A society of ‘dishwashers’ sees El Tri victories as a drop-dead to xenophobes

It’s a question I often hear – how can anybody who lives in this country possibly root for Mexico in the world of international soccer? Particularly since the Mexican national squad is considered to be an archrival of the U.S. national team.

This restaurant snub, ...

Yet then, all I need to see are little tidbits like the sign I saw Sunday outside a restaurant seeking workers to be reminded that every time we see an Equipo Mexico win, it upsets the sensibilities of so many in our society.

PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO think they’re offending us when they go out in public wearing their ridiculous red “Make America Great Again” caps.

The fact that Mexico pulled off a shocking 1-0 victory over the German national team on Sunday (Germany is actually the defending World Cup champion, and so many Anglo pundits were determined to believe that Mexico was unworthy of a spot on the same pitch with Die Manschaft) was my ethnic brethren’s way of saying “Drop Dead!” to the nitwits who probably see nothing wrong with The Sign.

Which, I must admit, my father was the first to notice. We went out for a Father’s Day dinner (we all wanted a hearty meal, but nobody wanted to cook in Sunday’s excessive heat), and as we left, he pointed out what he termed a racist sign.

For the restaurant in question had two signs on their window – one in English and the other in Spanish. The English sign was a properly printed poster seeking a need for people to work in jobs as cashiers and counter-help.

… does goal make up for it?

THE SIGN EN Español was a makeshift thing that expressed a need for trabajador para lavaplatos. As in dishwashers. As in back-in-the-kitchen and out of sight of paying customers. Implying that such people wouldn’t be bright enough to speak English.

Although I’d wonder if there’s really an intelligence level between up-front and behind-the-scenes workers when it comes to a restaurant employee pulling minimum wage-or-less (and counting on a share of tips to make up the difference).

In the overall scheme of things, this is a lesser snub. It is almost laughable that anybody who thinks in such a way would be capable of running a business that doesn’t immediately delve into bankruptcy.

TRUMP: Another 'Drop Dead' target?

But then again, I still had the after-glow of watching the Mexico victory over Germany just a few hours earlier on Sunday. And in seeing that moment when television cameras panned over to the faces of German fans in shock that they had actually lost to “Me-xi-co! Me-xi-co!”

ONE THAT I watched largely on the Spanish-language Telemundo network broadcasts. I tried watching the Fox Sports 1 English-language broadcast, but quickly found it annoying to hear announcers complaining that the Mexican fans who made the trip to Moscow to watch their team in the World Cup managed to sing their national anthem in a louder, more boisterous manner than the German fans.

Almost implying that Mexican fans should be meek and accept their eventual defeat. Which didn’t happen, and which gave many people of Mexican ethnic origins a moment of joy.

Particularly in Mexico City, where seismic sensors detected a small earthquake – albeit of man-made causes, in the federal district. Which, coincidentally, matched up with the exact minute when Hirving “Chucky” Lozano scored the Sunday match’s lone goal in the 35^th minute.

Chicago Cubs fans love to think the whole world was all worked up when they had their post-World Series victory parade to Millennium Park. Yet not even they managed to create a seismic disturbance of the likes we saw Sunday.

A cinematic moment when Mexico prevailed over Germany

I DO HAVE to admit one thing – I wasn’t alone on Sunday. I noticed while trying to order food a family – of whom the mother and three sons were all clad in various jerseys of the Mexican national team.

It has me thinking I’m going to have to go out and get myself an El Tri jersey – although I’m still trying to figure out which design I like the most.

Although I also have to confess it wasn’t a complete picture; the father/husband figure of the family?

He apparently is still living in the past of 2016 – he was wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey! I’d like to think the rest of his family was ashamed to be seen in public with him.

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¿What gaffe will Trump give us come the Cinco de Mayo holiday?

The word is getting out on how badly the Trumpites managed to botch the ceremonial fluff this week related to Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day.

Which is odd because, as the Washington Post reported, so many of the prominent people allied with Donald J. Trump’s presidency are of Irish-American descent – even though Trump himself is German/Scottish-American.

It's a wonder Trump didn't dig this sign out to post at White House

OF COURSE, THEY’RE also the kind of people who go around screeching and screaming at every opportunity that they’re “Real Americans!!!!” and none of that hyphenated American talk that they want to believe is what’s wrong with our society these days. Even though I suspect the real issue is many of them don’t know what they are!

So maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt that they really didn’t have a clue as to how vacuous they were being on Thursday when officials from Ireland were in Washington, D.C., for rituals long associated with the White House to acknowledge the long-standing ties between the two nations and to show just how far our nation has come from the days of “No Irish Need Apply.”

Then again, it would be totally in character for the Trumpites to think it all essential to snub other people. Perhaps they think it shows superiority and strength. I think it merely shows boorishness.

Then again, being a boor has been tied into the Trump persona for so long. It probably is second nature.

SO HOW BAD was the behavior? According to the Washington Post:

·        Vice President Mike Pence managed to create rolled eyes with his initial greeting of “Top of the Morning” to the Irish delegation.

·        Trump managed to recite an “Irish proverb” that no one in the Irish delegation recognized ("Always remember to forget the friends who proved untrue, but never forget to remember those who stood by you"), and it turns out may actually be a line written by a Nigerian poet -- a gaffe only The Donald is capable of making.

