Why Arizona's immigration bill won't make much difference

Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, signed by Governor Jan Brewer last Friday, has the nation's knickers in a knot. I agree with President Obama, who called the law

a "misguided" piece of legislation that "threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. "

In spite of the law's claim to reject racial profiling, its first effect will surely be to increase harassment of Hispanics. For many of the law's supporters, however, this is not a drawback. Indeed, it is the main benefit of the legislation - not to send all undocumented immigrants back to their countries of origin, but to scare the ones who stay.

Think about it. If you ran a business that required a large number of unskilled workers - people who would pick vegetables, for instance, or slaughter pigs - fear could be your ally. Hire a man who is desperate for money and tell him that one misstep will put him on the bus to Nogales. He's not going to complain too loudly if his wages drop below the federally mandated minimum, or if he doesn't get health insurance or sick leave, or if he is required to work 12 or more hours a day with no overtime pay, or even if he is injured while working in dangerous conditions. He's certainly not going to join a union and demand fair labor practices. In fact, he may make his pre-adolescent children join him in the fields. He'll let you get away with a lot, because your small paycheck beats no paycheck at all. And then, when you don't need him anymore, you can lay him off. He can't do anything about it.

Yes, if you treat him that way, you are breaking Arizona's law, which -  like federal law and the laws of all other states - makes it illegal to employ and then mistreat undocumented immigrants. The problem is that these laws are rarely enforced. According to journalist and political activist Deborah White,

In 1999, under President Bill Clinton, the US government collected $3.69 million in fines from 890 companies for employing undocumented workers. In 2004, under President George Bush, the federal government collected $188,500 from 64 companies for such illegal employment practices. And in 2004, the Bush Administration levied NO fines for US companies employing undocumented workers.

Has there been a change under President Obama? Law professor Kris W. Kobach, defending Arizona's law in today's New York Times, says that "the Obama administration has scaled back work-site enforcement and otherwise shown it does not consider immigration laws to be a high priority." By contrast, Greg Moran, writing Sunday in San Diego's Union-Tribune, refers to "a stepped-up effort by the Obama administration to attack illegal immigration by cracking down on the employers who hire them." Whatever the truth about the present administration, the situation continues to be grave. According to the United Farm Workers of America's website,

Federal reports indicate between 50 percent and two-thirds of U.S. farm workers are undocumented. The UFW’s experience in areas where it is active, including the Central Valley, is that it is 90 percent or more.

Q. Why aren't we conducting massive raids on businesses so grossly violating federal and state law? Wouldn't that be more effective than targeting the immigrants themselves?
 
A. Yes, of course. Mexicans don't move to Arizona because they like the sunsets. But if every American business that employs undocumented workers were heavily fined, repeat violators were shut down, and undocumented employees were returned to their native lands, the food industry would collapse.

The collapse would not be permanent, of course. We have to eat. Businesses that formerly hired illegal immigrants would scramble to hire American citizens and legal immigrants. In order to do so, they would have to give their employees legally mandated protections. This would in turn dramatically increase the price of food. Voters - even the ones that backed get-tough laws against illegal immigrants - would be outraged.

Interestingly, if we changed our laws in the other direction and gave every undocumented worker in America a green card, prices would also skyrocket. Legal workers get legal protections, and this greatly increases the cost of human resources. Voters - even the ones that backed amnesty and permanent residency for illegal immigrants - might be less enthusiastic about paying double for food.

And that is why I think Arizona's legislation - and indeed, reforms currently under discussion by the administration - won't make much difference. Politicians depend on voters, and voters do not like rising prices. Politicians also depend on major financial contributors, and agribusiness spends big on PAC contributions and lobbying. One of the easiest ways to keep food prices low and agribusiness happy is to keep the workforce scared.

So I expect to see a flurry of state laws aimed at pacifying nativists and frightening foreigners. Some undocumented workers will be rounded up and shipped home. Most will not. Business will continue as usual. In the words of Amos the shepherd, we affluent Americans will continue to "sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, ... [to] trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way."

"Probable cause" : driving while appearing hispanic

Last weekend my friend Ben Lowe was heading toward Chicago with three friends, all Wheaton College graduates, when an unmarked police car pulled them over. One of the cops explained to the driver that there is "a problem with Hispanics coming from the western suburbs into Chicago" and "carrying drugs in their vehicles."

As it happens, none of the men is Hispanic (which is irrelevant anyway, since ethnicity is no reason to stop a law-abiding driver), and there were no drugs in the vehicle. Ben, however, is the Democratic nominee from the 6th Congressional District, and Ben is not happy.

You can read his account of what happened on his blog. If you'd like to read the raw notes he took shortly after the incident, continue reading this post. Predictably, the police are denying the incident to reporters.

