The Great Mask Debate

Well, I'm all moved into my new apartment. I already like it better than my last place. Right now I'm in a better desk with a breeze blowing in my window carrying FRESH air, not cigarette smoke and SKhynix chip smell with it. The fresh air and the ability to USE my nice, comfortable mattress instead of having it stored unused in my useless loft, make this place better on their own. But wait, there's more!

I have a better top loading washing machine. I know how to clean the lint catcher on this one. And let's face it, side loading for a thing with water? It creates a need for door locking that creates stress. Brand new too! Still has the warrantee papers in it. My toilet is better too. Not one of those "smart" tankless toilets that you can't fix when they go wrong. I know I'll get a few witnesses to THAT! Tanks, but no tankless.

I also have TV here and at 2 today I'm going to watch the Kia Tigers playing a pre-season game in another empty stadium. It's weird watching baseball this year so far. Players don't know what to do to celebrate. No high fives, no butt patting, no hugging. They're coming up with new social distancing methods of celebration. Weird but fun.

I got a free microwave and have already used it. It's nice to have. It opens up more food options. Most unhealthy, but new, and that's nice. My fridge is better designed so even though it's smaller by a bit, I think it'll hold just as much or maybe more. It's got the awesome ice area too. With the weather already getting hot, I'll use that a LOT. And the stove is a gas range. Not the gimmicky modern touch electric burner that turns itself on if you put something on the burner and sometimes doesn't read your fingers when you WANT it to turn on. And speaking of electronic gimmicks, I have normal outlets, not the ones with the protruding buttons to shut them off. My old apartment had those right at couch or chair level so if you moved, you might hear a beep and suddenly a light, or your computer, that was plugged into the outlet, would shut off. And sometimes you wouldn't hear the beep. With my laptop, it didn't shut off. It just changed to battery power. So 4 hours later it would run out of power. Very annoying.

I don't sleep in the living room so I have more room in the living room. My bedroom, instead of being a sauna of uncirculated air with a three-foot high ceiling that you had to get to via suicide staircase, is nice. It has a better desk and I can use my computer in my bedroom OR just haul it out to the living room if I want.

The bathroom is not as good. There isn't as much storage for towels, TP, and bathroom goods. Plus the water from a shower pretty much soaks the entire floor, whereas in my old place the shower was enclosed, though I never shut the door because for a person of my size, that was not easy. But I like the adjustable shower in the new apartment. Showers are nice. And I didn't think this would be the case, but the water pressure is just as good. In fact the first time I turned on the faucet in the sink was to brush my teeth and I blasted the toothpaste right off my toothbrush. You have to be careful.

I didn't think I'd be saying THIS either but I'm even closer to work living here! And that's really nice. I pay 120,000 won less a month. That's gonna be a savings of about 1650 bucks a year. I am on the second floor instead of the 3rd so I haven't used the elevator yet. Don't think I will. I haven't heard, or smelled smoke, from my neighbours yet. I think I just have the parking garage below so I won't disturb anyone if I thump. I listened to music pretty loud the first night I was here. I shut it down at 11. No complaints.

No complaints from me either. ...about my apartment. There IS one thing that has bugged me a little bit this week. It's an old pet peeve of mine, or a specific example of it. I've been sent the following meme by a handful of friends:

Have you seen this one, have you heard about this? I like the humour. I have really enjoyed a LOT of Covid humour! People are getting very creative. But this one bugged me. I think it's the beginning. No, it's not the glaring mistake using the word "is" instead of "this." Although, if the person really WERE smart enough to be trying to educate people on mask wearing, something that even experts are still debating, you'd expect them to take the time and care to do at least one edit, no?

I think the thing that bothers me with this one is the tone of superiority. Like this person is trying to educate the ignorant masses. And, sorry to the handful of friends who posted this, it makes the posting party seem a little arrogant by re-posting this arrogant meme. I doubt the person who created this meme was an expert, but even if he/she IS an expert, we know that the experts don't know. Two of my Facebook friends posted this in the last few days. Now, this is not a good article. In fact the beginning and end contradict each other. The headline, which is all a lot of people will actually read, is about the WHO flip-flopping again on mask usage. And if you recall, I said this will likely be like butter or eggs: bad for you, then good for you, then bad for you. Well now it's bad for you. But no sooner did the writer finish this article than it was now, according to the CDC, GOOD for you again.

If you read the two articles, not just the headlines, you can begin to understand what the "experts" are up against. How would one go about scientifically studying and gauging the confidence that comes with mask wearing? And how on earth can we get an accurate measure of how many of us use the masks correctly? The big one for me is mentioned in the second article: how much more often do we touch our faces when we wear our masks? I wear mine when I go out and usually I go out to places I need to get to by bus or subway holding onto the steel bars that hundreds of other people have grabbed the same day. And when I get to the grocery store by bus or subway, pushing the grocery cart that who knows how long it's been since it was disinfected? All the while adjusting my mask and touching my face at LEAST 10 times as often as I would otherwise. This absolutely increases my chances of contracting the virus, which, because I can only spread it if I've got it, increases my chances of being that one person in 10,000 who has Corona and doesn't know it yet.

So what do you do when a friend militantly and completely convinced by this thoroughly unscientific meme, posts it while saying they are pissed off at people who just don't obey or understand or share the same knowledge (dare I say wisdom) that they have received from people who still don't know what they're talking about? I tried humour. You know, fight fire with fire, just in case they weren't completely sold on the argument's veracity and perfect illustration of why we should wear masks. Like, "Yes, this DOES make it simple. Not accurate, but simple." Or "Who wants to walk around all day in urine-soaked pants? Ewww!" Even "Wearing pants makes me touch my junk more often and nobody wants to look at that. I say free Willy or the female equivalent of Willy... Wanda?"

