Nuke It

You know, the other day I made the joke about using nuclear weapons to clean up the Gulf oil spill. We did the same thing with Bikini Atoll, and that worked great for fixing the Cold War in scaring the Russians into giving us respect. And sure the atoll is still uninhabitable, but at least we won the Cold War! When she heard me say this, Jen looked at me like I was crazy.

And then I found this:

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Bobby Ray (aka B.o.B.)

For Mother's Day, I gave Jen a CD of B.o.B's mixtape that was released for free on the internet. B.o.B. recently released his first commercial album, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard pop charts. Last year before he was famous, Jen and I saw him open for Q-Tip at a free concert, and both of us were amazed at how talented he was. Jen was sad he didn't give a longer concert, even though she loved Q-Tip's work in A Tribe Called Quest for several years.

What was cool about that hip-hop concert was we took two neighbor kids, and had some wild adventures learning not to give Mt. Dew to minors. This is seriously the kind of parents we are going to be.

Anyway, here is one of her favorite songs from the mixtape:

Party in My Tummy

Since Jen and I discovered this video last year, we seriously sing this song at every meal. When we have kids, we are totally going to watch shows like this with them. We can't wait.

R.I.P. Hank Jones

Hank Jones, a famous jazz pianist, passed away two days ago at age 91. Here is probably my favorite song he contributed to, "Love For Sale", with Cannonball Adderly, Miles Davis, and Art Blakey (all of whom are among the best jazz musicians in history).

Illegal Immigration and Arizona SB 1070

For my internship at the SLC Immigration Court and Immigration Law Class, I’ve spent the past four months intensely studying the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) that controls immigration issues into this country. I’ve become more aware than ever of the inherent contradictions in existing laws that have incentivized illegal immigration.

For example, say an illegal immigrant in Utah marries a U.S. citizen. The U.S. citizen can then petition for their spouse to get a visa to be here legally. However, the immigrant must go back to their home country to pick up the visa at their country’s U.S. counselor’s office. But under the current INA, if an illegal immigrant leaves the U.S., they automatically receive a 10 year bar preventing their return. So because people don’t really want to wait ten years to be with their loved ones again, they are forced to wait in the shadows until the INA changes.

Another example is the number of work visas that are available every year. The Department of Homeland Security released their Annual Flow Report a few weeks ago that said last year 144,034 work visas were issued, compared to 747,413 family sponsored visas. Of those work visas, only a few thousand were issued to low skill workers. But there is a demand for hundreds of thousands of low skill workers to work in farming, construction, cleaning, etc.

The policy idea behind this is we want American jobs to go to Americans. But the policy doesn’t consider whether Americans want those jobs. Thus is born the inequality between the demand for workers and numbers of visas available.

Thousands of illegal immigrants are now in our country, but contrary to popular belief, they are not generally criminals. The Immigration Policy Center in 2007 issued a statistical study finding that Immigrants have lower incarcerations rates than natives, even among those who are high-school dropouts. Immigrant groups generally have larger incarceration rates once their children become assimilated. Studies like this one suggest that fears of illegal immigrants maybe greatly exaggerated.

But while the danger of illegal immigrants may be exaggerated, many people view it as a serious problem that must be dealt before it gets any worse. In recent years, many states, including Utah, have passed discriminatory legislation to attack the scourge of illegal immigration.

The new Arizona state anti-immigration law, SB 1070, makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime. It requires police to stop those whom they have a “reasonable suspicion” of being here illegally, and requiring everyone to carry documents showing proof of legal residency. If they are not carrying documents to demonstrate their legal status, the police can arrest them. It also enables citizens to sue police officers for not effectively enforcing the law.

The law is unconstitutional for several reasons. First, it is a violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution which basically states that when there are conflicting State and Federal laws, the Federal law is supreme. Because the federal INA already makes illegal immigration a federal offense, states cannot make it a state crime. Thus the state law is unconstitutional for its preemption of federal law.

The other major reason why the law is unconstitutional is because of its discriminatory intent and effect on Hispanics. The law, while facially neutral, is intended to target Hispanics. And this discriminatory effect is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

In my Counterterrorism class we have learned about how the public will look to leaders in times of crisis to quickly address the problem. Elected officials have a responsibility to protect their people. However, if the leaders act quickly on instinct and don’t carefully think through the implications of their policies, their decisions can lead to violations of individual rights.  Conversely, if the leaders don’t do anything to act, they will appear weak, and the people will look to leadership elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the Governor of Arizona wasn’t looking to the long term effects of her signing the law, but was instead focused on the short-term goal of only getting re-elected. Soon Arizonans, both legal and illegal, will begin to have their rights be violated.

I sincerely hope that Congress will have the courage to amend the INA in ways to fix our broken immigration system. I hope that our elected officials will make correct decisions, not just for short-term political gains, but for the long-term benefit of all Americans. And if the current leaders are incapable of effecting these changes, I hope that voters in November will elect new ones who will make responsible changes.

