Read About the Years – BONUS POST

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ALSO, PLEASE NOTE: Kent State should be compared to the Jan. 6 riot ONLY insofar as it really shocked the nation.

READ ABOUT THE YEARS

sung to the tune of “Reeling in the Years” with apologies to Steely Dan.

Your democratic freedoms, you can see them fading fast.
So you express your moral outrage with a social media blast.
Well, you’ve forgotten your history
of recent decades in this land.
Your panic and stress show that you don’t understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

You keep forgetting there’s nothing new under the sun.
In your youth you were blissfully ignorant
and always having fun.
But the real world and politics
have made you cynical and mad.
The fears your elders grew by, you don’t understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

Healthcare costs a lot of money
but democracy takes a lot of time.
GOP versus Hollywood is seared upon your mind.
The nation will survive this.
To lead, they’ll find another man.
History shows things aren’t hopeless.
Read– you’ll understand.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

You need to read about the YEARS of Joe McCarthy’s time,
’68-and-Kent-State,
and why Nixon resigned.

Out of the Gobi

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The Book of the Week is “Out of the Gobi, My Story of China and America” by Weijian Shan, published in 2019. This volume richly detailed the hardships faced by ordinary Chinese people from the 1950’s onward.

Born in 1953, the author spent most of his childhood in Beijing. As is well known, the Communist dictator Mao Tse-tung finally achieved nationwide dominance over the Nationalist (allegedly democratic, but still horribly corrupt) Chiang Kai-shek at the dawn of the 1950’s. (For additional info on how Communism is different from Socialism and Capitalism, see the bottom portion of this blog’s post, “The Last Idealist”). Mao proceeded to do grave damage to his country, causing the deaths of millions from starvation and financial disaster (among other causes).

Beginning in 1965, Mao declared there would be a new world order in his country, in the form of a Cultural Revolution. One of many goings-on during this period was burning, destruction or confiscation of all books except for those by the authors Marx (Karl, not Groucho), Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

The evil West’s bourgeois lifestyle was violently stamped out by Mao’s private police force, the Red Guard (which consisted of mostly young, armed and dangerous radical hooligans– sociopathic sadists), which brainwashed schoolkids of all ages, up to university level, to make Revolution. They destroyed the statue of the Venus de Milo, and denounced the Russian classical novels. A couple of years later, chaos reigned, but Mao was still in control.

In autumn 1966, at thirteen years old, the author was brainwashed by the youth movement to go on a fact-finding mission in the countryside. The government did away with entrance examinations, and in fact, all formal schooling. For about three weeks, the author and his peers traveled around by trains, buses and on foot to personally witness the Revolution. At one point, they went on a hike in the mountains, retracing the steps of the Red Army. Their travel expenses were paid for, but the conditions were quite primitive.

Into 1967, upon orders handed down by Mao, the youths protested against Capitalism in a way roughly equivalent to “Occupy Wall Street” but they got bored. They were neither studying nor working. For, a few years prior, the dictator had successfully thrown the country into disarray, forcing the closure of not only all schools, but bookstores, libraries, parks, movie theaters and houses of worship.

Thousands of people disappeared, were abducted from their homes– to be jailed, tortured, killed, for so much as speaking, writing or acting in the least way, critical of the government. In the environment of fear and force, they were under pressure to tattle on others before they themselves were punished.

Schools in the author’s area finally did reopen in autumn 1968, but education was still lacking. The author’s “Worker-Peasant-Soldier Middle School” (grades nine and ten– after what would be American grammar school) had no textbooks but students were drilled only on Mao’s propaganda.

In the summer of 1969, Mao realized it was time to change tack by sending young people to the countryside, as they had been making trouble in the cities long enough. He kept them busy by inspiring them to do hard manual labor, and study revolutionary thought. The kids truly tried their hardest– they were blindly obedient to the cause of defending their motherland against Soviet aggression. In autumn 1969, the whole nation went crazy constructing air-raid shelters and tunnels.

