Magdaleno

New Holly Community Center 5-8 pm

On a Sunday afternoon in September there will be a fun filled celebration in Seattle. This will be a celebration of leno’s birthday and his Write-Tirement. Meaning he will soon be concentrating on his books and perhaps will work part time.

Message from Aviva Rose-Avila:

I would like to invite you to be a part of my father’s Write-Tirement celebration by accepting this invitation, by attending or just helping in whatever way you can. My dad, Leno, would like you; those with whom he has worked and known to be part of this event.

As many of you know he took out his retirement funds 14 years ago to start a unique organization called Homies Unidos to work with youth at risk and Gang members in El Salvador and Los Angeles. Now we ask you to help us raise some funds to allow him to return to Micronesia where he served as Country Peace Corps Director so that he can concentrate on his writings.

I hope you will still be able to attend or be of assistance from a distance. In any case this will be a wonderful event that we would like you to be a part of in some way. You can send any donation to (Att: Aviva Rose-Avila, 1358 4th Street, PHA, Santa Monica, CA 90401) written out to Magdaleno Rose-Avila.

Please let me know how you will be able to participate .

Hugs!

Aviva Rose-Avila
786-368-5756
Aviva.roseavila@gmail.com

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

a.Three women Supremes
b.Proposition 8
c.Neshoba
d.Asylum victories
e.Latinos and justice system
f.El beso de adios
g.Tans and getting darker

THREE WOMEN ON THE SUPREME COURT

I celebrate this historic milestone but we have a long ways to go yet.. The balance should be 5 women to four men and amongst them we should have an Asian and a gay or lesbian. The Court is still to right wing and is a threat to our very Constitution.
Today the Republicans are holding up two good Asian candidates for Federal Judgeships because they think they are too liberal… I think that is good thing to have a few liberal judges given the right wing politics of so many other federal judges…please pressure your elected officials to keep the names of Liu and Chen in the process.

GOP blocks two federal judges’ nominations

The Senate adjourns, sending back to the White House the nominations of Goodwin Liu and Edward M. Chen to the federal bench in California. Both are perceived as liberal

PROPOSITION 8

I have yet to read the decision but it seems to be good.. The arguments for Proposition 8 were weak and often most absurd. While we celebrate for the moment; just know that this fight is far from being over… So let us keep organizing and building our coalition…

NESHOBA: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

opens in New York on Friday, August 13th, at Cinema Village.

The Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner families, and Tony and I, will be at the 7:15 p.m. screening for a Q&A with the audience.

We’re showing the new release cut for the first time and are very excited about that too. We hope some of you can be there to celebrate with us the release of our film and that NESHOBA continues to provoke honest dialogue about race in America.
NESHOBA runs from Friday, August 13th through Thursday, August 19th. Check the Cinema Village website for ticket information and show times. Please spread the word to your friends and contacts.

TIME OUT NEW YORK REVIEW
Neshoba: The Price of Freedom
FOUR STARS
Dir. Micki Dickoff and Tony Pagano. 2010. N/R. 86mins. Documentary.

More than four decades after the Neshoba County murder of three civil-rights activists (the same crimes dramatized in Mississippi Burning), one would expect a new doc on the subject to play like yesterday’s news. But with the surprising 2005 indictment of octogenarian hatemonger Edgar Ray Killen, filmmakers Micki Dickoff and Tony Pagano recast the tragedy in the light of a community forced to confront past wounds. Interviewing residents from across the spectrum, Neshoba reopens the debate: How was this allowed to happen? How do we move forward? Some questions, this compelling movie reminds us, still require answers.
(Opens Fri; Cinema Village.)—S. James Snyder, August 9, 2010
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Two Asylum Victories

Every now and then I am asked to be an expert witness on a Central American gang related Asylum case. Most often we do not win and it is tough to get the bad decision. But this last week I was notified by attorneys on two separate cases that we had won .Now that makes you feel very good.

