NASA's First Citizenship Ceremony

[Star Voyager]

Despite their future, NASA held a naturalization ceremony yesterday at Rocket Garden (which is located at KSCVC):

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/naturalization.html

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Some hi-res photos of the event are available at the KSC Media Gallery.

 

[Star Voyager]

The caption for this picture says:

At the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, Searra Weeks, a fifth-grade student at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School in Merritt Island, sings the national anthem during a naturalization ceremony. The Transportation and Security Administration Honor Guard posted the American, Homeland Security and NASA flags at the ceremony. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administered the Oath of Allegiance to 110 people, representing 36 countries, in honor of the upcoming Independence Day holiday.

I lived on the same street as that school and went there for 2 years (3rd and 4th grade, worst two years of my elementary school life :thumbsdown:!)!

 

[SiberianTiger]

I looked through the article, but I couldn't see how NASA was connected to the naturalization process of some people. Did I miss some point?

 

[Star Voyager]

I says they were hosting this ceremony. I'm sure the legal work was done by someone else.

 

[Notebook]

Just curious, what connection does Robert Louis Stevenson have with the area?

Thanks, N.

 

[Star Voyager]

I know the school that I pointed out is a school for the arts. Other than that, I don't know.

---------- Post added at 05:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:47 PM ----------

Here's more from the Florida Today:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article...ome-Americans-during-ceremony-at-space-center

 

[AirSimming]

I wish we had strict requirements and a proper naturalization process in Germany like the USA. Instead, Germany is a paradise for uneducated and socially weak foreign classes.

 

[Urwumpe]

I wish we had strict requirements and a proper naturalization process in Germany like the USA. Instead, Germany is a paradise for uneducated and socially weak foreign classes.

Germany is also a paradise for uneducated and socially weak natives. I can't see why we should keep foreigners out, if we permit others to stay here.

 

[AirSimming]

Germany is also a paradise for uneducated and socially weak natives. I can't see why we should keep foreigners out, if we permit others to stay here.

Foreigners are twice as often unemployed in Germany. As you mentioned, we already have enough problems with our own uneducated and socially weak classes. I don't see why we should charge our social system by foreign people who will never contribute, because they are unwilling, especially people who refuse our culture like Islamists (and we do have way more than statistically assumed). This is what a lot of Americans are afraid of: socialism. And we have too much of it in my point of view.

Next to the main street of my neighbourhood, there is a row of houses habitated by Turks. They don't work. The older ones can't because thy don't speak German (within my neighbourhood we name the men of their families 'the Kings of the East' because they look so while strolling to the supermarket as a trio). The younger ones don't work because they don't want to. They like to enjoy the support of our social system (and to swear on the street, they have no respect which you can already see by their body language). You can see their TV's flickering and smokestack fuming until early in the morning, followed by closed shutters until high noon. I have to get up early in the morning and go to work for such people. Whole districts are literally completely taken in by such people which was not the case a few decades ago. It has increased significantly. You can hear almost everybody complaining, in private, not only the cleaning lady but even teacher, policemen and local politicians. People from whom I never have expected to hear certain words. The German immigration policy is doing very wrong.

 

[Urwumpe]

So, your experience is that everybody including yourself can be a xenophobic?

Also, your experience is fitting to the legends of neonazi organizations, but completely contradicted by studies about the reality of the people. That the first generations had been working pretty hard in Germany, and have been often better integrated than the second or third generations is a fact. That the education of them had been poor is also a fact, that is why we brought them here. But still, you paint with such a broad brush about them, that it looks like you think your limited knowledge is the truth.

Did you ever talk to the Turks? How do you know that they are turks in first place? And what the hell do you know about body language?

Also, did you know that most unemployed with "immigration background" are actually from eastern Europe? People all complain about turks, but in reality, they only take the turks as projection of their hatred of other foreigners, because it is easier to rant about a Mr Özil, than about a Dieter Müller from Kiev.

Sorry, but many people are actually just garden gnome Nazis. They rant about foreigners, without even knowing anything about foreigners in Germany. They rant about them because others rant about them, because the Bild tabloid rants about them, and because nobody in their social neighborhood has a foreigner as friend who would step up and say "Shut up talking so badly about turks! My friend Erdogan works with me in Germany since we had been apprentices."

