Morning Metro: RainShine Honored, an Amazing Student, and the Culinary South Rises
Decatur Metro | December 29, 2011 | 9:17 am- Decatur Rain/Shine House wins 2011 Curbed Award [Curbed]
- Decatur High grad named “Amazing Student” by UGA [UGA]
- Paula Deen’s cookbook lands on “Unhealthiest” list [Savannah Morning News]
- Walton County 205 acre solar farm will power 7,000 homes annually [Walton Tribune]
- Is the South this century’s California of local food? [NYT]
Rainshine House: Where is that house? It’s gorgeous. Do real people live in it? Where do they put their stuff? Do they have children who actually leave floors and shelves and beds clear like that? Can I trade? (Not sure if I mean house or children.)
Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo: Wonderful young man. Always has been and evidently still is. Wonderful Mom, CSD Spanish teacher too.
It’s on Wilton… a block and a half from Clairemont Ave.
That house hurts my eyes.
Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo is such a bad ass! Totally deserves this recognition for all the amazing hard work he’s done to make public education accessible and affordable to everyone — citizen or not.
I was recently told that a majority (“up to 70%) of the students at some DeKalb County public schools that are located in high, recent immigrant neighborhoods (like Buford Highway, North Druid Hills Road, etc) have no citizenship documentation. They may be citizens because they were born here, but because their parents may have come here without a legal immigration process (isn’t that a PC statement!), and have no papers, the students are very fearful they will be expelled when the anti-immigrant Georgia law goes into full effect next year. Happy New Year.
Are you trying to make me happy or sad?
I hope it makes you sad enough like me, to want to change that law!
I want those who intentionally did not come here through a legal immigration process and those who intentionally avoid paying income taxes to pay those taxes. I want laws which do not encourage criminal behavior and I want laws which do not shift the responsibilities of intentional wrongdoers and freeloaders to those who do what they are supposed to do. If the schools aren’t making ends meet, you can increase revenues and/or reduce expenses. If we can’t increase revenues b/c certain people choose not to fulfill their obligations, we have no choice but to reduce expenses. It is unfortunate, but less students means less expenses.
If you want to contribute to scholarships for these students, I applaud you. But, it is not appropriate to use the force of government to compel law abiding citizens to pay for those who intentionally refuse to pay for themselves.
I would prefer to see the billions in bank bailouts recouped in full, and the trillions spent on unnecessary wars, before we start targeting school children who are here through no fault of their own. We have given a billion dollars to contractors to construct a “fence” that was a total failure (what a shock) and instead of politicians screaming about this glaring waste, they go after an easy target.
Threatening undocumented folks into shadows, and creating a society of uneducated children/adults, accomplishes nothing.
I agree wholeheartedly with your last statement. But, stay on topic please. The money spent on bank bailouts (much of which has been repaid) or fences is not really relevant to the immigration debate. You may be 100% right about whether we should or should not build a fence, but it doesn’t address the question of what to do with those who are already here.
Let me add that I don’t think this is an easy target. Large portions of minority communities and voters support illegal immigrants’ rights based on some misguided belief that there interests are aligned just because they are both members of a minority group. Further, there are large portions of society in general who oppose this law for a variety of reasons, and will vote for an elected official based solely on their stance of this topic.
You tell me to stay on topic then go into some rant about how minorities (code for blacks) vote with Latinos? OK.
Btw, as a non-minority this sole issue won’t determine my vote. But it does make me view the politicians and their fan-clubs who support these lame-brain ideas ideas, with extreme caution. There’s upholding a rule of law & order in society, and then there’s the fear-mongering these people are pulling. Gays, welfare queens, and now Mexicans are all popular cheap & easy targets. If any of the goofs crafting this legislation were serious about immigration reform they would stay focused on what they can do within the realm of laws in pursuit of their goals, instead of picking this fight in schoolhouses, with children as their scapegoats that will eventually be thrown out by higher courts.
Read the NYT piece I posted on the buffoonery of the Alabama immigration laws. Total idiocy, plain and simple.
Sorry, but how is that a rant? I was simply stating that illegal aliens do have a lot of support from other minority groups. Let them support what they want to support. But, the fact is that politicians risks alienating certain segments of their voters based on their view on the topic. I was also on point as I was disagreeing with your view that this is an easy target.
It may or may not determine your vote. I didn’t say everyone. But, it will influence the votes of many.
The US Supreme Court ruled years ago on this topic – basically school systems can’t remove illegal aliens just because they are illegal. But, that doesn’t prevent states from passing laws to address illegal immigration, and if many of them leave, either voluntarily or involuntarily, so be it. The fact remains that if the immigrants had gone through the proper legal channels, none of this would effect them.
“I was also on point as I was disagreeing with your view that this is an easy target.”
What easier target is there than the millions of people who cannot speak out on their own behalf?
