Huddled Masses

Just when you thought national politics couldn’t get any duller, same ol' war in Iraq, same ol' deficits, same ol' Republican lying and corruption, along comes the Bush administration’s push to reform immigration policy.

This one’s great, a true breath of fresh air. It’s got everything.

It’s got liberal churches offering to shield illegal immigrants and liberal labor unions wanting to stop them from undermining wages.

It’s got economic conservatives insisting that guest worker status provides needed labor at affordable rates and social conservatives seeing us turn into “Alta Mexico”.

It’s got moderates who oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants but who support granting access to public health for heath’s sake and moderates who support granting driver’s licenses but don’t want to punish businesses who just didn’t know they were hiring someone illegal.

It’s got blacks and Hispanics talking about South Central L.A. then and South Central L.A. now.

It’s great political drama. Whether it goes anywhere is anyone’s guess.

My guess is that something will happen just because it’s an election year and the GOP needs something to declare victory on. Make illegal entry a felony and they please the Hard Right. Offer a guest worker pass appeases business when you’re also enacting mandatory employment verification checks with the gum’mint. Best of all for the GOP, it splits the Dems while not pissing off their own base enough (like, where are they going anyway?). Demos who support a harder line risk alienating their own base but opposing it loses the moderates.

The bottom line is that without some form of real employment verification, no fence or anything makes a difference. I’ve actually seen the future of employment verification, at a conference I attended in 2004. It’ll work like this.

At some point in the near future, everyone who wants to work will be required to own a state I.D. or driver’s license. That card will have a specific code detailing your work status. When you apply for a job, the card will be read into a computer system which log on to a national network which will do a comprehensive background check across all fifty states and the federal government, and participating foreign governments as well.

This process will record whether or not the employer has performed an actual check. If they have employees on the payroll who haven’t been recorded as verified, then the gum’mint slams the door on the employer. This would address the biggest hole in immigration control, the lack of any incentive for employers to not hire illegal immigrants.

State driver’s licenses were the ticket, it was felt, because they’re something everyone already knows and feels comfortable with. Put in a national work I.D. and everyone screams “Big Brother.” Just up gun the ol’ driver’s license, the national medal of ascending adulthood and no one will say a thing except the usual cranks.

I’ve seen the future and it’s coming on the back of a plastic card. I hear the present and it sounds like a lot of maneuvering for the 2006 midterm elections. Where will it end? We’ll know manana.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again ...

Found on the Internet:

Here's what Republicans said about Clinton and Kosovo:

Why did they second-guess our commitment to freedom from genocide and demand that we cut and run?

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will beaway from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

Why did they demoralize our brave men and women in uniform?

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missiles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missiles."-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement.

There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

Why didn't they support our president in a time of war?

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."-Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)

"You can support the troops but not the president"-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

“For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Why did they blame America first?

"Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) "Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country" -Pat Buchanan (R)

"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."-Michael Savage

"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals." -Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation." -Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)

"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty.

For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia." -Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media

Firefly

I once dated myself by mentioning offhand at a Star Trek Trek convention that I was one of the kids who saw the original series when it originally aired back in the ‘60s. All conversation around me stopped. Then one fellow looked at me quizzically and asked, “How old –are- you?”

It was an article of Trekkie religion at the time was that almost no one watched the original series (a claim since disproved) and that it revived only by being “discovered” by kids watching second hand teevees during ‘70s syndication. The original series aired in some mystical, long gone time, seen only by time travelers or someone’s grandparents. I wasn't old enough to be a granddaddy, so I must have just beamed in from 1967.

Trekkiers love the show in part because Star Trek set the tone for successful televised science fiction. You get your aliens, half-nekkid green (or blue) women and galactic conflicts between Clearly Good and Clearly Evil and you're off. Star Wars reached ridiculous heights of success because they pared it down to the bare essentials. Recent successes such as Farscape, Andromeda and Stargate finds the formula as good today as it ever was.

The problem is that it’s completely unscientific.

There’s little chance that we’ll find some easy way to zip around space faster than light in vessels seemingly immune to G forces.

There’s no requirement that our civilization can only reach this point must after having developed into an ideal, a la the Federation of Star Trek.

There’s almost no chance that we’ll find dozens of other humanoidish species who just happen to look like us, plus or minus a pointed ear or amplified forehead bone structure, at a technological level amazingly similar to ours.

The biigest reason we won't go bumping into Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons and Andorians out there is time. Carl Sagan drew this out well in his Cosmos series. If humans are any indication, it takes millions and millions of years to stand upright and invent the telephone. Any other race out there is either going to be thousands or millions of years behind us, meaning we’ll be talking to some form of proto-caveman at best; or thousands or millions of years ahead of us, which means us trying to open up conversation with them will be like us trying to make small talk with to an ant.

