Crackdown in Virginia strips immigrant of his livelihood

Yesterday’s New York Times carried this story on how Governor McDonnell’s decision not to accept work permits as proof of legal residence has been ruining the life and the business of legal immigrant Mohamed Mejri. Now that Mejri can’t get a license, “his business is collapsing, and bill collectors are calling.”

The Times reports that Mejri “felt particularly helpless when he discovered that he could not even buy the syringes he needed to treat his diabetes without presenting a valid driver’s license and had to work through a social worker to get them. ‘I am demoralized, Mr. Mejri said, tears rolling under his glasses onto his sweater. I see no door open in front of me. Nobody wants to listen.’”

Many elements of this story are outrageous, primary among them being that Gov. McDonnell enacted a policy whose likely unintended consequences were so obvious last year that we even wrote about them in IYRTP. McDonnell consciously decided to destroy the livelihoods of legal immigrants to score political points in an anti-immigrant climate; as a result, Mohamed Mejri’s “monthly insurance payments have tripled, and … he has put his business aside.” According to the Times, possibly thousands of other legal immigrants share similar hardships.

Another outrageous element of the story is that a driver’s license is necessary to buy insulin syringes; yet another is that licenses and driving are so central to life that prosperity in most of the state is downright impossible without them. For further proof that that’s the case, read on.

Parking woes sink plans for Oceanfront club ‘Eden’

I’ve lived in Norfolk long enough that I no longer drive around in consistent astonishment at how poorly much of the region is laid out, but now and then I’m reminded of an insanity at the basis of local urban planning. For example, Virginia Beach seems to require a gigantic number of new parking spaces before a business can open. And if there’s a public parking garage next door that would obviate the need for new spaces, the city doesn’t care. Hence Virginia Beach has killed plans for a restaurant and concert hall called Eden, because there were only 20 on-site parking spaces, which the city deemed 63 too few.

I’m sure there are plenty of factors at work, including NIMBYism, and perhaps if I lived down the street from the old post office building on 32nd Street, I wouldn’t want a club there hoping to “fill the void left by the Jewish Mother.” But the building’s zoning does allow it to be a club.

(Note to potential commenters: when I say “the building’s zoning does allow it to be a club,” that’s an assumption I’m making based on the article. AltDaily does not employ professional fact-checkers to be on hand to scour zoning codes. If you’d like to establish an endowment that could lead to their hire, email me.)

Anyway, the taxes from a successful club could help pay for another parking garage to be shared by the “upscale retail tenants” that some nearby Eden-opposing developers hope to attract. Or if that’s somehow unfeasible, clubgoers could park a little farther away and walk a few extra blocks to the club. Or they could park even farther away and ride their bikes to the club. Or they could park at home and ride the OCEANFRONT LIGHT RAIL. The point is I hope whichever city councilmen killed a nightclub for having too little parking are in favor of drunk driving.

With apologies to Stephen Colbert, this has been Part One of my new sixty thousand-part series called Better Know an Insanity at the Basis of Local Urban Planning.

Va. panel kills bill to restrict texting while driving

Please thank your delegate by speeding into the nearest tunnel and texting “liberty.”

Study: police officers often shun their seatbelts

Next thing, we’ll learn that they exceed the speed limit, too.

Peninsula leaders wary of third crossing’s top ranking in transportation project prioritization

By 2034, if oil is still dirt-cheap, high-speed rail doesn’t exist, and we’ve spent a gazillion gazillion dollars on new roads, we’ll see “a 12 percent to 20 percent reduction in Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel volume at peak hour.”

Average price for regular gas has hit $3, AAA says

When I said “if oil is still dirt-cheap” above, I meant in comparison to what oil is going to cost in the future.

Gerry Connolly fights for job-saving funding in public television and the arts

Rep. Connolly explains that the governor’s plan to cut state funding for PBS and NPR would “impact 5,836 businesses and jeopardize more than 28,000 jobs in Northern Virginia.”

Hawaii civil unions bill wins final approval, awaits governor’s signature

At the moment, plenty of other states discriminate against gays in similar fashion to Virginia. Well, most anti-gay laws aren’t as odious as ours—according to my encyclopedia of choice, our law “renders any state recognition of private contracts entered into by unmarried couples unconstitutional”—but discrimination is on the books in a majority of states.

Slowly but surely, that’s changing.

I’m not suggesting Virginia will be the last state to ban gay marriage. If I had to guess, I’d say the Supreme Court will strike down marriage discrimination laws sometime around 2030. But when it happens, whether in 2020, 2030, or 2040, the Commonwealth will become a permanent part of a sad regional minority that history will remember for its having been a last bastion of discrimination.

Virginia’s 1st female chief justice sworn in

On the other hand, we do have our first female chief justice.

Mandated autism treatment coverage in Va. wins last vote

The bill “applies to employer group insurance plans at companies of greater than 50 workers. It limits benefits to $35,000 a year for applied behavior analysis, a promising regimen for treating autistic children.”

If we pass just one or two extremely limited measures like this every budget session, we’ll have universal health care by the twenty-sixth century.

Cuccinelli not opposed to Mass. mandate

Ken Cuccinelli says his lawsuit “isn’t about health care, it’s about liberty.”

Virginia tells textbook publishers to shape up

If only there were some sort of institutionalized body of professional experts in all academic fields, employed by the Commonwealth, who could judge potential textbooks for their accuracy.

Seven inches of snow forecast tonight and tomorrow

Just checking your reflexes.

Pentagon’s 2012 spending proposal is ‘the largest request ever’ since World War II

According to Ronald Reagan’s assistant defense secretary Larry Korb, “In inflation-adjusted dollars, this figure is higher than at any time during the Bush years or during the Cold War.” The military budget amounts to “an annual tax of more than $7,000 on every household in the country.”

In other news, helping poor people pay their heating bills will mortgage our children’s future.

Helplessness Blues

If you feel helpless after reading about Pentagon spending, or any other news story today, click here to listen to the new Fleet Foxes song “Helplessness Blues.”

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes/ Unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking I’d say I’d rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery/ Serving something beyond me

Feel less helpless now?