Chicanonautica: ¡Remember El Espejo!

By Ernest Hogan

I buy a lot of books at used book and thrift stores. Not only are they cheap, but I often find lost treasures. I like rescuing books before they end up in the landfill to rot, or hopefully be restored by the archeologists of the future with brave new technology.

I also like finding Chicano and Latino lit. When I saw a yellowed copy of El Espejo/The Mirror: Selected Mexican-American Literature edited by Octavio I. Romano-V. I couldn’t help but grab it.

It’s from Quinto Sol Publications, in Berkeley, California, first published in 1969. The cover and title page of this copy of the fourth printing say Selected Mexican-American Literature. Later editions and internet call it Selected Chicano Literature. I remember those days. “Chicano” was still an insult, like the N-word, and proper “Mexican-Americans” didn’t want to be confused with those vatos who were rioting and writing on walls. Even back then we were arguing amongst ourselves over who and what we are.

The works are classic Chicano literature, poetry, nonfiction, poetry, prose, Spanish, English--sometimes all at the same time, and often similar to the experimental, new wave speculative fiction I was reading at the time. The Chicano imagination is powerful.

“The mirror is the rim of illusion.” as Miguel Ponce says in the “Notes for an Anti-introduction.”

History is 

presented like time travel, cruising from preColumbian times, to the 1910 Mexican Revolution, to Sixties flashes of post-psychedelic utopias that cross borders and break them down. From Rudy Espinosa’s scenario for a screen play “Kiko’s Tale:” “Ya know since traveling I’ve understood myself more clearly and I want out! Out of the cities of Americana, and all those tinsel time machines.”

“Minority” (I don’t like the word, it makes it seem like we can be ignored) writers and science fiction writers have a common problem: presenting cultures that are often alien to your publisher and audience.

It’s all about being and dealing with aliens.

Yeah, the writers are all men. In those proto-feminist days, when it was called Women’s Lib, most Chicanas had their creativity beaten out of them or channeled into more “practical” pursuits. Women who could become writers and artists back then were a special breed.

The writers are mostly Californios from San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose,Oakland, Berkeley, Olivehurst, and Lemon Grove, with exceptions from Tucson, Arizona, and Guadalajara, Jalisco.

They also seem to have broken into print through contact with academia. I wonder if it was anything like my struggles with commercial publishing.

Ocatvio I Romano-V. founded Quinto Sol, and was no doubt the driving force behind this and other books. Sometimes if you want something published you have to do it yourself. Writers owe a lot to people like him.

And some of the other writers have gone on to other accomplishments. Miguel Méndez-M. won the Premio Nacinal de Literatura Mexicana José and is ASU’s School of Transborder Studies. Nick Vaca became an author, attorney, and journalist. The poet Alurista won the American Book Award. José Montoya was Sacramento’s Poet Laureate. Juan Garcia’s imaginative works won him the Juan Rulfo Prize. And I’m sure Silvio Villavicencio, Miguel Ponce, Estupian, and Rudy Espinosa have done amazing things that can’t be found on a Google search. We often don't get documented.

In all, a welcome addition to your Chicano literature shelf.

Ernest Hogan creates Chicano literature without even trying.

Another La Bloga anniversary

Beginning our 12th year

Today marks La Bloga’s 11th anniversary. No presents, please, other than your continued literary contributions and feedback.

11 candles might be lit for the current, regular contributors of La Bloga. But don’t blow them all out at once. Instead, read a passage, article, story, poem or novel that each of them wrote. [Sorry for not featuring something on every bloguista.]

La Bloga's Em

There won’t be a party, since the contributors are scattered across Aztlán, something they describe in their cultural works. Old or younger, each contributor might at least be toasted with un Salud!

The faces of the contributors are featured on the masthead above, though they’re not named, nor linked to their websites. [fotos appear in the order each person joined up] But you can dig a little, into the right sidebar where all should be available.

El Ramos

Through 11 years, La Bloga has had its highs, lows, panic-attacks and recognition, mini-charlas and a couple of break-ups. But it’s always been bigger than any one of us, encompassing much of the length and breadth of Chicano/Latino lit and culture.

With an albeit misnamed thanksgiving day just passing, I’m grateful to have had the chance to play a small role in the Chicano literary website that became a Latino cultural website.

