Ontario Empoblog

Over the past few months my brain has been toying with some thoughts on how to solve the illegal immigration problem. I just put some thoughts down in response to a post by DJ Drummond (the person who brought Major General Bennett C. Landreneau to my attention). Before I share my thoughts, I'll quote from Drummond. (For more, including his thoughts on the amnesty granted to Jean Lafitte, read his complete post .) To my mind, the issue has four fronts, which must all be addressed. There is no reasonable argument against building a barrier to border crossings, call it a wall, fence, or whatever.... The second front is to enforce the laws already on the books.... The third front is to arrange agreements with Mexico and other nations to stop encouraging or [e]nabling illegal entry.... The fourth front is to decide what to do with the twelve-to-twenty million illegal aliens already here in the United States.... The answer to me seems to be a graduated amnesty program. First, let me b...

I've previously talked about how Mexico does not allow illegal immigrants into THEIR country . Of course, this raises the question - why would anyone want to live in Mexico? You could certainly retire to various places in Mexico, but you wouldn't want to work there with the failure of the Mexican government to adopt a living wage . But perhaps a recent Mexican law change may attract some illegal immigrants. [W]e should see illegal immigration of American citizens over the Mexican border any day now. Immigration officials will be on the look out for Rikki Williams, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. UK Insiders have also said that Keith Richards already plans to winter there with Kate Moss in the coming year. Why? Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by the Mexican Congress. The measure given final passage by senators late on Thursday allows police to...

In the midst of all the brouhaha about illegal entry into this country, the ability of terrorists to penetrate this country, business needs for low-cost (slave?) labor, and the like, the entire immigration debate has been derailed by a true non-issue . A Spanish language version of the [U.S.] national anthem was released Friday by a British music producer, Adam Kidron, who said he wanted to honor America's immigrants. When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English." Ridiculous. I don't think that the language in which one sings the National Anthem is the place at which you need to draw a line in the sand. Frankly, I don't care if it's sung in English or Spanish or Korean or R...

From Reuters : Pro-immigration activists say a nationwide boycott and marches planned for May 1 will flood Americas's streets with millions of Latinos to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants and shake the ground under Congress as it tackles reform. But while such a massive turnout could make for the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, not all Latinos, nor their leaders, were comfortable with such militancy -- fearing a backlash in Middle America.... Immigration has split Congress, the Republican Party and public opinion. Conservatives want the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to be classified as felons and a fence built along the Mexican border. Others, including President George W. Bush, want a guest worker program and a path to citizenship. Most agree some reform is needed to stem the flow of poor to the world's biggest economy.... Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. said it will close seven meatpacking plants so workers can partici...

Great minds think alike. At the same time that I was writing something with every 70's cliche I could find , Jennifer was writing about disco balls in the 80's : I bought my first tape that year, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. My friend Stacy had a mini disco ball in her room, and we would turn off the lights, start up the disco ball and dance to Thriller. Well, I've written about disco balls before - namely, the use of a disco ball in Devo's video for "Disco Dancer." Others of us are living in the past. Take Isabel : Last Saturday Tom and I went to my friend Cecilia's Pump Up The Volume party. She and some of her friends got someone's work loft; rented lights, speakers and a disco ball; and put on an 80s party. Hearing the song Tainted Love brought me all the way back to the Santiago club, Blondie, where I did most of my 80s dancing in the 90s. People seemed really nice at the party. A good crowd of Quebexicans, as Tom likes to call us. EVEN THOUGH WE...

I gotta write my movie script. Not that I'm any good at writing movie scripts. Heck, even simple dialogue is challenging. And I can't spin a story like The Hot Librarian or Inland Empress WHO IS THREATENING TO LEAVE US DANG IT . Excuse me, let me recover. So perhaps, instead of writing an entire script, I should write an abstract or a pitch or whatever the heck they call it. But even this is challenging, since I want to write a movie with a surfing backdrop. I have three strikes against me concerning this: I have never gotten near a surfboard in the water. This in itself isn't necessarily debiliating - Brian Wilson never surfed until the 1970s - but it does pose some challenges. I did not grow up in a surfing area. Thus my command of the lingo is non-existent. The use of the word "lingo" in the last bullet should have clued you in to the third issue. I am 44 years old. Thus, any attempt to write appealing dialogue will be atrociously warped by my cluelessness a...

Nazis and others who believe in the strength and might of man hate weakness and suffering and death. It unnerves them. It's not right . Traditional masculine qualities played a very important role in Nazi rhetoric, so of course Nazi Christians preferred a masculine Christianity over a feminine one. True Christianity, they claimed, was manly and hard, not feminine and weak. Adolf Hitler described Jesus, “my Lord and Savior,” as “a fighter.” His Jesus, and the Jesus of German Christians generally, was a militant warrior fighting for God, not a suffering servant accepting punishment for the sins of the world. But you don't have to be a Nazi to be unnerved by death. Our whole society is based upon life and health and things like that, and sickness and death are bad and signs of failure. John 9:1-3 (New International Version) New International Version (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society 1As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples ...

