YO NO COMPRENDO!
While I struggle to break free of my insular little world, I am reminded that the U.S. has a major crisis on its not-so-insular hands -- in the form of immigration disputes that just may spiral into the Second War with Mexico.
Reality Check
Most Hispanics come here, legally or illegally, for work opportunities: TRUE. I myself have paid Hispanics who live here both legally and illegally to perform tasks I'd rather not have to do myself: TRUE (Damn. There goes my chance to be Secretary of State...). I voluntarily speak a few halting words of Spanish to these workers, and laughingly, silently congratulate myself on my friendly, egalitarian ways: TRUE. Privately I know I am a spoiled American hypocrite who would gladly help the new Minutemen if I saw my own comfort, security and livelihood being directly threatened by illegal immigrants: TRUE. These poor people clandestinely crossing the border have every right to be free and prosperous in the United States of America: FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! To me there is no debate: Millions of immigrants from outside the U.S. have blithely broken the law. They broke the law. Why should it be so difficult to simply enforce laws already on the books? Key word: ILLEGAL.
Heritage
The forces for amnesty might argue that America's legendary open-arms invitation to "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . ." should and would be mocked to infamy if illegal aliens are forced to leave or to pay a hefty price for living in the U.S. Worse still are the double-speakers who call such rational enforcement of the rule of law hate-mongering. The hatred is clearly from the other side when you see the flag of another nation flying above our own! What's really going on? This crisis begs for Americans to preserve the integrity of the nation. That does NOT mean blanket prevention of immigration. But it does mean laying out a strong set of rules applicable to each and every individual from another country who wishes to reside here. Our heritage of unprecedented personal freedoms is precisely that because of laws conforming to the interests of all. It is not in the interests of that American heritage to allow the character of our nation to be diluted by an influx of people who cannot or won't respect the foundations of freedom. Principal to those foundations is the rule of law. You hear that phrase bandied about by canny politicians, even when they don't conform to it themselves. It's powerful and influential; it hearkens to an imperative of wisdom and honor, a pristine legacy impossible to put into words. We can't reach it in reality. But we can consistently work toward it, ideally. That is the pure character of America.
Solution?
When thousands of citizens and immigrants take to the streets, insisting that foreigners of all nations and stripes--but, honestly, folks, mostly Mexican--be allowed to stay here and break the law, there seems to be no solution. They would thumb their noses and say, "the people have spoken." Who are the people? As NBC Nightly News is asking in its important series, "Whose America" is it? Again, there should be no debate. The lawful residents of this country are the ones whose voices should subsume the wave of illegality that appears to be engulfing California, and threatening to encroach on the entire country. As the protests rose, President Bush made a quick trip to Mexico, where he reportedly spoke with the leaders of both Mexico and Canada. Like an actual snapshot, this tells a story. To the north, a socialist nation with some immigrants. To the south, a virtually lawless governing body with thousands upon thousands of would-be immigrants. In between, an apparently ineffectual leader who cannot find the workable compromise between an economy both blessed and undermined by the wave of humanity crossing our borders.

I'd love to be a fly on Vicente Fox's shoulder.

PHOTO RE-UP

The site that hosts my online photo collection urged me to either clean out my album or buy more space. I wasn't about to do the latter and so I rapidly did the former, in the process inadvertently deleting the photo of Roy at his birthday party. Consider this a replacement!
And for a double shot of cute, here's his little brother Gus:


It's been a long, bland month. Spring is creeping in, but not enough to warm up the mornings, which still require turning on the heater. Loose plans to sunbathe in Palm Springs are in the works, but until they tighten up, another bland month lolls on the horizon. How to spice it up? Well, I am continuing with my Never-Ending Story: cleaning up the office and planning some backyard landscaping.

This morning I caught myself going ga-ga over a small, red-headed bird that came to partake of the seed I put outside the window. Then, while walking Buckwheat, I saw a GREEN BIRD! It wasn't a lost parakeet nor was it indigenous to the canyon. He provided me with a genuine thrill. Does this mean I need to get a life??

ROY TURNS FIVE!

MONDAY AFTERNOON MUSINGS...ON INTO THE REST OF THE WEEKAccording to an unimpeachable source on some TV program I watched recently, "apologizing is a sign of weakness," so therefore I won't apologize for not posting here for over a month. I think it was Dr. House who gave that sage advice. He's such a shit, but so damn brilliant.

That doesn't mean I'm not weak. I can't shake my sugar addiction, my obsessive desire to hug my dog, kiss my husband and consume my periodic homemade cocktails.(I always use fresh limes.) Those things go together, don't they? And it all amounts to fussing with my brain's unique chemical signature. Let's here it for endorphins! Let's hear it for serotonin! And praises to that chemical additive that regulates said chemicals (but don't ask me how):
SSRIs!


That said, I'm steeling myself for a weather condition designated as mas depression-provoking: rain, and more rain. Harbinger of that most restive of seasons, Spring. In turn, a harbinger of the agricultural gamble we can't resist investing in: growing tomatoes. When the rain clears I'm going to get those adorable seedlings and have a ball pretending to be a gardener!

It's well worth it. I have a stack of tomato recipes. I can make my own marinara sauce. Lycopene will course through our veins. If something pisses me off I can throw tomatoes at it.

Subject change: My grandson had his 5th birthday! Photo to come.

And it hasn't rained hard at all. Yet.