Language

OMFG!

This is why I love this man. When he minces with words, he totally cracks or shocks people up.

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.

Douchebageosity
@WolfBlitzer can't help his douchebageosity. He asked @HillaryClinton how she felt not being the one debating.

Joe The Plumber
"Joe Sixpack has been replaced by Joe The Plumber", Bill "i sell values but gamble and booze" Bennett

Grumpy McNasty
Paul Begala : "McCain looked like Grumpy McNasty", LOL!

Reverse Bradley Effect
@PatrickRuffini dude you know you want to vote for @BarackObama. you're a case of Reverse Bradley Effect waiting to happen

So many people have asked me what does this one means, that here it is:

FTMFW!
aka Fuck The Motherfucking WHAT!
oooh! #Hillary smacks down the "join the cabinet" buzz by pushing the "we need every Senator" buzz --Senate majorities do FTMFW!

Check out the etymology of the word bad (via Volokh Conspiracy who got it from Language Log) :

Prof. Zupitza, with great probability, sees in bad-de (2 syll.) the ME. repr. of OE. bæddel ‘homo utriusque generis, hermaphrodita’ ... and the derivative bædling ‘effeminate fellow, womanish man ...’ applied contemptuously; assuming a later adjectival use, as in yrming, wrecca, and loss of final l as in mycel, muche, lytel, lyte, wencel, wench(e. This perfectly suits the ME. form and sense, and accounts satisfactorily for the want of early written examples. And it is free from the many historical and phonetic difficulties of the derivation proposed by Sarrazin [which ends up relating it to an OE. word meaning ‘forced, oppressed’] .... No other suggestion yet offered is of any importance; the Celtic words sometimes compared are out of the question.

Oh snap!

View Larger Map

Geezus.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo found out about this gaffe via El País, Spain's "paper of record".

John McCain, is being interviewed by a journalist with an obvious Castillian accent. She asks him a series of questions about his future policies towards Latin America (which was the focus of the press conference).

Then in the last 30-40 seconds of the clip she asks him if he's looking forward to meeting with Jorge Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain. This is a somewhat tricky diplomatic question. Since winning the elections more than a year ago, Zapatero has not had a chance to visit the White House, nor has George Bush gone to Spain for an official meeting.

What does McCain do? Give his standard talking point about meeting with friendly countries only and standing tough against rogue and hostile countries.

The reporter re-frases the question 3 more times, with the last one being, "what about Europe? Spain is in Europe". McCain sticks to the talking about as if Spain were a Latin American threat to the United States.

Here's the audio clip :

You all know why I hate the word "Hispanic". So when Marisa from Latina Lista sent this around the other day, I couldn't stop myself from bashing them for using that most detested word.

As a Latinoamericanista by training, Latin American and by extension, Latino, means to include non-Spanish speaking countries like Brazil and Haiti. Hispanic doesn't.

Also, when we speak Latino, we don't speak of people who are only of Castillian Spanish ascendancy. They could be descendants of Persian Jews, Lebanese Christians, Tagalog Filipinos or simple any of the hundreds of Native South American and Caribbean tribes that populate our countries.

If universities across the country can make a distinction between Hispanic and Latino studies, it would behoove the political elites to make those distinctions, no? It's why I've never understood the insistence of advocacy and organizations to use the anachronistic term "Hispanic".

Any organization that doesn't embrace the diversity of the Latino community, with all our languages, ethnicities, cultures and races, is bound to always be political weak. Especially in these times when mobile and internet technologies, along with transnational economies, are breaking down the barriers of racial, ethnic and linguistic identity while fortifying those of class.

Anyhow, thanks Marisa. Am pulling a lazyweb on this one and just cutting and pasting on the blog.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits

An amazingly simple legacy of free speech, civil disobedience, philosophy of language and culture criticism all wrapped up in the guise of stand up comedy.

New York City to me has rarely been to me the voice of Woody Allen or Seinfeld. New York City has always been the voice, the "tawk" and the raunchy wit of George Carlin.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits
Fart
Turd
Twat

To celebrate George Carlin as a champion our civil rights and the integrity of the US Constitution I give you thee the original stand up skit that went into the Supreme Court Decision of FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (1978).

