Mexico Has Some Good Teachers..

Gives new meaning to "pressure under fire".

I hereby withdraw my endorsement of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've described Haley Barbour as the perfect Republican, given his corpulence (he's got the right Republican look), his racism, his anti-abortion extremism, his fealty to corporate profiteering, his corporate lobbying, his reality-denying corporatism, his pro-Confederacy views, and his white Southern roots, as well as Barbour-Bachmann as the perfect Republican ticket in 2012.

But it seems he's not all Boss Hoggery after all -- and, indeed, that on one key issue he runs counter to the Republican line:

Barbour may be eager to showcase his record, but one of Barbour's foreign lobbying clients could cause him some troubles in the 2012 Republican primary, if he decides to run. According to a State Department filing by Barbour's former lobbying firm, The Embassy of Mexico decided to retain Barbour's services on August 15, 2001, to work on, among other things, legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for foreigners living illegally in the United States -- what opponents of immigration reform call "amnesty."

Now, to Barbour's credit -- and I can't quite believe I'm giving him credit for anything -- his views on "illegal" immigration are rather more enlightened than those of your average Republican:

I don't know where we would have been in Mississippi after Katrina if it hadn't been with the Spanish speakers that came in to help rebuild. And there's no doubt in my mind some of them were here illegally. Some of them were, some of them weren't. But they came in, they looked for the work. If they hadn't been there — if they hadn't come and stayed for a few months or a couple years -- we would be way, way, way behind where we are now... A lot of it is just common sense. And common sense tell us we're not going to take 10 or 12 or 14 million people and put them in jail and deport them. We're not gonna do it, and we need to quit -- some people need to quit acting like we are and let's talk about real solutions.

Of course, what this suggests is that what Barbour values is cheap immigrant labour. But, again, at least he's against deportation, against the extremist anti-immigrant views so prevalent on the right these days -- and at least he wants to talk about "real solutions," something very few Republicans do.

And yet this alone probably disqualifies him from the Republican nomination -- were he to seek it, though I don't think he will -- given that "amnesty" is one of the dirtiest words in the GOP lexicon and that appealing for primary votes means appealing to the anti-Mexican bigotry of the party base.

No matter that immigrants like the ones Barbour was talking about work hard and contribute to America. If you're serious about being the Republican nominee for president, or the Republican nominee for pretty much any elected office, your playbook needs to include the scapegoating of Mexican immigrants, and particularly the undocumented ones, not just as the new Other (along with Muslims) but (as with Muslims) as the gravest of threats to American national security and the well-being of real (i.e., white) Americans.

And so, I'm sad to say, Haley Barbour may no longer be considered the perfect Republican and should not headline the 2012 ticket -- unless he pulls a Romney and sprints off to the far right.

I hereby withdraw my endorsement. That's what happens when you show a speck of humanity in the dense, dark morass of Republican medievalism.

I applaud him, but he's just not Republican enough for my liking -- and for the extremists who run the GOP.

Go back to Mississippi, you good-for-nothin' Commie!

 (photo)

Christmas Around the World

 I thought this would make an interesting blog. Since Christmas is right around the corner, I decided to see if and how Christmas is celebrated in different parts of the world, out of curiosity.

Australia: they celebrate Christmas outside because of the warm weather, they don't have snow, and their Christmases are alot like ours, they decorate with tinsel, and out up trees, only it might be palm trees instead of evergreen trees or whatever tree people usually decorate around here. And here, Christams mass is huge! Everyone goes to Christmas mass here, no choice about the matter like here. Alot of people go to Bondi Beach, one of the bigger beaches in Sydney and enjoy the caroling there. And the day after Christmas, they have something called Boxing Day, which started when employees would box gifts and give them to someone. On this day, they all watch people play a game called Cricket, which is like a British version of baseball, and they also watch the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in Sydney Harbor.

Italy: Here it lasts 3 weeks, starting 8 days before Christmas called Noventa and ending on the Feast of Epiphany, and if it wasn't painfully obvious, alot of people here are Catholic, so that is why Christmas is such a big deal here, and here they don't worry about the greed of Christmas like over here, they celebrate for the true meaning, the birth of Christ! And you know the tradition of setting up the Nativity Scene? That actually started in Italy, and poor kids would dress up as shepherds and go door to door singing carols, like here. And like all traditions, Italy has their own version of 'Santa'. Here 'Santa' is a woman called La Befana, and she is often shown as a fairy queen, a crone or an ugly witch on a broomstick, she flies around looking for the Christ Child and leaves presents at every house in case he's there. She slides down chimneys, fills socks with goodies for the good kids, and charcoal for the bad ones, so La Befana here is Santa's Italian cousin. Buon Natale(Merry Christmas in Italian)

Mexico: Ayos Mio! It's huge here. Christmas here begins on December 12, with the birthday of the Virgin of Guadalupe and ends January 6. Kids wake up to find gifts under a tree and figures of the 3 Kings as well. And here where kids get gifts on December 25, in Mexico kids get gifts on January 6, the Epiphany. They also have the setting of the Nativity Scene, it's very big here. On Christmas Eve, small children dress as shepherds and go to the big Nativity Scene in the middle of town and they sing Ave Maria among real shepherds and to lull the child who plays Jesus to sleep, they sing El Rorro(Babe in Arms). Everyone goes to Midnight Mass and after that, go home to eat traditional Mexican food, tamales, burritos, etc. Feliz Navidad(Merry Christmas in Spanish)

China: Yeah, they celebrate it here too!: The people of China decorate their houses with twinkling lights, trees which they call trees of light decorated with paper lanterns, paper chains and paper flowers, they hang up stockings with the hopes that Dun Che Lao Ren(Santa's Chinese cousin) will fill them with presents.
愉快的圣诞节(Merry Christmas in simplified Chinese)

Japan: Yeah, they celebrate it here too!: Like in the US, Christmas in Japan is on the 25th of December, only about 1% of the people here are Christian, the major religions here are Buddhism and Shintoism, and Santa's Japanese cousin takes care of the little kids in Japan, his name is Hotei-Osho, who is a Buddhist monk who leaves presents in the houses for kids, and is said to have eyes in the back of his head. And in Japanese, Merry Christmas is Meri Kurisumasu.

England: Here it's celebrated on the 25th of December, like all other places. Christmas trees here are a big thing, decorating it has been around since the 1850s, it's considered bad luck to have the decorations up after January 6, the Epiphany.The tradition of stockings was actually started here, Santa's British cousin is said to wear a long red or green robe, the stockings are usually pillowcases hanging at th end of beds and he fills them up with goodies on Christmas Eve and on the afternoon of Christmas Day, that's when these little kids open their gifts. And here it's practically required to attend Midnight Mass or mass on Christmas Day.
And that is just some of the places that Christmas is celebrated in, I really didn't expect to hear that China and Japan celebrates this holiday. England I'm not suprised, alot of the traditions we celebrate on Christmas come from here.