Getting out the immigrant vote

According to a report in today’s Boston Globe, applications for citizenship in Boston are up 71 percent from a year ago.

Increased fees, up from $400 to $675, concern that immigrants legally in the country may get caught up in changes to the law affecting those here illegally and a desire to vote in the 2008 elections are cited as part of a perfect storm.

An unstated concern may be that the Patriot’s Act of 2001 denies habeas corpus to legal resident aliens.

The net result is increased processing time up from the seven months currently quoted to an unspecified duration.

Even before the fee increase, announced in February 2007 and put in place in July the same year, I waited more than eight months for an interview. Add another month’s wait for the oath ceremony and the lead-time was at least nine months, and that was before the number of work visas that the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services also process increased by 800,000 this year.

That’s not the end of the story, either.

Without an alien registration card, more commonly know as a green card, it is impossible to travel outside the country unless you have a passport. During the swearing in ceremony, immigration officials exchange the green card for a naturalization certificate. To obtain a passport the original certificate has to be sent in for processing.

The wait time for a passport recently was as high as three months, unless additional payment was made for expediting. The increased wait time was due to changes that require a passport for travel between the US to Canada or Mexico, instead of other government issued ID.

Speaking of ID, not only is the wait time long, but during that time, the now naturalized citizen retains no evidence that they are a citizen or have any right to be in the country or is able to travel, say for a family emergency, outside of the country. Habeas what my newly minted Patriotic friend?

So is the current 12 months too long to wait for the privilege of being a fully documented US citizen?

Of course not.

But don’t forget that the majority of immigrants wait at least five years from when they receive a green card and may wait longer than the 14 months I did for my green card, whilst in my case, here on a three-year work visa.

It’s an arduous, expensive, time consuming and often confusing process. So if you’re newly arrived, legally that is, you should start getting to know the candidates and planning to vote in the presidential election.

The one that’s due up in 2016, that is.

Winter perils in the making.

Tripping up the steps of 5 Joy Street, headquarters of the Appalachian Mountain Club was not the ideal way to begin a five-week training program on Winter Hiking.

Maybe it was the strain of ambling up Beacon Hill from Boston Common, but that’s what I did.

Fortunately, two pairs of hands instinctively reached out from the top of the steps and I found myself pulled to safety from the top and pushed to safety from the bottom by my wife, who stood a step or two below me. The hands from above belonged to two of the course instructors, who later also introduced themselves as trip leaders for our winter hikes. I wondered as I brushed off my embarrassment if this wasn’t just the first of many times when helping hands would be required.

The Hiking and Backpacking Committee, H&B for short, of the Boston Chapter of the AMC runs this course annually, or has for the past six years. During this time they have developed a half-inch thick tome of knowledge, artfully titled ‘An Introduction to Winter Hiking’ - just in case the uninitiated thought that this was all there was to it.

Checking-in I collected my nametag and found myself a minor celebrity. Not only was my badge number 1, which meant I was the first to register and pay for the course, but I also shared the same family name with two of the instructors. We are not related, at least as far as I know, but within a few minutes of the start of the formal part of the evening, it felt as if I had joined a rather large family of similarly minded people.

Formal is too strong a word for events as they unfolded. It’s hard to be formal when someone stands barefooted in front of an audience in his underwear and explains the theory of heat management – which can be over-simplified as layers good, perspiration and cotton clothing bad. Not just bad, but very bad, bad to the point of forbidden.

The same goes for anything other than two-layer footwear; the sort that has removable liners is the only type of footwear allowed on AMC led winter hikes. Hard plastic mountaineering boots (similar to their downhill ski cousins) seemed to be the boot of choice for the majority of leaders in attendance, although at least one person favored the old stand-by Sorrel boot.

I don’t want to give the impression that these hardened devotees of winter solitude came dressed in expensive duds, although one person did sport a Arc’teryx® backpack that I know comes with a $549 price tag. Pants, stuff sacks and backpacks sported their fair share of duct tape patches, a simple remedy I suspect for a brush with unguarded crampons and ice axes or unavoidable tree limbs.

