Just a touch of racism

GA has passed tough immigration laws, with this argument: we have 10 percent unemployment here, let us get rid of the illegal Hispanics and give the work to Americans. As a result, farmers in GA have a tough time finding enough workers this season, there are still 11,000 jobs openings to work in the field.
Unrepentent Governor Nathan Deal now tries to give the jobs to probationers, and it does not seem to work either.
As a result our three local TVs here in Savannah report this with comments like: "Americans do not want to work in the sun for 12 dollars an hour." Of course they say "Americans", but they think "Blacks."
It is a ridiculous statement. It is not that people "do not want to" work in the fields, it is that they do not know how. Work in the field is intensive: you cannot take a bus to go home, you got to stick around the farm to start early, when the temperature has not risen yet. Migrant seasonal workers are used to it, they pack and leave their home for the season. Georgians of any race have lost this capacity: they want a job, but they also want to be at home at night. For Pete's sake, it is not just a "job", it is a different lifestyle. A policy like this can only be successful if you spend a lot of money educating people and encouraging them to become seasonal migrants, and nobody knows if it would work. And I do not think that probationers are especially "lazy", I think that months in jail are not physically and mentally preparing you very well for hard work in the fields.

All this lack of workers means less money for the farmers, loss of foodstuff, more cost for the consumers. Our governor has not thought things through. I am sure he will say that it is the fault of president Obama, his usual scapegoat.
We need immigrants or we don't: it should not be a matter of political ideology, but a matter of good sense. If our farmers need seasonal workers, why don't we give seasonal work permits to the people who can do the work?

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NOTE: Local stats say that about 8% of the white labor force in GA is unemployed compared to 14% of the black labor force. Black labor force is about one third of the total GA labor force (27%). Ga has 150,000 people on probation, about 2 times more blacks than whites.We got in addition 50 to 60,000 inmates, ruining the state finances, a testimony to the quality of our school system.

What is the excuse this time?

My neighbor is born in Claxton, a very small rural community in Georgia. This is a recent picture of hers: she is 93 years old and used to make a living as a hairdresser. She comes from a baptist very religious background, still goes to a nearby church every Sunday. She is a firm Republican.
YET
1) Whatever GA was 100 years ago, there is not a hint of racism in her.
2) She says that gay people should be left in peace because it is not their fault and it is nobody's business anyway.
3) She feels that you got to respect your country and your government, even if you disagree with the president.

And I wonder from under which rock crawled these guys who say that President Obama is Satan, that we should not teach in school the real age of the earth and that it is "dangerous" to announce that we want to treat other countries with respect!

Journalist of the month: Gary Marx

Every month I praise a journalist who has been teaching me something that I will remember: journalists need some encouragement in today's crisis. Of course I usually try to pick somebody who just started. This month is different: the author, Gary Marx already had a brilliant career.
He wrote a piece in the Chicago Tribune that you can find here. The piece was recommended to me by my stumble friend Dan360 it is about the supermax prison of Tamms.The paper is superb and has stunning photographs.

I have a beef with the US jail system since I proposed to the local jail to give lessons in science and financial education and I was told that "only religious leaders were allowed to talk to convicts".
By contrast to jail, in a supermax prison, you find extremely bad people. I am under no illusion, because I was once victim of a psychopath; some people are evil and should be kept apart under lock and key. In the present state of science, they cannot be cured. Is it a reason to treat them like cattle? I do not see why, because I do not see what we gain from this: it is shameful.

To tell you the truth, I have worked all my life, and I resent people who do not work the best they can. So, not only they are bad people and we got to lock them up and feed them, but they do not contribute to society? We all work, not just to feed our family but to help each other. One person prepares bread, and one transports it, and one repairs the roads, and one builds houses: we all depend on each other, it is what makes this society successful. What kind of politics is it that makes the taxpayer pay through the nose to humiliate a bunch of evil guys for the next fifty years and then prevents prisoners to contribute to society the little they can? We have enough charities around that need help.
Prisons where I live, in GA, cost us a fortune,- we got half a million people in the system, and many people come out of it worse than they went in, despite the visits of religious leaders (but not scientists) of all kinds: it is time lost for them and for society. We should force them to learn: often they go to jail because they never learned anything. And if they are on the list of evil guys, by all means let us keep them locked and make them work.