Review of Anne Tyler: "Noah's Compass"

Ever since I discovered Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, I've loved Anne Tyler's Baltimore, her offbeat people, her insights into what makes individuals - and families - tick. Most of all, I enjoy her ability to evoke a character in a few deft and often funny lines. Take this exchange, for example, from her newest novel, Noah's Compass:

He said, "The divorce was Barbara's idea, not mine. I don't even believe in divorce; I've always felt marriages are meant to be permanent. If it were up to me, we'd still be together."

"What was she unhappy about?" Eunice asked.

"Oh," he said, "I guess she felt I wasn't, um, forthcoming."

Eunice went on looking at him expectantly.

He turned his palms up. What more could he say?

 I began reading Noah's Compass, not only because I enjoy Anne Tyler, but also because the dust-jacket description looked promising: " ... a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life."

I realize that people who write marketing copy rarely have time to read the whole book, but they should get beyond the first page - and editors should check their work. Liam Pennywell is "in the sixty-first year of his life," which makes him 60, not 61, as Tyler mentions at least eight times. He has been teaching but is not, at heart, a schoolteacher. He has lost his job, but this does not mean he has to retire. He is not in the final phase of his life (though he seems willing to go there) - his health is good, and his father is still alive and strong. And, most important, he doesn't really come to terms with anything.

The copywriter is right, however, about the book's wisdom, humor, and compassion.

Liam Pennywell is widowed, divorced, newly laid off, and, by chapter two, convalescent. He has a sister, a father, a stepmother, a friendly ex-wife, three daughters, and a grandson, but he lives alone and has little to do with any of his family members. A sudden crisis brings them all back into his life. His bossy sister brings dinner (beef stew, and he eats no red meat); his youngest daughter moves in with him; his middle daughter expects him to baby-sit; and Eunice ... well, she's about as opposite from him as a person could be, and she's amazingly persistent. His life, which had become as stark as his new apartment, seems suddenly richer.

But that's an outsider's opinion. Mine, and probably Tyler's. For Liam, life just seems messier and noisier. This is a man, after all, who "really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in." This a man who looks forward to being alone on Christmas Day.

If I were discussing Noah's Compass in a book group, I'd point out that the end of the book sounds a lot like its beginning. I'd like to hear what others think will happen next in Liam's life. Have six tumultuous months changed him in any essential way? Or is he going to give in to senescence well before he's even eligible for Medicare?

As for the title, you'll figure it out in chapter 11. If you're impatient, just ask yourself : Did Noah have a compass? Did he need one? Why or why not?

The political center : equal spending for all

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ...

--William Butler Yeats, 1919

In today's New York Times, David Brooks laments the loss of the political center. "In the first year of the Obama administration," he writes, "the Democrats, either wittingly or unwittingly, decided to put the big government-versus-small government debate at the center of American life." The result is polarization, with a strong tilt to the "antigovernment right." Brooks, who is somewhat right of center himself, does not call this "mere anarchy."

Indeed, the internet is full of anger against what many people see as "a federal onslaught," but Brooks must be referring to spin rather than facts when he characterizes Democrats as the big government party and Republicans as the small government party. That, of course, is what Republicans would like us to believe: they have been characterizing Democrats as the "tax and spend" party since FDR's time.

I decided to find out just how committed to big government Democrats really are. I was sure they spent more on government programs than Republicans did, but how much more?

Review of "Not Becoming My Mother" by Ruth Reichl

 Show me a woman who has never looked in the mirror and gasped in horror at the sight of her mother looking back at her, and I'll show you a woman who can resist picking up a book called Not Becoming My Mother. I was alarmed the first time my mirror channeled my mom, and mortified when my daughters reported - in obvious panic - that their mirrors were channeling me. Some things a girl just shouldn't say to her mother.

Some things a girl shouldn't say about her mother, either, and for years Ruth Reichl felt vaguely guilty about her three compulsively readable memoirs in which her wacky mother, Miriam, frequently contributes to the hilarity. After the first memoir was published, Reichl writes, "I could not keep from thinking I had betrayed my mother. It was not a good feeling, and I wanted to make it up to her." Two books later, she was "getting deeper into [her] mother's debt." But she still could not bring herself to begin going through the box of letters, notes, and clippings that had been stashed in the basement ever since her mother's death:

Like most women, I decided who my mother was long ago, sometime during childhood.... I had spent many years making peace with her. Her voice was no longer inside my head and it was a relief to have all that behind me. I was reluctant to replace the mother I thought I knew with someone else. Why go looking for trouble?

In the year that her mother would have turned 100, Reichl finally blew the dirt off the box her father had labeled "Miriam's Life and Letters," removed the top, and started to read.

Getting around Facebook's latest assault on privacy

Note: If Facebook hasn't already sent you the pop-up message requiring you to link your personal information to Facebook pages, bookmark this Web page and come back to it when you need it.

Once again Facebook has made changes that will open up more of our information to marketers and, presumably, scammers and stalkers.

