Anybody married has at one time or another pondered however briefly the idea of doing away with his or her spouse or long term lover.   It’s natural.   You can lie about it and claim self-righteous indignity, but I seriously doubt if your spouses demise wasn’t at least cause for a flash of speculation.   Except maybe if you are Mother Theresa.  But then, she wasn’t married.

Let’s face it, killing one’s spouse is an historic tradition.    It has peppered history.  It has moved fortunes, and it has realigned nations.  It has also disrupted families and left us to ponder the illogical.  But prevalent.  As it is difficult to pick up a paper and not discover the periodic and often sensationalized story of one significant other reaching the dramatic conclusion that the other significant other is not so significant, after all.

Spouse killings are big news.   Scott Peterson, a pathetic nebish of a man with a lust for other women, a deep seated hatred for his wife, and a bad murder plan, made headlines for months on end, after he killed his eight months pregnant wife, Laci, and tossed her body into the San Francisco Bay.    His turgid story practically made careers.   Talking heads babbled on and on as if this idiot had killed the Archduke Ferdinand and set off the First World War.   But interest in that little catastrophe in distant Europe pales in the face of spousal murder.

I remember as a kid hearing my parents discuss Ethel Kravitz who awakened her husband one morning with five shots into his sleeping body.   She was early in the game and didn’t get the headlines, the book and movie deal she would have today as she explained to all who would listen of her mental torture at the hands of what’s his face.   And then not long ago there was the woman in Texas who as taped by security cameras running her Mercedes over her cheating husband’s body.   Like fifteen times.   Surely her way of declaring the marriage was over.

But then Texas has always been intriguing with its spousal murders.    I remember living there some decades ago when the “crimes of passion” ruling was still hanging around.   Come weekends you would get the murder scores like the ball scores.  The first being how many drunken rednecks not yet accustomed to urbanization shot up the bar and killed some other barfly in a heated dispute over the superiority of  the Ford or Chevy truck.  I remember one incident where one shot another for taking his hat.  Not quite like taking his horse or his truck, but it got him shot just the same.

But that was nothing when compared to the time honored Texas tradition where spouses who shot the wife, husband,  lovers, whatever,  claimed they did it in the heat of passion.  The heat of passion laws were still on the books back then, and more than a few judges paid homage to custom and gave the heat of passion plea notable credibility.   The loving couple may have not spoken to each other for months,  not had sex for decades, but suddenly that old passion blazed inside and blammo, there was blood on the Karastan carpet.    I remember one husband shooting his wife’s lover because he thought he was a burglar.  A burglar standing naked over his straying wife.   And these, mind you, were hardly the trailer trash whose collective insignificance meant their tales of  murder and betrayal was a mere footnote to the upscale crimes of passion.    It wasn’t like today where any half-assed ne’er do well could make big headlines by only killing his or her spouse.  If you were of the lower classes you had to at least kill a whole bunch of people and not just your spouse before any self-respecting journalist would waste news space or air time on your sordid and pathetic story.  But then, that was before there was a 24-hour news monster that had to be fed.

Yes, more than a few of the wealthy and successful have traveled the rickety path from the appearance of reputable citizenship to homicidal celebrity.   There are any number of physicians who choose to do in their wives to avoid the inconvenience of divvying up community property.   Sometimes there is a lover involved, and sometimes it is just a stand alone venal gesture.   Such was the recent case where according to the Los Angeles Times, a man was charged with arranging for his wife’s murder back in 2003.   Only now, are they bringing charges, which speaks well of the tenaciousness of the Los Angeles Police on this murder case.   The murdered spouse was one of their own, after all, and had been a secretary in the Internal Affairs Division.   Police considered among other leads the killing was job related.   But ultimately the motive enveloped the estranged wife discovered assets her husband didn’t declare in what had initially been an amicable divorce.   It came  to light that it was a hired gang member who murdered her with a shotgun, outside a Mexican Restaurant.   At the alleged behest of  her husband.  Her husband had taken there because a friend had told him the guacamole was something special.

