Remember Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, the journalist who quit the L.A. Times in a huffy outburst and resurfaced as a successful novelist? (And who more recently mourned the death of Cathy Seipp.) She's now considering a run for Congress as a Democrat in New Mexico. She blogs:

You see, it's either DO something about this, or move to Canada, or Iceland, or Norway. Did you all see the news stories today, saying the US has officially dropped off the list of the top 10 nations in which to live, according to the UN? Yeah. Add it to the heap of enormous affronts slung at us by our Recovering Cokehead in Chief, right up there with "biggest rise in poverty among white people, ever," "first ever rise in infant mortality since we began keeping track," etc. Lou Slobbs and the "people" on FOX NEWS are (pitifully) trying to scare us Americans into thinking Mexican immigrants will somehow turn the US into Mexico in a "reconquista," when the truth of the matter is, the Republican Billionaire Fool Club are turning us into a country JUST LIKE Mexico, in economic and social terms, through their moronic policies and general seething hatred of the working- and middle-class. Worried about being made into Mexico, nativist? Don't blame the Mexicans. We can't blame them for anything but popular polka, really. Blame the Neo-cons. Pretty soon, if they keep up their nonsense, Mexicans won't want to come here at all, and we'll all be going north ourselves, in search of better lives.

Seriously, man. I am sick of lawyers and millionaire CEOs (aka "professional liars" and "moral opportunists") running the US, a nation founded by philosophers, and I think it's time we returned to the roots of our nation's inception, when thinkers, writers (ah-hem) and people (okay, mostly men) of reason ruled the roost. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, anyone? Thomas Paine, anyone? Nathaniel Hawthorne, anyone?) I would love to see W. in a real debate with Harriet Beecher Stowe. Hoo-doggies! That's what I'm talking 'bout.

There you have it. She hasn't formally announced she's running, but began testing the waters last week. It hit the media in Albuquerque today.

In news of another ex-LAT Latino: Daniel Hernandez is on cloud nueve at the news that he has received Mexican citizenship and now is "an authentic Mexican-American, or American-Mexican. Or Meximerican? We'll need some time to think this through."