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If you are familiar with the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, you may have heard recently that the sky is falling. Yes, that is correct; the two words that strike fear into many in the EB-5 community – Chinese retrogression – became a reality on August 23.
For those who are not as familiar with the EB-5 program, it enables foreign investors to get a conditional green card in exchange for a capital investment of $500,000 or $1 million in a U.S. business. If the immigrant’s investment creates at least 10 permanent full-time jobs, the investor may earn a permanent green card approximately two years after earning his or her conditional green card. However, there are only 10,000 total visas allotted to the EB-5 program each year, and per country visa limits have been set in addition to the overall maximum amount. Chinese EB-5 visa retrogression simply means the demand for EB-5 visas for Chinese investor immigrants has exceeded the fixed number of visas available to them.
Up to this point in the program’s history, neither the overall visa quota, nor a per country quota has been met. The latter changed on August 23, 2014, when the U.S. Department of State announced that EB-5 visas for Chinese nationals will not be available for the remainder of the fiscal year.
It should be noted that the fiscal year starts again on October 1, so this disruption should be fairly minimal to those participating in the program, along with the projects relying on EB-5 capital from Chinese investors. However, the Department of State also announced that based upon the current volume of Form I-526 filings from Chinese investors (the first form in the EB-5 application process), in May of 2015 the EB-5 category will likely retrogress to a priority date of June 2013.
Unlike the recent retrogression, next year’s episode could last a full five months before the end of the fiscal year. This would result in a significant log jam, and disruption for investors and project developers alike. This certainly seems like it has the potential only for doom and gloom, but such an event actually presents the industry with a great opportunity: the invaluable chance to expand the scope of EB-5 around the globe.
While it is great to have a vibrant investment market such as China provides, EB-5 project developers, regional centers and other stakeholders may prove foolish to overly rely on just one source for EB-5 funds.
China has been the perfect storm for EB-5. The country’s rise in individual wealth has coincided perfectly with U.S. developers’ increased demands for EB-5 funds. In 2000, China had just 310,000 millionaires. Now, China has 2,378,000 millionaires, ranking it second in the world behind the United States.
In 2006, China produced only 63 EB-5 investors, accounting for just 12 percent of the total number of investors. Even as recently as 2008, it trailed South Korea in the number of EB-5 applications submitted that year. The Chinese now account for more than 80 percent of EB-5 investors. This trend simply cannot continue indefinitely. If we observe the history of U.S. immigration, don’t we find that we did not all come from the same place?
Many historians believe that there have been four distinct waves of immigration in the history of the United States. The first wave, which occurred in the years leading up to the American Revolution, arrived from Western Europe with England as the driving force. The second wave occurred in the middle of the 19th century and drew mostly from Northwestern Europe, including Russia. Interestingly enough, this is also the first period that saw the first sizable Chinese population arrive in the United States.
Eastern and Southern Europe generated the third wave which occurred in the last part of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Finally, the fourth wave has brought, and continues to bring, Latin Americans and Asian immigrants to the United States. If history demonstrates that immigration trends fluctuate, can we really expect EB-5, albeit a microcosm of the broader immigration picture, to continue on a one-track path?
Potential EB-5 immigrant investors begin as foreign entrepreneurs. But once they become U.S. permanent residents, they become American entrepreneurs, continuing to do business, paying taxes and enrolling their children in the U.S. education system. Diversity within the academic and business talent pools is crucial to a progressive economy. For example, a study by economists at Brown University and Williams College found that cultural diversity has a positive impact on economic development in industrial societies. The EB-5 industry’s tendency to focus marketing efforts in China, and the resulting high-number of Chinese entrepreneurs applying for EB-5 visas, prevents the EB-5 program from accessing its full diversity potential and the benefits it could provide.
While legislative solutions have been introduced by members of Congress to address, among other EB-5 program issues, category retrogression, the opportunity to develop new markets should be seized by EB-5 stakeholders. Whether legislative solutions prevail or not, the run of Chinese investors will not be indefinite. Nor was the program designed with only one country in mind. As with immigration as a whole, a diverse group of EB-5 investors can only be seen as a benefit.
