It’s hard to summarize an 844 page document in 6 minutes or less, but I tried. Wish I could have talked about the militarization of the borders and the mandatory call for E-verify (which everyone seems to dread–except for hi-tech firms).
Here’s the program. I am the first panelist. (I didn’t dye my hair blonde, that’s Jaxon from the Chronicle. I come up in a bit).
The Boston blasts have knocked even the grand leakage of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 AKA “The Immigration Bill,” down a few notches in the news ladder.
Going over the details now and will post on www.aaldef.org/blog. Initial reaction is it’s “not great,” and forgets why people immigrate here in the first place. There’s an “F” word that seems forgotten.
In the meantime, speaking of words and language, look at all the news stories and if anyone says “illegal immigrant.”
We didn’t see that faux pas yesterday, but look at how quickly we launched into profile mode.
Yes, we were kind and all to the innocent. But not so much to people of color when the word went out that police were looking for a “dark skinned male, possibly with an accent, and a black sweat shirt.”
Certainly let the white terrorists off the hook.
That kind of profiling shows we haven’t learned much from 9/11.
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got this thing for baseball, and covering the San Francisco Giants and their half-Filipino pitcher Tim Lincecum.
He’s a real Asian American, not some imported star from Korea or Japan. He’s from the Seattle area.
For me baseball and his struggles to date are the human story of the game that provides real perspective. I use it as an antidote to the reality known as “the political process,” where the glacial pace of change makes a nine-inning game go by in a wink. Read the posts under the heading: Linceblog.
It’s my form of escape that gives me a sense of balance.
It also works both ways. Too much time in the candy store of life, and
you get a day like yesterday.
Yesterday’s violence—amid the intense competitiveness of a marathon hailed as one of the iconic events in U.S. sports—brought us all back to that reality as we prayed for the dead and counted the wounded.
By the way, yesterday was another milestone day in sport: Jackie Robinson Day.
Read my take at http://diverseeducation.com/article/52621/
And please read my other work at the archives :
I think my initial predictions will hold up. Prop. 8 goes back, and same-sex marriage resumes in California only. DOMA however goes dormant, if not totally dead. DOMA doesn’t make sense, but to predict exactly how SCOTUS will come down on it isn’t really clear. Kennedy talking states’ rights and against Federalism could sway the conservatives, who may want to do nothing and let the Obama Administration have the courage of their convictions, i.e., if it’s a bad law, don’t enforce it. But who wants to deal with principles in Washington?
Then again, SCOTUS can’t not do something. As Kennedy pointed out there is a definite victim with the estate tax burden on the plaintiff.
The court can be so stuffy that anytime someone shows some humanity or levity, it brings oxygen to the brain. That makes Justice Ginsburg high-point scorer for the Wednesday session by pointing out the problem with denying same-sex couples the basic rights afforded to other marrieds under federal law. The two-tiered, second class argument works here. But as Ginsburg put in dairy terms, that’s “skimmed milk marriage.”
She totally skipped 2 percent marriage.
And then, what about the vegans?
Do I have a coconut milk marriage? (You can have non-dairy, no-sugar, good fat Coconut Milk, Trader Joe makes the best one I’ve tasted. We’re talking alternatives that complete the metaphor).
See my original predictions at www.aaldef.org/blog
