O Tempora, O Mores! (October, 2007)

She Won’t be Missed

Elvira Arellano is a 32-year-old Mexican janitor, unwed mother, and illegal immigration cause célèbre. She jumped the border the first time in 1997, making her way to Washington State, where immigration agents caught and deported her. She returned almost immediately, gave birth to an anchor baby named Saul in 1999, and moved to Illinois, where she found a job cleaning airplanes at O’Hare International Airport. Her luck ran out in 2002 when she was arrested and convicted of working under a fake Social Security number. Miss Arellano fought her second deportation for nearly four years, arguing that being sent to Mexico would violate the rights of her son, an American citizen. By August 2006, immigration authorities had finally had enough, and ordered her into custody. Instead of surrendering, Miss Arellano took “sanctuary” in Adalberto United Methodist Church, a Chicago storefront headed by Rev. Walter “Slim” Coleman, a left-wing political activist and “labor organizer.” The principle of religious sanctuary, a holdover from the Middle Ages, has no standing in American law. Nevertheless, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took no action against Miss Arellano, perhaps fearing there would be bad press if they raided a church.

Miss Arellano wasn’t exactly cowering in fear inside her “sanctuary.” Undoubtedly coached by Rev. Coleman’s wife, Emma Lozano, the director of an immigration pressure group called Centro Sin Fronteras, Miss Arellano conducted several press conferences. On August 15, the anniversary of the day she came to the church, she announced she would go to Congress to testify about illegal immigrants. In her statement, she blamed the United States for making her come: “I came because of what NAFTA and other US economic policies had done to my country in which I could no longer find work that paid a living wage.”

Instead of heading straight for Washington, Miss Arellano left Chicago by car on August 17, for Los Angeles, where she spoke at a rally for illegal aliens. On August 19, ICE agents arrested her outside of Our Lady Queen of Angels church and deported her to Tijuana. At first her son stayed in the United States, but has since flown to Mexico to be with his mother.

We haven’t heard the last of Elvira Arellano, who is now being compared by the pro-illegals to Rosa Parks. She says she intends to continue to fight against US immigration law. “She’ll be organizing on the Mexican side of the border while we’re organizing in the States,” says Rev. Coleman.

Miss Arellano is already a hero in Mexico. On August 22, a Senate committee voted to urge President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting her deportation. In late August Miss Arellano even met President Calderon. “What I’m asking for is a diplomatic visa so that I can be an ambassador for peace and justice because I’m not a terrorist and the United States can’t continue treating undocumented migrants as terrorists,” she explained.

President Calderon has asked the foreign ministry to look into this, and he even mentioned Elvira Arellano in his annual state of the nation address delivered on September first. “I want to express again an energetic protest at the unilateral measures taken by the US Congress and government which exacerbate the persecution and abusive treatment of undocumented Mexican work,” he said, and repeated “the categorical rejection of the building of a wall on our common border.” [Illegal Immigrant Deported after Leaving Church, AP, Aug. 20, 2007. Istra Pacheco, Mexican Senate Takes Up Cause of Mother Deported from United States, AP, Aug. 23, 2007. Deported Mexican Migrant Mom Asks Mexican President to Return to US as Peace Ambassador, AP, Aug. 28, 2007. Mexico’s Calderon Protests US Crackdown on Immigrants, Reuters, September 2, 2007.]

Too Few Whites

In late August, the Civil Rights Project of the University of California at Los Angeles issued a report claiming that the June Supreme Court decision limiting the power of school administrators to assign students by race threatens to increase school segregation. It says the US risks becoming a nation in which the coming non-white majority (non-whites now make up more than 40 percent of all school children) will suffer in “separate and inferior” schools. “Resegregation . . . is continuing to grow in all parts of the country for both African Americans and Latinos and is accelerating the most rapidly in the only region that had been highly desegregated — the South.” The report also warns that this will damage the US economy by shortchanging non-whites. Hispanics, the fastest-growing segment of the population, will suffer the most: “Too often Latino students face triple segregation by race, class and language.”

