What might have been lost?

I tend to forget that I am one of the few people I know who is obsessive/compulsive about blogging. This may come as a shock to many of you since I also tend to be pretty sketchy when it comes to, you know, writing on my own blog. I often miss a few days, a week, even a month 'round these parts and consider that no big deal, but I'll be damned if I miss a Matthew Yglesias post when there is the internetz to be had.

The reason that I bring this up is that I was enjoying a new post over at one of the best blogs ever today when I realized that most of you probably don't even know that it exists. Mostly because many of you have lives, but whatev. The point is that as long as I am going to be ocd and not have a life, you might as well reap some of those benefits.

So without further ado I present to you Stuff White People Like. If you are white, know someone who is white, or see white people on the street sometimes, I can't recommend this blog highly enough. It is so hard to pick a favorite entry, so I suggest that you just read them all. I do have to confess that I myself am massively white. If this was a medical condition and not just a blog then I would have terminal whiteness. Organic whole grain pizza crust white. Vintage t-shirts wearing, corporation hating, sushi eating, indie rock listening, Barack Obama supporting white. White white white. Which of course makes me like the blog even more.

I hope you enjoy. I intend to share good finds more often. I kindly request that you do the same.

You know what? I'll start with Bon Iver:

Bon Iver- Skinny Love
RIYL- TV On the Radio acoustic, Iron & Wine, Dustin Kensrue with a falsetto

In addition to placing "now listening to" tags in all of my posts, I'm also committing to finding ways to make those tracks accessible to all of y'all. I will also be posting RIYL tags (rock if you like...) so that you have some idea what you're getting yourself into when you click on the link.

Paris Is Burning Anyone?

I'm headed out for a run and I was just lamenting the fact that I don't have Cheryl Lynn's "Got To Be Real" on my iPod:



Now THAT is a club track. It's an anthem, no doubt. I just had a little dance party.

I hope that everyone is having a good weekend.

Cheryl Lynn- Got To Be Real (obviously)

Why So Serious?

Ladies and Gentlmen: The Dark Knight

I'm excited. Heath has some pretty awesome looking chemical burns there. It'll be interesting to see how he does crazy differently than Jack. This looks a little bit more "crazy with nothing to lose." I like that.

Blogging should be pretty light over the next, oh, month. Not that I don't have anything to say (I mean really, is that even a question?), just that I'm going to be moving around a lot.

Just a week or so more until I leave hear for good. Very sad. It's a tough place to leave. The other day I was walking down the street when a car went buy with a speaker on top. That's a pretty standard marketing tool around town. The unusual thing about this salesman was that he was pushing bundles of marijuana. By the kilo. No takers that I saw, but there are plenty of dealers standing on street corners in my neighborhood already. The competition is tough. Oh Mexico, you'll be missed.

Exile from Mainstream

Josh Marshall really knows the way to a boy's heart. Talking Points Media have a post up from Brian McLaren talking about his new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.

The post itself isn't really life-changing, but the fact that TPM gave him the chance to promote it is encouraging news. What I sometimes forget is that the real world has no idea what Evangelicals are really like. And if the past year has taught me anything, it is that the information they do receive about us/them is not very encouraging. See: "Jesus Camp," anything James Dobson related, the Creation Museum, and President Bush. Basically, we are only known for doing bad and crazy stuff. The good stuff just doesn't penetrate. The parts of me that have stopped identifying as Evangelical really don't care that much. If they want to ruin their reputation then that's there prerogative. However, there is a part of me that will always identify with being an Evangelical. I can't walk away from that any more than I could walk away from W.N.L., or my Michael W. Smith tapes, or "true love waits." So in a roundabout way this really is important to me. Donald Miller has stated that the church needs to stop trying to do a P.R. campaign for Jesus. That's true. Love speaks for itself. But having the church shown as a destructive force isn't good either.

To have a rational, sane Evangelical preacher with rational, sane thoughts on the world is refreshing, healthy, and helpful. Even more so when that person is given a national platform. Talking Points Media is extremely influential right now and deservedly so, they do important work. Serious people take this place, well, seriously. With this post people who have heard about "Jesus Camp," but don't actually know any normal Evangelical Christians, now have some exposure to someone who both loves Jesus and speaks in a really humble way. Great, huh?

I am, by the way, really looking forward to reading this book. Especially since Just Coffee is the OFFICIAL coffee of his book tour. Seriously).

I'm scared to see stats for Douglas

Matt Yglesias posts a really fun little toy: A website that allows you to see demographic information from any zip code in the country. For all of you haters, 80501 Longmont only has 9% of the population living below the poverty line. Which is still too high, but far below what some of you would say. Have fun.

Has this been on the nightly news much?

Please go here and sign the online petition.

Basically, it's a petition to convince China to stop supporting the Burmese Junta by making the Chinese look bad vis-a-vis the 2008 Olympics. If you don't understand why it might be important to stop the Chinese from supporting the Burmese government, google it.

And by the way, the petition is pretty serious. It's moving towards 1 million people. And the advertisements are going to run in major newspapers.

Thanks. Have a great day.

"Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for me, the beast doesn't include selling out. Garth, you know what I'm talking about, right?"*

From last week's Toronto Star:

"U.S. action on illegals has a cost"

Sep 10, 2007 04:30 AM
Craig and Marc Kielburger

The aging white school bus sits conspicuously in the Burger King parking lot. It's idle now but will soon make the 10-minute trek across the border from Arizona into Mexico.