So what country could replace China as the next big source of EB-5 investors? The short answer is that it is highly unlikely that any one country can fill China’s proverbial shoes. However, there are certainly a number of countries that are showing an increased interest in EB-5 and are also experiencing an increase in individual wealth. Educating prospective immigrant investors in developing markets will pose challenges, but it’s important to note that China was not set up with a ready-made system for EB-5. Networks and systems will have to be implemented and expanded.
Brazil, for example, contributed just one EB-5 investor in 2006, but expanded to 28 visas issued in 2013. The country had less than 100,000 millionaire households in 2000, but is projected to have more than 1,000,000 such households by 2020. Along the same lines, Russia has gone from zero EB-5 participants in 2006, to 216 EB-5 visas issued between 2007 – 2013. It is also gaining in individual wealth and is projected to surpass one million millionaire households by 2020.
From 2006 to 2012, India, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam have all produced more than 100 EB-5 investor visas as well. India is projected to have more than 700,000 millionaire households by 2020, and Mexico is projected to have 600,000 millionaire households by that date.
China does not have a monopoly on individuals who would like their children to attend one of the many premiere universities in the United States, or who desire to remove themselves from an unstable or oppressive political environment. Will the same marketing approaches work in these potential new EB-5 markets? Perhaps not, but the community will simply have to adapt to the changing foreign landscape.
The EB-5 community had a bit of luck on its side with China, which turned out to be a perfect storm. It may not be able to count on another ideal scenario moving forward. Instead, if EB-5 is to flourish over the long haul, it will need to build and expand multiple international markets.
This first encounter with retrogression should be an impetus for pumping new life into EB-5. A healthy EB-5 program creates thousands upon thousands of new jobs for Americans, and can play a role in reviving and redefining cities and rural areas across the country.
Many people are happy that the Minnesota Vikings kicked Adrian Peterson off the team and that Ray Rice can no longer play for the Baltimore Ravens. Their off-field violence has cascaded into harm and loss for everyone involved — spouses, children, team, league and fans — all because of the consequences of their childhood trauma. And the only way the NFL can stop further abuse, harm and loss is… well… to deal with its players’ childhood trauma.
The severe and toxic stresses in Peterson’s past — or what we in the trauma-informed community count on a scale from one to 10 as adverse childhood experiences or ACEs — aren’t minor. As a child, he lost his father to prison, suffered through his parents’ divorce, saw his brother killed by a drunk driver, and was beaten by his stepfather. Repeating the pattern, he whipped his own four-year-old son with a switch so harshly that he raised welts on the child’s body. And if Peterson is convicted and goes to prison, his son can add another ACE to his trauma-filled life.
Peterson and Rice are two of millions of child and spouse abusers who love their families and can learn from their mistakes, if provided with help early enough. The average child abuser or spouse abuser isn’t dirty, disheveled, reeking of alcohol or stoned on meth. Child and spouse abusers are corporate CEOs, ministers, priests, actors, business owners, teachers, truck drivers, physicians, nurses, basketball heroes, journalists, computer programmers, and your next-door neighbors.
They’re dads and moms who have a hard time controlling their emotions when they’re under stress because they themselves were abused. Nobody helped them when they were kids and nobody’s helping them as adults.
Plain and simple, childhood trauma is the nation’s No. 1 public health problem. The CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) — the largest public health study you never heard of — shows that childhood trauma is very, very common. (ACE surveys in 22 states echo the results.) And this childhood adversity causes violence, including family violence, as well as the adult onset of chronic disease and mental illness.
By learning about the science of childhood adversity, and following the lead of many other organizations that are becoming trauma-informed, the NFL could have players whose families are happier and healthier, it could have better players (more focused, less stressed), and it might never have to deal with a Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson situation again.
The NFL has 1,696 players. Of those 1,696 players, probably two-thirds — 1,119 young men — have experienced one type of serious childhood trauma. And it’s likely that 22 percent — about 370 players — have suffered three or more types of adverse childhood experiences. And it’s causing some of them to beat their girlfriends, spouses and kids.
This is based on the ACE Study’s findings that about two-thirds of U.S. adults — that’s approximately 150 million people — have experienced at least one of the 10 types of childhood trauma that were measured. These include five personal types — physical, sexual and verbal abuse, and physical and emotional neglect. And five family dysfunctions: a family member in prison, depressed or mentally ill, or who abuses alcohol or other drugs; losing a parent to divorce or separation, and witnessing a mother being abused. Of course there are other types of childhood trauma, such as bullying, witnessing violence outside the home, and watching a sibling being abused, but the ACE Study measured only 10 types.
About 44 million adults in the U.S. have experienced at least three or more types. The higher the number, the higher the risk of disease and violence. Got an ACE score of 4? Your risk of heart disease increases 200 percent. Your risk of suicide increases 1200 percent.
The effects of ACEs on family violence are especially troubling. Men who experienced physical abuse when they were kids — that means a parent or other adult who often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or threw something at them, or ever hit them so hard that they had marks or were injured — are twice as likely to assault their spouses or girlfriends. (The ACE Study was done on 17,000 people, most of whom are white, middle- and upper-middle class, college educated, all with jobs and great health care.)
Men who experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse AND witnessed their mother being abused, are nearly four times more likely to batter women as those who didn’t experience those traumas. Women who were physically abused, sexually abused and saw their mothers being abused are three-and-a-half times more likely to become victims of family violence. (Based on the ACE Study, 16% of men and 25% of women experienced sexual abuse before the age of 18.)
People who have high ACE scores, and haven’t had much resilience in their past or haven’t integrated resilience practices into their lives, don’t handle additional stress well. Peterson grew up with the belief that he would not have made it to the NFL without regular beatings. But research clearly shows that children thrive in a supportive, caring environment, one without threats or punishment.
In his recent press conference, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Domestic violence, including child abuse, sexual assault, irresponsible ownership or handling of firearms, the illegal use of alcohol or drugs — these activities must be condemned and stopped, through education and discipline.”
Education is a start, but it won’t go the distance. (If education worked, everyone would be slim, nobody would smoke, and nobody would beat a kid or spouse.)
Discipline usually comes too late and causes further harm.
The many other organizations that have been successful in changing behavior start by simply not traumatizing already traumatized people. They move away from shaming, blaming and punishing, and instead intervene early with understanding, they nurture healthier behavior and they implement solution-oriented and resilience-building practices.
Using this approach, an alternative high school in Walla Walla, WA, that implemented trauma-informed practices saw its suspensions drop 90% and its expulsions plunge to zero while kids’ grades, attendance and graduation rates went up. A program integrated into several family courts resulted in parents and caregivers changing their behavior so that 99 percent of infants and toddlers in the program suffered no further abuse.
So, what would a trauma-informed NFL look like?
First, the NFL could recognize that childhood trauma is an epidemic, that it affects most people in the U.S. That it’s likely that the same percentage of NFL team members — and staff — have as many ACEs as the rest of the population.
And then, the NFL could implement approaches similar to other organizations that are trauma-informed:
So, how might this work in practice? Adrian Peterson, who beat his child with a switch until he was bloody and bruised, was arrested in 2009 for driving 109 mph in a 55 mph zone. In 2012, he was jailed for a night after he resisted arrest in a fight with police at a nightclub.
In 2009, a trauma-informed Vikings organization might have sat down with Peterson in 2009 and asked: “What happened to you? Were you angry about something?” rather than writing the incident off as a boys-will-be-boys event.
In 2012, they might have ramped up the intervention with more help plus a consequence, such as sitting out a game. If they had taken this approach and implemented all the practices above, Peterson might still be playing in this week’s game. His photo might still be on the main billboard at the Vikings’ stadium. He still might be a hero to kids.
Jane Stevens is writing a book about adverse childhood experiences and how organizations, agencies, states, communities and individuals are implementing trauma-informed practices.
For the residents of Raqqa, life has drastically changed since militants of the Islamic State (IS) group turned the Syrian city into their headquarters. Syria Deeply reports that since the town fell under IS rule, women are forced to wear black and cover their faces. Cigarettes and alcohol are forbidden. Public floggings and executions are now common.
The new rules extend to the city’s schools, as Islamic State leaders have reportedly set out a new curriculum. In a video for the Wall Street Journal, Reem Makhoul explains the details of the new rules. Makhoul notes that classes such as music, social studies, arts, sports and philosophy are cut. Male teachers, staff and students are separated from their female colleagues. Female students and professors are obligated to wear a niqab, a full face veil. All references to “Syria” and its president, Bashar Assad, are banned.
According to the Associated Press, IS introduced similar changes in the city of Mosul, the group’s stronghold in Iraq.
The new Mosul curriculum was reportedly personally issued by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and information about the changes was posted in bulletins throughout the city. The new rules include bans on pictures that go against the militants’ radical interpretation of Islam and songs that encourage national pride.
Watch Reem Makhoul’s video above to learn more about education under the Islamic State.
The movement for complementary and alternative medicine is famous for its consumer base.
The rising tide of our collective personal choices overflowed conventional medicine’s barriers. The medical industry was pushed to look outside its towers at choices being made in the community, among the people.
In the context of this grassroots uprising of interest, singling out the historic contributions of one person seems inappropriate.
Yet for complementary and integrative health policy and inclusion, there is such a giant. This person has flipped open so many switches to cast light on new, health-focused methods and practices that mere human decency suggests we take time to honor him in this, the year of his retirement.
I speak of integrative health and medicine champion Tom Harkin, the senior U.S. Senator from Iowa. He promotes this movement as an instrument of his larger vision to create a “wellness society” in lieu of what he calls our present “sick care system.”
The courage to speak against powerful conventions runs deep in Harkin’s career. I first became aware of him in 1981 when his action on a foreign policy matter as a young Congressman showed courageous political independence.
I was covering Asian trade issues as a journalist in Seattle when I learned of a democratic uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea. Official tallies say 241 demonstrators were killed. The U.S. government refused to step in. The demonstrators’ leader, Kim Dae Jung, was imprisoned and sentenced to death.
While investigating the story I discovered that just one member in the U.S. Congress was speaking out against this suppression of democractic yearning in the South Korean people: Tom Harkin.
Years later, Kim as South Korea’s elected president, promoted peace talks with North Korea. He was later granted the Nobel Peace Prize. I once told Senator Harkin how I first heard of him. He responded that it was a highlight of his professional life when Kim invited him to sit at his side when Kim received the Nobel.
This same courage and independence propelled Harkin to become a steady champion for what is effectively another people’s movement for democratization against a profoundly repressive establishment.
Harkin’s early connection to non-conventional medicine came through a boyhood friend though whom he gained respect for chiropractic. This was the dark ages for integration in the 1980s when the chiropractic profession was locked in a protracted, decade-long anti-trust lawsuit against the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association.
Back then the AMA didn’t shy away from branding as “fraud” or “quackery” chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathic medicine, and all forms of mind-body care. Chiropractors had hospital and laboratory doors slammed on them, by collusive agreements, even though chiropractic scope of practice allowed them, for instance, to order imaging. This was gross discrimination in health care. The very idea of respectful team care was suppressed and incarcerated.
In 1989, by federal court decision, the chiropractors won. The potential for integrative health and medicine opened.
Harkin’s first big move for exploration of chiropractic and other heath care alternatives arrived quietly in 1991. Via an adroit legislative move, he hooked a nearly invisible section into a multi-billion dollar U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee bill. Harkin’s language spoke of the importance of examining “unconventional medicine.” It referenced, as an example, early resistance to radiology. The section set aside $2 million for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin such exploration.
Nowhere did this legislative whisper from Harkin, with his mentor, former Congressman Berkley Bedell at his side, suggest that they were intentionally creating a place in the hallowed halls of the NIH for acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, natural products and other “alternative medicine.”