Interestingly, the report doesn’t blame “racism” for any of this. The main culprit is the rapidly growing number of blacks and Hispanics, and the decrease in the number of white children, thanks to the post-“baby boom” generation’s preference for smaller families. There just aren’t enough white children to spread around anymore. [Matthew Bigg, Segregation in Schools is Increasing: Report, Reuters, Aug. 29, 2007.]

Death in Black and White

According to a new study from the Public Policy Institute of California, white men in California can expect to live an average of seven years longer than black men: 75.5 years, compared to 68.6 years. Differences in heart disease and homicide rates account for much of the gap. Homicide is the sixth leading killer of black men but only the 20th for whites. White women live, on average, five years longer than black women, in large part due to higher black rates of diabetes and stroke. Asians and Hispanics in California live longer than whites. Among Californians of all races, heart disease, cancer and strokes were the three leading causes of death, except for Hispanic men, for whom accidents are the number three cause of death. Accidents are the fourth leading cause for black men.

Hispanics live considerably longer than blacks, despite similar levels of poverty. Experts believe this may be because immigrants ate less junk food and were less sedentary in their native countries, before they came to the United States. Better health among Hispanics tends to disappear in the second generation.

The “legacy of racism” rather than genetics or differences in behavior is the first explanation some health experts give for mortality differences between whites and blacks. Dr. Robert Ross, president of the California Endowment, a private foundation that works to improve the health of poor people, says racism is part of “a pretty complicated soufflé” that includes poverty, education and “health issues.”

The differences in life expectancies between white and black men in California are greatest at younger ages, because many of the leading causes of deaths for blacks — homicide, accidents, and AIDS (the eighth leading cause) — kill at younger ages. Once black men turn twenty-five, the life expectancy gap shrinks to 5.6 years compared to seven years at birth.

Whites have always had higher life expectancies than blacks. In 1900, the nationwide average for whites was 47.3 years, compared to 33 years for blacks, for a gap of 14.3 years. By 2003 the national gap had narrowed to 5.3 years. [Mary Engel, Study Finds Whites Still Outlive Blacks, Los Angles Times, Aug. 30, 2007.]

Unpardonable

Gabriel Prosser was a black slave who led an abortive slave revolt in 1800 known as Gabriel’s Rebellion. The plot was discovered when two slaves revealed plans of the uprising to authorities in Richmond, Virginia. Prosser (he had no official surname, and is referred to by that of his master, Thomas Prosser), along with 34 of his co-conspirators, was hanged on August 30, 1800. He had ambitious plans: he intended to capture Virginia governor (and future US president) James Monroe, negotiate an end to slavery, and “drink and dine with the merchants” of Richmond. Prosser expected to kill whites, although he told his followers to spare Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen. One of Prosser’s two white co-conspirators was French, a fact kept secret at the time. (The plot occurred during the so-called Quasi War with France, and Thomas Jefferson, a French sympathizer running for president, allegedly had Monroe suppress knowledge of French involvement.)

In August 2007, Virginia governor Timothy Kaine issued an informal pardon to Gabriel Prosser, would-be murderer. In a letter to the NAACP, Gov. Kaine wrote that Prosser was motivated by “his devotion to the ideals of the American revolution.” “Gabriel’s cause — the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality of all people,” he continued, “has prevailed in the light of history. It is important to acknowledge that history favorably regards Gabriel’s cause while consigning legions who sought to keep him and others in chains to be forgotten.”

Virginia NAACP official King Salim Khalfani says the governor’s action properly honors Prosser and his followers as “women and men of integrity who fought for freedom,” adding, “In the capital of the Confederacy, where monuments to the traitors of the Union are maintained with tax dollars, this is a momentous occasion.” [Virginia Governor ‘Pardons’ Slave Who Was Hanged for Leading Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800, AP, Aug. 31, 2007.]

