Farmers Branch Rebuilds its Border Fence
Robert Wilonsky, in Unfair Park, publishes a revised Farmers Branch ordinance designed to prevent illegal immigrants from renting in the city. An earlier ordinance ran into legal problems. The new ordinance seeks to get around that by removing from the landlord the burden of checking the residency status of renters. Instead, the city itself will submit a request to the federal government to verify residency status of renters. Failure to verify would result in revocation of the license to occupy.
Farmers Branch might have crafted an ordinance that passes court review. Regardless, it still is the wrong way to go about immigration reform. As long as illegal immigrants are accepted into this country to do jobs that Americans themselves are not willing to do, it is simply cruel to deny those workers a place to live. Putting the poor on the street does not serve the greater good of a community, even if they are here illegally. The focus needs to be on, not the housing market, but the labor market. The focus needs to be on matching up willing workers with willing employers, not on making them both criminals. Until Americans accept that being poor and wanting to work is not a crime, strategies like those being adopted by Farmers Branch will only exacerbate the immigration problem, not solve it.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Obnoxious
Apparently, D Magazine has been publishing a column by one "Marty Cortland" who tells readers how it sucks to be rich. I say apparently because I don't actually read D Magazine. I don't know why, but I do read Frontburner. Maybe it's to catch the occasional posting by Trey Garrison.
Steve Blow, of The Dallas Morning News, tells us in today's paper that Cortland's columns are not biting enough to be good satire and not funny enough to be good humor. Blow excerpts enough of Cortland for me to join his thumbs-down review.
Tim Rogers, executive editor of D, saw Blow's column in the paper and couldn't be happier anyway. He anticipated some negative reaction from readers, but never imagined getting negative reaction on the front page of the The Dallas Morning News' Metro section. Rogers must be a believer in the old advice that any publicity is good publicity. Hmm... I wonder if some editor at The Dallas Morning News is congratulating Steve Blow for the blowback he's generated on Frontburner. Everybody's happy, then.
Always one to please, let me offer my own thumbs-down to D Magazine and Marty Cortland. No need to thank me, D.
Getting in on the action, Tom Pauken, of Dallas Blog, calls it "much ado about nothing." Meaning Marty Cortland, I think, not Dallas Blog, that is. I understand if that wasn't clear.
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