Laredo is a holy place on a par with Lourdes, Mecca, and Jerusalem. It is the Vatican of trucking, and truckers the priests. No other place exists and thrives on transportation over roads by men and women in large vehicles like Laredo.
That would make it special enough. But Laredo's trucker chapels hide on every dusty street of this border town, each one holding treasured memories for those who have had their fellowship there.
Tonight, I went to one of the great trucker's chapels and offered a prayer in honor of the friends who were unable to accompany me. To the civilian, the layperson, it's a Whataburger with a somewhat oversize parking lot. To a trucker who knows Laredo, referring to the Mines Road Whataburger guarantees a memory of an adventure which began or ended there.
I remembered my friend Oscar, from Corpus Crispy-the misspelling is intentional, as nearly everyone in Texas says it that way. I haven't seen Oscar in six years, after he told me he had a front row seat to an event that still resonates, while on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Part of me wished he were lying. I hoped he had been telling me a great trucker story. But some part of me knows that he had been very credible, and having been a witness to mass murder probably would have driven me mad with survivor's guilt. We once spent a long night traveling from Laredo to Little Rock.
He was the last person I saw from the first era when I traveled regularly to Laredo. I saw him a couple of months after I ran across my friend Earthquake in a Georgia truck stop. Four years passed before I returned to Laredo, and another year passed before I found Earthquake again.
Earthquake comes from rural Oklahoma, and exhibits the kind of character that the world expects from America. He speaks slowly, but in a crisis he is the kind of person you hope to see walking up dressed in camoflage, because he will be hands to the task until you both come out or die trying.
'Quake isn't much for misbehaving, not because he is unable, but because he can find better things to do that legitimately are not misbehavior.
On a warm night last fall, across the street from the launch pad for our earlier highjinks, I heard his real name on the intercom. Unfortunately, his real name is, well, pretty common. But I followed the name, to see if it was my missing friend. Lucky for me, it was. Otherwise, this story would be very different.
I found 'Quake five years married to the woman he had just married the last time I had seen him, prospering in Oklahoma, and still doing what he ought to be doing. We discussed a few of our mutual friends. He wasn't as close to Oscar as I was, so Oscar remains missing.
Then I told him I had run across our friend Moose at a truck stop in Missouri, but Moose had seemed quite unlike himself when I saw him.
Of course, when I saw Moose at the Mizzurah truck stop, I had three years of believing that he had died. That was a case of mistaken identity. I was quite overjoyed to discover my friend alive and kicking, and I freaked him out a little bit.
At the time there was one other person I could not find, and I feared the worst. I married her 26 months later. She lived in the morning shadow of Manhattan.
To be succinct, 'Quake put me in contact with Moose. Moose and I had shared similar personal setbacks, but we were now in respective places of greater prosperity than we had known during the nine months we worked together, and partied together, years before. We found that the friendship had not atrophied during a long dormancy.
Moose is now in a committed relationship with a lovely lady in Oklahoma, and pointed toward a future that neither one of us dared imagine for its positive possibilities. I will also remind her that February 29 is considered "Sadie Hawkins Day," which is customarily a day when a woman may propose marriage without social exclusion.
As I finished my meal, I considered that while my friends were physically absent, they were as present in the Mines Road Whataburger as the poster offering the limited-time peppercorn ranch burger.
And if being able to connect with a spirit of love and friendship isn't church, y'all, I have no idea what a holy place is supposed to be.
20 October 2007
14 October 2007
The People's Observer
Lou Dobbs is a fraud.
With rhetoric that evokes the best work of Herr Joseph Goebbels, Dobbs has managed to sell a phony "war on the middle class," that threatens to ensnare those it purports to liberate.
His tactics are not noble. He focuses upon anecdotal evidence, unvetted sources, and slavishly sycophantic commentary and opinion from peripatetic politicians and media hosts. Beyond that, Dobbs uses a style book which relies upon constantly repeated adjectives to reinforce a xenophobic, isolationist, and authoritarian outlook.
Imports from China are always dangerous, tainted, or merely unsafe.
Troops and laws are always ours, which discounts CNN's penetration into nearly every country on the face of the planet. The "royal collective" is a tactic beloved by managerial seminars and retreats as a means of getting those deemed to be inferior to take ownership of organizational errors as part of the collective. This includes "our broken borders." (italics are mine.)
God forbid that any heinous crime is committed by someone who crossed the border and stayed too long, or came without a pedigree. Instantly, that individual is labelled an "illegal, criminal, alien Mexican, drug smuggler/gang member/rapist/litterbug." Anyone who may suggest that under the United States Constitution, individuals are innocent until proven guilty and deserving of due process is immediately part of an "amnesty agenda."
If no crime exists where the accused's immigration status is included in objective reporting, Dobbs chooses to pick his go-to guys, the two ICE agents who shot a man in the tuchas, then covered it up. They did not get sent up for shooting the dude in the butt; they got sent to prison for lying about it.
Dobbs is somewhat less than intellectually honest, here. No record exists of Dobbs offering the same benefit of the doubt to Bill Clinton, for discharging something arguably less lethal than a bullet, then lying about it. No one really wants to be on the receiving end of either shot, but only one of the two has a chance of going wide and hitting the femoral artery.
No attempt will be made here to assign a pretext of bigotry to Dobbs on the immigration issue. Like a socially maladroit teenager, it would be too easy to attempt a bon mot, and too easy to get wrong. However, what is clear is that Lou Dobbs has found an issue which can be utilized for maximum effect on ratings, book sales and Lou Dobbs' profitability.
Nevertheless, some of the "experts," (quotations mine) who have spoken on the issue have been revealed to be connected to white supremacists. There have been charges of undocumented immigrants causing a resurgence of Leprosy, as well as taking a disproportionate level of funds for social services.
First of all, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 165 cases of Leprosy were reported in 2005, the last year of reporting found in the Wandering Gentile's research. Of those, 125 cases were among persons born in the United States of America. This concurs with research vetted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is in fact lower than the average number of cases reported per year by the same government agency.
Dobbs was forced to recant the statistic quoted on his program in an amusingly humbling moment on the air.
With regard to the disproportionate funds for social services, it is absolutely wrong. This is a hypothesis tendered by anti-immigrant groups which discounts the fact that Federal requirements for social services include ascertaining that the recipient of social services is legally entitled to said services by being a citizen of the United States.
Please understand the confusion here; if undocumented persons are receiving federal benefits, then it is the negligence/fraud of federal employees not fulfilling their duties as prescribed by congressional mandate. That is worthy of investigation. There is a very large difference between persons who obtain benefits, and those who are being paid to know who deserves them.
Likewise, there is a clarion call in Dobbs' nightly tirade for "Government" to get involved in inspections of "dangerous imports from Communist China." If you want to call for a war on the middle class, then there would be no better opening salvo than starting a trade war with China.
This is not to defend the environmental/human rights/economic record of the PRC. The point of Chinese trade practices and the current imbalance being anticompetitive at the moment is salient. But in the long term, openness and prosperity in China will be in the best interests of the free world because these are the conditions in which education and democracy grow.
For the time being, low cost imports from China, proffered through large retailers, contribute to a high standard of living in the United States. Should a consumer choose to find goods from a source closer to home, options exist via the internet to find a product that suits the consumer's need. It's called free enterprise. The consumer is required to be proactive, though.
The Chinese don't have a monopoly on products which are dangerous or unsuited for the market. Anyone who remembers the Chevrolet Vega or the Ford Pinto is quite aware that Americans can do a spectacular job of producing unfit or dangerous products.
Finally, Dobbs is absolutely wrong about what he calls "amnesty." In February, this blog suggested the result of removing twelve million productive individuals from the source level of food production and construction would be fundamentally detrimental to the United States economy.
Since then, most readers will confirm, through their own experience, soaring food prices. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market has taken some of the sting out of the effects on the construction industry, but growth markets like Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston are seeing the beginning of an inflationary spiral owing to a lack of willing labor in the construction industry.
Not coincidentally, these are also areas where anti-immigration sentiment has produced an environment hostile to those who build homes. Forget a wall. If one wants to live behind a wall in a controlled environment, there is another word for it: prison.
Somehow, your Wandering Gentile holds no illusions about empowering Lou Dobbs as warden.
With rhetoric that evokes the best work of Herr Joseph Goebbels, Dobbs has managed to sell a phony "war on the middle class," that threatens to ensnare those it purports to liberate.
His tactics are not noble. He focuses upon anecdotal evidence, unvetted sources, and slavishly sycophantic commentary and opinion from peripatetic politicians and media hosts. Beyond that, Dobbs uses a style book which relies upon constantly repeated adjectives to reinforce a xenophobic, isolationist, and authoritarian outlook.
Imports from China are always dangerous, tainted, or merely unsafe.
Troops and laws are always ours, which discounts CNN's penetration into nearly every country on the face of the planet. The "royal collective" is a tactic beloved by managerial seminars and retreats as a means of getting those deemed to be inferior to take ownership of organizational errors as part of the collective. This includes "our broken borders." (italics are mine.)
God forbid that any heinous crime is committed by someone who crossed the border and stayed too long, or came without a pedigree. Instantly, that individual is labelled an "illegal, criminal, alien Mexican, drug smuggler/gang member/rapist/litterbug." Anyone who may suggest that under the United States Constitution, individuals are innocent until proven guilty and deserving of due process is immediately part of an "amnesty agenda."
If no crime exists where the accused's immigration status is included in objective reporting, Dobbs chooses to pick his go-to guys, the two ICE agents who shot a man in the tuchas, then covered it up. They did not get sent up for shooting the dude in the butt; they got sent to prison for lying about it.
Dobbs is somewhat less than intellectually honest, here. No record exists of Dobbs offering the same benefit of the doubt to Bill Clinton, for discharging something arguably less lethal than a bullet, then lying about it. No one really wants to be on the receiving end of either shot, but only one of the two has a chance of going wide and hitting the femoral artery.
No attempt will be made here to assign a pretext of bigotry to Dobbs on the immigration issue. Like a socially maladroit teenager, it would be too easy to attempt a bon mot, and too easy to get wrong. However, what is clear is that Lou Dobbs has found an issue which can be utilized for maximum effect on ratings, book sales and Lou Dobbs' profitability.
Nevertheless, some of the "experts," (quotations mine) who have spoken on the issue have been revealed to be connected to white supremacists. There have been charges of undocumented immigrants causing a resurgence of Leprosy, as well as taking a disproportionate level of funds for social services.
First of all, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 165 cases of Leprosy were reported in 2005, the last year of reporting found in the Wandering Gentile's research. Of those, 125 cases were among persons born in the United States of America. This concurs with research vetted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is in fact lower than the average number of cases reported per year by the same government agency.
Dobbs was forced to recant the statistic quoted on his program in an amusingly humbling moment on the air.
With regard to the disproportionate funds for social services, it is absolutely wrong. This is a hypothesis tendered by anti-immigrant groups which discounts the fact that Federal requirements for social services include ascertaining that the recipient of social services is legally entitled to said services by being a citizen of the United States.
