Wading In

Printed on: Thu, Jul 26, 2007 We can't have our cake and eat it too By Kelvin Wade We want it both ways with illegal workers. Two weeks ago, the front-page news story on illegal alien day laborers waiting in the Home Depot parking lot rubbed a lot of readers the wrong way. Here are illegals out in the open soliciting work without fear of arrest of deportation. While I sympathize with the angry and thoughtful letters to the editor about the illegal immigration problem, I've also come to realize just how ambivalent we are as a nation about it. When local students cut class to wave flags from their country of origin and demand rights, Fairfielders were angry. I received mail from naturalized citizens upset that illegals demanded special treatment that they did"t receive. I received letters from people describing the lengthy process they went through in order to become an American citizen, learning English, working two jobs and so forth. I've written ...

One of my favorite funk groups, Cameo, has a song called "Talking Out The Side Of Yo' Neck." And I thinkthat sums up what we do on immigration. I think we're ambivalent about it. Don't get me wrong. When we see video of people running across the border, I think it angers us. I think it's because we see people taking something that's not rightfully theirs. No other country puts up with this. Even Mexico has draconian laws about illegal immigration. But for some reason, we're not allowed to criticize it or we're labeled a racist. It shouldn't work that way. I understand this issue. There are people who came here legally who are outraged by illegals cutting in line. I don't blame them. If it took you years to come here and work hard and assimilate and become an American citizen and someone runs across the border and has everything you have in a quarter of the time, that's not right. That's not fair. It's not fair for the federal go...

Did you see this study from Boston University School of Medicine that shows people who drink one or more diet sodas a day develop the same risk of cardiovascular disease as those who drink the regular sugar soda? So I’m drinking sodas sweetened with Splenda and acting like they don’t have an aftertaste and I’m still going to be a candidate for an angioplasty? Something’s wrong. Back when I worked at my dad’s liquor store years ago, I routinely sold corpulent customers Twinkies and Ding Dongs along with a Diet Coke. The understanding was that the diet drink would cancel the calories of the snack cake. Okay, maybe not cancel but at least it mitigated the dietary damage. Now these “experts” are telling us that we should’ve been drinking the sugared soft drinks all along since there’s no difference. And who wouldn’t rather drink the real versions of these drinks rather than the taste-limited diet versions? I want to walk into a 7-11 right now and get a 55 gallon ...

Printed on: Thu, Jul 19, 2007 Crackdown on crime is needed By Kelvin Wade It's unfortunate that this week's fatal shooting at a Grande Circle apartment complex came on the heels of a successful two week Street Crimes Apprehension Team or SCAT sweep that resulted in 50 felony and 64 misdemeanor arrests throughout Fairfield. This type of inter-agency policing should have the long-term effect of lowering crime in Fairfield. I'm finishing Malcolm Gladwell's excellent book, "The Tipping Point" and have been impressed by what the author has to say about the broken windows theory, first articulated by criminologists George Kelling and James Q. Wilson. Their point was that social disorder in the form of a rundown neighborhood and apathy by police and residents create a fertile ground for crime infestation. According to Gladwell, crime waves behave like epidemics. According to the theory, which is not without controversy, the way to combat crime i...

Some additional thoughts....Malcolm Gladwell's take on spiking crime as an epidemic is interesting. It says that there's a small pool of criminals who commit most of our crime. However, if the circumstances (he uses the term 'context') are right, that pool of criminals can expand and create crime waves. It's not without controversy but it seems legit to me. I'll give you an example. Copycat crimes. Why are there copycat crimes? It's because someone who wouldn't have ordinarily done that particular crime saw it committed and saw the perpetrator get away with it. People copycat successful crimes, not failed ones. If a school is broken into and a bunch of computers are taken by a small group of thieves, another small group of people, who maybe are on the cusp of good citizen/criminal activity, might be motivated to knock over a school to seize computers. They figure that if its that easy, they too could get away with it. The broken windows theory is easy t...

My parents always told me and my brothers not to "show our tail" when we're in public. It's probably an offensive thing to say when you think about it. Like we're supposed to be good little monkeys and not show our tails. But what they were saying in a somewhat crude way, is that when in public, we should hold ourselves and conduct ourselves with a certain grace and dignity. That there was a time and place for everything. That sometimes things that would be appropriate in a private setting would no longer be appropriate in a public setting. That's where I think we are with the N word. The black community is clearly divided on the issue. I confess that occasionally I use the word in private but would never think to do so publicly. And while I know some blacks want all blacks to purge that word from their vocabularies, I just don't see that happening. One thing I am concerned about is the mindset. The nigga mindset. Stanley Crouch articulates it well in the ...

Column published July 12, 2007 THE OTHER SIDE by Kelvin Wade Can we really bury the N-word? On Monday, the NAACP symbolically buried the N-word. After the Michael Richards and Don Imus incidents as well as the prevalence of the N-word and other derogatory terms used in a lot of rap music, the organization feels it ís time to rid our society of this epithet for good. The NAACP symbolically buried Jim Crow in 1944. But Jim Crow was different. It was a system of state and local laws that mandated ìseparate but equalî facilities for blacks and whites, even though the facilities for blacks were always inferior. It was a way to keep blacks in their place with the mask of equality. But overturning laws is easier than overturning a mindset. Frankly, the NAACP doesn't have the national clout or street credibility to make an impact on black youth in America today. And an organization with "colored people" in its name burying the N-word is likely going to make many blacks scratch...

What strikes me as funny is how many people have utterly abandoned George W. Bush. There was a time when an attack on Bush was met with an angry defense by Bush loyalists. Nowadays, no one bothers to defend the man or his presidency. It's sorta like the las days of the Nixon White House when voters acted like no one voted for the man. If you threw away your vote on this president, own it. Own him. He's what you wanted. Over and over again, the Bush Administration does things to show they're out of ouch with the mainstream in America. For years it was impossible to even disagree with the president without having your patriotism called into question. That's why it was so funny during the immigration debate when Bush went after the patriotism of right wing critics. Those right wing opponents seemed shocked tht he would do that. But it's like those clueless bastards had amnesia when Bush was doing the same thing to war critics. It doesn't really surprise me that no ...

Printed on: Thu, Jul 05, 2007 Bush has sullied our great nation By Kelvin Wade This great nation is 231 years old, but I haven't been much for celebrating. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance over the fact that while this week marks my beautiful country's birthday, at the same time, I'm living under the worst president in our nation's history. Let's face it. George W. Bush isn't a lame duck. He's a dead duck. It was strangely amusing to see him fiercely pushing that immigration bill and castigating his right wing brethren in the pitiful hope that he could mount some kind of legacy at this late stage. After his amnesty bill received a smack down in Congress, Bush realized he needed to do something to mend fences with his right-wing base, the dead-enders keeping his numbers from falling to child-predator levels. Enter Scooter Libby. One commutation later and the integrity-challenged president is back in vogue with the far right. In ...