When the client has money I am paid a small fee but on most occasions I am dealing with a law firm that is doing the case Pro-Bono and often the firm can’t pay for expert testimony. So more often than not I’m doing the case pro-bono…no money .but at least I have the satisfaction that I have been a part of the case and often become a cheerleader for the attorney who on occasion can get frustrated or depressed as the process moves slowly forward.. We should always do are best and if that is not enough then we will appeal the beans out of them.

LATINOS-CHICANOS-HISPANICS and the so Called Justice System

Latinos numbers in prison and ultimately on Death Row continue to grow. This is a problem for us all because it is a product of the socio-economic system that is failing this community.

The high school dropout rates of 20 years ago remain about the same. In the mid sixties when we fought for College Scholarships and programs we thought we had found the medicine that would help so many more to get an education and give back to their communities. The problem is that most never make it to college. These high school drop outs become the targets of police wanting to fill their jails and eventually the prisons…

Today the Judicial process is a key weapon being used against the Latino Community. We become easy targets …especially our youth who before they know it they are finger printed, and become part of the long road to judicial never-never land. A land of legal files that outline the pain and despair of our communities…And if the youth happen to be undocumented they are soon on the road to deportation…

Once in jail or prison your life begins to change. In order to survive you end up doing things you would have never imagined. And this can get you into even more problems.

The men and women with families leave behind children and a family that often begins to unravel as the head of the family begins serving a long sentence. Most of those in prison are not violent criminals or a real danger to society. But it seems Society wants to be tough on crime and not smart on crime.

While they correctional systems say that they want to transform the prisoners they somehow manage to move them from one prison to another without rhyme or reason. This makes it more difficult for loved ones to stay connected.

I hope to begin a dialogue with you that while we will begin with Latinos this injustice also affects all prisoners and a system that has gotten out of control. In the process we need to talk about this industry that chews up prisoners and helps to destroy families.

Please write to me at leno@magdaleno.org and just title it HISPANICS AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM if you want to be involved with this issue… that way I can keep these conversations organized.
I hope that many of you will join me in this just cause

“El Beso del Adios” (Kiss Bessemer Goodbye)

A play written by Tencha Avila

If in the New York Area you must see this “stirring comedy” of the search for
the American dream is still in repertory at Repertorio Espanol
Theatre. 128 East 27th Street —  Tel. 212-225-9920. Tickets begin at
$25.  For more information, visit: www.repertorio.org.  Group rates
are available.

The New York Times:  ”A warm, funny, realistic circle of characters
that it’s a pleasure to spend time with.”

The Village Voice: “A delicately crafted Spanish-language piece that
delves wittily into the domestic dramas of a middle-class Mexican
American family living in Bessemer, Colorado in the 1970s.”

SYNOPSIS:  ”Kiss Bessemer Goodbye”

It’s April, 1970, in Bessemer, a steel mill town in southeastern
Colorado. A Mexican American family is roiled by problems:

Lupita, the first family member to attend university, is about to
graduate, a cause for celebration. Uncle Chuy, a boisterous, self-made
man who regards himself as the unchallengeable head of the family,
arranges for her to teach in a local school, but she’s got more
distant plans with a Japanese American boyfriend who arouses old
family ethnic antipathies.  Uncle Joe, out of work for four months
because of the strike at the steel mill, is severely depressed.
Lupita’s aunt and mother add their problems and solutions to the mix.

The play brings to life a Mexican American family in Colorado four
decades ago and dramatizes the universal themes of love and conflict
in a family undergoing generational and social change.

While it is a drama with serious themes, the cast of distinctive,
complex characters with their own personalities, foibles and
contradictions bring humor to their serious predicaments. In the end,
all works out for the best, but the issues raised will resonate with
the audience long after the curtain falls.

