Truth and Illusion

Tucson, Arizona. Religious leaders met recently with Congresswoman Giffords in her Tucson office to encourage her to try introduce sane legislation regarding the border and our immigration situation. Not surprisingly, having IQ’s exceeding that of a cinder block, the leaders oppose a 700 mile wall approved by the Bush Administration, well aware that a wall is merely something dug under, climbed over, or gone around, save perhaps, as our Congresswoman has noted, in specific urban concentrations where a well constructed wall might make some sense, but even then, one has to pay attention to what happens under the ground.

Like schizophrenics, we live in fantasy. The war on drugs is as much of a lie as prohibition. Congress passes the law and then heads to the speakeasy. Who is fooling whom on the border and immigration? Kooks want to torture those that come across by denying them access to medical treatment (Graf). Think that one out systemically. Our economy has organized dependence on this labor, and we pretend it hasn’t. We "pretend" those who have been working, earning wages, paying taxes, and living here for years are "criminals" and that we will be better off if we deport them (Pierce). Some of us grow so paranoid we think Muslims will take over Congress (Goode).

Our federal courts are so swamped that actual prosecution of border offenses is limited to crossers with prior convictions or engaged in serious drug trafficking. Otherwise, the case is dismissed. They cannot handle the load. To get serious about this, we are going to hire how many judges and attorneys? Well, at least we have lots of extra space in our prisons to handle those we catch.

Speaking of all the extra space we have in our prison system, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a set of folks prospering most heartily over our country’s obsession with throwing kids in jail for smoking marijuana, has been found guilty of discrimination IN FAVOR of Hispanics at the Florence facility. Of course, those managing the place certainly aren’t adopting practices associated with the inmate population, which has what demographics?

Your humble blogger was deeply wounded Thursday night when I checked the news and learned of the Rodeo parade catastrophe. Suddenly the bulb went off, and I felt sick. We were warned this would happen, and not subtly. Last year in almost the same location almost the exact same thing happened and hurt the very Mayor himself and wacked his wife temporarily unconscious and then loopy for several weeks. What happened last year was more scary and worse than the press reported. In my world, that was the universe trying to tell the community we had an issue. Whether we noticed or not, as far as I know none of us did anything.

No one can credibly point a finger at anyone on this one. Shame on all of us. What we are now going to do (get our shit together around safety) we should have done when the Mayor was almost killed, before a five year old got trampled to death.

Finally, Oscars are tomorrow, and Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth is nominated for several, including "best song." There is speculation he could take the stage and announce something. Hmmm.

There was a song in that film?