Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc. 12.04.02

Archive

How pleasant.  It’s that time of year when the combination of stress and shitty weather decide to play havoc on my back and knees.  Got my alarm already set to wake me up early to knock this sucker out.  Wake up at 2:00 AM CT with the alarm…oh, shit, I can’t shut the damn alarm off because I can’t roll over.  Okay, I say to myself, I can catch a couple more hours shut-eye and knock out a One-Hour Special.  4 AM comes, and I still can’t roll over.  Fortunately, my phone’s right next to my bed, so I scoot myself forward, slowly, and grab the phone (thus stretching my back muscles out in the process…OUCH!), dial into my boss’ direct line, tell him I’m not coming in, and try to get a few more hours’ sleep.  That I do.  At 7:00, my bladder decides to wake me up.  Now I REALLY have to get out of bed (I gotta hand this to our ancestors; chamber pots might have been unsanitary, but they were convenient for times like these).  Fortunately, I keep my old cane right by my bed for situations like this.  I grab that, do the nursing home thing to the can, take that much-needed wazz, and pop a Flexaril and a prescription-strength Naproxen with my normal morning meds.  Since I’m now awake, I decide to hobble over to the computer and knock this puppy out.  So that’s how my morning’s been.  This day is gonna suck the high hard one. Louisiana Speeding Ticket Lawyer is located on 10101 Siegen Lane Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge attorneys from Metropolitan Airport (BTR) head west on Amelia Earhart Ave toward Veterans Memorial Blvd and turn left at the 1st cross street onto Veterans Memorial Blvd. Then turn right onto Harding Blvd and use the right lane to merge onto I-110 S via the ramp to Baton Rouge. Next, merge onto I-110 S and keep left to stay on I-110 S. After that keep left to stay on I-110 S, follow signs for I-10 E/New Orleans and merge onto I-10 E. At this point keep right at the fork to stay on I-10 E, follow signs for New Orleans and take exit 163 for Siegen Ln toward LA-3246. Finally, merge onto Interstate 10 E Access Rd and use the 2nd from the right lane to turn right onto LA-3246 S/Siegen Ln (signs for Siegen Marketplace). Keep left to stay on LA-3246 S/Siegen Ln, make a U-turn and Louisiana Speeding Ticket Lawyer will be on your right.

UPDATE:  It’s now 3:30PM CT.  I decided to take a short nap while the server was down.  The short nap lasted six hours.  So, my apologies.

THE PIMP SECTION

Every time I bitch about my health, along comes Gamble, who has a helluva lot more to complain about in that department than I do.  And thank you.  That gift, I’ll keep.

Here’s an interesting subcategory for your question at the end, Ron.  How about JTTSes and jobbers who never seemed to get a push that you ended up enjoying, but once they did get a push, you found that you didn’t really like them as much as you thought?  I’ve got a few on that list.

The ultimate one is Paul Levesque.  I really liked the guy as Terra Ryzin in WCW, thought he had potential, etc.  Then he got cut in one of Bisch’s absolutely brilliant personnel moves (see Williams, Steve and Foley, Michael), headed over to the WWF, hooked up with Michaels and Nash, and became the ego monster with the knee-based offense that we all know and love today.

What about Bill DeMott?  Hugh Morrus was one of the characters punished for the Dungeon of Doom fiasco, definitely stuck in JTTS status for a long time, but he always put in a damn good performance in the ring.  Then WCW finally gave him a shot again with the MIA angle, which burned out fast.  Now he’s on Tough Enough, which I have to regard as some kind of karmic punishment for a past life.

And let’s talk about Lanny Poffo.  Leapin’ Lanny, JTTS, cool.  Then his big bro uses his stroke with McMahon and gets him a push.  Now we’re stuck with the Genius.  I’ll have to admit that he gave it the old college try and sustained a push as an arrogant heel for longer than it should have lasted, but the character really pissed me off.  Then they had the nerve to try it again with Shane Douglas.  McMahon’s chutzpah knows no bounds.

As for my guy on your original question, I’ll have to admit I kinda liked Jerry Flynn.  His one push was over and done with so quickly that he fits into this category.  Besides, ‘Ol Lightning Foot played Goldberg’s bitch for so long that most memories of him fall into the JTTS category.  Steve Lombardi also fits in here.  His hookup with Heenan can now be seen in the framework it belongs in:  reward for loyalty and service beyond the call of duty.  In weak moments, I’ll even admit to a bit of affection to Pete Gas and Rodney, and I’ll still wonder to the end of my days why WWE wouldn’t give Rodney one more shot after he became Rodrageous.