In short, when we go, there’s going to be nothing more out there to talk to except us.

The distances are so great that communication between solar systems will be sporadic at best. Those who leave Earth to set up colonies out there are leaving to set up whole new worlds, not “colonies” as Europeans put around Earth.

Also, as we certainly saw in Europe, migrating peoples and cultures don’t have to be perfect to decide to move over the next ocean or just the next hill. All they need is motivation and ‘I WANT LAND!!” seems good enough to go on.

So all my life I’ve waited for a TV series which would show the “real” future, real people living in an alien-free environment with all the usual human foibles and failures.

After decades of waiting, I finally got it in Firefly, which debuted in fall 2002. Unfortunately, it was too real and didn’t last past several months. (Maybe if they’d added some half-nekkid alien women …).

The show, in summary, was about a future human civilization (which removed the need for "warp drive" to get around) which has left a thoroughly trashed Earth for a much larger solar system which was terraformed to provide new living space. The more developed worlds coalesced into an Alliance. Thinking that it's wrong to keep a good thing to itself, these planets went on crusade to bring culture and light to the less developed outer colonized worlds, which wanted to go their own way, but needed to get civilized (according to the Alliance) whether they liked it or not. It was good for them.

The key cast members are survivors of the losing side, sort of rootless Confederates after the Civil War. The winning is cast as bad guys, but that’s through the eyes of the losers, like Rebs would see the Yanks in 1870.

But the Alliance is sorta bad, although its badness is hidden under an outward parliamentary democracy. It has a nasty bit of “black ops” arising out of and past the war which is fueled by a missionary zeal that representing the forces of light allows them to do just about any damn thing they want as long as it’s for the right purpose or goal.

Sound familiar?

Fox was leery from the start, according to the directors and all. It didn’t “grab” people quick enough, they said. They wanted, without saying it, half-nekkid women and gun battles to start with. "Grabbers."

The show was certainly action packed. But the appeal was the gradual revealing of the characters and the scenario, the grey area between good and evil based on perspective. There was no Darth Vader or Klingon horde. The Alliance wasn’t “good”, but the heroes weren’t really heroes either, just survivors. It was that moral ambiguity which made the show so damn appealing, along with the realistic scenario of human colonization. But Fox Network, for whom morality is a foreign concept, couldn’t get this and pulled the plug after just a few months.

Fortunately, there are conventions and even more fortunately, there is Netflix. This is a series worth watching. Check out the series, and then follow up with last year’s movie, Serenity, which brings many of the show’s developing themes to a head. This is must see teevee for thinking sci-fi fans.

In fact, half the fun is reading all the fan commentary on the various forums arguing over whether the show promotes socialist, libertarian or conservative values. There's plenty of ammunition (no pun intended) for any, all or none.

There’s talk of it being picked up by Sci-Fi Channel or maybe teevee movies. I dunno. The movie added some twists to the story which will have to be worked around, but it’s still worth trying. I’m still optimistic enough to hope that there’s a real chance for real sci-fi. Heck, if I can believe in Mr. Spock, I can believe in anything.

March Madness

Ah, March Madness is here. And I have to care.

I don't really care. I didn't go to a college with a real basketball team, I've never followed the Warriors or Kings very closely and I can't hit a free throw unless I'm three feet from the basket.

But I'm a tall, African American guy so every stranger assumes I'm following the tournament.

It started years ago while I stood waiting for the bus or train in the S.F. Bay Area. I'm a friendly looking fellow, so friendly strangers came up to me and asked, "Some game between Middle Utah State and Bumphuq U. last night eh? I mean, -triple overtime-! Didja think that last three pointer would go through?"

I had, and still don't have, any idea of what this person's talking about. But I was a captive audience. My back was to the wall. I had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. So I agreed with him.

"Yep."

This was followed with a little more running commentary from the happy stranger, followed by a couple more "yep"s on my part. In the meantime, I'm scanning what he's saying for the name of a school, any school, I've heard of. If I didn't hear anything, I'd go for some safe diversion.

"I had a friend who went to UCLA."

"UCLA?!", the friendly guy would say. "Why they're (insert commentary about their recent fortunes here)."

If they're in the tournament, I'd say I respect their tradition. If not, then I'd say I miss having that tradition in the tournament.

By this time, if the train or bus is in sight, I smile and move to queue up. If not, then it's time to go for the save.

"The Final Four's cool in that it ends right up against the start of baseball. I thinking of going to the (Giants or A's) opening game. Whaddaya think?"

Whew. That usually ended it. Finally, things returned to normalcy. And usually just in time.

