The Weekly Feed: Experimentation Edition
Morning Roundup: Change Edition
Former Blade Staffers Launch 'DC Agenda'
D.C. Insurance Dept. Denies Birth Control Coverage Meddling
Controversy Over Rhee Now to Include Sex, Congress
Jonetta Rose Barras: In a powerfully introspective column, Rose Barras details a recent trip to her destroyed family home in New Orleans. In recounting her visit to the site, Rose Barras writes of the struggles endured by her mother and sister in trying to return and rebuild, drawing comparisons to the District's own troubles. "Truth told, New Orleans looks and feels like Ward 8 circa 1985: few quality retail outlets, high crime, high unemployment, poor schools, and no real economic development. It took 20 years for the District’s revival," she writes. "There are lessons for New Orleans in the District."
Courtland Milloy: Just as Milloy wants to get rid of gangsta rap...
Tom Knott: ... Knott wants to get rid of illegal immigrants.
Harry Jaffe: Turning the focus onto the District's second most important elected official, this week Jaffe talks up D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray. Dispelling rumors that Gray is thinking of running for mayor, Jaffe argues that his relationship with Mayor Adrian Fenty has been cordial and cooperative. The question is how long that will last. "What should worry Fenty is not whether Gray wants his job but how his government will measure up under the oversight of a committed and competent council," writes Jaffe.
Harry Jaffe, Pt. 2: In a second column this week, Jaffe takes on an issue that's been big news this week -- the shooting of 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings by on off-duty police officer. While most media accounts have seemed to pin blame on the officer and his partner, Jaffe argues that like any normal citizen, off-duty police officers have the right to search for stolen property. Additionally, Jaffe writes, the fact that the case has been turned over to the feds isn't a shock -- in fact, "the MPD refers every single shooting incident to the federal prosecutor’s office." All told, "There is not much good that can come of this mess," he notes. "A boy is dead. Two good cops, facing discipline or worse, are suffering the consequences of poor judgment."
Loose Lips: This week, LL finds out that Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is looking to shutter the Washington Canoe Club, which sits on some prime federally owned riverfront property along the Potomac. Why? According to Dingell, it's because they're getting too good a deal for the location. According to LL, it might be because Dingell bleeds Hoya Blue. You decide.
Marc Fisher: The more and more we hear about the bizarre pants lawsuit filed by Roy Pearson against the Chung family and their dry cleaning business, the more we wish the presiding judge had forced Pearson to eat his pants as a form of apology. But as Fisher finds out, the Chungs are both bummed to be closing down the store that provoked the whole ordeal and happy that they can start fresh elsewhere.
Colbert King: Don't like Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.)? Neither does King, and he lists some of the reasons why.
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Knott and Milloy ought to get together and push to outlaw Mexican rap music. Because anybody who's had to listen to that stuff wafting in from a restaurant kitchen knows that joint ain't right. I'm down with the trumpets, but accordions and rap go together like milk and lemonade. And as we all know, around the corner, fudge is made.
I love JRB and this was a nice piece on the Big Easy, but I think I prefer her when she's a little more aggressive and laying verbal smackdowns.
I love the 'just get rid of all illegal immigrants' argument. Who exactly do these people think are going to pick our lettuce, make our hotel beds, clean our offices, etc? Unemployment in the US is very low, particularly in the service industries. Do these folks really think there are 15 million Americans that are just itching to do these jobs?
Hillman...are you being sarcastic! Americans have been doing those jobs for ages. How old are You?
Remember the old TV shows...even on Leave it to Beaver..he went around cutting grass and delivering the paper. I did the same thing. My uncles worked in construction. I worked on several maintenance crews. Now we real people have to compete with illegal immigrants. My parents weren't rich and neither am I so these jobs you say Americans won't do is BS in the reality zone.
Yo, Deep! All you and yr family of hotel maids, grass cutters, and construction workers need to do is to agree to work those jobs for less pay than the immigrants, and the competition is over!
Step up, bro! Do it for America! Do it for the Beaver!
Back in the day...all you needed was a lawnmower.
You got paid whatever you got paid.
Deep:
I'm not sure I'd count Leave it to Beaver as a quotable source on the current American job market.
I'm not saying no Americans will do these jobs. I'm saying most won't. And we certainly don't have 15 million Americans just sitting around waiting to do them.
If you think we do, I suggest you try to find unskilled and semiskilled construction workers in DC. See who shows up and actually does the work. It aint the native-born Americans.
And what is the 'reality zone'. Is that like ESPN Sportszone?
What Knott doesn't understand is that, as Gov't tax records show - nearly all of those immigrants are in fact paying their taxes. Why do they pay? Call it working class pride. It could also be that tax records are useful for getting identification, and not getting arrested, etc. Whatever. But they do pay for the services that they are getting. The goverment takes the money, and then these mis-informed pundits insist that surely the immigrants couldn't possibly be paying. Wrong!
And even if they weren't paying, it doesn't change the fact that the basic function of goverment is to provide for, and maintain, the land and the people who are on that land, irregardless of how the people got here or the status of their paperwork. The real question is why the goverment is not able to process the immigrants paperwork in a reasonable manner. If these people were Canadians there would be no problem...
Do I even have to point out that all the white people in this country just SHOWED UP with no paperwork whatsoever, and they were all granted citizenship automatically. Immigration quotas are just thinly veiled racism. Putting up immigration quatoas doesn't stop people from showing up, it only limits the number of people who are "legal" according to the racists in the electorate.
And it should already be obvious that by shopping at discount stores like Wallmart, you are perpetuating the immigration run yourself in the first place. They acheive the "discount" by UNDERPAYING workers elsewhere, like in Latin America, so they can't make enough money there - thus the wealth we save is actually their wealth which we are expropriating. When we steal their wealth, it is only logical that they will be forced to follow their dollars to the USA - they can earn better wages here and send the money back where it came from - back to their families who we are underpaying. If you don't like people being forced to come here to reclaim their money, then why not start voting with your dollars to stop stealing their wages in the first place? Shop places that don't underpay workers overseas. If you support decent wages elswhere, than people won't have to leave to come here. Of course, then our nation will be starved of the labor that actually drives our economy... but that's another problem.
How could someone as clueless as Knott be writing for a newspaper. He needs to do his homework first before writing in a newspaper.