My parents separated and then divorced when I was a teenager. The separation occurred when I was around 14 years old, but the formal divorce didn’t happen until I was around 27 or so.

About 15 years later.

All of us kids pretty much expected it and was confused why it took them so long. But my folks were afraid that the divorce would shatter us, so they remained separate but cordial… for the sake of us kids.

It didn’t matter.

When they were together, they fought. And it was not nice and pleasant, and then when they were away, our lives lost a dimensions to it that I really wish had remained.

Fake a marriage if you have to. But do not have a broken home.

Boys need both parents present. Girls need both parents present.

…

Anyways… I’ve learned from my father’s errors, and I am trying to compensate with my little girl. She is my princess, and I am doing my best to be the best daddy to her ever. Even if she doesn’t realize it yet.

You know, for decades, in my mother’s basement sat a brand new but unused industrial wet vac… a big tub of a vacuum cleaner. She refused to have anything to do with it, and let it sit there unused and collecting dust.

One day, I turned it on and tried to use it, and my mother FREAKED OUT! And she ordered me to turn it off.

So I did.

…

I then remembered what happened.

It was a gift that my father bought for my mother, and it (must have been) the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. He brought it one one day and suggested to my mother to use it to clean the house. She got very angry at him, for after all, she was (at that time) working as well. And she did not like the idea of working and then coming home to clean afterwards.

Ugh.

…

Anyways. Eventually, when my mother sold the house and the property, long after their divorce, the big vacuum with the great sucking ability, was thrown out. Discarded. A memory… a painful one, I am sure … that both my mother and father shared.

…

Learn from the past. So that you do not repeat the mistakes of the old.

Today…

What’s the coldest thing a doctor has ever said to you?

“Your tumor has grown back. We can remove it, but we’ll have to cut off two of your fingers and 30% of your palm. You’ll get a medical discharge. We’ll operate next Tuesday”

“Sorry; doc, can I get another opinion?”

“Yes. I’ll give you a consult to plastic surgery, to talk about wound care.”

This was a vascular surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital. So I “jumped ship”, and went to Walter Reed Army Hospital, and asked to see an orthopedic oncologist.

“Can you still wiggle your fingers?”

“Yes, ma’am”” And I showed her my range of motion.

“Anything in your current duties you can’t do, as a result?”

“I have trouble straightening them enough to do a snappy salute, but other than that, no.”

“When you have trouble holding tools, or eating with that hand, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll give you a medical waiver on the saluting, and you can go back on duty.”

Four years later, they had a new surgical technique, and “debulked” the tumor, instead of cutting off my fingers and part of my hand. It’s still working fine now, 25 years later.

What is something that your child said that you’ll never forget?

I was an unhappy mom after my child was born. I guess it would be more correct to say that I was depressed for a pretty long time after my son had been born. And he cried a lot. As a person who didn’t like to sing I found it pretty difficult to sing for my son even when I felt it would help. So I somehow picked up a song from the child show I heard in my childhood and googled the lyrics. Every time he had been crying for more than 5 minutes I became desperate and started to sing that song. All the time the same song. I guess he was less than a year old back then.

My son grew up, got bigger and cried less. After he’d turned 1 yo I felt much better too, so I stopped singing that song. I forgot about it. I think he never heard it since he was one year old.

This happened when he was three and already could talk pretty well. I was at work and started to develop a headache. As I usually had no problems with headaches I didn’t take any pain killers and the pain with time became unbearable. I found it difficult to even walk.

I had to pick up my son from kindergarten that day. I called my partner to ask for help but he didn’t pick up the phone. I called his mom who lived close to the kindergarten but she didn’t pick up the phone either. So I took some pills and went out. I had one of the most horrible headaches in my life that day and I hardly remember how I got to the kindergarten. I picked up my son and told him directly I had a violent headache. We came home quietly and went to the bathroom to wash hands. I was sitted on a little chair there holding my head in my hands, my son was washing his hands and suddenly he started singing. It was that song he heard so many times when he was a baby. He knew it from the beginning to the end. By heart.

