Danielle Levy

There’s a small group of young people who do seem to be a forgotten target of discrimination. They are non-citizens who fought in the armed forces, came back, somehow got in trouble and now face deportation. Had they been killed in action, they would have been given citizenship and buried with appropriate military honors. Even though we are becoming more aware that many returning veterans are prone to engage in violent behavior, these young people do not receive the benefit of our doubts. They come back to conditions that appear to overwhelm them, buy arms, get into drugs, and engage in actions that manage to bring them into the criminal justice system. From then on, the system seems merciless—deportation to a country they left long ago and with which they have little if any ties.
The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is looking into the possibilities of changing existing laws. Let’s hope they succeed.

The elections are behind us and what remains is for me like a scary taste. It’s not the results per se that scare me, it’s the ignorance that seems to pervade the process. Politicians bend truths to suit their agenda, that’s an old story. But lately it does appear to have often gone beyond that. Christine O’Donnell even though she lost in Delaware stands as an example. What scares me is not her party affiliation, but her ignorance, one that went largely unchecked and uncorrected because often those who could have corrected her did not see it in their political interest. And those who listened, those who have the power to vote, are from all appearances too busy struggling with their lives to often know what might have been wrong with what she said. The price I gladly pay for living in a democracy is that sometimes my side will lose, and will lose fair and square. The price I don’t want to pay is that of ignorance–simply because I believe that ignorance corrodes democracy even more than unchecked power.

At the local farmer’s market, I tasted a new plum today, one crossed with a watermelon. We already have plums crossed with apricots. For that matter we have yellow tomatoes and watermelons, white eggplants and marbled beets. I suppose this is only a beginning and that coming up with new combinations and colors will continue. It began in order to lengthen shelf life and make produce more marketable and it continues as the taste for the exotic and the new grows. By the time my 8-month old neighbor graduates from high school how different will the market produce section look? Will her generation still use the analogy beet red? For that matter will they decide down the road that beet juice stains too easily and do away with red beets altogether? Will she know what old fashioned veggies look like, the way nature originally made them? Will she have to go to some form of planetarium for old fashioned vegetables to find out? More to the point are all these innovations making a better world, or just a different one?