Thursday, June 28, 2007

Town and Country

My neighborhood got together Tuesday to fight for the peace and serenity we've come to expect. The city had plans to extend our street to a busy loop and also build a 290 unit apartment complex and retail area. Traffic estimates would have been from the average 200 cars a day now to 700 plus! I'm so glad that our city council sided with its citizens and helped us maintain our neighborhood. Thanks!

The council also voted to give a sweet severance package to the former city manager, almost 500k to not work. I would've not worked for much less and I've never heard of a contract that pays you a year plus salary plus benefits etc for getting FIRED, not laid off. I think the citizens will be watching more closely when the next one is hired to make sure the city doesn't get entangled in such a ridiculous contract.

Immigration Bill - FIX IT! - Simply enforce the laws we have. Quit paying for studies on cow farts and start paying for border security. You can come to this country legally, I have a family member that immigrated here legally and now is a home owning, business owning, tax paying member of our country. We need to make it unprofitable to work illegally, for the business - fines. We need to educate workers that when you are "paid under the table" you are actually getting screwed, no benefits, low pay, you can rarely qualify for credit, especially a home. Also, if they can pay a "coyote" thousands of dollars to put their life in danger and sneak across the border, Uncle Sam could come up with some immigration plan to stop that. We could, if Mexico allows set up immigration centers there, similar to embassies, to handle streamlined paperwork, background checks, collect fees for a license to work in the US and educate the immigrant workers the laws, regs. etc. that we require to be part of the worker program. The same could be done here in the US for the workers already here. But one thing should be made very clear, The US will not allow illegal workers, if you don't get your papers, you don't work!


Monday, June 25, 2007

Bong Hits 4 Jesus and Juvenile Free Speech

In the Supreme Court ruling today, basically gives a government body control over what a juvenile can say in public anywhere they are, even if they are off campus. I can understand the need for order in public school, t-shirts with sayings, flyers that could defame, what I do not understand is the governments reach beyond the campus. While I really don't find the humor in "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" I do believe the kid had the right, right or wrong, to express himself on private property on his own time without penalty from a government body.
This is a further erosion of juvenile rights, years ago I personally experienced just few rights young adults have as a parent. I was frankly amazed at what a government body can do to your child and there's not one damn thing you can do about it, juveniles truly have no rights. With this ruling I see schools reaching into the parental realm even more. Free speech will be quashed on YouTube and Myspace and other sites young people flock to. I see the problems of "bullying" online and this is something parents should be made aware of and asked to prevent. As with a lot of things we have to take the bad with the good, free speech should prevail even for youths.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Netflix Weekend Movie Review

This weekend brought us the usual 3 movies, 2 being filmed in native languages making them a "readfest". All 3 got some kind of Oscar nod, Apocalypto being the only one worthy.

Apocalypto - For me it started out slow and that was probably on purpose, but the story builds and pulls you in and you get used to the sparse subtitles and great action. This movie is brutal so if you don't like "blood and guts" this movie is not for you.

Venus - Peter O'toole starred as a old man nearing the end of his life falling in love with a young woman, his muse or venus you might say. I would say this movie is very dialog heavy and has amusing moments.

Letters from Iwo Jima - I wondered why hollywood picked "Letters" over "Flags" so I really wanted to see this movie. After seeing it, I still believe that Flags of Our Fathers is more compelling story, the story of the iconic image of the flag raising at Iwo and the aftermath of what happened to the men that did it. Letters is a more personal story of the Japanese soliders, there were no heroes to rally around in this story. Still it was a story that needed to be told.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

A Thousand Words

I decided to do a written blog to say what I can't with my photoblog. Here you will find random thoughts on cooking, photography, politics, local goings-on, movies etc.

Random Facts for Random Thoughts

I currently own 179 cookbooks with the goal of 200 by the end of the year

I've rated no less than 245 movies on Netflix - Netflix Be My Friend

I'm rated a "Music Junkie" on the iLike Music Challenge, according to iLike I listen to Tori Amos the most and have 14.3 days of non-stop music.

I have over 6 thousand images in my iPhoto library


More to come