StumbleUpon | Ontix's blog posts

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/10302278/

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:33:37 -0800

the symbolscape: digesting big ideas one byte at a time.

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/6182909/

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:42:28 -0700

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

October 26, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Era of What's Next
By DAVID BROOKS

Wooster, Ohio

Sometimes liberalism is dominant and sometimes conservatism is dominant, but sometimes there is no dominant ideology.

Between 1932 and 1968, liberalism dominated American politics. The big accomplishments were liberal accomplishments -- Social Security, Medicare, the civil rights movement. Even if Republicans sometimes held the White House, the general drift of things was still to the left.

Between 1980 and 2006, conservatism was dominant. The big accomplishments were conservative accomplishments -- the defeat of communism, the reinvigoration of the economy through deregulation, tax reform and monetarism, the rebalancing of the culture to emphasize family, work and individual responsibility. Even if Democrats sometimes held the White House, the general drift of things was to the right.

But in some eras there is no dominant political tendency. The 1970's were such a period. That decade was marked not by a change in political winds so much as by disillusionment and a scrambling of political categories. People who once had been liberals drifted away. Voters became cynical about politics itself. The pendulum swung not only from left to right but from politics to antipolitics. Jimmy Carter promised a break from the normal methods of political life.

We're about to enter another of those periods without a dominant ideology. It's clear that this election will mark the end of conservative dominance. This election is a period, not a comma in political history.

That's clear not only because Republicans could lose their majorities, but for several other reasons. First, conservatives have exhausted their agenda. They have little new left to propose and have lost their edge on issues like fiscal discipline and foreign policy. Second, conservatives are beset by scandals, the kind of institutional decay that afflicts movements at the end of their political lives. Third, the Reagan coalition is splintering, with the factions going off in wildly different directions.

Fourth, there is no viable orthodox conservative candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Orthodox conservatives like Allen, Frist and Santorum are fading, and only heterodox figures like McCain, Giuliani and Romney are rising.

If you look at the political landscape, identification with the Republican Party is falling but identification with the Democratic Party is not rising. Instead, there is a spike in the number of people who do not identify with either. People correctly perceive that neither party has a coherent agenda this year.

In the near term, the candidates who thrive will be those who offer a new way of politics. This might be the maverick independence of McCain, or the ostentatiously deliberative style of Obama, or it could be the manner of somebody whom none of us are even thinking about. Candidates who seem conventional will have a tough time. This includes Hillary Clinton.

Process issues will come to the fore, issues that have to do with the way politics is conducted. So will issues of character and decision-making style. George Bush's secretive and declarative method will soon seem archaic -- like the silent picture acting style in the age of sound. Instead, voters will look for candidates as interactive as the technology around them.

The center of political gravity will shift. In the liberal era, the urban Northeast dominated the landscape. In the conservative era, it was in the South and in bedroom communities like those in Southern California. In the coming era, the center of gravity will move to the West and the Midwestern plains, and to the pragmatic, untethered office park suburbs sprouting up there.

The people who will be most important are those who can most precisely identify the new era's defining problems. The first is the continuing rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It's clear the categories of the nation-state era -- rollback and containment -- are not working to reverse extremism, but what will? The second big problem is entitlement spending and the stultification of government.

The third challenge is the emergence of China and India -- seizing the opportunities afforded by those new workers, mitigating the pain associated with tougher competition and managing the fiscal imbalances. The fourth is the growing importance of cognitive skills and cultural capital, the need to surround people, especially children, with stable relationships if they are to flourish.

One party will become distracted by passing squalls, but the other will focus on those issues. Then, a new period of dominance will begin.

Home

* World
* U.S.
* N.Y. / Region
* Business
* Technology
* Science
* Health
* Sports
* Opinion
* Arts
* Style
* Travel
* Job Market
* Real Estate
* Auto

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/5318620/

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 03:02:04 -0700

As August ends, I remember, gleefully, that the snow is on its way. =)

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/5159402/

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:07:44 -0700

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

August 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Party No. 3
By DAVID BROOKS

There are two major parties on the ballot, but there are three major parties in America. There is the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the McCain-Lieberman Party.

All were on display Tuesday night.

The Democratic Party was represented by its rising force -- Ned Lamont on a victory platform with the net roots exulting before him and Al Sharpton smiling just behind. The Republican Party was represented by its collapsing old guard -- scandal-tainted Tom DeLay trying to get his name removed from the November ballot. And the McCain-Lieberman Party was represented by Joe Lieberman himself, giving a concession speech that explained why polarized primary voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics.