Kids, Don’t Rap at the Drive-through in Utah or You’ll Be Arrested

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These kids should have done it B-Money style with clean lyrics...oh wait...they did.

UMA Marshallese Education Classes

A few weeks ago, Jen and I stayed up very late into the night because we were unable to sleep. We were talking about many of the serious problems the Marshallese community faces here in Utah, and how many people that we know and love are facing tough times right now.

And then a series of ideas began to come to us of how to help. Along with the new ideas came an impression to write down all of our thoughts so we wouldn’t forget them in the morning. I’ve experienced revelation like this before, and I’ve come to recognize it as the Spirit guiding our thoughts and conversation to answer our prayers.

One of these revealed ideas was for the Utah Marshallese Association to host a series of education classes to help teach responsible adult behavior. Our proposed list of classes includes:

• Financial and credit responsibility
• Sexual education
• Healthy lifestyle management
• American citizenship and naturalization classes
• College enrollment
• Crime and fire prevention

One example of how these classes can help is with sexual education. Over the past two decades, Marshallese people have one of the highest fertility rates in the world. Marshallese women typically begin having children while teenagers, which can greatly inhibit their educational and work opportunities. By limiting their educational experiences, Marshallese women are limited in their ability to teach their children while raising them.

Adultery and extramarital relationships are also a big problem. Up in Spokane, Jen and I were amazed at how almost every family had a pastor who was having affairs with their wives’ sisters. Often these couples do not legally divorce, even if they have been separated for years and have multiple children with subsequent partners. This widespread adultery prevents their posterity from enjoying the full blessings of the law of chastity.

By teaching a Marshallese language class on the blessings of the law of chastity and dangers of unprotected sex, hopefully we can cut eliminate adultery and decrease the number of teenage pregnancies.

We are very excited for this and the other UMA classes. UMA is currently negotiating with West Valley City to use their City Hall for our forum. If you have other suggestions or ideas for this program, be sure to let me know!

Valleys of Neptune

I love Jimi Hendrix’s music. His creative approach to playing the guitar forever changed rock ‘n roll for the better.

A new Hendrix album came out a few weeks ago called Valleys of Neptune. Comprised of previously unreleased music, simply put, it’s awesome. I can’t stop listening to it!

Here’s a music video to accompany the new album:

Louie

Jen, Rudy and I adopted a new dog named Louie the day after New Years. Louie is super cute, and he and Rudy have become best buddies.

 Louie, Brian and Rudy the night they adopted Louie

Jen and I had been talking about getting another dog for several months, especially since we moved to our new apartment in Salt Lake City. Rudy became really depressed since we moved because he didn’t have his giant field or the social pack of dogs he was used to. He was lonely and unhappy, even though we would take him on lots of fun doggie walks and adventures.

We decided that the end of Christmas break was the best time to get another dog. We got him from the Utah Animal Adoption Center, a no-kill center in North Salt Lake. We brought Rudy with us to pick out “his” new dog at the shelter. They became best friends right away, and Louie came right up to us to snuggle. We fell in love with him and took him home.

 Louie the night we adopted him.

Louie is extremely obedient. He will do anything we ask, including taking baths. He is very eager to please and wants to keep us happy. He can play Frisbee for hours on end. He loves to snuggle, as well as wrestle with Rudy for hours.

 Louie and Rudy snuggling.

Frisbee!

Louie’s new trick is he realized that we control the dog through their collars, so he tries to steal Rudy’s all of the time. While wrestling, Louie can grab the collar in his mouth and yank it off, which makes Rudy look really embarrassed. It’s hilarious stuff.

Louie has a very thin fur coat, so he doesn’t shed very much. However, this thin coat makes him shiver all of the time when he is outside. We had to get him some sweaters and coats to keep him from freezing on walks. Jen and I are both a little embarrassed about this, but Louie loves wearing stylish sweaters.

One last note about Louie is that his primary love language is words of affirmation. He loves to be told that he’s a good boy, which he is!

Good Dogs: Rudy and Louie

Terrorist Dogs and Other Conspiracies

As I’ve said before, being a moderate makes me freak out when I see extremism on either the far right or far left. Unfortunately, living in Utah I see more of the far right being displayed. Here are some humorous examples of far right extremism from the Colbert Report:

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Let’s be honest…I’m not surprised about dogs being terrorists. Rudy used to be pretty destructive when Jen first found him and took him off the street. What is shocking is how people respond to the Census:

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Tonight is when the Utah Democrats and Republicans will be holding their around the state. You can get more information about the meetings here.

You can also find out what district you are in here.

With the recent passage of the Health Care Reform Bill, I'm sure tomorrow night will be a pretty wild and cacophonous night at the Republican caucus meetings. I plan to go to my area's Republican meeting to try to be the moderate voice of reason in the room. I'm really concerned about these extremely right-wing tea partiers trying to further push their radical agenda on the state, and want to do all that I can to temper the insanity.

Please try to attend your local meeting to try to talk some sense into these wackos! PLEASE!

And as if we needed another reason to show up, Super Dell is running for governor again!  We have to stop this guy!