Love is Brave

A person's job is a significant part of their identity. If I trace my employment history back... oh let's say... forever, my identity seems to be a hard worker who does a good job for scumbags who see no distinction between kindness and foolishness. A common result of a corporate society. Back when I lived in Dundas I was taken advantage of by Bob Bott who gave me a chocolate milk and 2 bucks to do half of the largest Hamilton Spectator paper route there was at that time. Over 200 papers. He used me on Saturdays and I think Wednesdays when the papers were huge. It was back-breaking work and I was doing it for almost nothing. Bob, however, was making 20 times what I was! That kind of mentality is encouraged from the time we wear shorts and T-shirts and deliver papers right on up to business suits and day trading. Or whatever. No distinction is made between amoral selfishness and business savvy. Another common result of our corporate society.

I have worked for people who were busted for committing crimes three times here in Korea. And that's not counting the wife of the boss I worked for who took out a hit on one of his relatives. EVERY contract I have signed, except ONE, was broken. I have been requestd or required to break laws by the majority of my employers over here. But I just keep on trying. Because to get a good job, you have to trust someone. You have to take a chance on a company. You have no choice.

Like many other examples, jobs and personal relationships have this in common. You can't really find a good girlfriend or boyfriend or mate or whatever and not trust them.

And it's the same with love. Many say the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. It's pretty much impossible to carefully fall in love. But as we see these days, there is a need for some love to be shown for our fellow human beings that is just as fearless. It's pretty tough these days to find anything good or worthwhile that doesn't involve at least a little risk. This, unfortunately, is a message that is being overwhelmed by the fearmongers.

As I type this I hear a moment of silence at the Vancouver Canucks/ Winnipeg Jets game. It's for the victims of the France attacks. With delicious irony, the Kenyan Boy's Choir then sang the national anthem of Canada.

It's ironic because the reaction to the France attacks was huge and the reaction to the even more hideous Kenyan school attacks in April hardly registered. There seems to be a specific pinpointing of fear being orchestrated worldwide. It's not really clear to me what the exact reason for it is, but I have no doubt in the end it comes down to lust for money and power.

It's our own responsibility to view the recent Paris attacks, Kenyan attacks, the Syrian refugees and situations such as these objectively and without falling victim to sensationalistic brainwashing. But this is not an easy thing to do.

So should we listen to Allen West who says America shouldn't allow thousands of refugees into the country until they can take care of the thousands of neglected war vets? He IS a war vet himself. In Iraq he was involved in the beating and mock execution of a Muslim prisoner and released from service, but... you can conclude from that what you will.

ORRRRrrr... Maybe we should listen to Jim Wright, another war vet, when he sees pics like these:

and says,

I've seen literally hundreds of variations on this theme today.

Obama cares more about Muslim refugees than he does about homeless veterans.

The next person who says this to me? I'm likely to punch right in the fucking mouth and KEEP punching until I pound the hypocrisy out them.

Honestly, I can't think ANY other way to get through to these assholes. Threats and violence are the only thing they understand. Reason, logic, actual history, religion, NOTHING works. They've walked around the homeless and the destitute and the hungry and the poor and the sick their entire lives. They bitch and complain and whine ENDLESSLY about how terrible they have it, in fact they never shut the fuck up about how miserable they have it - and they walk around the homeless every single day without a second thought. Hell, it's not enough for them to ignore the destitute, these very same assholes pass laws prohibiting YOU from helping the homeless and they bulldoze homeless encampments and cut funding for shelters at EVERY opportunity.

They didn't give a shit about homeless veterans before Obama, they don't now, and they NEVER will.

That picture? That one of the dead Syrian child washed up on a beach? The one I asked you to stop posting? I asked you to stop posting it because it does NOTHING. They don't care. These people are the same ones whose ancestors looked at dead African American children and dead Native American children and shrugged. Nits make lice, they said, one less to grow up into my enemy. Get 'em while they're young. These are the same people, the very same people, who turn back sick starving abused children at our Southern border every single day. Who stood outside a bus full of refugee children in Southern California shouting fuck you, go home and die, pendejos. If pictures of dead children had ANY power to sway these selfish sons of bitches, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

And now? Now it's homeless veterans. Wah wah wah and oh my eyes are full of tears for their sad condition. What has Obama, OBAMA, done about homeless veterans? Wah wah wah. We should take care of our own first.

