10. Republican Propaganda

I must confess that I have some strong opinions about the Republican Party of today's America. I sincerely believe that they should heed their fearless leader, Mr. Dick Cheney’s advice.

I received a piece of Republican propaganda, disguised as a survey, from the congressman Tim Walberg. By the way, I hope there is a way to request a refund of tax from the waste of conducting this survey. That enraged me enough to write out this response to this piece of utter lie and propaganda.

1. I believe that this country is on the right track, no matter how hard the Republicans works to drag this country into the muddy pit of last millennium.
2. My top priorities are economy and jobs, education, healthcare, in that order.
3. I believe that the single best tool to get our deficit spending under control is not just cutting spending, not just increasing taxes. It is something more complicated than the simple Republican minds capable of imagining.
4. I think that the Congress should replace the Obamacare with universal healthcare.
5. It has stayed the same for me. But what does the Congressman care? Mr. Walberg probably is insured for the rest of his useless life.
6. The government should play a proper role accordingly to our taxes pay for. As for now, I don't think the Congress has been doing the job that my taxes would have paid for. I do not pay for you idiots to stop the President from being re-elected. I pay tax so that the nation is secured, my family gets proper healthcare, my children gets good schools and my roads get potholes fixed.
7. Yes, I do believe the economy is going to get better in the next year.
8. I believe the nation needs to have a comprehensive energy policy, one that includes the use of more renewable energy, less fossil fuels, to the extend possible. I believe the pursuit of renewable energy technologies will move the nation forward, create vitality in the economy and jobs with that.
9. Yes, I do believe that the impact of jobs and wages should be considered when new regulations are written. But I also believe jobs and wages are only one of the aspects of regulations may impact the nation. As an example, the nation should do as much as possible to prevent another financial infrastructure melt-down like what happened in 2007.
10. In the long term, I believe in balancing the federal budget. But forcing a balanced budget for the sake of a balanced budget is equivalent of tying the nation's hands. I do not believe that would increase economy security for families, nor produce more job opportunities for Americans.
11. I believe one plus one equals two should be true regardless where you live. I believe that national educational standards would help students, teachers and parents. Having one standard per school distract means that there is no standard.
12. Yes, I do agree with the president's action regarding undocumented immigrants. I just wish that those of you in the nation's congress have the intelligence and courage to legislate on the matter.
13. I get most of my news and information from read local news paper (online and in print), listening to local and national radio, using Twitter and other online media sources. I watch the The Daily Show for critical reporting and Fox News for comedy.

(Hmm, 13! That is my lucky number.)

9. "Against School"

Here I am, sitting in the cafeteria, reading an article with one of my college freshmen that she has to respond to as a communications class assignment.

I have never attended or taught public school in this country, so I am obviously no expert in anything when it comes to schooling. My high school graduation class had north of 1200 students in 22 classrooms. But that was 1979 and that was China.

I should say I agree with many of the author's points. I do think a school could be a boring place, especially if a student doesn't get to participate in much of what are happening in the school, or if a student gets unlucky teachers who are not interested in teaching. But I also agree with the author's grandfather, "that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's."

I don't think leaving children's education solely to the devices of their own or their families' serves the best interest of a society as a whole. We have not yet eliminated poverty, inequality and many other ills of human societies. The public school system may very well need reform, re-engineering, and so on. But it may be the only vehicle to an education available to many people. True, the author provided many good example of success without a crippling schooling, but it seems not unfair to argue that the author is trying to prove a rule with exceptions.

If schools are holding children back in childishness, isn't that the entire society's doing? Kids today may not be home alone until a certain age, they are driven around to play with friends or to any activities, they are told from a very young age to not talk to strangers. The grown-ups try to keep them safe in every possible way, while ignoring the risk of keeping them childish at the same time.

It seems that we should not be against school, rather, we should be against how people operate schools.

8. My Vote

For me, the eight years from 2001 through 2008 was the most depressing period of time in my life. It started with an idiot being elected president when a country gave up reason to change for the sake of change. Then there was 911, two wars followed, and the country re-elected the idiot who could not even manage a straight smile. The complete discarding of reason was stupifying and the ensuing sorrow was intense.

Now we are at that moment again.

There are too much noise in all kinds of media these days, a little bit more from a nobody would not make much of a difference -- making a difference is not my point anyways.

I tried my choices on iSideWith.com -- it turned out that I sided more with Jill Stein. I am not a Democrat and I probably will never be one. But I have decided to vote for President Obama.

I haven't figured out how the Republicans got to label themselves the conservatives. In my mind, they have never been conservative on anything for as far back as I could remember. They gave false testimonies in front the world about weapons of mass destruction to start the Iraq war. They told the country that the Iraq war would pay for itself. They make up laws to force their opinions on people. Their stupidity seems bottomless and their hypocrisy knows no bounds. It just seems to me, that if they like hiking the Appalachian Trail so much, we should put them where they belong: In the wild woods.

The Republicans are radicals -- Let's just call a spade a spade.

I admit that I don't personally hate all Republicans. I'll even publicly admit that I voted for one here in Michigan: Governor Rick Snyder the last time around. But I probably will never vote for another one if the GOP stays its course. Bill Maher is right: When you vote for one Republican, they are getting the whole bag of them almost all of the time. Here in Michigan, even Mr. Snyder has to hold his nose to live along his Republican fellows. So, I am guessing, they probably will not like how I will vote in matters on the ballot:

• I think the people who work to earn a living deserves the rights to collectively bargain with (or, should I say against?) the organized money men;
• I believe a new international bridge to Canada is a good thing for the economy of this region;
• I believe Michiganders deserve quality of life, yes, even those who live by River Rouge.