A half dozen years later, Harkin managed purse strings as chair of the powerful US Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the NIH to transform this early exploration into the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIH).
Harkin has faced a great deal of heated opposition inside and outside of the NIH for his outspoken advocacy. Meantime, by breaking down medicine’s barricades, we see flourishing evidence for mind-body, yoga, tai-chi, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathic approaches and also of costs savings through these practices.
The indirect impacts are immeasurable. Expanded NIH research funding propelled the growth of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine from 12 academic centers to nearly 60 centers today. By requiring the NIH to fund researchers from the licensed “complementary and alternative medicine” professions, a kind of Prague Spring stimulated the development and maturation of research communities in the chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture and massage disciplines. New evidence influences more hospitals to include such services each year.
Harkin’s wholistic vision didn’t stop with research. The transformation toward a “wellness society” that he foresaw led him to include $2 million in the NCCAM legislation to create the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Health Care Policy. This Clinton-era report, while buried during the Bush II presidency, laid out a blueprint for inclusion.
Harkin’s next profound contribution to the democratization of U.S. medicine came as the go-to broker for integrative approaches in the Affordable Care Act. “Integrative health” and “licensed complementary and alternative medicine practitioners” gained first-time inclusion in the law of the land in sections related to prevention, payment, delivery, research, and the healthcare workforce.
Most important is Harkin’s authorship of Section 2706, “Non-Discrimination in Health Care.” Harkin’s language states that if one is licensed to provide a service that is covered by a plan, then insurers have no business discriminating against the type of provider one chooses.
Yet powerful forces in regular medicine continue to dismiss Congressional intent. While hardly the military suppression of citizen action in South Korean that Harkin stood up against 30 years ago, the failure to respect “non-discrimination in health care” continues a historic line of suppression of medical minorities in the United States.
Harkin increasingly expresses his wisdom as a prophetic, society-wide need to shift from sick care to health care. His theme is finally showing up in the dialogue of medical leaders.
Meantime, the senator is not sleep-walking into retirement. He continues to battle. His committee recently reminded the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, again, that their version of implementation of “non-discrimination” did not “reflect the law and congressional intent.” The agency, his committee wrote, has “not complied with [the non-discrimination] directive.”
Senator Harkin, what an amazing and equalizing blessing your torch bearing has been. Our grossly under-funded movement for integrative health and medicine — and for health creation! — has leaped ahead through your courage, decency, political power and appropriations clout.
Your contributions to human health are immeasurable. Our best means to honor you will be to rapidly advance your vision of a wellness society.
No one has figured out how to break the cycle of gridlock and dysfunction in America’s government.
It isn’t for lack of trying.
For years, reformers have been pushing ambitious campaigns to shake up our political system: to limit the influence of money in politics, to end the gerrymandering of congressional districts and to diminish the influence of the extremes in primary elections. Recently, Sen. Tom Coburn suggested that we may need a new Constitutional Convention.
Whatever the virtues of these reforms — and there are many — they can’t fix the one thing that needs to change the most in Washington.
Attitude.
Our leaders need to embrace an attitude where working with the other party to solve problems is seen as a virtue and not a weakness. An attitude where the focus is on finding common ground instead of fomenting conflict.
It’s an attitude that — time and again throughout our history — has paid huge dividends for America. We’ve seen it firsthand.
One of us is a veteran of the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, and the other served in the Clinton administration. By the logic of today’s Washington, we shouldn’t even be talking with one another.
But we’re friends and partners in a reform effort to get Washington back in the business of solving problems. While we have very different views on many issues, we don’t let that define our relationship. Instead, we focus on what unites us, such as our common work and passion for Latin America and issues of hemispheric collaboration. Or our mutual desire to encourage more educational opportunities and a stronger middle class.
Most importantly, we’ve seen what happens when leaders have an attitude that puts problem solving front and center. We saw it in the 1980s when President Reagan worked with House Speaker Tip O’Neill to lead a reform of the tax code and a rescue of Social Security. And we saw it in the 1990s when President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich worked to balance the budget.
