If what Isabel Macdonald uncovered in her yearlong investigation and subsequently published in her “expose” of Lou Dobbs is true then I just have to shake my head here in dismay.
According to Macdonald, the long time CNN anchor who railed against undocumented workers and the employers who hire them is a hypocrite.
Apparently, on the one hand, the sputtering anchor used his highly rated Lou Dobbs Show to lambaste employers who hired “illegal workers” while on the other hand he hired them and paid them pittance to look after his show horses and million dollar houses.
If this is true, then I am putting it to anyone that the man must’ve been at some point kicked in the head by one of his European Warmbloods.
It’s either that or he is one careless businessman and journalist who has never heard about never throwing stones at people who hire “illegal aliens” if you live on vast estates groomed by undocumented workers.
The report is not nearly as hard-hitting as I expected, and I wonder why it took so long to gather this very “explosive” information.
The report raised some questions too.
For one, the journalist painted a picture of workers—victims—who had not seen their families for years, and who lived in cramped spaces (but rent-free) and who were generally afraid of travelling at the risk of being apprehended by the border patrol. She also stated that one past worker, an unfortunate guy name Gomez, worked on Dobbs’ Vermont based stable for at least a year where he earned $500 per week. She also stated that the guy worked for nearly seventy hours per week, without receiving overtime pay.
She didn’t mention, however, that if he were regularly employed for the whole year at that wage, he would have pulled in a tidy $24,000 plus per year, tax- free. Additionally, the article mentioned that, though not often, Gomez received a tip of £100 from Dobbs’ daughter. Again, all tax-free. I guess she wanted us, the readers, to do the maths.
Another thing: The article stated in part that the workers were illegal, without question, but it is a bit unclear as I read it through whether the workers were “between” status. It suggests that there may have been pending applications to adjust their status and that the contractors—or even Lou Dobbs—weren’t the law-flouting, illegal-immigrant-hiring hypocrites that the article suggests.
In another part of the article, the journalist met another former Dobbs worker while he was working, sadly, “under the blazing sun”. He had been a gardener for Dobbs and he said to her that Dobbs knew he was illegal. Now, did he volunteer that information to Mr. Dobbs? I’m just asking.
Also, Macdonald, being very versed in legalities, stated that the workers were never “paid the overtime they were entitled to under federal labor laws.” But she forgot to mention that little immigration law that disallowed them to work in the first place.
There is more to this story, and I intend to read on. I believe that if you are playing a game of “outing” folks, then you have to play fairly, and I am not so sure that this is the case here.
Anyway, in the mean time, the “Rent Is Too Damn High”. Now, I have no idea where that came from.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Sunday, 17 October 2010
999 calls on Twitter
Some years ago, a guy told me a funny story. Apparently, a caller reported a curious incident to the police. He had left for work one morning, but, before he left, being the organised bachelor he was, he carried his laundered garments, including a pair of blue pants, out to the clothesline in the back yard to dry in the midday sun.
On returning from work, though, the guy made an odd discovery when he went to the back yard to collect his pants: The blue pants that he had hung on the line that morning had turned white. Frightened, he did the one thing that anyone faced with such a bizarre event would. He called the police to investigate. Perhaps he had made a mistake and laundered his clothes in bleach, or maybe someone with a serious grudge against him skulked into his back yard while he was away and exacted a little vengeance on him by tampering with his clothes. I doubted that the police department wasted precious resources on this matter as it was also very likely that he was stark mad, which is the widely accepted conclusion.
In another personal incident, one night as I was about to turn in to bed—except for my bedroom, the lights in the rest of the flat had been turned off—I heard keys turning in my front door. No one else, at that time, had access to my apartment, only my landlord, and he wasn’t allowed in without prior permission, and certainly not after midnight. Before I reached the door or managed a helluva scream, four uniformed officers had already made their way into my apartment, shining their torch light around the flat.
“Mam, did you know you left your keys in the door?” one officer said, as he switched on the light at the door.
I didn’t respond, at least not verbally, but I just extended my hand to collect my keys from him.
“Is this flat 4?
