Strange But True #2

In a big surprise to U.S. Border Control agents, it was recently discovered that their uniforms are actually manufactured in Mexico. The manufacturer, VF Solutions from Nashville, no doubt profits from the low $1.50 an hour wages in Mexico. But it also raises the hypocrisy issue of many Americans on immigration issues. Racist sentiments often play into anti-immigrant sentiments. Yet, when a labor cost savings can be realized, then American manufacturers or even consumers welcome the cost savings. Many legal immigrants from Mexico or other South American states often find their first work in food services related employment before stepping up to better jobs in the U.S. economy.


The recent corruption scandal involving a Republican Congressman from California accepting defense contractor bribes, raises the question whether other defense contractor corruption has existed before. Well, yes. Past scandals involved one defense contractor and a diesel glow plug wire that sells at autoparts stores for about $20, was sold to the Pentagon at about $400 each. The company even claimed the product was it's own, when in fact it was actually manufactured by Bosche and identical to the autoparts store version. Another scandal involved a $400 charge for one inch pieces of metal with two holes drilled in it. And of course many here, remember the no-bids contracts for reconstruction from Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, in Iraq. No only has much of the work not been completed, but the Pentagon was billed large fees for cases of soda pop and other items that have nothing to do with the reconstruction projects in Iraq.

How does China manage those great prices on some items? Well besides cutting corners on environmental rules, in which the air is so polluted in 500 Chinese cities that it's the same as a child smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, only paying as little as 24 cents an hour labor, undervalueing their currency theYuen by an additional 40% below our American dollar by fixing it's value against our dollar, rather floating it on world currency markets and Chinese workers suffering from workplace safety problems. Besides factories, the world's most unsafe workplaces are the mines are in China. Last week 161 Chinese miners lost their lives in a coalmine disaster, with 42 still missing as of this morning. With such a national thirst for energy to drive China's factories, safety standards in Chinese mines are very lax, and contribute to very tragic accidents such as in the Chinese coalmine.


Liz Sheridan, the character actress who played the next door neighbor on ALF and Jerry Seinfield's mother on Seinfeld was the former girlfriend of James Dean. James Dean has now been dead for 50 years, killed in a September 30, 1955 car crash. For all his popularity, and for all the legend surrounding James Dean, he only starred in just three films, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, GIANT and EAST OF EDEN.


Speaking of ALF, few know much about the problems of Max Wright, who played the likable long-suffering father, Willie on ALF. Max Wright had an arrest for drunken driving in 2000, but landed himself in far worst scandal when on August 5, 2005, the National Enquirer photographed Wright in a crackhouse lighting a crackpipe with homeless gay men.


In Oregon, State Representative Kelley Wirth, D-Corvallis, finally resigned and was replaced by a former schooolboard member. It won't be hard to fill the shoes of Wirth. Wirth resigned after being arrested on meth possession, following a police investigation into an attempted murder plot against her where a girlfriend of a Oregon Capitol janitor she was having an affair with attemped to run her down with an automobile and severely injured Wirth's legs. There was an apparent argument at the janitor's house, despite a sexual harrassment allegation against Wirth by the janitor, and this argument helped to promote the murder attempt on Wirth's life. Before leaving office, Wirth was involved in a new controversy when she dramaticly increased the salaries of her legislative staff, nearly draining the funds appropriated to an expense account. Wirth even put her mother on this payroll. But after another round of public pressure forced Wirth to back down. Kelley Wirth was interestingly the only member of the legislature to vote against toughening state laws regarding substances that could be made into meth drugs. For all her fault's, at least Kelley Wirth is not a hypocrite.


There you have it, installment two of Strange But True. All Strange. All True. Strange But True.