Diane Wilson, an Unreasonable Woman

This book. This woman, Diane Wilson. How can I write about her without gushing? Anyway, I'll try. She's a fourth generation shrimper from Seadrift, Texas, with five children and only a high school education--she says she read a lot--who took on some of the biggest polluters in the world and actually got a pretty big result considering the odds. In fact, you might say she's accomplished a miracle. Her mission came to be to get "zero discharge," and Formosa Plastics actually agreed that it was doable and then everyone started asking about it, and then she wrote a book about her experience: An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas.
When Calhoun County on the Texas Gulf Coast was pronounced the most polluted county in the country, Diane Wilson recalled the things happening in shrimping and the environment generally, called a lawyer and then called a meeting. But she was getting nowhere against the regulators, corporations, politicians, judges, and all the rest, until she decided to resort to nonviolent disobedience, direct action, and hunger strikes. This unreasonable, unstoppable, outrageous, courageous, crazy woman went to India to support the victims of the United Carbide (now Dow Chemical) disaster, went to Taiwan to see what Formosa Plastics had done to get forced out of the country to find refuge in Texas, climbed to the tower of the Dow plant and threw a sign over the fence, started giving speeches all over the country, and hasn't stopped.
It turns out her writing is so good you'd think she'd been born to it. She's just got to continue writing.
You can look on the Internet to see what she said to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now and learn more about her. I think it was October 11, 2005.
Want to add one thing: Diane Wilson helped to found CODE-PINK, Women for Peace. Maybe it's time we were pursuing this.

More Thoughts on Immigration

Since I wrote last I had a couple more thoughts on immigration.
What if the immigrants smuggle in a dirty bomb? This is serious. It's major. But it can happen on any border, or it can be made within a country. It's really a matter for Homeland Security. They should have thought about it, and they should involve rules on immigration if and when indicated.
America is often called a nation of immigrants. At the time of the Haymaker Riots, it is reported that more than half the population of Chicago were immigrants. There were more Germans than any other nationality, and they were hated. Like the Irish, and the Italians. Immigrants seem always to have been looked down on.
As for enforcing the laws on entry, if there are more than 11 million illegal immigrants now, and the law isn't being enforced, shouldn't lawmakers ask themselves if they really want such a law? If the answer is yes, should a wall be built along that 2000 mile border? A Berlin Wall? Does that sound like America? It sounds more like the Middle Ages, or the Communists.
I like the message on the Statue of Liberty better:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed. to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.