add on

An old friend of mine (who makes an excellent burger), John Cowgill contacted me to reminisce of the good ol' college days. We had spent a many hours at a call center playing add on (I draw one thing, then he adds to it, then I add to it, etc. etc.) I was surprised to learn he still had those drawings we concocted. Below are a select few of the many that came about. It was always fascinating to see what we ended up with. We prided ourselves in completely changing the drawing with one stroke. Cowgill...good times...good times.

warning: policital issue

To be fair, you all have warning that this is an anti-anti immigration post. You'll also notice that I don't allow comments on my posts, so this will be a one sided argument. So if you choose to continue to read this post, please keep in mind, these are my views and don't get yourself all worked up over it. Forgive the double negative anti-anti immigration, but I use that term because it isn't that I'm promoting immigration, but I'm against this being one of the top political issues on the republican agenda. To get my political orientation out there, I'm republican and I'm planning to vote for Obama this election. So of my 5 readers, probably only 2 of you are still reading this.

Generally, I'm quiet when it comes to political discussions. Everyone has the right to choose what they believe, and usually I give inaccurate information when I engage in those heated discussions (I can't remember everything off the top of my head, plus lets face it, no one ever changes their views. If anyone starts to loose the argument, they just end up going home and research to find more validation for their previous belief. See previous post: "Feelings: a political Defense").

The best way I feel to present my views, is to present a rebuttal to the common anti-immigration comments (AIC) I have crossed. Now keep in mind that their are some evidences that support the AIC, but the purpose of this blog is to emphasis that there are arguments in support of anti-anti immigration.


Immigration
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AIC: Crime goes up

Ryan's comments: I refer to an article published by Kathleen Kingsbury, in Time magazine titled "Immigration: No Correlation With Crime", 2/27/08

The article points out various statistics but the main one that gets the point across is "first-generation Mexican immigrants were 45% less likely to engage in violence than third-generation Americans. This pattern continued into the second generation, which was 22% less likely to be violent."

Kristin Butcher said it best "From a public safety standpoint, there would be little reason to limit immigration,".


AIC: Immigration is bad for the economy

Ryan's Comments: I'm sorry, but this is absolutely not true. From a personal myopic perspective, my time with Wal-mart, I learned that Latin American products is one of the fastest growing assortments at a Wal-mart store. In my marketing classes, the biggest discussion was how the Latin American demographic rejuvenated the failing "Mall" layout for retailers. We are talking about billions of dollars worth of sales catered to this specific demographic. All of this money is being generated into our economy. Most economists agree that immigration is good for the economy. It benefits the upper and middle class. Granted they do provide a little downfall for the lower class, but the benefits overall for the economy are greater (isn't it the democrats that care more about the lower class, come on fellow republicans, get with it (I'm being sarcastic with this comment, in case that was missed)). I could go on and on about the economic benefits that immigration has created, but I refer everyone to a well written article that was published in the LA Times.

Illegal -- but Essential, by David Streitfeld.


AIC: I don't care that you're here, just learn our language

Ryan's Comments: First off, English is not the official language of the United States (majority, but not official). In fact, English came about because a bunch of different cultures mixed.

The only reason you want them to learn a new language, is because you don't want to learn their language. Why...because it's hard. But remember, it's far harder for them to be in the U.S. not knowing English than it is for you to be in the U.S. not knowing Spanish. Give them a break. Most are trying really hard to learn. These are real people you are talking about.

AIC: Well, they shouldn't be working in the restaurant industry

Ryan's Comments: Ok, you have three options to choose from. 1) Put up with someone that is trying to learn the language. 2) Put up with waiting in line for 30 minutes, vs. 3 minutes 3) Put up with double the prices

Personally, I pick number 1 (which most businesses do). When you're talking about many of these service industries, it's easy to say "the company shouldn't put these people in service positions, cause I can't understand them". But when you think about the logistics behind it. They don't have a choice. Our unemployment rate is extremely low right now. We don't have enough people to fill these positions. Immigrants (legal and illegal) are filling this need. If they aren't available, the restaurant has two options. One is make their pay a lot more competitive (which means higher food prices), or two is sacrifice turnaround time. Who wouldn't pick the first option (I also wanted to point out, that during my time in Brazil, it was difficult to learn the language and I was always appreciative to those who showed patience in helping me learn the language).

