So now they shot an ICE agent, no wait it was a detainee, and there were another two that survived prior to their certain descent into prison-like hell, as ascertained by Pres. Trump, as far as both the merit of such a view and now their mantle to bear, as they get rushed through purgatory by Locomotive Breath, incidentally. (With now another pop-up shooting or is it three since. Including the grand old horror of being, bar one, at a church, again. See an earlier post. But this one deals with something just as cold.)
When is enough, enough, enough.
With the ICE event, it wasn’t a sheriff who was shot, but listening to Trump yammer on about the poor ICE officers who have been given big raises, but whose well-being was put on notice, you’d think it was a thousand sheriffs and alleged accompanying points of light for the homeless man, and also their deputies, and certainly not detainees. Don’t forget the kinder, gentler machine gun hand, Neil Young sung about, still, while passing through the area on Farm-Aid.
The nature of those fallen could be the same difference to me. What do I mean by that??
Good cop, bad cop, or something in between. And ICE agents are like cops on steroids, like bishops and cardinals are priests on steroids. The majority in both fields are good people, but when they are bad they are VERY bad. The ratio is out of whack.
It is, or shouldn’t be, left vs. right. Right vs left. Center vs. center, Etc.
So if you are a detainee, back to the inquisition. Shrouded men of god hid behind their effectively stretched-to-cover masks. (No angels in Spandex.) And maybe the vast majority of those in ICE have good hearts and want to actually help those citizens and non, who they “serve,” but if I was a betting man I’d risk selling my soul to the devil first.
However, there are actual points of light with ICE, and good deeds by at least some agents. More on that later. But they may lose pay if the government shuts down soon. So where do their guns go? Maybe to fight crime via traditional cops.
But between them and the National Guard and ICE, if you are an immigrant I advise that you keep your documentation such as a Green Card or whatever on your person at all times, wherever you go or work. If you will even get a chance to produce it when detained.
And for much of the rest, Jimmy Kimmel tells the truth (although he could have watched his words, as I covered in an earlier post, as these days even the slightest mispeak means a libel suit, unless you’re Trump) and he is summarily crucified, and banned from broadcast. Much like Christ, if he was on the air. Again, same difference. Truth on trial. And for Kimmel, after about three days he arose, as he basically had his ban and sentence commuted and was placed back in the studio. Without apologies. Or payment, from his (I assume) missed paycheck.
To the point, ICE agents can, at times, like cops, be like dry ice. No soul to be found in at least some of them. So melt them, oh ye politicians. Or summarily fire those people first. Then they will melt.
So when I see an interestingly-adorned-with-things-such-as-sirens-on-top, and different colored, vehicle these days, and they seem to be everywhere, I wonder if someone else — an already boiled away kitchen slave or a dripping wet ditch digger — is about to be taken away from their post forever. (Aren’t you like me living in this police state, when you hear a siren blare, you’re kinda shakin’ at your knees and look over your shoulder?) And if the wrong skin color, soon stuck very far overseas in a cell where there is likely not a toilet or running water, much less a stove or even a table.
More locally …
A bartender friend with a law degree said, in general terms, that same night that the world is on fire, because it is going to hell fast, and not (because of) Mexico. Eat the rich. Put them on the menu and see if they’re tasty.
Or, like a homeless guy I met the other night, closeby to the place he recently sleeps, on a grassy knoll downtown, and who added that most cops are nice and will kinda just leave him alone, though there will be that one or two who will give him grief. And want to check his ID. Maybe that’s just to see if he has any outstanding warrants — and why would they just assume? He seems smarter than some of those who I have met who wear a badge. I had a half-hour theology conversation (we agreed we could have extended it to a full week) with him that would be over the head of bible-thumper Charlie Kirk. Sorry.
Or, if an ID-less-one, do they want to send the smart guy packing to Mexico. At least a (warm) place to stay. But this guy is not Hispanic. Maybe that is his salvation to not be deported. Or the officer’s mate, you came up and said hello and that this guy is OK. The other officer, who had looked a bit annoyed that his potential bust basically based on alleged trespassing (yes he gets the word allegedly like anyone else would) had been busted, walked away grumbing, I was told.
