Archive for March 2007

THERMAL, CALIF. — Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms.

Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty.

Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. “My mom makes frijoles,” he said, “then I take a bath in that water.”

Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like a shabby necklace across the eastern Coachella Valley.

Out here — just a few miles from world-class golf resorts, private hunting clubs and polo fields — half-naked children toddle barefoot through mud and filth while packs of feral dogs prowl piles of garbage nearby.

Thick smoke from mountains of burning trash drifts through broken windows. People — sometimes 30 or more — are crammed into trailers with no heat, no air-conditioning, undrinkable water, flickering power and plumbing that breaks down for weeks or months at a time.

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Without attracting much attention, representatives of the Belgian political party Vlaams Belang recently visited Washington, D.C. Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter hoped to meet members of Congress; but Congress was in recess. They hoped to engender some understanding of their program to reverse the Islamization of Belgium; but the media were strip-mining the tinsel life and tawdry times of Anna Nicole Smith.

Maybe they should have known that Tabloid America doesn’t care about the likely transformation of Europe into an Islamic continent, let alone the fate of a French- and Dutch-speaking country of 10 million people. And while Literary America does write books about the transformation — “While Europe Slept” by Bruce Bawer, “The War for the West” by Tony Blankley, and “America Alone” by Mark Steyn come to mind — Political America has yet to acknowledge or even notice this colossal, epoch-defining shift now taking place.

Why don’t our leaders face it? This may be one of those questions our children will ask some day. But if such natural curiosity isn’t expressed until the next generation, the civilizational struggle for Europe will certainly have been lost. Better to question our politicians now. Better to examine the issue today.

Europe, as we may readily observe, is very far along in an accommodation with its still-increasing Muslim immigrant population that is resulting not in the Europeanizing of Islam, but rather the Islamizing of Europe. As Bernard Lewis declared in 2004, Europe will have an Islamic majority by the end of the 21st century at the latest. As Vlaams Belang’s Dewinter recently put it, “We are becoming foreigners in our own land.”

Such tragic pronouncements turn conversation with Vlaams Belang into a kind of political free verse — sadly evocative but rooted in a desperate reality that should shake American complacency. That is, “foreigners in our land” is poetry; Mohammed as the most popular boy’s name in Brussels for six years running is implacable fact. The idea that “We are living on a dying continent but we are not dead yet,” as Dewinter has explained, is metaphorical. His citation from Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi that “Allah is mobilizing Muslim Turkey to add … 50 million more Muslims” to the European Union augurs world-class revolution.

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March 23, 2007 — The March 23 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes racial differences in trends of end-stage renal disease, by primary diagnosis, in the United States from 1994 to 2004.

“The leading cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) (i.e., kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplantation) in the United States is diabetes, followed by hypertension and glomerulonephritis,” write D. Gilbertson, PhD, from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) Coordinating Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and colleagues. “These three conditions accounted for approximately 80% of new cases of ESRD treated during 2004…. Continued interventions, such as those addressing blood-glucose and blood-pressure control, are needed to reduce the prevalence of these risk factors for kidney failure and to improve care among persons with these conditions.”

With administrative oversight by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the USRDS collects, analyzes, and distributes information from clinical and claims data reports to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding patients being treated for ESRD. The investigators analyzed data from the USRDS to examine trends in the primary diagnosis of ESRD in the United States.

From 1994 to 2004, ESRD incidence caused by glomerulonephritis decreased among all races analyzed, and ESRD incidence caused by diabetes or hypertension also decreased for American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) and Asians/Pacific Islanders (A/PIs) but not for whites or blacks.

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KIRSTEN Stewart is not the kind of American that President Bush and the Democratic congressional leadership is likely to bring up as they renew their push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform.

Stewart is not the personification of any of the cliches that Bush and the Democratic leadership enjoy tossing about; she is not an impoverished illegal immigrant “living in the shadows.” Nor is she a businesswoman who can’t seem to find an American willing to work hard for a fair wage.

To the contrary, she is an example of the steep price America pays in integrity when its government refuses to enforce its laws, allowing many of its citizens to violate it with absolute impunity.

Stewart is a landscape professional trying to do the right thing by refusing to hire illegal immigrants — a decision that’s effectively putting her out of business.

As a 40-year-old, college-educated woman living in Santa Monica, Calif., Stewart has pursued her dream of running a landscape design business for four years, the last two of them on her own.

Even in the highly competitive market for well-heeled clients in LA’s Westside neighborhoods and along the glittering Hollywood foothills, Stewart was confident that her design talents and strong word-of-mouth referrals would guarantee her a solid customer base for her business.

It almost certainly would have, except for one thing: She won’t hire illegal immigrants for her work crews.

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CBS) LOS ANGELES Los Angeles County residents tend to be poorer, less well educated and less prepared for the job market than other Californians, according to a report released Wednesday by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

The “Quality of Life in Los Angeles Index” found the Southland is behind the rest of the state in education, economic status, health and public safety. On a 10-point scale, Los Angeles County rates a 7.32, according to the report.

“While the Dow Jones index provides a figure by which to measure the stock market, the `Quality of Life’ index measures factors that affect our entire community,” said Elise Buik, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

“It’s not just about economics. It’s about the economic and social factors that can threaten the well being of all living and working in this region.”

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Manhattan, which once epitomized the glamorous and largely childless locale for “Sex and the City,” has begun to look more like the set for a decidedly upscale and even more vanilla version of 1960s suburbia in “The Wonder Years.”

Since 2000, according to census figures released last year, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan mushroomed by more than 32 percent. And though their ranks have been growing for several years, a new analysis for The New York Times makes clear for the first time who has been driving that growth: wealthy white families.

At least half of the growth was generated by children who are white and non-Hispanic. Their ranks expanded by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2005. For the first time since at least the 1960s, white children now outnumber either black or Hispanic youngsters in that age group in Manhattan.

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Here are some scenes, culled from recent headlines, of a continent–”Eurabia”–seemingly on the brink:

A Berlin opera company abruptly cancels the performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo–whose anticlerical finale features the bloody, severed heads of Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad–for fear of provoking a violent response on the part of Muslims in Germany, who number some 3.3 million. Undoubtedly, in the back of the director’s mind was: (1) the global rioting spurred by the Danish cartoon controversy, which featured demeaning images of the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist; (2) the detection last summer of undetonated terrorist bombs aboard the beloved Deutsche Bahn, or German railway system. Ultimately, the decision to cancel Idomeneo was rescinded and the opera was performed in December, without a hitch.

In a recent speech, Pope Benedict XVI approvingly quotes a fourteenth-­century Byzantine emperor’s bellicose claim: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Underlying the Pope’s prejudicial characterization of Islam are his fears concerning ongoing negotiations over Turkey’s admission to the European Union–an outcome that would result in an influx of some 70 million additional Muslims, thereby, in his view, challenging Europe’s “Christian character.” To his credit, the Pontiff modified his position on Turkey’s admission to the EU during a November visit to Ankara, amid massive anti-Vatican protests.

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According to a study released March 22 by Morgan Quitno Press, Nevada was named the nation’s most dangerous state. This marks the third consecutive year that the Silver State has earned this designation.

The announcement was made in “Crime State Rankings 2006”, an annual reference book published by Morgan Quitno Press, an independent research and publishing company based in Kansas. It was North Dakota that was a repeat as the safest state in the US, having held that position for nine of the past 10 years.

“Nevada struggles with crime and other problems as it continues its rapid growth,” said Scott Morgan, President of Morgan Quitno Press. “Its violent crime rate was up nearly 18% in the five years from 2000 to 2004, while nationally, violent crime rates have decreased 8%.”

The 13th annual Most Dangerous and Safest State designations were based on six basic crime factors reported in Morgan Quitno’s just-released annual reference book, “Crime State Rankings 2006”.

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ROME: Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s top aide said yesterday he would not resign over a damaging scandal in which he was photographed talking to a transsexual prostitute.

Silvio Sircana, promoted last month from being Prodi’s personal spokesman to mouthpiece for the entire government, is the focus of a wider scandal in which paparazzi photographers are accused of blackmailing celebrities.
Yesterday’s newspapers printed a blurred photograph of Sircana, who is married with two children, in his car talking to a scantily clad female-looking figure standing on a pavement.

Sircana, a deputy and long-time Prodi confidante, said he had been devastated by the photo and called his behaviour “a moment of stupid curiosity” in a “supposed transexual”.

But, despite criticism from the opposition, who are battling the government in a debate on family values, Sircana said he had Prodi’s full support and would not resign.

“Why should I have resigned? For a non story?” he told daily La Stampa. “You don’t crucify someone for this type of foolishness. You don’t pillory someone in the press for a small and stupid detour on a summer night.”

The image, taken last September and sold to a magazine which did not print it, was published after Sircana said he wanted it to be made public to clear the air.

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ROME: Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s top aide said yesterday he would not resign over a damaging scandal in which he was photographed talking to a transsexual prostitute.
Silvio Sircana, promoted last month from being Prodi’s personal spokesman to mouthpiece for the entire government, is the focus of a wider scandal in which paparazzi photographers are accused of blackmailing celebrities.
Yesterday’s newspapers printed a blurred photograph of Sircana, who is married with two children, in his car talking to a scantily clad female-looking figure standing on a pavement.
Sircana, a deputy and long-time Prodi confidante, said he had been devastated by the photo and called his behaviour “a moment of stupid curiosity” in a “supposed transexual”.
But, despite criticism from the opposition, who are battling the government in a debate on family values, Sircana said he had Prodi’s full support and would not resign.
“Why should I have resigned? For a non story?” he told daily La Stampa. “You don’t crucify someone for this type of foolishness. You don’t pillory someone in the press for a small and stupid detour on a summer night.”
The image, taken last September and sold to a magazine which did not print it, was published after Sircana said he wanted it to be made public to clear the air.

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