But people who embraced the humour in the above meme, somehow failed to react the same way to mine, which lead me to the conclusion that they actually ARE placing some faith in the wisdom of this meme. This goes back to another of my peeves: Why don't we do our own research? We have more time now during quarantine. We have a world of knowledge on the internet. Why do we still place our faith in people we assume are smarter than us and have done the research for us? People we don't even know sometimes. Do we have THAT little confidence in our own intellect? Or are we just too lazy/tired to do our own research? Who made this meme? If you totally believe it, what about it makes you believe it? Is it the superior tone? Is it that you were previously convinced? Is it the humour that makes you think the creator was smarter than you? I too believe really funny people are almost always really smart and vice versa. I didn't know the answers to these questions. So you know what I did? I did some research.

Of course I can't find the answers to the mysteries about this that are giving the experts fits. But there was knowledge available to me that would help me wrap my brain around this situation a little better. These numbers are ALL inaccurate. But they will give me, I thought, a better idea of our situation than I had at the time. So I crunched them. I took the world population of 7.8 billion, used the estimate that it would be at the very outside, two weeks before someone with Covid 19 who doesn't know it will break down and get tested. It follows that the main reason we wear the masks to protect other people is the possibility that we might be one of these so called, "stealth carriers." Then I checked the current numbers, again fairly wild estimations but a bit better than nothing, of how many new Corona cases there had been in the previous two weeks. That number was about 100,000. GOOD! Easier for my calculations. So all I had to do to find out how many people there might be walking around with the virus unbeknownst was find out what percentage of the world population actually are diagnosed with it every week. Of course, this will give us much too large a number since the majority of people get tested long before the two-week point. Some get tested before they have any symptoms at all. The number I got was 0.000013% of the world population.

In other words, if you are walking around IN THE WORLD, and you meet 10,000 people today, 1.3 of them will be one of those stealth carriers. In the U.S., which has almost 1/3 of the Covid cases right now, your odds will be increased. In Korea, where we just had a day with NO new cases, odds would significantly decrease. I live in Korea and am not worried about coming into dangerous contact with a carrier at all. I wash my hands and hardly ever go out so I'm not that worried that I might have the virus. Also, Koreans have been behaving well in this crisis. Social distancing, hand washing, testing, etc. So I don't worry much at all about whether I would get infected if I just went out without my mask. But I don't do that. Why not? Well, it IS better socially to wear the mask. I don't want to be publicly berated or silently despised by Koreans any more than I already am. But there's also THIS.

We are, once again, at the mercy of the lunatics. The people that are responsible for those warnings on strollers to remove babies before folding. Or the windshield cover warnings to remove before driving. THIS is why we wear our masks right now, I think. Because if we didn't, one asshole could infect a LOT of people, and they'll infect two friends, and they'll infect two friends, and so on, and so on...

So the real question is, are the increased odds of contracting the virus that come with wearing masks enough to offset the dangers that come from not wearing them? Without the nutjobs in the world, I'd probably say yes. It could be safer to NOT wear the masks. But because of those psychos, it's probably still a good idea. As you know if you are a regular reader, I HATE when someone tells me something is for my own protection. Because very often there's an ulterior motive. But, I think I'll still wear my mask. Korea has done well with this virus but I've learned from MANY years in this country that there are lots of whackjobs here. I've read stories of random poisonings in recent news, so it happens. And there have been people who knew they were infected but went to church anyway hoping the Lord would be their protection.

Anyhoo, the verdict is, better safe than a victim of some unhinged jagoff. It's unnerving when our safety is dependent upon the general public because the general public includes morons! But here we are. I'll keep wearing my mask and maybe we all should. The sacrifices we make for the few!

Cognitive Dissonance

I'm going to post a video here:

Or at least this will be a link to the video

Do yourselves a solid and watch this video. It's a conversation between two guys. Jay Bhattacharya, who is a professor of medicine at Stanford Medicine and a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy. His March 24, 2020, commentary in the Wall Street Journal questions the premise that “coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines.” In the article he suggests that “there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.” He's interviewed by Peter Robinson, who I guessed, and Wikipedia confirmed, is a conservative talk show host. So that's important. Also, look where Dr. Jay's commentary was published. That's also important.

I think it is fascinating to see smart people coming to not-so-smart conclusions! And the examples are endless. But I particularly enjoy the examples in direct proportion to the smartness of the people and the extent to which the cognitive dissonance is exhibited. The problem with examples such as these is that a lot of people see truth and logic instead of the willful suspension of it. Because they see that the people ARE so smart. I think we tend to agree with people who show intellect because we are conditioned to think that because we may be less intelligent, we can't be right and they can't be wrong. In this way, a lot of us get convinced of the wrong things. The other problem is at this sort of level, that is often the purpose. Now I am not saying either of these guys are trying to convince anybody of anything, or not. But I absolutely AM saying that many will use this conversation and Dr. Jay's commentary, to back their personal points of view, and those points of view are not very smart. I'm talking, if you haven't guessed, about the opinions of rich, greedy assholes who want their minions to get the fuck back to work because they're losing money.

Don't forget, while you are watching, that Dr. Jay IS an expert on the virus, but he also has a doctorate in economics and is introduced as a friend of the conservative host. It is also mentioned that they had a "previous conversation." They rehearsed this interview and I can't help thinking it was to strategically plan their inferences. For further clarification, notice that at no point did the doctor say he has a test or any research that proves the currently accepted guesses of the world medical community about the deadliness of the Coronavirus/Covid 19, are wrong. He just says that they're just guesses. Well I hope we all know that. Since little is known, even by the experts about this NEW virus, we need to be smart and assume that.

