IN THE NEWS: Digital Rembrandt Exhibition Causes Controversy
Based on discoveries found by examining the originals with x-rays and microscopes, organizers of the The Complete Rembrandt exhibition — which runs from July 5th through September 7th at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange — were able to create digital images that recreate the vibrant colors Rembrandt originally used, or that add pieces back to paintings that over time had been cut off.
Rembrandt's most famous painting, the Night Watch, is one such piece that has been trimmed over the centuries, and is actually missing two figures in its present form. The full-size reproduction of how Rembrandt originally painted the picture will be portrayed in the exhibition alongside a replica of the damaged version, to show the differences.
This approach can be seen as a different way of "restoring" a painting without tampering with the original. It allows for a much broader display of the artist's work than would be possible with the originals, and is a much more educational and accurate display of how he intended his paintings to look.
Yet there are those who feel that passing off posters as art will hamper one's appreciation of seeing the original paintings. To me, that seems absurd. Think of all the artists who sell prints of their works, so more people can enjoy them. The goal of the Rembrandt prints is a little different, but is no less artistic. It represents a significant achievement that is only available now with modern technology and discoveries. I hope the exhibition eventually travels beyond Amsterdam and around the world for more exposure, and that this approach is taken with other artists as well, as it is a breakthrough way to learn about the great art and artists from the past. An excerpt from a Yahoo.com AP news story about the exhibition follows:
The life work of Rembrandt...[goes] on display next week in full-sized digital reproductions that attempt to recreate the works as they emerged from the artist's studio rather than as they exist today.
In some ways, the high resolution images are more authentic than the real paintings, said Ernst van de Wetering, a leading Rembrandt scholar who supervised the project.
Employing computer wizardry, pieces of canvas or panel that were sliced off centuries ago have been patched back on. Colors are restored to the vibrancy they had when they came off the master's brush. Details hidden in darkness because of aging pigments emerge into view...
Not everyone is happy with the idea of passing off posters as true art...The exhibit revives a 3-year-old debate about the value of seeing copies of the full range of Rembrandt's work as compared with viewing a few originals..."Reproductions cannot convey anything of the wonderful three-dimension quality of Rembrandt's painted surfaces," [Axel] Ruger wrote...
[Van de Wetering] argues that Rembrandt made copies of his work, and had his students make more copies, because he wanted a wider audience.
"Rembrandt would have been very happy if he had known we were doing this," he said. "But the copies he made of his works are many times worse than ours."
IN THE NEWS: Now You Can Adopt an Embryo
The issue among pro-lifers and abortion rights advocates has long been the definition of life — at which point does a fetus become a person with the right to live? Although the new law does not define when life begins, or state that the embryo is living already, the unwritten implication is that it is indeed a person.
After riding through Florida last week past countless pro-life billboards stating that a baby's heart begins to beat after 18 days, it was sort of fitting to read the news today and see an argument that a baby's life begins even earlier. Presumably thousands of embryos are currently being destroyed after they are no longer needed, and this law will give the "legal embryo custodian" an alternative to destroying their future offspring. They can instead adopt them out, without ever going through the trouble of pregnancy.
Is this the solution to the long wait lists for adopting a baby? How much will it cost to adopt an embryo? Who will then give birth to the child? It still isn't clear to me how all this will play out, but I'll be watching the news to find out.
Below is an excerpt from the Atlanta Journal Constitution story:
...HB 388, which also goes into effect today, allows for the adoption of embryos. Religious conservatives championed the bill to provide an alternative to the destruction of embryos harvested by couples trying to conceive a child. Jim Beck, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition, was among its supporters.
"People of faith have always contended that an embryo is life," said Beck, who added that the new law "is really a step toward acknowledging that an embryo is, in fact, life."
The bill's authors, however, specifically skirted the issue of whether an embryo is a person, and it does not give embryos, including the estimated 20,000 now frozen in Georgia fertility clinics, their own rights.
Beck said that while he does not expect "a floodgate to open and people to step forward" and adopt embryos..."any embryo saved from destruction is a life and is a life that may enrich a family."
Welcome to a Unisex World of FTM and MTF
Chastity Bono recently made headlines by announcing she was officially becoming Chaz, a man. The lengthy process she has begun is known as FTM, or Female To Male. It involves acting like a man and taking male hormones for several months before a doctor finally performs the desired surgical procedures.
