The 86ers

I swear, the world just gets more and more bizarre. Our Vice President shooting someone. KFCs ransacked in Pakistan. A photo caption from today's Washington Post that I never thought I'd see, "Pakistani protestors chant anti-Danish slogans during a rally in front of the parliament building in Islamabad."

Now new Major League Soccer team Houston 1836 (formerly the San Jose Earthquakes) is set to change its name because it evidently offends some people:

If you're one of the thousands who went out and bought a Houston 1836 T-shirt, run to your closet, bag it and hide it in a safe place.

...Many Hispanics have voiced their dislike for the controversial name, claiming it carries an anti-Mexican sentiment and lends itself to be a divisive tool among Houstonians.

Although 1836 was meant to symbolize the year Houston was founded, it also has links to other significant events some Mexican-Americans might find offensive. Those include Texas' independence from Mexico, the Battle of the Alamo and the defeat of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army at the hands of Gen. Sam Houston in the Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution.

The logo, a star with "Houston 1836" emblazoned on it, depicts a silhouette of Houston riding a horse.

"We believed, and many people still do, that 1836 was a great name because it symbolized the founding of the city, and we thought people would rally around that," Luck said. "But obviously we hit a bit of a raw nerve within the Mexican-American community."

Garcia, who initiated the dialogue with AEG, had been one of the more vocal elected officials to echo the feelings of Hispanics.

"While I have been an ardent supporter of bringing professional soccer to the area, I have privately and publicly encouraged the organization to strongly consider a more appropriate name, one which is free of controversy and embraced with enthusiasm by all segments of the community," Garcia said in a release last week.

OK, the Confederate flag I totally get. But this boggles my mind. Why, as an American citizen, would you be offended over the defeat of the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto? And why on earth would you be offended over Texan independence from Mexico? This one is perhaps even more bizarre, in that if Texas were still a part of Mexico the people living there would probably be mired in the same poverty found in the rest of the country.

That these people apparently feel more affinity for their Mexican roots than their American/Texan citizenship offends me.

Oh, and this offends me too.