I don't believe there is any irresponsibility on the part of Dr. Fauci in predicting the rate of deadliness as a mortality rate of 10X that of the flu. He makes it very clear in many statements that the models used in predictions such as these, are based only on assumptions. The only possible irresponsibility might have been if he had stated this as an absolutely infallible fact, which we've gotta understand, he didn't.

I mean watch the actual footage. He makes several qualification even within that to make us understand that he's only trying to make us understand. These are not precise statistics or studies. He was speaking from what the data he'd seen to that point SEEMED to indicate.

It is expertly explained by Dr. Jay, though in a frustratingly halting style of a man trying not to make any mistakes or trying to remain politically correct, how nobody can KNOW what Dr. Fauci has said. He talks about a test that measures antibodies in the blood that is needed and I'm sure he's right. Dr. Jay even says he doesn't know either. There's nothing shocking here. We are all aware that nobody KNOWS because it's a new virus and testing is just beginning. But these two guys are trying to make Dr. Fauci's statement seem intentionally misleading to the public. "What's Dr. Fauci up to?" is one pretty charged question asked by Peter Robinson. "He should not be saying that," he continues. "This is a little on the mind-boggling side," Robinson adds. Just after Dr. Jay says that Fauci is reflecting on what his guess is, and I am reflecting MY guess on what it is. So if Dr. Fauci is seen as irresponsibly overestimating the danger of this virus, then this is a video in which they are doing the exact opposite. If one prefers to err on the side of caution, then Fauci is actually LESS irresponsible than these two smart guys calling him irresponsible.

It's fascinating how this happens! Let's break it down. Next they get into how the press likes to promulgate fear - a tactic I have said many times the rich or Republicans hate because it equates to the press stealing their best weapon. Then they talk about how the universal quarantine conditions are very costly. Dr. Jay very carefully explains how he doesn't just mean costly to the economy, but costly to people, how ever honest, or accurate that is. Remember, PEOPLE are NOT his area of expertise but money and medicine are. He says that a global economic collapse will cost lives, so he's not comparing dollars with lives, but lives with lives. Then Dr. Jay goes ahead and makes an alarming, and unconfirmed estimate on par with or worse than what they are slagging Fauci for making and says universal quarantine could lead to the loss of millions of lives not just in the US, but worldwide.

What comes next is astonishing! They actually talk about HOW people will die and they get so VERY close to a much better, more humanitarian, even, in my opinion and many others', a better solution economically, but they steer clear of the obvious path of conversation! This, I suspect, is why they needed to rehearse this interview. Right around the 18 minute mark, Robinson says that in his lifetime the GDP has quadrupled. If suddenly we're all poor and we go back to 1950's standards of living, what's wrong with that? What's the mechanism that kills people. And the answer (they avoid) is the rising cost of EVERYTHING. The rapid inflation that has systematically made more money for the rich and made life worse for everyone else. And I don't mean just monetarily. These same rich people have polluted the earth, destroyed animal habitat and in the opinion of ANOTHER really, really smart person, this is what has CAUSED the Coronavirus.

Well, as we all know, to go back to 1950's standards of living, we'd have to go back to 1950's prices. When a friggin' PENNY was worth something. When a house was 7 thousand and a car was 2 thousand. The GDP has quadrupled but the cost of living has WAY more than quadrupled. Look at the price of a house nowadays or a university education! But any good capitalist knows jacking up these prices since 1950 has been the number one job for every corporation, big business, bank and politician since even before then. We certainly can't just undo all their hard cheating, lying and thieving in one fell swoop! I think Robinson hit on a wonderful solution here, but purposely sidestepped it. If we just reduced prices of everything when we come to the end of this Coronavirus pandemic, we'd be broke, but we wouldn't starve or die!

But to even suggest DEflation, as you can see, is far more extreme than suggesting deaths in the millions. They're scared about people becoming depressed and losing hope, they're scared for poor countries like India, they're scared of shortened life expectancy... cue the alarmism they pretended to tsk tsk in Fauci. Then they settle on the ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION: you gotta work. By the end they're defending Trump and promoting Big Brother. Constant surveillance? Just dealing with new viruses and diseases routinely coming up? How bout no? Let's get to the REAL causes instead of finding extreme solutions that enable the continuation of those causes. This reminds me of cows. You put cows in modern, close-quarter, cow factories and they're out of their natural habitat. They eat grass. With cows so close together, there's not enough grass. So you feed them corn or the shit they now feed them. Their stomachs (all four of them) can't handle that. So don't go to the obvious solution and put them back out to pasture, that'll "LOSE" you money. Develop a drug to fix their stomachs. Then the meat gets contaminated and the milk does too. Suddenly, HOLY SHIT, out of NOWHERE we have mad cow disease and hoof in mouth disease and who knows what? But the assholes need to make their money. So let's set up interviews with cow experts/capitalists extolling the virtues of the new and improved vaccines for all cow diseases.

Did you come to this conclusion? I didn't right away, I must admit. But this is what we need to do so we don't get sidetracked by smart people with ulterior motives. These guys are smart. I don't doubt that. And they certainly know there are other solutions than what they are offering. They may even know that telling people they need to go back to work before we can fully understand this virus IS irresponsible. More irresponsible than old Dr. Fauci. So why are they doing it? This is something I mentioned last post without definition. It's a psychological theory called cognitive dissonance and it's what I find fascinating in these types of conversations. Here's the definition.

