Hispanic Fanatic

Maybe you’re overjoyed that you survived the holidays.

Perhaps you’re looking forward to the new year, and you’re optimistic that 2022 will deliver on the potential that 2021 just didn’t deliver.

Or maybe you appreciate any excuse to drink at midnight.

In any case, this time of the year is notoriously slow for writers of political commentary. Plus, I recently had my third eye surgery in the last decade, and everything looks a bit fuzzy right now.

So when you add it all up, I have very little drive to write anything more insightful than “Happy New Year” and to wish you the best.

Take care, and see you in 2022.

Our self-identity forms our core.

For example, you might consider yourself to be a radical vegan who aligns herself with the needy.

Perhaps you’re a high-powered corporate exec whose net worth and golf handicap are numbers that measure your very existence.

Or you could be a Gen X Latino progressive who loves Korean horror movies and has a thing for Kate Winslet.

Yeah, maybe.

But one thing is highly likely: You see your “political affiliation not as a choice but as an identity; that is, something not subject to change with time.”

To continue reading this post, please cick here.

Some trends last longer than others.

For example, parachute pants were an instant joke and truly popular for about a week. Celebrity-owned restaurants were hot for a few years, and then we moved on. 

In contrast, classic rock had an incredible run. Whole generations grooved to the same 300 songs, until hip-hop and other genres finally vanquished the sound.

However, let me point out that Led Zeppelin still rules.

In any case, the list of fads and wacky trends that have run their course has a new entry. And that dying fad is democracy. 

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Among the 47 jobs I held in college—back when tuition was almost reasonable—was a gig with the US census. As part of the job, I walked around Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking the inhabitants how many people lived there, how many bathrooms were in the house, and other random questions that constituted the worst ice breakers of all time. I wrote their answers on my clipboard, and then moved on to the next nonplussed resident.

My job with the US census lasted for only a couple of months. Some of the other jobs I had in college were cafeteria worker, phlebotomist, press release writer, and test-tube washer. Seriously, those were my gigs.

In any case, my total contribution to the most recent census was filling it out and marking “Latino” in the ethnicity section. But that must have made an impact. 

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Listen, you wouldn’t teach advanced calculus to second-graders, would you? Nor would you make metaphysics part of the curriculum for nine-year-olds. Therefore, it makes sense to ban teaching critical race theory (CRT) in grade school.

As we all know, CRT “is an academic study at the undergraduate and graduate level that aims to examine the role of racism in the modern era and the ways it has become woven into the social fabric.” Virtually no grade schools are teaching CRT, but you can’t be too careful. Some overzealous teachers out there, somewhere, might abruptly thrust college-level academics onto their unsuspecting grade schoolers, so we need legislation to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

To continue reading this post, please click here.