RANT! I made a promise to myself that I would gently ease this blog away from the personal and focus on the artistic skills that I am trying to develop with my photography. But today I need to vent. So, you can just click off, or read. Its your call.

    Before I begin, the weather was horrible this week for my visit to DC. They still had the Cherry Blossom festival, they just had it without me. Maybe next year.

    This week I watched helplessly while a man legally starved his wife to death. He said that he had the best intentions for his "wife", but when it came time for the dignity of the funeral he would not allow it under her religion's customs.  Although she went to church with her parents every week until the time of her "accident", he felt that this is what she would want.  This loving man has been living with a woman for years and has spawned offspring with her.  But in the final hours the press loved reporting that he was cradling her in his arms.  If the truth be told he was probably holding her mouth closed so that he could finish the job he started so many years ago.  What a loving husband. Wonder how his other wife feels?

    That whole thing got my blood boiling, but today I had it inflamed in a whole new way. A group called the Minute Man Project has decided to spend the month of April defending a 23 mile stretch of the Arizona border to Mexico. This area is known as a high traffic area and their intent is to watch it and report to the border patrol when they see illegals coming across. What really rips me is that there are protesters on both sides of the border who are upset that this group is doing this. The “president” of Mexico  who is vowing legal action against them. How in the world has our country become so incredibly screwed up where a foreign leader makes a claim that he is going to sue American citizens who want to watch illegals enter our country. Where is our President in all of this? I have to share something here, and don’t get too riled, but I hate his immigration policy, or lack thereof. It is the single greatest flaw in US policy today. We welcome everyone, but in a legal way. If I were president I would rewrite this policy in my first hour of my administration. Its simple. If we catch you coming across the border you get zapped with a Taser at 50,000 volts. We handcuff you and ship your sorry butt via freight train to a destination 1000 miles up the border and let you enter your country again. If you try it again we deliver you to a detention facility of our chosing in some place like Nome, Alaska. Hope you brought a parka!

     If I lived anywhere near this place I would be putting in for vacation and joining them. If I were the president I would declare this area of Arizona as a bomb testing range and use it as such. No warnings in Spanish, just an occasional volley from some tanks. Love Fort Knox, but maybe we should move our tank range somewhere that it can serve a couple of purposes. I just don’t see a whole lot of folks sneaking into Kentucky (although most Hoosiers wish that they could).

     We have some of the worst immigration policies in the world. I applaud these patriots who are standing up for our freedom and doing something to protect us. Our government doesn’t have the backbone to do it, let’s hear it for these men. When peace time resumes and we move our troops back from Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran (I know, but we will be there and we all know it) let’s create some neat new bases on the Mexican border. Or, for those who are anti-military (and you should all just kiss the feet of the men and women who have served, fought, and died for your freedom to whine so loudly) lets just erect some nice fences and make it a wildlife refuge! I understand that there is a concern for the declining populations of lions and when I watch Animal Planet southern Arizona seems like it would be just their kind of place. Let’s take the land a couple of miles at the border and just fence it. “Oh, what about those poor displaced Colonias?” Well, if they are illegally there, they can stay. If they are there legally, we will be delighted to relocate them to a better location.

            America needs to wake up. We are selling our land to foreigners and letting people stream across our border without any repercussion. While I am sympathetic for their problems in whatever country they are leaving, let them petition to enter legally. I am tired of politicians (all parties) that turn a blind eye to this epidemic problem.