Health Care Deja Vu: The Craziness and Ugliness of the Election Are Back

When the election was over, I thought, phew, the worst has passed. We have finally someone of a sane mind in the White House, someone who can inspire us to do good.

It seems that the election season has returned. I am seeing all the ugliness that I saw during the election all over again. Though I like to forget, I still remember being shaken on many occasions, one of them in particular.

I went to an address looking for a person on the list of registered voters. A woman in a small SUV drove up as I walked onto her driveway. I identified myself as a volunteer for Obama, and her demeanor changed. Her facial expression turned diabolical and full of fury. She shouted at me, "I HATE THAT MAN!" I wondered then how anyone would be so hateful of someone that they personally don't know. I started to walk away without saying much, I was just shaken, having lost another little piece of faith in the humanity. She jumped back in the car, looking intently at me out of the rolled down window, all while giving gas as she was looking. Vroom. Vroom. I feared for life and left as quickly as I could.

I looked at my list. I was not about to have someone like that shake me so badly, so I went to the next address on the list. And who I do see driving up to that address? The hate-filled woman with her young child in the back of the car. I saw an Obama sign in the yard, and I was glad to have that sign as the woman and I converged on the driveway of this particular address. A man was working on a boat, and I asked may I talk to so-and-so. He said that was his wife who is a big Obama supporter. I asked him if he too was a supporter. He said he didn't know.

Now the woman, with a big smile on her face, chimed in. She said cheerfully that her mother was a Catholic and that as a Catholic her mother would never vote for Obama. As for her, she said she didn't know. Then she added that the co-owner of the house, on whose driveway we had all congregated, was her sister-in-law and that her sister-in-law lets her live in the house across the street for free. She looked at me as if to say, and with as much hatred and menace as before reserved just for me, "you'd better not tell her what I just said to you."

This two-faced woman really shook me up. I was shaken more by how she was so casually lying through her teeth, with a kind of platitude even as if it were the most normal thing to do, than by the fact that I had thought my life was in danger just minutes earlier. How can humans behave this way?

What I am seeing during these town hall meetings reminds of these incidents that I encoutered during the election. There was so much ugliness. There was so much hatred. The same ugliness is coming back.

Those who oppose health care reform at these town hall meetings are not opposing health care reform. Many of them are fighting it as if they were still fighting the election.

All of the issues of the election are coming back with all the same incendiary rhetoric, hearsay, untruths. They oppose health care because Obama's administration is pushing for it. It could be a bill to give them free socks for life, they would oppose it. They oppose the cap and trade and all green initiatives because the Obama administration sponsors them. It is as if they want the whole country to fail because they refuse to believe that Barack Obama is our 44th president and the majority of this nation voted for him.

There is no doubt that the nation's health care needs a reform. The system can't go on. Those who have insurance are afraid to go because of the sky-rocketing co-pays and out-of-pocket costs. Those who do not have insurance, just hope that they do not get sick. This is a country where the citizens seem to get into financial trouble whether or not they have health insurance. If that is not crazy, I don't know what is. What is paid for and what is not is decided completely by the insurance companies whose sole purpose of existence is to make money. They are the "death panels" and the opponents of health care reform want to keep the operation the way they are now?

The simple fact is that the cost of health care is bankrupting the whole nation and its citizens, and this important issue is the one that Obama-haters latch on. They are hijacking an all-important issue that will sink or save the nation. It seems not just crazy to me, but also completely against self-interest if these so-called opponents were to even think clearly.

I want civility back. I want civil public discourse so that we may all fix what is wrong. No doubt about it.

Michael Jackson: the Post-Racial King of Pop.

I am sitting in a movie theater with my two children to watch Space Chimps, an animated children's movie about chimpanzees who travel through space, through a wormhole to an alien planet, and then back to the Earth safely. The human controllers on the ground sport all the telltale signs of the super-geek: foreign accents, pocket protectors, glasses, etc. etc. And then there came a very funny moment. The chimps started to play the techno version of Axel F from Beverly Hills Cops, and the uber-geek with glasses, a pocket protector, and the foreign accent (vaguely Indian) broke out in a dance. All the telltale Michael Jackson moves. The moonwalk, the waves of his arms. Wow. And I see my children grooving to the music, attempting the dance moves first with their arms and then their feet.

Michael Jackson's memorial happened just yesterday. I was moved, shedding a tear or two in secret. I am of the generation that grew up with Michael Jackson's music. I was an Asian kid growing up in Germany when Michael Jackson became a huge star. He was such a huge star that his videos were shown only on the big screen in movie theaters. There was no such thing as MTV in Germany then. We were all in awe. We were speechless. This man was out of this world. In a league of his own. In his own world. He was not just a super star, he seemed to be a super human. He transcended everything. He was so cool. Beyond cool. Beyond words. Everyone dreamed of being like him. Everyone wanted to be like him.

