Month: April 2009

” Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) is set aside for remembering the victims of the Holocaust and for reminding all people of what can happen when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign. ”

When I was a young teenager I use to have these vivid dreams, dreams that I was on a train, a cold damp crowded train, headed for a concentration camp, terrified, knowing that only death awaited me.

It is on this day, at sundown, that Jewish people everywhere, take a moment, and reflect on the utter devastation of the Holocaust. It is an opportunity to remember those who died, not just the Jews, but the millions of others who perished in the death camps, and to honor their memory by not allowing another genocide to occur. But sadly, the world has not learned. We have the examples of Cambodia, Rwanda, and the most recent atrocities in Darfur.

Last night, tears gently rolling down my cheeks, I sat quietly, alone, and watched a wonderful Hallmark movie about a brave woman, Irena Sendler. Risking her life, she saved 2,500 Jewish Polish children in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was an amazing story to watch. Having been to the Holocaust Musuem in D.C. several times, I will never understand the evil that lurks within human beings. The horror of Germany was that it was a modern society, steeped in culture and science.

Irena Sendler stands as a testament to the good that can reside within us. Torture and threat of death, could not break her resolve to protect the children, and the brave families who risked their lives to hide them from the Nazi’s. She was an ordinary person, brave enough, to do the extraordinary.

Today, even in the 21st century, you still have Holocaust deniers, like the President of Iran, who proclaimed at the U.N. Conference in Switzerland, “the state of Israel had been founded “on the pretext of Jewish suffering” during the Second World War.”

Around 20 delegates, including envoys from the UK, France, Canada and Finland stood up and left the room at what was considered an anti-Semitic remark by the Iranian leader, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

The weatherman gave us a perfect outlook for the weekend. Weather in the high 70’s today and probably the low 70’s tomorrow. That means people will be racing to the nurseries for flowers, plants, vegetables to plant and improve their moods. Folks will be cranking up and repairing lawn mowers, making home repairs and cooking out this weekend for sure.

While we enjoy the absolutely fine weather, the world will keep on spinning and world events will continue to unfold. Our rescued sea captain is now at home in Vermont spending time with his family, humbly denying he is a hero. Captain Sullenberger, the captain who landed the plane on the Hudson earlier this year possessed the same type of humility and humbleness. Neither man saw himself as a hero but rather one who was just doing his job. Perhaps that is what really makes the hero.

Let us know your thoughts on the weather, the flower beds, walking the dog, fixing the lawn mower, tea parties or heroes. Let’s just call this one ‘Talking over the Back Fence.’

In Rememberance…VT

Today marked the 2nd anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, the day when an emotionally disturbed student went on a killing rampage and killed 32 students and faculty members.

What has changed since that fateful April 16, 2007? Have gun laws made it less likely that some crazed killer can get access to firearms? Have security systems been been revamped so that students can be alerted to immenent danger? Has building security improved?

That fateful day, we were all Hokeys. What about today?

Full story on a Day of Remembrance.

Just read this story, and if I understand it properly, it suggests boycotting so that localities don’t receive additional federal funding that could be used for ‘crackdowns’. Additionally, it wouldn’t allow the nativists to point to census data about foreign born individuals. Is it required by law that we participate in the census? This sounds interesting… I will investigate further.

Some Hispanic advocacy groups are calling for illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 Census unless immigration laws are changed. The move puts them at odds with leading immigrant rights advocates and creates another hurdle in the Census Bureau’s quest to count everyone in the USA.

The National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders, a group that says it represents 20,000 evangelical churches in 34 states, issued a statement this week urging undocumented immigrants not to fill out Census forms unless Congress passes “genuine immigration reform.”

Similar grass-roots campaigns are unfolding in Arizona and New Mexico to protest state and local crackdowns on illegal immigrants. Asking immigrants to be counted without giving them a chance to become legal residents counters church teachings, says the Rev. Miguel Rivera, president of the Latino religious coalition.

When the Census counts growing numbers of Hispanics, the counts are often used to support crackdowns on illegal immigrants, he says. About 38% of the churches’ 3.4 million members are undocumented, he says. The Census Bureau does not ask people if they are here illegally.

Federal funding and apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are based on a Census of the population every 10 years. Not counting the estimated 12 million immigrants who are here illegally would send less money to states and cities that have large numbers of undocumented residents and could shift political clout elsewhere.

“We know it will hurt a lot of cities,” Rivera says.

That’s the bargaining chip boycott supporters are using to lobby lawmakers to issue temporary work visas for undocumented workers and give them a way to become citizens.

The call for a boycott “may be well-intended but misguided and ultimately irresponsible,” says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and a member of a Census advisory panel.

“There is a sense of desperation and frustration among some immigrant rights leaders” that Congress has not taken action on such issues, Vargas says. They should give the new administration a chance, he says.

That is not allaying concerns in states that have imposed sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants or in cities and counties that have given police the power to enforce immigration laws.

In Phoenix, immigrant advocates such as Alfredo Gutierrez, host of a daily radio program on a Spanish station, threaten a Census boycott to protest crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

In Roswell, N.M., businessman Bobby Villegas launched a campaign in February to get undocumented workers to boycott the Census. He’s doing it as the city nears 50,000 population, a mark that would give it the government designation as a metropolitan area, which puts cities on the map for national marketers and retailers.

“Are we going to bring more money in the community so that they can hire more police officers who then will go out after more undocumented?” Villegas asks.

