The Mexican Bible

This was written by my father in 2006. It's a true story and it reflects some of the issues Arizona's latest and greatest fascist stupid law, SB 1070.

Someone left a Bible in the back seat of my taxi recently.
I know he was an illegal alien because of the nature of how the book got left there. It was Halloween night, and I received a telephone call from a colleague of mine. There were three Hispanic men standing outside a convenience store. They spoke only Spanish. He spoke only English, and was not going to take the trip. Maybe the trip would be worth something. Would I like to talk to them?
I hate to turn down an opportunity without at least looking at it. And besides, I have learned enough Spanish to get by. I drove up to the convenience store to see what I could do.
Three young Hispanic men stood in the shadows by the pay phone. As I eased my taxi to a stop, one detached himself from the shadows, and approached my car. We greeted each other in Spanish, and he proceeded to tell me that he had to get to Los Angeles to see his fiancé.
I know enough about the law to know when to ask questions and when not to. Plausible deniability is not just the prerogative of presidents. I could surmise why they were not taking a bus or airplane. I named a price; they agreed. The trip was uneventful until we got to the Arizona California border. The three men were nervous about the border check point. I told them to relax, the authorities were only checking for fruit coming across the border. I don’t know if it was true or not, but it sounded good. They relaxed.
We swung into a gas station outside of Twenty-nine Palms to fuel up. There was a police cruiser in the parking lot, and once again, the three men in my cab hunkered down, and tried to stay out of sight. I filled the gas tank, and shook my head. My suspicions of their immigration status had been confirmed by their behavior. I didn’t tell the cop. I’m not that kind of person. Besides, I didn’t want any trouble for myself. It might not be legal to cross state lines in a taxi with a cargo full of undocumented migrants. I was not really in a mood to find out.
A few miles away from the gas station, we witnessed a bad car crash. I dialed emergency services on my cell phone, but did not stick around to see the police show up. Again, the less trouble the better.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. I left them at a house in Los Angeles. It wasn’t a real upscale neighborhood, but it wasn’t a slum either. Sort of a middle class home that everyone in America dreams of owning some day.
I was home before I noticed the Bible.
The bible is a Spanish version, small, with a battered black leather cover. Inside it had a few notes on small pieces of paper. The New Testament was heavily thumbed through, and the pages of Mark and Luke were rather dog-earred. Many verses had been underlined. The Bible has sat on a shelf in my bedroom since the day I found it. I had not even thought about it until I was tidying up today, while a talk radio station played in the back ground from my clock radio. The host was on some rant about W’s new immigration policy.
I wonder if the talk show host realizes that these illegal aliens have lovers? That they have expectant, future father in laws, who are glad to see their new son in laws, yet somehow apprehensive for the future of their daughters? Does the radio talk show host know the fear these men felt waiting in a gas station for a cop to leave? Does he know the joy on the faces of these men as they stepped out of the taxi in Los Angeles? Does this same radio talk show host that almost every day claims to be a good moral conservative Christian know that an illegal alien left his Bible in my cab? A Bible that had been studied, and marked by some one just as devoted to the same faith as he? Or would such thoughts put too human a face on the issue? Would thinking these things mean that we have to deal with real problems involving real people, not just abstractions of law breakers?
And am I the only one who finds it ironic that the very Bible that both the radio show host and the young Mexican man read says to be kind to the strangers in your land?

Healthcare and (hopefully) addressing real concerns.

august 30

As you know, I hate both the Left and the Right equally, so this whole healthcare debate has me aghast at both levels of stupidity.
As you know, I am against big government, so obviously, putting my health and life in the hands of a self-minded bureaucracy doesn't seem smart.
But hearing the conservatives argue against it is ludicrous! God, their petty bickering is exactly opposite of what I believe! They aren't arguing for freedom, they aren't arguing for anything but their own agenda. After all, Reagan introduced plenty of bills that made our healthcare more socialist.Bush and Bush haven't helped shit.

