Chisme is wondering if he really loves Brownsville. After all, Mayor Pat says if you oppose the $2 monthly PUB fee he cooked up it means you don’t love the city. Sort of sounds like President W and the war in Iraq, verdad? You know, you’re either with W on the war, or you’re not really true-blue American. With Pat, you’re either with him on his love for the perritos, or you’re against everything Brownsville stands for.

Remember when Mayor Pat was just regular Pat and got on the PUB board? He came on the board a snarling, saying he was as mean as “a junkyard dog.” Remember that? That’s when regular Pat sued some of his fellow PUB board members for not being as saintly and holy as he was then - and still is now. Now that regular Pat is Mayor Pat again, it didn’t take long for the junkyard dog to rear his canine head, speaking up, for what else, the dogs of Brownsville.

The junkyard dog railed for months before becoming mayor about rising utility bills. Then Pat is back in charge at City Hall, y que hace, he wants to raise everyone’s utility bills by $2 a month , so in part, the dogs and cats can have better digs at the city shelter. Bueno, Mayor Pat’s first try to impose the monthly fee failed, pero perro, he’s not giving up. The mayor is bringing up the proposal again this Tuesday at 6 p.m. at a special City Commission meeting, and says that he “will do everything I can to pass it.”

See, this is classic Pat. The more people get in his face about something, the more the dude will push to get it done just so he can prove he’s the mero-mero. Typical macho behavior for the junkyard dog, whose $2 fee has been roundly panned by Brownsville residents. Mayor Pat says he wants everyone to show up and voice their opinion on his proposed fee, but even if every tio, tia and abuelita shows up to oppose the idea, a Ahumada no le importa.  The locals ought to take up Pat’s invitation and show up at the meeting. Growl loud and let the junkyard dog know how you feel.

City commissioners Longoria and Atkinson are sure to vote for the Pat pooch proposal. Longoria likes sticking to it what he considers to be the city establishment, and he know Pat the pooch lover drives the local jefes crazy with his oddball behavior. And Atkinson, I don’t know, the guy is just kind of weird.

Mayor Pat has already stirred things up, and this is just the beginning, raza. There’s a lot more where this came from. Dull, he’s not, wise he surely isn’t either.  

Chisme is trying to get his wind back after all of those brick bats thrown his way on Tuesday after trying to play nice in talking about Brownsville’s new mayor. Deep breaths, people, it will be OK. This is a somewhat daily dash of opinion offered by your humble servant, who is based in the Rio  Grande Valley, so if Chisme throws in a Spanish word in here and there for flavor, it ain’t the end of the world. For you high folluters who deride mixing the two languages, ni modo, go to the Wall Street Journal’s website for the intellectual stimulation you may be seeking.

Back here in the real world, did any of you watch or hear about the latest Democratic presidential debate? The pundits were hailing the event as the first such debate that used an array of questions from You Tubers on the Internet. One fellow even asked his question in the form of a song. The questions were clear and direct for the most part, with little of the verbal multi-layering that the journalist types indulge in at these events.

The new age debate fits in with the new age Democratic presidential contest, in which the two frontrunners are a woman, (Hillary Clinton), and an African-American with a diverse background, (Barack Obama). Another candidate is a Mexican-American, (Bill Richardson). Clinton and Obama are household names at this point, and Richardson is not, but the New Mexico governor is creeping up on John Edwards in some polls, and is moving up on the money contribution list as well.

A recent Newsweek magazine article asked: “How Accepting Are American Voters?” It showed a wide disparity between what individual Americans said they are willing to support in presidential candidates versus what they believe the country will do as a whole. For example, 85 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for a woman for president, but believe only 58 percent of their countrymen and women are willing to do so.

Over 90 percent said they would vote for an African-American candidate for president, but only 59 percent believe the country is ready to do so. It’s even worse for a Hispanic candidate. Eighty percent said they would vote for a Hispanic for president, with only 40 percent believing the country is ready to do so.