What this also means is that s/he/it will want to use the men's restroom during this time period, despite the very real fact that physically s/he/it still has female body parts. Want to say No? Depending on the state's laws, you may be setting yourself up for a discrimination suit. Hence, many public places now offer a "unisex" restroom in addition to the male and female options. Nice compromise.
Once the transformation is complete, s/he/it will likely publish a Notice of Name Change in a newspaper somewhere. If you think this procedure is uncommon, think again — just read the name changes in your local paper, especially if you live in a large metropolitan area. Christine becomes Chris. Sam becomes Samantha. And so on. Next the person will get their driver's license changed to reflect the new gender, and then update their birth certificate. Depending on the state, an entirely new birth certificate may be issued, or a revised one, so it's possible that asking for documentation will never give you the truth about someone's original gender.
But what about later, when s/he/it goes through the new body scans at airports and the security workers can see that the male parts are actually prosthetics? They will then know the truth of this person's "assigned gender at birth," as the transgender community likes to put it (disregarding exactly "who" may have "assigned" the gender!). Not to worry. The transgender community has thought of this, too, and is fighting to have options to walking through a full body scan.
The "T" for Transgender in the ubiquitous LGBTQ acronym refers not just to people who are undergoing a sex change, but also to those who do not intend to have surgery, but nevertheless want to look, act, and be accepted as their gender of choice, regardless of the underlying genitalia — that means in your office, in public places, and even in schools, as is evident by all the LGBTQ youth clubs popping up at schools everywhere. Thus, a boy should be allowed to wear a dress to school and use the girl's restroom, according to this policy, and a girl should be allowed to join the boys in P.E. And YOU are supposed to call this person by the "proper pronoun" according to their choosing, not according to their physical traits. It's going to get complicated.
Okay, now let's put two and two together. The gay community clearly wants a whole lot more than just gay marriage, which in itself would potentially alter thousands of laws out there! They want, and advocate for, acceptance of the transgender crowd, at any age, and at any stage of alteration and denial of their true gender.
If you want to get a bigger sense of what this is all about and you are extra curious and courageous, you can view descriptions and photos of both the FTM procedure and MTF procedure, which of course is the Male To Female version. Thank you, Dr. Harold Reed, for sharing these gory details. Think you could never be fooled? Check out these photos of men who used to be women, or these photos of women who used to be men. Tens of thousands of people have already undergone these surgeries. That does not even count the transgender community that is parading around as the opposite sex short of having surgical procedures.
If the gay community has its way, sex changes will one day be as common and accepted as getting a nose job, facelift, liposuction, or boob job. Is that the world you want for your children and grandchildren? Trust me, the gay community is not going to say Thanks, Thanks a Lot, and go away, if they are handed gay marriage throughout every jurisdiction in the country. What they are really after goes so far beyond that. It is the outright destruction of "assigned gender at birth," and everything that has meant since the beginning of human history. It is a complete overhaul of our society's mores, families and laws.
Sure it's politically correct and easy to party with gays and applaud the Adam "Glamberts" and Lindsay Lohans of the world, and to join together in the outlandish gay pride parades. But if you were Cher, contemplating your own child undergoing such a procedure, you might think differently. And even if you don't have children, don't think for a minute that gay marriage has nothing to do with you. When all the countless laws get changed in this country to accommodate the entire spectrum of the LGBTQ community, you WILL be impacted, and you might regret ever looking the other way while the gay activists fought to change your world as you have always known it.
If people don't start fighting against these agendas with the same level of passion and conviction that the gays are putting into fighting existing norms and laws (by making people feel discriminatory and evil somehow for advocating hereosexual relations and marriage and acceptance of one's birth gender), then one day we will all wake up to a bizarre unisex world, and think it's the Hotel California. Indeed, that's the state that is often leading the way in adopting these changes, so watch carefully to see what's in store for you down the road. And maybe get a full body scanner in the meantime to check out your next potential date!
IN THE NEWS: World's First Dog Cloning Business Clones 9/11 Rescue Dog
BioArts International chief executive Lou Hawthorne told AFP: "I think 99 percent of the time people should get their pets from shelters, but can we agree though that one percent of the time, if you have a one in a million dog and you have the money to pay for it, you should be able to go to either a breeder or a cloner?"
