We have plenty of IHOPs and Dennys though.

I won't post here what it means, you can Google that one!

Pinche pendejo!

The guy was an obviously mentally cult member of the orange maggot.

and complained about him speaking spanish with his wife...

One of Monty’s best.

upset about Spanish words.

Tacos, burritos and tostadas, dude? Does he go to an Italian restaurant and complain that they call their noodles spaghetti?

When was the last time you went to Outback Steak House and saw anything written in Australian?

Yes, you clueless nitwit, go get a couple food items that originated in ANOTHER country whose language you don't speak.


We need a 51st state with big giant walls around it that these idiots can move to and call it "Snowflakiana" where nothing is ever in any language than the Queens good English. They can eat bland, flavorless food with only 4 spices or flavorings and never have to worry about reading the word "Taco" ever again.

Poor dears.

Coca Cola might have to change the name of their soda for distribution there, but otherwise....

Hamburger is German, and so are wiener and bratwurst. Spaghetti and pizza are Italian. Moo shu pork? Pupu platter? Sorry, not for you. You can't have croissants or creme brulee. Too bad about the goulash and the moussaka and the kæstur hákarl (well, maybe not that).

How about some Wonder bread and margarine?

"You can have corn with butter and salt and pepper. You can have beef, chicken, pork or fish, but no Worcestershire sauce or anything else that originated elsewhere. No Mayonnaise either, as that's French, you dolt."

T-Shirt idea;

"You can have my Chili Powder and my Cumin and the rest of my spices when you pry them from my cold, dead but well fed hands".


How fucking narrow do you have to be to make a stink about how language is used on a menu?

I wonder if this asshole has ever eaten Chinese takeout where the menu had Mandarin or Cantonese characters? And if so, did he throw a shit fit in that restaurant as well?

over French fries and the nitwit Repug who said we should re-name them Freedom Fries because France opposed our invasion of Iraq.

Forgetting the fact that if it weren’t for France, the revolution would have failed and we would still be colonies of England.

Dumbfuckistan for their failed state.

But I thought if the asshole in question is any indication of the intellect of any potential inhabitants, anything with “Stan” at the end probably won’t go over well!

to look before opening his car door in traffic either.

How does he justify his thoughts after supposedly being a U.S. Marine?

...that legitimate news organizations like The Hill should stop running articles from The Onion. It doesn’t fit them.

Why go to a mexican restaurant when you discriminate against latinos?

going to other places like Italian, German, etc. He should stick with Cracker Barrel so it will kill him quicker.

But we do have some great German food!

I mean really go to the Weinerschnitzel across the street.

I'd gladly take an order of their asada fries and a nice cervesa!

many years ago, I was at a favourite ethnic restaurant in SF, and witnessed a similar scene. Since the jackass was interfering with MY dinner, and the server could not respond appropriately, I did. the jackass left, and the patrons could continue their meals in peace.

It is generally agreed by historians that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic), the common language of Judea in the first century AD, most likely a Galilean dialect distinguishable from that of Jerusalem.[1] The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, were Aramaic-speaking communities.[2] It is also likely that Jesus knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Palestine, and it is also possible that Jesus knew some Hebrew for religious purposes.[3][4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_Jesus

No excuse for the racist rant . . .

But there were daily specials written on a special menu board. Apparently he wanted to order the viernes special on lunes, not recognizing that viernes identified a special that was only available only on Friday. So the "It says it in Mexican" was a reference to the limitation on the special menu board (not the menu itself) that made the special he wanted to order on Monday unavailable since it was a Friday special.

As I said - no excuse for the racist rant, but it is a bit different from just complaining about having Spanish words on a Mexican restaurant menu.

the menu board had Spanish words on it and it was in a Mexican Restaurant. If there is a specials board in a Mexican Restaurant would you be surprised if it had Spanish words? If you did not understand those words would you get upset if you were told that the thing which intrigued you was available only on Friday just like it said on the board? If the daily specials were listed on the menu given to you at the table would it be different? I really don't see how what you are pointing out is a difference.

on a menu or menu board naming foods - and having Spanish words that are operational (i.e. governing the terms of the deal). When operational words are not clear (regardless of the language in which they are written) it is not uncommon for customers get annoyed when informed that what they've chosen to order is only available on certain days or at certain times. Although this is the first response off-the-wall enough to get national attention, the restaurant owner did indicate the sign frequently caused daily confusion among people who wanted one of the specials but didn't understand that the specials were limited to a particular day. If you don't understand the importance of describing clearly, in a way your intended audience can understand, the special deals that are only available under limited circumstances, then I can't help you.