Taylor in Lansing

On August 4, AR editor Jared Taylor spoke at a Council of Conservative Citizens meeting held in Lansing, Michigan. He spoke about the cover up of the murder of Laura Dickinson, a white woman who was killed by a black student at Eastern Michigan University last December. For months, the administration told no one about the murder, not even Miss Dickinson’s parents, who were led to believe their daughter had died of a previously diagnosed heart condition. When the truth came out, the president of the university, John Fallon, was fired along with several other top officials. Mr. Taylor spoke about the lessons to be learned from this case as well as from other high-profile — and not so high-profile — interracial murders.

Mr. Taylor was followed by Canadian immigration and free speech activist Paul Fromm, who gave an excellent talk on recent developments in his country. Afterwards, both speakers had lively discussions with an appreciative and welcoming audience. The meeting was hosted by John Raterink of the Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens.

Blacks and Herpes

During the 1990s, the federal government found that 21 percent of Americans had herpes, but 48 percent of blacks had the virus. A more recent survey found the figure is down to 17 percent for the general population, but there is no change among blacks.

GlaxoSmith-Kline, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the herpes drug Valtrex, has started an advertising campaign aimed at blacks. Called “Say Yes to Knowing” the campaign urges blacks to be tested. It features print and radio ads, with the radio ad copy reading in part, “Nearly one in two African-American adults has genital herpes. Could it be you? Could it be your partner? . . . A simple blood test is the best way to know if you have it.” The ads are running in heavily-black Atlanta, Baltimore and Detroit. They are co-sponsored by the National Medical Association, a society of black doctors, and the American Social Health Foundation, which fights venereal disease. Herpes cannot be cured, but Valtrex reduces the duration and severity of outbreaks, and makes the disease harder to give to others.

Critics say there is no need to conduct large scale testing on people who do not show symptoms, and accuse GlaxoSmithKline of using scare tactics to drum up sales of the medicine, which costs $192.88 per month. Others say the ads insult blacks. The Baltimore commissioner of public health refused to support the campaign, but Anita Moncrease, a doctor and consultant to the Detroit Health Department, supports it. “I am concerned about the negative connotations because this is a sexually transmitted disease,” says Dr. Moncrease, who is black, “but I am concerned about the public health of the citizens of Detroit even more.” [David Brown, Ads Urging Herpes Test Target Black Community, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 30, 2007.]

‘White Males Wake Up’

Retired CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw, 67, recently received a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists at Bally’s hotel in Las Vegas. In his acceptance speech he said: “Beyond this ballroom tonight, white males wake up. Globally, you are an island speck in an ocean of color. The reins of power will weaken and so will your grip — if you do not faithfully support our nation’s greatest strength, diversity.” [David Paulin, Former CNN Anchor Bernard Shaw has a ‘Don Imus’ Moment at a Convention of Black Journalists, www.BigCarnival. Blogspot.com, Aug. 28, 2007.]

Homicide Rate Up

In the 1970s, 29 percent of the people murdered in Philadelphia were black men aged 15 to 29. Now that group accounts for 50 percent of murder victims, with approximately one in 66 being killed every year. The Philadelphia Inquirer notes that gun killings rose 25 percent from 2003 to 2006, “fueled mostly by young black males shooting other young black males.” Fifteen years ago, 23 percent of all black men in Philadelphia were either in prison, awaiting trial, on probation, or on parole. Today, that figure is 30 percent.

The Inquirer, admits that the rise in killings “is not a white problem,” adding, “The number of homicides among whites has remained fairly stable for 25 years, despite yearly variations.” [Tom Ferrick, Jr., A Generation at War with Itself, Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 29, 2007.]

