Harvest

I'm on vacation in the Sonoma Valley and did some wine tasting and vineyard touring yesterday. One of the interesting things we learned from the guide was that, depending on rain levels, an entire crop of grapes may have to be harvested in just one or two nights (yes, nights- for reasons having to do with keeping the grapes from getting crushed in the baskets, they're harvested at night when they're colder and firmer). And this wouldn't just be at one vineyard either, if it's early November and rain is on the forecast, the whole region needs to harvest at once. Also, the better wineries (basically anything that comes in a bottle as opposed to a box or jug) harvests by hand, which is really labor intensive.

I lay all this out to point out that this work would be impossible without migrant labor. Although growing grapes and making wine takes manpower, the workforce in Naps or Sonoma needs to grow exponentially at harvest time, which means that those workers need to have other work at other times of the year in other places, because you wouldn't want people justsitting around on unemployment for the whole non-harvest season. As American citizens have not shown much interest in itinerant agricultural labor, this job is being done by immigrants, mostly undocumented because the US doesn't give out nearly enough agricultural labor visas to bring in legal workers, and because migrant workers often move between the US and Mexico depending on the growing season. If people who want to conduct mass exportations were taken seriously we would it would destroy the wine industry (and probably most of our vegetable farming as well) in the US and basically put mistaken of the US citizens who live in central California out of work. Since nobody is going to let that happen, its best to remember that people advocating full deportation are not in fact to be taken seriously, and that we should look to some kind of real solution for regularizing the status of undocumented workers.

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An unnecessary provocation

A group opposing the Cordoba House just won permission from the New York MTA to place ads opposing the project on busses citywide.

The ads — which are scheduled to be printed and posted on city buses within ten days — feature an image of an “airplane headed toward the burning World Trade Center” next to a building that’s labeled as “WTC Mega Mosque” and the words “Why There?”

It's nice to know that those opposing the Cordoba House, who allegedly are worried that the mosque would be an "is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts." [sic (Palinese)] and inflame the grief of 9/11 survivors and families, think that those families are tough enough to see images of the burning world trade center drive by then on busses all day.

Test

I just got a new droid x and installed the mobile blogging software and I'm trying it out. Hopefully it will make it easier to post more frequently since I'll be able to post on the go.

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Justice

I have not yet read the whole of Judge Walker's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, but the concluding paragraph is pretty powerful:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. ...Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

One other critical point in this decision, is that Judge Walker, operating as the "finder of fact" (the role typically played by the jury in a jury trial) issued a finding fact on a number of critical issues. This is kind of inside-baseball legal stuff, but it's really important. A court of appeals, even the US Supreme Court, must defer to the facfinder with regard to facts from the trial. The appellate court can say that the facts aren't sufficient to support the judgment, but they can't quibble with the facts themselves.

Ambinder has a rundown of the facts here:

1. Marriage is and has been a civil matter, subject to religious intervention only when requested by the intervenors.

2. California, like every other state, doesn't require that couples wanting to marry be able to procreate.

3. Marriage as an institution has changed overtime; women were given equal status; interracial marriage was formally legalized; no-fault divorce made it easier to dissolve marriages.

4. California has eliminated marital obligations based on gender.

5. Same-sex love and intimacy "are well-documented in human history."

6. Sexual orientation is a fundamental characteristic of a human being.

7. Prop 8 proponents' "assertion that sexual orientation cannot be defined is contrary to the weight of the evidence."

8. There is no evidence that sexual orientation is chosen, nor than it can be changed.

9. California has no interest in reducing the number of gays and lesbians in its population.

10. "Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital union."

11. "Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals."

12. "Domestic partnerships lack the social meaning associated with marriage, and marriage is widely regarded as the definitive expression of love and commitment in the United States.The availability of domestic partnership does not provide gays and lesbians with a status equivalent to marriage because the cultural meaning of marriage and its associated benefits are intentionally withheld from same-sex couples in domestic partnerships."

13. "Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect thestability of opposite-sex marriages."