Please understand the confusion here; if undocumented persons are receiving federal benefits, then it is the negligence/fraud of federal employees not fulfilling their duties as prescribed by congressional mandate. That is worthy of investigation. There is a very large difference between persons who obtain benefits, and those who are being paid to know who deserves them.
Likewise, there is a clarion call in Dobbs' nightly tirade for "Government" to get involved in inspections of "dangerous imports from Communist China." If you want to call for a war on the middle class, then there would be no better opening salvo than starting a trade war with China.
This is not to defend the environmental/human rights/economic record of the PRC. The point of Chinese trade practices and the current imbalance being anticompetitive at the moment is salient. But in the long term, openness and prosperity in China will be in the best interests of the free world because these are the conditions in which education and democracy grow.
For the time being, low cost imports from China, proffered through large retailers, contribute to a high standard of living in the United States. Should a consumer choose to find goods from a source closer to home, options exist via the internet to find a product that suits the consumer's need. It's called free enterprise. The consumer is required to be proactive, though.
The Chinese don't have a monopoly on products which are dangerous or unsuited for the market. Anyone who remembers the Chevrolet Vega or the Ford Pinto is quite aware that Americans can do a spectacular job of producing unfit or dangerous products.
Finally, Dobbs is absolutely wrong about what he calls "amnesty." In February, this blog suggested the result of removing twelve million productive individuals from the source level of food production and construction would be fundamentally detrimental to the United States economy.
Since then, most readers will confirm, through their own experience, soaring food prices. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market has taken some of the sting out of the effects on the construction industry, but growth markets like Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston are seeing the beginning of an inflationary spiral owing to a lack of willing labor in the construction industry.
Not coincidentally, these are also areas where anti-immigration sentiment has produced an environment hostile to those who build homes. Forget a wall. If one wants to live behind a wall in a controlled environment, there is another word for it: prison.
Somehow, your Wandering Gentile holds no illusions about empowering Lou Dobbs as warden.
16 September 2007
A View From the Lee Wuornos Truckstop
Seffner, Florida.
The trucker was sitting in his driver's seat, playing computer solitaire. A scruffy man approached, with a very dramatic story about his car breaking down, while at his mother-in law's funeral. There were details about how he had come from Mobile, and the price of the repair.
Instead of gaining the driver's empathy, he found the driver's ire.
"You're from Mobile? Let's see your driver's license. Your hat says Tampa."
The scruffy man answered, "you know, I left it on the dashboard of my car."
"Uh-huh," The trucker replied. "What's your tag number?"
"Ah, well, I don't remember all of it, but I know it starts with W."
"So you have a personalized plate."
"Noooo-ooo?"
The driver recognized that the beggar was full of pulp waste from the beginning, but now the driver was having fun. All plates in Alabama begin with a number, which is also the county code.
"Did your beloved mother-in-law live in Honduras?"
"Naw."
"Because the poverty there would have explained the lack of access to a washing machine or razor blades."
The beggar was trying to get away, but the driver was not done querying the beggar.
"So I take it that your mother-in-law had no friends who could refer you to a competent mechanic?"
"Oh, ah, I never wanted them to be bothered during their time of grief."
The driver raised an eyebrow. "But it's okay to have your wife stranded, what, 500 miles from home without a way back?"
"Oh, no, no..."
"You don't have any co-workers back in Mobile who could get you a bus ticket back and you could pay them back?"
"Well, ah, I was laid off. The plant moved to Mexico."
"Really?" The driver asked. "What kind of plant was it?"
At this point, the only response that could have been acceptable would have been "philodendron." Unfortunately, what came out was, "...the Dodge factory."
"Oh, yeah? What kind of Dodge did you make?"
"Darts."
"The last Dodge Dart was built in 1976! Have you been laid off for 31 years?" The trucker also remembered that Chrysler's nearest plant to Mobile was either St. Louis or Indianapolis... in Chrysler's good years.
"I mean Dusters."
"The Duster was a Plymouth." The trucker was done playing with the beggar. "Your story is full of holes. It's one thing to have a need, but dang it, if you're going to tell me a story, get your facts right!"
"But I'm telling you the truth."
"You're not, but you know, I'm willing to give you all of the help you deserve."
The shiny nickel the trucker pulled from his pocket bounced from the bill of the beggar's "Tampa" hat.
"You know the difference between you and an illegal alien? The illegal alien is actually good for more than the production of greenhose gases! And I never had a Mexican come up to me in a truck stop and beg for money. Because he's willing to get up in the morning and go to work."
"Well, they're taking all the jobs!"
"Because you didn't apply for them, or didn't do the work when you had them."
"You amnesty types are killing the middle class!"
"Not as fast as Americans who think they're entitled because of where they were born. You have papers, access to education, and all the assistance of a nation of 300 million, and you're whining and begging in a truck stop. It's because of people like you who give the impression that my nation is petty, and weak, and incapable of competing. Do America a favor, and get your happy butt out."
The trucker rolled up his window, put the air conditioner on high, and went back to work in the morning.
The trucker was sitting in his driver's seat, playing computer solitaire. A scruffy man approached, with a very dramatic story about his car breaking down, while at his mother-in law's funeral. There were details about how he had come from Mobile, and the price of the repair.
Instead of gaining the driver's empathy, he found the driver's ire.
"You're from Mobile? Let's see your driver's license. Your hat says Tampa."
The scruffy man answered, "you know, I left it on the dashboard of my car."
"Uh-huh," The trucker replied. "What's your tag number?"
"Ah, well, I don't remember all of it, but I know it starts with W."
"So you have a personalized plate."
"Noooo-ooo?"
The driver recognized that the beggar was full of pulp waste from the beginning, but now the driver was having fun. All plates in Alabama begin with a number, which is also the county code.
"Did your beloved mother-in-law live in Honduras?"
"Naw."
"Because the poverty there would have explained the lack of access to a washing machine or razor blades."
The beggar was trying to get away, but the driver was not done querying the beggar.
"So I take it that your mother-in-law had no friends who could refer you to a competent mechanic?"
"Oh, ah, I never wanted them to be bothered during their time of grief."
The driver raised an eyebrow. "But it's okay to have your wife stranded, what, 500 miles from home without a way back?"
"Oh, no, no..."
"You don't have any co-workers back in Mobile who could get you a bus ticket back and you could pay them back?"
"Well, ah, I was laid off. The plant moved to Mexico."
"Really?" The driver asked. "What kind of plant was it?"
At this point, the only response that could have been acceptable would have been "philodendron." Unfortunately, what came out was, "...the Dodge factory."
"Oh, yeah? What kind of Dodge did you make?"
"Darts."
"The last Dodge Dart was built in 1976! Have you been laid off for 31 years?" The trucker also remembered that Chrysler's nearest plant to Mobile was either St. Louis or Indianapolis... in Chrysler's good years.
"I mean Dusters."
"The Duster was a Plymouth." The trucker was done playing with the beggar. "Your story is full of holes. It's one thing to have a need, but dang it, if you're going to tell me a story, get your facts right!"
"But I'm telling you the truth."
"You're not, but you know, I'm willing to give you all of the help you deserve."
The shiny nickel the trucker pulled from his pocket bounced from the bill of the beggar's "Tampa" hat.
"You know the difference between you and an illegal alien? The illegal alien is actually good for more than the production of greenhose gases! And I never had a Mexican come up to me in a truck stop and beg for money. Because he's willing to get up in the morning and go to work."
"Well, they're taking all the jobs!"
"Because you didn't apply for them, or didn't do the work when you had them."
"You amnesty types are killing the middle class!"
"Not as fast as Americans who think they're entitled because of where they were born. You have papers, access to education, and all the assistance of a nation of 300 million, and you're whining and begging in a truck stop. It's because of people like you who give the impression that my nation is petty, and weak, and incapable of competing. Do America a favor, and get your happy butt out."
The trucker rolled up his window, put the air conditioner on high, and went back to work in the morning.
31 August 2007
The Senator In The Tea Room
There are days when one would think that the cast of Weekend Update had gotten loose in the halls of CNN in Atlanta. Hearing that a Republican US Senator was busted for attempting to procure gay sex in the men's room at Minneapolis airport was one of those days.
Oh yes, even better is the idea that he was from Idaho, a state which fears that Montana would change its name to "Idapimp."
(Your Wandering Gentile has been waiting for several years to find an appropriate mien for using that particular joke.)
Now, let it be stated that this is a blog tolerant of whatever individuals choose to do in private, providing that the behavior is between adults, and free of fraud, force or duress. Mr. Jefferson once said that the government that governs least governs best. Amen.
Government has no place in sanctioning marriage. That decision is between the Communicants and their Creator. Should there be a choice for polygamy, as long as the participants are happy and willing, it is not society's business. Should the participants be of the same sex, so what? The contract is the only thing which government should sanction.
Marriage cannot be defined by government. That is strictly the role of faith and defined by the participants faith traditions and communities.
If my marriage is threatened by two people I don't know choosing to participate in a contract that I have no interest in, then by God, it was already in serious trouble.
Which brings us back to the tearoom Senator. If he wants to participate in homosexual trysts, that's his business. Have fun.
But he's selling his moral position as a "defender of family values." The Senator convinced the citizenry of the state of Idaho to vote for him, in part, by supporting the "Defense of Marriage" amendment...one man, one woman only as eligible participants.
Does anyone else see the conflict here?
Oh yes, even better is the idea that he was from Idaho, a state which fears that Montana would change its name to "Idapimp."
(Your Wandering Gentile has been waiting for several years to find an appropriate mien for using that particular joke.)
Now, let it be stated that this is a blog tolerant of whatever individuals choose to do in private, providing that the behavior is between adults, and free of fraud, force or duress. Mr. Jefferson once said that the government that governs least governs best. Amen.
Government has no place in sanctioning marriage. That decision is between the Communicants and their Creator. Should there be a choice for polygamy, as long as the participants are happy and willing, it is not society's business. Should the participants be of the same sex, so what? The contract is the only thing which government should sanction.
Marriage cannot be defined by government. That is strictly the role of faith and defined by the participants faith traditions and communities.
If my marriage is threatened by two people I don't know choosing to participate in a contract that I have no interest in, then by God, it was already in serious trouble.
Which brings us back to the tearoom Senator. If he wants to participate in homosexual trysts, that's his business. Have fun.
But he's selling his moral position as a "defender of family values." The Senator convinced the citizenry of the state of Idaho to vote for him, in part, by supporting the "Defense of Marriage" amendment...one man, one woman only as eligible participants.
Does anyone else see the conflict here?
20 May 2007
Comprehensive Means Comprehensive
First of all, it isn't amnesty.
As reports of the Senate compromise on immigration reform came across the news on Thursday, the usual group of anti-immigrant yodelers hit the airwaves within hours. From Tancredo to Dobbs to the right-wing ranters on AM radio, their one note screamed "AMNESTY!"
