Only 2 phrases in Chinese a guy needs

The first phrase is Ni hen mei li. This means you’re telling a Chinese  girl she’s beautiful. Don’t worry about the use of the word “girl”  In China a woman can be called a girl until she’s 30.

The second phrase shows how well your first phrase worked: Wo ting Tai Tai de. That means I listen to my wife. You should be prepared to say that frequently.

No Porches in Southern California

When folks moved to Southern California from the Midwest the first thing they built was a house with a great porch. (This was when the Iowa Picnic was the largest event in the state). They soon came to regret this, because Southern California does not have twilight. If you’ve never been here you can’t imagine how cold a concept that is. You and your friends can’t sit in the evening twilight and discuss the kids or the folks left behind in Des Moines.

Jill Lepore Keeps Helping Me Refine My Perspective on America

The thing I’ve always hated about American History is the incidences of cruelty. I’ve never wanted to spend much time reading about Andrew Jackson because there was so much cruelty then. I always have two or three books going at the same time and one of them is Jill Lepore’s one volume American History. I’m a Mayflower descendant(for all that’s worth) and my relatives all may have their place in the barbarism (John Brown caused a lot of deaths at Harpers Ferry and he clearly didn’t have all his marbles). We all celebrate Columbus Day and many seem to think it’s part of American History (When Columbus landed on Hispaniola there were 3,000,000 people. 50years later there were  500. )These are truths Lepore brings out. She says we just might as well start with 1492 because “the Nation’s founding truths were forged in a crucible of violence, the products of staggering cruelty and slaughter.”
In my mind I can see Trump as a cruel slaveholder with a whip. It would be easy for him because he only cares about himself. This is not a man who could write “Amazing Grace.”

Netflix Will Do Anything for Money

I’ve been out and about in West Los Angeles, where Netflix is promoting an interview with Ted Bundy, a man who has killed countless number of women. He has to be a very sick dude who will just show us how he thinks. We need to know this, why? So copycats can begin their plans for their multiple killings of women? I will never look at this and the fact that Netflix has done this shows that there are people at Netflix who will do anything for money. What’s next a collection of beheaings of missionaries.

Let Them Eat Cake

If it wasn’t bad enough that federal employees were working without a paycheck or furloughed without an income, they had to listen to a billionaire, Secretary of Commerce Ross question why they went to food banks, when they just could have gotten a loan (loans from the Commerce credit union had a rate of 8.98 percent). Everyone has awakened to the fact that Trump and his minions can’t relate to a TSA employee making $35,000 a year. Trump’s people believe in right wing ideas you can only afford to have if your daddy is always giving you large amounts of money. Fitzgerald once said “the rich are different from you and me.” Ain’t it the truth.

Girl From the North Country

When I go out and test my disability with a walk in the Neighborhood, I always hear a song I didn’t know I had. At first it was a country playlist. Then I added the rock I loved growing up. After that I added the singers I loved from popular music; Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney( before White Christmas) Jo Stafford (what a voice) and some others I can’t forget. Today, although I probably had it there for a long time, thanks to APPL music, I heard Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan singing “Girl from the North Country. I gues that’s enough to take my mind off the pain as I wonder what’s next.

Trump Doesn’t Want a Deal with China

Trump doesn’t want a deal with China. He just called off an important meeting between the two powers. What he wants is headlines while he fiddles while Rome burns. His negotiator, Robert Lighthizer believes, like Trump, that China is a potentially existential threat to the American economy. Only America has the right to be a world power. China promised to buy American goods that would even up the trade balance, so China is trying to get an agreement. China will soon have 5G, which we won’t have. That is 100 times as fast as 4G. They couldn’t have stolen that from us because we don’t have it. If APPL only has 4G, who in China will buy their phones? Assuming the Chinese are a bunch of dopes who can only steal from us, is writing off 5,000 years of history, where to move up you had to pass hard exams. The Shanghai school district has the best students on the planet. American students aren’t even  in the same league. When you have taught college students who can’t really read, as I have, you know where we stand as a country.

Trump’s Bullshit on DACA

Trump, the Antichrist, did a very nasty thing in his recent attempt to put an end to the shutdown that’s making America look like a joke to the countries that used to respect us. Obama, who had an adult heart capable of compassion, created DACA to help the children who were brought here illegally and have thrived here. Implicit in this program was that it lead to citizenship. Trump offered to not deport them for three years.
Oh great, they can hang in limbo for three more years before we toss them out, especially if the Republicans remain in office. There are few Republicans that have anything approaching a heart.(When they do an autopsy on them will we find out where they have hidden the 666)

My Wonderful Chinese Friends

Now that we’ve heard from Kai Fu Lee and his glorification of these take no prisoners internet entrepreneurs, I’d like to talk about the wonderful Chinese friends who have made my life better. Chinese that I know take friendship very seriously. One of my friends made me The Godfather to his son, Ethan. When I couldn’t get to Beijing to see him, he flew to Nanjing and we talked for a couple of hours.
Some friends just came to visit us and, because she knew I loved it, brought me a lot of Long Jing Cha (Dragon Well Tea). It was great to have them here and because she teaches acupuncture at a prestigious university, took out the disposable needles she travels with and worked on me because my disability involves a lot of pain.
I won’t be able to travel anymore, I hope you’ll find the joy I felt visiting China. You should always bring a gift when you visit the home of a friend. The most common gifts are tea or scarves (so they probably have a closet full already) so come up with something original. Be yourself, it has worked very well for me, and you can get close to someone Chinese much faster than in America where many people have different masks to put on to protect themselves . Friendships are formed quickly. If you know how cold Los Angeles is, be prepared for a different world.

