LonelyStreets.com
Minute Men
About 2 weeks ago my wife Emily (who is the Director of the New Iowans Center here in Des Moines - a small office of folk who specialize in helping immigrants within the larger offices of Iowa Workforce Development, the State of Iowa employment agency) received an odd phone call at work:
“New Iowan Center, this is Emily”
“Do you help illegals there?”
“Um, is there something I can help you with?”
“Do you provide employment assistance, education assistance and referrals to illegals?”
“We require that everyone we assist in obtaining employment provide a social security number first.”
“Oh. Ok. So you don’t help illegals?”
“We require that everyone we assist in obtaining employment provide a social security number first. Are you new to Iowa, is there something I can help with?”
“No, that’s all. Thanks.”
Click
Then, this last Monday, upon arriving at work, Emily found an email from a coworker in another town directing her to the Minute Men’s website, which had her offices scheduled for a protest. The odd thing was that the protest was set for 4:30. Iowa Workforce Development (which takes up an entire building), is a State government agency. This means that if the building closes at 4:30, the building is empty by 4:30:03. My wife let a couple of her friends (and fellow immigration-activist-collaborator types) know about what was going on and they met her in front of the building at 4:30 to see the protesting bigots.
Unfortunately, nobody thought to photo-document things, but try to picture this scene: five old (really old) rather raggedy guys with the typical look of aging vets standing on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is on the opposite side of a large parking lot from the building, and the men are holding up signs with slogans like “Stop the Illegal Invasion” (had I been there, I think I would have been tempted to ask which illegal invasion they were talking about), and “Illegals take American Jobs.” The five men, in an apparent state of confusion and disarray are milling about from one end of the sidewalk to the other with no clear purpose or direction, and continue to do so for about 5 minutes before stopping and facing the now completely empty IWD building. These guys are not chanting or anything else so noticeable and they all walk around with pronounced limps and look vaguely uncomfortable and insecure.
So, of course, my wife and her friend Kirk decide to go talk to them. (the Minute Men, mind you, had never seen my wife before).
Emily (in a perky voice): “So, what are you guys doing out here?”
Guy #1: “We heard they help illegals in there.”
Emily: “Really? What sort of help do they give them?”
Guy #1: “I don’t know. You gotta ask Bob, he’s our leader.”
Emily: “So you don’t know what they do in there?”
Guy #1: “I don’t know. Bob told us to come down here. You gotta talk to Bob.”
(Emily walks over to Bob, who is already involved in a discussion with Kirk)
Emily: “So, what exactly are you guys protesting out here?”
Bob: “Well, there’s this place in this building called the New Iowan Center, and we heard that companies call them when they want to hire some illegals.”
At which point Kirk says: “Well, she’s the Director of the New Iowan Center. How would you respond to that?”
Emily: “I would say that we require that all people whom we help look for a job provide us with a Social Security Number”
Bob (beginning to sound plaintive and a little whiny: “Yeah, I actually called last week and..”
Emily: “Yes, I think I remember you.”
Bob: “they told me that people needed a valid social security number to get help looking for jobs.”
Bob (sounding even more uncomfortable): “I told them you guys require a valid Social Security number, I told them, but they wouldn’t listen and they told us to come out here anyway. You should talk with our director. He’s in eastern Iowa. He was supposed to be coming out here with, like, 30-40 guys..”
Another guy chimes in: “Yeah, gas is kinda expensive right now…”
May 21st, 2007
Posted by Paul in Politics, Humor | No Comments »
Suspects, Guns and Jesusbiblegod
Think about this - who will this affect? Michigan militia types? Unlikely. Crazy Korean college students? Nope. Vice presidents with a lot of hate? no sir. This is a law that will be employed exclusively against people of middle-eastern descent. We don’t exactly have a problem in this country with gun-toting Arabs running around shooting people in the name of Allah. Crazy Christians on the other hand…
(please please oh please click through this link - I’m not even sure this site is for real but godamn it is serious funny!)
UPDATE - according to wikipedia, that site is, in fact, satire (the more I read, the more I thought so). This on the other hand, sadly is not.
May 4th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Politics | 1 Comment »