On May 1, tomorrow, the business of running the US will be disrupted. According to CNN, “Meatpacking plants will shut down. Markets won’t open. Trucks won’t roll. Students will walk out of school. Millions of people will take to America’s streets in possibly unprecedented numbers.”

Further, “Boycott organizers are demanding amnesty and the chance for the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States to earn citizenship.”

Amnesty. For people who break the law. Because that makes sense.

I don’t have a damn thing against people who want to leave home and find a better life elsewhere. More than that, it takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and red tape to get into the US legally. However, I can’t abide by people who break our laws to get here and then complain because there’s a possibility they’ll get caught and deported.

Besides, not investing in the long term is just lazy. Yesterday on NPR I heard a story of an immigrant from Sudan who escaped desperate conditions is his own country by getting himself and his family to Britain. There, they all waited for one year - a full year - to get everything in order to emigrate to the US. I’m sure that year wasn’t easy; it was probably filled with phone calls and living in refugee conditions and paperwork and working hard to know, for sure, that once they arrived in the US, it would be permanent.

Don’t tell me people from anywhere else in the world can’t do the same. Their life may have been one of poverty and lack of opportunity, but I’ll wager it was nothing compared to what’s going on in Darfur. If the Sudanese can a way, anyone can.

But fine, you don’t want to invest in your future. You’d rather walk or swim across the US border and remain ILLEGAL. Great. But listen to yourselves and your supporters:

The great slogan of the American Revolution was ‘No Taxation Without Representation … Millions of human beings today and for many years are being taxed, and they have absolutely no representation. In fact, they are being bashed every day and humiliated. (quote from the CNN article linked above)

You’re paying taxes to a country in which you do not legally belong. You could skip it, you know. Uncle Sam would not be the wiser, unlike during the American Revolution when King George and company knew who was here and what they owed. That’s because the colonists were legal immigrants.

Rosa Parks steered a new course for history against racism and for workers rights … This right here is today’s Montgomery bus boycott. (full quote may be found here)

Rosa Parks was a hero fighting for every US citizen’s rights. ILLEGAL immigrants want to get something they don’t deserve because they (foolishly) pay taxes into a system while breaking that very system’s laws.

Referring to the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States … the immigrants today “share the same history of slavery.” (same link as above)

The very definition of slavery is not having a choice. Slaves are forced into their situation without recourse or freedom to make any other decision. Immigrants have the choice to come here legally and under no duress whatsoever. It’s insulting, in fact, to even compare the two - as if the Rosa Parks comparison wasn’t bad enough.

If immigrants continue demonstrating in large numbers, are they going to fire all of them? (quote from this article in the Chicago Sun Times)

Well, yes. People get fired for lesser things every day. More than that, if you are an ILLEGAL immigrant, you have NO right to work in the first place. Don’t be surprised if you attend the boycott and/or rallies and do not have a job to go back to on Tuesday. I’d fire you.

We have to demonstrate that we came here to succeed … There are different ways to show we love the United States. We just have to make sure we don’t damage anyone. (same article as above)

You could show how much you love this country by getting everyone’s citizenship in order, or by flying only US flags at your rallies. And damage how? Like, I don’t know, leaving work or school and gumming up traffic, all to make a statement about people who break US law? Can you even hear yourself?

My favorite quotes, however, are from the children of ILLEGAL immigrants who were born here. “Well, my dad has been working here and paying taxes for 30 years.” Yes, he has. ILLEGALLY. And where was he when President Reagan granted amnesty to all ILLEGAL immigrants back in 1986? That was 20 years ago. Your dad could have made himself legal just 10 years after getting here. He could have saved himself, but he didn’t. Dad is breaking the law. Period.

This argument is not against immigration. It is against ILLEGAL immigration. If you are unclear of the difference, maybe you should read the definition of the key word in this debate.

Careful, you may have to remove your rose-colored glasses to understand it.

If ignorance of the law is no excuse, then knowing the law and still breaking it is truly criminal.

At exactly 1:30am this morning, Sunday, my head cleared completely.

Lucidity.

Sobering.

Standing at attention itself and requiring my fullest.

And I don’t know why or where it came from. I have read my e-mail and listened to my voicemails and watched the news since then.

Something is … strange.

And I don’t know what.

But I can’t sleep because of it.

Be aware, children. Something is awry and will soon reveal itself.

I’ve been watching the reaction to the movie Flight 93 and tonight it occurred to me that there is no such thing as “too soon” as far as movies about 9/11 are concerned. The “why” of it did not occur to me until just now.

