Matt Ortega

I'm Voting for ''That One''

"We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last."
--Senator Barack Obama

This Day in History

The History Channel updates visitors on historic events throughout world history with “This Day in History.” Here are a few notables for April 13:

1964: Sydney Poitier became the first African-American actor to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in the 1963 film, Lilies of the Field.

1970: The second oxygen tank aboard the Service Module (SM) of Apollo 13 exploded and put the lives of the three NASA astronauts in grave danger. Commander Jim Lovell reported back: “Houston, we have a problem.” The mission, considered a “successful failure,” was dramatized in the 1995 film, Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks.

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1997: Tiger Woods was the first person of color to win the Masters at August National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. The golf club admitted its first black member only seven years prior.

Things Neal Boortz Would Be Lousy At

Conservative radio host Neal Boortz recently said on The Neal Boortz Radio Show that he would be a “lousy Mexican” because he was unable to properly use a floor buffer.

On the April 10 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal Boortz asserted, “I would make a lousy Mexican.” Engineer and “sidekick” Royal Marshall asked Boortz: “Why is that?” Boortz responded, “Well, because I wanted to scrub the hangar floor the other day, so I went and rented one of these big buffers,” later adding: “I turned on that buffer, and it damn near killed me! It was dragging me across the hangar floor, throwing me around like I — it was like a dog shaking a cat or something like that. You know, that’s skilled labor.” [emphasis added]

Boortz later continued with in the bigoted tirade with a caller who complained about an car accident he witnessed involving an alleged undocumented immigrant.

Later in the show, a caller recounted a story, saying he “was in a parking lot and witnessed a wreck on the road. And it was one of the illegals from south of the border and didn’t have insurance. He ran, came into the parking lot, and was going to run my wife and myself down to get away from the police. But I was carrying a weapon; my son was carrying a weapon. We both drew down on him.” Boortz interrupted, “Qué pasa? Qué pasa?” The caller said the man “got out of the truck spouting Spanish.” After the caller finished his story, Boortz commented, “You know, I think with this Rosetta Stone software — you know, Spanish-language software — I think the first phrase they teach you is, you know, ‘Hands against the — hands against the car and hood, and spread ‘em.’” [emphasis added]

The bigoted characterization of Mexicans by Boortz is beyond reprehensible and par for the course on conservative talk radio. He is the rule and not the exception.

Man Eegee writes that Boortz would make a lousy Mexican.

Neal Boortz is right - he would make a lousy Mexican because he makes a lousy human being. With a face that’s perfect for radio, the façade of his cultural supremacy is only as mighty as the flash flood of verbal diarrhea that he is allowed to grunt out each day. He knows this, as this is not his first time he’s lit a burning cross through the airwaves.

To add to that list, Boortz would be terrible at a lot of other things, too: civil rights leader, labor activist, public policy wonk, legislator, community activist, four-star general, astronaut, songwriter, musician, R&B artist, comedian, ballplayer, boxer and actor, to name a few.

Ted Williams, whose maternal grandparents were of Mexican descent, had more “skills” in his finger tips than Boortz could ever dream of.

Texas Teen Fabricates Story About Latino Students

Three male Latino students were handed in-school suspensions after a 13-year old girl claimed she was attacked and threatened with rape and murder after bringing in a homework assignment that said, “If you love your country, stop illegal immigration.”

Only the story was completely fabricated.

There’s only one problem with the story — this innocent 13-year-old lied about being beaten up.

Unfortunately for her, the attack was caught on school surveillance cameras, and it showed quite clearly that Melanie scratched herself to make people think she had been attacked by these boys over her poster.

Athens school officials have said that the three Latino teens who received in-school suspension will continue with the suspension because they did take the poster away.

Michelle Malkin loses a bludgeon and blames “most” fabricated stories on “lefties.” Michelle Malkin.

Read more at Latino Político.

Dobbs Can’t Say the “L-Word” to Men from S.F.

In addition to Lou Dobbs’ usual antics of stirring up unfounded animosity towards the undocumented, the CNN anchor made two telling comments the past few weeks.

Last week, discussing race and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s remarks regarding America’s “birth defect,” Dobbs caught himself before he finished uttering the racial slur, “cotton picking” on national television. (Dobbs said “cotton” and pulled back at the last second and appeared to have worked himself up on the topic at hand.)

Just a few days ago:

Last night on CNN, host Lou Dobbs expressed his displeasure at having “one of those days” when “some folks are kind of just on you.” He then aired a clip of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) taking a subtle dig at Dobbs, in which, Menendez said: “I love you, Lou.” Dobbs then aired a clip of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) also taking subtle dig at Dobbs. “Sen. Menendez said he loved me, and so I’m going to say ‘I love you’ back,” Dobbs said, but added: “I can’t say ‘I love you’ to a fellow in San Francisco I suppose.”

“Mindless Menace of Violence”

Speaking at the City Club of Cleveland in Cleveland, Ohio, Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered thoughts on the “mindless menace of violence” gripping the United States in the late 1960s.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Full text available here.

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