The whole backstory to the AP vs. Rogers Cadenhead fiasco is already posted at the Media Bloggers Association site. Go read it. And here's Rogers version, by the way.

In discussing all the whisper campaign unleashed by the enemies of Barack Obama, I mentioned once to some fellow bloggers that The Rumor is The Smear. You don't have to have evidence of a tape of Michelle Obama backing cookies in the shape of a sickle and hammer. The Rumor is the Smear.

With The Rumor alone you can destroy an opponent with never having to demonstrate a shred of supporting evidence. The Rumor calls the rather strong heard-instinct in Americans. The Rumor is like a Siren-song and whomever creates the strongest Rumor, will be able to command the attention and control the point of view of the majority of the herd around them.

The Rumor taps into this country's collective need and penchant for psychopathic collective hysteria. Remember the Salem Witch Trials. Enough said.

The Public Service Administration strikes again with a positively not safe for work (NSFW) video about McCain and his most egregious quote about his wife.

You can find the uncensored video here. The SFW version is here.

Am so ambivalent about the reporting of this incident that, honestly, I won't publish about it here on my blog out of respect for Cindy McCain. I don't see the need to repeat or even make public this incident unless you want to play dirty politics.

I don't care either if you are a so-called progressive like Clift Schechter bringing up the dirt. It's still dirty and still further debases the political process into who gets to digg up and sling more dirt at their contender.

What do you all think?

Can't this man just say, "I'm not interested in being VP, thanks so much" and just leave it at that? Why does he have to give any ammunition to the Obama haters by saying shit like this?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Ohio Governor Ted Strickland – who has often been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama – said Tuesday that if asked, he would “absolutely not” join the party’s presidential ticket this fall.

Strickland, who backed Hillary Clinton during the primary season, told NPR’s Michele Norris that he was taking himself out of the running. “Absolutely not. If drafted I will not run, nominated I will not accept and if elected I will not serve,” he said, in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered. “So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be.”

Obama lost the Ohio primary to Clinton.

The swing state governor, who has endorsed Barack Obama, dismissed the idea that all potential running mates deny interest in the job. “No, I don’t think they all say that. I’ve heard people say, ‘you know, if I was asked, it would certainly be something I would have to consider.’ That does not mean that I am any less committed to helping Barack Obama become the next president,” Strickland said in an NPR transcript of the interview, which is scheduled to air Tuesday night. He is scheduled to join Obama on the campaign trail in Ohio this Friday.

Now, you'd think that people would understand that professionally, it would be absolutely STUPID for John Edwards to run once again as VP to anybody. That's why people like me are clamoring for him to get the Attorney General post.

So what do Hillarytons have to say about this? That it's proof Obama is mediocre and is being reject by the party establishment.

Can you believe that after Hillary Clinton's assassination remark, her campaign spinned the comment as an attempt by Barack to make her look bad? Yes, Hillary Clinton and all her boot lickers blamed Barack for the words she herself uttered on her own accord not once, not twice but now four times during the course of the campaign.

They blamed him for blowing the thing out of proportion and yet, as I've told many, many people since this happened HOW DARE YOU TELL US THIS IS NOT A BID DEAL! How dare you tell us that putting the words ASSASSINATION and BARACK on the same page is not cause for concern?

Well, the Huffington Post has an amazing chronicle of one of Michelle Obama's campaign stops. This is what happened :

She called on another supporter, whose voice quivered and broke with barely contained emotion as she explained how important it is to her, personally, that our country change course. She explained that she had just returned from Oregon where she campaigned for Obama and attended the 75,000-person rally by the river. She had noticed, she said, that the Secret Service had increased security dramatically for Barack Obama's rallies since the Phoenix rally in January.

The room collectively gasped and murmured, some aghast that these fears were being spoken aloud directly to Barack Obama's wife. Some nodded, concern and fear on their faces. Others shifted on their feet, displaying a range of emotions -- concern, discomfort with the topic, indignation.

This is not a pundit spewing or a campaign boot licker spinning. This was a common woman, who has volunteered to get the man she believes will bring change to this country. This is not a political expert lost in a moment of bobble-head theatrics but a real woman shaken by Hillary Clinton's words.

