Immigration Reform

Since immigration reform is in the wind once again, I will share my proposal to solve our border problems. If you want to come to the US to work, you go to a US office in your town or at the border. You pay a fee for the processing services you receive. This fee should be at least $1200. You get your fingerprints taken, a photo taken and a DNA sample taken. Then a card is made with a smart chip in it to record your card usage and a GPS tracker is in the chip as well. You can then enter the US and anytime you want a job you show this card and you can work. If you wish to go home you can leave the US anytime. You can come back anytime during the time the card is valid. The card should terminate after a period of time and the smart chip can make sure the card is invalid. For a small fee the card can be renewed and the alien can remain in the country. If the alien is convicted of a crime the card database is notified and the card is invalidated electronically through the smart chip. And that my friends is how you solve a complex problem.

If you an alien is already in the United States, follow the same procedure and go to a US office to get your card.

This program has nothing to do with citizenship. If a person wishes to become a US citizen there is already a procedure for that. 

Miracle Molcajete

Molcajete

Mercado Libertad, Guadalajara

Miracle Molcajete on Bench

A few years ago I went to Guadalajara, Mexico. A friend of mine, knowing I was going south, asked me to buy her a molcajete. I said I would. So on the first full day in Guadalajara we go directly to the Mercado Libertad. This market has everything. From cooking utensils to pork skin. EVERYTHING. But I am on a mission to find a deal on a molcajete. I didn't consider that it might be a wise thing to wait to the end of the day to buy one. No, my mission was to buy one so I went straight to the market to shop. I spy a stack of molcajetes and I ask for the price. They wanted about $250 pesos. We walked on and found another shop. This one had molcajetes stack upon stack. Small, Large, Big, pig faces, no pig faces. They asked about $125 pesos for a good size pig faced molcajete. I thought I had a deal (That was about $12 USD) so I bought it. This was a miracle molcajete. You might note that the molcajete is made out of lava. It is a rock. Not a pebble, but a big rock. As I walked around the market it got heavier and heavier. Until it weighed about 100 lbs. At that point I thought it would be a good idea to get a carriage ride around town. You can see the molcajete I bought in the plastic bag on the carriage seat. I carried that monster throughout the day. The next problem was putting it into my luggage and lugging it back to the US. I surrounded it with my dirty laundry to protect it and loaded it on the plane. It came through ok and my friend appreciated her molcajete. I have had the pleasure of eating many things made in it so it was the real thing. It has to be seasoned much like a cast iron pan. You don't ever ever clean it with soap. I haven't been back to Guadalajara since to get my own molcajete. You can buy a gourmet version at Williams-Sonoma for about $50 US. BUT, it isn't as much fun as going to the Mercado Libertad and buying a miracle molcajete that gets heavier by the minute.

Margaret Gornick

I grew up in National City. It is a small town south of San Diego. It has suffered from an inferiority complex for years as it is surrounded by other cities and has no way to expand. San Diego has had its own issues with inferiority. So while San Diego booms into the millions, National City remains at about 50,000 people. When I was growing up, National City was even smaller. But even if it were a small city, it had resources that upon reflection were extraordinary. One of National City's treasures was Margaret Gornick. She had an artist studio in her garage where she painted and more importantly she taught.

She had about a dozen desks where students would come and learn to paint. From the very first day, we painted with oils. No crayons, watercolors or pastels. Oil paint, the real thing. Just like real artists. We didn't paint by numbers, we painted by the instruction of Mrs. Gornick. If we had difficulty with a detail, she would come and show us how to do it. Most of my pictures have her hand in them. I can't take all the credit for these pictures I painted but that was how we learned. Hands on. She would teach us about color, light and mixing paints. We had to paint color wheels. She taught us how to move the eye to the center of a picture.

In addition to teaching us the techniques of painting, Mrs. Gornick would teach us art appreciation. Most all of what I know about fine artists I learned from her. When I had art history classes in school, they were a breeze as I already had been exposed to most of the artists we studied.

