Pork Chop Gets the Axe

On recent trip to Allentown, PA to visit my grand-parents I learned that, beginning this season, the city would become home to a minor league baseball franchise. The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (formerly the Lynx of Ottawa) would represent the Philadelphia Phillies as their local affiliate at the Triple-A level. However, the arrival of the new team to the area has been marred by accusations of racism by local Hispanics regarding the name of their mascot.

Based on over 7,000 fan submissions of potential names, the cartoony, metallic pig had originally been given the title of ‘Pork Chop.’ The team quickly conceded to the complaints of “several Hispanics” that the name was offensive and dumped the fan-chosen name prior to the start of the season. My first thought was, “What is offensive to Hispanics (or anyone else) about naming a cartoon pig ‘Pork Chop’?”

Apparently the pig’s chosen moniker has been used by some people as a derogatory term for Puerto Ricans. Aside from the fact that this seems like a stupid racial slur (not stupid in the sense that it demeans a group of people based on race but rather because it is, in reality, a type of food and therefore should offend the group at which it is directed no more than someone calling me a ‘Cracker’ would offend me) but it is a term of which I doubt most people have any awareness.

Guillermo Lopez, vice president of the Latino Leadership Alliance and one of the prime complainants about the name, hammered this very point home with his own statements when he noted, “If my parents were alive, they’d be having fits. It meant much more to them than it does to Puerto Ricans now in the Lehigh Valley.”

Exactly! This may have been an offensive to term to a select group of people over 20 years ago but that is clearly not the case anymore. Moreover, this name was being given to a pig! The pig is the mascot and therefore the physical representation of the team’s spirit and camaraderie. The name was being used in the most positive of connotations (unless you are an actual pig) and this moron has not only stripped the public of their chosen name but also breathed life back into what was a dead racial slur so that an entire new generation of bigots can use it to belittle his own people.

So congratulations, Mr. Lopez, to you and all your fellow ‘minority’ groups out there who continue to fan the flames of prejudice by constantly reminding the public at large of not only the myriad of differences between our races, religions, and genders but also of all the ways with which they can offend you.

Oddly enough, nobody was offended by Pork Chop’s replacement, ‘Wetback the Dolphin’

The most ignorant statement from the whole story did not come from those who were offended, however, but from the man who conceded to them. General Manager Kurt Landes said of his decision to change the mascot’s name, “We were really unaware of any negative connotations with the word ‘pork chop.’ If it offended a few, it’s a few too many.”

No, it isn’t! The things we say and do can always be found to be offensive to a few people on some level, but that is no reason to alter our behavior. There will always be those like Lopez and his ilk who have nothing better to do than complain about things which could be offensive to some tiny sub-group of people (even if those people are from a past generation, as in this case) and if everyone continues to concede on the most innocent of or alleged faux pas then we, as a majority of the people, place ourselves ever more at the mercy of the few yahoos pathetic enough to spend their days searching out new ways to be offended.

If anyone involved in this entire situation is guilty of racism it is Mr. Lopez and his Latino Leadership Alliance of Lehigh Valley who, according to their own mission statement, claim the the LLA “seeks to improve the quality of life for the Latino community and the entire Lehigh Valley.” I would be interested, however, to know what specifically this organization does to help anyone in Lehigh Valley who is not Latino.

According to their president, the LLA “promotes education by providing ‘Si Se Puede’ workshops” in local schools. Sounds to me like these workshops are geared specifically to Hispanics (or at least only to those who speak Spanish.) I don’t speak Spanish and I find it offensive that they would discriminate against me simply based on my ethnicity or the educational opportunities I have had.

The group also gives out dozens of scholarships annually, but they are only open to Latino students. That is the very definition of racial discrimination and, once again, flies in the face of their claims of improving the quality of life for everyone in Lehigh. It makes me sick that groups like the LLA are able to promote the advancement of only those individuals who have the same color skin and speak the same language as they do. This organization and all those who support their bigoted, racist agenda should be ashamed of themselves.

I have gone on for long enough though. It is nearly dinner time and I am getting hungry. I think I will go get a pork chop so I can eat… that Puerto Rican chef sure knows how to cook. (Thanks for teaching me a new word, Guillermo!)

Iran Builds Rocket in 9 Months– Still No Gays

Iran has built their own unique space rocket, from scratch, in a scant nine months. At least, that is what President Ahmadinejad has announced. Then again, we should all remember that this is the same man who, during a speech at Columbia University last year, stated that Iran does not have gay people within its borders and wondered where Americans had gotten the idea that his nation routinely executed those among its citizenry known to be homosexuals.