Perhaps the main advantage of attending the course, which works out at a meager $9 per week - apart from the obvious one of limiting the chances of ending up as a statistic in the New Hampshire Fish and Game annals of bad things that happen to others – is the opportunity to sign-up for those illusive winter trips I said I would do last year.

These are the ones I read about in AMC Outdoors or the Charles River Mud newsletter a week before they happen, or more usually a week or two afterwards.

Imagine that. Planning your winter hikes, secure in the knowledge that your destination hut or lodge is not booked up, that you will be in the company of like-minded or at least as insane people and led by an experienced hiker who has not only lived to tell the tale, but is willing to share the experience with a novice.

Roll on winter – at least until next week's session

Dying City - dying to leave

To my profound relief, the Lyric Stage performance of Dying City ran only 90 minutes, and without an intermission.

I say that not because of poor writing, direction or acting.

The story of twin brothers (both played by actor Chris Thorn), one a gay actor, the other a marine Lieutenant, who dies under dubious circumstance in Iraq, is set in the Manhattan apartment of the dead soldier's wife (Jennifer Blood).

The dialogue sparked, raged and sobbed with emotion as the story of their last night together unscrambled in the form of flashback action and current reality a year after his death.

Such was the concentration and pace of revelation of humiliation, abandonment and of a marriage gone sour, that at the end of the performance, I like the rest of the audience, sat in stunned silence, scarcely even breathing let alone applauding until the lights came up revealing the two actors smiling facings and bowing gestures.

Some saw the performances as histrionic or over the top. However, this is what happens – perhaps over a longer period, but it happens nonetheless.

The question is do we want to bear witness and to invade the privacy of a family with issues (even if fictional), in the name of entertainment. For those that have experienced such emotions, it is perhaps a timely reminder of past decisions. For those that have not – perhaps it may serve as a warning not to take such decisions lightly.

Not for the first time in the Lyric's cozy 'in the round' seating and intimate atmosphere did I give thanks for sitting further back than in the first three rows. Seated any closer, I would have been compelled to reach out a comforting arm and wrap it around Jennifer Blood's shoulder or to kick Chris Thorn's backside as due payment for his total lack of sensitivity.

This was theater for grown-ups. Sometimes it's better to be a kid.

Ottawa daze

So with the parade over it was time to be 'Not An Englishman in Boston' but a 'AEIO'. That's right – an Englishman in Ottawa – at least for a few days.

Ottawa is a city that just draws me in with its museums, galleries, the Ottawa River, Rideau Canal, Gothic buildings and a regular schedule of events that range from jazz and blues festivals to the Wine and Food show.

The latter provided the impetus for a five-day break. That and expiring Air Canada miles and an overdue opportunity to catch up with good friends made before and during our time living there from 1998 to 2000.

Of course, I noticed the flailing US dollar purchased less and the unmistakable look of satisfaction on d' Canadians' friendly faces as we talked about where it had all gone wrong (or right depending on which side of the border you hang your woolly hat).

I spent almost an entire day in the newly minted Canadian War Museum – where amongst other things I learned with satisfaction that people from 1766 called patriots in the US are described less politely as 'The American Rebels' in Canada.

Indeed much of the early infrastructure, at least after General Wolf defeated a somewhat overzealous Montcalm to win Canada from the French, was established to defend a Canada loyal to the English crown from American infiltration.

Still the wine and food show presented a great opportunity to drink to the Americas and bring into the fold a few Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand aswell as some EU partners such as France and Germany. Curiously, save the smallest table imaginable, Italy was absent from the party.

The National Gallery of Canada, fresh with a photo exhibit 'Snap Judgment' featuring the brighter side of life in the continent of Africa (at least for the most part) presented an opportunity to replace the all pervasive images of disease, famine, warlords and genocide that are the 'photostock' trade of journalists and image makers. In addition, all of the images came from talented and in many cases self-taught, up-and-coming African photographers.

My own images of Ottawa can be found on Flickr at by clicking here.

I spent a wonderful afternoon on Halloween in the Earl of Sussex Pub, just people watching/listening. Everything changes, the whole dynamics of personal interaction, when at least one of the people is hiding behind a costume mask. Sadly, I was not one of them and could only marvel at the bravery of some souls.