Confession of the Week

I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not: I was brought up in a household that practiced English immersion. Why? Because my Mexican-born father had originally tried bilingualism and ended up with an oldest son -- me -- who came home in shock after his first day in kindergarten because he couldn't understand what the other kids (obviously English-speakers) were saying.

Since my father thought it was more important for his children to know the language of the country we were living in than to try and retain Spanish, he and my mother started speaking exclusively in English. Thus kids like me who couldn't even understand our own maternal grandmother when she asked us a question in English eventually shed almost every trace of Spanish and started speaking English exclusively.

And I don't consider this a bad thing.

Feliz Navidad y All That Jazz

The holiday season is upon us.

Prepare to see the next month devoted to endless sermons about shamelessly materialistic Americans, sermons that will inevitably written by the same people who can't stop bragging about their $200 Ipods and $1000 laptops.

You see, materialism is a bad thing only when it's practiced by other people...

R.I.P. Adrienne Shelly

Adrienne Shelly (birth name Adrienne Levine), indy actress best known for playing Audry Hugo in Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth and Maria Coughlin in Hartley's Trust, is dead at age 40.

She shall be missed.

The Other Side of the Immigration Story

Just when the immigration issue is seeming so simple, it becomes more complicated.

But then only a fool would pretend it wasn't complicated to begin with...

Science Fiction Quote of the Week

There are two kinds of fool. One says, “This is old, and therefore good.” And one says, “This is new, and therefore better.”
--John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World?

As if the Bring It On set doesn't have a big enough problem with vanity as it is...