Down by the border

If you came here hoping to read a long article about illegal immigration, I've got just the thing. Me? I tend to read the writer rather than the topic. Normally, I would rather poke additional holes in my head than read a 10 click piece about the Mexican exodus, but Charles Bowden is to my taste the best non-fiction writer working today and this article he wrote for Mother Jones is an excellent piece of journalism.

It is a somewhat uncommon piece of work for Bowden because it is more or less straight journalism. Unlike so much of his work, there is nothing wild or exhilarating in the prose, narrative or story. It is journalism, plain and simple. Well, plain perhaps, okay relatively plain, plain for Charles Bowden, but not so simple. In addition to his great skill as a writer, Bowden is one of those rare individuals who clearly sees the future. He sees it in much greater detail than other seers. He's been seeing it for years.

Nearly 15 percent of the Mexican workforce now resides in the United States. When the dust settles, this exodus will influence us more than the Iraq war. The war is who we are; the migrants are who we will be.

Bowden, like all good journalists, puts a human face onthe grand, impersonal forces of history:

A pair of Border Patrol trucks sit empty, the agents off on ATVs hunting Mexicans. Two kids sit nearby. The girl is 22; her brother, 16. They've been trying to flag down Border Patrol units that roar by, but no one will stop. They came up from Oaxaca City. They're Zapotec Indians, but because they haven't been raised in an Indian pueblo, they see themselves as city kids, as Mexicans. For 16 days, they've been on the road.

First they took the bus up to the border. Then they paid a coyote $800 to guide them across. The first time, they got caught and deported. This time, they got separated from their group and they say they have now wandered the desert for four days. I don't believe them about the four days––they look too clean––but clearly they are broken in spirit...

He weighs maybe 110 pounds, and she not more than 85. They are small–boned and their skin is dark and shines with life. Both move with the light tread of cats. An hour ago, I found a shawl out in the desert of a pattern and style made only in Yucatán. Everyone is moving.

I give the girl $40 and tell her to hide the money because Sásabe is not an easy place. They climb in and I take them to the border crossing and wish them good luck. The agents manning the U.S. station watch them climb out and walk into Mexico.

They ask me if the pair worked for me, and I say no, that they are two kids from Oaxaca sneaking into the United States, that they said they'd wandered in the desert for four days and were very thirsty and hungry.

They tell me what I have just done is illegal and could cost me a lot of money and put me in jail.

I say I know that fact.

They look at me with sad eyes and wave me on.

It's not easy for anyone in the future.

One of Bowden's strength's is his ability to gain the trust of so many different types of people on both sides of the border. Like Hunter S. Thompson, he is able to "wallow with the eagles and soar with the pigs." Not that all of the criminals in Bowden's stories are eagles. Many of them are pigs. Pigs, to you and me at least. Bowden tends to see them a bit more sympathetically. I'm sure that has something to do with why they talk with him.

We talk for hours. He laughs easily, but not for a single second does he ever express sympathy for the pollos. After they get off that bus and start north into the United States, they fall between two worlds, and people such as him wait in this space.

He is not a bad man. The Border Patrol agents are not bad people. The Minutemen, the polleros, the human rights folks putting water bottles out in the desert, well, I've met them all and they are not bad people.

As for you and me, the jury is still out.

I don't think Bowden really believes that the jury is still out. No, the verdict is in and we were found guilty and sentenced to the future. Can anything be done to stop the wave? Bowden discusses the possibilities throughout the article, but this little quote sums it up:

A few days earlier, I was staying at a ranch an hour south of Austin. A local white guy came out to spray the buildings for termites. He'd spent his life in nearby Gonzales, a town of 7,000 where the Texas revolt from Mexico began. He asked me what I was doing there.

I said, "I'm a friend of the owners. I'm down here writing about migrants."

He looked puzzled for a moment and then asked, "When you say migrants, do you mean wetbacks?"

"Yes."

"Well, what do you think we should do?"

"You might as well ask me what I think we should do about hurricanes."

And that future? Couldn't be more obvious:

We want an answer, a solution. But there is only this fact: We either find a way to make their world better or they will come to our better world. At the moment, we insist on the wrong answer to the wrong question. And so, the Border Patrol will grow.There will be a wall. Tougher laws will be passed by Congress. And the people will keep coming.

Burning man cont.