It isn't. By definition amnesty means a lack of penalty. There are penalties involved with the new senate bill. There are sacrifices to be made by an undocumented immigrant, and compliance will test and prove the difference between those who wish to commit to an existence in this country, and those with less honorable motives.
A better way to look at it would be to call it a mechanism for a No Contest plea to the charge of jumping the border. There has been a twenty year window where the current immigration system has shown profound flaws. It has not served the needs of this country, and the hard-line tenor of the law as written has served to stifle both assimilation and those who would have qualified under previous immigration laws for legal paths to remain in the United States.
Tough, but just and reasonable, the Senate compromise represents not the impossible- a good solution- but the least bad solution.
If the reader will imagine, as a caller to the Mark Davis radio program in Dallas did recently, the political will and repercussions after the appearance of a cell-phone video of an undocumented woman being removed, and her small child crying for her mommy. This would make Abu Ghraib look like a visit from Mother Teresa. And it would be political death for anyone who had supported the forcible removal of undocumented aliens.
The logistics of removing twelve to twenty million people; convincing the world community of how humane the United States of America is; and replacing that population in the labor force would devastate the nation. It would be suicide.
The manpower required to remove twelve million people would require at least a quarter of a million agents trained in law enforcement and logistics, plus dedicated areas and holding facilities and transportation. Figure upon the American taxpayers taking about a trillion dollar hit.
China and Mexico could call in their markers. The EU nations and Japan would. Without about seven million proven, but undocumented, participants in the labor force, and less than seven million unemployed (and a good portion of them unemployable) in the United States, productivity would fall. The economic engine of the United States would be stalled in mid-air.
With a broken economy and political instability, we could anticipate challenges to our sovereignty and our military from sources such as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and their satellites. What would remain to be seen is if we had any good will remaining from our traditional allies such as Israel, Canada, and Australia.
Kids, don't try this at home. Because the last trained professionals who tried to (and succeded at) removing twelve million people deemed undesirable are not around to talk about it, jawohl?
The last, best option remaining option to save the United States as the country we know and love, is to swallow a population of people, who, aside from not following bureaucratic procedures, have been beneficial to our culture and economy, and haven't really done anything else wrong.
The Senate compromise is not amnesty. It is nothing less than the survival of this nation. These are people with a strong work ethic, deep love of family, and profound Christian faith. We need to be able to identify and embrace people who share our values.
No one is in favor of letting felons run amok on our streets. If someone commits a violent crime, let's get rid of that individual quickly. But if the only crime has been the escape from the desperate conditions that exist in so many of the countries to our south, as your Wandering Gentile's Daddy used to say, that ain't a killin' offense.
As for the impotent, arrogant, anal-retentive yard nazis, who find their very existence threatened by people who have entered without a pedigree, considering the source is the best option. These yard nazis are the same people who pushed a neighborhood covenant in the Atlanta area, and fined a man US$3,500 for the infraction of FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG!
The tone of these collectivist authoritarians has spread to city councils and county commissions throughout the country, most notably in Farmer's Branch, Texas; Oceanside, California; Cherokee County, Georgia; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The most amusing thing is that their rage has been directed on a local level, to a federal issue, in places that are remarkably devoid of anyone but affluent, self-absorbed, English-speaking people of predominantly European descent.
The Senate compromise will have several desirable effects upon the illegal immigration issue in the United States. When employers in Mexico are forced to compete economically for a finite labor resource, the democratization of affluence throughout Mexico will be the result. At the point where the drawbacks of emigrating outweigh the benefits, people will stay home. The streets of Missoula are not crowded with people who snuck in from Alberta, Canada.
Labor safety and health standards will also improve in both countries due to the expectation of our more stringent and effective regulations, and their applicability by people functioning within a normalized environment. Abuses that have been tacitly accepted cannot survive when both parties have a voice.
Finally, the ICE resources that have been dedicated to behaving punitively toward people jumping the border in lieu of a functional immigration process can be turned towards capturing and punishing smugglers and other malicious individuals.
The people who have patiently sought entry to the United States through the current immigration system deserve a nod for their forebearance with a confusing, complicated, and infuriatingly indifferent bureaucracy. They merit nothing less than an expedited processing of their documents and a concession of fees beyond what would be expected of someone who entered extralegally.
Privatization of the vetting process could best achieve the necessary legwork, leaving CIS agents for the approval interview process.
Someone wise, quoted frequently by Dave Ramsey and Dr. Phil McGraw, once said that repeating an ineffective behavior and expecting a different result is insanity. The immigration laws that we have on the books have not worked. The time to scrap the malfunctioning system is now. The immigration laws we have now created this situation. These laws are a total loss, and any attempt to use them would be hazardous to the health of this nation.
And watching the Yard Nazis of America melt down would be priceless.
As reports of the Senate compromise on immigration reform came across the news on Thursday, the usual group of anti-immigrant yodelers hit the airwaves within hours. From Tancredo to Dobbs to the right-wing ranters on AM radio, their one note screamed "AMNESTY!"
It isn't. By definition amnesty means a lack of penalty. There are penalties involved with the new senate bill. There are sacrifices to be made by an undocumented immigrant, and compliance will test and prove the difference between those who wish to commit to an existence in this country, and those with less honorable motives.
A better way to look at it would be to call it a mechanism for a No Contest plea to the charge of jumping the border. There has been a twenty year window where the current immigration system has shown profound flaws. It has not served the needs of this country, and the hard-line tenor of the law as written has served to stifle both assimilation and those who would have qualified under previous immigration laws for legal paths to remain in the United States.
Tough, but just and reasonable, the Senate compromise represents not the impossible- a good solution- but the least bad solution.
If the reader will imagine, as a caller to the Mark Davis radio program in Dallas did recently, the political will and repercussions after the appearance of a cell-phone video of an undocumented woman being removed, and her small child crying for her mommy. This would make Abu Ghraib look like a visit from Mother Teresa. And it would be political death for anyone who had supported the forcible removal of undocumented aliens.
The logistics of removing twelve to twenty million people; convincing the world community of how humane the United States of America is; and replacing that population in the labor force would devastate the nation. It would be suicide.
The manpower required to remove twelve million people would require at least a quarter of a million agents trained in law enforcement and logistics, plus dedicated areas and holding facilities and transportation. Figure upon the American taxpayers taking about a trillion dollar hit.
China and Mexico could call in their markers. The EU nations and Japan would. Without about seven million proven, but undocumented, participants in the labor force, and less than seven million unemployed (and a good portion of them unemployable) in the United States, productivity would fall. The economic engine of the United States would be stalled in mid-air.
With a broken economy and political instability, we could anticipate challenges to our sovereignty and our military from sources such as Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and their satellites. What would remain to be seen is if we had any good will remaining from our traditional allies such as Israel, Canada, and Australia.
Kids, don't try this at home. Because the last trained professionals who tried to (and succeded at) removing twelve million people deemed undesirable are not around to talk about it, jawohl?
The last, best option remaining option to save the United States as the country we know and love, is to swallow a population of people, who, aside from not following bureaucratic procedures, have been beneficial to our culture and economy, and haven't really done anything else wrong.
The Senate compromise is not amnesty. It is nothing less than the survival of this nation. These are people with a strong work ethic, deep love of family, and profound Christian faith. We need to be able to identify and embrace people who share our values.
No one is in favor of letting felons run amok on our streets. If someone commits a violent crime, let's get rid of that individual quickly. But if the only crime has been the escape from the desperate conditions that exist in so many of the countries to our south, as your Wandering Gentile's Daddy used to say, that ain't a killin' offense.
As for the impotent, arrogant, anal-retentive yard nazis, who find their very existence threatened by people who have entered without a pedigree, considering the source is the best option. These yard nazis are the same people who pushed a neighborhood covenant in the Atlanta area, and fined a man US$3,500 for the infraction of FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG!
The tone of these collectivist authoritarians has spread to city councils and county commissions throughout the country, most notably in Farmer's Branch, Texas; Oceanside, California; Cherokee County, Georgia; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The most amusing thing is that their rage has been directed on a local level, to a federal issue, in places that are remarkably devoid of anyone but affluent, self-absorbed, English-speaking people of predominantly European descent.
The Senate compromise will have several desirable effects upon the illegal immigration issue in the United States. When employers in Mexico are forced to compete economically for a finite labor resource, the democratization of affluence throughout Mexico will be the result. At the point where the drawbacks of emigrating outweigh the benefits, people will stay home. The streets of Missoula are not crowded with people who snuck in from Alberta, Canada.
Labor safety and health standards will also improve in both countries due to the expectation of our more stringent and effective regulations, and their applicability by people functioning within a normalized environment. Abuses that have been tacitly accepted cannot survive when both parties have a voice.
Finally, the ICE resources that have been dedicated to behaving punitively toward people jumping the border in lieu of a functional immigration process can be turned towards capturing and punishing smugglers and other malicious individuals.
The people who have patiently sought entry to the United States through the current immigration system deserve a nod for their forebearance with a confusing, complicated, and infuriatingly indifferent bureaucracy. They merit nothing less than an expedited processing of their documents and a concession of fees beyond what would be expected of someone who entered extralegally.
Privatization of the vetting process could best achieve the necessary legwork, leaving CIS agents for the approval interview process.
Someone wise, quoted frequently by Dave Ramsey and Dr. Phil McGraw, once said that repeating an ineffective behavior and expecting a different result is insanity. The immigration laws that we have on the books have not worked. The time to scrap the malfunctioning system is now. The immigration laws we have now created this situation. These laws are a total loss, and any attempt to use them would be hazardous to the health of this nation.
And watching the Yard Nazis of America melt down would be priceless.
29 April 2007
Baby, If You Ever Wondered
Please bear with a nerdy CALLOO CALLAY...WKRP in Cincinnati is out on DVD.
Nearly thirty years after the fact, Cincinnati's favorite radio station is still among the greatest television comedies ever broadcast. Part of the appeal lies in the fact that WKRP wasn't on the air long enough to get stale or become self-parodying. After 100 episodes, it was gone.
For the non-informed, it was the show Newsradio wanted to be, and more often than not approached for quality, despite the malign entity that is Andy Dick. For those who have an appreciation of the series in its original run on CBS, the only loss is the replacement of the original crappy seventies name-brand rock with generic crappy seventies-style instrumental cuts.
And Boooooger lives on in the collection. Somehow, Dr. Johnny Fever losing his gig in California for saying booger on the air seems quaint in the era of Don Imus referring to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's." Indeed, Fever's second firing in California as a result of uttering a phrase commonly associated with being master of one's domain, in Seinfeld-speak, is absolutely archaic compared with Howard Stern's daily lesbian midget love fest on satellite radio.
Don Imus is no Johnny Fever. Johnny Fever had class, and style, and was not so self-absorbed as to believe himself to be a kingmaker and great wit. The voice of Johnny Fever was passionate about music, and confirmed in the faith that music and radio were an equalizer for the powerless and disenfranchised.