The author was sent to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia. Again, conditions were extremely primitive. He and his fellows got military training. However, due to a weapons shortage, another platoon was chosen to receive (outdated, Soviet-made) submachine guns. None of the company leaders had any experience in battle, but they inspired passion in their subordinates, anyway. Under the blazing summer sun, there were vicious mosquitoes. It was freezing in winter.

The author described his physical and psychological suffering of the next several years, as his group strove to complete a series of months or years-long agricultural and infrastructure projects that actually produced a net negative effect on food production and quality of life.

In 1979, the United States resumed formal diplomatic relations with China. People in China queued up for hours and hours for all kinds of consumer goods. The author, by then a recent university graduate, reveled in his new lap of luxury– he had time to read for hours and hours, had enough to eat, and got a hot shower once a week.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional information on: the author’s experiences in China from the 1950’s into the 1980’s (which involved a slew of health hazards) including but was far from limited to:

  • all his hard manual labor and psychological trauma;
  • his short stint as a medical “doctor” in 1971;
  • how he enjoyed the benefits of a student exchange program in the 1980’s; and
  • his troubles with the INS (hint– “… a mistake in the new letter: the date by which we had to leave the country was left blank… the INS had somehow lost our file…”).

This substantial volume reveals why, politically, economically, culturally and socially, and in quality of life– overall, China is still many decades behind America (never mind the propagandists who claim that China is allegedly becoming an economic powerhouse and will someday overtake the U.S.).

IS THAT A SHAME?

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IS THAT A SHAME?

sung to the tune of “Ain’t That A Shame” with apologies to: the estate of Fats Domino; and Joe Biden– shame on those who are blaming him for everything.

InFRA-structure, was passed, in a blur.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Did COVID, re-LIEF, cause you, any grief?

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Oh well, jobs grew. And wa-ges, too.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

InFRA-structure, was passed, in a blur.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

Oh well, jobs grew. And wa-ges, too.

Is that a shame?
You’re winning the game.
Is that a shame?
Joe’s the one to blame.

The Nation Got Run Over – BONUS POST

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THE NATION GOT RUN OVER BY A PLAGUE HERE

sung to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” with apologies to Randy Brooks, Elmo (and Patsy) Trigg, and whichever other rights holders this may concern.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

Some are drinking too much Kool-Aid
and others abuse their power so.
Still others scream for medication.
The hostility of some has reached a new low.

When they confined us in 2020,
they began a dangerous age.
We resented the intrusion,
and our State is such
we have yet to turn the page.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

It’s less than A year until midterms.
Our leaders’ messaging’s a joke.
See no masks on players of football
while tests and shots are FORCED on powerless folk.

It’s not nice to fool the people.
All the nation’s mad as hell,
and we just can’t help but wonder,
how much more must we endure before we’re well?

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

Soon the voters get to DEcide
whose heads are going to roll.
All those blue and red state mandates
are going to change pursuant to every political poll.

I urge all my fellow Americans:
you need to follow politics and vote.
The government has taken license
to curb our freedoms
and make their enemies the scapegoat.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

The nation got run over by a plague here
from years of White House gyrations election eve.
You can say political donors play Santa
and voters have no CLUE what to believe.

We’re Trigger-Happy – BONUS POST

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WE’RE TRIGGER-HAPPY

This is what the “Let’s Go Brandon” crowd ought to sing if they’re honest with themselves– sung to the tune of the partridge family (sic) theme song (Come On Get Happy) with apologies to the estate of Wes Farrell, Danny Janssen and whichever other rights holders this may concern.

SHOOting our mouths off;
JOIN in our zinging.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
A whole lot of anger is what we’ll be bringing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE being mean, and we stick together,
and spread a little hatin’;
no IMpulse conTROL.
We engage in profanity
instead of conflict res-o-lution.
We spread a crude feeling
wherever we GO.
Playin’ along with our hate-speech phrasing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
A whole lot of anger is what we’ll be bringing.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE trigger-happy.
WE’RE trigger-happ-y-y-y-y.

Beyond Hitler’s Grasp – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Beyond Hitler’s Grasp, The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews” by Michael Bar-Zohar, published in 1998.