·        House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made an attempt at a joke by pointing out all the golf courses Trump has owned on his properties – apparently thinking that Ireland and Scotland (where the game was created) are identical.

·        But Ryan topped himself when he tried offering up a toast, using a pre-poured glass of Guinness that had gone flat. None of that luscious foam that hard-core Guinness drinkers would insist is the mark of a real drink.

Tunisia officials showed Angela Merkel of Germany more respect than U.S.

About the only way Trump could top that last gaffe would be, if the next time he visits Chicago, he were to stop off for a hot dog and insist on no tomatoes or pickle spears, but lots of ketchup.

This, admittedly, is all trivial. But these ceremonial rituals usually are the things that are so heavily researched in advance to ensure that nothing goes wrong. Ineptitude is putting things mildly.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the Mike Pence gaffe is the worst, because this IS the man who would become president, should the fantasies of many people that Trump become bored with the presidency and resign were to actually come true!

Although the fact that Trump followed up his Ireland gaffes of Thursday with a Germany snub on Friday is purely pathetic.

For Friday was the day that Chancellor Angela Markel was at the White House. She got a private meeting with Trump, followed up with a public appearance by the two during which Trump refused her offer of a handshake.

Reports also noted that Trump wouldn’t even look Markel in the eye during the time they were together before the cameras – the moment in which the world’s eye was literally on the two.

I find this sign outside an Austin, Texas restaurant to be amusing

IT WAS POINTED out how Trump had been critical of Germany during his campaigning last year, what with the way that nation has accepted refugees from Syria. A move Trump has called “a catastrophic mistake” mainly because it makes his attempts at creating xenophobic U.S. policies on travel and immigration look all the more ridiculous by comparison.

You’d think that even someone with a limited world view of Donald Trump (be honest, those hotels he builds overseas are largely for Americans who don’t want to have to interact with foreigners when they travel abroad) would be able to find aspects of Ireland and Germany he could identify with.

TRUMP: Gaffes galore!

It makes me dread what we’re likely to get when Trump is forced to acknowledge the existence of May 5 and the Mexican holiday of that date. Maybe he’ll head back to the Trump Tower in New York for one of the now-infamous “Taco Bowls” they serve in their restaurant.

Which makes me think that for those who wish to disdain Mexico, the locals there and in Mexican-oriented communities in this country probably showed more respect for the Irish this week than our nation did.

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Harry Truman - 2; Rest of World - 0

That hedline was a phrase used by a professor of mine back when I was in college.


Admittedly, this particular history professor was not a fan of the man who happened to be in office as U.S. president at the point when World War II came to an end.


LARGELY BECAUSE OF the actions that took place 70 years ago this weekend that were authorized by Harry S. Truman. He gave permission for the atomic bomb to be used, first in a test so Japanese authorities could see for themselves what hell could be wrought upon themselves.


Then, 70 years ago Thursday, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Followed up by the one dropped 70 years ago Sunday on Nagasaki.


In theory, U.S. officials were prepared to keep "nuking" Japanese cities until an unconditional surrender was reached. It only took the two cities to be destroyed before that happened -- which was fortunate because it would have taken some time for the U.S. military to come up with more atomic devices.


Now the point my old history professor was trying to get at was despite all the rhetoric of the cold war and the tensions between the United States and Soviet Union (and the near bombings of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962), nuclear weapons were never used.


NO MATTER HOW much some people wanted to think of the U.S.S.R as a warmonger and evil state, they never actually gave the "go" order to unleash nuclear war.


Not on the United States. Not on anyone.


Truman was the only one who ever gave the order to unleash the terror and destruction that goes along with nuclear devices -- where it may be that the most fortunate people are the ones who are killed instantly by the blast.


The lasting radiation that contaminates all the resources necessary for life and causes more death and destruction in future years is worse.


IT TOOK MANY decades before we truly realized how many people were "killed" on those days 70 years ago this weekend. It certainly wasn't something anybody appreciated at the time.


Now I know some people are going to want to rant and rage at this point. The more irrational will get all worked up over "dirty little Japs" (or whatever slur they prefer to use) and claim they got what they deserved.


There also is the argument about how the militaristic mentality that took hold in Japan in the 1930s (and turned Emperor Hirohito into a virtual puppet) would have had the Japanese people fight to the death -- resulting in millions more casualties of U.S. soldiers and sailors if an invasion of Japan had been required.


There probably are people who are only dying now whose lives would have been lost 70 years ago!


BUT PERHAPS WE should remember that the reason those scientists worked for a time under the grandstand at the old Stagg Field at the University of Chicago was the fear that German scientists were coming up with an identical weapon that could have been used against the United States.


There actually is a novel entitled "Fatherland" that purports to offer an alternate history of World War II, one in which it ends as a draw between a Nazi German government and the U.S. (when the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Adolf Hitler retaliated by dropping his bomb on New York, according to that story line).


There are those who think the ultimate war victims were the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although those places as targets were all so accidental. This was a weapon designed for use on Berlin.


And when we debate the soundness of nuclear weapons and the desire to keep them out of the hands of Iran, perhaps we can wonder what would have been if they had never come into play anywhere on this planet.


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