After over a decade of struggle, the plastic grocery carry-out sack looks doomed in California. Earlier this month the legislature passed a state-wide ban on bags to take effect in July, 2015. After that you’ll either have to bring your own or pay 10 cents for a paper bag. If you’re like me and carry a reusable bag in your car, that means roughly a quarter of the time you’ll get dinged for paper. I forget the bag that often. One of my main arguments against the ban has always been that it disproportionately effects older people, who are more prone to forgetting. Well, actually I’ve never argued that, but doing so may have convinced the American Association of Retired People to throw their weight against the bill. { read more }
Over the July 4 weekend the National Catholic Reporter, one of the most widely read newspapers among Catholics and other faiths, published my article about immigration on its front page. The piece is a little bit more political than the blog I wrote on immigration because I point to the Republican Party as the main reason we will not get comprehensive immigration reform this year. 
I remember exactly where I was when the insurer American International Group (AIG) collapsed in 2008–standing in Intercontinental Airport in Houston, waiting for a flight to Mexico. The news sent a shiver through me. I knew at that moment the long expansion of our economy had ended. I also concluded in an instant that we would not purchase the $4 million printing press that I had been on the verge of buying. Time to preserve cash, I figured. Get ready for reduced demand. Hunker down. 
Thirty years ago I never imagined being in formation, commemorating Memorial Day in formal ceremony, while dressed head-to-toe as a corporal in Union Army uniform. No, while marching in the streets of London protesting apartheid, the nuclear arms race and the bombing of Libya during graduate school I didn’t project myself standing here at requiem arms honoring the American dead of wars past and present, but specifically those who died between 1861 and 1865. 
About two years ago our company, Emerald Packaging, which manufactures plastic packaging for food, suffered a silent raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Like thousands of companies over the last few years, ICE came without notice and asked for copies of our I-9s, the forms employees must fill out detailing their right to work in the United States, including proof of legal status. ICE takes the forms and checks social security numbers (SSN) and work visa status, and anyone whose name does not match the declared SSN or whose work visa has lapsed must be terminated. Companies themselves face penalties for such technicalities as putting the necessary employee information in the wrong box on the form, a common error since the I-9 is a complicated document. Worse, they can be charged with criminal penalties if they have knowingly hired illegal aliens.