Doomed

The stock markets all around the world had one of the worst Black Wednesdays on 9 November, 2011, as the Italian government bond yields soared. Global stock markets freaked out and the US dollar value skyrocketed. 

The Italy crisis illuminates the entire gloomy EU economy in ways that exacerbates American jobs depending on stability and growth in the euro zone. Not surprisingly, one country's economic problem no longer tends to become a tempest in a teapot. If the Italian turmoil spread like a disease, at least one billions in the world would be infected inescapably.

The global economy is more intertwined than ever, and college students are the most fragile group either being blessed or cursed by the era of globalization. 

Now that the global economy is just awful, they are on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

No future for me and for them. But as an old saying goes, when god gives you lemons you make lemonade. 

So how? There must be a way out from the current disappointing environment as the wise saying says.

Is there? It appears none. Darn it.  This may be the reality.  Everyday will be a black day for college students, although they want to think  that " I am an exception."

Yes, there are some promising college majors that guarantee students a job:

If they study:

1. Actuarial Science—0 percent unemployment rate

2. Astronomy and Astrophysics—0 percent

3. Educational Administration and Supervision—0 percent

4. Geological and Geophysical Engineering—0 percent

5. Pharmacology—0 percent

6. School Student Counseling—0 percent

7. Agricultural Economics—1.3 percent

8. Medical Technologies Technicians—1.4 percent

9.Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology—1.6 percent

10. Environmental Engineering, Nursing, and Nuclear Industrial Radiology and Biological Technologies—2.2 percent

However, they don't study above majors, it's too soon to be devastated since Walmart has good deals for Black Friday:

Starting at 10 p.m. on Nov. 23, Wal-Mart is offering doorbuster deals: 

1. $5 Barbies marked down from $19

2.  jeans for less than $10

3. children's pajamas sets for $4.47 and a Black &   

    Decker Coffeemaker for $9.44

4. A Samsung 51-inch plasma TV for $498 down from $649

5. A Kodak 14 megapixel camera for $49 

 a Magellan GPS for $69, marked down from $89

6. Goodyear tires starting at $59

7. a Vizio 42-inch 3D LED Wi-Fi HDTV for $598 


Bravo !

Objective Journalism

An American couple who recently became Hawaii residents from California was arrested at a Safeway store, being accused of stealing two sandwiches that cost $2.5 each. 

The couple with their 2-year-old daughter went shopping and ate the sandwiche while putting other groceries in a cart. They of course saved the wrapper to get scanned for ringing up later. They must have been too hungry to shop. 

But they forgot to pay for the sandwiches, and that short amnesia resulted in a traumatic catastrophe for the daughter as well as the couple. 


Safeway security guards detained the family until the arrival of police officers who booked the couple on charge of shoplifting. More surprisingly, a Child Welfare Service worker took the baby girl away. The girl had never been separated from her parents before, who cried her heart out in a state of separation phobia. Worse, the wife was carrying a 30-week-fetus. 


Such procedure to get Child Welfare Services involved in is normal if a child is present when both parents are arrested, according to the police. 


After the story broke out, a countless number of news agencies covered the incident, siding with the underdog couple and reporting such as:


1. American society has lost all common sense.
2. Safeway has no heart and no sympathy for human beings.
3. Corporations are evil.

No doubt that the case has newsworthiness, armed with tearful, sympathetic, heartbroken, poignant, and touching elements.


Not even single report, however, shed spotlight on some shoppers' lawless shopping behavior: eating stuff at grocery stores before buying it, and then they say when they get caught, "I forgot."


There no longer exists such as objective journalism.  

Dayton gets its Day.

One of my few friends whose name is XXX has been suffering from the terrible recession. He owns a house in a suburban area, close to downtown Modesto, California. Despite his titanic effort to sell the house since 2009, no one has showed an interest in buying it. 


He bought the house when the housing bubble hit the peak in 2007 with $550,000 on a 30-year-mortgage, and now an estimated value of the house is down to $390,000. He is paying the interest every month that severely drags his life down.


It won't be long for him to see the "For Sale" picket in his front yard in addition to another phrase: Bank Owns. 


Maybe too many medium sized cities in the States go through the same pain, including Dayton, Ohio. Dayton, which used to be one of the best cities to live and raise children, is now a poster child representing cities in Ohio where people leave, shops are closed, factories are shut down, homes are empty with falling value, and streets get violent.


