Swiss Army Knife Really Does Have Everything...
I'm amused to see even the multi-functional Swiss Army Knife has been updated since I was a kid. National Geographic is now offering one which comes with a USB drive.
The Immigrant Widow(er) Penalty: Time to Stop the Madness
60 Minutes reran a segment tonight which I believe originally ran in November (with current updates), featuring 3 widows (from Brazil, Germany, and Kosovo). These were not infamous mail order brides, but the INS has initiated deportation proceedings against them because their husbands died tragically early in their marriages, for reasons beyond the control of the widows, inconveniently before the INS bureaucrats got to the mandatory interview portion of their residency paperwork. A typical example of INS bureaucratic compassion: when the Brazilian widow told them she had an American son, the bureaucrats told her that her son could stay, but she had to leave. The husband of the Kosovo-born woman was an American GI, whom died serving his country in Iraq. What makes the situation even worse is that when the lower courts rule against INS in deportation proceedings, INS will appeal to the higher court.
I've made it clear that I'm pro-immigrant. but regardless of positions on other issues, can we agree that every American man should be able to marry the woman of his dreams? Should we not honor each citizen's dream for his home and his family? For many of the extended families whom have already welcomed and love their daughters-in-law, it's like they're having to fight the US government to keep their family together. That's wrong. It's unconscionable. This is contrary to everything this country was built on. America is better than this, and our government must be worthy of its citizens.
The program segment in question is embedded and available for viewing at this link. I highly recommend interested readers to visit the Surviving Spouses Against Deportation website (there's an interesting flash movie icon in the lower right section of the home webpage) and consider signing a petition to be forwarded to your federal legislators.
Brazil, Let Sean Goldman Go Home to His Dad, NOW!
I love Brazil. I went on two business trips to São Paulo (roughly 3 months) in 1995. I gained weight while in Brazil, despite just speaking a few words of Portuguese at the start. Most cabdrivers, restaurant waiters, and hotel clerks I dealt didn't speak a word of English. But I loved feijoada (Wednesdays and Saturdays), churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse), and my favorite soda since 1995, Antarctica Guarana. Brazil has been dragging its feet in returning custody of Sean Goldman to his surviving parent, David Goldman.
I highly recommend reading David's story in his own words. His Brazilian wife Bruna left with their son Sean and her parents in 2004 for a 2-week vacation. He believes their marriage was in good shape, but as soon as she touched down in Brazil, Bruna called David to say she was not coming back, no longer wanted to be married, and he needed to sign over custody to her or David would never see Sean again. Bruna got divorced in Brazil, remarried, but died in complications from childbirth last year. However, Bruna's Brazilian husband and Sean's stepfather has refused to hand over Sean, despite the fact that Brazil is a signatory to the Hague Treaty. A few days ago, the Brazilian Supreme Court essentially agreed David is entitled to custody of his own son, but the Brazilian legal system still hasn't handed him over. Let's hope and pray that the long overdue father and son reunion will happen sooner than later. Brazil, it's time to step up and do the right thing...
Watching a Greta Van Susteren Doing a Promotional Lead for Her Show During Hannity
I've discussed the Letterman-Palin kerfuffle enough over the weekend, writing a couple of posts where I was heavily critical of Fox News for being in the tank for Sarah Palin, and an exhaustive review where the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Letterman's explanation that when he made the joke, he was under the false assumption that the daughter whom attended the Yankee game was Bristol, whom is a public figure, an unwed mother and no longer a minor. All this controversy centers on a joke where Letterman says that major league baseball slugger Alex Rodriguez, known for alleged affairs with Madonna and an exotic danger, used the seventh-inning stretch to knock up Bristol during Sarah Palin's visit to Yankee Stadium.
Fox News famously promotes itself as being "fair and balanced", but, as I point out, Fox News has fawned over Sarah Palin. For example, during Troopergate (i.e., the Palins allegedly were trying to get a former Palin brother-in-law fired as a state trooper), unelected Todd Palin allegedly using state facilities to lobby public safety decisionmakers directly. All Sarah Palin said was that Todd was acting just like any other private citizen. That's nonsense, of course, but you didn't hear Fox News focus on that. They never quizzed her over the Bridge to Nowhere kerfuffle, and they have given her softball interviews during the campaign, allowing her do-overs after the disastrous Couric interviews (never, for instance, pushing her on economic issues where, in my judgment, she is incompetent).
When I listened to tonight's rebroadcast of the Hannity show, I heard her come on for her brief show promo about 20 minutes to the hour, and she immediately launches into an actual personal attack on Letterman, mocking, as Palin did, David's explanation of believing it had been Bristol, not her 14-year-old sister Willow, whom actually attended the game. Greta then goes on to point out the hypocrisy of Letterman getting his own longtime girlfriend knocked up before marrying her and his wanted privacy for his own family. (Gee, you don't think that might have to do with the fact that he in the past has been stalked and his house broken into (e.g., Margaret Ray)? That's Fox News for you--"fair and balanced".)
That promo was irresponsible; if it was my decision, Greta Van Susteren would have been fired for cause. I have no problem with her expressing her opinion, but they undermined her credibility as well as Fox News of being an honest broker.
As I said in my past posts, the joke wasn't funny and it was in bad taste. But the fact that Willow attended the game instead of Bristol doesn't disprove Letterman's confusion. My recent post pointed out that neither Alex Rodriguez nor Eliot Spitzer (the two targets of jokes over Palin's daughter) have been accused of statutory rape and only one Palin daughter has been pregnant; furthermore, I point out Letterman and others had been making jokes about Bristol Palin in the past (and nobody on Willow), he never identified the daughter as Willow, and Sarah Palin had never complained about other questionable jokes about Bristol which in some cases were much worse (e.g., hockey players joining Bristol in her penalty box). Media conservative types simply repeat the accusation that Letterman was making a rape joke about a 14-year-old, as if repeating a lie makes it true.
What bothers me most here is that Fox News and others played up the uproar of a single bad joke, totally ignoring Sarah Palin's unprofessional smear of Letterman accusing him of being a pedophile because of that joke. A JOKE. Reality check, Fox News--just as professional wrestling is being called sports entertainment, you're in danger of becoming news entertainment. FNC desperately needs to front intelligent conservatives (George Will, Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Gingrich (when he talks about ideas versus people, i.e., Sotomayor), maybe someone from National Review, etc.) or someone like a John Stossel, instead of cartoonish angry bumper-sticker story/pop conservative book-hawking conservatives like Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Morris. (Yes, I know Krauthammer, Kristol and Gingrich contribute on certain program segments. Incidentally I do like the occasional appearances of Chris Wallace and Brit Hume.)