Jesus camp

Kinda putting an unintentional coda to the recent articles that touch on evolution, I watched Jesus Camp last night. Jesus Camp is about how elements of the Christian right go about indoctrinating children to be warriors for “Christ.” I put Christ in quotes because nothing they say has anything to do with the common conception of Christ. It’s uncomfortably funny how they make up everything as they go along. The construction “Jesus told me to” is so common you stop hearing it after awhile, which is unfortunate because the things “Jesus” tells them to do are often downright wacky and include taking over the military and the government so they can punish sinners such as ourselves. I wasn’t looking for the movie, it’s not like I want to think about these dangerous shits, I just came across it at the library and chose not to resist.

Of course it’s always been convenient for people on the make to imagine Jesus telling them to do whatever it is they want to do whether it’s killing people, taking their money or just taking out the trash, but it’s a little more enlightening to see that insane nonsense come out of the mouths of brainwashed children. You think with all you know about right wing religious kooks you’re prepared for it, but odds are good it’s worse than you think.

I don’t use the term “brainwashed” lightly. The methods these Christian nuts use are identical to those described by William Sargent in the classic Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing. In short, Sargent details how new beliefs can be instilled in the mammalian brain when it buckles under extreme duress. He leans on Pavlov’s dogs and the wave of religions conversions instigated by the 18th century fire and brimstone preacher John Wesley to explain how people’s deepest beliefs can be changed in an instant and stay changed for the rest of their lives. Wesley used tales of eternal damnation to excite people to the point of collapse, at which point he would give them new things to believe in. You see the exact same thing happening in the movie. The children are scared with theatrical talk of the devil and a world gone terribly wrong. They start shaking, mumbling and rolling their eyes. They collapse on the floor. Then they’re told what they have to believe, what they have to do to be saved. It is genuinely sickening. If you ever see Becky Fischer talking to your kids, get them away from her as fast as you can. She is one truly dangerous individual. What she does to children is a horrible form of child abuse.

Beyond the enlightening content of the movie, I have a few qualms about the way it is presented. The filmmakers do an excellent job of giving the nuts all the rope they need to hang themselves and the nuts happily oblige. But not content to let their words and actions speak for themselves, they bring in an anti-right -wing-Christian-nuts radio host to lecture us about how bad the right wing Christian nuts are. Someone with no grasp of the facts could think he was no better than the brainwashers. His methods aren’t really that different.

That, and they use the audio and video to influence the audience perception of the Christians. Disturbing music often plays low in the background while the Christians are talking. Strange video sequences heighten the sense of dread beyond what the people are actually saying, which is bad enough. The content of this film is disturbing enough on its own. The cheap tricks took my mind off the content and undercut the message. On the positive side, I was very impressed with the cinematography. The camera people took a lot of chances and got some great images.

The Christians in the movie don’t spend a lot of time talking about evolution, but when they do you see how disgusted they are with the fact that we humans and apes are closely related. That’s what it really comes down to when all the other lame rationalizations are brushed aside. They just can’t bear to think of themselves as monkeys. As noted below, they were created in the image of God, they think, and it hurts them to accept that God looks more like King Kong than Charlton Heston. But that’s the logic, isn’t it? If their religion is true and evolution is true, then God is monkey.

Makes no difference to me either way. God or not, I realized I was just a monkey man a long time ago. And I trust you are a monkey, too.

No country for good movies

Do you ever go to a movie you have good reason to believe you are going to hate? Not me, at least not normally. But I was pretty sure I would not like No Country for Old Men and I went anyway.

Why? It’s still hard for me to understand. I knew going in that it was a pointless, violent movie and I don't like pointless, violent movies. On top of that, I had read the book and hated it. I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t feel wishy-washy about it. I didn’t just “not like” the book. I genuinely hated it. If Cormac McCarthy is a serious novelist, then No Country for Old Men is one of the worst books ever by a serious novelist. Not that it is poorly written. McCarthy is an excellent wordsmith and the narrative is innovative and well structured. But it’s a monumentally stupid story in a Hollywood action movie kinda way.