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TANS AND GETTING DARKER

During the summer months many try to get a good tan. But those of us with natural coloring just enjoy our skin tones but we all have to be cautious with the hot sun and a thing called skin cancer. Slap on some sun block if you want to enjoy your summer
Many are able to achieve a good brownness and sometimes they look almost deportable.LOL… but one person who sports the worst and strangest colors is Congressman John Boehner.

His skin color ranges from a muddy yellow to a deep red to orange. Part of the coloring I assume is because he drinks a lot .but his current coloring is over the edge… is he still going to a strange tanning salon or could he be the first Alien from another planet and if so he must be a so called ILLEGAL ALIEN… but where or where can we send him ..??

My best
leno

Sunday night I performed a wedding for Abdullah and Labiba a lovely couple from Afghanistan… aaaahhh love was in the air.. One is Christian and the other Muslim. Abdullah had been held previously in the Tacoma Detention Center as he sought asylum. While there a legal program helped him to get bonded out and he was given refugee for two years in the home of a wonderful gay couple. By the way these two men were the witnesses for all the wedding documents and I found out they offer their home to many immigrants in transition from the detention center.

It was a nice ceremony on the deck at sunset.  It was a nice but small crowd at the home of Immigration Attorney Diane Butler. Her younger daughter served as the flower girl…
Abdullah cooked the many delicious Afghan dishes. The toasts to the wedding couple were done in many languages.  The wedding couple will be off to Virginia and will continue to hope and wait for the best from Immigration.
It was an honor to be part of the wedding but had to scramble when they also asked me to bless the food.  Yes I was the minister for four hours..And was happy to be there…
In the past 16 years I have performed many weddings and funerals and in the process have met many wonderful individuals.

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

a.    American Night
b.    Terminating pregnancy = jail time in Mexico
c.    Eating fruits of harvest

THE ANATOMY OF IMMIGRATION AND AMERICA

RICHARD MONTOYA AND CULTURE CLASH ARE TELLING THE TRUTH …  AND MORE IN A PLAY CALLED ‘AMERICAN NIGHT: The Ballad of Juan Jose.’

Recently I was treated to the most amazing presentation of the history of Immigration in this wonderful one act play.

Montoya, a spiritual rocket and Chicano historian, reached far into his artistic and archeological sides to bring a wonderful story that tells of a chapter of this book called America. In this production he and Culture Clash tell the story of me and of you.. It is a story of greed, race, violence, religion, compassion, hatred, despair and hope. This begins with an immigrant preparing for his citizenship test and then the dreams that enter his mind the night before the big day.

This presentation comes to you at times as a fast large tsunami of truth that fills your everything.. twice. At times it seems to be too much but in a moment you are begging for even more.

You learn of the Klu Klux Klan, heroic black figures, Lewis and Clark, the Japanese Internment Camps, Arizona, town hall meetings, ICE, and about the absurd exam that qualifies one for citizenship.
Richard who has his roots with the famous Culture Clash also performed in the play as did Herbert Siquenza another Clasher. It was good to see these artists introducing their art to others.

This play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is there until October and should be seen by all who fight for the rights of immigrants and also serves as a good class room for those who need this lesson of Americana..

And it should be noted that the Acting, costumes, lighting,
Directing, and all aspects of the technical parts of the show blended in as a wonderful mosaic of stories into a seamless cloth.. which gave us reason to enjoy and believe in the characters and the story line…and to hope!!!

AMERICAN NIGHT.. MY NIGHT AND YOURS.

By leno rose-avila
206-618-9909
American Night review
July 5th, 2010 herbert Posted in Press, Schedule |

Play offers offbeat, surreal take on our country’s past

‘American Night’ kicks off OSF’s history cycle of plays with rollicking, insightful satire and occasional pathos
By Bill Varble
for the Mail Tribune

A colored cowboy, a Mexican revolutionary and a Ku Klux Klansman all walk into a saloon …

The premise is put forth by Ben Pettus (Rodney Gardiner), a black cowboy in “American Night: The Ballad of Juan José,” which had its world premiere Saturday afternoon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s New Theatre.