However, Dayton has claimed: enough is enough, announcing a new and practical plan in Sept. 2011 to reinvigorate the old glory. The plan is called: "Welcome Dayton: Immigrant Friendly City."


The core of the plan is that the city not only encourages immigrants to move in Dayton and feel welcome with the city-oriented support programs. Mayor Gary Leitzell epitomizes the main purpose of the plan, saying, "Immigrants bring new ideas, new perspectives and new talent to our workforce. To reverse the decades-long trend of economic decline in this city, we need to think globally."  


The mayor and leaders of the city don't deny that they are well aware of the current national debate over immigration regulations in Alabama, Georgia and Arizona that have passed laws in recent years cracking down on illegal immigrants. Yet the city officials tend to leave the final policy to federal authorities and focus instead on how to assimilate immigrants.


Since Dayton boasts its racial diversity from Latinos, Iraqis, Russians, Turks to Asians who are living peacefully and quietly, residents in Dayton expect to bring "more Asian doctors in hospitals, foreign-born professors and graduate students at the region's universities, and owners of new small businesses such as a Turkish family's New York Pizzeria on the city's east side and Hispanic-run car lots, repair shops and small markets," according to a city planner.  


If the plan turns out successful in revitalizing the entire city, the city can deserve some applause as a brave and innovative poster child, not Quddafi but Steve Jobs. 

Same Old

A housewife or stay-at-home mom asks herself today as usual, “What do I have to cook for dinner?” Although her husband and kids are coming home soon or later, dinner menu hasn’t been fixed yet.

Instead of cooking for dinner, she might think about ordering pizza or eating out. But the latter costs too much money in this tough period of economic recession, and the former makes her feel guilty of abandoning her responsibility as a mom and wife who is determined to look after her family with healthy food and comfort home atmosphere.  

She eventually ends up stopping by a near Chinese restaurant to take out such items: noodle, Koongpao chicken, fried rice, Mongolian beef, and sweet sour pork. These menus look healthier than pizza and cheaper than dining in. She applauses her wisdom and decisive mind, thinking with a smile that mission is accomplished, at least for tonight.

In a similar way, I need to post a blog twice a week. I have fixed Tuesday and Thursday as my blogging days. But today, nothing seems to attract me to blog about. This morning the temperature when I left my place was around below freezing point so I had to use my ice scraper to get the windshield visible. 


That reminds me of the privilege of having a car garage. Having a car garage is definitely one of the American dreams. And the dream will be seasonally forgotten until next winter. Anyway like a stay-at-home mom, I had to improvise a topic for today’s blog to write something about, and I end up doing this, at least….  

MS and fatigue

A medial report published recently in Swiss shows that meditation or mindfulness practice may help people who are struggling  through every day and having difficulties in sleeping through the night with a ton of worries. 

In a professional medical term, such people are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). More easily speaking, they suffer from depression and anxiety, grounded in a nervous system disease that occurs in early adulthood. The disease also can cause muscle weakness and memory problems. 

According to the research, the majority of MS patients went through the symptom of feeling fatigued all the time, which even made their lives miserable.  Chronic fatigue refers to severe, continued tiredness that is not relieved by rest and is not directly caused by other medical conditions.

That's what I am experiencing nowadays although I am unsure that the feeling or condition originates from my physically weak body metabolism or psychologically dysfunctional metal system.

But another research proved that chronic fatigue syndrome does exist physically unlike the old belief that there would be no such syndrome because it all comes from your own weak imagination. 

To alleviate the symptom, doctors recommend relaxation and stress-reduction practice through meditation. 

In other words, there seems to be no panacea for MS or tiredness, but the only recommendation for current patients and future ones is to embrace meditation.

So how?

Find specialists who live on it. 

Where?

India, the country of Yoga

When?

You have enough money to buy flight tickets

Why? 

I mean, you don't wanna waste your time and money with quacks in America. 

Who?

Real gurus should be around Indian rivers or deep mountains, practicing meditation by crossing their legs around their neck, and never sleeping for at least ten days. 

Anything else?

If you really can't afford a trip to India, find Indian students and ask them to be 

your meditation teacher. 

   

A new Swiss study reports that a form of meditation known as mindfulness may help patients with multiple sclerosis.

Patients with MS — a nervous system disease that typically surfaces in early adulthood and can cause muscle weakness, coordination/balance problems and thinking and memory problems, among other symptoms — often suffer from depressionand anxiety.