First, they would have a direct say if they entered the country legally and went through the proper channels to obtain citizenship. Second, we just have to agree to disagree on this one as I believe that there are many, such as yourself, who can speak out and do so on behalf of illegal aliens. My point remains that immigrants are not an easy target b/c of those people, such as yourself, who speak out on their behalf (and may or may not vote accordingly). If there weren’t votes defending the “rights” of illegal aliens, this wouldn’t be an issue and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Well, it’s nice to be able to agree with you, that we certainly will not agree on this matter, And for the record, I do believe in meaningful immigration reform, but these state measures are useless in moving us towards that direction.
Than we agree, in part, on something else. I never said this particular law was the best solution. I just said that, IMO, in many ways, it is better than the current system. It currently has flaws.
http://i.imgur.com/84BwO.jpg
The “proper channels” for legal immigration are needlessly convoluted and take an extraordinary amount of time, not to mention expensive (speaking from personal experience).
Once again your statement :”It is unfortunate, but less students means less expenses.”
I believe it was Jonathon Swift who said England could solve their extreme poverty and hunger problem at the start of industrial era. His modest proposal was to just eat the poor children. http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html Something tells me you might support that idea now, here in Georgia
Reminds me of something I read about trying to demonstrate the benefits of flu vaccine. Problem is that the cheapest thing to do with the non-working elderly is to let them die of diseases without prevention or treatment. You have to put a dollar value on the mere existence of a life and on increasing the quality of life to show benefit. There’s more to consider than just the law and economics. I guess that’s where ethics and religion come in….
So, I guess you are implying that I have neither ethics nor religion…
The economics must be considered. It is not the only consideration by any means, but it has to be a large factor. The money has to come from somewhere.
Actually, this cracks me us. I don’t see all the COD parents advocating opening their schools to students who live outside the city. Why not? Because they pay for it and they certainly aren’t going to let just anyone in. So long as it doesn’t effect your little urban utopia, you are all for someone else paying for those you refuse. A little hypocritical don’t you think? And what if you were one of the 30% (based on Rick’s stat) who were paying for the school, but the majority of the resources were being allocated to those who refuse? You don’t think you would view this differently?
Actually, I wasn’t aiming this at you at all. I was aiming it at Jonathan Swift’s article. In terms of the illegal immigration debate on this thread–I’m not getting involved. After living out West in places where Latinos outnumber Anglos and some Latino communities were founded before the English settlements, and knowing personally many illegal immigrants who work harder and ask less than most Anglos I know and who I’d rather have as family members than many of my biological relatives who were unfortunately (for me) born here and are not leaving and are breeding like crazy, I have long struggled with these issues. There’s no easy or one correct answer, IMHO.
Re CSD: It was a very painful period when CSD started enforcing its residency requirements more thoroughly. Family and community arrangements didn’t fit nice neat boxes for some children. I miss some of the children who left. What I did like was that CSD has been careful to enforce its policy evenly regardless of income level, occupation of parents, race/ethnicity, family structure.
Oh, and I forgot, I owned a home and paid COD taxes as a single person for several years. I was happy to pay taxes knowing that good schools made my community more viable, safer, and attractive in terms of real estate values. I’m not a real fan of single family home ownership because it’s too much work and I plan to go condo/townhome/coop/commune /retirement community as soon as the children fly the nest, but it’s not taxes that bother me.
My apologies – thought the lack of ethics comment was directed at me. Ignore my resonses please!
Apologies accepted and my apologies that I chimed in on an argument I was trying to sit out. There was something about breastfeeding infants cheaply to fatten them up for the kill that horrified me to the point that I reflexly responded. Of course, Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist and wanted to provoke…..it worked!
Read my posts. I have repeatedly differentiated between those who cannot pay and those who refuse.
And DM, please don’t edit b/c I can take it and I think it adds to the discussion, but aren’t both of the above posts personal attacks? According to Rick and AHID, I am an unethical cannibal who would prefer to eat the poor rather than support them. You have edited my posts for much less (of course, I am generally not on the liberal side of the argument). Just asking for a little consistency please.
And I guess AHID doesn’t realize that having different ethics from him/her isn’t the same as not having ethics.
Yeah, Another Rick’s comment goes a bit too far, but I don’t see AHID’s comment that does. Sorry, I’ve had other things taking up my time over the last 24 hours and haven’t had a chance to pay as close attention to comments as usual.
No apologies necessary. I have had a couple of responses edited which I didn’t feel were inappropriate and I am guess I am just trying to figure out where the line is. FWIW, I am squarely in the corner of letting those comments go (except for the truly egregious) as I feel it does add a little something to the convo (until it reaches the point where both sides are merely resorting to name-calling).
Let me add that I think some sort of anmesty program is preferable for numerous reasons, but absent such a program on a federal level, the state can’t and shouldn’t just sit back and allow the status quo to continue.
If a child of immigrant parents, undocumented or documented, is born here, they are a citizen, correct? Other than proving their birth here, is there anything else they have to do to receive a public education like any other child born here? Or is my understanding too simplistic? Why are the children fearful that they’ll be expelled? Or is that their parents will be expelled and they do not want to be separated?
