Phoenix Gets Its Selma Moment

Intense Racism? Check. Government Abuse? Check. Imploding Local Economy? Double Check.

From the New York Times:

Showdown in Arizona, Where Mariachis and Minutemen Collide

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Published: December 10, 2007

PHOENIX — Want to see America unraveling? Come here, to Thomas Road and 35th Street, to M. D. Pruitt’s furniture store. Come on Saturday morning and stand near the eight delivery trucks barricading the parking lot, like the wall of an urban Alamo.

For the last seven weeks, a sidewalk protest here by Latino immigrants has blossomed into a feverish reality show, attracting Minutemen, mariachis, children dancing in Mexican folk costumes, white racists, United Nations observers, Phoenix police officers and Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies.

The weekly confrontation — strident and stalemated — perfectly mimics the national debate. But it’s a sideshow to something even uglier: what happens when immigration’s complexities are handed to local law enforcers sympathetic to the fury of one side.
Thomas Road has lots of Latino day laborers, or jornaleros, who hustle for work near Home Depot. A few months ago, the Phoenix police shooed them away. They dispersed to streets nearby, angering local businesses. One of the biggest, Pruitt’s, hired off-duty city police officers to keep jornaleros at bay. The city put a stop to that, so Pruitt’s turned to the county sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Joe, as he is known, needed no prodding: hunting undocumented immigrants is his specialty. He has arrested hundreds under a state antismuggling law (for smuggling themselves) and has had 160 officers deputized as federal immigration agents. They have made more than 50 arrests near Pruitt’s since the protests began. They’ll pull a car over for a traffic infraction, then check everyone’s papers. They say they act on reasonable suspicion only — if they see a shirt or shoes like those worn south of the border or hear Spanish. They say it isn’t profiling.

There is no doubt whose side Sheriff Joe is on. He has officers on Pruitt’s payroll, guarding the lot on protest days. Last week, he issued a news release demanding that the demonstrators stop hurting Pruitt’s and vowing to crank up the pressure until they went away. It was a naked attempt to stifle dissent and help a business ally.

People here are used to that from Sheriff Joe. He describes himself as “America’s meanest sheriff” and has recently been basking in the love of nativists like the Minuteman Chris Simcox and radio host Terry Anderson, who gushed over him at a roast in Sun City West this month.
If Arizona begins punishing companies that hire illegal workers under a state law that takes effect Jan. 1 — a lawsuit to block it was thrown out Friday — it will fall to counties to do the purge. In Maricopa, that means Sheriff Joe.

The protests at Pruitt’s are the only real opposition he has faced. Their leader is Salvador Reza, a stocky American of Mexican and Apache ancestry, an Air Force veteran who has spent years organizing jornaleros and small-business owners here.
Mr. Reza says he can’t understand why America accepts global flows of companies, money and jobs but not workers. Why faith in market forces seems to have been eclipsed by fear of immigrants. Or why the country cannot set up legal channels to let jornaleros come and go and not be hassled. “They actually are people with a work ethic that would make the Puritans proud,” he said.

Pruitt’s owner, Roger Sensing, says he needs armed officers to protect customers from jornaleros. Mr. Reza calls that ridiculous, and one informed noncombatant, the Rev. Craig Geiger, pastor of a Lutheran church across the street, agrees. He told me he had never seen a laborer enter Pruitt’s lot. He also said his Latino congregation did not drive to church anymore. Documented or not, they fear Sheriff Joe. They walk.

Pastor Geiger leaves the neighborhood on Saturdays, because it gets deafening. When I was there, a trio singing Mexican ballads strolled through the crush. A Minuteman with a bullhorn followed them. “Monkeys coming through!” he shouted. His side rushed up to drown the music out: “Born in the U.S.A.! Born in the U.S.A.! K.K.K.! Viva la Migra! January First!”
The restrictionists see Jan. 1 as the dawn of a new era, when the Mexicans disappear and everything gets pure and legal again. It is uncertain whether Arizona’s economy will survive the exodus. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably wake up when they bankrupt the state,” Mr. Reza told me.

