The crime war of Juarez

So, I was gone Friday-Monday, and away from the internet. I was in the city of my birth, El Paso, TX. I occasionally get to go back to my second favorite city in Texas (with Austin being an easy first), though I rarely get to stay long enough to do what I really love doing there, which is hitting downtown and thrift shopping. Still, a little listening and looking, and I got a taste of what life’s been like these past few years there, and how much things have changed while everything continues to look the same.

See, geographically, El Paso is part of a bigger metroplex area—it’s all one big city with Ciudad Juarez, with a very thin Rio Grande and the mountain pass it cut (the Paso that gave El Paso del Norte its name) separating the Mexican side from the American side. Juarez is the much bigger city, but both cities sit in the valley of their little spate of Rocky Mountains. The entire area suffers from dryness, hot sun, and unreal amounts of smog that is trapped by the mountain range and hangs over the city, giving me a sore throat by day #3 there. Most of my life, I felt like the fates of Juarez and El Paso were intertwined in such a way as to be functionally inseparable. People traveled back and forth with ease, both commuting for work (as my Spanish professor for summer courses at UTEP did), and for fun and shopping. That changed a little after 9/11, when the government revoked the right to cross the border without a passport. But things didn’t really get weird until this functional civil war with the drug cartels broke out.

Politics

It’s time for rope-a-dope, Dems. Again

My humble advice to Democrats: Take the long view.

The American people are angry and frustrated. The primary driver of that anger is the economy. Yes, there are myriad other factors at work, included some still-unpopular legislation, a prolonged war in Afghanistan, a nasty oil spill, and near-one party rule (60 votes is apparently necessary to qualify as one-party rule, yet 59 is enough to convince the opposition that ALL the blame for the country’s woes can be placed at the feet of the majority party).

But the major factor, in the end, is still the economy.

• MLK march to Labor Day
• Dearly beloved
• America is strong when our unions are strong
• It’s too late, baby

Fearless History

The Waffle House?

Like many Americans, I was heartened when President Obama used the iftr observance at the White House to express — in courageous terms — the principled commitment of his administration to the First Amendment’s guarantee, regardless of the opinions of Sarah “stab the heart” Palin and her ilk.

Sure, he did it after the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero was essentially a fait accompli and the issue was safely put to bed, but better late than never, right?

Then he “walked back” his support of the First Amendment. And like many of my progressive kin, I was crushed by his disappointing hedging. Why? Why would you equivocate on such a fundamental issue, Mr. Obama?

• Undoing the past
• Our 10,000 year struggle against aristocracy
• Que un inmigrante illegal
• Am I better than you? Maybe

International

The crime war of Juarez

So, I was gone Friday-Monday, and away from the internet. I was in the city of my birth, El Paso, TX. I occasionally get to go back to my second favorite city in Texas (with Austin being an easy first), though I rarely get to stay long enough to do what I really love doing there, which is hitting downtown and thrift shopping. Still, a little listening and looking, and I got a taste of what life’s been like these past few years there, and how much things have changed while everything continues to look the same.

See, geographically, El Paso is part of a bigger metroplex area—it’s all one big city with Ciudad Juarez, with a very thin Rio Grande and the mountain pass it cut (the Paso that gave El Paso del Norte its name) separating the Mexican side from the American side. Juarez is the much bigger city, but both cities sit in the valley of their little spate of Rocky Mountains. The entire area suffers from dryness, hot sun, and unreal amounts of smog that is trapped by the mountain range and hangs over the city, giving me a sore throat by day #3 there. Most of my life, I felt like the fates of Juarez and El Paso were intertwined in such a way as to be functionally inseparable. People traveled back and forth with ease, both commuting for work (as my Spanish professor for summer courses at UTEP did), and for fun and shopping. That changed a little after 9/11, when the government revoked the right to cross the border without a passport. But things didn’t really get weird until this functional civil war with the drug cartels broke out.

