Little Evil vs. The California Kid

MMA Junkie previews what will be one helluva fight: Jens "Little Evil" Pulver versus Urijah "The California Kid" Faber -- a June 1 bout that will be the most significant fight ever under the WEC banner.

Pulver, 33, the first guy to hold a lightweight belt in the UFC, dropped down to 145 lbs, and joined the WEC after losing round two of his grudge match with B.J. Penn in the finale of season 5 of the Ultimate Fighter. He will face Faber, 29, at the Arco Arena in Sacramento in fight to be aired free on Versus cable.

These are two tremendous warriors. Faber, not as well known since he fights in a lower-profile organization, may be one of the most talented mixed martial artists in the world. He is currently the WEV's featherweight champion. He has excellent takedown and submission skills, is freakishly fast, and is a joy to watch (as is, generally, the whole featherweight division.)

Pulver has a great and heavy left hand, is a skilled grappler, and is an intelligent, dogged, csrappy well-conditioned fighter. But while he is an MMA legend, he never seems to get as much respect as his opponents, whether it is Faber or Penn. He is the underdog in this fight.

But I'm rooting for Pulver. The guy has more heart than almost any other fighter I have seen. He has overcome a harrowing biography that included unspeakable abuse at the hands of his father. (His life story is detailed in Little Evil: One Ultimate Fighter's Rise to the Top).

He is a good soul, and when you root for Pulver, you root for the underdog, for humanity, for the guy who gets knocked down in life, but always insists on getting back up. Jens Pulver is why I love mixed martial arts. He is the the best of the sport.

You can catch some video clips of interviews with both fighters here.

President Gore

Over at the Huffington Post, Norman MacAfee dreams about what America and the world would be like if the U.S. Supreme Court had not voted in George W. Bush as president.

The Coming Civil War

Blogger Chris Crain (aka Citizen Crain) posts about the coming battle over gay marriage here in California -- a battle the ACLU calls "the single most important battle we have ever seen in the LGBT rights movement."

Chris is right. Within weeks, the state Supreme Court could legalize gay marriage -- and voters may face a referendum changing the state constitution to officially and categorically ban it.

Given California's size, this will be a political earthquake, a battle that will draw the attention of the nation, especially since it will coincide with the presidential election.

America's Shame

The Washington Post runs a story this morning that provokes justifiable anger and shame at the U.S. government's failure to overhaul immigration laws, chronic inability to manage its bureaucracies, and continued neglect of civil liberties.

The Post conducted an investigation that showed people are literally dying of neglect in the nation's immigration facilities.

Here are some relevant excerpts:

"Some 83 detainees have died in, or soon after, custody during the past five years. The deaths are the loudest alarms about a system teetering on collapse. Actions taken -- or not taken -- by medical staff members may have contributed to 30 of those deaths, according to confidential internal reviews and the opinions of medical experts who reviewed some death files for The Post.

"According to an analysis by The Post, most of the people who died were young. Thirty-two of the detainees were younger than 40, and only six were 70 or older. The deaths took place at dozens of sites across the country. The most at one location was six at the San Pedro compound near Los Angeles."

And we're not talking about accused terrorists:

"The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"But they are not terrorists. Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security: a Salvadoran who bought drugs in his 20th year of poverty in Los Angeles; a U.S. legal U.S. resident from Mexico who took $50 for driving two undocumented day laborers into a border city. Or they are waiting for political asylum from danger in their own countries: a Somali without a valid visa trying to prove she would be killed had she remained in her village; a journalist who fled Congo out of fear for his life, worked as a limousine driver and fathered six American children, but never was able to get the asylum he sought."

These victims are kept in the shadows, barely receiving even bureaucratic lip service toward the concept of due process:

"These way stations between life in and outside the United States are mostly out of sight: in deserts and industrial warehouse districts, in sequestered valleys next to other prisons, or near noisy airports. Some compounds never allow detainees outdoor recreation; others let them out onto tiny dirt patches once or twice a week.

Detainees are not guaranteed free legal representation, and only about one in 10 has an attorney. When lawyers get involved, they often have difficulty prying medical information out of the bureaucracy -- or even finding clients, who are routinely moved without notice."

The tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe are dying from willful neglect on our watch.

The article I link to is part of a series running in the Post this week.

Sore Loser

SNL gets it exactly right: