Free Computer

From my days in the advertising business long ago, I recall being told that free is the most powerful word in the English language. So I start this entry with it.

 And it is true. A friend of mine, author of the website "I Once Was HP" is offering a free computer to any child who can compose a 500 word e-mail explaining why he or she needs it. The idea is to provide a new computer to an underprivileged child. If you know a kid who needs a computer and can't afford it, go here to learn the details.

Hurry, the dealine is March 15. 

The Blistering: Chapter XIX

Delivered and Sealed 

 

To read this serial novel from the beginning, go here.

 
"Why is that guy wearing a parka?" the tallest of the three smugglers asked.

Tom and Ali turned and looked at Cardinal. Indeed, he was wearing a long, oversized coat.

"What's the problem, gentleman?" Cardinal asked innocently.

"The problem is," one of the smugglers said, "that we are here to make a sensitive transaction, and somebody shows up in a coat big enough to conceal an anti-aircraft gun."

"May I first compliment you on the quality of your English," Cardinal said, "but as for your question -- it is early in the morning, and I just caught a chill from the desert air."

"A chill? You are in the desert and it is thirty degrees outside."

"That's what I'm talking about, thirty degrees," Cardinal replied, smiling. "I checked the papers this morning. High of 36 degrees. So I brought my coat."

"In Syria we use the metric system, you imbecile," the tall smuggler said. "Thirty degrees Celsius."

Tom spoke up. "John, thirty degrees Celsius is well into the eighties. You might want to lose the coat. You're making our trading partners nervous."

Cardinal backed up a few steps. He couldn't lose the coat. He had two MAC-10 machine guns and about 15 grenades strapped to his chest.

There was a moment of silence, then the smuggler said, "Are you going to remove your coat, or is there going to be trouble?" All three of the smugglers moved their hands to their belts, where automatic pistols hung.

Uttering an expletive, Cardinal threw off his coat, slinging the pair of MAC-10s in front of him. He had used an old trick -- the arms of his coat were stuffed with newspaper (the same newspaper that forecast 40 degree highs, no doubt) and had stuffed the cuffs into his pockets. His real arms were inside the coat, fingering the triggers of his machine guns all the while. Tom and Ali leapt out of the way, and Cardinal let the ordnance fly.

"That's the thing about these damn terrorists," Cardinal said. "They talk all tough, but when you whip out the hardware, they run like rats." He listened to the pleasant tak-tak-tak of the guns. The sound would be intolerable in this closed space if he hadn't brought his earplugs.

Two of the smugglers got behind a concrete pillar and started firing back. Feeling he had overstayed his welcome, Cardinal backed towards the door, covering himself with a half dozen or so rounds per second. Tom and Ali had gotten out just ahead of him. As he eased out, he noticed a package on the floor. The seal pelts, he thought. I guess I'll be taking those.

He slung the package over his shoulder, wheeled around and lobbed a grenade over his shoulder. It's a rare gift, Cardinal knew, to be able pull the pin from a grenade and toss it with only one hand. Ah, yes, one of the few happy memories he had of his father.

As the grenade blew Cardinal broke into a dead run towards the car. Marsha had already started the engine, and her hand propped the passenger door open for him. "Three minutes until total mayhem," she said. 'You're lucky I waited. I only put enough change into the parking meter for two minutes."

Next Episode: Pelted with Good Fortune 

Why I Am Not a Republican

Southwest Mississippi has a heady political year coming up. Here in Mississippi's 3rd Congressional district, our Congressional Representative, Chip Pickering, has announced he is not running for re-election. Trent Lott, the state's long-serving senior Senator, retired in December. This means that in November, in our neck of the woods we will elect a brand-new U.S. Congressman, Senator, and President all in one day. An uncommon event.

The local newspaper has been running profiles of the candidates for the 3rd Congressional seat. Yesterday, the confection was Gregg Harper, Republican candidate and resident of Rankin County. He seems like a typical Republican, affable enough, pro-life, in favor of the Iraqi War. In fact, he seems to think the only problem with the Iraqi War is that the government is not selling it well enough:

“The Republican Party has done a lousy job explaining why we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, adding that officials need to better explain the country’s role in fighting Islamic terrorists “who want to destroy everything we believe in."