There’s no punch line, but the setup, with its hint of meta-theater, breaks the tension between three real (in the play) men who fit those descriptions.

It is 1918, and the three are facing off outside El Paso, Texas, where Ben’s wife, Viola Pettus (Kimberly Scott), is selflessly treating victims of the influenza epidemic that killed as many as 100 million people.

It is fitting that she do this, as it jibes with the larger vision of the play, which seems to have been inspired by a belief that often in American history, in the middle of great darkness, somebody steps up to do great good.

The credits say Richard Montoya and Culture Clash wrote the thing, but I don’t believe it.

It plays as if written by the Firesign Theatre and directed by the Marx Brothers, starring Monty Python.

“American Night” is a boisterous, rollicking, surreal, post-modern, postracial (warning: some descriptions may contain irony) journey into American history — and by extension the heart of one man’s American Dream.

Viewing is known to cause unrestrained laughter — and maybe a tear.

Juan José’s (René Millán) journey will take him over mountains and deserts, into wars and plagues, from rock festivals to shlock radio shows to internment camps. He will encounter Teddy Roosevelt, Sacajawea, a Shakespeare-quoting soldier, a bear, Malcolm X, NAFTA, Mormons, Harry Bridges, Bob Dylan, a tea bag lady, Fidel Castro and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

There will be social commentary, some of it caustic, all of it comic, most of it very funny indeed.

The seed of “American Night” seems to have been “The Citizen’s Almanac,” a sort of Civics 101 booklet published by the government for immigrants trying to become American citizens. Juan José left Mexico, where he was headed for trouble with drug lords and crooked cops, hoping to bring his wife, Lydia (Stephanie Beatriz), and the couple’s baby later.

In the U.S., using flash cards to cram for his citizenship exam, he falls asleep and dreams the play. The narrative has the fractured, disjointed structure of dreams, with one episode segueing into the next outside the normal constraints of rationality or plot.

Juan José finds himself in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s and wants to stop the killing, but the treaty he’s asked to sign will cede a good chunk of North America to the United States at the expense of Mexico, not incidentally making him into an outlaw. What to do?

“Hath not a Mexican eyes?” cries a Mexican soldier, quoting Shylock.

Rim roll.

Sacajawea is a 15-year-old with an attitude. T.R. never sees an animal he doesn’t shoot at. A Klansman with nowhere else to turn brings his baby to black Viola — and the infant has a tiny, little, pointy Klan hood.
Flash forward a bit and it’s a world in which America is ever more Mexican, and Mexico is ever more American, and Nike sneakers can rain from the skies. All this is painted by Montoya and director Jo Bonney in very broad strokes indeed. Scenic designer Neil Patel’s thrust stage fills the entire playing space, with Shawn Sagady’s projections filling in and/or commenting on much of the action: landscapes, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Manzanar internment camp for Japanese-Americans, the 1969 Woodstock festival, vintage postcards, the inevitable moving train, the Caribbean.

For a world of NAFTA there are giant projections of industrial gears and cogs filling the back of the stage like that famous scene in Chaplin’s “Modern Times.”

Much of the story involves stereotypes, with Culture Clash coming down on the side of the argument that says when we laugh at them they are undercut and lose power.

And laugh we do. Mostly. You can’t tell this story without ugly. There is a sign, of a sort once common, that says “No dogs, negroes, Mexicans.” But in the end the satire is the big-hearted, inclusive, Horation sort.
There is Woody Guthrie claiming this land is his land, and ours, and Harry Bridges organizing workers against the bosses, and a stoner Boy Dylan copping song lyrics to inject into loopy dialogue.
The surreal anarchy of the climax reminded me of “Duck Soup,” but Juan José is no Rufus T. Firefly. Millán plays him, brilliantly, as a straight man with a good heart in the midst of comic chaos, as befits what is essentially a zany but profound civics lesson.