The study compared multiple sclerosis patients who meditated to MS patients who didn't. Dr. Moses Rodriguez, a professor of neurology and immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who's familiar with the study's findings, said meditation is safe and cheaper than the drugs that MS patients take.

"Patients should try it and see if it is helpful for them," Rodriguez added.

College education hype

Just shocking and jaw dropping to know that


1. The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent.


2. The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans.


Thus the United States is a more unequal society than either Tunisia or Egypt.


Wow, Wow, and Wow.


No wonder why the Occupy Wall Street movement has gained such support, although the top 1 percent would less likely to care about it.


How can we bring a more equal society with the movement?


Elizabeth Warren, Democratic candidate for a Senate seat in Mass., insinuates some suggestions to narrow down the gap between the rich and poor in a polite manner, but
I interpret them with my own self-comfortable words:


1. disassemble big corporation system
2. incarcerate well-paid lobbyists
3. bombard the rich with super taxes
4. revolutionize D.C. weirdos
5. stop greedy corporations from using roads, public safety agencies, and education systems paid by
    the taxes.

She seems to be determined to help the middle class to get back to the society to support a healthier system of the nation. Her ideals can be embedded with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel who understands the significance of revolution for the education.


Emanuel recognizes that even though Chicago has thousands of job openings, not many young people can fill due to lack of skills. A lot of jobs in the fields of technical, engineering service technicians, and welders are open with high pay (for example, average welder's earning: $40 per hour). Yet openings go unfilled. The U.S. education system which always emphasizes advantage of college education needs to be altered, and the mayor must spearhead.

Up to victims

According to a Gallup Poll, 35 percent of Americans now object to the death penalty — the highest level in nearly 40 years.


Reasons are: 1. death penalty cases are viewed as being costly; 2. it provides little deterrent against serious crimes; 3. humans can't kill each other through the legal system; 4. God resents the notion; 5. Execution brings no victims back; 6. some executed could be innocent; 7. human rights are sacred even for murders; 8. It's too cruel to put a human being under execution; And 9. execution can't be justified by the standard of justice.


All above mentioned are representing criminals' perspective. They totally ignore victims' pain and angst, and their families' trauma that can be never cured. Vigorous activists against the death penalty seem to have their bread and butter after Troy Davis was executed in September, asserting that nearly 140 death row inmates have been exonerated or had their cases overturned on appeals. In addition, they never forget to play the race card when it comes to rationalizing their absurd baloney: blacks are more likely placed on the death row. 


They need to be asked: what if your parents or your kids got killed, and the bad boy was not executed? Can you still root for abolishment of the death penalty? Maybe few say Yes, and the activists are itching to highlight the Yes. 


It's not their decision to abolish the system. Rather it is the decision of victims and their families. It would be reasonable if victims and families pleaded clemency. Other than that, the death penalty is still a necessary evil. Why? 1. One inmate costs U.S. tax payers $48,000 per year so early execution saves money. 2. Execution sends a message of justice, which still effectively deters crimes. 3. God is not the victims or their families. 4. Those who killed others must be punished with the same. 5. Only humans deserve human right.  6. Vicious and heinous criminals are repetitive.


In short, execution of death penalty sentenced inmates needs to follow victims and family's opinion. 
     

system or technology failure

Each post at my blog site is supposed to show at least three photos or images by my own standard.


So I have done it. Each time, with my new blog, I included images between paragraphs.


It looked fine whenever I post them.


But a few days or even hours later, those images were gone although it left an image of X which
shows a visible image used to be here.


I blamed my outdated and retarded skills of using such advanced technology allowing me to post and
preen images. By making some efforts to fix the problem, I had to wreck my slow brain and fingers.
Again, beating up my pathetic ability of managing a blog site was not uncommon.


But some jaw-dropping news hit my eyes: my blog website is partially flawed.
Some users of www.blogger.com complaint the same problem as follows:

* unfortunately my images have disappeared again.  i put my feed back onto my blog and the instant i did that the images were gone. 


* How long has this been going on, do you know? I just checked my own. One blog--my photoblog--has shown no images for some time


* images in my posts are not showing up on the reading list.  when i view the blogs i follow, in the reading list i can see their text as well as an image.  why does mine only show text?


Such issues sharing is a little shot in the arm to me. 