Hence hope …
But there is a broader sense of humanity here, to which witness is born through of all things the recent shooting of the detainee. The shooter, like some but not all who have left a note, said he did not want to hurt any detainees, only certain others. Some shooters have apologized to their victims and even their own family for not being that perfect child. Some humanized ICE agents even were said to have scrambled to help save some of the detainees from further bullets, with their own lives at risk, as the detainees’ punishment should fit their (alleged if it even gets that far in the court process) crime. One wonders, didn’t at least some of the ICE cops actually think that these guys deserved to be hit by those bullets? Again, good cop (the vast majority,) bad cop (hopefully just a few).
Yes, back them in their effort, but it depends on the circumstances.
These are new circumstances, taking into account some very real (world) circumstances.
So if an immigrant, how do you get around safely in Ugly America? Maybe go clubbing! (But not in a bar seaside, as another shooting like the recent one from a guy in a boat might transpire.) But bop around, up and down, up and down, on the dance floor. To an old ’80s song, by Men Without Hats, called the Safety Dance. Or a shift in its key phrase to, “is it safe to dance?” Or the Stairway to Heaven line, “And the forests will echo with laughter … Does anyone remember laughter?”
With all the beatings and threats and silencing, if you are going to file a formal complaint against ICE, you’d better not speak it in Spanish. Instead, write it in perfect cursory style, and not with carefully crafted characters only letters. And paint your face white. With perfectly coifed beard? Not necessarily Arab style. And no tattoos, too. That wouldn’t help the guy just dragged away in front of suburban apartment dwellers who was known as simply, or silently, The Ice Cream Man. David Lee Roth, or my music friend Dan who lists that as his favorite Van Halen song, better watch out when stepping off stage. Or the man at the ice cream shoppe who looks the color of chocolate. Does he work at one of the two such shops that still operate downtown, at least for a time into the fall.
Whatever happened, with the Bible so often suddenly being (badly) cited, to the old idea of that when a stranger comes under your roof or to your door, treat them with honor and respect? Offer them the fatted calf. Where would all those Isrealites — and thus maybe later Christians — have been without the hospitality of the family in the desert to Moses? Ask Metallica, who wrote an iconic song about it. Or more on them and an early album cover, our Statue of Liberty — now basically shot down — and the idea of bring me your poor (immigrant workers), your tired (such workers), your huddled Masses (their families) …
Yes I will offer to debate the likes of Trump and Vance on it anytime. Just name the time and date and place. And don’t waffle about it then.
But, yay, finally! I give approval for Trump, and his granted approvals that are qualified, for backing a NATO country shooting-down-while-they-were-overhead Russian drones. But this one is an easy call, unlike the complexity of the Biden situation with the spy balloon from Alaska coming to the mainland.
But now, sell no more soybeans to Russia. If anyone out in the fields is paying attention, I guess that Trump has just lost the Iowa vote, for sure. Even though, he said, he’ll help farmers before harvest time. I think it’s more likely that the crops will succumb to California wildfires.
Or the other extreme. A local man without a plan in a rainstorm. His wife smirked that he had placed the umbrella over mostly himself, and only partially over her. “Thanks Mr. Trump,” she said sarcastically. Oops, Donald would have had the whole thing over himself. As it is always about himself.
More …
We now are separating out some kinds of disorders within our child vaccine targets, rather than just a single inoculation for a bunch, thanks to RFK Jr. and crew. Rubella? No, that was my old football coach, just spelled a bit differently, exchange a vowel or two, and taking a knee, albeit scraped and needing disinfectant.
And at the bar, the famed T-shirt worn by bouncers to separate them from bartenders for people ordering drinks, saying simply “staff” takes on a new warning, as it could possibly indicate they had been on sick leave, then had to come in immediately when getting better because of staffing needs. In short order? No, that’s cooks.