And it is so easy to complain about criminals with "migration background". if two germans are beating up homeless, the Germans are just victims of the system, or the homeless was likely guilty himself, there must be a reason why he is homeless. If the two Germans had Turkish grandparents, and their parents running a successful business as lawyers in Germany, they are genetically criminal and should be send home to Turkey.

It is pure bigotry. Please think twice before you become a bigot yourself. Even my Grandmother, who was pretty xenophobic and had all the "good" reasons to complain about foreigners, had been able to respect them and treat them as citizens. She did not feel well in their presence, and she admitted it, but she knew that her bad feelings are not because of the person in front of her.

 

[AirSimming]

So, your experience is that everybody including yourself can be a xenophobic?

Also, your experience is fitting to the legends of neonazi organizations, but completely contradicted by studies about the reality of the people. That the first generations had been working pretty hard in Germany, and have been often better integrated than the second or third generations is a fact. That the education of them had been poor is also a fact, that is why we brought them here. But still, you paint with such a broad brush about them, that it looks like you think your limited knowledge is the truth.

Did you ever talk to the Turks? How do you know that they are turks in first place? And what the hell do you know about body language?

Also, did you know that most unemployed with "immigration background" are actually from eastern Europe? People all complain about turks, but in reality, they only take the turks as projection of their hatred of other foreigners, because it is easier to rant about a Mr Özil, than about a Dieter Müller from Kiev.

Sorry, but many people are actually just garden gnome Nazis. They rant about foreigners, without even knowing anything about foreigners in Germany. They rant about them because others rant about them, because the Bild tabloid rants about them, and because nobody in their social neighborhood has a foreigner as friend who would step up and say "Shut up talking so badly about turks! My friend Erdogan works with me in Germany since we had been apprentices."

And it is so easy to complain about criminals with "migration background". if two germans are beating up homeless, the Germans are just victims of the system, or the homeless was likely guilty himself, there must be a reason why he is homeless. If the two Germans had Turkish grandparents, and their parents running a successful business as lawyers in Germany, they are genetically criminal and should be send home to Turkey.

It is pure bigotry. Please think twice before you become a bigot yourself. Even my Grandmother, who was pretty xenophobic and had all the "good" reasons to complain about foreigners, had been able to respect them and treat them as citizens. She did not feel well in their presence, and she admitted it, but she knew that her bad feelings are not because of the person in front of her.

Well, beside certain imputations I won't reply to, I think you are missing the reality by trying to act political correct. Maybe this depends on the different cities/areas we're living in and the persons we know of.

In the Ruhr area, things seem to be different. I've talked to a lot of Turks but also Iraqi, Iranians and Lebanese during my life (maybe others but I don't remember yet). I've also had to work with them partly, a few years ago. I won't go into details (since some things you and others wouldn't believe me for sure) but my experience showed me that a lot of parliamentarian and political correct people are just blind. It is a matter of certain social classes some people will never have a relation to and think their world is doing fine.

If you'd have seen schools and districts I have seen during my early life, you'd know some things about a certain kind of body language by the way.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, beside certain imputations I won't reply to, I think you are missing the reality by trying to act political correct.

I think you are old enough (on this forum) to know that I consider political correctness something else than what the party caste thinks.

In the Ruhr area, things seem to be different. I've talked to a lot of Turks but also Iraqi, Iranians and Lebanese during my life (maybe others but I don't remember yet). I've also had to work with them partly, a few years ago. I won't go into details (since some things you and others wouldn't believe me for sure) but my experience showed me that a lot of parliamentarian and political correct people are just blind. It is a matter of certain social classes some people will never have a relation to and think their world is doing fine.

That you use political correctness when you should say "Not xenophobic", is already a sign that you have likely never done what you say. I don't give a damn about political correctness, I give a damn about treating human individuals as human individuals and I am not that stupid to chose the easy was as you do and join the chant of the xenophobic hordes.

Call me political correct, if I prefer judging people for their own actions, than believing in prejudice and http://www.dict.cc/englisch-deutsch/kin.htmlkin liability. Maybe you are right and this is politically correct. And I feel fine about it. But I have more the impression of this great country, that cultivating the same years of xenophobic politics and ignorance is actually "politically correct" and popular among the simple masses.

