Much of what we know of history, or at least fairly recent history, comes from reading old personal letters. We know a great deal of daily life from reading old letters that people wrote about their daily lives. While historic letters will always be preserved, personal letters are what really tell us about life.
What will the future generations do? There will come a time when the personal letter goes the way of the dinosaur. People simply do not write personal letters any more except perhaps to their grandmother, if they are lucky enough to have one. When I was a kid, one could see letter writing tapering off and the weekly phone call being made. I can remember my parents waiting until the magic time, I believe it was 5:00 when rates dropped, to make a call to relatives. If the call came in earlier, they thought something was wrong or that someone had died.
The phone call has now evolved into texting and email. Human communication has become a series of OMGs and TTFNs. We LOL over jokes and we questions people’s whereabouts by dumb questions like RU@wk. What was once elegant expression has degenerated into a series of grunts and other caveman like utterances.
How will future generations learn of their past? Electronic communications is actually a series of 1′s and 0′s. How will these 2 digits translate into human language? How will we know what our grandparents did after dinner, or even what they had for dinner? How about emotions and fears and courtships. Does anyone write a love letter now? I have a small collection of letters from my father to my mother during WWII. I have gotten a glimpse into this couple as a man and woman who were in love and who were apart because of circumstances beyond their control. It is a glimpse of a young couple that most children don’t get to see. Our parents are/were our parents, not a young couple in love.
In my desk I have letters from old boyfriends, friends and from my grandparents, aunts, and parents. My children won’t have these kinds of treasures from their parents. Their parents didn’t do such things like letter writing. Their parents made phone calls and emailed. Their parents did not text.
What preservation of history will future generations have that show simple day to day life? All the video footage in the world won’t provide a glimpse of ordinary people going about their business doing ordinary things. Letters showed us that.
Our very own Elena is quoted in this article in the Washington Post which captures the sinking spirits of the PWC business community:
County business leaders have created “image committees” to examine the direction Prince William is heading. Now, some analysts said, the economic downturn makes it a bad time to carry out the immigration measures.
“It undermines the image of the county as a good place to invest,” said Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. “The political environment has made people feel unwelcome.”
Richard L. Hendershot, who chairs the Prince William County Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce, said it has been hard to sell Prince William as progressive, dynamic and thriving.
“There’s been a challenge. The only way that we can counteract the image, and I’d say it is a false image, is to continue to look for opportunities to share the positive messages of the county,” he said. “There’s clearly been some controversy over the immigration stance that the board of supervisors has taken.”
Many blame Stewart (R), who put the county on the map nationally for its tough approach on illegal immigration. As the top elected official, Stewart is the most visible face of the county and nominally its biggest cheerleader. But his colleagues and some residents are starting to question his leadership.
We had an error about ‘too many’ database connections. Called the hosting company and they were able to fix the problem. Anyways, we’re back up & running. Thanks for your patience.
Corey’s response to citizens showing support for Police Chief Deane:
Thank you for emailing me. Sorry for the delay in responding to your email. I also support Chief Deane. I believe the Chief and the Prince William County Police Department are doing a great job enforcing the illegal immigration resolution.
The program is working. Since the resolution began on March 3rd the Police Department has arrested 41 illegal aliens who committed crimes in our community. In addition, as of March 4th 313 illegal aliens have been issued a detainer and transferred to ICE from our jails.
First of all, how many of these 41 illegal aliens would have been caught using the 287(g) program versus the ‘Immigration Resolution’? Second, according to my recollection there were 89 arrests, 2 of those arrested were in legal status, which leaves 46 arrests of persons without documentation that the feds aren’t interested in. If the feds aren’t interested in these 46 what about the untold time, energy and hassle for filling out forms for people on the street? Pretty much guaranteed that nobody’s going to come looking for them. All of this, at a cost about a quarter of a million higher than anticipated just for the month of March.
What seems to make the most sense from an economic and practical perspective would be to focus on the ‘worse of the worse’ because apparently that’s all that Immigration Customs Enforcement is willing/able to accept. Some might think that’s unacceptable, but at some point we’re going to have to be realistic. Don’t get me wrong, we can do anything we set our minds to, but there’s a very real economic cost in doing so. What’s the cost that we as a County/Country are willing to bear in this regard?
Obviously, we are responsible for some of the cost of detaining and then the federal government most likely pays to deport. Then PWC has the cost effect on our housing markets as we continue to extract homeowners and occupiers. Then there’s the collateral losses on businesses that provided goods and services that in all likelyhood didn’t realize these individuals were undocumented. Then further collateral losses as these effects will ripple throughout the broader economic community. Then there’s the social impacts on families which clearly will not be calculable. In the long-term, this isn’t the ‘program’ that I believe has the best chance of all around success but it might be a necessary step in getting us to that point.