It is one of those “super bad guy” stories. You know the kind I mean? Like The Terminator only less believable. In No Country for Old Men a very odd looking guy is on a killing spree in a remote part of west Texas. He walks around in public carrying a shotgun with a big honkin silencer, he kills cops, he kills random motorists, he kills Mexicans by the dozens, he walks into a Dallas skyscraper and guns down a big businessman, he blows up a car and robs a drug store in broad daylight, he gets in extended gun fights in small Texas towns--he couldn't be more fucking obvious--yet the police never come close to finding him, no one seems to call the cops during the gun fights, the cops don’t notice on their own that gunfights are happening on Main Street, they never put out an APB, no road blocks, the feds are not called in, strangers are not questioned, they don’t even take fingerprints. Only Tommy Lee Jones makes an effort. And all Jones does is whine. He doesn’t do anything that might actually help catch the killer.

Is there a point to any of this? In the book, it’s hard to find one. The movie, as bad movies tend to do, tries to tack some meaning on at the end, but it’s not particularly deep or insightful.

As I said, I knew all this going in yet I went to see it anyway. Why? I still haven’t figured it out. Normally if I know I’m going to see a film, I make it a point not to read the reviews. But in this case I’d read the book (and hated it) so I made an exception. Although the reviews were generally glowing, nothing in them made me think the movie would be significantly different than the book. Essentially they said it was a smart, very well-made and acted film that was true to the novel.

And yes, I agree with that. Just as the book is very well-written, the movie is very well-made. The screenplay, the direction, the cinematography, the acting--all first rate. Unlike the typical “super bad guy” movie, the filmmakers clearly respect the intelligence of the audience. There are numerous examples where we are left to figure things out for ourselves solely based on subtle visual clues.

But ultimately, all the great acting, direction, writing and cinematography in the world cannot rescue a plot that is essentially hollow. Maybe there's some kind of lofty joke that the story is as empty as the landscape, but that would be even more pathetic.

Middle ages in a handbasket

Coincidentally, after going off on Gregg Easterbrook last night, I watched a PBS show about the recent Intelligent Design trial in Dover, Pennsylvania. I was struck by how closely those Creationist wackos mirrored Easterbrook’s insecurity about his ancestry. They all get so het up over the indisputable fact that we are closely related to apes and chimpanzees.

That’s sadly understandable I guess. They are raised with a high-falutin sense of their own importance in the universe. They may not be Gods, but they are at least God-like, created in the His image no less. Now it turns out they’re just a bunch of monkey boys created from the image of Bonzo. The very idea makes them so angry that they bare their teeth and howl.

Beyond the monkey stuff, it’s interesting how they see science only as a means of justifying their superiority to everything else in the universe, not as a means of understanding their place in it. Not only were they created in God’s image, the earth is God’s creation, the center of the universe, obviously the only inhabited planet. In Easterbrook’s football column, he regularly reports any evidence he can find that suggests earth is the only planet among the 200 billion galaxies each with 200 billion stars and who knows how many gazillions of other planets. Nope, life can only happen here, just like the Bible implies.

But what’s really funny is the way link scientific progress to moral degeneracy. The literature is full of whining about the horrible social consequences of science.

The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.

Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art

The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.

Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.

Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.

Funny, isn't it? From a moral, even a prudish perspective, today has to look pretty good compared to the history of western civilization before science. Considering our history from the ancient Greeks’ man boy love to the Roman Bacchanal and the Christian sex cults all the way through the violence and oppression of the middle ages, what self-respecting right wing religious nut case would want to live in those times? Our modern world is as relatively chaste as it is just.

But there was a time before all that, when man not only looked like God but was as innocent as the newborn Jesus. Then that bitch ate the apple and people have been fucking ever since. Fucking like monkeys. To hell with science, with education, with the constitution, we gotta do something... anything to stop the fucking. Then all will be well.

It's hard to believe we've regressed to the point where these fucked up nutbags are taken seriously.

Monkey boy talk sports

Gregg Easterbrook interrupts his somewhat entertaining sports column (tmq at espn.com) to comment on science. This is not at all unusual, it's actually part of his shtick along with ogling cheerleaders in their skimpy costumes. It's hard to tell which is creepier. The old nerdy guy obsessing about young pussy or the way he takes superficial science news and harnesses it to borderline right wing nutcase talking points. Witness today's nonsense about the percentage of genes we share with chimps. One percent? Six percent? 25 Percent? Who fucking cares? The Liberal media, obviously.