I will never forget it.

What is your opinion on China’s call to the United States to “carefully consider” rules that ban or restrict U.S. investments in China’s tech sector?

It is self explanatory.

The long-term forecasts clearly favor China by every measure.

If American companies fail to use this period of time to invest, they will not be able to “jump on the bandwagon” and take advantage of opportunities that are presenting themselves today.

If the Biden “government” insists that all American (and allied) companies “sit this one out”, then the entire American and Western industry will fall back and will NEVER be able to catch up.

…

China is being kind.

The United States NEEDS to “carefully consider” the long-term ramifications of their current actions.

As China gets stronger, more important, more dominant in all areas, the United States is at risk to not only falling behind, but going absolutely obsolete in the process.

This is not something that China wants.

…

China wants and prefers a vibrant world; one where different regions; nations, societies and people thrive. In the world that China envisions, it is a WIN-WIN for everyone.

However, the path that the United States has embarked on is fraught with danger. And the United States appears to be on fast-track towards becoming a blight; a mawed gouge in an otherwise improved world.

…

So China is being very polite, and very understated.

However, the truth is the truth.

What would happen if pirates stole a modern navy ship? Is it possible?

Not even remotely plausible. Like, negative percentage possible.

This is my ship, USS Germantown LSD-42. The Germantown is one of the least protected ships in the navy since we were basically Lyft for the jarheads.

The black arrows point to BIG guns that will sink anything any pirate can shoot or drive anywhere near a naval ship. The red arrows are where marines go. Marines go brrr brr brrr with their machiney guns, pirates go die die die. I actually took part in an evolution where marines on the far left red arrow went brr brr brr at some pirates who’d taken control of a yacht owned by French nationals. We cut coms to the outside world for days so nobody could talk about it, and the only people who knew about it were us bridge watch standers and those with need to know.

Black arrows go Brrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttt and shake the whole ship.

The real life version of these guys has No chance against brrrrrrrrrttttttttttt.

Edit: 50,000 views?! My crappy answer got translated into another language?!? Who’d have thunk? I had thought my time in the Navy was pretty uneventful, but chatting in the comments with you wonderful folks has shown me even some of the inane stuff I took for granted are cherished memories. Thank you all for the comments (except for that 1 dude) and upvotes.

Edit2: 300,000 views!!! I’m amazed by the popularity of this answer I threw together in 5 minutes, it’s now been translated into 4 different languages. It’s gratifying to read a bunch of words I don’t understand then see brrrrrt, it makes me smile every time. I’ve really enjoyed chatting in the comments too. Thanks Quora community.

Edit 3: this is a fishing dow. This vessel gets probably closer to any US naval ship than any other will. We would send our small-boat out to interact with the fishermen on these dows. We would provide produce or medicine to them in exchange for information. Pretty much every fisherman on a dow we met was happy they had met us, and not once did their boats get close to causing us a problem.

ICK

Gingered Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients

• 1 package boneless chicken tenders
• 1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger or 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/4 pound snow peas or 1 (16 ounce) package frozen snow peas
• 1/4 cup Oriental stir fry sauce
• 4 cups hot cooked rice

Instructions

1. Cut chicken tenders in half. Drain oranges; reserve 1/2 cup syrup. If using fresh ginger, cook ginger in hot oil 30 seconds.
2. Add chicken and powdered ginger (if using) and stir fry about 3 minutes.
3. Add snow peas, reserved syrup and stir fry sauce. Heat to boiling, stirring. Reduce heat, cover and cook 2 minutes.
4. Top with orange sections.
5. Serve over rice.

Yield: 4 servings

What are the three new things you have learned from this lockdown?