Take care of our own first?

Really? Take care of our own first? I'm hip.

WHAT THE FUCK IS STOPPING YOU?

You want to do something about homeless vets? Your heart bleeds red, white, and blue for their plight? Then DO something about it, or shut the fuck up.

If these people actually gave even the smallest shit about veterans, they'd actually DO something instead of creating memes to attack whichever political party or politician they currently despise.

I'll say here what I said in reply to somebody on another thread complaining about Michelle Obama's effort to find housing for Veterans:

US Veterans have suffered the effects of war and American indifference since the Revolution. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, made veteran care and especially military families her priority since the day she moved into the White House. She's done more for veterans than all the worthless yellow magnets stuck on the back of SUVs across America and more than the majority of our worthless Congress combined and has quietly, every day for the last seven years. This woman has been a tireless advocate for military families, but she gets no credit for it and you for sure won't hear Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck mention it between calling her a "gorilla" and a "mooch."

Yes, it sure would great to see America actually do something for homeless vets - or ALL the homeless Americans those vets fought for, for that matter. But this is nothing new. This didn't happen or start on Obama's watch and it won't end with the next president whoever that may be. This isn't the President, this is US. We Americans. We've been walking around veterans on the street for two centuries. And you'll note despite all the teary-eyed patriotic rhetoric from the chest beating war mongers in Congress, they STILL haven't passed a Veterans Jobs bill and they blocked VA funding, again. Veterans are nothing more than a way to score points for both sides and Congress should be ashamed - but they don't even have the decency to do that much, nor do we have the courage and wherewithal to elect those who do.

Obama is hardly the first to welcome refugees to America. We are a nation of refugees and immigrants fleeing war, oppression, poverty, hunger, and terror and we ALWAYS have been.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

From Irish and Dutch immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine to Europeans and Chinese fleeing the Nazis and Imperial Japan, to Cambodians fleeing the killing fields, to Vietnamese, to Somalia, and Kurds, and Cubans, and Russians, and Latinos from every country in South and Central America, Presidents both liberal and conservative have welcomed refugees and immigrants to our shores - as people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and even Barack Obama should be able to tell you.

This nonsense? This idiotic meme? The dimwitted, booger eating, soundbite partisan mentality like that in the picture above? That, that right there, is a far, far, far greater threat to the future of this country than any refugee.

Should we believe the stat pulled out of somebody's ass like this:

OOORRRRrrrrr...



0.003%! I reckon we have a better chance of eating feces today than meeting up with a Muslim extremist, much less getting killed or terrorized by them!



It's all pretty confusing to me. And I don't claim to have the spirit of Ghandi or Jesus, but we could probably use some advice from those guys right about now, eh? Wonder what they have to say about things like this. If only there was a library or a website or some huge stash of information with about, I dunno, like a google helpful posts and stories and webpages and pics and stuff like that I could somehow tap into....






All right! Thank you, Google! I might be a bit late with this. I have seen quite a few people getting angry about fellow Facebookers posting warnings about accepting refugees. I can't help thinking about the Japanese internment camps during WWII. You know what? I have been to Japan and I've seen the powerfully implanted nationalism even modern Japan provides for its citizens. I bet it was even stronger back in the day. So, yes, there would likely have been some loyal to their Emperor. Don't forget, they didn't even consider Hirohito a human being. He was a god! Like North Koreans feel about THEIR leader. But who among us can get away with saying those internment camps were a good idea? I actually wrote a paper on them in grade school and got a zero for taking the wrong side of the story.

Surely, no matter how you vet them, there will be a person or two among the refugees who might have radical tendencies. But it comes down to a question of morality. How many people do you think are worth showing love to for every possible terrorist? Put another way, how many terrorists would Jesus abide? Or Ghandi? Put still another way, the way I, (and my 8-year-old mentality understand it best), are you scared of eating a little crap? I think people who claim to follow philisophical or religious ideals of peace and love have to consider this a chance to live up to those ideals. Sure there is danger, but it's pretty tough these days to find anything good or worthwhile that doesn't involve at least a little risk.

