No tears for Gaza

Some Americans and some in the Democratic Party are protesting against the suffering and death in Gaza because of the Israeli retaliatory attacks.  While I sympathize with the innocent Gazans during this war, it is hard for me to be truly sympathetic for them as a group.  Why?  For starters, they are not truly innocent in all of these conflicts.  The Palestinians of Gaza ousted the PLO and installed Hamas as their government.  And who initiated the war?  It was Hamas who initially attacked Israel on October 7. Hamas killed and kidnapped the Israeli.   And now that Israel fought back and showed their military superiority against Hamas, the Gazan cries being the victim.  And if they want an end to the conflict, why won't Hamas return all the hostages for cease fire?  And if Hamas truly cared for their citizens, why would they use Hospitals as human shields?  Hamas is an evil organization who only cared for the destruction of Israel.  And the Gazan who installed them in power are complicit to their crimes.  So this is why I can't sympathize with the Gazan during this conflict.  I do want this war to end and everybody in that region live their lives peacefully.  It is now up to Hamas to return the hostages because frankly, they do not have the upper hand.

Facetime with friends for New Years eve

 New years eve this year was actually more fun than the previous years.  Usually it is just me and my mom watching TV and not even paying attention to the strike of midnight to welcome the new year.  But this year since my friends all stayed at home and avoided the gathering with their family/friends, they were available to video chat.  And I actually had something to do besides watching TV for New Years eve.  Video chatting with good friends is more fun and diverting than just watching TV.  So for that, I say thank you pandemic.  It is a nice silver lining.

Happy new year everybody.  Hopefully 2021 is a better year.

Parties during a pandemic

During the Covid 19 pandemic here in America, there are still people who are resistant to the government mandate of mask wearing, social distancing and no large gatherings.  Many Americans have politicize the science behind Covid.  These are mostly Trump Republicans who follow the lead of Donald and what he is saying.  Donald is such an idiot that he does not heed the advise of his administration's medical experts so we as a nation are not able to cut down our infection rate successfully.  Besides the Trump Republicans, there is a large segment of the young population who does not take Covid seriously.  They think it won't affect them since they are young so they go on with their hedonistic selfish behaviors of gathering in large parties without mask or going out to the beaches.  Every time I see a face book post of "gatherings", I cringe cause I know these are not helpful in curbing the infection.  I almost hope they get Covid and learn their lesson.  Even if one survives Covid, the sickness alone is very grave.  Days or weeks of hospitalization and even use of ventilators.  On top of that there is the blood clots, heart damage and kidney damage. I for one am going to self quarantine at home till at least we get a vaccine.  A vaccine is the glimmer of hope to get some protection from Covid.  I can't wait for it.

Saddest St Patty's Day

Tomorrow will be the saddest St. Patty's Day in my memory.  Why?  It is because of the corona virus pandemic happening at the moment.  Many State and Local governments are mandating that bars / restaurants closes and any social gatherings like concert / parades cancelled.  What is St. Patrick's Day but a day for parade and public drinking at bars.  So without these events, what is there to do for St. Patty's Day?  Am I right?  Sad St. Patty's Day indeed.

Dude that is too heavy for you!

There are several signs one can recognize at the gym that the guy is lifting weights way too heavy for his own good.  He is prolly just a show off or he is doing it all wrong.

1.  If he drops the weight and make a load noise, then it is too heavy.  If he can not even lower the weights slowly and has to resort to dropping it, then it shows he has no eccentric control for that amount of resistance.  Or he is just a jerk.

2.  If he has to use his whole body to do a simple bicep curls.  This is when the guys swings the weights up using his legs and trunk.  He is simply using momentum generated by his legs and trunk to complete that bicep curls.  Dude it is too heavy!

3.  If he has to grunt so loudly to lift the weights, it is prolly too heavy.  Or he is just a guy who craves the attention of others.

4.  If he can not be bothered to return the weights to its proper place, then it must be too heavy.  Who wants to lift that heavy weight again to rack it up if it is way too heavy?  Or he is just a slob.

5.  If he can only do less than 5 reps then it is too heavy.  A true sign of strength is the ability to do at least 10 repetition maximum with good form.

6.  If he has to use "spotter" to do his lift, then he has no confidence that he won't drop that weight on his face/body.  This shows no control and it is only when the weight is too heavy for his strengths.

Auto lock doors in cars

Are we a society that we have to have everything automated for us?  Can the car markers not trust us enough that we know how and when to lock our car doors?  I know locking the doors has safety purposes and perhaps car markers do not want to be sued if they do not automate door locking.  But it is just annoying that I have to physically unlock the doors to let somebody out or in my vehicles. 

