Mexican “countries” as ridiculous a nativist thought as speaking “Mexican”

I remember once being in a conversation with my peers in school about exactly what people in Mexico spoke. As in did we speak Mexican?

THE controversial moment of nonsense

And didn’t we realize we had no right to question how ridiculous that thought was. Because, after all, only people in Spain spoke Spanish!

NOW BEFORE GOING further, I should point out that I was all of 7 years old when this happened. The “peers” I refer to were my fellow schoolmates and my parents had moved to a heavily-Anglo neighborhood.

In short, I was dealing with kids who didn’t know any better. I can think back to the incident and laugh my culo off. They didn’t know any better, and their ignorance was just downright absurd.

But I find it hard to find anything particularly humorous about what Fox News Channel is trying to defend as just a technical glitch when they made a reference to “three Mexican countries” that their political savior, Donald Trump, was intending to cut off federal funding to.

Actually, what Trump’s trash talk alluded to was a thought that he could cut federal funding provided to El Salvador, Guatamala and Honduras. None of which are in Mexico, except to those nativist nitwits who want to think that everything involving Latin America is “Mexican.”

WHICH BASICALLY MEANS the nitwits are stupid, most definitely weren’t paying attention during grammar school geography and (most importantly) are really bothered by the fact that anybody would feel the need to correct them on the factual error – which was contained within a chyron; the caption that runs on-screen while the news anchors “speak” on-camera.

Nativist nitwits not singling out Spanish

Now I should state that Fox News types quickly caught their error, and one of the co-hosts publicly corrected the notion that there were separate “Mexican” countries.

Of course, Fox News with its desire to play ideological games with everybody who dares to disagree with their own nativist view of the globe would think nothing of publicly trashing a competitor for trying to claim an error was “just a typo.”

Which is why I have no compunction about pointing out just how stupid a mistake this truly was. Just like I'll point out that Mexico is as much a part of the North American continent as Canada or the United States.

IT WAS SOMETHING that could be excused amongst 7-year-olds. But seeing other people try to reduce our intellectual discourse down to the level of second-graders is nothing but contemptible.

If anything, it is what is most reprehensible about this Age of Trump that we’re now in. I accept we have an intellectual half-wit as our president. It’s the fact that an outspoken minority thinks the majority of us are obligated to accept this is what is wrong – and what ought to be our national priority in trying to undo come the 2020 election cycle.

So no, Mexico is a single country – albeit one with 31 states and a Federal District. Actually, it astounds me the notion that some ideologues get upset about that fact – they don’t want to have to acknowledge anything unique about Mexico.

And as for the language spoken, yes there is a certain dialect of Spanish unique to Mexico (similar to how British English isn’t the same as so-called American English, and certainly not as crude as that babble otherwise known as a Southern drawl).

ANYBODY WHO FEELS compelled to defend such moments of ignorance as expressed on Fox News on Sunday is someone who provides the very definition of a pinche puto and un baboso.

And if you’re feeling a bit confused about the shift into Español, I’d say “look it up yourself” to find out just how insulted you ought to feel right about now.

Some of us too willing to live life like a cheap cartoon

Of course, I don’t really expect you to take the time to reach for a Spanish/English language dictionary to do a translation.

In fact, I expect most of you who were watching the Sunday morning broadcast let the chyron slip right past you without noticing what it said – you were probably more obsessed with gawking at the content contained under anchor Jedediah Bila’s short skirt.

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Could Trump solve Chicago’s problems within a week? Only in his mind!

It seems that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s failed attempt to hold a campaign rally last spring at the University of Illinois at Chicago made a bigger impression on him than we would have envisioned.

 

Has Trump ever really been in Chi outside his tower?

But in true Trump fashion, the event has become a distorted twist of fantasy that makes no sense on just about any level.

FOR MEMORIES OF that time came up during television interviews on the national cable news channels as Trump and his allies tried to seriously twist the happenings of that Friday night into something it was not.

The reality was that the would-be rally Trump wanted to hold on the Near West Side campus wound up being cancelled because the unruly crowds of spectators got out of hand – although Chicago Police have since said they never advised Trump to cancel the event outright.

It was Trump himself who didn’t have the backbone to face off against people inclined to be critical of him. It is to be expected considering that most Trump rallies are programmed to devolve in the true faithful harassing, intimidating and even beating on the candidate’s critics.

Which is what made the comments by Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, during an interview with CNN all the more laughable.