When will the day arrive where we ask that about our own children, or ourselves? Instead of enlarging our families through the usual procreation or adoption, we decide that someone is a "one in a million" person and is worthy of cloning, and we have the money to burn. Personally, I think the world could use at least five more of me, and at least a dozen more of my wonderful child.
However, being "one in a million" — or actually being entirely unique, as every human and animal is — does not justify cloning, and actually could be an argument against cloning. A better question is whether cloning should be commercially available at all, at any cost. Other important questions that do not seem resolved include: what grounds should justify the procedure; who should be allowed to determine that those reasons have been met; how are cloning labs going to be overseen; what harm can come of this; and on and on.
An excerpt from the AFP story appears below. Note that the story refers to the clones as "descendants" and "offspring," which is a bit misleading, but we don't really have the vocabulary yet to deal with this new phenomenon.
James Symington, a former Canadian police officer, choked back tears as he formally took possession of the five descendants of his beloved German shepherd named Trakr, who died in April.
Symington was presented with Trakr's offspring after winning a competition organized by California firm BioArts International — the "Golden Clone Giveaway" — to find the world's most "cloneworthy" dog...Symington and Trakr arrived at the site of the World Trade Center collapse, commonly referred to as Ground Zero, on September 12, 2001 and were one of the first K9 search and rescue teams on the site.
After working nearly non-stop for 48 hours, Trakr located the last human survivor found in the rubble of the twin towers.
"Trakr was an extraordinary search and rescue dog. His work at Ground Zero was the culmination of his career," Symington said. "I look forward to the day that these puppies can follow in Trakr's footsteps and play an important role in rescues, like Trakr did."
IN THE NEWS: DUI on a Bicycle in Amsterdam
One of my favorite pieces of art on my wall is called, "The Night I Lost My Bicycle in Amsterdam, 1993." It shows a bunch of distorted brick buildings, and a bicycle in a tree. The artist explained: "I came out of a cafe a bit intoxicated, and I couldn't find my bicycle anywhere. I finally found it in a tree."
That one image brings back so much of everything "Dutch" that I observed during my study abroad program in law school in the Netherlands. The stories of stolen bicycles are legion. The person I rented my flat from had five bicycles stolen in just a few months. Often, they wind up in the canals, so special barges routinely retrieve the bikes from the murky waterways.
Along with bikes disappearing, there is also the ubiquitous driving under the influence on bikes in this nation known for its tolerance and its legalizing of marijuana. For example, one night I was walking back to my apartment late, and I heard a noise behind me. It was a drunk driver crashing!! But not to fear — he was riding a bicycle, not a car. I turned just in time to see him swerving left and right, and then toppling over. Actually found it a bit humorous, considering there was no real harm to be done.
However, seems that the Dutch have taken their bikes and intoxication to another level since those days. Now they have "bikes" that large groups of people can ride together — all while drinking beer at a table. Various businesses rent out these giant bicycles to tourists and locals. Talk about drinking and driving! If you look up "bierfiets," which is Dutch for "beerbike," you can even see videos on YouTube. An excerpt from a Reuters story appears below:
The bike, which can seat at least 10 people around a central "bar" as they pedal through the city center, is a frequent sight in the Dutch capital and is said to be popular with stag and hen (bachelor and bachelorette) parties. A non-drinker steers the bike.
But two accidents involving the bikes since the start of April has prompted the city councilor...to investigate how many bikes there are and whether they pose a problem...A compromise could involve the council obligating all firms to supply a driver with the bike...Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool had reported earlier this week an accident last weekend resulted in various injuries, while three women were injured two weeks ago.
"It's an uncontrollable projectile," motorcyclist Karin Wolfs, who was involved in an accident, was quoted as saying.
A Night at the Holocaust Museum
"I recently attended a field trip with my 8th grader. We toured the Holocaust Museum in D.C. One of the people with us was a 24-year-old woman from Brazil...She had been educated in Brazil and had never heard of the Holocaust! Talk about a skewed education!...I'll never forget the looks of shock and horror washing over the Brazilian's face as the torture and deaths of all those innocent people were conveyed to her — not just Jews but Catholics, gays, and gypsies."