Best Cities for Blacks

Black Enterprise magazine, which claims a circulation of 3.9 million readers, has recently published a list of the “top 10 ‘best’ cities” for blacks to “live, work, and play.” Here they are:

1. Washington, DC
2. Atlanta, Georgia
3. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
4. Houston, Texas
5. Nashville, Tennessee
6. Dallas, Texas
7. Charlotte, North Carolina
8. Indianapolis, Indiana
9. Columbus, Ohio
10. Jacksonville, Florida

[Sherri Williams and Tracy Turner, Columbus is Magazine’s No. 9 Best City for Blacks, Columbus Dispatch, April 26, 2007.]

De Facto Amnesty

According to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, the US Department of Justice prosecuted only two percent of illegal aliens caught trying to cross the US-Mexican border between October 1, 2000 and September 30, 2005. This means the authorities escorted no fewer than 5.2 million illegals back across the border and released them. According to a recent Department of Justice memorandum, in Texas, most illegal border jumpers have to be caught at least six times before their cases will even be referred for prosecutors. [Alicia A. Caldwell, Prosecution Negligible for Illegal Immigrants, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7, 2007.]

Blue-Eyed Advantage?

A recent study by University of Louisville professor emeritus Joanna Rowe suggests that people with blue eyes are likely to achieve more in life intellectually and academically than people with brown eyes. Prof. Rowe also found that lighter-eyed test subjects were generally more successful at planning and time management and were better strategic thinkers. Brown-eyed people were better at tasks involving reaction time. Prof. Rowe had no explanation for what she found. “It is just observed, rather than explained,” she said. Press accounts did not say whether Prof. Rowe’s subjects were all white or were a mix of races. [Ben Clerkin, Why Blue-eyed Boys (and Girls) are so Brilliant, Daily Mail (London), Aug. 20, 2007.]

Prof. Rowe’s research confirms work published by Morgan Worthy in his 1974 book, Eye Color, Sex, and Race, in which he found behavioral differences related to eye color in animals as well as people.

Sensible Swiss

The Swiss People’s Party, the largest party in Switzerland, wants to get tough on young criminal aliens. It is pushing for a referendum on a proposal to deport the families of immigrant minors convicted of violent crimes, drug offenses or welfare fraud. The poster for the campaign is explicit: three white sheep kicking out a black sheep over a caption reading, “for more security.” “As soon as the first ten families and their children have been expelled from the country, things will get better at a stroke,” explains Ueli Maurer, People’s Party president. “We believe parents are responsible for bringing up their children. If they can’t do it properly, they will have to bear the consequences.”

Critics liken the campaign to “Sippenhaft” or kin liability, according to which the Nazis are said to have held the relatives of criminals responsible for their crimes. “This way of thinking shows an obvious ‘blood and soil’ mentality,” sniffs an editorial in the Zurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. Others say the policy is similar to those enacted by Stalin and Mao to punish opponents. Despite the hyperventilation of the critics, there has been little negative reaction to the posters from the Swiss public. “We haven’t had any complaints,” says Mr. Maurer.

The People’s Party has used racial imagery to win political victories in the past. In 2004, the party successfully campaigned for tougher immigration laws using a poster that featured a picture of dark hands reaching into a box filled with Swiss passports.

The People’s Party is working on several other proposals. It wants to ban the construction of minaret towers on mosques and Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, the highest-ranking party official in the Swiss government, says he wants to “soften” anti-racism laws because they infringe on freedom of speech. [Frank Jordans, Swiss Deportation Policy Draws Criticism, AP, September 1, 2007.]

Stalin Would be Proud

You would think an organization with nearly $200 million in the bank and a budget of close to $30 million could do something right — not the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

On August 21, commentator Patrick Buchanan quoted a few statistics from the New Century Foundation study, The Color of Crime, in his syndicated column, which also appeared on the VDARE.com web site. He noted, for example, that blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks, and that they are seven times more likely than other Americans to commit murder.