There’s one present wrestler that’s headed for this group.  I hate to say it, but I see Chris Harvard as a high-profile JTTS for some time to come.  He’s still learning, though, and he may get a shot.  Who knows?  WWE booking is being done by the Red Lectroids from Dimension Eight, so we may end up seeing Harvard versus D’Lo Brown for the world title at Survivor Series 2003 if the ratings keep visiting the Ty-D-Bowl Man.

That was a helluva pimp, but Gamble always seems to stimulate my dormant brain like that.  And he’s able to get one in return:

I beat up Stevie Richards?  WOO-HOO!  Did I at least grab a frying pan and “scramble his eggs?”

No, because there’s no more hardcore on Raw.  Bisch said so.

As for the hellfire and damnation, why would I do that?  Not only do I share your concern about Ashcroft (the only incumbent senator in our lifetimes who lost re-election to a dead man), but I agree with everything you wrote.  Or did you think that just because I’m a Christian, I must share the views of Falwell et. al.?

No, absolutely not.  Consider it a pimp through the side door, if you weeeeeel.

As a liberal Christian, I have no problem with loving my homosexual neighbors as myself (although not in a physical way, so get your mind out of the gutter).  I think that whoever decided to include the idea of “laying with a man as you would lay with a woman” in the Old Testament probably did it as a way to increase the population of the Israelite nation.  Paul included that thinking in his own writing because of his own prejudices, and those prejudices have been passed down from generation to generation.  The one person who is not mentioned by conservative Christians as condemning homosexuality?  Christ.  And yet, they don’t quite make the connection.

Hellfire and damnation?  Nah.  I don’t have one in me.

Aw, come on, just one little hellfire and damnation for me, please?  As for the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality, it wasn’t really Paul that did it (he was sorta ignored on that issue), but Aquinas went after homosexuals like white on rice.

I’ll throw out a pimp to The Pride Of Dartmouth, Elliot Olshansky, who did a terrific article here on the destruction of some of Dartmouth’s athletic programs.

A LITTLE WRESTLING NEWS

You want to buy wwfe.com?  It’s up for sale at ebay here.  High bid at the time of this writing is $172.50.  A big heads-up thank you to SantaMonicaMan for that one.  I think we should buy the son of a bitch for this place and set up an ancillary website with all the negative things we said about WWE posted in bold.

SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED

Can anyone tell me if Rey Misterio is legit injuried and requires attention, or is this just a kayfabe thing to create one of those weird-ass feuds that Rey-Rey always seems to be involved in?

Call Crash Holly Mister Versatile.  Plays the heel in a dark match, then the face during the SD taping.  Now, if he’d only get a push…

The Dawn Marie/Torrie promo might be worth taping this sucker for.  Honestly.

Okay, if that isn’t, the main is Benoit, Angle, Guerrero, and Edge in an elimination match for the Number One Contendership (talk about damning with faint praise).  Hmmm, maybe the match everyone’s expecting will take place at Royal Rumble rather than WM…

MAILBAG!

The white shit has already taken its revenge on the IWC.  BFM’s car hit some of it in Michigan and is now heavily damaged.  However, he still makes a great contribution to the general mailbag by telling us what’s really going on angle-wise in OVW for people who aren’t able to see it:

It’s not Deacon Bautista that earned him his push, it was his run in OVW.  He was Brock-level oler as a bad-ass.  His finisher was the powerbomb, but he usually set it up with a “spear the opponent who is coming off the top rope” move that was SCARY in it’s quickness.  I have a Bautista-D’Lo match where I was convinced D’Lo was DEAD from the move.  The Deacon Bautista, if anything, was admission of a stupid mistake in assignment of gimmick.

The problem here is, Brock should have gotten the “big man with ability” push, while Bautista should have gotten the “monster who destroys everything in his path” push.  They’re stuck now, since Bautsita really doesn’t have the albility to pull off anything else yet, and putting him where they are is rightly seen as a pale copy of Brock.  Doomed to failure from the word go.

That’s one good thing about OVW: there are two main heel stables where new guys are placed.  The Disciples of Synn is a sadomasochistic group led by the ugly kinky chick Synn (I love Cornette’s nickname for her: “Satan’s Cheerleader”) so everyone introduced in the stable is some sort of freaky alternative lifestyle type (i.e. Bautista), no more explanation needed.