I have nothing to back this up, but I think it's possible that if we DON'T stop being afraid and start showing more love to our fellow man, it can only make a bad situation worse. Terrorism is called that because fear makes it stronger. Let's knock it off, okay?

Lincoln International School Shames Honest Abe

So I don't know if I've ever written it on here before or not, but the place I had my hopes pinned on, the international school where I was finally going to live my dream of teaching high school English instead of ESL, its name is Lincoln International School. I guess now I should say, "was." YUP! My luck remains perfectly intact! This morning I received news that the major investor, (to parenthetically state the unparenthetical, a CHINESE guy), was sentenced to 3 years in prison. So the place is going to shut down completely at the end of the month.

Which leaves me with a criminal record check, pristinely unused and 5.5 months old. They're only good for 6 months here. Right. I have two weeks to find a job. The whole time I was waiting here in Icheon, living on campus, BEGGING these knuckleheads to give me a contract and get my E-2 visa started, I was noticing jobs that were okay, but nothing that would have been nearly as lucrative, enjoyable, healthy, and in all other ways GOOD for me. So I didn't put out resumes really even though Lincoln International High School took its sweet time in getting organized. I was told repeatedly, "Don't worry. Don't worry."

The incredible truth is that I've been hearing that now for almost two years! First from Wall Street. "Don't worry, we'll have your business visa changed to a work visa soon." Then when they got their visa privileges taken away, I heard it from Matthew at English Today on a bi-weekly basis. "Don't worry, I'll get you your work visa soon." Then when I gave up because it became obvious Matthew wasn't really putting much effort into it, I signed with Wall Street again after their visa privileges got reinstated. For SEVEN MONTHS John there was saying to me, "Don't worry, the work visa will be another week or so." Four months in Indonesia and then I had to move to Korea where he continued promising the work visa for another 3 months. By the time Wall Street actually acquired a work visa for me and invited me back to work, I had found this job at Linconln International High School. It was July. And immediately John, (a new John), started saying things like, "Don't worry, you'll have a contract soon." You see I needed a contract to negotiate my work visa. Time went by and I was taking hours here and there where I could find them, but mostly living off the generosity of friends while waiting and desperately pleading with anyone who would listen to me to PLEASE get me a damn work visa! This is what lead to everyone saying, "Don't worry. Don't worry."

And I realize worrying doesn't help. But I think if I HAD worried a bit more and/or taken the advice of all my friends here who were telling me to just get out while I can, I wouldn't be this deep in the hole. I may have been able to find alternate employment. I might actually HAVE a work visa and a job by now! But I was hoping for this, a much better job than anything I had had or seen before or since.

Now I have to take the first thing that comes along. The same situation I was in when Wall Street gave me the boot. About a month to find a job. So I put out 20 resumes today at jobs like teaching kindergarten 8 hours a day, Monday to Saturday, 5 days of vacation for 2.1 million Won plus housing allowance. That's about the worst deal you can come by here in Korea. But I gotta take anything I can get right now. I've been sliding deeper and deeper into debt waiting for the impossible, an honest school owner in Korea. Even worse, I was waiting for an honest CHINESE school owner in Korea! I didn't know I was waiting for his sentencing to be passed. Sentencing for what, I am not sure, but it's gotta be business fraud of some kind. Believe it or not this is not even the first time the school I work for has had its ownder thrown in the clink! Back when I worked for Pagoda, the owner, Mr. Go, a devout Christian who was constantly pressuring students and teachers to do what Jesus would do, got busted doing something Jesus would never do. It was tax evasion. Mr. Go was not "rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar's." I think he was in prison for a couple of years.

Then the wife of Mr. Go, who I always called Mrs. Go, herself a devout Christian always pressuring students and teachers at Pagoda to do what Jesus does, hired a hit man to kill one of Mr. Go's relatives. I'm not making this up!

Why oh WHY can't these people just do business properly and legally? There is ALWAYS some scheme involved and every single place I've worked I have had to do the old act. "I see what you're doing. It's not nearly as clever as you think it is. But I'll be a nice guy, or a stupid guy, knowing full well you see no distinction between the two, and fake like I don't know exactly what you are up to and think you are a scumbag for doing it." Those forced smiles and clammy handshakes upon signing contracts full of obvious holes. I can only stand it because in most cases, the deal is still a good one even after the requisite ass raping. And it is required to quell the insecurities of the employer, make him feel superior and make him feel like a good businessman. Because, after all, if you just get what you earn, you're not doing business right. You have to cheat! Get as much as you can without actually earning it. THAT'S business. Right? Well, no! To me that's just cheating and these assholes who do it DESERVE to be put in jail.