This is just the sort of thing the SPLC doesn’t want you to know, and one of its writers named Heidi Beirich went right to work, trying to keep anyone else from quoting The Color of Crime ever again. Did she try to prove that blacks do not commit more violent crime against whites than blacks? Or that they are not more likely than other groups to commit murder? Of course not; the facts can’t be refuted. Instead she screamed that the New Century Foundation is “white supremacist,” and that our publications and research are racist, racist, racist, racist. (She can’t say the word often enough — she used it, on average, every 85th word.)

Just how racist are we? Miss Beirich cited American Renaissance: “A 2002 article, for instance, argued that blacks are inherently pathological, suffering from a ‘personality disorder of which the central feature is lack of a moral sense.’”

What did we actually say? The complete sentence — written by Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus of the University of Ulster — was not about blacks: “Psychopathic personality is a personality disorder of which the central feature is lack of a moral sense.” He then pointed out that in the 65 years since the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has been in use, blacks have consistently scored higher than whites on psychopathic personality, while Asians have scored lower.

These are the scientific facts Miss Beirich twisted to make it sound as if Prof. Lynn thinks all blacks are “inherently pathological.” No wonder her article posted on the Internet included live links to other sources, but not to Prof. Lynn. She wouldn’t want her readers to know what he really said.

Even more extraordinary was Miss Beirich’s attempt to explain how The Color of Crime got things wrong. An article in the SPLC’s very own “Intelligence Report,” she claimed, soundly refuted it. The article is seven years old. Our research was published in 2005. Even with $30 million a year you can’t refute studies that have not yet been written.

Miss Beirich went on with the SPLC’s usual hash of distortion, smear, and guilt-by-association — throwing in “racist” every 85 words — as she tried to scare Mr. Buchanan away from facts she doesn’t want Americans to hear. That won’t work, of course, because Mr. Buchanan cares about the truth, not about the SPLC’s dishonest yapping.

Miss Beirich hopes that others may not be made of the same stuff as Mr. Buchanan, that they will be scared off at the thought she might blast them with her favorite word. For that is the SPLC’s mission: suppress facts, shout down opponents, stamp out dissent, demonize anyone who disagrees. Stalin was good at this. So was Mao. It’s what people do when they have neither facts nor morals.

Another Persecution

Membership in the British National Party, while still legal in Britain, may be hazardous for one’s career. Peter Phillips’s candidacy for the presidency of the Royal Institute of British Architects was derailed in 2006 when his party membership was revealed in the press (he still got 17 percent of the vote in a three-way race). Most AR readers recall the case of Simone Clarke, the “BNP Ballerina” who endured weeks of bad press, protests, and an organized campaign to get her fired from the English National Ballet when her party membership became public in December 2006 (she is still dancing).

The latest victim is Mark Walker, a 36-year-old instructor at Sunnydale Community College in County Durham, England. The school suspended Mr. Walker for “misusing” school equipment: He logged onto the BNP web site on an office computer. Mr. Walker and the BNP claim the suspension, and a series of “harrowing” investigative meetings that followed, are retaliation for Mr. Walker’s membership in the party (he stood as a candidate in a local election) and his open criticism of Labour. “We are certain this action would not have been taken against someone who had looked at the websites of the Commission for Racial Equality or the Green Party,” says BNP spokesman Phil Edwards.

The school says otherwise. “We are happy to state categorically that Mr. Walker has not been suspended because of any political affiliations he may hold,” says Headmistress Sue Byrne. She would not elaborate on the reason for the suspension, citing “privacy concerns.”

More than 50 supporters of Mr. Walker protested outside the school on September 3. BNP Chairman Nick Griffin urges anyone interested in helping Mr. Walker to contact Miss Byrne at general@sunnydaleschool.co.uk. [Demo Over BNP Teacher Suspension, BBC, September 3, 2007. Caroline Smith, School Picket for Right-Wing Leader, Sunday Sun (Newcastle), September 2, 2007. Matt Weaver, BNP Member Fails in Riba Presidency Bid, Guardian (London), July 26, 2006.]