Back when I was not yet "woke"

There has been a lot of backlash with Virginia Governor Northam for wearing a "black face" on a yearbook picture and/or during a dance contest dressed as Michael Jackson with black face when he was in school.  I know now that it is very inappropriate to wear back face as a costume or for any kind of cultural appropriation like wearing a Mexican sombrero with mexican outfit.  But I must admit that back in the 80s and 90s when I was much younger, I was not "woke" yet to know better.  I have skirted at the idea of dressing up as a native American indian with feather on my head or as a Japanese Geisha with painted white face.  I am not American Indian or Japanese so it would have been racist of me to do so.   It seems that it was not a big deal back then.  Or perhaps I was just ignorant then.  So how is being ignorant equate to being a racist?  Shouldn't racism be judge based on willful malicious acts rather than acts out of ignorance?  I am very conflicted on this matter especially as it relates to Governor Northam's past transgression.  Is he truly racist or just did some stupid thing back when he did not know any better?

2 Trump voters that may just as well damned themselves.

Voter number one is an Indian American born here in America but both parents are from Gujarat, India.  So for all intent and purposes, this guy is very Americanize.  He was a coworker and we are facebook friends.  During the campaign and election, he was a vocal Trump supporter.  I would often engage in a friendly courteous debate with him about Trump vs Hillary.  I congratulated him when Trump won the electoral colleges but soon after I just unfollowed him in Facebook.  No point in trying to convince him and I did not care to see his pro Trump posts any longer.  So I do not know now what his stand on Trump having seen the last 2-3 months.  A lot of the white racist Trump's supporters are so emboldened by Trump's win and are showing blatantly their racist disregard to non white people.  So I wonder if my Indian friend in Florida has encountered any racism against him from his fellow Trump supporters who are white.  As far as those racist Trumpsters are concern, my Indian friend is the same as a Pakistani terrorist.  That would be sad but my friend did this to himself.

Voter number two is a temp coworker from Egypt who I found out supported Trump.  He looks Arab but is not a Muslim.  He is in fact a coptic christian.  But as I mentioned earlier, those racist Trumpsters would assume he is Muslim just base on his appearance.  I also wonder if he has encountered any racism from them.  I may not know his well, but it would still be unfortunate if he did.   Again, he did this to himself.

Voter's Remorse is coming.

I read an article several months ago by Michael Moore that the angry white male vote will propel the demagogue Donald Trump to the White House.  He was hoping he would be wrong but boy was he right.  Donald won and mostly from middle America.  The more diverse and progressive states went to Hillary.  I feel this election was mostly a protest vote by the privileged white male for loosing their influence in a society that is giving more equal rights for minorities, women and LGBT.  They are angry at the status quo because their ways are changing for the better.  It did not matter that Donald is caught in the act of boosting to be a sex offender.  It did not matter that Donald refuses to release his income tax in fear that his unsavory business dealings will be expose.  It did not matter that Donald does not really know how to run a country.  Facts did not matter.  All that mattered is that they are angry at the politicians and wanted to give their middle finger through their votes.  All established politicians starting from the primaries to the general election lost to the "outsider" Donald.  And the voters did prevail in voicing their anger.  Well this is how our democracy works .  The majority of the Electoral Colleges select the president.

But the sad part of all these fiasco is everybody will suffer from the repercussion of a Trump presidency.  Stock market will suffer in the long run.  The economy will suffer.  And guess what?  Even those who voted for Trump will also feel the folly of their actions.  In fact, I will venture to say that those "red" states will suffer more than the progressive "blue" states.  So the jokes on those who voted for Trump.  Soon enough they will have voter's remorse.

Renewed faith that many things are resolved by talking

The other day at my ghetto gym, I had an encounter with one member that renewed my faith in humanity.  It reaffirmed my belief that many conflicts can be resolved by talking.

I was at the gym and was ready to use one machine.  There was nobody there but a bottled water at the foot of the machine.  So I began to move the machine to my desired setting.  Then a man came over saying he IS using the machine.  I told him that he was not otherwise he would be actually using it.  He said he was at the other machine and he left is water bottle to indicate that he is using the machine.  I told him that he can't really reserve a machine.  If he is not using it at that moment, anybody else can use it.  And I left it at that and told him he could have it.  The other machine that I also wanted to use became available and I was not in the mood to argue any further with him.  He looked like the type that I would not want to mess with anyways.  The ghetto brute violent looking type.  So I left.  After using the other machine, I decided to talk to management.  I know that reserving machine is not suppose to happen but tolerated by management.  I asked the front desk what needs to be done cause this brute looking man was reserving a machine he was not using.  Management confirmed my belief that I did have the right to use that machine if he was not there.  Management further added that we were suppose to share and take turns using the machine.  Management said they would talk to the said member.  Before I left, I saw the brute looking man again and decided to peacefully talk to him once more.  I told him that I spoke to management and that we should share the machine next time.  And to my surprise, he was very agreeable.  He added that he was gonna suggest sharing the machine but I left before he could.  I was half expecting him to be unreasonable and act all intimidating but he was calm and smiling.  His reply totally caught me by surprise.  People do response to peaceful resolution in many cases.