Chinese Don’t Care What They Have To Do To Get Rich

People who know China know that most businessmen in the Middle Kingdom will do anything to make money. Now the former head of China Google extols the mindset that says  making money is the only thing that matters to the entrepreneurs who are working on Artificial Intelligence and creating new internet platforms.
Kai Fu Lee says “they are first and foremost market-driven. Their ultimate goal is to make money, and they are willing to create any product, adopt any model or go into any business that will accomplish that objective.
“It doesn’t matter where an idea came from or who came up with it. All that matters is whether you can execute it to make a financial profit. The grand prize is getting rich and it doesn’t matter how you get there.”
He states this in his new book”A1 Superpowers:China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order”
I personally know many Chinese people with tremendous ethics and a strong moral sense, but Lee is not talking about my friends, but of some amoral entrepreneurs he believes will get to run the world’s internet because they will do anything to win.
I’m glad I bought this book because  now I am scared shitless about what happens next between our two countries. This book does not make me sleep easy.

Is Trump a Russian Agent?

Trump and Putin have met five times. We’ve never been told what they talked about. In fact, on one occasion Trump took the interpreters notes away from him/her. The FBI has been trying to find out if he’s an agent. So, the Republicans try to demean the FBI and question the agency’s integrity. We need to know why Trump is always praising Putin. Is it because he’s a traitor?

Fang Pi

Like a lot of us, Chairman Mao didn’t trust Russia. He famously said that when Russians open their mouths Fang Pi comes out. In Chinese fang pi means farts. We don’t know whether Trump was acting as a Russian agent or not, but Many of us agree that when Trump opens his mouth fang pi emerges.

Trump is incapable of speaking without lying or blaming others for problems he created. So the next time Trump appears on the television , say fang pi and switch to another channel.

S.W. Hubbard and her Adirondack Mysteries

A great novelist, S.W. Hubbard, has create an Adirondack mystery series featuring Frank Bennet, a small town sheriff as mortal as the next man, but full of warmth (most of the time) for his fellow man. You go along with a character who suddenly turns out to have hidden depths.  You make assumptions that are proven untrue. I’ve read the five books in the series and wonder what I’ll do now that I can’t live near the park anymore. My grandmother was a Whitney from Lake Placid and I am related to the John Brown who led the raid on Harpers Ferry, so this would be my kind of world. However, with a heavy heart I say goodbye. Now it’s your turn to read these books.

Lawyers Show Manafort is a Traitor

Paul Manafort, who was once Trump’s campaign manager, shared political polling data with a business associate with ties to Russian intelligence. This sleazy information was mistakenly included in a court filing by Manafort’s lawyers. It was a formatting error in a document which was supposed to respond to charges Manafort lied to prosecutors after he agreed to cooperate with them. It reminded me of Hamlet where they say first let’s kill the lawyers. Manafort’s legal team should have been hit by a bus in order to not bring this evidence so close to Trump’s hierarchy. There are so many of the Presidents cohorts and children under investigation it resembles cleaning a cesspool.

How We Ended Up With Trump

I held my nose in 2016 and voted for Hillary. It’s clear that the people running the DNC wanted her to be the candidate, but would another Democrat have lost to Trump and started this long national nightmare. I personally don’t believe it. Her husband cheated on her with many women and she was mute about it. She and Bill always wanted to be both politically successful and rich. She knew she was going to be running for President after she stopped being Secretary of State, but she accepted invitations to speak to banks for a lot of money. The Clintons always thought they were entitled to both money and power. It ended badly, but it wasn’t just Trump’s fault. I despise him and call him the Antichrist, but the Democrats provided him with enough help that they can’t be held blameless.

Apple’s Incredible Arrogance

I wrote a blog earlier about how the most highly rated analyst said the AAPL phones were too expensive to sell at the price AAPL had listed. Let’s look at the reasoning behind their decision making. When Steve Jobs died he didn’t leave one cent to charity. There has always been the assumption at AAPL that we are better and can charge what we want. It’s not important how we treat our customers because they will always come back. Let’s see how that worked. Since October 13, 2018, AAPL stock has lost 39.1 percent of its value. Out of the S and P 500, 496 stocks are worth less in total than the amount AAPL lost. I love their operating system, but hate that I’m linked to a company that doesn’t give a shit what I have to pay to stay in it.

We Need Hope to Survive Trump

As a Mayflower descendant I care just about as much for our country as I’m sure you do. Because I truly beleve that we were all created equal I can see a time in which we all work together to undue the destructive moves Trump has made to injure our environment and pit citizen against citizen. Remember those few days after 9/11 when we all felt like one people and we treated strangers as if they were friends? I hope we can experience that again, because with all Americans working together there isn’t anything we can’t do.

If you’re disabled, don’t Fly Alaska

I wonder who puts these Airlines evaluations together. Let me state the facts. Because of my disabilities, my wife and I decided to fly first class for the first time in our lives. Our daughter is an MD in Hawaii and we knew this was the last long airplane trip I would ever take. United checked our bags at the curb and showed up with a wheelchair. Later we would be met with a wheelchair in Hawaii where you get up to the exit ramp. We were surrounded with extra long blanket pillows and I could recline so the piriformis wouldn’t press on my sciatic nerve.
The return was very unpleasan. Although they knew I was disabled, I and my wife had to carry five bags to the counter. Before we got there, we put the bags through the agricultural check required by Hawaii. I saw an Alaska employee and asked for help. He took our bags and put them through the agricultural check again and then walked away. No one would help us get our bags to the counter. When we got there I handed the woman my California proof of disability and they finally issued me a boarding pass. Their first class was like business class on other airlines. The entire trip my piriformis pressed on my sciatic nerve and I really wanted to die. The difference between the two airlines was stark and I should have flown coach home. Never believe the airline rankings.