Now we all have looks of shock and horror after learning about the old racist who walked into that museum yesterday with a gun, killing a guard before being shot himself. Good thing the place was heavily guarded, or else some of the children touring the place and hoping to see the Anne Frank play that was scheduled might have been shot as well. This brings to mind so many things.
HOLOCAUST EDUCATION
Teachers in England have lamented that they find it difficult to teach the Holocaust when so many of the students there are Muslims who react negatively to the subject, perhaps denying its veracity as yesterday's shooter did. As a result, some teachers in the U.K. have simply stopped covering the subject rather than face such a hostile audience. Is that what has happened in Brazil, too? Or has Brazil been too-long influenced by the Nazis who fled there, leading to a flippant attitude toward the carnage of WWII, as was exhibited just a year ago when a dance school prepared a float with dead Jews piled up in a mass grave. The intent was to dance on top of this horrific float during the Mardi Gras parades. Clearly, something is wrong with Holocaust education around the world!
I realize my own early education was also lacking on the subject. I originally thought only six million Jews were killed in WWII, and that their persecution started with the German Nazis. Later in college I studied Russian, and learned that 20 million Russians died during the War. That was news! Practically a whole generation of Russian men gone, leaving their widows to manage on their own. Were some of the old women who were carted off in a paddy wagon in front of me in St. Petersburg a few years ago survivors of the War? They had been selling scarves and knickknacks on the street — the black market — which is against the law, but what other job could they possibly do at their age and skill level?
Still later, I learned that about 45 million people altogether died in the War, and that the Nazis systematically killed lots of people aside from Jews, including Polish intelligentsia, mentally disabled, and more. It is these facts that lead some people — like yesterday's shooter — to want to "revise" the history of that time period, yet such revisionists and deniers go overboard, wanting to claim that the Jews were not specially persecuted at all, since many more non-Jews died in the War than Jews. But that, too, is absurd. Jews did not have a homeland to defend. They only had their homes within Europe, and they were hunted down specifically for extermination. I personally know such people who went into hiding to survive, and it is astonishing to think of anyone trying to deny these facts of WWII.
However, what is less known is that such distinct persecution of Jews preceded WWII. I learned this when I bought a series of books at a Jewish museum in Amsterdam on the history of anti-Semitism, and was astonished to learn that Jews were discriminated against throughout Europe for centuries before the Nazis came along. There were laws restricting Jews to certain occupations, confining them to areas of town called "ghettos," and forcing them to wear clothes indicating they were Jewish. Many of the Nazi practices (short of the concentration camps) were based on such historical actions and laws throughout Europe. Much of old European art shows Jews in their required clothing at different time periods. You could almost say that for hundreds of years they were prisoners in Europe, wearing prison garb and let out during certain hours for work details.
The oldest Jewish ghetto in Europe is in Venice, and the lone operating synagogue there must now protect itself with military guards. I once found it difficult for me and my daughter to get past the two heavily armed men in fatigues to attend a service there, as I didn't have our passports handy and was carrying a backpack. Might I have a bomb? Finally, a guard searched my bag and let us in. Seemed strange to me at the time, but now it seems ominous. I have a better understanding of why Jewish places in general are so heavily guarded. They need to be! Anti-Semitism is still alive and well! Even if you are not Jewish but are simply a visitor to a Jewish synagogue, center or museum, your life is in danger.
Hitler and his crew might have invented the Final Solution, but they did not originate the persecution of Jews in Europe. However, even the Final Solution was not a new idea, as people had tried genocide against Jews thousands of years ago in the Middle East — same as Ahmadinejad promises to do at the first opportunity. In fact, many Jewish holidays commemorate their survival of various purges and attempted genocide. Are Jews really an inferior race?
Statistically, Jews make up only 2% of the U.S. population. So many of them came here destitute, yet they have managed to rise to the top of our society, same as in every society. It's typical for them to make up about 15% of the classes at Ivy league schools, and even greater percentages among law schools and medical schools. They are, on average, far more educated and successful and wealthy than other Americans. And they exert strong influences, staying politically active and engaged in community and volunteer work. You could even argue that Jews are God's chosen people. Not chosen to suffer, but chosen to survive and thrive no matter what atrocities and hardships they encounter. Perhaps it is jealousy over the ongoing success-against-all-odds of this people — their superiority — that leads to persecution.
