It’s News to Us!
(PNS reporting from TOKYO) Japanese character actor Bad Badtz-Maru will star as a gang-banging, tagging Chicano in a new animated feature called Angry Bird O.G., PNS confirmed on Sunday.
This could be a comeback role for 20-year-old Badtz-Maru (バッドばつ丸). The spiky-haired method actor has found little work since playing the mascot at the 2006 FIBA World Championship of Basketball here.
Fifty years ago yesterday, four little girls were killed when white racists dynamited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. The African-American congregation had been active in the push for civil and voting rights in the segregated South.
But now that a misguided Supreme Court has overturned key provisions of the Voting Rights Act — a law prompted by the nation’s disgust at the Birmingham bombing and the arrests, demonstrations, riots, and murders that followed — the struggle for the right to vote continues.
Sarah Silverman explained the issue last year, when Republicans began their campaign to pass bogus “voter ID” laws:
Mas…La Cucaracha: Voting — it’s not just for white people anymore (toon)
Fox Latino, which puts “undocumented” in their headline but “illegal” in their story, reports:
California, home to the nation’s largest immigrant population, would become the 11th state to grant immigrants who are in the country illegally [sic] the right to a driver’s license under a bill that passed the Legislature late Thursday and that Gov. Jerry Brown supports.
The success of the legislation comes after years of setbacks for Democratic lawmakers and Latino activists.
The state Assembly approved the bill on a 55-19 vote late in the evening, hours after the Senate passed it on a 28-8 vote. The Democratic governor issued a statement indicating he would sign it into law.
Starting and fighting a new war is hard AND expensive, and you know Uncle Sam is not exactly flush with cash right now. Can you please join a Kickstarter campaign to help President Obama start World War III?
Mas…Kickstarter: Please help the President start World War III (video)
(PNS reporting from EL BRONX) Almost every adult American remembers where they were on Sept. 11, 2001, but few remember more vividly than Bronx janitor Alberto Qaeda.
“That was the first time I ever got my ass kicked. And the second time. And the third,” recalls Qaeda, who used to go by the more informal name of “Al.”
Qaeda (photo), who was 17 in 2001, was a student at City College of New York studying to be a cashier when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
It’s Sergio Aragones birthday!
He is the world’s fastest and funniest cartoonist, and a really nice guy!
I am proud to say this most macho and mustachioed Spaniard (and honorary Mexican) is a colleague and friend I first met in cartoonist circles, and of course see at San Diego ComicCon, where he is lauded as a god.
(PNS reporting from FLORIDA) Diana Nyad walked onshore here Monday, becoming the first person to swim from Cuba towing 400 escaping balseros. The 64-year-old Nyad swam up to the beach just before 2PM EDT, about 53 hours after she began her journey in Havana.
As she approached, spectators waded into waist-high water and surrounded the Cuban refugees, and offering them water. “I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dream. Three is, all you Cubans better pay me the smuggling money you owe me.”
“I have to say, I’m a little bit out of it right now,” Nyad said. She gestured toward her swollen lips, and simply said “Cubans.”
(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, DC) The U.S. Postal Service has released a new stamp to mark Hispanic Heritage Month 2013, which begins September 15.
The El Borracho stamp kicks off the Hispanic Male series, the brainchild of Joe Sendembach, who left the Border Patrol to join the USPS as an artist and rose to Director of Creative Services.
“It honors the way us veterans of the MIGRA-Industrial Complex feel about the Hispanic male,” according to Sendembach.
“We plan other cultural stamps along these lines, including a Drug Mule series,” Sendembach wrote in a press release distributed this morning.
This is the letter, which as a human cry, I sent to Obama. Let’s mobilize public opinion and stop war!! http://t.co/RgckDZ2RgV
— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) September 2, 2013
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro knows what to do about Syria, based on careful study of the works of Jesus of Nazareth, Susan Sontag, Brother Malcolm X, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Robert Fisk, Hugo Chavez, Howard Zinn and Simon Bolivar.
The commie commandante, still BFFs with murderous Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, publicly shared his foreign policy expertise with His Excellency Barack Obama Monday afternoon:
(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON) President Barack Obama has abruptly dismissed the possibility of launching a U.S. military action against Syria and opted for another world trouble spot.
