Amanda and I went to Will's retrospective today at Watkins. The lights were off in the first room we went into, and I could write some long bit waxing philosophical about how symbolic that was, but I just turned on the lights intead.
The rest of the pictures are here.
Most of you readers here at My Quiet Life would not realize this, but I actually come from an established political family. My mother, Cathy, is the mayor of the town where I was born and raised. She has been for as long as I can remember and was one of the first female mayors in the state of Pennsylvania. Not content with only the kickbacks from the Slovak mafia being mayor would bring in, we schemed in a very Borgian fashion and decided to run my little sister (Kayla) for borough council. I believe at the time of her victory she was 20, making her one of the youngest elected officials in state history. We are still working on making my dad Pope, which might be a problem in that he is Methodist. Anyways, I digress.
On Sunday the family drove to a political rally for Pennsylvania's governor Ed Rendell. Long story short, they managed to parlay their mother-daughter oligarchy into a photo op with man of the day.
(Faces have been blurred out on the internet so that my mom does not kill me)
Check it out: My mom meets the governor of Pennsylvania, which is a pretty big state, 6th largest by population, (which I will admit is cool and exciting) and you can totally, no kidding, see her bra. The smile on the governor's face is not from all the support he was shown that day. No, it was from all the support my mother was showing that day. At least that thing is covering her Lynyrd Skynyrd tat.
I love you mom! Don't disown me!
In the comments of Bob's post, that I mentioned previously, Bill Hobbs drops this gem:
Sean, it is a stretch to assume this would cause a rise in homelessness.
Many of them have a home. It’s big, roomy and loaded with natural resources. It’s also kind of a dump in places, so there’s lots of work to do.
It’s called Mexico.
And if they can’t find a home here, most would go back there.
The problem with trying to have a serious debate about illegal immigration is that the nuanced (and faulty) arguments about economics and "safety", crime, terrorism and so on are quickly ruined as people like Bill make obvious the real sentiment that immigration criminalization panders to: xenophobic hysteria.
Bob Krumm, in an otherwise fine post detailing the vile and pervasive exploitation of illegal immigrants, comes to an unfortunate conclusion:
I will propose legislation to make it a criminal offense to knowingly rent to an illegal alien. I certainly don’t want to add more regulations and requirements. It’s already hard enough to be a small businessman. However, this requirement adds no additional burden to the landlord, since in his regular due diligence when renting the property, he already should have done a credit check which would have identified the illegal potential renter.
The problem with this is one that Bob states himself: it adds more regulations and requirements. It expands the scope of arbitrary criminality. The only result of this legislation will be illegal immigrants becoming homeless and landlords renting to illegal immigrants anyway because it's still worth the money.
No, if we want to solve this problem, we have to look at the source. Let's go back to a bit earlier in Bob's post:
Well, since an illegal alien doesn’t have a valid social security number, a credit check usually turns up no credit record, and thus identifies the potential tenant as a bad risk. The only way a landlord is going to rent to such a person, is to raise the rent to compensate for the higher risk. So the first problem with renting to illegal aliens is that landlords exploit the alien’s illegal status by charging more than the house or apartment is worth.
That's a pickle, huh? If only there were some way for these people to have a legal status in this country. Amnesty, or something. Liberalized immigration law. Crazy, I know.
Nah, it would never work. Let's just criminalize their activity in the real estate market. That'll do it!
Alright folks: I am officially accepting proposals for my hand in marriage. Here all this time you thought Chris and I had some sort of high minded liberal objection to marriage as a tool of patriarchy and other miscellaneous forms of hegemony, but nay, I was merely holding out for this lady.
We were going to spend the rest of our lives play acting "junior year at Sarah Lawrence". And yet, despite my best laid plans, she was bamboozled, HOODWINKED even by a bottle of champagne, some roses, and oh yeah, a diamond ring. Apparently the bottle of ripple and the cubic zirconia I sent were a day late and a dollar short.
I'm sure Becca (oh you all understand now, don't you?) and Brad will be "very happy" with their "wedding" and "love". Pfft.
These girls are taking a trip across America and they think these guys are real cowboys. In Nashville. Oh, girls. If only Nashville had real cowboys. If only. They probably bought those cowboy hats at Opry Mills.
The most depressing thing you'll see this week:
A duet with Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway -- the video appears to have been filmed after Donny Hathaway committed suicide in 1979.
The most awesome thing you'll see this week:
The best part? The girl rockin out on the fire escape.
Interesting commentary, via Arthur Silber:
“Well, then, where are the mass round-ups, and where are the concentration camps?”
Again, people who ask that type of question are missing the point. The point is not whether Bush is exercising his omnipotent, dictatorial power to the maximum extent. It’s whether he now possesses omnipotent, dictatorial power, power that can be exercised whenever circumstances dictate it — for example, during another major terrorist attack on American soil, when Americans become overly frightened again.
Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country — and have the will to do something about it — they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security.
Is the term "dictator" here misapplied? Discuss.
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