Time for Justice

“Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain.”

Victor Hugo wrote that in 1861, when he was asked on his opinions on the China expedition by the French forces. And in particular, he was referring to the event known in China, and around the world as the burning of the Summer Palace. The story remains a very sensitive topic in modern day China, because it is the prime example of the hundred years of humiliation suffered by the Chinese, brought onto us by a combination of an incapable and corrupt government, a string of natural disasters, and most importantly, by the foreign invaders from the West.

It is laughable that, for a country whose name is synonymous with military defeat, France was able to march alongside of her fellow criminals and cause so much devastation and sorrow on China. Let us skip the historical discussions of the cause and effect of the first and second Opium War, and generalize it as an unfortunate byproduct of the Age of Imperialism led by the Europeans. That is not my central theme today. I want to talk about this upcoming French auction event that will auction two pieces that was looted from the Summer Palace. The two objects are sculptures of the head of a rabbit and that of a rat. These are two of the twelve Chinese zodiac fountain that belonged in the Summer Palace.

They should be returned to China. Plain and simple. They should be returned to China. They should be returned, and be allowed to be put in a local exhibit in China. Not in the Louvre, or the British Museum, which are two of the foremost examples of the legacy of Imperialism in the U.K and France. Think about it, someone had the will and drive to kill, rape, and pillage your property, your fellow human beings, and years later, would still have the audacity to put these objects acquired illegally up on an auction block for sale. These objects are stained by blood, and should be returned to its rightful country, to serve as a silent witness to the crimes that has been committed. These auctioneers decry the petitions from the Chinese by arguing that they are simply housing a private, civilized auction focusing on personal property, but if we analyze that argument, we would find that there is nothing civilized about how these objects came to be in the hands of a private French collector, there is no support of the personal property argument, when, if we trace the billings of transaction on it and find that it was once burnt, sawed off, and hastily spirited out of China.

Here in the U.S, we have the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which is a Federal law that provides a path for museums to return Native American artifacts back to the affected Indian tribes. Some museums, and individuals (e.g Victor Hugo mentioned above) are enlightened and, in my opinion, following the right course of action by voluntarily returning certain artifacts that was obtained illegally. We need to be more vocal, and voice our opinions to a wider audience. Let us tell the world of the story of China in the 19th century, let us tell the story of why we call it the 100 Years of Humiliation, let us tell the story of Hong Kong and Macao, and the story of the signs in Shanghai neighborhoods that read “Chinaman and dogs cannot enter”.

Then perhaps the world can judge, and decide on where these artifacts belong in.

Economic Recovery In Sight?

I woke up this morning to the news of a final vote by the Congress on the massive $790B stimulus plan spearheaded by the Obama Administration.

Think about it for a second, 790 billion dollars of our money that will be flushed into the this fragile economy. Remember what we learned in high school macroeconomics? Sitting through class digesting the WSJ, reading about Horatio Alger’s famous feel good story of “Ragged Dick”, and oh, somewhere along those lines, an equation M*V=P*Q.

M is the total money supply, V is the velocity of money, a.k.a how quickly cash is flowing through people and organizations through purchases. That product is equal to the P, the price level, times the quantity of goods produced. Combined together, the P*Q term is called the nominal total output.

The equation is very abstract, but in this case, it is perfect to illustrate my point. The last administration passed a $700Bn plan to save the actions of many of Wall. St.’s biggest firms, by lending them money to stay afloat, by extending credit lines to make sure they don’t go under. The Feds were more than happy to jumpstart the troubled economy by lowering inter bank lending rates to historic lows, they also committed up to one trillion dollars to buy bonds or assets backed by consumer loans. And now this, the 790 billions dollar plan that’s expected to pass, where roughly 286 billion is for tax cuts, 311 billion is for funding for different programs, and 193 billion in spending for benefit programs like unemployment, etc, etc.

Even if you’ve only skimmed through the above paragraph, you’ll see all the “billion”, “trillion” words jump out at you. All the money that the government is pumping into the economy is definitely going to agitate the economy and flush the market with the M, and that in turn, will speed up the rate at which money changes hands, the V. Once we have faster money circulation, a.k.a consumers buying more goods because they are getting their tax rebates from 2008 (Don’t wait till April, I just filed, and I am getting a boatload back on February 27th), they are getting another tax cut. Big companies can finally secure money to continue develop consumer products to sale to us. Companies like Caterpillar will be able to benefit from the stimulus plan, bid on billion dollar construction projects, and keep their assembly lines running strong. All that will drive up the P*Q term.