All I want for Christmas is a burning cross in my yard.

Dear Lou Dobbs and Joe Arpaio,

You two make me feel icky inside.

Love, Aaron



Dear voters of Maricopa County,

Please stop re-electing that man.

Warmest Wishes, Aaron

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).

Three birds meet one stone.

Bill Bryson blogging for Bryce, Irish blogging for Travis, and immigration blogging for myself. Does the internet get any better? I submit it does not.

From Bryson's Made in America

"If one attitude can be said to characterize America's regard for immigration over the past two hundred years it is the belief that while immigration was unquestionably a wise and prescient thing in the case of one's parents or grandparents, it really ought to stop now."

Slow clap.

But here's where it really gets good:

"From the earliest days, immigrants aroused alarm and attracted epithets. For the most part, early nicknames for foreigners were only mildly abusive, or even rather backhandedly affectionate. This was particularly the case with the Irish, whose fondness for drinking and brawling and perceived lack of acquaintance with the higher mental processes inspired a number of mostly good-natured terms of derogation, so that a police station was an Irish clubhouse, a wheelbarrow was an Irish buggy, bricks were Irish confetti, and an Irish beauty was a woman with two black eyes."

Two thoughts:

1. Those don't actually seem to be all that good-natured, but maybe that's just me.
2. The Border Patrol have a type of truck that we tend to call "dog catchers" because they resemble the type of vehicle used by animal control. I don't really like using the term because it sort of implies, by default, that migrants are the dogs, but the only other term I know for such a truck is a "paddywagon," which clearly has some pretty negative connotations for the Irish. So long after the Irish are really known for being arrested in masse, whether the stereotype was true or not, the name sticks. Language is fascinating.

Bonecrusher n00dz r so hawt right now.

So I was robbed yesterday.

It is sort of a long and complicated story, but the basic plot line is that someone tried to break into my apartment by ripping out the lock, failed, and then came back the next day to finish the job while I was out trying to get it fixed. Annoying, I know.

I didn't actually realize that I had been robbed until about 24 hours after it happened. I woke up this morning, tried to look at my old cell phone to see what time it was, and realized that it wasn't there.

Neither was the cord.

Neither was my guitar.

"Am I going crazy?" I thought. And then, as the haze cleared, "shit."

It took me a while to think about looking to see if anything else was missing. It doesn't look like I have lany fewer DVDs than I used to, but I didn't really check. The three dollars on my dresser are still there. So are my CDs. I guess it's a good thing that I keep my Daddy Yankee and Fat Joe collections in a safe under the bed.

In related news, my digital camera seems to have grown legs and walked away.

So I'm oscillating between being a little bit and very upset. Clearly I'm not happy about the idea of being robbed. It's like, "Really? Robbing people? Wow." And I'm not happy that they broke into the outside courtyard, but that I left my inside door unlocked. Because now it's partly my fault. Except that our apartments have this really neat little design flaw where it's entirely possible to be both locked in the courtyard and out of the house AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. So if I could go back, I don't know that I'd do it any differently. But of course I am second guessing myself because making the "wrong" decision has cost me about $800. Sweet.

What really bothers me is the specific stuff that I lost. For one, whoever stole my phone is going to be disappointed that it a) has no service and b) doesn't work even if it did. So they have something which is useless to them, and I no longer have the pictures that I took over the past three years.

And the camera does not make me happy either. It was only a year old, and a Christmas present from my dad. I asked him to help me buy a camera. He bought it for me. He's so generous. It had my only pictures of Deanna on it. It had the pictures of Chiapas that I take around to show people on it. So, no more camera.

But it's the guitar that kills me. I love playing that guitar. And I love that my mom bought it for me. I remember thinking of how much it meant to me. How cool I felt. I remember knowing that she saved up money to buy me that guitar. My sixteenth birthday present. I was always going to keep that guitar because of what it meant to me.

It's not the stuff, it's what that stuff means to me.

The bright side? They didn't steal my hot water heater. That's a popular little item here in Agua Prieta. Three cheers for hot showers.

