Immigration: Melting pot? Not!
Immigrant-bashing went to new and ever more absurd lengths in Louisiana last month, where high school valedictorians were criticized for sprinkling their speeches with phrases in their native tongues. School board members in Houma, La., are considering whether to require that graduation speeches be delivered entirely in English after co-valedictorians Cindy Vo and Hue Vo (who are also cousins), thanked their parents in Vietnamese. Consider: As daughters of immigrants, the young women not only met the nativists' familiar command to learn English, but they apparently learned it well enough to best all their classmates in academic pursuits. If the English-only crowd wants to deliver the graduation speeches, they'll just have to get better grades.
Wiretaps: Hang up on surveillance bill
Thirty years ago, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to let government spies listen in on US phone calls - if they first get a warrant from a special court. In 2005, the nation learned that the Bush administration had been tapping phones without warrants, even though the law is so flexible that the government can use a tap for three days before seeking a warrant. Now senators - including both Barack Obama and John McCain - are likely to cave in to the administration with a vote today on a new wiretap law that weakens the original and grants immunity to telephone companies for their collusion. While there might be a need to update the law with changes in technology, the Senate's measure should be defeated.
Lead paint: Blame game goes on
The Rhode Island Supreme Court blamed the victim last week by reversing a 2006 jury verdict finding lead paint manufacturers liable for creating a "public nuisance" that contributed to blood poisoning in thousands of children. The court ruled 4-0 that it was the responsibility of the parents of poisoned children, and their landlords, to keep homes free of lead paint, not the paint companies' responsibility to sell a safe product. The reversal restores the companies' record of never losing a case, and dumps the $2 billion bill for de-leading 300,000 older housing units in Rhode Island back on the state. Lead paint was banned for home use in 1978 after it was linked to severe disabilities and even death. But its costs continue - to young minds, to the health and welfare system, to just about everyone but the companies that made the mess in the first place.