Bulgaria lost a large amount of territory in WWI, and became a Constitutional monarchy after 1919. Its prime minister and other ministers served at the pleasure of its king, Boris III. Other sources of the nation’s power lay in its Army, the Communists and Macedonian terrorists.

In the 1930’s, roughly half of Bulgaria’s fifty thousand Jews lived in the capital of Sofia. They were productive members of society, and were treated just like people of any other religious group. There were only isolated incidents of anti-Semitism because most of the Jews were merchants, craftsmen or poor laborers, and so were not the victims of class envy.

When WWII began, Germany was able to help Bulgaria regain some of the land it had lost in the Great War. Germany was trading with and supplying weapons to Bulgaria, but the Bulgarians had more of a Soviet cultural and Soviet social mindset. So the king sought to keep his country out of the war.

Alexander Belev, an opportunist with hubris syndrome was the Bulgarian Commissar for Jewish Questions. In summer 1942, he collaborated with the Nazis in changing the definition of “Jew” based on ancestry rather than religion. This is one source of the notion that people can be “born Jewish”– have genetic traits that Jews share (For an additional source, see this blog’s post “In Search of Memory”).

Anyway, beginning in autumn 1940, laws went into effect that oppressed Bulgaria’s Jews by taking away their assets and sullying their reputations through hate-spewing and other actions of greedy, local bureaucrats who were taking orders from Hitler.

Read the book to learn how the common people, Christian churches, and circumstances determined the fates of Jews living in Macedonia, Thrace and Bulgaria (complete with romantic subplot, of course; hint: “The deep hatred for the Jews infected only the lunatic fringe of the wartime society, the Ratniks, Branniks, and Legionnaires and some sadistic police and army officers and KEV officials”), and of the mythmaking– historical revisionism of various incidents and events.

World Class

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The Book of the Week is “World Class, One Mother’s Journey Halfway Around the Globe in Search of the Best Education for Her Children” by Teru Clavel, published in 2019.

Born in the early 1960’s, the author had very different educational experiences from that of her children. She spent her early childhood years in Greenwich, Connecticut; middle years in New York City, and teens in Westchester county, New York. She, her husband and their three children spent a decade in Asia, and moved back to the United States in 2016.

They began their stay in Hong Kong in the expat community, but the author wanted her children to see how the natives actually lived and learned. The rat race among the super-rich elitists had become tiresome. So in Hong Kong and later in Shanghai, she found a preschool and elementary school that were right for her then-two children. Even so, most local Asian schools demanded discipline and rigorous academics that were standardized nationwide.

In Shanghai, though, her family endured hardships in order for her children to get the best educations– authentic to the culture of that place and time. In Asia, teaching is a highly respected profession for which there is rigorous training and a highly selective hiring process.

Both the author’s family’s local public school and their residence were structurally dilapidated. The former had classrooms that were unheated, so in winter, the kids wore their coats all day. The grounds had no playground, only a concrete basketball court with a bare hoop. The family’s home had vermin and unreliable water and internet service.

At the elementary school, the teachers specialized in math, Mandarin, English language or other subjects, and were paid more than the homeroom teacher. The kids learned with pencils and paper; not tablets and videos.

Every day before preschool began, the kids were subjected to a color-coded health examination: red (a lucky color in China) meant the child was well, yellow meant slight illness but okay to be in class, but blue indicated that the child would spend the day at the school infirmary. Most parents of elementary schoolers work to support a multi-generational household: an only child, the parents, and both sets of grandparents of the child.

The author’s six-year old son’s report card was a 46 page bound book containing assessments in each subject including social skills– comprised of opinions of the parents, teachers and students themselves. According to the author, the Chinese education system is a meritocracy, with high school and college entrance exams the keys to the kingdom.

The author wanted her children to attend high school in the United States, so the family moved to Palo Alto in California– the best school district in the nation; but, as the author found out, only reputationally.

Read the book to learn: many more details of Asian education and cultures, and how they compare to the American system in recent years; the author’s advice and tips for how parents can seek out the best education for their kids; and biographical information on the author and her family.