Those who are born here are citizens, and I doubt they are the ones worried about getting expelled. This is assuming that the birth was documented or a birth certificate was issued or they have whatever legal evidence is required to document the fact they were born in the country. They, just like you and I, have to be able to prove that they were born here.
These children are worried and many are living in fear. You are also incorrect about the parents not paying taxes. Employers must still report the wages and withhold the tax from the “undocumented”. Many immigrants as well as legal temporary workers never file a tax return, and the people here “illegally” certainally do not file for a refund. Most do not have a real social security numbe and they never claim any benefits. A recent university study documented how much the undocumented workers contribute to the economy. Under Georgia law they cannot qualify for any “public benefit”. I hate to make broad statements, but Georgia HB 87 is immoral and probably unconstitutional.
Rick, I never said they don’t pay taxes and I limited my argument to income taxes. They do pay taxes. They pay sales taxes. They pay imbedded taxes. Futher, although many people don’t understand this (albeit I bet most who post here do and I am, as they say, preaching to the choir), they also pay property taxes, although they pay them indirectly through their rent payments. A large and growing part of the funding of our schools comes from the federal and state levels who primarilry raise reveune through income taxes. However, the law just isn’t about schools – it is about the numerous other benefits received without contribution.
As an aside, employers certainly don’t report wages paid to undocumented workers or withhold any portion of it. They pay in cash. If the workers don’t have a SSN, how can they? Why would they admit to breaking the law in their tax returns?
Also, my argument was not about the amount of taxes they pay. If they file a return and they owe $7, so be it. Same for those who pay $70, $700, $7,000, $70,000… – you get the idea. My point was that the law which is in effect today does not deter freeloading or criminal activity, and as there are virtually no consequences for these illegal acts, it arguably encourages this behavior. Bascially, you have to get arrested for a felony to risk deportation.
They don’t have to “claim” benefits as they already received numerous benefits. Our esteemed courts have decided that schools are requried to educate and hospitals are required to provide health care to those who refuse to contribute (as opposed to those who can’t). Although they may not qualify for a “public benefit”, would you not agree that a (free) education is a benefit? Is free medical care not a benefit?
Dear DawgFan: You words: “My point was that the law which is in effect today does not deter freeloading or criminal activity, and as there are virtually no consequences for these illegal acts, it arguably encourages this behavior.” Your words. Are you saying that people who cross our border illegally because there are no decent paying jobs and they are starving and without hope in their home county, who are at risk of murder, rape or torture at home if they complain, join a union to advocate for justice, etc. are you saying these people are freeloaders or criminals? If that was you, wouldn’t you do the same thing?
If they are here illegally, they are commiting a crime. Whether or not defensible, the answer doesn’t change. If they are not taking steps to pay income taxes and/or become a citizen, they are freeloading. Whether or not you and I would do the same thing does not change the answer. So, yes, I am saying they are both. Whether you or I would do the same thing if we were in their shoes does not mean the activity isn’t criminal – it simply means you and I would be willing to take the risks. This activity needs to be addressed either by state laws or perhaps amnesty at a federal level.
Employers absolutely withhold taxes from undocumented workers’ income. Coming from the restaurant industry, I can tell you that many illegals provide false social security numbers that pass through the system. Their income taxes are taken out just like citizens’ taxes are.
I’m sure they are paid in cash in some industries, but all of the illegal workers I know take home paychecks from major payroll companies, taxes paid.
They cannot kick children out of school. It’s a fear-based attempt to to threaten parents into moving elsewhere. And if the new immigration laws are anything like Alabama’s laws, it will spend ages tied up in the courts, and be a collasal waste of resources that will eventually be overturned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/alabamas-second-thoughts.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It made me so proud and happy to read about Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo! And how awesome that UGa considers him an “amazing student.” He takes action to back up his beliefs. How fitting that he’s from Decatur!
Emile DeFelice, the pig farmer quoted in the NYT article is a Decatur native. He went to Fernbank and Druid Hills High School, played in a funky duet before moving onward and upward.
Cool!
Even a positive article on southern cuisine can’t help focusing on some folksy nonsense like hoppin john. I think the AJC should write an article on farm to table cooking in the north and only talk about beef stew.
I don’t think it was the focus of the article but what is it about hoppin john that makes it folksy nonsense? It’s a filling traditional dish — still eaten widely in the South and variations of it appear in most cultures I believe. I did not grow up on corn pone crumbled into buttermilk like my Dad or tomato aspic like my Mom and probably wouldn’t blink an eye if you called CoCola Salad names, but black eyed peas and rice is a staple, like field peas with snaps, cornbread, tomato sandwiches… yum! Is it almost dinner time?
Re the Walton county solar farm: those Waltonians must through some crazy parties! When you click on the link, the Walton paper site comes up with a banner ad at the top touting party rentals with dumpsters and tents. We could have used a dumpster after some of our parties over the years!