Bill Boyne's blog

It is time for a humane and workable solution to the problem of illegal immigrants in the United States.

It is not a simple problem. There are almost 12 million undocumented immigrants in this category, most of them from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Some critics have argued that these immigrants should be sent back to their home countries, but a massive deportation of that kind would not be feasible, either for the immigrants and their families nor for the U.S. communities that depend on their labor.

When illegal immigrants in California were deported, workers could not be found to harvest the crops and, as a result, fruits and vegetables rotted in the fields. In addition, children of the immigrants who were born in this country are citizens and that would create severe problems if the parents were deported.

The next president of the United States will face an appalling task.

He or she will have to discover --- and then reverse --- Bush administration policies that have systematically degraded public health and the environment in the service of commercial interests.

One conspicuous example of this trend was reported in the New York Times recently. It involved a number of workers who became ill at a popcorn plant in the Missouri town of Jasper. State health authorities first consulted scientists from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health whose task it is to investigate the causes of health problems in the workplace.

Anyone interested in learning about organic care of lawns and athletic fields should attend two meetings scheduled in Rochester on Wednesday, March 21.

The first meeting will be on the subject “Athletic Fields and Municipal Turf: A Natural Approach --- Choices and Challenges”. It will be at the Rochester Government Center from 10 a.m. to noon.

The second meeting will be entitled “Simple Steps to Organic Lawn Care” and it will be at the Quarry Hill Nature Center, 701 Silver Creek Road NE, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The speaker at both meetings will be Chip Osborne, a professional horticulturalist who has been a leader in the campaign to regulate the use of pesticides on public lands in Marblehead, Mass. He is co-chair of MPAC--Marblehead Pesticide Awareness Committee and is a special adviser to Beyond Pesticides, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C.

The year 2007 has become a turning point for African-Americans, according to The Crisis, the magazine published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In its first issue of the year, the magazine cites significant political gains by black Americans as a new and powerful phenomenon. It notes the election of Deval Patrick as governor of Massachusetts, a state where blacks make up only 7 percent of the population.

Patrick is a Harvard Law School graduate, has been a member of a major law firm and served as an assistant U.S. attorney general. He is the second African American to be elected governor of a state, after

Everyone who took part in the long fight to block the DM & E railroad expansion project should take satisfaction in achieving that result.

Frustrating a powerful federal bureaucracy is an extraordinary accomplishment. It required a prolonged and diligent effort by the community and that effort eventually received significant support from some members of Congress.

One further step is needed. We should not forget that the proposed $2.3 billion loan to the DM&E was made possible only because Congress had previously approved $35 billion in funding for the Federal Railroad Administration for unspecified future projects.

George W. Bush will leave the presidency in 2008, but it will take many years for the United States to recover from the disastrous results of his service.

His latest blunder was to sign an executive order to allow military commissions to begin trying suspected terrorists. According to one published report, the commissions “would be permitted to sentence defendants to imprisonment or even death on the basis of hearsay or even coerced testimony.”

That is an example of the perverted sense of justice which has been introduced by President Bush. It follows the disgraceful and unjustifiable policy of “extraordinary rendition”. That policy directs U.S. intelligence agents to enter a foreign country, kidnap suspects and then send them to a foreign country where they can be questioned and tortured.

“A persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary. “

That is the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition of a delusion.If you substitute the word “political” for “psychotic”, the definition applies precisely to President Bush’s argument that sending 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq will enable the U.S, to achieve victory in Iraq.

That is a delusion for these reasons:

1. The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has stated clearly that he wants U.S. troop strength reduced rather than increased.

There’s plenty of bad news about global warming, but one bit of good news has popped up recently.

It was a report by the Reuters news agency that a few far-sighted Wall Street investors, insurance executives and pension managers are beginning to see global climate change as an urgent economic issue.

This issue surfaced at a recent conference of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) at the University of Chicago. Richard Sandor, head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, was quoted as saying that every institutional investor should “push companies to evaluate and estimate their climate risk.”

Many people are not aware that the independence of the Internet --- a democratic, free and open communication system --- is threatened by big telephone and communication companies.

The companies’ goal is to gain preferential uses of broadband networks to increase their profits and to have the power to limit access to ordinary users.

Fortunately, advocates of Internet freedom have --- temporarily at least --- won the first battle in what could be a long-term struggle. The victory resulted from a decision by the Federal Communications Commission
In a case involving the communications giant AT&T.

Rep. Tim Walz deserves credit for seeking a congressional investigation into the proposed $2.3 billion loan to the DM & E railroad.

The newly elected First District representative joined with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., in seeking the congressional oversight hearings on the controversial proposal. In a letter to the House Committee on Government Reform, they said that the proposed loan is “one of the worst examples we have seen of government waste” and that the DM & E “appears to be a poor credit risk.“

Rochester interests have made a compelling case against the railroad expansion based on safety concerns. They have pointed out the railroad’s poor safety record and have cited the threats posed by trains speeding past the Mayo Clinic and through the heart of the city.