Allow me to explain:

If the movie were released 10, 20, or 30 years from now, there would be the possibility - even a minute one - that some critic, somewhere, would not like the film. He or she would be allowed to say that some actor or actress sucked, or there were problems with the script, or that the production value or cinematography were lacking.

To release this movie less than 5 years after-the-fact, however, guarantees that NO ONE will feel comfortable saying anything negative about the film.

That is, how can anyone say anything negative about the heroes of 9/11?

No one can. Not yet. Which is why every review I’ve heard or read so far rings of a strange hollowness and sentimentality. In fact, most of the people who have reported on it have screened it in NYC, which - surprise! - is the city hardest-hit by the events of 9/11, and most of these critics and reporters mentioned specifically that everyone in the theater was crying. Of course they were crying! We’re talking about the very city which suffered the most as a result of the events that day!

The fact that there “wasn’t a dry eye in the house” is not an excuse for every movie critic in the US to lose perspective. It may indeed be a fantastic film, even the best one in the history of Hollywood, but when was the last time you saw a film that didn’t get one negative review? The entire movie can’t be so incredibly perfect as to not garner even one. (If anyone out there has seen or heard a negative review, I would like a link to it, especially if it is written by a prominent movie critic.)

So, playing devil’s advocate here: Just think for a moment that Universal Pictures did themselves a huge critical and marketing favor by releasing this movie while the events of that tragic day are still so fresh in our minds. Without even one negative review, they are nearly guaranteed a hit … one based on the pain of the 40 families who had loved ones on that plane and that of a nation which has not yet recovered from 9/11 as a whole.

As an American, the story of Flight 93 is a great story of heroism, faith, and giving one’s life to save others. As an art critic, a movie - any movie - is just a movie.

Perhaps I am just thinking the worst of people or, in this case, corporations. Then again …

Money makes the world go ’round, the world go ’round, the world go ’round.

Just about everyone I know understands that the war on drugs is a total failure, but unless the media starts reporting stories like this one, we’ll remain in the dark about just how much of a failure it is. I didn’t hear this story at all and I’m a news addict compared to most of the people I know.

When Tennessee law enforcement officials showed up at the home of Lester Siler, a first-time convicted drug dealer out on probation. they asked his wife and 8 year-old son to leave ” … so that the boy don’t see.” Another adds, “Wait until we come down there and get ya, OK? Cause I don’t want that boy here in this mess, OK?”

Christopher Largen
Founder of Building Block (Better Lives for our Communities and Kids)
www.Building-Block.org

Tape recorders and blank tapes are cheap at Wal-Mart. It didn’t help Mr. Siler when he was being tortured, but it did save others from suffering his fate when these asshole cops were put away. He may have indeed been a drug dealer and guilty of the things of which he was accused, but that is still no valid reason to beat the living fuck out of him. Mr. Siler is a brave, brave man and should be compensated for his trouble (if he hasn’t already).

More than that, everyone US citizen should be informed of these abuses and be as pissed off about it as I am, not only that it occurred, but that Ms. Jackson’s nipple was deemed more important news at the time.

And there but for the grace of God go the rest of us.

I want a $500 vibrator.

Just to say, “Hey! Can you believe I have a $500 vibrator?”

Maybe I should take up a collection and send one each to Caitlin Flanagan and Shirley Phelps Roper … ?

I wish this were false, too.

That bitch is crazy.

I wish this were false, but it’s not.

Google, Amazon, MoveOn, Gun Owners of America. All these entities are fighting back as Congress tries to pass a law giving a few corporations the power to end the free and open Internet as we know it.

I will not be put into a position where I have to pay some large corporation extra each month (I already pay registration and hosting fees) so this blahg and the other 5 domains I own can be seen by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

More than that, if the corporations win and Congress passes this legislation, you won’t be able to do the following online at all anymore:

Send a message to Congress! Go sign the online petition against this action.

Better yet, sign the petition and donate $20 to the cause.

I turned 40. But if I had the chance do it all over again, there’s no way in hell I’d take it.

Then again, what would you offer?

Oh … I already sold that.

This is … a little weird.

I mean it’s kind of cool to be on a celebrity porn website, but it’s still kind of strange to find pictures of myself having fake movie sex with someone. Much less knowing people pay a monthly charge for streaming video of this clip and others like it.

By the way, the scenes featured on the site are from the very movie we’re screening this Wednesday night, The Stink of Flesh.

How … coincidental.

Is synchronicity one of the muses?

Well … are you?

Your Results:
YES
You are fit for Satan! Good for you. You’ve escaped the lies of Christianity and other white-light religions. You’re not a victim of that crap… you’re your own person, and you know the truth!

Yet another quiz with no surprise ending. Ho-hum.