Ni chicha, ni limonada. Neither hard cider nor lemonade is a long-time Chilean idiom popularized by martyred folk singer Victor Jara to describe something caught in the soft middle. It might also describe the dilemma facing Latin American countries nowadays, precisely places like Chile. From Santiago comes  reports that at least 750 people were arrested [...]

“I am not Gay,” protested part-time convict, full time U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho.) Uh-huh. And Dick Nixon wasn’t a crook. (And we might add the war in Iraq is neither a new Vietnam nor a civil war). Senator Craig’s remarks brought back to me a conversation I had about 25 years ago in a [...]

Well, we never did find the WMD. But at least we’ve now discovered the source of all our problems in Iraq: the Prime Minister we helped install, Nuri al-Maliki.  Poor guy, now Senator John Warner has joined the anti-Maliki gang-bang, clearing the path for countless others. Personally, I don’t care much either way about the [...]

Some more good family news over the weekend. The Brilliant Daughter racks up yet one more glowing review of the play she is currently directing. Nothing like solid DNA. Frankly, when the world sucks as voraciously as is the present case, it’s downright wonderful to have so much delight to bask in so close to [...]

I was sort of joking yesterday when I said that current Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki might be having nightmares that he will end up like former South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem — the poor boob was summarily bumped off when his Washington allies thought him an impediment to “progress” in the Vietnam war (see [...]

The really scary thing about President Bush’s speech on Wednesday, comparing the war in Iraq to that of Vietnam, is that he just might be inadvertently, unwittingly and mistakenly correct! By implication, the President argued that we should have (presumbably) never left Vietnam because by doing so millions of Southeast Asians “paid the price,” referring [...]

Whew! I share the relief of my bud Celeste over at Witnessla.com.  Gracias a dios that the Feds swooped in, picked up the notorious lawbreaker Elvira Arellano, and immediately deported her to Tijuana. The same federal government that brought you the spectacular Katrina clean-up was able to get this dangerous lady into detention and then [...]

Time out from the boring debate on how awful Hillary Clinton is for something of real importance: If you live anywhere in or near Southern California, I now command you to go see My Brilliant Daughter’s staging of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (playing weekends in North Hollwood thru September 9th). That’s right, when The Kid isn’t [...]

Sunday’s Democratic debate in Des Moines was the first one of the season I completely missed. I guess that puts me in the company of, say, about 299 million other Americans. Judging from published news reports, it looks like I didn’t miss much. The L.A. Times called it among the “tamest” to date of the [...]

As a two-story high inflatable statue of himself was rolled out for the occasion, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unveiled plans that would allow his perpetual re-election. This seems to be the one glaring flaw in the Castro-Chavez model: you build a society full of the New Socialist Man but then you find among the millions [...]

Out in the Real World working. See you in a day or two.

The failure to enact sensible, pragmatic immigration reform, just like the war in Iraq, also  racks it up its ongoing death toll. And once again, thanks to the Clinton-Bush border policy of funneling migrants through the most brutal terrain we’re on our way once again to setting a new record for those who died while [...]

I’m going to boast just a wee bit here by making the claim that I was presciently dismissive of Karl Rove to the soon-to-be former top advisor to George W. Bush.  Josh Marshall duly notes that Rove’s exit elicits much more of a whisper than a crash-bang. No surprise. At least two years ago I [...]

For those of us who spent some time in Iowa before this past weekend’s GOP Straw Poll, the second place finish by the formerly obscure Mike Huckabee wasn’t much of a surprise. The former Arkansas Governor had been earnestly working the grass roots and had already created a buzz far disproportionate to the relatively small [...]

** Update: As of  8 pm Central, the Iowa Republican Party confirms a voting machine glitch. About 1500 ballots have to be hand-counted and, as usual, there’s no “timetable.” ** Update: 8:25 pm Central, the results are now in.  Romney wins with less than 1/3 of the vote. Huckabee comes in second by nosing out [...]

Des Moines, Iowa With both the heat and the humidity in the 90′s on Friday, I felt like one of those infamous pork-chops-on-a-stick trudging through the Iowa State Fair (or was it more like one of the ever popular fried Twinkies on sale all around me?). I got precious little relief when I finally stumbled [...]

Des Moines, Iowa I drove 227 miles on Thursday to get from Council Bluffs to the hamlet of Hampton in order to catch an “Ask Mitt Anything” meet and greet with Mitt Romney. In a flyspeck of a northern Iowa town where the only two eateries were a Hardee’s and a Subway, Romney drew a [...]

For my sins I have been given a mission: Just got to Iowa from where I will be covering Saturday’s GOP Straw Poll. Spending Thursday tagging behind Mitt Romney. That’s all you get from me for now.

Before a crowd of 15,000 union members  at Chicago’s Soldiers Field Tuesday eve, the field of Democratic presidential candidates jabbed and sparred at an AFL-CIO sponsored forum, but no knockouts were delivered.  Both Barack Obama and John Edwards took some rhetorical swings at front-runner Hillary Clinton, chiding her for being too much of an insider [...]

Time to suit up. Pull your hip boots snugly up as far as they will go. Adjust your goggles and breathing equipment. Don’t forget the asbestos gloves. We’re gonna take one more quick dip into the bubbling toxic cesspool known as “people-powered” Pacifica Radio! Tuesday’s L.A. Times carries a report on the latest rebellion at [...]