Wading In

Feds finger criminal aliens By Kelvin Wade July 29, 2010 Now that a U.S. District Judge has temporarily blocked the most controversial parts of the Arizona immigration law we can let the federal government enforce our borders. The government is expanding a program called Secure Communities to catch illegal immigrants. In participating communities, whenever anyone is booked into jail for any crime their fingerprints are entered into the FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to check for an arrest record and their immigration status. Those criminal aliens are seized and given the boot. Opponents of Arizona's SB1070 are lining up against the federal government's program as well. Why? I can understand initial opposition to the Arizona law. The law, as first enacted, required cops to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of being an illegal after any contact with police. It was a law, championed by a state senator with ties t...

Somewhere Gray Davis is laughing at us By Kelvin Wade July 22, 2010 Months ago I was watching an LA Lakers game and the camera cut to various luminaries in attendance. There was Usher, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sylvester Stallone. And with every appearance of a celebrity on the JumboTron, the crowd roared their approval. Then, the camera panned to the man sitting next to Stallone. It was Arnold Schwarzenegger. The crowd booed. Years ago, I bet Arnold Schwarzenegger never thought he would be publicly booed. Remember in 2003 when California Gov. Gray Davis had a 24 percent approval rating and 65 percent disapproval and Californians wanted to recall him? We had a parade of 135 potential replacements. When Schwarzenegger won, Californians were so excited. The Governator was going to clean up Sacramento. Fast forward to 2010 and Schwarzenegger's approval rating in a new Field Poll is 22 percent while his disapproval is 70 percent. In another stunning result, more people thou...

Tea partiers, save the fake outrage By Kelvin Wade July 15, 2010 The NAACP has passed a resolution calling on the tea party to repudiate racist elements within the movement. And now the game begins where tea partiers feign victimhood and outrage. Let's deal with the facts. There have been offensive incidents and signs at tea party rallies. There was the incident in March when black congressmen had the N word shouted at them and one was spat upon. While some, such as Republican National Commitee Chairman Michael Steele, condemned the behavior, other tea partiers denied the incidents ever took place. Signs have been carried at tea party rallies saying, 'Go back to Kenya,' 'Hey Hussein, Quit 'Dixie Chickin' Our Nation. Go Back to Kenya,' 'Obamanomics: Monkey See, Monkey Spend' and 'The Zoo has an African Lion and the White House has an African Lyin' ' among others. There have been posters of the president dressed as a witch doctor with a bo...

Postal Service is a digital dinosaur By Kelvin Wade July 08, 2010 4:07PM I e-filed my federal taxes this year and since e-filing my state taxes would cost $20, I decided to mail them. I printed them out, found an envelope on my desk and addressed it. That's when I realized I didn't have any stamps. Stamps? Who uses stamps anymore? I vaguely recalled that they were square or rectangular stickers that came in various designs. But it had been so long since I'd mailed something that I didn't even know how much a first-class stamp was anymore. I had to get a few things from Safeway and I asked the cashier if they sold stamps. 'Yes. We only sell them in books.' I didn't know how many came in a book or how much they were but I bought some. If you're like me, you do everything online. I bank, shop and pay bills online. It's gotten so bad that I sometimes don't retrieve my snail mail for a couple of days because there's usually nothing important in i...

Fairfield Daily Republic The Other Side Seizing a teachable moment By Kelvin Wade July 1, 2010 In June of last year, after my honor roll granddaughter, Lauryn, graduated from the sixth grade, Cathi and I asked her mother if Lauryn could come over during summer vacation so I could tutor her and get her ready for junior high. Her mother (and Lauryn) didn't think she needed it, and, after all, summer vacation was a time of play. I'm not going to claim that Lauryn's lack of summer tutoring resulted in her whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers and consulting with the rain. But in her seventh grade year she did go from the honor roll to a C student (even battling three Fs at one point) to her and everyone's horror. The fact is summer vacations away from learning produce dim-witted kids. Studies that have been conducted for more than 100 years show that students score lower on standardized tests after summer than before. Most students lose two months worth of ma...