Some Turning Points

An end-of-year tradition has become the making of lists. I have one – top of the head (and of the moment - I might possibly be leaving something out - as memory is tricky), but about turning points in my life. This end-of-year tradition is good enough timing for me even if most end-of-year lists attempt to define the closing year (or decade etc.) or somehow to place a particular focus on certain events in the past year. These lists tend to be “best” lists, though more and more there seems to be a trend toward “favorites” or most this or that lists. The number of things listed is arbitrary - ten wasn't enough - I settled for 12 but even that wasn't quite enough.

My list is both more simple and more complex and has nothing in particular to do with the past year or decade, etc. Perhaps the passing of my life but not really as intend to live through additional decades. My list is about influences or “turning points.” My list is one of writings, events, music that caused a profound change in my outlook, my actions, my habits. Mostly I am (as yet) unable to articulate the changes beyond the simple realization that the items on the list changed the direction of my life.

As an example, as a boy well into puberty (I don’t remember my age), I once stumbled across a little bookstore in Odessa, Texas that was all within a single room of a house. I liked to read (had learned to read “The Little Red Hen” before first grade). I remember that I was on my way to a school event and was early with time to spare and I stayed in the bookstore looking at the books. One book – I have no idea what the title was or who wrote it – caught my attention and as I read about boys and masturbation I suddenly knew that my own world was a world inhabited by others who also had similar experiences and concerns. It changed my life utterly – knowing that I wasn’t some weirdness on the flotsam of humanity. But enough. Dear readers (if such I have) here is the very personal list of the most life-changing events during my 60+ odd years:

1. Some book (title and author unknown) read in a little bookstore in Odessa, Texas (see above).

2. Something of Value, a movie directed by Richard Brooks

3. Report to Greco and Zorba the Greek, books by Nikos Kazantzakis

4. The History of Western Philosophy, a book by Bertrand Russell

5. Jules et Jim, a movie directed by François Truffaut (starring Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, and Henri Serre)

6. This is It and Other Essays, a book by Alan Watts

7. The Lost Son and Other Poems, a collection of poetry by Theodore Rothke

8. Thus Spake Zarathustra, a book by Friedrich Nietzsche

9. Siddartha and Demian, books by Hermann Hesse

10. The poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko

11. The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay

12. The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford

I could have also included the 1969 "People's Park" March in Berkeley or the late '60's Veterans Peace March in San Francisco with a handful of veterans of the Spanish American War. Something about those will need to wait for possible future postings. Also, this is not a list of favorites - I would include many different movies, books and poems. Any such lists must also be separate posts.

From Every End of the Earth - Just Like Us

I don't much read the Washington Post web site anymore but there do continue to be bits of reporting and writing worth the time. Nancy Trejos has a book review of From Every End of This Earth by Steven Roberts that has caused me to add the book to my "want to buy" list.

But the true sacrifice is made for the children. I've learned this from my own experience as the U.S.-born child of a Colombian father and Ecuadorian mother. My parents arrived in New York City with no college degrees and unable to speak English. But they found jobs -- my father served food to patients at a Manhattan hospital, my mother cleaned Park Avenue apartments by day and midtown offices by night -- and managed to save enough money to buy a house in Queens and send me to Georgetown University.

Roberts focuses much of the book on children like me -- Generation Next. "Being a child of immigrants can be a complicated way to grow up," he writes. "Generation Next is often pulled between the past and the future, between celebrating their own tradition and creating their own identity."

Postscript:

I may be on a roll - here's another book to add to my list of "must read" books: Just Like Us.

There are few books that can juggle both the human emotion and struggle against the controversial political backdrop that is America as well as Helen Thorpe’s “Just Like Us.” An accomplished journalist, Thorpe not only engaged in relationships with the stars of the book for 5 years, but uncovered the true face behind the issue of immigration. As the wife of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, she treaded carefully and reported on the issue and its players throughout the years with skill.

. . . and a Happy New Year!

I don't much mind Garrison Keillor's rant on the UU propensity to change things (holy or not). I'll let it mostly pass but would like to share a quote with Garrison from Earl W. Count, 4,000 Years of Christmas:

Shall we liken Christmas to the web in a loom? There are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding.

Dulaman

Remembering old snowfalls

Yeh, we had a little snow in Houston yesterday reminding me of a snowstorm on February 4, 1956 in Plainview, Texas. Not because of any resemblance between the storms, but because of the rarity of the event. We seldom get snow in Houston, at least on the ground for longer than a nanosecond. The February 1956 snowstorm in Plainview set a record for for most snowfall in Texas for a 24-hour period. We had 24 inches over the course of a full day and night - for you finger-counters, that is an inch of snow an hour. We lived in a two-story house just to the north of Plainview in Seth Ward and on the back (north) side of the house we had a snowdrift that completely blocked view of the house.

