Specter is at odds with Senator Bill Frist, who has his own immigration bill. Frist's version punishes employers for hiring illegal immigrants, adds more border patrol agents, and makes it a crime to be in the US without proper papers. It would also increase the number of employment-based green cards so that more visas would be available.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton says the GOP's bills are not in keeping with the Bible. "It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scripture because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself," she said. "We need to sound the alarm about what is being done in the Congress."
Hillary, what are you doing? What's with the Bible talk? I know you're trying to move over to the middle and sell yourself as a moderate but it's not really working. Do you think you're going to win some conservative's heart just cause you used the word "scripture?"
And now for some controvery in Spelling Bee land. Pranav Mahadevan, an eigth grader, is protesting his elimination from the Georgia Independent Schools Association spelling bee competition. Had he won, he would have had a chance to move to the state competition. He was eliminated for spelling "ivy" instead of "ivied." But he says the judges didn't pronouce it as "ivied." I'd have to side with the kid. I'm pretty sure he knows how to spell both ivy and ivied. And that people in Georgia pronounce their words funny. (I can say that, I'm from Texas.) On Friday, 20 kids in Georgia will compete for the state title. I wonder how many of those competitors are South Asian. As you may know, South Asian American kids kick major ass at spelling bees.
"His mother networked among parents in Texas, where the Indian-American community is very active in spelling bees. They advised her to move to Texas, saying that Georgia didn't have a reputation of taking spelling competition seriously."
Finally, just wanted to share a cool link someone sent me. Click here for a map of independent bookstores all over the country. Hmm, the middle of the country is looking pretty sparse. Not a huge surprise. The map mirrors Hyphen's own distribution since we're mostly carried in indepedent bookstores (and Tower Records all over too). By the way, if you ever want to know where the nearest copy of Hyphen is to you, click here.
Oh wait, there is some film festival news after all. Tonight is the closing night film (in SF. Festival will continue on in San Jose). Ham Tran's Journey From the Fall is sure to be a tear-jerker. I'm really looking forward to crying my eyes out because I know Tran to be a very accomplished story teller. For discussion about the film go here where erin raised some interesting thoughts about the Vietnamese American experience.
It's been a fun week at the festival, Daniel Dae Kim sightings and all. For proof, press here and you might spy a photo or two by Jay Jao of some happily-partying Hyphen staffers at this past Saturday's film fest party.
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