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sponsored by NATIONAL SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS The following column placed in the top ten of the 2006 Will Rogers Writing Contest sponsored by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. BORDERS ON INSANITY Most of the time, I can’t resist a good hoo-hah. And boy, is there ever a good hoo-hah going over immigration. I love being an American. I’m proud of it. No where else on this little ol’ third rock from the sun are folks more generous, giving and likely to laugh than R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. I love it. A catastrophe can happen anywhere else on the planet or even in our own country and Americans will respond faster than anyone else. Our hearts, together, are strong enough to encircle the globe and go to the planets and beyond as well. Americans will give and when it seems like they can’t give anymore, will find a way to give more. Every day people die trying to come to this country. No other. Folks aren’t knocking themselves out trying to sneak into Iran. Or Afghanistan. Or Darfur. On a recent trip to Dayton, Ohio, my cab driver was from Sudan. After my work for Darfur, I was thrilled to meet this refugee and we chatted all the way from the airport. And what thrilled me most of all was to realize he was an American, just like me. We had very different beginnings, but we called the same place home. Gives you goose bumps, doesn’t it? A lot of Earthlings don’t like us. In some countries, the newborns have “Death to America” written on their birth certificates as their middle name. Even here, we have a lot of dissatisfied customers and that’s okay. In this country, we can call our elected officials boogerheads and not fear government reprisal or incarceration. I like that. I want to state for the record that in my humble opinion, a LOT of our elected officials are, indeed, boogerheads. I’m still here. Free. So there. But I’m puzzled, truly and completely without a clue, as to why when so many hate us and want us dead, so many who want to blow us up or crash our planes or attack our troops, why do we tell people who want to join us, who are dying to be us and who have taken to the streets to beg to be official and legal Americans, why do we tell them to go away? I, for one, am not that secure. There are so many against us, if there is a single soul who wants to be with us, I say, “Come on in. Welcome. Glad to have you.” Isn’t that what the boogerheads have been saying? “If yer not fer us, yer agin us?” I think we have more than enough agin us and we ought to take all them fer us as we can get. These good folks buy our crap and call it “great” because it’s American. They watch our awful television shows and if they can, they even translate them to their native tongues in order to spin the Wheel of Fortune or to see Dr. Phil give what fer or to see Oprah’s new shoes. They’re willing to let us use their word of “football” for our version and even cheer our baseball teams at the “World” Series. Right. And Barry Bonds is just big- boned. They pay sales taxes and gas taxes and real estate taxes and are currently begging to join our imperfect system so that they can pay all those other taxes the boogerheads can think of. They join our military and serve admirably. They have fought in our wars and died under our flag. Don’t ask me how illegal immigration should be handled and how our borders should be secured. That’s for the boogerheads to decide. All I’m saying is that surely, there is enough snot in Washington to figure out a way to include those who want to be included. |
Lynette 2006
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