Need a florist in San Jose? Here's one to avoid

[Newsjock]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/10659141.htm

S.J. florist to help decorate Bush inaugural festivities

By Nerissa Pacio
Mercury News

As a boy, Ignacio Villegas swept floors and drove a delivery van after school for his parents' flower shop in North Chihuahua, Mexico. He had no idea he'd one day be chosen to arrange flowers for the U.S. president.

Villegas, owner of Unique Flowers in San Jose, will travel to Washington, D.C., this week along with 200 other floral designers from throughout the country to prepare for President George Bush's inaugural celebration on Thursday .

... More than a hundred varieties of flowers will be shipped in from the United States, Latin America and Europe, including Villegas' favorites: roses and hydrangeas. The volunteer designers will spend about 7,500 combined hours planning and installing the elaborate decor.

OK, let's imagine all the wonderful things these folks could do in their communities with 7,500 hours of service. Help the homeless? Adopt a highway? Register voters? Nope. Arrange flowers for the king.

And on edit: Note the not-so-subtle media manipulation in this story as well. Villegas' story didn't just happen; someone (the inaugural committee? the florists group?) had to tell the media about it.

[Merlot]

1. I'm picturing the inauguration JK would have had

Would he not have parties out of respect for Iraq war, and tsunami victims? Would it be low key and respectful? Would he use extra money to send to tsunami victims? Or would be buckle under pressure t have a big ol' bash?

Guess we'll never know.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. I think the pukes would be all over him for having a "vulgar" display

In the wake of the Tsunami disaster (I don't think they'd dare bring up the war though). Kerry would probably scale down the celebration quite a bit.

[Merlot]

3. Ok then, lets' just keep being all over repubs

regarding this vulgar, insensitive display.

[BrotherBuzz]

4. Here's another Mexican immigrant, only he's to busy to attend

Why do I only read these sorts of stories in very obscure publications, never in Mainstream Media? And, just how much money are those fraudulent hypocritical fundamentalist Neocon christians spending on the Bush Inaugural Bash while these real people are doing real work?

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/romani.php?articleid=4236
A must read!

Dead Soldier's Dad Finds No Enemy in Iraq



December 30, 2004
by Rebecca Romani

ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Fernando Suarez del Solar is a busy man. He is busy opening boxes, counting pills, counting bandages; he is busy checking everything in the boxes that come addressed to him from all over the United States.

Suarez stops for a moment. "There are other boxes," he says, "many of them in San Francisco, in New York, in Chicago. So many boxes."

He could be doing other things. It is holiday time, after all, and the Mexican immigrant could be out shopping for his grandchildren; he could be out enjoying the unusually balmyweather.

But he needs to be checking these boxes. Like Suarez, their contents will be heading for Iraq, on a mission that memorializes his only son, Jesus, one of the first soldiers to die in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Jesus died Mar. 27, 2003 after stepping on an unexploded U.S. cluster bomb. An advocate for the poor in his native Mexico, his father, who departed Monday, has been an outspoken advocate and tireless campaigner against the war ever since.

"This trip is a very special one for me," Suarez tells IPS. He has been to Iraq before, last year, to visit the site where his son was killed. But this time is different.

"This year I am coming with something. I have something to give. Last time I came with my pain, my loss, and my tears. This time I have medicine for the children of Iraq."

Suarez will be accompanied by his wife Rosa, Jesus' mother. This is not what the couple expected to be doing when they moved their family from Tijuana, Mexico, seven years ago.

<more, lots more!!!!>

"You know," Suarez del Solar says thoughtfully, enunciating every word, "there are people who say I give aid and comfort to the enemy. I never spoke with Bush, he never sent me anything, but the people of Iraq I met, THEY comforted ME for my loss! I have yet to see the enemy."