Citizens of 4F

On Sunday night before St. Patty's day, Bruce Springsteen's concert encore in St. Paul ended with a rousing Irish sing-along called American Land. It's a Woody Guthrie-inspired of the immigrant heritage of American, and among it's lyrics are these:

What is this land America so many travel there
I'm going now while I'm still young my darling meet me there
Wish me luck my lovely I'll send for you when I can
And we'll make our home in the American land

This morning on the northbound 4F bus, I saw this young family that clearly came from somewhere far, far south of here, originally. It was likely an important morning trip, since at this time of day it costs $10.00 for a family of five to ride the bus. Perhaps they are going to the clinic; one of the children has a bad cough.

The story I visualized for them was entirely from my imagination, but in all likelihood is precisely the story of some immigrant family, if not this one.

The young parents are among the most proud and ambitious and hardworking of their extended families somewhere in central Mexico, south of Mexico City. They would have to be among the best and brightest, to pull up all stakes and travel 3,000 miles north, to a land of bitter snow to seek their fortune.

Like many of their fellow central American immigrants, they have taken exceedingly low paying and physically demanding jobs. The mother cleans rooms at one of the high rise hotels; the father works on one of the residential roofing crews, which in this area work all winter long, the workers clothed in thick insulated canvas bib overalls against the bitter cold. Come late summer, he may travel down to the Green Giant vegetable fields in southern Minnesota and Iowa to work 5:00 am to 10:00 pm harvesting peas and beets and green beans for the big commercial canneries, leaving his family behind in Minneapolis. The work is back-breaking, but unlike some of the jobs he's had in the city, the company doesn't take advantage of non-resident workers by stiffing them on the paycheck after squeezing two weeks of labor out of them.

The parents' paychecks will have taxes withheld for federal and state income tax; yet should they ever fall into difficult times, many citizens around here will resent the fact that they receive a bit of public assistance. And they also pay social security taxes, and medicare taxes, even though they will never receive any benefits whatsoever, unless they manage to naturalize as citizens, a feat that has become increasingly difficult in recent years.

The three children are approaching school age, and although their parents pay taxes, there are those that will regard the education of these kids as larceny. Like many such family, it may be the children learning English in the schools who translate for their parents at parent-teacher meetings. It likely will be from the children that the parents perfect their English. Like many central American children, these kids might prove themselves to be terrifically hard-working in the schools. My wife, a middle-school employee, has seen this again and again: Peruvian or Mexican or Tibetan of Somali kids triumphing against all odds.

If the parents and children work very hard, in 15 years or so the oldest of the kids might qualify for college—an accomplishment that would move this family from third-world status into modern times. But the governor of Minnesota, frantically trying to position himself as a Republican Vice Presidential candidate, has promised to veto a bill that would allow non-residential foreigners who have gone to local highschools for at least two years to go to college at residential tuition rates, rather than paying out-of-state tuition.

So these kids, if they're lucky enough to qualify after 15 years of hard work, will pay more to go to college than the privileged white kids from Wisconsin, who happen to enjoy reciprocity with Minnesota.

This kind of mean-spirited policy is shrewdly concocted by Governor Pawlenty, since he knows it will cast him as being tough on immigration with the Republican party machine.

Soon before the family departs the bus on Lake Street, the little girl sitting on the end catches my eye, and her face lights up in a beautiful shy smile as she buries her face in her mother's sleeve. As they leave the bus, the little girl looks back and waves at me.

Have a Drink, Miss Kelly

Naturally, I'm disappointed and outraged over the spectacle of another prominent politician betraying the public through his arrogance and lack of moral control. And I really don't like the fact that New York governor Eliot Spitzer is a democrat. Republican vice amuses me; democratic vice disappoints me.

But the whole hooker-gate event does raise a somewhat academic question in my mind:

What can a call-girl possibly do for you that might be worth $4,300?

Some years ago as I was dining alone in a hotel bar in Vegas, a stunningly beautiful woman approached me and after a naive few minutes of conversation, she offered to do whatever I wanted, for hours and hours, for the sum of $400.

Rest assured that there are many, many reasons such an experiment did not then, nor is ever likely to, happen. Performance anxiety, cheapness, and yes, that pesky moral character make me one of the most boring men in America. A mildly flirtatious woman makes me blush furiously. You can imagine my reaction to this event.

But I now confess to wondering what in God's heaven a man might purchase for $4,300. I ask myself what might coax me to consider such a tryst for this kind of fee—assuming I had that kind of loose cash laying around.

First of all, I can tell you that certain credentials would need to be met. To start with, the professional lady would need to be the spitting image of Grace Kelly, from the era of "Rear Window."

And there would be certain educational requirements to be met. Certainly a master's degree in comparative lit or religious studies from a prominent college, followed by a PhD in debauched sensuality from Anais Ninn University. I like a good conversation in between workouts.

And for $4,300, I'd think I'd be entitled to a 24-hour-a-day libertine adventure for at least two weeks. I'd insist on a contract to that effect.

I told you I was cheap. And I have high expectations.

Christian Taliban?

Mona Dobrich, an orthodox Jew, grew up in Sussex County, Delaware——frequently the only Jewish student in a predominantly Christian school district. It was quite common for Mona to quietly endure school programs and meetings that began or ended with Christian prayers, and for the most part she had no trouble with this. Most of her schoolmates at least accepted her, and she fully understood that she was a very small minority in this culture.

But as Mona's daughter, Samantha, grew up in the same school district, Mona became increasingly uncomfortable with a Christian religious atmosphere that was growing mor and more intolerant of other beliefs. And when, at Samantha's high school graduation, a minister's prayer proclaimed that Jesus was the only avenue to truth and salvation, it occurred to Mona that this wasn't exactly proper, and might not even be legal, strictly speaking.

Mona wasn't some kind of strident social agitator. Her response was a quiet and proper request to the local school board that future public events of this type feature a more generic and less exclusionary prayer element. She didn't want to do away with the religious element, just make it more universal.

But news of this quiet request leaked out, and soon the atmosphere of Sussex County, Delaware was full of angry, even hateful language on local talk radio, in the local newspapers, and at school board meetings.

Unbelievably, strident Christians viewed this request by Ms. Dobrich as an infringment on their rights of religious expression.

It was after hundreds of local people showed up at a school board meeting to protest Mona's simple and reasonable request, with shouts and cruel personal attacks, that Mona took the courageous next step and hired a lawyer and filed suit against the schol district. Another family, who has chosen to remain anomymous, also joined the suit.

The jihad began.

Death threats and personal attacks on the Dobrich children made it necessary for the family to move away from Sussex County, although the husband, Marco, stayed behind to work in the same job and protect the family's health insurance.

The family did try to reunite in at one point, but some boys came into the yard, pointed at son Alex, and announced that this was the boy who had "sued Jesus."
The Dobrich's then moved away from Georgetown for good, however the increased cost of living in a larger city eventually required the older daughter, Samantha, to drop out of college.

While discussing this story with friends and neighbors, I have run into a few people who believe that the Dobrich family got exactly what was coming to them. America IS a Christian nation, I've heard, and anybody who can't get on board deserves whatever they get.

To which I always say the following:

If things were ever to change...how would you feel if a high school graduation ceremony required you to kneel on a prayer rug, bow toward Mecca, and praise Allah.

If this would be fine with you, then I suppose it's also fine to praise Jesus at a public school event funded by public tax dollars.