Immigration: Deal With It

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Those who know me may be surprised, and you can call me whatever you want: a racist, a bigot, or even a Republican. However, someone of my ilk has to step forward and say that immigration has gotten out of hand. I know they are our "next-door neighbors," but that doesn't mean they can crash into "our house" whenever they want. These people have a different culture, and I don't think we should weaken our culture by having so many of them around. That's why I feel we definitely have to address the situation of Canadian immigrants.

I'm not talking about profiling. I'm not suggesting that border guards be guided by skin color. People should not automatically be considered to be Canadians just because they look like they've never been in the sun. A law enforcement official should not just walk up to somebody and ask, "Are you from Canada?" They have to be more sensitive. For example, the official can walk up to a man and say, "May I help you, sir?" If the guy answers, "I'm just going to be hanging oot here for aboot five more minutes, eh?" the cop is within his rights to ask for the Canadian's papers.

There is probably nothing as controversial as the problem of children who were born in this country to immigrant parents. It's a tough question. Take the actor, Brendan Fraser. His story is typical. He was born in this country, but both of his parents are Canadian. In other words, they obviously came into this country so their unborn child could be an American citizen and then could star in some really goofy movies.

This year might be remembered as the Year of Health Care. The Canadians can mess things up there, too. If you travel around Canada, you won't hear people complaining about their health care like we do here. Canadians are happy with their system. Disgusting. If more and more Canadians move to this country and start talking to their new U.S. neighbors about how health care works in Canada, more Americans are going to want the same kind of health care set up here. Think of what that's going to do to our poor drug and insurance companies.

Don't even get me started on Canadian football, which will probably be invading us soon. It's just what you want your kids to be exposed to: a 110-yard field and three, not four, downs per series. You might as well just show them pornography.

Here's why we should be upset in a nutshell: A Canadian invented instant mashed potatoes. Why would anyone want dehydrated potato flakes instead of good old American mashed potatoes?

There are few things more insidious than the way Canadians have infiltrated our culture though the toothless sport of hockey. You don't have to drive very far from Santa Monica to see an NHL game, and you can probably hear screaming kids playing on some rink no matter where you live. When I was a boy, there were only four National Hockey League teams in the United States. Today, there are 24 U.S. cities that host NHL teams. That's a 600% increase of this Canadian sport, gaining a foothold in American life all over our country. At that rate, the next generation of Americans will be hosting 144 hockey teams and the one after that, 864, and the one after that? 5,184. And after that, there will be 31,104 hockey teams in America. 31,104. It's a slippery slope. You let a few teams into the country, then they tell other teams back in Canada how great things are here, and before you know it, there are 31,000 of them in our country. Where are we going to put all of them? Who's going to pay the medical bills when some goon smacks another player on the head? At the very least, are we going to insist that they speak American English?

There are fathers and grandfathers of today's U.S. children who never thought they'd say the words, "Even Phoenix has a hockey team." Phoenix! They're playing a sport on ice in Phoenix, a city who was used to only seeing ice when it was in a cocktail. That's right. A cold weather, winter Canadian sport is being played in the middle of the desert. No wonder all those people in Arizona are upset about immigrants.

The Mob's Back

The mob is back in Las Vegas. (This assumes that the mob ever left). Soon there will be two museums dedicated to gangsters of the past. You'd think that Las Vegas would want people to forget its mob origins. Nope. In fact, the mayor, Oscar B. Goodman (who has represented many alleged mobsters) is very excited about the "Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement." (No, this is not my April Fools Day column). The mayor is somewhat upset because there is a rival museum that is scheduled to open soon. According to The New York Times, this other one is subtly named the "Las Vegas Mob Experience." I hope the forces behind the two museums don't settle their differences like the people they honor did.

One of the folks involved in the Las Vegas Mob Experience is Antoinette McConnell, the daughter of Chicago crime boss – I mean, alleged crime boss – Sam Giancana. The place they have in mind will actually resemble a theme park more than a museum. You know, it's good for the whole family. One of the planned exhibits will be called, "Final Fate." In this one, to get a feel for the way things were, a visitor has a chance of getting "whacked." The little kids will love that one, won't they?

Giancana's daughter makes no bones, oops, no pretense about her father's occupation. In fact, she says, "The Mafia is something people can't get enough of." When I close my eyes, I imagine how proud she'll be when they cut the opening day ribbon with a knife that has been wiped clean of all fingerprints. It's the kind of tribute that any daughter would like to give her late, beloved father.

I admit that I enjoyed going to Las Vegas back in the days that the mob ran the place. Allegedly. If you play blackjack today, your dealer is likely to be a pretty, young woman who decided to take that job instead of selling real estate. Back in the old days, it was a lot more exciting to have a scary looking dealer whose pinky ring was just slightly smaller than his head.

I've enjoyed watching movies and reading books about gangsters. I loved to watch "The Untouchables" on TV when I was a kid. However, in all of these earlier instances, the criminals were the bad guys. Maybe they fascinated us, but we weren't building a tribute to them. As much as it might be fun to sometimes romanticize these people, they were criminals. They weren't Robin Hoods. They were just hoods.

Mayor Goodman probably thought he had a way around this by not just naming the museum the "Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime", but adding "And Law Enforcement." Yeah, right. Which exhibit do you think more people would be drawn to: one about John Dillinger being gunned down after he was lured to the movie theater by the "lady in red" or one that tells where F.B.I. agents buy their shoes?

So what's behind these mob veneration ventures? What do you think? Money. The people who put together the deal for the Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement were able to buy an old federally owned building for only one dollar. That's because the building will be used for "cultural purposes." The transported and rebuilt wall from the St.Valentine's Day Massacre qualifies as culture? I guess it was between the crime museum and a new opera house.

Those behind these museums/theme parks hope they'll bring in lots of money. They believe Las Vegas will get booming again because of interest in organized crime. Sounds like the old days. Like the old days, this gangster gambit has official support. Only this time it's not under the table. The $42 million museum (the one the mayor likes) has been financed by state, federal, and local grants. And you thought the government wasted money on silly things.

But this is America, and I guess you can build whatever you want here. I know I'm not going to be the one to tell Giancana's daughter that she can't have what she wants.