But speaking of killings, there are the celebrity murders that seemed wrapped around restaurants.  Something about eating a decent meal that makes one want to kill their beloved.  There is the Robert Blake who was brought up on murder charges for allegedly killing his wife in North Hollywood, outside their favorite Italian restaurant.   He wasn’t convicted.   O.J. Simpson, was also found not guilty, wink-wink, was charged with killing his wife after she, too, returned from a then trendy Italian restaurant in Brentwood.    But Phil Spector was found guilty.  Took two trials to make it happen, as the evidence of his having blood all over himself, powder burns, and claiming to his driver “I just killed someone,” made it a tough call for the jury.    Alright, technically she wasn’t Spector’s wife, but some woman he had picked up in a restaurant.  Nevertheless, Spector deserves some honorable mention here, if for no other reason than his past exploits with former wives and girlfriends.     All those years of trying shouldn’t go unnoted.

There was the celebrity chef, Juan Cruz, who was arrested for arranging his wife’s murder.    And now  Mexican authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Bruce Beresford-Redman, former producer of  ”Survivor,” some irony there,  in connection with the killing of his wife.   Beresford-Redman has denied any involvement with his wife’s death.   Saturday Night Live featured player, Phil Hartman, was  shot by his drug addled wife.    Years go, women were best known for poisoning their victims.   But now they have modernized and have exchanged poison for bullets.    And you get to know the outcome of your actions much sooner than poison would allow. You’ve come a long way, baby.

Speaking of shooting, Jean Harris who, yes, wasn’t his wife but his lover, spent  time in the poky for shooting down Scarsdale Diet Doctor, Herman Tarnower for seeing other women.   She shot him four times and claimed it was an accident.  Oh, the rich, they will sell you anything, including the accidental four shot explanation.  Some poor slob who shoots his wife is damn well sure to be sitting in line for lethal injection.  But, hey, Harris and Tarnower made for a fabulous story, because what could be better than sex, murder, and a diet book all thrown into the same Movie of the Week.  It’s tough to ask for anything more.

Age doesn’t seem to be a factor when it comes to killing your spouse.  Spousal murder is fun for all ages.   The young do it, think of Ryan Jenkins, former reality show contestant, who killed his ex-wife, Jasmine Fiore, a former swimsuit model.   Brain child that he was, Jenkins pulled out her teeth and cut off her fingers to keep the police from identifying the body.   He forgot about the serial numbers in the boob job.  Oh well.  At least Jenkins had the decency to hang himself in a Canadian motel and save the state some desperately needed bucks.

And then there is my former neighbor and strange but brilliant fellow, Ira Einhorn.   Combining actual research with actual bullshit, Einhorn was a charismatic soul despite the fact he appeared to  wash every new moon and gave Mr. Dirt a serious run for his money.  Nevertheless,  he captivated the new agers, academicians, and corporate folk alike with his mighty spiel about the expanded mind and the future of everything.   Even when convicted, many still backed him, in fact supported him with money and other assistance as he eluded authorities for close to twenty years.   In fairness, Ira didn’t kill his spouse but the young woman who loved him and then found him overbearing and controlling once she grew up and out of her infatuation stage.   Ira didn’t like that, couldn’t stand the fact that she had left him, and forever sealed their bond by beating her to death with a hammer and then keeping her desiccated body in a trunk inside his funky apartment.   He had convinced the more gullible it was all a set up.  That despite the smell coming from his apartment, he was working in mind manipulation and telekinetic communication.    But the less gullible, like the jury for instance, wasn’t buying it, and convicted poor Ira in something like two hours.  They probably took so long because one juror had lingered in the bathroom.

Okay, enough of the gruesome facts.   There are certainly enough to get  the picture, and the list or spousal and lover murders is far too long for any reasonable person to want to absorb.  Beside, I will live that up to Nancy Grace and the Crime Network.  But spousal murder still remains its own kind of killing.   Jealousy and avarice may be the top two ingredients to set someone off to killing their spouse, that’s true.  But, still, we are referring to a pretty dramatic and reprehensible act here, all to save a few bucks or justify a lover on the side.  Or to nullify that lover on the side.   Whatever.   It is some recourse for what appears an intractable condition.

