Racial Profiling

Ok, I just have to post this about racial profiling because I have heard so much lately about the subject. I hate to say it but it makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Lately in the news we have heard about Arizona and their new law regarding immigration and how it is racial profiling. While watching the news one night with my children the subject was brought up again and as you might imagine one of the children asked what it meant. So in an effort to help my children understand I must post.

Does anyone really know what racial profiling is? I understand the point of view that many immigrants are taking, ‘that the Arizona law will be unfair to them’. In their view when ever they are confronted by a police officer whether breaking the law or not they will be thinking that they will be deported. How could an officer of the law think of anything else when they confront someone of Latin descent, they might think?

Yet on the other hand there is another point of view. With such an increase in the amount of people deciding to move north to our great country and as often and is brought up in the media what else can anyone think when they see someone of Latin descent, right?
Here is my opinion and yes, you can take it as you may because I am no one important and no one really listens to me anyway so I won't affect much when it comes to really changing things in our country. But I digress and need to get back on point.

So, back to the children asking what is going on? I explained that because people in South America are struggling with not having money, nice cars, big homes, boats and etc. You know that they don't have the nice things that we have and take for granted. So in an effort to get those things they want to come here to the U.S. Now unfortunately it is very hard to come to the United States legally and so many of these struggling people in an effort to make a better life for them selves and their families, they come here illegally.

This has an affect on all of us. How? Well they use the same services that we all do. I mean Police, Fireman, hospitals, our roads etc., now unfortunately because they are here under the radar or illegally they don’t pay taxes. All of those services are paid for by our paying taxes. Taxes are the means by which our governments, schools, cities, states and even the United States pay for all of the wonderful services which we rely on and take for granted. This means that they get these services for free. Some people don’t like that and think that it is unfair. So people in our government in an effort to be fair create laws that try to balance things out.

This is the dilemma. How to fix the tide of people who want better lives from coming here illegally and making everyone else pay for things that they should be paying for too. How do we do that? Obviously no one has come up with a good idea.

So Arizona creates a law that makes it easier for that state to slow the flow of money and services to people who aren’t paying for it. I think that we all would love having things for free. I don’t think that the people coming across our border illegally know that they will be impacting these services, this is not their intent. “Let’s move to the United States and sink them financially by not paying taxes and using up all of their money and resources”. Yeah, sounds unlikely, right?

So now if a police officer pulls over someone for speeding, and finds that they are not in the U.S. legally he now can put them into jail and start the process for subjecting that individual to the consequences of their actions. The action being coming here illegally and the consequence being – they are sent back. I think that as parents we all teach our children that their actions are met by consequences whether good or bad, right?

Now here is the funny part. The Latin community says that this will make it easier for the authorities the pick them out from the rest of the community, a sort of easy way of identifying them, so to speak. Hence the phrase comes about of ‘Racial Profiling’.

Now what they are not saying is this. When the authorities see an individual from Sweden they will immediately think, hey this person crossed our borders and now lives here illegally. No, that is not right.

When the authorities see an individual from Africa they will immediately think, hey this person crossed our borders and now lives here illegally. No, that is not right either. Wait well how will they know when they have a person in front of them who might be here illegally? Oh, wait I know. A majority of the individuals that are coming here and living illegally are from south of our border. Well what countries are south of our border? Well you get where I am going.
There is Latin countries at our southern border. So it stands to reason that when the authorities see someone of Latin descent they might think, “Hey, this person might be here illegally”. Yes I guess this could be racial profiling, I mean it is mostly Latin people coming up from the south.

When we see a man with children, do we assume he is a father? Better not, might be some form of profiling. When we see a man breaking into a store by throwing a rock through the window, do we assume he is a criminal? Better not, might be some sort of profiling. Should we make the NBA reset all teams to have an equal number of black players to white players? Better not, might be some sort of profiling. No one has ever said that African Americans are better at sports.

I recently heard a well known comic making fun of people who watch NASCAR, he better be careful. That might be some sort of profiling. I mean it’s not mostly white men who watch that sport.

