lots of my facebook friends are mentioning the imprisoned children, presumably the ones in tornillo, as the heart is drawn to those less fortunate, and nothing can be worse than being in a jail when you committed no crime, and have no clue or responsibility for what happened. tornillo, as it comes from news reports, is in the middle of nowhere, one would think, out on the deserts of west texas where there is way too much space and not enough water.

it turns out, this is like my back yard, in a general kind of way. we go to el paso every once in a while, and yes, it's a grueling one and a half, or two hours of pure desert, mostly government owned, both ways. we go there for its airport or, in my case, for hearing aid maintenance and supply. tornillo would be maybe an hour or two past that, maybe a four hour trip each way, mas o menos. it's not undoable. i could in fact go on a single day and see for myself.

but, to what purpose? i don't think they let demonstrators in. i think they are scrambling to find people to actually work there, but i can't really do that. they might, under some conditions, let visitors in, but, even then, what would i say? sorry you're in such a position. my heart goes out to you. not all americans are this bad, as the ones who would imprison you for no good reason.

i know conservative folk who aren't too upset about kids stranded and imprisoned at the border. it's what they get, they feel, maybe. actually maybe they don't think much about it. or, it's like other criminals out there. they do something wrong, they take away their kids, everyone ends up institutionalized indefinitely. it seems kind of hopeless, if you look at it like that. it's like, rather than just denying them entry, and letting them make their way in tijuana or juarez or wherever, you actually put them in jail, making them part of our system, our world, our problems. and then, they grow up angry at a government which did this to them, and we'll wonder why? a rough comparison would be the interned japanese during world war two. they never found out what they'd done wrong, except have the wrong race, but that apparently was wrong enough for them to spend three, five, nine years in jail. in jail, for being japanese.

it's christmas here. our kids, spoiled as usual, are contemplating their haul. food was lavish, plentiful and delicious. our entire family of six ate at the same table, pleasantly, with a lit tree right behind us, and a wood stove churning out the heat on the other end of the living room. though our kids have some idea of poverty, neglect, the bad side of things, mostly they've forgotten. mostly it's abstract. i've started a quaker meeting. it seems impossible for me to take a day and go to tornillo. but i can take a few minutes, once in a while, and at least talk about the possibility. maybe i could set up a situation where there was some kind of organization for those who find their way down to west texas. i'm not even sure who that would include, besides beto and perhaps a few quakers of the glbtq variety. several people have made it down there; i haven't. i find it incredibly difficult, just to go to el paso.