World Refugee Day - Hutto Detention Center Vigil
Saturday, June 23, 1-3pm
Hutto Detention Center, 1001 Welch St., Taylor, TX, 75674

The T. Don Hutto detention center, operated by Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company, incarcerates up to 400 asylum seeking and migrant families, about half of whom are children, who are awaiting hearings before the immigration court. Children spend up to 22 hours a day in prison cells and receive inadequate education and recreational time.

Vigil participants from Austin will leave at 12 noon from 1210 E. Rosewood to carpool to the facility. Please bring signs, sunscreen, hats, and water. For more information, email boblibal@gmail.com or call (512) 971-0487.

Sponsored by Amnesty International USA in honor of World Refugee Day and co-sponsored by Freedom Ambassadors, Texans United for Families, CAFHTA, and LULAC National.

Finding solutions to national issues are usually complicated by one or two of the following: polarizing political philosophies, class divisions, decreasing safety nets, prejudice, corporate greed, weakened public sector, national security, industry productivity, human and civil rights, lack of scientific remedies, and family values; however, very few encompass all these frictions. Immigration is one of those very few.

Responses to these issues fall into three categories. Do nothing, which has many adherents. Then there is the meaningful solution which is difficult and time-consuming, but reaches comprehensive answers that take into account the entire community. Unfortunately, there is also the knee-jerk reaction that is easy and divisive, and designed to appease a small radicalized group.

What is the Texas response to immigration? Detention centers, walls and fences, thousands of border guards, residence requirements, curtailing of rights, unwarranted raids, and a deluge of anti-immigration bills. All this to curry the favor of a minuteman-type mentality.

This is typical of Texas politics over the decades and especially true over the last 15-20 years. When in doubt, impose harsh and punitive measures. Why try to come up with rational consensus, when it’s easier to just alienate another segment of Texas population. Well, there is one exception – rich, white, conservative, heterosexual (or at least closeted) males. This group actually benefits from the Texas abusive father behavior model. Wow, what a surprise.

On occasion I have the opportunity to sit down with social justice advocates as they discuss and then put into action educational and advocacy efforts, processes, and the changing of the system. For the record, I just nod in approval.

One of these discussions turned to advance directives. These instructions, usually given to medical personnel when a dying person is incapacitated, can reduce suffering, increase peace of mind, and give people control over how they want to be handled leading up to death. Also, these orders drastically reduce the chance of letting the person slip into a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and we know how that sometime turns out.

Anyone who has witnessed a person who can no longer communicate, groans from intense pain, has liquid, food, and oxygen forced down tubes in the mouth and nose, and has organs shutting down, knows the correct moral decision.

People who want to diminish the dying person’s wish because of some misguided religious notion needs to think about the stress and financial burden on the family, hospital, and community. Hospitals can go bankrupt and put people out of jobs because of the great costs. Money to help the curable is lost forever.

While the advancement of medical technology has literally put a face on fetuses, it also has clearly defined PVS. Even with that said, end of life issues are complicated and will have to be decided by a diverse coalition of rational and educated people, and out of the hands of ideologues and those with personal agendas. That is why it was sad to see Bill Frist, a supposedly intelligent person with vast health experience, not lead a national debate that could have come up with meaningful solutions.

Anyway, during this discussion, one scenario presented was how would Christian conservatives react to the situation of an undocumented immigrant in a PVS and a family in Mexico with no money to care for him but wanting him kept alive at all cost. While the responses paralleled the compassion of those in attendance, my own level of tolerance toward conservative philosophy remains very low. Personally, I think right-wingers would roll the poor guy over the border bridge while hoping that he would fall into the river.

Yeah, I hear crickets too. Of course, now I’m self-conscious about talking to myself

Pardon us for the lack of posts since the election. A perfect storm of sorts hit that caused us to put the blog on hiatus – namely family, time, and pressing concerns. Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. As a matter of fact, upcoming meetups will feature transportation and environmental concerns, immigration, social justice, legislative wrap -up, and of course everyone’s favorite topic – the presidential race. Don’t know if any of the candidates will commit, but we will damn well do our best to get one or a few. What Democratic presidential candidate wouldn’t love to talk to a whole bunch of party activists?

Those familiar with our meetups know that our crowds are those that blockwalk, phone bank, fundraise, run campaigns, and move and shake local and state politics. Who would shun that?

Since we’re liberals, we listen. So please share with us. We take every comment seriously.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

But it’s actually been a year since Tom “Bugsy” DeLay was indicted. And what a year it’s been. Upon indictment, Hot Tub Tom had to step down from his leadership position, but he promised he’d be back. He smiled for his mug shot and swore that the charges would be dismissed before Congress came back in January. His GOP colleagues even pushed back the date for the session to start to accomodate his legal problems.

But things kept getting worse for the Hammer. He ran for re-election in the primary and won. But then he announced that he would resign from Congress and not be a candidate after all. However, a little technicality called THE LAW stopped the Texas GOP from replacing his name on the ballot. So fittingly, after screwing over so many others in the state, DeLay’s final action has to screw over his own party in his own district.

So as it happens, a year after Tom DeLay was indicted, he has been run out of the leadership; out of Congress; even out of the state. Nick Lampson, one of the Democrats he gerrymandered out of office in 2004 is virtually certain to take his seat in the next Congress, and another gerrymandering victim, Chris Bell, has a fighting chance of beating DeLay’s partner in crime Rick Perry in the governor’s race.

Justice is slow in coming, but it is coming.

Oh, screw you, Rodney. I’ve noticed people still go out but it’s only the lames now… why the hell do you think LaLa’s is packed all the damn time?

Whatever you do, don’t come to LaLa’s. I don’t want you screwing it up the way you did Mother Egan’s.

Less than five years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan had been defeated. Its armies had been destroyed; its navy had been sunk. Japanese cities had been reduced to piles of rubble. War criminals were being tried and meeting justice. The United States occupation forces laying the foundations for a new, peaceful, friendly and democratic Japan.

Five years after the September 11 attacks Afghanistan is again sliding into chaos; the United States is mired in a purposeless war in Iraq while the criminally insane Busholini regime licks its chops at the prospect of an even bigger disaster in Iran. And Osama? Just where the fuck is he?

It has been so long since there has been anything like a real close call that some operatives have given bin Laden a nickname: “Elvis,” for all the wishful-thinking sightings that have substituted for anything real.

Why bother your beautiful mind with rebuilding New Orleans when you have a chance to save an entire planet?

Hundreds of U.S. scientists have challenged a recent decision by an international astronomy group to strip Pluto of its planetary status with a petition rejecting its definition of what constitutes a planet.

The astronomical insurrection shows that debate is likely to continue over the status of the icy rock at the edge of the solar system that was considered the ninth planet until a vote last week by the International Astronomical Union.

Petition organizer Alan Stern said the union’s decision was driven by politics, not science.

“The IAU created a definition which is technically flawed, linguistically flawed and scientifically embarrassing,” Stern said in a phone interview.

Of course, while we’re busy saving Pluto, it’s increasingly clear that Earth is fucked.

KXAN is reporting that there was a big gang fight at a Round Rock high school. Of course, you start reading the article and come to this…

Up to about 10 students may have been involved in this fight, and the school district says four of them were arrested by Round Rock police.

Oh shit. Only 10 kids? You gotta be kidding me. The way the damn thing was headlined you expected to read about a riot. I HATE KXAN.