Latinos

I do believe that the Latin@s population will be a decisive factor in politics, but I also believe they are thoroughly assimilated into the American culture. What are Spanish-speaking enclaves, after all, other than Italian, Chinese, Jewish, and other enclaves against whom nativist elements have also agitated?

The enclaves provide important services, such as teaching people how to speak and write English, how to become immigrants (if the DREAM Act could be passed), and many other things beside.

In fact, many of the decline in Chinatowns across the US can be attributed to the fact that people are no longer immigrating from China, or of they are, they are going back rather than staying here. Enclaves speak to the vitality of immigration, whether legal or undocumented.

On that basis, we can be either hopeful or pessimistic about their ability to change our culture for the better.

"Replacing him with Michael Steele - who makes Sarah Palin look like Susan Sontag - is to add insult to injury." The Dish

The heart

Every week be working like the heart, going tick-tock, tick-tock.

Spicy

Last Saturday, I ordered taco with pollo and when he asked whether I wanted spicy or mild.

I replied, "Picante."

He was pleased enough that he grabbed my hands and said something to me in Spanish.

Two alternative Ruby methods of generating an 8-character passwords:

puts [].tap { |l| 8.times { l << ('a'..'z').to_a[rand 26] }}.join

puts Array.new(8).map { ('a'..'z').to_a[rand 26] }.join

An inarticulable mystery

"An inarticulable mystery
Is _this_ anxiety
Cannot say yes — or no —
Cannot approach, just want to go"
Wager my fingers
Be buried in the air

Re: It's Friday, Feb 10 - How did your day go?

I am including Blogger in the email to see if it works. I think I would like to publish to both simultaneously.

Today was a short day again, but I dragged it out a bit longer so I could get the full six hours that my supervisor told us we have. I think it is disappointing that we didn't have so much work. In a way, I get a sense of what it would be like if our healthcare system moved toward preventative medicine. It would likely render a lot of labs like ours less necessary if not completely unnecessary. Our lab is focused on diagnosing patients that already have health problems (primarily renal dialysis), and so doctors order tests that occur with varying degree of frequency, sometimes quarterly, sometimes monthly, and sometimes weekly.

Still, with the knowledge that so much of our economy is devoted toward treating sick people, it would be a good thing to reduce spending on this area so we can do something else. We don't need a drain on the economy as much as we need new stuff, new paradigm.

Short work day, which on one hand is disappointing because I don't earn as much money. On the other hand, I'm home early. I prefer to just be able to go home. I think my biggest negative regarding this job is that it is 25 miles away. It is a commute with an unpredictable drive time. Sometimes it will go smoothly, and other times, an accident will slow everything down. More cars can come mysteriously from nowhere and cause every other car to slow down. I have to deal with people. I try to be a little more zen about it, but it's difficult. I hope that I can find another job either closer to home or which earns enough money for me to move out. Both at once would be quite good right now.