I see it SO often in people and its largest trigger by FAR is money. When people, just for example, can believe that they are followers of Jesus, but true capitalists, it is fascinating the lengths of creativity they can go to in order to combine the conflicting ideas. Now, note I said "true capitalists." If you give to the poor like Jesus commanded, and your gifts multiply because of it, 1) you are not a true capitalist and 2) you are the exception. True capitalism is profit at all cost and that necessarily includes screwing the poor, semi-poor, middle class, upper middle class and if you can, screw the other rich people too. But do it in the name of the Lord! That just doesn't add up. But Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz!

The two dudes in this video are showing that creativity I talked about. The old "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" argument illustrated by calling Fauci irresponsible then getting highly technical medically and economically is truly creative! And you need to be pretty sharp to spot its bullshittedness. It's a challenge I relish. This time at home has been largely wasted if you're like me, but I've done a little of this BS busting and it makes me feel like I haven't wasted it all. And it's my pleasure to share it with you.

Bye Bye Bernie

Here is a very good article about the American perception of socialism. American views on socialism are described as "tangled," "all over the map," "ground into the dust over the years," "a straw man," "the boogeyman," "the Robin Hood thing," "an unthreatening egalitarianism," "the unfinished business of the New Deal," "(the) name for almost everything that helps all of the people," "the epithet they have hurled at every advance people have made in the last twenty years," "a good thing," and "a bad thing."

This article is from the New Yorker, but don't let that scare you away. It's not written in highly intellectual language that most wouldn't understand. In fact, I was amused by the baseball bat flipping, mike dropping, slam-it-home point beautifully illustrated in the ad on the left hand side of the article that obscured about a third of several paragraphs making them very difficult to understand. Somebody paid for this ad that makes the topic of this article, socialism, difficult to understand. Somebody paid to force this ad onto my internet, which I pay for every month. It's a fantastic illustration of capitalism making socialism hard to understand. You don't need to understand every word of the article. Just take a gander at that ad. And, while you're at it, try to get rid of that ad. It's impossible. This little form of capitalism, which is annoying internet subscribers everywhere, and obscuring understanding of socialism, is impossible to get rid of. And I'm not even IN America!

But, if you didn't get the same ad I did, or if you aren't yet convinced, the article is well written. I advocate a thorough reading of it on this day when America's best shot at some policies that they DESPERATELY need, Bernie Sanders, just ended his campaign leaving the American public with a choice between Trump and Biden, Synthol Injection Republicanism, and Republicanism Light. A giant douche or a turd sandwich.

AGAIN.

Well, we know Donald Trump is fond of fearmongering when it comes to socialism. Its detractors will often site countries where socialism has failed, like Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro, but that's somewhat akin to saying that Joe Exotic's tiger farm failed because of his choice of hairstyle. And the cognitive dissonance can be cut with a butter knife when you mention countries where it has worked, like Finland, Sweden or the U.S.A. Trump ignorantly spouts alarmism like "I'm running against a crazy bunch of socialists," or "America will never be a socialist country," like he knows what the damn word means. He clearly doesn't. There are lots of words he doesn't understand despite his claims to have the best words. Here's a word that the Washington Post writes, "explains why Trump should not be president." The last line of the article is pure gold! We have a president, unfortunately, who is often wrong — but never in doubt.

There are endless contradictions in the US when it comes to what the socialism haters say and what they do. Not the least of which has been the state intervention (not just under the Trump administration) in economics in ways that are commonly associated with hardline socialism. Ron Kind, a Democrat, refers to it as "authoritarian socialism." And, of course, it brings to mind:

When it comes to contradictions, the word "capitalism" is another historically tangled web of social encoding it would seem. Here's another article from the Warshington Post. It seems that young people, who have not been so saturated by Pavlovian sophistry (yet) tend to blame capitalism, or the way it's being practiced in the US, for some bad things like the widening gap between the haves and the have nots, financial crises and the bailouts that come with them, the realization that the "free market" isn't really a thing, basic necessities like health care and a living wage not being provided to people who work very hard, and economic growth not translating into good jobs for them. They aren't swallowing the rhetoric as easily as their Cold War progenitors may have. This gives me hope for the U.S. even though they're going to suffer through yet another bogus election soon.

But before that, Americans are going to suffer through something that just might have a better chance than Bernie Sanders had of straightening out some shit in their country. Covid 19 the Coronavirus. I recently learned that it's not named for being the 19th incarnation of Coronavirus, but being the one discovered in 2019. That's right, it was synthesized in China in late 2019. NOT December 31 as recorded on the WHO website. But earlier. And the WHO, though knowing about it in 2019, waited too long before they did anything. Much like almost everybody, probably just didn't want to piss off China. Who they knew had just ordered researchers to destroy records and declare themselves liars. The fucking corruption in this world!

I'm hoping that the exposure of this specific corruption of the world, their leadership, the greed, the heartlessness and the fragile nature of the economic systems that can't even survive a month without paycheck to paycheck workers going broke, will wake some people up in America and other countries. Maybe the essential employees of Walmart and Amazon who are risking their lives right now to keep the countries where they work from Armageddon, will be paid more than the least amount that they can possibly be paid by law. I always think of Chris Rock when I think about minimum wage. He said that you need to understand your employer's position. They WOULD pay you less, but they can't by law.

The strangest thing about all this is that amidst this tragedy that would have been eased tremendously by policies that he has supported all his political career, Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race. Universal healthcare is a must. Coronavirus is proving that. Science is working on a vaccine. What if the man or woman who could have cured this virus couldn't afford to get an education? Bernie supports educating everyone who wants to be educated. Even parents. Bernie supports free child care. And the worth of teachers (toot toot) is being recognized now not only for their child care purposes but the educational purposes as well. Bernie believes teachers should be given a much deserved raise across the board. How is it that at the time when the country needs him most, his support can't even match that of a dead wood candidate like Joe Biden? I don't believe it. It's another national con like the one that got Trump "elected" and that got Hillary "chosen" as the Democratic candidate in 2016.

