Seems as good a time as any to ask it, what with the Moussaoui verdict…
Do you support the death penalty? Why or why not?
I’m generally against it, though I'll make exceptions for certain cases. Like, if Milosevic hadn’t keeled in his cell, I wouldn’t have lost a wink of sleep over that cunt getting the needle.
Question of the Day
Moussaoui gets life in prison.
Link. The reason he got life rather than a death sentence is because the jurors didn’t vote unanimously to execute him. There’s no info available yet on what the breakdown of the vote was.
I have no comment, really, except that it’s notable that in the biggest case related to the war on terrorism so far, the Justice Department failed to secure the death sentence they were seeking. I’ll be interested to see what their comments on the case are, which are due later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Congratulations, Hearts!
The Hearts of Midlothian Football Club, Mr. Shakes' home team, have become the first non-Old Firm side to qualify for Europe's premier tournament in more than 20 years.
If you’re reading that and thinking, “WTF does that mean?” well, join the club. All I know is that it’s a big deal, and it makes Mr. Shakes very, very, very happy, so just lift your glass and offer up a toast for this rather happy Scotsman. Even if he knows we don’t know what the hell we’re celebrating, he won’t care.
Quote of the Day
"You just got to recognize there are limits to how much corn can be used for ethanol. After all, we got to eat some."
— President Bush, discussing alternative fuels as his party faces anger over high gas prices
(Actually, it’s from April 25, but I only read it today.)
Straighten Up and Fly Left
So, Blogenfreude and I, among our many other conversations about important subjects like Tony Zirkle and sushi, were contemplating what, exactly, it will take for the Left blogosphere to get some respect.
So Shakes and me are going to set it before you, the home readers (or before you immature foul-mouthed jerks, if you believe Joe Klein). What do we do? Beg George Soros for the money to start Not Fox News? Trackback, comment, and blogwhore more? Do the Technorati? Figure out a party line and stick to it? (Ha!)Part of this is the frustration I was expressing in my earlier post, where, with a few notable exceptions on the blogging side (Kos, Atrios, MyDD, etc.) and a few on the Beltway side (Evan Bayh’s All America PAC and Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund have both been, in my personal experience, excellent with outreach and responsiveness), there seems to be a lot of contempt, often rooted is misunderstanding or ignorance, directed from the direction of D.C. toward the most dedicated progressive activists. (And this is to say nothing of the treatment we get at the hands of the media.) Our ideological opponents certainly appear generally to have greater access and respect from their elected representatives and the media than we do.
Another part of it is something Blogenfreude mentioned during our discussions was the oft-repeated assertion that progressives don’t use the internet as effectively as conservatives do—links, trackbacks, etc. Is it true? Does that make us less effective as a whole if it is?
So, there are two issues here: effectiveness and access. And, as I don’t have any answers or solutions at the moment, I’m opening it up for discussion. Thoughts, complaints, ideas, differing perspectives—whatcha got?
I'm in the money... I'm in the money...
So, the husband and I have purchased a condo in the lovely River North area of Chicago. Fortunately for us, we managed to get our grubby little mitts on it during the pre-construction phase, which means we got it at a reasonable price. We're still stretching our budget like silly putty, but it looks like we're actually going to be able to do this.
Now, since it is pre-construction, we're kind of stuck with our move-in date. Can't move into a half-finished structure, after all. We've been told that hopefully we'll be able to move in during late July/early August. Fine. Except for the fact that our lease is up in our current apartment on June 1st.
We asked our landlord of the possibility of going to a brief, 3 month lease. He agreed, but he's raising our rent $300 a month.
He reasons thusly: He claims that our rent is lower than what "most people pay in our neighborhood" (and just try disproving that,) because he doesn't pay our heat/gas bill (we pay that ourselves). Since we're extending our lease into months where we won't be using heat, the rent hike is justified.
Argh.
