Acrassicauda Makes it Into America, Gets a Guitar From Metallica

Good news. Acrassicauda, the excellent metal band that had to flee Iraq during the worst of the religious-fueled violence, has been granted asylum in the states and got to meet Metallica (that's the greatest band of all time, not like I'm biased). From NYT:

And on Sunday night, two days after the last of the band’s four members was resettled in the United States, they enjoyed what any metal fan would have to call heaven: bearhugs and “Wow, dude” heart-to-hearts backstage with Metallica at the Prudential Center in Newark. It probably wasn’t necessary for James Hetfield, Metallica’s lead singer, to surprise them after the show by handing over one of his guitars, a black ESP, and signing it “Welcome to America”; their minds were already blown.

“That’s for keeping the faith,” Mr. Hetfield said, adding as he disappeared with his entourage down a corridor, “Write some good riffs.”

This brings up the question of why more Iraqi refugees (not just the ones who can thrash) aren't allowed to settle in the United States (particularly those who helped us out). There's been less than 20,000 a year, despite the fact that there is already a large Iraqi community in Dearborn, Michigan which could easily assimilate more. Following the fall of Saigon, 135,000 refugees were allowed into America and the Vietnamese community in Los Angeles/Orange County quickly rose to affluence. Clearly, a revamping of our immigration policy, which is a bureaucratic clusterfuck, is needed. The Whitehouse.gov website has some terse language addressing immigration, but it's probably on the backburner as Obama feebly struggles to save the economy by running up the national debt.

Our nation has done well over the past 400 or so years because the best people from all over the world who have the courage to start a new life have crossed onto our shores. No reason to stop that now. A new metal band to electrify the genre highlights this point.