“I am making preparations to bomb Twerky,” the President declared in a nationally-televised speech Friday afternoon. “It is clear that Syria has used banned chemical weapons against its own people, but I must be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States, and the actual clear and present danger to our nation is coming from Twerky.”
From the case files of the Mutual UFO Network:
Long Description of Sighting Report: UFO incident
Date Submitted: August 24, 2013
Sierra del Cautivo section
Sierra Madre Oriental at the point of the border of the States of Tamsulipas and Nuevo Leon, approximately 30 miles north-northwest of Ciudad Victoria,Tamaulipas, Mexico
The hours between 20:50, 2 August 2013 and 03:00 3 August 2013:
At that time it is usually possible to find me on the west-facing corridor of our little adobe home in a rural area about 25 miles northwest of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas. The west-facing view gives a good point of observation of the complex of the Sierra del Cautivo, which is a cordillera of the general ranges of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The elevations change sharply from our place….at about 1,000 feet….to parallel ridges of increasingly high mountains that rise to over 5,000 feet within 5 miles of our little place and then on up to nearly 13,000 feet within 30 miles as one moves further to the west. These mountains are essentially impenetrable, very rugged.
Mas…MX UFO/OVNI Report: ‘Several orbs, extreme speed, stop instantly’
Let me tell you a joke. Ready? The Tucson Unified School District. Get it?
No? Allow me to me explain.
On Tuesday night the TUSD approved a textbook list for their now defunct Mexican-American Studies program, which they have dubbed “Culturally Relevant US History and US Government.” The list, which consists of 25 books, has absolutely ZERO Chicana/o authors on it.
Go ahead and read that again.
If you have been following the divine comedy in Tucson at all then you already know that they not only destroyed their wildly successful Mexican-American Studies program but that they also banned a laundry list of books by Chicana/o authors, closed barrio schools and fired MAS teachers.
Mas…MAS Whitewashing: Tucson OKs textbook list with NO Chicano authors
(PNS reporting from TUCSON) The Tucson Independent School District’s high school history classes will drop all references to Spanish conquistadores when discussing the history of North America before English pilgrims came to the U.S.
Instead, the district’s teachers will focus on more “American” historical figures, such as Englishman John Smith, School Board Chair Kyle Brown told a meeting of the group Tuesday evening.
“Arizona is part of America, and so we don’t want to give our kids any ideas about America being Spanish, or associated with illegal Spaniards,” Brown explained.
Mas…Arizona schools remove ‘illegal Spaniards’ from high school curriculum
(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, DC) White House sources have confirmed that Pres. Barack Obama will deliver an “I Have A Drone” speech Wednesday to commemorate the the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington.
The news has already sent shock waves through both the African-American and civil rights communities.
They are incensed that Obama, the first black president, has presided over the gutting of the Voter Rights Act, massive domestic surveillance, the use of drones on U.S. soil, record deportations, widespread human trafficking, the attack on women’s rights, the acquittal of vigilante killer George Zimmerman and an upcoming tsunami of voter disenfranchisement laws.
The President was also blasted by outspoken national civil rights leader Emiliano Zapata Shabazz-Jones, who called him a “Tom Turkey of avuncular proportions” due to his administration’s poor civil rights record.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has resigned after a long and protracted scandal in which more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harrassment. But in this cartoon, Filner is having a final sentimental moment.
It’s a difficult world, so why make it any more difficult?
Your Central Intelligence Agency is now offering select targets the option of upgrading to CIA Business Class Drone Flights.
For a small fee, you’ll get exclusive benefits and special treatment:
Mas…[Sponsored] CIA’s new drone flights were designed with you in mind!
On August 5 I launched a fundraising effort which I named Dreams Without Borders.
It is about a dream that had been buried along with many other aspirations for some time. After graduating from college when residing in the U.S., I knew I wanted to earn a graduate degree.
I had not figured out exactly what I would pursue but I was sure it had to be aligned with my life purpose; a work in progress that was halted the day I returned to Mexico.
Nancy Landa was brought to the U.S. without papers when she was a child and grew up in Southern California. She graduated with honors from Cal State Northridge where she also served as student body president. And then she was deported. She introduced herself in this POCHO story.
Some of us experience life-altering moments, those in which we see our dreams fall into pieces right in front of us. In my case, a border became the physical and emotional barrier to a future I had once envisioned.