It was a cynicism rooted in a living memory of music pulling a humble trucker from Tupelo into the national spotlight. The trucker's fame came from combining the voices of disenfranchised people with a face that 1950s television could embrace. He empowered acceptance of a movement that no American, nowhere in America, should be deprived of any right, provided that said American lived up to the responsibilities that go with the privilege.
Fast forward thirty years to see Imus strip the dignity from the young ladies from Rutgers, upon a significant achievement in competition, and then go on the air with a bigger cretin, Reverend Al Sharpton, to seek his reconciliation.
On one hand, it was funny. Not funny in the way of WKRP but funny in an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes vein, to wit, an absurd premise with an entirely predictable script. One knew that Sharpton was not going to find pardon for Imus. Sharpton was watching Imus twist in the wind for the sheer diversion of it.
In seventies argot, they were two turkeys and it was Thanksgiving in April.
It seems a shame that no one tried to see if they could fly. Reverend Al Sharpton is not Venus Flytrap, either. He doesn't seem to share Venus' goldenly eloquent mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Venus persevered, where Sharpton requires bogus racism to achieve notoriety and justify his presence.
Suddenly, your Wandering Gentile feels waves of nostalgia for 1978. If pills won't cure it, the memory of how bad the cars were will.
There is a great feeling when reconnecting with art well made. Sometimes the art doesn't measure up- Miami Vice seems horribly stuck in its era when seen today, for example. But somtimes something endures and seems as fresh as the day it was made. Huckleberry Finn works 130 years later; Casablanca is great after 65 years; and happily, the words "as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly," hit just as well 29 years after they came across my black-and-white television in East Point, Georgia, for the first time.
What was an "Imus," anyway?
Nearly thirty years after the fact, Cincinnati's favorite radio station is still among the greatest television comedies ever broadcast. Part of the appeal lies in the fact that WKRP wasn't on the air long enough to get stale or become self-parodying. After 100 episodes, it was gone.
For the non-informed, it was the show Newsradio wanted to be, and more often than not approached for quality, despite the malign entity that is Andy Dick. For those who have an appreciation of the series in its original run on CBS, the only loss is the replacement of the original crappy seventies name-brand rock with generic crappy seventies-style instrumental cuts.
And Boooooger lives on in the collection. Somehow, Dr. Johnny Fever losing his gig in California for saying booger on the air seems quaint in the era of Don Imus referring to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's." Indeed, Fever's second firing in California as a result of uttering a phrase commonly associated with being master of one's domain, in Seinfeld-speak, is absolutely archaic compared with Howard Stern's daily lesbian midget love fest on satellite radio.
Don Imus is no Johnny Fever. Johnny Fever had class, and style, and was not so self-absorbed as to believe himself to be a kingmaker and great wit. The voice of Johnny Fever was passionate about music, and confirmed in the faith that music and radio were an equalizer for the powerless and disenfranchised.
It was a cynicism rooted in a living memory of music pulling a humble trucker from Tupelo into the national spotlight. The trucker's fame came from combining the voices of disenfranchised people with a face that 1950s television could embrace. He empowered acceptance of a movement that no American, nowhere in America, should be deprived of any right, provided that said American lived up to the responsibilities that go with the privilege.
Fast forward thirty years to see Imus strip the dignity from the young ladies from Rutgers, upon a significant achievement in competition, and then go on the air with a bigger cretin, Reverend Al Sharpton, to seek his reconciliation.
On one hand, it was funny. Not funny in the way of WKRP but funny in an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes vein, to wit, an absurd premise with an entirely predictable script. One knew that Sharpton was not going to find pardon for Imus. Sharpton was watching Imus twist in the wind for the sheer diversion of it.
In seventies argot, they were two turkeys and it was Thanksgiving in April.
It seems a shame that no one tried to see if they could fly. Reverend Al Sharpton is not Venus Flytrap, either. He doesn't seem to share Venus' goldenly eloquent mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Venus persevered, where Sharpton requires bogus racism to achieve notoriety and justify his presence.
Suddenly, your Wandering Gentile feels waves of nostalgia for 1978. If pills won't cure it, the memory of how bad the cars were will.
There is a great feeling when reconnecting with art well made. Sometimes the art doesn't measure up- Miami Vice seems horribly stuck in its era when seen today, for example. But somtimes something endures and seems as fresh as the day it was made. Huckleberry Finn works 130 years later; Casablanca is great after 65 years; and happily, the words "as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly," hit just as well 29 years after they came across my black-and-white television in East Point, Georgia, for the first time.
What was an "Imus," anyway?
06 April 2007
Minuteman Patriot!
Forrest B. Smallwood came to the attention of the Wandering Gentile through his service as a security guard to the Lone Star Candies (Fudge Packing Division) plant in Tarado (tuh-RAY-doe), Texas. An engaging conversationalist, he shared some extremely enlightened opinions regarding American sovereignty and the threat posed by desperate, disposessed people.
I accepted a ride to Tarado's finest, and only, quick service eatery, the Dairy Duchess at exit 3 on I-36. It is possible to see the Dairy Princess from Lone Star Candies, but it is also possible to see Lubbock clearly from Midland. Texas has a lot of flat places.
Smallwood's car was a rusty blue '92 Lumina with a 2005 registration from Big Beaver County, Ohio; a Rick Case Cleveland dealer badge; and a Tancredo for President bumper sticker.
"They're coming over the border and riding straight up this road toward Wichita Falls," Smallwood said. "The Minutemen are the last, best line of defense of American freedom."
I positioned myself in such a way as to avoid a DVD case featuring the images of late '90s boy band, the Backdoor Brothers, and a some sort of foreign substance that prevented the hard plastic cover from sliding on the velour.
"They're bringing diseases, and drugs. Illegal aliens are taking jobs and driving down wages for middle class people like us. The drain they put on our social services comes out of our pockets!
"My tax dollars are paying to support people who are breaking the law!" Smallwood eased the Chevy up to 70 in the 45 zone. He was near tears.
At no point was the idea of the price of vegetables tripling mentioned, but it seemed that Mr. Smallwood, standing five-three and a robust 310 pounds, had little use for food that did not quadruple the recommended yearly allowance for Lard. There was also no room for the idea that we are near full employment with several million undocumented people in the labor stream.
"So what would you propose that we do?" I asked.
"Seal the border and send them all back. Preferably using a slingshot. You know the administration is trying to give up our sovereignty by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico? They're going to change our currency to the Amero."
He seemed to be referring to a Bush administration proposal to work with Canada and Mexico to find common ground in law to get some consistency and reciprocity between jurisdictions.
"You don't seem to have a Texas accent," I said.
"Those big corporations who want amnesty for illegal aliens packed up all of the jobs back in Cleveland and sent them to Mexico for cheap labor."
Somehow, if all of these jobs were in Mexico, it would seem that there would be no motivation to leave, at least to me. I did not share this opinion. Having visited Cleveland, I also supposed that the undesirable climate and high taxation and state regulation in Ohio might have had a little something to do with the situation as well.
Of course, I come from Atlanta, where a lot of operations moved from heavily regulated, highly taxed states with cruddy climates, so I might share some complicity as well.
"I'm going to duck into my house for just a second. I got to make a little withdrawal from the bank of Maxwell House."
His house was a Champion singlewide manufactured home. In fact, a tax sticker from Terco County, Texas, was issued in 1973, thus it was old enough to still be called a trailer. Inside was mediterranean style furniture, harvest gold appliances, and orange cut-pile carpeting. There was another boy band video with a strange substance on the cover.
"Where's your daughter?" I asked.
Smallwood pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the Maxwell House can in the freezer. Icily, he replied "I don't have a daughter."
"Oh." I had an idea what the substance on the boy band video covers might be, but the logical answer was too disgusting to be contemplated. One wall featured eight-by-ten glossies of Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, and Congressman Brian Bilbray. They seemed to be autographed by the same pen, in the same handwriting, with the same spelling errors.
"So, you went to school in Cleveland?" I asked.
"The schools in Cleveland were filled with the same liberal agenda. Algebra, chemistry, term papers. But they won't teach Illegal Mexican Aliens to talk English! So I left them to live in the cesspool they created."
"Were there many illegals in Cleveland?"
Smallwood became vehement. "You bet! They were from Fajardo and Guayama and Aguadilla."
I smiled. Not only were the places not even in Mexico, the people he was describing were United States Citizens from Puerto Rico. "Let's get over to the Dairy Duchess and get ourselves some chili dogs. And a Moderate Snow Shower frozen dessert!"
The conversation ends there, as there was a minor electrical system meltdown in the Lumina, and he chose to wait for a friend from the Terco County, Texas, Minuteman Militia intead of returning to the plant with a moonlighting electrical engineer from Tegucigalpa.
EPILOGUE
Forrest B. Smallwood died on September 6, 2006. He had been working on a fence to prevent migrants from New Mexico from entering Texas when he encountered a trucker evading the scale in Mulehead City, and immediately accused him of being an Illegal Mexican Alien.
The driver, Raymond "Moose" Thunder Cloud, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, took high offense to the idea that he was in some fashion less entitled to be in the United States than Mr. Smallwood.
Mr. Thunder Cloud, in a sworn statement released by Terco County Constable Diego Velasquez, defended himself from what he believed to be grave and imminent danger from what he presumed to be a highjacker on FM 13490, three miles west of Tarado. The Texas DPS Crime Scene investigator found the shards of a blue exchange pallet consistent with the severe pummelling of Mr. Smallwood, and a sudden storm washed Mr. Smallwood's remains into a nearby culvert.
There was no funeral, no body, nor were there any survivors.
I accepted a ride to Tarado's finest, and only, quick service eatery, the Dairy Duchess at exit 3 on I-36. It is possible to see the Dairy Princess from Lone Star Candies, but it is also possible to see Lubbock clearly from Midland. Texas has a lot of flat places.
Smallwood's car was a rusty blue '92 Lumina with a 2005 registration from Big Beaver County, Ohio; a Rick Case Cleveland dealer badge; and a Tancredo for President bumper sticker.
"They're coming over the border and riding straight up this road toward Wichita Falls," Smallwood said. "The Minutemen are the last, best line of defense of American freedom."
I positioned myself in such a way as to avoid a DVD case featuring the images of late '90s boy band, the Backdoor Brothers, and a some sort of foreign substance that prevented the hard plastic cover from sliding on the velour.
"They're bringing diseases, and drugs. Illegal aliens are taking jobs and driving down wages for middle class people like us. The drain they put on our social services comes out of our pockets!
"My tax dollars are paying to support people who are breaking the law!" Smallwood eased the Chevy up to 70 in the 45 zone. He was near tears.
At no point was the idea of the price of vegetables tripling mentioned, but it seemed that Mr. Smallwood, standing five-three and a robust 310 pounds, had little use for food that did not quadruple the recommended yearly allowance for Lard. There was also no room for the idea that we are near full employment with several million undocumented people in the labor stream.
"So what would you propose that we do?" I asked.
"Seal the border and send them all back. Preferably using a slingshot. You know the administration is trying to give up our sovereignty by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico? They're going to change our currency to the Amero."