Well, those are the only key points I wanted to touch on. Yes, yes, I know plenty of you have a lot of rebuttals, most probably from some spam e-mail from a buddy of a buddy. But I just wanted to emphasize that there is a lot more to it with immigration. Do we need to improve it. Yes. But our economy is about to collapse because of poor financial decisions Americans made. Do you really want to focus on getting rid of a support beam that is keeping us semi afloat?

sabadoodle

Imagine that you've been asked to give a talk, sermon, or lesson in church. You spend hours, perhaps weeks, studying, praying, working hard, to come up with what words you feel will inspire the congregation. The night before, you forgo a night of parties, movies, entertainment in general, just to get a good nights sleep. You awake with a good healthy breakfast, and spend a good deal of time praying to calm your nerves before you stand up and preach what you've learned. After all that time and preparation, you give your heart felt speech. Unfortunately, while you've been pouring your heart out, you have a hard time with someone in the back. He isn't paying any attention to what your saying. He refuses to look at you and seems intent to writing or doodling in his notebook. An apology to everyone that has had that experience...

I am that man.

Please know that I am listening. I do care about the work you've put into your talks/lessons. I just have a hard time concentrating when people are talking (ask my wife). My mind wanders quickly. I focus much better on what is being said when I'm drawing something. In case you've ever wondered what I'm spending all my time on, here are a couple of pointless things that have come of this.







note: the drawing at the very top of this this website is in fact one of the few sabadoodles I'm proud of.

sarandermis

Last night I dreamed that someone replaced my skin with Saran wrap. My intestines were just bulging out and the wrap was about to break. That was until I was sent flying in the air making an infinity symbol around a floating open box.

Anybody know of a good discount exorcist?

pt.2

this is a late addition to this post -a post post be it... I went through some funky dream dictionaries and found the following meanings to key parts to my dream last night.

Skin

To dream of your skin, represents protection or shield of your inner self. It serves as a physical boundary and how close you let others get to you. Alternatively, it may indicate that you are being to superficial or shallow.

Box

To see a box in your dream, signifies your instinctual nature and destructive impulses. Alternatively, you may be trying to preserve and protect some aspect of yourself. The box may also symbolize your limitations and restrictions.

Intestines

To see intestines in your dream, signifies evil, disaster, and extreme misfortune.

Well now, aren't these cheery interpretations?

Damn id

egosurf

My online narcissism dramatically increased the day the domain name ryanbarlow.com became available. Unfortunately, even with this advantage, I am still unable to occupy the "top" ryan barlow organic google search result. I held the number 2 spot for some time, until I stopped blogging. This inactivity dropped me to number 8. This gave rise to imdb ryan barlow, linkedin ryan barlow, youtube ryan barlow, myspace ryan barlow, and amazon ryan barlow. The myspace ryan barlow has continually held the number 1 spot. Now that I've started blogging again, I've been able to reclaim my spot as number 2, but still can't pass the MySpace ryan barlow. They are a band named ryan barlow, but not one of the members is named ryan barlow. Here is an excerpt taken from their site:

"ryan barlow is a made-up name. he does not exist. but don't tell that to mark... he is very proud of what ryan has done. the music is... whatever. you decide. i have trouble describing it."

Bastards, I exist.

My goal right now is to become the number 1 ryan barlow. Help me become number 1 by linking to my blog (the more links to my website, the better SEO I get).

Urinal Mugging

Problem:
One of my irrational fears is getting mugged at a urinal. I'm in a public restroom, my face is to the wall (strictly following proper bathroom etiquette), a hand is occupied. The distance between my head and the wall is close enough that any mugger need just elbow my head and my face gets slammed against the wall; then he could easily take my wallet and run, while I urinate all over myself.

Preferred Unlikely Solution:
Rearview mirrors for each urinal.

Current Solution:
Slight quarter body turn, allowing me proper reflection from the pipe to detect any unusual movement. However, the turn is not enough to eliminate any needed privacy.