So what’s up with these numbers? Solid majorities of Americans believe they are individually ready to vote for a woman, African-American, or Hispanic for president, but believe many of their fellow citizens aren’t ready to take the plunge. That seems bothersome. Why in 2007  is that still the case?

Chisme comes forth today with kindness, not sarcasm, no edge other than to do his best James Carville imitiation, minus the Cagun accent, on what Mayor Pat can do to get his political mojo back. Maybe he hasn’t lost it in the first place, but man, there’s some folks out there taking some hard shots at Mayor Pat in recent days via The Herald’s website.

First, give Mayor Pat some credit. This is a guy with a lot of ganas, and the world could use more of that quality these days. OK, those ganas are sometimes misdirected, but look at it this way. He could sit back and not get involved, but no, Mayor Pat is a man looking to be engaged in his city, put his neck out there, say what he thinks. Chisme gives him some props for all of that, for running for various offices, failing to win at a bunch of `em, but he didn’t give up, no?

But, Mayor Pat, (and here’s where the Carville thing kicks in), come on, buddy, you’ve got to market yourself better. Can you imagine what Mayor Pat’s image would be right now if he were out on the streets, hitting potholes and traffic with the passion he’s demonstrated for cute critters? You know, maybe riding shotgun on one of those street repair vehicles that stand like 15 feet up, with a hard hat on, a photo in the newspaper, his mug on TV.

Or maybe convening some meetings of city folks with local business people and citizens and getting some fresh ideas on tackling streets, traffic, road maintenance. Come on, Mayor Pat, survey-after-survey, story-after-story shows this is what the locals are worked up about. Go to where the heat is, Mayor Pat, get your hands on that sarten, show the people you’re on the job, with your formidable ganas focused on the issue they care most about.

Instead, you’re out there front-and-center on dogs and cats, mostly the perritos. That’s a good secondary issue, to be sure, shows your humanity. Who doesn’t support treating the critters better, promoting responsible ownership of pets. Good stuff, but like the management and self-help gurus say, Mayor Pat, first things first. And when your average Brownsville folk think of what ails their city, they ain’t thinking dogs and cats as the first thing that pops into their minds.

Oh sure, the tree huggers and the like who grew up here and now live in Austin will send their condescending e-mails about being green and humane. God bless `em. But they don’t live here anymore, Mayor Pat, and we don’t care what they think, not really. The regular raza, the ones who still buy their pan dulce here, they’re not thinking about jogging around Town Lake by the state Capitol before sipping their organic iced tea at some foofy Austin place, and talking about free-form jazz. The real folks here are thinking about how to get down Boca Chica without having to pack clothes for an overnight stay.

So, Mayor Pat, keep the passion, brother, but direct it a little more intelligently. And, those citizen committees you’ve got, they sort of give Chisme the creeps. Looks like some of your `citizens’ are getting a little too full of themselves. There’s trouble brewing there, of the sort you don’t need, mayor.

So, let’s review. Streets, road repairs and maintenance, hard hat on, riding those big vehicles, the ones with all of that tar black stuff, and giving the raza a plan to make their roadways better.

Hit the streets, not the flea markets, mayor. First impressions count, and the ones so far early in your term, are shaky at best.

First of all, let me say what an honor it is to receive an e-mail from not only a patriot, but an outraged patriot. Chisme has received over 40 e-mails in just a couple of weeks in offering these meager thoughts on the World Wide Web Forum. Of those e-mails, none of course, matched the truly American fervor of talk show yakker Dan Howard of Tulsa. Dan, buddy, thanks for reading, a big 10-4 up there in one of America’s new Hispanic heartlands.

Let me be up front in conceding what puny patriotic credentials I possess. Chisme’s father served his country, (that would be the U.S., not Mexico, Danny), in World War II, and an uncle did the same in Vietnam. Chisme thinks his kin were fairly patriotic fellows, but come on, they never hosted a conservative talk show program. Not once did they even call such a show! So, obviously,  despite their service, Chisme’s kin could not match the geniune Americaness of the patriots who roam the conservative talk radio dials.