The McCain-Lieberman Party begins with a rejection of the Sunni-Shiite style of politics itself. It rejects those whose emotional attachment to their party is so all-consuming it becomes a form of tribalism, and who believe the only way to get American voters to respond is through aggression and stridency.

The flamers in the established parties tell themselves that their enemies are so vicious they have to be vicious too. They rationalize their behavior by insisting that circumstances have forced them to shelve their integrity for the good of the country. They imagine that once they have achieved victory through pulverizing rhetoric they will return to the moderate and nuanced sensibilities they think they still possess.

But the experience of DeLay and the net-root DeLays in the Democratic Party amply demonstrates that means determine ends. Hyper-partisans may have started with subtle beliefs, but their beliefs led them to partisanship and their partisanship led to malice and malice made them extremist, and pretty soon they were no longer the same people.

The McCain-Lieberman Party counters with constant reminders that country comes before party, that in politics a little passion energizes but unmarshaled passion corrupts, and that more people want to vote for civility than for venom.

On policy grounds, too, the McCain-Lieberman Party is distinct. On foreign policy, it agrees with Tony Blair (who could not win a Democratic primary in the U.S. today): The civilized world faces an arc of Islamic extremism that was not caused by American overreaction, and that will only get stronger if America withdraws.

On fiscal policy, the McCain-Lieberman Party sees a Republican Party that will not raise taxes and a Democratic Party that will not cut benefits, and understands that to avoid bankruptcy the country must do both.

On globalization, the McCain-Lieberman Party believes that free trade reduces poverty but that government must invest in human capital so people can compete. It believes in comprehensive immigration reform.

The McCain-Lieberman Party sees Democrats in the grip of teachers' unions and Republicans who let corporations write environmental rules. It sees two parties that depend on the culture war for internal cohesion and that make abortion a litmus test.

It sees two traditions immobilized to trench warfare.

The McCain-Lieberman Party is emerging because the war with Islamic extremism, which opened new fissures and exacerbated old ones, will dominate the next five years as much as it has dominated the last five. It is emerging because of deep trends that are polarizing our politics. It is emerging because social conservatives continue to pull the GOP rightward (look at how Representative Joe Schwarz, a moderate Republican, was defeated by a conservative rival in Michigan). It is emerging because highly educated secular liberals are pulling the Democrats upscale and to the left. (Lamont's voters are rich, and 65 percent call themselves liberals, compared with 30 percent of Democrats nationwide.)

The history of third parties is that they get absorbed into one of the existing two, and that will probably happen here. John McCain and Hillary Clinton will try to reconcile their centrist approaches with the hostile forces in their own parties. And maybe they will succeed (McCain has a better chance, since the ideologues on the right feel vulnerable while the ideologues on the left, perpetually two years behind the national mood, think the public wants more rage).

But amid the hurly-burly of the next few years -- the continuing jihad, Speaker Pelosi, a possible economic slowdown -- the old parties could become even more inflamed. Both could reject McCain-Liebermanism.

At that point things really get interesting.

Home

* World
* U.S.
* N.Y. / Region
* Business
* Technology
* Science
* Health
* Sports
* Opinion
* Arts
* Style
* Travel
* Jobs
* Real Estate
* Automobiles
* Back to Top

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

* Privac

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/4487746/

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:53:15 -0700

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

June 15, 2006
Op-Ed Columnists
Changing Bedfellows
By DAVID BROOKS

If American politics could start with a clean slate today, the main argument wouldn't be between liberalism and conservatism, words that have become labels without coherent philosophies. The main fight would pit populist nationalism against progressive globalism.

The populist nationalist party would be liberal on economics, conservative on values and realist on foreign policy. It would bring together a wide array of people who are disenchanted with their respective parties' elites, and who would find they have a lot in common. It would bring Kevin Phillips together with Pat Buchanan, the Virginia senatorial candidate James Webb together with Lou Dobbs, Al Sharpton together with James Dobson.

Here's how a populist nationalist candidate would sound: "We are the ordinary, burden-bearing people of this country. We are the ones who work hard and build communities. It's time for us to come together and recognize that our loyalty to our fellow Americans comes first.

"That means we can't waste our precious blood and treasure on poorly planned, pie-in-the-sky wars to bring democracy to the Middle East. We need to get out of Iraq now. That means we can't sell our ports to our enemies. That means we must secure our borders against terrorists and illegal immigrants who break the law, take our jobs and drive down wages.