A fat candle should be lit for Michael Sedano, a.k.a. Em, who's operated as surgeon when necessary to keep the website alive. Just don't blow his candle out yet.

bloguista Olivas

And two brown candles should be lit for Manuel Ramos and Daniel Olives who literarily sustained La Bloga in its infancy, and continue to propel its growth.

At the same time, meeting some of its obligation to decolonize machismo, La Bloga now boasts roughly a 50% participation de embras literarias.

bloguista Melinda Palacio

Given recent events like the neo-fascist rise of Trumpisms, the #RedNBlackNBrownLivesMatter, the U.S.-created Syrian refugee crisis and yesterday’s shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood Center, La Bloga’s political orientation and articles find more reasons to raise its voice and provide analyses.

bloguista Lydia Gil

While publicizing and encouraging readers to seek out our cultural works, La Bloga has remained non-commercial, no ads marring our side-bars. We’ve all been involved for reasons sometimes romantic or dutiful.

So, before the commercial season takes hold, post something here or send a La Bloga contributor a message of your choice.

bloguista Amelia Montes

Should you forget to, no deben tener miedo—next week more La Bloga articles will appear under your tree or on your feed.

Feliz El Año Doce que sigue, y esperamos, muchos más,

RudyG

A taste of 3 Chicano spec stories

I'm sapped. By election results, doctors' ignorance about strange pains that I might go half-Stephen-Hawking about, and from not having gotten really drunk in over a month.

To meet a mental-lull that hit this week, below I include short, opening passages from three manuscripts. First I'll describe them so you can check whichever might interest you. Thet're teasers, intended to lure your into reading the entire tales, whenever they're published.

Previews of what's below:

#1: Sleeping Love - is set in Mexico's ancient times, when the people of Aztlan searched for the prophecy of the eagle, nopal and serpent. It begins with an elder proto-Azteca and some kids.

#2: Fatherly, Dragonly - is a cross-genre SF/F of so many elements, I can't list them. But it starts with a Diné water monster, then a Chicano shaman, then alien lizards, then….

#3: 5-Gashes Tumbling - is set in Aztlán. A castaway mexicano mestizo and Aztec indio find a First Peoples tribe who take them in, for a time. I call it an "experimental" roller-coaster of prose. If you read SW historical novels, try it.  [3/15 Update: to be published by WolfSinger Publications in a "weird western anthology!"]

What the children would create in Anahuac

#1: Sleeping Love

 In the ancient times on the Central Continent, the day seemed to be ending as usual. But this time, dozens of boys and girls suddenly sprinted far ahead of their tribe. They stopped at the mountaintop and shaded their eyes against the late afternoon sun. Their clothes made of animal skins let some of the cold through, but their run had warmed them. What they saw steamed them. Their faces lit up and they hopped around, screaming, "Grand Ta, Grand Ta, come look at it all!"

Grand Ta's chest felt like it glowed. It did that whenever young ones wanted to share their discoveries with Ancient Him. He touched his wrinkled cheeks and smiled to smooth them out, but they could never be smooth again. Removing his rabbit-hair cloak, he dropped it by his nagual. Though only he could see it, the mountain lion-spirit had always been with him.

As he reached the children, Grand Ta wondered, Have we finally found it? They let him through so they could show him. Gigantic ahuehuetl cypress trees held up the sky over an endless, deep-green valley filled with wonders. He was so amazed, he didn't hear every child.

"See, Ta, see?" He saw armadillos fleeing into the jungle. The children saw the hunter, a spotted ozelotl jaguar, and heard its grunt-coughs. Imitating those gave them the giggles.

"Look at them!" He saw red-green-blue-feathered parrots and quetzals splotching the rainforest. Youngsters instead saw dancing pieces of rainbow, which they playfully copied.

"Just listen to those!" Scores of ozomatli monkeys swung from branch to branch and chattered in funny tongues, making the children giggle louder. Grand Ta too caught the giggles.

He thought, This place is so bewitching, they could forget their heritage and the Ancestors. I will be remembered as a good teacher only if I use this moment to strengthen their minds and hearts. When they were almost out of wind, he signaled for them to gather where he was starting a sacred circle. Adults moved aside for the children and stayed back.

