welcome to arizona... now go back to wherever you came from

Once again the vestige of racism rears its ugly head... and brown people are again in the crosshairs.

Dare I suggest this change in Arizona law is about racism? After all, this country addressed the idea of racism in the ’60s... right?

Sadly, not true. The players may change, but racism by any other name, is still racism. Granted, the white bedsheets with holes cut out for eyes have been tucked neatly away in the closet, but now “color of authority” has become the new and improved KKK.

Let me just say, we who have been in this country for longer than, say 50 years and happen to be white never have to face the reality that not everyone in this country enjoys the same sense of privilege. That being said, this attempt to inflict Arizona’s concept of immigration might well backfire, as have all other attempts over the history of this nation.

Slavery... gone... well perhaps not completely, but most living in America (and around the world) frown on the ownership of another human being. Moving along... immigrants coming from Italy, Germany, Ireland and China had to fight for acceptance in their adopted country. How ironic that here in Los Angeles, bones discovered during the construction of the downtown subway and identified as Chinese were reinterred at Evergreen Cemetery, the same cemetery that originally barred them from burial among the “white” population as late as the 1920s.

During WWII, American citizens of Japanese descent living in this country had their lives and property stolen and their freedom snatched as they were forced into internment camps. There has never been adequate compensation for the years lived in tents far away from lives they once enjoyed.

But, if we go back to the founding of the new country, it’s easy to understand how the sense of privilege overrode the reality... that those who laid claim to this nation had no right to do so... and it was greatly destructive to once great populations of Native Americans who originally inhabited much of the country.

There is a moral here. If we do not understand the lessons, we will surely relive them for as long as it takes. As we continue to move forward through time, we must evaluate how we would like to be remembered... and whether or not compassion will become just another word lost along the way.

every picture tells a story...

The picture, as they say, is looking quite grim. It’s beginning to look more and more like we’re losing the battle to staunch the spewing flow in the gulf which does not bode well for any wildlife caught in the vicinity... and by that I mean anywhere in the gulf, or up or down the east coast.

It’s simply a matter of time before this BP disaster creates a domino effect that will be felt ‘round the world.

I wish I had better news to report.

mum's the word...

The giant question these days is... will the relief wells rushing toward completion in the gulf solve the spewing oil situation created by BP?

The answer is, perhaps... then again, perhaps not.

In June, then CEO head, Tony Hayward commented that the gulf oil reservoir is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. Now wrap that around your head for awhile. It all begins to make sense why it's better to let the oil flow... to kill off the gulf and make it a dead zone for all living things (oh, and that does include mankind since we too happen to live in the general vicinity of their oil reservoir). After all, “greed is good,” especially when major corporations are in charge.

So, perhaps all that oil gushing into the gulf is a good thing... certainly for BP.

Does this make you crazy yet? It should.

AP photo of oil-drenched waves threatening the Alabama coastline from the Huffington Post.