"We need to stand up to the big money interests who value their own profits more than their own countrymen, who outsource jobs to China and India, who destroy unions and control Washington. We need to fight off their efforts to take away our Social Security and Medicare. Instead of widening inequality and a race to the bottom, we need universal health care and decent wages. We need a government that will stand up to Internet porn and for decent family values.

"We're tired of both the corporate elites and the cultural elites. We want leaders who understand our anxieties and are, like us, tired of a world where nothing is safe, where everything can be swept away by a serious illness, a divorce or a terrorist's bomb."

Populist nationalism of this sort would be politically potent. It would be against the war without seeming na�ve and dovish. It would be against corporate power without seeming socialist. It would tap the passions aroused by immigration and outsourcing and cohere with the populist uprisings taking place in different forms around the world.

The progressive globalists, on the other hand, would be market-oriented on economics, liberal on values and multilateral interventionists in foreign affairs. The leading spokesman for this movement would be Tony Blair. Domestically, it would be led by the major presidential aspirants, who don't differ much: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Mark Warner and Rudy Giuliani.

Here's how a globalist might sound: "We're inspired by the opportunities a globalizing and flattening world open up before us. We embrace technological dynamism and cultural diversity and reject beggar-thy-neighbor policies. But we understand that globalization means interdependence, and we have to build institutions to ensure everybody shares the new prosperity.

"We have to reform education and improve skills so that more people succeed. We need to reform entitlements so the economy can remain flexible and not buried by debt. We have to work together to address global warming, oil dependence and protectionist barriers. We have to understand that this open, diverse world has enemies. We have to confront Islamic extremism ideologically and militarily, and battle it at its roots with democracy and freedom. We need to manage the movement of peoples without shutting off the flow, open up trade, not shut it down."

This modernizing progressivism would also be politically potent. It would thrive among the educated, among aspiring suburbanites, among hawks and among immigrants who look to the future more than the past.

Of course these alignments won't come about instantaneously. Our political institutions and habits have staying power, and the politics of globalization is lagging far behind the reality of it. But the issues that realigned politics in the 1960's are fading, and issues like immigration, trade and interdependence are rising to the fore. Politics is becoming less about left versus right and more about open versus closed. Or, to put it in starker terms, the populists are getting more populist while the elitists are getting more elitist.

Home

* World
* U.S.
* N.Y. / Region
* Business
* Technology
* Science
* Health
* Sports
* Opinion
* Arts
* Style
* Travel
* Jobs
* Real Estate
* Automobiles
* Back to Top

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

* Privacy Policy
* Search
* Corrections
* XML
* Help

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/4442524/

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:28:25 -0700

http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/bullerboy/id14.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Tips-for-Go-Carting&id=76793

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/4351599/

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:49:50 -0700

Hey Folks,

The US Men's National Soccer team makes its way to Germany next week for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This year the USA is fielding its most competitive team ever, and although we drew unluckily into tough first round matches against the Czech Republic and Italy and African upstart Ghana, we stand a strong chance of qualifying for late round play. As soccer is not traditionally a popular American sport, it is somewhat difficult to lend context to the intense competitive meaning and seriousness of this sporting event.

To make an attempt, imagine that the entire world raised its best athletes to play in a football league with a level of play that is comparable to the NFL. Then imagine all the best NFL stars we have in America, and dream up the ultimate team with your favorite players at each position. Then consider that every other country has done the same with their own all-stars. Finally, consider that these national teams comprised of all-stars from around the world have a chance to compete against each other -- but only once every 4 years -- to determine who is the best in the world. With as much fanfare as we make for the World Series and NBA Finals, this tournament makes even the Super Bowl look like a drunken Sunday afternoon pick up game at the park amongst friends.

So while you may not be a soccer fan, you might be drawn in by the seriousness with which the rest of the world looks at this moment, and you should at least be concerned with world events. One of the virtues of international competition is that it momentarily creates a Utopian space where states and their citizens can play out their national fantasies peacefully and with a mutual love for a beautiful game that ultimately even bonds winners and losers. In a world turning sour over a perceived American arrogance, what does it say to them that the one thing they all live for we can barely take a moment to notice?