The young people sat and squeezed one another's hands. They hoped there would be time to play before night fell, but they could wait a bit longer. The tribe had traveled thousands of miles and years. Searching for a prophet's vision.

Grand Ta clapped once and everyone crossed arms. Quieting, they focused on him. "We reached here because our souls are strong. But where did we come from?" He perked his eyebrows and hoped they kept all the answers close to their hearts. We'll see how close.

A plump little girl rose and moved black bangs off her face. "Lost is our land, its name was--uh--is Aztlán."

It's good she corrected herself. He asked, "And did we change?"

"Yes, but we sing that we are still Aztecas!" Her friends grinned that she had done well.

Ta clasped his hands. "Why did we survive?"

An older girl stood up. "We hold our tribe tight to us." She grasped her shoulders, then the sides of her head. "We think our own thoughts!" Her face showed, Please ask me more.

Ta's knees shook from the hard climb. But resting must wait. "How do we treat others?"

"We harm no form of life or other tribe, except if we must," the girl said firmly.

Some black-haired monkeys howled and children fidgeted, yearning to go see. Remembering the Elder's teachings, they calmed themselves. [you also will have to fidget until this is in print]

Non-Diné image of Diné entity

#2: Fatherly, Dragonly

Tieholtsodi didn't always enjoy awakening in subterranean darkness; his grotto reminded him of the solitary eons during the First World, when only creatures walked the Earth.

"What, no children? They're always up and out earlier than their old dad." He imagined himself fossil-like, since his body required inspection for ageing decrepitude. Opening his three-foot-wide mouth, he flexed to limber up muscles anchored about his ovate head.

Drawing on spirit-power, he appealed to the super ascendants. "Blessed Holies, grant me more light." No answer. "As usual, they're as responsive as a sacred mountain." He shot out one of his five tentacles and nabbed a blue catfish busy chasing trout. Crunch, crunch!

Old as a mountain himself, Tieholtsodi was wise enough to know the Blessed Holies rarely responded. "What's the point of having goddesses who won't lift a finger to help?" And the next best idea for relieving the darkness--a shaman? "Like people on the reservation say, there's never a good one around when--"

Stretching tentacles made him feel younger. He'd been a great-looking, water dragon, at the onset of the Third World when humans appeared. "Now I'm like a fat octopus with squashed head and fewer tentacles. Oh, and how the amber skin fades." He scraped tiny pill clams latched to his hide, seeking a nest. "So much of me fades. If my Diné worshippers saw me now, they'd laugh their little red nalgas off."

Feeling into the dimness, he traced cavern walls. Not much had really changed in the millennia since he'd claimed the haven for his family. "They better return soon. Can't venture far and risk detection by men. Or alien beasts." .... [Soon coming to a mag or anthology in your area?]

#3: 5-Gashes Tumbling

What Chaneco tumbled down

Your Lordship, I attest that in Anno Domini 1599, Tomás Chaneco--unjustly conscripted out of the capitol of Méjico to become the expedition's cook--and I, as cook's helper, found ourselves lost and abandoned in the northern deserts of Nueva España. Since our skills were limited to shamanism and journalism, respectively, our leader, the Conquistador Don Juan de Oñate, promoted us to Lead Scouts the year in which we reached what that Oñate christened, Santa Fe de Nuevo México, which we peones quickly shortened to, Santa Fe.

The pendejo Oñate enjoyed naming things more than he relished charging windmills, unto the hinterlands, providing his men ample opportunities to, among other pastimes, infect native women with the pox, much as the otherwise useless priests also spread Catholicism.

Shaman that he was, Chaneco excelled at turning water into wine, and I, at turning wine into news, but our scouting skills lacked mucho, causing us to become separated from Oñate's rabble. "But, good riddance to bad basura," Chaneco said, to which I concurred, especially after menso Oñate had the feet cut off of every adult male in the Acoma Pueblo and enslaved its women for indecencies, which your Lordship knows of. At the last, from what we heard, Oñate galloped off in search of the Quivira city of gold the indios had made up to rid themselves of him. I admit I prayed he'd encounter los Apaches en Téjas....