Of all the years I spent in Germany when I was young, I only remember Michael Jackson as being the only African American singer who found such unfathomable fame, not just all over Europe, but all over the world. One cannot imagine the current pop culture without Jackson. Would we have hip hop without him? Would we still have the same dance moves? Can you imagine a show like So You Think You Can Dance? Without Michael Jackson's influence?

His music and dancing inspired a whole generation of people and continue to inspire the future generations. Even my children, who don't know the name Michael Jackson, were grooving to his music. Watch this cool video from 2008 by Far East Movement :



Michael Jackson transcended race. He was truly the first post-racial star. He symbolized America and personified all of her possibilities. I would dare say that he even made Obama's presidency imaginable.

People like Peter King, a Representative from New York who can't see past the court drama that unfolded in Jackson's personal life, do not understand Jackson's cultural importance, one of the true gifts that America gave to the whole world. Is it a wonder then that there is now an effort to fund-raise against Peter King? Inmates in a Filipino jail paying dancing in a tribute, people in the streets of Europe and Africa break-dancing, people in Asia singing, clad in military style jackets and hats and the signature sequined single glove. Not everyone inspires so many people all over the world.

And Michael Jackson was an American. How cool is that? When was the last time a single American united people all over the world like that? The likes of Peter King do not understand, not only what makes the world go around, but also how great America can be, what greatness America holds in every single one her citizens, and how America can unite the world along a common thread.

Michael Jackson was a true American star. Don't ever forget that. He deserves a tribute fit for a king. LONG LIVE THE KING.

LOVE LIVE THE KING!

What is it that I hear? Too much Michael Jackson coverage? Well, this is what I think.

I was a teenager in Germany when Michael Jackson became a huge star. His videos played in movie theaters, something that had never been done before. I do not remember a black American entertainer ever being that huge in Germany. Jackson broke the racial barrier, not just in America but the world over. When people all over the world mourn his death, when friends and foes alike are crying in the streets for him, when people moonwalk in the streets of Havana, now that is someone of importance who has passed away.



Michael Jackson deserves a tribute fit for a king. LONG LIVE THE KING.

Practice Letting Go. It's Liberating.

My faith in humanity was shaken to the core by the events of the last few weeks: the murder of Dr. Tiller, shootings at the Holocaust Museum, and well before that the gunman who killed 13 at an immigrants' resource center, etc. etc.

In all of these instances, it seems to me, these horrible deeds were perpetrated by people who simply could not let go of the past. It is especially the case with Von Brunn. He was a master at holding grudges, going back to his college years. That is almost 70 years of holding grudges for the 88-year old man. How tormented in mind must he be that he simply cannot get over the events over his whole life?

As Frank Rich writes in his column, there has been an increased volume of hatred coming out that is bordering upon some sort of eschatological "purgation and annihilation." These people are so incapable of grasping the events of the recent past that all they see is the end of the world as they know it. It is as if they are so pathologically obsessed with the past that all they see is the culmination of all of their past fears in some sort of an armagedon. What is neglected, of course, is the present. They can't wrap their heads around the fact that Obama is now the president, their anger fueled by Palin, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, all they are able to say is "kill, kill, kill." Limbaugh, and other were around even before Palin, but Palin really made hatred fashionable, gave it a pretty face. I really, really resent her for giving hatred a pretty face.

I think that what we need to do as a nation is to focus on the present. And the present looks bleak. 1 in 10 out of work, possibly more. People are hurting. Children are not being fed. How can we possibly miss that?

I read somewhere that when debris is burned, it is the rats and cockroaches that come out first. Our nation is undergoing a transformation with a black president. We are changing, but it is not just us. The whole world is changing. So we are symbolically burning our past in order for us to be free of it. So that we may now forge a new future. We don't know what the future holds, and to guess would to drive ourselves crazy. So while I realize that it is necessary for these crazies to come out, I hate to see lives lost at the hands of these crazies. Why is some of humanity this way?

So those of us feeling shaken just as I am, let's practice letting go. It's liberating. It helps us deal with the present, and helps us get ready for what is coming.

Summer Is Here! How You Can Avoid the Sun and Still Have Fun

As I wrote in a previous blog, I am Korean-American. Although I have lived in this country for many, many years and consider myself "well-assimilated," some cultural lessons I have taken from my very Korean parents will never be forgotten.

One of these lessons is that I still do not like to be out in the sun. It has been rather difficult to reconcile this culture of sun avoidance with the American lifestyle of sun worship. It was hard living in sunny Southern California as a teenager, and it has been hard living in the coastal region of North Carolina as an adult where the sun is superabundant and it is searingly hot during the summer months. You just cannot avoid being out in the sun in these parts of the country unless you just didn't go out at all during the day.