Each of the games will be televised live this year. So over the next couple of weeks, watch some soccer and show some support for your team, whomever it may be.

for more info visit:

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/index.html
http://www.ussoccer.com/

2006 FIFA World Cup Television Schedule

First Round
Date No. ET Network Match Site
9-Jun 1 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 Germany vs. Costa Rica Munich
9-Jun 2 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Poland vs. Ecuador Gelsenkirchen
10-Jun 3 9 a.m. ABC England vs. Paraguay Frankfurt
10-Jun 4 11:30 a.m. ABC Trinidad & Tobago vs. Sweden Dortmund
10-Jun 5 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Argentina vs. Ivory Coast Hamburg
11-Jun 6 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Serbia-Montenegro vs. Netherlands Leipzig
11-Jun 7 11:30 a.m. ABC Mexico vs. Iran Nuremburg
11-Jun 8 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Angola vs. Portugal Cologne
12-Jun 9 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Australia vs. Japan Kaiserslautern
Monday 6/12/2006 10 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 USA vs. Czech Republic Gelsenkirchen
12-Jun 11 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Italy vs. Ghana Hanover
13-Jun 12 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 South Korea vs. Togo Frankfurt
13-Jun 13 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 France vs. Switzerland Stuttgart
13-Jun 14 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Brazil vs. Croatia Berlin
14-Jun 15 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Spain vs. Ukraine Leipzig
14-Jun 16 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 Tunisia vs. Saudi Arabia Munich
14-Jun 17 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Germany vs. Poland Dortmund
15-Jun 18 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Ecuador vs. Costa Rica Hamburg
15-Jun 19 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 England vs. Trinidad & Tobago Nuremberg
15-Jun 20 2:55 p.m. ESPN Sweden vs. Paraguay Berlin
16-Jun 21 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Argentina vs. Serbia-Montenegro Gelsenkirchen
16-Jun 22 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 Netherlands vs. Ivory Coast Stuttgart
16-Jun 23 2:55 p.m. ESPN Mexico vs. Angola Hanover
17-Jun 24 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Portugal vs. Iran Frankfurt
17-Jun 25 11:30 a.m. ABC Czech Republic vs. Ghana Cologne
Saturday 6/17/2006 26 2:30 p.m. ABC Italy vs. USA Kaiserslautern
18-Jun 27 9 a.m. ABC Japan vs. Croatia Nuremberg
18-Jun 28 11:30 a.m. ABC Brazil vs. Australia Munich
18-Jun 29 2:30 p.m. ABC France vs. South Korea Leipzig
19-Jun 30 8:55 a.m. ESPN2 Togo vs. Switzerland Dortmund
19-Jun 31 11:55 a.m. ESPN2 Saudi Arabia vs. Ukraine Hamburg
19-Jun 32 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Spain vs. Tunisia Stuttgart
20-Jun 33 9:55 a.m. ESPN Ecuador vs. Germany Berlin
20-Jun 34 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Costa Rica vs. Poland Hanover
20-Jun 35 2:55 p.m. ESPN Sweden vs. England Cologne
20-Jun 36 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Paraguay vs. Trinidad & Tobago Kaiserslautern
21-Jun 37 9:55 a.m. ESPN Portugal vs. Mexico Gelsenkirchen
21-Jun 38 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Iran vs. Angola Leipzig
21-Jun 39 2:55 p.m. ESPN Netherlands vs. Argentina Frankfurt
21-Jun 40 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Ivory Coast vs. Serbia-Montenegro Munich
Thursday 6/22/2006 41 9:55 a.m. ESPN Ghana vs. USA Nuremberg
22-Jun 42 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Czech Republic vs. Italy Hamburg
22-Jun 43 2:55 p.m. ESPN Japan vs. Brazil Dortmund
22-Jun 44 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Croatia vs. Australia Stuttgart
23-Jun 45 9:55 a.m. ESPN Saudi Arabia vs. Spain Kaiserslautern
23-Jun 46 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Ukraine vs. Tunisia Berlin
23-Jun 47 2:55 p.m. ESPN Togo vs. France Cologne
23-Jun 48 2:55 p.m. ESPN2 Switzerland vs. South Korea Hanover
Second Round
Date No. ET Network Match Site
24-Jun 49 10:30 a.m. ABC 1st A vs. 2nd B Munich
24-Jun 50 2:55 p.m. ESPN 1st C vs. 2nd D Leipzig
25-Jun 51 10:30 a.m. ABC 1st B vs. 2nd A Stuttgart
25-Jun 52 2:55 p.m. ESPN 1st D vs. 2nd C Nuremberg
26-Jun 53 10:55 a.m. ESPN 1st E vs. 2nd F Kaiserslautern
26-Jun 54 2:55 p.m. ESPN 1st G vs. 2nd H Cologne
27-Jun 55 10:55 a.m. ESPN 1st F vs. 2nd E Dortmund
27-Jun 56 2:55 p.m. ESPN 1st H vs. 2nd G Hanover
Quarterfinals
Date No. ET Network Match Site
30-Jun 57 10:55 a.m. ESPN Winners - 49 vs. 50 Berlin
30-Jun 58 2:55 p.m. ESPN 2 Winners - 53 vs. 54 Hamburg
1-Jul 59 10:30 a.m. ABC Winners - 51 vs. 52 Gelsenkirchen
1-Jul 60 2:55 p.m. ESPN Winners - 55 vs. 56 Frankfurt
Semifinals
Date No. ET Network Match Site
4-Jul 61 2:55 p.m. ESPN Winners - 57 vs. 58 Dortmund
5-Jul 62 2:55 p.m. ESPN Winners - 59 vs. 60 Munich
Third Place Game
Date No. ET Network Match Site
8-Jul 63 2:55 p.m. ESPN Runner up - 61 vs. 62 Stuttgart
Final on ABC Sports
Date No. ET Network Match Site
9-Jul 64 1:30 p.m. ABC Winners - 61 vs. 62 Berlin

