Good Neighbors

If good fences make good neighbors, then by all means let's have a fence. But let's not build just any old fence. Let's build a wall. And not just any old wall. As befits the world's greatest superpower, let's build the greatest wall the world has seen since the Great Wall of China.

The recent proposals to construct a security fence along the US/Mexico border are lacking in reason, courage, and vision. These lame proposals cheapen the image of both nations and solve nothing except to keep the ironically named Minutemen off the streets. No cheap chain-link razor-wire perimeter with security cameras for us, like some mid-America U-Haul trailer rental lot. Just like the Great Wall of China, our wall should be an architectural marvel.

We should invite architects from both sides of the US and Mexico border to submit designs in steel, glass, adobe, and tile. The wall should represent the best of Tex-Mex culture, festooned in flowers, cactus, Mariachi, Texas Twang, with barbecue on the north and tamales to the south. Everyday would be fiesta day along the border.

This project could employ hundreds of thousands of laborers for years and bilingual tour guides for centuries on both sides of the border, providing good jobs and reason enough for everyone to stay home.

Such a wall would become a world class tourist destination jump starting the economy all along the border. Think of the merchandizing opportunities, the food service franchises, the on-location filming, the extreme sport handball events, the spike in "wall front" and "wall view" property values.

US citizens could sit atop the wall and watch Mexican league baseball games below with a left field wall that makes Fenway's green monster look like a stockade fence.

Now this would be a legacy to leave our children. This would be a campaign issue that all could support. Good neighbors. Isn't that what we all hope for?