Unfortunately everything we do in life is some sort of profiling. When we decide to eat Latin food, we don’t assume it will be served in an Italian restaurant. When we want Chinese food we don’t drive to the local Latin restaurant. This is a form of profiling, Chinese people aren’t the only ones who make good Chinese food, are they?

So now you have heard me rant and rave. My opinion doesn’t count for much. But how funny it should sound that this law should not exist solely because the authorities might think that a person of Latin heritage might be here illegally, Latin countries are so far from our southern border!  I can't get over the idea that this is just common sense.  But then I am not a politician and therefore don't think in a politically correct manner.

Relationships – That is all we have…

     We should stick together.

We are so lucky to be living in a world such as the one that we do. Despite all of the things that seem to be going wrong all around us, earthquakes (Haiti, Chile, Turkey and even a smaller one just the other day in California – being the ones I have heard that were reported recently), Tsunami’s etc. we have all heard what things would be like in the last days. These things should stand as a reminder that we should stick together.

Even with all of today’s wonderful technology we seem to lose track of those around us. I have always told my wife and children that the only thing we will take with us to the next life will be our relationships with each other.

Being a family is not easy. There are many kinds of families, single parent families, divorced families, step families and foster families. Most of tend to protect our families vehemently but often we are the ones causing some of the damage even inadvertently.

Jennifer and I see many aspects of loyalty from the kids that come into our home. They don’t want to leave or betray the family that they come from and yet the longer some of them stay they find themselves growing into another kind of family. We all have to play our part and do our best. Now what is my point because even I recognize that I am rambling…?

What would we do if we could fast forward to a time when we look back on how we treated our family in certain situations? Is it worth the fight just to be seen as being right? One day it won’t matter who was right or wrong – but where is that relationship now.

Will our accountant take care of us in the end? Will our banker? What about our T.V., the internet, our cars, our homes… will they keep us safe in the end?  No. We will only have each other. Life is too hard to be worried about being right or wrong. Let’s be loved. Let’s love. Let’s protect and care for each other… we are all we have.  No matter where we go, what we do or who we become we should stick together because ultimately we will only come out of this world with each other.

Really, Superman...?

Really...  I know it sounds kind of corny but I have always loved Superman - my favorite hero.

One day we were watching Superman with the kids and I said something like, "...boy it was fun when I used to be able to fly...".  "But Daddy you weren't Superman,...", "Yes I was, but mommy has some Cryponite in the house and so now I am just a mere mortal."

Now this has gone on for so long that it has created a life of it's own.  Even when we started doing foster care, when watching "Smallville" on T.V. I would make comments about my former days as the hero.

When I first created this blog, the kids thought it was the best title for the blog.  I have had second thoughts and have even gone as far as changing the blog title.  But in the end I always come back and change it back.

Being a father/foster father has a great responsibility.  You know you have heard that phrase...  I take that seriously...  (By the way if you really want to know - Wikipedia tells the real story behind that phrase...)

"With great power comes great responsibility" — Benjamin Parker of Spider-Man comics [C]

The often-quoted Spider-Man theme of "with great power comes great responsibility" is widely attributed to Uncle Ben. However, this was not initially true. In Amazing Fantasy #15, the phrase appears in a narrative caption in the comic's last panel, not as spoken dialogue. In fact, Ben has only two lines in the entire comic. Furthermore, the actual line reads, "With great power, there must also come great responsibility."

However, later stories and flashbacks that took place when Ben was still alive retroactively made the phrase one of Ben's many homilies he would lecture Peter with. Recent reinterpretations of Spider-Man, such as the Spider-Man movie and the Ultimate Spider-Man comic, do depict Ben as having used this phrase while he was still alive.  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations

 

Anyway back to the story.  I don't want to mess up any of my children, whether they are biological or foster.

 

So I begin a new adventure one where super strength and power all play a big role.  Are there any villans to conquer?  Yes, children who are afraid, feel left out, don't have a place to call home or just need to learn some basic skills to get through life - these are my new adventures.

 

You can join me on this new adventure if you like... maybe even together we can form our own league of family first fighters.  You never know we might make a difference...

2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

I have to admit, this year I have really enjoyed the Winter Olympics. In the past I have usually only watched the Summer Olympics but not this year.