Let’s flash back to what got the outraged patriot into even more of a tizzy. My word, was it something Chisme wrote? Heavens, Chisme agrees that all Mexicans should leave Tulsa, even Oklahoma. Si senor, all you Mexicans up there need to high tail it out of Tulsa. Mira, (that means `look’ in American), let Chisme state, otra vez, (which means `again’ in American), that Mexicans should evacuate the premises up there so all good Oklahoma folk can build their own houses, clean their own hotel rooms, pick their own crops, build their own highways, do their own landscaping, and clean their own hotel rooms. Have at it, mis hermanos,de Tulsa, we no do work no more like dat.

Speaking entirely from the context of demographic study and market analysis, let Chisme state that he has no dog in that hunt up there in Tulsa, and is also clear on dancing with the one who brung him. What part of country cliches do you not understand?

 Down here in South Texas, we generally live a graceful and tolerant life. No civil wars brewing like the one up in Tulsa, and we got a whole lot more Mexicans in our neck of the woods, so y’all might steer clear of this area. We speak some English. We speak some Spanish. We eat breakfast tacos and bagels with cream cheese, and put salsa on both. We eat our eggs with bacon, we eat our eggs with chorizo.  Our teens flip between MTV and novelas on Univision. We’re so bicultural and bilingual it would just make you people in Tulsa puke! We’re bad people, Lou Dobbs!

 We welcome Canadians retirees by the tens of thousands every winter, (we even fly their flag, dad gum!). Mexican nationals driving expensive SUVs fill up our shopping malls, and dad gummit, they even insist on speaking Spanish, too, but they spend lots of money here, so we fly their flag too, right next to the Canadian maple leaf.  Immigrants come through, esta bien, they’re coming to work, but if the Border Patrol catches `em, ni modo, (tired of translating, sorry), they’re out of here.

Sorry, some Mexicans are bothering you up there in red-white-and-blue Tulsa. More of `em ought to stay in their country, and then again, our nation’s immigration system ought to allow more of them to come in legally, if nothing else to spare us from hearing all of those inane bumper sticker cliches of talk radio hosts.

Go ahead and vent your collective spleens up there in Tulsa, talk radio nation. Have a little civil war up there, if you’d like, just keep it away from our part of America. Rumble across the fruited plains, patriots, Americans one and all, except for those guys eating those funny looking pastries. Ohmygod! Is that pumpkin in there? Pan dulce never tasted so good, or so American. 

Hey, isn’t it something that in a nation of 300 million people that we can only have presidents from two families? You know, the whole Bush-Clinton-Bush-y aqui viene otro Clinton thing. I don’t know about all of you other good Americans, but I’m tired of it.

It’s like when Roger Ebert reviews a film and when he comes out of he says the movie left him exhausted. Man, that’s the way I feel about the Bushies and the Clintons.

 Chisme has seen both of these families in action. Way back when Bush the old man was VP under Ronald, Chisme heard George Sr. give an Ollie North God-Bless-America speech at the convention center in McAllen. Tu sabes, it was OK, real Republican and everything. Then years later when W was running for guv against Ann Richards, Chisme got to hang around some with future prez when younger George’s best friend in these parts was Brownsville boy Tony Garza, who would later marry a billionaire Mexican chick.  Chisme doesn’t remember much about meeting W back then other than telling a buddy, “I’m telling you, this guy really loves baseball.”

With the Clintons, Chisme remembers all the buzz when Big Bill visited the Rio Grande Valley a week before all of the Monica guato broke. All the Mexicans around here went ga-ga when Elvis visited the premises. First Bill went to Mission/McAllen, and then his copter headed to a hangar at the Brownsville airport ,where the obligatory marachis had to wait like two hours for Clinton to show because the president of the free world took extra long to eat his expensive and catered enchilladas at the mansion of McAllen rich guy Alonzo Cantu.