And yet, with the poise and class that Hillary nor Bill Clinton have, Michelle Obama told this shaken woman and the rest of the audience this :

"Bitch Is The New Black" squealed Tina Fey on SNL and this black feminist didn't find it at all funny. Actually, I thought the squeal had a tinge to white supremacy in it.

So now we have Marie Cocco at the Washington Post saying this :

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

This is cross-posted at TechPresident

Yesterday I wrote about getting Lost In Hillaryland while driving down to Philadelphia to volunteer for the Obama campaign. In that post at Kenneth Cole’s Awearness Blog, I write about how after the mini-adventure of the day, my oldest came to the same conclusion as Joe Trippi : that Obama was going to lose.

My son’s observation was the most interesting part of the whole trip because it lent credit to my recent thinking of “politics as interface”.

Let’s look quickly at the definition of interface :

in·ter·face
(ĭn'tər-fās') Pronunciation Key
n.
1. A surface forming a common boundary between adjacent regions, bodies, substances, or phases.

2. A point at which independent systems or diverse groups interact: "the interface between crime and politics where much of our reality is to be found" (Jack Kroll).

3. Computer Science

1. The point of interaction or communication between a computer and any other entity, such as a printer or human operator.
2. The layout of an application's graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity: an interface whose icons were hard to remember.

An interface is a “surface forming a common boundary”, a space that is not only a common space but a mesh of space and communication. As the Java handbook to object-oriented programming explains rather well, an interface is not just the end result of a design process. Interfaces don’t come from the outside of the software process. It is part of the process itself.

So the surface that creates a common boundary is not outside two distinctive people or two distinctive groups. An interface is not something that is given to a “user”. An interface is a meshing of actions or simply put, it’s a two way street.

“Politics as interface” would be the meshing of actions, states of beings and phases between individuals, groups or even systems negotiating power. As a space of communication and as a meshing of actions, states of beings, wills and desires for power, politics as interface is developed all the time.

Politics as interface in Hillaryland is in the box of buckshot lighters gracing the gas station attendant’s counter. Politics as interface in Hillaryland is certainly the senior women holding posters saying “Honk for Hillary”.

Yet Politics as interface in Hillaryland was the absence of sidewalks down Cedar Road, the expansive manicured front lawns with their mansions in the background and the “Hillary” signs cleaving the dirt in the foreground. It was the absence of white people in the small crowds waiting with exhausted looks on their faces for the bus to come. And it was certainly the meshing sights on the road to Philly of million dollar mansions, to quaint family homes to the “We buy ugly houses” signs next to boarded up brownstones and row after row after row of broken down and abandoned buildings on North Broad Street.

When we got lost in Hillaryland, my son was very keen and very much aware of who had the upper hand in expressing power. And it became even more obvious to him when we went canvassing on the 14th Ward.

This is just so unbelievable it feels like I am in an episode of the Twilight Zone's rendition of Lord Of The Flies.

The fact that the accusation has been published in a few newspaper blogs makes it even worse : LA Times and Chicago Tribune are both alleging that Obama flipped the middle finger to Clinton during the course of a speech in North Carolina.

This.
Insanity.
Has To.
STOP!

You know, because he can't have that much class. Obama could have never scratched his face just because. Especially when it is in the middle of one of the snarkiest and wittiest dressings-down of the media and political elite by any presidential candidate in recent memory.

Yes, you read that right. Some idiot over at both the Chicago Tribune, LA Times took the spweage of several pro-Clinton and Republican blogs and ran with it. They actually took the time to slow down the footage to show how Obama's scratching his face is somehow akin to flipping the bird.

It's just ... OMFG ... this is just outrageous!

A brother cannot have class at all. That's basically what these people are saying. How can he take it and throw it back at them with the class, intelligence and snark they only attribute to their own whiteness? How can this negro be a thug without being a nigger? How can he brush it off and still look damn fucking good doing it.

Here's the awesome rant by Keith Olbermann on the matter of Clinton having yet another surrogate race-baiting for the upcoming elections in Pennsylvania :

I went over to Booman Tribune to see how they were dealing with the show and I'm there in several threads. Martin himself asked me why I believe that Ferraro's comments do enter David Duke territory because to him the words sounds stupid, not racist.