I point this out because the new study got zero play from the mainstream media because it tends to support the idea that genus Homo really is superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Mustn't have that in the news! Any scientific finding suggesting there is little genetic difference between people and yeast would, by contrast, be heavily promoted by big news organizations.

First, what kind of wacko nut job looks obsesses about the "superiority" of the human genus? That's just your insecurity talking, monkey boy. Second, señor Easterbrook fails to understand one of the important cornerstones of journalism. Dog bites man is not a story. Chimps, not to mention yeast, sharing a good part of their DNA with humans is man bites dog. If our DNA were entirely different and much more complex, that would be dog bites man. Who the fuck would care? Hey, I know the answer to that. Right wing nut cases care. They care about superiority and are always looking (in vain) for evidence of their own. The thirties taught them nothing. Pathetic, they are.

More fall colors

Here's my little goof of a photo project I've been "working" on for the past couple weeks. Strange how grey is not generally considered a fall color.

Obamarama

There was an interesting article about “race” and education by Will Okun in yesterday’s Times. Okun is an apparently nice young man who teaches in an inner city school in Chicago. His article discusses the question of whether it’s better for “black” students to have “black” teachers. Early on, he quotes Barak Obama:

In Charles Barkley’s book “Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man”, Barack Obama recalls a few college professors asking
him, “Man, why are you pretending that you’re not smart?” Obama continues, “And coming from black professors, especially, that was important, because I couldn’t throw back at them, ‘Oh, you don’t understand.’”

Looking back at his own educational experience, Obama concludes, “That’s a big part of the reason it is so important to have black teachers, especially black male teachers. I’m not saying exclusively, but in many situations you need someone who can call you on your stuff and say… that it’s not ‘acting white’ to read a book.”

Half his class thought that yes, “black” kids benefit from “black” teachers and half thought, cue string music, that the color of a person’s skin didn’t matter a whit when it came to teaching effectiveness. Personally, that’s not an argument that I wish to engage in, but I did find it interesting that Obama was making it.

I am a member of a poor “African-American: family living in Brooklyn. Although that statement is factual, it is misleading. We are not ”African-American“ in the common sense of the phrase. None of our ancestors were ever slaves on southern plantations. We do not speak Ebonics. We have never been to a Baptist church. We are only poor in the middle class New Yorker sense of the word.

The point is that we have a lot of superficial things in common with Obama, so I take a little more interest in his career than I do the other politicians. And I was surprised to read that he would ever pretend that he was not smart. I know that mindset is a problem in what’s commonly referred to as the ”African-American“ community, but Obama was not raised in that crowd. His mother was a white woman from Kansas. His stepfather was Indonesian. He grew up attending an American school abroad and then a tony independent school in Hawaii. From there he soon went to Harvard where he was an academic superstar. He is ”African-American“ only in the sense that his father is from Africa and his mother from America. That’s not to say anything against ”African-Americans.“ It is a fact.

Same thing with my family superficially. The kids have spent time abroad and go to a very good college preparatory school, but as far as I know they have never experienced even a hint of racism and they certainly do not show any of the endemic effects suffered by many of those who do. They actively participate in class, ask probing questions, do well on tests and are fully, and effortlessly, integrated in the social life surrounding the school, as are the other ”black“ kids who go there. Did Obama really have it that bad? Was there really strong pressure to act "black" in Indonesia? In Hawaii's premier prep school? That would certainly suck.

Of course I am aware that my little family unite lives in a utopia-like bubble and cannot compare our experiences with those of people in most of the rest of the country. So I worry some about what will happen when the kids move on. I’ve read horror stories about racist segregation at elite liberal colleges. I remember one article (can’t find the link) that detailed how kids on college visits were segregated by ”race.“ ”Blacks“ were given one tour, Asians another, Hispanics still another. ”Whites,“ it seems, were not recognized as a group and no special activities were planned for them.

That is the kind of thing I fear and I suspect it is the kind of thing that warped Obama. Although I know the education establishment categorizes kids based on ”race,“ it is possible for them to get through high school without having to classify themselves. Apparently many universities force people to make that declaration. That is a travesty.

Imagine if you’d spent your whole life in a healthy, integrated environment in which nobody gave a shit about your melanin levels and then you go on a visit to Harvard and they put you in a particular group, fenced off from your regular social group because you are "black." Do you refuse to participate in the apartheid? Do you go off with the ”whites?“ Might there be social repercussions?