So, along with closing and moving costs, we're feeling the pinch of an extra three bills every month. But I'm not worried. I've figured out a way to make all the money we need, plus bonus cash for that flatscreen I've got my eye on that will look so good over the fireplace.
I'm going to hire myself out to spank Republicans for money.
And the money is honey-sweet, baby.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- An executive at a heart disease charitable foundation who embezzled close to a quarter of a million dollars over two years to pay a dominatrix to beat him was sentenced Tuesday to two to six years in prison."Most of it?" Geez. And Lady Sage... man, that's an awesome dominatrix name.
Abraham Alexander, an accounts payable executive at the Manhattan Cardiovascular Research Foundation, admitted to stealing $237,162 and spending most of it on services provided by a Columbus, Ohio-based dominatrix called Lady Sage.
Lady Sage's Web site features dozens of photographs of the stern, unsmiling dominatrix carrying a whip. She is seen in some pictures wearing a feathered boa over leather or with a metal-studded thong bikini in high-heeled boots."Beat a customer on his own turf." This is the best article ever.
She lists her services at $250 for the first hour and $200 for each additional hour. An eight-hour session costs $1,500 and 12 hours runs clients $2,000. Lady Sage also commands $1,000 a day in travel expenses if she has to beat a customer on his own turf.
Hot damn! I could make up the difference in our rent in an hour or so. Hell, with the repressed sexual urges making Republicans explode into fountains of kink left and right, I bet even a doofy-looking guy like me could man-whore himself into a swanky pad.
Santorum isn't allowed anywhere near my dog, though. Even a kinky man-whore has to have some standards.
Come on, Gannon! We can share a
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Pam. Some cross-posts want to use you... some of them want to get used by you...)
What the hell is going on with the DNC and gays?
This stinks.
Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean on May 2 fired the party's gay outreach advisor Donald Hitchcock less than a week after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, a longtime party activist, accused Dean of failing to take stronger action to defend gays.And, you know, if this had been a one-off, I might be willing to listen to the paltry excuses being offered, but it isn’t. It’s just another thread in the long rope being used to muzzle the LGBT community by the DNC.
In early February, The Washington Blade reported that last August, in a largely unnoticed move, Dean had abolished the DNC’s lesbian and gay constituent outreach desk, leading to gay Democratic Party activist and fundraiser, and former chair of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus, Jeff Soref’s resignation as chair of the DNC’s gay caucus. Even more curious was Dean’s decision to fold the gay constituent outreach desk into the larger umbrella program known as the American Majority Partnership, which seeks to address concerns of all minority constituencies. The LGBT fundraising office, the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, however, remained. So once again, it appeared to be an issue of the Dems’ willingness to offer a fair return on reliable financial contributions
Pam:
If you had any illusions that the 2006 iteration of the Democratic party isn't ready to throw gays under the bus (but take homo cash), here's convincing evidence to chew on.Keith Boykin:
I'm not surprised that the Democrats want to keep raising money from gays but don't want to do outreach with that community. It's almost like the old pattern in which Democrats would ignore black folk until the last few weeks of a campaign when they needed us to turn out and vote.Spot-on—and both of them echoed concerns that were being raised throughout the LGBT community and among their supporters.
In response, Dean wrote a Letter to the Editor of The Washington Blade, asserting that the DNC’s commitment to LGBT constituents was not being undermined.
The DNC’s "political desk" system has been replaced with a new and improved organizational structure and culture devoted to recognizing and promoting the rich diversity of the Democratic Party, and protecting and advancing equal rights for the communities we represent, including our friends and family in the LGBT community.Harrumph.
Dean then met with gay activists on February 13. According to DNC spokesperson Damien LaVera, it was a previously scheduled event, but Mike Rogers disputed that claim and commented, “When Ethan Geto calls a meeting with gays over party stupidity and to defend Howard Dean, you can be sure the message has gotten through… He is called in for the big stuff.”