There the bus will fill with Mexicans, who then cross the border on tourist visas. They won't be sightseeing though – they're going to work. "Wal-Mart" is scrawled on the windshield, leaving little doubt about where they are headed.

This is just one of countless ways that migrants from Latin America enter the United States to find jobs illegally. With upward of 12 million undocumented migrants in America, they make up a sizeable portion of the country's workforce.

Thanks to a crackdown expected this week, that may soon change.

American employers now face more than $10,000 in fines and even jail time if they hire illegal workers. Industries from restaurants and hotels to farms and construction now have 90 days to fire employees without a valid social security number.

While it's always been illegal to hire undocumented workers, most officials have turned a blind eye.

After June's failed immigration reform, the tighter regulations may appease Americans opposed to open borders – a hotbed issue in the upcoming election. But they'll have disastrous side-effects.

"It's going to be terrible for employees, terrible for businesses and terrible for customers," says Aaron Boeke, of Frontera de Cristo, a migrant rights group. "If you want to see the economy tank overnight, this is a good way to do it."

Boeke says few realize how integral illegal workers are to the economy, especially as manual labourers. Without them, businesses will lose millions of low-paid employees, causing prices to go up, he said.

"People don't realize their Chinese food is made by Mexicans," Boeke says. "They have oranges in December because of Mexicans."

Employees like Cesar, who worked illegally on a California farm for 20 years before being deported last month. The Guatemalan, who did not want to give his last name, says the American economy cannot function without illegal workers like himself.

"When we work for them, the economy is normal," he says from a migrant shelter in Mexico. "They make money because we work for almost nothing. We work for $6 an hour, but Americans won't."

Indeed, California stands to lose most from this latest crackdown, with 2.5 million illegals – more than anywhere else in the country – many employed by farmers, who rely on Latin American field hands.

All are now on the verge of unemployment. If they and other undocumented workers lose their jobs, the money they send home will dry up. Most illegal migrants support impoverished relatives, so the consequences of firing them would ripple throughout Latin America.

"People are coming because their families are hungry, their children are crying," Cesar explains. "Why doesn't the American government think about them?"

As the crackdown begins, only time will tell just what impact it will have on the economy, and millions of undocumented workers.

Boeke believes it will be impossible to enforce the tighter laws, and as prices of fruit and other goods start to rise, consumers will force the government to back down.

"Once it starts affecting business, there will be a backlash," he says.

But until then, undocumented workers like Cesar can only lay low – and keep their fingers crossed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Craig and Marc Kielburger are children's rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world. Online: Craig and Marc Kielburger discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section. Take part in the discussion online at thestar.com/globalvoices.

It's a good article. I don't care much for the headline though. What is an "illegal?" I was not an English major, but I do believe that illegal is an adjective, not a noun. So an illegal what? An illegal alien? An illegal worker? Try putting in "human being" and seeing how that sounds. "U.S. action on illegal human beings has a cost." Sounds strange doesn't it? Rhetoric matters. Words count.

On an unrelated note, this article makes me feel like somewhat of a fraud. None of this really impacts my life. I won't come home to find out that my dad has been deported. I won't lose my job.

That being said, I am, on a lot of levels, pleased. Proud smile. Heh.

When I was interviewed for this story I knew that it would end up in one of the largest papers in Toronto, which in turn is one of the largest cities in Canada. But actually seeing it? That's just weird.

*Wayne Campbell

Very, very few of you will care.

Especially since I'm pretty certain that Kyle doesn't read this blog, and Wes just seems to be MIA in general, but:

THRICE has posted two new songs online.

And they are quite good. "Firebreather" is a little bit "modern rock" heavy, which I wasn't expecting out of the band, but it really picks up towards the end of the song. "Digital Sea" sounds a lot like Kid A without sounding like they are trying to rip off Radiohead. I'm very pleased.

As always, Dustin's lyrics don't disappoint:

Firebreather

Tell me, are you free in word or thought or deed, while the gallows stand, and bullets lance the bravest lungs? We fold our hands and hold our tongues. Tell me, are you free, when the fear falls on you? Will I fold my hands or hold my tongue? Or let the flames lick at my feet, and breathe in fire and know I’m free. The flames will rise and devour me. Oh, to breathe in fire, and know I’m free.

Digital Sea

I woke, cold and alone, adrift in the open sea; caught up in regrets, and tangled in nets, instead of your arms wrapped around me. And I wept but my tears are anathema here, just more water to fill my lungs. I hear someone scream, “God what is it we have done?” I am drowning in a digital sea; I am slipping beneath the sound. Here my voice goes, to ones and zeros, I’m slipping beneath the sound. A song from somewhere below, deadly and slow begins. Both sickly and sweet, now picking up speed, and ushering in the world’s end. And the ghost of Descartes screams again in the dark, “Oh how could I have been so wrong?” But above the screams still the sirens sing their song.


October can't come soon enough.

Happy Birthday Mexico

It's a beautiful country that Mexico. Well worth celebrating. Last Saturday night the entire country gathered together and celebrated like it was 1810. Some things to be thankful for:



Family. And friends. And dogs.



Cowboys. Real, or, er, not so real.



Kids.



And laws that let you shoot off fireworks into large crowds of people. Miguel Hidalgo would be proud.


VIVA!!!

This one goes out to Erik and Kyle.

I can't embed this video, so just go check it out at the link. It'll make your day. Thanks to my new friend Karen for sending this to me.

Physics love.