. . . "The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don't have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it. " -Chris Pine (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/perspective)
". . . As they see it, Trump is cutting their taxes. He’s keeping out the immigrants. He’s putting foreign leaders in their place, all while fulfilling that oft-quoted campaign promise: winning. . . “The tax reform,” DeFranco said when asked what she was most impressed with. . . “I’m going to end up with like $300 extra this year because of what he’s done. . . “Look at what he’s done with North Korea,” she said. “I think his negotiation skills are very good.”. . ."
". . . Seventeen years ago, Melania Knauss was granted legal residency in the United States through a green card with the elite EB-1 program—dubbed the “Einstein visa”—reserved for those who demonstrate that they have "an extraordinary ability, are an outstanding professor or researcher, or are a multinational executive or manager." . . . At the time she was a Slovenian model who had appeared in European runway shows, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and a Camel cigarette Times Square billboard. She was also dating Donald Trump. . . The year the future first lady obtained legal residency, 2001, only five people from her home country got green cards through the EB-1 program, according to State Department statistics reported by The Washington Post on Thursday. That year, a fraction of one percent, just 3,376 of more than one million green cards issued, were granted to immigrants with “extraordinary ability,” government data indicates. . . It is unclear how Knauss—who married Trump in 2005—qualified for the so-called “genius visa,” or “Einstein visa,” as Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman who wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-1, calls it. Applicants "must be able to demonstrate extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim," according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "Your achievements must be recognized in your field through extensive documentation.". . . "
(https://www.factcheck.org/2009/03/social-security-for-illegal-immigrants/)
". . . illegal immigrants are broadly disqualified from collecting benefits from government programs, according to U.S. Code, with only limited exceptions. Those exceptions are:
Emergency medical care (which includes emergency labor and delivery)
Emergency disaster relief that is provided for the short term and is not a cash payment
Limited immunizations and testing, and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases
Certain community programs, such as soup kitchens or crisis counseling, as specified by the Attorney General
Limited housing or community development assistance to those already receiving it in 1996
These are the only circumstances under which illegal immigrants can lawfully receive government assistance. Notably absent from this list is any type of Social Security benefits. To repeat: Illegal immigrants cannot legally receive Social Security benefits, and Congress isn’t about to vote on legislation that would change that.
Of course, some immigrants who are here without legal permission do end up receiving Social Security and other benefits, through bureaucratic mistakes or through deliberate fraud. . ."
(From https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/11/here-is-what-my-shithole-looks-like-african-countries-and-haiti-react-to-trumps-remark/?utm_term=.5c56b51a1368)
". . . Illinois state Sen. Kwame Raoul, son of Haitian immigrants, said there was no “apologizing out of this.”. . . “He’s demonstrated himself to be unfit, unknowledgeable about the history of this country and the history of contributions that immigrants, particularly Haitian immigrants, have made to this country,” Raoul, a Democrat, told CBS. “It makes me embarrassed to have this guy as the president of my country.” . . . Republican pollster Frank Luntz quoted a report and said that 43 percent of immigrants from African countries have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 33 percent of the American population overall. . ."
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Prima)
Louis ". . . Prima was from a musical family in New Orleans. His father, Anthony Prima, was the son of Leonardo Di Prima, a Sicilian immigrant from Salaparuta, while his mother, Angelina Caravella, had immigrated from Ustica as a baby. Prima was the second child of four; his older brother, Leon, was born in 1907, while his sisters Elizabeth and Marguerite were younger. Marguerite died when she was three years old. Leon, Louis, and Elizabeth were all baptized at St. Ann's Parish. They lived in a house at 1812 St. Peter Street in New Orleans, which was mainly populated by Italians, Arabs, Jews and African Americans. . . (Prima died in) 1978, having been moved back to New Orleans. He was buried in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. His gray marble crypt is topped by a figure of Gabriel, the trumpeter-angel, sculpted in 1997 by Russian-born sculptor Alexei Kazantsev. The inscription on the crypt's door quotes the lyrics from one of his hits: "When the end comes, I know, they'll all say 'just a gigolo' as life goes on without me. . ."
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
. . . and understandably so. I was the son of the offspring of Polish immigrants who came to Baltimore in the early 20th century to escape deplorable economic conditions and an unstable political climate. There are no cotton fields in Baltimore. (Trust me.) But the song, I Never Picked Cotton, written by Bobby George and Charles Williams is the inspiration for this musing.
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Never_Picked_Cotton) ". . .The plot of "I Never Picked Cotton" is told in first-person, mostly in flashback from the perspective of a native of a poor sharecropping family in Oklahoma.
In the first verse, the song's protagonist — the youngest son of a coal miner who died working in the mines — bitterly recalls his family's past and upbringing. He recalls (as a young boy, too young to work on a cotton plantation) how his mother, brother, and sister all picked cotton to support the family, while his dad died in the coal mine. Seeing that this is not the type of life he wants to live, the boy resolves that when he is old enough to do so, he will leave the farm and his family.
One night, the protagonist makes good on his vow, stealing $10 and a pickup truck, and leaving the plantation, never to return. He then turns to a lifestyle of partying, "and I took it all with a gun". His criminal lifestyle ultimately leads to a fight with a local redneck on a Saturday night in Memphis, Tennessee; the redneck insults the protagonist's origins and is killed in return.
The protagonist, fingered as the killer, is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Just hours before he is sentenced to die, he reflects on his life and notes that "there ain't a hell of a lot, that I can look back on with pride" – except that he made good on his vow to "never pick cotton" like his family did. . ."
My earliest recollection of hearing this tune, which I then thought was one of the 'toughest' and now think one of the most clever and well-constructed country songs I've ever heard was from somewhere around 1970 or 71. My parents undertook, on a regular (with occasional exceptions) an outing to our local 'Topps' retail outlet, to shop for . . . I'm not exactly sure WHAT. I thoroughly enjoyed accompanying them to visit the record (vinyl LP) department, but in my later childhood years not so much. On one particular Friday evening, after partaking of our regularly scheduled Catholic, Friday, fried fish dinners, I respectfully declined from participating in that evening's shopping event and instead offered to stay behind and wash the dinner dishes. When choosing to spend my Friday evening in such a manner, which I did numerous times, I would tune into WBMD-AM, our local country music station, on an old RCA combination phonograph/AM-FM radio in the dining room, turn it to a sufficient volume level to be able to hear it in the kitchen next door while washing dishes, and proceed with my post-dinner activity. Silly, trite, trivial - maybe. But it's ALL MINE!
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve and Ray Jozwiak.
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
(from NBCNews.com)
". . . Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa drew rebukes from Democrats and Republicans alike Tuesday after claiming that most young undocumented immigrants are involved in the drug trade.
In an interview with Newsmax, King said that -- out of the population of young undocumented immigrants -- "for every one who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."
That remark from the noted immigration reform foe prompted a sharp response from Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is working on legislation to offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
"I strongly disagree with his characterization of the children of immigrants and find the comments inexcusable," Cantor said.
House Speaker John Boehner called the characterization "hateful."
"What he said is wrong," Boehner said. "There can be honest disagreements about policy without using hateful language. Everyone needs to remember that."
And South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy argued that "the number of people that have Steve King's precise ideology with respect to immigration is not a sufficient number to derail anything. . ."
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