Well, checking on the Internet I find that the record has been broken by a March 2009 snowfall in Follett, Texas (in the Panhandle).

Heavy snow accompanied by strong winds and blizzard conditions, occurred between the mornings of March 27 and March 28, 2009 across the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. The most snowfall recorded in the Texas Panhandle occurred in Follett, Texas where a record-setting 25.0 inches of snow fell between 8 a.m. March 27 and 8 a.m. March 28. This surpasses the previous record 24-hour snowfall for the state of Texas which was 24.0 inches and occurred in Plainview, Texas on February 4, 1956.

I've no idea what the 24-hour record in Houston might be.

aida

Happy Independence Day

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
Erma Bombeck

got to walk it by yourself

congressional option for all of us

I agree with Eric Wattree's assessment of the healthcare "debate" in congress and wonder why can't we get the congressional option?

There's at least one thing that Republicans do much better than Democrats, and that's marketing their initiatives. It doesn't matter how regressive the idea, Republicans manage to frame it in a way that if you oppose it you look like you're either degenerate, or at the very least, un-American. For example, instead of accurately calling themselves "The Order of Religious Bigots Dedicated to Shoving Our Version of God Down America's Throat," they market their insanity as "The Moral Majority," and instead of being honest and calling themselves "The Public Vagina Brigade," they call themselves "The Right to Life" proponents (even though they're willing to let that very same life starve to death after it's born). Conservatives get a lot of milage out of their creativity in this area, and progressives would do well to follow suit.

lessons of compassion

First, let me say that I do not automatically rejoice at the news that some human error has caused a dose of public embarrassment upon one of the moral leaders in our society - in this case, Cardinal O’Hara High School President William J. McCusker in Springfield, PA. Any past pomposity or public sneering at lesser souls raises the meter to "automatic rejoicing." I know no such thing in this unfortunate case. Second, let me also admit that a hope always arises in my mind (perhaps in my heart) that there is a lesson of compassion learned for others mixed within the bitter dregs of the resulting humiliation and possible loss of paid position.

SPRINGFIELD — Cardinal O’Hara High School President William J. McCusker said he is “deeply distraught, embarrassed and ashamed” of his recent arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Peter Ludwin poetry

Peter Ludwin’s new book of poems, A Guest in All Your Houses, is now available from Word Walker Press and, shortly, from Amazon.com.

A good review of the book is online here.

I've just finished reading the book and expect to do a review shortly. Clue to review: it's a terrific collection of poems covering the geography of much of my own earlier peripatetic nosings about.

If you'll be in the Seattle area, I see online that Peter will be reading from his book on Thursday, May 28 at 7:30 p.m. at Open Books, 2414 N 45th St., Seattle.

a listing of all medal of honor recipients.

rolling along

salute

I salute our brothers and sisters in uniform and will light a special candle tomorrow for those who lost their lives while serving in the armed forces of the United States of America. This is doubtless not different from what most American will be thinking tomorrow. I take a certain pride, as an American veteran, that we recognize those who put themselves at risk for all of us.

in memoriam

de colores

simple gifts

sim

Primate Evolution

From The New York Times:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The nearly complete and remarkably preserved skeleton of a small, 47 million-year-old creature found in Germany was displayed Tuesday by scientists who said it would help illuminate the evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans. Experts praised the discovery for the level of detail it provided but said it was far from a breakthrough that would solve the puzzles of early evolution.

About the size of a small cat, the animal has four legs and a long tail. Nobody is claiming that it's a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but it provides a good indication of what a long-ago ancestor may have looked like, researchers said at a news conference.

In an evolutionary sense, the fossil is like an aunt from several generations ago, said Jens Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.

The fossil is the best preserved ever found for a primate, said Jorn Hurum, of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, one of the scientists introducing the specimen. It's about 95 percent complete, even including fingertips with nails, and lacks only the lower portion of one leg, Hurum said. It also includes gut contents, showing the creature ate leaves and fruit in its rainforest environment.

Former Postville Agriprocessors workers receive new visas

This from the Cedar Rapids gazetteonline:

POSTVILLE (AP) — Twenty former workers at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville have received visas under a law that protects crime victims.

The first wave of women and children arrested last year at the plant have been granted U-visas by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, allowing them to legally live and work in the country for four years. They can apply for green cards in the third year.

Sonia Parras-Konrad, a Des Moines attorney who led the effort, said the visas are a big step toward vindicating the immigrants and giving them justice.

“A government entity has found, indeed, that these women and children have been subjected to extreme emotional or physical harm by Agriprocessors,” Parras-Konrad said. “These people have been exploited, have been assaulted, have been humiliated, have been verbally and emotionally abused by this employer.”

To be eligible for the visas, the former workers must meet several requirements, including assisting authorities in any pertinent investigations.

God's will

"It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."