At that point, Eric Stern, the Executive Director of the Stonewall Democrats, wrote an op-ed calling for the DNC to “immediately appoint a senior LGBT political staff person as part of its American Majority Partnership to implement electoral strategy and advise the Chair of the DNC.”
So then, on February 16, the DNC issued a press release reasserting the Democratic Party’s commitment to the LGBT community.
The Democratic Party has never been more committed to protecting equal rights for the LGBT community. We are standing strong with the community, fighting the Republican Party's repugnant efforts to exploit the politics of fear and division and scapegoat LGBT families for electoral gain. I am proud to lead a Party that will never resort to such shameful tactics. As long as I am chairman, this Party will always help provide the LGBT community every opportunity to live the American Dream.More harrumph.
Then, on February 24, The Washington Blade reported that the LGBT community was only further incensed by the release of the DNC’s “Annual Report to the Grassroots,” which failed to mention gays and the Democratic Party’s gay outreach efforts entirely. “Activists pointed to a similar grassroots report issued a year earlier by Dean’s predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, which gave a detailed account of the party’s gay outreach program.” LaVera dismissed concerns by categorizing the report as a “brief, preliminary account of Dean’s plan to rebuild the party by strengthening its field operation in all 50 states.”
Excuses, excuses. Nothing but excuses for why things that appear to be indicative of marginalizing the LGBT community from the Democratic Party. And now this latest debacle—about which John Aravosis, who gets the hat tip (care of Angelos), says, “Can you say Valerie Plame?” Good point. I’d like to believe that this is just a matter of someone who got fired for legitimate reasons, but the actions of the DNC over the course of the last year are simply not conducive to subscribing to such a notion. Dean needs to get his shit together. Yeah, I know he was the first governor to champion and secure civil unions in his state, but now he needs to show some commitment to the LGBT community on a national level, because this bullshit is getting tired.
And aside from the more important issue of the ethical failing of abandoning an important civil rights issue, I’m not too pleased with the politics of it, either. Any progressive interested in seeing the GOP get roundly trounced during the next election cycle surely prefers to have an active and dedicated LGBT base to help out—not one that’s rightfully so pissed off that they tell the Dems to go fuck themselves.
"Impeach Bu... uh, wait, let me think about this one..."
He's not paranoid... they ARE out to get him!
Every once in a while, when discussing the impeachment of Dear Leader, someone inevitably makes the comment: "Sure I'd love to impeach Bush, but the idea of President Cheney scares the crap out of me." Joking, dead serious, you've heard it before. But I've always rejected this mindset, simply because for all intents and purposes, Cheney is the president. Bush has always liked to walk around in his big boy pants and look like he's the Leader of the Free World, but behind the scenes, we know who's really running the show. Cheney's the one with World Domination on his mind.
And that ain't good.
The guy is seriously paranoid. Nixon-level paranoid. And he seems to be getting worse. Much has been made of his extreme secrecy, in fact, it's a secret how much he's keeping secret. The man is obsessed with keeping the world in the dark; one could say it's bordering on ridiculous.
Actually, it's looking like it's crossed the border, and has moved into a snug little bungalow in a nice (undisclosed, of course) area of town. Surrounded by barbed wire, attack dogs, and sharks with frickin' laser beams in their heads.
Purdum reports that Cheney travels with a chemical-biological suit at all times. When he gave his friend Robin West and his twin children a ride to the White House a couple of years ago, West commented on the fact that Cheney’s motorcade varied its daily path. “And he said, ‘Yeah, we take different routes so that “The Jackal” can’t get me,’” West tells Purdum. “And then there was this big duffel bag in the middle of the backseat, and I said, ‘What’s that? It’s not very roomy in here.’ And [Cheney] said, ‘No, because it’s a chemical-biological suit,’ and he looked at it and said, ‘Robin, there’s only one. You lose.’”
