Here’s a cheery statistic that you may have missed: The wealthiest 1 percent now control 39 percent of the world’s wealth, and their share is likely to grow in the coming years.
What this means is that while you were digging out from the Great Recession — or are still digging out — multimillionaires coasted through just fine. And the gap between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us is the widest it has been in about a half century.
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I admit that I’m not much of a basketball aficionado. I saw Michael Jordan play once, and that’s pretty much my sole anecdote about the NBA.
However, I paid attention when a young boy named Sebastien de la Cruz sang the National Anthem before an NBA final game recently. Apparently, “he was pretty awesome.”
But of course, this is America, and somebody’s gotta be offended about something. So plenty of Twitter feeds exploded with outrage that a “Mexican django” (whatever that is) who was “probably illegal” was belting out the Star-Spangled Banner. And those were some of the nicer, less racist comments.
As we all know, the National Anthem only counts as a patriotic song if a white person sings it. Otherwise, it’s political correctness run rampant, or a sign of moral decline, or just plain icky.
Well, Sebastien de la Cruz found out about the controversy he provoked, but he refrained from slamming his attackers (all of whom are faceless cowards who think its edgy to gang up on a young boy via social media). In any case, the Spurs have apparently asked him to return for an encore.
The kid showed a lot of class, and since he has declared himself a Spurs fan, I’ve decided that I’m rooting for them too.
It’s not like I know who else is playing, anyway.
Congratulations to KnuckleBaller, of Chicago, who won passes to see a screening of Man of Steel in last week’s contest.
As many people have pointed out, Superman entered the country illegally and has apparently never gotten his green card.
But you won’t catch me dissing America’s number-one superhero icon. That’s like chewing on a big old chunk of kryptonite.
According to one survey, the Superman logo is the second most recognized symbol in the world, right after the Christian cross.
I have my doubts about the accuracy of that survey, particularly because other symbols (e.g., “$”) are pretty popular. But I think we can all agree that Superman is, at the very least, exceedingly well known.
So I’m happy to offer you the chance to win passes to a screening of Man of Steel, the latest big-screen version of the Superman story, in one of the following cities:
Chicago
Dallas
Houston
El Paso
Los Angeles
Miami
New York
Phoenix
San Diego
San Francisco
All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) about anything you please. Just make sure to tell me what city you plan to see the movie in, so I can allocate the passes.
If you win, I’ll email you the tickets. By the way, I won’t make your contact info public, so don’t worry about that.
I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so.
In the meantime, just try to keep that Superman theme song from playing in your head.
Apparently, if you’re Hispanic and live in Pennsylvania, a job is yours for the asking.
I say this because the Republican governor of that state, Tom Corbett, recently that he couldn’t find a single Latino to work for him.
He even implored his constituents that “If you can find us one, please let me know.” He then got, well, a little defensive about his lack of ethnic outreach, snapping, “Do any of you [Hispanics] want to come to Harrisburg? See?”
Now there are about 800,000 Latinos in Pennsylvania, which is just under seven percent of the state’s population. Surely, there must be a few who could handle working with a cranky Republican.
Sure enough, after Corbett looked a little harder, he finally “remembered the one Latino in his administration.”
Well, that’s a relief. At least Hispanics aren’t totally shut out in one of our largest states. After all, there’s one Latina helping to run the place.
Still, if affirmative action were all that, one would think people of a brownish hue could just march right up to governor and say, “Here I am. Put me on the state payroll.”
I have my doubts about that. But who knows, maybe you should give it a shot. Talk about an easy interview.
Well, I was going to post something insightful about the Heritage Foundation’s claims that Latinos are genetically destined to be low-IQ drains on society. But I’m just too dim to find fault with what is clearly rigorous, scientifically validated research free of any racial animus. Nope, can’t be done.
In fact, I won’t even point out this study, which implies that both conservatives and racists (and there may be some overlap) tend to have lower IQs themselves. I’m just not bright enough to quote that research.
So instead I’m going to give a shout out to someone I have dismissed regularly, Mr. George Lopez. He pointed out that the GOP obsession with portraying Latinos as threats to America is “fucking crazy.”
It may not be articulate, but it is accurate.
My cousin (Cousin #6) is one of the more than 83,000 immigrants who have become citizens since the September 11 attacks by embracing “a wartime edict to entice immigrants to join the military in exchange for rapid naturalization.”
The program has its critics. Some claim allowing non-citizens to enlist in the military “injects the armed forces with an increased security risk” and is “just like the Roman Empire, not to get too melodramatic about it.”
Yes, the last thing we want in any discussion about immigration is melodrama. After all, the debate has been nothing but calm, logical, and respectful to this point.
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OK, I’ve been running this site for five years and have written hundreds of posts. And this is the first time I’m going to rerun one. It’s sort of a look back.
Why? Is it because the post is even more relevant than it was years ago when I first published it? Is it because the article is a shining example of my insight and wit? Or is it just because I’m lazy?
Well, it’s all those things, of course, but it’s primarily because the original post is about Cinco de Mayo, which is this weekend, and I figured the timing was good.
In any case, here is the original post.
Celebrate semi-responsibly.
I have been remiss in pointing out some changes to this website that have gone down in the last couple of weeks. You may have noticed that there’s a lot more info being splayed about here lately.
Just look to the right-hand column.
Yes, I am now streaming third-party content from a company founded, in part, by Hispanic thespian John Leguizamo. So after you finish reading my rants, feel free to click on the myriad topics that Leguizamo, et al, believe Latinos — and those who love them — will find of interest.
By the way, wasn’t Leguizamo freakily awesome in Spawn?
Yes, yes he was.
Congratulations to Gin X, who won passes to see Tom Cruise’s new movie Oblivion. The film is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth. So I’m assuming it’s speculative fiction based on what would happen if the Republicans ever win the presidency again.
Yeah, it’s an obvious joke. But it could have been worse. I could have said something about Scientology.
In any case, I hope Gin X likes the movie. Stay tuned for the next contest.