-- biblical quote from Top Secret war briefing memo prepared by Pentagon for President Bush (April 2003).

The full slideshow of memos is online here.

paying attention

Some interesting comments from Matthew Yglesias about paying attention:

Newt Gingrich knows a lot about saying stupid things and being forced out of the job as Speaker. … But one way or the other — I mean, I wasn’t in the room, you weren’t in the room, Newt Gingrich wasn’t in the room. None of us know exactly what happened there. But whatever it is Nancy Pelosi knew about, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, they knew more. And ultimately, when we have a thorough investigation of what happened, the bulk of the blame has to lie with the architects of the policy, not with a member of the opposition party.

And then, via Josh Marshall at TPM, there's this quote from The Politico looking at Leon Panetta's actual words:

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta didn't reject or deny House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's allegations that she was falsely briefed by the CIA about interrogations.

Look carefully at Panetta's statement from Friday, especially the verb tense used. "Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress." First, "let me be clear" always precedes an ambiguous statement. Without fail. Panetta isn't opining on past acts. He's referring to the current policy. He's also not saying it never happens or happened that someone lied to or misled Congress. He's saying the agency as a whole doesn't intend to.

Panetta was at his Monterey, Calif. think tank when this all happened in 2002 and 2003. He doesn't know if Pelosi was lied to. He also doesn't say he talked to the briefers and is convinced they're telling the truth. He just says the paper records say she was briefed about the techniques. We knew that already from agency statements. So he's adding his voice to the mix and sending a signal that he'll stand by his agency, but to say he sided with the briefers on the specifics is just wrong.

Again, I'm not saying Pelosi was lied to or even misled. It would seem rather brazen to do that. But Panetta's statement says less than people are claiming.

I've not always been a super fan of Rep. Pelosi but the media (to the glee of the wing-nuts) has clearly decided that she is liar based on the flimsiest "he said / she said" evidence. This is the same CIA that, at the time, was providing "slam-dunk" intelligence on Iraq to the Bush Administration. I think any judgment on all of this needs to wait for some type of 'truth commission.'

letters from postville

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega, I am the son of Consuelo Vega Nava, one of the workers that were caught in the May 12, 2008 Postville Raid at Agriprocessors, Inc. She was sentenced to five months in jail and then deported to Mexico on October 25th, 2008. She did not talk about me and my little sister because she was afraid that they would send us to jail with her. I don’t want anybody to suffer the way I did because it is very painful when they take away the one person you can always trust and count on.

The raid has affected me and my family in many ways. My nine year old sister Samantha would go into her room and “talk” to my mom while she was actually not there. My nephew who was eight months at the time, would always crawl to the front door and wait for my mom and after she would not show up, he would start to cry. As for me, instead of my mom waking me up, giving me a kiss, and sending me to school, my older sister Juanita has to do it. When I come back from school I don’t receive the warm hug that my mom used to give me and when I go to sleep I miss her goodnight kiss and her blessing for the night.

When we had mock elections in school I voted for you because I knew you were the change that this country and immigration population needs.

In school I read about a soldier in the Civil War who had to stand guard two nights in a row. On the second night he fell asleep and was sentenced to death for not doing his duty. Abraham Lincoln pardoned him and when the soldier offered to pay him with his savings Abraham Lincoln refused and told him to just do his duty.

Mr. President, I want to ask you to be like Abraham Lincoln and pardon my mother for three days so she can come to Postville on May 29, 2009 and see my graduation from 8th grade and allow me to show her that I kept my promise.

I cannot repay you with money but I assure you that I will always do my best and help people in need.

Respectfully yours,



Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega
332 North Reynolds Street
Postville, Iowa 52162


_____________________________________________________________________________________


Mrs. Michelle Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Obama,

My name is Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega, I am the son of Consuelo Vega Nava, one of the workers that were caught in the May 12, 2008 Postville Raid at Agriprocessors, Inc. She was sentenced to five months in jail and then deported to Mexico on October 25th, 2008. She did not talk about me and my little sister because she was afraid that they would send us to jail with her. I don’t want anybody to suffer the way I did because it is very painful when they take away the one person you can always trust and count on.

It has been almost a year since I last saw my mom. I know that as a mother, you can imagine how my mother must have felt spending days and nights without knowing anything about her children or her husband.

The raid has affected me and my family in many ways. My nine year old sister Samantha would go into her room and “talk” to my mom while she was actually not there. My nephew who was eight months at the time, would always crawl to the front door and wait for my mom and after she would not show up, he would start to cry. As for me, instead of my mom waking me up, giving me a kiss, and sending me to school, my older sister Juanita has to do it. When I come back from school I don’t receive the warm hug that my mom used to give me and when I go to sleep I miss her goodnight kiss and her blessing for the night.

I don’t wake up with the same desire to go to school as I used to but I get up, go to school, and do my homework because I promised my mom that I would get an education and try to be successful in life.