HE TRIED TO describe that Chicago appearance as one in which Trump tried to speak out to African-American voters, only to be rebuffed by them.

As Lewandowski said, Trump, “went to the heart of Chicago to go and give a speech to the University of Chicago in a campus, which is predominantly African-America, to make that argument. And you know what happened? The campus was overrun, and it was not a safe environment.”

It seems to me that Trump, if he really believes this, didn’t have a clue what was going on – and not just because he wasn’t anywhere near the Hyde Park neighborhood that actually has the University of Chicago.

Or that the University of Illinois at Chicago is in a neighborhood bordering on upscale that has more white people living in it than any other type.

PERHAPS TRUMP THOUGHT he was at Chicago State University? Then again, probably all Chicago college campuses look alike to Trump because they’re not a part of Trump University.

The reality is that Trump wasn’t anywhere near the “ghetto” that he envisions all of Chicago is. Perhaps he has spent too much time watching reruns of “Good Times” and comedian Jimmie Walker’s humor-tinged vision of life at the old Cabrini-Green.

But if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, Trump himself had to open his mouth during a Fox News Channel interview, saying he had met with high-ranking Chicago Police Department officials who he says told him they could “stop much of this horror show that’s going on” if they were let loose to actually enforce the law.

As Trump then put it, the officer said, “I’d be able to stop it in one week.”

GEE, ONLY ONE week to resolve the problems confronting Chicago? It’s just too bad that the likely solution suggested by this mythical cop is use of more force that would actually enhance the real problem law enforcement has in dealing with people.

Plus, there’s also the fact that Chicago Police officials on Wednesday insisted that no department officials ever met with Trump. Which leads me to believe this may have been a lone cop who was present at the University of Illinois at Chicago that night who was just shooting his mouth off.

Similar to how Trump often engages in that phenomenon known as “diarrhea of the mouth.” Saying whatever thoughts come to mind without regard to whether they make any sense.

Which is why those people who get all worked up over the violence level of Chicago (personally, I remember the late 1980s when it was much worse) are living in the ultimate fantasyland if they think a vote for Trump means a thing!

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EXTRA: The Top Ten

Real estate developer Donald Trump.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

WISCONSIN GOV. SCOTT Walker.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-Fla.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

AS FOR THE rest, Fox News Channel has deemed them not worthy of prime time. They will be part of a late-afternoon program on Thursday, but the evening debate will only contain the Top Ten – as put together by an average of five recent presidential polls that really only show no one candidate has gained a huge share of support.

Not even Trump – who at best has only about one of every five Republicans, and no Democrats, thinking he deserves to be taken seriously.

Then again, I still think Trump will wind up running an independent campaign that will attract the kind of people who usually don’t bother to vote. Not enough to actually win a presidential election.

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Who knows who will really run for president come the 2016 election cycle

I’m not getting too worked up over the debate controversy over whether the Fox television network is unduly influencing next year’s Republican presidential primary with the rules over whom is going to be allowed to partake in their Thursday debate.

BUSH: The front-runner?

With 17 people on the GOP side officially expressing delusions of someday becoming U.S. president, Fox has said it will allow only 10 to be included.

THOSE 10 WILL be the ones who rank on top in an average of five polls. Which could result in some people who might theoretically deserve a review being excluded from inclusion.

Which will result in the public perception that they’re not really in the campaign.

Considering that several polls are showing the real estate magnate Donald Trump at the top of most polls, he’ll probably wind up getting one of those spots. There are those who feel he’s taking a spot away from a more qualified person.

Personally, I think any campaign Trump winds up running will be as a political independent – that way he can make it all about himself and not have to put up with political operatives telling him he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

BECAUSE ‘THE DONALD’ doesn’t take such insolence lightly!

For what it’s worth, it doesn’t surprise me to learn that a broadcast-mentality would not think it worthwhile to have every single candidate in their debate program.

FIORINA: The legitimate business exec

I still remember back in the days when I was a reporter-type person in Springfield, Ill., and a local TV type told me it was irresponsible to have all the candidates in a debate. Weeding out the fringe candidates who have no chance of winning a primary is part of the job, I was told.

I believe that if a candidate gets on the ballot, they deserve to be included – so that their stupid comments can shoot them down in the minds of the electorate and cause them to lose.

GRAHAM: The political pro

BUT AT THIS stage, we don’t have anyone on a ballot. It is still that early. I’m figuring that Fox thinks it will be impossible to include 17 people and give them all time to say anything significant.