The Personal is Political

I walked home the other night through the very cold streets of Agua Prieta. Everyone except for me had the good sense to be hiding inside, so all of my usual haunts were closed. No late night tacos, tortas, or burritos to be found, with the exception of "Taqueria In-n-out." It's open late, but it's also super expensive and excessively greasy. And they don't have guacamole. Definitely not my favorite choice, but a boy has to eat.

I stepped inside and made my order, chatting up the man behind the counter. I wouldn't call him a friend, but I recognize him and he calls me "guero." We talked a little bit more as my carne asada cooked on the grill. My spanish is always worse at night but I was making an effort. Eventually the conversation got around to the inevitable "where do you work and what are you doing here?" I explained a little bit about what I do, and then asked him where he was from.

"I spent 29 years living over there" he said.

"29 years?" I asked. "Wow, that's a lot. Why are you back here?"

This is where it always gets interesting.

"They banned me for life," he replied.

Which of course leaves me wondering which law he broke. They almost never ban people for life.

"What'd you do?" I asked.

"I was selling drugs."

And just like that the conversation was over. The point when they tell me that they were driving drunk/selling drugs/beating their wives is always the point when I get annoyed and sometimes stop talking. It's not that I'm judging them for what they did (although clearly I'm not crazy about any of those things). I get so annoyed because it just seems to justify the fence in some small way. If I were in charge of customs and immigration, I'd keep that guy out for sure.

/rant.

Keep Crashing This Car, Over and Over

Why are we still so afraid?
The things we do deserve their rightful names.

Swing with all you have.
Stop me if you can.

-be sensible, jimmy eat world


I think that, in a way, we all bought into the hype.

It's the trial. At last. The trial.

And of course there's so much to be said about that. Justice. A reckoning. Punishment. Confrontation. Something.

Whatever we thought it would mean, if we ever really thought about it at all, we were not prepared for what it actually was. In poetry you can never say "I love you." In life it is never enough to say "good and hard." How to describe that week? Imagine Jesus descending into hell. Grace personified. But in hell.

The trial was, both literally and metaphorically, a destination. Something that we could look forward to. Something that we could place our stock in. Something that was, I don't know, tangible. But it was also an unwanted guest, still in the house far after we tired of its company. It was the emergency surgery.

And it's understandable really. We needed this. Some of us more than others. Several of us much more than me. We all needed this. But none of us wanted it to be necessary. All we've ever really wanted was escape.

When I try to think of the last time that I sat down with a bunch of other people from Central Presbyterian to discuss Peter, for any reason, I picture his welcome party. The rest of it has sort of slipped by. I've never really talked to my parents about it. I've never gotten a card in the mail saying "we're having a meeting at the church, why don't you come join us." I've never had someone even suggest that maybe we should sit down and talk this out. What in the world would we talk about? How would we possibly begin?

Looking back, these events (the Peter years, the post-Peter years, the Peter's back!?! trial years) have all transpired with surprisingly little fanfare. Look back again and you'll be forced to realize that he has never really left us alone. A constant presence that everyone is ashamed to talk about. Scared to talk about. Confused about. The 600 pound gorilla in no uncertain terms.

I got a phone call this morning saying that Peter has been arrested. Again.

I couldn't move on even if I wanted to.

When the stone first hit the water, the disruption of our lives was just too much. Surface tension destroyed. The rotting muck underneath revealed. And when the water returned to glass, no one could intentionally throw another stone. But the wake remains, bouncing off the shore and ricocheting around us. The ripples lapping against our collars remind us that we are up to our necks. The temperature drops slowly. We alternate between bouts of confused panic and treacherous sleep.

Look out the window. The green bleeds away, leaving a sickly, jaundiced yellow in its place. The lazy breeze speeds up, and then its temperament sours. The wind grows teeth and tears at the flesh of the trees. And then one day you realize that the cover from your shade tree is gone. You look up to see a weathered oak standing naked in the sun.

At some point I realized that all of this was choking me. This recurring sliding feeling wasn't going away.

So the trial, this public spectacle, became the chance to say that the emperor has no clothes. It was a chance to come out. All is not well. Something terrible has happened here.