Technology gives you sickness and medicine. Don't let it control you.... 

A starved mouse can become A cruel wildcat.

While the richest nation in the world struggles with a higher unemployment rate, some young citizens pretesting against Wall Street in NYC entered their 18th day of demonstration to show that they need a job which has been deprived by the greedy corporate people who take the lion's share of the nation's entire profits. 

The protest reminding me of the Arab Spring seems to quickly spread like unstoppable wildfire, and the recent riots of the UK also crossed my mind. It is reported that advocates of the protest started to camp out on streets from LA to Maine. Even if there is little likelihood of such protests turning into the similar riots of the Rodney King case, the privileged class needs to listen to anger and frustration of the young Americans. 


One protester said that he applied for over 100 jobs and received no response. Yes None out of 100. He earned his master's degree in English from a state university.  


With prolonged and chronic disappointment after job search, they are sick of the social system  that can't offer a place to work. It can be possible that some of the protesters want the protest to develop into violent demonstrations across the nation like the Arab Spring. Such people sees disparity over hope. And they wish to ask who took their hopes away. And they found the answer at Wall Street.

In particular, It is daunting for college students concerned with their job prospects. Worse, there seems to be no exit of this recession soon.  


Though there is an old saying that nobody can address poverty, not even the king of the world, it is time for the rich class armed with cash and social power to ponder over alleviating the powerless vying for basic needs.   

    

Kim's family

Being uninterested in North Korea ruled by Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un, 

I never bother myself to look into news about the country labeled as rogue, arcane, insane, cruel....

According to multiple sources of South Korean news articles, 

the Kim's family has smuggled super extravagant luxury goods through its ambassadors staying in

socialist countries. 

The Kim Sr. is known as collector of anything that fulfills his fantasy. 

His obsession with speed results in importing racing horses from Russia, each horse costs  more than

$ 100,000. When Kim's father founded the country, a myth was propagated: Kim Il Sung came down from 

the heaven on a holy white horse. The horse photo, Orlov Trotter, is one of the real horses imported from Russia. 

North Korea smuggled, not imported US made jet skis to meet Kim's expectation. North Korea is constrained by United Nations sanctions from exporting or importing luxury goods.

Sea Doo Jet Skis  are banned to be sold to the country


 since they are US goods. 

But Kim grabbed them in his hands by squeezing his 


subordinates living abroad so 

North Korean diplomats' chief tasks are to supply his list 


of luxury goods regardless of 

rarity. Of course, US products are obtained in other 


communist countries and then shipped to North Korea.

According to the South Korean agencies, Kim has spent 


$1.04 billion to purchase 

such luxuries for his family and henchmen over the last 


three years, including 

numerous wine ($1,000 per bottle), whiskey ($2000), 


boats ($ 1million), Mercedes ($ 100,000), even pet shampoo.

One important fact that Kim has to smuggle such goods 


is that he uses such luxuries to give his subordinates in 


return for allegiance.

That's why the country has not been toppled yet in the 


waves of Arab Spring. 

     

TV, the greatness

Once a media consumer starts to view television shows as a subject of study to analyze and criticize, he would lose his appetite for the simple TV pleasure: watch, laugh, and relax. In a similar way, as an old Asian saying goes, “When your enjoyment turned into a business to feed yourself, your life will turn out to be a miserable stage of coma.” This is where I am stuck at present. As an ex and current-TV addict, I used to and still have a dream of spending the rest of my life watching TV in my cozy recliner, giving my best compliment to a remote control that completes my TV life. I regarded the remote as the most brilliant device supporting my couch potato life style.

However, my dream was not stretched into my reality, which forced me to do something for my career. For most people in the world, there are four inevitable human being stages we have to go through: birth, school, work, and death. I ended up majoring in journalism for my bachelor’s degree, which has led me to still study, although I had not seen myself studying this much long. Thus nothing could explain my current life about why I can't embody my dream. 

Anyway, ranging from court/police drama, sports, food and travel, sitcom, music, comedy, reality shows to news channels, I developed and specialized my skill of flipping channels, picturing myself winning a world contest of the longest TV watcher with no sleep. 

Unfortunately, my specialization failed to last longer than I wished as I have to get a life. Dude.... 

Brain dormancy

What would you do when your brain was not working as you need? It appears that my brain – although I am not sure of its entity – has been on a strike.