Then there’s Bolin $ervices, led by the “agent” Kenny Bolin (in a similar role to Heyman’s).  It’s a little different in that, for example, Cena was the ‘superstar’ of the stable and Sean O’Hare was the ‘enforcer.’

Anyway, the point is, you don’t get a situation like Cena or Bautista on Smackdown where you say “Oh, so he’s John Cena, so what?”  This way, you have a built in reason to hate him – “He’s Kenny Bolin’s prize, so he must be a bad guy.” and he fills in his own personality in the next few weeks.

Raw cynicism: I haven’t been this cynical about a wrestling product since WCW, January 2000.  Without the bones of Booker and…well, that’s about it anymore…being thrown in, I don’t think I’d bother.

It says a hell of a lot when *I* think Scott frikkin Steiner is one of the best reasons to watch a wrestling program.  Since I didn’t see him in WCW past 2000, his act is somewhat different and has not grown thin…yet.  End of the year, tops, is my guess.

Agreed on everything, BFM.  Agreed on everything.  And you wonder why I love the guy.

Big Daddy decides to go for the mindf*ck, as usual, this time about how Chief Morley could work in a weird sort of way…

So Trip wins with an illegal maneuver to get the #1 contender slot. Where the f*ck is Enforcer Morley during this fiasco? Apparently, his role is “well, gee, nothing illegal happened before I got my face on TV. My work here is done.” His role is just inane right now, but the commish thing might work with a little tweaking and the use of Morley’s emerald-isle surname. Work with me here…

Think about your prototypical crooked Irish Chicago beat cop from back during Prohibition (my image here is the white-haired guy from “The Untouchables” that Sean Connery slugs it out with in the alleyway). Thick brogue, a little drunk most of the time, willing to look the other way for a wad of cash or a political favor or two. THAT’S the Chief Morley we need in the commish role. Strolling nonchalantely around in the wings with his fingers laced behind his back, maybe swinging one of those wee little billy clubs (as an affectation), saying things like “Y’see, boyo…” and “You dinnae wanna be on me bad side…” and “Sure’n it’s gonna go poorly for you…”  [all of a sudden, I feel like I’m writing dialogue for Banshee in an X-Men comic book…]  He takes bribes, looks away at inopportune times, gets people to job out for favors or for money — but gets indignant and blustery when anyone questions his integrity. He arranges backstage beatings for his detractors, only to stroll past moments afterward mumbling something like “Keep an eye open, boyo…ye ne’er know wha’ mae happen.” Never gets his hands dirty, but always implies things.

He does Bisch’s bidding to a degree, but is playing his own game right along side. When Bisch gets angry, Morley gives him a line like, “Eric, me boy, d’ya really, really, wanna be sullyin’ me name like that? I dinnae think it’s in yer best interest t’do so…”

Maybe it’s just me and my quirky penchant for really, really overblown ethnic stereotypes (I’m just waiting for the day Booker elects to bust out a “nigga, please…”). But the overacted ethnic thing seems to be working for Eddie Guer…Gerr…Gerer…well, you know who I mean. And seriously: can it get any worse at this point?

Thanks, Kurt, thanks a lot.  Now I’m starting to wonder about Morley doing a brouge.  It would sure add an element of surrealism into Raw.  In fact, it’s so surreal that it breaks through to the other side and resonates with the marks.

Steve Rogers goes off on Flex’s ego viz. a third Spider-Man movie, so I don’t have to:

My Gosh this is Duane Johnson’s ego run amuck.  PRICE TOO HIGH?  Hey Flexy, you DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE A PRICE FOR ANY ROLE.  Based on what?  One hit?  One God damned hit?  And a cameo in Mummy Returns does NOT COUNT.  If say Helldorado does well and he mangages a third hit THEN I can see him naming his price.  Okay, you could say its the WWE naming the price, but its the whole shouldn’t the agents job be working FOR the client?  If Flex said he
WANTS the role no matter how much he gets paid then the dogs get called off, so I really doubt this is all agents run amuck.  Really unbeliveable.  I mean “The Rock” is not in ANY way a proven action star.  Like I said, one hit, ONE DAMN HIT DOES NOT MAKE A POWER PLAYER.  Hell, Rock hasn’t “payed his f*cking dues” unlike all the other power players who at least have worked at it with bit parts, indies, TV movies, ect just TRYING TO GET THEIR BREAK.  All these dopey wrestlers turn actors START with their “big break” (Hogan’s Rocky III turn may count as a big break as he wasn’t pop-culturally known yet as opposed to The Rock in Mummy Returns when he was known pop-culturally)  So pretty much the bottom line is they have no right in
naming extremely high prices.  Maybe a middle of the road price, but lets not treat Flex like he’s Arnold.

