MISSING PARTS: Although I’ve yet to respond to its pleas for contributions, I fairly regularly check truthout’s daily messages on my computer screen, and — kaboom! — its news story teaser a week ago was hard to ignore:

“A Pair of Testicles Fell Off the President After Election Day.”

(There are several coloquial ways to share that comment in Spanish, but I’ll leave the translation to Frank Gómez and his contacts at Real Academia Española.)

My instant reaction was the quote’s source was going to reveal something about immigration reform and unkept promises.

I was wrong. The line was attributed to a former Guantanamo chief prosecutor. So to make certain I was still functioning okay, I clicked forward to the obituary page. There I found two familiar names with personal histories that had their Hispanic moments.

DEAD EAVESDROPPERS? No hay que hablar mal de los muertos. Never speak ill of the dead. My mother’s occasional admonitions didn’t make any sense to me as a child. I was savvy enough to know that dead people couldn’t eavesdrop on my conversations. But I pretty much paid heed to my mother’s words.

My dilemma now is how to acknowledge the recent passings of Andy Rooney and Matthew Martínez.

My recollection about Rooney, who hung on till age 88, is that he offended a lot of people with his frequently witless wit. Andy was a smirking boor. (Sorry, Mamá.) His targets one particular day were Latin American baseball players. Andy dismissed their incredible contributions to the game with the comment, “I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys named Rodríguez...They haven’t caught my interest.”

What can I say about Marty Martínez?

After nine terms in Congress in a heavily Hispanic district, he lost badly in the primary.That’s almost impossible to do. Hispanic Link editor Charlie Ericksen remembers having a normal relationship with Martínez until the Link surveyed Congress and reported that Martínez had just two Hispanics on his large staff, far fewer than any other rep in a Hispanic district.. After that,Marty interrupted a couple of news conferences when Ericksen asked a question, to volunteer,almost comically, that the Link just wrote a bunch of lies.

When Ericksen’s son Héctor, who takes after his Zapotec mother in height and complexion, first joined the Link staff, as is custom, he introduced himself by name at a news conference, Martínez jumped up to challenge him with “You are NOT! I know Ericksen!”

With an innocent smile, Héctor responded to the congressman with a question, “What am I going to tell my mother?”

MISSING PARTS: Although I’ve yet to respond to its pleas for contributions, I fairly regularly check truthout’s daily messages on my computer screen, and — kaboom! — its news story teaser a week ago was hard to ignore:

“A Pair of Testicles Fell Off the President After Election Day.”

(There are several coloquial ways to share that comment in Spanish, but I’ll leave the translation to Frank Gómez and his contacts at Real Academia Española.)

My instant reaction was the quote’s source was going to reveal something about immigration reform and unkept promises.

I was wrong. The line was attributed to a former Guantanamo chief prosecutor. So to make certain I was still functioning okay, I clicked forward to the obituary page. There I found two familiar names with personal histories that had their Hispanic moments.

DEAD EAVESDROPPERS? No hay que hablar mal de los muertos. Never speak ill of the dead. My mother’s occasional admonitions didn’t make any sense to me as a child. I was savvy enough to know that dead people couldn’t eavesdrop on my conversations. But I pretty much paid heed to my mother’s words.

My dilemma now is how to acknowledge the recent passings of Andy Rooney and Matthew Martínez.

My recollection about Rooney, who hung on till age 88, is that he offended a lot of people with his frequently witless wit. Andy was a smirking boor. (Sorry, Mamá.) His targets one particular day were Latin American baseball players. Andy dismissed their incredible contributions to the game with the comment, “I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today’s baseball stars are all guys

named Rodríguez...They haven’t caught my interest.”

What can I say about Marty Martínez?

After nine terms in Congress in a heavily Hispanic district, he lost badly in the primary.That’s almost impossible to do. Hispanic Link editor Charlie Ericksen remembers having a normal relationship with Martínez until the Link surveyed Congress and reported that Martínez had just two Hispanics on his large staff, far fewer than any other rep in a Hispanic district.. After that,Marty interrupted a couple of news conferences when Ericksen asked a question, to volunteer,almost comically, that the Link just wrote a bunch of lies.

When Ericksen’s son Héctor, who takes after his Zapotec mother in height and complexion, first joined the Link staff, as is custom, he introduced himself by name at a news conference, Martínez jumped up to challenge him with “You are NOT! I know Ericksen!”

With an innocent smile, Héctor responded to the congressman with a question, “What am I going to tell my mother?”

‘ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GUILTY OF KILLING NUN’

On Nov. 1, the tabloid Washington Examiner splashed this across the top half of its Page 1:

‘ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GUILTY OF KILLING NUN’

(Hispanic Link publisher Charlie Ericksen takes over from here.)

The editors who composed or approved those provocative words should turn in their press credentials and join the KKK, the Federation for American Immigration Reform or some other publicly identified hate group. The racist composite the Examiner created tells its readers to fear and hate 11 million U.S. immigrants.

The “illegal alien nun-killer” the headline paints is Carlos Martinelly-Montaño. It’s untrue. He is not here illegally. In January 2009, he was granted a Employment Authorization Document (EAD), a temporary work permit issued by Homeland Security. Then he secured an identification card from the state of Virginia. His successful pursuit of a job was vetted by the e-verify process.

His parents brought Carlos undocumented to the United States from Bolivia when he was eight years old. He grew up in suburban northern Virginia and is the father of two small U.S. born children. His parents are now legal residents and he applied for legal residency four years ago. As a teenager, Carlos was twice arrested for misdemeanor driving under the influence. He enrolled in and completed a program to deal with his serious alcoholism problem. Then last year, at 22, he drove his Subaru into a highway guardrail while drunk and crashed head-on into a car occupied by three nuns. One of them, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, was killed. The Examiner chose to write a headline conjuring up a lusting, machete-wielding psycho chasing nuns through our tranquil communities, making readers’ flesh creep.

Carlos was charged with, and found guilty of, murder. This is the first time that a DUI case involving a fatality resulted in a murder conviction in Virginia. He faces up to 70 years in prison.

The Examiner isn’t alone with Its front-loaded “illegal immigrant” headline. On top of the list of news outlets that have routinely depicted Martinelly-Montaño a criminal alien who just sneaked across our border are CBS News, Fox News, the Washington Post, CNN, USA Today, National Public Radio — the list goes on.

While Carlos’ punishment far exceeds the norm, even weighing the tragedy consequences of his act, this is not a plea for mercy.

The Benedictine sisters, along with Carlos’ family, already have done that. The Benedictine sisters also expressed dismay that this case has become politicized as a forum for debate on illegal immigration.

As a journalist, I’ll feel better if media like the Examiner would stop fanning flames of hate and ethnic division and concentrate on journalistic ethics and telling the whole truth.