There is no doubt we are in a state of flux, but I think we are headed in the right direction of recovery. Who knows, maybe the economy will take off so fast that we might even worry about inflation a couple years down the road. For now, cash your checks, buy that Plasma TV, buy that shiny necklace, buy that company’s stock that you’ve been eyeing for and hoping it’ll dip even lower. It’s in our bones, as Americans, the most insatiable, reckless consumers of this world.

Nice reflexes Mr.President!

Just read the breaking news on the pair of size 10 shoes thrown at President Bush. Watched the video on BBC and youtube from couple different angles. Man, that cat's got reflexes! Way to stay fit. Seriously, and he really kept his cool afterwards. "if you want to know the facts, it was a size 10 shoe"... gotta love that comment.

Now, all jokes aside. This is RUDE. I don't like the guy, I don't agree with his policies. I think he is an idealist that is focused on blossoming Democracy in every corner of this world. The goal is noble, but the approach is rash. He listened to the wrong people... However, it is one thing to disagree on the policies of this administration and criticize him. It is another thing to call our President a dog. You can visit bloggers worldwide, and read all the snickering, lame, and rude remarks that are been posted at this moment. No matter what, it is humiliating, and frankly, very upsetting, to see how humiliated our President was on that podium. History will put his legacy in its rightful place, but until then. He represents the Seal of the President of the United States of America, and that is something special, and cannot be tainted, or ridiculed.

Sucker for more J.J music

林俊杰 不懂

这爱情路究竟
带我们到什么地方
是要持续仍旧珍惜还是回到原地
如今此刻的我的确是有一点疲倦
己经好远了
退也有一点累了
我们都不知道路有多远
走到何时才歇一歇
不如就现在吧
让我们都停下
但是在休息后我们还不知道
继续走的理由
雨都停了 天都亮了
我们还不懂
这爱情路究竟
带我们到什么地方
是要持续仍旧珍惜还是回到原地
如今此刻的我的确是有一点疲倦
雨都停了 天都亮了
我们还不懂
这爱情路究竟
带我们到什么地方
是要持续仍旧珍惜还是回到原地
如今此刻的我的确是有一点疲倦
如今此刻的我的确是有一点疲倦

J.J has some really good, slow music, and right now, this one fits my mood perfectly.

Scheming for greater things (part I of ??)

Maybe I am hitting my midlife crisis already. But lately I've been thinking a lot about what I do everyday, and what I plan to do with my life. I'm starting to realize that I am just working and working and working everyday, going to classes everyday, and not caring about anything.

When you are younger, your head is full of romantic ideas. That one day you'll be a great doctor, and will save thousands of lives; that one day you'll win the nobel prize, and even thought of how you'd compose the speech; that one day you'll be the leader of the free world, and lead your people out of poverty. I've thought about all those cool things. But honestly, we are but one little human being on this planet of 6.5 billion souls. How much impact can I possible leave in this world before the end?

The answer, I think, and I've given this a lot of thought, is just be a person with compassion for the well being of others. There are religious doctrines that say things like "If you do good, good things will happen to you", or enticing the mass with everlasting bliss in the afterlife. These doctrines are all useless. I believe that with every action that I take, if my motives are good, my heart is pure, and I sincerely want to help out that person, I am doing something good. You should not need to receive these accolades and acknowledgements of the amount of money you donated to a cause, or the amount of time you spent helping someone. You should not need these things to feel like helping someone.

You should help simply because in your heart, you want that person to be better off. You want the world to be better off. Do not be selfish and confine yourself to the narrow space that consists of the paycheck you take home every other week. Find a cause that you believe in (such as cancer prevention networks if you have lost loved ones to this disease), and give your time to that cause.

The idea that, you should help someone, or some cause, purely out of the passion coming from your heart, and not driven by an external influence, is very simple. But I think if you can attain that level of puremindedness, your life will become a lot more enlightened, and happier.

