Let's see what I can do today

I'm at home with Katie- my full-time job these days- and, true to form, can get nothing academic done in the meantime. We had fallen into the routine where in the morning, Katie was extremely sensitive and clingy and I could not put her down and after her nap, she was perfectly fine to run around the apartment, freeing me up to...clean and start dinner. Thank goodness, she's in a fantastic mood this morning so I'll see how much I can write before she demands my attention.

I started writing a response to a message someone forwarded me the other day, and as I wrote, I just got worn out. The message was a forward one of Eric's former students received and knew would get me fired up- this woman kicks ass on her own, and her handling of the situation was great. But, essentially, the message she received was every wing-nut's laundry list of lies about our President, Barack Obama. Tristianne, if you check this, Eric and I thought of something: she stated that President Obama renounced his citizenship and moved to India. Well, assuming she meant Indonesia, does she even know that he moved there when he was two years-old? Tell me, how the hell does a two year-old renounce his citizenship???

Okay, onto the next thing. We're waiting to receive our driver's licenses in the mail. Getting them was an absolute fiasco. God bless him, but Eric put so much time and effort into figuring out what all was needed for us to be street-legal in the state of Texas. And it was a multi-step process. The cars had to be inspected ($40 a pop, every year) in order to be registered in order for us to get our licenses. And in order for us to get our driver's licenses, we had to have VERY specific forms of primary identification- our Iowa licenses would not do by themselves.

This is when I realized that, for a state which seems to embrace free market principles (i.e., the deregulation of utilities, for instance, so that we can "choose" our electric company...although the carrier is really only one company) and local rule so entrenched in Southern politics, they sure do know how to erect bureaucracies. And of course, the protocol to receive a driver's license was only recently implemented (in October, I believe) to- you guessed it!- hinder so-called "illegal aliens" from getting driver's licenses.

That's my dissertation topic, so I'll save that rant for my committee at school. But, you know how in Oklahoma, we can go to any tag agency and you're in and out in 15 minutes with a license? In Iowa, there was a government office you went to, but it was quick and painless and you walked with your license. Not so in Texas. First, they only have one office per county here (although I may be wrong on this and I guess there are some satellite locations). But upon arrival, you stand in line to have some lady look over your papers to make sure you have the right documentation for your business that day. Then you take a number, to wait, again, to go stand in a line, again, to be summoned to a counter to get asked a series of questions and an eye exam by workers who have no clue what they're doing (Eric can tell you more about this one), to pay another $24 per license, to wait up to 30 days to receive your license. So we have slips of "official" paper as stand-ins while we wait for the licenses to come in the mail.

But here's what really got me bothered: remember, they channel every license request in the county more or less through this one office, so teen-agers are getting their permits and licenses in the same place as those of us who are seasoned drivers. But this is one of the most diverse places I've ever lived and keeping in mind that the new requirements for getting a license are supposedly to deter "illegals," in that very first line you have to stand in, a state trooper- or maybe he's a trooper who's only job is to administer driving tests to 16 year-old- stands over everyone, in uniform and with his gun, asking them as they near the front of the line, "What's your business here today?"

I think this is intimidation, personally. After I had noticed what was going on, I had already copped an attitude. The office is filled with people who are not white, and although he was asking everybody their business and then looking over their papers (before some grumpy old lady did), I cannot see the necessity in this other than to freak some people out and make them nervous. Someone might say, if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be nervous about, but that's simply not true. If you're not white in this country, you have no reason to believe you won't be targeted or singled out even if you're minding your own business. So it really, really bothered me that these tall men (is there a height requirement for state troopers???) were lurking about with their guns and peering over people's shoulders. If that's not the increased militarization characteristic of advanced capitalism, I don't know what is.

On an entirely different note: I didn't quite get away with writing this without Katie noticing I wasn't paying attention strictly to her. She climbed into her high chair (she does that these days) and so I gave her paper and crayons. I drew some shapes, and she could identify the heart, the star, the circle, the square and the triangle. How about that, eh?? She's a freakin' genius.