Hi. My Name Is Bob, But You Can Call Me Alejandro Carlito Domingo Bolivar

We're coming to you today from the Pat Buchanan School of Management Science here on the south campus of IM Central. PBSMS is located across the quad for the Genghis Khan Center for the Study of International Diplomacy, right next to the Richard M. Nixon Foundation for Ethical Studies. It seems one of our graduates is in the news.

Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: alienate as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. The socially inept former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names. "Thinking about petitioning the city to change its name too," he added. "Taos, what is that, Chinaman talk or something? Better not be Vitnamese. I was in Vitnam. Ain't gonna live in no Vitnam town."

Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's managed to segregate other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country. "Yep. Worked in Missisip, Alabam and Luzianna. It'll work here too, soon as those taco benders shape up."

His firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history. "Hey, nobody told me Beaners made up 55% of the population here, although looking back on it the name of the state should have been a clue."

"I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he says. "And now I've united the community. Course I united it by making everybody hate me, but like I said, I'm just doing what I've always done."

"I do feel he's a racist, but he's a racist out of ignorance. He doesn't know that what he's doing is wrong," says protester Juanito Burns Jr. "But come to think of it, what other kind of racist is there?"

"That's not the first time I've heard that," Whitten said. "But just wait till the boys from Storm Front or Aryan Nation decide to have their convention at my hotel, then we'll see who the marketing genius is."

Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile, insubordinate and brown. Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. "We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect," Archuleta says. "Another guero with more money than brains."

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. "It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because they spend thier lives avoiding the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten said. "I figured changing their first names would make everything nice and white. Besides, if Don Black called here and 'Juan' answered, I'd never hear the end of it."

Martin Gutierrez, another fired employee, says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name. He says he told Whitten that Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English. "He told me he didn't care what I thought because the bible was written in English and if it was good enough for god it was good enough for me," Gutierrez said.

The messages and comments Whitten made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further inflamed tensions. "Hey, I 'm just a businessman trying to fit into my new community" he told reporters. I figured they either didn't have TV's or were too stoned to turn them on."

Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal, just monumentally stupid. He said Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel. "You'd think a fellow who rents beds to people for a living would have figured out the world isn't full of Crackers by now," Cordova said.

"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said. "Now do you see why it's important to keep the races apart?"