On Neighbors and Immigration
Submitted by Doug West
DWest@us.ci.org
I was an eyewitness this week to some of the worst aspects of humanity: fear, distrust, defensiveness. It was a single incident that happened behind my neighbor’s house. Running behind the houses on my street is a walking trail that weaves through some woods and along a creek and a small lake. Several children, including my 3 sons, were playing at the edge of those woods, checking out the creek, throwing rocks in the water – typical kid stuff. I was in the backyard when I heard my neighbor, let’s call her ‘Liz’, talking to someone, in a tone of voice that clearly suggested she was annoyed or angry:
“Hey you – can I read more
Motorcycle Zen
Last weekend I joined with thousands of bikers to ride through Montana and Wyoming’s Beartooth Pass Highway. Now if you would have asked me a year ago if I saw myself riding switchback after switchback in leather boots and jacket on the back of a Harley, I would have taken a moment to contemplate, laughed and said “anything is possible, I guess”. Now what amazes me the most about this whole experience is why I hadn’t done it before.
There’s nothing like it.
There’s nothing like the wind in my hair, the cool breeze and hot patches of sun warmed road, the balmy segments of valley that feel like hot, moist, summer days back East. The read more
What I Learned from Jefferson’s Mountain
A few weeks ago President Bush welcomed 72 new Americans as they took their oath of citizenship at Thomas Jefferson’s famous estate, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia. 72 new citizens got a healthy taste of free speech as Bush was continually heckled from the crowd.
I happened to be in Virginia too, visiting relatives, and as I watched Bush give his read more
Dominating the World one Gold Medal at a time
The obsession that some people have over the Olympics confuses me. I am not anti-American, but sometimes I wonder if people are rooting for the American team for the right reasons.
Allow me to digress.
Occasionally I run into people that I read more
Black Superheroes Wanted
By Walidah Imarisha
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
How do you make a movie that relies entirely on America’s sordid racial history, without ever talking about race? Ask the makers of Hancock, they seem to have it down pat.
John Hancock [Will Smith] is a superhero that protects Los Angeles, begrudgingly. Drunk, foul mouthed, bedraggled, sexist, homophobic and ethnically insensitive, he’s about as far from a Superman as you’re ever going to get. But we find out that all Hancock needs is a little TLC.
A blow to the head 80 years ago erased his memory, so he lives in isolation from society, saving it without being of it. But all that changes when he meets Ray Embrey read more
Chicago’s Hometown Heroes
I was born and raised in the Chicago-area. I grew up going to Cubs games with my dad, and playing catch in the backyard. I spent most of my childhood in a suburb where one enjoyed the best of the city and ignored the worst.
The worst was the segregation, poverty, and police brutality. I heard about it, but I never saw it. It wasn’t until I was read more
Businesses Should Follow the Money Trail on Immigration
(Image gratefully borrowed from Vinh Tran (on left) and WelcomingIdaho (at the bottom) at flicker.com/creativecommons)
Yesterday was hot and humid in Chicago. One of the things I like best about summer heat is that it gives me the perfect excuse to ingest one of Dunkin Doughnut’s Frozen Latte. Yesterday, read more
Do We Really Want Change?
Have you ever broken up with someone because they rarely stood on their own? Or because they stimulated you, but the tone of their words muted the sound of your voice - their words and thoughts towered over your every word.
I have. Then I promised myself I’d never date a replica of my past. I made a vow to meet someone who would challenge me and get me to see the world and myself through a different prism. I was so tired of making all the decisions, no matter how serious or trivial they were. Tired, tired tired…
But then life goes on and my previous experiences are remembered as a small and insignificant part of my past. I meet someone new and his/her personality appears read more
Batman: Hoping for a Dark Knight
You will undoubtedly read and/or hear about the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, in some form or another sometime in the next few weeks. Critics will rave about it, fans will recommend it, and kids will demand that parents take them to it. These are the ways things work in read more
Obama, Satire, and Reverse Racism
This week, news anchors and politicians are attacking the New Yorker (a national political magazine) for printing a dicey image of Michelle and Barack Obama. The cover of the magazine is an image of Obama wearing read more
Audio: 2050 Blogcast - July 2008
(Image gratefully borrowed from tomsaint’s photos on flicker.com/creativecommons)
This month I bring you some audio that I captured during a summer trip the Middle East. What you will hear is an interview that I did with a person I met along my travels. Her name is Nadine and she was born in Lebanon and her parents are Syrian. The catch is that her family read more
Racism Italian Style
A few weeks ago I was enjoying a warm afternoon at the park with my friend, Lynn and her daughter Mary. As we twirled lazily on the swings I saw a man striding across the playground towards a young woman pushing her infant on the baby swings. The way he moved, with his head thrust forward, arms rigid at his side, sent a tingling shiver of unease up my spine. Lynn and I exchanged looks as he approached the woman. Silently calculating the way women often do when they detect a threat to children.