Did you do what I told you to do? If you did, then you saw this statement: I'll be their first full-time pastor, but can't be called pastor because it's against the law. I asked about this: What is the legal restriction on being called a pastor? J. A. Gillmartin responded: Apparently it is a holdover from the days when the Mexican leaders at the national and state levels were more or less unofficial Catholic appointees. I'm told there is something in the Mexico Constitution to the effect that only nationals can be clergy. I am officially a missionary to Norte-Americanos in San Carlos. I tried to perform a search on this topic, but didn't succeed. Here's what I did find, courtesy of (then) Colin Powell's Crack Team of Whatevers: There are a number of foreign religious workers present in the country. According to statistics from the Secretariat of Government's Under Secretariat of Religious Affairs, 58,460 individuals entered the country and registered ...

Yes, read it . Talk about pastoral challenges. From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

Here's part of what President George W. Bush said yesterday in Irvine, California (from whitehouse.gov; emphasis mine): Now, the problem we have is you got some person out there in central Texas needing a worker, and he can't find a worker, an American . So he says, look, anybody help me find somebody, I got something to do. This economy is growing, see -- 4.7 unemployment rate nationwide. Pretty good numbers. And people are having trouble finding work that Americans won't do . And that's a fact of life. And so he says, why don't you send somebody over to help me? This caused CNN to ask the question : Are there really jobs that Americans just won't do? Several people say yes: Pete Haran, vice president of New Jersey-based landscaper Lipinski Landscaping, has relied on the guest worker program, which grants temporary work visas, for the past 10 years.... "Before the H2B program I was spending thousands on ads trying to hire people," said Haran. "C...

WARNING: BY THE TIME THIS POST IS OVER, REFERENCE WILL HAVE BEEN MADE TO TWO SONGS THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED CONTROVERSIAL. Normally when I write one of my long blog posts, I start at a certain point and work my way forward. This time I'm going to work my way backwards. There has been long involved discussions about how Christians should and should not conform to the world. If I celebrate July 4th, am I compromising my faith? If I refuse to dance, am I limiting my ability to witness? Think about these topics while reading this article excerpt : An Alabama church holds a "Fear Factor" youth ministry event, where teens swallow goldfish and try to escape a locked coffin to learn how to overcome fear in their lives. Actor Stephen Baldwin sheds his bad-boy image, finds God, and starts a group called Livin' It, which encourages young people to skateboard for the Lord. Dozens of Christian rock festivals across the country draw millions of revelers to events that rival the baw...

Gra Nomad Wanderings . Heard about it here . From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

From KOER : [Me] When will you be five? [ Leonard Stob Jr.] ON MY BIRTHDAY. And the previously referenced Alienware computer is working fine now. As is fboweb.com , as described here . But my brain was somewhere else in the year of 99 : Several years ago I thought it would be funny if the local Cleveland sportscaster (whoever he/he is) got dressed up in a native headdress and shouted "Indian fever!" on the first of April. Then the Indians got Hershiser and became successful, so the joke wasn't that funny any more. Do you like to run over twigs in that scooter? What do you expect in alt.non.sequitur? Several years later : I was in a Barnes & Noble this weekend and was surprised when I ran across a book by Rick Warren...on how to study the Bible. It isn't necessarily what I expected from him, but if he's encouraging people to turn to the Bible, I certainly can't fault that. But watch out what you encourage : P.S. We want more pictures of twigs. From the On...

I should have known this, but I didn't. I knew that the Spice Girls were a manufactured pop group, but I didn't know that they rejected the manufacturer Emphasis mine. If all of the invented personalities makes Spice Girls seem manufactured, that's because they are to a certain extent. Every member of the group was active in England's theatrical, film, and modeling circuit, and they all responded to an advertisement requesting five "lively girls" for a musical group in the summer of 1993. The manager who placed the ad chose all five members of Spice Girls, yet the women rejected his plans for their career and set out on their own two months after forming. For the next two years, the Girls fought to get a record contract, since most record labels insisted that the band pick one member as a clear leader, which is something the group refused. Eventually, Spice Girls signed a contract to Virgin Records, but they were without a manager, which made recording a debu...

Over the weekend I heard of two ways in which blogs can be used. Application One One way was discussed at a meeting of foreign exchange student advisory volunteers, talking about the issue of an exchange student adjusting to the environment of the foreign country he or she is visiting. If the exchange student continuously contacts family and friends "back home," then the exchange student may have problems adjusting to the new home. In some cases the people "back home" may assume that things are the same with the exchange student, not realizing that the exchange student is at a different school with different friends and different experiences. One suggestion floating around was that the exchange student advise his or her "back home" friends that there would be no direct contact and e-mails, since the exchange student was busy in the foreign country. Instead the exchange student would start a blog to update the people back home. After some searching, I found...

Reading too much about DaVinci and all that, you begin to wonder if there are parallels between the female non-Hebrew pantheon ( Ishtar , Aphrodite, etc.) and the Mormon concept of an Eternal Mother. First, it's important to note that Mormon interpretation is based upon the current head of the church, and teachings go in and out : The Mormon concept of a "heavenly mother" is refereed to in a hymn by church leader Eliza R. Snow, and remains an officially approved doctrine. One verse of the hymn entitled "Oh, My Father!" reads as follows: "In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare. Truth is reason: truth eternal tells me I've a mother there."... The Mormon church...has taught the existence of an "eternal mother" from the earliest days. This doctrine is tied in with their beliefs that we all existed as "spirit children" in the spirit world with a heavenly "father" and "mother" before ...