Again - not an excuse for a racist rant. But being upset after he was told the item he decided to order from the specials board was not available because he could not understand the terms of the deal is considerably different from merly being upset that Spanish words appeared on a Mexican restaurant menu.

are acceptable in a Mexican Restaurant to convey anything. It is true the restaurant owner did indicate the sign frequently caused daily confusion. Nothing in the story indicates he is changing that so I think he is clearly communicating with his intended audience. Perhaps his intended audience isn't racist jackasses. I know that not catering to racist jackasses would go a lot further to making my dining experience pleasant than would having signage in English.
The restaurateur did nothing wrong and was subjected to a racist tirade. The racist jackass was a racist jackass long before he walked into that restaurant and Spanish words on a menu board didn't harm him in any way. There is no both sides here it is pure racist jackass assaults innocent restaurateur.

Purely binary thinking is a trait I used to associate primarily with conservatives. Unfortunately, it is also now cropping up in places and among people I used to credit with the ability to hold more than one thought in their brains at a time. It is disappointing that places where nuance is accepted as a part of life, rather than dismissed, are vanishing.

Just to correct things you are implying I said, that I didn't say:

I never suggested Spanish words in a restaurant weren't acceptable. I said there is a difference between reacting to the mere presence of Spanish words - and reacting to the impact on ability to understand the terms of the deal being offered as as result of it being described exclusively in Spanish.

I never suggested the restauranteur did anything wrong.

I never suggested that the racist rant was acceptable, regardless of what it was responding to.

Although you say the racist rant was not acceptable you continue to show a certain level of understanding as to what drove the racist to rant. Perhaps it can be disconcerting to realize you don't understand the language business is being transacted in. That said, nothing stopped racist boy from finding a place that used a language he understood.
I don't know what nuance you are seeing that makes this anything except a racist acting on his racism. Do you really think this isn't an act of unadulterated racism by an unadulterated racist?

If you are truly interested in understanding, it really isn't that difficult to distinguish between "Spanish words are bad and someone using Spanish words makes me angry" from "using Spanish to describe the terms of the deal created a misunderstanding, and I'm angry that I can't buy what I thought was being offered."

The headline describes the former; the actual situation is more closely described by the latter.

Neither excuses a racist rant - but there is no non-racist reason I can think of for being upset by the mere presence of Spanish words, whereas it is relatively common to be upset by a misunderstanding that means you can't get the deal you thought was offered (regardless of the reason for the communication disconnect) I.e. the latter emotional reaction is not inherently related to race (setting aside the inexcusable way he expressed his emotional response).

having any kind of melt down over an unavailable menu item is beyond reprehensible, but if the first thing you reach for in your "pain" is pure racism you are a racist no doubt. Do you think the people who racist boy unleashed on care about this difference you are describing?
The headline is fine racist boy launched into a racist rant because he couldn't read the Spanish, which he called Mexican, on a menu board in a Mexican Restaurant.

If you aren't even willing to acknowledge that the headline is inaccurate, there's not much hope for a real conversation about anything more nuanced. As I said, I'm not interested in conversations that are limted to binary outcomes.

it would be wise to put the days in English, too.

It's hard at any time to imagine what may be happening in these people's minds enough to try to empathize with they're going through when we're busy reacting to shabby and irrational, even hurtful, behaviors.

Here in the rural south, we're friends with a strongly conservative but very decent neighbor of the type who can be genuinely good friends with a liberal Jew and nonbeliever from California. This is in spite of almost never leaving his rural home county in his entire life. That's not nothing! From another type we typically get various levels of pretend affability sorta covering hostility and rejection.

One day when my husband drove his fishing buddy to a distant orthodontist because he'd be unable to drive home, they stopped at a cafe on an interstate for lunch, and my husband was astonished when his buddy tried to turn in the doorway and leave because two tall, well groomed white men were speaking an unidentified foreign language. The big changes in his world, even though he only hears about and never sees most of them, distress him a lot more than we realized, and this unexpectedly running into evidence of it genuinely upset him. My husband, not the deepest thinker and from SoCal, where lack of diversity is what would be weird, did an "oh, come on," and he was able to collect himself and go in, but he only did it for a friend.

even in this day and age - and the trigger for being upset was pretty clear once I read the article.

I wouldn't have had language issues, since I would have recognize the days of the week and understood that certain meals were only available on certain days.

But I recognize the immediate annoyance I feel when I think I understand what the deal is and, at the last minute I have to start from scratch again becuase the ball has been accidentally or deliberately hidden. (Occasionally with restaurants - more frequently on more substantial transactions.)

And right now, it reinforces our biases to think that the racist rant was a reaction to the mere presence of Spanish words - when it is pretty clear to me it was just a human reaction to feeling the rug was pulled out from under his meal decision. How he handled that reaction was completely unacceptable. But I understand the reaction in a way that I would not have understand merely being upset by Spanish words crossing my line of sight.

causing anxiety and stress reactions. When people feel they have some control, the situation may be just as bad but the stress is typically less.

Obviously this guy’s problem isn’t really just a menu.

