past links to Abramoff.”
I wonder if they’ll let him do his new radio show from Tent City?
Tucson – El Centro del Mariachi
If a soundtrack was to be compiled of my life, this song would be near the beginning of the tracklist. I can close my eyes and still hear my nana singing it to me.
When Linda Ronstadt recorded Canciónes de mi Padre in the 1980s, she cracked open the mariachi world like a cascaron over the head of a child – but instead of a child, there was a new generation of Mexican American people full of joy for being reconnected to a part of our identity that struggles to remain alive.
Living in Baja Arizona, this is always a magical time of year with the Tucson International Mariachi Conference in full swing. The schools are alive with the excitement of young groups who will be undergoing training, and the hearts of parents, family and friends nearly burst with pride at the promising accomplishments of el futuro. As the Tucson Citizen noted earlier in the week:
Why do we love mariachi? Let us count the ways . . .
Students are inspired5 Giving students the chance to rub shoulders with and learn directly from their musical heroes, providing young talent the inspiration to work harder. In no small sense, this conference made it hip to be a mariachi.
6 Indirectly providing incentive for students to remain in school. If kids are involved in what they do at school, they’re more likely to graduate.
7 Creating a crop of better-trained music students, in part by insisting that mariachis learn to read music. This single element has elevated the level of playing and given students greater musical opportunities.
8 Getting more Hispanic kids involved in learning Spanish. After generations were punished for speaking Spanish, youngsters are now regaining their spoken cultural roots.
The final reason they mentioned is one that I understand all too well; but I can honestly say that due to the constant connection with music from groups like Mariachi Sol de Mexico, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán and Mariachi Cobre; singers like Linda Ronstadt, Pedro Fernandez, Javier Solis, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, etc. the melody of mi gente has been reignited in my blood.
So, as Tucson celebrates 25 years of Mariachi Espectacular, I tip my virtual sombrero to all the instructors who keep cultivating our cultural soil so that it remains rich as far as the eye can see.
Mariachi Vargas in 2002 at the student workshops
John McCain: Shining Beacon of Integrity
As I mentioned yesterday, John McCain – Patron Saint of Pander Bears – loves to fool the public into thinking he’s a paragon of integrity. The problem is, the Committee of Investigation for Saintly Causes is lacking material to work with.
A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war.
[ruffles through file folder to see where McCain stands on this extremely important vote]
That – my friends – is what we call par for the course.
Full Role Call Vote here.
Some Mid-Week Comic Relief
Bwahahahahahaha
Nativist Movement
‘Vietnamese’ Anti-Immigration Group Really Isn’tFirst, he denied it. Then he said it was his wife’s idea. Finally, white anti-immigration activist Tim Brummer admitted to using the false Vietnamese surname “Binh” in his capacity as spokesman for Vietnamese for Fair Immigration. In his defense, Brummer claimed that because he eats Vietnamese food and is half-Vietnamese “in my own mind,” he wasn’t really fibbing. In fact, he told a local reporter, he may even legally change his name to Binh.
Ya know, once upon a time, I was convinced ‘in my own mind’ that I was a vampire. That is, until my big plastic pumpkin was full of chocolate and I ditched the idea of blood for divine Hershey bliss.
What have you pretended to be in the past?
Again: Only If It’s Made Retroactive
The nativists are having another temper tantrum, it seems
H.R. 133: Citizenship Reform Act of 2007HR 133 IH
110th CONGRESS1st Session H. R. 133
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny citizenship at birth to children born in the United States of parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 4, 2007
Mr. GALLEGLY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny citizenship at birth to children born in the United States of parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.
linkage (emphasis mine)
Let me say this once again: I fully support a bill like this, as long as it is made retroactive back to the time the first ships full of invading Europeans arrived in the “New World”.
Surprise of all surprises, I know, but this is coming from Georgia – with its ever-growing population of built-in tanned residents.
Still think it’s not racial?
–hat tip to Spidelblog
A Quick Reminder About John McCain
You know, John McCain, who has milked his experience as a tortured Vietnam Prisoner of War so hard that the teets of that particular sacred cow are bloated and cracked?
Well, he squandered any opportunity to receive deference for his encounter with “alternative techniques” on the military battlefield when he caved to the Bush White House in 2005
Then came that dramatic December 15th handshake between Bush and McCain, a veritable media mirage that concealed furious back-room maneuvering by the White House to undercut the amendment. A coalition of rights groups, including Amnesty International, had resisted the executive’s effort to punch loopholes in the torture ban but, in the end, the White House prevailed. With the help of key senate conservatives, the Bush administration succeeded in twisting what began as an unequivocal ban on torture into a legitimization of three controversial legal doctrines that the administration had originally used to justify torture right after 9/11.
In an apparent compromise gesture, McCain himself inserted the first major loophole: a legal defense for accused CIA interrogators that echoes the administration’s notorious August 2002 torture memo allowing any agents criminally charged to claim that they “did not know that the practices were unlawful.”
Defenders of the Senator, who is announcing his pro-war/pro-Bush Doctrine bid for President today, will likely point out that McCain fought the White House on the torture rules; but, just like with every other maverick sleight-of-hand maneuver he has conned the people and media with – in the end, he votes with the BushCo. party line – or doesn’t bother to vote at all.
He can’t have his cake* and eat it too.
* Mmmmm, cake. No better time for it than when an entire U.S. city drowns in toxic stew
Renzi Steps Down From Additional Committees
Good. Although I’m alittle befuddled as to why he didn’t do so in the first place. Why drag out the headlines over a multiple-day media cycle?
Not that I’m complaining, just surprised
An Arizona congressman temporarily stepped down from two more House committees on Tuesday, less than a week after the FBI raided his wife’s insurance business.
Rep. Rick Renzi (news, bio, voting record) announced in a statement Tuesday that he was taking a leave of absence from the House Financial Services Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee. He stepped down from the House Intelligence Committee last week.
The Arizona Republican said he had been “the subject of leaked stories, conjecture and false attacks” about a 2005 land exchange that is now being investigated by the U.S. attorney for Arizona.
I Hate the War
I thought (((Manny))) might like to see the city he visited through my eyes and the eyes of other Portland Protesters.
Border Patrol Agent to be Charged with Murder
An excerpt from from the statement issued by Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer:
With respect to the January 12, 2007 shooting of Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, by agent Nicholas Corbett, however, based on the extensive investigation presented to this office by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the physical evidence itself, we must come to the unfortunate but inescapable conclusion that this shooting was not legally justified. We have concluded that the evidence shows that at the time he was shot, Mr. Dominguez-Rivera presented no threat to agent Corbett and agent Corbett did not act in reasonable apprehension of imminent death or serious physical injury.
Our conclusion is that the physical evidence does not support the explanation of the shooting offered by agent Corbett. To the contrary, the physical evidence does corroborate the description of the circumstances of the shooting given by the three witnesses who were traveling with Mr. Dominguez-Rivera at the time of his death.
I’m sure this will make all of the Tancredo-bots heads explode in unison – screeching and howling about political witch hunts – but this is not a decision that is being made blindly. There is forensic evidence, along with an incriminating video, that does not jive with the story the Border Patrol agent told his superiors.
With this next step, our justice system kicks in, rather than bureaucratic cover-ups of wrongdoing. That should be something we all applaud.
[Ed. Note] This is a follow-up to a follow-up of a previous post.
LatinoPolítico.com 