Thank goodness to honest Canadians

I am not sure if it is because of honest Canadian or because the crowd were affluent well educated people, but crisis was averted when my friend lost his phone.

During our recent ski trip to Whistler Canada, my friend dropped his skull cap along with his phone in it while were were walking at Whistler village.  He realized that it was gone so his BF used the GPS locating app to find where the phone was.  We discovered that it was inside the police station of the village.  Somebody honest, Canadian or otherwise, picked up the skull cap along with the latest I-phone and dropped it off the police station.  So we went to the police station and after the police confirmed that it was indeed my friend's phone, he got it back.  Crisis was averted and thank goodness that Canadians were honest people in general.  Or perhaps the vacationing people who were there were honest, educated and affluent folks that they don't need to steal an I-Phone.  Who knows?  We were just thankful this happened in Whistler and not in some ghetto area of LA or Chicago.

Force them to learn English.

A lot of my clients are latino and a lot of them don't speak english.  And the majority of those who speaks english are the younger generations who were born and raised here.  Those who only speaks spanish, majority of them have been in this country for several years already and yet they have not learned english.  I blame it on the fact that our society accommodates to them instead of them accommodating to the new life here they choose to adopt.  There are plenty of spanish speaking TV stations and radio stations for them to patronize.  Many business establishments hires bilingual people.  Government offices offers spanish interpreter or spanish speaker.  Even I have to learn spanish so I can work with them.  So if I were a latino migrant on this country, why do I have to learn english when everybody else will speak spanish to me anyways.  There is no incentive for me to learn english at all!  They won't learn english, we speak spanish to them so they furthermore won't bother to learn english.  The cycle repeats itself.

Although I must concede that some of them realizes that learning english will open better employment opportunities beyond being a housekeeper, janitor, factory worker or farm laborer.  So some of them makes an effort to learn english.  I had the pleasure of working with one actually.  Her name is Maria Ortiz.   I applaud her efforts to learn english.  She has the right attitude that many of her cohort fails to grasp.  Unlike Maria, many of migrant latino just simply expects everybody else to speak spanish to them.  Even worst, some demands that somebody should speak spanish.  Yeah I have seen those kinds too.

I feel this is the problem with these migrants.  They don't speak english so they get low paying jobs.  Low income leads to more socio-economic problems.  So if I am a person who can change this, I would have them learn english.  Nobody else should be trying to accommodates to them and speaks spanish to them.  That way, they will be forced to learn english by talking in english and listening in english.  That is how language is learned.  Other migrants are forced to learn english that way.

To be fair, this problem is not unique to latino migrants.  I have seen this amongst chinese migrants who lived all their life here in china town.  They barely speaks any english despite living in America for many years.  So sad...

Slobs are still slobs at the gym

Gym goers have 3 major goals generally speaking.  One is to loose weight and be slimmer.  Two is to build muscle and look better.  And third is to be healthy.  Whatever their goals, the bottom line is "work" is needed to burn calories, build muscle and train the cardiopulmonary system.  And work is done by lifting weights or doing cardio activities.    Lifting weights can make them loose weight and build muscles. 

I have seen this in all the different gyms I have gone to.  And it is the same for my current gym here California.  People who lift weights do not bother to re-rack or return the weights they have used to the proper places.  The result?  A big mess and pile of weights are all over the place.  I often could barely find the particular weights I needed to use.  So I post this question.  Why would they not do the extra work to return or re-rack the weights?  Because this extra effort translates to extra work that will lead to the achievement of their goal which is to loose weight, build muscle or become healthy.  Why would they just leave those weights where they have finished using them?  Why?  Why?  Why?

The answer is simple.  Because slobs are slobs where ever they go.  It is their nature to be messy and slovenly.  Organization and cleanliness elude their personality.  The notion that doing an extra work to re-rack and return weights to the proper places does not simply occur to them.   The next time I see a person not returning or re-racking the weights, bet my bottom dollar their home is mess.

Arrogant and rude way of stating preference

I have nothing against people stating their preference on online profile in a lot of the gay dating phone apps or websites.  This is a free world and it is perfectly reasonable that some people like certain particular kind of people.  What I find distasteful is the way some of these profile state their preference.  They could easily say " I want to meet XXX or YYY guys", but instead they make it sound that certain group of people are lepers or literal trolls.  Just arrogant and rude.  Here are examples of these kind of profiles.