This is scary stuff, indeed. For those of you under 40ish, "The Day of the Jackal" was a Frederick Forsyth thriller, made into a 1973 movie, that follows an assassin's attempt to kill Charles DeGaulle (Spoiler alert: He misses...duh). For some men, four heart attacks might trigger a kind of fatalism, but the Cheney effect seems to be the reverse, an over-the-top survivalist instinct -- no doubt worsened by his many months brooding in "undisclosed locations" -- and the growing belief that people are out to get him on every street corner.
Much is going to be made in the days and weeks to come regarding the current fuzzy story revealing Cheney's acceptance of his daughter's coming out. Somehow, I think the fact that Cheney won't leave his house without a biohazard suit, and thinks he's living in a 70's thriller movie is the more important story. But that's just me.
Remember the baseball game bulletproof vest rumors? Maybe those poll numbers are affecting him more than we realize.
"President Cheney." Now that phrase does give me chills.
Update: More from Com. Agi.
(Energy Dome tip to Dependable Renegade. When the moon hits your cross-post like a big pizza pie...)
Dick still loves Mary
Drudge is reporting that in her new memoir, Now It’s My Turn, Mary Cheney says that “when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father’s mouth ‘were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: You’re my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy.’”
Frankly, that makes his willingness to sit atop a platform openly hostile toward gays even more disgusting.
Of course, I’d rather fight tooth and nail against the GOP’s active attempt to make the LGBT community second-class citizens for a hundred years than be Dick Cheney’s daughter for even one second—and I believe I’d feel the same even if I were a lesbian, maybe even more so.
It's Good to be King
How pathetic is this (via Digby)?
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took on a rare role yesterday as a defender of President Bush.You know what? When you argue that the president “deserves respect” simply because he’s the president, you’re not just defending the administration; you’re coming dangerously close to defending their vision of the unitary executive, which not only holds that the president is imbued with unchecked and unilateral power, but, as expressed by the Bush administration, ought to be free from criticism and censure. Certainly the president deserves respect in the way that any individual does, but conferring upon him a special freedom from accountability—even when delivered in a satirical performance—is antithetical to our notions of American democracy and equality.
Hoyer came to the defense of the commander in chief after Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where the president took a drubbing from comedian Stephen Colbert.
“I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough,” Hoyer said. “He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect.”
“I’m certainly not a defender of the administration,” Hoyer reassured stunned observers, but Colbert “crossed the line” with many jokes that were “in bad taste.”
Did Colbert make anything up? Did he reference unproven conjecture about the president’s history (coke use, taking a girlfriend for an abortion) or even anything about the president’s personal life that has no bearing on his leadership (drinking problems)? No, he did not. Everything he addressed was fair game—and pretending that it was out of bounds because it cut close to the bone is utter bullshit, and indicative of just how far we’ve come in treating this president like a bloody king.
Let me make a radical suggestion: Stephen Colbert, as a citizen of this country, deserves some respect. He deserves to have members of the dissenting party support his right to criticize the president. Hoyer doesn’t have to agree with his methods, or think his jokes were funny, but if he’s going to comment on the evening, he ought to have said, “Colbert spoke his mind as an American,” and left it at that. I’m getting well tired of the Beltway dingbats of either party acting as though Americans don’t have a right to express themselves in whatever way they see fit, as long as it’s honest and legal.
And let’s get real here—Hoyer only thinks Colbert’s performance was inappropriate because he’s just some average Joe granted an “audience” with the president and other D.C. powerbrokers. I didn’t see his panties getting in a twist over the snarky DNC press release or Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s sardonic poem read on the House floor. When such an attitude is only problematic when expressed by someone whose sole political power otherwise rests in his or her vote, that’s representative of a belief that there should be a very important line between elected elites and average Americans—perhaps the very line that Hoyer accuses Colbert of crossing.
