¿How about a Santo film?

Perhaps I’m just being lazy. Or maybe I just want an excuse to run some “art” of an old film poster in all its cheesy glory.

Or maybe it’s because as a kid I recall reading Cracked magazine (and actually thought it preferable to Mad).

BUT I COULDN’T help but stumble across this feature from the Cracked website (not a place a usually check out these days) about the legendary Mexican wrestler, Santo – who turned his career wearing the silver mask in the free-style wrestling ring (the famed Lucha Libre) into a string of incredibly-cheesy films.

Go searching hard enough, and you’ll find them on DVD. My brother, Chris, owns several for the pure camp factor. Anybody who’s about to argue about a language barrier should pipe down – the dialogue isn’t the point, the physical show is THE show!

Do you realize how many times the existence of Planet Earth was endangered? Only to be saved by Santo, who used his many physical gifts to beat the stuffing out of the horrid monsters who would have turned us all to zombies!

His reward, invariably, was getting a piece of a voluptuous babe. And I mean that in a still-somewhat clean-minded early 1960s way of thinking – not the overly lurid and graphic image we’d get today.

IT’S TACKY. IT’S cheesy. But it is good for a laugh. And the camp value is far more humorous than the insipid, trashy elements that World Wrestling Entertainment or the other wrestling circuits that exist in this country try to play off of for a laugh.

So for those of you who stumbled across this, are scratching your heads and saying “Who?!?,” I’d say you should check out this feature and read it for yourself. It is a good starting point.

Then, log off your pinche computer or whatever hand-held device you’re using to read this and go do something in the real world. Spend some time with your family in the real world – even if it means putting up with your father thinking he’s a gourmet chef just because he doesn’t completely char the hamburger patties on the grill.

That’s my day on Monday!

AND IF BY chance you have a relative who served in the military, give him some special thought in your mind.

Because chances are good that he (or she) did something of significance that really did save our world in ways more important than anything Santo ever did on the silver screen.

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Texas isn’t what the ideologues want you to think it is

HOUSTON: What would he think of namesake city?

Metropolitan Houston is going around claiming to be the most diverse (in terms of ethnic and racial terms) area in the United States.

A new Rice University study shows that Houston and its suburbs have 39.7 percent white people, with 35.3 percent Latino, with the bulk of the remaining quarter being African-American.

AND BY THE time the Census Bureau does its next national population count in 2020, the academics contend that the Houston area will be a majority Latino place to live. Definitely quite a change from 1990 when the Houston area was still majority white.

All in all, that change was just one of 10 things that the Center for American Progress included on their “Top 10 Things” people should know about the real Texas.

The academic study and list were among the items that caught my attention on Friday while working my way through the Internet. They also are among some items worth reading as we go into this Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Fresh commentary will return on Monday.

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that politicking is taking place in this election cycle

Call me Capt. Renault, if you will.

But that kind of sentiment is about how I feel upon learning of a new “Super-PAC” whose purpose is to put some big money into efforts to defeat Mitt Romney’s presidential bid come the Nov. 6 general elections.

THE IDEALIST IN me is appalled at the thought of a group like PAC +, which in so many ways represents everything that is wrong with the modern-day electoral process.

That group is going to start coughing up the cash to put all kinds of negative advertising on television in Arizona – with the intent of turning the Latino vote so against the idea of Romney as president (as though most of us don’t already despise the idea of a GOP president) that we’d vote for Obama.

It’s not about letting the public know anything we don’t already realize. It’s about reinforcing the fears that we feel.

When the political action committees that favor social conservative interests use the tactic to benefit the Republican partisan candidates, a part of me feels ill to my  stomach.

THE IDEA THAT there is now a similar committee willing to speak on behalf of my ethnic brethren? It’s ugly. It’s mean-spirited. It feels tacky.

But I also have to be honest – it feels good to know that we have picked up an equally big bat to swing back at a lot of the dreck we’re going to be hit with in coming months, as the same type of “super PACs” try to come up with ways of demonizing our presence to turn out the vote on behalf of Romney.

Perhaps he’s just reaping what he will sow? Perhaps it is just hardball politics (which, as we all know, ain’t beanbag) being played?

Perhaps it is more evidence that we are assimilating further into this society – we’re now capable of playing the same trashy political games.

BUT SOMEHOW, IT almost seems forgivable because the images we are going to see starting Thursday (at least those who are in Arizona) are going to be ugly ones.