Interestingly enough, he is anti-stem cell research, but with a twist. His son has Fragile X syndrome, exactly the kind of disease stem cell proponents (erroneously) believe stem cell research can cure in short order. So in a sense, he is willing to practice what he preaches.

None of this is as troubling as this passage:

The main issue in the district, Harper said, is immigration.

“We need secure borders; it’s an issue of national security,” he said. “We need to enforce our existing (immigration) laws. I’m opposed to amnesty. I don’t think taxpayer benefits should go to illegals.”

This is exactly the claptrap that alienates me from the Republican party. I will save you a trip to the U.S. Census website and tell you a little about the 3rd Congressional district. Pike County, where I live, has a population of about 38,000, 51% white, 48% black, 0.7% Hispanic. Rankin County, where Mr. Harper lives, has a population of about 130,000, 81% white, 17% black, and 1.3% Hispanic. Unless Mr. Harper has detected a huge number of African or white-European illegal immigrants, there is no serious immigration problem around here.

This is the problem that I have with the immigration issue: It is a problem of the rich. Poor counties like Pike (per capita income $14,000) don't attract illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants go where the money is, to relatively wealthy states like California, Arizona, Texas, and New York. They tend to flock to big cities like Chicago, Denver, and Atlanta, bypassing rural areas like Mississippi. Yes, migrant workers do go to farms, but usually corporate farms, and corporate farming is not a big player in the Magnolia State.

We don't have an immigration problem here. Yet Mr. Harper calls this the number one issue in his own district at a time when we are at war, when the majority of Mississippians couldn't find Iraq on a map, when half a million Mississippians have no health insurance, when our per capita income is one-half the national average.

The best measure of a person's decency is his priorities. Ask someone what his first priority is, and his answer gives you pretty good insight into his character. Right now, President Bush's first priority seems to be securing legal amnesty for the telecom companies for privacy law violations. For the new Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal (also a Republican), it is comprehensive ethics reform for politicians. The depth of the chasm between the two priorities is arresting.

So here we have Harper, with all the things he ought to be worrying about, like education and crime and excesses of executive privilege and the mortgage crisis, and what's on his mind? The immigration status of Hispanics, who make up about one in one hundred Mississippians. Good God.

Of course Harper is just mouthing the tripe of his national party. The G.O.P. has no answers to America's real problems, so it makes up fake ones instead. Make no mistake, I think immigration laws should be enforced, but what threat do illegal immigrants really pose to our society? They take jobs no one else wants. They work for white people for half of nothing, and while their bosses charge the market rate for their services, the workers themselves are often are stiffed on their paychecks anyway. They get no insurance, no legal protections, no schooling, and as little health care as possible, and in return do a lot of our most unpleasant labor so uneducated Americans can work in air-conditioned malls. There is no strong evidence that they commit more crime than anyone else. Yes, they take jobs away from Americans. Now go find the nearest illegal immigrant, kick him across the border, and take over his job for 4 hours. I dare you. In 4 hours you will be out looking for him, begging him to take his old gig back.

People as clueless as Harper should be shoveling horse stalls for a living. I think I would trust the priorities of a Mexican who risked his life walking across hundreds of miles of desert so he could nail shingles for a living and send half his pay back to his family south of the border, over someone like him.

That is why I am not a Republican.

The Snail and the Turtle

One upon a time there was a snail named Scott. Scott was crawling across the garden floor one day when he encountered an ant.

"Hello, I'm Scott," Scott said. "What is your name?"

"I'm an ant," the ant said, quickly.

"Where do you live, Mr. Ant?" Scott asked.

"That's Ms. Ant to you," the ant corrected. "I am a worker ant and among worker ants it's just us girls. But for your information, I live in an anthill."

"What's an anthill?" asked Scott.

"An anthill is a place where ants live," Ms. Ant said dryly. "We throw up a mound of dirt and then burrow holes into it. We live there."

"How marvelous," Scott said. "I have no place to live. May I come live there with you?" But the ant had already scurried on her busy way.

A few minutes later, Scott came across a bird. "Well, good morning!" Scott said.

"Good morning," the bird chirped tersely. "Excuse me, but you are stepping on my breakfast."

