On the border crisis just now (guest post)

I’ve been watching media coverage of angry Americans at our southern border waiving signs and yelling slogans, insisting that the children – most of whom are refugees of the drug war we’ve created -- “go home” to the violence and death that war has created, and I wonder who these angry Americans are. 

I also wonder where their parents or grandparents or other ancestors came from, and what they were fleeing from or hoped for when they landed in America. I’m not suggesting we allow in anyone who wants to come here, but these are desperate children. Whatever happened to the generosity, decency, and big-heartedness of this country? 

Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved in 1903 on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of our teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

Why are we now allowing the hateful side of America to take center stage?

--Robert Reich

Slideshow from CBS of what the children's conditions are in Nogales, AZ:  http://fb.cbs5az.com/1phfGtS

The New York Times addresses the "Young, Black Male in America"

The Times has a series of 9 articles, by different citizens of the community, addressing different, relevant issues affecting young black males in America. Here's just one quote, from Neill Franklin, Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and former narcotics cop and commander of training during his 34-year career with the Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department: "Our prohibition policies, and the 'us vs. the man' mentality they have caused in our communities, have badly damaged how young black men are perceived -- and not just by white people. As an African-American narcotics cop in Baltimore, even I fell victim to fear and apprehension when I encountered a group of black teenagers on the street. Making drugs like marijuana illegal has made them incredibly lucrative, and it's not hard to see why many teenagers choose to enlist in the dope game and play for the chance at moving up the chain and raking in tax-free money rather than donning a McDonald's uniform." It's an excellent series and seems very applicable all across America, let along to the Kansas City area. Link to original articles: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/12/young-black-and-male-in-america/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120313

Missouri: Worst on meth. Who knew?

There was an article out yesterday about a sheriff in a small town--unfortunately, here in Missouri--who got caught selling and using methamphetamine.  Turns out he was out of the Southeast corner of the state--the Cape Girardeau area, Carter County.

So I read a bit of the article and it was, as expected, tragic and sad and unfortunate.

It was also informative.

It told of methamphetamine usage and Missouri:

No state has been hit harder by the meth epidemic than Missouri, which led the nation in meth lab busts every year for a decade before Tennessee took over the top spot in 2010, dropping Missouri to second. Missouri has reported more than 13,000 meth lab incidents in the past seven years. The highly-addictive drug, made by cooking common chemicals, has caused countless fires and explosions, along with severe health problems among users.

If you go to the link to the original story (see below), you can see a picture of this Sheriff.  At 31, he was/is still baby-faced.  So young.

His life doesn't have to be over, necessarily but this certainly was a bad turn for the young man.  It will likely be years now, somewhere, in a jail or prison.

So sad.

As if this, above, isn't enough, as if this wouldn't make it sad and tragic enough, this sheriff is also married with a child:

Lloyd Parsons, 37, a member of the Van Buren Fire Department, never figured Adams for one of the bad guys. He described Adams, the married father of an infant son, as professional and knowledgeable.
"I've worked several accidents with the guy and he knew his stuff, even the medical part," Parsons said.

It seems another example of how we need more education, possibly, in our state and country.

There's no one answer but we need solutions.  So many problems.  And we need solutions.

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110419/ap_on_re_us/us_sheriff_meth

We--the US--are doubly culpable for the drug wars, violence and killings in Mexico

The US' demand for drugs out of Mexico fuels their drug wars and now it comes out that our extremely lax gun laws and gun sales here in the States--both--are fueling and feeding the violence in Mexico. 

Many Mexican politicians view the current drug war — which has claimed roughly 30,000 lives over the past four years — as one more curse foisted on Mexico by their rich neighbor to the north.In this worldview, the incredibly violent conflict is fueled by U.S. demand for narcotics, fought with weapons from U.S. gun shops, and funded by U.S. cash that flows freely across the border.

At the chamber of the Mexican Senate, Sen. Sebastian Calderon Centeno says the United States hasn't done anything to curb demand for drugs or to diminish the flow of guns into Mexico. He says the drug war is actually increasing weapons trafficking.

The criminals are getting desperate, he says, and are trying to get more and more guns to attack the Mexican government. The senator says most of the guns in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers are bought legally in Texas, Arizona and California. And, he says, the U.S. has little incentive to stop the smuggling.

"This is a growing business in the U.S.," Calderon says. "They are in the gun sales business, and it doesn't benefit them to stop."

But we blame Mexico and Mexicans, solely.

Nice.

Link to original post:  http://www.npr.org/2010/11/14/131309142/despite-efforts-u-s-guns-still-fuel-mexico-s-violence?ft=1&f=1001