The big news story here in Colorado is a series of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids on meatpacking plants in Greeley and other areas of the country over the last few days. Hundreds of Latino parents and grandparents and other adults were arrested and taken into custody, and the word today is that at least 50% of those people arrested are in the U.S. LEGALLY.

Tell me - - can you spot an illegal immigrant by just looking at 'em? Do you suppose any of those people arrested over the last few days were blonde, blue-eyed illegal immigrants from Sweden?

Pin the tail on the illegal - - join Tom Tancredo and play now!

Here are some of the interesting items about these raids:

* They were purported to be part of a sting operation designed to nab identity thieves. But it wasn't identity thieves who were arrested - - it was the desperate people who want so badly to live and work in the U.S. that they're willing to purchase those new identities from the thieves.

* The arrests were perpetrated during the time of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an important Catholic observation. Another important Catholic observation, the Christmas holiday, is in less than two weeks. Many of those arrested have children and/or grandchildren who're now experiencing horrific uncertainty about the future of their families, right smack-dab in the middle of the holiday and religious season.

* Family members of those arrested who showed up with documentation of legal entry into the U.S. were not admitted to the holding facility and were unable to arrange for the freedom of their relatives.

* Those arrested had only a couple of things in common: They were in low-paid positions at a meatpacking plant and they had comparatively dark hair, skin, and eyes.

* Raids like these have little to no deterrent effect. They do nothing to deter identity theft, since the theft perpetrators aren't arrested in this type of raid. People who risk their lives and pay high prices to enter this country illegally will not be deterred because the benefits tend to outweight the risks, from their standpoint.

* One law enforcement agency, Grand Island (Nebraska) PD, refused to take part. The chief was quoted that the workers being targeted are part of the Grand Island community - - after ICE perpetrates its devastation and leaves, the community will have to deal with the aftermath of the prejudicial arrests. So, GIPD declined to back-up the federal agency. Right ON.

* Jail administrators must be having a cow - - already full to capacity and more, where the hell are they supposed to house all these folks? How many of these people, who are NOT criminals, are being shoved into overcrowded jail populations?



Sadly, this is just another example of the United States government acting out of power and not compassion or a desire for real solutions. It's the flexing of an arm as a threat, not a hand reaching out to benefit everyone, despite the fact that the U.S. has the capacity for largesse and accomodation and mutually satisfactory resolution.

Quick, Dubya and Tancredo and the rest of you - - build that wall on the southern edge of our country! You have a little more than a year to get it done, because the Democratic federal administration in 2008 will want to get started tearing down that temporary memorial to the idiocy of the Bush years.



Gosh, what would your hero, Jesus, do?

MEMORIAL: 1. commemorative object or event; something that is intended to remind people of somebody who has died or an event in which people died, e.g. a statue, speech, or ceremony.

The Arc d'Triomphe. Nelson's Column. The Shrine of Remembrance. Liberty Memorial. The Kohima Epitaph. Yasukuni Shrine. The Tannenberg Memorial. India Gate. The Irish Garden of Remembrance. Poklonnaya Gora. Kranji Memorial. USMC War Memorial.

The list of monuments to war and death and destruction goes on and on and on. One country's war memorial honors the valiant dead who fought victoriously against the dead honored by another country's war memorial. Dig deep into the history of any war and look at it from both sides, and you find questionable motives and morality at work.

THIS is war:



And THIS is war:



And THIS is war:



What exactly do war memorials celebrate and honor? Do you really think that any war memorial takes into account the true scope of loss? Will there be a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died in the current U.S. interference in a civil war, a war in which we might've helped broker peace or in which we might've offered humanitarian aid?

Instead, we're the ones killing civilians. Children. Old men. Women.

No more war memorials. No more celebrating destruction. That's the way of the caveman, and we can do better.

More living memorials to PEACE:







Patriotism in a country-centric sense is an outmoded concept in this world - - it's time to think more broadly and deeply. Bring our impulsive, easily persuaded young men and women back to their homes on this tiny spot on the globe and help them learn to be world citizens.

Let's solve problems, not start them.

No more to say........

Nah nah nah nah - - nah nah nah nah!

Hey, hey, hey....

GOODBYE!



Hasta la vista, Cordiality Terminator - - now let's get someone into the U.N. who can work cooperatively and productively with the rest of the world.

About 18 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I put myself into in-patient eating disorder treatment (more about that another day). Aside from far too much self-examination, the major activity of the patients (clients, residents, whatever we were) was composing new verses to that old classic, The Diarrhea Song.

You haven't really HAD diarrhea until you go off sugar, salt and caffeine suddenly and simultaneously - - the song was a survival tactic!

Today, on this lovely Thursday, I issue you a challenge - - I'll start The Diarrhea Song out, and you contribute verses until we've run our course.



THE DIARRHEA SONG

Diarrhea! Uh, uh
Diarrhea! Uh, uh
When you're walking down the street
And it meets you at your feet...
Diarrhea! Uh, uh
Diarrhea! Uh, uh

OK, now it's YOUR turn - - the verses always start out and end the same way (heck, much like diarrhea itself - - never noticed that synchronicity before), but the middle two lines are the place for creativity and scatological self-expression. The "song" is chanted rather than sung, again reflecting the actual experience of......well, you know.

Let loose!