In the comments section of the Times article, a commenter gives some insight into what it’s like to be categorized solely based on your outward appearance:

Race is a complex subject. So is class. They are often, but not always, inextricably intertwined. However, as a Black and Latina teacher who grew up middle-class and went to Yale, it is frustrating when people assume that I have something in common with my students because I look like them. Mr. Okum asks what he knows of the challenges of his students’ lives. This is a legitimate question. But it’s also one that I have to ask myself. What do I know about abusive parents, or a limited future, or hunger? I’m the fourth generation in my family to receive a Master’s. Going to college was not an option; it was what you did.

If wishes were fishes

A quick scan of Alternet's headlines provides a few laughs.

Will Democrats Restore Our Liberties Stolen in the Bush Era?
That's an easy one. No. Duh.

Dems Lead in Counterattack to Stop Iran Conflict
As if. They'll cave. You know they'll cave. They always cave.

Olbermann & Maddow: Why Are Democrats Afraid toImpeach Cheney?
Ummm, because they are a) pathetically weak or b) A paid foil for the Republicans, not a real political party. I go back and forth on that one.

America's Shocking Nuclear Hypocrisy
What could possibly be shocking about American (shining beacon of democracy and human rights) hypocrisy? Hard to imagine being shocked by anything these days (unless of course you get disappeared and carted off to a secret prison).

Can Green Jobs Save the American Middle Class?
No. We'll fight for the last drop of oil. More likely, only Sweden and Canada will be able to save the middle class.

Burning man video part II

Here's the continuation of Dan Webster/Gratis Production's Burning Man video. Enjoy.

Fall Colors

Every year I try to get out of the city and take a trip up the Hudson, usually to Bear Mountain, to see the fall foliage. This year I stayed on the train and ended up in Poughkeepsie. Strange town, that.

Philosophy

Burning Man Part 1

Here is the opening for Dan Webster/Gratis Production's Burning Man video. It should look considerably better than the last one, though it may load slower.

Washington generals blow big lead, again

The Times reports:

The confirmation of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general appeared to be all but certain on Friday after two key Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced they would support the nomination despite complaints over Mr. Mukasey’s refusal to clarify his views on what amounts to torture.


The announcements by the senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer...

"Democrats" abjectly surrendering to Republicans is easily predictable, but I'm curious about the process. Do they draw lots to see who will pull down their pants and lie down in the middle of the road or is there some other mechanism to determine which ones will throw the game on any given issue?

Is there any significance to the fact that New York and California "representatives" tanked on Bush's new torture guy? Do big states have to succumb on big issues?

World premier video, gratis

You may recall that chuckling on-line magazine commissioned some projects for this year's Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert. This is a clip from the video, which was shot and produced by Dan Webster, an artist and videographer living somewhere circa de San Diego. In the coming weeks we will be premiering the rest of the video, likewise in small chunks. Fascinating stuff.

The video quality in this example, however, is not remotely as good as the original, due to fairly extreme compression necessary to show it on the web. Personally, I like the effect, but you certainly can't trust my aesthetic when it comes to photography. It does not do justice to the original.

If you missed the still photography, see it here. I had some complaints about the audio accompaniment and have made the player visible so you can turn it off.

Earth to media

The media gravely report that President Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, is in danger of not being confirmed by the Senate because of his refusal to acknowledge that waterboarding is, indeed, torture.

But here at chuckling on-line magazine we can see the future as though it were the fourth quarter of a Harlem Globetrotters show. Bush will stand firm. The Democrats will crumble. Torture guy will be Attorney General.

Sports note

According to ESPN, the New York Yankees are prepared to offer Alex Rodriguez a contract that would pay him $230 million over the next 8 years.

That's two hundred and thirty million dollars to a guy for playing a ball game.

If the top income tax rate were 70 percent he would still get $69 million. If it were 91 percent, like during the Eisenhower administration, he would get nearly $21 million.

$69, even $21 million? With that kind of money, a person could do whatever he or she wanted on this earth. Is A-Rod really worth a quarter billion dollars? Compared to so many normal decent people who won't make .001 percent of that over eight years?

Or are there better things that society could do with that kind of wealth. Of course there are. Time to tax those fuckwads back to reality. Well, if not reality, at least sanity. And to reality for sure for their children and grandchildren. Let them work like everyone else. They get more from America, they should pay for what they get. A Meritocracy can be a good thing.