Antivaxxer, gluten free, etc etc

I worked with this woman who was my manager from a previous job.  She is white, college educated, middle age and middle class.  She only eats gluten free food and she talks about glutathione like she is a chemist or nutritionist or medical doctor.  She is the type of person who have enough education on some liberal arts degree to know how to search the internet and understand the surface of some scientific facts and then forms a conviction on something that is controversial in the scientific community at best.  I find these kind of demographic quite annoying.  They are the type who easily joins a bandwagon on some exercise fad like pilates or some food fad like gluten free without truly understanding that fad.  Some of these fads are harmless and perhaps marginally helpful while some are downright harmful.  And one of these harmful fad this demographic tends to have strong opinion on is the anti-vaccination.  They believe claims that have been refuted by an overwhelming majority of the experts in that particular scientific world.  To top it off, they don't even understand fully what they are believing in.  They are educated but not on the right education to be an expert on the very fad they hold a strong conviction on.  So annoying.  So stupid.  If I hear of an antivaxxer mother, I instantly picture that ex manager of mine.  And the thought of her makes my eye roll.

"Bless you"

"Bless you."  That is what most people would say to somebody who sneezes.  As an atheist who suffer from allergic rhinitis and constant sneezing, I hear that a lot and it can get tiresome often.  I know it is only polite etiquette so I usually just ignores them.  Or if I can not ignore their "blessing", I would fake a "thank you" to be polite.

Last Sunday at a store, I sneezed.  This woman who heard me said "bless you".  I was so ready to just ignore her but she said "bless you" again louder to emphasize it to me.  She was obviously expecting me to thank her for the blessing she feels I got from her saying it.  So I just bluntly told her that I do not believe in her god.  And then proceed to fake thank her just to be polite.

As I said, I know people are just being polite by saying it.  But why can't they say "salud" or "gasundheit" which both means health?  I would rather get a positive energy towards my health than a blessing from some useless deity that do not exist.  It is high time people should stop assuming that we all believe in their god.  After all, we have stopped assuming that everybody celebrate christmas so now we do not say "merry christmas" during the holidays.  Instead we say "happy holidays".  It is about time.

Enjoy our civil rights Today

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr day.   MLK was the leader of civil rights for black minorities here in America.  Today, the civil right movement of MLK is not only enjoyed by Black Americans but also by every other minorities including the gay people.  I hope when everybody is enjoying the day off, shopping sale and the easy traffic today, they are remembering MLK and what he stood for.

Almost got cheated at Seafood City

The one on the RIGHT was the original price label printed before it was brought in (out of my sight) to be cut.  After the Seafood city employee brought out the cut meat, I decided to weigh it again and I noticed that it weighed less than it was prior to being cut.  The circled BLUE numbers show the discrepancy of the weight.  So I asked him why it weighed less after he brought it out.  He tried to make an excuse that it was because it was cut.  Common sense tells me that the meat should weigh about the same cut or not cut.  So I argued that no it should not.  To appease me, he printed a new price label (as shown in the LEFT).  Obviously, this employee tried to cheat me out by retaining a piece or two of the cut meat.  Not sure if it was just the employee or a practice endorsed by the management.   I decided to find a manager and complain about this.   They should know that this practice was unacceptable.

I was honestly disappointed to find this thing happening here in America.  Sure the employee was Filipino and the establishment caters to Filipinos but usually that kind of unbecoming practice do not happen here.  It would be extreme poverty that would drive Filipinos back in the Philippines to cheat others. And I did not expect this employee to be that poor to resort to petty theft.  Perhaps it was not so petty if he did it to every customer.  At the end of the day, he would have a lot of meat.  Or perhaps old habit just made his actions second nature to him.  Whatever his reasons were, I am saddened by this event.  

Immigrants, including myself, should not bring their bad practices here.  Because it were these bad practices that made the living conditions back in their home country unpalatable to begin with.  Why else would they come here if they were fine back home?  They came here for a better life, so leave the bad habits behind and start a new.

Youth of our future.

The other morning as I was walking my dogs, I saw 3 teenagers on their way to the high school in my hood.  These teens were two boys and one girl.  They looked like 14 years old but could have been older but just look younger since they were latino or perhaps filipino.  They were walking ahead of me and they would stop to light a cig or something.  As I come closer to them, they would walk on again to keep a healthy distant from me.  They did that several times.  Perhaps they did not want me to see what exactly they were smoking but the scent of marijuana in the air was unmistakable.

So apparently these teens were trying to get high before they get to school.  What a model teen student!!!   And I thought about the future they could possibly have.  Evidently they do not care about school so I would not be surprise if they won't even finish high school.  If they did manage to get their high school diploma, I would not be surprise if the girl gets pregnant at 18 and the guys end up working for Pollo Loco for the rest of their life.  How can I think otherwise when they were more concerned about getting high before even starting their first period in high school.  Their future appears bleak.  It is a shame cause these teens are suppose to be our future. 

The god Delusion video

A Great Documentary about Religion and the delusion of many.