Lucky White Girl

No way to treat guests

Excellent video on guestworkers in North Carolina.

Unintended consequences

Excellent article on the unintended consequences of the failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act.

More reason; less emotion

Awhile ago I was talking about how a lot of people's knee-jerk reactions might be conservative in nature but if you can get them past the gut-reactions of emotional arguments and move into a more rational space where it's possible to truly explore the pros and cons of an issue, I really think the vast majority of people are reasonable (read: progressive).  I think that's a huge plus that progressive movements have going for them.  People are not naturally hateful and bigoted.  They have to be trained to be that way, usually through fear-mongering.

Here's an example: driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. 

Knee-jerk reaction: Hell no!  These people broke the law to be here, why in the world would we want to reward them by giving them the right to drive?

More thoughtful, nuanced reaction: These people are desperately poor enough in their own countries that they risked everything to come here to find work.  Most places in this country one needs to drive to get to work.  Would not having a driver's license mean that they'd suddenly give up that fight and lie down and starve to death because they couldn't drive to get to the work they came here for?  No.  They're going to drive anyway.  Without a license and without insurance.  Denying them a license doesn't mean they will drive less.  Denying them a license means they will drive less *safely*.  According to a study by AAA:

"unlicensed drivers are almost five times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than drivers with valid licenses and that 20 percent of all fatal accidents involve at least one driver without a valid license".

Notice the difference between those two statements.  The emotional knee-jerk one is two sentences.  The though-out, nuanced one is eight.  Which one do you think would win out in a sound-byte oriented world?

So that's why I'm always glad to see stuff like this: people who by-pass the knee-jerk gut-reactions for more thought-out rational responses as demonstrated by this editorial which appeared in yesterday's Washington Post.  Yay for them!

Racial tension hits home, marchers take anti-racism message to DC

I was really sad to see this story in the Gainesville paper (yeah I still check in on what's happening in my hometown!). Bradford County is largely rural and small-town-ish.

Yesterday here in DC, in response to the increasing surge of these sorts of hate crimes, there was a HUGE march to the Justice Department of folks demanding that our leaders pay attention to this trend and take it seriously. Al Sharpton was here. I only caught a tiny bit of the news coverage on CNN I think it was and it seemed surprisingly positive for a change! I was glad to see that the march was noticed and the messages of the marchers taken seriously.

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On a personal note: things are still going well for me here. I went out for drinks with a couple of my co-workers last night and we met up with one of my new roommates and her co-workers. I had a blast. It's really, really good to work in a place where there's such good repoire among everyone! The more I think about it the more it makes sense that I had to save up 8 months of luck to get this job. I am very happy!

This system would work if only reality would cooperate!

Okay so say we decide that global warming is a GOOD thing and we want to encourage folks to burn EVEN MORE FOSSIL FUELS at every opportunity because, you know, we like flooded cities and stifling air pollution and the like.  ;-)

If such were the case, a smart government might decide to CREATE INCENTIVES to encourage folks to burn as many fossil fuels as possible when they travel.  They might come up with a system such as this:  Make train travel EXPENSIVE and make air travel CHEAP.  That way people --even people who don't like to fly-- would be forced to fly out of economic necessity and burn I don't know how many hundreds of pounds more fossil fuels than they would otherwise.  Isn't that a great idea? 

yeah... that's the system we have now.  :-(

DC to my hometown in Florida
via airplane: $150
via train: $300

It's soooo frustrating.

Brave people, taking risks to do the right thing

I thought this was a very powerful analogy in the immigration debate: from a San Bernadino paper: a column on a new underground railroad?

I'd award them my official Creative Protest Award but I can't find an official press release about their warning system hotline.

Just say the magic word! Or swiss-cheese logic in our nation's capital

Washington DC is a very confusing city.  It's my first day here and I go out to find a cafe with internet access and read the Sunday paper.  In honor of my new city, I buy the Washington Post instead of the NYT and the first article that catches my eye is a piece by Fred Kaplan on Condoleeza Rice in the Outlook (Opinion) section (sorry that's behind a subscription wall for some of you).  The sub-heading reads "Rice's worldview flipped and her policy flopped".  The author calls for her to come back to her "reasonable roots".  But what caught my eye was the idea of an about-face by the Secretary of State.  Her worldview flipped?  You mean she used to think differently than she does now?  I didn't know that!  They don't mean-- nah.... it can't be!  Do they mean Rice used to be a liberal??? 

Interesting!  It was a good hook and I read on but instead of some enlightening revelation I found only what this city is famous for: murk.

No.  Rice didn't used to be a liberal.  They mean she used to be a realist.  Today she's a realist.  Where's the flip, you ask?  Good question.  I think I can explain. 

If you read between the lines of the article, you realize that what Kaplan means is that she used to be a realist who didn't talk about democracy much (because realists don't generally give a crap about democracy; it's all about power politics for them).  And now she's a realist who does talk about democracy.  What gives? 

Well, remember that saying about the simplest explanation being the most likely?  Something like that might apply here.  What does Rice mean by democracy?  Does she really mean she likes the idea of rule by the people or is she just paying lipservice to a popular ideal while still working the world around realist politics?  Unless someone can show me she's done something to suggest otherwise, I tend to give credence to the latter.  Rulers can't just make war in a democracy; they have to sell it.  Why wouldn't someone in Rice's position use the democractic ideal to sell her realist politics? 

There's no reversal here Mr. Kaplan.  It's purely strategical maneuvering on her part.  Geez, your 16 year old could probably teach you that lesson!

What is it about this word "democracy" that makes otherwise smart people so clueless?  It's magic, isn't it?  As soon as you say it, no one questions what the speaker means by it, or whether they might be using it hollowly or not.  Everyone is given a free pass for it.  If Hitler had talked about "democracy" while pursuing his final solution, would we not have fought him over it?  I wonder. 

It shouldn't be given on blind faith that everyone who utters the word absolutely means it.  That's naive and it leads to confusion in the public debate.   It would be nice if people always meant what they said but they don't.  We live in the real world.  A world of power politics.   Rice knows that.  We know that.  And that's exactly why the Secretary should be questioned every time she talks about "democracy".

This is a strange city.  Swiss cheese logic!