Dentists

I'd like to say I have a love/hate relationship with the dental profession, but there's not a lot of love there. Let me tell you what I mean.

Perhaps the best -- or least annoying -- dentist I ever had was back when I was a kid. This dentist was a lone duck, didn't have a team of dental hygienists or even a receptionist. If the phone rang, he had to stop the tooth cleaning to answer it. Unfortunately, over time this guy's practice became a tad antiquated. Started to remind me of Sir Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. ("Is it safe?") I needed a slightly more modern approach, so I moved on.

After several years of not denting (or is it dentoring?), I got a new dentist nearer my home. This guy was very aggressive; after decades of never having a cavity, this guy discovered something that needed fixing on every visit. And he wanted me to visit every three months, more often than my doctor wanted to see me. To top it off, he had the most annoying dental hygienist imaginable, overly perky and always talking about some damned thing that I just couldn't care less about. I gave this guy the heave-ho after a couple of years.

My latest dentist isn't drill happy, and only wants to see me once a year. So good so far. The problem is, he's forgotten who the customer is. I made an appointment a year ago for a cleaning today, and when I showed up ten minutes late, he wouldn't take me. Wanted me to reschedule. After 12 months, ten minutes isn't that big a deal. And, besides, it's his job to serve me and my schedule, not the other way around. Frankly, I view visiting the dentist as a minor annoyance at best, and you have to work harder than that to keep me as a customer. I told the receptionist thanks but no thanks, and now I'm looking for a new dental practitioner.

Bottom line, I hate dentists -- even when they're not poking their fingers in my mouth.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Star-spangled hypocrisy

Yesterday, in response to the artificial controversy surrounding a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," President Bush said the following:

"I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

Okay. Then explain this:

When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, [Bush] would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, sometimes partying with a "Viva Bush" mariachi band flown in from Texas.
(Thanks to ThinkProgress, as first reported by Kevin Phillips in his book, American Dynasty.)

Or the fact that the U.S. State Department lists four different Spanish-language versions of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on their website.

Or the fact that all the way back in 1919, the United States officially commissioned a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

I find the entire uproar over this issue quite embarrassing -- especially the fact that two-thirds of Americans apparently agree with the President's latest statement. I simply don't see what the fuss is about; I'd rather have Hispanic-Americans singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish than singing the Mexican national anthem in any language.

And the President's stance? Call it flip-flopping, call it hypocrisy, call it what you like, but it remains that he said one thing when he was running for election and is saying another thing now. He either lied to Hispanics then or is lying to rabid white males now. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Bush -- you're either with us or against us, you can't be both.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Bruegger's Bagels: Good and Bad

I've been spending a lot of time up in Minnesota, where they have a Bruegger's Bagel store on every corner. This is a good thing; Bruegger's is my favorite bagel place. We don't have Bruegger's here in Indiana, where Einstein's is the ruling chain. I like Einstein's, but I love Bruegger's.

So I've been eating my fair share of bacon and egg bagel sandwiches, which is a very good thing. But last week I decided to go a little lighter, and ordered a plain bagel with hummus. Imagine my surprise when the clerk rang my bill and came up with a $3.69 charge.

I pointed out to the clerk that a bagel with smear should be $.79. The clerk, in response, pointed to a menu item under the "deli sandwiches" section that said "Hummus, $3.69." That was 70 cents more than a bacon and egg bagel sandwich, and the same price as a turkey or roast beef sandwich. I pointed out this fact, and the clerk offered to put more hummus on my bagel. I replied that this wasn't the point, that the issue here was that I didn't order a sandwich, I ordered a bagel with a bit of hummus spread on it, just like they do with cream cheese and the like. Again, the clerk offered to put more hummus on my bagel. I pointed out that the exact same item at Einstein's cost $.79. The clerk once again offered to spread more hummus on my bagel. One last time, I noted that I could purchase an entire tub of hummus and a single plain bagel for less than the cost of this so-called hummus sandwich. The clerk just shrugged her shoulders. Bah!

At that point I gave up, but did email Bruegger's management about the situation -- after finding out that this was a chain-wide thing, not just a single-store aberration. So far, nothing but a form letter response, but here's hoping. I really like Bruegger's, but find this issue exasperating. Why should a knife-full of hummus cost more than a similar amount of cream cheese? It doesn't make any sense to me.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Immigrants, Part 2

My previous post on Hispanic immigrants proved prescient. As I write these words, Congress is debating sweeping new immigration legislation. The debate is tearing the Republican party apart, as it exposes two wildly contradictory wings of the party.

