Your awesomeness for the week
I think organized religion gets in the way of true spirituality…
4/26/2010
Arizona does not need your tourist dollars
Not that anyone has any money to travel anywhere these days, but now that Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona, has signed into law a provision saying that police have the duty to ask anyone they think might be an illegal immigrant for documentation, I won’t feel safe being in the state. I’m the one who gets “randomly searched” at least once when I’m flying. Apparently, I have the face of a terrorist. I don’t want to go to a state, give than my hard earned dollars, and then have to prove I’m a US citizen. And I have been to Arizona before, so it’s not unheard of for me to go again.
Immigrants with family in Arizona might think twice about going, since who knows if the documentation we give in New York is what they require in Arizona? I certainly would rather pay for my family to come here than try to go there.
So if you know someone with the wrong last name (anyone who’s Latino) or you have the wrong last name or look like you might not belong (and a bunch of us know what that’s like,) don’t travel to Arizona. Ms. Brewer doesn’t deserve your money.
UPDATE: Thanks to The Daily Show (where would I be without it?) I found out that Arizona also wants any presidential candidate to show his birth certificate, a blatant “nod” to the Birthers movement. And it’s the 3rd state to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. So forget dreading being harassed by police, I might get shot!
Tom Tancredo, known for his strict stance on immigration, thinks the Arizona immigration bill goes too far. If he thinks it’s bad, I’m never stepping foot in that state again.
3/24/2010
Just Saying… (#9)
The MTA is planning on letting go of 600 station agents to close an $800 million gap. The agents used to be the people selling Metrocards and I always see tourists asking them questions. With no station agents and no police officers in sight (except when they’re searching my bag,) I better not hear any announcements telling me that if I see something suspicious in a train station, “don’t keep it to yourself. Tell a police officer or an MTA employee. Thank you and have a nice day.”
3/8/2010
Haiti
Japan
Chile/Argentina
Taiwan
Uganda mudslides
Sumatra Coast
Turkey
The question of a major earthquake in the US is not “if” but “when”. Make sure you’re prepared to be able to stay in one place for 72 hours and can grab all your important things in one fell swoop (these are basic emergency guidelines.)
1/11/2010
Can the government get out of my vices?
First the NYC government wanted all restaurants (with only a few exceptions) to post the calorie count of all foods offered. I thought that was a great idea, because people can choose to use them to make informed decisions or they can ignore them and eat what they want. That’s the beauty of information. I actually found out that some of the lunches I was eating weren’t as bad as I thought.
Then the government decided that restaurants need to ban trans-fat. It was the new (I had never heard of it before) evil in our processed food. Apparently it’s what makes french fries taste so good. I don’t know about that – I’ve had homemade fries that tasted better than McDonald’s crap. Now while I’m all for keeping food as healthful as possible without sacrificing taste, I didn’t like that there is a ban on the substance without educating people as to why this is happening. All I heard was the news of the ban and the restaurant industry’s angry reaction to it. There was nothing else mentioned. That’s when trying to help someone turns into talking over their life. Information is key; unfortunately it’s less expensive to enact a ban than it is to get 8+ million people in NYC to eat better foods. And with that education, you need opportunities for lower income people to get fruits and vegetables at a good price, which costs money as well. Much cheaper to tell the industry, which in 2008 was already struggling, to spend money to change their recipes.
Recently I’ve seen subway ads touting the benefits of lower calorie foods and discouraging heavy drinking and double Whoppers. It’s a good start, but I have yet to read about any other type of education. What about those who drive in cars? They’ll never see those PSA’s.
So now, the government (the Health Department, to be exact,) is instituting guidelines for the amount of salt that should be in foods. Right now it’s voluntary, so it could be a good marketing ploy for those companies that implement the changes. However, I’m waiting for when these guidelines are going to be law and yet again, there will be a partial ban on a substance without letting the population know why this is being done and without giving people a chance to buy the really good stuff at a reasonable price.
And the government wonders why we’re still buying sugar-laden drinks and eating at McDonald’s. We think that “oh, there’s no trans-fat and lower salt. And it’s cheap! I must be eating right.”