I suppose he is correct depending upon how you look at it. Afterall, Germany (circa World War II) was entirely devoid of Jews if you don’t count those hundreds of thousands of ‘undelcared’ individuals  tattooed with serial numbers and forced to work themselves to death in prison camps. But, then again, if you ask Ahmadinejad about those Holocaust victims he will tell you that they don’t exist either.

Is anyone else out there getting more than a little sick of listening to these moronic blow-hards, who have weaseled their way into a position of power in some 3rd world sandbox, continually spit lies and accusations into the face of America and the rest of the Western World?  With people like Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chavez, and Saddam Hussein constantly testing to see just how far America can be pushed before snapping, however, I find it odd that we do not bomb another nation back to the stone-age on a weekly basis. (One thing we can be sure of, Saddam and his idiot sons have played their last game of brinksmanship with the West.)

These dictators lie, villify, and slander our leaders, our people, and our way of life every chance they get and we remain silent lest we be further bedeviled by the world at large. Chavez nationalized foriegn oil companies (like Citgo,) took the money to prop up his own dictatorship, and then came to America and said our elected leader is “Satan.” Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad constantly claim to have no weapons-related nuclear programs and then refuse to allow this fact to be verified. This sounds shockingly similar to the tactics used by Saddam Hussein prior to his fall from power and consequent short-drop into the unknown. As one of Saddam’s top advisor’s recently noted, the practice of denying any weapons programs on the world stage and then refusing to permit verification of this claim was a tactic to make it appear as though Iraq was lying about existing nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons operations in order to appear more stalwart in the eyes of Iran and other rival nations in the Middle East.

I know they have got a lot of sand in which to stick their heads over there in the Middle East but these idiots better wise up pretty quickly or start praying for some stronger candidates out of the Democratic party because I am sure that a President McCain is not going to take too much of their saber-rattling before he introduces them to Allah and their precious virgins.

Democrats: The Party of Racism & Ignorance

So I am in a cab this morning on the way to the airport and the driver has on the local NY affiliate for National Public Radio.  I am not a big fan of NPR, if only because I have never understood why the few outlets of broadcast media being propped up by our federal tax dollars (NPR, PBS) have been so historically to the left of center in the political spectrum.  Given that the last two U.S presidential elections have been decided but such a markedly thin margin, does it not make sense that our nation’s media market reflect both ends of the political measure (or at least show some semblance of compromise between the two?)

But, in spite of myself, I admit that NPR does put out some genuinely interesting programming from time to time and the mere fact that it was the radio station selected by my cab driver is not what is irritating me at the moment.  What proved troublesome for me were the comments made during an interview of some Maine voters regarding their state’s recent presidential primary.

Specifically, the NPR representatives were asking African-American voters from the Democratic primary who they had chosen to vote for and, more importantly, the reasons why they had done so.  The selection of interviews was small (it was not a very long report) but nearly every one of the comments irked me to some degree.  It seemed as though, when asked for the reason they supported him, nearly every African-American Barack Obama supporter’s predominant reason for voting for this man was that he is black.

What the hell kind of reason is that to vote for someone?  Casting your vote for one candidate or another based on the color of their skin is not only ignorant but it is also, by definition, racist.  I understand that many people (of all races) are excited to see the first serious African-American contender for the White House in our nation’s history but by making this man’s race into a selling point for his campaign you give legitimacy to the very racial differences against which you claim to fight.  Does this not fly in the face of the concept of all men, regardless of race, creed, age, socio-economic status, etc. being created equal?  Isn’t the point of equality to ensure that each of the candidates has a level playing field from which to woo potential voters?

This is not to say that such prejudiced votes are not cast by many other groups of people for many other reasons.  I know that Mitt Romney recently swept through the Utah Republican primary with nearly 90% of that state’s vote due, to a large degree, to the fact that Romney was the sole Mormon candidate running in a state known to be the Mecca of the Mormon religion; but that does not seem to be quite as knee-jerk of a vote as the African-American issue.  Mormons are a religious group whose family and social ideals are clearly defined by their adherence to the rules and norms of their church.  Moreover, they are a group in which membership is a matter of choice, not genetics.  To say the same about black people would be to imply that their entire race is predisposed to act a certain way.  That is, of course, not true and is also a racist sentiment.

