It’s  with a heavy heart that I write this blog. It’s not funny and it’s not a witty post. Today is a horrible day. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to meet many civic leaders through my job as a cartoonist and  member of the Tucson Citizen Editorial Board.  Although, I disagreed with many I was always very gracious for the opportunity I had to meet with them and the ability to question them over the issues concerning our society. One of those civic leaders is Gabrielle Giffords.  Gabby, however, stood out from the rest of them. The quality that stuck with me about her was sincerity. Gabby, shot from the hip and was very direct, which is unusual for a politician and extremely courageous in my opinion, most politicians can’t give you a straight answer to save their lives.  She was also extremely accessible. Often times she would stay after the edit board meetings and talk with the staff. Many times she joked around with me about the cartoons I drew and the caricatures I made of her. After meeting her once she remembered my name and would always call me out and greet me whenever she ran into me at a restaurant or even jogging around the park. She saw me at the Shanty once and asked if I had landed on my feet after the closing of the print edition of The Citizen. I disagreed with her political views on many aspects and I supported her a lot in others, but she was always willing to take the time and discuss them with me one on one no matter how busy she was.  Other times we would just talk about random things, she gave me dating advice and I would ask her if she could ask her husband about what it was like to pee in space. When I finally summed up the courage to take a picture with her she happily obliged with one condition, that she take it arm wrestling me. I was astonished, I thought I would get the usual standing next to me pose, but Gabby’s other outstanding quality is her incredible sense of humor. Godspeed to your recovery, Gabby.

Arm wrestling the congresswoman

The current political environment in Arizona is partly to blame, as of late it has been fueled by fear and hate. Today, that pot boiled over. Today, we lost many members of our community to that fervor. Today, a woman I looked up to and admired was almost killed, her life hangs by a thread at the moment I write this.

Our legislature has made a political strategy out of targeting people, the Russell Pearces and Jan Brewers in our state have decided to not only make laws espousing fear and hatred, but a whole campaign, a movement was created and it is taking hold of our citizens. People are listening to our leaders, as misguided as their intentions may be or as untrue as their statements are, their constituency is listening. There is a rise in prominence, as of late, of hate groups and demonstrations of fear and no one is taking action and today we experienced the results. I recently saw a truck on the road between Nogales and Tucson with a Swastika on their rear windshield.  JT Ready and his Neo-Nazi friends are frequently demonstrating near the capitol in Phoenix and our new President of the Arizona Senate is a close personal friend of that guy! No one is concerned!?  He’s making the laws that govern our lives!! The Chicano center at the U of A was also vandalized today. Yet we have people like Sara Palin putting cross hairs on her opponents, knowing full well what that implies. The maniac that shot Gabby and killed the 9 year old girl was afraid and paranoid of his government, this was obvious from his online rants.

So am I blaming the Republicans for today’s tragedy? Yes, in part I am, mostly just the ones in our state. I’m going to take a page out of the Gabrielle Giffords play-book and be very direct. Your recent movement of ”fear the Muslims, don’t give the gays rights, persecute the Mexicans and exploit the poor” has yielded these results. Every election cycle you promote a campaign strategy of fear and hatred to win elections and get voters to the polls, well here’s proof that people are listening. You see, these people, the ones responsible for these tragic acts don’t have to be your constituents to listen to your hate speech, all they need are ears. They could be nonvoting individuals, but if they are listening to the inflammatory “news casts” of Fox “News” or the extreme right wing radio stations that you use as platforms then thats all the motivation they need. It’s rare when fear and hatred yield positive results. Maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy.

Arnie Bermudez

New campaign to help people realize Mexicans are just regular folks and not a weird religious cult.

Arnie Bermudez

“I ran for 30 minutes the other day, then I came to the realization that I am old enough to drive now.” – Me

* Before I get hunted down by any Jon Justice fans, Minute Men, Sheriff Babeu, Lou Dobbs, The Republican Party, Russell Pearce, Jan Brewer, The Tea Party or The KKK, this is intended for humor and entertainment and is a total parody of the “I’m a Mormon” ads, and not actually real.

Jan Brewer

Arizona where a good debate tactic is long awkward moments of silence.

Arizona where things CAN get worse.

Arizona where being 49th in education is a good thing.

Arizona where the Governor persecutes people with accents for their lack of English comprehension when she herself has yet to master the English language.

Arizona where Democrats look like Republicans.