The first wing, which tends to call itself nativist, can be more accurately described as bigoted and racist. Led by ethically-compromised (and aspiring presidential candidate) Senator Bill Frist, these Republicans want to send Hispanic immigrants back to wherever they came from, before they move into their monochromatic neighborhoods and marry their lily-white daughters. They can make all the "we have to protect America" arguments they want, but the bottom line is that these narrow-minded, hate-filled, quasi-white supremacists hate people of color (any color), and would like to see an all-white America devoid of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and all other non-Western European descendants. (They probably don't like the French, either.) Frist and his intolerant ilk are the cleaned-up, pseudo-respectable, 21st century equivalent of the Klu Klux Klan. Short of lynching the Mexicans, they want to deport them.

Opposing these nativists/racists is the corporate wing of the Republican party. Led by the likes of Wal-Mart and other low-paying employers, these Republicans like Hispanic immigrants just fine. That's because the influx of Hispanic workers represent cheap labor to these bald-faced capitalists, and getting rid of them would mean they'd have to hire higher-salaried American workers in their stead. This profit-minded thinking has inspired "moderate" Republicans -- such as John McCain and Arlen Spector -- to endorse an amnesty program for those illegal aliens already here. Though the motivation may be less than pure, it's actually the best idea on the table, and has also been endorsed by the Democratic minority.

There are other Republican views on the issue, of course. President Bush tried to navigate a compromise between the two extreme wings of his party by proposing a three-year "guest worker" program, but the stupidity of the solution only served to piss everyone off. Then there are the security nuts, who think that building a big wall between the U.S. and Mexico will keep terrorists out of the heartland. (But why stop with Mexico -- how about another wall sealing off the Canadian border, and maybe stopping all incoming plane flights, as well?) These viewpoints seem to be subsidiary to the main argument, however, and don't factor much in the current debate.

It's kind of fun to see the Republicans tearing themselves apart on this issue. As noted in the new book American Theocracy, today's Republican party is a fragile coalition of competing constituencies -- much like the Democratic party has always been. But in the Republicans' case, what's good for one segment isn't always good for the others, so it's really just a matter of time before their "small tent" collapses. Social conservatives (religious or racist) can't long live with corporate fiscal conservatives, nor with power-hungry neo-conservatives. I give Bush (and Rove) credit for holding the coalition together, but it's a temporary collaboration that is now starting to fray.

On the immigration issue, here's what I think we should do. First, we need to treat our Hispanic visitors as human beings. That means offering citizenship to all who want it, and offering essential services to all who need them. Second, we need to pay these folks the going wage, so that they're not taken advantage of and so that their presence doesn't depress wages for native American workers. Third, we need to work with the Mexican government to improve living conditions (and increase wages) in our neighboring country, so fewer Mexicans are tempted to head north to better their lot.

Finally, we need to work much harder to assimilate both visiting and resident Hispanics into the American culture. Our latest immigrants are not blending into the American melting pot as previous generations of immigrants did, and that's not good for them or for our country. Our culture becomes richer when new immigrants are added to the mix, and those immigrants need to learn to live and to thrive in their chosen new society. It's not good for Hispanics to live in a parallel version of the United States; separate but equal has never been a winning strategy.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Immigrants

America is a country rife with contradictions, not the least of which is the fact that we are a nation of immigrants who hate immigrants. That is, each previous generation of immigrants hates the following generation of immigrants. It was okay for our grandparents to immigrate, but it has to stop there; we don't want new folks to come in and spoil the fun.

Of course, it's much more complex than that -- although the description is apt. It doesn't matter that all of our families came from somewhere else (save for the few remaining Native Americans, of course -- but that's another story); we resent the intrusion of whomever happens to be immigrating today.

In generations past, however, immigrants eventually were assimilated into the culture. Typically not first-generation immigrants, but by the time the second generation made it to the workplace, they were firmly integrated into American culture. Germans, Polish, Irish, Russians, the country of origin didn't matter; the sons and the daughters of these immigrants became true Americans, in every sense of the word.

This second-generation assimilation doesn't necessarily seem to be happening with today's batch of immigrants, however. Instead of immigrants adapting to the existing American culture, our culture appears to be adapting to accommodate the current generation of Latino immigrants. You see it everywhere, from the growth of Spanish-language media to the de facto bilingualism in locales with large Latino populations. It may be too early to tell, but it appears that today's Hispanic immigrants are retaining their native culture and not fully integrating into the American culture; instead of adding to the melting pot, we're creating a dual culture unlike anything we've seen in the past.

