2004 off to a resounding start

by David Grand
January 15, 2004

No sooner had I given out my prestigious awards for 2003, than within the very first days of the new year some people were already competing for future awards. I was plain flabbergasted to learn that my annual awards' ceremonies had gained such widespread attention. Ah, fame comes in the strangest ways.

That Hillary, the media's darling, was looking for back to back wins was the most surprising of all. But as of now, she's clearly the odds-on favorite to capture the"most lame humorous remark" award" for her feeble attempt at humor at the start of a recent speech by referring to Mahatma Gandhi as "that fella who ran a gas station in St. Louis for a couple of years." You could've heard a pin drop in the room that was as silent as when Ross Perot referred to those attending an NAACP convention in 1992 on racial harmony as "you people," and "your people."

And this wasn't the first time her words had backfired, a la her mocking a black accent at a fund raiser for Willie Brown in 1996; in expressing her happiness "for having grown up in a white suburb" at a Constitutional convention in the summer of 2002: and perhaps her greatest gaffe, by demeaning the role of homemakers during her husband's second campaign by declaring "she's no stay- at- home wife baking cookies." But no matter what she says or does, she'll still get a "free pass" from the media and her legion of devoted followers.

How Trent Lott must envy her getting off so lightly, when he was removed as the majority leader of the Senate for saying at Strom Thurmond's farewell dinner "how much better off the country would be today if he'd been elected president in 1948." But as they say, double- standards are, after all, what's made this country great.

Well, it looks like I'll be coming up with a new award for 2004 called the "Pinocchio award," named after that wooden boy whose nose grew a foot or more in length for lying. Now, while his nose doesn't appear to be any longer, Pete Rose, who forgets how many lies and half-truths he's told over the last 13 years since he was banned from baseball for betting on games (including on the team he managed), is still praying that the baseball commissioner would, now that he's "come clean" in a recent book, grant him absolution for his past sins, and thereby make him eligible for the Hall of Fame. But that's about as unlikely as my winning a Pulitzer prize for my columns. Maybe even more so.

And another award I'll be introducing at the end of this year will be the "Political pandering" award, which I'm certain will be hotly contested by many politicians at every level of government. But overtaking Bush in that category will not be easy, considering the commanding lead he now has by proposing to give the 8 to 12 million illegal, Latino aliens already in the country (whose population now surpasses that of African Americans) amnesty, and what's called "guest-status," under the banner of "matching willing workers with willing employers."

It's no wonder that growers are holding their breath hoping that congress will go along with the prez, so as to free them from worrying that the immigration laws may someday be enforced causing them to lose what amounts to their captured, black-market work force; and worse yet, having to pay at least the minimum wage of $5.15 a hour (a dollar higher in California), and paying 'em overtime for the extra hours they work under a blazing sun. In many respects, they're not that much better off than slaves were before they were freed, except that they do get to go to the towns on some weekends for shopping and a beer or two (or more) to drown their miseries for a brief spell.

Wouldn't it been something if the native Americans, the Aztecs (who lived in what is now Mexico) and Incas of Peru had made the same offer of granting guest-status to the flood of foreigners who came to their lands uninvited to improve their lot in life. But had they dared to, there wouldn't be any survivors of the genocide's that took place after they were conquered by the white man. What a crunch that would've put today's growers in.