You want our money, you want our support, you want our dedication as foot-soliders, you want our votes—and you want us to keep our mouths shut, and leave the criticism in your hands so it can be done “properly.” This is the same elitist horseshit in which has grown the roots for your contempt of bloggers, anti-war activists, et. al. Fuck that.
One of the things we most despise about Bush is the stinkass attitude that oozes from his every pore: “I’m the president, dammit.” Defending that is about the worst thing you can do to win our favor.
Dante Whines Again
Submitted for your perusal: the new trailer for Clerks II
I’m a straight white geek in my twenties, so it goes without saying that I’ve been through a Kevin Smith phase. By the time I graduated college, I’d seen and worshipped Clerks and Mallrats, and I deeply believed that Chasing Amy was one of the most powerfully honest movies about love I’d ever seen. I knew the lines, I quoted them liberally; more importantly, I was convinced that this man had perfectly captured my lifestyle on film.
Course, like so many whirlwind affairs, this one ended poorly. I saw Dogma in the theaters, and while I liked much of it, even in my fandom I couldn’t completely ignore the basic shallowness of Smith’s ideas. Then I made the mistake of reading some of his comic book work, which was just a series of mildly funny one-liners distributed among characters at random, combined with clunky storytelling and moldy cheese. Then I saw Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and laughed two, maybe three times the entire movie. Suffice to say, the honeymoon was over.
I never saw Jersey Girl, don’t think I’ll be rectifying it soon, and man, this new trailer? Maybe one chuckle in the whole damn thing. Smith is a funny, funny guy, and the interviews he’s done, and the commentary tracks on his movies (and defunct TV show) are hilarious, but the end product is getting repetitive. He’s not much of a director, so most of his films have this flat, static look to them that bores the hell out of me. Jersey Girl was reportedly his attempt to grow as a filmmaker, but grow into what? Nora Ephron? At least Chasing Amy was fearless about its limits; Smith didn’t really know how to solve the central problem of the movie, wasn’t even sure he should be trying, and that’s what you get on the screen. It’s sloppy, and depending on your interpretation, juvenile and horribly offensive, but in its best moments, it had the electricity that comes from an artist who’s willing to be completely open with his audience regardless of the consequences.
And now we’re back to square one. Screw that. If I get jonesing for a Smith (heh), I’ll just watch Mallrats again.
Question of the Day
What’s your favorite “political” song that isn’t widely regarded as a political anthem?
President Bush Hates America
Looks as though the National Anthem was not only played in Spanish at his first inauguration, but he himself has sung the National Anthem in Spanish.
Why does the president want us to lose our national soul?
Photo Dump: The Adventures of Georgie
What’s the presidenter-in-chief been up to the past few days?
Practiced stage moves with Turd Blossom and
Economic Advisor Al Hubbard for the “White House
Air Band 2006” competition. They’re doing one of
Al’s favorite N*Sync numbers.
Narrowly avoided being swallowed whole by AHA President
Dick Davidson, who was tres hungry.
Government "knew of and approved torture" before Abu Ghraib scandal
Breaking from Raw Story:
The ACLU said the document makes clear that while President Bush and other officials assured the world that what occurred at Abu Ghraib was the work of "a few bad apples," the government knew that abuse was happening in numerous facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 62 cases being investigated at the time, at least 26 involved detainee deaths. Some of the cases had already gone through a court-martial proceeding. The abuses went beyond Abu Ghraib, and touched Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca and other detention centers in Mosul, Samarra, Baghdad, Tikrit, as well as Orgun-E in Afghanistan.Read the whole thing.
"These documents are further proof that the abuse of detainees was widespread and systemic, and not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "We know that senior officials endorsed this abuse, but these officials have yet to be held accountable."
Children of the night, what music they make...
Been suffering from insomnia lately? Do you lie awake at night, tossing and turning, wishing that it was somehow possible for a former “Seinfeld” star to ease you into Slumberland on the soothing sounds of a Commodores classic?
