Author Archives: John Wallenfeldt

Jan Brewer vs. Obama: Can you respect the presidency but insult the president? – CSMonitor.com

Conservatives always go on and on about how they are the patriots. They are “compassionate” and “Christian” and defenders of freedom and liberty. They “support the troops”, implying of course that YOU do not. They have been “taxed enough already”.

In this political season, we have seen these put as a lie. Mitt Romney pays less in taxes than even a tight slot machine gives in payouts. Angry conservative debate crowds have yelled for people without medical insurance to die, have heckled gay soldiers, cheered on Newt Gingrich as he calls minorities lazy welfare cheats, and so on.

This past week, Jan “Bruja” Brewer, governor of Aryzona, decided to push this a little further, wagging her finger in the President’s face like he is a schoolchild in need of a lecture.

Here’s how it actually looks:

Folks still say this isn’t about race. They are either deeply deluded or just moronic.

This is not about policy disagreements, this is disrepect. From Joe Wilson a couple years ago to this (already established) racist governor, this is about the president being black. We’ve had parties since right after the dawn of this nation and barring slave owning senators beating other lawmakers, we normally don’t get this level of hatred and outright uncivil behavior.

This isn’t a drunk guy in a bar pissed off. We’re talking governors, and senators and representatives in the national government. Arguably among the top 600 or so folks in our nation, behaving like angry Klucker mob members.

It needs to stop. There is NO hope for any of that mob to ever earn my vote again, but for the good of the nation – and for their own good as the face of this nation changes – it needs to stop.

Seed exchange plants, preserves American history in its gardens | Minnesota Public Radio News

They do some cool and valuable stuff up in this part of the world. One of which is a project that collects and catlogues plant seeds of heirloom fruits and vegetables for preservation and dissemination of what we might otherwise have lost.

Hell, given that we keep losing types of bananas, something like this is just a good idea if we don’t want to slip into a monoculture like the big ag companies are inadvertantly creating.

A Look At Iowa’s First Majority Hispanic Town : NPR

The English-only mobs are only going to get more bitter as this keeps happening. West Liberty, IA is the first town in that state to become majority Latino.

Now granted, every immigrant group has a mixed bag first generation concerning assimilation. That said, you hear a whole lot about it by the nativists these days.

So, yeah, Spanish is going to be more prevalent in these neighborhoods. Hell, get used to it. Half of my son’s TV viewing has some level of Spanish regularly integrated into it. It is happening, not because this batch of immigrants isn’t trying to become American. They are. My family is proof of this.

That said, the sheer numbers of leftover Spaniards/Mexicans absorbed into this country combined with the influx of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, you name it, who have come to make a better life for themselves *is* changing the language as much as it is changing the view of what a beautiful woman is (more Sofia Vergara than Kate Moss, for instance), eating (salsa sells more than ketchup), etc.

You get the idea. America is adapting again. No one rails against the Irish for making us have St. Patrick’s Day. We don’t beat Germans over the head for trying to make us drink better beer. Cajuns speak whatever form of French they have. Chinatowns have their own lingo, as do Polishtowns, Little Havana, etc.

We take what the world does best and we make it our’s. And sometimes that might not look familiar to you. Get over it. Adapt and overcome. It is what this nation does best.

Gerald Goddamned Ford by Paul Constant – Seattle News – The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper

Just ran into this critique/obituary of the Ford presidency today.

Cannot say I have much I can say wrong about it. If Nixon went to prison, the man who followed him – and his cronies – would have been pariahs in the GOP. Plus, any president who overstepped his authority would have seen he could do time for it.

Hell, probably any Nixon appointees would have been sullied whether they deserved it or not.

Let me take the article a step further. Reinquist probably never becomes Chief Justice. Reagan would NEVER have deigned to try the Iran-Contra disaster. No Cheney, no Rumsfeld.

Bush the Lesser couldn’t have been president as Bush v. Gore would never have made it to the Supreme Court. Even so, even he wasn’t dumb enough to invade Iraq with the specter of prison for lying to the nation. Plus, his cast of puppet masters, from Cheney on down, would be off shooting their friends in the face on a ranch as they’d have been cast out of government.

Sheesh.

Yeah, thanks for nothing Jerry.

We still ignore basic tensions in immigration policy | Jay Bookman

Jay Bookman has been pretty astute in trying to figure out all the nuances in our immigration system, such as it is. Particularly since Georgia has been front and center in the debate since passing their draconian law last year. Here is a slightly old article on how even those Republicans trying to be level-headed are faced with trying to address and explain some very complicated ideas to their very simple- and single-minded constituents.