There are still more homework to do. But I think my vote is fairly clear at this point.

7. "Think Different"

I am sitting in my car reading the Steve Jobs biography, Chapter 25 -- Think Different, which talks about his second coming at Apple and him launching the new advertisement theme.

I smile at the amount of irony in it: Apple may be thinking different, but an Apple user can only use an Apple product the way they are told to; App developers have to follow Apple's rules to make Apple products they run on look good. There is not much of different you can think or do.

Linux, to me, is the real thing when it comes to think different. Using an Apple product does not make one think different.

6. A Tragedy

On this April 1^st, this thread became hot on Google Plus. What's more interesting are the comments that follow: Many say that the truth may never be known. Others blame media for manipulating the tragic case.

We may not know the truth, yet, but from news reports and the published policy reports, audio and video recordings so far, we can get very close to imagining it: A rainy evening, a black teenager walking to his residence from a store, talking on the phone, with his hoodie up, saw a guy in white T-shirt following him. As any reasonable person in this situation would do, he started running away from the follower. He saw the guy starting to pursue him. He hid between houses, but then he was found by the follower. What happened next, happened fast -- People in the surroundings heard screaming and what could be the pursuer yelling help -- which ended with a gunshot and a dead teenager. The entire tragedy completed in less then 20 minutes. But the story obviously could not and should not end there.

At this point, I would not label the shooter a racist as that would deflect the discussion. But I could say, he obviously has strong opinions about those he perceived as bad guys. He probably thought that his life was in danger when he yelled help and then pulled out his gun. All that is not completely unreasonable.

But there are other things that people who defend the shooter seem to miss: He carries a gun in a residential neighborhood. I assume that he has thought about that and he is ready to use it when necessary. I can buy the argument that a law abiding citizen has the right to bear arms and all that. But to use it in a residential neighborhood anytime they perceive danger? I thought the police system is setup to do that, and in this case, the police was in the process of taking care of the situation as reported by the shooter. When the shooter decided to pursue the bad guy who looked like was running away, he obviously put all others in that same neighborhood as secondary to whatever he wanted to do. Listening to the lady on the phone with police with a voice shaken out of her control, I can not imagine the area as a war zone that requires people to carry guns to protect themselves. Neither do I understand the logic (if there is any) that the shooter has to pursue the teenager rather than letting the police handling the situation.

Those who say anything about the hoodie in their arguments, I have to assume that they are not serious or they do not think before they post their opinions. I myself have a few of them and I do see high school students wearing them all the time. I do not buy the argument that, from now on, I should be watching my back when I wear a particular piece of clothing.

I understand that law has no power against stupidity, but we should not have laws encouraging stupidity. The Florida stand your ground law seems to be one of those.

As for media manipulating the case, I would say that hey have not done enough in this case as they seem to have only found out about it almost a month after. This case is one tragedy too many already. But if we do not learn anything from it, more are bound to come.

5. Historical Record

No matter what happens now, this US supreme court case is historical.

This US supreme court healthcare hearings transcript and audio analysis is worth saving as a record of the whole thing.

It seems that the US is not alone in the struggle to balance healthcare and its costs -- Really hope I could find the story on NPR this morning about healthcare in Germany.

I guess the process to make universal healthcare a reality in the US is very much the same like the process to realize democracy in China. Progress always seems to be three steps forward followed by two steps back. Without a super majority in the population going for a tremendous endeavor like that, we all just have to wait and see while doing little bits of good in the hope to push things along. It is probably against my religion to wish the conservatives on the supreme court wise up a bit. But, oh well......

4. Hanging in the Balance

Once again, the whole country is hanging in the balance. The welfare of most of the people is balanced on the nine wise people -- It's like Déjà vu all over again, twelve years later.

I don't deny that there are possibly some sincere people who are against the Affordable Care Act, but I have a hard time following their logic. Driving home in the evening, NPR reporting on the day's supreme court drama said one man actually suggested one could buy health insurance in the ER, or when health insurance is needed. That, to me, just shows the nutty-ness of the people arguing against the law.

Here is a paragraph from the NPR reporting:

Justice Scalia disagreed, suggesting that the health care regulations here were defined too broadly. "It may well be that everybody needs health care sooner or later, but not everybody needs a heart transplant, not everybody needs a liver transplant," he said. "...[e]verybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market. Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli."

I have heard that before. To put it delicately, I find that conclusion completely absurd. How does everybody is in the market for food lead to you can make people buy broccoli? Since when does broccoli become synonym for food?

Hard to believe that I actually finished listening to the entire session. I didn't expect it would be so much fun to listen to the supreme court either. The justices are pretty impressive, especially Chief Justice Roberts. He sounds very much balanced and composed in his questioning and statements. I do think some times they pretend to be old and dumb.

The arguments back and forth about whether the penalty part is or is not tax. It's funny to hear the government Solicitor General defending people who don't want to call it a tax, but in the mean time they are in fact exercising Congress' taxing power.

The real irony is that, many who are against the Act, who want the government out of their healthcare, like the woman in the NPR report, are actually on Medicare or Medicaid.

"Stupidity is a preexisting condition." -- Bill Maher

I guess he is right.