While I'm not unfamilar with the stalker -- the weird, middle-aged guy who lurks around the card shop you work at, somehow manages to get your phone number and begins calling your house, prompting your father to start threatening to take the shotgun off the wall; or the professor who remarks how much he likes your freckles and starts showing up outside every class you have asking you to have coffee with him; or the ex-boyfriend who was mildy abusive and extremely prone to philandering, who moves into your neighborhood and drops by on occasion with tomatoes as a "reconciliation gift" (which is nice but, dude, three years of torture was enough...) -- I had always assumed the "psycho ex-girlfriend" variety was a way for men to be dismissive of some girl they no longer wanted a relationship with.
I have, of late, changed my mind. I'm sad to say, the psycho ex-girlfriend does exist, and apparently does not require much of a prior relationship to be vengeful. Gentlemen, I apologize for doubting you...
This is why your party is quickly losing relevance
For the party that screams the loudest about everybody having their say and how the Muslims are people too, the Democrats jumped the freakin' shark when they couldn't bother to even show up for the Iraqian (ahem) address to Congress. Um, aren't you at least curious about what they have to say about what's happening in their region? Elitist bastards...
3. My conversation with Lord Somber last night that led me to remember the time my first -- and perhaps best -- best friend Chris Wilson and his buddies built a skate ramp and Little Sara and I put our stamp on it by writing "We built this city on rock n' roll" from the Jefferson Starship song. Little Sara thought I was the coolest for coming up with that. Man were we dorks.
4. The same conversation with Lord Somber that clarified for me, for the first time, the worst song lyrics ever written: "You want a piece of my heart?/You better start from the start./You wanna be in the show?/Come on baby let's go!/Everybody's working for the weekend!"
Does use of the term "Supreme Leader" automatically disqualify these freaks from being taken seriously because of the almost exact semantic reference to the fascist bad guys in Star Wars? They parody themselves and they seem tragically unaware of this fact. However, they can cause some real damage, as ridiculous as they are. What to do...?
Ed. Note: while generally I try not to offer excuses or rationalizations, I have to say that the Grouchy Old Cripple is more hard-core than I am. I read him like I read Salon.com: somewhere in the more moderate middle is the truth. I get mis-associated frequently so I'm trying to be a little more diligent about my -- ahem -- reputation.
My mother always says that people have the public face but that it lies. You never really know what's going on inside. Is it dangerous to have the same face for public and private? It would appear, statistically, that humanity thinks that it is.
I digress.
I need to commend Mr. Cameron Crowe for having the balls to be sappy in a world that increasingly dismisses the necessity of the heart tug. And anyone who celebrates my all-time second favorite song in the world, Mancini's "Moon River," gets a cookie.
I liked this movie. Perseverance is a great theme.
So, as a Friday item, I though I might give my friend Chris McKay a little shout out for his review in the Flagpole of the latest Cheap Trick disc.
Chris is an epic photographer, a fact well-documented in many publications and on his Web site, Concert Shots.
I personally own an amazing shot of David Bowie and my sister benefited from the Def Leppard show at Music Midtown one year. She was always a big fan and the photo of the lead singer from the back with the crowd wavng the Union Jack is ridiculously good. That's what happens when they let you up on stage...
Better to design the outcome than be forced to accept it
I get the Wall Street Journal's opinion page emailed to me and yesterday's Opinion Journal caused me to examine some of my opinions on the immigration issue. I have been worried about the damage illegal immigrants do to the economy in our country because they are essentially consumers who do not then contribute to the tax base. Simple supply and demand economic theory reveals the problem with this.
However, something sat sour inside me when trying to reduce it to merely a matter of economics because we're talking about people here -- people who just want a better life to the point that they swim oceans and risk getting shot. They want it that bad. And there's integrity and passion in that that's admirable. And, let's face it, this country was built on the backs of immigrants and it would be suspect to suddenly change the rules.
Then the Opinion Journal came and reminded me of a simple fact -- it's illegal immigration that's the trouble. Making naturalization easier might take care of some of the problem. I don't know... it's a thought.