VIOLENCE TOWARD JEWS
Whatever the cause — lack of education, miseducation, or just plain antisemitism — it is unfortunate that Jews today still encounter the violence. The persecution can amount to threats or property damage, like the swastikas that are appearing in greater frequency on the homes and cars of Jews in the United States, or the desecration of Jewish graves and sites in Europe. Or, on occasion, it can amount to shootings, as was done at a Jewish center a while back, and at the museum yesterday.
In the future, if we are not careful, it might amount to their annihilation — or at least the destruction of Israel, where many Holocaust survivors and their descendants have made their home. Or it could amount to the greatest attack on the United States ever, considering that for many in the world, there is no distinction between those who harbor, support and defend Jews, and Jews themselves. The U.S. and Israel, and Americans and Jews within our borders, are all inseparable at this point, and indistinguishable to the likes of people like Ahmadinejad.
In fact, it is possible that many Americans have Jewish blood. After all, Columbus set sail from Spain when Jews were expelled from that country. Historians speculate that his ships, and those that later followed to the Americas, harbored many Jews. Do you have "Black Dutch" in your ancestry? Those fair-skinned, dark-haired people are thought by some genealogists to be Jews, giving themselves a different identity in the New World to avoid ongoing persecution.
There is no denying that Jews have made enormous contributions to society throughout history, yet some say those contributions are supernatural as well as human. For example, Jewish writings claim that God will prosper those who help the Jews — like the United States has prospered during the time it has offered refuge to Jews and protection to Israel, and God will destroy those who oppose the Jews — like Hitler and his empire were ultimately destroyed. Many Jewish scholars say this is an ongoing theme throughout history.
Whether it is God at work here or or not, and whether you like Jews or not, you should find it easy to come up with reasons to defend and guard Jews and their museums, their history, and their survival. Perhaps it is even time to visit a Holocaust museum, as there are many around besides the one in D.C. Knowledge is understanding, and knowledge is power. We must educate ourselves, whether our schools properly do that for us or not.
The reason intelligentsia are killed off by new dictators throughout history is because they are the ones who KNOW, who are educated and equipped with all the power and strength of knowledge. We must all make sure we are educated on the Holocaust — the entire picture — for the future of our society and a humane world.
The Illogic of Airline and National Security
"Do pilots have to go through security?" I asked my pilot friend, wondering if they, too, had to go through all those lines and hassles.
"Yes, but it doesn't matter what I've got in my suitcase," he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"They should be more worried about who is flying the plane. They should've learned that from 9/11," he replied. "They don't check the pilot's ID."
"Yeah, but don't they look at your badge and your driver's license or something?" I queried.
"I only flash my badge at them at a distance, and that's it," he said. "It could be fake."
"Well, don't they know you? Don't you know the people you are flying with, like the co-pilots and flight attendants?" I insisted.
"No, there are thousands of pilots and flight attendants, and I travel with new ones every week," he explained.
"So anyone could walk up in a uniform and flash a badge, and then be flying an airplane?" I asked, incredulous.
"Yes," he said. "They should have fingerprint identification or eye scans, but they don't." He seemed very agitated over this, as if he had given it a lot of thought and was very concerned. Maybe he wonders about the new co-pilot next to him every week when he flies. Could that person possibly be a terrorist? What good is the bullet-proof door to the cockpit if the terrorist is already inside?
So I later ponder this conversation, and wonder why indeed they don't have more ID checks for pilots. After all, passports are getting very sophisticated, and in the near future they will all have microchips inside with biometric information. Why haven't they thought of pilot badges or ID cards that also contain such information? Instead, the airline industry and the national government are focused on trivia and distractions.
Take this week's news. A man found "relief," the headlines claimed, from criminal prosecution for insisting on using the lavatory in the First Class section on a flight. His meal had disagreed with him, and the aisle to his own section's lavatory was blocked by the food cart. After repeatedly asking a flight attendant if he could go in First Class, he finally placed his hand on her. Even though a pilot intervened and allowed him to use the First Class toilet, the FBI greeted him upon landing and off he went to jail for a couple of days, and later had to appear before a judge on felony assault charges. Keep in mind — the guy wasn't even Arab and wearing a beard and turban!