1. I’ve learned what my wife does for a living. I wrote about that here. She’s had this job for about 15 years now, and only since the lockdown and listening to her work from our home office all day do I now know what a “project manager” does all day. It’s mostly just Zoom meetings and spreadsheets and spending a lot of time discussing with people from around the country which word to use in a particular sentence.
2. I’ve learned that, once one neighborhood kid goes outside, the other kids in the neighborhood seem to emerge from their houses within a few minutes. It’s like all of the kids are waiting by their window for the first kid to get the ball rolling. I sometimes convince my kids to walk the dog with me, knowing that we won’t make it down the block before their friends are all out, wanting to play with them, which was the plan all along. Kids playing with each other=more free time for parents.
3. I’ve learned that planning, shopping for, prepping, and cleaning up after three meals per day for five people take a lot of time if you want to do it right. That’s why I think there’s a direct link between rising obesity rates in the US, and a rise in households where both parents work outside of the home. You can feed your kids healthy meals, or quick meals, but not both, it seems. Not both consistently, at least.

Smart kid

Have you ever had a job where you did nothing for years and nobody found out?

I worked for one of the biggest Life Assurance companies in South Africa. The company was going through a restructure with departments merging and voluntary severance packages been offered. Things were just generally chaotic.

After 13 years at the same company, the time had come for me to leave the corporate world and start my own thing. I unfortunately did not qualify for one of the voluntary severance packages as they said that I was a key employee and would not pay for me to leave. I had gone through the emotional turmoil of getting to this decision so my mind was made up to leave. I filled in the normal resignation documentation I received from HR and handed it in to my line manager. He had to check if all the information was correct, sign it and hand it in to HR.

To make sure that I have some security in my life, I requested that my full pension payout be transferred to a provident fund. I had saved up some money to be able to start my venture without using any of my pension money.

On my last day at work I handed in my Work ID and left without much fanfare as things were still very hectic with the organisational restructure.

The next day I started working on my own business venture. I was getting used to the new life of being self employed. Slower internet, new bank account, no longer part of a big company with designated job descriptions. I had to do everything myself. Seeing clients, doing the work and getting my own tea.

Things were very hectic for a year and a half and financially very challenging. When I eventually got my act together, I started sorting out all the smaller things that I did not get around to when I first started out on my own.

One of the first things I did was go to the bank to close down my old account. I had moved all my debit orders to my new business account and there was no reason to run two accounts. I got the shock of my life when I got to the bank to close the account, thinking there were only a few Rands left. There was almost R500k in the account. I never bothered checking my bank statements when I received them in the post. thinking that there is nothing happening on the account so there is no reason to check. … and I just did not have the time. I thought that the bank had made a mistake so I asked for a 24 month statement. And there is was………. My salary after deductions was being deposited into my account every month.

I called the company that was supposed to be administering my Provident Fund. They had never received the money or the paperwork from my previous employer.

I called up HR at my old employer trying to find out what was going on but got given the run around and got nowhere.

Eventually I decided to go in to their offices and try and sort it out in person. When I got to reception, I gave them my name and surname. And security said “ Oh Mr……., have you forgotten your Work ID at home?” and gave me a temporary ID card and let me into the building.

After a lot of toing and froing at HR it was discovered that my line manager never handed my resignation documentation in to HR. I was still in their employ. My pension and medical aid contributions as well as my income tax were still being deducted and my salary paid into my account.

I asked how I should return the money seeing that I did not actually work there for a year and a half. The head of HR said that it would be best if we assume that I was in their employ and just did the paperwork for my resignation for the current date. It would save a lot of hassle in terms of the medical aid, the pension fund and most importantly, from the South African Revenue Services.

I got paid for not working for a year and a half. The irony is that the amount I got paid in error was very similar to what I would have received had they given me a severance package.

Edit 1:

Thank you for all the upvotes and comments (especially the ones with the South African slang….. good one Rushaan Edson-Chandley) .

I’m not able to respond to each comment individually thus this edit.

The reason I informed them as soon as I found out and did not continue receiving the salary and use itis my own business is because it would have gone against my character.