When I was in high school I went to Europe with a church group. We saw all of Europe in 10 days. REALLY. Ok, so we tried. Anyway, when we reached Florence, the first site we went to that morning was the church Il Duomo that had at that time, Michelangelo's last Pieta. We walked as a group up to the statue which back then, had no screen, no barrier, we had total access to the work. Since it was unfinished you could see the chisel marks left by Michelangelo. It was like we was coming back tomorrow to finish it. So out of the rough rock, you see Christ and Mary and perhaps Michelangelo himself coming out of the rock. I stared. I circled the work, looking from top to bottom, side to side, totally lost in the marble. Before I knew it, I was alone and an hour had passed. My group had left and I was in a strange city without a clue where I was, needless to say, I found my way back to our youth hostel after a day exploring Florence on my own. Now, you may ask, why did I bring this up in the middle of my story about Mrs. Gornick? Because it was from her that I learned of Michelangelo. I learned how to appreciate his work. Appreciate it in a way far beyond the physical depiction of people he accomplished.

In 1960 I started studying with Mrs. Gornick. I was 8 years old. I studied with her for four years. I quit because I thought I had better things to do which wasn't true. In 1960 we had that great political campaign between Nixon and Kennedy. Mrs. Gornick started a painting of the new president before the election. By the first of November 1960 she had everything finished except the face. She had painting the body standing in front of the Rose Garden and the White House. After the election, she painted in the face of John Kennedy.

Mrs. Gornick died long ago, but her work lives on in all her students. I have found an art dealer on the internet that claims to sell her paintings so perhaps, you can buy an original Gornick. I would like to see that painting of the president again. Most of these paintings I did in 1963. The clown is my last painting with Mrs. Gornick, and like President Washington's famous portrait it is unfinished. A few years ago I went to New Orleans. I saw patios that looked like my painting. I am forever grateful that my mother sent me to learn from Mrs. Gornick.

Modern Drugstores

I developed a severe pain in my left wrist. I had broken it twice in my life. Maybe those misfortunes are coming back to haunt me. I tried taking aspirin but it gave no real relief. External arthritis creams were no better than potions from a medicine show. I was complaining to a friend and she suggested I get a splint. That was a great idea. I go to Walgreens to find a splint. I walk in the store and I see aisles of Christmas stuff, items as seen on TV, candy, sodas, makeup but no splints. I see in the very back of the store, the foot remedy section. I figure maybe next to the ankle wraps I could find a wrist splint. Sure enough, I found them. They had the splints on a rail stuck into the wall with a hook at the end. The first splints on the rail were extra-small. For those who know me nothing needs to be added, for those who don't, I haven't been extra-small since kindergarten. I found that the extra-large splints were in the very back of this rail and the only way to get them was to take off the bunch in front.  I do that and grab the extra-large and when I read the fine print, I notice that it was for the right hand. I had to repeat the process to get the left handed splint. By this time, my wrist is hurting and I am grumpy. I am not paid by the store to restock their rail which in my opinion is a stupid way to stock splints. So I leave a pile of splints below the rail. The splint has really helped the pain which is still there but not so constant.

UPDATE: This thing really worked. The pain has almost stopped. I don't have to wear the splint all the time. If ACE wants me to go on TV and say how it worked, I'm available.

Free Food

Last night I dropped into a grocery store. It was the one that was named Boney's, then Henry's now Sprouts. It still has the same market niche even with all the name changes. I found what I was wanting and I saw some ladies unpacking a box filled with jars of cookies. As I got in line, one of the ladies offered me a choice of cookies, either a cocoanut macaroon or vanilla macaroon. Normally, I don't take samples. But I was tired, waiting in line and I didn't eat any dessert at my last meal, so I took it.  These cookies were really small. Just a drop about the size of a Hershey Kiss. As I popped it into my mouth, the lady showed me the container which had in big bright letters ONLY FOUR CALORIES. I figured a cookie of that size should be about 12 calories, so the realization hit me. I asked her does it contain sugar? With great enthusiasm she said no, it had an artificial sugar. And then the chemical backtaste flooded my mouth. It was wretched. While all this was happening, an Asian woman slipped in front me of so I missed my place in line. I was desperate to get out of the store so I could rinse out my mouth. I would rather do without sweets than eat fake sweets. You know, there is not a single study showing that artificial sweeteners are effective with weight loss. So I avoid all of them like the poisons they are. I see people, fat as me, swilling diet sodas, so obviously, they have no effect. I prefer water anyway. The worst calories are the calories you don't want, so I got four calories that I didn't want without any satisfaction.