And yet another story. President Barack Hussein Obama is seeking immunity for Saudi Arabia and four of its princes who are alleged to have been involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center. He wants these possible terrorists to be immune from lawsuits by families of the victims. Gee, I figure these Saudi Arabians have plenty of money to share with the poor families, but let's protect them anyway, same as President George W. Bush insisted on doing when he let a bunch of them flee the United States during a time in which all flights were supposedly grounded, according to Fahrenheit 9/11.
Sometimes I just don't get it. We let the bad guys go, and then make a big deal going after inconsequential things. We even let Osama Bin Laden go when we had him cornered in Afghanistan, so we could instead spend all these years, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives going after Iraqis, knowing full well they had nothing to do with 9/11.
Whose side are our leaders on, anyway? Is anyone really concerned about security? Why aren't the most obvious things ever done, like going after the real bad guys, and verifying ID's of pilots? Instead there is always the handy diversion from the real issues. We have countries like Iraq to divert us from bigger threats from Saudi Arabians and Al Queda. And we have people who need to use the toilet to distract us from the bigger issue of who might be flying the plane.
I'm hoping that in the future, some basic common sense and rationality might be injected into the national debate on how to look out for the security of our airlines and country. Common Sense. The Crisis. Rights of Man. The Age of Reason. Yes, that's what we need. "Security being the true design and end of government," wrote Tom Paine, "it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others."
It's clear from our country's history that we do have the right form of government, but somehow it has lost its focus on "security" as "being the true design and end of government." Instead, security seems to have taken a back seat to whatever personally gratifies our presidents, or whatever appeases our interest groups — including foreign ones like the Saudis. We need to steer our government back to its primary role in security, and fast, because the world is a lot more threatening now than it was at our country's founding more than 200 years ago.
Forgetting Tiananmen Square
What is going on in China? They have a remarkable system of censorship, cover-up and brainwashing, as I've discovered the past ten months. When our exchange student first arrived, she still got her news from Chinese sources online, and I quickly learned she was not getting the same news as I was.
For example, when it came out that the little girl was lip-syncing in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, this detail was missing from the official Chinese news. My exchange student didn't believe me when I told her! Same thing when it came out that the Chinese government was squashing inquiries after the earthquake. You wouldn't find that in Chinese news sources, either.
As for the touchy subjects, she had an official party line response. Take Falun Gong, for instance. When I said the members were harmless and being sent off to labor camps in China, she didn't believe me. She said they were dangerous, that all they wanted to do was publicly kill themselves, and that they didn't exist anymore! I said they exist right here in the United States, and also in China, and she couldn't believe it. Never even heard of labor camps. Do labor camps really exist? her quizzical expression seemed to ask.
As for the Dalai Lama and Tibet, don't even mention it. That topic gets a very sharp response from a Chinese person indoctrinated in the party line, and coming from a proud Communist family.
Still, I've encouraged her to learn whatever she can about all the sensitive topics — from the Western perspective — while she's able to, and to also read Western news sources while she can, because she definitely won't be getting the same news when she returns to China! So many websites are blocked, and so many stories are skewed or wiped under the rug. Yet this also was news to her. I pointed out all the lists of blocked websites and news stories, especially during the Olympics, and it was the first she had heard of the matter.
So far, I haven't seen a huge change in our exchange student's opinions, except perhaps in the area of religion. She has been involved in a local Chinese Christian church, and she plans to take back to China a collection of Chinese language Bibles and Christian literature — for her own reading and to share with her parents. I'm a little concerned about how this will go over, both in her home and in her community. I'm concerned they might even confiscate her books at customs, or that she will face persecution if she gets involved in an underground church over there — the only churches that seem vibrant, as the official churches are largely spurned.
Back in China, however, her parents and friends have different concerns for her upcoming return trip. "Wear a face mask on the plane," they tell her, so she won't get swine flu. "And be prepared in case the government quarantines you for several days upon arrival."
Time to Say 'Adios' to Birthright Citizenship
There are currently 47 co-sponsors, out of 435 total Representatives in the House, who are in favor of H.R. 1868, introduced by Representative Nathan Deal of Georgia. The proposed law would only grant citizenship based on birth if at least one parent is an American citizen, a legal resident, or a member of the armed forces. Nearly half of the co-sponsors come from just three states: Texas, California and Georgia, all hot spots for illegal immigrants that have seen enormous increases in their Hispanic populations the past 20 years.