And yes folks, by definition this healthcare plan is socialist. Some think that's ok. "Hey, it works for Canada and Sweden." But how certain are we that it will function under OUR government, which is leaps and bounds larger and more disorganized? With the national debt reaching bazillions of dollars we think we can pay for this with 3¢ taxes on Coke? We are funding unstoppable wars that are killing innocent people, now we think we can save ourselves? This isn't about the elderly getting coverage, this is about collapsing the entire infrastructure of Capitol Hill.

I disagree that socialism -- if it works at all -- works in the long run. It may work for Canada now, but who knows? In ten years, thirty, it could fall on them. It didn't work for

I hate the argument that government health care will be run like the Post Office. It'll be way more like the DMV. Hours of waiting, go to one window to get this tag to take to this window ... while the doctors and officials try to weasel you out of coverage. Has the government ever given something away for free that wasn't dripping with reluctance? Even FEMA is haphazard and inefficient to our own "huddled, starving masses," namely, victims of hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. And I know what it's like, I've been on government healthcare before.

Did you know you have to renew it every six months? This may take six to eight weeks to process. So for a maximum of 16 weeks out of the year, don't you dare have a hospital emergency. Just try getting covered then. My sister had a fine time with that when she had appendicitis.

And I'm SO SURE if this access was mandatory to everyone it would magically improve, not deteriorate. Let's up the scale of this unreliable system to a national level!

Well, wait, this isn't about me OR you. This is about the children. They are dying in droves because Obama is not here to hand them a band-aid -- which is about all your kid with leukemia will qualify for.

But it's true. Our healthcare system blows. But isn't that because the Clintons, the Reagans and everyone since FDR have made the problems of a market a problem for the bureaucracy? What I'm saying is, when the problems get worse as the government shoves its pointed nose in deeper, is the real solution MORE of the same?

It was Benjamin Franklin that said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Who's Laughing Now?

Leathery Goodness

George Clooney steps behind the camera for the fourth time in Leatherheads, a screwball comedy in which Clooney also stars. The plot revolves around the early days of professional and college football, loosely based on actual events. After working with the Coen Brothers on at least three of their films, its easy to see where Clooney picked up some of his directing skill. Leatherheads is almost as good as Burn After Reading in terms of laughs, sharp dialogue and a tangled plot.

Set in the mid-1920's, when college football was incredibly popular and professional football was still "underground" (and muddy), Leatherheads is the story of Dodge Connelly (Clooney) and Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (John Krasinski a.k.a Jim from the Office) who try to make football a legitimate sport and win the heart of Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) in the process.

Does it sound like you've heard this story before? Yet even when Clooney is serving up something cliché, he adds a personal, Coen-esque twist to it. Even tackling on the plot of (yet another?) football film, Clooney takes us into the world of prohibition, down-and-dirty sports and nasty politics. The attention to detail, including the leather helmets the players wear (from which the movie gets its title), add more life than your average football/inspirational blah like We Are Marshall or Remember the Titans.

Sure, the Duluth Bulldogs are an underdog team (no pun intended) up against an insurmountable football team, and sure, they win in the end, but the movie is so wrapped up in story that by the ending, you really don't care about the grand finalé, you care about the people. That's more important.

Considering the intended audience for this film would be hipsters or mature members of the Facebook generation, the vein of this movie's message, in all likelyhood, could be that once football was rough, surprising and actually interesting, unlike today. This decade's breed of teenager cares less and less about sports (unless you count the XBOX 360 versions) and more about Guitar Hero and Zelda. Games where participation is often more rewarding. Watching football is overly formulated and predictable to the average member of the 21st century. In fact, most people watch the Super Bowl just because of the commercials.

Perhaps the main point of this movie is that the government decided to govern the rules of football, which instantly made it boring. Leatherheads is almost promoting a view that says "keep government out of professional sports" because 90 years ago, they dehumanized it. The government added a shitload of rules making it nearly impossible to score, making every play the same and lulling audiences to sleep. If only, Leatherheads suggests, football was the same, we'd have more of a human element in one of our national pastimes.

Warless

Albert Einstein:
"The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service."

I find it fascinating that the most noble and moral people throughout history were also anti-war. Einstein, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Buddha, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Lysander Spooner, and of course, Jesus.
They weren't just anti-this war. They were anti-ALL war.