I've included the text of the Opinion Journal and I think everyone should read it. It's long but worth it.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK Conservatives and Immigration The debate on the right about freedom, culture and the welfare state. July 10, 2006
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James Taranto is on vacation and will return Monday, July 17. In place of Best of the Web Today we are sending other offerings from OpinionJournal. We hope you enjoy today's selection.
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No issue more deeply divides American conservatives today than immigration. It's the subject on which we get the most critical mail by far, no doubt reflecting this split on the right. So with Congress holding hearings on the issue around the country, perhaps it's a good moment to step back and explain the roots of our own, longstanding position favoring open immigration. A position, by the way, on which we hardly stand alone. There is also President Bush, and before him the Gipper. (See our editorial, "Reagan on Immigration.") In the context of the current debate, we also print an open letter supporting comprehensive immigration reform from 33 prominent conservatives, including former Secretary of State George Shultz and GOP Vice Presidential nominee Jack Kemp. (The letter is available here.)
The most frequent criticism we hear is that a newspaper called "The Wall Street Journal" simply wants "cheap labor" for business. This is an odd charge coming from conservatives who profess to believe in the free market, since it echoes the AFL-CIO and liberals who'd just as soon have government dictate wages.
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Our own view is that a philosophy of "free markets and free people" includes flexible labor markets. At a fundamental level, this is a matter of freedom and human dignity. These migrants are freely contracting for their labor, which is a basic human right. Far from selling their labor "cheap," they are traveling to the U.S. to sell it more dearly and improve their lives. Like millions of Americans before them, they and certainly their children climb the economic ladder as their skills and education increase. We realize that critics are not inventing the manifold problems that can arise from illegal immigration: Trespassing, violent crime, overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, document counterfeiting, human smuggling, corpses in the Arizona desert, and a sense that the government has lost control of the border. But all of these result, ultimately, from too many immigrants chasing too few U.S. visas.
Those migrating here to make a better life for themselves and their families would much prefer to come legally. Give them more legal ways to enter the country, and we are likely to reduce illegal immigration far more effectively than any physical barrier along the Rio Grande ever could. This is not about rewarding bad behavior. It's about bringing immigration policy in line with economic and human reality. And the reality is that the U.S. has a growing demand for workers, while Mexico has both a large supply of such workers and too few jobs at home. Some conservatives concede this point in theory but then insist that liberal immigration is no longer possible in a modern welfare state, which breeds dependency in a way that the America of a century ago did not. But the immigrants who arrive here come to work, not sit on the dole. And thanks to welfare reform, the welfare rolls have declined despite a surge in illegal immigration in the past decade. The real claims that illegals make on public services are education, which can't be withheld because of a 1982 Supreme Court ruling (Plyer v. Doe), and health care, especially emergency rooms. Since denying urgent medical treatment is immoral, the answer again is to legalize cross-border labor flows and remove government obstacles to affordable health insurance. As for education, even illegals pay for public schools through the indirect property taxes they pay in rent. Overall, immigrants contribute far more to our economy than they extract in public benefits. By far the largest concern we hear on the right concerns culture, especially the worry that the current Hispanic influx is so large it can resist the American genius for assimilation. Hispanics now comprise nearly a third of the population in California and Texas, the country's two biggest states, and cultural assimilation does matter. This is where the political left does the cause of immigration no good in pursuing a separatist agenda. When such groups as La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund push for multiculturalism, bilingual education, foreign language ballots, racial quotas and the like, they undermine support for immigration among even the most open-minded Americans. Most Americans don't want to replicate the Bosnia model; nor are they pining for a U.S. version of the Quebec sovereignty movement. President Bush has been right to assert that immigrants must adopt U.S. norms, and we only wish more figures on the political left would say the same. But the good news is that these newcomers by and large aren't listening to the left-wingers pushing identity politics. Mexican immigrants, like their European predecessors, are assimilating. Their children learn English and by the end of high school prefer it to their parents' native tongue. They also marry people they meet here. Second-generation Latinos earn less than white Americans but more than blacks and 50% more than first-generation Latinos. According to Tamar Jacoby's "Reinventing the Melting Pot," the most common last names among new homeowners in California include Garcia, Lee, Martinez, Nguyen, Rodriguez and Wong. Which brings us to the politics. Contrary to what you hear on talk radio and cable news, polls continue to show that the conservative silent majority is pro-immigration, and that it supports a guest-worker program as the only practical and humane way to moderate the foreign labor flow. According to the most recent Tarrance Group survey, 75% of likely GOP voters support immigration reform that combines increased border and workplace enforcement with a guest-worker system for newcomers and a multiyear path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here--provided that they meet certain requirements like living crime free, learning English and paying taxes. "Support for this plan," the poll found, "is strong even among base Republican voter demographics like strong Republicans (77%), very conservative Republicans (72%), white conservative Christians (76%), and those who listen to news talk radio on a daily basis (72%)."