Arizona doing what no other state has ever did.

Arizona even our congressman boycotts us.

Arizona the south of the west. They have Blacks we have Mexicans. They have Nathaniel Bedford Forrest we have Joe Arpaio. They have the Klan we have our legislature.

Arizona we won’t speak Spanish because English is hard enough.

Arnie Bermudez

“I don’t sneeze on people, I just baptize them with my essence in aerosol form. Bless me? No, no bless you, my child. BOOYAH!!!

I know I’ve been very inactive recently, mostly due to my daytime job and the freelance projects I have to turn in under deadline so the blog takes a back seat.  Recently, I was alerted to a very important film showing here in the Old Pueblo.  The film was done by local director Luis Carlos Davis and is being shown at different film festivals and has garnered plenty of attention due to the current political climate that we are currently in. The title: 389 Miles “Living the Border” .

The film will be screening at the University of Arizona at the Gallagher Theater September 8th. The film has already created plenty of buzz in several film festivals and won the Audience Award for Best Film at the Puerto Vallarta International Film Festival. Go enjoy and take a friend, a relative, a member of congress or your governor (Jan Brewer I’m talking to you).  In fact, all jokes aside, if you are involved in government and are making laws about immigration it is your responsibiity to go see this film. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives go get informed and check it out, if anything at least to see the human smuggler that conducts his interview in a Lucha Libre mask.

UPDATE: The showing will be at the Gallagher theater at the U of A on Wednesday September 8, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. and its absolutely free!!!!

Arnie Bermudez

“You should only wear white jeans on certain occasions, like if its 1987.” – Me telling my brother why he shouldn’t wear white jeans.

With all these laws being made to target specific groups of people I thought I would join in as well. Why should I let Russell Pearce and
Jan Brewer

Jan Brewer

 have all the fun? So I decided,  you know what? We should deport some folks and actually start cleaning this place up. So, without further ado here are the people I think we should deport, yes I realize some of these people might be legal citizens, but I’m only crafting my legislature in the same style that Mr. Pearce is. First off, on the chopping block is:

Anyone that sags their pants: That look only works in prison when you are keistering your lifeline or your method of currency. Plus, word on the streets is that the inmates find the sagging pants look extremely sexy.

Cholos:Whats a “cholo”  you say? Basically, its a Mexican-American hoodlum. They usually belong to a gang represented by basic colors like blue or red and they are not Republicans or Democrats.   Why should we deport them? Well, first of all they sag their pants and I already covered that. More importantly they are a walking stereotype. Thanks to these people, laws like SB 1070 get made and I get deported by mistake.  Moreover, Impalas and all kinds of trucks are getting desecrated with tiny wheels and hydraulics that make cars hop for no reason. Just get regular sized rims. Engineers go through several years of training to design these cars, they know what size tires you’re supposed to have on your car. Besides, jumping cars should have a purpose, like KITT in Knightrider. Also, hairnets are for the restaurant industry. Cholos will usually use the words “orale,” ”ese,” ”vato,” or “loco.” In fact, that was a sentence. Deportation would help them fully comprehend the Spanish language.

The KKK:Yes, the Klan. I don’t care if  they consider themselves separatists,  white civil rights leaders, white nationalists or ethnic purists, they’re still racist.  The Klan is just as bad as the Taliban only with less melanin.  My reasoning for deporting them is not their bigoted beliefs. No, the folks in bed sheets get deported for the simple fact that they are stupid. That’s right, when you tout your superiority over others, but can’t spell the word “clan” correctly you need to be shown the exit as well as a spelling book. Seriously, how hard is it to update your name to the KKC? That’s probably how it’s spelled in “Uh-merican.”

Religious Fundamentalists/ Extremists: Bible thumpers, Quran thumpers, Torah thumpers, and any other big book thumpers need to go. Don’t get this confused with religious folk. I have no problem with people worshipping, do as you wish. The problem arises when those beliefs are forced upon the rest of society.  It gets even more troublesome when fundamentalists try to claim it as science or try to make legislature based on their faith. Look, I understand you don’t believe in evolution, or that you have 72 virgins waiting for you, but most of us believe other things, otherwise you would see us on Sunday, so just let us be. Extremists hold humanity back, so aside from deporting them to another country I would say how about deporting them to another world? Maybe we can find a world where evolution, physics, temptation, and common sense don’t exist. Sounds like  heaven huh?