Because you know that for everyday that you are alive, you are making someone happy. Your heart will reach out and touch that person, and you will bring a smile to his/her face.

Story of my Dog - Pickles on the night of 8/27

Man, having a bad day means you don't just run into one sticky situation. All the bad shit in the world comes flying at you. Let me recap what happened tonight. I work all day, goto class at night, got home at 830 pm, and right away, I noticed this funny smell in my apartment. It turns out Pickles puked, pooped, peed all over his crate. He got terribly sick. The poor dog had his nose pushed right up against the crate door and was trying to get some fresh air. Half his body was covered in the dirty gooey mess.I take him out, and he immediately shakes his body and shit-sprays the wall, floor, and the door. So I give him a quick bath, takr him out to potty, and he starts to shit blood. like drops and drops and drops of thick blood. I freak out. I proceed to go home, clean him up further, clean my apartment, and took him to a medical emergency clinic.Well, he will be hooked up to an IV all night, and I am short of $550. Tomorrow morning, Im going to take him to the hospital, where he has a medical insurance plan, and pay for a complete comprehensive exam to see what happened. Stay tuned for the final bill.Surprisingly, I am not upset about my wallet. i just hope my baby puppy is gonna be okay. Anyways, now I feel waes of nausea, hunger, headache. I think my adrenaline rush is over, and my body is crashing. No wonder parents get worried sick about their child. if you owe a pet, you'll know this feeling. Pickles already pawed his way into my heart, and i just hope hes alright there.

8/29 update:The doctors ran a whole gammack of tests on Pickles, from Giardia, to radiograph, and everything came back negative. So the theory is that, he most likely ate something bad that gave him digestive problems and made him poop frequently. Because his body is so tiny, the organs are a lot more fragile, and he must've torn some blood vessel with the constant diarrhea. So now he is on what's called "systematic medication", hahaha... four bottles, one pill, one tablet, and two liquids. Last night his poop finally turned back to the healthy greenish-yellow color, and no more blood coming out. But this morning at 340am he vomitted again, and was crying a little bit. I cleaned it up, gave him some vomit medication, and he is okay so far. I guess dogs get sick just like us, it takes a lot of time, love, and care from the patient's caretakers to make him feel better, and lift his spirits up again. I think he's going to be strictly an "apartment dog" for the next couple weeks. No dog park, no stray food, no treats except the prescription dog food he got. Oh, and lots of hugs and kisses from me. =)

Follow your passion, follow your heart…

From the inspirational speech by Dr. Randy Pausch, in which he said, “We beat the reaper by living well, and live fully. The question is, what do we do from the time when we are born, and the time when he shows up …. It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it is the things we do not … We will need to find our passion, and follow it, and if there is anything that I learned in life, it is that you will not find that passion in things, you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, you will just look around, and use that as a metric, and there will always be someone with more. The passion must come from things that feel from the inside, from my experience, that passion will be grounded in people, and your relationships with the people.”

Dr. Pausch has lived a very, very meaningful life. He is a very successful, intelligent, human being, and he directed his knowledge towards the field of Artificial Intelligence, and computer science theory. But what inspired me so much, is how he conducted himself as a man, and the principles and lessons he taught us. We come to this world naked, and we will leave this world in the same state. But, in our lifetime, we will have countless chances to make an impact on the lives of the people around us, from giving advice to friends in need, to donating time and money to victims of natural disasters that we’ve never met before, and most likely never come face to face. He really struck a cord with me when he said that our passion in life, should always be grounded in people, especially our loved ones. In this materialistic world, these virtues are becoming increasingly hard to come by. We should look at ourselves in a mirror once in a while, and give us a mental check up. Are we losing ourselves to the hustle and flow of society, and forgetting what we truly hold dear to our hearts?

I end this little entry with another quote from Dr. Pausch, “I waited until 39 to get married, because it took me that long too find someone where her happiness was more important than mine, and if nothing else, I hope all of you will find that kind of passion, and that kind of love in your life. Thank you.”

Earthquake relief needed...

"Hope or Despair?" - The 7.9 Magnitude earthquake in the Sichuan Province has already created more than 4,000 orphans ... so far.
We have the power and the resources to help children like this child. Extend your compassion, and make him smile again.