What these leaders showed is that there is no disconnect between having strong political beliefs and a desire to engender more support for those beliefs, and recognizing that leaders must ultimately govern and find a way to work across the aisle.
It was never easy. Like today, there were partisan skirmishes and moments where it looked like the reform efforts would fall apart. But they stayed focused on the end goal, and made the compromises necessary — not to find perfect solutions — but to find solutions that improved on the status quo.
The question is how can we revive this attitude today?
Fortunately, we think the reform group No Labels may have found an answer.
For almost four years now, No Labels has been working to bring Democrats, Republicans and independents together in Congress and across the country around a new politics of problem solving. During that time, No Labels has organized members of Congress into a problem solvers group that eventually featured over 90 members from the House and Senate meeting regularly to build trust across the aisle.
It’s led to real progress, and this group has co-sponsored 18 different pieces of bipartisan legislation, including two that became law. Just as important, the group is slowly moving the conversation within Congress from “how can we defeat the other side?” to “how we can win together?”
There’s still plenty of work to be done. But these are small, important steps. And they have laid the foundation for a much bigger one.
No Labels has now kicked off a yearlong effort to build a new National Strategic Agenda, which will set a vision for where America needs to go and how we get there. Beginning this month, No Labels is holding a number of meetings with members of Congress, state and local leaders as well as business and community leaders to begin forging agreement on four ambitious goals centered on job creation, balancing the budget, retirement security and energy security.
After a year of facilitating meetings and gathering input, No Labels will release the final National Strategic Agenda in New Hampshire in October 2015, just in time to shape the debate for the nascent presidential debate.
Nothing like this has ever been tried before. But what makes us so optimistic is that the campaign to build a National Strategic Agenda takes all the abstractions about bipartisan cooperation and translates them into specific goals, and a specific process for achieving them.
In short, the National Strategic Agenda offers an organized framework for decision making for anyone who wants to embrace a problem-solving attitude.
That is precisely the attitude that voters want.
A recent No Labels poll in New Hampshire revealed that the number one quality voters were looking for in the next president was: “Are they a problem solver?”
Voter attitudes are changing. It’s time for attitudes in Washington to change as well.
The mountains here are not what you think. They are to be feared, they are mysterious and haunted by American rage. Eric Frein knows this too. So do those men and women who are hunting him. They find leftovers. They find movement in the shale, the moss, the places where bear normally scratch the bark have now been scrapped with an AK47 and a survivalist’s mitt.
The brush, the poor fern, it’s been moved too. Oh naturalists–the bullet holes to mother nature may never heal. And the bullets to mankind wont either. The hills and mountains of Penna are filled with a particular brand of American rage, a legacy. There is war here, there is feud, fracking upchuck in the fresh water well too. There are fossils dating back to before you were a species.
There is coal. A lot of energy, 4th in the nation, 5th in corruption, and there are train tracks–these have an effect on men. Fast moving water. Large timber. Rock exactly where the last ice age left it. Jutting out of the ground like butcher knives. And they are filled with snakes and death, the wrong move, the slippery rock and you go down head first.
Water usually baptizes everything, but at the moment nothing feels clean while FREIN is still nigh.
In town, nobody moves. Sirens go off. Numbers are given out. There is a kind of confusion that only confusion breeds. No one knows anything, but everyone has something to say. And the amount of xerox paper with the black and white face of ERIC FREIN is a trauma until itself. Our entire region has gone to their rocking chairs–waiting, watching, wondering when this will all be over. The ghost will never be allowed off the mountain.
And the tall case clock ticks. It’s getting colder and someone mentioned a diaper in the forest. He is not that smart. He is a sociopath. He hates everyone and he is targeting innocent people. Law enforcement. Unacceptable in Penna. Unacceptable in America.
Today, I went to the forest where I work. I bring my dogs, a blind german shepherd and a smart brindle mutt. I needed to pave some stone steps. I went to work mixing the mortar and finding the right shale. And then the dogs began to bark, and I began to listen better than I usually do. I heard them do what they do all the time, only this time, I knew there was a man out there who has not been caught. A man who could live off this land in Penna; he could fish and hunt here. A man who could kill me and my dogs if he wanted to, because he is outgunning me.
