Fending Wall

Tags

asylum, border wall, Central America, ICE, immigrants, Mexico, Trump

(Note: In the world of words, theft is the highest honor one can bestow.  Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” is the recipient/victim.)

 

Something there is that doesn’t love a WALL,
That populates the Senate with such dolts
And fills the House with leftist nincompoops,
And makes them think they know what’s best for us.

The world of fake news is another thing.
I have gone after them and brought to light
Where they have lied and fibbed and told untruths,
These whores, who hide their slanders up their ass
To please the lapdog traitors in their ranks.

No one admits the truth: All HOLE, no WALL!
(With one strong WALL, I might accept a hole)

As chaos called the Spicshits from their dens,
I let their Wetback leader know that he
Must ante up the millions it will take
To keep his rapist drug-lords on that side.

He treated it as if a children’s game,
And, on the day we met to walk the line,
He laughed (I should have poked him in the eye) …
Right there … there, where we most require a WALL!

In truth, these are all simple folk,” he said,
Who want for little but to stay alive.”

“Alive, my ass,” I cried, “they’re simply scum.
The truth?  Good fences make good neighbors!”

“How do they make good neighbors?” then he asked,
“What is so precious that your might and wealth
Cannot give simple kindness pride of place?
Look at their hands!  They know what hard work is.
Look at their hearts!  They know the good from bad.”

And I?  I know the truth my father taught:

LET NO ONE GET INSIDE THE WALL YOU BUILD
AROUND YOURSELF.  OUTSIDE IS MERELY TRASH!
GOOD NEIGHBORS ARE THE ONES YOU NEVER SEE!”

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, and a Couple Tylenol

Tags

crackerjacks, immigrants, immigration policy, jobs, opioid epidemic, traffic cop

A few years ago, I went to a town hall meeting, hosted by my Colorado state representative.

Waiting for the session to start, a couple guys near me were comparing notes on their recent re-roofing jobs, raving about the work. Once the meeting started, they tore into the rep on immigration, even though, as he observed, the issue was federal, not state.

The two guys apparently hadn’t connected the dots. In Colorado, if you get your house re-roofed, your carpet cleaned, your lawn mowed, your snow shoveled, odds are it’s an immigrant and his name is Juan. You’ve got a choice: get the job done now, with praise, or wait a couple months, with prayer.

Immigration may be an affair of the heart: We have a moral obligation to welcome others less fortunate. But it is, fundamentally, a matter of the purse: Are they helping the economy, or hurting it by taking our jobs?

Consensus on immigration will only come when the majority of Americans feels that, at worst, immigration doesn’t harm them and, at best, helps them.

We have entry policies toward some — students; part-time workers; wealthy investors — whose contribution to our country is widely understood and accepted. They could be the inspiration for specific categories where we clearly need help:

Addiction Services: Medical and counseling staff are overwhelmed by the opioid/heroin epidemic. Help is needed: drivers, orderlies, guards, and the like. Caution and savvy PR will be essential since the epidemic is worst where job-protection sentiment is highest. But, if effective, it could be a powerful example. Qualifications: Experience dealing with trauma — Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Afghans.

Traffic Policeperson: In an automated age, this might seem a relic. But growing traffic congestion, and the plague of phone-distracted driving, demands on-site, on-the-ground supervision that most Americans are too phone-distracted to perform. Qualifications: Experience with insanely dangerous driving conditions — anyone from the Middle East and possibly Italy or China.

Teacher: With a booming economy paying good wages, and attacks on teachers‘ unions and on the integrity of public schools also driving them away, our teacher shortage is critical. Qualifications: Good English and high tolerance for chaos — Nigerians, Ghanaians, Kenyans,Tanzanians.

President of the United States: (Just kidding, to make sure you were paying attention.)

Personal Bodyguard: America is a dangerous place. Many of us need someone willing to take a bullet on our behalf. Qualifications: A menacing look and a nasty disposition — given those qualities, only a fool would single out a specific nationality.

Baseball Game Crackerjacks Hawker: You might think of this as a tiny niche. But, with games longer and more paralyzingly boring than ever, sales of Crackerjacks have skyrocketed as catatonic patrons look for real excitement — the prize at the bottom of the box. Qualifications: Ability to count essential; an amusing, entertaining accent also beneficial — Italians, Indians, Canadians.

The experiment will have its ups and its downs, as two different experiences demonstrate:

1. Mexican immigrant goes to his first American big-league baseball game. When he gets home, his family asks how it was. Great, he says. Everybody was so welcoming. Before the game started, they all stood up and sang: Jose, Can You See?

2.  New immigrant — no English, very hungry — sits in a coffee shop, unsure how to order. Everybody around him is ordering Donut a cuppa coffee, Donut a cuppa coffee. So, when the waiter comes, the guy gingerly orders Donut a cuppa coffee.

Success, but, by the end of a couple weeks, he’s desperate for a change. So he goes to a different diner, where everybody’s ordering Hot Dog and a Coke, Hot Dog and a Coke. The waiter comes and the guy orders Hot Dog and a Coke. The waiter asks, You want that with relish, mustard, or ketchup?

………….. Donut a cuppa coffee!!

(Postscript: The July 18, 2017 press reports that the Secretary of Homeland Security has granted a one-time increase in visas to temporary workers. I’m humbled to have been influential, but, above all, grateful that I’ll get my Crackerjacks on-the-double when I go to a Rockies game. Gotta run. Expecting a call from The Washington Post. Fingers crossed.)

If They Can’t Afford Cake, Let Them Eat Dirt

Tags

African Americans, auto workers, college education, elitism, Hispanics, immigrants, Obama, politicians, populism, Rick Santorum, southern whites, stupidity

Rick Santorum says President Obama is a snob because he wants every American to go to college.  Apparently, Santorum wants some Americans not to go to college.  I wonder if he’s given any thought to whom he’d want to exclude.  In case he hasn’t gotten down to those details, let me suggest that the most simple-minded way (and, by this, I mean no disrespect to Mr. Santorum) to separate the chaff from the wheat is to exclude those who are already underrepresented at our colleges and universities:

African-Americans and Hispanics — they’re not beating down the college doors, so why not just accept the situation that circumstance has handed you. Besides, if too many members of any lower socio-economic group — whatever their race or national origin — get a college education, who’s going to collect our garbage and shovel our sidewalks?

Males — they’re fading as a percentage of college students in any case, so why not just do the educational equivalent of euthanasia.  Besides, if too many men got a college education, who would make Bud Light commercials for us?  (A decade or two ago, this would have read, Females — their place is in the kitchen, opening a Bud Light for us guys, but college admissions has finally realized that women are smarter than men.)

Immigrants — if they had wanted to go to American colleges, they should have learned English as their first language.  And if they’re illegals, they should have insisted that their parents leave them behind on the south bank of the Rio Grande.

Southern whites — no reason; just Northern prejudice.  The Old South that we knew and loved has been ruined by uppity whites with their so-called “eddication.”

Children of auto workers — if “twelve-and-out” was good enough for Daddy, it should be good enough for Junior.

Aspiring politicians — who demonstrates better than Rick Santorum that college just makes you dumb as shit?