Thursday, April 17, 2008

For the love of money, not of language.

This is what I've been trying to say all along! You bitch cause you have to press 1, but you bitch when they come here to work for pennies & then send their pennies back home. If you want their pennies to stay here, in your good ole US of A, then quit bitching about pressing 1 and just press the damn button!

¡Ask a Mexican! Press 1 for English
by Gustavo Arellano

Phone Tree Love: Press 1 for a good explanation for why you should press 1

Q. Dear Mexican: I work at a Seattle-based company, and our customer-service department uses a PhoneTree system that asks all callers to press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish, and a few other numbers for commonly spoken languages in our area. I handle customer complaints as part of my job, and I get a surprising number of complaints from people who feel they shouldn't have to press a number to be spoken to in the "normal" language of English. They are offended by our PhoneTree for some reason that is mysterious to me. You seem to have a fairly high readership of people who are generally offended by Spanish-speaking people-could you please deliver a message to them for me? The message is this: The PhoneTree is for your own good. If we didn't ask non-English-speakers to identify themselves at the beginning of the call, English-speaking people would have to wait in line behind those who don't speak English, and would have to wait for those non-English-speakers to get on the line with a non-Spanish-(or other language)-speaking representative. They'd then have to wait for the non-English-speaking customer to be transferred to a representative who speaks their language. There is no law against not speaking English in this country-companies have English-speaking customers and non-English-speaking customers, and a company isn't going to give up revenue by refusing to serve people who don't speak English just to please you jingoists. People should just be grateful that they're asked to press 1 for English, and not 8. -Press 2 For Tough Tamales

A. Dear Gabacha: I get this question asked mucho, and yours is as good a respuesta as I could ever scrawl. Can I pick you up at Home Depot if I ever need a cheap replacement?

Thursday, April 3, 2008

All the patriotism you'll get out of me…

To Kill an American

(Supposedly written by an Australian Dentist)

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You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as Native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place; they are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.