The Roswell Hispano Chamber of Commerce he helped found voiced support for the Census, but “it’s going to be very hard to reach these individuals and say, ‘Trust me,’ ” says Juan Oropesa, executive director.

Nationally, efforts to have the Census reach Hispanics get backing from major Spanish-speaking media and organizations. For the first time, the Census will send forms in English and Spanish to about 13 million households in areas that have a high concentration of Hispanics.

A nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”

From the report –

(U) Illegal Immigration

(U//FOUO) Rightwing extremists were concerned during the 1990s with the perception that illegal immigrants were taking away American jobs through their willingness to work at significantly lower wages. They also opposed free trade agreements, arguing that these arrangements resulted in Americans losing jobs to countries such as Mexico.

(U//FOUO) Over the past five years, various rightwing extremists, including militias and white supremacists, have adopted the immigration issue as a call to action, rallying point, and recruiting tool. Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment, but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent.

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremist groups’ frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration has the potential to incite individuals or small groups toward violence. If such violence were to occur, it likely would be isolated, small-scale, and directed at specific immigration-related targets.

— (U//FOUO) DHS/I&A notes that prominent civil rights organizations have observed an increase in anti-Hispanic crimes over the past five years.

— (U) In April 2007, six militia members were arrested for various weapons and explosives violations. Open source reporting alleged that those arrested had discussed and conducted surveillance for a machinegun attack on Hispanics.

— (U) A militia member in Wyoming was arrested in February 2007 after communicating his plans to travel

Also, this section which should sound fairly familiar from the passage of the Immigration Resolution with the wording of ‘economic hardship & lawlessness’ —

(U) Economic Hardship and Extremism

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons.

These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

Something about this story touched my heart and I just wanted to share. Click here to see the full video.

According to information released by the Pew Institute, and reported in the DC Examiner, both Virginia and Maryland have some of the largest illegal immigration populations in the nation. DC has a fairly low population but a very large work force.

The entire article is worth a read.

Virginia and Maryland house among the highest populations of illegal immigrants in the country, according to a study released Tuesday.
Virginia ranked 10th in the nation with about 300,000 illegal immigrants, while Maryland placed 11th with 250,000, according to the study from the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization that chronicles the Hispanic population’s effect on the nation. California had the largest population, with 2.7 million illegal immigrants.

While the District of Columbia ranked 41st in population, it came in seventh for the share of illegal immigrants in its work force, the Pew study said.

The population of illegal immigrants in the area has grown significantly over the past few decades, said Pew senior demographer Jeffrey Passel, one of the authors of “A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States.”

“We’ve been the destination of immigrants for decades, both legal and illegal,” he said.

A major finding of the report was that a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents — 73 percent — were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens. The study did not break down the birthrates by state.

The number of U.S.-born children with illegal immigrant parents has expanded rapidly in recent years, to 4 million in 2008 from 2.7million in 2003. By contrast, the number of children who are unauthorized immigrants themselves — 1.5 million in 2008 — has remained relatively constant since 2003, the report said.

The trend indicates that more unauthorized immigrants are settling in and developing increased ties to the United States, said Randy Capps, demographer and senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank that evaluates the migration of people worldwide.

While the boom of undocumented immigrants seen in the 1990s has tapered in recent years, Passel said it’s difficult to parse the cause of the slowdown, noting there are 13 statistics the center uses to track data from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s.

“There’s a pretty strong relationship between undocumented inflow and the state of the economy, specifically unemployment,” he said.

He said the combination of the poor economy and stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts were two of the factors that have contributed to the leveling off of the population growth.

It would be of interest to know how the information was gathered about status. What are the 13 indicators used in tracking? How reliable is the information? Will we see a more of shift in population because of the economy? How do DC hiring practices affect Maryland and Virginia as far as population?

UPDATE from the Washington Post that adds a little more information:

We usually see the young male day laborers on street corners. But only a fourth of undocumented immigrants are men who are here by themselves without spouses or children. This is a population that is largely made up of young families.”

Passel added that this “complicates greatly the difficulty of coming up with policies to deal with this population. . . . While we may be able to fit people into boxes of ‘undocumented,’ ‘legal,’ ‘legal temporary,’ and ‘U.S. citizens,’ it’s not so easy to fit families into that same set of little boxes.”

The study’s findings also point to the continued geographic dispersal of illegal immigrants since 1990 across southeastern states with little prior history of immigration.

Although longtime magnets such as Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas retained their appeal — and California continues to house the largest number of unauthorized immigrants — growth there has slowed compared with such states as Georgia and North Carolina. Similarly, in Virginia, which ranks 10th in number of illegal immigrants, the unauthorized population quintupled since 1990 to 300,000 and accounts for 4 percent of residents and 5.1 percent of workers.

Great Easter news for all Americans. Captain Richard Phillips has been rescued. There was a brief firefight and now there are 3 dead pirates and 1 captured Somali pirates. Captain Phillips is now on board the destroyer Bainbridge and headed home. Fabulous news!

Looking around the blogosphere, all the old wives’ tales about the full moon sure seem to be true.  Look at all the words that are derived from the word luna.  Does anyone want to start a list?

Actually, the full moon was yesterday, but who’s counting.  The next full moon will be May 9, so everyone just needs to get their howling out the way now or hold it until then.

Let us know what you are thinking.