If You Build It, They Will Come--Part II

Reports occasionally surface of Mexicans climbing the Border Fence--usually to work illegally in the U.S. (Now you're thinking, duh, state the obvious why don't you?). But sometimes they jump the Border Fence just to get a beer:

Only a dirt parking lot separates the Gay 90s bar from the Naco (Arizona) wall....Janet Warner, one of the bartenders.... notes that sometimes Mexicans jump the new steel wall, come in for a beer, then jump back into Mexico. (National Geographic May 2007).

So skeptics might be forgiven for thinking the Border Fence doesn't work. But don't worry--the Border Fence is a work in progress, and there's every indication that when finished, it will keep people out.

Sort of.

If you're Rafael Garza of Granjero, Texas, the Border Fence will keep you out of your back yard.

And if you're a student at the University of Texas at Brownsville, there's a good chance it will keep you out of class.

If You Build It, They Will Come.

670 miles of the Border Fence are due to be completed by the end of the year.

Guess who's probably essential to meeting that deadline?

Shocking News Headline of the Day...

...from today's New York Times:

Gay Couples Find Marriage Is a Mixed Bag

The lede:

Four years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay couples to marry, there have been blissful unions, painful divorces and everything in between...

It's part one of a groundbreaking investigate series that shows how different gay people are from the rest of us. A friend in the media forwarded me the titles of the other articles in the series:

Gallup Poll: Some Gay People Don't Like their Jobs

Gay Airline Passengers Annoyed about Fees to Check Luggage

Gay Drivers Don't Like Paying Higher Gas Prices

Gay Fans Annoyed at Six-Month Wait for Second Half of Final Season of Battlestar Galactica.

Some Hillary Supporters Might Vote for McCain

Slate's XX Factor explains their reasoning:

The decision to defect to McCain has nothing to do with Hillary as a woman or Obama's personality. They like Obama enough as a person, but they think he's an empty suit—rhetoric with little record behind it. Even if they agree more with Obama's positions, it seems risky to put such an inexperienced person in the White House...

I can see their point. Can you imagine a president with only a few years in Congress under his belt, whose political experience is mostly from serving in the Illinois state legislature?



It boggles the mind.

Through the Looking Glass

This headline from the good people at Reuters:

Baptists reluctantly embrace "liberal" McCain

The article included this choice quote Fairfield, Texas churchgoer Jodie Sanders: "It's basically a choice between a liberal and an ultra-liberal."

Apparently what damns McCain in Baptist eyes is his support for finding ways that microscopic pieces of tissue can be used to cure cancer and Parkinson's diseases. We can't have that, can we? Oh--and let's not forget immigration reform. The McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform bill was pretty scary stuff: I mean, my God--amnesty for people who have committed the heinous crime of working in this country, building our houses and harvesting the food we eat? Madness. And let's not forget the bill included a section entitled Relief for Children and Widows. I can see why churchgoers would be against that.

But seriously, the Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination that has been on the wrong side of every major social and political issue since 1845. It was actually founded to be on the wrong side of a social issue: slavery. Ever since--African-American rights, workers' rights, womens' rights--the SBC has chosen (with a consistency bordering on perverse genius) the politically regressive and ethically wrong side of every possible political conflict. Quite a record for a church.

I suppose veering from such a straight and narrow path is all it takes to make a liberal these days.

America's Finest at....School....

This first hit mid-Atlantic newspapers about a month ago, so forgive me for being a tad behind the times.* Have you ever wondered where the next generation of Border guards, prison guards and TSA employees is coming from? Your worries are over. A charter school is being formed in Wilmington, Delaware with the purpose of training several hundred inner-city kids for future careers protecting you and me.

Yes, according to the Delaware Business Ledger, the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security will be able to choose from curricula including "SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) through prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, [and] professional demolition."

Training teenagers to use weapons and blow things up. What could go wrong?


*I first read about this in BoingBoing. If you're blogging about something you read about in a blog, is that metablogging? Or just being plain lazy?

Who's A Lesbian? Seriously...Who's A Lesbian?

Dmitris Lambrou wants the matter settled once and for all.

He's the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, for their use of the term that also describes the inhabitants of his home island, Lesbos. The suit alleges that the use of the term 'Lesbian' for girls who like girls (and I think you know the kind of 'like' I mean), causes international embarrassment for the 100,000 inhabitants of Lesbos.

"My sister can't say she's a Lesbian," Lambrou laments.

I have two reactions to this news story.

A) The Greeks need to knock it off; stupid lawsuits are an American thing. Just because we're in our waning days as a superpower doesn't mean other countries can start co-opting our shticks.

B) Like China, the international Lesbian community is a giant that has lain dormant for centuries. This lawsuit portends the awesome power they can wield. Change your name, ladies! The world trembles in fear awaiting the next collective term for members of the Sapphic persuasion. What will Lesbians start calling themselves next? Baptists? Texans? Russians? Mormons? Lesbians have the power to make introductions to strangers a humiliating ordeal for millions rather than just the thousands who inhabit some rinky-dink island.

What's stopping them?