Perhaps two straight, or possibly even concurrent, tragedies like Coronavirus and a second term for the worst president possible may awaken the revolutionary spirit in America. Maybe a write-in vote or two or several million for Bernie Sanders might put the runaway train back on the rails. I doubt it, but we can always hope.

First Place, Second Place and Third Place

If you know me at all, you know I hate banks with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. I hate going to the bank as much as visiting immigration. I have to do both today. That's partly why I'm writing this. I may get into this post and cancel my trip. To immigration. Then the bank. I'm going to talk about these two entities of evil so be forewarned, this is gonna get sweary. Very, very sweary! Let's see how it goes...

The ellipsis. A serviceable blogging tool denoting, when I use it, "we shall see." That's what those three dots stand for. Which means one dot is a "see." It could be a we or a shall, but it's not, when I use a single dot, it's a see. That last sentence means one dot is a see, see? The one before means that's what those three dots stand for see? Two dots would make no kind of sense. We shall? Or we see? Or see shall? Sometimes though, it means and so on. But usually for me, we shall see. Okay, now that THAT's clear... <--- See there is your and so on. You know what's next, I don't have to type it. And it's the same key. I don't have to look around on the keyboard if I know where . is, I just bang it three times. Easy peasy Japanesey. I dig the ellipsis.

How we doin' so far? Ahhh crap, it's only 5:55 AM. I still have PLENTY of time to got to immigration, then the bank. Guess I'll tell you why I'm up at 5:55 and why I have to go to my two least favourite places in existence. That'll kill more time.

You may have read about my adventure in Guam. How I almost didn't go, then almost didn't come back. I could have been stranded there. In fact, I actually was! In fact part II, I have a friend who at this very moment is in Thailand where he had planned to be for two days. He might end up being forced to stay there for a month or longer. It shows you how we are all slaves to the airlines. If getting patted down, taking off your shoes, jacket, belt and hat, surrendering your toothpaste, water and toenail clippers so you can sit in an uncomfortable, overpriced seat for several hours, hadn't already made that abundantly clear. Yeah my buddy Hein. Heinrich. He lives in Nam. But he went to Thailand, probably for the same reason I had to go to Guam, visa shit. Can somebody please explain to me why you can't get a visa for the country you're in WHILE you're in that country? I KNOW it can happen because I've done it before. I think it's just something that makes immigration workers happy. And if you know anything about immigration workers, you know that the thing that makes them happiest is inconveniencing people. I have to say this is one way the banks have it over on immigration. At least when I send money home to Canada, I don't have to take it physically on a plane back to Canada. We electronically transfer it. Why the hell can't we electronically transfer ourselves out of the country we're in, get a friggin' visa, then electronically transfer ourselves back? You telling me this is impossible? Anybody ever ASK immigration why this is necessary? I have. You know what they say. "We're sorry to inconvenience you but this is done for your protection." "We're sorry" at immigration has a meaning like three dots for me. Three dots means and so on or we shall see, at immigration, we're sorry means we're happy. We're happy to inconvenience you. We're happy you missed your flight because of our incompetence. We're happy to force you to do the same damn increasingly expensive and superfluous things every single year. …

And the phrase "for your protection" is just as bogus in both banks and immigration. How are you protecting me? I didn't ask for your protection. Police. Firefighters. Malware killers and VPN's. THEY protect me. Immigration and banks don't protect me. In fact it's the LACK of protection from my Canadian bank that has necessitated the visit to my Korean bank. TD Canada TRUST. Don't ever bank there, because you CAN'T. Trust them that is. My account has been hacked three or four times. The first and second times by a girl. She used her name to get a Canadian Tire credit card on my bank account. I, I, I can't even get a credit card on my bank account! It was obvious to me that she was an employee of my bank. It was obviouser when I asked my bank to report this person to the authorities and they told me that they were not at liberty to tell me who she was. There's another fine phrase! At liberty to. It means free to. You really are not free to tell me who's stealing money from me? Who is robbing your bank? Exactly who is limiting that freedom? It seems to me that I hear a lot of "for your protection," but all I'm seeing is for a thief's protection. I have $14.98 in my account and the monthly 15-dollar account fees can't be taken out, I receive an automatic $50.00 penalty. They don't want to take the $14.98 out because that would leave your account at negative 2 cents. They don't want to do this because my account does not come with any loan or overdraft privileges. But they're more than happy to leave it at negative $49.98 to punish me. THAT'S how my bank "protects" me. But when somebody is stealing money out of my account, THEY are protected! That, right there, is all you ever need to know about banks. They are in business for bad guys. You can take THAT advice... (straight to the bank. See how that worked? I didn't need to type that cuz you all know that phrase.) Funny story: When I returned to Canada and removed all of my money from the bank, thinking it was the location, not the bank itself, there was another guy right beside me with the exact same problem! We were both being shushed by the tellers so the whole bank didn't find out how unsafe online banking is, but we both heard each other and exchanged a few "fucking banks!" glances. So why am I going to my Korean bank today? To get online banking.

What is it now, 6:45. I'm two coffees into this day and it's not even 7. Time for breakfast.