Most of our problems with immigrants come actually from the simple stupid fact, that we once thought in ignorance, that these workers will come here, work some years hard for our wealth and then go home into poverty again. That was so much away from the reality that all legend building of the right-wing politicians does not help fixing the stupidity in it.

 

[SiberianTiger]

They don't work. The older ones can't because thy don't speak German (within my neighbourhood we name the men of their families 'the Kings of the East' because they look so while strolling to the supermarket as a trio). The younger ones don't work because they don't want to. They like to enjoy the support of our social system (and to swear on the street, they have no respect which you can already see by their body language). You can see their TV's flickering and smokestack fuming until early in the morning, followed by closed shutters until high noon.

From what you described, I don't see much wrong doing by those people. They just have a certain traditional lifestyle, or so it seems to me. If you like to discover, what is a conflicting alien community, and what they can do, try to go by references from 'Kyrgyzstan unrest' thread.

And I must assure you, new blood is never bad. Beautiful flowers can grow amidst dirt. You just have to make sure your own culture is high and appealing, and the time will do the rest in your favour.

By the way, CEO position in Deutsche Bank is about to be assumed by a man born as a Hindu...

---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 16:24 ----------

upd: and can you be sure they don't work at all? Perhaps they have an around the clock job with two days off (not sure such thigs are permitted in Germany, however)?

 

[RisingFury]

Foreigners are twice as often unemployed in Germany. As you mentioned, we already have enough problems with our own uneducated and socially weak classes. I don't see why we should charge our social system by foreign people who will never contribute, because they are unwilling, especially people who refuse our culture like Islamists (and we do have way more than statistically assumed). This is what a lot of Americans are afraid of: socialism. And we have too much of it in my point of view.

You should go to US. You could easily get a TV show so popular, it would push Glenn Beck off air!

 

[AirSimming]

From what you described, I don't see much wrong doing by those people. They just have a certain traditional lifestyle, or so it seems to me.

Which is no concern of mine as long as I don't have to go to work for their lifelong unemployment benefit although they could work if properly naturalized, which sadly is not the case (and especially not possible in certain cases because we do have a lot of immigrants who simply don't accept our culture).

upd: and can you be sure they don't work at all? Perhaps they have an around the clock job with two days off (not sure such thigs are permitted in Germany, however)?

I know them for almost 11 years. Especially their children (which take unemployment benefit while go moonlighting sometimes).

And I must assure you, new blood is never bad. Beautiful flowers can grow amidst dirt. You just have to make sure your own culture is high and appealing, and the time will do the rest in your favour.

If we just would have proper naturalization requirements in Germany.

By the way, CEO position in Deutsche Bank is about to be assumed by a man born as a Hindu...

We can't compare a CEO or somebody who is going to become a CEO out of certain reasons, to socially weak immigrants.

He will never rest on the laurels of our German welfare state but rather do a bigger contribution to our system than me in my entire working life.

You should go to US. You could easily get a TV show so popular, it would push Glenn Beck off air!

Beside that I don't see a need to immigrate to the US, all I know about Glenn Beck is his name and a short video clip showing a guest, named David Buckner, passing out. I don't want a popular TV show. I just want a proper immigration policy.

But I'm glad that so far nobody else jumped on that Nazi-comparison. Because complaining about immigration policy and certain social classes has nothing in common with the radical national socialist ideology. It is just used to try to silence people, especially politicians and other public people who don't blindly chorus our immigration policy and the situation.

 

[SiberianTiger]

We can't compare a CEO or somebody who is going to become a CEO out of certain reasons, to socially weak immigrants.

He will never rest on the laurels of our German welfare state but rather do a bigger contribution to our system than me in my entire working life.

Yep, but he didn't pass a proper naturalization procedure as well, whatever it means. Are you not afraid that any artificial filter by an immigrant's origin set for the people who want to settle in your country, might become too successful in throwing away really resourceful people who haven't achieved much success up to the time they decided to immigrate? I have an allergy for any ideas of spreading unnecessary bureaucracy.

I think Germany will just have to cut somewhat on the social programs in the nearest years, and the people who enjoyed welfare might want to begin seeking an employment.