Family Guy

I find the term "family values," as appropriated by Republicans, to be highly, highly offensive. Because what it is really saying is if you are not with the Republican program 100% of the time then what could you possibly know about family values? I highly, highly disagree with this statement.

Let's talk about social issues for a moment. In my own family, in many instances, people are on different sides of the same issues. Does that mean that some of us have family values and some of us don't? Does that mean that I am better than my sister because I hold the correct opinion on an issue? Does that mean I should stop talking to my sister because, obviously, she has no family values? Does that mean that my niece and my nephew are fated to have a sucky life because my sister might have a wrong opinion here and there?

The answers to all of the above questions are no, no, no and no. Families can be beautiful and heartwarming but also complex and complicated. Families fight and make up and then fight again. We disagree about stuff but, you know what, that is okay with me. I love talking to my relatives who I don't agree with. In a way, I like talking to them more because I already know how I think and I might not necessarily know how they think.

I have relatives who love Rush Limbaugh and I have relatives who worship Hillary Clinton. What I do know is that all my relatives are good family people. I have seen my conservative relatives go out of their way to help me out personally. But my liberal relatives have done the same too. I love my family and I wouldn't change a thing about them.

When Mitt Romney comes out and talks about his "family values," I do not recognize any of my family in what he is saying. He is talking about drawing a line in the sand with acceptable people on one side and the unacceptable on the other. White people, okay. Brown people, not so much. Rich people, we like you. Poor people, don't even notice you.

I consider myself half-immigrant. My mom came to the United States for the first time when she was 30 years old. She did not know a single person here other than my dad. The year was 1970. As I was growing up, I was ambivalent about where I lived. It was just a place I was born. But my mom would have none of that. She loved the United States. She was a patriot. And I think she was happy with the life she made here.

My mom was from the Philippines. You know what? Them Filipinos have some good values and I should know because I would hear about them when I strayed a little. (I got a C in science once.) I know the United States was just a bit better for having had my mom live here from 1970 to 1993, the year she died. Her legacy is three pretty good kids, two really cool grandkids, and the countless time she spent helping new immigrants from the Philippines get used to their new country.

My mom loved to help people immigrating to the United States. She would help them find places to live. She would tell them where the Catholic churches were. (Most Filipinos are Catholics.) She would have parties to introduce new immigrants to the ever-growing Filipino community in Houston. A big part of the reason I became a teacher in an inner-city school in a poor Hispanic neighborhood in Houston was to model myself after my mom a bit. (My mom was also a teacher back in the Philippines.) She was a welcoming face for many people moving to the United States for the first time from the Philippines. I was the same face for many people moving to the United States for the first time from places like Mexico and Guatemala and Costa Rica.

The arrival of my mom to her new family probably shook things up a bit back in 1970. But the family was the better for it. In fact, America is a better place for having had my mom live here for a short time as well. My family really is a diverse lot. We bitch and moan a lot. Sure. But there have been countless instances in my life where they stood up to help me out. I totally trust my family and their values. We are a different version of American than the version Mitt Romney talks about.

And you know what? His loss, not mine.

Sweet Little Nothings About Tom DeLay

When I was a little kid, I noticed that my mom was really into politics. She read both of Houston's local papers. (Back then we still had The Houston Post. Give me a second to compose myself, okay? I loved The Houston Post.) She watched the local news and the national news. Sometimes she would bring a small television into our den and place it by our big television so she could watched Dan Rather alongside Peter Jennings. ("That Peter Jennings...so handsome," she would say from time to time.) She read National Geographic and Reader's Digest. I didn't know the term at the time but she is what we would now call a "political junkie."

My mom died in 1993. A year or so later, we got our first internet connection at our house. One of those mostly text-based things. I remember loading a single picture overnight and thinking, "Man, that's awesome!" The internet connection at our house became faster and faster and eventually we got high-speed. After I became interested in following politics and other current events around 2000, I saw that there was just so much stuff out there. I don't think my mom would have ever got off the computer.

In the early days of my politics addiction, I would be on the computer constantly. I knew there was always just a little bit more to read about the George W. Bush-Al Gore election. I would be reading stuff during my off-periods from teaching high school history. And during lunch. And during the detentions I held after school. ("You know what real detention is? Four years of a President George W. Bush, that's what!") The Gore v. Bush decision made me realize that if yahoos like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas could graduate from law school then it couldn't be that difficult. Thus I was off to law school.

The Bush-John Kerry election in 2004 was a replay for me. I really got into that election too. That was when I started blogging. (I think my anti-Bush blogging helped explain why John Kerry lost Texas by a smaller margin than one would expect.) I loved those little delegate maps that you would find on the websites of The Washington Post or The New York Times. I was also all about NPR and The New Yorker as well. Did my law school grades suffer a bit? Probably. But I considered myself a student of life. And I had the best teacher anyone could hope for. Myself.

After the disappointment of the 2004 election, I dropped out of following politics for awhile. Oh sure, I took secret joy in President Bush's incredibly shrinking approval ratings. (I had a t-shirt that said, "I don't like to tell people 'I told you so.' I'd rather just imply it.") Another thing that made me lose interest in the news was the departure from the scene of some of my favorite enemies: Tom DeLay, George Allen, Bill Frist, and Karl Rove. I saw that most of my interest in politics was in seeing the personal destruction of people I detested. Did I want to be that person? I can't say that I didn't like who I was because I did. But to think about people I hated all the time did get to be a bit much. I mean I talked about Tom DeLay on dates. Whispering sweet little nothings about Tom DeLay into a potential paramour's ear definitely does not work. I would not recommend you trying this at home, aight?

What drew me back to politics was the purchase of an iPod I made last year. There were a lot of political podcasts that I listened to occasionally through my computer. But I didn't really like listening to stuff while I was doing stuff on my computer. I found I liked listening to political podcast when I was going for a walk or going to the gym or driving around in my car. I got addicted to the Slate Political Gabfest podcast and the Bloggingheads.tv podcast in particular. I guess I can thank Steve Jobs for restoring my interest in politics.

The upshot of all this is I can get overwhelmed with all the sources of political news out there. I sample a lot of sites. I go through phases where I am all into The New Republic then I don't read it for months. I wonder sometimes how other political junkies get their news. If you are reading this modest blog, you likely are a fellow political junkie. Where do you get your political news hits, yo?