The THIRD (or fourth, I can't remember how many times my bank account has been hacked) time it happened was right after I got my new bank card. What an ordeal THAT was! I had to phone the bank long distance, when I should have been sleeping, get the card mailed to my mother and have her send it to me. You know why? This is interesting. Because "We're sorry but for your protection, we can not exchange information about your bank account online. We urge you to call our toll free (in Canada but not Korea) number, wait at least half an hour for one of our workers to assist you, answer about 15 questions you made up 20 years ago so now the information has changed or you've completely forgotten... FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. We can send thousands, even millions of your dollars all over the internet to places you have no reason to trust, simply by giving them your card and/or account information, but we can't ask your mother's maiden name online because it's not safe. Even thought about that? I mean why the fuck do we use banks? Because we're forced. It's part of our "society." If there ever was a champion of bullshit words! "Society." Pbbbbblease!

Last Christmas I was stupid enough to use one of said online shopping sites. I ordered some Christmas presents for friends. It was a good idea. Send a pic of you or your friends to the site and they turn it into Simpsons characters then put if on a coffee mug, bag, hat etc. I didn't know anyone who had used the site before, but I was excited to see my friends' happiness when they received such a fun gift. Of COURSE I need to be punished for having such a stupid sentiment! This company was a scam. They never sent the stuff and although the price was supposed to be around 100 bucks, they took about 200 from my account. Fuckers. It's funny but I can't even remember their bogus company name. I'm pretty sure they were based in China. Several people were fighting with them on Facebook.

I may be mixing up the timeline, but I think it was that site, or one like it that caused my most recent bank account hack. Just days after I received my new bank card and tested it online, I got some Chinese online gaming site taking membership fees out of my account every day. Not large fees but every day. So I tried to contact my bank online knowing what the answer would be: "For your protection, we are sorry, we can't discuss this with you online. Please call... FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE."

I did the expensive call and wait once again. The guy I talked to told me the fees were being withdrawn by a gaming site in China. Probably something I got saddled with by giving my card information to an unsafe site like the above Simpsons gift site. I told him to put a stop order on that site. He told me he was not at liberty to block them. From stealing money from my account. From his bank. Once again, the bank protecting the thieves, not me. He told me that the only thing he could do was put a freeze on my account. I only use my Canadian account for two things: paying my storage fees every month for some furniture and boxes of books and crap I have in a self-storage locker in Victoria, and getting sealed transcripts from my school, one of the latest bullshit time wasting techniques employed by Korean immigration to unnecessarily inconvenience me by re, re, re, INFINITY RE confirming my university degree. I asked if I would still be able to do those two things and he couldn't even tell me that! It turned out that I could, but I froze my account not knowing if I'd be able to. That was scary. So now that card that took so much effort to get is completely useless. The account is ALMOST completely useless. All I use it for is the storage payments. I recently needed transcripts and ordered them with my Korean card. But anyhoo, the money in the account has almost run out. I want to transfer some money from Korea to that acct. in Canada, but don't think I can because it's frozen. I talked to the storage company and they gave me several options that would be very convenient... if I lived in Canada. The only one I'll be able to do is, you guessed it, set up online banking here in Korea and transfer funds every month like that. Of course this will come with a bullshit service charge both ends and the most usurious exchange rates imaginable, but... fucking banks!

Why am I going into immigration? Maybe? Because I need to apply for my Alien Registration Card. This is something I usually do immediately upon receiving my work visa. But times they are not a-usual are they? When I got back from Guam, by the skin on my teeth, I was forced to download an app through which I give myself a daily self-diagnosis for Coronavirus. They did not tell me at the airport that this came with a mandatory quarantine. I was all prepared to go to immigration the Monday after the Saturday I returned to Korea. But I was informed by a friend that I had to stay home. Well it has now been over 14 days. I flew March 21st so April 4 would have been the end of my quarantine. I still get notifications to self-diagnose every day at 10 AM, but I haven't reported in for 3 days. There is still a green "successful" sign when I open up the app, so I don't think it's necessary to report in any more. I can't be sure though. For all I know, when I go to immigration to apply for my card, they might say, "You're supposed to be at home. And why did you stop self-diagnosing?" As if I needed ANOTHER reason to put off my visit to immigration!

What time is it now? 8 o'clock. I'm bushed. Maybe I'll take a nap for a couple hours. No sooner had I typed that than the fucking election ajummas on the corners of the intersection started shouting, dancing, waving their hands and BLASTING their fucking election trot music while wearing their matching jackets and white gloves. Election day is approaching. April 15th I think. It's really something to see in Korea! I tried to upload my vid of them but I guess it's too large.

The 10 o'clock self-diagnosis notification will wake me up if I manage to get to sleep at all. By then I don't know if it'll be worth it to go at all. I have to go all the way to Cheonan and there's no way of knowing how long that will take because I have to take a train and can't reserve tickets online for it because I don't have an alien card. And if that's not messed up enough, I can't even buy a proper mask here because, yup, I don't have my alien card. But I'm only wearing them so as not to upset the locals. I'm pretty sure the increased face touching does me and the population of Korea, more harm than the mask does us good. It's peer pressure that makes me put it on when I venture out.

I'd have to shave and it IS time to trim my hair. That'll take a while. And although I marked all my students' assignments yesterday, I DO have a practice quiz to make for them. The reason I'm even up in the first place is because my blood sugar is spiraling out of control being inside with nothing to do but computer work. I've read that diabetes doesn't cause sugar cravings but I believe that is as much a pile of crap as something a bank or immigration office might tell you. I have NEVER been one for sweets. I'm a salt guy all the way. But since the onset of my blood sugar woes, I have been consuming more sugar than ever. The cravings are specific. Ice cream and orange pop. I can count on one hand the bottles of orange pop I purchased in my whole life before my diabetic cravings. Now it's freakishly frequent how often orange pop or ice cream runs through my mind. And if I can find them, cuz they're rare, I get Seng Teng, Korean orange popsicles. EVEN better than orange pop! It's the one on the left. I also like the third from the left dweiji ba (pig bar).