‘White Gold’

Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, but Nigerians do not know how to pump their own oil. Westerners get the oil out of the ground and are also a source of revenue for Nigerian gangs and regime opponents. Kidnapping “white gold,” as the oil men are called, is big business. More than 150 have been snatched so far this year, double the total for all of last year. These unexpected staff cuts have reduced Nigerian oil production by 25 percent, contributing to the rise in oil prices.

Government officials have found a way to cash in. They often act as mediators between the kidnappers and the oil companies’ hostage negotiators and like to take a cut of the ransom. “Practically everyone involved in hostage negotiations has had his hands soiled,” says a member of the rebel group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which is, itself, responsible for many high-profile kidnappings. “Officials merely up the demands of the abductors and keep the rest to themselves, most times unknown to the abductors.” In one instance, members of the Nigerian security forces threatened to kill a Westerner if he told anyone that middlemen had siphoned off part of the ransom.

The business is growing; there were five kidnappings in the first two weeks of July alone: a three-year-old British girl, an adult Briton, two New Zealanders, an Australian, a Venezuelan, and a Lebanese. All were released unharmed.

Oil workers now travel in heavily armed convoys, with sirens blaring. When you hear the sound, says a local, it means, “Ah, the whites are coming. It’s like ice cream vans in a [Western] country.” [Katherine Houreld, Kidnap Gangs Target ‘White Gold,’ Scotsman (Glasgow), July 13, 2007.]

Novel Solution

In the small Himalayan nation of Nepal, which borders India and China, it is common to sacrifice animals to appease Hindu gods. When something went wrong with one of the state-run airline’s two Boeing 757s, airline officials sacrificed two goats to Akash Bhairab, the sky god. The ceremony, carried out on September 2 at the international airport in Kathmandu, appears to have worked. Says Raju K.C, a senior airline official, “The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights.” [Airline Sacrifices Goats to Appease Sky God, Reuters, September 5, 2007.]

In the Jeans

We reprint the following item verbatim and in toto:

“In Congo, which has lost an estimated 4 million people in the civil wars of the last decade and where many must get by on about 30 cents a day, ‘gangs’ of designer-clothes-wearing men periodically square off against each other in preening contests in the streets of Kinshasa to prove that Versace and Gucci look better on them than on others. Papy Mosengo, 30 (interviewed for a November 2006 Los Angeles Times report), still lives with his parents, sleeps in a dingy, closet-sized room, and leaves the child-care expenses to his ex-girlfriend, but he owns 30 top-of –the-line outfits and spends $400 monthly on clothes. Said he, ‘This is just what I am.’ (The ‘cloth cults’ of Congo are said to have been around since the 1970s.)” [Cultural Diversity, Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird, July 5, 2007.]

Like Father, Like Son

Falsal Wangita, 25, is one of the 43 children of the late Ugandan tyrant, Idi Amin. He now lives in England, where he has racked up a string of convictions as leader of a gang known as the “North London Somalis.” On January 28, 2006, up to 40 North London Somalis surrounded “engineering student” Mahir Osman, 18, and stabbed him to death with 21 knife wounds. The victim was a member of a rival Somali gang, the “Centric Boys.” Closed circuit video recorded the murder as Mr. Wangita and his pals surrounded their quarry, shouting “Stab him through the heart.” At his murder trial in August, Mr. Wangita was convicted of “violent disorder” and “conspiracy to wound,” and was sentenced to five years in prison. His father killed an alleged 400,000 people, so Mr. Wangita is not yet in his league.