Well, wish no more friends: Unexpected Dreams is here. From the press release:
The CD features 14 spellbinding tunes by composers including Elton John, Billy Joel, Sade, Bob Dylan and Lennon/McCartney, beautifully sung and lushly orchestrated. A portion of the proceeds will benefit “Music Matters,” the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s music education programs.
Unexpected Dreams: Songs from the Stars includes the following tracks:
Scarlett Johansson – “Summertime” (George & Ira Gershwin)
Ewan McGregor – “The Sweetest Gift” (Sade)
Taraji P. Henson – “In My Daughter’s Eyes” (James T. Slater)
Jennifer Garner – “My Heart Is So Full of You” (Frank Loesser)
Jeremy Irons – “To Make You Feel My Love” (Bob Dylan)
John Stamos – “Goodnight My Angel” (Billy Joel)
Lucy Lawless – “Little Child” (Eric Vetro/Alan Rich)
Marissa Jaret Winokur – “The Wish Song” (Eric Vetro/Steven Shore)
Eric McCormack – “The Greatest Discovery” (Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
Victor Garber – “No One Is Alone” (Stephen Sondheim)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “The Nightshift” (Brad Hall)
Nia Vardalos – “Golden Slumbers” (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
John C. Reilly – “Lullaby In Ragtime” (Sylvia Fine)
Teri Hatcher – “Goodnight” (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
Y’know, I have long pined for Scarlett Johansson to become a part of my evening routine, but this is definitely not the angle I was hoping for. Past the initial snickering, I have no idea as to the quality of this disc, although the five user reviews on Amazon are unflaggingly positive. My favorite out-of-context moment, from Rick “Music Lover”:
My favorite unexpected singers are Scarlett Johansen, Lucy Lawless and Teri Hatcher. All very tender. You go, girls!Mmmm. Tender.
The money goes to a good cause, the music’s not too painful- makes one long for the kitsch of years past, like George Martin’s horrific album of celebrity Beatles covers, where at least you could cringe and laugh. This mostly just earns a polite shrug. Too lame to love, but not quite lame enough to torture your friends with.
Still, the thought of Eric McCormack and “The Greatest Discovery” in the same room makes the ole gorge rise. Hopefully this will find its way online soon, as I simply must hear how Jeremy Irons does Bob Dylan. (See, this is exactly what should’ve been playing over the credits on the Lolita remake.)
More than just a pretty face and Wildean wit.
Angelos (bless you, darling) forwarded along this Slate article about the politics of Morrissey’s new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors, and, in spite of my Mozza fanaticism, I can manage to eke out enough objectivity to affirm the article’s a good one.
Because Morrissey has few champions among those mainstream American pop critics preoccupied with business-as-usual routines by Pink, T.I., Beth Orton, and the Arctic Monkeys, the millennial vision and excitement—the progress—of Ringleader has been overlooked. Here's a pop album that helps one get a handle on how we live today. Each song traces unique emotional turmoil—from distorted family legacies ("The Youngest Was the Most Loved") to social isolation ("On the Streets I Ran"). At age 47, Morrissey maintains a commitment to rock—not folk—proffers an incongruously adult sense of the world…All true. He’s never going to be as obvious as Pink or Neil Young, but Ringleader is precisely as moving as stated above for precisely the reasons suggested. Morrissey has a long history of political commentary in his music; as I’ve mentioned, he’s been pulled in for questioning by “the authorities” on more than one occasion, and from “Meat is Murder” to “America is Not the World,” “Vicar in a Tutu” to “Glamorous Glue,” “Shoplifters of the World Unite” to “Irish Blood, English Heart,” there runs the passionate voice of a dedicated progressive, who struggles mightily with the state of the world and his place in it. A frustrated progressive with a penchant for wit and poetry could find little better for satiating the soul than a Morrissey album.
