Today I went to the rockin'est Ways and Means Committee hearing ever. ( I'm totally serious!Collapse )

I'm reading stories about the immigration problems between Africa and Europe on BBCWorld. We hear about Mexican immigration all the time but not what's going on over there as much. Tens of thousands of people are crossing over to Europe in fishing boats. Thousands of them die on the journey, and sometimes on the journey to the coast. One man told about paying a truck to take him and others to the coast, but the truck dropped them off in the desert and many of the people died, including this man's friend. Many of the immigrants are sent home at some point during the journey. These are people that have survived their boats capsizing, beatings from the police in Africa, seeing their friends die, and yet they attempt the crossing again. Each boat fare costs them about 6-12 months of savings. Sometimes the immigration officials that send them home are also the ones that rescue them from drowning. The Red Cross has set up where the boats dock and care for people while they're being processed by the officials.

The major impetus for migration is lack of jobs. In particular, the collapse of the fishing industry. Many towns along the coast were fishing towns, but the large European fleets came and decimated the fishstock, so now fishermen have no livelihood and the whole town's economy collapses. There are Not plenty of fish in the sea, honestly people.

The EU is taking some good steps to try and fix the causes of immigration, not just spend loads of money patrolling and not actually helping anybody. They're setting up centers in Africa to process immigrants There, so that they're matched up with jobs and have visas. The centers will also have micro-lending banks modeled after the Grameen Bank to try and revitalize local economies. Part of the point of this is to give each worker, both skilled and non, a few months of work in the EU to save up enough wages to sustain their family and get involved in their home economies again. Then they can give that job to another worker, and so on, so that the remittances are more intelligently managed and dispersed. Bravo EU. Of course there's criticism - immigrants will still have to travel great distances to get to the centers; some poorer EU countries are frustrated that the EU is trying to help Africans while they have high unemployment and low mobility within the EU for their own workers; and the program will cost money. But ya know what, so does flying planes around to find immigrant boats, sending a ship to guide them, caring for them upon arrival, processing them for up to 40 days, and then sending them home, and that whole process doesn't Help anyone. Also, after seeing expenditures from different sources in the course of my job, they're not actually allocating that much - "The EU plans to allocate 40m euros (£27m)[$52m] to boost job creation in Africa". Example: this just came in through my SC email - "The IFC will seek World Bank Board approval for a massive livestock-sector project in the Amazon forest region of Brazil on February 22. This $90 million investment would facilitate a $424 million project by the Bertin Group to expand their cattle ranching...". Oh by all means, let's spend $424m wrecking the rainforest and campesino livelihoods but bitch about spending $52m on the African economy to help them and curb a massive problem in our own countries. Some people, I swear... Anyways, I think the EU is taking a good step, applause for you EU!

Best stories below, and there are links at the right for more if you're interested
EU program http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6341487.stm
Villager's story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6199340.stm
Migrant's story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/5331608.stm
Aid worker's perspective http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5303180.stm

there's a girl in my spanish class who's been pissing me off for awhile. she's just rude - always having her phone go off and actually leaving class to answer it, misses tons of class, and then is really demanding and whiny to the teacher. really arrogant basically.

so we're taking a quiz and we have to describe what 2 ppl are doing in a picture. this girl says, in a really disgusted and incredulous voice, "Is that a picture of 2 girls kissing??" it was, but just a cheek kiss, it happens alot in spanish culture, it wasn't romantic, so she was wrong anyways. but it really pissed me off for her to do that, be so fucking homophobe. i didn't say anything because i didn't think it was appropriate to start a fight about homosexuality before a spanish quiz, and i also didn't really know what to say. the only way i can think of to deal with people like that is try to figure out why they have a problem and then try to show them that it doesn't matter, but that takes a long time and a willingness on both sides to communicate. what does one say to an asshole like that? i mean letting my temper go and just ripping into her, yeah, i could do that, especially since i already didn't like her, but it wouldn't actually accomplish anything and if i started i doubt i could stop before i went too far. there's a reason i've worked for years to control my temper.

it's not like this is the first time this has happened. brockport in general is pretty homophobe, there's always comments and teasing that i don't think is Meant to be harmful, it's just really insulting to anyone in the room who Isn't a homophobe. ya know, stuff like spanish class last year where a guy said the word for boyfriend (novio) instead of girlfriend and the teacher gave him a funny look, pointed out his mistake, and everyone laughed. just this general attitude that of Course he's not gay, god, how ridiculous. i was dating erika then, so everytime that word came up in class i had to decide whether to use "novia" or just say i didn't have a novio, and then have to sit through people asking why i didn't have one, trying to set me up, ugh. that happened all through costa rica too. it's just exhausting and pisses me off. that i keep having to make the choice whether to stay quiet or speak up, speaking up entailing coming out and possibly starting a fight or being ostracized. i suppose i should start speaking up more, even now that i don't have a girlfriend, i still want to say Something. staying silent feels like i'm ashamed, and i'm not, i just don't know what to do.

what do i say? what's a quick thing i can say without losing my temper or seriously disrupting class? honestly, i could use some suggestions here.