Talked to the vet twice today and Doofus is doing much better and 'eating like a pig' (Now that's the Doofus I know and love) and I can bring him home tomorrow. Yay!
Also, I will probably not post tomorrow since I have a Sommelier Guild tasting of 1997 California Cabernet Sauvignon's that night. And, we are having a nice dinner to go along with it. Yummy!
Also, before I begin, here's a personality test to see just what type of person you are. We already know that you're smart, 'cause you're reading my stuff.
OK, since my cat is gonna live a little while longer I can stop the mushy stuff and get back to ranting. I opened up the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation today and came upon this heart wrenching article.
Border-crossing crackdown kills communities
"Here in Lajitas, that decision didn’t make the United States one iota safer from terrorists, but it did the ruin lives of a number of families."
Pardon me? What's that sound? Could it be violins playing Hearts and Flowers? Let's see what the problem is here.
Lajitas, Texas -- The wind is still. The only sound comes from the Rio Grande flowing past from right to left.
Sounds like the start of a song. "The Moon is full, my arms are empty. All night long I pleaded and cried."
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, this place bustled with activity. The change is startling. And sad.
Long before Europeans arrived on this continent, ancient peoples used this remote point on the Rio Grande as a crossing point.
Aha! A border crossing!
Generations of families who have lived along the Texas-Mexico border near the Big Bend National Park have used this river crossing at Lajitas as an integral part of their daily lives.
Aha! An illegal border crossing!
We sit silently looking across the river into Paso Lajitas, the little town in Mexico where we used to used to eat lunch, talk with the townsfolk and joke with the children.
There is no cafe there now. No townsfolk. No children. Paso Lajitas is dead, one of many ghost towns that dot this often harsh area along of the Texas-Mexico border.
So what happened, pray tell?
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a decision was made far away in Washington that America must do a better job protecting its borders from terrorists who might slip into the country and do us harm.
Well, yeah. We don't do a very good job of protecting our borders as evidenced by the large number of illegal aliens in this country.
The Lajitas crossing, like thousands of traditional crossings along the Texas-Mexico border, was not designated as an official border crossing point.
As a consequence, this crossing has never been manned by Customs and Border Patrol officers, which was perfectly reasonable since only local people used the crossing to go to jobs, buy groceries at the little general store or visit friends and relatives.
In other words, illegally cross the border. And, just maybe, buy some stuff that wasn't at the little general store. "Yo Pedro, got some of that coke? How much?"
After the Sept. 11 attacks however, the Border Patrol was ordered to arrest anyone attempting to cross the border outside of the few official border-crossing points between Texas and Mexico.
Ya see, there's this here law that says Mexico is there and the US is here and no one is allowed to just cross over into Mexico and back. It's against the law!
Here in Lajitas, that decision didn't make the United States one iota safer from terrorists, but it did the ruin lives of a number of families who have scratched out a living in this area for generations.
That's too bad. Boo hoo! I'm crying real tears here.
It doesn't take long to kill a town when you strip it of its jobs, access to groceries, schools and even telephones.
This must have been a real nice way station for illegal immigrants. If closing the border destroyed the town, what was its purpose?
Some people who talk border problems are referring to drug smuggling. Others are talking about illegal immigration of foreign workers who intend to come here and stay and then bring in their families thereby shortcutting legal immigration. Still others are talking about undocumented workers who slip into the United States to work at temporary seasonal jobs and then return to their native counties.
All of this, by the way, is against the law!
Since Sept. 11, people talking about border problems might be thinking about terrorists.
Yep! That too.
Few people who talk about border problems consider the thousands of people who have lived for generations along both sides of the U.S. border far removed from official border crossings and who have made crossing back and forth part of their daily lives.
Illegally crossing the border was part of their daily lives. Now we are enforcing the law and that's a bad thing.
As it has turned out, the entire village of Paso Lajitas, Mexico, and everyone who lived there became collateral damage in the war on terrorism.
Oh shit! Now I have to go have myself a big ol' cry.
Sob! Sob! Sob!