“Yeah.”
“Do you live here alone?”
“Yeah.”
“We received a call that there’s someone here with a split throat…”
“No; Not here.”
“Mind if we have a look around?”
“No. No problem.”
After they conducted their investigation and confirmed that there wasn’t someone bleeding to death from a slit throat in my flat, they turned to leave, but not before one officer gave me a kind of stern warning about the risks forgetting my keys in the door as it was unsafe and an invitation to be victimised. I thanked them and they bounded down the stairs with all their emergency medical equipment.
The police and emergency response agencies field lots of calls every day and they have the difficult task of “prioritizing” their responses. Clearly, a report of someone bleeding from a potentially grievous wound—although in my case it eventually proved to be a prank call—receives high priority and immediate attention to a complaint—which may have been genuine—by a man who was convinced that someone had messed with his laundry.
So, in an attempt to inform the public about their daily workload, to show off their “new –age thinking, technologically-savvy culture”, and maybe to deter people from making calls about “stupid” things or to at least stop and count to ten before picking up the phone to call the emergency line, the Greater Manchester Police department has recently launched what I call PIE, and what it’s Chief Constable Peter Fahy calls a Police Information Exercise. Via the popular twitter site, people interested in the day-to-day emergency calls received by the police department can view then—and have a “tweet” laugh while they’re at it.
The site has over 12000 followers since it began operation and has reported emergency cases of hilarity, including a woman who wanted help suing the government because she was broke. Let’ see what happens next.
On returning from work, though, the guy made an odd discovery when he went to the back yard to collect his pants: The blue pants that he had hung on the line that morning had turned white. Frightened, he did the one thing that anyone faced with such a bizarre event would. He called the police to investigate. Perhaps he had made a mistake and laundered his clothes in bleach, or maybe someone with a serious grudge against him skulked into his back yard while he was away and exacted a little vengeance on him by tampering with his clothes. I doubted that the police department wasted precious resources on this matter as it was also very likely that he was stark mad, which is the widely accepted conclusion.
In another personal incident, one night as I was about to turn in to bed—except for my bedroom, the lights in the rest of the flat had been turned off—I heard keys turning in my front door. No one else, at that time, had access to my apartment, only my landlord, and he wasn’t allowed in without prior permission, and certainly not after midnight. Before I reached the door or managed a helluva scream, four uniformed officers had already made their way into my apartment, shining their torch light around the flat.
“Mam, did you know you left your keys in the door?” one officer said, as he switched on the light at the door.
I didn’t respond, at least not verbally, but I just extended my hand to collect my keys from him.
“Is this flat 4?
“Yeah.”
“Do you live here alone?”
“Yeah.”
“We received a call that there’s someone here with a split throat…”
“No; Not here.”
“Mind if we have a look around?”
“No. No problem.”
After they conducted their investigation and confirmed that there wasn’t someone bleeding to death from a slit throat in my flat, they turned to leave, but not before one officer gave me a kind of stern warning about the risks forgetting my keys in the door as it was unsafe and an invitation to be victimised. I thanked them and they bounded down the stairs with all their emergency medical equipment.
The police and emergency response agencies field lots of calls every day and they have the difficult task of “prioritizing” their responses. Clearly, a report of someone bleeding from a potentially grievous wound—although in my case it eventually proved to be a prank call—receives high priority and immediate attention to a complaint—which may have been genuine—by a man who was convinced that someone had messed with his laundry.
So, in an attempt to inform the public about their daily workload, to show off their “new –age thinking, technologically-savvy culture”, and maybe to deter people from making calls about “stupid” things or to at least stop and count to ten before picking up the phone to call the emergency line, the Greater Manchester Police department has recently launched what I call PIE, and what it’s Chief Constable Peter Fahy calls a Police Information Exercise. Via the popular twitter site, people interested in the day-to-day emergency calls received by the police department can view then—and have a “tweet” laugh while they’re at it.
The site has over 12000 followers since it began operation and has reported emergency cases of hilarity, including a woman who wanted help suing the government because she was broke. Let’ see what happens next.
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