Mr. Wangita’s mother, Idi Amin’s fifth wife, is said to be Sarah Kyolaba Amin, now 52. She met Amin while she was a go-go dancer known as “Suicide Sarah,” attached to an Ugandan military unit called the “Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band.” Mrs. Amin left her husband in 1982, claimed asylum in Germany, and then moved to England. When Idi Amin died in August of 2003, she was running a cafe in East London, serving African dishes like goat stew and cow hoof in gravy. [Steve Bird, Idi Amin’s Son was Leader of London Gang that Stabbed Teenager to Death in Street, Times (London), Aug. 4, 2007.]

i.beat.Blaxx

German electronics manufacturer TrekStor recently introduced a new model of MP3 player, to which, in all innocence, it gave the name “i.beat.Blaxx.” Daniel Szmigiel, executive director of TrekStor, claimed that the new i.beat.Blaxx “precisely reflects the desires of the young, trend-conscious target group we are aiming for,” adding that the new player was ideal for “those who wish to do a lot more with their MP3 players than just listen to music.” When English speakers complained, TrekStor quickly changed the name to “Blaxx.” [Stuart Miles, Pocket-Lint — Gadget News & Reviews, www.Pocket-Lint.co.uk, www.AdRants.com, Aug. 27, 2007.]

Suffer the Little Children

According to New Zealand police statistics, Maoris are two to five times more likely than whites to beat or torture children. Liz Segedin, a doctor at Starship Hospital for children in Auckland, says at least one child a month is admitted with brain injuries.

In June, Maori Chris Kahui was arrested for bludgeoning to death his three-month-old twin sons. In July, police arrested four Maoris in the case Nia Glassie, who was hung on a clothesline and spun in an electric dryer. The child’s other relatives usually know about abuse, but Maoris like to solve problems without going to the police.

Maori are worse off than white New Zealanders by nearly every social indicator: They are more likely to be poor, uneducated, unemployed, on welfare, or alcoholic. Experts say this is what makes them beat their children.

Prime minister Helen Clark, whose government depends on Maori support, denies that Maoris hurt children more than whites. “It occurs in all communities,” she says. Peter Dunne, leader of the United Future Party, sees it differently. “It’s time to stop pretending that the kind of child abuse suffered by Nia Glassie and the Kahui twins is not a Maori problem,” he says. “Within some of the families, there is a culture of cover-up and collaboration that condones long-term child abuse.” [Child Abuse Claims Raise Queries about Maori Culture, Independent (London), July 31, 2007.]

Liberal Going Illiberal?

Hispanics are changing the face — and the thinking — of a small farming town named Liberal, which is in the heart of the first county in Kansas to become majority Hispanic. Seward County became officially 51 percent Hispanic in 2006; most people in Liberal, population 20,000, seem to think it is 60-70 percent Hispanic, and that most are illegal immigrants.

The school district’s 4,325 students are now 67 percent Hispanic and the police force is desperate for interpreters. In the early evening, downtown Liberal throngs with Mexicans pushing three-wheeled carts adorned with bells, hawking Mexican-style popsicles known as paletas. “The scene looks like one out of Mexico,” writes The Wichita Eagle.

This is a big change for a town that has a Yellow Brick Road and an annual pancake race, and is proud of its Norman Rockwell image. Jesse Russell, 65, a former Liberal High School quarterback, doesn’t like it. “The town went from being a clean town to a filthy town,” he says, and adds that people must buy extra insurance because of uninsured Hispanic drivers. “This ain’t the town I grew up in,” he says, and he would like it back. His plan? “We spend $10 billion on Iraq,” he says. “We should spend $10 billion sending them home.” [Brent D. Wistrom, Hispanic Influx Gives Liberal, Kan., a New Face, The Wichita Eagle, September 2, 2007.]

Judge Stops Crackdown

Many illegal aliens steal social security numbers from American citizens to get work. The Social Security Administration planned to stop this fraud by sending letters to the public to check the identities of social security card holders. The plan, ordered by Homeland Security, was to use the social security database to cross-reference authentic social security number identities with the people who were actually using the numbers.

Before the government could mail its letters, the AFL-CIO, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to stop it. The suit claims Homeland Security is exceeding its authority to enforce immigration laws and is illegally misusing the Social Security Administration’s database. The AFL-CIO further claims that the verification letters will pressure businesses to fire workers whose documents are flagged, and that this could expose many immigrants — including legal residents — to job discrimination.

