On another blog-forum a person calling him or herself Wisdom4U wrote: "Our immigration laws prevent violent people and sick/contagious people from obtaining citizenship as a public protection. New flu, new bugs, viruses are born everyday and America is not prepared for this. Just think about where the bird flu and pig flu originated. We must protect our borders strongly and revamp the immigration system so the right people are...

These days, I’m seeing a lot of coverage of the new Arizona immigration law. I’ve wandered out to the NPR website and seen such comments as these:

“We need to make illegals uncomfortable...”
“We need to stop the infestation...”
“We need to stop this plague...”
“If we can’t secure our borders, we can’t protect our country...”

Our country. What an interesting idea.

Question...

I’m in the process of reading an eye-opening book entitled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Healthcare.

In it, journalist T.R. Reid does what I have been hoping for some time that our national leaders would do: he undertook to study (through first-hand experience), contrast and compare the healthcare systems of other “first world” nations. (He included a couple of developing countries in his study as well.)

In the book, he details...

Reverend Bahá’í and other imaginary people: the Bahá’í Administrative Order

The Bahá’í Faith has no clergy. This is sometimes lost even on those who mean to write non-fiction about it. I represent our local community in interfaith efforts and have been called a “Bahá’í pastor” repeatedly. Sorry, no such animal.

Bahá’u’lláh provided for the administration of His community through elected institutions of nine members at the local, national and global levels. Local Spiritual...

Bahá’í history 101B

The Bahá'í Faith was introduced to the West at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by a Methodist minister. In 1911-12, Bahá’u’lláh’s eldest son, Abdu’l-Bahá, traveled to Europe and America to establish the first western Bahá’í institutions and lay the cornerstone for the Bahá’í Temple in Wilmette, IL.

“The White Dog,” my British SF Award-nominated novelette (Interzone), gets its title from the story it contains about Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to New York....