In Georgia alone, the foreign-born population increased 233 percent from 1990 to 2000, and another 50 percent from 2000 to 2007. Most of those immigrants are Latino, with a third coming from Mexico.
Once here, the immigrants are popping out babies at a rate nearly double the rate for native-born women. In 2007, nine percent of immigrant women had given birth, compared to only five percent of native-born women. Nationally, 85 percent of children with immigrant parents were born in the United States, not in the country of their parents' origin. Think about this. The parents are not arriving with children. They are arriving childless, then giving birth at an astonishing rate, making it more difficult to deport the family and allowing the children all the rights and benefits of citizenship, including access to welfare.
This puts tremendous pressure on government services. Children with immigrant parents accounted for 29 percent of all children from low-income families in 2007, compared to only 16 percent in 1990. For more statistics, visit the Migration Policy Institute website.
Because such statistics are shocking enough to wake up native-born Americans to the threat from within (and they say great empires can only be defeated from within), many Latinos plan to boycott the 2010 census. They are organizing — making appeals in Spanish-language newspapers, radio talk shows and TV stations — to avoid being counted, because they believe that our access to numbers like those above will result in laws against them. What's more, Hispanic churches are also organizing from the pulpit, which is a double crime, in that they are telling people to disobey the law, and involving themselves in politics counter to their tax-free status.
Keep this conspiracy in mind. The Latino ultimatum amounts to blackmail: give us legal status to remain, or we won't be counted in the census. Are these the kind of people you want to be citizens?
Birthright citizenship stems from provisions in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution intended to allow citizenship to former slaves. The drafters of the Amendment did not anticipate the situation the country now faces with illegal aliens entering to have their offspring here. The policy must be updated to protect the interests of the United States and its long-term survival as we know it.
Unfortunately, H.R. 1868 is unlikely to pass. Similar bills have been introduced before and failed. This one is currently assigned to a subcommittee of sixteen members, and only three of those members are known supporters. People need to tell their Representatives the importance of taking charge of who becomes a citizen and who doesn't. Things are greatly out of control now, and it won't be long before the majority influence in the country will be from people who do not share American values, who burden the system, and who do not even speak English. And who think that the way to make a difference is to plan organized defiance of laws and organized blackmail of our government.
They know full well what they are doing by having their babies here and taking advantage of the situation. Only native-born Americans are the ones seemingly unaware at the growing threat, and how birthright citizenship is the real source of the problem.
Soulful Selma Is a Disgrace to American Idol and McDonald's
I was quite surprised and appalled when my daughter pulled "Soulful Selma" out of a Night at the Museum Happy Meal box at McDonald's. Did McDonald's or American Idol ever run this by black people in market research before launching it? And what does it have to do with a Night at the Museum, anyway?
I have a hard time believing that this is how African Americans want to be portrayed. Even around 1970 when large Afros were in style, the female singers did not look like this. Instead, this is a caricature of a black person, all the way from the hair to the name that they gave this figure, as if we wouldn't be able to tell it was a black person without the name Soulful Selma. As everyone knows, soul music is black to the core, and Selma is a town in Alabama that featured prominently during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's, and not in a way that whites want to be reminded of.
When will advertisers ever learn? Only recently Burger King had to pull its advertisement that featured a squat Mexican next to a tall Texan. The official complaint from a Mexican official was that it's against the law to use the Mexican flag in the way it is portrayed in the advertisement. You can guess that the unofficial complaint is the entire depiction. The Mexican barely comes up to the elbow of the American, and is as round as the nearby wagon wheel.
I do miss the Frito Bandito from my youth, but that was from another time period. Nowadays, it seems ridiculous that advertising agencies and their clients are not more aware. They should at least be aware that anything even remotely offensive can result in all kinds of backlash. Why waste money on an ad campaign that is sure to backfire?
It doesn't take much of an IQ to realize that portraying a doll like Beyonce or any number of other stunning African Americans would come across better than Soulful Selma, and be more realistic to boot. I can't think of a single performer that even remotely resembles Soulful Selma, except, perhaps, Soulful Selma herself. So, is that a microphone in her hand, or a fried chicken leg? Hmmmm, looks like soul food to me. And she's lovin' it!