# # #

In the last year and a half, I completed a YA alternate-world fantasy with two teen Chicano protagonists (boy and girl); a children's indigenous mexicano fantasy retell; one lengthy, SF/F mexicano-indigene-Chicano short story; a SF time-travel story into Denver's past; a short, mexicano-indigene fantasy; and a YA fantasy novella. They're all in agents' and editors' slush piles, their fates, to be determined. From this peak you've gotten, of course, let me know your opinions, suggestions or criticisms about any of them. Y gracias por eso.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG, a.k.a. the Chicano spec author, Rudy Ch. Garcia, on his way to vote again, in case this week was simply a mirage

Rare opportunity for Latino writers with a short spec novel

[La Bloga's regular Sunday columnists might not post today, due to other commitments.] 

 

Writers don't always know how long a story will end up. Sometimes what you thought would become a novel turns out shorter, like into a novella, or doesn't meet the minimal-length guidelines for a novel. And the market for short novels is more restricted than for novels.

 

I wrote one with a super title--The Enigma of the Grandest Gardener of Texcoco--that no matter what I did, would NOT grow any bigger than 20,000 words. For me, and those of you with a work of about that range, here's a chance to maybe get it published with a big press. Begun as an on-line and digital publisher, this is their first venture into print publications, and they state they encourage submissions from Latinos and others (the "underrepresented"). They have digitally published stories by Adam Troy-Castro and Daniel José Older, and stories with Latino characters, like Loco by Rudy Rucker. Here's the information:

 

Tor.com Imprint Submissions Guidelines

Posted on: May 29, 2014

The following guidelines outline how to submit fiction to Tor.com: The Imprint. They are different than submissions guidelines for Tor.com's short fiction program and Tor.com's non-fiction/blog submissions.

We will consider unsolicited, un-agented submissions for the next three months and will close submissions at the end of August. We are accepting agented submissions throughout this period.

What we're looking for: complete, original science fiction and fantasy stories of 17,500 words or more, with a preference for novellas and short novels. We are seeking stories with commercial appeal that take advantage of the particular strengths of the novella and short novel formats. We aim to publish titles in the adult marketplace, but will consider young adult submissions.

Ideal submissions will benefit from the careful and interesting world-creation that is the domain of the novel and the concise focus on language and emotion that the novella demands. We do not accept works that have been previously published elsewhere, works that fall below the specified word length, or works not identifiable as fantasy or science fiction.

Tor.com graphic from Daniel José Older story

We encourage submissions by writers from underrepresented populations. This includes but is not limited to writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class, and ability, as well as characters and settings that reflect these experiences.

How to submit: Submissions should be emailed to carlDOTengle-laird AT tor DOT com. They should be in something approximating standard manuscript format and be sent as .doc, .docx, .rtf, or plain-text attachments. They should not be sent as plain text in the body of an email. Please send a ten-page sample for shorter novels. For serializations, please provide a synopsis of the overarching plot and a plan for the development of your work in each serial part.

Put SUB: at the start of your subject line. While we are very excited about unsolicited submissions, and have had excellent luck with acquiring unsolicited submissions for Tor.com’s shorter fiction program, please understand that we expect the majority of our catalogue to come from agented submissions. We do not accept multiple or simultaneous submissions.

We can find out how open Tor.com is to Latinos, blacks and indios, by submitting our stories to them. Vamos a ver. I would suggest you prep your MS pronto, before August, and get it in because their list will get filled.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

a.k.a. author Rudy Ch. Garcia

Last-minute Xmas shopping thoughts

by RudyG

You've only got 3 shopping days left and it's almost too late to do anything except run out to the corner Walgreen's and buy something that fulfills your obligation, but will be so lame that everyone will know you ran out to Walgreen's at the last minute. Here's what you can do to make it look like you at least tried and you also get to blame something else (like the post office) for not having a physical present for unwrapping.

BTW, I begged Santa, but my Chicano fantasy book didn't make Gustavo Arellanos' Ask-A-Mexican Christmas shopping list. So what? Use what's below and help me make Gustavo regret he left me off that list.

1. The Closet of Discarded Dreams, a Chicano fantasy novel in paperback

If you're in the Denver Metro area, the first offering is a copy of my book delivered either to you or the recipient. Bargain price of $15 and I'll pay for deliver, autographed. It also comes with a set of Closet drink coasters and a bookmark. Order quick and you can have it by Xmas.

