Loving Thy Neighbor

What an ugly day it has been. Time to put all of that behind.

I need to send love to friends as well as enemies, and that includes Sarah Palin who lends prettiness to ugliness, who is so inexplicably capable of saying ugly things with a pretty mouth. Pretty face, ugly soul. I do really fault her for making divisive rhetoric attractive.

But that is beside the point. Time for a peace chant: "Om shanti, shanti, shanti."

Breath in. Breath out. OM.

Tea Parties and Other Hypocrisies

The date of April 15th could not have been more fortuitous to those opposed to taxes in Wilmington, NC, to hold a "tea party." There had been another "tea party" a few days earlier on April 7th on the steps of the Federal Court House over the issue of annexation of a tract of land within New Hanover County by the City of Wilmington, the county seat.




Hundreds of protesters gathered both inside and outside the City Hall to voice their opinion that annexation is taxation without representation. Those in favor of annexation, including the City Council members, see annexation as the mechanism by which Wilmington, and other cities throughout the State of North Carolina, is able continue to grow and to draw income to stay viable.

The right to annex by cities is guaranteed by law in the State of North Carolina, and it has played a great role in preventing urban decay and prevented cities from dying by allowing them to continually grow its tax base. Without such right, one can easily imagine a city like Detroit that, as the citizens and their businesses flee from the city into the suburbs and elsewhere, is left without a tax base. In North Carolina, however, because the cities are permitted to annex, they have been able to continually grow their tax base, stay viable, and provide services to their citizens.

The latest attempt by the City of Wilmington has been marred by protests. As it turns out, most of the protesters were not even from the area to be annexed. They were those who came to the steps of the City Hall to protest taxes in general. These protests continued on April 15th, on tax day, and the word "tax" continue to be the anathema to them.

But what exactly are they protesting? This report from the local newspaper Wilmington Start News
says it all:

" 'Bail me Out!' That was the message written on Paul Mason's blue poster board that he held up to cars passing through the intersection of College Road and Oleander Drive at rush hour Wednesday evening.

'Bail me out instead of bailing everybody else out,' Mason said. 'I'm a hard-working, tax-paying citizen. Bail me out.;"

This is a curious statement by someone who joined the protesters to oppose to taxes, bail-outs, and other government spending. However, the above statement reveals a curious and hypocritical thinking in many of those who are opposed to taxes: "It is ok to bail me out, but it is not ok to bail others out. Money spent on me is not a waste, only the money spent on others."

This is the kind of ill logic that Keith Olberman exposed in Sarah Palin back in March when she refused the stimulus money for education.

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It is that kind of weird logic:" taxes are bad if I have to pay them, they are good if others pay to help me out; stimulus is bad is it happens to others, it is good if it happens to me."

As the drama of these "tea parties" unfolds, some things remain certain. Some Americans just don't like to pay taxes. No matter how the taxes are used, even the word "taxes" is an anathema to some.

It is a critical time for politicians to be responsible. Those politicians who are fueling this fire of anger over taxes are not doing the nation any good. At a time when we need to all come together as a nation and see through the economic crisis, this is not the kind of rhetoric that we need. Rick Perry's insinuation at a secession, Michele Bachmann's charges of anti-American activities within the Congress, all of those who are jumping on the bandwagon, need to seriously look at what is happening and stop fomenting civil unrest.

I suggest that Sarah Palin, who so divided America during the election between pro- and anti-Americas, would be a person to start the process.

Dreaming While Awake

I had an interesting experience during savasana at the end of my vinyasa practice today.

It is said that savasana is the most important part of your practice because it is the time during which you ruse over your practice to rejuvenate mind and body and to bring them together to find stillness. Until today, whenever I thought I was entering a deep relaxed state, I always fell asleep. Today, I was able to stave off sleep and dream while I was awake. Wow, that's some weird stuff.

As I lay there, I was thinking about the things that still lay ahead. My body felt really heavy after an hour and a half while still curiously feeling pretty energetic still. My mind started to wander, and I started to think about my department chair and the topic that I would like to talk to him about tomorrow. And then it happened. I went into a kind of a trance, I was really talking to him as if he were there in front of me, and then the whole room came alive. I remember thinking, wow, this is something. This light shone throughout the whole room, and then I was gazing upon myself.