This influx of Hispanic immigrants who are not adapting to the American culture frightens many people. There are many reasons for this -- some justified, some not.

On one level, opposition to Mexican immigration is simple racism -- we don't want those stinking Mexicans living in our neighborhoods. There has always been prejudice against people not like exactly us, people of a (slightly) different color, people who come from a different place, people who speak a different language. Many ignorant citizens are afraid of and therefore irrationally hate Mexicans; they think Mexicans are racially inferior, and a danger to our "American way of life." This argument, of course, is despicable -- but unfortunately widespread. It should come as no surprise that many opponents of Mexican immigration, no matter what arguments they make publicly, are private racists.

On another level, opposition to Mexican immigration is a somewhat rational concern over the allocation of increasingly scarce public resources -- why should we let those freeloading foreigners live off the public dole? The argument doesn't have to be that crass; how we disperse our public funds is a legitimate point of discussion, especially when the Republicans-in-charge keep cutting the budget for essential public services. With class size increasing and extracurricular activities being cut, can we really afford to educate the children of illegal immigrants alongside our native-born children? Of course, this argument tends to ignore the fact that even illegal immigrants make positive contributions to our economy and our society, including contributing to our tax base. I haven't done the math, but it could be argued that the financial impact of today's illegal immigrants is a net positive -- that is, they contribute more to the economy than they take out. This will become increasingly so as the baby boomer generation retires and ages; we'll need as many Mexican immigrants as possible not just to care for the aging boomers, but also to take their place in the job market.

On yet another level, opposition to Mexican immigration is a justified argument against America's increasing racial and cultural bifurcation. In previous generations, we didn't require bilingual accommodation for the immigrant population; we had one unofficial American language, and immigrants were expected to learn it. Yes, the American way of life changed (and, in fact, became richer) due to the injection of immigrant culture, but we didn't expect the existing culture to change completely to accommodate the immigrants; the immigrants were expected to adapt to the prevailing culture, not the other way around. Can America as we know it continue to exist if it adopts too much of the immigrants' Hispanic culture -- or will America become a kind of Mexico North, losing its historical identity? Do we really want a polarized America, with one side composed of affluent Caucasians of European descent and the other composed of poor Hispanics, each side speaking their own language and living in their own isolated cultural cocoon? If we go this route, the ideal of the American melting pot will devolve into separate but unequal societies, separated by an insurmountable cultural divide. This is not the America of our forefathers, but it may be the America we bequeath to our grandchildren.

The answer to the growing immigration problem, alas, is not to put a halt to future immigration. For one thing, we can't stop the tide. Previous generations of immigrants were constrained by how many people could fit into a limited number of boats to cross the ocean to our shores. Today's generation of immigrants have no such constraint; immigrating, legally or illegally, is as simple as walking across our huge and porous physical border. Some politicians advocate building an unimaginably long fence from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, but this is not only impractical but also easily surmounted; there isn't enough fence in America, nor enough border control guards, to protect every linear foot of our border and prevent determined immigrants from scaling or tunneling under such a barrier. No matter what measures we enact, the immigrants will continue to come -- until, that is, there is no benefit for them to do so.

The solution to the influx of Mexican immigrants isn't an American one, it's a Mexican one. To stem the tide of immigrants from Mexico, we must remove the benefits of immigrating. That doesn't mean making things worse for these hard-working immigrants here in America; it means making things better for them in their homeland. If we can work with our neighboring country to improve the conditions for average Mexicans, there will be less reason for them to cross the border to find employment in America. Water always finds its own level, and the reason so many Mexicans are immigrating to the United States is that their economic fortunes are better here. Improve their lot at home, and they won't need to travel north for work; the water level will be equalized.

Until this happens, we have to deal with reality. That doesn't mean deporting illegals who are already here, nor depriving them of basic rights and public services. Give them medical care, give them schooling, give them driver's licenses; treat them like the residents -- legal or not -- that they are. But resist the urge to redefine American culture in their image. It's not racist to insist that newcomers adjust to the existing culture; it's not culturally insensitive to expect visitors to speak our language and adapt to our way of life. If I immigrated to Mexico (or France or China or Germany), I wouldn't expect the citizens of that country to speak my language or change their culture to accomodate me; I'd expect to learn their language and ways. The same should apply here in the United States. We should be gracious hosts, and we should expect our newest vistors to be gracious guests. We can -- and must -- learn to live together.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.