Well ...

I think the most salient aspect that ties Ferraro's words to Duke's is her claim that she was a victim of anti-white racism :

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.

"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.

When I read the title of this article, I thought it said "McCain's Birth Canal Zone Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out".

To which I though, "Why would him having a birth canal be a problem?"

To which I immediately replied to myself, "Oh. Right."

The wonders of dyslexia never cease to amuse me.

Wow. Just wow.

Certainly there is much talk today about ‘what Michelle Obama’ said, and really meant. Many kinds of talk and opinion… various people have been discussing or debating or just flatly carrying on about what Michelle Obama meant or didn’t mean, and weighing in on her character, brainpower, heart, or lack of such, etc. (Her husband, later said she meant her words more narrowly with regard to the political process wherein people stood up for change.)

My thoughts however, keep returning to another matter entirely. I’m not new to scabrous words. This man’s outburst at Starbucks is not the first, but merely the elevendy-millionth time as a woman from a minority group myself, I’ve heard such or been felled by such words personally.

BUT, especially since being flash-shot by this man at Starbucks bellowing about “a nigger only gonna be president over my dead and burning body,” ….I rode the Time Machine back over the many decades I’ve be blessed to live thus far, and I see, with immediacy, how far we’ve come in this nation… meaning, that yes, any of us minority persons can be objected to publicly nowadays, and called names out loud, in print, in front of and behind backs….

but NOT immediately and with full looking away by all authorities and cronies, be dragged to the dark of the woods and dealt an ‘inch of one’s life’ beating, or death with finality, there…

Photo:AP

First of all, I came in half way into the debates, so I missed Jorge Ramos "espeekeng espanish". What did you all think? I'd so hit that 1000 days to Monday. Oh, and he's a fantastic anchorman and journalist.

I can see he dealt with the issue of immigration. When reading the transcript, I actually think both candidates were really great addressing the immigration issue.

Second, here's the link to the debate's transcript : The CNN Democratic presidential debate in Texas.

Third, moving along ...

Obama knocked it out of the park more times than Hillary, but she definitely had her moment at the end and, I have to give it to her, she closed the debate in a refreshingly classy note.

I think that the best Obama moment dealt with the issue of "silliness" in the recent rash of dirty politics :

OBAMA: Well, look, the -- first of all, it's not a lot of speeches. There are two lines in speeches that I've been giving over the last couple of weeks.

I've been campaigning now for the last two years. Deval is a national co-chairman of my campaign, and suggested an argument that I share, that words are important. Words matter. And the implication that they don't I think diminishes how important it is to speak to the American people directly about making America as good as its promise. Barbara Jordan understood this as well as anybody.

This comes via Media Matters:

During the February 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly took a call from a listener who said of Michelle Obama, "I just wanted to say that I think Michelle Obama is an angry woman -- is speaking, I think, with her real voice for the first time." O'Reilly and his callers were discussing Obama's recent comments, which included her assertion that "[f]or the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country." When O'Reilly asked the caller, whom he identified as "Maryanne," "You're basing that on what?" she replied: "Well your representative asked me not to talk about this, but I have a friend who had knowledge of her and said to me months ago, 'This is a very angry,' her word was 'militant woman.' " O'Reilly then responded, "What I want you to do then, Maryanne ... I want you to stay on the line. ... Because it's not fair to Michelle Obama for you ... because we don't know who you are, and we don't know who your friend is, but we want to know. We want to know, OK. But it's not fair at this point for you to say, 'My friend said X and Y,' because we just don't know. But if you would give us your information, we would like to talk to your friend. And then whatever your friend tells us, we'll track it down. We'll do it in a fair and balanced and methodical way." He later added, "If indeed Michelle Obama is angry about something, if she has a history, we would like to know that, and then we can put it into some kind of context so that we can be fair to everybody."

Oh yes, there is more ...

29th Annual American Indian Language Development Institute

June 4 - July 2, 2008
University of Arizona

Creating Spaces for Indigenous Languages in Everyday Life

The University of Arizona and Department of Language, Reading & Culture invite you to the 29th American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). AILDI 2008 will have a special focus on Native teachers in the classroom and language. Special topics will include NCLB & Native students, language immersion methods in the classroom, Native children's literature & writing and schooling in Native American communities. Our theme, /Creating Spaces for Indigenous Languages in Everyday Life /reflects this emphasis and will be highlighted with guest speakers, presentations, activities, projects, and fieldtrips.