He seemed to be referring to a Bush administration proposal to work with Canada and Mexico to find common ground in law to get some consistency and reciprocity between jurisdictions.
"You don't seem to have a Texas accent," I said.
"Those big corporations who want amnesty for illegal aliens packed up all of the jobs back in Cleveland and sent them to Mexico for cheap labor."
Somehow, if all of these jobs were in Mexico, it would seem that there would be no motivation to leave, at least to me. I did not share this opinion. Having visited Cleveland, I also supposed that the undesirable climate and high taxation and state regulation in Ohio might have had a little something to do with the situation as well.
Of course, I come from Atlanta, where a lot of operations moved from heavily regulated, highly taxed states with cruddy climates, so I might share some complicity as well.
"I'm going to duck into my house for just a second. I got to make a little withdrawal from the bank of Maxwell House."
His house was a Champion singlewide manufactured home. In fact, a tax sticker from Terco County, Texas, was issued in 1973, thus it was old enough to still be called a trailer. Inside was mediterranean style furniture, harvest gold appliances, and orange cut-pile carpeting. There was another boy band video with a strange substance on the cover.
"Where's your daughter?" I asked.
Smallwood pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the Maxwell House can in the freezer. Icily, he replied "I don't have a daughter."
"Oh." I had an idea what the substance on the boy band video covers might be, but the logical answer was too disgusting to be contemplated. One wall featured eight-by-ten glossies of Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, and Congressman Brian Bilbray. They seemed to be autographed by the same pen, in the same handwriting, with the same spelling errors.
"So, you went to school in Cleveland?" I asked.
"The schools in Cleveland were filled with the same liberal agenda. Algebra, chemistry, term papers. But they won't teach Illegal Mexican Aliens to talk English! So I left them to live in the cesspool they created."
"Were there many illegals in Cleveland?"
Smallwood became vehement. "You bet! They were from Fajardo and Guayama and Aguadilla."
I smiled. Not only were the places not even in Mexico, the people he was describing were United States Citizens from Puerto Rico. "Let's get over to the Dairy Duchess and get ourselves some chili dogs. And a Moderate Snow Shower frozen dessert!"
The conversation ends there, as there was a minor electrical system meltdown in the Lumina, and he chose to wait for a friend from the Terco County, Texas, Minuteman Militia intead of returning to the plant with a moonlighting electrical engineer from Tegucigalpa.
EPILOGUE
Forrest B. Smallwood died on September 6, 2006. He had been working on a fence to prevent migrants from New Mexico from entering Texas when he encountered a trucker evading the scale in Mulehead City, and immediately accused him of being an Illegal Mexican Alien.
The driver, Raymond "Moose" Thunder Cloud, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, took high offense to the idea that he was in some fashion less entitled to be in the United States than Mr. Smallwood.
Mr. Thunder Cloud, in a sworn statement released by Terco County Constable Diego Velasquez, defended himself from what he believed to be grave and imminent danger from what he presumed to be a highjacker on FM 13490, three miles west of Tarado. The Texas DPS Crime Scene investigator found the shards of a blue exchange pallet consistent with the severe pummelling of Mr. Smallwood, and a sudden storm washed Mr. Smallwood's remains into a nearby culvert.
There was no funeral, no body, nor were there any survivors.
22 March 2007
Road Report: Ford Pornstar Minivan
It is our pleasure to report that the last rear-drive Ford Childstar minivan was removed from service last week in the Savannah suburb of Douche Bag, Georgia, when the 3.0l engine seized on a trip to Flash Foods for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold Cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets. The 300-pound foodservice worker who drove it suggested that her ex-husband may have removed the plug from the oil pan in retaliation for her reaction to finding him in a compromising position with the french fry girl from the Hardees on Stinky Marsh Road.
The good news is that Ford has brought a replacement for the Childstar, the Pornstar. The front-drive Pornstar is every bit of the driving experience that a Childstar driver would expect without any challenges to long ingrained concepts of vehicle behavior.
The good thing has to be moved out of the way first. The engine is better than the overtaxed Vulcan 3.0 in the Childstar. The Essex 3.8 is more suited for moving the 4400-pound van. While specific power and torque figures are not available, driving the van will tell one instantly: This is a LOT of motor. It's enough motor to encourage the driver to hunt down eighties model Muscle Cars at stop lights.
But don't get put into the turns. The steering may actually be Rack and Peanut. The power steering pump justifies the van's name by moaning and groaning at temperatures under 45 degrees. The feedback through the wheel may suggest that the driver insulted the steering's personal hygiene. It does not communicate. Indeed, the steering could not be less numb were the steering wheel connected by radio.
The Pornstar is just like the Childstar, which shared its steering box with the '77 Granada, itself no paragon of control dynamics.
Forget trying to stop, either. The brakes may as well be connected by dial-up Internet. The hardware itself seems to be sound, but the point where the driver interfaces with the brakes starts off as a heavy push through six inches of mashed potatoes, thirty seconds of panic, followed by anti-lock judder, and finally, a relatively short, straight stop.
A novice driver invited to try this van suggested that Ford's demise could not come soon enough for her after using the brakes. Her concise reaction was, "Damn, your brakes suck."
The Pornstar is equipped with removable seats. It should be phrased that the seats are removable in theory only, being as the seats are heavy enough to have their own gravitational field and may affect tides if the van is driven in coastal areas. The seats do have a wide range of adjustment, and are quite comfortable, even for a catnap in the parking lot of a Stuckey's.
The sound system is a Philco Stereophonic 8-track player. It requires two different adapters to play Hip Hop, but people will give you Disco all day long, and no adapter is needed.
Ford has equipped the Pornstar SE with an onboard computer, which offers instantaneous calculation of range, economy, oil life, NASDAQ quotes, airline schedules and whether or not the light in your fridge is on, providing that you set it up correctly. The computer is also multilingual, offering responses in English, Farsi and Mongolian.
The rear-view mirror has an interesting feature, a little green LED which seems to perform no actual function and blinks on and off at random. There are lots of little plastic areas everwhere for little fiddly things that would normally hit the driver in the head during a panic stop. It has a primo selection of cupholders which feature sticky remnants of Capri Sun juice pouches from the factory.
The safety features include air bags, for those who feel that a collision is not complete without a smelly explosion in the driver's face. There are lots of seat belts and really stout bumpers that produce extremely satisfying fragments in an encounter with a tumbleweed on I-20 in Texas. The van weighs the same thing as a '55 Cadillac, so it ought to do fine in a crash with anything smaller than a Hummer H1.
Body hardware and solidity may leave a little bit to be desired. Imperfect pavement starts the larger body panels on a frantic drumming that matches Green Day's Tre Cool for velocity if not technical mastery. The suspension has a boingy feel that comes up through the seat and evokes the experience of thunking a tub of GoJo hand cleaner. Everything seems to be solidly attached, but the racket makes one wonder for how long.
The power door is a neat little convenience, allowing miscellaneous crap to be thrown into the passenger compartment directly, avoiding the secondary process of allowing it to migrate under a seat first. The vastness of the passenger area allows accumulation of at least two Hefty bags worth of Taco Bell and Burger King wrappers before the Department of Transportation requires the van to pass through a Weigh Station.
Economy is good, with the caveat found below. If everything is set as it should be, the Pornstar gets about 17 miles per gallon in town, and 24 on the road.
The automatic transmission is usually smooth and strong, except when going between 55 and 60 when it feels like it's going blubba-blubba-blubba. Shift it out of Overdrive, a cute little button on the end of the column lever that frequently gets mashed inadvertently when parking and the steering wheel blocks the light and you wonder how the hell you only got 14 miles per gallon at three blessed dollars a gallon, and the blubba-blubba-blubba effect goes away. That's also the only real ergonomic complaint.
The Pornstar is equipped with a dual HVAC system, allowing mischevous children in the back to select a fundamentally opposite temperature from the front of the van, thus fogging up the driver's glasses. Such an event precedes a loud, graphic hypothesis related to the destinies of Disney Channel "Tween" performers.
Many of the Pornstar's guts come from the second-generation Taurus, a car that withered in the market for lack of research funds for an actual engine. That car steered and stopped fine, so apparently those parts didn't get approved to cross the border into Canada, where the Pornstar's factory is located. This is another argument for open borders.
So, is the Ford Pornstar a future classic? No. Is it inspiring? No. Is it going to make a lot of trips to convenience stores for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets? Oh, hell, yes.
300-pound foodservice workers of America, your ride is here.
The good news is that Ford has brought a replacement for the Childstar, the Pornstar. The front-drive Pornstar is every bit of the driving experience that a Childstar driver would expect without any challenges to long ingrained concepts of vehicle behavior.
The good thing has to be moved out of the way first. The engine is better than the overtaxed Vulcan 3.0 in the Childstar. The Essex 3.8 is more suited for moving the 4400-pound van. While specific power and torque figures are not available, driving the van will tell one instantly: This is a LOT of motor. It's enough motor to encourage the driver to hunt down eighties model Muscle Cars at stop lights.
But don't get put into the turns. The steering may actually be Rack and Peanut. The power steering pump justifies the van's name by moaning and groaning at temperatures under 45 degrees. The feedback through the wheel may suggest that the driver insulted the steering's personal hygiene. It does not communicate. Indeed, the steering could not be less numb were the steering wheel connected by radio.
The Pornstar is just like the Childstar, which shared its steering box with the '77 Granada, itself no paragon of control dynamics.
Forget trying to stop, either. The brakes may as well be connected by dial-up Internet. The hardware itself seems to be sound, but the point where the driver interfaces with the brakes starts off as a heavy push through six inches of mashed potatoes, thirty seconds of panic, followed by anti-lock judder, and finally, a relatively short, straight stop.
A novice driver invited to try this van suggested that Ford's demise could not come soon enough for her after using the brakes. Her concise reaction was, "Damn, your brakes suck."
The Pornstar is equipped with removable seats. It should be phrased that the seats are removable in theory only, being as the seats are heavy enough to have their own gravitational field and may affect tides if the van is driven in coastal areas. The seats do have a wide range of adjustment, and are quite comfortable, even for a catnap in the parking lot of a Stuckey's.
The sound system is a Philco Stereophonic 8-track player. It requires two different adapters to play Hip Hop, but people will give you Disco all day long, and no adapter is needed.
Ford has equipped the Pornstar SE with an onboard computer, which offers instantaneous calculation of range, economy, oil life, NASDAQ quotes, airline schedules and whether or not the light in your fridge is on, providing that you set it up correctly. The computer is also multilingual, offering responses in English, Farsi and Mongolian.
The rear-view mirror has an interesting feature, a little green LED which seems to perform no actual function and blinks on and off at random. There are lots of little plastic areas everwhere for little fiddly things that would normally hit the driver in the head during a panic stop. It has a primo selection of cupholders which feature sticky remnants of Capri Sun juice pouches from the factory.