Fortunately, I don't ride transit nearly as much these days. But I still have to dodge this mess at water coolers, over conference calls and at the supermarket. Good thing this "madness" comes once a year. I don't think I could take much more.

How to Make A Statement

Here's why the antiwar movement can't gain traction. It needs to come up with more interesting forms of political expression, like some folks south of the border:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- More than 1,500 Venezuelans shed their clothes on a main city avenue Sunday to pose for American photographer Spencer Tunick, forming a human mosaic in front of a national symbol: a statue of independence hero Simon Bolivar.

More

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Meanwhile, we're stuck with Ramsey Clark and ANSWER. We're pathetic.

Xtians on the Down Stroke

From the Interfaith Alliance newsletter:

Momentum, Numbers Wane At Christian Conservative’s Activist Weekend
“In a sanctuary decked with red, white and blue banners, hundreds of Christian activists will gather at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale starting today to rally around a common goal: claiming America for Christ. These lobbyists for Jesus want more than souls. For two days, rising stars on the religious right will promote prayer in schools, a ban on gay marriage, an end to abortion and abolition of tax rules preventing pastors from endorsing candidates.

But in a year that has delivered arguable victories to Christian conservatives -- including two Supreme Court appointments -- some leaders on the Christian right say they now face an unexpected challenge: keeping their base motivated for what's shaping up to be a long, difficult and expensive fight. But the momentum that brought record numbers of believers to the polls in 2004 has waned. In a year of large-scale natural disasters, Christian charitable dollars have been redirected from political causes to relief efforts.

And -- perhaps most damaging of all -- scandals involving former House Majority leader Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff have discouraged some Christians.” (Miami Herald, “Christian activism lags as S. Fla. rally opens,” 03-17-06)

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I guess beating up on gays only goes so far. I wonder who's next?

Maybe this explains the growing racket about "immigration reform." The targets both easier to see (brown skin, black hair) yet still frighteningly invisible while near (the guy who mows your lawn).

I'm kind of sad in a way. It's the end of an era. Black folks just aren't scary enough to make good whipping boys anymore. Sigh ...

The Luck of the Irish

I’ll never understand the phrase “the luck of the Irish”. It always sounded more like a curse.

The Irish. Before the English arrived to make them miserable they fought with the Vikings who made them miserable before which they fought among themselves making themselves miserable. In the meantime, they turned self-medicating the misery into a high art form.

What luck? In the movie “The Commitments” the band manager tells the gang that they oughta sing soul music because they’re the “blacks of Europe”. This is lucky?

The only good luck is living in lovely Ireland in the first place. Even that’s qualified because the beauty is due in good part to lousy weather. Which leads to lots of seasonal affect disorder which leads to more self-medication.

Not that I’m complaining. Easter comes late this year so St. Patrick’s Day offers the only holiday for a long month since President’s Day. And we all know how exciting that is. So the Irish “luck” works for me. Even if it doesn’t work for them at all.

Blue State/Red State/Kurd State

So everyone's now wailing that Iraq is in a state of awful civil war.

If so, it ought to tell us something.

That they simply don't wanna live together. So let them live apart.

There's nothing sacred about Iraqi nationhood. The country only exists because Winston Churchill thought it was a good idea. There is clearly little sense of nationhood today. So let 'em go. Split the country up into three pieces and let them go their separate ways.

The current constitution almost does that, creating a federal system which makes the Canadians seem tight-reared. So just go all the way.

Let the Kurds join the 21st century, let the Sunnis relive the glorious 1970's under Saddam and let the Shiites march back to those heady days right after the Prophet went on to glory.

Iraq is currently a shotgun marriage. The current fighting and screaming and yelling and killing and all could be gotten rid of if we simply let the divorce take place. Sure, the Shiites get oil and the Sunnis get sand right off the top, but this is the kind of stuff good divorce lawyers know how to handle. If there's anything we Americans know to do well, it's divorce. We can do this.

Otherwise, it's just more of the same, and this story is getting old. The bombs go off, the soldiers shoot at insurgents, the Democrats whine and do nothing and the Reps fret and talk about Mexicans sneaking over the border. We're doing nothing but enabling the Iraqis in their doomed marriage, and like any dysfunctional relationship it's bringing everybody down.

So let's bring in some of Hollywood's best marriage terminators and put an end to the pain.

Who knows, maybe they'll find new partners. The Kurds might get into the European Union before the Turks do. The Shiites might find love with the theocracy next door. And the Sunnis, well, the Sunnis will probably never leave home.

But at least they'll be happy. Happier. Well, at least "be". And then we can finally go home.

Barry Bonds

My dear wife finds this inconsistent with my generally high moral nature, but I’m all that aroused over revelations of Barry Bonds’ steroid use.