Not only does it provide for a great environment for the kids to gather and we can all watch together, but it has been fun. I have even watched some of the Ice Dancing, and one or two of the skating programs. I have to say I am not a fan of the men's skating and the outfits but I watched some anyway.

I enjoyed watching the Men's and Women's Halfpipe competitions as well as the Men's Ski Cross(my favorite), this was the Ski Cross' debut - wow now that is what I have been waiting for. For results check out the homepage for the Olympics http://www.vancouver2010.com.

Oh and not to mention I have found a new hobby, Olympic pin collecting... check out http://www.pindemonium.com, this is where I tend to hunt them down. Plus they have past years pins as well.

The only bad thing this year was one of the competitors for the luge, Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a training run - that was terrible.

So now we will gather around the tv and watch tonight's competing events and hope that Team USA can hold on to it's narrow medal lead, now that is competition for you... Go USA.

Foster Care Blues

One of the things that you don't count on too much doing foster care is the pain of seperation.

Taking care of children is a rewarding endeavor; however, taking care of someone else's children has some draw backs. You become attached to them. This is not so much a draw back as a casualty of the process. You take time to nurture, care and provide for a child and when the time comes they return to their families.

What you don't count on is the pain associated with that seperation. You may see them again and you may not.

My mother exprienced the same thing a few times; my own oldest daughter for example, she was without her mother. Her mother died shortly after she my oldest was born. I was a single father who relied on my own mother to babysit while I was working. My mother's casualty came when I remarried and my oldest no longer needed the constant babysitting from my mother. Now the difference in her case was she still gets to see my daughter regularly.

My casualty is not knowing how they are doing, not seeing or hearing from them and not being able to just call up and see how school is going...

I wouldn't change a thing - but ouch...

Money...

Money… We all want it and yet none of us seem to have it. I have something to say and nowhere to say it.

Didn’t the government give out a ton of money to banks so that they could float the small businesses?

I recently being a small business owner went to a local bank that took tarp money to apply for a loan to help us get through this tough economic time. Not a lot of money, just enough to help cover some expenditures until a large contract we just won starts.

That was 2 months ago and do you know what they said. “… You have excellent credit but we are worried that your current capital won’t cover our losses if you fail…” What? Are they kidding?

The purpose of the loan is to keep the business solvent long enough to begin making those large sums of money again. Doesn’t make sense to me… here we went lent this money to save you, but you are not making it now so we can’t help you survive.

Why take the money? I guess that is the question. They are just trying to fill back up their pockets with money they lost when they lent improperly. That is why we are in this mess now. Now I am just a small man who doesn’t know much, but something is afoot.

Reminiscent

Ok, it's been awhile since I blogged - remember I'm still new to this idea. It seems that everywhere I go, it is blog this or blog that. Twitter this or twitter that, even T.V. commercials are referring to twitting.

Remember the days when you had to telephone your friends or just meet them in the park or at their house if you wanted to hang or talk? Must be my age.

I can't help but think that time flies. I was just a kid playing in the yard worrying about nothing other than what fun I was going to have today. Look at us now... how are we going to pay the bills. Is work going to keep us fed and warm this winter?

Not only that but now we have kids to worry about. I recently told one of our children that she needs to be a kid - she is 13 and worries way to much about her future. Now to her credit she is in foster care and is carrying around way too much for a girl her age, but my point to her is still true. "Healthy adults come from healthy children, and Unhealthy adults come from unhealthy children." (me) She needs to run and play, make friends and worry about what fun she is going to have today. Let the adults worry about the other things, the bills, the utility bills and etc. She should be worried about how many friends she has made this new school year. Which ones she will invite over for the weekend?

What about that 1st love... that 1st time driving a car... these should be the types of memories she is building. Unfortunately her circumstances are different than most and she does have other things on her mind. Oh the things these children today have to deal with.

Anyway my "play" days are over in that sense. Now I enjoy working to make the lives of my children better. What do they say - "...my only wish in life is that my children grow up and become 'better' than me..." (unknown). Like most parents I love my children, even the ones that came to us through unconventional means. May they always be happy...