I totally stole this from Juvenal, who will hopefully forgive me because I’ll pass along that his blog is full of pictures of Helen Mirren topless and next week’s winning lottery numbers.
For realz.
Also, oh joy: now I’ve got Bonnie Tyler stuck in my head.
That is a letter from a nine-year-old Canadian boy named Kevin, who is being held without bail and without charges in the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center in central Texas.
The Globe and Mail has the report (via Fark):
…“My biggest wish is to go to Canada and be free, to go to my school, go for my books,” Kevin said, his father’s voice audible in the background.
“I want to be safe with me and my parents, and see my teachers and my friends again…”
Majid and Masomeh — they prefer their last name not be used — initially fled Iran for Canada in January, 1995, to seek political asylum. Majid did odd jobs, eventually becoming manager of an east Toronto pizza parlour, paying the rent for their one-bedroom apartment.
In 1997, their only son, Kevin, was born. “For the first time, I was happy,” Majid said from the Hutto detention facility.
“I had my family with me — it’s the only family I have — we didn’t have any problems and we lived happy in Toronto.”
That changed when their refugee claim was denied, after ten years in Canada; deported back to Iran, Majid was beaten, tortured and imprisoned (which you’d think would make convincing enough evidence that, in Iran, he’d be subject to beatings, torture and imprisonment, but that’s another matter entirely…moving on…). Escaping again through the help of people smugglers, the family was on their way back to Toronto bearing false Greek passports when a fellow passenger suffered a heart attack and the plane was forced to land in Puerto Rico.
Because Greek passport-bearers need a visa to enter the US, the family was shipped off to imprisonment in Texas. Even had the passports been legitimate, this would have been their fate, according to US officials, although really one has to wonder if they’ve detained many blond, blue-eyed people lacking the proper visas…
Next time you get on a plane, make sure to amuse yourself and your fellow passengers by giving out free ECG tests in the waiting area. Don’t take chances.
More of Kevin‘s letters are in this Globe and Mail slideshow.
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From Defamer comes the shocking news that, while inside the chapel, out of sight of the public, Anna Nicole Smith‘s casket was attacked by a cluster of giant, pink, and apparently grief-crazed Squid, who threw themselves upon the coffin in an undistinguishable mass of blubbering pinkitude. Judging by their plumage the cephalopods are part of the Bobby Trendy Posse, known to make their homes near the warm waters of Santa Monica, Miami, and Palm Springs.
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raincoaster 