My husband is a typical guy who doesn’t ask the right kind of questions, but we know our friend is intelligent and kind, and naturally not bigoted, but he has has lived all his life in a very small, very conservative world. He overreacted, but he’s not actually a nut or functionally deficient, and he doesn’t hate anybody. Just acted like someone who could.

Normal people don't launch into a racist tirade because they get disappointed or someone made a simple mistake.

which suggests the reaction was to nothing more than Spanish words on a menu.

As I said earlier, the racist tirade was unacceptable.

Well, maybe not half. But how can anyone live here and not be able to read a menu or politely ask?

Good enough for Jesus? A white Jesus that is

"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!"

I haven't studied how that language relates to Arabic. Most people of Jesus' time spoke Aramaic, or Latin, a few spoke Hebrew. That is why early accounts of demons (daemons) have them speaking in Latin.

...American Christians who confuse the several languages of the Bible with modern English. There was some rapturous piece of spam several years back indicating the author thought that since Son and Sun sound alike in English that God intended that to mean Jesus was the Sun. They had it all worked out -- I'm not doing it justice.

You and I know that what we call the Bible today was first oral tradition, then written down over centuries by multiple authors in multiple languages. In the original languages, that is easy for scholars to discern. It's only when it is translated into one of the modern languages by a committee that it appears to be a seamless whole with a single author.

My daughter's first husband was unbelievably obnoxious on the subject of religion, and kept trying to beat us down ... I thank whatever gods may be that she divorced the ignorant little bigot.

You got me curious so i did a little googling & came up with this: http://www.swcs.com.au/aramaic.htm
"The three languages — Aramaic, Arabic and Hebrew — all go back to one ancient "root" language we might call "Common Semitic". This is the starting place for understanding why a speaker of one language may understand, or at least easily learn, another of the languages. It's a bit like French, Italian and Spanish speakers whose languages all go back to Latin."

That's a great example liking the "Common Semitic" root language to to Latin root, mother of the modern Romance languages. Fascinating!

Anyhow, this is what is incomprehensible to me. These staunchly conservative Christians (as they pride themselves to be) practice a twisted form of Christianity - to the point it is deeply heretical, disturbing and perverse. They profess and worship Jesus, yet they forget that Jesus was a Person of color, AND a Jew - people whom they discriminate against and with such intense hatred. Way too many Liberty University-like institutions breeding this dangerous form of Christian conservatism in this country.

...the Evangelicals don't really seem to identify as Protestants per se, altho the old mainline Protestant sects still hold steady.

And yes, in previous centuries they would have been seen as heretics. So while I am very glad as an American that we have the freedom to go our own way (especially since the history of Europe was significantly blood-drenched regarding nonconformist religion, and I myself am nothing if not a divergent thinker), I have significant problems with the celebration of sheer ignorance and bigotry that seems to be the banner of the modern Evangelical/formerly known as fundamentalist movement.

(Sigh. I feel I must add a disclaimer. I am not anti-religion, nor am I anti-Christian, and upon request I can and often do provide a list of liberal religious groups, from Sojourners to Tikkun to the Unitarian Universalists, that are open-minded and embracing. Sorry, got off topic.)

Especie de mierda especial...

Want a hamburger? McDonalds bro...

Hotdogs? Try Nathan's...

y muere.

Flipping out over the Spanish language is an official Trumpist requirement.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2019/03/27/this-is-not-mexico-texas-official-criticizes-county-judge-speaking-spanish/
‘This is not Mexico’: Texas official criticizes county judge for speaking Spanish
Washington Post
By Lindsey Bever
March 27, 2019

A Texas county official is facing backlash after he criticized the chief executive of a neighboring county for speaking Spanish during a news conference about a massive chemical fire.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo — the top elected official in the state’s largest county — had been speaking Monday in English and Spanish about the fire that broke out at a storage facility in the Houston area. The briefing was broadcast live on CBS affiliate KHOU’s Facebook page, where Mark Tice, a Chambers County commissioner, posted a comment, saying, “She is a joke.”

“English,” Tice added, “this is not Mexico.”

Tice later confirmed to the Houston Chronicle that he made the comment, saying, “It’s real simple. This is the United States. Speak English.”
<snip>

Then they get all victimized and act attacked.

I was in a self styled French bistro gastro pub in central Florida several months ago. A guy was somewhat indignant that Streak Frites as not listed as Steak and French Fries because how was he supposed to know what Frites were? Obviously nothing racist and he did not raise too big a ruckus. But carried on with the waiter and asked for a manager to complain. The manager did not apologize and held his ground. Politely explained they were a French style restaurant and many of their items were in French. Like Coq Au Vin.

After a few minutes of feeling superior I lost that feeling and just felt sad.

Not that they guy did not know what Frites were. Nothing shameful about that. But that many Americans actively resist wanting to learn about and respect other cultures when we are all products of other cultures.

But really, America has always been that way.