I’m not sure how this situation went unnoticed for the time it did, ( It could be due to the point that Louw Nieuwoudt raised as I did work in Cape Town) but I’m sure it would have eventually been uncovered as John Hudson commented. This way I ended it on my terms. They were the ones who insisted that I keep the money and thus it did not feel like I was stealing the money.

It is like Elizabeth Mead mentioned…….. “Financial karma!”. What goes around comes around. And this would have applied to me too in the long run.

High value men

This long list showcases the heartwarming spirit of mutual assistance

The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed heartfelt appreciation to many countries and international organizations that have expressed sympathies to China after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake on Monday jolted Jishishan county in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Northwest China’s Gansu Province.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, following the earthquake in Jishishan County of Linxia Prefecture, Gansu Province, leaders of various countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni, Pakistani President Arif Alvi, Maldives’ President Mohamed Muizzu, ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra, Belorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon,  German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the three members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungarian President Katalin Novák, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, have sent messages or letters to express deep sympathies to President Xi Jinping and condolences over the victims of the earthquake.

Other leaders from various countries and international organizations, including Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chairman of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav Volodin, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan Raja Pervez Ashraf, Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, Vice President of the Maldives Hussain Mohamed Latheef, Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov, Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis, also extended sympathies to China through messages and other means. Countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Türkiye, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus, the US, Australia, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Chile have expressed sympathies to China by various means. We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation for their well wishes.

United States Military

As a medical professional, have you ever come across rude or funny notes written in a patient’s medical files?

When I was a 1st year medical student, I tagged along with a pediatrician. There were all sorts of interesting abbreviations in charts for me to learn and memorize, especially under the exam portion of the note. The heart exam was RRR (regular rate and rhythm). Lungs were BCTA (bilaterally clear to auscultation), and abdomens were NT/ND (nontender, nondistended).

There was one I couldn’t figure out, however, on a toddler ultimately found to have congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In this syndrome, the adrenal gland secretes an excess of testosterone among other things, causing the penis to enlarge but the testicles—sensing that someone else was doing their job— to shrink. (Similar to the effect of injected anabolic steroids in athletes). Anyway, based on the physical exam findings, my attending strongly suspected congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Under her genitourinary exam she had written the abbreviation “LMNOP.”

I couldn’t find this abbreviation in any of my class notes or text books. I was stumped. I finally had to break down and ask her. She was at the nurses’ station as I approached and barely looked up from her charting.

“Oh, that. Lot’s of Meat, but NO Potatoes.”

(To be clear, I have never used this particular expression but I would be lying if I said it didn’t pop into my mind occasionally!)

She’s right

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h0T-ctb0D30?feature=share

What aspects of your childhood will most people not relate to?

I grew up on, or next to, military bases.

My dad was gone for 50% of my life, deployed to war zones where he was actively involved in dangerous stuff. People ask if I missed him, and – of course – I did, but not as much as one would think. It was a lifestyle that I was born into. It’s all I knew.

Running around on the military bases, I frequently heard airplanes doing dry runs overhead. If one of the larger C-17 was coming over, we knew to cover our ears, as it would shake the walls of the building we were in.

Goofy haircuts weren’t allowed. Most kids on the military base were quite well behaved. Military parents taught respect early.

I’ve been to more military ceremonies than I can count. The military is very much about pomp and circumstance. “Change of Commands”, where a new leader is appointed, and the other steps down to take a different command, or retire, were common:

I used to dread shaking hands at these ceremonies. Most of these guys were all Navy SEALs and they squeezed way too hard when shaking hands. (Having a firm handshake is a custom in America, these guys took it a bit too far.)

My parents are both remarkably different from one another. I even remarked to my dad on my recent visit up north, “You know it’s weird, you and mom are so different, you have such different skill sets.”

My dad is very orderly, extremely disciplined with work ethic, with a strong moral code that comes naturally – his views, and actions, align with what is right without much effort – which is probably why he is such a good leader.

