Virginia Counties Targeting Illegal Immigrants?

I just got my issue of American Libraries and learned that in the wake of Congress' failure to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in June, Loudoun and Prince William Counties in Virginia are passing resolutions to limit illegal immigrants' access to public services. I say shame on Loudoun and Prince William County and all the other counties and states who are passing laws and resolutions to limit freedoms to illegal immigrants.

What Americans need to realize is that 1. the system of immigration in this country is broken and 2. someone is benefiting from illegal immigration and contrary to popular belief it is *not* the illegal immigrants. Think about this. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Some one must really want illegal immigrants here. Everyone who hires domestic help illegally and pays them under the table benefits, every corporation who "unknowingly" contracts illegal immigrants to work for less than minimum wage benefits. Corporations who can keep wages for all their employees low benefit. Illegal immigrants do not benefit from current immigration law. They end up on a dangerous journey to a country that doesn't want them, to work in a job which puts them in a situation where they are easily exploited.

All immigrants would benefit much more from having an easier legal path to immigration. Employers would have to pay a living wage and benefits, and when the children of illegal immigrants grew up they would not be barred from an education or employment because they too, quite innocently, are also illegal immigrants. I know what the path to immigration is like in the United States because I too am an immigrant. I started the immigration process legally over ten years ago and am not appreciably closer to achieving permanent residency status, never mind having citizenship than I was then . I also know the casual insults that immigrants endure everyday, like having to send my immigration documents to the State Capitol every time I renew my driver license so they make sure that I'm in the country legally, or being tested for Std's just to get my green card, like being an immigrant makes it more likely that I'll engage in risky behavior.

Christians are often admonished to consider, ironically enough, "What Would Jesus Do"? Well, I know what he would not do. He would not throw good people in jail for helping God's people in need, He would not make strangers feel unwelcome in his home and he certainly would not turn people in need away from his door.

The Maternal Wall in Libraries?

Once again I find myself pounding the pavement as it were looking for a new position as a librarian. This time however I find myself having even less success than the last time I looked for a job despite a new gung ho attitude and a positive new spin on marketing myself and ironically three more years of experience. Every time my phone calls are not returned yet again I start to get suspicions why.

You see, since I last worked as a librarian, I have gained five years of more than full time experience in another highly demanding field. You could say that I have experience working with children in a particularly intimate way. Yes, I am a stay at home mother to a five year old girl and a three year old boy. Naively I thought I would stay home with the little ones until they were ready to go back to school and then carry on where I left off. That was before I heard about the Maternal Wall.

Not that I know for sure that this is the issue in my case, just that I know anecdotally from other stay at home mom librarians that it can be hard to get back in the field once you've been out and I also know that discrimination against mothers is widespread in business and the professions. With the wage gap between non mothers and men being narrowed, discrimination against mothers is in large part to blame for there still being a wage gap at all. I also have experienced particularly in academic libraries that the value placed on the so called ideal worker, ei one without outside obligations is huge.

So, where does this leave me? So far I'm learning Spanish and taking a multitude of continuing education courses in my "spare time". It has also left me wondering if some of the continuing education I take should not possibly be in the direction of a new career.

My little Fairy

My son has always been one to develop a clothing fascination. Last week he wanted to wear his Miss Spider rain boots with everything. This week he is wearing a fairy Tutu I made for his sister for Halloween two years ago. So cute. It reminds me of a story a friend told me that she heard on Bill O'Reilly. Bill claimed that some parents of a young boy who liked to dress up in girls clothing decided that their son was a transvestite and convince the school to treat him like one. Typical Bill story. Take one case, which may or may not be true, blow it way out of proportion and use it as an example of the decline of family values in our civilization. Really, I think what happens much more often is that parents blow these innocent little phases out of proportion in the other direction. Right now, I think a T-shirt with a tutu with the all important addition of Thomas the Tank engine sneakers is a good look for my son, just like underpants and rain boots were during the "rain boot phase".