I am not sure if this is something that is supposed to happen. The purpose of meditation is to clear your mind of all thoughts so that you have nothing but that very moment to focus. That is why there is such a huge emphasis on concentrating on breathing, on audible breathing so that that becomes the only thing on which to focus your attention on.

However, today, I definitely went somewhere where I hadn't been before. It was funky, it was bright, and it was surreal. And I liked it.

Can You Believe This Sticker?

It really didn't take long. Some people know where there is money to be made.

Just today, I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read, "Don't blame me. I voted for Palin." Now that is seriously disturbed. It didn't reveal anything about what is going on, it only revealed the ignorance of the owner of the car, who, by the way, was a woman in her 50's.

I object to this bumper sticker on many fronts. The first is that you don't vote for vice-president. That is, unless you secretly wish for the president to die, in which case the vice president would step up. So she had a death wish for McCain because she really wanted Sarah Palin to be the president. Unless, of course, she thought that Palin would have McCain wrapped around her finger? Perhaps. She seems to have an effect on older men, but really, really?

The second is that the bumper sticker assumes that things are getting worse. Don't make a mistake about it. Obama inherited this mess. Things were already going downhill when Obama took over. In fact, the stock market has rallied since the inauguration. Doesn't that at least indicate that Obama brought hope?

The third is, what does Palin really stand for? I am an educator, and whenever Palin speaks, I am just dumbfounded. She leaves dangling modifiers, she leaves out entire main clauses, she uses words wrongly, her speech is just a mess. So, let's say she is a fiscal conservative. Shows fiscal restraint. Well, what about the bridge to nowhere? How about her refusal to take the stimulus money for education? Remember, she said she would a friend to all with special needs children? And the seditious speeches she gave! The brawl at these events! That was not someone that needs to be on a national stage. That just is not someone I would be proud to present as representing us. No way. No how.

I am just wondering how much money the sticker maker is making. Probably some. Like I said, some people just know where there is money to be made. Even if it is at the cost of civility.

My Thoughts on This And After Life

When I was reading a blog online, I came across an interesting question. If you are on a torpedoing airplane, what would you do? The irresolutely evangelical Christian blogger's answer was that everyone would pray to Jesus. She just could not see how anyone, again anyone, would do otherwise. I was not surprised at her answer and her inability to see how anyone would think differently.

What would I do? I would probably take stock of how my life has been. Whether I am leaving this world with regrets or without. I am striving toward no regrets everyday, and that is how I choose to live. I would also probably make a mental list of all those that I love and make sure that I say for one last time "I love you" before I depart.

I attended a Catholic funeral a few weeks ago. It was a real ritual: the songs, the ceremony, the whole thing. A woman from the choir sang, "Jesus is my shepherd, and there is nothing more that I want." Here we were, gathered to pay respect to a young man whose life was tragically cut short. And that is what this woman is singing. He is returning to God as will we all return to God. That is what ultimately what everyone wants, including him and all of us. He is going to a better place, so we shan't be sorry or sad for him. But what if you were? The whole ceremony, it seemed to me, was designed, not to celebrate the life that this young man had led, but rather assuage our fears of mortality because the afterlife is better than this life.

This is when I, between the sobbing and the crying, began to think about the role of religion in this life. And then it occurred to me that all religions is really about the afterlife. Because we know nothing about it, whether it really exists or not, we are divided in our thoughts. On the one hand, we would like to continue this life in the afterlife (in which case we try to take as much of this life as we can as the mummies did). On the other hand, we think that there is a better life afterward (as Christians, Muslims do), and we do what we can to earn it. Or you reap what you sow, and you are reincarnated accordingly (Buddhists).

I have a more empirical attitude toward it. I cannot possibly know anything about it, so I am going to live life so that whenever I am departing, I do so without regrets. I do not mean it in a hedonistic way. I do believe that humans, no matter what religion or no religion, have a moral compass. Therefore, we strive toward having our positive mark by striving toward being good because being good is a goal in and of itself. Not because it holds the promise of heaven in the afterlife, but rather because it is good.

Christians fail to see that. They use God and Jesus as crutches, as that external force that tells them to be good or to do this or that. How about we turn that inward? Can we be innately good? Don't we believe in the goodness of the heart? I think that is a better to improve oneself because the motivation is truly from within rather than without.