 I went out the other night, late, like 2 AM, and bought a bottle of orange Fanta, or as Koreans call it, Hwanta. I literally giggled when I brought it back to my apartment like I'd managed some mischief. I had some that night and finished about 2/3 of the bottle the next morning. I couldn't help myself. I don't know if it's like this for everybody with the affliction of diabetes, but when I consume too much sugar, I just piss it out. I'm taking a leak pretty much every couple of hours. The only thing I can do to stop that is exercise. When I'm hiking or walking, I don't need to piss so much. But I can't do that right now in quarantine. So... urinorama! THAT's why I was up at 5. Sometimes I can't get back to sleep after getting up for a pee. The cavalier Korean noise pollution doesn't help.

Just in case you think I may be endangering myself here, I DID call immigration. It's SO much nicer to call! I was told I have 90 days to take in my visa and apply for my Alien Registration Card. So there's no hurry. BUUUUT, without the ARC, there are a lot of things I can't do. One is visit a doctor. And get pills to deal with the frequent emergency urination. If I can find a doctor who will prescribe me pills to make me urinate less, not urinate MORE. Even back when I had medical insurance and an Alien Card, I bought 150 bucks worth of medicine that my doctor prescribed. Yes, he knew I was pissing too much. When I first visited. But over the months, I guess he forgot why I went in there and he prescribed pills to make me pee MORE. I probably don't need to tell you that my third least favourite place to go is doctor/dentist office or the hospital. And I'll be going there soon enough.

But all this talk about my least favourite places to go has worn me out. I think I WILL try to take that nap now. And, I changed my mind. I'm not going to immigration today. Might go to the bank later, but I need to go to Seoul for that. I might just stay at home and field student complaints about the marks I gave them on their latest assignment. Or I might try to hunt down some Seng Teng. I could use some. If not I'll probably just pull a fifth of Fanta and drink it from a paper bag on a park bench. If I can find a park bench with no people around. GAAAH! Happy Easter by the way!

The Canadian Dream

There's a warm feeling of unity in Canada right now. Like when we see one of a rash of TV commercials that tell us how great Canada is like that Molson Canadian ad and slogan of "I Am Canadian." Or when we see an internet meme or a TV show joking about how polite Canadians are. Or when we come across one of those highly questionable surveys about national happiness quotients and we find Canada at the top. Or like when the Vancouver Canucks' national anthem singer stops and allows the crowd to earn his paycheck for him. Or like when Bernie Sanders tells America how great Canada's health care system is. Or like when we hear those stories about travelers overseas being treated rudely by the locals until they find out they're Canadian, not American. Or like when people turn on their porchlights at a predesignated time and all go outside and clap for the hard working nurses and caregivers and shop workers and food delivery drivers and Walmart and Mcdonalds and Amazon workers who are braving the virus on the "front lines" mostly for minimum wage or maybe a bit higher. And right now we have a leader who is better than the American guy. And we're proud of that. But should we be very proud of that leader just because he's better than Trump? Trump is a bozo. You'd have to be Snidely Whiplash to be worse.

I've droned on and on about the "Well at least" attitudes I see in Canadians and others which allow us to tolerate mediocrity or even less. I think there's a specific one in Canada that translates to, "Well at least we're better than America." This brings up a lot of questions. Should we be satisfied with that? In what ways are we better? How MUCH better are we? And even are we actually better at all?

Well, as we saw in the last post, we've got the better leader right now, but we've had some whackjob PMs in Canada. Maybe our best ever was a weirdo. So let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back over Trudeau. Let's just enjoy it while it lasts.

Our present situation dictates where I should begin this investigation. The Coronavirus. The Canadian trade relationship with China. China's culpability in regards to this international pandemic. Are the three connected? Well, let's Xi...

I've heard Trudeau tsk tsk tsk the human rights violations in China, but I've seen him do jack shit to decrease trade with them or to quell the disastrous impact the Chinese have had on our economy. I was impressed with the way he stood up to the whole Huawei Princess fiasco. Huawei cheated. They did business with Iran because the CCP won't have anyone tell them to obey international sanctions. In fact, that's just a nice way to limit competition. Huawei swears up and down that they have nothing to do with the CCP but they do. All business in China is controlled by them. EVERYthing in China is controlled by them. This is why business with them is stupid. Do you think the two Canadians taken hostage immediately after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou was a coincidence? I'd be absolutely shocked if Xi Jin Ping didn't own stock in Huawei for crying out loud! It's a massive company and it's leading the world in 5G infrastructure. Which brings us to today. Right now Canada is choosing between a few 5G infrastructure companies. Huawei is one and there are a couple others from Finland and Sweden I think. This could be another reason why China is not being reprimanded for its behavior during this pandemic. Who do you reckon Canada will choose? I think the above picture might give us a hint. Watch for it. It's coming.

Now I will show you the benefit of having the US government graft being so well publicized. Canada can commit the same crimes against Canadian tax payers on the down low. For years 99% of Canada's oil went to the US. Now we've got a new oil customer. The pic above is a good hint. Harper made the deal even though he knew Canadians would hate it, and Trudeau is pushing the pipelines through. Why? Because we'll be sued if he doesn't. "We" meaning the taxpayers.

So now that the facts are coming out that China lied about Coronavirus numbers to preserve the image of the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jin Ping, enabling the deaths of many and the spread of the virus worldwide, Trudeau has to force a smile, get well within 9 feet and shake the infected hand of the Chinese leader. He can't tell the truth. For economic reasons.

