Whew...almost a week since I posted here...just been very busy as life sometimes can be.

My original picks in the men's NCAA basketball tournament got totally blown to shreds as both Duke and Gonzaga lost. So none of my final four remain in the actual final four. I am pulling for George Mason at this point, after that Anyone But UCLA, who most certainly did NOT deserve to beat Gonzaga but were handed that game by the officiating crew.

Three of my final four in the women's tournament remain, with only defending champ Baylor having bowed out at this juncture. All of the Big Ten teams are OUT, OUT, OUT!!!!! Wonderful as far as I am concerned, as a long suffering Michigan fan I just could not stomach any of Michigan's conference rivals doing too well.

Finally, to turn away from sports for a minute. Lots of talk of late about the immigration issue, as US congress votes on bills that would either make US immigration policy more or less punitive to the immigrants. I, as a Green Socialist Progressive, am in favor of less punitive and more helpful policy. Yet, I see immigration as merely a symptom of a more root problem, and that is the question of why people feel the need to immigrate to the US? In many cases I argue that it is because (at least in part) the US government/business/military establishment has played a role in making immigrants' home countries unlivable by supporting corrupt and oppressive governments in those countries, and also by sabotaging efforts by the people of those countries to make things better. This is seen very clearly in the Latin America and Caribbean areas, in nations such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, El Salvador, Chile, and the list could go on to include just about every country in the Latin America and Caribbean regions.

So, while we as progressives push for more lenient treatment of immigrants, we also need to link the immigration issue to issues of United States involvement with "the Third World" and how US foreign policy helps to create the miseries that, in an ironic twist, force people into fleeing their homelands for the same country that contributed to the fascism, poverty, and corruption in the first place.