Homophobes:  Aside from the fact that they promote discrimination, homophobes should be deported because they caused my home state lots of money. Yes, I’m still peeved that we blew a huge money making opportunity and Mexico jumped on it. It’s almost like we don’t like tourism here. We had  a chance to have an exclusive revenue stream and the homophobes came out in droves to the polls and voted it down. Had we approved gay marriage, gay couples from every corner of the U.S. and world would be traveling here and honeymooning in the Grand Canyon or Sedona leaving their hard earned cash in our state. Instead, homophobes stood against capitalism and further contributed to our debt. Anyone who doesn’t want to move us forward economically needs to be shown the door. We are in a recession people.

Stephenie Meyer: She is a resident of Arizona. Why should she be deported? Well, for coming up with this steaming pile of crap.  

Another great gift from the state of Arizona.

Arnie Bermudez  

“I need to practice being old, so that when old age sets in, I’m good at it.” -Me

Disclaimer: This is a humor blog please don’t go hunting down KKK members, cholos or Stephanie Meyer they tend to be violent types and could probably hurt you.

You ever meet someone who pretends to know you but you know they don’t? I have and it brings my pee to a boil. This mostly happens with politicians regardless of political party, truly a bipartisan gesture. I don’t mind it from the bigger guns like McCain

or even Grijalva

they meet loads of people and I realize I am a nobody, but I do expect more from our local politicians, especially ones I run into over and over again. A perfect example of this is Gabby Giffords  although shes a congresswoman in Washington, she always remembers my name when I run into her in town. I may disagree with the lady on many things, but to her credit she always remembers who I am and the one time she didn’t she politely asked me to remind her who I was.

Rodney Glassman, unfortunately, does not share that trait. Instead, like Sammy Jankis from the movie Memento he pretends, smiles, shakes my hand and says “hey there” in a vacuous, yet friendly tone. Mr. Glassman has been gunning for a career in politics for a long time now.   From working with congressman  Grijalva at the age of 23 to his recent venture as Ward 2 council member and second fiddle to “nice guy” Mayor Bob Walkup.  Rodney did a lot of good while in the City Council by pushing for environmentally friendly legislation and encouraging the development of Family Friendly Weekends downtown. Sadly, it seemed from the get-go that Mr. Glassman was not in this to make Tucson a better place by serving his city, but to launch his political career with the Old Pueblo serving as the Old Stepping Stone.  Rodney and his family are also loaded, the only thing that seems to surpass the size of his financial resources is his ego. Herein lies the problem, most of our government is run by career politicians who are filthy rich.  Men and women who have made their money by taking advantage of the poor and desperate. They later take this wealth and use it to get into power and further push their agenda, just look at our presidents, Obama included.  For the last 30 years the guy with the most money wins the election. What, you thought it was the votes?

So when I heard our very own crooning councilman was running for the senate, I cringed. The problem is two-fold, really. Senator McCain, another rich guy who I happened to respect due to his ability to see beyond party lines and actually be a vertebrate is now, sadly, losing touch and not performing as efficiently as he once did. In fact, the only thing that interests me about McCain is his daughter Meghan. She’s hot enough to make me want to move to Phoenix, despite it being you know, Phoenix. Due to the senator’s lackluster performance, Republican J.D. Hayworth, a Rush Limbaugh wanna-be has decided to run against him in the primary. If he wins, Arizona will regress from the hillbilly state that it now finds itself to be, into a knuckle-dragging paradise. The second problem is if Glassman wins. For all of the good he has done he has a longer track record of bumbling things up and using his extensive finances to bully people and get his way, so much so that The Tucson Weekly put him on their Get Out Of Town! list in December 2003. In another occasion Mr. Glassman was called a “liability” to the Grijalva campaign by the congressman himself.  So I was faced with a huge dilemma: pick between a broken Maverick, a hateful talk radio host, or a spoiled rich kid who solves problems by throwing money them.  Then something miraculous happened, a viable candidate that I could actually respect emerged, and no, it wasn’t Rudy Garcia. Say “hello” to Randy Parraz.

Sorry I haven't made a caricature of him yet.