There is in the bunch of prisoners a good proportion of people affected by mental diseases that could be cured. It makes sense to me that they are legally responsible, but it does not make sense that they are not treated when we can do it. Does it makes sense to you?

Bad people should learn and work like the rest of us and they should be shown as much humanity as security allows. Because humanity is what they do not have.

Domino effect in Savannah, GA

In the relatively small town where I live, Savannah GA, there are more and more signs of recession.

• Like everywhere else, houses stopped selling. We did not get very anxious about it, as housing around here had gone up much faster than salaries: this can only go on for so long.

• The neighbors at the fringe of society in our neighborhood disappeared: the mom who was on drugs, the couple who "worked to drink", the entire household of some freshly installed students that we suspected of selling drugs.

• The new commercial building, pretty and well located, did not rent. It is usual for old business locations to stay empty for a year, but for a new building, it is surprising.

• Places that had little excuse for survival started going, going and were gone. such as the Linen and Things specially designed for people much older than me (I am almost 70 years old: it does not leave many customers of an older generation), the fast food which was always dirty, the fabric store where the manager hated all her customers, the antique shop which was filled with expensive junk, the restaurant where nobody ever greets you. They are gone, it may be sad, but it is healthy.

• We lost the very nice couple next door and their five kids. They both worked in construction, lost their job the same day and could not pay the rent. In six months, unemployment in Savannah has gone from 4.7% to 6.0 %. Construction, manufacturing, leisure and information are hit.
  

• Shops that I really liked disappeared, the nice small Mexican restaurant just slightly out of the way, the great little store of wine and cheese, who went from fair business to loosing money for the last five months.

• Smart places are in trouble like the elegant extended stay hotel nearby, the best restaurant, the gallery owner.

• LOWES sent me a card offering me 10 dollars if I spend $25.
  

• A friend of mine lost his job in the local newspaper... but we made it in the New York Times with a sad story and a beautiful picture.

Not in my lifetime?

It is a bit heart wrenching to hear all these people say that they did not think an election like this would happen in their lifetime, meaning: the election of a president of mixed race. It did not occur to me, probably because I was born in Europe.
This being said, I did not think that Barack Obama would win against the powerful Mrs Clinton. I did not expect either that both Senators Clinton and McCain would rely so much on their "experience"and allow Senator Obama to be the only candidate of "change". And I certainly underestimated the superb organization of Senator Obama, so I am not claiming good insights here, I am just saying that the race subject escaped me until the Bradley effect was brought up daily by the news.

Well, what happened in my lifetime?

My early life started with being saved by the American Army from the horrors of WWII, for which I have been grateful every minute of my life. I did not know the army was segregated because we lived close to an army hospital, and both white and black soldiers were welcome in our home. In the sixties, when Martin Luther King became known all over the world, I learned that the American democracy was not as perfect as I had imagined. A century after President Lincoln, the race problem was not solved? One needed soldiers to get to school with small black children? How rotten is that! Ah, but after President Johnson, the American society, surely would be perfect. I still remember President Johnson's words (1965) "Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others."

Two generations later, at some time before the new century, I found myself in Georgia, reunited with my American family. It took me about a week to learn that I was white, something I had superbly ignored for 60 years...
Not only every paper you sign asks you about your race (official papers, job papers "for statistics purpose only", poll papers, you name it) but people of both races talk to you differently because of the color of your skin. Nevertheless, most white people down here are not racists, some are just not very sensitive. But how many racist remarks does it take to impact a young black life? According to my observations and my conversations with kids around here, one nasty remark per month is all it takes to change their expectations. So, that does not take many racists. Those amongst you who suffered nasty remarks from family and friends (for whatever reason) when they were young understand what this means.
It is not much, and it is too much. Way too much, in my lifetime.