“American Night” lasts but 90 minutes, and tickets should be impossible. Give it stars all the way off the page. And note that it debuted exactly 75 years after the first-ever OSF plays. It is the first of Bill Rauch’s “American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle,” 37 commissioned plays that will tell America’s story. It is a rousing, heartfelt beginning.

Bill Varble writes about arts and entertainment for the Mail Tribune. He can be reached at varble.bill@gmail.com.

Six in Mexico get 25-30 years in jail for abortion

/EFE) Six Mexican women have been sentenced 25-30 years in prison on homicide charges for terminating their pregnancies.

The women have already served between three to eight years of their 25 to 30 year sentences handed down by state courts in Guanajuato state, activists said.

Veronica Cruz, director of the Centro Las Libres, which provides assistance to over 160 women facing abortion-related charges, said the organisation would appeal to the federal judiciary.

Of the six cases, one was a spontaneous abortion, two others were undertaken because of rape and the rest were for accidental pregnancies, Cruz said.

‘All the men who got them pregnant abandoned them’, she said.

Since the beginning of the decade, over 40 women have been put on trial for abortion, which is punishable by up to three years in prison under the penal code.

The legislation regarding abortion varies in Mexico’s 32 separate jurisdictions. While in Mexico City it is legal, some states continue to treat abortion as a criminal offence.

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EATING THE FRUITS OF HARVEST

This past weekend I was enjoying, berries, cherries, plums, and will soon begin on the fresh melons. There is a large fruit and vegetable market near my house that is my source of most of my fresh products.

While enjoying these products I need to remind myself that these are harvested by farm workers who are paid almost nothing and live in minimal shelters. They do not share in the profits and do not have a union that will protect them.

It is a union that will protect  your farm products from abuse of pesticides and ensure that workers are paid what they deserve.

At the same time I appreciate all those who provide services to farm workers year in and year out. One of my sheros is Rosalia Ginsburg who for many years in Oregon has gone out to help the farm workers in her area.

We all can do something… please help those who feed us .

My Jalapeno best
leno

SAVE THE DATE: September 12th 3-5 pm

New Holly Community Center in Seattle
Leno’s birthday and WRITE-TIREMENT CELEBRATION …
For more details contact Aviva Rose-Avila at aviva.roseavila@gmail.com

A week or so ago I was in the Catholic Cathedral looking for Jesus…it was at this service that one of the ushers an elderly Filipino gave me a fist bump when we were supposed to be giving each other the sign of peace (normally a handshake).. Now that was super cool.

I go to a variety of places of worship hoping to find God. I often think I see him/her on the streets begging for money… or perhaps it is the woman helping those with some incurable disease. Or perhaps it is a truck driver taking another load of hope down the highway. Or an immigrant farm worker…I am told to be ready for God and that he/she might just be whom you least suspect.

Once a few years ago when I was Peace Corps Country Director in Paraguay that I had to admit that I thought that I WAS GOD…..(when I told this to my sister Roberta .she said
WHEN DID YOU STOP TAKING YOUR MEDICINE? And I had to laugh) Now there I was in Paraguay having my weekend coffee and eggs when my house keeper who had just came from answering the bell that was at the gate to the residence interrupted my peace and quiet,

SENOR, Irma my housekeeper urged, THERE ARE TWO MORMON BOYS HERE AND THEY WANT TO TALK TO YOU

WELL TELL THEM I AM NOT HERE.. And I returned to my coffee

BUT I TOLD THEM THAT YOU WERE HERE AND THAT YOU SPEAK ENGLISH AND THEY GOT VERY EXCITED… SO PLEASE GO TALK TO THEM.

The Mormon Church has one of the best language programs and trains it missionaries to go to any part of the world with the proper language. And then they send off these youth on door to door excursions to convert the unsaved. When the CIA and FBI were looking for language trained agents many a Mormon was hired…

I went to the gate…Grumpy… nothing worse than a grumpy Mexican who is pulled away from his breakfast.

