Borders here and borders there

HERE TODAY: Political candidates, backed up by talk-radio ravers and cable TV opportunists, continue to pander to the racists and xenophobes around the country by demonizing millions of hard-working (brown) migrants. The biggest contest might be the one about who will build the longest and highest fence on our southern border. And Joe Arpaio, the showboat sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is taking profiling to the level of circus, telling his deputies to escalate the deportation numbers by looking for people wearing shoes from south of the border.

THERE TODAY: The European Union has just added nine new states (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia), bringing the total to 24. This means passport-free travel across 2,485 miles. (Individual countries can ask for some kind of document if they wish. Security across the region has been beefed up at the cost of one billion euros)

Friends, we are talking about easily crossing borders from Portugal to Greece to Finland. Meanwhile, I am soon going to need a passport to return from Nogales, Sonora, 64 miles south of here, where I have been crossing without a passport for 40 years.

Good grief.