The safety features include air bags, for those who feel that a collision is not complete without a smelly explosion in the driver's face. There are lots of seat belts and really stout bumpers that produce extremely satisfying fragments in an encounter with a tumbleweed on I-20 in Texas. The van weighs the same thing as a '55 Cadillac, so it ought to do fine in a crash with anything smaller than a Hummer H1.
Body hardware and solidity may leave a little bit to be desired. Imperfect pavement starts the larger body panels on a frantic drumming that matches Green Day's Tre Cool for velocity if not technical mastery. The suspension has a boingy feel that comes up through the seat and evokes the experience of thunking a tub of GoJo hand cleaner. Everything seems to be solidly attached, but the racket makes one wonder for how long.
The power door is a neat little convenience, allowing miscellaneous crap to be thrown into the passenger compartment directly, avoiding the secondary process of allowing it to migrate under a seat first. The vastness of the passenger area allows accumulation of at least two Hefty bags worth of Taco Bell and Burger King wrappers before the Department of Transportation requires the van to pass through a Weigh Station.
Economy is good, with the caveat found below. If everything is set as it should be, the Pornstar gets about 17 miles per gallon in town, and 24 on the road.
The automatic transmission is usually smooth and strong, except when going between 55 and 60 when it feels like it's going blubba-blubba-blubba. Shift it out of Overdrive, a cute little button on the end of the column lever that frequently gets mashed inadvertently when parking and the steering wheel blocks the light and you wonder how the hell you only got 14 miles per gallon at three blessed dollars a gallon, and the blubba-blubba-blubba effect goes away. That's also the only real ergonomic complaint.
The Pornstar is equipped with a dual HVAC system, allowing mischevous children in the back to select a fundamentally opposite temperature from the front of the van, thus fogging up the driver's glasses. Such an event precedes a loud, graphic hypothesis related to the destinies of Disney Channel "Tween" performers.
Many of the Pornstar's guts come from the second-generation Taurus, a car that withered in the market for lack of research funds for an actual engine. That car steered and stopped fine, so apparently those parts didn't get approved to cross the border into Canada, where the Pornstar's factory is located. This is another argument for open borders.
So, is the Ford Pornstar a future classic? No. Is it inspiring? No. Is it going to make a lot of trips to convenience stores for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets? Oh, hell, yes.
300-pound foodservice workers of America, your ride is here.
15 February 2007
Any Idiot Can Go Straight
Just a few thoughts about concepts of beauty. Being as your Wandering Gentile lives in a household filled with females ranging in age from seven to none of your damn business, sometimes questions exist about what men find attractive.
An unscientific survey of the Wandering Gentile's friends revealed that no man fantasizes about a nervous six-foot-tall witch with an eating disorder and a cocaine/heroin habit. Please understand that this survey was conducted among heterosexual men between 30 and dead, the majority of whom have well-paying jobs and/or long committed relationships.
So the fashion designers are apparently not appealing to women in the real world, or are longing for a universe of women who could be compared to an even higher-toned version of Cher. There's a happy thought!
What were the men most in favor of?
Curves! Because any idiot can go straight. The vast majority specified their own wives physiques, and even if they did not, your Wandering Gentile ain't telling. When it came to the most desirable female celebrity, an anonymous ballot came up thusly.
Salma Hayek...51% If 40 looks like this, 40 really is the new 20. Unfortunately, 40 also looks like the Wandering Gentile who was born in the same week in 1966. Draw your own conclusion.
Penelope Cruz...14% Salma's "Bandidas" co-star has lept several points on our survey.
Jessica Alba...14% Would have ranked higher, but several respondents went into fibrillation upon seeing her picture.
America Ferrera...7% Ugly Betty really is the new beautiful.
Rosario Dawson...6% We expected better, but she's still quite young.
Madeline Stowe...3% Outstanding showing for a woman who turns 49 this year!
Eva Mendes...2% Only a couple of the guys recognized her name,but most ballots had the page with her picture stuck to the ad for the new Asahi Divine Wind SUV.
Eva Longoria...2% Most guys are a little afraid of her character on Desperate Housewives.
Roselyn Sanchez...1% Another one from the nobody recognized her name file, but all of the respondents had seen Boat Trip repeatedly, and none of them mentioned Cuba Gooding, Junior's acting.
Doris Roberts...1%...this seems to have been Woody's ballot, but he ain't all there in the first place.
Several fads regarding appearance were also mentioned as needing to go away.
Fake Boobies...42% Robin Williams referred to them as "Nazi" boobies; they don't dance, they don't smile, they just stand there all day at attention. Heil happy, but real, A-cups!
The Landing Strip...28% It's like basic training for pedophilia, according to one respondent.
Small Hair...14% Many respondents were nostalgic for the eighties styles. Several were willing to begin wearing parachute pants if women would have big hair again. One offered to regrow his mullet, but due to advanced male pattern baldness would have been required to regrow it on his naughty bits.
Muffin Tops...8% There seemed to be a universal disdain for women who weigh 150 pounds plus wearing pants designed for a woman who weighs 110. One respondent suggested that if his wife puts on her Muffin Top pants again, he's going to show up at her family reunion in a Speedo and nothing else. Respondent weighs 348 pounds.
Camel Toes...6% The issue derived from not being able to readily examine the Camel Toe to ascertain it's true nature on women outside of an intimate relationship. Several respondents were concerned that the Camel Toe may be a pharmaceutically un-endowed man, particularly in parts of California, New York, and Miami.
Eyebrow Reconfiguration...2% These twisted individuals own copies of Frida for all of the wrong reasons. One respondent stated "What the hell was wrong with Anne Hathaway's eyebrows in The Princess Diaries?" Respondent is resting comfortably at a mental health facility in Colorado Springs, operated by Rev. Ted Hagerty's megachurch.
So what are we to understand from this survey?
1. Tall women do not engender as much desire as women who are, in the best Orwellian Politically Correct Doublespeak, not tall.
2. Women who are considered to be too thin are circumspect for drug habits and poor social interaction.
3. Real is better, and sexier.
Gee, one might think that men might judge more about what's inside a woman before putting anything of theirs in there as well...
An unscientific survey of the Wandering Gentile's friends revealed that no man fantasizes about a nervous six-foot-tall witch with an eating disorder and a cocaine/heroin habit. Please understand that this survey was conducted among heterosexual men between 30 and dead, the majority of whom have well-paying jobs and/or long committed relationships.
So the fashion designers are apparently not appealing to women in the real world, or are longing for a universe of women who could be compared to an even higher-toned version of Cher. There's a happy thought!
What were the men most in favor of?
Curves! Because any idiot can go straight. The vast majority specified their own wives physiques, and even if they did not, your Wandering Gentile ain't telling. When it came to the most desirable female celebrity, an anonymous ballot came up thusly.
Salma Hayek...51% If 40 looks like this, 40 really is the new 20. Unfortunately, 40 also looks like the Wandering Gentile who was born in the same week in 1966. Draw your own conclusion.
Penelope Cruz...14% Salma's "Bandidas" co-star has lept several points on our survey.
Jessica Alba...14% Would have ranked higher, but several respondents went into fibrillation upon seeing her picture.
America Ferrera...7% Ugly Betty really is the new beautiful.
Rosario Dawson...6% We expected better, but she's still quite young.
Madeline Stowe...3% Outstanding showing for a woman who turns 49 this year!
Eva Mendes...2% Only a couple of the guys recognized her name,but most ballots had the page with her picture stuck to the ad for the new Asahi Divine Wind SUV.
Eva Longoria...2% Most guys are a little afraid of her character on Desperate Housewives.
Roselyn Sanchez...1% Another one from the nobody recognized her name file, but all of the respondents had seen Boat Trip repeatedly, and none of them mentioned Cuba Gooding, Junior's acting.
Doris Roberts...1%...this seems to have been Woody's ballot, but he ain't all there in the first place.
Several fads regarding appearance were also mentioned as needing to go away.
Fake Boobies...42% Robin Williams referred to them as "Nazi" boobies; they don't dance, they don't smile, they just stand there all day at attention. Heil happy, but real, A-cups!
The Landing Strip...28% It's like basic training for pedophilia, according to one respondent.
Small Hair...14% Many respondents were nostalgic for the eighties styles. Several were willing to begin wearing parachute pants if women would have big hair again. One offered to regrow his mullet, but due to advanced male pattern baldness would have been required to regrow it on his naughty bits.
Muffin Tops...8% There seemed to be a universal disdain for women who weigh 150 pounds plus wearing pants designed for a woman who weighs 110. One respondent suggested that if his wife puts on her Muffin Top pants again, he's going to show up at her family reunion in a Speedo and nothing else. Respondent weighs 348 pounds.
Camel Toes...6% The issue derived from not being able to readily examine the Camel Toe to ascertain it's true nature on women outside of an intimate relationship. Several respondents were concerned that the Camel Toe may be a pharmaceutically un-endowed man, particularly in parts of California, New York, and Miami.
Eyebrow Reconfiguration...2% These twisted individuals own copies of Frida for all of the wrong reasons. One respondent stated "What the hell was wrong with Anne Hathaway's eyebrows in The Princess Diaries?" Respondent is resting comfortably at a mental health facility in Colorado Springs, operated by Rev. Ted Hagerty's megachurch.
So what are we to understand from this survey?
1. Tall women do not engender as much desire as women who are, in the best Orwellian Politically Correct Doublespeak, not tall.
2. Women who are considered to be too thin are circumspect for drug habits and poor social interaction.
3. Real is better, and sexier.
Gee, one might think that men might judge more about what's inside a woman before putting anything of theirs in there as well...
13 February 2007
FIRST 2008 ELECTION PREDICTIONS!!!
A short postcard based on what I see behind the cheesy plastic Wandering Gentile Keyboard.
Barring any major scandals, the Democrats will keep both houses of Congress. America has a bad case of Republican Fatigue, and it's getting worse.
The Republican presidential contenders are McCain and Giuliani. McCain has been too much of a hawk on the Iraq war from too far away in Arizona. He has great credibility on matters of war, but he's also going to be 72 by the time the election comes around. Giuliani, on the other hand, is a few years younger and has the credibility of having been the Mayor of 9/11.
Look for McCain to repeat his experiences from 2000, i.e., strong early then fading. Romney is the guy who will pull the conservative base, and he's a mortal lock for Veep.
The Democrats have some issues. Hillary can screw the whole thing up if she stays too long. Just because America has Republican Fatigue, doesn't mean we aren't just as tired of her. The Senator from New York has all of her husband's baggage, and none of his charm. She is about as likable as a scorpion in your underwear, and her voice is more painful.
There are some other Democrats out there, but there are only two worth mentioning. Barack Obama and Bill Richardson matter.
Dennis Kucinich seems to be sincere, and probably a decent guy. He also used to be the Mayor of Cleveland, a city which the rest of the country would be unlikely to miss if it fell into Lake Erie. In fact, his stewardship of Cleveland may have hastened the day when Lake Erie reclaims Cleveland, completely, thank goodness. Kucinich doesn't matter.