I would very much appreciate it if you could ask your husband to give my mother a three day visa, so she can come to Postville and see my graduation from 8th grade on May 29, 2009 and allow me to show her that I kept my promise.

Respectfully yours,


Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega
332 North Reynolds Street
Postville, Iowa 52162

Postville redux

The below quote is from a blog by the elected leadership of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), meant to help focus the national debate on the real facts about immigration and the means to achieve a just and rational system. AILA is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration laws, advance the quality of immigration law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members. The blog entry is titled Postville, One Year Later:

To the government, Postville was a cold clinical experiment. For the first time it sought to criminalize immigrants on a mass scale. In Postville, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, using the federal identity theft statute as a hammer, forged serious crimes out of mere civil immigration violations. No longer would it be enough to simply arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. They had to send them home as felons.

hey, hey

Big Bill Bronzy

Braley: Immigration reform unlikely to come soon

Iowa Independent, May 7, 2009

"On May 12, immigration reform advocates will once again gather in Postville to remember the massive enforcement action there one year ago and to plead for comprehensive immigration reform, but U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley doesn’t see that issue as a part of the national debate anytime soon, despite his wishes to the contrary."
Iowa Independent, May 7, 2009.

polar bear

Only Two Days to Help Save the Polar Bear

On March 11, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law a bill giving Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar the authority -- until May 9 -- to rescind with the stroke of a pen two rules passed in the final days of the Bush administration that weaken the Endangered Species Act. One exempts thousands of federal activities from review by expert scientists, and the other is a special rule for the polar bear that expressly bans federal agencies from examining the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the polar bear -- despite the fact that the number one threat to the bear's survival is melting of its sea-ice habitat caused by global warming.

In positive news, on April 28 Secretary Salazar made good on President Obama's pledge to restore science to government decision-making by overturning the regulation that exempted thousands of damaging activities from review under the Endangered Species Act, ensuring that top scientists will be involved in reviewing federal actions that could harm imperiled plants and animals.

But Salazar’s task of restoring full protections under the Act is only halfway finished -- he has not yet revoked the special polar bear rule. The polar bear’s Arctic sea ice habitat is rapidly melting away. If Bush’s 11th-hour special rule is not struck down, the polar bear is likely to be the first large mammal to go extinct due to global warming in the United States.

sign the petition here

from TPM

Some writing cannot be adequately paraphrased and I present you with an example from my recent reading on Talking Points Memo:
Why the bible MUST be interpreted literally - or not used at all:

A VENGEFUL AND ANGRY GOD!

I am going to agree with fundamentalist Evangelical Christians - for the first and hopefully last time in my life. I have been reading many posts from Christian leaders, as well as excerpts from their books and articles they have written in magazines. I have also visited the websites and read through the literature of some of the largest megachurches (Lakewood Church in Houston - Joel Osteen & Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA,) in the Nation. I've read some more liberal interpretations of the bible in the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations website information. I've read through the articles and blogs on websites such as the 700 Club (our good friend Pat Robertson) and Promise Keepers. I've even forced myself to read the hate filled "end times" garbage on the rapture ready site (I'm banned from posting there after posting my "Christians and Torture" article. Apparently they don't want any conflicting opinions.)

What I've discovered is basically what you might expect. There are a plethora of different interpretations on every single passage of the bible. Each denomination seems to have a different way of interpreting the bible. The Unitarians seem to find a way to twist the bible verses to allow the celebration fo roe v wade - as well as the acceptance of homosexuals and the belief that they should be allowed to marry. The folks at the megachurches are generally about 2/3 on the scale when it comes to interpreting the bible. They don't take a literal interpretation - but will bend the words to make it OK to drive three SUV's, have a giant house in the suburbs where they just don't have to deal with "urban" people or problems. They have small group at the local "Dinner's Ready" franchise and make the weeks meals - and talk about how their husbands all seem to have a problem, no an addiction to pornography. One woman starts sobbing uncontrollably becasuse she caught her husband looking at Maxim at the dentists office. He had it tucked inside the cover of a Spirituality Today magazine. She said it made her feel that he wanted the women in that magazine more than he wanted her. (TIP FROM ME - HE DOES. WHEN YOU COME HOME WEARING "MOM" JEANS AND A SWEATSHIRT - OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO GET A BONE FOR ALYSSA MILANO - DUH!)
And of course the fundamentalist Christian Churches take a literal view of the bible. They view it as the inerrant word of God. There is no interpretation to fit their lives (well - no interpretation that can't be explained by the pastor anyway. It's simple - here is a brief rundown of some of their biblical truths .

keep reading . . .

making the most of commutes

Max Bruch's First Violin Concerto ("Scottish Fantasy") is perfect timing for the morning commute with just a couple of minutes left to hear the headlines. Timing can make a difference in how a day begins.

