if vampires existed in real life i think there would be shady companies advertising "organic blood" sourced from "willing donors" who are coincidentally all poor people being paid like $5 per blood donation. and like haughty vegan vampires who only drink a synthetic blood drink thats brewed in a way thats actively worse for the enviroment. and radical traditionalist vampires who go on tiktok and claim that true alpha chads have to drain and kill people and anyone who leaves their victims alive is a liberal cuck. enter the world of hypothetical insufferable vampire politics with me.
I always say that the thing which sets Sargent apart as a portrait artist is that he draws/paints literally every subject - no matter their gender, social position, life vs representational drawing etc - like he is right that minute realising he's desperately in love with them. And it rules every single time.
My least favorite new politically correct term is "unhoused." Like you can just tell it was created to make liberals feel less icky when talking about homeless people.
I was homeless. I was homeless as a child and as an adult. That shit sucks believe it or not.
The uncertainty. The ever-present grimy feeling from lack of access to running water. Having nothing to your name. The shame you feel is asking your fellow man for the bare minimum. Just so much shame, man.
"Unhoused" is so clinical. A technical term. Sure, its not incorrect, but it doesn't properly convey the emotional and psychological impact homelessness has on you.
I have been given new and important information on the distinction between “homeless” and “unhoused”!
The term “unhoused” is useful for those in social work when they have to make the distinction between someone who is say, couchsurfing but still has a roof over their head, and someone who’s sleeping in a tent beneath an underpass. Both are homeless, but one is unhoused.
[Image ID: Reddit post on r/ DiscoElysium from u/beaMoon2016 tagged "Discussion" and titled: Never thought I'd read a story that so effectively captures why life in a broken system is worth living
Body text reads: I grew up in Iraq. When people hear this in the US, where I now live, they usually say: "Wow...that must have been hard."
I mean? I guess? I've been a couple hundred meters from ISIS bombings. The government is spectacularly dysfunctional. You never know when the electricity might be on. Most summer days are 50 C. The tap water is salty.
And I also love the wonky little generators people wire everywhere. I love the weird shark statue with Saddam torn off the top. I love the guys fishing in the river despite the fact that it's greenish black. I love how excited everyone gets about the government building one tiny new overpass. I also love the random overpass sitting in the dessert connected to zero roads. I love hearing our friends giggle as my dad ribs him for driving a Toyota Hilux, a favorite of terrorists transporting weapons. I love the stray cats that carefully pick their way over the barbed wire on our walls. I love the people that run towards a bombing instead of away because they want to help the survivors. I love the guy who fixed my glasses with a wrong-sized screw because he lived through sanctions and doesn't need dumb things like correctly-sized screws.
But it's almost impossible to explain this to most Americans. They picture a normal Iraqi life and think it would be their worst nightmare. So I'm used to just not sharing that part of my life, or ever seeing it in media.
So this game totally caught me off guard. We're in a setting in between apocalypses, starring an alcoholic fuckup from a corrupt occupier-aligned police force, who at best might keep a couple people from dying in a gang war. It's pretty bleak. It's also incredibly fucking joyful.
Just the prose alone is so sincere. You can't write stuff this goofy, flowery, beautiful, dumb, and moving ironically. The writers clearly love words far out of proportion to how much they might be able to actually change fundamentally broken systems.
And all the characters, the worldbuilding details, the interruptions from Shivers and Esprit de Corps, hell, all the bits and pieces of your brain. There's so much attention and thus so much love everywhere in this game for humans and what humans do. Doesn't matter if they might all get shot, blown up, or wiped clean by pale in a couple years. Doesn't matter if they brought it all on themselves. Right here, in this moment, they are human, and so they matter.
I feel like this game gets why my life in Iraq was worth living. Even if a lot of my fellow Americans think the world sure would be nicer and simpler if Iraqis just didn't exist.
I thought I had signed up for a fun 20-30 hour diversion, not the feeling of being loved?! /End ID]
One day, you're going to change your mind about something you once defended with your whole chest. When that day comes, you're going to think the sky will fall. Trust me, it won't.
Right now, you believe changing your mind is a sign of weakness. You think once you say something out loud, you must defend it forever. You think that if you switch lanes, people will whisper.
Well...I say let them. You are not a contract. You are allowed to change your mind, and you will have many chances to practice that.