Some of my friends encouraged me to look for options to continue my education in Mexico. Given that it was my country of nationally, it was assumed I would be able to pursue opportunities I was not easily afforded as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Right?
Mas…Dreams Without Borders: I am going to grad school in London
(PNS reporting from DALLAS) Like Barack Obama before him, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is fighting doubts he is really a “natural born citizen” of the United States, a question he must settle before he runs for president.
“I am a proud Kenyadian,” the beaming senator told reporters here this morning as he displayed a copy of his birth certificate. The official record shows his mother was born in Delaware, his father is from Cuba, and Cruz was born in Kenyada.
Mas…The GOP’s Sen. Ted Cruz reveals he is a ‘proud Kenyadian’
An unidentified flying object has been photographed over the Serra do Gado Bravo in Brazil by two cyclists, according to England’s Alien Disclosure Group:
Witnesses Raimundo Swimming and Igor Geovani managed to take some photos of the mystery object before it shot away at high speed.
According to Swimming and Geovani, the shiny oval-shaped UFO hovered for some 15 minutes.
(PNS reporting from LOS ANGELES) Jimmy “Doc” Juanes was found dead on Hyperion Boulevard near Fountain Avenue here late Sunday night in what the LAPD called a freak DIY project gone wrong.
The 28-year-old USC masters student in French literature was known around his Silverlake neighborhood for his inventive do-it-yourself projects that pushed the envelope for what is considered “standard” in the DIY/Maker community, and police here said that led to his demise.
Mas…Breaking: Silverlake hipster DOA after DIY project goes wrong
(PNS reporting from LAS VEGAS) The Republican Party in Nevada is trying to woo Latinos, but the outreach effort isn’t working according to plan.
The PNS undercover camera posse was in a parking lot on the Vegas Strip Saturday night when a GOP campaign worker was unable to get a Latino voter named Miguel to sign an “Impeach Obama” petition despite a concerted effort. (NSFW adult language.)
(PNS reporting from MEXICO CITY, D.F.) Mexico’s largest and longest-flying airline announced today that it is undergoing a complete corporate makeover.
Aeromexico Chief of Communications Rigoberto Saenz Bolillo explained in this statement:
We are going through a rebranding, and we are shedding our old name Aeromexico, and our logo, which evokes an Aztec Eagle warrior flying through the air. A flying Indio was frightening to the new type of upscale passenger we are going after, and that is why Aeromexico will now be known as GueroMexico.
Bolillo added:
(PNS reporting from SEGUIN, TX) A nine-year-old boy killed El Cucuy Tuesday night.
El Cucuy, AKA the Mexican Boogeyman, was pronounced dead at 10:30 PM at the Balli family residence here. The legendary monster was said to be 521, with a birth date pegged in 1492.
It was a more or less typical evening for the Balli family, according to a Guadalupe County Sheriff’s detective familiar with the case. There was no hint of the trouble to come, he said, “when boy’s parents threatened the perpetrator with El Cucuy if he didn’t brush his teeth before he went to bed.”
The youth, who turned nine July 13, refused, the officer said, so his parents summoned El Cucuy to the modest ranch-style home.
El Cucuy (file photo, above) manifested in the kid’s room around 9:40 PM, according to the investigator, and was killed during a brief firefight by “some type of particle-beam weapon” created by the boy.
The room was “a mess with comic books and plasma everywhere,” he said, and El Cucuy’s remains “looked and smelled like burnt frijoles.”
Mas…Breaking: TX boy, 9, slays Mexican boogeyman El Cucuy, 521
(PNS reporting from GUANAJUATO, MX) Not to be outdone by Space X founder Elon Musk’s proposed high speed “Hyperloop” rail system, a Mexican engineer has plans to commercialize his country’s high speed travel infrastructure, a proprietary closed system that has been in operation for years.
Researchers and engineers in this high tech city in Mexico’s Silicon Barrio are not impressed with Musk’s Hyperloop, a system of people-sized pods that move through a network of air-free tubes built over or under the ground at speeds of up to 800 MPH.
“We have had almost the same method of transportation a very long time, so I do not understand what the big deal is,” Universidad de Guanajuato Prof. Carlos Sagañez told PNS Tuesday.
Mas…Mexican scientist reveals underground high speed travel system