Something terrible has happened here.

Late in the week I was listening to an expert witness testify about trauma and its impact on adolescents. Suddenly I became alert, conscious of myself in a room full of strangers. I was nodding along, picturing my life in the scenes of escapism and guilt.

Here's a test:

Do you often assume that people in the church are full of shit? Clearly guilty of something, definite skeletons in the closet?

Do you look for cracks in the corners, sagging rafters, proof that the foundation is slipping? Are you convinced that the building will collapse? It's only a matter of time. Save yourself.

Do you feel caught between the past and the present, as if some blunt instrument has struck your history and shattered its continuum? Endangered your future?

Do pieces of your life feel fragile? At any moment a wave will come and sweep them away, like great walls of ice abandoning the glacier and drowning themselves in the sea.

Do you search desperately for something that looks like Jesus and feels like love?

The trial unlocked the hard drives and knocked over the file cabinets. Information everywhere. Bits and pieces of fear and hate and betrayal just littering the floor. Millions of pixels all distorted. An image I had not forgotten, but had very clearly lost.

The trial turned out to be a chance for the world around us to crash the party, to reach the epicenter and look for survivors in the wreckage.

Ultimately, it didn't quite go our way.

Mistrial.

A miscarriage is when you lose the baby. We didn't lose the trial. We had a trial.

In some way it was validating. It was good to hear eight voices say that was has happened was wrong. That what has happened was criminal.

Why did I need to go? Why did I feel so compelled? A physical draw, my headlights pointed towards the one thing I wanted most to avoid. Was it to support my friend? Clearly. But what does that even look like? Was it to, in some way, confront Peter. Possibly. I confess that I always stayed out of the men's room when he was at the urinal.

Mostly I think it was because someone finally gave me the chance to show up, to walk into a room. To say with my presence, "this was wrong."

I have been living my life like a sprint since the moment Peter left. Or maybe since the moment I left Peter. I've been running. From myself. From him. From the guilt. But sprints don't last. You can't live a sprint.

I've been running because the temple where I worshiped, the place where I Am dwells, burned to the ground. All that cedar and bronze. Poof.

But we've found that life goes on without the temple that Solomon built. Instead of the altar, we've had the Nicoletti's table. Instead of the burnt offerings, we've had the Wicklund's fire pit. Understanding in a car crash.

Transformation just takes so much time.

If I could make it better for the people around me. The friends and the family. Oh God. I would. But I'm not God.

And God is. God Is.

I'd be lying if I said that I don't still try to offer myself up as the ram caught in the thicket. I'd be lying if I said that I was alone in that.

Understanding In A Car Crash

"these broken windows, open locks
reminders of the youth we lost"

I'll get up a post about the trial. Just not yet.

El Chile Que Me Toque Como

I've been back in Douglas for a few days, and now I'm headed off to Colorado. Deanna, friends, and, at long last, the trial of Peter Kim. What a weird, beautiful, messed up week it promises to be.

Chiapas, as always, is great. The group that I went with was both excellent and not so excellent. But as they say, free is free is free. Central to all of this is my Mexican family down there. They are the best.

I don't know when I'll be back there next but it can't come soon enough.

But be honest, what you really care about are the pics. Well, here are a few:

Mayan Christ in the middle of a restaurant in San Cristobal de las Casas. German tourists in San Cris are like the Japanese in Hawaii or Americans in Cancun, but still such a cool place.

Pictures were not allowed inside this church, but that's where the real action was. Sacrifices of beer, chickens, soda, etc. being made to the saints. Very moving.

A village prepares the graves for El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Tomorrow they will be loaded down with flowers, food, and pictures as the entire community comes out to remember and celebrate.

Early morning in San Cristobal. Did I mention that this city is gorgeous?

Clean, perfect water. I love Chiapas. And taking pictures of my feet.

Another classic

From the g-mail inbox.

Two questions still plague me. How does Optimus Prime stay so young looking/sounding? What is his secret? More importantly, how does he know that I have always used "Bonecrusher" as my secret pet name for Kyle?

