Tag: border wall

Naco. Walls.

All of the photos in this set are from a walk in the border town of Naco, in Sonora, Mexico. The bottom photo is of the existing 5 meter (17 foot) border wall looking toward Naco, Arizona and the Mule Mountains in Bisbee. The U.S. side of the wall has been recently draped with ugly coils of concertina wire. This is not Donald Trump’s promised “big beautiful wall,” which will be nearly double in height. As grotesque as it will be, it will not reach the heights of his monumental ego and xenophobia. 

Did you know that one can learn a new language, even if you are advanced in years? No, I don’t think it’s possible either. But I am trying to learn Spanish. Es muy difícil. I am unable to find a Spanish color-word that’s equivalent to the English color-word rust. The best alternative seems to be el color óxido, but 

óxido alone would refer only to a corroded substance, and not its color. Can anyone help?

Hands Across the River

Below is a short address given by environmental activist Michael Gregory at the Hands Across the River rally, held today on the banks of the San Pedro River in Hereford, Arizona. The San Pedro is the last free-flowing river in the southwest, and it is threatened by the construction of a pointless, unnecessary wall on the border with Mexico. In a way, the wall, and its impacts in a small corner of southern Arizona, are an emblem and a cautionary example of the way democratic norms are being eroded and abandoned in the United States. It’s a small river, in a small part of the country, but everyone who cares about such things needs to know. Michael has given his gracious permission to share his brief remarks here. I agree with every word. 

In 1988, thirty-one years ago, after more than ten years of public campaign and political horse-trading, the endangered San Pedro Riparian Area was given federal legal protection in a bill passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Reagan. 

Now another president is trying to override dozens of laws and regulations — including the one that created the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area — in order to build a wall that will serve no purpose but political ambition. 

The wall is 

• an environmental disaster and biological obscenity 

• a humanitarian disgrace and monument to racism 

• an economic swindle and engineering embarrassment 

• a political power-grab and national security hoax 

In short, just plain dumb. 

So, to paraphrase President Reagan, we are saying 

MR TRUMP, STOP BUILDING THIS WALL!