From the beginning of this quarter, something has been nagging my brain or my mind, so I was determined to hunt it down.

What has been eating me up? Why I feel like being drawn by intangible or psychological niceties of my own every piece of body parts? Even, why am I having such non-pragmatic curiosities?

The entity something bugging me could be…: no clue.

Having said that life should be great and profitable because you already made a big profit by the time you were born: being born naked, but got free clothes right away. What a business you made.

Anyway, going back to my original quest of brain dormancy, scientists have been evaluating and measuring brain performance with such dimensions: IQ and EQ.

Getting old, I am aware of two phenomena going around my brain and heart: lowering IQ and plummeting EQ. Nobody can go against time. Hence I understand the natural symptoms of brain blackout, heavily stimulated by my binge habit until a couple years ago. But the EQ weakness seems to be derived from strenuous news of tragedies, which would numb my heart for people in desperate circumstances.

However, I have found one book,

Brainworks: The Mind-bending Science of How You See, What You Think, and Who You Are

, written by Dr. Mike Sweeney of journalism at Ohio University.

This book will be a vehicle for stopping my brain power loss. My book review will be followed soon.   

Italy, the luxurious but...

According to a bunch of financial newspapers, the credit rating company S&P downgraded on Friday Italy’s credit rating from A+ to A with a looming outlook in which the country will have difficulty escaping weak economic growth. In other words, the government’s fragile financial surroundings, as Europe’s second-biggest debtor, could lead to a spillover effect of inviting credit collapse of other EU nations.

How, What, and Why has this country been placed in such a pitiable situation?

There is no doubt that Italy has built its great national image. Economically speaking, it is ranked the world’s eighth-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP, and one of the top five highest government budgets in the world. Even politically, the country is a member of G8 and one of the lead countries of Eurozone.

Culturally, Italy is the home of the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites with the Coliseum, the Pisa Tower, and invaluable arts of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, and Raphael. In addition, without mentioning Italian luxury brands, the country’s global brand power would not be explainable: Versace, Gucci, Armani, Prada, Fendi, Pagani, Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and so on.

Known for a high standard of living, romantic culture, and fluent technologies of modern industries, Italy and its allies would have never predicted this much hardship. There should be a lot of niceties of the current turmoil, but politics should be the first to be blamed, especially the head honcho of the nation: Silvio Berlusconi, 74, Italy’s third richest man with the estimated fortune of $9 billion. Wiretapped by an unidentified agency, Berlusconi told a convicted cocaine dealer that he had sex with eight women in one night and he is “only prime minister in his spare time.”

My great sympathy to people in Italy. 

Cushy feelings of 1,000 women?

Probably, the luckiest or the weirdest guy in the world just spoke out, “Hey, lady, let me grab your boobs.” And 1,000 ladies in Russia let him “paw” their pairs. The reason they allowed was neither for sympathy toward a 40-year-old virgin boy nor for medical research on breast cancer patients. It was for the cold-blooded or revered leader of the country: Vladimir Putin, the former President and current Prime Minister.

Sam Nickles, identified as a comedian and entertainer, posted a video on YouTube, saying that he touched 1,000 women’s boobs in a week. He had thousand-different cushy feelings during the period between 70 and 300 women a day. What was his ruse to attract these ladies into such a bizarre event?

Nickles convinced young and attractive looking Russian ladies by saying, “ Vladimir Putin is always busy with important state affairs and, moreover, he is married. He does not have time for trifles. But he is a man too. And he cannot afford to touch the potential voters. But Sam Nickel can! Sam Nickel has plenty of time. Sam decided to touch women voters first, and then to shake hands with Putin with the same hand. See for yourself how it was.” In short, your proud and cozy sexual aurora/halo emitted from your two bulge parts of the body will be positively transferred to Mr. Putin through my hands, so Ladies, show Mr. Putin your passion for his next plan to come back as President of Russia in 2012.

And 1,000 Russian ladies did it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW65nI3Zs-8

According to the Russian Constitution, President can maintain the position only two-terms in a row (each term with four years), but he or she can be back after one-term absence.

Mr. Putin after his popular two-term presidency designated the current president Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, who has been regarded as Putin’s puppet. It seems obvious that Putin will have no problem of taking his old job back although there is an unidentified rumor that Medvedev wants one more term.

The year 2012, Russia, China, and America are going to have new or re-elected presidents. Interesting international political events are coming up.