AILDI provides a unique educational experience for teachers of Native children. The AILDI format offers Native and non-Native teachers the opportunity to become researchers, practitioners, bilingual/bicultural curriculum specialists, and especially effective language teachers. The common concern of language loss, revitalization and maintenance brings educators, parents, tribal leaders and community members to this university setting to study methods for teaching Native languages and cultures and to develop materials.

AILDI offers six graduate credits or undergraduate credit hours during four weeks of intensive study. Courses can be applied toward regular degree programs and teacher endorsements.

ANOTHER BLOG POST exclusive to MTV, as it is part of my Street Team 08 duties! This one delves more into one of my favorite paradigms, Symbol and Essence.

Words that came to me while thinking on our many forms of warring with the Other.

Crossposted at The Unapologetic Mexican, Jesus' General, and OpEdNews.

Barack's catch phrase is not "Yes We Can" or "We want Change". Barack's catch happens whenever anybody yells out, "I love you Obama" :

FTMFW!

Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL, just posted one heck of a classy endorsement to Barack Obama over at Huffington Post :

Senator Obama is not just prepared to lead as our beloved Teddy and Caroline Kennedy have said, he is prepared to lead in a way different than we have seen for decades. Not out in front with us behind him, but rather with us beside him.

And that difference is all the difference. That difference separates just any president from a great president; and right now, we need a great president.

Barack Obama will be that great president. He will bring us all together. And together, we will change our country.

During these past many years, we have lost the sense of what we could do together, who we could be, what was possible.

That's changing.

And Barack Obama is the one changing that.

With him, greatness is again within reach.

Now compare that to Glorian Steinem or even worse, to Marcia Pappas.

On a related note, Nez calls the energy and zeitgeist coming from the Obama camp 'sway'.

This is the concession speech that never was. You can find the full text of the speech after the jump.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no
matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the
power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will
only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been
asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against
offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been
anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible
odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't
try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a
simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

I started writing "Una Carta Abierta a Barack Obama" about a week ago. It was at the same time I wrote my love letter to John Edwards and my pointed rant to the junior Senator of New York about Billary. Yet I had a heck of a lot of trouble putting my words down.

First, it was my ambivalence between writing in English and Spanish. Whenever I started in English, I'd have to stop. Words failed me in my adopted language, like they always do when I am working through a profound realization.

What was most interesting is that words in prose failed me.

My area of expertise in Latin American Studies is not only history but aesthetics. More exactly, neobaroque aesthetics in contemporary Latin American poetry. I know it's a mouthful, but I have a reason to invoke them : poetic language is considered not just revolutionary, but mind altering and conscious raising. Poetic language for the likes of a Jose Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy or David Huerta, is a tool for altering consciousness, for exploring the multiplicity inherent in identity and for exposing the duplicity in "what you see is what you get".

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ... it took a president to get it done.”
Hillary Clinton, 10 January 2008

This incredible re-writing of history is prompting Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, to give his endorsement to Barack Obama :

Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.

“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”

[...]

Mr. Clyburn, reached for a telephone interview Wednesday during an overseas inspection of port facilities, also voiced frustration with former President Clinton, who described Mr. Obama’s campaign narrative as a fairy tale. While Mr. Clinton was not discussing civil rights at the time and seemed to be referring mainly to Mr. Obama’s stance at the Iraq war, Mr. Clyburn saw the remark as a slap at the image of a black candidate running on a theme of unity and optimism.

Pam Spaulding alerted me to the demotardic shenanigans of Andrew Cuomo. My quick response is ending up being a larger piece on race, so let me just get the news out first.

Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General for the State of New York and Hillary Clinton supporter, has earned not just a culturekitchen Demotard award. He also gets to hang on his door a Reappropriate "Racism Fairy" badge and enjoy a video prelude from Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing :

Andrew Cuomo (who could easily be played by John Tuturro, the italian guy in the video clip) said of the primary process that, “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference ... all those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

"I have listened to you ... and I found my own voice."