First, it’s not news to me. I’d long assumed he’d used ‘em during the late ‘90s and early ‘00’s, at least. He confirmed it to me when he publicly admitted he’d used them, but without his knowledge. Smart man, I thought. He was obviously setting himself up for any later word that he’d used ‘em. He could then say, again, “Yes, I did, but again, I just didn’t know.”

He knew of course. And his knowledge allowed him and the other sluggers of the era to bring on some of the most exciting baseball in history.

I don’t thank him for it. But I respect the show he put on.

“But isn’t it cheating?” Well, sort of. But not in a way that matters. First, steroids aren’t Underdog-style power pills. You don’t just take them and turn superhuman overnight. Marvin Benard took steroids too, and he never moved down from the leadoff spot. Barry, like the others, used them to supplement a training regimen that my current middle-aged body would run from (although I can do five miles on the exercycle without gasping now.)

You see, the steroid-fueled training regimens gave us exactly what we wanted, an entertaining show. It’s similar to Pavarotti drinking some magic potion to make his voice even prettier than usual. We like the show, we like the sound, and we got it. And paid for it. And will continue to pay for it. With Barry in the lineup, the Giants pull three million into Phone Company Park and almost as many on the road. The cash register will just keep ringing. Ever more so, because Bonds is now even more of a spectacle. We love spectacles.

“But he needs to be an example for our youth”! If my son spends more time worrying listening to Barry than me, the fault’s on me, not Barry.

Of course steroid use is wrong. It’s wrong because it’s unhealthy. They’re destructive to mind and body. They should be banned and athletes tested. That’s the good that’s come out of all this.

In the meantime, I will love Barry even more. I’ve just finished the Sports Illustrated piece which shows him to be a whiny, self-obsessed overgrown adolescent. The perfect anti-hero for baseball. Every game is opera, and Barry is the high-strung diva. Love it.

Since I’m not about to spend any personal time with him, I can and will enjoy the show. The best part is all the huffing and puffing from writers who just can’t stand Barry shrugging them off. The more they fume the more fun I have. Baseball is a game, that’s all. For those of us out here in the real world, it’s an escape. Sportswriters can’t see that because it’s their only world. Poor dears. They’re missing an awful lot of fun.

Longtime San Francisco Giants sportswriter Glenn Dickey says it better on his Web site. In the meantime, buy a ticket. I promise you a summer of thrills, spills and thoroughly annoyed sportswriters. Is this a great country or what?

The McCain Factor

One of the weirdest things going on around Liberaldom these days is admiration for Senator John McCain.

“Oh, he’s so –principled-!”, I hear.

Yeah, but in this governing coalition that really doesn’t require working very hard.

John McCain has one of the worst voting records in Congress. Why the love?

Is it simply fear that anything’s better than whatever the Bush White House anoints as successor emperor-in-chief?

Is that there’s no one with any personality on the Dem side, so that even a McCain seems intriguing?

Are people hoping to see the ghost of Barry Goldwater, the last honest Western conservative, arise out of the good senator?

Is it that he was willing to take on major league baseball over the steroids issue? After all, any man who can stare down Mark McGwire must be a real man.

The mind boggles. The political mind boggles even more.

Personally, I don’t think he’ll get two feet in the primaries. The Rep forces who run the Bush world has stacked enough party machines in enough advance states to dump him early, helped in good part by the right wing Crusaders who work so well on the ground in key states.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the liberal love of the doomed but righteous cause. That’s gotta be it. Because nothing else makes sense.

Walmart to the Rescue

Walmart's response to the recent spate of health care laws targeted at them is to say that it's time for government to do something about health care costs and coverage.

I say it's time to welcome Walmart about the progressive bandwagon on this issue.

When national health care policy finally arrives, it'll do so riding on the backs of the capitalist owner class. The choice for them is simple. Unable to provide health care coverage themselves, they either roll on to the back of their workers or we have a collective approach which removes it as an employment issue.

It comes about as much due to the changing nature of the workplace as anything else. When we all worked thirty years for the same company, the health care provider could count on years of youth and relative health to pay for age and ill health. That's not the case today. People rip through job after job with less worry. Heck, when I lived in the Bay Area the standard boss's plea was, "Can you stay for at least two years?"

Cradle to grave health insurance can only work through the only agency which follows us from cradle to grave, the government. So we need to give 'em the job, already.

In that, we liberal types need to stop pounding on Walmart and welcome them aboard. They've got the corporate cachet and, best of all, the money, to make this happen.

If nothing else, it'll make 'em a lot cheerier to work for. It's just hard to listen to employees being dressed down over the loudspeaker. At least let them know they've got coverage to deal with the headaches which come with the job.