Amen, brother.  Testify.

Zach Singer provides a link here to a CNN story that I missed about the military recruiting in high schools.  An Army Of One, my ass.  As for me, I volunteered out of desperation.

Mark Jazkowski asks me another political question:

What, no comment on Kissinger heading the 9/11 probe?  Can you say Warren Commission?  Are you just being careful since this is no longer a private communication?

I just can’t take Henry Kissinger seriously anymore courtesy of Eric Idle.  And I expected a whitewash from the Junta on this entire issue, especially since the major news guys have been revealing inside info on What They Knew And When Did They Know It since the mourning period officially ended.  As for being careful, hell, I write this column.  The Missouri Himmler has enough evidence to hang me with already.

SicHuevos does a quickie:

If Steiner and Steph talked during sex, whose voice would be more annoying?

Both, until their pitch increases from the excitement to a frequency where only dogs can hear them.  We’d probably be more annoyed by the dogs than them at that point.

My fascist bud John King has a wonderful riposte to this issue:

I’m torn, which is worse: Steiner and Steph playing cars and garages or Hyatte’s buddy CRZ and his human pincushion doing same? The mind boggles. Then shuts down.

Oh, too good.  Wish that Hyatte had a chance to use that one.

John’s letters are better than some columns here.  The letter the above came from is a terrific example:

I think that we could get a nice little Crossfire-thing going with 411 hiring writers. Politics has got wrestling beat by a mile nowadays when it comes to sheer entertainment. Nice hour-long commercial for John Kerry Sunday on Meet the Depressed. Was Sen. Heinz’s body even cold when he moved in for the kill with Theresa?

411 with a politics section?  That might be interesting, to say the least.  From the Left, I’m Eric Szulczewski…As for Kerry, well, it’s free pub, which is hard to come by for a candidate these days.  Russert, though, tends to be the Jim Ross of political discussion, drumming up enthusiasm for everyone that he gets to interview.  I try to avoid the show, just like I do thinking about senators’ sex lives.

Quick story about my “love” for the Catholic Church..I graduated from a nice Jesuit University in Philadelphia called St Josephs. The last semester we had an Ethics II class (hah) and what do you think the professor thought qualified for business ethics? Should a teacher who was a member of NAMBLA be allowed to teach in elementary school? WTF? $40 large for this crap. Our team was the only one that said no and as spokesman for us (there were four
teams of six in the class) I ripped this guy and his moral ambiguity so much another of the teachers told me he called me the Alpha Male of the class (I’m much better looking than AlGore). Of course retribution from this teacher would be forthcoming and sure enough in a reaction paper I said that Wal-Mart hired a lot of white trash so they could pay them dick, treat them like a dick, and if they complained give them the dick. This dickless wonder
had the balls to take the paper to the VP of student affairs and try to hold up my graduation because I lacked proper sensitivity toward my fellow man.  Of course the fact that my younger brother is a lawyer who lives on cigarettes, coffee and anger toward others quickly put the kibosh on that.  So to sum up: NAMBLA is good and if you say something bad about people who
work at Wal-Mart that’s bad. This is why when they send me fundraising letters I use them to light a Cohiba. There is no faith as intolerant as the Catholic faith, yes even Islam has some shelters of toleration outside of the unwashed masses.

Oh, boy.  This shows you what ethics classes in a Catholic university are like these days.  The Jesuits I used to know would have physically pounded the shit out of NAMBLA members.  When PC gets to the SoJ, something’s wrong with society as a whole.  And your brother and I might get along really well considering I’m the same way.  Pardon me while I take a sip of coffee and light up.

I would be busted every Sunday morning about 4 am. I work the door at a big singles club and I have access to copius amounts of women with questionable morals. This one chick can’t “arrive” unless she has some backdoor action.  Being a complete gentleman I of course acquiesce.

This “gentleman” stuff is overrated.  Hell, be a complete horndog and pound away at anything that moves.  Catharsis is good for the soul.

Hey the Bush kids are legal now. Guess that just leaves the Olsen Twins and that girl from Harry Potter.

Who else sees the Olsen Twins doing hardcore porn after their career as stars of direct-to-video movies and bad cartoons ends?

The sound of one not caring is the quiet click of the remote over to Monday
Night Football.