Although I wonder if even 10 candidates creates that situation. I doubt we’re going to learn much about anyone, particularly since the focus now is on Trump and how the others will counter him.

RUBIO: The Cuban w/o Latino support

Trump’s money allows him to buy public perception, particularly since the story line being pushed is if any of the other candidates can boost themselves up to the Trump level in the election cycle.

The only reason I don’t get too bothered is because I’m realistic enough to know that most of the candidates who don’t get included in the Thursday debate will likely have faded out and be long-forgotten by Election Day.

HECK, EVEN MANY of the ones who make the debate (we’ll be told Tuesday night which ones will be included) will not actually be on the ballot come Nov. xx, 2016.

CHRISTIE: Noo Yawker for those who hate N.Y.

At this stage, a debate is more about comic relief – as Saturday Night Live once phrased it, a presidential debate is a “chance to avoid saying something stupid.” Thursday’s program is not about educating the electorate about candidates.

It’s more about making people think that the Fox News Channel is at the heart of the campaign action, and that we ought to pay mind to their political spin when deciding what to believe.

Besides, I can already hear the rants about the proposed CNN debate (which says they will split the program into two so they can include all 17 people) – all the people who get put into the program without Trump will complain that they’re on the political “B” team.

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WALKER: Campaign has $5M in Ricketts family cash

EDITOR’S NOTE: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Former New York Gov. George Pataki. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn.  Real estate developer Donald Trump. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The photographs used here are the ones I think are worthy of consideration. Not that I'd be inclined to vote for any of them.

Everybody wants to believe everyone ought to be just like themselves

Megyn Kelly, the blonde babe news anchor for Fox News Channel, is getting more than her share of ridicule on the Internet these days for her statement on air this week that both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ were white.

Believe it or not, I’m not about to join in the abuse. Yes, it’s a nonsense-thought to have when you think about it.

YET I DON’T doubt that many a person just perceives things this way. It’s that instinct amongst us that everybody has to be just like us. Otherwise, maybe it means there’s something wrong with themselves.

That is what makes the modern-day reality of the 21^st Century in our society so scary for some – we’re not all alike. Nor should we have to be.

We’re at a point where we ought to quit thinking of the concept of a “Black Santa” as some sort of joke, and maybe a recognition of what we all are. Besides, we all ought to realize that Santa Claus is a Latino, flying around the skies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer fueled with “Magic Dust” (or so said Cheech Marin of the Cheech & Chong comedy team).

For Kelly to want to perceive Santa as a fat old white man is just a realization of who she is. Anybody who’s surprised that she’d think that way is the one I would want to question.

WHAT ELSE WOULD you expect from her?

Actually, my initial reaction when I learned of Kelly’s comments (which were in response to a commentary published at the Slate.com website and written by a black woman who wrote about being confused as a child because Santa in her house was black, while he was white everywhere else) was to recall a moment from my own college days.

One day in a class where we were engaged in a conversation either about Aristotle or Plato (I’m not sure exactly which one), somebody made a comment in support of the philosopher and referred to his “Christian” values.

 

To which the professor tried to hold back a laugh when he explained that the philosopher in question was not of any religious faith that could be called “Christian.”

THAT STATEMENT PROVOKED a debate amongst the students that took up the entire rest of the class session.

“Of course he’s Christian,” some students said. “We wouldn’t study him if he weren’t Christian,” others wanted to believe. “He’s a good person, so he has to be Christian,” was also heard.

There were some students who were not in agreement, and even tried arguing back that the words “Christian” and “good” and “moral” were not necessarily synonymous with each other.

Not that any of the initial group wanted to hear of it.

PERSONALLY, I RECALL that day in class as one of the most humorous moments of my academic life. Although I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that others probably viewed it as some sort of moment when they were exposed to subversive thought.

Just like I’m sure that some people probably want to view the idea of a non-White Santa Claus as violating everything they want to believe about our society.

I ultimately came to realize that “Santa Claus” is about a concept – one of sharing and giving, which is what the upcoming Christmas holiday can be at its finest. (At its worst, it’s nothing more than a greedy gift grab – but that’s a commentary for another day).

If some people feel the need to believe that “sharing” and “giving” are concepts only relevant to themselves, then perhaps they’re saying more about their own hang-ups, and we should pity them for being so close-minded.