So they go there for 2 or 3 years while the entire staffs of their abandoned schools are the ones suffering. Not to mention the students and the parents of the students.

If I had been hired in September, when I was told I'd be hired, I could have done a camp or two and made this school some money. And made mySELF some money! Then I wouldn't be broke and jobless like I am now. AGAIN! And maybe this place would have enough money to give the workers more than the wages they have earned. I'm only getting paid for the hours I've worked and because they were not on the books, but I was substituting for another teacher, they're free to pay me whatever the hell they want. One of the other reasons they took forever to come up with a contract, no doubt.

I don't give a shit if someone from Korean Immigration reads this either. It's not like I'm TRYING to work illegally! When I first got here I applied for and was interviewed for several camp positions. I had to turn down or be turned down for 3 of them because I could not get the proper work visa. One of them actually suggested I work WITHOUT the visa and I said no. Another camp that wanted me was cancelled due to the MERS scare. Yeah, that's the kind of roll I'M on!

I've been here so long that I did something that I've never heard of anyone doing before: I renewed my 6-month visitor visa. You should have seen the immigration worker at the airport! She gave me the weirdest look! NOOOObody stays in Korea for that long! I mean there are a few sites worth seeing and some spectacular food, but six months will cover it all. Heck 3 months would do you. So she grilled me about what I was doing in Korea and of course I couldn't tell her I was working or looking for work so I just said I was visiting friends. Then she made me give names of friends and she looked them up on her screen. SHe was positive I was working illegally. So now I KNOW if I had actually received a contract from Lincoln International School, the second I went into immigration they would not only know I was working, they'd know WHERE I was working and they'd have paid the school a little visit. I'd have been deported and the school would've been fined. Or shut down. But I guess we've been spared all that unpleasantness.

That's me. Always looking on the bright side. The thing is I wasn't actually working. The actual new course was supposed to start today. I was suposed to have a textbook and a new course. Of course I wasn't expecting much notice but I was in the classroom at 8:20 this morning, with students, with an ESL lesson prepared just in case, not knowing what the hell was going on when I was called and told to go to the principal's office. I thought I'd be told that I was going to take John's classes. He's the guy who interviewed me way back in July. He lives in Seoul and travels over an hour both ways to teach his classes everyday. He doesn't like doing it and I was getting hours just filling in for him when he couldn't or wouldn't come to work. Yeah. I LIVE on campus. They convinced me to move to the school even after I told them I'd only do it if I got a contract. They assured me I'd get a contract and, of course, told me not to worry. I moved in over a month ago and, alas, still no contract. And I guess there'll never be one because despite what Jesus, or Honest Abe Lincoln would do if one of them owned an international high school, it's enough to admire them without any attempts at emulation.

I received no payment for the time I spent basically "on call" or "on retainer" here. None. When I went to Japan to renew my visitor's visa the school bought the ticket. They said it was their responsibility and they'd pay the penalty. But guess who paid hotel and food. If they'd signed me when they told me they were going to, I never would have had to GO to Japan. I guess they feel that living on campus and getting free cafeteria food was payment enough. It actually kept me here in the middle of nowhere so I couldn't take any short-term under the table work in Seoul, and I was handy for filling in around here. Exactly what they wanted. In fact I had to move everything myself AND clean up my own place!

So let's crunch the numbers. I think I've been living on about a million Won a month. That's about a thou. My salary here was going to be 3 million a month when I started working. So I have spent about 3 million of my own money and forfeited 6 million in salary. That's 9 million I am in the hole because of these bastards. And who knows how long I'll be finding another job? I am seriously thinking of just looking around campus here for the most valuable things I can find and taking them to a pawn shop. Two problems with that strategy: 1. I have no way of transporting the stuff out of here let alone doing it sneakily, and 2. Korea doesn't have pawn shops. I know I'm taking all the books I can find.

REVENGE!!!

Aaahhh hooo hooo hooo sniff sniff.