And a little update: I'll be out of town/contact/the countries (both Mexico and the U.S.!) in/for the next two weeks. So I'll be running phone silent, blog silent, and...well, that's about it actually. But I'll see lots of you in Colorado when I get back.

p.s.- Apparently Deanna decided to name Kyle "Bonecrusher," which only increases my deep affection for the both of them. But Kyle is losing to Deanna. Sorry buddy.

Yessssssss.

Andrew (<3 huge blogger crush) can always be counted on for great links.

Today is no exception.

Did you know that feminists have better romantic relationships?

It's true.

What's crazy to me is that we are actually talking about this. Of course it's true.

But it's nice to have a little proof.

So here's a blogger question: How many of you would self-identify as feminists? That is to say, how many of you agree with basic feminist beliefs? Regardless of how you identify, how do you think it impacts your views on relationships/actual relationships?

I'm genuninely curious. I hope I get some responses. I might even write up a little response of my own.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...*

This is going to be way over the heads of at least a few people who read this blog.

So this whole thing started when both Deanna and Brianne quit the facebook (which is totally fine by the way, I understand why they did it**).

I mean, it hurt a little bit that two people very close to me were just checking out of reality, but that's their choice.

But back to the issue at hand.

Being that my girlfriend had quit the facebook, and Erik's girlfriend had quit the facebook, I decided to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to marry Erik on the facebook and live happily ever after. In the "fake marriage on the internet to one of my best friends" sense of the word, of course.

So I shed a tear, changed my relationship status, and prepared to make my move on Erik. Not wanting people to rush to my side and comfort me in my fake time of need I hid the news feed story of my recent breakup.

Ok, I'll be honest. The pain was real, but it was just too soon.

Everything was going about as well as could be expected under the circumstances. But my happy life turned emotional nightmare was about to get worse. Erik was still listed as being in a relationship. (Note to Erik: She's gone man, give it up. It's time to face facts and move on. I have). This was a big problem for me, because apparently being listed as already in a relationship is enough for the staff of the facebook to deny a potential marriage request. My sense is that they are, as John McCain so eloquently put it in 2000, "agents of intolerance." Who are they to tell me that I can't marry a man already in a relationship? If there really is a war on marriage, the facebook is fighting back.***

But I digress.

I should take this time to remind you that I was still heartbroken at having just ended my relationship with Deanna,**** and was now facing the dream-crushing reality that I would not be able to marry Erik (without, you know, getting him to change his status first). In my despair, I turned for comfort to the person who I knew for certain would always give me a soft landing. I married Kyle.

And to my everlasting joy, he said yes.

The next day I opened my facebook account to find a note from a high school friend with whom I've lost touch.

"booke! whats up buddy... married now i see. is it true? congrats!"

"Uh oh," I thought, "better hide that news feed as well before this gets out of hand."

I did, and moved on with my day, comfortably certain that I had nipped that potentially embarrassing/confusing situation in the bud.

The next day I signed on again, this time to a message from a college friend.

"You look so happy together."

Look so happy together? Wait...what?

And then I scrolled up. To my profile picture. The one of Bryce and I. Smiling. Together. Where I am embracing him from behind. In tuxedos. In a church.*****

At which point I started laughing hysterically.

The end.


p.s.- Since then I have gotten two more priceless wall posts, also from an old friend:

first post: "um, did I just read on your profile you are married???? um...que paso?"

second post: "wait that is a dude, OK, so your not married... But you are in a 559 area code, i guess we have some catching up to do =)"

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Life is great.






*Seinfeld. Still sorely missed.
**Which also doesn't make it any less fun to call them quitters.
***I'm pretty sure that's what they use the money for from selling gifts.
****Albeit only on the facebook. Hi Deanna!
*****She's right, we do look happy in that picture.

The Quarter Life: Careers

It's the Quarter Life! My partner in crime Bryce has his post up, along with the links to the old posts. Check it out.

On with the show.

If you want to hear a twentysomething rant, ask them about their job. Seriously, try it. I know very, very few people who are my age(ish) and absolutely love what they do. They're out there, but they are certainly elusive.

Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense. Most of my friends are working jobs that a) pay them A LOT of money but demand an incredible amount of their time and energy, b) pay them almost no money AND demand an incredible amount of their time and energy, but offer them the opportunity to participate in some greater good, or c) don't pay very well, aren't all that interesting, and are really just helping to support grad school/bumming/getting on their feet. It's exceedingly rare to find someone in this age bracket who is getting paid pretty well to do something that they love to do but that doesn't consume their life.

I'm sure it's possible that someone has this job, I just don't know who it is.

Can I get a blogger comment amen?

Conventional wisdom holds that in your 20's you are building your life. You are putting in your time, working your way up the food chain, still in school, or figuring out what you are going to do. Whatever. The point is, at this age we're not supposed to have satisfying careers. We're supposed to have jobs.

And that's the catch. A career and a job really aren't the same thing. What I have right now is a job. It's a job that I really like (most of the time), but it's still a job.

A career, as a opposed to a job, should be a vocation. A career should be one of those things where you say, on a regular basis, "They pay me to do this?!" Don't get me wrong, a job can be like that as well (see: Me eating delicious burritos while talking about global economics). A career, at its best, should be deeply satisfying because it should combine your greatest personal gifts and your greatest personal longings.

And something else. It should fulfill a genuine need.

And that's where I get myself into trouble.

I'm a pharisee (little p, I'm not actually Jewish, or a scholar of the law, or...you get the point). Thg point is that I love the law. I want it to protect me. To make me righteous. To make me loved.

My legalism touches all things, and career is no exception. I believe that my thinking goes something like this: God says to love others -> The world has many people who need love -> I believe in God -> I should find people in the world to love -> Someone will pay me to love people -> I should do that even if it isn't what I want most in the world -> God will love me more if I choose this path.

That logical progression is, I'll be the first to admit, pretty sick. It's especially gross when you realize what a horrible perversion of love it really is.

The other day my girlfriend (Hi Deanna!) was asking me about my dream job. What would I do if I could do anything? "Something in music," I said. "A producer or manager, A&R for a label maybe. I don't know if I'd actually enjoy doing that, but it seems like I really would." So will I pursue that? I don't really know. I think the reality is that I don't actually know what it is that I like to do. I don't know what it is that I'm all that good at. At this point, I can't even guarantee that I'm doing something because I want to rather than because I think that I should.

I'm not sure, at this point in time, that I'm capable of doing any sort of work that doesn't serve, in some way, as an idol.

And so I find myself with nothing to say. I like my job. I have no idea what my career might look like. For the first time in my life, that feels really nice.

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.

Ouch.

Josh Marshall and company link to a report card of sorts for the Bush's time in office. It's worse than you think. Not that we didn't know all of these things already, but it really isn't pretty when his "accomplishments" are listed together.

It's also worth noting that this is not some sort of hatchet job. This is the Associated Press. Quoting former Bush campaign strategists and staffers. Only one more year...

Mommy wow...

I will be showing up in another newspaper this week, albeit the decidedly less well-known Sierra Vista Herald. Still, press is press. Haha.

This morning found me getting off the phone with a friend so that I could "strongly speak with" (read: lecture) an actual adult. You know, the kind with a mortgage and kids and stuff like that.

And then later today I ended up in a meeting, a business meeting, with a minister who knows my mom.

My life, as ever, is extremely weird.

All of this to say, I think I might actually be turning into an adult. The first year out of college you really feel like a fraud. You know that you don't go to class or eat at the dining hall, but you also haven't really proven anything. When people treat you like an adult you begin to think, "I don't actually know what I'm doing here...you probably want to ask someone else." But people keep asking you to do things. And you keep doing them. And slowly you find that you are useful and competent and responsible. More or less.

Days like today make you realize that, while not there yet, you're a lot closer than you used to be.

And strangely enough, that you like it.




I still listen to Mxpx and like my skateboard more than my car though.

Think of this as the teaser blog to a "The Quarter Life: Career" post. Coming soon to an internet near you.



The blog title was too much, wasn't it? Like I said, not grown up yet...

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.


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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!!!