While we have for the more religious the Biblical depiction of fratricide, there is little I can think of that explains in any detail the killing of one spouse or another.  You can find it in blues songs and in country music, but not in the Bible.    But then I have never been much of a Bible reader, so I might have missed something in class.  And then if I had missed the spousal homicide bit, pop culture would have reared the parable in whatever dumbed down  lyric form so I would at least be aware of it. No going there.   But then not everything in the Bible.   I am Western and think in Western thoughts.   There are  special creeds where the ultra religious somehow still feel justified,  in killing their wives.    But say no more as they tend to get upset when you remind them of it.

Was spousal homicide just inconceivable back in Biblical times?   Doubtful  Or was it that women were considered property or chattel and their sudden demise  at the hands of their self-righteous husbands was nothing to write verses about?   I don’t know.   But then there is no real Biblical listing of wives killing husbands, either.  And they might have been more justified, given the oppression of the times.

And what prompts one spouse to kill another?    Rich and intelligent people commit to spousal murder the face of all probability they will be caught, convicted and sentenced to a place far removed from the golf course?  It is amazing that to avoid giving up material possessions one would stoop to the unthinkable.    Or because they want to leave their spouse for another lover.  Or the spouse doesn’t want them leaving for another lover.   It”s a stone, cold fact yet still amazing that greed and jealousy leads to the kind of  thought  that leads to murder.

I can understand the true crime of passion when in a jealous rage one spouse or the other snaps out and stands there with the smoking gun or dripping knife.  Dumb but understandable.  But most often jealous rage is not the the case.   Most often spousal murders are premeditated and calculated.    Most of the time there is a trail.   There are motives and documents, telephone records and complicit email.   There is often the actual killer, the guy who did it,  arrested on a different charge and now willing to tell all for a lighter sentence.   Or for an appearance on Larry King.  Few get away with it.  But still the beat goes on.

I would love to attribute it to our social programming and blame the media for egging us on.   I would love to cite loose morals, the ever growing need for self-aggrandizement.   I could opt that we read enough headlines, see enough movies, and read enough books to perhaps make some of the more demented start to think spouse killing is an easy fix to a bad marriage.   But it is not the media.   The media may fan the flames, but there is something inside us that leads the charge.   There is that chemical impulse that leads to premeditation, that causes some to cross the line between rational thought and plotting and scheming their spouse’s murder.   Yes, it is in our chemistry.  Damn it.

So I guess we should take into consideration the old Dupont slogan, “Better Living Through Chemistry.”  Or not.   Perhaps it is better said that we are just dumb enough to be human.

The Guys Who Spied for China is a roman a clef based on the author’s experience helping to uncover Chinese Espionage Networks that were operating in the United States during the eighties and early nineties.   The book takes place mostly in California and has been described by critics as quirky, character driven, and with a dark sense of humor.

To hear the show, log onto this link for Today’s Author, hosted by David Ewen.

The book has been described by critics as quirky, personal, and darkly humorous.   It is not your typical spy tale but tells an intimate story about what it feels like to suddenly be thrust into the world of espionage.

“The Guys Who Spied for China,” was a quarter finalist in the recent Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition.

To hear the interview live you can click on this link for David Ewen’s Today’s Author

The show will later be available for download at this following link.

Illegal Immigration is largely like the weather.   To quote Mark Twain, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”    Of course that isn’t entirely true with regard to immigration as different states and even local municipalities have attempted to put into law statues that would in various ways limit the rights if undocumented workers.    Or the more significant attempts,  California some years back tried to enact Proposition 187, as a result of a populist petition attempting to limit or deny the quantity of public services the state could administer to illegal immigrants.    This was knocked down by the courts as unconstitutional.

