Immigration and the Decline of Icelandic Journalism

I'm not exactly a white American. In fact, since I was a boy my father has told me that I am not very American at heart. Apparently, not EVERYTHING that came out of his mouth was a lie. I never felt particularly like I belonged to the great nation that is the United States of America. I mean, I love the US and I probably will move back there at some point for a period of time. There are a lot of truly great things about that country and many wonderful effects seen in the rest of the world are caused by the US-whether people in those other countries want to admit it or not. One thing that has fairly recently come to my attention is that my home country is one of the world leaders in allowing immigration. This came originally as a shock to me. It's always been the case that any dealings I've had or my friends have had with the beaurocracy of the US government has been a nightmare, to say the least. Furthermore, the number of illegal immigrants that sneak into the country-and therefore enjoy absolutely no rights-has always been in the news and not the fact that the US is actually a fairly generous country when legal visas are concerned. This is another face of a general trend that I have observed in US policy. It seems as though the only facts about the country that are reported with much fanfare and noise are those that make everyone angry. The wars, the crime, the greed and materialism, obesity rates, poor school systems, offensive tv, movie, radio, and music personalities, etc. They never talk about the fact that according to many polls of refugees trying to get asylum in foreign lands, the land of choice is the US. Right around 24,000,000 refugees have been accepted into American society in the last 20 years. But does this appear on the front page of the newspaper? Is this used as an example of why America is great? No, instead the country's greatness depends on the squashing of military dictatorships that are technologically far below the level of the American military. I don't get it.
But the real reason I wanted to write in about immigration today is that I recently heard a lot of discussion about the US's proposed wall along the southern border to keep Mexicans and other Americans out. I don't think that this wall is a good idea for two reasons:
1. It won't work. People who are so desperate to get to another country that they are
risking their lives to get there and stay there living in a state not too far from slavery
will find a way around a wall.
2. The proposed $4 billion that the wall would cost would be better used on other things.
But aside from my personal reasons for being against the wall idea, I cannot stand by silently as people jump on the America-bashing band wagon. You see, leaders of most of the South American countries have been ver vocal about protesting the wall idea. They critisize the US for being exclusive and not wishing to have any dealings with their neighboring countries. Meanwhile, some USA citizens stood up to say that they believe that the problem of illegal immigration could be solved by providing a way for illegal immigrants to apply for legal status instead of facing deportation. They say that the positions of the current government are wrong and offensive. I agree with many of the criticisms I've heard of the current regime in my home country. But this is one issue where I do not think the US is doing anything wrong. It angered me that during the broadcast on the BBC not a single person asked why these immigrants want to leave their home countries. This is an important question that needs to be asked if anyone wants to stop illegal immigration. Light needs to be shone on the leaders of countries south of the border. What are they doing to improve situations in their country so that people will not want to leave? It's not a natural thing to see that your citizens want to risk their lives and welfare, leave their families and sneak into a country where they will have no rights at all, probably end up working for peanuts doing back-breaking (and spirit-breaking) work and then to critisize the government of the country of immigration!

There, I've said my piece about that.

One of Iceland's newspapers is in big trouble. The editors annouced today that they are quitting. This is because a front page article was published about a "One-armed teacher" who was accused of pedophilia. First of all, what difference does it make that he has only one arm?! But aside from that, the real problem is that the article featured a picture and the guy's name and he had not even been charged with the crime yet. A short time later (I believe it was a couple of days) the man killed himself. How much responsibility does the newspaper bear for his suicide? Does the man's innocence/guilt have anything to do with the justness of the article? When should the media be allowed to report things? This is the hot issue today. I saw that several stores have stopped selling the paper and stopped advertising it. Sponsers are scrambling to get their advertisements pulled out of it.
The man's life would most likely have been destroyed by this. He would have been fired. He would have been socially ostracized. This contry is so small that he would not have been able to hide. But that's all only negavtive (in my opinion) if he was innocent.
I don't really know what I think about this issue. Should the newspaper (which is nearly a gossip rag, from my understanding) be shut down? How is this paper different from gossip magazines that publish daily stories of unsubstantiated extra marital affairs, crimes and such?

Eh, I don't know. I'm off to fisheries science.