Bobby Jindal, the folksy hero?

Everyone agrees. Bobby Jindal had a tough act to follow. He had to rebut a popular American president, one of the most gifted orators since perhaps Lincoln himself. The president had just given an impassioned speech, had the Congress swooning and, gasp, its members hugging him. Now, since when do men hug each other like that?

And here comes Jindal. He is not a presence, nor does he have the gift of oratory, that much we knew. We knew, however, that he was a smart man, perhaps of intellect to equal the president's. Jindal's voice is not thunderous, his speech lacks the cadence that the president so skillfully employs, we knew that too. To expect him to match the president would have been impossible. But we expected Jindal to at least give us something different than what so many of us were used to as coming from the GOP. After all, he is supposed to be the standard bearer of the new GOP. And what happened? He came across as "amateurish," uncomfortable, and not genuine. Hmmmm, how did that happen?

I am a Korean-American woman who lives in the South. I live on the coast of North Carolina, and I stick out. There is simply no getting around it. I go to PTA meetings. I am the only Asian. I go to school board meetings. I am the only Asian. In fact, I make frequent appearance on the news, not as a reporter, but as someone that the camera zooms on. Call me a token. That is just the way it is where I live.

I have lived in North Carolina now going on 10 years. I have picked up a little bit of the Southern drawl, and I can sometimes imitate it pretty well. My musical training has helped me with that. However, I may talk like that all I want, but I make no mistake about the fact that, in the locals' eyes, I am never one of them. I know that. I simply don't look the part. So I don't try to be. I find that I get more respect for knowing what I am talking about rather than sounding like one of them.

So, here is what Bobby Jindal did wrong. He tried too hard to sound like everyone. He tried to be the folksy hero that the Republicans have tried to serve up every election. Therein lies the first of his two mistakes. He forgot that folksy did not work during this election. Sarah Palin had the folksiness all locked up, and she didn't help the party any. In fact, she made folksiness popular at the cost of being intelligent. So instead of being folksy, he should have been himself, arguing and making valid points.

Much more than that, however, is the second mistake that he made. In trying to be folksy, Bobby Jindal forgot who he was. The reason that he has been hailed as the savior of the Republican party is because he is so unlike the Republicans of the recent past. He is the child of immigrants, he is young, he is not Wonder Bread white, and he is patently intelligent. But he tried so hard to be one of them, to be folksy. I know, and I bet he knows that he will never, ever be folksy in so many folksy people's eyes. He simply does not look the part just like I will never be a Southerner.

Perhaps Jindal's cluelessness is just indicative of the implosion within the GOP itself. As David Brooks argues, it doesn't know where it wants to go, what it wants to be. While personifying the kind of transformation that the GOP needs by simply being what he is, Bobby Jindal does not know how to convince the GOP any other way than the good old folksy way. The new GOP and the old GOP are mutually exclusive. And that is the logical conclusion that he should have drawn before he appeared before the camera.

So, here is to more implosions with the GOP. The drama continues.

New Era

In just two days Bush will no longer be the POTUS. Hurray to that! And Barack Obama will be the next POTUS. Double HURRAY to that!

I was offered an inauguration ticket. I don't know whether that was because I volunteered so much during the campaign or because I gave whatever I could of my money so that Obama could pay his people.

I loved all the field organizers that worked out of my town's field office. They were all young, idealistic people, people who had put their own lives on hold to take part in something greater than themselves. They felt a calling, and they literally dropped everything to help out in the movement that they saw as their generation's duty. Most of them were college students who had taken a year off. Now what did I do when I was in college? Hmmm. Some were already successful in their careers, but were besieged by doubts as to whatever they were doing was at all meaningful.

Now we are about to swear in Obama as our new president. I believe that this is a moment that I will not forget the rest of my life. I wish I could have gone to the inauguration. I had to give up the ticket because I was offered only one ticket. But I can't possibly go without my family. They helped me volunteer. My husband by babysitting countless hours, my children by helping me decorate the office, sort papers, make meals for the staff members. It was an effort that really took the whole family.

As Tuesday nears, I am going to sit back with my family and watch the inauguration. And I will be beaming with joy.