My dislike of the sun is actually the result of a combination of both the Korean cultural upbringing and the photosensitivity I suffered as a child. When I spent any time in the sun, my skin would get raw and scaly and stay that way for the entire summer. Sunscreens had not been invented yet, and I was forced to wear hats and use umbrellas. They didn't invite glares from other people, however, since fair complexion is prized in Korea and women often use them in the sun. When we wanted to swim, we would start in the morning, then take a break during midday over watermelon, and then swim again in the late afternoon. I can't remember swimming when the sun was beating down on us.

Now the American sun culture is completely different. When we go to the beach, for example, it is impossible to find parking during the day. The local pools are filled with children at mid-day and clear out at about 4:00pm. I routinely see children playing and splashing around in the water in the searing sun. The only thought in my mind is, "what's wrong with these fair-skinned people? They are baking in the sun!"

My American husband has had to learn to adapt to my attitude toward the sun, so my family always goes to the beach or the pool after 4:00pm. But this decision was not hard to make for both me and my husband, for my younger child was born with the same photosensitivity as I was. My child seems to have built up more immunity now, but from about when he was 2 until just this year, we did not dare take him outside on a sunny day without a thick coat of sunscreen of at least SPF 60 on him. Starting in March and until September, we would religiously apply sunscreen on him.

When I found out how sensitive my child was to the sun, I researched about the dangers of sun exposure. Here are the facts about the sun and skin cancer according to Skin Cancer Foundation:

* Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. More than one million skin cancers are diagnosed annually. Even one childhood sunburn doubles the risk of skin cancer later in life.
* Each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon.
* One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
* Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer; about one million of the cases diagnosed annually are basal cell carcinomas. Basal cell carcinomas are rarely fatal, but can be highly disfiguring.
* Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer. More than 250,000 cases are diagnosed each year, resulting in approximately 2,500 deaths.
* Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are the two major forms of non-melanoma skin cancer. Between 40 and 50 percent of Americans who live to age 65 will have either skin cancer at least once.
* In 2004, the total direct cost associated with the treatment for non-melanoma skin cancers was more than $1 billion.
* About 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers are associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.
* Up to 90 percent of the visible changes commonly attributed to aging are caused by the sun.
* Contrary to popular belief, 80 percent of a person's lifetime sun exposure is not acquired before age 18; only about 23 percent of lifetime exposure occurs by age 18.

Both Skin Cancer Foundation and American Cancer Society have produced clear guidelines for preventing sunburns and sun damage that lead to skin cancer. Some are just simple commonsense.

* Avoid the sun between 10:00am and 4:00pm when the UV index is the highest.
* Seek shade.
* Use Sunscreen with SPF of at least 15 everyday and higher during the summer.
* Do not burn.
* Cover up with clothing.
* Wear hats.



These are just about all the things that I learned as a Korean child growing up in a Korean household. Except for the sunscreen. We didn't have it.

The way I feel about the sun exposure is like the way I feel about smoking. There is no safe amount of exposure, so any exposure ought to be treated as bad. Needless to say, both my husband and I are now very careful around the sun when it comes to our children. My husband, who has a lot of Italian in him and does not burn, grew up playing in the sun in sunny California and remembers having just lots of fun playing in the sun. I am determined that this idea of baking in the sun will not be a part of my children's childhood memories.

My children will remember their childhood slightly differently: going to the beach after 4:00pm wearing swim shirts, going swimming always well after the sun is no longer hot. But they will still remember having fun. After all, what can be more fun than swimming in the pool and going to the beach? No one says that it has to be at mid day. Children can have lots of water fun any time of the day. My children have come to prefer swimming in the evening, for they always come home refreshed and seem to sleep comfortably throughout the night. I sincerely hope that my children will be thankful to me when they are older and they cannot remember getting sunburned. They will hopefully say, "my mother did all right protecting us from the sun."




Unfortunately, for the librarian at my children's elementary school, a middle-aged redhead, it is too late. She remembers how her mother always took her children outside to play in the water in the summer. She remembers spending all her time in the sun during the summer. Now every few months she goes in for a check-up. Every few years she has surgery to remove a cancerous growth from her body. She told me one time, "my deceased mother would be sad if she knew that making us play outside has caused us so much harm." I decided that that is not what my children would say about me after I am gone.

As much as I love to consider myself well-assimilated, when it comes to sun safety, it is the one cultural divide that I am happy not to bridge.

I squat, do you?

I come from a family of squatters. In fact, my family comes from a land of squatters. I don't mean anything figuratively by it, as in, I like to go into empty houses and occupy it illegally. I mean literally that I like to squat. I like to squat with my knees apart, with the backs of my ankles against my sitting bones and my elbows gently pressing on the insides of my knees. My brother likes to squat with knees together wrapping his arms around them with a graceful curve to his back that looks completely natural.