Hillary came down when Bill was sleep walking to his re-election over boring Bob Dole in `96, with the First Lady in expensive pant suits sweating it out with the masses at the old bingo/dance hall next to la Porter in Brownsville. The Mexicans, of course, went ga-ga, even when Hill, reading from an index card, yelled, “I just love Brownsville!” The marachis that would play for Bill were there too, and so grateful that Hill actually believes in being on time.

Next to African-Americans, Mexicans love the Clintons the most. If it were up to blacks and Hispanics, Bill and Hill could just take turns being president until they became viejitos, and then they’d check if Chelsea was reading to step up. Pero, come on people, can we move on, por favor?

Just today, Chisme was reading a NY Times article that says even among women Hillary has a 40 percent unfavorable rating, even while the vast majority concede Hill is one bad woman not to be messed with. The Republicans know this, of course, and are so desperate about the situation that they appear willing to go with Rudy G., a pro-choice, pro-immigrant GOP guy, but who has the goods on sounding tough.

Anyway, Chisme is already tired even before thinking about all of the right-wing radio meltdowns if Hill becomes president. Sean Hannity’s fat head might explode right through your radio at the sight of Hill raising her left hand with her right hand on a leftist/liberal Bible as she takes the oath to ruin America, and thereby sets off the latest round of `I hate Hillary’ books.

 America needs some fresh air. Maybe Oprah’s endorsement of Obama will make a dent in the Hillary & Bill political machine. If not, oh well, a new President Clinton can visit the Valley, and at least we don’t have to worry about a sex scandal breaking the next week.

A bunch of conservative guerito Republican types are getting the creeps with all of the Latino population growth in the U.S. Tu sabes, they say Latinos aren’t assimilating, they don’t want to learn English, they watch soccer on Univision, they still eat too much carne guisada, yada, yada. Hey, Chisme can go intellectual and point to scholarly studies like the ones put out by the Pew Hispanic Center that say by third generation nearly 100 percent of Latinos are so Americanized that when they visit Mexico the first words out of their mouths are, “Dude, like, are so many of the people here, like, totally poor?”

Basically, (a word Mexicans use when they want to sound smart, or so says comedian George Lopez), Chisme doesn’t have to go intellectual. He can just stick to basic facts, basically. Hey, do the conservative gueritos who yak on talk radio and are freaking out about all of the Mexicans have any idea how much Latinos love Chinese food. It’s true, and if you live in the Rio Grande Valley, you know Chisme is on point about this basic contention, basically.

The other day Chisme was making a vuelta around Brownsville’s Sunrise Mall and almost fell out of the driver’s seat of his Dodge Neon. They’re opening a Chinese place at the mall, and I’m not just talking a casita in the food court. I’m talking a full-fledged restaurant with front doors and everything. I know, I know you’re probably thinking what I was thinking when I saw this joint going up - otra! Yep, another Chinese food place, just what Brownsville and the Valley needs.

Hey, Chisme isn’t knocking Chinese. I wouldn’t put an eggroll above a papa con huevo breakfast taco on my sophisticated palate, but I wouldn’t turn down one of those suckers either. It’s just that Chisme thought Brownsville was well-covered on the Chinese food front with that fancy palace on the expressway in the middle of the city’s restaurant row on the expressway. Then if you go to Harlingen, Chisme’s unofficial census reports that there are more Chinese places than Tex-Mex food joints. It’s crazy!

And then if you go to McAllen, the Mexican chocantes over there love Chinese, too. There’s like a Chinese place every half mile on 10th Street in the city Othal Brand built.  Then at the HEBs where the ricos shop in the Valley, they all have sushi counters now with dudes slicing up raw fish. Chisme isn’t sure if that’s Chinese or Japanese, but it sure ain’t Mexican, pardner.

Chisme remembers when he once worked with a local gal named Elvira, who was born and raised in Southmost and Latina to the core, and observing that this lovely lady wolfed down Chinese whenever possible. One day, Chisme asks, `Elvira, hey, aren’t you eating too much of that stuff?” To which, she responded, `Have you ever tasted the stuff? It’s so good!’

