So, I’ve got pictures of glowing red orbs. They’re not as awesome as what I saw on Sunday, but they’re still pretty cool and probably worth a gander at.
I can’t find the usb cord to get them from the camera to the computer.
I called the Butcher and he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll find it tomorrow. Just tell me what pictures you want off the camera.”
Um, yeah, no.
Is it just me or is it too hot for just about anything. I’m tired and I’m cranky and there doesn’t seem to be anything that holds my attention. It’s pretty much a true fact that, if you feel the need to tell everyone you see that they need to pull their heads out of their asses, that the head pulling that needs to be done is yours.
In other news, Mack weighs in on the Villegas story. Be sure to check out his awesome word-play in the title.
Also, I appear to have dishydrotic eczema. I didn’t know there was a name for it, but I’m glad to know it. I wonder if I can use that for an excuse as to why I need to take the rest of the week off.
Not that I need to take the rest of the week off. But, if I did, I’d totally use dishydrotic eczema as an excuse.
Oh, John Lamb, I’m so glad that you brought this up.
John Lamb has a post today about Juana Villegas, which is well worth the read. It does seem that the national attention on this case has focused on whether it was okay to shackle Villegas while she was giving birth. But that’s just focusing on the unique aspect of her predicament. Lamb brings up the broader concern:
If Berry Hill officers are arresting people instead of giving them citations in the hope that their immigration status will be checked by the Davidson County Sheriff once in custody, that could be driven by racial profiling, which is illegal by statute in Tennessee as of this year.
(This is exactly why I, unlike Tim Chavez, for instance, am unwilling to believe that the Nashville police are an example of “good” police while Berry Hill police are “bad cops.” Until I see evidence that they’re not also arresting people in order to get their immigration status checked, I reserve judgment.)
John Lamb quotes Rick Casares* as saying
Once we single out a portion of our population and determine that they are unworthy of basic human rights, it becomes easier and easier to justify.
I would again like to point out this is how the system is designed to work. It is no coincidence that we made it illegal for undocumented immigrants to received drivers’ licenses and started participating in 287(g) at roughly the same time. One provides a mechanism and an excuse to run the other.
Most folks who entered the country illegally are otherwise not criminals. It takes something, like refusing to issue them drivers’ licenses, so that when they come in contact with the police for all the reasons any of us come in contact with the police (speeding, broken tail light, being confused by the one-ways around Baptist, whatever), the police have an excuse to arrest them and put them through the program.
That is what’s supposed to happen. I repeat. It’s not a flaw or a glitch.
And for ICE to act surprised that this would be catching so many regular people?
Temple Black, spokesman for ICE [formerly known as INS] in the Southeast, seems puzzled that Metro law enforcement would expend resources on busting undocumented workers who aren’t dangerous criminals. “What we are focused on is aggravated felons…. We don’t go down to the Shell Station and pick up [undocumented workers].”
Please. That strains credulity.
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*I don’t know who this Rick Casares is, but he sounds like a very handsome man. I can only hope to aspire to a day when I can search out this man and have my own wise quotes from him to post on Tiny Cat Pants.
When I had my most terrible bout of poison ivy, I got a secondary rash, a series of tiny, hard, pearl-like blisters all over my fingers, in the cracks and crevasses of my knuckles and in the soft skin between them.
It was excruciating. They burned all the time they were forming and then itched like nothing I can even compare it to. They itched so much, but it itched worse if you touched them.
I bring this all up because I have one again, on the knuckle of my pointer finger on my right hand. It’s been coming in for a few days, but since there was just one, I thought it was a bite or a sting. Then, I thought it might be some weird finger pimple, but this morning, there it was, fully formed, tiny, shiny, itchy and untouchable.
One of you told me a story about how when you were a little kid you had an itchy butt and when you went to scratch it, you found a worm. You told me that story a long, long time ago and I had forgotten all about it. Last night, though, I dreamed of tiny white worms emerging from hard, shiny blisters on my fingers.
It was so gross.
So, thanks.
Edited to Add: I should mention that I know this is your fault because in the dream, I had to collect the little white worms to show your mom. Yuck.
Tiny Cat Pants 