You will choose a career and later realise it no longer fits the woman you are becoming. You will hold opinions tightly and then life will laugh softly and prove you wrong. You will commit to certain dreams, and later dream bigger ones. You will pour into friendships and later accept that not everyone is meant to stay.
Each time this shift happens, it will shake you. But growth is uncomfortable and it stretches you beyond who you used to be. You will outgrow people, places, and versions of yourself - that's just part of life. You are not a sellout, nor a hypocrite. You are growing.
Adulthood is not about planting your flag and guarding it for life. It's about having the courage to move it when wisdom demands it. And I wish I could tattoo this next nugget on your forehead so you never forget: your life is not a public performance, you do not owe the world a permanent position statement. You owe yourself alignment.
So change your mind. Change it when your peace depends on it. Do not hold yourself hostage to a contract you never signed.
So. ICE turned away a Eucharistic procession in greater Chicago yesterday (www.americamagazine.org/dispatches/2025/10/12/eucharistic-procession-broadview-ice-jesuits-catholic-church-immigrant-detention/) and for everyone who doesn't speak Catholic, this constitutes slamming the door in the face of Jesus Himself in the eyes of the Church.
Now local Catholic priests - not, you will recall, the most liberal group in the country - are publicly saying things like:
"No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ."
This is the sort of thing that can make little old Catholic grandmothers march in the streets, do you understand?
So. Look. Everything is awful and scary right now, and the Trump administration is trying to burn the country. But they are not capturing hearts and minds, they're turning every thinking and feeling person in the world against them.
I do not regret to inform you: we are going to win.
“The Militarization of the Police Department – Deadly Farce,” an original painting by Richard Williams from “The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2014″ in Mad magazine #531, published by DC Comics, February 2015.
“For most people, he was the painter of ‘America,’” he added. “But even he said his vision was what he wanted ‘America’ to be. It was a mythical ‘America,’ a place where all people were decent, honest and full of good will. His work was full of gentle humor that made you feel a little better; even if you knew it wasn’t really true… you just wished it was. My parody of Rockwell’s painting simply says, ‘That myth is dead.’”
I think it’s relevant to add that even Norman Rockwell chose to leave his cushy job at the Saturday Evening Post because he wanted to make artwork that was more radical. The Post had rules that wouldn’t allow him to do artwork depicting black people as anything other than servants. The job paid really well and that was a huge reason he continued on. But he wanted change that and so he moved to Look magazine.
A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.
But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here
Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.
Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:
But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:
We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope.
But watch us more closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us.
Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it.
We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.
Finding the fiery eyes of St Michael in the freedom fighter, standing in the protest in black bloc and hurling a tear gas canister back at the cops before it can hurt anyone.
Finding St. Paul in the person producing scathing zine after zine, scattering them throughout churches when the sanctuary’s empty and in the streets, filled with long letters criticizing the failures of those who do not love as they ought to love.
Finding St. Hildegard in the chronically ill academic, gifted with extraordinary visions and analysis and channeling it into frenzied work between pouring her heart out in advice to anyone who needs it late at night in the school library.
Finding St. Julian in the old lady at the bus stop who shares a cigarette and tells you that it’s okay, honey, everything’s about love, and god doesn’t judge you for feeling like you’re at rock bottom.
Finding St. Theresè in the nun, the custodian, the lunch lady, the street sweeper, the child who stays behind to pick up after the others before leaving, serving others in love and humility with a smile on her face and moving others to gentleness in return.
Finding St. Francis in the park ranger, in the conservation activist, in the climate advocate, demanding care for the poor and the non human peoples of the world.
Finding St. Joan of Arc in the youth movements for justice, in the young students catalyzing change by refusing to just be seen and not heard, in the community leaders and defenders and your older sibling who teaches you how to hold your head up and punch harder if someone tries to punch you.
Finding St. Dismas in the shoplifter, who meets your eyes before you look away and pretend to not see anything, in the confession booth, in the person shunned by the rest of the parish who lives and breathes devotion
Finding St. Martha in the housewife, the cleaning lady, the waitress, the service worker, who shoulders the weight of responsibility with ease and strength beyond imagination.
Finding St. Mary Magdalene in the death doula, the mortician, the funeral agent who prepare the body after death, and ensure it is properly cared for during and after the burial.