Case closed. Latinos are so getting thrown into the American blender that they can’t get enough Chinese. I don’t know when that new Chinese joint is opening at the mall, pero Chisme will be there opening week with all of the excited raza, filling up the place. Another new restaurant! Donde? At the mall, it’s Chinese! Otra!? Yep, I’ll meet you there, basically, at noon.

Chisme was walking around the other day, feeling, I don’t know, sort of weak. It’s like when you know you’re coming down with something, pero in this case, I didn’t feel any body aches or sniffles like when you know a really bad gripa is coming.

No, somehow, it’s hard to explain, but Chisme felt less free than usual. Then I read a letter-to-the-editor in last Friday’s USA Today, and the diagnosis was right there in front of me. A guy named Bruce Gary wrote in from Rhinelander, Wis., about how la migra, or the homeland office, or whatever they’re calling it since 9/11, should deport an illegal immigrant woman and her baby who have taken sanctuary at a Episcopal church in southern California.

Bruce from a town named after Germans wants the feds to raid the church and send this woman, Liliana, on the next bus, plane, or subway south, or if necessary, heck, let `em walk.

“Her case highlights one of the primary reasons many Americans don’t want immigrants to come to the USA,” writes Bruce, who lives in a town named after Germans. “They ignore our laws. They enjoy freedom they never earned. It’s all about the taking.”

Right on, Bruce, the guy who lives in an American town named after Germans.

Then, as usual, Chisme got confused, which happens often given the limited intelligence at hand. Right in the same issue of USA Hoy, there’s an article about Wilfredo Montes, a 54-year-old immigrant from Nicaragua, (what they couldn’t find a Mexican?). Wilfredo left his country about 10 years ago to find work to support his family, going first to Costa Rica, and then to Dallas, (oh yea, did I forget to say he’s one of dem illegal aliens?).

Montes has lived in New Orleans the last two years, working with many other immigrant workers to help rebuild that city after Katrina hit. Wilfredo has done his share in rebuilding homes devastated by the floodwaters of Katrina. Remember after that storm when the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, ese pelon, complained that his town was being `overrun’ by Mexicans?

In the USA Hoy article, a worker named Cameron Taylor, says he, too, once resented all of the immigrant workers, but his resentment lessened when he saw how hard they worked.

“New Orleans has a long way to go,” Taylor said. The city wouldn’t been where it is today, he said, “if it wasn’t for the (Hispanic day laborers). They should be allowed to stay.”

Whoa, pardner, don’t go mushy on us.

The article goes on to detail what Montes, the freedom-taking immigrant, is up to these days. He sleeps in a partioned corner of a Lutheran church, where a dozen other migrant workers live for free, (see what Bruce of Germantown, Wis., is talking about?) In return, Montes and the others have to attend Bible classes, English classes and Sunday services if they’re not working on that day.

Montes gets up before dawn, showers and dresses, and makes sure the place is clean and in order before leaving in search of work. He walks two miles to a site near a Home Depot, where he hopes contractors will come by and hire him to do work, any decent work that will pay. Montes feels bad when he can’t find work, and doesn’t complain about the hardships he faces.

“We knew when we came to the United States, we were going to suffer like this. This is life,” he said.

Ni modo, Wilfredo, you’re just another illegal alien who came here, worked to rebuild a city devastated by a hurricane, and now the gueritos want you to book. The harder you work here, Wilfredo, the less free Bruce in Wisconsin and Chisme in South Texas are because there’s only so much freedom to go around. It’s like water. Too many people drink from it, and pretty soon, there’s no more.

Chisme got a kick that one of the Louisiana politicians who has been most vocal about bashing the illegals, questioning their morality and character, is no other than U.S. Sen. David Vitter, Mr. Family Values, a mero-mero Republican, who recently admitted he has contacted ladies who charge money for certain services. Chisme is no Billy Graham, trust me, pero these Republicans who defend marriage como perros, need to do better than this. I mean, por favor, at least stick to having gambling problems like that GOP gordito of moral virtues, Bill Bennett, who has also bashed immigrants.

