If you thought you had seen (and heard) it all about politics and immigration, consider Rod Jetton, a Missouri politician who is offering to trade lazy locals for hardworking Mexican immigrants.

“I think there are some lazy Missourians in this state who really don’t want to work, and I think there’s a lot of hardworking Mexicans who would love to come up here and make a little money to support their families,” he told the Associated Press. “And by golly, if we could find a way to trade them, I would trade them in a heartbeat.”

Way to go, Mr. Jetton! I, for one, would love to trade political speeches like yours for the ones that really put us to sleep.

z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z !!

Here’s a good one. The Mexican government is asking Mexican nationals living abroad to send in their migratory tales to participate in a worldwide writing contest aimed at getting a “better sense of how their former citizens live abroad, what drove them to leave Mexico, what challenges they face and what they need to integrate and succeed, particularly in the United States.”

(Well, wouldn’t the Mexican government just have to look at its own policies to figure out what drove people out? duh!)

In any case, the lucky winner will receive a prize of approximately $2,000 in cash and a free trip to Mexico to accept the award. Yupi!

But wait a second: how are they going to send them back to the U.S.? will they be needing extra polleros? (just asking).

Remember that ridiculous story about Beaner’s Coffee changing its name because it didn’t want to offend Hispanics? Well, now a poor Dallas lawyer is taking the heat for comparing the difficulty of counting the number of Hispanic voters in a city with guessing the number of “beans in a jar.”

“The two methods presented in this case to determine if there is a Hispanic voter majority in the plaintiffs’ district bring to mind the contest where customers are asked to guess the number of beans in a large jar,” attorney C. Robert Heath wrote in a legal brief on behalf of Farmers Ranch (that same place that doesn’t like Mexicans painting their homes in colors)

According to the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Heath has since apologized saying he wasn’t familiar with the slur. “It was just an analogy, and obviously it was ill chosen because it was offensive to some persons,” Mr. Heath said. “That was entirely unintentional, and I apologize for it.”

Shame on you Mr. Heath. If you really know Mexicans, you should know what we’re all about.

That’s it! I’m off to have a big plate of frijoles. Ajúa!

I bet you didn’t know this, but today (Wednesday Jan. 16) is Hispanic Day in Pasco, WA (pop. 200,000). And what this means, say political leaders, is simple: today is the day in which a group of local politicians will lobby the state Capitol to consider laws with Latinos in mind.

“It’s not just suits lobbying politicians, the group is bringing a bus load of families from Pasco to talk face to face with representatives,” said a journalist of Pasco’s local CBS affiliate.

Oh dear! I don’t like the sound of “a bus load of families” and might advice them against this. What if the INS is waiting? or the Minuteman?