But only if it’s a good game.  Or it involves the Bears.

Vik has this suggestion on how to watch Raw:

I just wanted to say that I was shredding paper and packing an item to sell to Florida as I was watching RAW Monday night. I thought it was a good show while I was watching it. I then read your short form report on Tuesday morning and realized how much it actually was lacking in anything worth watching sans the tag team title match. I guess watching RAW as simply background noise while packaging X-Mas gifts is more entertaining and makes RAW less painful to watch. Try it some time.

Unfortunately, I have this column to turn out, so it’s kinda important that I pay attention to what’s happening on Raw.

The Joe In Me is back!:

I was just at WWE.com browsing around and thought of something about their Daily Polls. Does WWE look at the results of them and use them as a way of trying to gauge who fans do and don’t like, and book accordingly? Or are they just there for fans’ personal enjoyment? Also, what do you think of the elimination of all the secondary titles by WWE? Do you think they’ll be replaced?

First things first:  fans’ enjoyment only, definitely.  Also, they have a habit of fixing these polls if the result they get doesn’t support their views (viz. the Should Steph Come Back To TV poll after her loss in the Loser Leaves Town World Title Match).  As per the secondary titles, I think this is a test run to see how they can do without those secondary belts.  If they still can’t get any steam out of upper-mid-card feuds without having a belt on the line, the belts will make their return.  Some of WWE’s best feuds have revolved around the Intercontinental title, so it was a shock to most of us that they got rid of that.  Unfortunately, the IC strap has become a victim of the ghettoization of the upper-mid-card.  It can’t be too exciting to see the belt swapped between the same four or five guys.

William Philpot transitions us into politics and paranoia:

Just last semester my history course had a discussion question.  It was about how the consitution deemed it our DUTY to rid the nation of an oppressive state.  We were to decide how to know when it was time to act, and how to do so.   Do you think it is time to start worrying about this?

Not just yet.  It might actually come down to that someday.  Just remember that Texas has a law on its books that allows them to split into five states at any time.  If Dubbaya needs a boost for something like this, he’s got it available with eight extra senators.

And we end off with Steve F., who has a very interesting question.  I’ll include his background info on some of this, so it’ll be a long mail…

Is it just me or has wrestling become so lame that its only BARELY worth reading the recaps.  To be honest, I find the columns about wrestling…that aren’t all about wrestling, much more entertaining (i.e., yours and Hyatte’s).

It’s been that way for a while.  As I’ve said before, when we still had Nitro and ECW On TNN around, there was a lot more to cover television-wise and a lot more backstage stuff to cover due to the fact that half the wrestlers in those locker rooms had Keller on their speed-dial (while Chester the Molester and Milord was in charge of soft-soaping everything the locker rooms in WCW and ECW, respectively, leaked, thus giving those incidents more publicity; good work, guys).  Now we’re essentially down to Vince and his airtight Chamber of Secrets, so there isn’t much to talk about.  Witness all the speculation about Austin, which is being done with the same accuracy as reading tea leaves.

Since your heavily into politics, I have a political question for you.

I live here in sunny CA.  A few years ago…six maybe…there was a law that was actually voted on, AND passed.  Allow me to go into a little background first.  California is widely known as becoming a more Hispanic majority.  Obviously with where the Mexican/American border is, its easy to see why.  This doesn’t bother me one bit.  Frankly, I have friends of many races, and we all see past that.  What bothers me is this.  Being so close to the border, and the government doing their “best” to keep people from coming over illegal, a lot of the citizens here are illegal immigrants.  This I have a problem with.  Its widely known about CA that lots of business, especially in cities close to the border, will hire a few illegal citizens for cheaper, and just pay them under the table.  Also, once an illegal citizen has a child born in America, then the parents are automatically legal citizens(or eligible to be legalized a lot easier, I’m not sure on the specifics).  Now, majority of the time, the family was dirt poor, has the child, and NOW can collect welfare.

Back to this law that was passed.  Now, I’m a little fuzzy on the specifics (hey, like I said, about six years ago), but essentially, it was a crackdown on illegal immigration.  No longer would an illegal citizen so easily be legalized from having a child on US Soil.  No longer would it be tolerated for an immigrant to the US to not know the common American language, English.  Also, businesses (farms this is a rampant problem) would be SEVERLY punished for knowingly hiring an illegal alien.  This wasn’t just for the Hispanics, this meant any kind of illegal citizen, from a Frenchman that rafter here, to a Canuck that traveled to sunny weather illegally.  Granted though, the majority affected would be Hispanic.

