All categories - 22 July 2006

2006-07-22 15:51:38 · 11 answers · asked by Sanitizer 6 in Polls & Surveys

” This year’s illegal-alien demonstrators put forward a novel theory of entitlement: because we are here, we have a right to be here. Protesters in Santa Ana, California, shouted: “We are here and we’re not going anywhere,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Anger at the widespread contempt for American law contained in such defiant assertions drives much of the public hostility toward illegal aliens. Conservatives, with their respect for the rule of law, and appreciation for its fragility, would ordinarily honor this gut reaction, rather than dismissing it as some atavistic tribal impulse. Poverty and other grounds for victim status do not, in the conservative worldview, create a license for lawbreaking.

The rule of law ensures that like cases are treated alike and unlike cases distinguished. But if the immigration protesters have their way, someone who ignored all the procedures for legal entry will achieve the same status and benefits as someone who played by the rules. During the Senate’s immigration debates in the spring, amnesty proponents claimed that it was unfair that people who have worked for American employers be forced to “live in the shadows.” Left out of the equation was the question of justice to people who have waited for years in their own countries for permission to enter lawfully.Schools spend huge sums trying to improve the Hispanic graduation rate, even hiring “outreach consultants” for dropout prevention. One Santa Ana consultant’s approach is predictably multicultural. “We need to teach teachers that students need to be proud of where they are coming from,” she told me. But of course Hispanic school failure derives not from ethnic neglect—the Santa Ana schools glorify the Hispanic heritage to a fault—but from parents who don’t demand rigorous academic application and don’t stand up to corrosive popular influences. At Santa Ana High School, I spoke with a former student, Julio, who had been expelled as a troublemaker in ninth grade, then returned briefly in the tenth grade but didn’t take a single class. “Me and my friends ditched; our parents didn’t know.” It is the cultural capital that immigrants bring with them that most determines their success; the work ethic of poor Mexicans does not carry over to their children’s schooling, and we are all paying the price.Gang life—both Hispanic and black—immediately asserted itself last July when the Los Angeles Unified School District opened a model high school to ease overcrowding. Despite amenities that rival those of private schools—a swimming pool, Mac computers, a ballet studio, a rubber track, and a professional chef’s kitchen—it instantly gained the distinction of being one of the most violent campuses in the system. Shots rang out in front of the school on the second day of classes, reports the Los Angeles Times, and three days after opening ceremonies, police arrested a student with an AK-47 on the campus perimeter. Brawling students attacked safety officers and tried to grab their guns in December, while cops pepper-sprayed a dean breaking up a gang fight in March. Students sell meth in the classrooms, graffiti covers the stairwells, textbooks, and high-design umbrella-covered picnic tables, and a trip to the bathroom requires an adult safety escort.Uncertain assimilation. Multicultural cheerleaders argue that assimilation is proceeding apace by pointing to the fact that virtually all third-generation Hispanics can speak English. Even so, linguistic and cultural segregation among Hispanics is increasing. The percentage of Hispanics living in Hispanic enclaves rose from 39 percent in 1990 to 43 percent in 2000, reports Robert Samuelson, and as more and more aliens from Mexico and Central America enter, the size of Spanish-speaking-only areas expands. Livia, the unmarried mother selling fruit on Santa Ana’s Main Street, says that no one she associates with speaks English. A coffee-shop owner down the block observes that it’s too easy in Santa Ana not to learn English. “It’s all Spanish-speaking here,” she says. In California, the academic achievement gap between students with little English and English speakers is widening. “The Mexican dream is to make enough money to go back and own your own business. Four-fifths of Mexicans here would say that if they had a job in Mexico, they’d go back right away.” Most Mexican immigrants do not intend to become Americans; they come wanting to return to their home country, but end up staying out of inertia. They naturalize at half the rate of Asians or Europeans. This is not a recipe for assimilation.Academic failure. It would be useful for open-borders optimists to spend some time in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is 73 percent Hispanic, and where just 40 percent of Hispanic students graduate. (Nationwide, 53 percent of Hispanics graduate from high school, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Jay Greene—the lowest rate among all ethnic groups.) Of those Hispanic students who do graduate, just 22 percent have completed the course work necessary for admission to a four-year state college—which means that of all Hispanic students who enter in ninth grade, fewer than 15 percent will graduate ready for college. Immigrant advocates have fiercely opposed in court a long-deferred California high school exit exam, which would require students to answer just over 50 percent of questions testing eighth-grade-level math and ninth-grade-level English. The California Research Bureau predicts that if the exam becomes a reality, Hispanic graduation rates would drop well below 30 percent.A recent Los Angeles Times series on high school dropouts put some faces on the numbers. Eleven male Hispanic friends entered Birmingham High School in Van Nuys together in 2001; only three graduated. Because the boys spent so much time cutting classes—usually hanging out at fast-food restaurants—most failed to log any academic progress and saw no sense in staying enrolled. Drugs, turf rivalries, and fathering children also contributed to their failure to graduate. Birmingham’s teachers despair at their students’ lack of academic commitment and at their belief that seat time should entitle them to a passing grade. Reports Ronald Fryer in Education Next, hostility toward academic achievers is even higher among Hispanics than among blacks.

