Kip Austin Hinton

I am in favor of equal rights for agricultural workers. This means equal protections and a minimum wage equal to other jobs. I voted for Jerry Brown because he supported farmworkers' rights in the past, and promised to do so again, in the spirit of Cesar Chavez. I was then very disappointed tonight to read ( http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/06/emotions-run-high-as-jerry-bro.html ) that Brown has followed the footsteps of Schwarzenegger, not Chavez. Brown vetoed the bill that would allow agricultural workers to protect themselves by organizing. This bill would improve the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act ; it would not destroy it. CALRA's framework is viable no matter how votes are counted. But beyond that, it is disheartening that Brown has become so cynical. He used his personal relationship with Chavez to win votes during the campaign, but vetoed Chavez's legacy the first chance he got. Brown does not step foot onto these farms. Brown has not li...

this is about my translation of the Manu Chao song "Me Llaman Calle." [ video below ] i'm reasonably close to a literal translation, with changes to fit the rhythm and number of syllables per line. "baldosa" is like ladrilla (a brick to build a house) except flat like a tile. based on context, i translate it as "cobblestones." Chao also uses "maquinita," literally "little machine," but this implies a small device in english (a machine that does something, but does not move itself - such as a laminating machine, a blood-glucose meter, or an ATM) - so i use "little engine" instead, to imply movement. the one line i'm not happy with is the translation of "no me rebajo"; if i wasn't worried about rhythm, i would translate it as "it doesn't dig ruts into me." the tricky part is that this word, rut, is almost never used as a present-tense transitive verb in english. we generally use it as a noun (...