We're in need of a compare and contrast post. I can't wait for the video clips.

Hillary's speech started AWESOME, making reference to "the tear heard around the world". Yet the speech was incredibly clunky with her effort to "we-ify" her rhetoric and move away from the "I will" that has become her trademark throughout the campaign.

I will hold off any comment, but I have to say that Clinton is definitely a survivor. She's not the iron lady people try to paint her. She is pliable, she is flexible, she learns fast her opponents moves and is quick to adapt to her circumstances.

No wonder I voted for her. No matter what I say about her dynastic tendencies, I did vote for her as my senator and I will do it again.

For president? I so wish she had waited 4 years to run ...

I can't believe it but Barack Obama has made me cry with his "Yes We Can" speech. I wish I were recording this.

"Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity."
"Yes we can heal this nation."
"Yes we can change this world."

"We will remember there is something happening in America."
"That we are not as divided as we think."
"That we are one people."

I'm in love.

This is not a concession speech.

This is a battle cry.

Shakespeare and King would have been proud.

I am running out to the NPR studio here in Manhattan to record another session of News and Notes with Farai Chideya.

We will talk about how steroids brought the downfall of Marion Jones, an MTV poll that says that white youth is happier than black, Juanita Bynum's messy divorce and .... prepare your selves ... why I hate the word Hispanic.

TADA!

Tune in today to your local NPR News and Notes schedule or catch the whole show online after 3pm.

As your resident latina I feel the need to weigh in on the moniker "Hispanic" as in "Hispanic Heritage Month". Actually, people have been asking me off-blog about the 'hispanic vs. latino' and I just have to weigh in.

If the opening of this post is any indication, and if you are too lazy to peruse our archives, you will see that not once have I used the term hispanic to descibe myself nor my heritage. I detest the word. I loathe the word. I find the word hispanic repulsive and repugnant, to the point of inciting me to acts of violence. Why? Let me give you some reasons :

1. Hispanic assumes that all people in Latin America speak Spanish.
   What about the languages spoken by Haitians (French), Trinidadians(English) or Brazilians (Portuguese)? What about indigenous and creole languages like Aymara, Quechua or Papiamento?

2. Hispanic assumes all people in Latin America have a Spaniard and European ascendancy.
   Along with the fallacy of Spanish-only, even in a place like Puerto Rico (which was a Spanish colony until 1898), Spanish Castillian culture was not the source of most of the Spanish culture in the island.

   Most of the Spaniards that settled in Puerto Rico were not Castillian. These so-called Hispanics were actually non-Spanish speaking Catalanes (Catalunya), Gallegos (Galicia), Mallorquines (Las Mallorcas) and Canarinos (Islas Canarias) with, as per some demographics theories floating around now for more than 30 years, a huge influx of Crypto-Moors and Crypto-Jews from Andalucia and Granada.

   
   

It's "Hispanic Heritage Month", a 31-day long pseudocelebration which, along with Black History month, makes a mockery of anything on US soil that is not Anglophilic.

I loathe the term 'hispanic' so much that I am willing to bring to you 31 reasons why Latin American culture is not mired in 'Hispanic' colonialist nostalgia; and what better way to start that than with a little taste of Nueva Trova.

One of the most outrageous pieces of misinformation spread about Fidel Castro is that he somehow has ruled in a complete political vaccum. Americans love to infantilize anybody they deem lesser (ie: a minority) to their cause and since 1959 they've spent a remarkable amount of ink describing Cubans as a country of cowering, uneducated twits who have been easily manipulated by "The Bearded Demon".

Cuban society and culture is much more complex than that and nobody embodies this distinction so well as Silvio Rodriguez.

Silvio is considered one of the pioneers of the Movimiento de Nueva Trova, the Cuban equivalent of the Nueva Canción movement that was sweeping Latin America back in the 1970s and 80s.

Sally Fields won an Emmy Award last night. Unfortunately, she also won another opportunity to make an ass of herself by making "the statement of the night" at another awards show broadcasted to millions of households across the globe.

I hate it when Sally Fields gets all manic and twitchy, ready for her emotionally retarded speeches. Sally Fields making "a statement" is like listening to a banshee all decked out in felt scratch his nails on a blackboard while chewing styrofoam. Dogs weep when she gets on a podium and starts soap-boxing.