We have another ICE raid. This time at Lansdowne Resort in Chantilly. According to the Post, a senior regional official said the following:
the raid was part of a “nationwide aggressive pursuit of unauthorized workers and employers who violate the law.” Companies that use “cheap, illegal alien labor as a business model should be on notice that ICE is dramatically enhancing its enforcement efforts,”
I’d like to see the data on their determination that the labor is ‘cheap’. And, if so, will there be charges filed against the resort? We have yet to hear about charges filed against CMC Concrete that was raided 3 weeks ago. Does this mean that all employees provided the required paperwork for employment and that the employer had followed proper procedures for filling out the I9′s? If this was the case, would the employers even be knowledgeable about the immigration status of their employees? And if employers aren’t aware of status wouldn’t they be paying a competitive wage? Unemployment rates are now on the rise but just a few short years ago we had what could be considered full employment and there were still ‘Help Wanted’ signs everywhere. In this case, wouldn’t employers be forced to pay fair not cheap wages.
Our amazing Admin is not available so I, as in IT, am assuming the helm in order to update everyone.
Corey appeared to be quite stressed during the afternoon citizen time. Supervisor Hilda Barg chastised him like he was a little boy, demanding that if he could not lead the county effectively, then he should leave. Citizens who spoke today, either in support of Chief Deane or in opposition to the immigration resolution, were passionate in their concern for the well being of this county, economically and socially. The very fabric of our society is being twisted and turned in a way that serves no common good, not for those whose neighborhoods are still struggling and not for the immigrants who are living in fear. Chairman Stewart now seems to be willing to revisit the resolution, we’ll see what happens.
A new ABC Primetime Television show – ‘What Would you Do?’ stages an environment where a Muslim woman is denied service at a diner for wearing a headscarf. The hidden cameras show the actions and inactions of customers witnessing this atrocity. The clerk makes outrageous claims like ‘you’re not American’, ‘get your jihad behind out of here’, ‘how do I know your not carrying a bomb’ etc… The numbers speak for themselves 22 people did absolutely nothing, 13 spoke out in opposition to the discrimantory practice and 6 people sided with the clerk. After viewing this video I wish they spoke to the 22 people who did nothing to find out what they were thinking. It reminds me of the quote from Edmund Burke – ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’
Mexican American Legal Defense Fund has now released a website – www.truthinimmigration.com to help dispel some of the myths being porported by the anti-immigrant movement.
This very in-depth article on the social chaos in Mexico, gives keen insight into why so many Mexicans are risking so much, even their lives, to come to the United States.To understand how to resolve our immigration “crisis” connection with Mexico, we must all understand what drives so many to come here.I was shocked by the level of anarchy in Mexican Border towns!I cannot imagine raising my children under such desperate circumstances. President Bush pledged 500 million to help deal with a drug cartel worth 23 BILLION dollars!What is a better investment, help the President of Mexico deal with this drug war or build a billion dollar fence and spend money deporting millions of illegal immigrants, here only trying to work and provide a future for their loved ones?Why not put in the effort to create a collaborative force to deal with the drug cartel and replace it with real legal economic incentives for our border neighbors!
“Neighbors quivered at the crack of AK-47 assault rifles blasting inside Salda¿a’s tiny home. Rafael Garc¿a, an unemployed laborer who lives nearby, recalled thinking “it was a fireworks show,” then sliding under his bed in fear.
In murdering not only Salda¿a, but also his wife, Sandra, and their 12-year-old daughter, Valeria, the Loma Bonita killers violated a rarely broken rule of Mexico’s drug cartel underworld: Family should remain free from harm. The slayings capped five harrowing hours during which the assassins methodically hunted down and murdered two other police officers and mistakenly killed a 3-year-old boy and his mother.
The brutality of what unfolded here in the overnight hours of Jan. 14 and early Jan. 15 is a grim hallmark of a crisis that has cast a pall over the United States’ southern neighbor. Events in three border cities over the past three months illustrate the military and financial power of Mexico’s cartels and the extent of their reach into a society shaken by fear.”
This is what I was told by a reprenstative from the Virginia Dept of Higher Education. There is a conflict between State Law and Federal Law. The Attorney General and the Dept. of Higher Education agreed on this compromise to ensure that children who ARE citizens will “most likely” qualify for in-state tuition. The understanding is that if a child is a U.S. citizen, and THEIR domicile is proven to be Virginia, then they “should” still qualify for in-state tuition, despite the undocumented status of their parents. He expressed disappointment that the Post writer had seen this resolution as a negative and not a positive.
Much of what we know of history, or at least fairly recent history, comes from reading old personal letters. We know a great deal of daily life from reading old letters that people wrote about their daily lives. While historic letters will always be preserved, personal letters are what really tell us about life. 