Start up the buses

Illegal immigration and crime – not what you may think

I saw where Geraldo Rivera and Bill O’Reilly were engaged in verbal combat a couple of weeks ago over immigration problems. Particularly, O’Reilly was arguing that the current U.S. immigration mess was responsible for the death of two teen-agers by a drunk-driving illegal alien. Rivera contended this was O’Reilly’s way of capitalizing on a tragedy to foster a “massive witch hunt “ of illegal immigrants (hereinafter referred to as “Mexicans”, to be politically incorrect, but with the knowledge that not all undocumented aliens hail from the Republic of Mexico) .

I wondered: Do we have more crime now that Mexicans are overrunning our borders like the horde of evil killer bees O’Reilly claims them to be?

I checked the authority, the FBI crime statistics. You can see these here.: (

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/).

I found some interesting facts. Since we’ve been turning a blind eye toward illegal immigration, crime rates have gone down.

Yeah. Down.

Violent crime hit its peak in Oklahoma in 1994 (actually, statistically, it was 1995, but those numbers are skewed by Timothy McVeigh’s act of murder), with a rate per 100,000 population of 664.1. Since 1998 the Oklahoma violent crime rate hasn’t gone higher than 510.9. Property crimes have also declined during that period and have been at levels similar to the late 1970s. Back in the 70s the only Mexicans living here worked for Chelinos. Oklahoma City’s Capitol Hill High School still had white bread kids.

Similar downward trends have occurred in our neighboring states, including Texas, which as we all know is populated by more illegal aliens than the planet Klingon.

So, what gives? Certainly if one particular illegal alien committed the manslaughter which O’Reilly talked about, it’s a horrible occurrence. But to extrapolate from that tragedy a conclusion that illegal aliens are raping and pillaging America like the Visigoths plundered Middle Age Europe just isn’t borne out by the facts.

What, the O’Reilly Fear Factor not sticking to the facts? I know, I know. That’s hard to believe, my friends.

But if O’Reilly’s assumptions are in part correct -- if there is some causal relationship between crime and illegal immigration, then we need to send chartered buses to the Rio Grande and bring as many Mexicans to Oklahoma as possible. Another 100,000 of them and we won’t have to lock our doors at night at all. Plus, it will only improve our already thriving Mexican restaurant scene.

I’m calling my legislator right now.

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See the Geraldo-O'Reilly "debate" here:

An honorable hero

I have always wondered about people who idolize famous individuals, whether they are movie stars or politicians or sports figures. I have not understood how that came to be. Maybe it was because I have been so cock sure of myself that needing inspiration from others who were not family or friends has not fit into the equation.

But on Monday night, I realized I was wrong. My hero died.

I saw the headline on the on-line news page I was browsing late Monday. It said: “Famed Vietnam War Journalist Killed in Crash”.

I had this sinking feeling that it could only be one person: Pulitzer Prize winning author David Halberstam.

I met Mr. Halberstam in 1983 while attending law school. Because of my journalism background (I had already obtained my B.A. in journalism and had worked as a reporter for six years) the Dean asked if I wanted to participate in an all-day conference with a handful of other University of Oklahoma students, mostly journalism undergraduates. Halberstam was the speaker, moderator, questioner, teacher and friendly conversationalist. I think he even picked up lunch that day at Mr. Bill’s.

When you get to “hang out” with such an individual, even if only for a day, you learn about that person – not just the headline or the written biography about him. You learn how that individual thinks. You become one of his students.

What I learned about Mr. Halberstam was that he loved to immerse himself in and learn about new things – like the quizzical kid in a dinosaur museum or at a state fair midway. In this case his subject was a half dozen students sitting in chairs formed in circle in a small conference room at the university. Mr. Halberstam sat in one of the chairs – not apart or separate from the rest of us. Our initial thoughts were merely wondering whether we could get this famous author’s autograph on our copies of the “Best and the Brightest”. We soon learned that we were not only gaining from his accounts of experiences as a journalist, but that he was learning things from us. Few professors had been like this.

When he asked me questions during the conference it seemed like he really wanted to know what I thought about things. It may well be that I was seeing the consummate professional interviewer, using his skills to bring things out in people. But I genuinely believe that David Halberstam loved people. And he loved their stories.

Halberstam was not the cigar-chewing “damn the torpedoes” newsman type sometimes portrayed in movies. He obviously had the dogged tenacity of Carl Bernstein, but more so he had the thoughtful and careful reflection of Bob Woodward. When Halberstam spoke, he talked as he wrote, in an eloquent but concise manner, carefully articulating each word as if it packed an importance that compelled the listener to pause and hang on every syllable.

Like many good reporters, Halberstam started his career in a small-town newspaper. His beginning was in West Point, Mississippi, reporting on the civil rights movement. He worked his way to the larger newspapers, until he found a position with the New York Times. The Times sent him to Vietnam to cover the war. He reported from the front lines. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in 1964, at the age of 30.

The “Best and the Brightest” was his acclaimed novel about the United States involvement in southeast Asia. That and his “The Powers That Be” are two books that every American should read. It gives us all a behind-the-scenes look at how the movers and shakers develop and carry out this country’s foreign and domestic policy. It also shows how these individuals can do so disconnected from the American people and in secret.

Halberstam wrote 21 books. Not all were about the machinations of government. He wrote about baseball. And the economy. And the automobile industry. He found something interesting in topics that would not get any attention on the frivolous television news shows of today. He had the same desire to interview the farmer as he did to interview the congressman, and he wrote about them in such a way that they were indeed as interesting and as important.

Halberstam was killed in an auto accident in the Bay Area yesterday. He was being driven from a conference with students at the University of California in Berkeley, where he had talked about the craft of journalism. Like in 1983, when he came to Norman, Oklahoma, Mr. Halberstam was sharing his experiences with his students and asking them what they think.

His wife, Jean Halberstam, said she would remember her husband most for his “unending, bottomless generosity to young journalists.”

David Halberstam was truly a great American. He was the best and brightest of American authors of the 20th – and 21st – centuries. And he was my hero.

When taxes aren't bad

Monday's Good News Story

Having to fork over a four-figure amount to the Internal Revenue Service last week was almost enough to turn one into an anti-tax Republican. Certainly we all are amazed at how Congress can find ways to spend our money on things that we don't really want. But that does not equate to thinking all taxes, or all tax increases, are bad.

Case in point: the MAPS project in Oklahoma City. That was a good example of a community deciding to increase taxes in order to bring a benefit to that community -- which is exactly what has happened, with the development of a Bricktown entertainment district and other improvements which have nearly reversed the devastating destruction of a vibrant downtown by Urban Renewal in the 1960s.

Another case in point: When faced with the need to replace an antiquated jail, Pontotoc County votors approved a bond issue -- the county government's borrowing of money, with the loan to be paid back from revenue generated by additional taxes on real estate.

Not only did the public step up with its responsibilities, but the local banks in Ada did as well. They decided to pool their resources and offer the county financing that would save the public more than a half million dollars.


Ada-area bankers join Pontotoc County Commissioner Winford Wood to sign the financing deal for a new jail in Ada.