Yo soy un migrante. A pesar que yo naci un norteamericano de la tercera generacion, mi hogar es con la comunidad hispana de Atlanta. El espanol suena en mi hogar, con el ritmo de Bachata y Salsa. Mi comida es tanto arroz con gandules y chuletas que hamburguesas y papas fritas.
I am an immigrant. Although I was born a third-generation American, my home is with the Atlanta hispanic community. Spanish is spoken in my home, with the rhythm of Bachata and Salsa. My food is as much rice and beans and pork chops as it is hamburgers and fries.
Hemos visto una bendicion en las ultimas semanas. Los candidatos presidenciales del partido republicano que han invertido sus campanas con discurso anti-migrante han caido en el voto. En dos primarias en estados adonde la poblacion es principalmente de gente blanca, de descendencia anglosajona, el rechazo fue completo por los dos peores, Tancredo y Hunter. Romney no pudo sobresalir sobre sus oponentes para ganar mas que segundo plazo.
We have seen a blessing in the past weeks. The Republican candidates who have invested their campaigns with anti-immigrant speech have fallen in the vote. In two primaries in states where the population is principally white and anglo-saxon, the rejection was complete for the two worst, Tancredo and Hunter. Romney could not overcome his opponents for better than second place.
Mas informativo es saber que Romney invertio US$20.000.000 para quedar detras un predicador Bautista si fondos en Iowa (Mike Huckabee), y el escritor de la ley Comprensiva de Reforma Migratoria en New Hampshire (John McCain). !La proxima vez que Romney quiere botar su dinero por el retrete, ojala que bote un porcentaje de esta cantidad en el retrete mio! Tapalo, con mi permiso.
More telling is the knowledge that Romney invested twenty million dollars to wind up behind a Baptist preacher without money in Iowa (Mike Huckabee), and the author of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in New Hampshire (John McCain). The next time Romney wants to throw his money down the commode, I hope he throws a percentage down my commode. Clog it, with my permission.
El cambio en la comunidad hispana vendra. Pero los hispanos, migrantes, residentes, y ciudadanos (y ellos que los quieren, tambien) tienen un papel en este cambio.
Change will come in the hispanic community. But hispanics, immigrants, residents, and citizens (and those who love them too) have a role in this change.
Para los migrantes, hay una necesidad de asimilarse. Igual que se siente ofensa cuando un turista norteamericano viene a un lugar iberoamericano sin poder comunicar, el norteamericano siente ofensa cuando el iberoamericano rechaza la cultura (y el idioma) dominante.
For immigrants, there is a need for assimilation. As one feels offense when an American tourist arrives in Latin America unable to communicate, the American feels offense when the Latin American rejects the dominant language and culture.
Eso no significa dar la espalda a la lengua espanola, ni negar las cosas que distinguen la cultura hispana, solo aumentar tal identidad con el reconocimiento que el idioma principal en los Estados Unidos es ingles. Si se espera esta cortesia en su pais, hay que servir con el ejemplo.
This does not mean turning one's back on the Spanish language, nor negating the things that distinguish hispanic culture, merely adding such an identity with the recognition that the principal language in the United States is English. If one expects this courtesy at home, one must serve as the example.
Para los residentes, por favor, de la manera mas rapida posible, conviertete en ciudadano. Para ciudadanos, inscribese para votar tan pronto que pueda. A travez de la votacion se puede exigir cambio de politica en Washington y el capital de su estado. Leyes que afectan al hispano en forma negativa mueren cuando los afectados hacen que suenan sus voces.
For legal residents, please, become a citizen as quickly as possible. For citizens, register to vote as soon as you can. Through voting one can demand change in Washington and their state capital. Laws which negatively affect hispanic constituents die when the affected parties make their voices heard.
Para todos, no es solo un asunto de educarse a si mismo, sino un asunto de educar a los alrededor. Hay que dedicarse a conocer la gente diferente-de otro idioma, otra cultura, otra apariencia. Asi, se quita la manta de un ajeno. Se cesa de ser el extranjero, y se convierte en Juan o Maria (para aprovechar de unos nombres comunes, jeje).
For everyone, it is not only a matter of educating oneself, if not educating those nearby. One must be dedicated to meeting different people, from other languages, other cultures, other appearances. In this way one removers the mantle of being foreign. One ceases to be a stranger, and becomes Juan or Maria. (To use common names, he he.)
Antes de encontrar aceptancia, primero hay que ser reconocido como humano. Es un desafio. Hay una pequena poblacion que jamas vera a un hispano como humano. Este numero es acaso diez porciento de la poblacion. A decir, nueve de diez se puede convencer de su valor como ser humano.
Before finding acceptance, one first must be recognized as human. It is a challenge. There is a small population which will never accept a hispanic as human. That number is maybe ten per cent of the population. To say, nine out of ten can be convinced of one's value as a human being.
A la persona nueva le toca hacer el primer paso de amistad en la cultura norteamericana. La mayoria de los norteamericanos son de buena voluntad, y dispuestos para romper las barreras entre si. Pero las posibilidades quedan en las manos de los hispanos mismos.
The newcomer is expected to make the first step toward friendship in the American culture. The majority of Americans are of good will, and disposed to breaking barriers. But the possibilities lie in the hands of hispanics themselves.
10 January 2008
20 October 2007
Holy Places, Absent Friends, and Fallen Heroes
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.
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.
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?
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