Trouble in Paradise?

Refugee centers in Sweden are being burned to the ground in what appears to be a statement against the significant number of refugees the country has allowed in.  The multiple arsons have all been at facilities which house or are slated to house immigrants.

[>100K immigrants are expected to arrive there in 2015.   Sweden's current total population is estimated to be 9.8M]  

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Sweden has long had a reputation for being hospitable to asylum seekers, apparently up 'till now.  It seems there is a backlash growing against the sizable Middle Eastern community of refugees that have made their way to Sweden in recent years.  There are even a number of areas (55) where police, fire, and EMT service is not readily available due to Muslim "gangs" who are terrorizing their neighborhoods.  The gangs run things there, not the civil authorities.
  

The Swedish EMT union (?) has even declared that they would not respond to calls to those areas unless they were provided "military grade" equipment and protection.  [NOTE:  That was in 2014.  I'm not sure if that situation still persists today.]

Here is the real world we face:  Refugees are welcomed in, given all the advantages of their host countries social welfare system, yet are not being assimilated into the mainstream of society. They remain isolated and often unemployed, leading to social unrest.  This is common in much of Europe, and has led to the rise of many nationalistic, anti-immigrant political parties.
  

Just opening your doors out of the kindness of your heart, then walking away while patting yourself on the back is just asking for trouble.  Without having a long term top-to-bottom plan to assimilate new immigrants, including having at least a reasonable hope of jobs available for them when they get here, is just moving problems from one place to another.  

In a perverse way, this kind-yet-not-well-thought-out gesture is actually playing right into the hands of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.  Masses of poor, isolated, and unemployed youth are fertile recruiting grounds for evil doers.  It's happening every day!

"Yeah, but that's over there, and we're here.  No problem, right?  Right?"

It's a crazy, dangerous "damned if we do, damned if we don't" world we live in.  Just sayin'.

S

Making reservations for the 2024 Olympic Games

I hope they hold the 2024 Games somewhere cool* as I'll be there cheering on my grandson.  And by cool I mean "cool" as in "not hot".  By then I'll be older than dirt and I don't want to pay big bucks to travel half way around the world to sit there and sweat.  I can stay in Dallas and sweat for free!


Today my daughter sent me pictures of her son intently mimicking every Olympic event he sees on TV:

Volleyball...

tennis...

even fencing.

And yes, he does live in the back of Toys R Us, thank you for asking.

Maybe by then they'll bring back baseball as an Olympic event.  Right now at 3-years-old the little Slugger can hit a (plastic) baseball over the house.  And with a trampoline in his back yard, that's a possibility, too.

Move over Shaun White.  Make room for the new Olympic cereal stud.  ;)

S

*A quick check with the Weather Channel shows that today in Stockholm, Sweden (which coincidentally is the home of the Swedish Bikini Team) it will reach a high of 72 degrees.  72 in August....I could handle that.  Just sayin'.  ;)

Team America...World Police

If you watch the news at all you know there's a civil war raging in Syria right now.  The question that's constantly being asked is, "What should we do?"  Do we just watch?...Supply arms to the rebels?...Provide some sort of direct military support? 


I wonder if we as a nation suffer from some sort of guilt trip dating back to World War II?  Do we somehow feel responsible for not doing more in the 1930's to stop Hitler before he initiated the Holocaust?  Is that why we feel this urge to save all the oppressed of the world?  Speaking for myself as a Christian I would say, no, I don't want to turn a blind eye to the hungry or sick, but how much can we be expected to do, especially when so many right here at home are needing help, too?  


I don't see many other advanced western nations (Australia, Sweden, Canada..?)  chomping at the bit wanting to get involved there and we don't seem to be too critical of them.  Why is it all on us?  Would we be terrible people if we just said, "Sorry, but this is your fight."  


Be honest....do you really care what happens in Egypt, or Syria, or Yemen, etc?  As long as they don't export terrorists to come here and do us harm, I really don't.  And if they do, don't we have ways (clandestine) to deal with that short of the way we've handled things in Afghanistan?  I just think we need to get our own house in order before we start telling others how to run theirs. 


S