BESIDES, DIDN’T THE whole concept of Santa Claus and Jesus being either “white” or “black” get resolved all those decades ago by the “Archie Bunker” and “Henry Jefferson” characters on “All in the Family.”

 

At least when actor Carroll O’Connor’s Bunker character persisted in claiming that both Jesus and Santa were white, he was just going for a cheap laugh!

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Press corps politicking gets silly

I have always known that reporter-types can be just as petty and political when it comes to office politics as anyone else in our society. The recently-completed battle for the seating chart in the White House briefing room is nothing more than evidence of how petty things can get.

That briefing room is the part of the White House press room where the press secretary (for Barack Obama, it is Robert Gibbs) holds regular briefings that are supposed to be about regular dispersal of information about what the president is doing – but sometimes can become the only chance one has to talk to anyone in anything resembling an official capacity about what is happening to the news.

THE BRIEFINGS ARE so heavily staged by the presidential staff, counting on the fact that a reporter or two who thinks he’s engaging in tough, combative questioning will get all worked up and prevent anyone else from asking significant questions.

Which means if the press secretary can effectively dodge that one reporter, he can get away with saying as little as possible.

All of this is to say that while I have never been a regular member of the White House press corps, I have participated in enough staged events to know that these briefings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Which is why I find it absurd to think that people were really fighting over who got to sit where in the 49 seats set up before a podium where Gibbs speaks on a regular basis to the press.

THOSE SEATS (SEVEN rows of seven seats each) are assigned to news organizations based on how large an audience they reach, which means every reporter is convinced that he (or she) must have as “prominent” a seat as possible – as evidence of how important his work is.

Hooey. While I understand that the closer one is to the press secretary (or the president himself) on those occasions when questions are being taken, the better it is that one will be called on, the quality of information that actually comes out of these briefings is so low that I wonder at times, “why bother?”

If anything, if I were a Washington correspondent, I’d probably want some sort of assignment that let me get out of the White House itself. Getting outside the building and rooting around the federal agencies that comprise the U.S. government is the best way to get stories.

Yet there are those who want to think their proximity to a president is their claim to fame. So we got serious fighting over who would get that front row, center seat – the one that is right in front of the podium.

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS Association tradition always said it went to a wire service reporter with the most seniority – which was for many years Helen Thomas of United Press International. But when she left UPI in 2000 to go work for Hearst Newspapers as a columnist, she was allowed to keep that seat.

When she had to quit earlier this year on account of comments she made that appeared insensitive to the plight of Israelis (although anyone who had ever listened to Thomas, who is Lebanese, would know she has always had an interest in the concerns of Arabs), we got the infighting amongst the reporter-types, who want to say they’re now so important that their White House guy sits right in front of the president.

For the record, that prime seat goes back to the senior White House wire service reporter, which means the Associated Press now has someone sitting where Thomas once did (a thought that makes the old Unipresser in me want to wretch).

After some juggling around, Fox News Channel now gets a front row seat, making them equal to Cable News Network, and the three traditional television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC (the British wire service Reuters got the seventh and final front row seat).

IN READING ALL the sniping that has been taking place between Fox and Bloomberg Business News (the other outfit that thought they were entitled to a front-row seat), and even a bit from people on behalf of National Public Radio, I couldn’t help but be embarrassed.

It’s not like it’s going to matter much who sits where, for these briefings are conducted in such a fashion that the government officials (not just Obama, but every president before him) can say as little as possible.

Make it out so that each routine statement becomes an “event” in and of itself, and there’s a chance that the television cameras will pick up on it just because there is video of a presidential press secretary talking. It winds up pressuring everybody else into going along.

I can’t think anybody in the real world seriously cares, although I was amused by a few Internet commenters who seem to think the correspondents association should not have any say in who sits where in the White House – that this should somehow be a government decision.

THE LOGIC ALWAYS was that the government allocated a certain amount of space to the reporters, then let the reporters themselves figure out who occupies which cubbyhole and who sits where during the press briefings. I’d really hate to think that a president would get involved in something like this. So now we have the pompous boasts of Fox News that they’re a front-row organization, with Fox critics pleased they didn’t get the prime seat in front of the White House press secretary.

And for the record, the Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times) gets a third-row seat, second seat from the right – behind the New York Times, but ahead of the Washington Times, the Boston Globe and the Dallas Morning News, to name a few.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times is placed in the fifth row at the far right, sitting behind Congress Daily and next to Fox Radio, but in front of the Dow Jones newswire.

Don’t you feel better informed knowing that?

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