I do not carry automatic weapons in the woods. I do not feel as a sportsman they are necessary for survival. Skill is necessary, civilization is also necessary if we are to live in peacetime again.
FREIN knows otherwise. He is a killer of a father, a husband, a trooper. And he gets to carry that AK47 with him for a few more days like a trophy. Where are you now, NRA? When do good men and women, both sides of the aisles, including the NRA, say enough. Automatic weapons are going to require a recall. And you can tell yourself–this is for our kids, your future, reduction in crime, our families, our communities, and leaders like CPL. Byron Dickson and Alex Douglass.
Move slowly. That’s what you do in Penna. Don’t bring it all down at once or there will be an all out revolt. We go slow like the Susquehanna in some places. But we now have to do something about automatic weapons and the danger they pose to innocent Americans, right here, this corner of Pike and Monroe.
They say Condensis, Penna. It’s about 20 miles from the barracks. Lonely place. More trees. State Game Lands, State Park, Up north The Promised Land State Park. They promised FREIN potatoes and he got rocks. German sayings come and go over mashed potatoes and gravy–but I don’t know if he’s in Condensis, Penna. No one does.
Why would he go home to mother without a diaper? Why would anyone?
If this is all sounding crazy, it should. Because it is crazy to think we call ourselves a civilized society while a sociopath who has gunned down two officers can escape the law in Penna for days with an automatic weapon strapped to his shoulder. I don’t blame Monroe County, I don’t blame Pike. They’re doing their best under the circumstances. This is wilderness, American.
I blame our unwillingness to take automatic weapons seriously. The generator burst out like a truck engine off the side of the cabin. It was a completely abnormal blowout, and I jumped a mile, or so it seemed. I thought of my dogs, they were barking, out of my sightline. I was not armed.
I thought it could be another worker’s truck. In the end, strangely enough, it was just the new generator. In September, kicking in. And the dogs started barking louder at the blood red color coming in from the forest on the maple and the oak trees. Copper dead pine needles meant it was time to go.
Eric FREIN–tis still nigh in rural Penna and the hours are growing shorter.
We’ve had some encounters recently that have inspired me to write this post. This is something I hope everyone reads and shares. This is a message that doesn’t just pertain to my son Jameson, but to all children who are made fun of and singled out for their differences; and I am pretty sure their parents feel the same way I do.
I want to begin by saying that I don’t hold anything against these children, or their parents. I understand that it can be extremely awkward when your child is the one making fun or being mean to another child. But, the next time this happens I hope these parents do more. Because although I cannot take offense, I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. It does. It hurts to see my child be made fun of, knowing that this will be a big part of his world the rest of his life.
By now you might be wondering what happened to prompt these words. Nothing has happened that hasn’t happened before, and sadly that won’t happen again. But, for some reason, it has just happened a lot in the last few weeks.
We recently moved to a new town, and our oldest is in 1st grade. The second week of school there was an open house to see the school and meet his teacher. The entire school, K-5th grade, was corralled in the cafeteria to listen to opening remarks and welcomes. As we were walking into the crowded cafeteria we were immediately greeted by a little boy who pointed at Jameson, nudged his mother, and said he looked funny. We paid no mind and continued to walk through the cafeteria looking for a spot to sit down. Shortly after we sat down two little girls and their mother sat across from us. One little girl looked at us, turned to her mother and said “He looks scary,” pointing to Jameson. Her mother told her that wasn’t nice to say, and turned around.
Last weekend, in the grocery store with my two boys, a mother and her son are walking down the aisle towards us. I see the little boy look up; I smile at him. He starts to laugh, and tells his mom, “Look mom, that baby looks funny,” laughing. I look at his mother and she cannot even muster a word, her jaw hanging open.
