...or maybe there ain't no cure for the summertime blues?

... Things you missed because you were watching Uruguay play Cameroon.

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Arizona is continuing its war on all brown-skinned people. Apparently the plan is to keep anyone darker than the cast of Harry Potter from ever setting foot on the desert dump that is Arizona. I wonder who John McCain will get to clean his 47 houses...Mary friggin Poppins? It's not like illegal immigrants actually want to stay in The Grand Canyon State. They view Arizona as more of a porti-john on the way to Vegas.

Anyway two items attracted a bit of attention this week. State senator Russell Pearce, author of sb1070, the law that makes being Mexican-looking a crime in Arizona, is contemplating a new abomination. Untroubled by annoying documents like the Constitution, Sen. Pearce intends to propose a bill that would nullify the so-called "anchor baby amendment" certifying that children born in the United States are citizens even if their parents are illegal. This racist turdblossom is confident that the Fourteenth Amendment poses no real impediment. Given the current make-up of the Supreme Court he may be right.

Why not stop all the niceties and just declare open season on all brown-skinned people? Sure, you might kill an occasional priest or policeman but hey, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. After all, every knuckle-dragger in the state is already authorized to carry concealed. What's a gun for?

With an eye toward ensuring that the citizens of Arizona are as racially polarized as possible, Gov. Jan Brewer (Republican from Rhodesia) was quoted Friday as asserting that most of the immigrants crossing the border from Mexico are in fact mules for the drug cartels. "I believe today, under the current circumstances that we are facing, that the majority of illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in." It's difficult to decide which is more egregious: the blatant racist rhetoric offered without one shred of proof or ending your sentence with a preposition.

America needs to vote with their feet. No one should vacation in Arizona. The Baseball All-Star Game scheduled for 2011 in Phoenix should be moved. Taco Bell should close every franchise in the state. The only food products eligible for import into Arizona should be herring and brussel sprouts. If you're so anxious to have your population look like Denmark's you should learn to eat like them.

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This week's winner of the Claude Rains/Captain Renault Award ("I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here") is Judge Martin L.C. Feldman. You may have run across Judge Feldman's name in connection with the ruling on whether the Obama administration can impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. The President/Dept of Interior/Minerals Management Service had the daffy notion that the biggest oil disaster in history should cause a pause in deepwater drilling at least until we find out the cause. Judge Feldman begged to differ. Having ruled in favor of big oil (big surprise) we have since learned that: the Judge is a BFF of Supreme Court powerhouse Antonin Scalia (bigger surprise) and (biggest surprise) that he owned stock in ExxonMobil which he only sold the day before his ruling.

While we know the rules of law and the Cannon of Ethics have yet to be translated into a language Louisiana folk can understand (Feldman was born in Missouri but "educated" in New Orleans), it might have been presumed that a judge hearing an oil related case would recuse himself owing to a potential conflict. Such a presumption would show a woeful lack of knowledge of Bayou justice. In the great tradition of Huey Long and Edwin Edwards we are fortunate that Judge Feldman didn't Twitter his friends and family and give them a heads-up on the impending ruling. It's comforting to know that oily pelicans aren't the only slimy things to wash up on the beaches of Louisiana.

...or were you as shocked as I to learn that people in Alabama speak English?

Is that what that is? Well steal my Moonpie and call me a possum!

Tim James, redneck extraordinaire and would be Republican Governor of Alabama has become the darling of Youtube this week with his campaign ad trashing (or maybe trashin') the government of Alabama for administering the driver's license exam in 12 languages. For those of you that care, some of those languages include Greek, Korean, Farsi (spoken mostly in Iran. I guess Alabama doesn't want those suicide bombers to get a summons) Russian, Chinese and Thai. In other words, the language of every restaurant owner who isn't serving poke salad or collard greens.


Let's be serious. The reason Alabama administers the written test in multiple languages is to accommodate the foreign corporations that have built facilities there. The Germans working at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama probably speak English better than the natives. Nevertheless, as a gesture of good will, these guest workers are permitted to express their knowledge of the rules of the road in their native tongue. Ditto for the Japanese in Lincoln and the Koreans in Montgomery. After all, we want those nice little folks at Honda and Hyundai to experience southern hospitality. I'm too lazy to determine why Farsi is among the privileged but I'm pretty sure it's not altruism or a neighborly hand extended to our Muslim brothers. There's a buck in there somewhere.


All of this is newsworthy (normally no one gives a rat's ass which goober is currently running Alabama) because of the novel, if slightly racist, legislation enacted by the State of Arizona. The government of the Grand Canyon State has taken 1 + 1 and gotten 11. One, the problems of porous borders and unenforced federal laws should not fall to the individual states to correct or subsidize. Two, someone needed to do something to kick Washington in the ass and force them to act. However, "where are your papers?" is a cliche better left in 1940's film noir. Requiring people who "look like they don't belong in America" to show proof of legal status is not the answer.


And please don't tell me this isn't racial profiling. The cops in Phoenix won't be detaining a samurai warrior in armour or a yodeling gentleman in lederhosen. However if your skin is tanned and you're wearing an old ball cap and flannel shirt expect the constabulary to take an interest. Can you imagine the ironic laughter among the 120,000 0r so Navajo living in the state? They're thinking that if they had adopted this policy 200 years ago, they'd own downtown Phoenix instead of a pile of rocks in the Mojave.


Laws like Arizona's are just the latest salvo in the culture war that has intensified with the election of an African American. People shouting about the loss of American Culture would have been right at home in Boston in 1880 railing against the Irish hordes pouring into New England or in Miami wailing over the Mariel Boatlift of Cubans in 1980. Considering the immigrant makeup of our population, America's terror regarding aliens is troubling. The prospective governor of Alabama could care less that driver's tests are given in French. This is about Spanish. "Real Americans" who think the war against their own government in 1860 was perfectly nifty, feel somehow threatened by bilingual signs in Walmart. Relax! Have a Bud, (currently owned by Imbev of Belgium). Take a ride in your Chevy (assembled in Mexico). Just remember if you like to dress up as a Venetian Gondola pilot, stay out of Flagstaff. Oh, by the way, you won't get a license in Alabama either. Italian isn't one of the languages.