What should I write about in these incredibly tumultuous times? It’s impossible to keep up with the Ukraine details. Then there’s asking China to investigate the Bidens when Donald Trump Jr. developed luxury condos in Indonesia with millions in cash from a China-owned construction business. And Reuters reports that Ivanka Trump’s Chinese trademarks include voting machines. How do we handle the just-joking defense, not to mention the bullying, denials, distractions, and denunciations? Despite everything, the reality will emerge. It will become a question of severity. Is this an impeachable offense or inappropriate behavior? My answer is yes to both. So now what?
When they first came to America, my parents, now Asian Americans, lived in a cramped apartment, first in New York, and then in Boston. My father likes to recount stories of how he would have to make multiple treks in the middle of New England snowstorms to buy diapers because they didn’t have enough money for bus fare.
I hate the idea of abortion. I hate everything about it and I know I have plenty of company. No one has warm fuzzy thoughts about abortion. Whether you’re pro or anti-abortion, the term evokes pain and suffering as well as sorrow and mourning, Abortion has been a political football for as long as I remember, but the game has become more intense than ever.
Abortion was just a whisper in high school back in the sixties when a friend got pregnant at sixteen. She had the baby, dropped out of school, and never returned. It wasn’t an uncommon story since Roe vs. Wade didn’t became law until 1973. Birth control pills weren’t even a whisper because while legal in 1965, it was only for married couples. Unmarried women weren’t allowed to purchase birth control until 1972, another seven years.
I just love the U.S. I have no desire to visit there, but I am thrilled by their homeland history where feudalism was eclipsed by the American struggle for independence, where from slavery there was an elevation, to a capitalist economy which paved the way to become an epitome of Justice, Liberty and Fraternity.
But, of late, the essence of feudal vices being emanated from their very core of social life is a grave concern for all who love freedom and liberty. I am worried that it may lose their pristine essence of the land of liberty, for which many aspire to embark upon.
Do we have to continue with “I’m okay and you’re an idiot” in our political life? The short answer is no, but getting there will not be easy. For months now we have been subjected to unremitting political ads that attempt to portray the opponent as a bad person. “They will do this to you”…… “They are this (negative) kind of person” and so on. As people came out of the polls from recent elections, one of the common things said was how people were looking forward to the end of relentless attack ads.
To celebrate my birthday, I addressed a group of Global Scholars at Chattanooga State Community College on the societal trends in this political environemnt through the lens of cultural anthropology. Chattanooga is experiencing major cultural shifts as globalization transforms the South’s demographics. We are very much in need of a new generation with global leadership skills, multicultural expertise, and political involvement.
Listening to the national news programs of late as they report on the intensifying threat from North Korea has raised my ire. Much is made about the future potential of North Korean weapons to hit major population centers of the USA such as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angles as well as South Korea and its large contingent of American military personnel. Without question all Americans need to share this concern. But mention is rarely, if ever made, of the even greater and current threat to the Pacific regions of Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas and American Samoa. Parts of Alaska also fall into this category. To me it seems that we value the lives of those Americans less than those of us living on the U.S. mainland. We have little sense as a nation of the apprehension currently felt over the North Korean threat by our fellow citizens in places such as Guam.
I sat in the audience of a university theater and listened to elected officials and professors ruminate on inclusion in the upcoming political election. It was Chicago in the 1990s and as in-your-face then as it is now. The discussion over race was loud and raucous as the candidates, Caucasian and African American, went toe to toe. As the debate turned to women, the all-male stage veered into the surreal. It turned into a shouting match as to who was more popular with the ladies. They gestured wildly about the numbers of women who called them, trying to prove that who was the more politically correct and more popular among the ladies.
The world was stunned by the election of Donald Trump. People and pundits alike are debating with each other -How could this happen? – What does this mean for the rest of the world? The answers are as complex as the reasons Trump was selected by the Electoral College. As an entrepreneur living abroad in Paris, France I can tell you that recent events over the past year or so have this place spinning with dread, anxiety, and uncertainty.
What should I write about in these incredibly tumultuous times? It’s impossible to keep up with the Ukraine details. Then there’s asking China to investigate the Bidens when Donald Trump Jr. developed luxury condos in Indonesia with millions in cash from a China-owned construction business. And Reuters reports that Ivanka Trump’s Chinese trademarks include voting machines. How do we handle the just-joking defense, not to mention the bullying, denials, distractions, and denunciations? Despite everything, the reality will emerge. It will become a question of severity. Is this an impeachable offense or inappropriate behavior? My answer is yes to both. So now what?