Just….seeing the saints in our human community as well as our spiritual one.
Dino people, I am abusing my blogging power to ask a critical question. The image below is a reconstruction of Sue, the T-Rex skeleton at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. This replica is considered to be accurate based on what we know thus far.
My question is this: How do we know this is the correct size of her eyes? Is it based on the size of her skull or something else?
They can see how big the eye sockets are from the skull. Also, most dinosaurs had bones called scleral rings, which are bones inside the eyeball. I don't know if we have any examples of T. rex that preserved them, but we do have other therapods.
I'm reblogging again to add that this means that we know how big their pupils are, since the hole in the scleral ring is only a little bigger than the pupil.
It's also how we know that most dinosaurs had round pupils. It's pretty common for people to depict dinosaurs with slit pupils, probably because of Jurassic Park, mostly because it looks really cool, but nope, they were round. There are very few, if any, birds with slit pupils, which is further evidence for round pupils. And most extant animals with slit pupils are on the small side. Many people think of cats having slit pupils, and they do, but it's the little ones. Lions and tigers have round pupils, because slit pupils are most useful closest to the ground and they actually sacrifice some of their visually acuity for the sake of being better at judging distances in low-light conditions, and most animals with them are ambush predators that jump out at their prey. You ever seen a video where someone throws or bounces a ball towards a cat and it bops them on the head and they seem surprised? That's why; they struggle to track where the ball is going, especially horizontally. So for anything over a certain size, slit pupils are a detriment, especially if they chase down prey.
And yeah, if you've ever seen a scientific source say that a certain species of dinosaur hunted at night and wondered how the hell we could possibly know that, this is how. Their eyeball bones.
Rebblogging purely to brag that I know the person who made the model for this statue, and painted it, and to say she for SURE does as much research as she possibly can and has won awards for it. Her name is Beth Zaiken, and she did this working at Blue Rhino.
Also, I got to see this one in production and take my kiddo to go and see the shop when she was like 4.
I remember her pointing up at this one and saying "Habing snack?"
What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out.
(This article is behind a paywall, so hit yon readmore for the full text)
January 13, 2026
The plan was never to become an ICE agent.
The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. Who wouldn’t be curious? The event promised on-the-spot hiring for would-be deportation officers: Walk in unemployed, walk out with a sweet $50k signing bonus, a retirement account, and a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence—all while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.
At first glance, my résumé has enough to tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting: I enlisted in the Army straight out of high school and deployed to Afghanistan twice with the 82nd Airborne Division. After I got out, I spent a few years doing civilian analyst work. With a carefully arranged, skills-based résumé—one which omitted my current occupation—I figured I could maybe get through an initial interview.
The catch, however, is that there’s only one “Laura Jedeed” with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the country’s general right-wing project. My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trump’s unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and you’ll find articles with titles like “What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riot” and “Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.” Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.
In short, I figured—at least back then—that my military background would be enough to get me in the door for a good look around ICE’s application process, and then even the most cursory background check would get me shown that same door with great haste.
The ICE expo in the Dallas area, where my application journey began, required attendees to register for a specific time slot, presumably to prevent throngs of eager patriots from flooding the event and overwhelming the recruiters. But when I showed up at 9 a.m., the flood was notably absent: there was no line to check in and no line to go through security. I walked down nearly empty hallways, past a nearly empty drug testing station, and into the event proper, where a man directed me to a line to wait in for an interview. I took my spot at the end; there were only six people ahead of me.
While I waited, I looked around the ESports Stadium Arlington—an enormous blacked-out event space optimized for video game tournaments that has a capacity of 2,500. During my visit, there couldn’t have been more than 150 people there.
Hopeful hires stood in tiny groups or found seats in the endless rows of cheap folding chairs that faced a stage ripped straight from Tron. Everything was bright-blue and lit-up and sci-fi-future angular. Above the monolithic platform hung three large monitors. The side monitors displayed static propaganda posters that urged the viewer to DEFEND THE HOMELAND and JOIN ICE TODAY, while the large central monitor played two short videos on loop: about 10 minutes of propaganda footage, again and again and again.
