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.