Friday, January 29, 2016

THIS & THAT # 6

What’s In A Name?
 ¿Cómo se llama? 

The media’s coverage of Spanish-surnamed individuals is, at times, appalling, churlish and demeaning.

In today’s San Jose Mercury News, it was reported that three such individuals were involved in a string of home-invasion robberies. Julio Garcia, Martina Loya-Mendoza, and Jesus Ayala were arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of burglary tools. Ah ha, “suspicion,” would they have had their names printed in the paper if they were identified as Seamus O’Reilly, Margaret McDougall, and Fred Bartlett, III?

Finally, the lead story in the local news section, depicted a poor twenty-two-year-old in an unflattering photograph, and said that he was arraigned on charges that he raped, beat, and suffocated another human being. His Spanish-surname was announced as Manuel Anthony Lopez, and some individuals were probably incensed that he was so identified. Wonder of the victim’s mother knew what was happening as she slept in another room, while Manny murdered her two-year-old son. At least the media used discretion by not revealing the boy’s name.

Leave Those Poor Cubans Alone
They’re Real Americans Today

When the print and broadcast media aren’t devoting the majority of their inept efforts covering Donald J. Trump, a candidate with no political experience whatsoever, they continue to cover two GOP Presidential candidates with Spanish-surnames.

One is Canadian-born Rafael Edward Cruz, whose father was born in Cuba, and the other is Marco Antonio Rubio, whose father and mother left their home in Cuba in 1956, before Castro came into power. Earlier, Rubio had incorrectly stated that the family left Cuba as “political refugees from a communist regime,” rather than when they actually left, at the tail end of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship.

Kill the Messenger,
Or At Least Maim It

It is appalling that the media covers these two neophytes so thoroughly as if they had any real, worthwhile, pre-presidential, governing experience as first-term Senators. Do we want a duplication of the ineptness and indecision-making of another first-term Senator, who is still leading, or sometimes misleading, our country?

There is a possibility that whether a Democrat or Republican is elected President, they will do their best to make Americans grate.