And then Arizona came up with its new statute, SB 1070.  Among other things, the law makes it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona.  Another section of SB 1070 requires law enforcement authorities  to make a reasonable attempt, when practical, to determine the immigration status of any person with whom they have lawful contact. This leaves open the question of whether it will lead to racial profiling and harassment of Hispanic U.S. citizens but are not carrying acceptable proof, such as a driver’s license.   In response, the state officials in favor of the law deny it will lead to racial profiling.  One legislator said they can determine whether someone is an illegal alien by the type of shoes he or she is wearing.  Or something like that.

Subsequent to the passage of this bill, which was signed into law by Jan Brewer, the Arizona Governor, the immigration  issue came once again to a boil.   Many critics have condemned SB 1070 as draconian, racist, and unwieldy.   Supporters maintain that inaction by the federal government on immigration issues has compelled the state to move forward.    Supporters cite the troubling  cost of illegal immigration to the state, especially in a bad economy.  They claim this new law will be a means of combating the increased gang violence initiated by the Mexican Drug Cartels and associative street thugs.

Whether it is a draconian law filled with racist policy, or whether it was done out of frustration against federal inaction, one thing holds true–passions on both sides of the issue have been ignited.   There have been demonstrations around the country, while the radio waves heat up with opinions from both sides.

Groups in support of the illegal immigrants drag out their facts and statistics, claiming that undocumented workers pump more money into the economy than they deplete.   Those of the opposing view drag out their own set of statistics, citing the serious depletion of resources, how illegal workers are taking jobs away from eligible Americans, etc.  And Congress, meanwhile, listens patiently, as it has done for over a decade, and then does nothing.

Michael Hiltzik, columnist at the Los Angeles Times, recently wrote a column asking both sides to cool it on the rhetoric.   The article was entitled, “Turning Down the Temperature on Illegal Immigration.”  It is a good article and describes how in this discussion most contributors lead with their passions and not with their heads.   Hiltzik notes that–

“The two extremes of the immigration debate line up like this: One side says legalizing the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants will produce an economic boom — $1.5 trillion added to U.S. GDP over 10 years, says UCLA; $16 billion for California from legalizing undocumented adult Latinos alone, according to USC.

The other side maintains that illegal immigrants steal jobs from native-born Americans and contribute mightily to our huge state budget deficit. The cost of taxpayer-funded benefits for “illegals,” says Steve Poizner, who’s running for the GOP nomination for governor, has sent California over a cliff. (His latest TV commercial shows a car plunging into a ravine, which seems like a rather spendthrift way of making the point, for someone who’s all about economic responsibility.)”

Hiltzik then goes on to write that according to the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California, that in the short term legalizing most currently  ineligible workers would have little or no effect on the labor market.  He also goes on to write, that the job market open to illegal immigrants has less to do with legal workers and more with the usual circumstances of employment, meaning skill sets, education, etc.   Such limitations being what they are, it is unlikely that the undocumented workers will move up in the labor scale.  The report indicated that tax revenues were unlikely to surge if the ineligible workers were legalized.  Nor would the better skilled labor force be  particularly threatened by immigrants who lack the education and skill sets to threaten those jobs.

So in the essence, and in the short term, the PPIC study projects that legitimizing the presently illegitimate workers would create neither a major tax infusion nor threaten the jobs of eligible workers.   Most illegal workers are already paying taxes and they would merely continue to do so.   What it would do, it is predicted, is decrease exploitation of the illegal workers and encourage them to become more acculturated.   It may stabilize their families and otherwise bring people into the light.     There would be a cost to all this, of course.

Some will argue that the state and the country have already been inundated with illegal immigrants.   Some complain that they should not be referred to as  ”illegal,” but the fact remains that as long as the laws are on the books,  that is the term for people who enter the country illegally.    Some claim all our people are immigrants.   Others retort that their relatives came here legally, dutifully filed their papers, etc, and entered in compliance with American law.   True.  Maybe.

But then I have always wondered if it was only a fence or river and not an ocean between them and the American shoreline, how many would have done the same damn thing and come across illegally.   How many of our European ancestors would have been wetbacks and not the bonafide entrants we brag about?    I know also, as there were quotas and various laws on the books, that to bypass these limitations our European ancestors who came here in the late 19th and early 20th century lied on their documents.  I found customs and immigration documents on several relatives.