But where he lacks creativity and humor, my mom fills that in spades. She is naturally gifted at music, art, cooking, and has a quick wit, and is very fun-spirited.

So it was quite the contrast as a child. You could divide my upbringing into two halves: the months when it was just mom. And the months when it was just dad.

It could be a bit discombobulating, having to adjust to the two personalities.

But probably the most un-relatable thing was having to move 12 times before the age of 18. Every year or 2, we picked up everything and moved to a new place far away and started over again.

But – alas, the family is still here. And going strong.

Three secrets

It’s been said within the first 45 seconds of a job interview, the interviewer already made up their mind about whether you will be called back for a 2nd interview. Why don’t they say thanks & end the interview in 5 minutes? Why pretend & waste time?

When I started at Cambridge University, the Director of Studies who accepted me into the program said the same thing,

If it is a no, we usually make a decision after two minutes

Hearing this, I asked the same question in my head. If they can decide so quickly why even continue the interview?! They can’t possibly decide that quickly

Later on, I realized he was right

When I became a PhD student at Oxford, I thought it would be fun to tutor students. This was a responsibility my Director of Studies also had. When I started tutoring I immediately understood what he meant. You can tell within a a few minutes how capable the students are. You read their essays. You meet with them. You see their body language and mannerisms. And you know

I could rank every student and predict what grades they would get in the summer exams. After just a few minutes. My initial assessment of the student was right 95% of the time

However, even though you may decide after five minutes. There is a still a good reason to continue to speak to them. A binary yes/no decision is not the only reason for an interview

When choosing to employ someone you are making a commitment to work with them over an extended period, pay them a full time salary, meet with them on a regular basis, mentor them, offer constructive feedback, enable their career progression, help them find subsequent employment, and so on. That is a major commitment

But meeting someone for 30 minutes is not

So even if you decide after five minutes. You may still continue with the interview. Have them meet others on your team. Or even have dinner with them. It can still be a positive interaction. And both parties will benefit, even if it does not lead to a job

Matchmaker reject

What’s something you realized about a family member once you got older?

My uncle was a con man.

He passed away a few years ago. I’d forgotten all about him until my cousin (his son) posted something about his death on social media. That brought back several memories of him, including the time that he parked a trailer home in my parents’ back yard for over a year. My parents had a huge back yard, and, one day, he asked them if he could park a trailer home in it “for a few days.” My dad agreed. It was there for over a year, killing all of the grass underneath it and being a huge eyesore.

Years later, as an adult, during a conversation with my father, I finally got the whole story: my uncle was hiding the trailer home in our back yard, so it didn’t get repossessed. My father said that he figured it out and, once he realized he was being an accessory to a crime, insisted that my uncle get it out of our yard, or he (my dad) would call the repo company himself. The next day, it was gone.

Besides that, over the years, I’ve come to realize:

• My sister’s drug problem began much earlier than I thought. That explains so much of what happened between her and my parents when she was in high school and I was in middle school.
• A different uncle of mine, and his wife, were almost certainly abusive towards their children (my cousins). Once, their daughter and I went for a walk. I was maybe 10, and she was maybe 12. The mother came looking for us after about five minutes, and yelled at her daughter for “wandering off with a boy.” Again… her 10-year-old cousin. Considering how messed up all three of their children ended up in life, I wouldn’t be surprised if their abusive childhoods were both emotional, physical, and possibly sexual.
• One of my cousin’s wife was probably a mail-order bride.
• One of my second cousins only exists because his father was about to be drafted to Vietnam, so his father quickly married and had a kid. After the draft ended, he left his wife and child, only reuniting with the child years later, when the child was an adult.
• My grandfather was a real badass when he was younger. Not only did he serve in WWII and Korea, but he was a boxer while in the army, too.
• My aunt, who has profound cognitive issues, was placed in a group home in the early 1990s not just for her benefit, but for her mother’s (my grandmother’s) safety. She (my aunt) would sometimes go into fits and hit her parents. My grandfather, the former boxer, could restrain her until the fit passed. He died in 1987. His wife could not handle their daughter, who was in her 20s by then, by herself.