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/4071933/

Tue, 02 May 2006 13:30:20 -0700

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

April 30, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Lunch Period Poli Sci
By DAVID BROOKS

College is still probably a good idea, but everything you need to know about America you can learn in high school. For example, if you want to understand American class structure you'd be misled if you read Marx, but you'd understand it perfectly if you look around a high school cafeteria.

The jocks sit here; the nerds sit there; the techies, drama types, skaters, kickers and gangstas sit there, there and there. What you see is not class in the 19th-century sense, but a wide array of lifestyle cliques, some richer, some poorer, but each regarding the others as vaguely pathetic and convinced of its moral superiority.

Similarly, when it comes to politics, high school explains most everything you need to know. In 1976, Tom Wolfe wrote an essay for Commentary in which he noted that our political affiliations are shaped subrationally. He went on to observe that especially when we are young and forming our identities, we make sense of our lives by running little morality plays in our heads in which the main characters are Myself, the hero, and My Adolescent Opposite, the enemy.

"Forever after," Wolfe writes, "the most momentous national and international events are stuffed into the same turf. The most colossal antagonists and movements become merely stand-ins for My Adolescent Self and My Adolescent Opposite.

"If My Opposite, my natural enemy in adolescence, was the sort of person who seemed overly aggressive, brutish and in love with power, I identify him with the 'conservative' position. If My Opposite, my natural enemy in adolescence, seemed overly sensitive, soft, cerebral and incapable of action, I identify him with the 'liberal' position."

And so it goes. In every high school there are students who are culturally and intellectually superior but socially aggrieved. These high school culturati have wit and sophisticated musical tastes but find that all prestige goes to jocks, cheerleaders and preps who possess the emotional depth of a cocker spaniel. The nerds continue to believe that the self-reflective life is the only life worth living (despite all evidence to the contrary) while the cool, good-looking, vapid people look down upon them with easy disdain on those rare occasions they are compelled to acknowledge their existence.

These sarcastic cultural types may grow up to be rich movie producers, but they will remember their adolescent opposites and become liberals. They may grow up to be rich lawyers but will decorate their homes with interesting fabrics from the oppressed Peruvian peasantry to differentiate themselves from their jock opposites.

In adulthood, the former high school nerds will savor the sort of scandals that befall their formerly athletic and currently corporate adolescent enemies -- the Duke lacrosse scandal, the Enron scandal, the various problems that have plagued the frat boy Bush. In the lifelong struggle for moral superiority, problems that bedevil your adolescent opposites send pleasure-inducing dopamine surging through your brain.

Similarly, in every high school there are jocks, cheerleaders and regular kids who vaguely sense that their natural enemies are the brooding poets who go off to become English majors. These prom kings and queens may leave their adolescent godhood and go off to work as underpaid sales reps despite their coldly gracious spouses and effortlessly slender kids, but they will still remember their adolescent opposites and become conservatives. They will experience surges of orgiastic triumphalism when Sean Hannity eviscerates the scuffed-shoed intellectuals who have as much personal courage as a French chipmunk in retreat.

