Commentary by H.G. Listiak

Friday 4/16/2004

Welcome to My World, where I have a couple more random thoughts zapping through the synapsi of my mind. First of all one of my colleagues had a small piece of his personality taken away when his big, black, pickup on oversized tires was stolen from our company parking lot. A Texas cowboy turned radio sales ace, the thief took a little of his roots. His vehicle, according to lawmen, was a prime target for human and drug smugglers running the Mexican border. For the last 8 years Arizona has had the highest per capita auto theft ranking in the nation, with SUVs and pickups the prime targets, a good share of it because of our leaking border with Mexico. Drug and alien smugglers pay gangs and street crooks to steal the vehicles then they modify them for their illicit purposes. Law enforcement is so over their heads with reports they seem to do very little about it. It's treated with the same seriousness of much lesser crimes, not realizing the depth of the anguish suffered by the victims. And it's not their fault. It's the fault of a much larger problem we have in Arizona and that is our sensitive attitude toward illegal aliens that despite all the crackdowns, continues out of hand. We have acted too late with too little. The next time you pass a strip mall filled with dozens of illegals, some of them leaning against the no loitering signs, think about the fact your or maybe your neighbor's stolen vehicle may have brought them here. A lot of this can be stopped but they have to be stopped at the Mexican border and by Mexican officials. Our officials can't handle it alone. And my last random thought concerns the truce offering from Osama bin Laden, who offers Europeans a free terrorism pass if they don't kill muslims. I think this shows a chink in the Al Qaeda armor. They are even more desperate than I thought. "So you want a truce do you?" "Well Mr. 'O' let's have a sit down, oh say in Palermo around a nice table with a good wine." "What's that you say?" "It was a gun accident. The darn thing just went off?" "Oh well, 'stuff happens'." Just another random thought, as I see it ... I'm H.G. Listiak.