Yep there they were standing just the other side of the rust colored gate and fence..
GOOD MORNING …WHAT ARE DOING HERE TODAY? I asked… there they were in their white shirts with ties in the early morning heat.

They said their names and said they were with the Mormon Church…

BUT WHY TODAY? WHY DID YOU COME TODAY?? I continued to question

WELL TODAY IT WAS ON OUR SCHEDULE FOR THIS NEIGHBORHOOD the lead missionary said.

WELL… I MUST TELL YOU THAT THIS MORNING I WOKE UP AND DISCOVERED I WAS GOD… YES GOD! I BET YOU ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT GOD WOULD LOOK LIKE… WELL THIS IS HOW HE LOOKS TODAY…

They were in shock…they didn’t know what to say …

AND OH BY THE WAY… IN MY BOOK YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO ARRIVE HERE UNTIL TUESDAY…SO PLEASE COME BACK ON THE PROPER DAY…

As I turned to go in… I said

AND BY THE WAY I GIVE YOU MY BLESSING. As I said these words I held up both hands in the air over my head sort of bent in their direction and fought the temptation to make the sign of the cross.

I am sure that they had a most interesting story to give their supervisor at the end of the day. But I do hope that God looks better than me .. Wouldn’t it be funny if there were places of worship that had my or your picture all over the walls? And that people worshipped us.

LMAO (whatever that means)

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

a. Israeli commandos
b. Exodus ship 1947
c. Boycott is growing
d. Memorial day whom do we honor

ISRAELI COMMANDOS BOARD A FLOTILLA OF SHIPS CARRYING HUMANITARIAN AIDE AND ACTIVIST HEADED FOR PALESTINE

This is a huge story and needs to be followed closely…it is absurd that the Israelis’ think that they can board a ship in international waters and shoot people…none of the violence would have happened if they had not boarded these ships commando style.. More details will be coming out and none of it will be good for Israel. International pressure is needed and a UN investigation needs to begin now and the Red Cross needs to be visiting all being held by the Israeli government.
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May 31, 2010, 2:48 pm

Echoes of Raid on ‘Exodus’ Ship in 1947

By ROBERT MACKEY

The New York Times The “Exodus 1947 ,” a ship filled with Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to immigrate to Palestine, after it was seized by the British Navy in a deadly struggle at sea and brought to Haifa in July, 1947.

Updated | 8:51 p.m. To some Israeli observers, it was impossible to miss the parallels between Monday’s killing of pro-Palestinian activists by Israel’s military in international waters, as commandos intercepted a flotilla of ships trying to break the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza, and a seminal event in the Jewish struggle for an independent homeland.

Noam Sheizaf, an Israeli journalist who is rounding up reports and commentary on the attack on his blog, “Promised Land,” points to a post in Hebrew by Rafi Man of the Israel Democracy Institute which asks: “Will This Be the Palestinian Exodus?”

Mr. Man was referring to the story of the “Exodus 1947,” a ship filled with Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to immigrate to Palestine in July 1947. That month, the British Navy intercepted the ship to enforce a ban on Jewish immigration to the territory, which was then under British control.

As my colleague Margalit Fox wrote in December — in an obituary for Yitzhak Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus 1947 — the violent way the British Navy seized that ship and deported the refugees backfired, creating global sympathy for the plight of stateless Jews. Ms. Fox explained:

The refugees had no legal authority to enter Palestine, and the British were determined to block the ship. In the battle that ensued, three Jews aboard the Exodus were killed. The ship’s passengers — more than 4,500 men, women and children — were ultimately deported to Germany.

The attack and its aftermath, which focused attention on the plight of many European Jews after the war, made headlines worldwide and helped marshal support for an Israeli state. [...]
Captain Ahronovitch was 23 when he took the helm of the Exodus. On July 11, 1947, he picked up the refugees at Sète, in southern France. On July 18, as the ship neared the coast of Palestine, the British Navy intercepted it. Captain Ahronovitch tried to break through, but two British destroyers rammed the ship.

Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, when refugees from the Exodus 1947 were forced into displaced persons camps in Germany by the British military:

Large protests erupted on both sides of the Atlantic. The ensuing public embarrassment for Britain played a significant role in the diplomatic swing of sympathy toward the Jews and the eventual recognition of a Jewish state in 1948.

THE BOYCOTT IS STILL GROWING AND BECOMING STRONGER

Alfredo Gutierrez now in his mid-60’s a former legislator is now the lead person in Arizona for the boycott. In interviews he has said that the marches are great but not all of the answer. He reminds us that we have to do voter registration, voter turnout and pressuring of everyone to boycott Arizona. I met Alfredo in 1984 when we were part of a delegation to the middle east and even then I was impressed by his political knowledge.

The recent gathering of activist culminated in about 20,000 marching in the streets of phoenix while across town in Tempe the BUYcott movement of Minutemen, Tea Baggers and others held their rally in DIABLO STADIUM.. yep Diablo means Devil.. so I think they chose a good place with an appropriate name for their rally.

While tens of thousands bused and flew into Arizona for the BOYCOTT demonstrations .. the pro SB 1070 could only draw a very much smaller crowd of locals who came to vent about the immigrants. Some say that his BUYcott rally was organized by the Tea Party of Texas and did draw some folks from Missouri and California. But the BUYcott event was dwarfed by the BOYCOTT march and rally. Later many of the local BUYcotters would go home to their manicured lawns, clean homes and cooked meals all done by undocumented immigrants.

The BUYcott team has a most uphill battle trying to convince many new conventions and meetings to come to Arizona… these meetings and conferences are planned years in advance and cannot be changed and moved so easily. So while the BUYcott sounds good, it is more smoke and mirrors than a reality. I am sure that today many business people are praying that a law suit prevails that puts this law into legal limbo.

Businesses in Arizona like in most states have suffered during this economic recession and there are still many small operations closing down as more people continue to lose their homes. Now a boycott makes it even more difficult for marginal tourists businesses to survive.

Even the big hotel and restaurant chains will begin complaining. Their boards want a profit and will demand that the governor and legislature stop this foolishness. And soon they will begin to hear from the Airlines who are losing money as well as the auto rental companies. At first these businesses will complain within closed meeting rooms but soon after that they will make their pleas public. Everyone will lose economically including the farmers and farm workers. But the rich love their profit line more than they hate undocumented workers. And if they have to choose they will chose profit over silly laws.
So my plea is that you help to continue to expand the boycott and in addition send in teams of folks to do voter registration. Arizona is our Mississippi.

MEMORIAL DAY WHOM SHOULD WE HONOR????

I honor the heroes and sheroes of our country… I include not just those who served our country in uniform but that those who also fought for peace and were demonized for raising the questions about senseless wars.

Many buried in government coffins and graves were cannon fodder for the politicians of the moment who wanted to raise their sabers in the air and then stay home and let others go to war.

We have Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the 4th of July and many more where we celebrate battles and those who fought them. And this does not include the many statues and monuments in honor of war. And we don’t even give lip service to Peace.

We need to have a DEPARTMENT OF PEACE, a National Day of Peace and monuments to all those voices of reason…to all the peace makers.

So this Memorial Day I honored all the heroes and sheroes.. Just remember that dying with a uniform on does not automatically make you a hero.. I know many a hero and sheroes who never wore a uniform and did the most amazing acts of humanity. Recognizing them all will give us a better future
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SEND AHORA YOUR STORIES AND GET YOUR FRIENDS TO SUBSCRIBE

You too can give your thoughts and ideas for AHORA…Write your news and thoughts… share your life with others… and then get your friends to subscribe… all they have to do is go to magdaleno.org and fill out the info requested on the mailing tab.

You can send your short essays, poems or links to stories, u tube and other interesting items… It just takes a minute and you can perhaps reach someone who needs the information you have in your mind or heart…

My best
leno