Tallman's Xanga

CatWoman

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:30:50 GMT

Raymond and I watched "CatWoman" last night. It was okay. I give it two stars. It was definetly a show piece for Halle Berry's body!

Ireland

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:28:13 GMT

I am flying to Dublin, Ireland tomorrow.

The Steve Miller Band

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:35:11 GMT

The Steve Miller Band was great on Friday night. Four stars! They played for over two hours and Steve Miller showed off his pretty impressive guitar skills. They played for just over two hours.

Tonight

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:12:47 GMT

Tonight I am going to see The Steve Miller Band at The NJPAC in Newark with my brother-in-law Bob.
Today is a beautiful day.
Today I sent $15 to The New York City Rescue Misson. I want to help feed some people on Thanksgiving Day.
Had a good therapy session at Dunkin' Donuts with my counselor Daniel and His assistant. They are a nice couple.

Take care.

My Daily Bible Reading

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:59:43 GMT

Today I read:

Ezekiel 1:1-2:10
Psalm 119: 153-160
Proverbs 28:12
Hebrews 1:1-14

My favorite verses are Ezekiel 1:15-21

Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went. As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went; when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

-I love the imagery of these words.

The Curse of The Bambino

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:33:49 GMT

The Curse of The Bambino ended last night for two reasons:

1. The Bambino likes The New Yankees Stadium.
2.He still hates Pedro Martinez because of all the nasty comments Martinez made about Ruth when he was with The Red Sox.

My Daily Bible Reading

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:17:18 GMT

Today I read:

Lamentations 3:1-5:22
Psalm 119:145-152
Proverbs 28:11
Philemon 1-25

My favorite verse of the day is Lamentations 3:1-6.

I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
Surely He has turned His hand against me.
Time and time again throughout the day.

He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
He has beseiged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.

-This was my life but no longer. Now my life is full of The Light of Jesus Christ. Amen!

The Guitar

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:06:21 GMT

Here are the songs that I played solo today:

1. Avenging and Bright
2. Barney and Katey
3. Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
4. Bendeemer's Stream
5. Go Where Glory Waits Thee
6. The Harp That once Through Tara's Halls
7. I Know Where I Am Going.
8. I Never Will Marry
9. Killarney
10. Kathleen MaVourney
11.The Last Rose of Summer.
12. The Minstrel Boy
13. The Londonderry AIr
14. Molly Malone
15. Paddy Works on The Railroad
16. The Rose of Tralee
17. The Sally Gardens
18. Shule Aroon...Come, Oh Love
19. There is a Gentle Gleam
20.Wearing of The Green
21. Westering Home
22. Barney O'Neil
23. Behind The Bush In The Garden.

A long list but they were all short!

Pizza

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:27:11 GMT

Raymond offered to buy the pizza! You can knock me over with a feather!

Immigrants, whether illegal or not, should still count

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:19:24 GMT

By Gregory Rodriguez

Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has introduced legislation that, if passed, would instruct the U.S. Census Bureau not to take it into account illegal immigrants and other non citizens in the 2010 census.

I am all for it. Furthrmore. I propose that the government no longer recognize deficits in budgets, record violent crimes in police reports, acknowledge casualties of war or count-let alone give proper names!-to hurricanes in weather reports.

Vitter's last minute proposal-census questionnaires, which are scheduled to be sent out in the spring, have already been printed-Is the latest in the political right's increasingly absurdist "fight" against illegal immigration.

I put "fight" in quotes because these tactics actually do nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Indeed, other than deprive the country's three most populous states of more congrssional seats. Vittter's amendment would simply continue the restrictionists' strategy of pretending illrgal immmigration can be solved by depriving people of basic rights or, in this case, refusing to even acknowledge their existence.

Let me be clear: I am against the idea of open borders, I believe our nation needs strong borders with clrar rules and regulations as to who can enter and become members of our club. I also understand that global utopianism notwithstanding sovereign states are the guarantors of our rights and that, by definition, these states are obliged to decide who can and cannot claim membership.

This goes double for nations that provide entitlements. The state not only protects us but provides us with some level of resources-public goods such as education, unemployment benefits, Medicaire,etc. It makes sense, then, that if we want the state to provide us with these goods, we must accept that some form of exclusion is necessary. I understand and believe that not everyone can enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship. Like restrictionists, I therefore believe that some form of exclusion are acceptable.

That said, the capaciousness of our Constitution grants basic protections to all people within our borders, even those who do not enjoy the privelege of citizenship. In other words, even if we deny noncitizens political and civil rights, the principles of our Constitution require that we grant them certain human rights-some level of personal safety and dignity.

When it comes to the census, what that suggests is that even though we may not count them as full members of our polity, we are still obliged to count them as individuals who occupy physical space within our national boundaries.

Discounting the existence of illegal immigrants not only has ethical signifigance, it has a number of practical consequences, not least of which is that a well-regulated nation (which we are not) needs to know how many people reside within its territory. Even rabid restrictionists would agree that, say, a police department might benefit from knowing how many individuals live in a given district. That means some level of official recognition of illegal immigrants is required for the proper operation of government.

Part of the difficulty in dealing with illegal immigrants is that it is a relatively new concept. Prior to the imposition of numerical immigration quotas in the 1920s, there was no realsuch thing as a class of people who were deemed "illegal".

Sure, before the '20s, certain laws excluded Chinese or classes of "undesirable aliens" such as paupers or anarchists, but it was the imposition of comprehensible numerical limits that gave us the modern "illegal immigrant."

Ninety years later, we still have not to do with the millions of individuals who are in the U.S. without papers.

The right wing can conveniently demonize them and seek to banish them from official records, but how does that help us deal with the millions already here or keep even one more person from hopping the border?

Columbia University historian Mae N. Ngai has called the illegal immigrant the "impossible subject," a person who exists but does not, a person "who cannot be, and a problem that cannot be solved," at least as we currently structure ourselves.

Illegal immigrants live with us, yet we do not count them in. We hire them, we even take their tax money, we rip off those that work by forcing them to join company unions, and yet we do not enter them in the ledger. The only thing Vitter's proposal would do is have us close our eyes just a little bit tighter.

-I found this article in today's Star-Ledger (the editorial section) and believe that it is one of the most intelligent pieces of writing concerning the topic that I have ever read. But I do disagree with the statement that the problem can't be solved. I believe it can be solved through the humane and Christian like treatment of immigrants (legal and illegal) and od foreigners as a whole.

The article was written by Gregory Rodriguez the director of the California Fellows Program at the New AMerica Foundation and a columnist for the L.A. Times' opinion pages.