I am of Korean heritage, and believe you me, it is not an uncommon sight to see people of all ages and both sexes squat, especially on the countryside. My husband, who is a white American, does not like this sight. It unsettles him to see people in this position because he thinks that it exposes some kind of vulnerability. It is as if humanity is now so beyond this way of sitting that to squat would mean some sort of recidivism.

When I incorporate squatting, or malasana, into my yoga classes, I see all kinds of responses from people. There are those who proceed to squat with ease with all points of their feet touching the floor, gently rocking side to side until they find a comfortable position to settle in. Then there are those who have their heels way up off the floor that they are barely balancing on the balls of their feet. They try to rest their elbows or hands on the knees, but struggle to keep the equilibrium. They don't look particularly graceful, but they try. And there are those that just don't try. It hurts their back, it hurts their feet, it hurts everything.

In many exercise routines, repetitious squatting is touted as one of the best and most effective ways to tone all muscles in your legs, in the core, and the back and the butt. One simply cannot squat without engaging all these muscles especially when weights are involved. Can you imagine a weightlifter who can't squat? Weightlifters always start from a squat because, when performed correctly, it is one of the most optimal ways to engage the whole body in lifting that weight.

In many Chi Kung books some form of squat with knees pulled in close to the body is invariably recommended for stomach troubles. The position of legs puts gentle pressure on the abdomen and helps alleviate any pains that may be caused by poor digestion. Squatting is also touted as the nature's best way to eliminate waste. There are many websites that will describe exactly and vividly how that is, although we can imagine that how pressure on your lower abdomen would promote elimination, I will not get into detail. (You can follow the link here to find out if you are so inclined.)

But it is not just my American husband who finds squatting so primitive that it is almost repulsive. The history of this intense Western dislike of squatting goes even as far back as the 19th century when the British Empire ruled India as
Galen Cranz describes in his book, Rethinking the Chair: Rethinking the Culture, Body, and Design. Squatting was seen as a sign of primitiveness while sitting on chairs was seen as a sign of civilization. Squatting became one of the compasses with which the progress of civilization was measured while the chair, and all variants thereof including the infamous couch, became the measure by which to gauge a society's civilized status.

So then we finally come to the culture of the supreme civilized being by this measure, the couch potato. The couch potato has completely abandoned squatting (egad!) and thoroughly embraced the art of sitting on the most comfortable chair one can think of. Moreover, as the term "couch potato" implies we completely abandon the involvement of a single muscle in the body when we sit now. We are left wondering, is this what civilization means?

Besides the benefits of squats in terms of modern-day fitness, the simple act of everyday squatting instead of sitting can be beneficial. Yogis do it now as yogis have done it for thousands of years. Denise Kaufman explains it well in the following video:




In yoga, malasana, or the garland pose, is used to invite openness in the hips and in the groin area. The benefits of open hips is obvious. When runners come to my class and complain that their hips are really tight, I invite them to follow a hip-opening routine. I see this tightness in runners all the time. Their muscles are so tight that they almost pop out of the skin in a neat line from the top of their upper leg down to the top of their knee. This muscular tension keeps their hips from opening, and the leads to tightness in the area, leading to injuries.

Squatting is one of the easiest ways of opening the hips. It has nothing to do with the impoverished Third World, primitiveness, or recidivism. Rather, it has everything to do with what we have given up in the name of civilization.

So let's get off the couches and squat. After all, what do we have to gain here? Stronger muscles in the back? Sure! Flexibility in the hips? Absolutely! Stronger core? Of course! Wider range of motion for the feet? You bet!

I would like to think we also gain openness, which we as "civilized" beings unfortunately interpret as vulnerability, through squatting, not just literally, but also figuratively, in our bodies and mind.

Morals on High Ground

There's been this talk of torture lately. The release of the torture memos from the Bush administration has been the fuel for it, and I want to make sure that I put my two cents worth.

We have to, as all of us belonging to this planet, believe in universal human rights. One of these should be the right to be treated humanely, and to be treated as a fellow human being before we are enemies, foes, friends, and others. If we forget that, then we subdivide humanity, and that is no good. Then we start splitting people into groups ad infinitum.

Therefore, we have to hold at least some values as universal values. One of them has to be that we treat them as we would like to be treated. If you ask around, it will be clear that no one wants to be tortured. It is inhumane, is it illegal by international standards, and it is morally repulsive. No political justification suffices here. We have, as fellow humans, the moral obligation to treat others with respect. That is how we get respect. We teach our children that. We need to remind ourselves of that.

Torture is repulsive. It is inhumane. It is below morality. If we were to be a moral species, we cannot, simply cannot torture.