Scott inched back and was surprised to see a worm underneath him.

"Thank you," the bird said, and pecked it up.

"Mr. Bird," Scott said, "Where do you live?"

The bird looked ever so slightly churlish. "I live in a nest, of course. A nest in a tree!"

"How wonderful," Scott said. "Perhaps you could let me live with you? It seems I have no home. Ants live in anthills and birds live in nests, but I have nowhere to live." But the bird had flapped his wings, and in a twinkle he was gone.

Dejectedly, Scott continued his journey across the garden. At last he spotted a turtle. "Mr. Turtle, good morning," he said sadly.

"Now, young snail, what are you sad about on this fine morning?" the turtle said.

"Oh, all morning I have been slithering about in this garden looking for a place to live. No one will let me live with them. Where do you live, Mr. Turtle?"

"Right here, right here," the turtle said, gesturing towards his shell with his flipper. "Like all turtles, I carry my home on my back. Wherever I go, that is home."

Scott brightened a little. "Perhaps I could live with you?"

The turtle laughed. "Perhaps, and I would not mind living with a fine fellow such as yourself, but there is no need. You carry a shell on your back, just as I do on mine. You can live in your own shell!"

"My goodness," Scott exclaimed, "I have been home all this time! I spent the entire morning searching for my home, and it turns out that I have been there since the beginning."

"Yes," said the turtle, "that is the beauty of being a turtle or a snail. Your home is wherever you are. You just have to realize it."

Moral: Whenever you have a silly question to ask, find someone who is already at home. People at home are usually not in a hurry.

The New FISA Law

''At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison.''

This is how Our Dear Leader President Bush asks for legislation these days. He tells us that Congress must bow to his will or we all will die.

In this public statement, Bush was urging Congress to pass his version of the new FISA law, a federal statute that regulates how, among other things, U.S. intelligence is allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls. Both houses of Congress have more or less agreed to his proposal, with one exception. Bush wants the law to include a clause granting retrograde immunity to telecom companies that illegally supplied he government with phone records over the last six years. The Senate has agreed to this provision, but the House is balking. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that does not include retrograde immunity.

I do not pretend to be an expert on all aspects of this law, but here is the issue as I understand it. Since the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly asked telephone companies for their phone records during its anti-terrorist investigations. The telephone companies have been freely supplying this information, and allowing the Bush people to listen in on phone calls without search warrants. Under normal circumstances, telecom companies cannot supply such information, even if they want to, without a warrant. Telephone conversations are private in the U.S. Phone companies can't simply give this information away.

Why have the phone companies have been so complaint? They cannot be ignorant of the law. These are huge multinational companies with armies of lawyers. It could be that they are patriotic citizens, and simply felt the need to aid the cause of anti-terrorism. Or, more likely, they complied because they were currying favor with the president, expecting him to return the favor with a tax cut or regulation change in the future. This, to think about it, is a terrible thought: Telecom companies may be trading citizens' privacy for political favors.

At any rate, when the truth about these warrantless searches surfaced, about 20 groups filed lawsuits against the carriers for violation of privacy. This prompted the Bush administration to add the clause to the FISA bill in Congress to protect the companies from lawsuits.

This immunity provision is a terrible law. It cancels the legal standing of the lawsuits. Ordinarily, I am not big on class action suits, but in this case I am on the side of the plaintiffs. The telecom companies broke the law by handing over phone records without demanding warrants. If the new FISA bill goes through, the lawsuits will be dismissed. If the suits do not go forward, there will be no legal discovery, no subpoenas, no examination of who turned over what records and when. The public will never find out which phone records were handed over, and which phone calls were wiretapped. Bush maintains that only people suspected of terrorism were tapped, but given his history I am not inclined to believe him. I want to know what the President was doing. I am willing to bet that the wiretaps were far more widespread, and more dubious, than he is letting on.

I understand that counter-terrorism is an important government function. But counter-terrorism is not a blank check. A president is still accountable for his actions. If this bill goes through, I have no doubt these warrantless wiretaps will never be investigated and we will never know how far the Bush administration has snooped into the private lives of its citizens.

If he did nothing wrong, what is he afraid of?

Congress should not pass this bill as it is.