Sunday, January 24, 2010

My Wasted Years With Newspapers

For the longest time, my mother would get the Sunday Seattle Times, and sift through it to look at all the shopping catalogs. I don't recall her ever reading an actual piece of news printed throughout. The saddest part is that I never took advantage of the pieces she recycled. That is, I never read the damn newspaper. Now that printed news is rapidly disappearing, I find myself regretting all those years that I could have been learning about the world, but did not.

A Backdoor Attempt at Pushing Out Undocumented Immigrants?

Tomorrow, Rep. Tom Campbell (R-2) will introduce a bill in the state House that, if passed, would require anyone applying for a driver's license or instruction permit to provide "[p]roof that is satisfactory to the department that the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under federal law." It should come as no surprise that all of the representatives that are officially backing this bill are Republicans.

I posed the following question to a coworker of mine: what is the intended purpose of issuing driver's licenses? His response was something to the effect of ensuring safety on the road. Now comes the followup question: what does proving whether or not you are legally recognized by the federal government have to do with maintaining safety on the road? How is this not, in my view, a backdoor attempt at pushing out the undocumented immigrants from our state?

Furthermore, what qualifies as "satisfactory proof"? We need some answers.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

How I've Spent My Evenings for the Last Three Weeks

Drinking lattes, writing, and reading news.