The Truth About Anti-Mexican Immigration Rhetoric

"Baldo" tells the truth about all of the anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant yada yada yada. Sergio (Papi to Baldo and Gracie) talks with his aunt, Tia Carmen (Baldo's and Gracie's great-aunt) over the morning fishwrap. The topic is multiculturalism. If this is (fair & balanced) universalism, so be it.

[x Baldo]

Click on image to enlarge (12/27/07)

[Hector Cantú created his first newspaper cartoon when he was 12. "It was a small-town newspaper that just happened to be owned by my brother, but I think it counts," Hector says. "It's called 'networking.'"

He studied journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and today is Editorial Director at Heritage Auction Galleries, where he's able to personally inspect work by his favorite artists. Yee-uh.

He previously was Production Director at Quick in Dallas, TX, and Managing Editor at award-winning Hispanic Business magazine in Santa Barbara, CA, and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine and Hollywood Reporter.]

[Carlos Castellanos was always interested in drawing. "I remember my dad always drawing cartoons for me when I was kid," Carlos says. At about age 7, he recalls watching his first episode of "Bewitched." Watching Darrin Stephens sitting behind a large drawing table and working from home, inspired Carlos to do the same.

He began his freelance career as an illustrator in 1981, while still in college. He now keeps himself busy doing work for magazines, book publishers, ad agencies, corporate clients and, of course, "Baldo." To browse through some of his more recent commercial work visit CarlosCastellanos.com.

Carlos lives in South Florida with his wife, Maria; sons Chase, Alec, Ty and family pooch Jet.]

Copyright © 2007 Hector Cantú and Carlos Castellanos

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Hear! Hear!

What a mess! The recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto might open Pandora's box for U. S. foreign policy. What a wonderful beginning for 2008. If this is (fair & balanced) Schadenfreude, so be it.

[x Time]
Enough with Democracy!
By Robert Baer

Benazir Bhutto's assassination Thursday should put a bitter end to the Bush administration's misguided policy of shoving democracy down the throat of the Middle East and Muslim world. Since 9/11 there has not been a single country in that region that has had peaceful and successful elections. Hamas's victory in Gaza, the stalemate in Lebanon, elections in Iraq and now Pakistan — none of them have led to the stability, modernity, and civil society this administration promised us.

The common denominator between Pakistan, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq is an ongoing war, wars without end, wars that poison democracy. The Bush administration is particularly culpable in creating the chaos in Pakistan because it forced a premature reconciliation between President Musharraf and Bhutto; it forced Musharraf to lift martial law; it showered money on Musharraf to fight a war that was never popular in Pakistan. The administration could not understand that it can't have both in Pakistan — a democracy and a war on terrorism.

The immediate reaction in the United Sates will be visceral: al-Qaeda killed Bhutto because she was too secular and too close to the United States, an agent of American imperialism. It will be of some comfort that the front lines of terrorism are thousands of miles away; that we are fighting "them" there rather than in lower Manhattan; that there are heroes like Bhutto ready to fight and die for democracy, moderation and rationality.

But this misses the point. The real problem in Pakistan undermining democracy is that it is a deeply divided, artificial country, created by the British for their expediency rather than for the Pakistanis. Independent Pakistan has always been dominated by a strong military. And democracy will only be nurtured when the wars on its border come to an end, whether in Afghanistan or Kashmir, and the need for the military to meddle in politics is removed. And never before.

Another irony underscored by Bhutto's assassination is that after 9/11 the Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. But as of today all that it has managed to do is invade two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which has weapons of mass destruction, while leaving Iran and Pakistan to fester — two countries that one day very well promise to threaten us with their weapons of mass destruction.

It is high time Americans return a pragmatic president to the White House. When George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and Norman Schwartzkopf decided not to occupy Iraq in 1991 at the end of the first Gulf War, they understood that imposing an American style democracy wasn't going to work.

[Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.]

Copyright © 2007 Time, Inc.

To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.

Get an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Reader at no cost from Google at Google Reader. Another free Reader is available at RSS Reader.