Time for Politicians to Learn Immigration Realities

Listening to the Republican contenders in the CNN debate the other night for ten minutes, I was amused by their naivete and sadly unrealistic attitudes toward immigration before I turned off the television in distaste.

Being from Canada, and having lived here in the U.S. since 1980, I have been interested, shall we say, in the issue for a long time. I don't vote because there hasn't been any reason to get citizenship except to be able to vote, and in return I would have to serve on jury duty. Avoiding jury duty always wins. I don't think about jury duty, I only feel it. It's visceral, and comes from that reptile part of the brain that determines the fight and flight response.

That e-verify system sounds to me like it's not going to fly with a lot of homeowners, I would bet! Just saying...

The idea that having an e-verify system to solve illegal immigration is absurd and exclusionary, at best...Here's why: all Americans would have to be distrustful of every other American. Everyone would have to keep checking a website to check whether someone else is here legally or not...That's a mighty large responsibility for the notoriously inaccurate internet to do...Since websites can't get house prices right, how is it expected to have the legal status of all citizens updated at all times?

Does the government really think that every time every homeowner, in this land of homeowners, has some desperately pressing need to fix, and has taken a few minutes off work, inconvenienced others maybe to get the work done...is that homeowner really going to stop every one of those service providers, every plumber, carpenter, electrician, Roto-rooter man, handyman or gardener, and so on, to require proof of citizenship to fix the job, and ask them to wait outside while they check their existence on  their computers on e-verify? If their computer doesn't work or they don't have one, they might not be allowed to hire a service provider because they can't check e-verify. After all, if a homeowner asks one service provider, it's only fair to ask every provider every time they enter the house, or else some service provider, at some point, is going to complain in court about being an unfairly treated citizen. 

The idea of self-deporting is absurd. No one is going to temporarily spontaneously and voluntarily remove themselves from this country unless they want to or have to.  If they want to, it won't be for some general desire on the part of The Government to  cleanse the country of illegals. The people who should self-deport are here illegally and don't have papers, and they won't self-deport because they are perhaps persecuted wherever they're from and are always caught in a network of life (and employment) here. Otherwise, they would have waited to come here legally, by the books. Common sense to me.

These political contenders seem to be dreamers  not worth following if they think a  single tall fence is going to keep out intruders from central America bound and determined, like burglars entering a locked house, to get into the sometimes unlocked country of America. The politicians obviously haven't taken the time to pay their tuition for a basic education on the most basic fundamental laws and principles of immigration, and the need for more efficient  form processing.

 If they don't know immigration --- how to open and shut the front, back, and every door into the country --- how can they possibly be trusted to understand other issues? 

Those contenders should know more about immigration, and they should care about the issue and that Department of the Government  (ICE). They should make a rudimentary effort to try to understand. Not only is it sad not to, it's not respectable. Candidates lose credibility when they don't bother to know fundamental legal basics relevant to affected segments of the population.

But then, they seem too obsessed with women's private 'health' issues to have clear  minds and policies about public deficit and immigration topics they should do something about. They're not really worth my time, respect, or trust if they mess around with inaccuracies, even if they are,  admittedly, upholding a useful and important rite of democracies in running for election.

It might be useful and surprising for all residents of America if true immigration requirements, laws, and facts find the light of day. Otherwise, it's just the blind leading the blind in everyday discussions, political, business, and personal.

We all know the maxim. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

'Chronicle' (2012/I), the Movie: Go See It!

'Chronicle' (2012/I) is an excellent movie for those of us bewildered by big budget movies whose themes seem remote from our quotidian cares and concerns. As perhaps the most original of movies I've seen lately, I would urge you to see it. Don't leave it to teenagers. I did attend with one, despite having been warned the hand-held camera scenes might make me dizzy. They did, and the beginning can be a bit slow-going for those of us who are past our teen years. Here's a minor spoiler alert, when 'Chronicle' finally revs into gear, the story unwinds faster and faster and faster into an extended Tolkien-style adventure. This is where the special effects surge into high gear. I didn't hear the audience laugh as much later in the movie as much as they did during the more comical early scenes when the boys first discovered their rare powers. It's all good fun, and worth watching.

When the main likable characters, two teenage cousins and a so-called friend - one of whom decides to film his life - find literally a hole-in-the-ground in the woods, and follow it, Alice-in-Wonderland style, down to a Harry-Potter-esque underground cave, the boys experience mysterious transformations. They are bestowed with unique, transcendent powers. To the delight of the audience, these powers grow and grow, first wowing each other, and separately, their school friends at a talent show. (My daughter, a senior of similar age to the boys, was just about to attend a talent show at her school, too, by coincidence, directly after seeing the movie. None of them, with the possible exception of a Korean pianist who had played at Carnegie Hall, have supernatural powers).

These three were all new actors to me, Dane DeHaan plays Andrew, the cameraman, Alex Russell plays Matt, his cousin, and Michael B. Jordan plays Steve, their friend. They can fly with glee through the air and enlarge their powers in new ways as the story develops. Admittedly, some scenes were gory, and showed mangled, mutilated bodies, on fire, and gutted.

