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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tom Brady looked into the TV cameras, smiled and gave some advice to the coach whose defense leads the NFL in throwing quarterbacks to the ground. As a matter of self-preservation, Brady would rather not see Osi Umenyiora, Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck charging at him. Besides, the Giants might as well rest their top players because they’re locked into their first-round playoff game anyway. So Brady stood at his locker and delivered his message: “Coach Coughlin, if you’re listening, definitely rest those guys.”— Associated Press

How can you tell that someone is a xenophobe? If they begin a column with the words, “I’m no xenophobe,”  that’s a pretty good sign. The lawyer Michael Smerconish thinks he can preempt his critics. Smerconish has written an incredibly uninformed, offensive column about immigration in a recent Philadelphia Inquirer (“What we lose now that newcomers don’t assimilate“)
This is the letter to the editor that I sent to the Inquirer in response (they didn’t publish it):

Dear Myron Smearcornish,

I read your column “What we lose now that newcomers don’t assimilate”
and I couldn’t agree more! I mean, look at that guy Alberto Gonzalez.
He goes and becomes Attorney General of the United States of America
and he still won’t assimilate! I called him Al once and he got all
matador on me. It drives me nuts! How am I supposed to know if I’m
being indicted when the lousy Federal subpoenas arrive written in
Spanish?

And that Senator from Florida, what’s his name? Melquiades Rafael
Martinez. He’s the King of NOT ASSIMILATING. He won’t even change his
name to Melvin! Or Merv, for that matter.

These Gonzalezes and Martinezes are illegally pouring over the border,
taking top spots in the Republican Party, then hogging up all the top
spots in the Most Popular Surnames in the Census…where will it end?
Just last week I was in a restaurant eating some broccoli that was
picked by an illegal immigrant who, as you say, is not a legitimate, moving part of
the economy, and I noticed a spot on my spoon. Imagine how furious I
was that the illegal immigrant dishwasher, who is also not a
legitimate moving part of the economy, couldn’t do his job right! The
guy probably lives in a shack with 27 of his illegal, illegitimate
non-moving parts of the economy relatives. Why can’t they just
assimilate and live in a nice 14-bedroom McMansion with a five-car
garage, like the ones you and I live in out on the Main Line? I just don’t get
these people, Mickey S’morecrohnsitch!

I think it’s important to look at history for some perspective. Those
Hispanic names, I learned from Wikipedia, are actually from Spain! Who
would have guessed? They’re European names. And get this, Mordechai
Smarmoconiferish, the Queen of Spain was the one who sent Christopher
Columbus over here in 1492! Those Hispanics have been illegally
sneaking into our country for over 500 years! It all started with that
Columbus guy. He just would not assimilate. I guess I can’t blame him.
Iroquois is a pretty difficult language to learn, unless of course you
have an Haudenosaunee nanny teaching you from the cradle.

You have taught me an important lesson, Milton Snarlcrayfish.
Assimilation is the responsibility of each and every one of us. I was
in the silly habit of stopping in every morning at a little Italian
bakery in my neighborhood for a loaf of bread. But after reading your column, I got in my SUV and drove to Sam’s Club to buy a case of Wonder Bread, just like
my grandmother did. That’s what real assimilated Americans do.

Sincerely,

Chris Hiester

Here are the fastest growing career fields for 2008 according to the J.D. Pepe Le Pew Center for the Study of the Decline of the American Empire:

1. Scab Television Writer
2. Chinese-Arabic translator
3. Performance Enhancing Drug Masking Specialist
4. Presidential Campaign Prevaricator/Weasel Wordsmith
5. Real Estate Auctioneer
6. iPhone Locksmith
7. Slot Machine Lubrication Specialist
8. Trainer of Lead Paint-Sniffing Dogs
9. Dialysis Technician
10. Prison Guard/Caddy

• The diamond-studded robotic hands-free dental flosser! Water and shock resistant to 4000 meters! Swiss precision! Perfect for that special someone who works for a hedge fund and eats too many Doritos! Fly fishing attachment available only while supplies last!
• Breastmilk pump with GPS navigator! Digital harmonica and Bob Dylan-autographed neck mount included! Folds and stores in tasteful and environmentally friendly hemp-lined shedded-yak-fur carrying case! There is no better way to show your love!
• How can you express your deepest feelings for all that you have been through together? How about a hand-carved oak billiards table with built-in lighted storage bin for power tools? Pockets automatically send Twitter trash-talk messages to your entire social network when you make shots that involve two or more bumpers! Includes HD and Satellite radio receivers that connect with your home theater or 200GB tennis bracelet/MP3 player at a distance of up to 17 miles using Bluetooth Hyperbolic Technology! Heat-sensing safety billiards balls deploy tiny goose down-lined airbags before striking human flesh (or toppling warm drinks served in optional matching platinum and rosewood chai latte mugs)! Retina-scanning chalk protects you from sharks!
• It may look like just another 332-piece silverware set, but look again! Each tine in the salad fork houses a 28-megapixel digital camera with dual image and custard-stabilization. Voice-activated butter knife unleashes intelligent nanobots that will thrill your dinner guests. Dress them each in full SCUBA gear—before they know what hit them—in under three seconds! Project a holographic time-lapse reenactment of the Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov chess match onto a glistening turkey or aspic-covered ham!
• The portable stadium luxury box! Fully detachable crystal-walled unit hovers inches above the players’ heads thanks to its roof-mounted AV-8B Harrier II short-takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) rotorcraft transporter. Stealth force-field technology ensures that errant balls and pucks are diverted into the cheap seats. Putting greens, on-site concierge/bookmaker, twelve 108-inch rear-projection plasma flat-screens (including two in the marble-tiled lavatory), licensed hypno-pedicure counselor and live Renaissance music ensemble ensure that your clients are satisifed even if they are Prius-driving wine snobs! Pets welcome!
• The Anderson Cooper video humidor! Lift the lid to take out a perfectly preserved stogie and the 2160p DLP screen on the underside of the lid plays a personal greeting from the CNN host followed by one of 365 heart-wrenching journalistic tours-de-force that will make your smoke all the more meaningful. Order now and receive the Larry King commemorative gold coin and cuff link set absolutely free! And remember, if you are not fully satisfied, return the video humidor for a full refund, but please, keep the Larry King commemorative gold coin and cuff link set as our gift to you!

“Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon”

-George W. Bush, our illegitimate, unelected fraud of a President, who now declares endless war on knowledge

Citing the persistent failure of his “No Child Left Behind” act to inculcate knowledge into the minds of American schoolchildren, the President has concluded that that the program could easily be tweaked to erase dangerous facts from the minds of evildoers. The President has decided to seize top Iranian scientists via extraordinary rendition and enroll them in American public schools to eradicate their “knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

The President also stated that the USA will declare war on Denmark, another nation where scientists have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon (never mind that they don’t have the resources or any interest in doing so).

I, for one, am relieved that North Korea and Pakistan(our ally, despite being an undemocratic dictatorship), while having actual functioning nuclear weapons, have somehow miraculously passed Bush’s new “knowledge” test.

The auto industry is a nauseating enigma. Decades roll by and the experience of buying a car in this country is still as abominable as ever. The newest rub I’ve discovered is that many sales people use fake names. I’ve visited five dealerships within the last week. All five salespeople I’ve met have one-syllable surnames that consist of four letters and are common, easy-to-remember English words. Here are the surnames: Bell, Ball, Blue, Lane, Rush. What are the odds?

I’ve seen the Saturn commercials. Perhaps they are different, but Saturn does not make a car that I’m interested in buying.

A few years ago I visited a  “no-haggle” place called CarSense. Indeed there was no haggling, but there were two televisions blasting Fox News and a magazine rack featuring Soldier of Fortune, American Spectator and their ilk. Look, if you own a car dealership and you’re a right-wing lunatic, that’s fine by me. But please don’t subject me to all that noise. After 25 minutes of Sean Hannity, the appraiser came back and gave me the most insulting, back-stabbing, $5000 below KBB value offer for my trade-in. I donned a courtesy gas mask and crawled to the exit. I think I was bleeding out of my ears.

Last week I visited a Mazda dealership to look at a 2006 Mazda 5. The salesman showed me the car, then we went into the showroom where he offered to “look at some numbers” with me.  The first number I asked to look at was the price. He appeared to be taken by surprise. He went into a back room and emerged with a sheet of paper. He asked for my name, address and phone number. He disappeared again. When he returned, I again asked the price. He said he had to talk to his manager. The manager was in  a booth about ten feet away. I overheard their conversation:

Salesman: “He wants a quote.”

Manager: “Where does he live?” (Thought: they’re geo-profiling me?)

Salesman: “Philly.” (NOTE: The dealership is in Philly also).

The salesman then went away again. He appeared with a “quote sheet” with lots of numbers on it. I scanned it and still wasn’t sure what the price was.  Mind you, this was a used car, so there wasn’t the issue of ordering options and packages like you would with a new car.  Anyway the car had smelled like it was smoked in for two years and I could feel that the alignment was off (tire slapping sound), so I reciprocated their vagueness with my own wishy-washy reason for leaving and promptly fled.

My first car was a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel that got 60mpg. Today the highest mileage car in the USA is the Toyota Prius at 48mpg. In terms of fuel economy, the auto industry has regressed.  There have been a lot of jokes about what would happen if Microsoft were a car company; the jokes center on the idea of computers “crashing” and suggest that cars are more reliable than computers. However, if car companies were running Microsoft, we would probably be carrying around 17-pound laptops with Intel 286 processors and bragging about how we have a whopping 1 megabyte of RAM and a “huge” 40 megabyte hard-drive. The auto industry stinks on ice. They are absolutely blind to the responsibility they have to create a product that can be fueled sustainably.

One improvement is in vehicle financing. You can apply for a loan at Capital One’s web site and get a response in 30-seconds. If you’re approved, you get a FedEx the next day with a blank check that you can use to pay for your new car. But here’s the catch. The check is only good at a franchise dealer. Go back to the beginning of this article and review the consistent, persistent putrefaction that is the auto dealership customer experience.

I still have to somehow buy a minivan to haul my kids around in. I hope when they grow up they’ll be able to laugh at this story. I hope they’ll have truly sustainable transportation options. Ethanol, Biodiesel and Hydrogen Fuel Cells are not sustainable options. We need to snap out of those delusions. I’m afraid that my kids will only see improvements if climate changes cause catastrophes that cannot be denied. I’m guessing the best they’ll be able to do 30 years from now is find a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel that runs.