For the first round of advertising being paid for by this Super PAC is going to be one meant to remind us that Romney – in his own way – has the backing of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (the woman more than willing to pander and get herself re-elected by touting the legislation concerning immigration laws that has resulted in a Supreme Court of the United States case) and Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The former gave Romney her endorsement just before the primary election back in February, while the latter supported Romney’s presidential campaign in 2008 – although the sheriff has kept himself quiet this time around ever since his pick (Texas Gov. Rick Perry) fizzled out so long ago that most of us have forgotten he was ever in the running.

Those are both moves that Romney, who now that he almost definitely has the GOP presidential nomination clinched (it would take a catastrophe of historic proportions to deny it to him now), would just as soon we forget.

O'NEILL: Maybe he meant, 'All politics is loco'

SINCE NOW, HE has to take some steps to try to convince people that all his ideological talk of the primary was just talk. Although he can’t go too far, because if he does then the ideologues will be convinced that they always were right about him not being trust-able.

In fact, Brewer and Arpaio have become such nationally-notorious characters among Latinos that these same spots may well work in other parts of the country. Although my guess is that by the time they spread to other states, there will be ways of figuring local officials into the mix.

Because as one-time House Speaker Tip O’Neill became famed for saying, “All politics is local.”

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‘Birther’ nonsense beyond pathetic in Arizona

It seems that the state of Arizona is finally convinced that President Barack Obama is qualified to be on the Nov. 6 general election ballot.

Or perhaps it is such that Arizona officials now realize how stupid they would look for engaging in tactics to try to deny Obama a ballot slot – as if his Republican opponent couldn’t win the state in any other manner.

A PART OF me would like to think that it was the powers-that-be within the Republican national structure who strong-armed Arizona into knocking off their partisan gamesmanship – whose only purpose is to try to distract the president from the seriousness of trying to get himself elected to another term in office.

Because if it really is the case that only now are Arizona officials capable of comprehending that Obama is qualified to run for president because he was born in the United States, then Arizona officials would qualify, hands-down, as the dumbest political officials in the nation.

Yes, that’s what this is all about. The people who refused to accept reality because they want to believe that anybody born in this country couldn’t possibly be like Obama (and certainly would be ashamed of it if they were) are still going at it.

Although we’re at the point where only the most pathetic of government officials are trying to dredge up this sorry tactic.

WHICH IS PROBABLY why Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio has taken up this issue – going so far as to send one of his investigators to Hawaii on official duties to check out the Obama birth certificate.

It must be nice to get a Honolulu assignment. I hope that officer enjoyed his duty that apparently confirmed the birth certificate was legitimate.

Because Arizona’s secretary of state earlier this week had to come out and confirm that despite all his past rhetoric about wanting to deny Obama a ballot slot  on the grounds that he wasn’t eligible to be president, now he has to admit he’s wrong.

Of course, that won’t sway the ideologues – who get far too much attention paid to their inanities by the conservative elements of our society. Those people drag us down by association, and the sooner we disregard their inanity, the better off we all will be.

THE IDEOLOGUES WILL rant and rage about how no one will listen to them. Then again, when we listen to them, they rant and rage and say absurd things.

These people have criticized Arpaio for not pursuing the issue enough, and now I’m sure the secretary of state in Arizona also will get trashed for “selling” them out.

Even though the only thing that really is happening here is that reality is triumphing over a conspiracy theory that even by conspiracy theory standards reeks of nonsense.

This is an “issue” that truly needs to come to an end, because as definitively as is possible it has been knocked down.

WHICH MENS THE only people who still bring it up are the ones who are determined to live in their own world regardless of factual evidence. They don’t want to believe!

And in their behavior, they turn into a harassment – not only of Obama and his interests, but of all of us. We have to be bombarded with their trite accusations that really reflect more about their narrow vision of our society than anything about the president himself.

In fact, in all of this, I can think of only one plus factor. These people are so miserable that they never will be able to enjoy the pleasures of life. That misery IS their punishment!

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Obama: I’m going to Disney World!

How badly does Barack Obama want an overwhelming Latino vote to bolster his chances of re-election come Nov. 6?

He’s going to Disney World! Or actually, the Disney Contemporary Resort near Orlando, Fla., which is where the National Association of Latino Elected Officials is having its annual gathering this year.

IT’S A THREE-DAY convention, with Obama’s appearance intended to be the highlight of Day 2. It’s June 22, for those who feel compelled to mark the date on their calendars.

At which time, Obama will try to convince Latinos that all of the support he has offered up to ideologues who want more deportations shouldn’t be construed as hostility toward our interests.