Outside the Denver area, I will pay postage, but it won't get there until after Xmas. In the meantime, you could print out the book cover, stick it in an envelope with a nice note and blame its late arrival on the post office. For all locations, I'll throw in some minimal gift-wrapping. I'll add a personalized note on the title page at no cost.

Contact me at the book website thru the Contact the Author box.

2. Revista Iguana

Nov.-Dec. 2012 issue, with my story El Viaje de Clarisa

If you need a present for an elementary school-aged kid who's bilingual, order a copy of my children's fable in Spanish about a little girl ant whose life is one struggle after another.

About $5 with postage. Contact them for details. It won't arrive in time for Xmas, but you can print out a copy of this cover and claim that it was just released, which is why it's late.

3. The Closet of Discarded Dreams, a Chicano fantasy novel, the EBook format

This one you can get in time for Xmas, if your recipient has or will receive an electronic reader. Plus, it's 25% off, or cheap at $4.47. It will make you look hi-tech savvy and trendy a la chicanada at the same time.

Go here, and at check out, enter coupon code 12PE9NGO4MDS  for 25% off your ebook order.

Formats available: epub (Nook compatible), pdf, mobi (Kindle compatible), lit (Microsoft Reader), and pdb (Palm).

The code is good until 12-31-2012.

4. Crossing the Path of Tellers anthology, with my SW fantasy story Memorabilia

Been looking for that perfect cheap book from Romania? This is it! It's $7.90, eligible for free shipping from Amazon. I haven't read the other stories, but Memorabilia tells the story of a mexicano shaman whose springcleaning of his cabin ends up in a battle with a Navajo water monster and an almost clean adobe. Print out this cover, stick it in the envelope, etc.

Obviously, you could also order other works by La Bloga's authors, of which there are many worthy as presents. In each case, order something, print out the cover, and look a little sheepish--when the envelope is torn open around the Xmas tree--because there's just paper inside. Or you could hold yourself proud that you're better than your brother who's giving everybody something from Walgreen's.

Support the Chicano classic Bless Me, Última

If you haven't read Manuel Ramos's article on the upcoming film version of Rudy Anaya's classic novel, go here. As Ramos says, we need to support Chicano lit in all its forms, especially when it's about to hit the Big Screen!

I can't find info on a release date, so anyone with info, please add that to Comments below.

Tomando / tokeando any holiday season

This is probably your last worry this time of year, but it might be the first thing--besides avoiding Walgreen's--Not to get a DUI, a contemporary American hysteria that Chicanos too suffer from. Below are excerpts from a Lewis Lapham article, Why the War on Drugs Is a War on Human Nature that's worth a read.

Since I'm of the belief that DUI-paranoia is greatly responsible for the death of affordable live music that once blared in our neighborhoods, I present this for informational purposes only. Celebrating American-style historically has not been tea-drinking time. So, if Walgreen's doesn't have everything you need, there's still time to make another stop. Take these words as you will.

"Martin Luther, early father of the Protestant Reformation, in 1530 exhorts the faithful to 'drink, and right freely,' because it is the devil who tells them not to. 'One must always do what Satan forbids. What other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink, talking so freely, and making merry so often, except that I wish to mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me.' ”

"The French poet Charles Baudelaire, prodigal son of the Industrial Revolution, is less careful with his time. 'One should always be drunk. That’s the great thing, the only question. Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.' ”

"The founders of the republic in Philadelphia in 1787 were in the habit of consuming prodigious quantities of liquor as an expression of their faith in their fellow men--pots of ale or cider at midday, two or more bottles of claret at dinner followed by an amiable passing around the table of the Madeira."

"The lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner were fitted to the melody of an eighteenth-century British tavern song."

"Alcohol’s job is to replace creation with an illusion that is barren. 'The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.' ”

"The policies of zero tolerance equip local and federal law-enforcement with increasingly autocratic powers of coercion and surveillance (the right to invade anybody’s privacy, bend the rules of evidence, search barns, stop motorists, inspect bank records, tap phones) and spread the stain of moral pestilence to ever larger numbers of people assumed to be infected with reefer madness -- anarchists and cheap Chinese labor at the turn of the twentieth century, known homosexuals and suspected Communists in the 1920s, hippies and anti-Vietnam War protestors in the 1960s, nowadays young black men sentenced to long-term imprisonment for possession of a few grams of short-term disembodiment."