2006-07-22 15:51:18 · 6 answers · asked by Zoe 4 in Immigration

And that Japanese culture should pravaile.

2006-07-22 15:51:10 · 6 answers · asked by Japan_is__home 1 in Other - Society & Culture

2006-07-22 15:51:05 · 15 answers · asked by CHASE 2 in Celebrities

And if you say Sola Scriptura, please explain to me how 'Scripture' and denomational translation of the Bible is distinguishable from tradition. Afterall, the cannon was established the same as the other traditions in the Catholic church in the early centuries CE.

2006-07-22 15:51:04 · 4 answers · asked by mikayla_starstuff 5 in Religion & Spirituality

2006-07-22 15:51:02 · 3 answers · asked by GG 2 in Small Business

2006-07-22 15:50:55 · 3 answers · asked by Jdogg317 1 in Basketball

I applied for an internet job with Americare Health Plan Inc. Everything seems to be okay except they want me to send a copy of my SSN card. I don't feel comfortable with that so I was wondering if this company is a huge scam or if it is a well known company.

2006-07-22 15:50:54 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous in Careers & Employment

I love his directorial styles as well as his acting...he's a great writer too....WHO AGREES THAT THIS GUY ROCKS!!!!♥

2006-07-22 15:50:51 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Celebrities

2006-07-22 15:50:50 · 8 answers · asked by toothbrushx2 1 in Cooking & Recipes

lol

i mean really y is myspace down

2006-07-22 15:50:40 · 12 answers · asked by Flordia_Grl 1 in Internet

2006-07-22 15:50:33 · 9 answers · asked by serrimac 2 in Other - Ireland

2006-07-22 15:50:33 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Internet

I have some great audio CD resources and a friend/native speaker helping me along, but I'd really like to have one of those workbooks (with a CD preferably) that walks you through learning the language and the grammar. I learned a bit of German that way and it really helped!

2006-07-22 15:50:33 · 5 answers · asked by ? 3 in Other - Ireland

Ok there was a story on msnbc about somes parents deciding to raise there kindergarten boy as a girl, sending him to school wearing a dress and the whole 9 yards, luckly the school is trying to put it down, saying maybe gender neutral clothes..............but anyway the whole thing started for some reason after the boy would prefer doing girl things, and there wasnt much details, the boy is only 4 yrs old. When I was 4 and 5 and 6 and even up to 8 yrs old I played girl thing, because i have a older sister, a girl playmate that had 4 years on me those having 4 yrs of toys, and ideas of things to do, but the only difference is that they say the boy has a mental diease, and it will be best for him. Now I have voiced my opinion onhere about homosexuality raising out of nurture and not not nature, in which alot disagreed but I stand strong. But here is the question, what do think will happen to this boy in the future? emotionaly?

2006-07-22 15:50:32 · 5 answers · asked by Derrick 3 in Philosophy

2006-07-22 15:50:30 · 12 answers · asked by mdjoker999 1 in Performing Arts

there my number 1 fav band

2006-07-22 15:50:14 · 17 answers · asked by Vickie 0 1 in Music