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House Republican leaders, who passed an immigration bill last year focusing only on enforcement, want to frame this debate as a choice between more border security or "amnesty" for the 11 or 12 million illegals already here. But that's a false choice. A guest-worker program that lets market forces rather than prevailing political winds determine how many economic migrants can enter the country actually enhances security. How? By reducing pressure on the border, just as the Bracero guest-worker program in the 1950s and early 1960s did. When border patrol agents don't have to chase down people coming here to work, they can concentrate on genuine threats, like gang members and terrorists. The real choice is between throwing more resources at an enforcement-only policy that has failed, or a larger reform that's had some past success in reducing illegal border crossings and meeting the demands of our economy and of human dignity.
Much as I love working on my report on the benefits of open-source software over off-the-shelf course management applications (thrilling -- I know), I had to stop and wish everyone a great Friday. And here's some cats lifting 2 kilograms of fish...
"I'm so lonely, there's no one, just me only, sitting on my little throne..."
I find it fascinating how much of Kim Jong Il I see in the ridiculous machinations of people I meet every day. If we could somehow forget that this despot was toying around with extremely deadly weapons and not just playing with action figures (see Matt Stone and Trey Parker's Team America for a really good parody) we might see his humanity behind the little tan member's only jacket -- he's a spoiled child desperate for attention and the minute he thinks someone might be getting more than he, he begins tainting waters, spouting hateful rhetoric and threatening nuclear combat. Here recently, I have met some Kim Jong Il-ish folks who have behaved the same way, only their artillery is less deadly. Their intent to harm, however, is the same.
I've often thought about the irony that this similarity in human nature is the reason I'm not a bigot rather than the more righteous fact that all people can be quite noble. The violent and sadistic just makes its point with so much more punch. I consider it one of the great new goals of my life to see the power and unifying nature of the finer aspects of human nature. I'm newly dedicated to it. Wish me luck.
My brother's going to love me for this but I owe him some good press via this blog after being mercilessly mean in a way only siblings can -- he's still convinced I was trying to kill him when we were children. And he did get that spanking after church that time we were fighting while I crawled out my bedroom window and took off until dinner. Mom was too busy by that time to pop me one. Probably the last thing I got away with in my life. Tragic...
So, here's the happy couple before the kids went to bed:
And after:
I love you guys!
And, because he refused to make a normal face for pictures, I present John -- the John -- Lee. Or Ronee as he's known to some. Or poothead. Or Noj. He likes to bark and has the loudest burp of anyone I know. He used to stand in our foyer and annouce he was home from school with the most ridiculously loud belch in the part of our childhood home that was essentially a high-ceiling echo chamber. Brilliant.
While I'm not unfamilar with the stalker -- the weird, middle-aged guy who lurks around the card shop you work at, somehow manages to get your phone number and begins calling your house, prompting your father to start threatening to take the shotgun off the wall; or the professor who remarks how much he likes your freckles and starts showing up outside every class you have asking you to have coffee with him; or the ex-boyfriend who was mildy abusive and extremely prone to philandering, who moves into your neighborhood and drops by on occasion with tomatoes as a "reconciliation gift" (which is nice but, dude, three years of torture was enough...) -- I had always assumed the "psycho ex-girlfriend" variety was a way for men to be dismissive of some girl they no longer wanted a relationship with.