I was told by a friend that I had to go see this guy speak.  Luckily, for me  he was having a gathering at La Fuente here in Tucson. At first, I must admit, I was very skeptical of this guy and figured he’s just another politician. The more he talked, however, the more I realized this guy was someone that was actually out to make a change in his community. Then I started to chuckle, this poor delusional man. Randy I found out comes from an activist and organizer background, he’s worked with labor unions and even got arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio for protesting. This guy clearly had a screw loose. Then he spoke about what prompted him to run, SB1070.  He reminded the crowd about Sheriff Pritchard’s indifferent attitude towards African Americans back during the civil rights movement. How this was not just an issue that you could just throw money at and expect a solution. More importantly that this was about choosing the right candidate for the times we live in. That was the clincher for me. I realized that’s what bugged me about the other candidates, regardless of party, they were all out of touch or irrelevant to the times we are living in. This guy, on the other hand seemed to get it and he seemed to be using intellect as his guiding force. Progress is never a bad thing in my book.  Parraz has a long way to go though, he lacks funding and notoriety. He is also starting a little late and by the time the primaries roll around his name may not have reached as far as that of the other candidates.

Arnie Bermudez

“Ever noticed how the most homophobic dudes are the same ones that shower in a group (i.e. convicts, soldiers and jocks)?” -Me on the irony of homophobes

“Fear mongering and misinformation are opponents’ only tool against this common sense legislation” stated Senator Russell Pearce in his current blog in response to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema’s blog.  Well I for one agree with the senator, he is absolutely right, fear mongering and misinformation are tools against common sense, and he would know since persecuting a group of people based on their culture and race is exactly that.  Oh, wait, this law isn’t racist and Mr. Pearce isn’t racist he’s just protecting Arizonans best interests. But this guy is:

Necks are for sissies Photo The Arizona Republic

“Who is this amazingly rotund neckless wonder?” you ask, meet J.T Ready.  Big (no pun intended) time supporter of Russell Pearce, former Maricopa County Republican precinct committeeman and all around civil rights activist… for white supremacists. Well Neo-Nazis to be precise. Well, National Socialists to be more precise.

We heard someone needed a "truffle shuffle." Photo The Arizona Republic

The below image shows Ready in his costume…er… riot gear, ready to defend America, swastika and all.  Senator Pearce’s buddy takes it upon himself to enlighten the masses about the “excellent white civil rights leader,” Adolf Hitler, you may have heard of him.  That’s his quote by the way, just go to 4:33 of this video. Mr. Pearce has attended Ready’s speaking engagements and there was even a photo of the two circulating the interwebs just last year.  Might this be the gentleman that was responsible for the white supremacist e-mail Mr. Pearce “accidentally” forwarded a couple of years ago? It’s not a big deal, I too, have accidentally forwarded many emails. I mean, you have to “accidentally” read it, “accidentally” put in the addresses of all the recipients and “accidentally” press “send”, it could happen to anyone. I’m sure that’s how the penis enlargement emails started, good ol’ Russ probably hit “send” on those by accident as well.

We shouldn’t judge the Senator by his friends, though, because that would be, well, judgmental.  Besides , friends are just a reflection of who we are. As for misinformation, well that’s just a dirty tactic, it’s like pots calling kettles black without acknowledging that they are black also. It’s like condemning a scumbag guy who beats women, when you yourself are a scumbag guy who beats women (LuAnne Pearce, according to the Phoenix New Times). Senator Pearce is right we should definitely make a law that punishes this type of behavior severely, oh wait he was the lone “no” vote on such a bill in in 2002.   It’s like using current events (Robert Krentz) to pull at the heartstrings of your constituency. Good looking out, what would we do without you. The good senator forgot to mention another tactic we should definitely be weary of, hypocrisy. He was probably too busy saving the state from the crafty illegal invaders that hide in our crappy jobs.

Arnie Bermudez

Me talking about a friend to a friend- “How is he doing? He got institutionalized.”

My buddy-”Crap! Did he go crazy?”

Me- “No, worse. He got married, marriage is an institution.”

I took an online quiz this week that said I was a left leaning Libertarian. I’m a registered Independent and if I had to be pigeon-holed into a party I would probably pick that one. I have never really agreed with Republicans and after meeting several Democratic politicians never really felt like I could be a Democrat, although I have an easier time agreeing with them than Republicans. I just have a hard time trusting politicians in general and don’t agree with the fact that most elections are about picking the lesser of two evils. Sometimes it  feels like picking between the cleaner of two pigs.

Vote for me!!!

     

Arnie Bermudez 

“When I was born, the doctor pulled me out and slapped himself out of sheer amazement.”  -Me