Because these personal traits are so pervasive and constant, Republican administrations tend to be staffed by people who are well-balanced but dull, while Democratic administrations tend to be staffed by people who are interesting but neurotic. Because these rivalries are so permanent, nobody has ever voted for a presidential candidate they wouldn't have had lunch with in high school.

The only real shift between school and adult politics is that the jocks realize they need conservative intellectuals, who are geeks who have decided their fellow intellectuals should never be allowed to run anything and have learned to speak slowly so the jocks will understand them. Meanwhile, the geeks have learned they need to find popular kids like F.D.R. to head their tickets because the American people will never send a former geek to the White House. (Bill Clinton was unique in that he was a member of every clique at once.)

The central message, though, is that we never escape our high school selves. Vote for Pedro.

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/3740732/

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:38:24 -0800

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

March 30, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Immigrants to Be Proud Of
By DAVID BROOKS

Everybody says the Republicans are split on immigration. The law-and-order types want to close the border. The free-market types want plentiful labor. But today I want to talk to the social conservatives, because it's you folks who are really going to swing this debate.

I'd like to get you to believe what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas believes: that a balanced immigration bill is consistent with conservative values. I'd like to try to persuade the evangelical leaders in the tall grass to stop hiding on this issue.

My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young people is on the way down.

Over the past decade we've seen the beginnings of a moral revival, and some of the most important work has been done by Catholic and evangelical immigrant churches, by faith-based organizations like the Rev. Luis Cort�s's Nueva Esperanza, by Hispanic mothers and fathers monitoring their kids. The anti-immigration crowd says this country is under assault. But if that's so, we're under assault by people who love their children.

My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work hard. They build community groups. They have traditional ideas about family structure, and they work heroically to make them a reality.

This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high) and even the way they shop.

Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants have less money than average Americans, but they spend what they have on their families, usually in wholesome ways. According to Simmons Research, Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than average Americans to have purchased children's furniture in the past year. Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music.

According to the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey, Hispanics spend more on gifts, on average, than other Americans. They're more likely to support their parents financially. They're more likely to have big family dinners at home.

This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.

My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants' long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they cause. There's no use denying the strains immigration imposes on schools, hospitals and wage levels in some markets (but economists are sharply divided on this).

So over the long haul, today's immigrants succeed. By the second generation, most immigrant families are middle class and paying taxes that more than make up for the costs of the first generation. By the third generation, 90 percent speak English fluently and 50 percent marry non-Latinos.

My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the immigrants themselves. Right now (as under Bill Frist's legislation), government pushes immigrants into a chaotic underground world. The Judiciary Committee's bill, which Senator Brownback supports, would tighten the borders, but it would also reward virtue. Immigrants who worked hard, paid fines, paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble and waited their turn would have a chance to become citizens. This isn't government enabling vice; it's government at its best, encouraging middle-class morality.

Social conservatives, let me ask you to consider one final thing. Women who have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do. But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.

Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them for sins that are already here?

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
* Home
* Privacy Policy
* Search
* Corrections
* XML
* Help
* Contact Us
* Work for Us
* Site Map
* Back to Top

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

http://Ontix.stumbleupon.com/review/3727152/

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:41:57 -0800

Cock Blockin

they say revenge is the guilty pleasure of a simple mind. To that I say only: they don't call me Simpleson for nothing...

i talked to three of my neighbors today, all of whom agree the rooster has to go. the city continued its feckless streak and still refused to come out to "keep the peace." so it came time to take the resolution of this problem into my own hands.

and having accumulated less hours of sleep this week than I normally do in one night, i was ready, willing and eager to take on the task. so friday night I ventured back to Fremont to pick up an old friend, my family BB gun. she's a classic, a Daisy, and she rained terror on the birds of suburban Huntington Beach during my childhood in the late 1980's. i brought her out a few times in my teenage years as well, just to make sure the old girl still had her kick. and although she takes a few more pumps than she used to, as i brought her back friday night, i knew she still had all the gusto required to get the job done.

my sleep schedule is off by several time zones. erik and i are on our way to the snow in a matter of hours, and i have been awake since 1:30AM, so i figured tonight would be the proper night to scout out sniper posts and plot the assassination.