That doesn't mean he's made a political record in the conventional sense. Morrissey, too clever for Bono's po-faced sincerity, eschews the self-congratulatory earnestness of the maudlin sloganeers and the peacenik righteousness of Vietnam-era pop musicians. Instead, Ringleader is aggrieved—candidly personal yet vividly reportorial. The songs are full of the mixed emotions that characterize our conflicted allegiances. Whatever one's position on Iraq, Gitmo, or that mosque down the street, Morrissey's perspicacity fits the mood through his indulgence of complex, contradictory feelings.
The only complaint I have with the piece is that Mozza isn’t 47. He won’t be until May 22. And thus signals the return to my natural state as rampant fangrrl.
“What Makes an American?”
Excellent post from Ezra on the problems of casting undocumented workers as “un-American” or “non-Americans.”
In this debate, however, the poor Mexicans who undergo a dangerous trek so they can work agonizingly hard for very little, and do all of it to guarantee their children a better life, are such quintessential expressions of American ideals that it's impossible to exclude them from the more metaphysical description of citizenship. So, instead, folks like Rohrabacher are being forced to redefine "American", making it nothing but an accident of geography, divorcing it from everything that has made our citizenship as more myth than mundane statement of birth place.Absolutely spot-on.
In a very real way, Mr. Shakes and I are the people with whom the anti-immigration rhetoric should most resonate. We live in an economically depressed area with a not insignificant illegal and legal Mexican immigrant population, and I am unemployed and struggling mightily to get another job. And Mr. Shakes is a legal immigrant. We’ve gone through (and continue to go through) the legal channels to secure his citizenship, which is both time-consuming and costly, as he had to wait several months for a work permit after arriving, necessarily making mine our only income, and each submission of the next round of paperwork comes with another big processing fee. (We’ve done it without the assistance of an attorney; those who engage an attorney will have paid thousands more than we have.) Surely, we should be irate, or feel cheated, or something.
But the reality is that we don’t.
I feel like there’s plenty of room for me to have a job along with the nation’s undocumented workers—which, I admit, is easier for me to say since we’re not competing for the same jobs. But most Americans aren’t competing for the same jobs generally held by illegal immigrants, and not because they’re “jobs no American wants to do,” but because the employers actively seek out an exploitable workforce, a category out of which most Americans, like me, self-select, dependent as we are on healthcare benefits and interested as we are in livable wages.
As for Mr. Shakes, he came to America not because his life was dreadful or his family was starving or because he couldn’t find work. He came on a fiancée visa (a resource, btw, only available to us because we’re straight, which is a whole other post) because he fell in love with an American. He had the great fortune of being born in a country with lots of opportunity, and moving to one with the same. And a big part of his vision of America—which we talked about as we took that flight together over the ocean that once separated us, clutching hands and chattering excitedly, after an Arab-American man was nice enough to give me his seat since Mr. Shakes and I were in different rows—was this beautiful mosaic of cultures; just three generations ago, my family spoke with the same accent he has, after all. The first place he stayed after arriving on American shores was with Mr. Furious, who’s a damn Injun. His boss is a black woman; her boss is an Indian (Gandhi, not Sitting Bull—ref. Colbert). He’s just a ginger-haired Scotsman who’s woven himself into the colorful fabric that existed long before he got here—and he likes that about America. I like that about America, too.
Demonizing the people at the center of this debate as somehow less American because of geography and law doesn’t resonate with people like us. Being American is more than that, and sometimes the people who weren’t born here seem to understand that better than many of those who were.
'Splain me this...
Tom Cruise says he ignores media reports
Just like Bush.
Anyway, here's the weird quote:
His mission: to promote his new film, "Mission: Impossible III," which opens in theaters Friday.
"We really wanted a story that's going to leave the audience feeling emboldened and empowered when they leave the theater," the 43-year-old actor said Monday.
"Emboldened and empowered" to do... what, exactly?
p.s. I hate Tom Cruise.
