File This Under Question Mark

While at work today, I read an interesting item from Reuters about a town in Quebec that has taken a proactive approach to integrating the 10% of their population made up of immigrants. Their iSolution (much like adding the number 2000 to products in the 20th century made them cutting edge, adding the lower-case "i" before words does the same in the 21st century) to this problem has been to post a set of guidelines on the town website informing immigrants of how Canadians roll. For instance, it says, literally, that women should not be stoned to death, set afire, or burned with acid. Now, some people might say it's racist to assume that a.) all Muslim and Hasidic immigrants are extremists who would be inclined to do these things unless we good Christians told them not to, and b.) that even if they did believe these things to be acceptable that they'd be so stupid to not understand that Canada has laws of it own that they have to follow. I disagree, because these are just good, common sense guidelines that should always be posted...all over town like "No Skateboarding" or "Employees Must Wash Hands" signs. Sometimes, when I'm walking through Central Park and I see a pretty woman with her face uncovered, I think to myself "you know, someone should really stone that women to death". Considering that the City of New York doesn't post that information explicity anywhere on their government site (I checked,) I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Don't they know that the only thing stopping our society from turning to cannibalism and forced sodomy is a strongly worded set of rules posted on a never-checked website.

Here's the thing, if you want to give people a heads-up about the cultural differences between the country they left and the Canada they've come to, go right ahead. Educate them about the principles of an open society, so they won't be so shocked when they see women driving and dancing (those are two things they actually do list in their guidelines...along with the suggestion that the only time your face should be covered is on Halloween - word for word). When you start down the path to reiterating things that are clearly illegal under the assumption that these people are all barbarians who have traveled around the world to Canada of all places to break those laws...well, as the Canadians say, that's just un-neighborly, eh?

You really have to wonder about the people who have such a low opinion of other people that they have to write idiotic and insulting guides for them. Recently, when Northwest Airlines laid off hundreds of their employees, they distributed a pamphlet called "101 ways to save money". Included in the suggestions were "Make your own baby food" and "Make your own kitty litter" (believe me, you do not want to mix those two up). So, let's just say it's only mildly degrading for your former employer who was apparently paying you so little that you wouldn't have any savings and has just laid you off to imply that you won't be able to find another job or manage your finances without resorting to making your own clothes out of newspaper scraps...but where this goes from rich poppycock to fatcat editorial cartoon absurdity is when they suggest, and I kid you not, they suggest you try dumpster diving. "Don't be afraid to look in dumpsters and take anything you like."

That's right. "Dig in, poor people. You like table scraps and soiled clothes, right?" If that's something people at some point need to resort to in order to survive or as a personal choice, that's their business. But for the people who laid you off to suggest that you shouldn't be shy about enjoying the trash of people who can afford to discard things...man is that arrogant and insulting. It's like saying "Poor people don't have dignity, right? I mean, I would never dig through trash in million years, but I'm sure poor people just love it. That's like shopping at Tiffany's to them."

And people wonder why everyone hates white people.