April 12, 2004
Tejano History
I really liked this National Geographic article on the role of Tejanos in early Texas history. It’s good, if a bit basic. I’m quite surprised to hear that the one Texas-born professor hadn’t heard of Juan Seguin until he left Texas; I knew who he was when I left junior high. That may be a consequence of age or of the fact that I went to a damned good junior high, though.
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Local Immigration Enforcement
The New York Times has a nice background piece on how local law enforcement is cooperating in some cases with immigration officials. This was a big controversy in Houston, as the article mentions, because of concerns that immigrants (legal or otherwise) won’t report crimes or cooperate with police in investigations. As always, with immigration issues, there’s a balance between national security concerns and other interests.
By the way, the advice offered by the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, which essentially amounts to “keep your car in good order to avoid harrassment stops”, is worthwhile for folks of any color or immigration status.
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April 11, 2004
The Black Road
Michael and I signed up yesterday for The Black Road. We haven’t submitted our game yet because we’re working on the blurb, but we’ll be running Nine Kobolds in Trouble, which will be a Kobolds Ate My Baby/Amber crossover. We may pick up a second game, if needed, but we’re hoping to play for the rest of the sessions.
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H-What?-B
If you don’t know anything about the H-2B program, here’s a nice little piece that talks about it—it’s for seasonal workers—and explains the consequences of hitting the quota, as we have already done this year.
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You Can Stop Smirking Now
As I, for one, suspected, it turns out that the Trojan horse identified by Intego last week not only isn’t malicious, it isn’t in the wild (via Apple Matters). So all you platform-impaired people who have been getting all publicly smug for the last few days can kiss my grits.
I’m still not sure how one virus over the course of three years would have equalled the daily tide of compromised emails (and bounces bearing my return address that didn’t come from me) that I get from Windows machines, but I’m funny that way. Besides, if you think the sole advantage of Macs to a Mac user is lack of virii, you would be wrong, at least for this Mac user. The lack of viruses is merely a bonus to a computer experience that just works better.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, the Chronk, whose computer columns are not always all wet, has a nice article on spyware/malware and a series on how to remove it. Many of these things are as pernicious as viruses and I tend to classify them as part of the same phenomenon, even though they’re slightly different. Limited software selection is not always a bad thing for Mac users.
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April 10, 2004
Nuketown
A libertarian science fiction ‘zine, Nuketown covers SF and gaming, and has a links section that I’m going to need to explore.
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Rice Tuition Rises, Film at 11
Four Claudes for the news that Rice is raising tuition again. I don’t expect them to lower tuition, but it has gone up an awful lot since I was a college student. In 1985, when I started at Rice, tuition was under $5K annually, and it was in the neighborhood of $8K. (When my ex started at Rice in 1981, it was $2900 annually.) In 2004, it will be $10,751 for freshmen. (UPDATE: As Amy notes in comments, that’s PER SEMESTER.)
I know it’s uncool to bitch when Rice is so much cheaper than schools up here (and it’s not a problem for me, since I won’t be putting kids through Rice anyway), but it still chaps my hide. At least Malcolm Gillis didn’t follow the policy of George Rupp, who aspired to get Rice Ivy League recognition by giving it an Ivy League tuition. Significant tuition increases may be necessary—not that I’m convinced all of Rupp’s were—but they are not a good thing for students.
Permanent item link | Filed under : Education , Houston | Comments and Followups (4)
You’re Nobody Special
Even when you’re the Crown Prince of Spain, if you don’t follow the rules, you get searched. The prince took a connecting flight through Miami at the last minute, and because he didn’t give enough warning, he was treated the same way everybody else is treated when they pass through an American airport. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t like it.
It will be interesting to see whether this incident sparks a formal protest, or whether the apology by the mayor of Miami-Dade is sufficient to ward that off.
Permanent item link | Filed under : Immigration , International Affairs | Comments and Followups (0)
Forget the Alamo
I don’t want to see the new Alamo movie. I suppose that’s heresy, but I really would rather watch the John Wayne version than a “historically accurate” movie, because the historically accurate version will necessarily be bullshit and probably won’t be any fun to watch. At least with the John Wayne version, my inner Texan goes home happy.
(Why yes, I did a historiographical paper on contemporary reactions to the fall of the Alamo when I was thinking about getting my teaching certificate. I know enough about it to know we don’t know enough to tell a historically accurate version of the story.)
Permanent item link | Filed under : History , Movies , Texas | Comments and Followups (2)
April 09, 2004
If You Think Medical Care Is Expensive Now, Wait Until It’s Free
That sign, which appeared on the counter of my family doctor in Houston, came to mind when I read this article on pay-as-you-go care with savings for insurance paperwork passed on to the patient.
My GP, whom I saw regularly for more than 15 years, and who was the partner of the doctor who attended at my birth, opted out of the insurance paperwork regime after he was stymied in treating a patient with a broken arm. My mother was in the office the day it happened, and she said she’d never seen him so angry. He had to close his satellite office and generally tighten his practice’s belt, but he never had trouble with patients over it. It was worth it to see him and pay out of pocket, because I never worried that he would fail to suggest the best medical care because he couldn’t get it approved.
I suspect we’ll eventually have to go to single payer for major medical and catastrophic care, but paying out of pocket for regular treatments like a semiannual sinus infection wouldn’t be the worst thing for medical care.
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Interesting Immigration Items
A few things left on my desktop from earlier this week:
Jorge Castaneda, the former foreign minister of Mexico and a candidate for president in the 2006 election, has an interesting response to the Huntington piece everyone has been talking about from the Mexican perspective.
A former US Embassy employee and two others have been charged in a visa bribery scheme that involved 180 visas, including some for terrorists. The catch: the terrorists are FARC guerillas, and the post in question is Mexico City. (Note that the article doesn’t call them terrorists, but I think it’s a fair cop.)
Advantage: Me! Adjudication times for important immigration documents (EAD/work permit, advance parole/travel permit, and more) have quadrupled in the last 18 months, especially at the Vermont Service Center, which handles requests for the Northeastern part of the US. If law firms are really charging $1500 for advance parole applications, I may need to look at getting back into immigration law, because that’s where the money is.
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Wednesday Weird 7: The Apprentice
This week, we get to get weird with the apprentice.
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WISH 91: Appropriating From Fiction
This week’s question is inspired by figuring out exactly where a particular name in a campaign I’m in came from.
How often do you appropriate bits from books, movies, comics, and other sources as a player or GM? Do you like to steal names or flavor or go more whole-hog? Is there a difference between stealing for background and stealing for in-game plot?
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