On August 31, a federal judge in San Francisco, ordered the government not to send out the letters until she hears arguments on October 1. In the meantime, Homeland Security must forego the help of the Social Security Administration. [Spencer S. Hsu, Immigrant Crackdown Halted: Judge Delays D.H.S. Plan to Check Social Security Numbers, Washington Post,September 1, 2007.]

Robots to the Rescue

According to the US Department of Labor, more than half of all farm workers are illegal aliens. In California alone, which produces half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal-alien farm hands. California farmers claim that without them, produce would rot in the fields or they would have to pay legal workers astronomical wages. Agricultural interests adamantly oppose increased border security or crackdowns on illegal aliens.

A simple solution would be mechanization, but farmers and growers claim it is too expensive and does not work on delicate crops. Recent advances in robotics may put an end to this claim.

A new generation of harvesters has robotic arms and digits that use computers and hydraulics to operate with near-human sensitivity. They use state-of-the-art mapping and imaging to recognize and sort fruits and vegetables, and should soon even be able to judge ripeness.

“The technology is maturing just at the right time to allow us to do this kind of work economically,” says Derek Morikawa, of San Diego-based Vision Robotics. His company is working with the California Citrus Research Board and Washington State Apple Commission to develop an advanced fruit picker, which he believes will sell for about $500,000.

Others are working to develop a machine to harvest premium grapes, which still have to be picked by hand. A company called Ramsay Highlander already sells machines that partially automate lettuce picking, and is working on a new model that picks, cleans, cores and packs lettuce and other greens. [Jacob Adelman, Robots May Become Essential on US Farms, AP, September 6, 2007.]

A harvesting machine has never been known to produce an anchor baby.

Lessons from Herndon

Like many American cities, Herndon, Virginia had a problem with Hispanic day laborers congregating on street corners looking for work. During the first half of 2005, the town — located just 25 miles west of Washington, DC — went through a bitter debate over whether to build a hiring hall to keep these men off the streets. Opponents argued that this would be implicit approval of illegal workers, but in August 2005, the town council voted to build the Herndon Official Workers’ Center. The council later made it illegal for people to hire workers anywhere but in the center.

The people of Herndon were furious over what they saw as a capitulation to illegals, and took revenge in the next year’s elections. They tossed out all but one of the five city councilors who had voted for the hiring hall — including the mayor — and replaced them with candidates who had campaigned on a crackdown on hiring illegals.

The new mayor, political newcomer Stephen DeBenedittis, had promised to make sure only legal workers used the hiring center, and Herndon tried to find an organization that would check papers and turn away illegals. Amazingly, the city could not find a single site operator willing to enforce the law.

In the meantime, a man who broke Herndon’s ordinance by hiring a laborer in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven rather than in the hiring hall sued to overturn the ordinance. In August 2007, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Leslie Alden ruled that the First Amendment permits people to discuss employment wherever they like, so Herndon could not restrict hiring transactions to the hiring hall. Worse, the judge said the city had no right to keep illegals out of the hall.

Mayor DeBenedittis and his town council were in a fix. They could no longer restrict hiring to the hall, nor could they keep illegals out of it. On September 5, 2007, the mayor announced the city would shut down the labor center rather than let illegals use it. Thanks to a meddling judge, the city is now right back where it was, with gangs of men hanging out on street corners looking for work. Mr. DeBenedittis promises he will use zoning and traffic laws to keep order. [Bill Turque and Nikita Stewart, Labor Site Backlash Felt at Polls in Herndon: Three Who Supported Immigrant Center Ousted, Washington Post, May 3, 2006. Bill Turque, Anti-Solicitation Law Challenged, Washington Post, January 7, 2007. Bill Turque, Herndon to Shut Down Center for Day Laborers, Washington Post, September 6, 2007.]

Herndon’s experience has been instructive. First, government flouted the will of the people and made it easy for illegals to find work. The people elected a new government to undo the damage. Now a judge has again thwarted the will of the people.