Would you rather have been in the U.S. military during World War I or World War II? Why?

Originally Answered: Would you rather be in the US military during World War 1 or World War 2? Why? Sorry if this is somehow a dumb question.

Not a dumb question at all! It’s actually a great question because we get to compare the general experience of an American soldier in WW1 vs WW2.

So the answer is that I would rather be an American soldier in WW1 and so would everyone else.

First, you have the obvious reasons

1. The US entered WW1 in April of 1917. The war ended a year and a half later in November 1918. So in total, its 18 months of fighting give or take
2. In WW2 a grand total of 400,000 US soldiers were killed and another 670,000 were injured. In WW1 116,000 died and 320,000 were injured. In other words for every 1 man lost in WW1 3–4 men died in WW2

But beyond all that the nature of the war is important to consider.

Both WW1 and WW2 were horrid wars. They were beyond violent and the brutality witnessed during these conflicts forever scared and changed mankind.

That said when it comes to US involvement I think WW2 would be a touch more horrifying.

In Europe, US soldiers had to storm the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, withstand the German onslaught during the Battle of the Buldge, and press into Germany through dense forests and fiercely defended cities.

In Asia, US soldiers had to storm humid tropical islands and face down a suicidal foe. Japanese soldiers would embark on all-out charges out of the blue and US soldiers lived in a state of fear and anxiety. Couple that with Japanese cruelty towards captured Americans and the violent nature of Island warfare and it was one of the horrifying theatres of war in history.

None of this is to say that combat in WW1 was easy or fun. It was by far the most horrifying war in history right up until WW2. But compared to D-Day, Stalingrad, the Battle of Bulge, and Iwo Jima nearly every battle in all of history comes up short.

Toxic

Why are the US government and media portraying China as the bad guy?

In 2011, when the subprime crisis gradually dissipated, President Obama said during his visit to Australia: “If 1.3 billion Chinese people live the same life as us, it would be a disaster for the world, and we will not let this happen.” In the same year November, the US proposed the “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” strategy, which began to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and planned to transfer a group of navy warships to the Asia-Pacific region before 2020, deploying 60% of US warships in the Pacific. In October 2015, the US tried to isolate China economically by persuading 12 countries to sign the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). On May 9, 2016, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Harry Harris, sent the William Lawrence guided missile destroyer into China’s territorial waters, and even publicly boasted that the US military was “prepared to go to war with China tonight.“

In 2018, a trade war broke out in the US and China, and imposed large-scale tariffs on China goods. In 2020, when the new crown pneumonia epidemic spread around the world, the US accused China under the unfavorable situation of epidemic prevention, stigmatized the new crown virus as “Chinese virus”, claimed to claim compensation from China, and successively issued “cold war speech”, intending to set off camp confrontation.

Photo of Trump remarks shows ‘corona’ crossed out and replaced with ‘Chinese’ virus

A lot of people don’t understand why the “intimate relationship” of “saving America is saving China” between them has turned into the current situation of never-ending hostility. Some people think it’s because of President’s different policies, believing that the conflict between China and the US can be solved by changing presidents. Some say that the US only cares about GDP, and when a country’s GGP reaches 60% of the US, it will be targeted. The former Soviet Union and Japan were like this, and today’s China is still the same. But in reality, the most fundamental reason still goes back to the economic model.

If we were to describe the basic model of China’s previous way of making money, it would be relying on its industrial system and labor advantages to provide affordable goods and exporting them worldwide to earn foreign exchange. On the other hand, there are generally two types of profit models in the US:

1. Seize the technological high ground and use patent rights to scrape the profits from the whole world. Every time China sells a product, the bulk of the profits go to the US, such as in the Apple products manufactured by China’s Foxconn.