Keep in mind, this law was PASSED.  Here’s where everything got f*cked and I want your opinion.  Hispanics all over the state, legal and illegal(which is what really bothered me because why even f*cking listen to people that aren’t citizens) protested this, vehemently.  The “esteemed” politicians, fearing they’d lose the vote of the legal citizens, listened, and had the courts overturn this law (scratch all the laws I used and place bill in there, hey, I’m tired).  So basically, CA continues with its overpopulation, the main culprits being the illegal citizens…and the central valley where sex is a recreational sport and condoms seem to be an impossibility to figure out a use for.  My question to you is two part.  First, is this a precedent in American politics that a just bill such as this was thrown out over the demands of those who, at the time, were the minority?  Second…what’s your opinion on the whole thing?

I know this is a LONG e-mail to take in, so if you even bothered to read this, I greatly appreciate it.

First of all, I’ll deal with the sex and condom thing.  If you don’t have many outlets to entertainment from external sources, sex does become a primary recreational activity.  And here we’re dealing with a populace that’s been brainwashed by the Catholic Church to think that condoms are the Tools Of Satan.  You’re also dealing with an agrarian culture, where more children is considered a benefit to working the land.  Hence, population explosion.  All immigrant societies from primarily agrarian areas go through this.  Lots of children in the first generation, then the birthrate goes down.

Now, on to the main thrust…

The law you were talking about was Proposition 187, which was passed by the populace of California in 1994.  I think it was overturned on Fourteenth Amendment arguments (the famous Equal Protection Under The Law clause).  The Fourteenth Amendment is a safety valve for people in the minority who may be unjustly treated under the law in comparison to the majority.  Remember yesterday, when I was talking about the sodomy law in Texas now being being reviewed by the Supremes?  That’s being argued, partially, under Fourteenth Amendment provisions, since it criminalizes sexual practices performed by homosexuals while leaving those same practices legal when done by heterosexuals (oral and anal sex, for instance).  So there are numerous cases of laws being overturned due to lack of equal protection.

Now, as for my feelings about this…California isn’t the only place that’s a haven for illegal aliens.  Chicago is one of the most popular destinations for people heading for El Norte due to the large Hispanic population, so I’m more than familiar with this phenomenon (Farms:California::Meat Plants:Chicago).  I’m in favor of cutting off benefits for illegal aliens since I feel that federal and state benefits are an entitlement of legal residence in this country, not simply residence.  Supporting illegal residents through social welfare programs raises taxes for those of us who are American citizens, and encourages more illegal immigration and gives a disincentive for those illegal immigrants to gain residence and citizenship through legitimate means and making a contribution to American society.  It’s the same reason why I’m in favor of welfare cutoffs and workfare programs.

(That’ll throw the conservatives in the audience for a loop, won’t it?)

Illegal immigration also has social consequences.  Back in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, immigrants were encouraged to learn English and participate in creating a True Melting Pot, bringing their Old World traditions and views to enhance the society in the New World, creating a general social view which took the best elements of societies from around that world that might have been frozen into place due to elements like discrimination.  That encouragement is what’s missing from today’s wave of immigration.  You can see that from the main immigrant populace in Chicago.  Puerto Ricans and Cubans tend to assimilate more than Mexicans and Poles.  I hate to say it, but Mexicans here are particularly arrogant about not attempting to assimilate.  Instead of attempting to bring the Anglos in on elements of Mexican culture that might enhance their own world view, they stick to themselves, refuse to learn the language, and develop a clique that provides a firewall around them that not only prevents their own culture from contributing to the general American one, but also “protects” them from American culture “contaminating” their own.  That causes Anglos to believe that Chili’s is the apotheosis of Mexican contributions to the world, while Mexicans get to laugh at Anglos because “they don’t get it”.

And Americans contribute to that attitude by providing primary language services in schools (whatever happened to English As A Second Language classes?), letting people take driver’s tests in Spanish, etc.  Hell, even I contribute to it.  I brought over a copy of Systran to use at work in order to translate my memos and the plant’s forms into Spanish so that the floor workers can “understand” what’s going on there.  What this is leading to is a ghettoization of a group that’s soon going to be the largest minority group in the country.  “Separate but equal” didn’t work for schools; it sure as hell doesn’t work for society.

And I’ve said enough this week to piss enough people off.  Grut gets the Magic Wand tomorrow, so read him.  As for me, I’m back to bed to try to get my back to stop screaming.  See ya.