My favorite scenes were the flying scenes, without doubt, involving a plethora of fancy technological feats of engineering rather than the school and party settings, which nevertheless redeemed the story with a semblance of reality. With a single romance between one of the actors and a camera-toting, beautiful, blonde blogger, the story checks back into the cameraman's sorry home-life with a cancer-stricken mother where he ultimately exacts revenge on his cruel, pathetic, unemployed fireman father. His strength made this mother's heart beat harder with sympathy, and say "yes!" for under-privileged, abused teenagers out there.

The boys' new powers take them to places they (and the audience) wouldn't have dreamed of, and thrill everyone to the unexpected heights, social and otherwise, they achieve. Spectacular in vision and optimism, the good times finally turn, of course. The special effects meshed in a tightly-edited hip, mash-up style made me wonder how much of it was real, and how much possibly computer-animated. Certainly, in 'Chronicle', more than in most movies, ideas were freely lifted from other movies and from literature and blended, with good intentions, into an entirely fresh, new concept. Bravo to everyone involved in making it. Sequels might explain and enlarge on how they obtained their special powers, with kudos to the debut of Josh Trank.

'Chronicle' is well worth watching for spectacular special effects, directed by Josh Trank, and for originality of concept, written by Max Landis.

Rated: PG-13. 

Runtime: 84 min.Released: February 3, 2012.

Budget: $12M.  Opening weekend gross: $22M.

Filming Locations: Cape Town, South Africa. Vancouver, BC.

Toothless Tigers: Abortion and Homosexuality

The noisy foes of homosexuality and abortion baffle me. I live here in the northeast corner of the United States. We all constantly make choices about healthcare, vacations, home lifestyle, transportation, friendships, careers, and so on, as we go about our daily lives.

Why is there so much public hysteria about these essentially private issues?

Why do foes of those who are in favor of such issues believe they will ultimately somehow, some way, sometime pay the price for someone else's decision in favor of abortion or homosexuality?

Let's take these issues apart...I hope they decompose into smithereens on the scrap heap of triviality.

First of all, I don't want to imply these issues aren't important to individuals, perhaps of life-and-death importance. These are central issues to people deciding whether they need to have a third marriage to the same person, or whether or not to have an abortion.

My point is that those people should be able to choose and decide for themselves, just as people with money should be able to choose how to spend it (let's hope for good reasons), or any of the multitude of other lifestyle choices people make.

One theory I've heard is that the foes of abortion and homosexuality are running scared. Now, of what could they be frightened?

1. Perhaps they do not appreciate how new methods can solve old dilemmas. Homosexuality and safe, hospital abortions available for all, are age-old exceptions to the mainstream that have not been accepted by law until recently.

2. On homosexuality: perhaps people who are against homosexuality are frightened to accept them socially, even one at a time. Perhaps they have an us-them mindset, as if they were from a democratic society, and the others were Communists, so they call them different, worse, perverts, as if they were social predators. Perhaps they're worried it might spread, and society would fall apart if everyone did it, and there wouldn't be any babies. If so, they need to make themselves less frightened somehow, maybe read up on it and meet homosexuals.

3.On abortion: perhaps people are against abortion if they worry there won't be enough children like they used to be, as good as they used to be, whatever that implies, to replace themselves, spread their seed, their race, ahead of them into the future. Perhaps they are worried the cost will come out of their pockets.

Perhaps the extremists whipping up mass hysteria should confront the central question of their own immortality and sexuality. We are all humans, and we all have finite lives. Accepting the choices of others would go a long way to promoting peace if these toothless tyrants promoting mass activism would only care to listen.

The Problem With Syria

                            
SYRIA

Syria, a country about the size of North Dakota, is presenting an interesting problem to other world leaders. Interesting outside the country, but brutal and life-threatening to its own citizens.

It made me, and probably many people, wonder why the United States, or any other country, hasn't done anything effective yet to stop the bloodshed.

 Here's the written transcript of the country's leader being interviewed by Barbara Walters, and he sounds very elite and well-educated. He totally denied any wrongdoing. An article I have just read compares him to Hitler and similar genocidal leaders of the past.

The real answer, according to a reliable source who will not allow himself to be named is, it's not because of his lineage, or his beautiful, computer scientist wife (an Englishwoman with a Syrian doctor father), but because the United States is looking at Egypt. They are seeing the chaos that ensued after  the end of President Mubarak's leadership. Egypt has descended into chaos despite so-called military leadership, and hasn't made a peaceful transition to democratic leadership. American leaders believe  having a despot ruling a country works better than having chaos. How can Egypt make a peaceful transition?

Back to Syria, it's a waste on almost every imaginable level to see a civil war raging from afar. I can only hope and wish the Syrian problem will soon be over. My heart goes out to innocent victims of Syrian violence and bloodshed.

Russia is pursuing diplomatic channels...the European Union might sanction...Turkey is watching and waiting.

Will America react with force if provoked?

Try Chill-Out Music

If you want to add something new to your life, try it.  Imagine sipping an effervescent drink  on that beach...Sounds like that. Search YouTube: "chill-out". They're set with lovely background videos. 

I like to use it for background music. It makes me feel good, and that's the aim of all music, isn't it?