I  have relatives that to avoid quotas listed themselves as married, when they were in fact a brother and sister.   Another  female relative is listed in the immigration documents as an eight year old boy.   Until the day she died,  she lived in fear that she would be discovered.   Odd.  But true.   I sincerely  doubt that mine was the only family that lied about their status in order to be admitted through customs.

Both sides of the illegal immigration issues love to drag out statistics.   They bandy about numbers and figures and vouch they are accurate.   When it is only estimated that their are 12 million illegals living in the United States then money numbers, like the population count is at best an approximation.   Since the nation is too large a space to consider for the moment, let’s just take California.

California has no shortage of undocumented workers, and certainly the state has pro and con felt the impact of their presence here.  California, historically, has always confronted this issues in one form or another.   The state in its past has utilized everything from the  Bracero program that began in 1917 and was implemented on and off through 1964, to its ignominious Federal Reparation Act where in the 1930′s somewhere around two million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were shipped to Mexico.  This act was first authorized by Herbert Hoover and it didn’t end until Franklin Roosevelt became President.

Mind you, this was in the middle of the Great Depression and for whatever reason the state was in no mood to discriminate between Mexican Nationals and American Citizens.  The roundup was wholesale.    It has been estimated that sixty percent were actually American citizens.  I know of one woman whose mother experienced this very fate.  She has for decades urged her daughter to always carry identification for this very reason.   But talk about drawing the short straw and being forced to start over; this is about it.   Perhaps Arizona should take his piece of history into consideration before moving forward on its SB 1070.

On the other hand, California has benefited at different times from the Federal Bracero Program.   In 1917 through 1921 it was legislated that Mexicans could come work in the farm fields.   Then, after deporting them for a decade or so, the Bracero program was reinstated.   Between 1942 and 1964, again when the U.S. was off fighting wars and short of labor, some four million Mexican laborers were admitted to do farm work.   During those years much of the border was even more porous than it is today with travelers moving from one side to the other with relative impunity.

The reasons for the Bracero program were pretty much what they are today.   There was a shortage of laborers willing to work the fields and commit to menial tasks.   This was especially the case as most farmers were unwilling to pay a a living wage to domestic laborers.   So, like today, they got cheaper labor on a cash and carry system.  And when the harvest season was over, the workers were to return to Mexico.  A win-win situation.  The fields were harvested, and people in need of money made some money, along with what was often considered abusive treatment.   And the farmers were able to expand the agricultural industry in America so that it was foremost in the world.

Thing is, many braceros did not return, but stayed in America instead.    For that period of decades, millions came over to work, and millions were later arrested and sent back.    In 1952, seeing this as an increasingly serious problem, the government enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act.   This made made harboring illegal aliens a felony punishable by a $2,000 fine and a prison term of five years, it also included the so-called Texas proviso.  The Texas Proviso protected the farmers by assuring the employment of illegal aliens is not the same as harboring them.    This way, there were no penalties assessed against US employers who knowingly hired illegal workers. So you can use and maybe abuse them.  And once you were finished they were left to fend for themselves.

Since we are a nation that struggles mightily with both facts and history, suffice it to say that in general the legislation being put forth by Arizona today is rooted in the past.  That is to say that this is not the first time a really bad idea has been cloaked in some weird extension of necessity to hide the general vulgarity of its  true purpose of greed and discrimination.   More than a few times nations have followed leaders that have in the name of national urgency and some other jingoistic refrains come down on one group or another for the financial gain of the few.   While we are not among the worst of these examples, we certainly possess a few we would rather sweep back under the carpet.

While emotions run high on both sides of the issue, the fact remains that to a great extent the immigration question is a numbers game.   Once upon a time it may have actually made fiscal sense to utilize the Bracero Program.You may not like the program for humanitarian reasons.   But in terms of economics, it worked out.   Bring them in, pay them on the cheap, and then send them home.