Stupid is...

It's well established that rank and file conservatives are functionally stupid. Witness this quote from an article about right wing evangelists in the NY Times Magazine:

But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”

“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”

Or watch the stupid, if you dare, in this video via TBogg.

Yes, stupid they undeniably be, but our understanding of why they have become so stupid is incomplete.

We know all about the conservative leanings of the Washington Post and the New York Times. We are familiar with Fox News and their stable of demagogic blowhards. We have second or third hand knowledge of the big fat fool infested hate radio. We know that hate spewing right wing evangelists are out there spewing right wing evangelism. And those things explain a lot, but they do not explain all of it. There are plenty of people out there in the heartland who don't read the Times, who don't have cable, who don't listen to the radio, who don't go to right wing nutzo churches, yet they are just as functionally stupid, if not more so, than their more conventionally indoctrinated brethren.

As I've noted before, there is an anonymous organization working down deep in the conservative cesspool that crafts sophisticated screeds and distributes them through email networks throughout the heartland. You can see it referenced in the Times Magazine quote above - a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. Yes rumors spread about the internet. This much is true. Where do they come from? No one knows, or at least no one says.

Actually, I think the more interesting question is "who do they come from?" The best of the right wing internet chain mail is very well-written, poisonously sophisticated rhetoric. I've seen a lot of them and believe that they all come from the same writer. It is strange, very strange if not unprecedented to find a conservative with both high level writing skills and rhetorical sophistication. Personally, I don't believe that the writer is actually a conservative. It's possible they are paying someone with incredibly low moral values to do it. Or there are darker possibilities. They could be blackmailing some poor creative sap to produce these emails, or they may have even kidnapped someone who they waterboard until they cough up an email. I don't know, and I don't want to speculate. It will, however, be interesting when the true story is finally told.

In the meantime, here is another one. Witness and learn:

I know it doesn't mean anything yet but....................

By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'...

In order to continue getting-by in America (our home land), we all need to
learn the NEW English language! Practice by reading the following
conversation until you are able to understand the term 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'.

With a little patience, you'll be able to fit right in.
Now, here goes...

The following is a telephone exchange between maybe you as a hotel guest and
call room-service somewhere in the good old U S A today......

Room Service : 'Morrin.. Roon sirbees.'

Guest : 'Sorry, I thou ght I dialed room-service.'

Room Service: ' Rye. Roon sirbees...morrin! Joowish to oddor sunteen???'

Guest: 'Uh..... Yes, I'd like to order bacon and eggs.'

Room Service: 'Ow July den?'

Guest: '.....What??'

Room Service: 'Ow July den?!?... pryed, boyud, poochd?'

Guest: 'Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. scrambled, please .'

Room Service: 'Ow July dee baykem? Crease?'

Guest: 'Crisp will be fine.'

Room Service: 'Hokay. An Sahn toes?'

Guest: 'What?'

Room Service: 'An toes. July Sahn toes?'

Guest: 'I... don't think so.'

RoomService: 'No? Judo wan sahn toes???'

Guest: 'I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn
toes' means.'

RoomService: 'Toes! Toes!...Why Joo don Juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we
bodder?'

Guest: 'Oh, English muffin!!! I've got it! You were saying 'toast'...
Fine...Yes, an English muffin will be fine.'
Room Service: 'We bodder?'

Guest: 'No, just put the bodder on the side.'

RoomService: 'Wad?!?'

Guest: 'I mean butter... just put the butter on the side.'

RoomService: 'Copy?'

Guest: 'Excuse me?'

RoomService: 'Copy...tea..meel?'

Guest: 'Yes. Coffee, please... and that's ev erything'

RoomService: 'One Minnie. Scramah eg g, crease baykem, Anglish moppin, we
bodder on sigh and copy ... rye??'

Guest: 'Whatever you say.'

RoomService: 'Tenjooberrymuds.'

Guest: 'You're welcome'

Remember I said 'By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
'TENJOOBERRYMUDS' '.....and you do, don't you!

Now go out and hate some foreigners!

On a side note, people are starting to catch on. But what needs to happen is for someone to use these right wing hate networks to spread truth. The people creating this shit are immoral twats, but the people spreading it are not. They can be co-opted.

Update: Via comments on this article at Making Light, here is a blog that collects those emails.