There are those who are making much of Obama going to Florida to try to gain Latino votes, since that state is the one with a Latino population that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the Latino electorate.

All those aging Cuban exiles who think that the world revolves around their interests, and in many ways don’t want to be thought of as a part of the greater Latino population unless they’re somehow in charge.

IF REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Mitt Romney is to have any chance of getting any significant Latino support, he’s going to have to dominate in Florida with the Cubans.

Because the reality of Florida Latinos is that outside of metro Miami, the Latino population isn’t all that Cuban.

It has some people believing that Obama going to Orlando is a strategy to appeal to Floridians of Puerto Rican ethnic origins, or any other central American nation that has significant numbers that have settled in the one-time Spanish colony.

Or, it could just be coincidence that NALEO is holding its gathering in a place that is of some strategic importance to the Obama campaign, compared to last year when they met in San Antonio, Texas.

EITHER WAY, OBAMA has some work to do in terms of outreach.

If he doesn’t, he runs the risk of making Latino voters think that there really is no one to pick from in this year’s election cycle, which would play into the hands of GOP interests who want to believe the Latino electorate (and population as a whole) is irrelevant.

If anything, it is the reason that Obama’s attempts to be conciliatory to his political opposition has been laughable. He has an opposition that isn’t going to give him any credit for any gestures he makes toward them.

They are an uncompromising bunch!

ALL IT HAS achieved is that it has made Latinos suspicious of where Obama truly stands. It is the only reason why the Latino vote (an estimated 12.2 million people expected this year) this time around is even remotely up for grabs.

And it is why the whole political world will be watching the area around Disney World to see just what it is that Obama can do to sway support back over into his column.

Who knows? Maybe he can even get his picture taken with Donald Duck – who always struck me as having a temperament worthy of an elected official.

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We’re becoming like them just as they’re becoming like us

Assimilation, as it is really taking place within our society.

Fresh commentary will return to this site come Wednesday.

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¿Who’s the pig?

I have to admit that this latest “controversy” concerning images that portray people of Mexican ethnic origins with negative imagery has me dumbfounded.

As in I’m wondering, “What could they have been thinking?” to even come up with such an image. It has me wondering how cockamamie some people could be.

THIS IS LESS about being offensive and about being just plain stupid. It’s hard for me to be offended by someone who is just so utterly clueless.

Specifically, I’m referring to an Atlanta company that has managed to upset Latino activists who live in that southern city with the display advertising they are using these days to promote themselves.

The company is Pro Carpet, which is capable of removing those foul and lasting stains from rugs. Their newest ads are headlined, “Because no one wants to be called a pig.”

Sure enough, there is a color picture of a cartoon pig underneath that headline, with coupons underneath the picture.

ALRIGHT, I KIND of get the idea. Although I wonder if “Because no one wants to be called a slob” with a picture of Jack Klugman or Walter Matthau in their role as “Oscar Madison” would have been more clever.

“Slob” somehow works better than “pig” in this context.

But the offensive part is that this cartoon pig in this ad is wearing a sombrero and has a Mexico flag next to it. That pig also happens to be walking right past a desert cactus.

Usually, when a company comes up with a tacky ethnic image, their line of defense is to claim that the image wasn’t meant to be offensive. They will claim that there is an intended meaning that is rather benign.

THEY MAY EVEN try to claim that it is the activist types who are offended who are exaggerating the image, reading things into it that were never intended.

But neither of those tactics are usable in this particular case. This image is just too clearly meant to associate people of Mexican ethnic origins with messy people who can’t clean up after themselves.

What I don’t get is why, if they were determined to use a pig image, that they would even think to associate it with any ethnic group. Unless someone seriously wants to express some tacky, cheesy viewpoint.

Which makes me think that whoever came up with this particular advertising spot is just a knucklehead. They’re not even worth my contempt, or that of anyone else. Some people are just too stupid to pay any attention to.

SO I CAN’T get as worked up over this as the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, which has made a public demand that the carpet cleaner offer up an apology. They also want the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to apologize for printing such an advertisement.

But I have enough first-hand knowledge to know that a newspaper is not likely to apologize for the ads it publishes. In fact, I can see where the newspaper would be at fault if they tried to tamper with the ad content appearing on their pages.

I must admit to being pleased when I checked out the website of the Atlanta-based company. Because they don’t seem to have picked up this image on their website. Which means it is possible that this image will wither away once all the coupons printed up in newspaper ads get used (or recycled).

This one will wither away.

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