Don't Look Now...
...here come the Braves! The lineup has decided they're going to score runs. Lots of runs. This is the critical week of the season, however. Three against Philadelphia (2-1), Three against Florida (0-1), and Three against New York. As of now, we're 2-2, that isn't going to cut it. A win of four of the remaining five is mandatory at this point, particularly since the Mets have started their annual, late-season fade.

posted at: 15:24 | path: | permanent link to this entry

My take on the "Immigration Issue".
Hmmm...so it seems that 10% of Mexico's population has migrated north of the border to work and/or live, on the good side of a 10:1 exchange rate. It's mostly "work", as far as I can tell. [Obviously, undocumented immigrants have arrived from all other nations in the Western Hemisphere and some from the East, but Mexicans comprise the bulk of undocumented immigrants due to their locale, and serve as the public face of the issue.]

Instead of Paul Revere seeing lamps in the tower and riding across the country to call out a warning, the Mexicans (and others) have already arrived, by land, air, and sea, and have settled all over the U.S. As expected, very little concrete discussion has taken place, as several vested interests play this development for political gain. From what I can tell..

• Midwestern 'conservative' leadership (aka taliban) equate brown people with Communism, and would probably like to jail anyone (legitimate or not) daring to cross the border, but will have to settle for those that don't have paperwork. I think the characterization of 'illegals' has come from this segment.
• Southern 'conservative' leadership (a mix of plantation class and taliban) find the flood of cheap immigrants to be what slavery should have been -- a pool of transient labor that and goes "somewhere else" after their job is done, leaving the permanent residents to run things, "as God intended". Various official acceptance positions come from this segment, as well as President Bush's deflationary remarks to the effect of "we can't deport them all". Note this sentiment fades the further west one gets, with Southwest being somewhat more practical, as they form the main border in question.
• The Mexican leadership appear to be what the U.S. Southern leadership wanted to be: a truly landed class, whose control applies at a national level, vs. a local or regional level. They seem to be happy to offload peasants and peasant overhead onto the U.S., and happier to accept the resulting economic leverage against their northern neighbors. If they ever had their cumulative act together, the exchange rate would be much tighter.
• The Communists, in their socialist "bat form", assume the classic position of parlaying bad incumbent policy into political gain. This time, they have the advantage of using a culture difference, and two disinterested, illegitimate incumbent parties to play against. They use the wave of brown people as a tool to instigate worse policy and unrest, and use the inches given from those actions to claim miles of political gain and control.
• As for the immigrants themselves? Making one's annual pay in a few weeks or months is a fine prospect, so it's a matter of placing themselves and/or their families where work is plentiful, biding their time until then, and/or raising kids in the U.S.A.

July 4th, Revisited
So, I'm not nearly as hungover this morning as I expected. I guess that's a testament to lots of water and good food to offset an entire day of beer, sun and throwing football in the pool with whomever, followed by cooking.

As for the cooking, I decided early that very little would be heated inside. I ended up brining some chicken thighs for the grill (with herbs from the porch), baking some squash in the toaster oven, assembling Caprese salad (again, basil from the porch), and assembling my answer to the ancient Crudite civilization, a fruit and cream plate. I promptly left the squash in the oven, and the cherries in the freezer, but overall it turned out ok.

Amidst the cookery, I kept tabs on the Germany/Italy game. The goal to earn Italy a berth in the World Cup final was the most improbably beautiful goal I've ever seen, and suited the game to a 'T'.



posted at: 08:57 | path: | permanent link to this entry