But anything like the Bracero Program is no longer feasible.  And the current system, as it renders itself today, is little more than a de facto Bracero Program.    Like I said, it is a numbers game.   If an employer looking to pay someone cheap wages, say $10 and hour, and the cost of living in that city or state, including public and social services, and the burden on the infrastructure, is for argument’s sake, say $20 per hour, then clearly it is the public who is picking up the rest.   The taxpayer is supplementing the employer for any overage in social and public services that exceeds the $10 an hour.

That is why the whole notion of cheap labor is delusional.   When you pay people less than what it cost to live, the burden will fall somewhere.   It will fall the taxpayer.   While we subscribe to the illusion that we are obtaining cheap labor, we grouse at the fact that we are picking up the tab for social services.  We don’t mind hiring illegal immigrants; we just don’t demand the employer pay them for their services.   Because, let’s face it, the only reason an employer hires an illegal worker is because they don’t have to pay them what they would have to pay an eligible worker.  Bottom line is that you will have to pay for labor in one form or another.  Either through the wage itself or as a supplement to social services.

The employer pays the illegal worker bupkes and then passes the overage on to the taxpayer.  The taxpayer whines about it, and supports stupid and draconian laws that clamp down on the poor soul who departed thousands of miles from poverty and debilitation in quest of making a living.   This is who we pick on.  This is who we vilify.  It is so much easier than condemn the poor guy trying to make a buck than to go after the employers who are trying to pass their labor costs off to you.   I won’t even go into the nannies and gardeners and the other domestic laborers who the Mommies and Daddies of the world don’t mind buying on the cheap to watch little Junior to to make sure the neighbors don’t leave ugly notes under your door about your lousy looking lawn.

The Federation for Immigration Reform estimates that the annual cost for Illegal Immigrants in the United States has been $36 billion.   By the end of 2010, that figure is expected to increase to more than $60 Billion.  By 2020, the estimate is over $100 Billion.  Mind you, this is from a group whose acronym is FAIR, a group in favor of immigration reform.   These are not estimates from some hate filled bunch of racists looking to make a point.   And FAIR’s estimation considers only three major programs–educating the children in public and primary schools, medical services, and incarceration.   These estimates do not take into account the increased burden on the infrastructure, nor the accelerated cost of both medical and auto insurance born by the legal citizen.

In California, there are an estimated three million immigrants.   They are not all laborers, but spouses and children who are either unemployed or working part-time.   FAIR’S  estimated cost for the three aforementioned programs is something like $8.8 Billion.  There are other estimates that list the cost at $10 Billion and even $14 Billion.  But who is quibbling about a few billion here and there?   No matter how you cut it, this is a lot of money.  When the state shortfall is something like $24 Billion then this is a substantial portion of our debt.   And it is climbing.  Unless you suffer from same delusion of cheap labor, it is apparent the burden of illegal immigration is bankrupting the state.

I know some say that the illegal working community pays taxes and pumps a lot of its money into the economy.   They claim that the money the illegal workers contribute in taxes and spend on goods and services is nearly equivalent to the services they receive.  Oh, really.   So…if you take $8.8 Billion and divide it by 3 million.   The resultant estimated cost is about $3,000.00  for every man, woman, and child. Which means for an average family of five, the taxpayer would have to pay approximately $15, 000.00  just to break even with their share of the state budget supporting the undocumented community.   Families comprised of undocumented workers, depending on the study, pay an average of $4,500 to $7,000 in annual federal taxes.   So there appears to be a shortfall.

Before one starts thinking that this is an argument in support of the anti-immigration movement, it’s not.  It’s just the facts, M’am.  Or like I wrote earlier, a numbers game.   The issue is then how to pick up the shortfall.   The obvious means is three-fold.  On one hand, do a better job of sealing the borders.   It is absurd that a nation considered to be the most powerful in the world can’t keep a watch on its on borders.   While we fight wars thousands of miles away, you would think we would allocate more than a few measly bucks to monitoring our borders.