Postville again

Here's a rare bird indeed: a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court that workers who use fake id numbers must know that they belong to a real person in order to be guilty of "aggravated identity theft."

The most sweeping use of the statute was in Iowa, after an immigration raid in May 2008 at a meatpacking plant in Postville. Nearly 300 unauthorized immigrant workers from the plant, most of them from Guatemala, pleaded guilty to document-fraud charges rather than risk being convicted at trial of the identity-theft charge. In most of those cases, the prosecutors demonstrated only that the Social Security numbers and immigration documents the workers had presented were false.

Many of the immigrants served five-month prison sentences and then faced summary deportation. The Postville cases raised an outcry among immigrant advocates, because they transformed into federal felonies a common practice by illegal immigrants of presenting fake Social Security numbers and other documents to employers.

The court’s ruling is unlikely to aid the immigrants in the Postville cases. Most of them have long since been deported.

until this battle's won

A salute to my Dad. I wish he could have shared a 90th birthday with Pete Seeger:

generations

Paulo Freire

asylum seekers finding prison, not protection

Human Rights First, a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York and Washington D.C. with a mission to promote respect for human rights and the rule of law based on the belief that this will help to ensure the dignity of the individual while simultaneously helping to stem tyranny, extremism, intolerance, and violence.

A new Report Finds U.S. Often Greets Asylum Seekers with Prison, not Protection

Washington, DC – Since 2003, U.S. immigration authorities have spent more than $300 million to detain over 48,000 asylum seekers in U.S. prisons and prison-like facilities – in a system that lacks basic due process safeguards and is inconsistent with America's longstanding commitment to protect those who flee from persecution, according to a report released today by a leading human rights organization.

"Refugees who seek protection in this country are greeted with handcuffs and prison uniforms, and they are treated like prisoners in correctional facilities," said Eleanor Acer, the director of Human Rights First's Refugee Protection Program. "New leadership at the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice should seize the opportunity to end this practice and implement some long overdue reforms, like ensuring that an asylum seeker can't be detained for months or years without having an immigration court consider the need for continued detention."

Human Rights First is calling on the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and Congress, to place safeguards on the use of detention for asylum seekers and to improve the conditions where detention may be necessary.

say what?

Cribbed from Doonesbury Mudline:

"What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans?...Get it going real good and hot south of the border, then just spread a rumor that there's construction jobs available."
-- radio host Neal Boortz

"Make no mistake about it. Illegal aliens are carriers of the new strain of human swine avian flu from Mexico... Could this be a terrorist attack...?"
-- radio host Michael Savage

It occurs to me that there may be a conspiracy in the making. What better way to spread idiocy throughout our great country than to feed racist gibberish to a few radio blatherers and step back and watch the dumbing down of a whole country? Could this be an insidious terrorist attack by radio?

for the last two days . . .

I am reading - I am in the midst of - a really fine book of poetry written by an old amigo. An army buddy, Berkeley host, comrade and accidental rival, Seattle roomie (twice in vastly different circumstances), fellow-traveler (carried no cards), and yes, teacher. When Peter was up to his ass and beyond with the 12-string, I used to beg him to play Tom Rush's version of Big Fat Woman - and he did listen and share some licks, but I think that he thought that it wasn't worth the sound of the 12-string guitar. Never mind that, we didn't (probably don't) agree on everything. When we roomed in Seattle, we wrote poetry and shared works in progress - we were serious, little brother.

Look, this is not intended as a commercial, but if you are interested in some good, salt of the earth, poetry, check out my post on poetry patter (I would post his poem and information about his book here, but I only requested permission to post a poem for the poetry blog). The posted poem is not from Peter's book, but I gloamed onto it the moment I read it (sorry, gloamed is one of my words some may not know - it means (to me) something like "grabbed hold of in the twilight").

If flowers are prayers, and they are, then friends are answers to prayers. If that's sounds corny, then later, I'll share something about another old army buddy and friend in Iowa.

luck of the draw

Asylum seekers have better luck
with northern or female judges
Northern, female judges most likely to let them stay
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter apallasch@suntimes.com

If you're a political refugee afraid to go back to your homeland, pray you get a woman judge or a Northerner.

A male judge sitting in a Southern court is about twice as likely to reject your asylum plea, according to research from two Georgetown University professors.

"The fact that women are more sympathetic to asylum seekers -- that is certainly a factor, and maybe Southerners don't like foreigners as much," Federal Appellate Judge Richard Posner said with a chuckle. "Maybe people in big cities are more used to having large [less] indigenous populations. Maybe it's different in more homogenous areas of the United States."