After about 15 minutes of waiting, an extraordinarily normal-looking middle-aged woman waved me forward. I sat across the black folding table from her on one of the uncomfortable black chairs. She asked for my name and date of birth, then whether I am over 40 (I am 38). Did I have law enforcement experience? No. Military experience? Yes. Did I retire from the military at 20+ years, or leave once my enlistment was up? The latter, I told her, then repeated my carefully rehearsed, completely true explanation for why the résumé I’d submitted had a large gap. “I had a little bit of a quarter-life crisis. Ended up going to college for part of that time, and since then I’ve been kind of—gig economy stuff.”
She was spectacularly uninterested: “OK. And what location is your preference?”
After some dithering, I settled on my home state of New York. That was the last question; the entire process took less than six minutes. The woman took my résumé and placed the form she’d been filling out on top. “They are prioritizing current law enforcement first. They’re going to adjudicate your résumé,” she told me. If my application passed muster, I’d receive an email about next steps, which could arrive in the next few hours but would likely take a few days. I left, thanked her for her time, and prepared to hear back never.
The expo event was part of ICE’s massive recruitment campaign for the foot soldiers it needs to execute the administration’s dream of a deportation campaign large enough to shift America’s demographic balance back whiteward. You’ve probably seen evidence of it yourself: ICE’s “Defend the homeland” propaganda is ubiquitous enough to be the Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster of our day, though somewhere in there our nation lost the plot about the correct posture toward Nazis.
When Donald Trump took office, ICE numbered approximately 10,000. Despite this event’s lackluster attendance, their recruitment push is reportedly going well; the agency reported 12,000 new recruits in 2025, which means the agency has more new recruits than old hands. That’s the kind of growth that changes the culture of an agency.
Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—Jan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks. We’re all, collectively, in the dark about whom the state is arming, tasking with the most sensitive of law enforcement work, and then sending into America’s streets.
And we are all, collectively, discovering just how deadly of an arrangement that really is.
At the end of my brief interview, the recruiter mentioned I could talk to a current deportation officer about what the job would be like. There was no line to talk to a deportation officer (did I mention how empty the place was?) and so I walked up, introduced myself to one of them, and asked about day-to-day duties.
I shouldn’t expect to hit the streets right away, the agent told me. Odds were good I’d get a support position first—something like the Criminal Alien Program office. “Let’s say a local police officer arrests someone out in the field for a DUI. Extremely common. Or beating their wife or whatever—all the typical crimes they commit,” he said. (The “they” here being “undocumented immigrants,” and while it’s extremely difficult to measure, evidence suggests that “they” actually commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S.-born citizens.)
If the cops suspect they’re dealing with an immigrant who doesn’t have permanent legal status, they alert ICE, whose agents conduct interviews and run record checks.
If this preliminary investigation suggests that status, the person ends up in the Criminal Alien Program office for processing—which is where I would come in. “What you see on TV, with us arresting people and doing all kinds of crazy things, that’s maybe 10 percent. The other 90 percent is essentially doing a bunch of paperwork,” the agent said. “It takes a lot to remove somebody from the United States. Some people are subject to due process.”
The officer ran down other departments I might end up in: Prosecutions, Removal Coordination Unit, or Detention. The point being that I should not expect to be a badass street officer on Day 1. “I have so many guys that come over to me, they’re like, ‘I’m gonna put cuffs on somebody. I’m gonna arrest somebody.’ Well, you need to master this first and then we’ll see about getting you on the field.”
I told him that I was fine with office work—with my analyst background, it seemed like a better fit for my skill set anyway. His attitude shift was subtle, but instant and unmistakable; this was the wrong attitude and the wrong answer. “Just to be upfront, the goal is to put as many guns and badges out in the field as possible,” he said.
The agent then told me a bit about his own background. Like me, he enlisted straight out of high school, then got out and vowed to get as far away from the violence of the military as possible. Like a lot of veterans, he had trouble assimilating into the civilian world. “After about six months, I was like, ‘These people aren’t like me. I want to be around like-minded people.’ ” He found his way into law enforcement. That was well over a decade ago—he’s on his way to a very comfortable retirement, and he enjoys the work. “I like that instant gratification of Hey, that guy committed this crime, these X, Y, and Z, he’s not even supposed to be here,” he said.
