May 30, 2007
Friends don't count money
How come a country's measure of success is its economy? What makes one country more successful than another isn't the economy; it's the happiness of the people. Newspapers should have headlines like, "Mexicans make more friends" or "Moroccans don't cut in line" and "Chinese children share more." Economic headlines give a false impression of success. "The economy rallies" has no bearing on the quality of our friendships or the depth of our conversations.
May 28, 2007
yes! let's chat.
In response to Matt's comment (this felt too long for a comment box):
Matt noted the complexity of the immigration issue and insisted the dichotomy of "leave them alone" or "kick them out" is too simplistic.
I'm agreed, of course. These issues are incredibly complex.
However, we need to aim for the highest possible goal: fair, humane, just treatment of every person. Which to me means letting more immigrants in legally, and offering amnesty to those who apparently are desperate to live here.
Perhaps the largest population is Mexican, but there are other nations to whom we are not offering amnesty. For instance, Iraqis. This article in the Boston Herald notes that Iraqi's who have helped Coalition troops in Iraq are threatened, yet the U.S. is not offering them visas for entry to the U.S. Last month we offered one Iraqi a visa.
If we start with guiding principles that hold all humans as irreplaceable and equally valuable, instead of arguing from standpoints of "profit" and "anti-terrorism", I think we'll discover our goals and the goals of legal and illegal immigrants are similar and could benefit from collaboration.
I take my main issue with the devil-saint model of immigration: illegal immigrants are not enemies. They're future citizens.
Matt noted the complexity of the immigration issue and insisted the dichotomy of "leave them alone" or "kick them out" is too simplistic.
I'm agreed, of course. These issues are incredibly complex.
However, we need to aim for the highest possible goal: fair, humane, just treatment of every person. Which to me means letting more immigrants in legally, and offering amnesty to those who apparently are desperate to live here.
Perhaps the largest population is Mexican, but there are other nations to whom we are not offering amnesty. For instance, Iraqis. This article in the Boston Herald notes that Iraqi's who have helped Coalition troops in Iraq are threatened, yet the U.S. is not offering them visas for entry to the U.S. Last month we offered one Iraqi a visa.
If we start with guiding principles that hold all humans as irreplaceable and equally valuable, instead of arguing from standpoints of "profit" and "anti-terrorism", I think we'll discover our goals and the goals of legal and illegal immigrants are similar and could benefit from collaboration.
I take my main issue with the devil-saint model of immigration: illegal immigrants are not enemies. They're future citizens.
May 27, 2007
Immigrant bill could break up families
Immigrants Learn of the Impact of the new bill in Congress
The new immigration bill will separate families, according the the Seattle Times article linked above. I'm growing more and more concerned about how we treat immigrants, both legal and illegal. They're people too. And generally beneficial people. More on that if I can find the article I was reading yesterday.
Any thoughts on how to convince congress AND the general US population that mistreating immigrants is just poor sport?
The new immigration bill will separate families, according the the Seattle Times article linked above. I'm growing more and more concerned about how we treat immigrants, both legal and illegal. They're people too. And generally beneficial people. More on that if I can find the article I was reading yesterday.
Any thoughts on how to convince congress AND the general US population that mistreating immigrants is just poor sport?
May 26, 2007
May 9, 2007
Fictionating words
"Mussine"
A set of sounds without definition. I like it though.
How to go about making this mis-read word mean something?
Editors of dictionaries would insist if I can get enough people to agree that a set of sounds means something, then they do.
What should "Mussine" mean? Here is the context I misread it in:
"Michael Wesch speculates that the accessibility of the internet to add and receive content is leading to a mussine paradigm shift in human thought and society."
It seemed to me to bear connotations of "novel" "ineffable" "chaotic" "capricious" "uncontrolled" "active" "self-motioned" without being able to be defined concretely.
It's as if we know there is a gigantic change occurring but can't imagine what shape this change might take.
Mussine: adj. impredictability, as in an unimaginable result of a currently occurring change.
A set of sounds without definition. I like it though.
How to go about making this mis-read word mean something?
Editors of dictionaries would insist if I can get enough people to agree that a set of sounds means something, then they do.
What should "Mussine" mean? Here is the context I misread it in:
"Michael Wesch speculates that the accessibility of the internet to add and receive content is leading to a mussine paradigm shift in human thought and society."
It seemed to me to bear connotations of "novel" "ineffable" "chaotic" "capricious" "uncontrolled" "active" "self-motioned" without being able to be defined concretely.
It's as if we know there is a gigantic change occurring but can't imagine what shape this change might take.
Mussine: adj. impredictability, as in an unimaginable result of a currently occurring change.
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