Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Skit and Skittishness
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
When I discovered that Colin Powell's son Michael heads up the Federal Communications Commission, and that (according to Leonard) he's actually quite qualified and everything, the following skit presented itself:
Michael: (comes home, hangs his jacket on a chair) Hey, guess what, Dad! I'm FCC Chairman!
Colin: That's great, son! I'm proud of you.
Michael: Now I'm a Cabinet-level official, just like you!
Colin: Uh, I'm sorry, son, the FCC isn't a cabinet-level department.
Michael: But you can make it one, right, Dad?
Colin: Well, only with Congressional approval.
Michael: Bush never needs Congressional approval for anything!
Colin: Yes, but we're black, son.
Danny O'Brien has this-can't-be-happening anecdotes about the incredible, awful things US officials have been doing to Canadian citizens who happen through the US, e.g., deporting them for no valid reason without talking to Canadian officials about it. Oh, and did I mention they got deported to other countries? Namely, Syria and India (the latter via f-ing Kuwait)?
What is this, Wheel of Habeas Corpus Fortune? He's a Canadian citizen. You have a problem, you send him back to Canada.
This kind of stuff first completely outrages me and then reminds me that I'm Indian, and my family is Indian, so if I leave on a trip somewhere and disappear off the face of the earth and the net, please track me down. I'm not kidding.