I do not agree with his framing, but have no trouble understanding the appeal. Hell, it’s why I enlisted in the first place. Thankfully, Afghanistan beat it out of me. If I believed what he believed, I would surely do the same thing he’s doing.
I thanked him for the information and time, shook his hand, and took a seat on one of those uncomfortable folding chairs. I had a few hours before my flight back to New York City, and it made more sense to hang out than to flee the building and get good and airport drunk, regardless of how desperately I would have preferred the latter. Instead, I settled in to do what everyone does at the DMV: check my phone and people-watch. The aspiring officers fall broadly into three categories: thick-necked law enforcement types who look like they do steroids but don’t know how to work out, bearded spec-ops wannabes who look like they take steroids and do know how to work out, and dorks. Pencil-necked misfits. I couldn’t tell whether there were more white or Hispanic people waiting for their email, but it was close. A few Black applicants rounded out the overwhelmingly male group.
I’d been sitting around for about an hour when the video suddenly stopped and a bearded man in a black suit stepped onto the stage. He did not introduce himself—we were, I gathered, supposed to already know who he was—but it became clear he’s a senior agent of some sort. “I figured it would be best if I break up the same video you’ve been watching for the last four hours,” he said, and offered to answer any questions we might have.
One person asked about work/life balance, which the agent said is possible but not the route he’s chosen. Someone else wanted to know about travel opportunities and he talked about the many places he’s gone as part of the job.
Every other question during the 45 minutes the agent stood onstage pertained to the hiring process or what we could expect in training. Law enforcement types seemed especially concerned about the painful parts: Would they have to get pepper sprayed again? Would they have to get shot with a taser if they’d already qualified? Yes and probably not, respectively. The agent took the opportunity to gush about ICE’s new state-of-the-art semi-automatic tasers and brand-new pepper-ball guns. “It’s mostly very liberal cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles—where groups will come and try to stop ICE officers from arresting somebody. They’re like, ‘We’re going to form a human wall against you,’ ” he said. “When they do that, you can just pop ‘em up. Let them disperse and cry about it.”
When, during a moment of protracted silence, the agent threatened to put the video back on if no one had questions, I asked about harassment and doxing. “We will prosecute people to the fullest extent of the law,” he assured me, “and then people like myself will go on TV and publicly talk about how that person is now in prison to dissuade other people from doing it.”
As empty as the place had been when I’d arrived, it was even emptier by the time the senior agent ended the Q&A. Somebody vastly overestimated the number of Americans willing to take a job brutalizing and disappearing hard-working men and women—even with a potential $50K bonus, even in this economy.
That may have something to do with what happened to me next.
I completely missed the email when it came. I’d kept an eye on my inbox for the next few days, but I’d grown lax when nothing came through. But then, on Sept. 3, it popped up.
“Please note that this is a TENTATIVE offer only, therefore do not end your current employment,” the email instructed me. It then listed a series of steps I’d need to quickly take. I had 48 hours to log onto USAJobs and fill out my Declaration for Federal Employment, then five additional days to return the forms attached to the email. Among these forms: driver’s license information, an affidavit that I’ve never received a domestic violence conviction, and consent for a background check. And it said: “If you are declining the position, it is not necessary to complete the action items listed below.”
As I mentioned, I’d missed the email, so I did exactly none of these things.
And that might have been where this all ended—an unread message sinking to the bottom of my inbox—if not for an email LabCorp sent three weeks later. “Thank you for confirming that you wish to continue with the hiring process,” it read. (To be clear, I had confirmed no such thing.) “Please complete your required pre-employment drug test.”
The timing was unfortunate. Cannabis is legal in the state of New York, and I had partaken six days before my scheduled test. Then again, I hadn’t smoked much; perhaps with hydration I could get to the next stage. Worst-case scenario, I’d waste a small piece of ICE’s gargantuan budget. I traveled to my local LabCorp, peed in a cup, and waited for a call telling me I’d failed.
Nine days later, impatience got the best of me. For the first time, I logged into USAJobs and checked my application to see if my drug test had come through. What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.
According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was “EOD”—Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period. I moused over the exclamation mark next to “Onboarding” and a helpful pop-up appeared. “Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!”
I clicked through to my application tracking page. They’d sent my final offer on Sept. 30, it said, and I had allegedly accepted. “Welcome to Ice. … Your duty location is New York, New York. Your EOD was on Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.”
