Mexico

I see a screenplay blooming. Dealing with a favorite theme: time travel. You now think you'll steal this zeitgeisty gem from me, but you cannot because in the future, I have already finished it, and am mailing it to myself yesterday in a walnut sealed in Presidential earwax and pressurized to resist even election-year terror alerts.

OUR TALE BEGINS with a man who desperately seeks an answer to his deepest, heart-sprung questions, headed up by the quintessential and Googlicious How Do I Get Rid of the Mexicans? You see, our protagonist feels his very nation is under dire attack by the filthy mongrel hordes from the South, those who bark that most Arrogant and Sickening of Languages—Español, those who dare to settle into his beautiful nation, hellbent on storming the kitchens and fields and meatpacking plants and canning plants and steel factories or to otherwise seek to implement that most foul of Mexican behaviors: the trading of work for pay.

Let's call our protagonist "Greebey." Let's call him "Greebey Vather." Let's pronounce that "Vay-thur." Let's make his middle initial "N" and then let's give him two rags in his back pockets, one on each side. One is the confederate flag, which he never uses to blow his nose. The other is the one he uses to blow his nose. But he always carries both. No, make that confederate flag a stars N stripes. but with the circle of stars, not the rows. No, make it a Budweiser eagle bandanna, yeah, bleached from too many days in the sunlight falling upon his cracked dashboard, where it usually rests. Render Vather's bandanna Made in China. We don't need a label. Wait, make it a bleached-out watermark on the bandanna. Only Vather never looks close enough to see it.

Denied Medication, AIDS Patient Dies in Custody;

Victor Arellano's Fellow Detainees Staged a Protest Over His Treatment

By Sandra Hernandez

Daily Journal Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9, 2007 - The handful of prescription drugs Victor Arellano took each morning kept him alive.

But Arellano, in the throes of full-blown AIDS, was denied that medicine when immigration officials locked him up at the San Pedro detention center, other detainees said.

Two months later Arellano, 23, died in custody - too weak to walk to the bathroom alone, but shackled to a hospital bed.

Arellano's family and his fellow detainees said the detention center's staff denied him his critical medication despite repeated requests.

"He called me two weeks before he died and told me he was afraid," said Arellano's mother, Olga. "He kept telling me how frustrated he felt because he wanted to see a doctor. He asked for his medicine but no one listened to him."

Victor came to the United States from Mexico as a child. A transgender person, he was known as Victoria Arellano to his fellow detainees, who routinely referred to him as her.

"She was so sick that if you tried to move her she would scream," said Walter Ayala, another detainee, recalling her final two weeks.

Arellano spent most days in a bunk bed, complaining of debilitating headaches, back pain, nausea and stomach cramps, Ayala said.

Once upon a time there was a high school. It was a beautiful high school, and rich in history, being more than 200 years old, and everybody in town wanted to attend it.

With its fine roots in liberal education and the almost unprecedented power over their own destinies that it bestowed upon its students, it was unlike any other high school in the district, or indeed, the state. At the turn of the last century, whole families, many of them Irish and Eastern European, moved across town so that they'd be zoned for it. The high school welcomed them with open arms, but the students weren’t so kind.

It is my sad duty to report that many of these new students were beaten up, or had their lockers vandalized. Thankfully, things settled down, and the high school was once again a harmonious whole.

In the 40s, there was a shameless and dangerous power grab by a school superintendent a few districts over. He was intent upon eventually absorbing every school in the state into his district, under his control, and decreeing with a wave of his hand who could stay and who could not.

Fortunately, the president of the student body, a well-liked disabled guy named Frank, worked tirelessly with the other schools until the superintendent was voted safely out of office.

But our story begins about fifteen years ago with the election of a Jock to Student Body President.

The Jock was a nice guy, everybody liked him, and there was no denying that he had charm. He was a great guy to grab a burger with, and, whoever you were, you felt like the Jock knew where you were coming from. At this time - actually, to this day - the Jock was going steady with someone who defied high school logic.

I've heard some anti-immigrant sentiment recently but I'm not feeling it. I'm proud that Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, is Mexican-American, second-generation. Diversity works for the Democratic Party.

Today, I received the following e-mail from Patti Solis Doyle:

Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:35:02 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary for President"

To: francislholland@yahoo.com

Subject: RE: I never could have anticipated

Dear Francis,

I just got off the phone after giving Hillary an update on our online fundraising before tonight's FEC deadline. We're both blown away by the incredible response to the message she sent yesterday.

Now there are just a few hours left. At midnight tonight, we have to close the books on the first quarter. When all the campaigns' fundraising reports come out, they will set the tone of the race for months to come. As Hillary's campaign manager, I'm telling you right now, every dollar we bring in before midnight will make a difference.