An Immigrant's Trip to Arizona

In retelling his naturalized mother's experience on a trip to Arizona "An Immigrant's Trip to Arizona, July 10, 2010", Hector Tobar tries to pull at our heart strings. His conclusion is that Arizona "Doesn't sound like a bad place to visit — if you don't mind carrying a passport."


Is that the big deal? That a naturalized citizen should be required to carry a passport or other document? I suppose driving my car around is nice, as long as I don't mind carrying my driver license (and proof of insurance ). And by the way, if I forget them and I'm driving, I feel scared.

Hector should tell his mother that instead of feeling sad because of the new Arizona law, she should feel sad for all the people who immigrated here legally, and who waited so long, being disrespected by those who feel they don't need to follow any "stinkin' U.S. laws".

Tell her I feel sad because I am considered a racist for wanting people to come to my country legally. Tell her I feel sad because we are not allowed to be a sovereign country. And last, but not least, tell her I'm sad that she had to leave the country of her birth. It is sad when your own country does not look out for it's own citizens and allows it to become so unbearable people will risk their lives to leave. I know exactly how she feels and so do the Arizonians.

Yellow Journalism & Race Baiting at MSNBC

I believe if everyone carried guns, we would have a more polite society. I am pro-2nd ammendment. However, I would be the first one to say that carrying a gun like some folks are doing legally at the Arizona Townhall meetings is not the best of ideas. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it in certain circumstances. That doesn't excuse the biased hand-wringing in the MSNBC story. It was pure yellow journalism at best and race baiting at worst. Take a look at the video linked in Robert S. Siegel's post titled "MSNBC cries wolf on assault weapon racism" on his MindYourOwnDamnBusinessPolitics blog.

Before I even got a look at this bastardized video that MSNBC calls news, I saw plenty of pictures, full pictures showing a well-dress black man in shirt sleeves with an AK-15 slung over his shoulder . But look at their video, how they have zoomed in to just show the gun, then in another scene shots of white people. Contessa Brewer says how she is concerned about "racial overtones" in the fact that "here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs." Totally leaving out the fact that the man with the guns shown in THEIR video was BLACK! She should have said she was concerned to have a "man of color" in the presidency and a "man of color" showing up with a gun slung over his shoulder and one on his waist. Read this unbelievable post from page nine blogger Alan Korwin, The Uninvited Ombudsman, titled Special Report: Black Man with Gun Harms No One. The dirty truth comes out when he says "I mentioned to the local NBC-TV affiliate that the media seemed to be avoiding the fact that Chris, the well-known local libertarian with the rifle (and a sidearm), was black. “Well, we’re not supposed to mention race if it’s not a key part of the story.” My eyebrows shot up. “You have a black man with a gun! At a rally for the black president! That’s not relevant?” So she sheepishly admitted, with a chuckle, “Well, that would take away the whole redneck right-wing extremist thing.” This is known in “news” circles as objective reporting. There you have it folks. Inexcusable, untruthful, inflammatory broadcasting. Yellow journalism at it’s best. Thanks MSNBC.