Yes, a poor soul like Wilfredo Montes is taking our freedoms by hanging out at Home Depots and looking for work. Pero, at least, he’s not blowing his hard-earned American greenbacks on prostitutes and gambling in Vegas. Chisme might be wrong, and if he is, I’m sure Bruce from the Wisconsin town named after Germans will straighten him out.

Chisme was all teary-eyed Sunday morning when he read about how Mayor Ahumada use to share his milk bottle with his German shepard when the mayor was a kiddo. The love little Pat had for animals is now being transported to the present, where he serves as the mayor of a city of almost 200,000 residents, a Brownsville with nearly as many potholes as residents, and police services straining to serve a growing community.

So good thing, right, that Mayor Pat’s top priority is finding a home for Fifi and Rover. Good thing, tambien, that while local residents squawk about the condition of our streets and the traffic piling up on them, that Ahumada is at the flea market grande by the expressway every weekend, targeting illegal sales and cruel treatment of animals at the pulga.

Pat’s pet peeve has led to $2 being added to monthly PUB bills to help pay for animal shelter operations and emergency pet evacuation plans. Man, when Chisme was a kiddo, his family left their gata, Roxy, behind at home when Beulah was coming this way in 1967. Y que? Roxy survived just fine, pero these days, pets need an evacuation plan.

All of this is too much for one Marion Carter, who wrote The Herald that he’s not paying Pat’s $2 pet fee. Marion says he’s not including the extra $2 in his utility bill “because it’s not for services rendered.”

And if PUB cuts off Marion’s power for not paying the two bills, Carter says “the lawsuit that follows will be a dilly.”

Count Chisme in when Carter goes to trial and when TV legend Perry Mason or local lawyer Brian Janis asks the mayor why poor Marion is suffering with no A/C because he doesn’t want to help pay for Rover’s evacuation plan. Maybe Pat will spin out the story of sharing his teta with Rin Tin Tin.

Ay bueno, time to get stuck in traffic on Boca Chica, if I can get through the potholes on McDavitt. You go Pat! Get those mean people at the pulga!

Chisme was still feeling blue over that whole impending civil war thing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You may have heard. Some gueritos in Tulsa are going loopy because some Mexicans have discovered there’s a state shaped like a frying pan right above Texas. That progressive medium we call conservative talk radio, which is so good at uniting Americans and playing to our hopes and not our fears, is all over this Mexican thing in Tulsa.

One talker up there, a piker named Dan Howard, said on his radio show that if the government doesn’t do something to boot out all of the Mexicans from Tulsa that “a lot of people believe there is going to be a civil war.”

And another broad-thinking Tulsa guy, a fellow named Gary Rutledge, who’s a political scientist by trade and apparently some kind of expert on Latinos tambien, says he’s sees all of those Mexicans taking over his city, and dice que he’s “very concerned that this last wave, (i.e. the Mexicans who are going to cause the civil war), has no interest in becoming Americanized.”

Really Gary? Man, you sure do know a lot about Latinos, dude, since you just met your first one like 15 minutes ago.

Chisme’s is a quasi-political scientist tambien since he reads a lot of important newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to spot cultural trends while checking his Blackberry and sipping hot coffee at McDonald’s. I would go to Starbucks, pero that would make me a chocante.

So, Chisme is doing his cultural trend investigations, y que? He discovers that quinceaneras are going American. Say it isn’t so, Rosalba! Chisme points you to the June 12, 2007 issue of USA Today, and there’s a big spread on how cute Tejana girls in Houston are putting their own American spin on a ritual that goes back to the Mayas and Aztecas, or at least back to when my Tia Flor had her 15th birthday cultural bash.

I’m sure Rutledge, the Latino expert in Tulsa is all over this trend since he’s such an expert on Mexicans, but the article says these American-born girls are putting their `fingerprints’ all over the sacred quinceanera tradition.