Feliz, Merry, Próspero, Happy, y Suerte,

RudyG (sent from my IPhone, camped out in front of Walgreen's waiting for it to open

Write a Chicano novel in a month?

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

November 2012.

I’m not in Denver, again. In Houston, again, but this time for a family wedding and no readings for the novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams.

But I’ve embarked on what I call my 9th life. Some of the priors resemble how this one will play out, but this may prove enjoyable in ways the others only touched. Seven of the others will wait for explanations another time.

Public school education, my eighth life, and I will probably part ways, permanently. The administrators will not miss me. The kids would be a different story. I’ll still do volunteer work and maybe some work as a substitute, but I’m one more casualty of a country of school systems gone bad-to-worse.

Ninth life: full-time writer

It’s appropriate to begin the 9th in what some call NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. As one site explains it, “The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approx. 175 pp.) novel by midnight Nov. 30. In 2011, we had 256,618 participants and 36,843 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the deadline.”

Years ago I attempted to write the original draft of my Chicano fantasy novel in a month--although it wound up taking forty-five days--of about 60k words. Many revisions followed.

This time should be more fruitful, based on the premise that I am a much more savvy writer now. As of Nov. 9 I’ve completed 10k words. However this 10k is vastly improved from the first 10k I did years ago.

My process is relatively simple:

• Up at 5:30 or so, read the paper, check Email, sip two—only two cups of coffee, begin writing.
• Breaks every 60-90 min. away from the computer. Return to writing. This is fairly new for me. Before this year I would work without leaving the den or the keyboard, work until the brain was fried and restart the next morning. Brain-science readings have added taking these breaks to revive my thinking. Also new, frequent rehydration, a glass of water, or so.

At the MileHiCon, the KOP series novelist Warren Hammond explained his method of writing. What I took from him and have implemented this month is to begin each day not where I left off before, but instead somewhere earlier, even on page one. This is radically different from my composing, but I’m driven by Warren’s explanation that doing his novels in this manner means that once he reaches the last page, he is essentially finished with final revisions. Vamos a ver.

As for the subject of my November work, from lessons learned in my summer posts on latinos and sci-fi, Spic vs Spec, as well as discussions with Jim Fiscus of SFFWA, Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) and editors and publishers. I concluded that composing a young adult dark fantasy with Chicano protagonists should be my final work for the year.

It’s likewise fitting to finish my best year ever (5 published works, with two months remaining) by entering a field that begs for mas y mas y mas spec lit for Chicano boys. It would be a great finish of my teaching years, to give back to kids something they need more than a new standardized test.

As I said earlier, I’m on about page 40 of the new work and already recognize that if you liked/loved The Closet of Discarded Dreams, you’re going to love/bust a gut from reading the next installment. It is a prequel, not a sequel. What happened to The Chicano and Chrisie “the Bruiser” Falcón before The Closet of Discarded Dreams.

This is all for today; I’m tired. Pocho Joe of KUVO-fm radio and novelist Manuel Ramos stopped by yesterday and tricked me into drinking mucho. They actually left early for me to complete my Friday intoxication, solo, but I still blame them.

I’m in Houston, it’s humid, in the 70s, smoggy, while Denver’s prepping for some freeze and snow. I brought the MacBook and am having a chingón time with the prequel. Wish you were here to read some of this draft, but I guess that will have to wait for an editor to show up first.

Suerte in your Nov. writing and the rest of the time, too,

RudyG

Author of the Chicano fantasy novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams

Last minute: Arizona comes to Colorado 

On our way to the airport we passed an RTD bus, the regional mass transit most gente use to get around. The huge sign on the side caught my eye:

"It's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism."

It's not stirred enough local controversy yet, but placement of the ads has been upheld  in court elsewhere.

The ads were intended to hit the Obama campaign in swing states and obviously didn't work. If you sympathize with those of another religion and want to do something about these ads, you might want to vote against the type of judges who uphold the right to spread racist hate propaganda. And let RTD know your views. Before the whole state gets Arizonaed.