the rooster crows about twice an hour between 2AM and 9AM, much contrary to the popular notion that they only crow when the sun rises. i figure if this were a stereotypical rooster, i would have been able to adjust and might even have grown fond of the wake up call. but this cock took to calling out his territory every 20 minutes or so at the most ungodly hours, and he did so from only a few meters away from my window.

so tonight i have been waiting, clandestinely venturing into the patio area behind my apartment at every crowing call, to see if i could pin him down. he had set up a roost in this tree behind the apartment, and he crowed with all his might from this tree, putting his beak at ear level if you were standing on this patio deck area, making for quite a noisy operation.

by now, having done much research on the fact, i have discovered that chickens see very poorly in the dark. this disability causes them to be as cautious as possible in the darkness, clamorous cock-a-doodle-dooing aside. and so this rooster stayed true to his kind and made no sudden moves when i approached. consequently i was unable to locate him in the thikcness of the trees when i went to find him on at least 10 occasions. eventually i surmised to wait for the sunlight.

so i popped in a dvd, and then another, sitting out the roosters endless crowing, knowing that when the light came, he would dismount the tree and begin his daily romp through the neighborhood. he must have thought he was some sort of badass. crowing all through the blocks with not a single challenge. little did he know that there are no other chickens within miles because, afterall, he is a just a rooster. But his ignorance and his false notion of cock supremacy only made me hate him more. and so i nearly salivated to the point of drooling with anticipation when i finally heard him jump out of the tree and onto the stairs below.

Daisy had been prepared and was pumped to maximum strength. and she was just as eager as i to pull off a winning shot. so as i crept up, i took a deep breath and pulled the butt of the rifle to my shoulder. closing one eye, i sneered down the barrel and through the sight as i tipped my gun downwards so that it would point over the ledge as i moved into position.

a million thoughts ran through my head in the next fraction of a second. it was morning now and the whole building could see what i was up to if they cared to have a look down into the patio. would my neighbors little girls be up yet? if they saw this they would certainly be traumatized. what if this rooster screams to high hell and the whole world is up in arms over the pain i am causing him with a poorly placed shot in the wing. what if the chicken has already meandered down the stairs and under the cover of the building and foliage? i already chased this fucker around the block once, i will not do that again. but fuck waiting for another day and enduring continued sleeplessness. but the most encroaching thoughts of all: is this moral? is this legal? what if i miss?!

but i calmed myself, took a breath and pushed the thoughts away. i had resolved the moral dilemma days ago. i asked the city to take care of the problem. they blatantly refused. i surveyed my neighbors to be sure i was not the only one bothered by the nuisance. i was overwhelmingly joined by a neighborly chorus of impetuous disdain for the crowing and the resulting sleeplessness. ultimately, because i knew i was capable of taking care of this problem, i accepted my civic duty to carry out the final solution.

at some point i crossed some sort of line. i was now in assassin mode and had but one purpose for living: to kill. this frame of mind is a unique place to be. it puts you in touch with the essential nature of the world's soldiers and hunters, and it takes me back on a brief journey to pre-civilized time when killing for meat was a way of life.

but here, this time, i had no intention to eat this kill. this bird is a wild chicken roaming the streets of downtown Oakland. bird flu, cancer, god knows what kind of disease reaps inside this creature. no, this time it was strictly murder. i was blood thirsty. this was war.

calm, collected, my heart and breath now willed to stopping, i peaked out over the ledge and immediately saw the grotesque and muddied white feathers of the roosters neck, his hideous red head and his evil beady eyeball. he didn't see me right away, he was looking down the stairs. and i knew now that i had to take the shot before he caught me creepin. i aimed for his head, but decided it was too risky a shot, and so trained the sight down to the base of his neck to an area that would be square between the shoulders on a man. once there, i wasted no more time and pulled the trigger . . .

the next moment is a contradiction of slow motion and fast forward images. i hit the rooster right as i had aimed and he fell immediately to the concrete steps, flapping his wings nervously as the life began to creep out of him. by now i had already begun to reload and recrank the rifle anticipating having to take another mercy shot to put him out of his misery.

he tumbled down the stairs, making rooster like sounds that were quiet and muffled as he had begun to accept that he was dying. there would be no great tumult. no grand murderous scene of blood and flailing. he was going to go quietly with as much dignity as he could muster, and somewhere on the level of base animalistic kinship, i respected him for that.

he finally settled beneath the steps to retire. he was still kicking and i had an angle, so i put one last shot through him to end it all. he stopped moving, only quivering faintly, and then nothing.

silence . . . at last.