“The girls really want to put their own fingerprints on this quintessential cultural event,” Michaela Murphy, a magazine editor, told USA Today. “They think the rituals are cool, but they want to marry it with who they are as contemporary American teenagers.”

No me digas. Hold on to your britches, Tio Florencio, the article says that one girl did the the traditional father-daughter waltz to the rap song, This Is Why I’m Hot.

Holy crap! We better Fed-Ex this info up to Tulsa and professor Rutledge, the Mexican expert, the one who says Latinos don’t want to assimiliate into American life. But, wait a minute, maybe I’m confused. Didn’t Vicente Fernandez do This Is Why I’m Hot?

Let’s see. Mexicans in Tulsa don’t want to assimiliate, pero in Houston the American Melting Pot is taking hold of the quinceanera, putting it in a blender, shaking it up and coming out with rap music at Julia Martinez’s 15th birthday party production.

I’m sure Rush Dimbaugh will break all of this down soon on his radio talk show. A guy with a head that big has to have some brains in there somewhere. If not, there’s that Rutledge dude in Tulsa. Now there’s a real expert on Mexicans.

Holy Crap! That’s what Frank Romano of “Everybody Loves Raymond” would say if he read a story in Wednesday’s USA Today. Right there on page 3A is a protester holding up a sign that urges “100% Bilingual Ballots.” But it’s not a guy named Gonzalez or Garcia holding the sign. No senor, it’s a fellow named Guo Yan Mai, a 71-year-old man who lives in Boston.

See, this is exactly what Chisme is talking about. Mexicans show up on the shores of Tulsa, Oklahoma, freaking out the American patriots who listen to talk radio, and now some guy named Guo Yan Mai is demanding that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s names be translated to Chinese on U.S. ballots. As Chisme’s abuelo would say: “Te digo.”

Here’s the rub in Boston, guys: The Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, (is the guy Mexican, I knew a Galvan once), has filed a challenge in federal court because he has problems with a federal directive requiring that ballots be fully translated to protect the rights of Chinese-speaking voters.

Galvin says he wants to be a good sport and go along, pero, he says that Chinese uses characters, not letters, and it’s spoken in several dialects, so put it all together and he claims it will create ballot chaos. Galvin says OK to ballot instructions in Chinese, pero Hillary should be spelled H-I-L-L-A-R-Y on the ballot and not in all of those symbols that Chisme can’t replicate on a good-old-American computer keyboard that doesn’t spell Chinese but can spell Mexican.

No go, says Ann Har-Yee Wong of Boston’s Elections Advisory Committee. Ann says asking Chinese-speaking voters to read a candidate’s name in English is like asking a “Boston cabdriver to navigate the streets of Beijing while trying to read street signs only in Chinese characters.”
Ann has a point. When Chisme was in Mexico City once, he was in the backseat of one of those cool VW bug taxis and he kept looking for Walk of the Reform Drive, pero it’s called Paseo de la Reforma over there for some reason. It was so confusing!

Anyhoo, this whole Chinese-American language thing is bewildering. The USA Today article says just the simple American name of Barack Obama, (Chisme grew up with a guy named Barack Guevera), could have a lot of meanings in Chinese. Like, oh my God, take the “ma” in Obama. It can mean horse, mother, how or what in Chinese, depending on the dialect.
And Obama comes out as “Oh Bus Horse” in Cantonese, but in Mandarin it means - and Chisme is not making this up - “oh intellectual overcome profound oh gemstone.”

This clash of civilizations is giving Chisme a migraine. Mira, it’s simple. If you want to learn English, listen to excellent wordsmiths like talk show hosts Rush Dimbaugh, Sean O’Ventanity or ese guy on CNN Headline News with the really bad haircut, como si llame, Glenn Beck, verdad?
Listen to these geniuses and you, too, willl become a true American patriot like those guys in Tulsa who want to start a civil war because they saw a panaderia in their city.

That Chinese ballot story gave Chisme the creeps. Chinese ballots! Next thing you know they’ll be waving the Chinese flag on the streets of Boston! Chisme better drink a te de manzanilla to settle his nerves.