• The last of the Mohicansteins
• Leaving Iraq
• You go, girl!
• Freedom and flooding

Religion

2 sides to every story

There are two sides to every story, or so the conventional wisdom goes. And if you watch or read or listen to my colleagues for any length of time, you’d think that was exactly true.

But the second side to that story — that there are always two sides — is that there rarely is. Most of the time, there are multiple sides to every story, and sometimes — more often than you’d think — there really is just one.

For example, when TeaPublicans started clamoring about “death panels” in the health care reform bill, my colleagues dutifully reported it. And then they dutifully pitted a TeaPublican up against a Democrat to argue the point. Presto, two sides to the story. But you and I know there is just one side to that story — the TeaPublicans lied because there are no death panels.

• What the Tea Party doesn’t want you to know
• Why does God reveal himself to some and not to others?
• Because even the moderate, liberal Christians think God is more important than a dog
• Pistol-packin’ preacher

Environment

Sea level rise looks inevitable, even with intervention

New findings by international research group of scientists from England, China and Denmark just published suggest that sea level will likely be 30-70 centimetres higher by 2100 than at the start of the century even if all but the most aggressive geo-en…

• 13 of the Summer’s Biggest Wildfires, as Seen from Space
• Why so many U.S. clean energy industry leaders aren’t U.S. companies
• How to find affordable, convenient local produce
• Hybrid organic solar cells now more efficient

Progressive Living

Wendy’s real? Not really

I don’t watch TV very often. I don’t own one. I owned one for a while when I lived in the states, but it sat like a boat anchor on my bedroom table or on a cabinet in my living room and never had cable juice coursing through its veins until two momentous occasions: 9/11 and the arrival of a new boyfriend. Both occasions temporarily got me all riled up, but now, not so much.

However, to maintain my sense of humor while sorting through the moldy cheese, rotten vegetables, wormy meat scraps and bloated fish guts of the vast rotting wasteland of American politics (Wow, even I’m impressed by that sentence), I need to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Somehow, it gives me hope that those two brilliant guys (and their brilliant writers) can still manage to make jokes – 4 days a week! – about the compost bin of American media and the mostly-pasty-white-guy world of America’s corporate-owned politics.

I also like to watch Rachel Maddow. She’s not as funny, but she’s so smart, like genius smart, that she makes me proud to be a woman.

• Shoemakers and Kings
• Shine, Perishing Republic
• Peace in our time? It’s a simple matter of choice.
• Poisonous parenting: the Pride Edition

Economy

In the tax debate: A blast of fresh, new air

‘Soak the rich,’ after years in the shadows, has suddenly become a policy option fit for discussion in ‘respectable’ media circles.

At long last, we may be witnessing a fundamental paradigm shift in how we, as a society, talk about taxing the rich.

Until this summer, no national pundit — at least no pundit in good standing with the chattering class — would ever dare suggest a federal tax rate on America’s top income bracket higher than 39.6 percent, the level in place under Bill Clinton.

Now pundits and the policy wonks who hover around them are openly singing the praises of top tax rates calibrated at 50 or 60 or even 70 percent, a level that would double the current 35 percent rate on top-bracket income.

• GDP revised down — Conservative trade policies exporting 0ur growth and jobs
• Our growth is outsourced, like our jobs
• Tax cuts are theft: An amplification
• Tax cuts are theft

Media

The dangling conversation

It is a line that is repeated ad nauseum (in some variation) on every cable pundit show — “There should be a conversation on ____” or “It’s time for the country to have a conversation about _____.” Filling in the blank is usually something like Iraq, race, the economy, Lindsay Lohan, taxes, health care, mosques, etc. It seems like a perfectly legitimate way to run a talk and information show.

But this is America — where its citizens pay a LOT of money and spend a LOT of time being entertained and a LOT of time being told what to think, do and say.

• Gotcha
• Heat wave washes away American ideals: LeBron James, the media, and the American soul
• Disgusted