Which is no wonder why people at Fox Networks decided to rather aggressively bleep her ass, blackout the TV screen and force her off the stage. Take a look at how they violently do away with her dignity :

Here's the thing : Sally should have bowed out at 1:28 in this film clip. Had she stopped at that first round of applause, she would have left with a succint speech about the importance of acknowledging the selfless work of all mothers, especially the mothers of those "left in harm's way by war". Had she taken the cue from her peers, she would have walked away with the most profound speech of not just the evening but any awards show in recent memory.

Blind righteousness is not a monopoly of conservatives or even right-wing extremists. There are plenty of mostly liberals (with maybe a progressive or two) who are so self-absorbed in their alleged leftiness they not only think they can never do wrong, but they truly believe their shit smells like roses.

Hence, the birth of the demotard.

I am not the first to use the term, and I hope I wont be the last either. Yet, I will claim to be the creator of not only it's etymological reference, but of the awards to go with it.

Aren't they special?

DEMOTARD
ETYMOLOGY
Neologism created by mashing up the words Democrat and retard.

PRONUNCIATION
deh. moh.tahrd
/ˈdeːmo:tɑrd/

Barack ObamaAmsterdam - say cheese

Three things have prompted me to write this quick essay.

Over the weekened Micah Sifry pinged with a link to CBSNews published decision to close all comments on articles pertaining to Barack Obama because, "stories about Obama have been attracting too many racist comments".

The week before I had read Spencer Overton's A Significant Development for the Blackroots with a bit of amusement. I know some of the people involved in the push to have have the Congressional Black Caucus Institute cancel their sponsorship of the presidential debates that FOXNews was going to telecast. Somehow, I never received an email or a memo from them --and that even includes my friend Chris Rabb.

Then I got an email from a BBC editor through my personal website. They wanted to know if I was an Israeli blogger writing from Jerusalem. That prompted me to write a post about the presumably Jewish origin of my last name.

Which takes me to heart of this post --how immigration an miscegenation are pushing a lot of blacks in the United States to narrow the definition of blackness to the confines of descendants of US African slaves.

This would be outrageous south of the border.

About 21 years ago I was in what I would like to dramatically believe was a tempestuous relationship. Unfortunately, it wasn't that glamorous. I was obsessed with a guy who by the age of 19 was an alcoholic coke and then crackhead. The toxicity of my desire trumped my better judgement and I allowed myself to enter in one of the most unsafe relationships I have ever been. It was also the most formative. This was the same relationship that ended with the abortion I have never regretted.

In one of our alcohol fueled outings, I said "NO", he said "Yes" and what happened next, I believe, is a matter of semantics : I would have probably described it as "me abusó" --he abused me. Sexual assault sounds a degree or two more violent than what happened. And I would never name it rape. I can't.

This was Puerto Rico after all and it was the 1980s, a time when we had an influx of South American dissidents fleeing Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and bringing with them stories of los desaparecidos, "the dissapeared". Some of these people had survived their own disappearances and talked about the systematic rape and torture they endured at the hand of the military during their imprisonment. The others who didn't suffer that fate, fled their countries fearing they would be next.

To make matters more complicated, at least for me, I come from an extended family of alcoholics, drug addicts and gamblers. Some of them were wife or child beaters. Some of them were cops. Some of them were all of the above.

Of the ten beautiful, accomplished, championship athlete students labeled so vividly and unfairly by political radio host Don Imus, Heather and Katie aren't even African-American. Essence is a classical pianist. Half are freshmen (freshwomen? freshgirls?) just out of high school and by university policy are therefore considered not yet ready for media interaction.

THEY were labeled, these ten young women. Not a race, not a sex, sport or constituency. These particular, extraordinary and now extraordinarily visible young women. No one has apologized to them. Why should labeling them be a matter decided by a fight between Don Imus and Al Sharpton?

Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. The National Organization for Women is also seeking Imus' ouster.

Imus isn't the most popular radio talk-show host — the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential — but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach. Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests — and targets for insults.

He has urged critics to recognize that his show is a comedy that spreads insults broadly.