Wolf Crooks

My Senior year of high school I became good friends with Mike C. who was a pk.  Now, for you who do not know, pk stands for "preacher's kid". There is no greater holy terror than a pk. If there is trouble to get into, the pk will find it. If you wish to be led down the path of degradation, there is no better guide than a pk. Yes, they know how to rebel in the finest way.  So one lunch, Mike tells me, lets go get some Wolf Crooks. I, having no idea what Wolf Crooks were but having to maintain my air of coolness, agree.  Ok, for those who are as ignorant regarding Wolf Crooks as I was, here is the scoop. These are cigars soaked in rum. The ad from that time states "if you were soaked in 149 proof rum, you'd be a little crooked, too." The effect of all this rum soaking is to make a smelly, nasty, rank cigar. The kind of cigar that if a man were sitting in front of you at the ball game smoking a Wolfie, you would get up and walk to the bleachers to get away from it. (I know, there is no smoking now in stadiums, but back then there was smoking allowed everywhere and especially cigars at the ball park enjoyed with a cup of draft Schlitz.)

So Mike and I take off in his dad's 1965 Cadillac. It was a land yacht. White and huge. We get the pack of Wolf's and smoke them like we knew what we were doing inside the car driving around.  Finally, it is time to go back to school.  One thing I hadn't considered is the smell of the Wolfs lingered. It was in my clothes, hair, skin and breath. I stunk like a week old ash tray. My first class that afternoon was gym. So fortunately, I could change my clothes and put on my smelly gym clothes and be home free from my lunch of degradation with the pk. As I am changing my clothes, Garry arrives. He says to me "Someone has been smoking, I smell tobacco." I freeze. I'm busted.  But wait, the muses call out to me with the greatest inspiration to occur in my life to that time. I say "Garry, I smell it too. I think we should try and find who it is."  Well we looked all over the locker room to try and find the source of the stench. I looked high and low. I sniffed locker after locker. We just couldn't find the source of the odor and we had to get to class. So we never found the smoker. I didn't tell you, this was a private school. Not just any private school, but a church school. Not just any church but a Seventh-day Adventist Church school and the SDA's do not allow their members to smoke. It is forbidden. It is one of the eight mortal sins. Ok, SDA's don't have mortal sins but if they did, this was number eight. So I survived another day with my pk buddy. By the way, I didn't take up tobacco.

Magical Realism

When I was in law school, the contracts professor explained the use of weasel words in law.  The idea was a weasel would suck the juice out of an egg leaving the shell. So a weasel word was a word that would suck the meaning out of another word. The notion of Magical Realism was first used in art but soon was applied to several Latin American authors. For example, the book, Like Water For Chocolate is considered to be in the genre of "magical realism".  The problem with that is the word "magical" sucks out the meaning of realism. It gives the idea that the events described are not real but fiction or a creation of the imagination of the writer.

Thus those things described that are not congruent with a European world view are considered magical and not real but the story presents them as if they were real.  Here is the problem with this notion. It denies the reality of the Latin American experience. Much of this literature present an alternative reality that has just as much validity if not more so than the traditional European world view.  Victor Villasenor ran into this problem when the book company that gave him an advance on his book Rain of Gold wanted to publish it as fiction. It was fiction to those who could not accept the reality of the world view presented by Villasenor.  When I first read Rain of Gold, I had to suspend my world view to accept what he wrote. Now that I have read all the works of Villasenor, I have come to realize he wrote about a reality that is of another dimension then the European world view, but real nonetheless. The use of the term "Magical Realism" is a subtle put down of what Villasenor and many other writers have written.