Posner has been the most outspoken appellate judge criticizing the decisions of federal immigration judges and he sits on the appellate court most likely to grant asylum pleas -- the Chicago-based 7th Circuit. Posner spoke this past week at a seminar by the Georgetown professors -- Philip Schrag and Andrew Schoenholtz who are compiling the book about how U.S. Courts handle asylum cases.

What they found was utter randomness -- some judges who refuse all asylum requests, others who grant almost all.

Perspectives differ on the efficacy of raids to discourage undocumented workers

So that you know: this story is posted by Associated Press and since they've been suing folks who quote their stories, or show any of their pictures, without payment (I plan to attribute them, not pay them), if this blog suddenly ceases, it may be that the mighty AP has descended: 2 Iowa towns, 2 views on immigration raids

POSTVILLE, Iowa - For immigrant advocates, the raid on a meatpacking plant in Postville last May was evidence of all that is wrong with large-scale arrests of illegal workers.

Families were hurt, and empty shops and lines at the food bank show that the town was, too. One rental agency says nearly 70 percent of its properties are vacant. The City Council even sought a federal disaster designation because of the lingering effects of the raid on the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse.

"At what point do we acknowledge that the system is so broken that we're no longer willing to participate?" wondered Maryn Olson, a coordinator with Postville Response Coalition, a group established after the raid.

But as the Obama administration considers a new policy on immigration raids, another Iowa town less than 100 miles away has emerged from a raid on its largest employer with a different perspective.

Read more. . .

really cool

Anyone know the history of this? It's really cool.

current certified congregations

According to the UUA Data Services website with its List of Congregations That Submitted Membership Numbers to the UUA between November 15, 2008 and February 2, 2009, the

Total certified congregations, including those with no financial contribution: 997.

Update: Some earlier congregational membership data is online here.

a baby step

We're told by John Morton, President Obama’s choice to head ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency), at his Senate confirmation hearing this week, that the new administration will target employers who hire undocumented immigrants rather than the undocumented workers themselves.

“We cannot make sustained reductions in illegal immigration without deterring employment of unauthorized labor,” Morton told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “We need to place renewed focus on employers to ensure that they are playing by the rules.”

Morton vowed to “vigorously pursue” civil fines against employer violators. The Bush administration did not exact a single dime of civil penalties from employers in 2005 and 2006, Morton testified, compared to $25 million imposed as recently as 1996.

The Obama administration so far this year has imposed $2.3 million in civil fines against employers, Morton said, adding: “I would encourage this trend.”

our country's fundamental ideals

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American non-profit legal organization, internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.

The SPLC, founded in 1971, is based in Montgomery, Alabama, in the Southern United States as a civil rights law firm. In addition to free legal service to the victims of discrimination and hate crime, the Center publishes a quarterly Intelligence Report which investigates extremism and hate crimes in the United States.

SPLC Report Finds Low-Income Latinos in South Targeted for Abuse, Discrimination

Low-income Latino immigrants in the South are routinely the targets of wage theft, racial profiling and other abuses driven by an anti-immigrant climate that harms all Latinos regardless of their immigration status, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The report — Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South — documents the experiences of Latino immigrants who face increasing hostility as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that had few Latino residents until recent years.

"This report documents the human toll of failed policies that relegate millions of people to an underground economy, where they are beyond the protection of the law," said Mary Bauer, author of the report and director of the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project. "Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South."

Under Siege is based on a survey of 500 low-income Latinos — including legal residents, undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens — at five locations in the South. The locations were Nashville, Charlotte, New Orleans, rural southern Georgia, and several towns and cities in northern Alabama.

The survey findings, coupled with accounts from in-depth interviews, depict a region where Latinos are routinely cheated out of wages by employers and denied basic health and safety protections. They are racially profiled by overzealous law enforcement agents and victimized by criminals who know they are reluctant to report crime to these same authorities. Even legal residents and U.S. citizens of Latino descent said racial profiling, bigotry and other forms of discrimination are staples of their daily lives.

A number of immigrants in the survey described the South as a "war zone."

"The assumption is that every Latino possibly is undocumented," Angeles Ortega-Moore, an immigrant advocate in North Carolina, told SPLC researchers. "So it [discrimination] has spread over into the legal population."

Maria, who came to Tennessee from Colombia, told SPLC researchers her immigration papers are in order, but she is still afraid of being stopped by the police. "You never know when you will come across a racist police officer," she says in the report.

Discrimination against Latinos in the region constitutes a civil rights crisis that must be addressed, the SPLC report says. The report concludes that comprehensive immigration reform — including a workable path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants — is the only realistic, fair and humane solution.

Reform legislation must be coupled with strong enforcement of labor and civil rights protections. This would make crime victims and communities safer, curb racial profiling and other abuses, and better protect the wages and working conditions of all workers, according to the report.

"We're talking about a matter of basic human rights here," said SPLC President Richard Cohen. "By allowing this cycle of abuse and discrimination to continue, we're creating an underclass of people who are invisible to justice and undermining our country's fundamental ideals."