Tom Vilsack is or was the Governor of Iowa. You don't see a lot of people clamoring for a vacation in Des Moines, the Whitest city in North America. I get it. Vilsack wants us to remember that Iowa is still there and has many good things, none of which come to mind. What Iowa has is corn, rolling hills, Radar O' Reilly, and the place where Buddy Holly died.
Vilsack doesn't matter, and frankly, when one's state is best known for who died there, there is an image problem that must be dealt with. He's gone after the caucuses.
John Edwards is thinking about trying again. It's not the smartest thing he could do. He's the Democrats' Dan Quayle. Again, John Edwards appears to be a nice guy but he has the gravitas of The Cookie Monster. All Edwards is going to do is make people think of John Kerry, a man who looks like he's getting a digital prostate exam while he's doing windsurfing.
Go home, John Edwards, and watch the Bobcats. Set up some speaking engagements. Your 15 minutes are up, and 1982 called asking for their haircut back.
Al Gore? Yeah. Get an endorsement from Frank Zappa and then we'll talk.
Now we get to the ones who matter. Barack Obama is the perfect candidate. We'll shy away from Bidenesque adjectives, and go toward some stuff that Matters.
Obama is as charismatic as Reagan and Bill Clinton. That counts toward landslide and mandate. It is not an issue of his backstory or his politics. Senator Obama connects on a gut level that makes people feel as if they have known him forever. He's exciting to watch, and thoroughly in tune with a broad segment of the voting population.
Stated briefly, Senator Obama is a mainstream candidate who happens to qualify as black.
That separates him from a legion of African-American candidates who focused their campaigns solely on appeal to voters in the ghettoes of major cities. Barack Obama knows where the mainstream is, and does not maginalize himself by focusing on the South Side of Chicago and East St. Louis while turning his back on Rantoul, Evanston, and Carbondale.
Barring a cataclysmic event of some description, Senator Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton has a lot of fight in her, but something inside of anyone who has watched her knows that one way or another, she will put herself out of contention.
Even odds on Senator Clinton having an early season meltdown a la Howard Dean. Howard Dean had the illusion that all of America is like Vermont; Senator Clinton is under the illusion that New York is close to the mainstream of America. Both illusions are false. The bravado that serves Senator Clinton in New York is just going to enfuriate everything between the coasts.
Bill Richardson matters, and (amusingly) on a Dave Chappelle level. Governor Richardson is Hispanic. Dave Chappelle once said that if he were to be the first Black President, he would appoint a Hispanic Vice-President. On a higher level, the Dems need candidates from Flyover country, and New Mexico is about as flyover as it gets without being Iowa. Richardson brings executive experience from a purple state to questions about Obama's lack of past executive position on the ticket.
Now! The two tickets as seen from 21 months out!
Republican Presidential Nominee: Rudy Giuliani (NY).
Republican Vice Presidential Nominee: Mitt Romney (MA).
Democratic Presidential Nominee: Barack Obama (IL).
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee: Bill Richardson (NM).
And a quick thought: Giuliani could squeak one out over Hillary. Obama is a landslide, the question is when it's going to happen.
Barring any major scandals, the Democrats will keep both houses of Congress. America has a bad case of Republican Fatigue, and it's getting worse.
The Republican presidential contenders are McCain and Giuliani. McCain has been too much of a hawk on the Iraq war from too far away in Arizona. He has great credibility on matters of war, but he's also going to be 72 by the time the election comes around. Giuliani, on the other hand, is a few years younger and has the credibility of having been the Mayor of 9/11.
Look for McCain to repeat his experiences from 2000, i.e., strong early then fading. Romney is the guy who will pull the conservative base, and he's a mortal lock for Veep.
The Democrats have some issues. Hillary can screw the whole thing up if she stays too long. Just because America has Republican Fatigue, doesn't mean we aren't just as tired of her. The Senator from New York has all of her husband's baggage, and none of his charm. She is about as likable as a scorpion in your underwear, and her voice is more painful.
There are some other Democrats out there, but there are only two worth mentioning. Barack Obama and Bill Richardson matter.
Dennis Kucinich seems to be sincere, and probably a decent guy. He also used to be the Mayor of Cleveland, a city which the rest of the country would be unlikely to miss if it fell into Lake Erie. In fact, his stewardship of Cleveland may have hastened the day when Lake Erie reclaims Cleveland, completely, thank goodness. Kucinich doesn't matter.
Tom Vilsack is or was the Governor of Iowa. You don't see a lot of people clamoring for a vacation in Des Moines, the Whitest city in North America. I get it. Vilsack wants us to remember that Iowa is still there and has many good things, none of which come to mind. What Iowa has is corn, rolling hills, Radar O' Reilly, and the place where Buddy Holly died.
Vilsack doesn't matter, and frankly, when one's state is best known for who died there, there is an image problem that must be dealt with. He's gone after the caucuses.
John Edwards is thinking about trying again. It's not the smartest thing he could do. He's the Democrats' Dan Quayle. Again, John Edwards appears to be a nice guy but he has the gravitas of The Cookie Monster. All Edwards is going to do is make people think of John Kerry, a man who looks like he's getting a digital prostate exam while he's doing windsurfing.
Go home, John Edwards, and watch the Bobcats. Set up some speaking engagements. Your 15 minutes are up, and 1982 called asking for their haircut back.
Al Gore? Yeah. Get an endorsement from Frank Zappa and then we'll talk.
Now we get to the ones who matter. Barack Obama is the perfect candidate. We'll shy away from Bidenesque adjectives, and go toward some stuff that Matters.
Obama is as charismatic as Reagan and Bill Clinton. That counts toward landslide and mandate. It is not an issue of his backstory or his politics. Senator Obama connects on a gut level that makes people feel as if they have known him forever. He's exciting to watch, and thoroughly in tune with a broad segment of the voting population.
Stated briefly, Senator Obama is a mainstream candidate who happens to qualify as black.
That separates him from a legion of African-American candidates who focused their campaigns solely on appeal to voters in the ghettoes of major cities. Barack Obama knows where the mainstream is, and does not maginalize himself by focusing on the South Side of Chicago and East St. Louis while turning his back on Rantoul, Evanston, and Carbondale.
Barring a cataclysmic event of some description, Senator Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton has a lot of fight in her, but something inside of anyone who has watched her knows that one way or another, she will put herself out of contention.
Even odds on Senator Clinton having an early season meltdown a la Howard Dean. Howard Dean had the illusion that all of America is like Vermont; Senator Clinton is under the illusion that New York is close to the mainstream of America. Both illusions are false. The bravado that serves Senator Clinton in New York is just going to enfuriate everything between the coasts.
Bill Richardson matters, and (amusingly) on a Dave Chappelle level. Governor Richardson is Hispanic. Dave Chappelle once said that if he were to be the first Black President, he would appoint a Hispanic Vice-President. On a higher level, the Dems need candidates from Flyover country, and New Mexico is about as flyover as it gets without being Iowa. Richardson brings executive experience from a purple state to questions about Obama's lack of past executive position on the ticket.
Now! The two tickets as seen from 21 months out!
Republican Presidential Nominee: Rudy Giuliani (NY).
Republican Vice Presidential Nominee: Mitt Romney (MA).
Democratic Presidential Nominee: Barack Obama (IL).
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee: Bill Richardson (NM).
And a quick thought: Giuliani could squeak one out over Hillary. Obama is a landslide, the question is when it's going to happen.
12 February 2007
How to Destroy the United States Without a Shot
Stop for a moment and imagine Chicago as the source for everything produced in the supermarket. All of the food goes through Chicago. Then imagine that every home is built at some point in Atlanta. Then consider that everything that gets cleaned in the country at one point or another has to go through one of those two cities.
Then imagine the Chicago and Atlanta metropolitan areas gone; disowned by the United States.
Instantly, five percent of the US economy is pulled out of the equation at the consumer level. The effect at the production level is over fifty per cent for housing, food and service industries. Transportation grinds to a halt, as there is nothing to haul.
Prices for food and housing triple overnight; the loss of consumers does not add enough slack in the system to account for the lack of production.
Americans stop buying homes. Fuel costs rise because the scarce goods that need to be transported still have to go the same distances to Miami and Seattle. A lack of finished products causes riots. Poor access to fresh fruits and vegetables allows disease to run rampant in remote corners of the lower 48 states.
Food riots break out in Boston, St. Louis and Denver. Thousands perish while stalking deliveries at warehouses in Detroit and Minneapolis. Truckers abandon their careers as a hellish Road Warrior mentality strikes the Interstates, and armed gangs attack trucks containing corn flakes and oranges.
Two million truckers are out of work. Wal Mart abandons rural areas, and greeters in Birmingham are strapped with semi-automatic pistols. Five million people who worked in retail are now seeking public assistance as their jobs went away with Chicago and Atlanta.
Now we're up to 21 million. Banking and investments are slipping, putting another two million out of the private sector. Automotive production grinds to a near standstill, idling another two million in the myriad facets of that industry.
Declining tax revenues decimate the federal budget, and the armed services are forced to serve as trainers for despotic regimes worldwide who are willing to part with finished goods. Some countries remember us as a friend, but most are happy to see us fall.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals abandon our shores for Europe, Australia and the far east. Another ten million are gone or underemployed. Our highway system, once the envy of the world, becomes a series of potholes connected with patches.
Construction becomes a memory of better times, and eight million more are idled in New York and San Francisco, and everywhere else. Government jobs which once seemed stable and secure dry up in this atmosphere.
As a last ditch effort to save the country, California is sold to the People's Republic of China as a trade for outstanding debt going into default. Texas is returned to Mexico, and most of the Midwest is returned to France.
The south splinters off as a New Confederacy, before an eventual alliance with Canada and the Commonwealth. Florida and Puerto Rico are merged with the New Bolivarian Union under Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.
Imagine Chicago and Atlanta removed from the equation.
Then change the 14 million to illegal aliens who make up a disproportionate part of the production of food and construction industries in the United States.
Who is willing to kill the country in order to save it?
Then imagine the Chicago and Atlanta metropolitan areas gone; disowned by the United States.
Instantly, five percent of the US economy is pulled out of the equation at the consumer level. The effect at the production level is over fifty per cent for housing, food and service industries. Transportation grinds to a halt, as there is nothing to haul.
Prices for food and housing triple overnight; the loss of consumers does not add enough slack in the system to account for the lack of production.
Americans stop buying homes. Fuel costs rise because the scarce goods that need to be transported still have to go the same distances to Miami and Seattle. A lack of finished products causes riots. Poor access to fresh fruits and vegetables allows disease to run rampant in remote corners of the lower 48 states.
Food riots break out in Boston, St. Louis and Denver. Thousands perish while stalking deliveries at warehouses in Detroit and Minneapolis. Truckers abandon their careers as a hellish Road Warrior mentality strikes the Interstates, and armed gangs attack trucks containing corn flakes and oranges.
Two million truckers are out of work. Wal Mart abandons rural areas, and greeters in Birmingham are strapped with semi-automatic pistols. Five million people who worked in retail are now seeking public assistance as their jobs went away with Chicago and Atlanta.
