Words like "fairness", "equality", and "diversity" are not the words springing to mind for most people when one talks about border fencing and immigration law enforcement, but I intend to make a brief case for them. Those in favor of stricter border policing are often accused of racism, xenophobia, paranoia, possibly bad personal hygiene, who knows what all. However, the reason I would support an enforced border fence is because I love the whole idea of America as a melting pot...unfettered and unregulated immigration from our southern border (or our northern border, should it come to that!) actually does a lot more to quench diversity in America. Nations all around the world have citizens eager to come to the US, and it is unfair to these citizens that they do not have the major advantage of living in a country sharing an unpoliced land border with the US. By securing the border and stopping the flow of unregulated immigration, the actual regulated immigration could likely be increased, allowing in a huge diversity of new immigrants from every country and culture in the world: Vietnamese, Bangaladeshi, Zambian, Albanian, Samoan, Portuguese, Korean, Moroccan, Uruguayan, Mongolian, Uzbek, et cetera. A spirit of fairness and equality would ensure that immigrants from these countries are given similar opportunity than those from Mexico.

Maybe my interest is purely selfish...I was disheartened to note that Kansas City, while its establishments of a tacolitic nature are nearly innumerable, has scant or no real Eastern European restaurants. So while I do like the idea of diverse immigration from a cultural integration level, I also selfishly want a larger variety of cultures to bring their cultures to Kansas City and start up restaurants. I love Mexican food as much as the next guy (unless the next guy is the FREETO BANDEETO!), but I also want to try authentic pirozhki sometime.

I occasionally grow a little tired of this overdone cause célèbre among the university Left and the Muslim political community that keeps throwing out the word "apartheid" in regard to Israel and Palestine. First off, it is a cheap debating point to simply glom onto an Afrikaner word (not as though many of these folks have any interest in Boer culture and language) that was popularly and almost universally villified a couple decades ago; like reductio ad Hitlerum, it is making a point chiefly by associating Israel with something generally considered evil. But what really rankles me is the flaming hypocrisy involved.

Years ago, my boss who has travelled extensively in the Middle East and particularly the U.A.E. relayed the same basic information as is in this article. It's lengthy but well worth a read; the caste system of the Emirates is much more analogous to apartheid in my opinion than the interaction between Israel and the Palestinean authority.

I'm all hepped up and crunked out on diphenhydramine right now, so you'll have to excuse the flagging quality of today's post. I have an old Army survival field manual. I thought I'd share a couple pictures.

The first speaks (volumes!) for itself:


And the second:


Thank God our brave men of the US armed forces are equipped with inflating pants.

So, to "Don't Ask" and "Don't Tell" it appears we might need to add "Don't Broadcast Around the Globe Via Viral Internet Video":