Postville

From the home page for the city of Postville, Iowa:

The City of Postville is a diverse community rich in industry and culture. As we look towards future goals and visions, we strive to make Postville the best town it can possibly be for the residents and business community who live and work here, but also for future generations and businesses.

Our mission, for the City of Postville is to maintain and improve the quality of life for all citizens in our community and to provide superior services and public facilities for the community.

The City of Postville is committed to meeting and improving the needs of the community by providing for essential services such as law enforcement, public utilities, streets, parks and recreation for today and for the future.

We strive to make Postville a "Hometown to the World" where people of all walks of life can call Postville home.

Sounds like a good place to live.

America's toughest sheriff

East Valley Tribune wins Pulitzer for Arpaio series

The East Valley Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize — the most prestigious journalism award — for its five-part investigative series about Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s illegal immigration efforts.

The articles reported that MCSO’s ability to protect the public suffered because of its increased immigration enforcement. Tribune reporter Ryan Gabrielson and former Tribune reporter Paul Giblin spent about six months on the project, which was published July 9-13, 2008.

a year without a Guatamalan? might be more appropriate

We're approaching an anniversary that we need to discuss and we will do that here. Mother Jones has a good story about a year without a Mexican but that may be too narrow.

It all began with the whir and flicker of helicopters on May 12, 2008, an incongruous sound in a tiny Iowa town tucked amid cornfields. All over Postville, people craned their necks from orderly lawns, phones rang, and gossip flew. Reverend Stephen Brackett, the town's Lutheran pastor, was on his day off and didn't hear the helicopters at first, but when his church secretary called to tell him something unusual was happening, he at once suspected what it was. For years, there were rumors that the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant at the edge of town was under scrutiny by immigration authorities. Later that morning, Brackett's wife called with confirmation: She'd spotted two helicopters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in jackets and flak vests down by the slaughterhouse.

What happened in Postville is larger than that. We'll be discussing it between now and the May 12, 2009 one-year anniversary.

Postville, Iowa and undocumented workers

moved by God

I cribbed the quote below from UU Covenant Groups, Lay Preaching & Evangelizing.

The Quakers meet together, all of them silent, until one is move by God to speak.
The UU's meet together, all of them talking, until one of them is moved, by God, to shut up.

legalize pot

The post 5 Reasons Why We Should Legalize Pot has some merit but does not address the primary reason I might favor legalization: the saving of countless lives south (and probably north) of the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Spring and grandsons

Our grandsons were over this weekend and the eleven-year-old demonstrated his skills with our little digital camera.

Just thought I'd take the opportunity to share the continuation and warming of Spring in southeast Texas.

Obama Doctrine

Interesting post at Embodied Fragments.

what would the designer do?

soup's on

If there are secrets to making a good home-made soup - and I'm inclined to think that are a few - one such secret is as simple as sautéing all (or most - individual judgment and taste always to the fore...) the ingredients you plan to use that take the longest to cook. The brown from the sautéing in olive oil adds a dimension (and color if it will be mostly a clear broth) that is really most apparent when you cook the same soup twice - once following the above advice and once ignoring it. The difference is worth the notice.

Today is a good soup day in Houston - dark skies, thunder and rain all day - soup for a afternoon lunch after a wet trek on the bayou to satisfy the needs of our pups (not really pups since the two ladies are as ancient in dog years as the A Lady and I are in human years). The soup is on.

here for the long haul

Yep, I've been told more than once that if I don't like what's going on in my country, I should just get out. Looks like the shoe may be pinching someone else's foot. I guess it bothers some folks that some of us got fed up the last eight years and took Thomas Jefferson's advice as expressed in the declaration:

"...Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

(Okay, I understand that it was just an election and not a resurrection.) But wait, now that we've elected a new president (one who as a candidate ran on a set of fundamentally different notions than our previous administration) and our country seems to be changing course back toward our ideals, there are a bunch of folks (even while their confederate battle flags continue to flutter from their pickups and state capital grounds) who have changed their rhetoric. What I may not have understand earlier, when these folks were telling me, "If you don't like it here, leave!" was that they meant that I could pack up the entire state in my suitcase before walking out the door. Even if I'd thought I had that option, I'd still be here. I'm here for the long haul.

I agree with Warrior Tang's conclusion:

It is with interest then that I read about a State Sovereignty Movement which is encouraging state legislatures to issue declarations of their States' Rights under the 10th Amendment. As of this writing, assemblymen in 19 state legislatures have introduced some version of a State Sovereignty Act since late January, starting shortly after Barack Obama was inaugurated. I hope it is not news to anybody that President Obama is not a picture of the Aryan ideal. No matter how sanitary the text of such a proposal and no matter how well it legally conforms to actual states' rights, the context of these proposals is not exactly a context of pure legal scholarship. There might be a case for discussion of the proper legal roles of the state and federal governments; I don't think this is it.

denimless dudes

No matter how sexy, or not, was Mark Twain correct, do clothes really make the person? Or is it merely a matter of taste and what best fits one occasion or another? George Will argues

. . . the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

He agrees with Daniel Akst that if

hypocrisy had a flag, it would be cut from denim, for it is in denim that we invest our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure, dragging down the global financial system with them.