Now there are rumours that the virus was created as a biological weapon in China. Or that the workers at the virus testing facility in Wuhan were selling test animals TO EAT on the nearby market. And we've heard about the bat eating. These are speculation on how the virus that originated in animals, made the mysterious jump to humans. Well I dunno. I doubt we ever will. But a Chinese newspaper based in Beijing reported on government officials ordering labs in December of last year that had identified the new coronavirus to hand over their samples to be destroyed and to declare themselves liars! A CHINESE newspaper. In China, a good rule of thumb for news agencies has been 90% good and only 10% bad, and most don't DARE approach the 10%. This is why. The CCP will force them to declare themselves liars. Or worse.

But before you blame your house-arrest on China, remember, we (Canada) and every other country in the world it seems, have been falling all over ourselves for a couple decades to be China's "preferred" trading partners, or as I more accurately call these countries in which Canada is included, "China's primary enablers." It's not just oil. Try to find any real estate in Canada's major cities that isn't spectacularly overpriced and owned by some Chinese person who probably doesn't even live in Canada. The Canadian government enabled our housing crisis by allowing Chinese investors to bundle our Canadian real estate, especially condos, so that one condo was "owned" by 50 people. Because of this, laws were relaxed on having to LIVE in the condo and the government couldn't go to China or Hong Kong and chase around 50 people to pay the capital gains tax, property tax or ANY tax on the damn things so those laws were relaxed. Even the normal 10% minimum buy in was relaxed to 5%. It wasn't just the US housing market crash that lead to the latest Canadian housing market collapse, it was the same sort of Canadian housing bubble created largely by the Chinese.

Well AT LEAST we didn't have to create an emergency 700 billion dollar bailout like the US. It has now ballooned to an estimated 3.6 TRILLION in the US. Ha ha ha. Canada didn't do that. We're better than the US. Well, that's not true. We did the same thing, only, again, on the down low. Now when you compare a 114 billion dollar and a 700 billion dollar bailout you might say, "Well at least we're better than the US." But when you consider the Canadian GNP is about equal to that of the State of Texas, no... no we are NOT better. We're considerably worse.

Now, we've got this financial crisis that isn't yet as bad as 2008, but I'd bet it will get there. The government has already created a financial package for the Canadian people that amounts to about 3% of our yearly taxes. Where do you suppose the other 97% goes. To corporate tax breaks like in America? No, of course not! Or maybe more goes there than we know. Only it's on the down low. It's more SECRET. Hidden in a mountainous Canadian Tax Code. And I've heard from reliable sources that "official" stats that are used in that article are bogus. The situation on paper is laughable. Most statistics on corporate taxes are released so that Canadians THINK corporations are paying taxes. ANY taxes.

And in case you think that's not enough, what are the credit card companies doing in this crisis. I heard that they are getting together and lowering loan or mortgage payments or something like that. That'll be something good Canadians remember to come out of the crisis. But have they lowered their interest rates at all? In this time when Canadians are locked away and ordering more stuff than ever online with their credit cards, why, it would violate all that is good and capitalist in any large company in Canada to pass up this opportunity!

How do you think our government will propose to recover from the Coronavirus disaster? Same way they have recovered from all our economic challenges, tax breaks for the banks and corporations and tax hikes for the rugged individuals of Canada. As I have mentioned, the economically feasible solution would be to get rid of income tax altogether, thus stimulating the economy of Canada by enriching its spenders instead of its savers and investors. But this is never the case. Income tax is going up. AGAIN. And it won't go down in a few years after we've completely paid for the crisis.

Ironically, even though the power to solve our economic woes will be in the hands of our own government in the form of money put there in the form of taxes paid by the people who wish the government to use that money to solve our economic woes, it won't be invested into our people and our economy, we will probably be told our government needs to invest it in a new FIPA or NAFTA or SHITTA agreement with China or the US, the two majority architects of Canada's economic woes. It's coming. Watch for it.

And when the real estate bubble bursts in our major cities' housing markets, taxes will go up again and banks and corporations will receive secret government bailouts again. Watch for it. It's coming.

So I'm sorry if I don't respect Canadian politicians and I don't get a warm, fuzzy feeling from anything that comes out of Justin Trudeau's face during one of his fireside chat drama shows. I know better than to fall for that. He's doing this so that when he springs the tax hike on Canada, Canada will probably go, "Okay. All right. We DID have that big Coronavirus problem. Hem, haw. I guess we should pay more. Hummina hummina. It's our duty. And he was such a nice guy all the way through it! Hermina hammina. But at LEAST I can drink beer and watch hockey again."

However, I believe Canada IS great and I still think there's a lot to be proud of in my country. I think maybe this challenge will open Canadians' eyes to the power the triumvirate of Canadian evil (the politicians, big business and banks) have stolen from the people over the years. I believe that instead of calling people like me who say, "Let's stop paying income tax," conspiracy theorists, angels of death or negative Nancy, people might use this time at home to research for themselves the economic and political realities in our country and get pissed off! Maybe even ACT like Canadians once DID in times of crisis. THOSE are the actions we can be proud of! People who refused to pay income tax back in the depression years. They weren't thrown in prison back then and we won't be thrown in prison now.

I have a dream! In it the people of Canada have a little bit of power again. The politicians of Canada sometimes do what we want them to do again. And the companies appreciate the people as their workers and customers again. The banks will pay more than half a percent of interest on our savings again. That we will HAVE savings again. And the credit card companies will charge less than 23 percent again. These things, not the list of things at the top of this post, are what would give ME a warm feeling of unity. I have a dream that ONE person will read this post and be inspired toward taking action and doing that which will make Canada TRULY more independent, one of the happiest countries in the world and worthy of worldwide and self respect. I have a dream.