But, most importantly, it is imperative we develop a pathway to citizenship.  By keeping the illegal workers in the shadows, we will experience the result of a permanent underclass.  All that jargon about starting out poor in American and rising up the ladder of success is negligible if we cannot find a means to acculturate undocumented workers.   We can piss and moan all day about “how dare they enter this country illegally, ” but nevertheless, they are here.   They are here because we wanted them.   We needed them. We needed their cheap labor; we needed them to tend the lawns and watch the kids, do repeated tasks in factories, and build stuff that we self-righteously entitle “cost effective.”  We wanted them, and now we got them.  Apparently, we may have too many, especially in an economic downturn when much of the jobs have dried up.  Some never to return again.

So, yes, do a better job of sealing the border and assure through a pathway to citizenship we do not suffer the embarrassment and cost of a permanent underclass.  Look, some will always be poor, and even more will never have enough money.   But then there are those, who like the immigrants before them, start out from meager circumstances and move forward.  Several generations pass and the farmers, maids, and housekeeper, have kids who are doctors, lawyers, business people, and politicians.   But that will not happen through repression.  It will only happen if we create a plan, a rigorous but sensible plan.   Do what you are supposed to do, and one day you and your children may have a bigger slice of the pie.  Or not.  But at least you have a shot at it.

Thirdly, don’t hold the worker trying to make a buck accountable for being the bad guy.   That is way too easy.  A simple target to vent frustrations.   But the wrong target.   Make the employers accountable.    Best to pay it through wages than through supplemental taxes.   A better wage makes for happier people, but it also triggers increased taxes.   Yes, you may have to pay more for goods and services, but like I wrote earlier, all illusions to the contrary, you are going to pay for the social and public services one way or another.  So stop complaining.

There have been increased crackdowns on employers hiring illegal workers.   Businesses are fined, and in one recent case the employer was accused by the IRS of defrauding the government out of $16 million in back taxes that he didn’t pay for his undocumented workers.   The company was fined and closed, and the head of the company was sentenced to ten years in prison.   The case was recently upheld in the appeals court.

As the Co-Founder of Corra Group, I see a change in attitude among many employers.  Most of the saner ones realize their days are numbered when it comes to hiring illegal workers.   They face stiff fines and closure.  Since we primarily conduct background checks for employment purposes we conduct Social Security Traces that verify that the social security number is real and that it appears to belong to the employment applicant.   We are also designated agents through the Department of Homeland Security for the electronic E-Verify or I-9.   As of the first of the year, any federal contractor or employer doing business with a company that is a federal contractor is by federal law mandated to run the E-Verify on their employees.

Ironically, there was one state that got out in front of this situation.  In 2007 the state’s governor signed into law the first employee sanctions legislation.   Each employer was mandated to conduct the I-9 on any employee in order to verify his eligibility to work in the United States.   It was a tough law.  The first time you were caught hiring undocumented workers, the authorities would close your business down for thirty days, as well as fine you.   The next time they were caught, the employer faced increased fines, possible permanent business closure and loss of license.   A tough law that went right to the heart of the matter.   It was the type of law the President Obama found the most viable in relation to one aspect of immigration reform.  The legislation was House Bill 2779.  The governor who signed it into law was Janet Napolitano.   The state was Arizona.

Go figure.

Given that I have a jaundiced view of much of academia, I still found it surprising that several professors claimed that tenure fights are stressful and can lead to emotional breakdowns.   According to  an article in Boston.com, entitled Professors Say Tenure Fights Creates High Stress Situations,   David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School, and James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law, and public policy, at Northeastern University urged separately that the Universities should reevaluate the tenure process.  They urged that the tenure process be more transparent and less “gut wrenching,,” as Fox put it.

Yamada noted that college officials should be “more in tune with the psychological health of the tenure-seeking professor.   It was noted in the article that the tenure process can take about six or seven years and prove very stressful.  Those applying for tenure, it was reported, are under intense scrutiny and may have to contemplate the possibility of failure.    All in all, the article described the tenure process as long and tough.  It can make the teacher a nervous wreck.   It can lead to tragedy.

