By Dr. Larry Moses
By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but…I bought a Kindle, the computer age is upon me. While most technology baffles me, I am comfortable with a laptop. In fact, I spend many hours setting at one as I do my column each week. I have nearly completed my new novel, something I would never be able to do without it. (That is a cheap commercial) While many of the functions of my cell phone are still a mystery to me, I use a GPS to find my way around the country.
I read my first e-book, Obama’s War, on my Kindle this week. Bob Woodward has written an interesting and in-depth explanation of the war that has been going on in Afghanistan for the last ten years and the President’s plan to get out by 2011. It will be the same as his withdrawal from Iraq. He will declare the war over and a troop withdrawal while he leaves thousands of US troops in the field. Read the book.
The issue here is not the book or the war but the value of the Kindle or Kindle like devices to the schoolchild. E-textbooks are available on the Kindle. E-books can be purchased at a fraction of the cost of hardbacks. No longer will the student have to carry backpacks that would make a foot soldier’s knees buckle through the school. I am not sure of all of the advantages and disadvantages of e-textbooks, but a number of schools are experimenting with them. With hardback textbooks costing anywhere from fifty to over one-hundred dollars, it might be worth the effort to explore the value of this resource.
No one asked me but….A Pakistani man has been convicted and sentenced to a life term for attempting to blow up New York City. Two things about this bothers me.
One is the press calling Faisal Shahzd, the bomber, a homegrown terrorists. Excuse me, he was born and raised in Pakistan. He was a naturalized citizen who, by his own admission, lied when he took his oath of loyalty to America. He was, and is, a foreign-born terrorist, thank you. His family was interviewed; they live in Pakistan, not Rock Springs, Wyoming.
The second thing that disturbs me is the unwillingness of the America media and government to acknowledge we are engaged in a war with militant Muslims.
Since the new administration refuses to use the term war on terror in favor of overseas contingency and shies away from any mention of Muslim militants, let me see if the words of the convicted bomber will convince you the war is one against Muslim terrorists. The bomber stated at his trial, “We are Muslims trying to defend our people, homes, and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists and we will keep terrorizing you until you leave our lands and people at peace. The defeat of the United States is imminent. Brace yourselves because the war with Muslims has just begun.”
The United States Government’s refusal to accept the fact that Muslims are at war with the United States reminds me of the story of the prizefighter who is being beaten up in the ring. When he goes to his corner between rounds, his manager tells him he is doing great because his opponent is not laying a glove on him. The fighter replies, “Well, keep an eye on the referee, because some one is sure beating the devil out of me.”
The Muslims may not be laying a glove on us, but someone is. This is just another example of ruling by declaration rather than by fact.
No one asked me but…I really do not care a whole lot who ends up being the governor of California. The race is between Mayor Moonbeam Jerry Brown, the flower child who bloomed in the sixties, and Meg Whitman, a businesswoman, the fourth wealthiest woman in California. You might think if she had that much money, she would move to a real state.
I have little empathy for either. However, I find the latest attack on Whitman a cheap shot. Nicandra Diaz Santillan, in the United States illegally, provided her employer, Meg Whitman with a stolen Social Security number. Miss Diaz, who had come into California illegally from Mexico, assured the couple she was legally available to work. An employment agency was used to hire the woman. The agency had asked for and received an answer to the required question “Can you legally accept employment.” The written answer on the application, an official government document, was “Yes,” Ms. Santillan provided a false social security card, an illegally obtained California driver’s license, a fraudulent IRA W-4 as well as a forged INS verification form.
Whitman withheld taxes from Diaz’ salary of $23 an hour ($44,160 dollars a year for a forty hour week) and provided her with an annual W2 form.
When the name Nicandra Santillan and the number she provided did not agree with agency records, the Social Security Administration wrote Whitman in 2003 asking for more information. The couple gave the housekeeper the letter and asked her to resolve the matter. Whitman would have been hard pressed to do anything else without discrimination charges being filed. When six years later the housekeeper confessed she had been lying and was in fact in the country illegally, Whitman immediately terminated her employment.
For her part, Ms. Santillan claims her former boss still owes her overtime wages and mileage. She also claims she was mistreated and Whitman should have known she was in the country illegally.
A nation that does not allow a police officer to check the legal status of a criminal is surely hard pressed to require the average citizen to do more than Whitman did in employing Ms. Santillan. This is one of the most overt political gotch’a attempts of this political season. It will be interesting to see how rapidly the government moves to deport Ms. Santillan.
Thought of the week…They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
– Ben Franklin