Steve Almond “Not that you Asked” Special Excerpt Booklet (Book Review)

From reading other reviews of this book on LibraryThing and from briefly skimming through the book I did not expect to enjoy it as much as it did. After all the first two essays are about a young adolescent boys early forays into sexual experimentation so I expected mostly prurient humor. I certainly did not expect to laugh out loud several times (as I did). It turned out that the first two essays dealt with a more universal adolescent experience, that of feeling self conscious and in the spotlight. I felt that Almond dealt with these two admittedly mortifying adolescent experiences with intelligence and wit.

I found the third essay “How to write a sex scene to be relatively weak but his essay “Why I crush on Vonnegut which made up bulk of his booklet was his strongest essay out of the five that made up the booklet. It turns out to be a criticism of conventional literary critique and Almond opinions of why Vonnegut remains relevant to readers even though he is not universally loved by critics.

Of course I looked forward to reading the imaginatively titled “Ham for Chanukah” which turned out to be about the effect that the Almond Family’s rather lukewarm and dysfunction holiday celebrations had on the author growing up and why now he is now practicing his Jewish faith with his family with more faithfulness than he experienced growing up.

This is how most of the essays turned out to be. Underlying most of his essays was a commentary of what is was like growing up in the suburbs of California as a member of generation X, which as a generation Xer myself spoke volumes to me. I will definitely read the rest of the book when it is released.

Boundaries? We Don't Need No Stinkin Boundaries!

Sometimes since having kids I feel like I've lost all my privacy. Take two days ago. I get up and get my children out of bed and I'm still in my pajamas. My not-quite-five year old Stacy London in Training grabs my breast and say "Mommy! You have to put on your booby holder so your boobies don't fall down!" What to do, what to do about fondling four year olds.......

My Day So Far

Definitely there are good days and bad days when you are a stay at home mom with two pre-school aged children. Let me illustrate by giving a glimpse of my day:

8:30 My daughter wakes me up. I'm recovering from cold that is threatening to get worse and am worse for the wear.

8:35 I go to get my son. My daughter protests about this.

8:45 I start to make breakfast. My daughter asks for "eggy-loos".

9:00 I serve breakfast. My daughter informs me that eggs are "yucky".

9:30 I check my email.

10:00 *Still* checking email. Because I'm looking for a job as a librarian and apparently won't even be considered if I don't keep up with the profession, I subscribe to several professional blogs and listservs. Where do people find the time to post this stuff!!!!!!!!

10:30 I gather up my daughters supplies to take to preschool open house this afternoon.

10:45 Take out meet for dinner. All that is available is large packages of chicken and ground beef.

11:00 Have bath so I don't frighten daughter's teachers.

11:30 Try to get children into bath. Unfortunately "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast" has just come on so daughter does not comply.

11:50 "Maggie and Ferocious Beast" finished so daughter comes up for bath.

12:10 Kids won't come out of bath.

12:20 Kids finally come out.

12:30 Kids fight for snuggles.

12:40 Go downstairs to make lunch. Daughter requests macaroni and cheese "long on the side"Try to hurry so I can take kids to Target and library depending on when Schwan's man. comes.

12:45 Discover that son has painted dining room floor with lemonade and salt.

12:50 Mop dining room floor. Dining room floor needs vacuuming. Vacuum dining room and living room. Find that daughter has taken out every single Lincoln log.

1:05 Serve lunch. Am told that I used "wrong" macaroni.

1:30 Chicken still frozen solid. Consider buying dinner kit from Schwan's man when he comes.

2:30 Still waiting for Schwan's man. Consider buying nothing from him this month to spite him much to dismay of my children who would like me to buy 1,000 gallons of "Summers Dream" ice cream.

3:00 Schwan's man still not here. Partially thawed chicken for supper it is.....

9:00 P.M. Boys oh boys, here's the Schwan's man!

Here is my a picture of my kids camping in Minnesota. Although it wasn't really a vacation, I can't say our trip wasn't memorable, what with the stomach flu, car troubles, rain, heat waves, and wasp stings.