Qué What Now?

Today is scheduled to be a day of protest for those calling for Congressional action on the issue of immigration. As this article explains, protesters are upset with the slow pace of immigration reform and with what many see as the current, and future proposed, harsh treatment of illegal immigrants.

I agree with what much/all of the article presents as the protesters' views, especially that there needs to be a realistic and viable path to citizenship for the many illegal immigrants working in the US, and any guest-worker program can't include fines so large that few will participate. Above all we need to increase the amount of people that we allow to become legal immigrants.

My only criticism of the protests is that I have seen that many fliers annoucing the protests, and many of the signs and things said in the protests are in Spanish. Now I love speaking and hearing Spanish just as much as the next guy, but something tells me that if you are trying to protest and convince a bunch of people about something, you should probably do it in the language of those people that you are trying to convince. Anyone who can understand a sign or a slogan that's in Spanish probably already has their mind up on the issue. Immigrant supporters should present an image of immigrants that want to live in this country and take part in the American experience and part of that should mean learning English, even though you don't have to speak it all the time. But they should use English other than Spanish in the protests, because that sends a more friendly and less hostile message. The Spanish on the other hand is probably counterproductive and probably frightens a lot of Americans who are either uncomfortable about or not sure how they feel about immigration. Maybe through more use of English during their protests they will have a better chance of convincing more Americans and thus have a better chance of convincing more politicians

That said, one interesting piece that I read on the immigration issue in general was by Richard Posner, who comes at the issue from an economist's perspective. According to Posner, the only solution to the immigration problem "is for Mexico and the other poor countries from which illegal immigrants come to become rich... The more one worries about illegal immigrants, the more one should favor policies designed to bring about greater global income equality."

Now if that doesn't convince you that raids, incarceration, fines and deportation are not going to fix things, maybe Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts can convince you with their delightful romantic comedy set in the great country of Mexico.

So are there, like, copyright rules, or what's the deal?

I don't know that much about art, but I know enough that I think some of you will agree with me that Picasso is the greatest painter of all time. He was what Mozart was to music, and what the Beatles were to, um, pop music. He was what ketchup is to any food based on protein or carbohydrate, what George W. Bush is to late-night comedy shows, and what George Washington was to the British Crown. I'm saying he was a revolutionary. The guy transformed art more times than John Kerry transformed his stance on various campaign issues (according to the swiftboat veterans, who have no incentive to say anything except the truth - interestingly enough, the boats only went about 20 to 25 knots per hour - lie #1!).

Anyway I'm trying to talk to you about Picasso, and how awesome he is. For those unfamiliar with Picasso, he had a long and multifaceted career, however his crowning achievement was probably being the best fucking painter ever.

Given this, it's no surprise that (1) someone would want to steal some of his paintings and (2) the whole world is talking about it. But yeah, two of his paintings were stolen earlier this week from Picasso's granddaughter's home in Paris (ugh, Da Vinci Code rip-off, anyone?). Depending on where you want to get your news from and what languages you like to get it in, here are a few links to different newspapers not too far from where I live.

US
England
France
Spain

To sum up the articles, people are searching far and wide for these stolen paintings. Because no witnesses saw the thieves, all we have is this artist's rendering of the search:


Not sure why they're looking in the water.

I don't have much else to say about this really, just think that Picasso is the greatest and that the fact that art heists are kind of en vogue (learned that from reading the French article) gives art theives no excuse. But of course, once again, we can blame Hollywood's influence for this. In fact if you ask me I think they should make George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Katherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts go look for these theives, only stopping to rest at night, which will also be a key part of the movie they can make about this. Only when these bozos recover the stolen Picassoes will they have made up for sexifying this horrible crime by (1) filming themselves stealing the fabrege egg from the Louvre and (2) being so sexy. By the way Steven Soderbergh if you are reading this, I can film this movie.