We watched as he talked, aggressively leaning into the side of her face. Finally she turned to look at him. They argued for several minutes, until the baby sat unmoving in her swing. He read more
Birthday’s don’t Pay Like They Used To
I don’t know about you, but I’m a grandmaster of birthdays, well at least my birthday. If you happen to be one of those people who know me personally you probably know about my birthday. I celebrate my birthday for fifteen days straight. That’s seven days before and seven days after, just in case you’re doing the math. In light of all the recent studies showing a read more
Personal Responsibility
Whether you’re fighting for immigrants’ rights, against the Iraq war, the death penalty, or someone holding a sign of a fetus outside a woman’s health clinic or against same-sex marriage, each political group works relentlessly for their ‘cause.’ Each group spends hours calling elected politicians, writing letters to newspapers (so people read their opinions), restless nights on the internet reading the latest blog or the new non-fiction political book.
There’s no doubt conservative (the red team) and progressive (the blue team) activists are focused and dedicated. Each group works hard and strives for success. To put it another way, members of each political flavor are read more
The Parking Lot
It wasn’t about justice
Or about the fact
I felt
I deserved
A little of what she had.
It wasn’t about anger
Or vengeance.
Or because my car
Never starts.
Or the crack in the windshield.
Or because pools of dust
Collect in rusted impressions
Of my 1986 Toyota Celica.
It wasn’t
Because
I thought
She hadn’t worked for what she had.
Or because
I haven’t
Stopped working
Since 14.
I was 26
She must have been 18.
Designer shirt.
Designer shoes.
And a car that goes
from 0 to read more
SPORTS: He Loves You, He Loves You Not
Here in America we just can’t seem to resist guilty pleasures. We do things we know we shouldn’t. American sports fans seem to enjoy the lingering relationship between themselves and a superstar. This type of relationship is much akin to exclusively dating someone and sooner or later breaking up with them. Both are a type of love-hate relationship that continue until one party either finds someone else, more money, or a sense of clarity. Feelings linger, emotions peak, and rationality is thrown completely out the window when we are invested in these types of relationships.
Usually the scenario goes like so: Person A says to Person B “Look, it has been a wonderful run, but I read more
NumbersUSA, Don’t Treat Me like a Fool
Boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives sometimes lie to each other. They say they’re faithful and would never dream of cheating, but that’s not always the case. Instead of being honest, they lie and say, “No, I didn’t, I couldn’t, you mean too much to me, and there’s nothing I’d ever do to jeopardize what we have together.” But then again, sometimes it’s easier to believe a lie rather than dig for the truth. I know I’ll never forget the day an old boyfriend lied to my face, and boy did I feel like a fool.
Kinda like Numbers USA, a national anti-immigrant rights organization. The organization says they want to improve “community quality of life,” read more
Our Anti-American Supreme Court
Last week the Supreme Court overturned a Washington D.C. ban on handguns, effectively removing most of the District’s gun restrictions. This ruling, unfortunately, leaves the door wide open for the National Rifle Association to challenge similar laws around the country. They’ve already sued to overturn handgun bans in other cities, such as Chicago, based on the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The National Rifle Association has such a fanatical obsession with demolishing handgun read more
Smell Something Burning? It’s Probably Arizona
Did you ever play the “If I had lived during [insert appropriate historic period here] I would have . . .” game? Back when I was a kid my friends and I would sit in a tight circle often with popsicles juice running down our fingers while we discussed how each of us would have reacted to the Great Chicago Fire, escaped the Titanic, survived in the Land of the Lost, or ran bootleg rum from Canada, though I’m sure we didn’t even know what rum was.
As we grew older the game changed and took on even more significance. It was no longer made up of fantasies of how I would have invested in Disney and read more
Isolation Bad, Globalization Good
I don’t think isolationism should influence American foreign policy and here’s why:
The rise of isolationist foreign policies is in response to globalization. And Why?
When our American economy competes globally, so does our individual income. In result, how much we make per hour or each year competes with the standard amount of money people make in various countries.
So, if we can agree our cost of living is higher than developing countries, than we can also agree the amount of money we make is also higher.
Therefore, if we compete within global markets, our individual wages and economic standards of living will decline.
So, is this a good read more
Polls
Loading ...Categories
Authors