Potential privacy problems

Most of us include personal information on our Info page: for example, our favorite books, employment, schools, or current city. With FB's new approach - coming soon if it hasn't come already to your FB account - most of that personal information will be linked to FB pages. A pop-up message will give you a choice: you can link your info to a suggested FB page, or you can let FB delete the info altogether.

As Miguel Helft explained in an article in Sunday's New York Times, this "will allow Facebook to keep a record of what a user linked to, providing the company with ever more data about people’s preferences. Facebook, in turn, plans to share that data with Web publishers, so that a magazine Web site, for instance, may be able to show users all the articles that their friends like."

Perhaps there's no reason for concern: most of us FB users already link to pages, and marketers already know a scary amount about us. But there are potential problems that go beyond becoming the target of more and more marketers. Do I really want to connect with everybody else who claims an interest in, say, Yorkshire terriers or Madeleine Peyroux? Do I want my teenage grandchildren connecting with strangers who claim to share their love of Glee or Girl Scouts?

And yet, do I want to settle for a plain, uninteresting Info page that tells my friends nothing at all about me?

Protect personal information

If you don't like the new FB set-up, here's a three-step way to protect your privacy while still telling your friends that you adore stuffed bears, the Chicago Cubs, and the state of California.

1. Keep anonymous FB users away from your personal information. (Do this even if you passionately love the new set-up, by the way.) Click "Account" (upper right-hand corner), and then click "Privacy Settings" (on drop-down list). Click "Personal Information and Posts," and then click "Preview My Profile..." (right side of bar at top of page). What you see is what any FB member - friend, stranger, marketer, or pedophile - can see about you. If you've told the world too much, immediately click "Back to Privacy Settings" and then open up each page and work through all the options. You'll want to allow "Everyone" to see some of your info, but most of it should be available to "Only Friends."

2. Get rid of all or most of your current FB pages and refuse to add more. This is the best way to avoid giving information to marketers, who apparently have access to your FB page info even if you hide it from FB non-friends. Thanks to Joel, who pointed out (see comments below) an easy way to do this: Click "Account" (upper right-hand corner), and then click "Edit Friends." Scroll down the left-hand column and click "Pages." Click the X after any page you want to remove. (Alternately, you can use the more complicated method I originally suggested: go to each page separately, scroll way to the bottom, and click "Unlike" in the left-hand column.) The downside to deleting pages is that your Info page will no longer list your interests. But there's a work-around ...

3. Put a paragraph describing your interests on your Info page. Do this by clicking "Profile," then "Info," then "Edit" (in the "About Me" section). Scroll down the form to "Bio" and write whatever you want people to know about you. You can list your interests there without linking to any pages.

Here's what I wrote in my Bio paragraph, which I allow Everyone to see:

I read, review, blog, consult, and cook. I spend as much time as possible with friends, family, and dogs. I once listed some specific interests (Alexander McCall Smith, Harry Potter, the English language, la langue française, ginger ice cream, etc.) in the "Likes and Interests" section on this page, but I don't like FB's current insistence on linking every interest to a FB page. I like to be connected to friends, but I see no reason to increase my connection to marketers and scammers.

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You can read more about the latest Facebook changes at PCMag  or PCWorld. For a positive spin on what's happening at Facebook, read today's CNN account of an address by Facebook's CEO, who "hopes to turn the web into one big cocktail party."

Big Brother hopes you'll shop at his store

Even when I was very small I hated the Sunday-school song that begins

O be careful little eyes what you see
O be careful little eyes what you see
There's a Father up above
And he's looking down in love
So, be careful little eyes what you see

The song then advises the child to take equal care of his or her ears, hands, feet, and mouth. You never know when that all-seeing God, loving though he may be, is going to smite you.

I couldn't find out when the song was written - I learned it in the early 1950s - but its secular version comes from 1934:

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

Unlike God, Santa Claus doesn't claim that his omniscient spying is love-based. He is, however, coming to town with a bagful of presents, so the child who understands enlightened self-interest had better watch out.

In today's New York Times, Stephanie Clifford offers yet another reason to watch out: "Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell."  She writes:

A new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, is packed with information about the customer who uses it. While the coupons look standard, their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.

God and Santa Claus, I've been told, can't be blocked. They know everything I think and do. Fortunately, retail marketers, like the devil, don't have that capability unless I hand it over to them. But it's so easy to let the marketers in. All I have to do is use an internet coupon for free shipping or 20% off.

At least God and Santa Claus use their information in order to offer me things I want, like eternal life and Christmas presents. And they give me these things free of charge, apart from their insistence on reasonably good behavior. Retail marketers, by contrast, offer only more marketing, finely tuned to my personal preferences so that I will covet their stuff and pout if I don't get it.

But wait - won't that jeopardize my standing with God and Santa Claus?