Friday, January 16, 2004
I had my first tamarind a few days ago. It was better than I expected, usually wierd looking exotic fruit just tastes like pears. This was very lemony. I later found two larvae of some kind in the seeds, isn't that the kind of thing they're supposed to be extra carefull about? The holes on the outside of the fruit were fairly obvious in retrospect. I saved the seeds, so I might have tamarind trees in my yard someday.
Follow up on the Hitler post: I think the movie I was thinking of was "The Trial Of Billy Jack", the sequel to Billy Jack. During the trial, some smelly hippy is interrogating a representative of the Man on the witness stand, and he reads some quote about the desireability of law and order. The greasy, slackjawed Perry Mason asks the Evil White Man if he agrees with the sentiment expressed in the quote, which he does. The brilliant stoner reincarnation of Cisero reveals that the quote is actually from Hitler, and everyone craps their pants and admits that they were wrong. The quote is made up, but it's been attributed to Hitler ever since. The Melvile book I was thinking of was Billy Bud. Sweet, fancy Moses, Billy Jack, the world's most seventies guy is running for President, among other things.
One more, possibly final stab at the illegal immigration issue: Possibly the most frustrating aspect of this whole thing is the truly incredible, surrealistic dimensions of the dishonesty with which the issue is discussed. The obvious imposibility of patrolling the border with 100% effectiveness is presented as a reason not to try to increase effectiveness to 5 or 10%, which would probably be enough. The vast length of the border is supposed to make guarding it futile, when the illegal crossings mostly take place along relatively small stretches of border in California and Texas. Being in favor of either enforcing existing laws or changing them just enough to make them enforcible makes you "anti-immigration", even if you, yourself, are an immigrant. Third generation Latino U.S. citizens are described as members of a unified political block with non-English speaking illegals. Et cetera. Fixing this whole thing should be childishly simple- Make it easy to become a naturalized citizen: Background check, blood test, take a test to show that you know a few token phrases of English, then take the oath. Those who still opt to sneak over could then justifiably be treated as criminals.
I don't think anyone is reading this.
Follow up on the Hitler post: I think the movie I was thinking of was "The Trial Of Billy Jack", the sequel to Billy Jack. During the trial, some smelly hippy is interrogating a representative of the Man on the witness stand, and he reads some quote about the desireability of law and order. The greasy, slackjawed Perry Mason asks the Evil White Man if he agrees with the sentiment expressed in the quote, which he does. The brilliant stoner reincarnation of Cisero reveals that the quote is actually from Hitler, and everyone craps their pants and admits that they were wrong. The quote is made up, but it's been attributed to Hitler ever since. The Melvile book I was thinking of was Billy Bud. Sweet, fancy Moses, Billy Jack, the world's most seventies guy is running for President, among other things.
One more, possibly final stab at the illegal immigration issue: Possibly the most frustrating aspect of this whole thing is the truly incredible, surrealistic dimensions of the dishonesty with which the issue is discussed. The obvious imposibility of patrolling the border with 100% effectiveness is presented as a reason not to try to increase effectiveness to 5 or 10%, which would probably be enough. The vast length of the border is supposed to make guarding it futile, when the illegal crossings mostly take place along relatively small stretches of border in California and Texas. Being in favor of either enforcing existing laws or changing them just enough to make them enforcible makes you "anti-immigration", even if you, yourself, are an immigrant. Third generation Latino U.S. citizens are described as members of a unified political block with non-English speaking illegals. Et cetera. Fixing this whole thing should be childishly simple- Make it easy to become a naturalized citizen: Background check, blood test, take a test to show that you know a few token phrases of English, then take the oath. Those who still opt to sneak over could then justifiably be treated as criminals.
I don't think anyone is reading this.