Many African-Americans are obviously going to share some set of social norms and values as they are (for the vast majority) born into African-American families who pass on these traditions from one generation to the next (just as any racial, religious, family group does.)  Americans are not, however, voting to decide who should be the head of African-America or the leader of the Mormon religion; we are voting to decide who should run this nation and as much as I may be inclined to vote for a white Catholic from Massachusetts (as such a person would be wholly representative of my personal background,) I have never voted for anyone with the last name Kennedy because none of these people represented what I wanted for my political leadership or governance.

Perhaps the most disturbing sound-byte from the whole NPR segment came from an African-American woman who expressed her reasoning for choosing Hillary Clinton over Obama.  She stated that she “loves Obama” (without delving into any reason for this admiration) but that she was voting for Hillary because the New York senator has pledged to “double funding to black universities” if elected.

There are two serious issues with the sentiments expressed by this woman.  First, why is there such a thing as a ‘black university’ that receives any public funding?  This is an institution whose very goal is to further the progress of one specific racial group above all others in a nation where ‘all men are created equal.’  How does one justify that?  Such an institution is either attempting to unbalance the already level field of racial play in America or trying to advance a racial group which they themselves have determined to be inferior to the others in some way.  Can you even begin to imagine the outcry if someone attempted to start a ‘white university’ let alone secure its funding from tax dollars?  Those involved would be lambasted as evil racists and probably convicted of some sort of ‘hate-crime.’

The second issue I have with this woman’s reason for choosing Hillary is that she wants to see the funding for these ‘black universities’ doubled.  This begs many questions:  What is the deficiency in these schools that has caused them to need twice the funds currently allotted to them by our government?  Will doubling this funding really solve these problems or just set the stage for further financial increases down the line?  How much of an increase in funding will the public university system as a whole see under President Hillary?  How should I, as a Caucasian-, Hispanic-, Middle Eastern-, or Asian-American, feel knowing that my tax dollars are being set aside for group of people who wish to exclude me based solely on my race?

The bottom line here is that if you feel you have been disenfranchised in some way because serious candidates for the American presidency have always been white males then you should really have some sort of concrete evidence as to what you have missed out on.  With all the whining I have heard from the anti-Bush lobby over the past eight years about how the President duped the nation into launching an unnecessary war or how he is a moron incapable of leading anyone you would think that these people might be able to come up with a slightly better rationale for choosing our next president than race or gender.  If you don’t want to see our nation at war then why not choose Ron Paul, a former Libertarian candidate whose political ideals would certainly not have the U.S jumping into any overseas conflicts.  If you think that George W. Bush is an idiot then why not review the GPAs and IQ scores for each candidate and simply choose the one who is the most intelligent?  It’s odd that in spite of all the years of Bush-bashing and the current trend of voting along racial- or gender-lines I cannot recall a single instance of Bush being called ‘too-white’ or ‘too-male’ of a Commander-in-Chief.

In spite of voting for him in both elections, I do not agree with many things that President Bush has done over the past eight years.  I do believe, however, that I would be facing a much longer personal laundry list of issues with actions that Bush’s alternatives would have taken had they been residing in the White House.  That being said, I know that I can feel confident that I have made the correct decision each time I enter the voting booth by selecting the candidate who best represents my desired leadership style and personal values rather than someone whose skin color or chromosome make-up matches mine.

Douchebag Alert! Bono’s back!

So apparently Bono and his band of rich idiots from the (Red) campaign met with the Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, to present him with an iPod in hopes of convincing him to increase support from his nation in the effort to “reduce poverty in Africa.”

Why does anyone care what some moron like Bono says or does? He is talking on behalf of (Red) about poverty in Africa, but his foundation does not do anything related to reducing poverty in Africa. According to The (Red) Manifesto, the group will “give some of its profits to buy and distribute anti-retroviral medicine to our brothers and sisters dying of AIDS in Africa.” If people want to donate to prop-up impoverished nations in Africa, that is one thing but providing medicine to prop-up the dwindling lives of AIDS carriers in the most AIDS infested corner of the world seems inane.

AIDS remains incurable and these people are not even looking for a cure. Rather, they are extending the lives of countless people suffering the terrible pain of that disease and potentially infecting others with it. If you want to help Africans who actually have some chance of living a full life, why not do something about the lack of potable water or essential irrigation systems? Better yet why not do something about the warlords who terrorize local populations across Africa and steal the essential medicine and food donated by groups like (Red)?

“So, you say that you BOTH just gave me AIDS?”

It is terrible that these people must suffer through poverty, violence, and AIDS but why not try to solve Africa’s problems which are are at least potentially solvable instead of throwing it away by trying to mitigate the suffering of one group of people?