Now we're up to 21 million. Banking and investments are slipping, putting another two million out of the private sector. Automotive production grinds to a near standstill, idling another two million in the myriad facets of that industry.
Declining tax revenues decimate the federal budget, and the armed services are forced to serve as trainers for despotic regimes worldwide who are willing to part with finished goods. Some countries remember us as a friend, but most are happy to see us fall.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals abandon our shores for Europe, Australia and the far east. Another ten million are gone or underemployed. Our highway system, once the envy of the world, becomes a series of potholes connected with patches.
Construction becomes a memory of better times, and eight million more are idled in New York and San Francisco, and everywhere else. Government jobs which once seemed stable and secure dry up in this atmosphere.
As a last ditch effort to save the country, California is sold to the People's Republic of China as a trade for outstanding debt going into default. Texas is returned to Mexico, and most of the Midwest is returned to France.
The south splinters off as a New Confederacy, before an eventual alliance with Canada and the Commonwealth. Florida and Puerto Rico are merged with the New Bolivarian Union under Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.
Imagine Chicago and Atlanta removed from the equation.
Then change the 14 million to illegal aliens who make up a disproportionate part of the production of food and construction industries in the United States.
Who is willing to kill the country in order to save it?
20 January 2007
Mourning For Ethics
Jimmy Carter was once synonymous with an uncompromising commitment to principles of democracy, human rights and peace. Whether or not one agreed with his tactics or approach, there was never a question about Carter's sincerity or his unwavering faith in humanity and the standards he held himself to.
The preceding ideas do not identify a man who expresses the role of Israel in conflict with the Palestinians as "Apartheid." How quickly did former President Carter forget the celebrations by fanatics in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah, while our genuine and sincere ally was dispatching their terror response team before the towers turned to dust in the streets of lower Manhattan.
A man, a leader and a peacemaker, has shown his back to the ideals he once swore to uphold as President. Carter appears to have surrendered the integrity which was once his trademark and greatest quality. Even Carter's detractors were unable to dismiss his credibility as a force for decency and honor in the world.
About ten years ago, some large flaws began to appear in Carter's integrity, from his sanction of the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to his budding relationships with Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe. At the time there was room for accepting Carter as a dignitary with the objective of furthering America's image at home and abroad, owing to his connection with Habitat for Humanity and pivotal role (with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias) in the Central American Peace Process.
It is telling that during a joint interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, even his former Vice-President Walter Mondale expressed reservation concerning Carter's recent book. Vice-President Mondale showed great grace and tact, deferring specific commentary until he had the opportunity to articulate his concerns to Mr. Carter in private. Mondale revealed the quality of man that he is, and the continuing level of reason that he brought to the discourse.
To equate the issues of Palestinian statehood with Apartheid diminishes the value of the long struggle of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to bring justice and human rights to a long-oppressed majority in South Africa. There is no relationship between a fundamentally peaceful movement (in South Africa) and a militant Intifada.
There has been, from the outset, recognition and an atmosphere of protection for the rights of white South Africans. While there have been instances of retribution in South Africa, the transition to Majority Government cannot be characterized as a systematic process designed to abase a population which had abused its authority for so long.
In contrast, the Palestinians have relied solely upon violence as their bargaining chip. No concession has been made for the Israeli right to exist peaceably. Should Israel take steps to defend herself from military operations undertaken with the tacit economic support of nations such as Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Israel is accused of tyranny.
Hamas and Fatah are not friends of democracy, peace, nor human rights. As so many in America have stated eloquently, the only people who would survive nonviolence are the Palestinians. Were Israel to unilaterally demilitarize on Monday, Israel would cease to exist by Friday.
The question as it exists for Palestinian statehood is that such a condition depends upon Palestinian willingness to bring statehood. Intifada is not only apart from a path to statehood, it is an obstacle the size of the Pacific Ocean. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Junior, and Nelson Mandela succeeded through nonviolence and acceptance that coexistence is fundamental.
A people cannot be seen as human if they deny the humanity of their neighbors. Stateless people are not awarded an existence as a nation in the modern world by virtue of espousing an ideology of hatred and retaliation. Sometimes people, such as the Kurds and the Tibetians, are deserving of self-determination and fulfill their obligations as peaceable nations in a much broader context of oppression than the Palestinians face. Yet these worthy and dignified peoples are denied repeatedly.
Carter, as a native of Georgia, should have a better understanding of the devastation that occurs when a nation divides upon itself violently, and a people refuses to accede to even the most basic recognition of human existence for some part of the population. Atlanta burned in 1864 as southerners reacted violently to the will of the broader nation, and exactly 100 years later the same horror revisited the Deep South during the nonviolent Civil Rights movement.
The success of Civil Rights in the 1960s, or India in the 1940s, or South Africa in the 1980s owes everything to nonviolent perseverance. Israel's only option is to contain a violent threat to her existence that disavows the recognition of that right. Until Palestinians embrace Israel's right to exist and decide for themselves that self-determination cannot come about without peaceful action on their part, nothing can change.
The time has come to acknowledge the tremendous restraint that Israel has shown to Palestinians who have chosen to wreak havoc upon civilians of both populations. To contain a bellicose group is a rational and responsible action of a threatened nation. Until Palestinians desist from wanton action and come to peaceful existence with the Jewish state, Israel has no choice but to contain the Palestinians.
It is regrettable that Jimmy Carter, a man who established himself as a peacemaker, has chosen a path that puts him at odds with the very ideals that he once brought to the table. The violent action of Palestinians has brought about the current situation, and only Palestinians can bring the change that ends containment and confinement.
The Palestinians can outlaw Hamas and Fatah more quickly than Israel can. Individual Palestinians can choose a path of nonviolence. Israel has elected to demonstrate the restraint so often denied to Jewish populations, and coexist with her neighbors as long as those neighbors do not take steps to attack.
Reason is on the side of the Jewish state. Israel has never committed an unprovoked atack upon a sovereign neighbor, and has taken steps to find peaceful relationships with the hostile states surrounding her. The Palestinians have failed to govern themselves ethically or peacefully, with infighting as rampant as terrorism against Israel.
Tragically, the Palestinians need the old Jimmy Carter; his integrity; his commitment to peace and human rights; his decency...and he is nowhere to be found.
The preceding ideas do not identify a man who expresses the role of Israel in conflict with the Palestinians as "Apartheid." How quickly did former President Carter forget the celebrations by fanatics in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah, while our genuine and sincere ally was dispatching their terror response team before the towers turned to dust in the streets of lower Manhattan.
A man, a leader and a peacemaker, has shown his back to the ideals he once swore to uphold as President. Carter appears to have surrendered the integrity which was once his trademark and greatest quality. Even Carter's detractors were unable to dismiss his credibility as a force for decency and honor in the world.
About ten years ago, some large flaws began to appear in Carter's integrity, from his sanction of the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to his budding relationships with Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe. At the time there was room for accepting Carter as a dignitary with the objective of furthering America's image at home and abroad, owing to his connection with Habitat for Humanity and pivotal role (with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias) in the Central American Peace Process.
It is telling that during a joint interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, even his former Vice-President Walter Mondale expressed reservation concerning Carter's recent book. Vice-President Mondale showed great grace and tact, deferring specific commentary until he had the opportunity to articulate his concerns to Mr. Carter in private. Mondale revealed the quality of man that he is, and the continuing level of reason that he brought to the discourse.
To equate the issues of Palestinian statehood with Apartheid diminishes the value of the long struggle of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to bring justice and human rights to a long-oppressed majority in South Africa. There is no relationship between a fundamentally peaceful movement (in South Africa) and a militant Intifada.
There has been, from the outset, recognition and an atmosphere of protection for the rights of white South Africans. While there have been instances of retribution in South Africa, the transition to Majority Government cannot be characterized as a systematic process designed to abase a population which had abused its authority for so long.
In contrast, the Palestinians have relied solely upon violence as their bargaining chip. No concession has been made for the Israeli right to exist peaceably. Should Israel take steps to defend herself from military operations undertaken with the tacit economic support of nations such as Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Israel is accused of tyranny.
Hamas and Fatah are not friends of democracy, peace, nor human rights. As so many in America have stated eloquently, the only people who would survive nonviolence are the Palestinians. Were Israel to unilaterally demilitarize on Monday, Israel would cease to exist by Friday.
The question as it exists for Palestinian statehood is that such a condition depends upon Palestinian willingness to bring statehood. Intifada is not only apart from a path to statehood, it is an obstacle the size of the Pacific Ocean. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Junior, and Nelson Mandela succeeded through nonviolence and acceptance that coexistence is fundamental.
A people cannot be seen as human if they deny the humanity of their neighbors. Stateless people are not awarded an existence as a nation in the modern world by virtue of espousing an ideology of hatred and retaliation. Sometimes people, such as the Kurds and the Tibetians, are deserving of self-determination and fulfill their obligations as peaceable nations in a much broader context of oppression than the Palestinians face. Yet these worthy and dignified peoples are denied repeatedly.
Carter, as a native of Georgia, should have a better understanding of the devastation that occurs when a nation divides upon itself violently, and a people refuses to accede to even the most basic recognition of human existence for some part of the population. Atlanta burned in 1864 as southerners reacted violently to the will of the broader nation, and exactly 100 years later the same horror revisited the Deep South during the nonviolent Civil Rights movement.
The success of Civil Rights in the 1960s, or India in the 1940s, or South Africa in the 1980s owes everything to nonviolent perseverance. Israel's only option is to contain a violent threat to her existence that disavows the recognition of that right. Until Palestinians embrace Israel's right to exist and decide for themselves that self-determination cannot come about without peaceful action on their part, nothing can change.
The time has come to acknowledge the tremendous restraint that Israel has shown to Palestinians who have chosen to wreak havoc upon civilians of both populations. To contain a bellicose group is a rational and responsible action of a threatened nation. Until Palestinians desist from wanton action and come to peaceful existence with the Jewish state, Israel has no choice but to contain the Palestinians.
It is regrettable that Jimmy Carter, a man who established himself as a peacemaker, has chosen a path that puts him at odds with the very ideals that he once brought to the table. The violent action of Palestinians has brought about the current situation, and only Palestinians can bring the change that ends containment and confinement.
The Palestinians can outlaw Hamas and Fatah more quickly than Israel can. Individual Palestinians can choose a path of nonviolence. Israel has elected to demonstrate the restraint so often denied to Jewish populations, and coexist with her neighbors as long as those neighbors do not take steps to attack.
Reason is on the side of the Jewish state. Israel has never committed an unprovoked atack upon a sovereign neighbor, and has taken steps to find peaceful relationships with the hostile states surrounding her. The Palestinians have failed to govern themselves ethically or peacefully, with infighting as rampant as terrorism against Israel.
Tragically, the Palestinians need the old Jimmy Carter; his integrity; his commitment to peace and human rights; his decency...and he is nowhere to be found.
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