By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.
Perhaps, if I’d accepted, they would have demanded my pre-employment paperwork, done a basic screening, realized their mistake, and fired me immediately. And yet, the pending and upcoming tasks list suggested a very different outcome. My physical fitness test had been initiated on Oct. 6, it said: three days in the future. My medical check had apparently been completed on Oct. 6.
The portal also listed my background check as completed on Oct. 6. Had I preemptively passed? Was ICE seriously going to let me start training without finding out the first thing about me? I reached out to ICE for an explanation, but never heard back.
The only thing left for me to do was press the green “Accept” button on the home page. And maybe I should have. Maybe no one would have ever checked my name and I could have written the story of a lifetime. Or maybe the agency infamous for brutalizing and disappearing people with no regard for the law or basic human rights would have figured out exactly who I am while I was in one of their facilities with no way to escape. I’m not actually a domestic terrorist sent straight from Antifa headquarters, but to a paranoid fascist regime increasingly high on their own supply, I sure look like one on paper. Self-preservation won out.
I hit “Decline,” closed my browser, and took a long, deep breath.
What are we to make of all this? To be clear, I barely applied to ICE. I skipped the steps of the application process that would have clued the agency in on my lack of fitness for the position. I made no effort to hide my public loathing of the agency, what it stands for, and the administration that runs it. And they offered me the job anyway.
It’s possible that I’m an aberration—perhaps I experienced some kind of computer glitch that affected my application and no one else’s. But given all of the above, it seems far more likely that ICE is running an extremely leaky ship when it comes to recruitment.
With no oversight and with ICE concealing its agents’ identities, it’ll be extremely difficult for us to know.
There’s a temptation to take some comfort in ICE’s sloppiness. There’s a real argument here that an agency so inept in its recruitment will also be inept at training people and carrying out its mission. We’re seeing some very sloppy police work from ICE, including an inability to do basic things like throw someone down and cuff them. On some level, all of this is a reminder that their takeover is neither total nor inevitable.
But if they missed the fact that I was an anti-ICE journalist who didn’t fill out her paperwork, what else might they be missing? How many convicted domestic abusers are being given guns and sent into other people’s homes? How many people with ties to white supremacist organizations are indiscriminately targeting minorities on principle, regardless of immigration status? How many rapists and pedophiles are working in ICE detention centers with direct and unsupervised access to a population that will be neither believed nor missed? How are we to trust ICE’s allegedly thorough investigations of the people they detain and deport when they can’t even keep their HR paperwork straight?
And if they’re not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?
That’s exactly what happened last week, and why Renee Good will never have a 38th birthday, and why her children will never again be hugged by their mother.
By all appearances, the only thing ICE is screening for is a desire to work for ICE: a very specific kind of person perfectly suited for the kind of mission creep we are currently seeing. Good’s murder is not an isolated incident; the American Civil Liberties Union reports a nationwide trend of ICE pointing guns at, brutalizing, and even detaining citizens who stop to film them. A Minneapolis pastor who protested ICE by chanting “We are not afraid” was detained at gunpoint by an agent who reportedly asked him: “Are you afraid now?”
Look, I am not happy that I am not teaching anymore. The difficult and extremely time consuming, it felt more meaningful to me than any other profession I have ever held. Much, much more meaningful. And it gave me an identity that I could build myself around, which is a very important thing for many people. I thought I finally had the thing that I was going to be for the rest of my life. And I think this is why political leaders cling so hard to power. Because the power is great, but it's also an identity, and in a democracy that identity can be taken from you if you fail to keep the public on your side.
That said, it was very difficult and extremely time consuming, and I can maintain some semblance of that meaningfulness by keeping up this blog and seeing all the little notifications everyday that let me know there are people who appreciate what I am doing. It lights up my brain in a good way and I am very happy about that.
All of which is to say that I discovered Spider Solitaire this week, and even though there are many other things I could and should be spending my time on outside of work, such as this blog or cleaning the house, I have not been able to resist the urge to put like 2 hours a day into The game where I succeeded in one game out of the 20 that I have played so far.
So yeah, I have been irresponsible, but I'm not a teacher anymore so I am allowed to be irresponsible.
And if anyone knows any good strategies for spider solitaire, I am all ears. All this practice has only made me better at losing faster.
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