I do not know what percentage of the money from purchases/donations to (Red) actually winds up being applied to their stated mission but I am often suspect of such groups, particularly those started by celebrities, that pledge to give “some” of their profits to those in need. How much is some? Does anyone out there have the figures of how much of (Red)’s gross is used to help Africa? I would be keen to learn.

Do the Right Thing

Why do these people continue to act as they do?

The Taliban, in their latest attempt at diplomacy by way of terrorism, announced that they would release two of the 21 South Korean hostages in the near future. The two female hostages are ’sick’ and will allegedly be set free as a result. Putting aside the fact that local leaders have expressed serious doubts as to the validity of the claim, the Taliban is still insisting upon the release of 21 terrorists from Afghani prisons. That isn’t intelligent bargaining even for kidnapping thugs.

Let us not forget that the reason why there are currently 21 South Korean hostages, and not 23, is because their captors shamefully executed two of the members of the kidnapped church group weeks ago. If you abduct 23 people in an overt attempt to gain the release of an equal number of your captive brothers, and then kill two because the negotiations are not going to your liking, you don’t get to just ask for the release of 21 of your original group. If these scumbags are going to resort to thug tactics like kidnapping an innocent church group then they should expect the people with whom they bargain to act in kind. You kill two of your prisoners, we kill two of ours; now we each have 21 left to bargain with– your move, Osama.

The sad answer to my original question is all too clear though. The murdering terrorists continue to kidnap innocent foreigners because the foreign governments continue to give in to their demands (to one degree or another.) In the case in question, the people negotiating for the release of the South Koreans even alluded to paying a monetary ransom en lieu of releasing the Al Qaeda militants. So they abduct, torture, and murder two-dozen people and South Korean pays them off for their trouble.

Hasn’t anyone else noticed that they aren’t kidnapping the American journalists and civilians anymore? There is no reason because they know they best thing they will get out of it is a week of coverage on FoxNews and a lot more Americans pissed off at their thug tactics.

There is a reason why America’s iron-clad ‘no negotiation’ policy works in cases of kidnappings and terrorism. It is not always the easiest route to take but it ultimately deters terrorism for ransom in the only feasible way; it eliminates the goal of taking a hostage in the first place. You cannot get blood from a stone and America’s model is the stalwart rock of which the rest of the world should take serious note.

South Korea is going through a dark time right now but they should not give in to the likes of a deposed terrorist regime trying to regain their political stranglehold with more of the same terrorism. This is not some one-time occurrence where a mugger takes your wallet at knife-point; this is a recurring system of extortion by terror and the only way to prevent the ugly result is to eliminate the motivation for it. South Korea, and all nations whose people fall victim to these cowardly thugs, have the power to stop this trend.

Do the right thing.

Drug-Testing for Welfare Wannabes

A friend of mine recently raised, what I thought to be, a very good question. Why is it that so many honest, hard-working Americans are subjected to pre-employment and/or random drug-screenings by their employers and yet no such requirements exist for people to collect welfare benefits?

As of the date of the most comprehensive statistics I could find (without looking too hard,) Michigan is the only state in the U.S. that requires ’suspiscionless’ drug-testing for all welfare recipients. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 granted all states the right to choose drug-screening as a requirement for welfare applicants; Michigan is just the only state to act on that power.

Most arguments against drug-screening (of any kind) are based around the Fourth Amendment’s references to unreasonable search and seizure. I am not usually one to go against those standing behind our Bill of Rights but here I think the document is being used in the wrong context.

We want to prevent the government from imposing such ’searches and seizures’ in any form, including drug-testing, when it is a violation of our rights as citizens of the United States. As far as I am concerned, welfare benefits are a privilege our humble tax dollars should afford to a select, deserving few.

I know that welfare regulation is not such a cut-and-dry matter but mandatory drug-testing, even on the tax-payer’s dime, for all welfare applicants seems like a logical starting point. Why should the very people supporting those on welfare be powerless to the fact that their money is perpetuating the cycle of drug-abuse that prevents the poor, huddled masses from getting a good job because the company performs pre-employment drug-screenings?

Obviously the private sector has found a far better way of regulating to whom they will be giving their money. Afterall, that is the crux of the issue; it is their money. The government blows through our tax dollars faster than, well… faster than a welfare supported drug-addict on the first of the month.

We, as voting citizens, need to make our voices heard and prevent abuse of our massively over-burdened welfare system with one very simple, logical step: stop our money from being wasted on drugs. It isn’t the ultimate solution but it is a solution nonetheless.