The two professors cited the recent incident with Amy Bishop as an example.  Bishop was the Harvard educated professor who when denied tenure shot six college professors at the University of Alabama.  She killed three and wounded three others.   This was their example of a stressed out tenure applicant, reacting to the pressure.   They did admit this may be an extreme case, but still…oh the pressure.

Never mind that Amy Bishop had a history of nutty behavior.  Not the least of that nutty behavior was the reported accidental killing of her brother.   Her finger was somehow on the trigger and, BANG, the shotgun just went off.  This is a woman with all sorts of graduate degrees and a Harvard education who reportedly had a problem cleaning a shotgun..   Well…okay.

This was the Amy Bishop who was charged with assault at an IHOP, after demanding another customer yield her booster seat so Bishop could use it for her child.  When the woman refused, Bishop punched at her and screamed some not-very-professorial epithets at the poor woman.   This nut job who should have never been teaching in the first place  is their example of tenure stress.

I take issue with the two denizens of the Ivory Tower, by writing every job worth having is stressful.    Every day in the real world people sweat out their working careers, hoping they are not fired because of age, race,  or sexual or social predilections.   They hope they won’t be downsized because of a merger and acquisition.   They pray they won’t be laid off with the economic meltdown.

What kind  of insular perspective believes that academics should not be under scrutiny for performance and ability?  This is the case in private industry, so why not at a college or university?   You can be sure at that same college or university someone is eyeballing the janitor to make sure he is doing his job.   The kid at the local Dominoes better not burn too many pizzas, otherwise he is out pocket money for his condoms and pot.   Everybody is under stress.

In fact, with the economic downturn, millions are out of work and the millions left are forced to pick up the slack of being overwhelmed and undermanned.    Employers are working with bare bones staffs, and heaven forbid if they can’t maintain performance.  Everyday millions of people either hope to hang onto their jobs or strive to find another one.

There are millions or workers out there who aren’t just stressed, but terrified they will lose their jobs.   Some, like Amy Bishop, who are tightly wrapped, have revisited their workplace to shoot and kill their bosses and fellow workers.  Most won’t.  Most will steel up and do the best they can, given the fears and pressures of unemployment.

I realize that in the name of esteem issues, much college curriculum has been dumbed down so the students can feel better about themselves.   This is not true in all cases, but it is apparent when you have college students that are near functionally illiterate, can’t spell,  and can’t put their thoughts into a cogent sentence.

But this sudden whining about the tenure process is the equivalent of academic dodge ball.  Some educators decided recently that the competition in dodge ball engenders negative extreme issues.    The same here holds true.   Competition apparently is not seen as distinguishing the best of our educators.    Instead, competition is viewed as the enervating demon that hovers about, nullifying the creative process.

In fact, one has to look askance in general at the creative process in academia..  Not to paint it with a broad brush, but I have never been overly impressed with creativity among academics.   There are exceptions, and there are certainly are those who have distinguished themselves in various endeavors in the private sector and decided to give back to the community by teaching at universities.    There are those who have distinguished themselves in more esoteric pursuits, and though their creativity is well received in a niche market, they can’t make a living  just by what they produce.   So they teach.  Understood.

There are exceptions among those in the  physical and economic sciences who through private funding and university resources  perform  much needed research and development that can benefit us all.   And there are those who are simply damn good teachers.

But then there are there those who engage in the campus politics of Kissinger’s description.   This is their world.   they live in it and even thrive in it.   In the real world, where you actually have to actualize theory, many will perish.   It is a group dependent on grants and foundational offerings and neither entrepreneurial or self-sufficient.

They give pointed views on subjects and issues that are best left to theory.   They pronounce with certainly ambiguous concepts that simply can’t flourish any other place but academia.   They impose questionable points of view on our kids and rigid definitions of creativity and artistry.    Anything other than their own insulated thoughts are threatening and deemed the prejudices of the ignorant and misinformed.

And then they complain that their jobs are stressful.  Tenure is a demoralizing bitch of a process that in its extreme can lead to bloodshed on the ivy.   Teaching is tough.  Life is tough.  They are under scrutiny.   They are being forced to perform.

Well cowboy up.   And get real.  At least you are working.