Free Republic

By Sonia Moghe ASSOCIATED PRESS 11:40 a.m. August 4, 2006 RICHARDSON, Texas – When Ron Patel talks to customers at the Super 8 Motel he owns, he usually does so in English. When he speaks to the housekeeping staff it's often in Spanish. When he talks to his wife, it's in the Indian language Gujarati. It's a complicated but increasingly common scene in U.S. hotels and motels, about one-third of which are owned by Indians, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. To help keep order in the multilanguage environment, many hotel operators are turning to a Gujarati-Spanish phrasebook...

Sometimes you hear a discussion or debate in which the participants seem to be getting nowhere, don't understand the subject and can't see the obvious. A prime example of this is the illegal-immigration controversy, and the folks making lots of noise are on conservative talk radio. The conversations on the subject usually revolve around two main themes: The president has sold out his conservative base, and he is ignoring national security by allowing illegal aliens to swarm over the border. Tune in to any of the far-right talk shows, and you can hear variations on these two themes just about...

SAN FRANCISCO — The advertisements that showed up on taxis and buses in San Francisco this week are meant to be as provocative as they are purposeful. "Today we rode a cable car, visited Alcatraz and supported a drug habit," reads one featuring a tourist couple at Fisherman's Wharf. Another ad depicting a girl in pigtails reads: "Today I adopted a cat, gave some change and shut down my corner grocer." The attention-grabbing ads sponsored by the Hotel Council of San Francisco are the latest effort to put the squeeze on panhandling. Hoteliers say San Francisco has such a reputation...