Malaysia is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Before I begin, this post is about Gwen Stefani.

Do I have your interest, men of the Western world?

More specifically, it is about Gwen Stefani not wearing revealing clothing.

Good. Now that I have successfully dissolved that interest I just built, let’s begin.

Gwen Stefani has agreed not to be overly revealing or sexual in her upcoming performance in Malaysia. My first questions was; why? For someone who was once part of a successful and talented band like No Doubt, Miss Stefani’s more recent exploits have her singing over far more generic, pre-recorded beats and fall far short of what I would call music. Indeed with Gwen’s career becoming ever more reliant upon her image and sex appeal the only logical question seems to be ‘why?’

In this instance, Gwen and her record exec buddies are submitting to recent protests by Muslims students in Malaysia against what they are anticipating will be her violation of local ethics standard. These standards, which involve what is called ‘unnecessary baring of skin,’ only apply to foreign artists. Evidently racial profiling is alive and well in Malaysia; maybe I should move there.

A press release from Stefani’s camp noted that the singer “has confirmed that her concert will not feature any revealing costumes. She will abide by the Malaysian authorities’ guidelines to ensure that her show will not be offensive to local sensitivities.” According to the Official Guide to Performing in Malaysia (I am amazed such a thing even exists) a female artist performing in that nation must be completely covered from “the top of her chest to her knees.” This agreement to submit to local standards, however, runs a little deeper than just showing one’s skin.

If you count the fishnets I think all the offending skin is technically covered here.

The same accord also forbids women on stage from “jumping, shouting or throwing of objects on-stage or at the audience.”

This obviously eliminates any last hope we had of Gallagher’s long-lost sister starting up a watermelon-smashing revival show in Kuala Lumpur. Guess we dodged a bullet there.

Additionally, women cannot “hug or kiss, and their clothes cannot have obscene or drug-related images or messages.”

So T.A.T.U. might want to rethink their upcoming 37-city Malaysian tour.

The vice president of The National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students, the group who led the pre-Gwen protest, stated that the concert should be stopped outright as he deemed Stefani’s performance and attire to promote “a certain degree of obscenity and will encourage youth to emulate the western lifestyle.”

At least that make more sense than banning certain attire and acts on-stage. If you honestly believe this concert will corrupt your nation’s youth then wanting it stopped does not seem totally irrational. It would make a lot more sense to allow the concert and the skimpy clothes, the jiggling breasts (well, not a Gwen show), and all the general debauchery that can be purchased for the cost of admission. This way the people can decide for themselves. The forty percent of Malaysia’s population who is not Muslim and who might enjoy that type of show can have a blast and the sixty percent Muslim majority can stay home and ignore the sinners rocking-out to “Hollaback Girl.”

Come on, Malaysia… can’t we all just get along?

Terrorists Elect Not to Sue- Sort Of

What a gregarious move by the legal team of the six men who are suing for discrimination after their suspicious actions on an airplane caused them to be pulled off. Apparently, they have decided to no longer pursue legal action against the passengers who mentioned their actions to authorities so that they can focus on their civil case against the airline and police.

Let me set the scene for you:

• Six Muslim men (imams as it turned out) purchase tickets on a U.S Airways flight; half of them are one-way tickets.

Nothing overly suspicious so far.

• Several of them are perform what are described as “loud” Muslim prayers in the terminal before their flight.

Okay, it is part of their religion and should not overly alarm most air-travelers.

• Most of the imams request ’seat-belt extenders,’ typically used to accommodate the obese, in spite of having no need for them.

Hmm…

• The six position themselves evenly spread throughout the plane; two near the front, two in the middle, two near the rear.

Come to think of it, that does sound familiar.

• Although none were apparently seated directly adjacent to one another, one Arabic-speaking passenger reported hearing the group mention Saddam Hussein and criticize the U.S. involvement in Iraq while they spoke loudly in Arabic.

Excuse me, stewardess! Is my ticket refundable?

Okay, so these guys were not terrorists; but every passenger who reported them, along with the flight crew and police they alerted should all be commended, not prosecuted, for their actions that day.

These six imams stepped into the public eye and did everything they could to set off every red-flag in order to get themselves ‘racially profiled.’ These men are not stupid; they knew that a case like this will set legal precedent in the new amalgam of Homeland Security and the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act; a precedent which may be set in their favor.

If they were to win, it would eliminate the few teeth our nation’s rapidly decaying front-line in air security/defense has in avoiding another 9/11, so-called ‘racial profiling’ and a little vigilance among the citizenry.