But is it really the denim that bothers Will and Akst or is it more a matter of generation or, perhaps gender? Certainly Will, at least, acknowledges where he thinks the line should be drawn (both as to gender and generation):

For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Mark Twain was not alone in arguing that Naked people have little or no influence on society. After all, one dresses to kill, not the other way around. But that's not really Will's and Akst's argument since, as far as I can find, they neither publicly advocate nakedness. Their argument seems to be more that someone should set the acceptable taste standard and they obviously consider themselves up to the challenge.

my man madden

The A Lady and I lived in Berkeley and North Oakland during the time Madden coached the Raiders. He was in his thirties, a young man on a mission. His .759 winning percentage during the regular season ranks highest among coaches with 100 career victories. During his tenure, the Raiders were a Team to Behold. The sideline at Raider's games was as entertaining, and sometimes as complex, as any opera. Like Verdi's Rigoletto the Raider sideline, with Madden holding forth center stage, was a mixture of comedy and tragedy, a masterpiece of apparently heterogeneous elements. So, I appreciated Coach Madden. But Lo, the advent of John the Broadcaster was of almost biblical proportion. Mostly a truth-teller, certainly an adept ad-libber, and an expert on the game of American football, he was the consummate color commentator along side his broadcast sidekick Pat Summerall. In my mind, only Don Meredith, comes close (as a very distant 2nd) to Coach Madden's everyman take of football, philosophically acute, without being cute, he seemed to never be bored with explaining the x's and o's. Watching football will not be as much fun.

Sorry to wax eulogistic, he continues very much alive. But I sure enjoyed his standing front and center for a time. Best wishes, John!

John Madden to Ride into the Sunset:

After serving for 123 years in different capacities with NFL, John Madden has already decided to retire from his broadcasting duties. Now, he has to say goodbye to the job where his enthusiastic and down-to-earth style made him one of the most renowned broadcasters in the field of sports for three decades.

John Earl Madden, who was born on April 10, 1936, is a former American football player in the National Football League, a former Professional Football Head coach with the Oakland Raiders, a football video game magnate and a color commentator for NFL telecasts. He began his pro football career as a linebacker coach at Oakland in 1967 and was named head coach two years later, at 33 the youngest coach in what was then the American Football League. Madden also led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl victory and retired in 1979. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his coaching career in the year 2006.

Happy Easter

Cherry Blossom Under the Moon
a painting by Soojung Cho

© Soojung Cho

Used by permission of the artist - more later.

poem

The poem I found on the Internet and posted a few days ago was an early version of a now published poem:

Notes From A Sodbuster's Wife, Kansas, 1868
-Peter Ludwin

What really got us in the end--
we women who didn't make it,
who withered and blew away in the open--
was the wind. Space, yes, and distance,
too, from neighbors, a piano back in Boston.

But above all, the wind.

In our letters it shrieks hysteria from sod huts,
vomits women prematurely undone by loneliness,
boils up off the horizon to suck dry
their desire as it flattened the stubborn grasses.
Not convinced?? Scan the photographs,
grainy and sepia-toned, like old leather.
Study our bony forms in plain black dresses,
our mouths drawn tight as a saddle cinch,
accusation leaking from rudderless eyes, betrayed.

I tried. Lord knows I tried.
Survived the locusts and even snakes
that fell from the ceiling at night,
slithering between us in bed.
I dreamed of water, chiffon, the smell
of dead leaves banked against a rotting log.
I heard opera, carriage wheels on cobblestone.
Cried and beat my fists raw into those earthen walls.

The wind. Even as it scoured
the skin it flayed the soul,
that raked, pitted shell.
And how like the Cheyenne,
appearing, disappearing,
no fixed location,

not even a purpose one could name.

© Peter Ludwin

Notes From A Sodbuster's Wife, Kansas, 1868 is reprinted here with the permission of its author. The poem originally appeared in South Dakota Review and can be found in Peter's just published collection, A Guest in All Your Houses.

The book is available from Word Walker Press or, in a few weeks, from Amazon.

Peter Ludwin’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, most prominently The Antietam Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Coal City Review, Illya's Honey, Karumu, Hurricane Review, Lullwater Review, Midwest Quarterly, Permafrost, Raven Chronicles, Lake Effect, Small Pond Magazine of Literature, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review and Whiskey Island Magazine.

Cross-posted from peripatetic patter.


Update: Here is a review of the book.