As a parent I have been in situations where my child has done or said something inappropriate, so I understand the embarrassment. I also understand that these children are not to blame. Think about it, we teach them from birth to single things out. Put a bunch of red blocks together, sneak a green one in, and them tell them to look for the green one, the different one. Sort the shapes that only fit through the right hole. You’ll never fit a round peg in a square hole. The round one is wrong. It’s OK to notice differences. That’s how we identify one thing from another. We teach what is by teaching what isn’t. But these are objects. We can single them out and choose the right one, the one that fits in. We can’t do this to people; to children.
As a mother of a child who looks different, this is my plea to you:
If you are the parent whose child says another child looks funny or scary, don’t simply say, “That isn’t a nice thing to say.” While you are right, it’s not nice, simply saying that and walking away still isolates my child. The next time follow that statement up and tell your child, “I’m sure he’s a very nice boy, let’s go meet him.” Please, come introduce yourself and ask my child’s name. I assure you, we don’t bite! My child is just like yours; he can be sweet, loving, throw temper tantrums, and be a handful. And I assure you, I am just like you; I am a parent learning my way through this.
If your child is curious and doesn’t say anything mean but still notices he looks different, please, introduce yourself to us, ask us our names! Include my child in your world. I promise you, he’s not scary, he’s just a little boy.
To all the parents and children out there who already practice this, and to those who have purposely made a point to brighten Jameson’s day when we have crossed paths: Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I can honestly tell you I can remember vividly each encounter where a stranger has made a conscious effort to want to know Jameson and include him in their world. And I can bet he does too. My 6-year-old amazes me when I hear him recount a memory from when he was 3 years old, so I am sure Jameson remembers the same.
I mean seriously, how mean does this happy face covered in S’mores look?!
This post originally appeared on Jameson’s Journey. Read more here.
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Have you ever heard of a winery whose guiding principle was humility? That’s what Javier Lo Forte says about Pulenta Estate, where he has been the head winemaker since 2011. We at Argovino recently had a chance to speak to him about the Pulenta family’s unique enterprise in Mendoza.
Pulenta has been one of the great names behind Argentine wine for more than a century. In 1997, the Pulenta family sold its controlling interest in Trapiche – still an enormous producer today – and Hugo and Eduardo Sr. decided to found their own winery. Since 2002, the winery has used grapes from two vineyards that the family kept for itself: the Agrelo vineyard planted in 1991, and the Uco Valley vineyard planted in 1981.
In the past decade, Pulenta Estate wines have taken their place among the boutique brands most representative of the classic Mendozan style. With a strong desire to serve the market, Javier says the current generations of the Pulenta family – Eduardo Sr. and Eduardo Jr. – have a strategy designed to mix traits that will please connoisseurs and the everyday drinker. “Our style speaks of wines that are elegant, with finesse, but drinkable and accessible,” Javier says. The idea “is always to deliver to the consumer the same quality and the same style year after year.”
They also want to show just how many varieties can thrive in Mendozan soil. Along with their malbecs, we’ve reviewed their fragrant sauvignon blanc and will be adding their stunning cabernet franc soon. “It’s easy to show off a good malbec from Mendoza,” he says. “For us it’s just the point of the spear. We want to show that Mendoza isn’t just malbec.”
Pulenta’s stunning cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, and pinot gris are 100% from Agrelo, while its malbec is a mix with the Uco Valley grapes. Its blends also include merlot, petit verdot, and tannat. Agrelo grapes offer more of that elegance and finesse, while those from the Uco Valley bring more concentrated and structured flavors. They’ve even experimented with pinot noir, which isn’t always a natural for Mendoza, with Paul Hobbs. Their vineyard in the Uco Valley has a cooler climate than the one in Agrelo, which helps.
Going forward, Javier and his colleagues want to incorporate new influences from around the world, always with an eye on the consumer’s changing preferences. He is 32 years old, having worked his first harvest at Bodega La Rural (Rutini) in 2000, and the members of his team are in their mid-20s. “We’re all trying to get to know all the angles of the industry,” Javier says. “We all travel. It’s the new concept of winemakers.” We’re certainly looking forward to more of Pulenta Estate’s excellent, forward-looking wines. Salud!
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