South of the Suwannee

I didn't realize that many Cubans who died in the United States were having their remains shipped to Cuba for burial. Makes sense to me -- don't most of us want to be buried next to family, or at least have that choice?

Apparently this has come to the attention of the South Florida Cuban-American hard-liners who see it as nothing more than a way for Castro to rake in a little cash.

Shut this racket down, they say. Nothing is too personal that it cannot be drafted into the decades-old struggle with their sworn enemy.

Now if Fidel is actually worth the 900 million dollars that Forbes claims, do you thinks a paltry couple hundred dollars per burial is going to make a difference?

(via Progreso Weekly)

The Ft. Myers News-Press looks at the plight of Florida's day laborers.

Everyone has a story.

One day after work, a contractor threw money on the ground and told a group of day laborers to pick it up if they needed it that bad. They did. Some are dropped off at a work site and never see the contractor again.

"You're risking yourself out here," Claros says. "Last week someone didn't pay me what he promised after I finished the work."

He didn't do anything about it. He can't. The laws don't protect him.

The law sometimes comes after them.

As they say, read the whole thing.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel accuses the state of "pursuing its own anti-Axis of Evil foreign policy" in passing a bill that will prohibit "professors and students at public universities and community colleges from using state or non-state funds to travel to Cuba." (emphasis added)

The Sun-Sentinel rightly calls the bill an "infringement on academic freedom."

If it was possible to embarrass the Florida Legislature, this bill would be one of those that should do it.

"Unfortunately, the record is that the U.S. military is manipulated by the Cubans."

Roger Noriega's response to comment by Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, regarding opening up communications with the Cuban military on issues of mutual concern.

How dangerous are the nativists? Well, they are willing to draw on the not too distant past for lessons:

"Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic -– it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

And if all twelve million don't make it back over the border . . .

The nativists are still looking for their Furher, but sadly there seems to be a lot of candidates popping up.

The nativists conjure up the "reconquista" in breathless tones not unlike those a generation ago who looked out to sea and imagined that the Russians really were coming.

Now we have film director Ron Maxwell, whose view of the current immigration situation displays all the accuracy and depth of his movies:

A wave of anti-American leftism is sweeping Latin America. A socialist radical may soon be elected as the president of Mexico, a country which officially encourages its emigrants to vote in Mexican elections, urging them to think of themselves as Mexican first and perhaps only.

The eventual outcome is plain for anyone with eyes to see. This is invasion masquerading as immigration.

It may already be too late to avoid a future annexation of the Southwest by Mexico or the evolution of a Mexican-dominated satellite state.

Pea-brains such as Maxwell are, at best, misguided alarmists. The problem with alarmists is that their excesses can often lead to tragedy.

(via Civil War Memory)

* The Russians are Coming the Russians are Coming

In my last post I referred to the "stupidest thing ever written."

Naturally it didn't take long for someone to make that statement outdated. The new "stupidest" statement comes from the Volokh Conspiracy, which at one time was a thoughtful libertarian/conservative legal blog. Unfortunately, of late it has descended to the level of so many right-wing blogs that spread unsubstantiated rumors and smears.

David Kopel is upset at the Spanish-language version of the Star Spangled Banner, not necessarily because it should only be sung in English, but because

the song is currently used on behalf of a movement of people who--while demanding U.S. citizenship as a "right" despite their flagrant violations of U.S. immigration laws--are too often not willing to assume the duties of U.S. citizenship, which begin when the citizen affirms: "I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any...state...of...which I have heretofore been a subject..."

You see, Mr. Kopel believes the only reasonable explanation of the immigration protests going on is that there is a movement afoot to return much of the United States to Mexico.

What proof does he have, you ask? Don't ask.

Later, in the comments section of the post, he states,

. . . people who march in ethnic pride parades waving Israeli, Irish, Italian, or most other flags are not part of a movement which includes many leaders, as well as rank and file, who claim that part of U.S. territory actually does/should belong to Israel, Ireland, or Italy. The claim of a great many of the current illegal alien demonstrators--who receive significant support from the Mexican government--is that the Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo shouldn't really count any more, at least not to the extent of preventing Mexicans from entering former Mexican territory at will.

Sane people will look at the evidence more closely.

Alicublog terms this the "stupidest thing ever written."

If it's not the "stupidest," it will certainly earn a spot in the Stupid Hall of Fame.

You can use the American flag to hawk rust-bucket used cars, leaving the national symbol up night-and-day until the colors fade and it begins to unravel, and few will blink an eye. But use the flag in a political protest and you are showing disrespect.

So it is with the National Anthem. We're OK with the melody being modified or having someone sing it out of tune, but Spanish lyrics? That's way over the line!

In today's Miami Herald, Ralph Schaffer and Walter Coombs examine our narrow, and ahistoric, view of what is acceptable in singing the Star Spangled Banner.

In 1860, as the Civil War approached, Florida's population totaled just 140,434 people; 78,679 free and 61,745 slaves.

This state had by far the smallest population of any state in the South. Arkansas, the next smallest southern state had 435,450 people (324,335 free; 111,115 slaves), followed by South Carolina with a population of 703,708 (301,302 free; 402,406 slaves).

According to the 1860 census, outside of the southern and border states, there were only another 46 slaves: 2 in Kansas, 15 in Nebraska, and a surprising 29 in Utah.

Jacob Heilbrunn reviews Jeffrey Hart's new book, The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and its Times, and concludes that in spite of intellectual battles within the right,

In reality, though, conservatism hasn't really changed all that much. The Christian right has certainly infused it with moralism and anti-Darwin mumbo-jumbo, but what's more striking about the GOP over the past 100 years or so is its continuity. The party's main, almost sole, purpose has been to ensure that as much money as possible goes to those who need it least and that as little as possible goes to those who need it most. In a party of moneybags, Theodore Roosevelt was the exception, not the rule. Whether Bush manages to extricate the United States from Iraq or not, his avalanche of tax cuts has already justified the main reason that Republican pooh-bahs selected him to become their candidate for president.

And why Florida's Republican powerbrokers have supported Jeb Bush.

James C. Cobb, history professor at the University of Georgia writes about where we will be going if David Horowitz (and goof-ball Florida Legislators) have their way.

(via Civil War Memory)