On the other hand, those that most supported war were crooked, wretched men such as Hitler, Stalin, FDR, Bush (senior and junior), Nixon, LBJ, Mao, Castro, Saddam Hussein, Caesar, etc.

Am I missing anyone who was a moral person who supported violence by the state? Anyone who hugged the bomb as well as un-aborted babies? Probably, but they aren't the norm. People who think war is a solution to their nation's problems are evil, evil people.

Now, my point is this: Obama supports war in Pakistan, Darfur and Afghanistan. McCain supports war everywhere.

You really think voting is going to make a difference?

Day Ten: Lachrymose Sky

I dented the front of my grandpa's Prius. Last week, I backed into a hill and popped off some sort of fender. He wasn't mad either time. Said he has insurance. I asked him why he wasn't mad. He said, "Why should I be? Do you want me to yell at you?" Oh, the things I get away with. Everything, but that toilet in junior year. Can't do no wrong, not me. Yell at me? It would make me feel better. Just a little.

Down the street the police installed a little speed monitoring board. I think it was put there because of me, narcissitic as that is. What's the name of that emotion? Where you think things are for you because they are presented that way. When someone writes an angry, anonymous blog you automatically think it's about you. It's probably not, but can you ever help thinking that? What am I supposed to do, guess?

The board doesn't take your picture or anything. In fact, there are so few security cameras around here that it was a relief seeing them in a CVS. It would take me a thirty minute drive to find that particular pharmacy again, but going inside was the only breath of normal I've felt since leaving Sky Harbor. I really don't like that about myself. I'm so molded by consumerism, even though I'm mostly against it.

Took work off. I helped move furniture with my grandpa today. Some Keystone Cops moments. Busted a lamp or two. Paint spatters on clothing. He painted the living room for this old cat lady. Her house smells like cigarette smoke, not the good, fresh kind. Cheap cigs. Cat hair and kitty litter and old lady. The weirdness of it all. Why she tapes doors shut. Why she ties lighters to everything. Why she taped a letter about mammograms to the wall. Why she collects spent Dunkin' Donuts coffee cups and uses them as insulation. May I never be so old my brain rots inside my skull, like molded bananas. I've seen this happen to almost every old person I know. I would rather fall down a staircase like ol' whatshisname. Maybe he didn't fall anyway.

I went to Bible study. Me and Rhonda got sidetracked from discussing the existence of God to why and how America is a "Christian Nation" and whatnot. We started arguing over the concept of the Iraq Invasion. I was explaining simple economics to her. When there is more demand than supply, price goes up. When you invade a country that has oil, supply goes down, demand goes up, therefore high gas prices. When you are investing in oil companies, like Bush and co. are, you have damn good reason to invade, because you will make a profit (Exxon made more money in a single quarter than any other company in history). Rhonda asked for proof. Motive. The smoking gun.

In a way, I feel bad that the discussion sidetracked. I have a way of doing that. . . Rhonda said she had a headache and wasn't up to arguing with me because of it. But she complimented me, saying I go right for it. Relentless. I smiled. Whatever.

So I went home and did some research. A lot of people claim Al-Qaeda had no reason to attack the U.S. but if you look back, we've been over in the Middle East since at least the '80s. Shooting down their civilian planes and trying to pay them off? Why wouldn't Muslim extremists be pissed and want retaliation?

It's a pretty disgusting part of history. Trench warfare, human waves and mustard gas. Never learned about this in high school. Wonder why. I got myself on a tangent about the mustard gas of course. The mutagenic, carcinogenic horror of it all. And my sick fascination with it.

It was rainy today, like yesterday, but I've been enjoying it. I love how the wet brings out all the color in everything. The road is black, real black. The trees, real green. Mud, real brown. The sky is the exception, some bleak gray slate, sometimes completely blank. The sky is oblivion. Like a wet water color portrait, every where I go, I track some of the bleeding colors with me. The light stretches out into nothing. No wonder Garbage is only happy when it rains. It's the only time life makes sense.