2. Directly plunder the assets of other countries using the US dollar’s financial hegemony. The first point is easy to understand, it is the famous “smiling curve theory”. The most valuable areas are concentrated at both ends of the value chain: R&D and the market. Without R&D capabilities, one can only act as an agent or subcontractor, earning only a small amount of money. Without market capabilities, no matter how good the product, when the product life cycle is over, it can only be treated as waste. Before, China could only rely on the advantage of cheap labor to process and assemble products, and because China was previously very poor and the domestic market did not have strong consumer power, it was a typical example of having neither R&D nor market capabilities. On the other hand, the US is an international R&D center and the world’s largest consumer market.

The situation has gradually changed. With the continuous development of the economy in China, it has realized that this approach is not sustainable. The living standards of 1.4 billion people need to be improved, and relying solely on processing fees is no longer enough to sustain it. In order to support their families and create a better life for their loved ones, they must explore other sources of income. At first, China could improve production capacity by updating equipment to increase production efficiency. Before, they could produce 10,000 units a day, but now they can produce 20,000 units, which doubled their income. However, after a while, the production capacity could not make a breakthrough, and they were only able to produce 20,000 units a day for an extended period of time. In addition, the market is gradually becoming saturated, making it difficult to increase income by producing more products. On the other hand, the demand gap is gradually shrinking, making it more challenging to earn money than before.

These factors combined finally forced China to make a choice:

A. Maintain current income status and live a decent life.

B. Open up other sources of income.

Obviously, China chose option B, and began to increase investment in technology research and development. As a result, China achieved breakthroughs in both research and market capabilities, and was no longer just working for the US. Previously, there was only one boss, but now China also wanted to be a boss. The US suddenly couldn’t accept it, because there are only so many workers, and if there is one more boss, the US will lose out on some profits. China said we could work together, so that everyone’s income could be increased, but the US refused. Therefore, we saw a series of actions, such as trade wars, high tariffs, restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese enterprises, all intended to decrease China’s profits as much as possible.

If the first point above made the US feel a little uncomfortable, then the second point below truly made it feel threatened. The second biggest way the US makes money: dollar hegemony. The US took over currency hegemony from the British Empire in 1944, but the “Bretton Woods system” from 1944 to 1971, a full 27 years, did not truly give it substantial financial power. Why? Gold.

The US once made a commitment to the world, which was to lock the currencies of various countries to the US dollar, and the US dollar to gold. How to lock it? Exchange 1 ounce of gold for every $35. With this commitment to the world with the US dollar, the US cannot act arbitrarily. Simply put, exchanging 1 ounce of gold for $35 means that the US cannot print US dollars indiscriminately. If you print an extra $35, you will have to reserve one more ounce of gold in your vault. The reason why the US had the confidence to make such a commitment to the world was that it held about 80% of the world’s gold reserves at that time. However, later on, the US foolishly became involved in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. These two wars consumed a lot of resources of the United States, especially the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War, nearly 800 billion US dollars were spent by the US on military expenses. As the cost of the war grew, the gold reserves were clearly insufficient to support previous commitments. According to the commitment of the United States, every loss of 35 US dollars meant a loss of 1 ounce of gold. In addition, some countries represented by France were exchanging their US dollar reserves for gold, which depleted US gold reserves. Therefore, on August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced the closure of the gold window and the detachment of the US dollar from gold. This is the beginning of the disintegration of the “Bretton Woods system” and also an act of betrayal by the US towards the whole world.

When the US dollar was no longer backed by gold and became a mere green paper, the whole world faced a choice: if not the US dollar, then what? Therefore, the US exploited people’s inertia and helplessness and announced in 1973 that global oil had to be settled in US dollars. Since then, a financial empire has emerged in the human world.

Because when the dollar appears as a green piece of paper, America’s profit costs can be said to be extremely low. In order to accelerate the delivery of dollars to the world, which will take interest rate reduction measures. When American capitalists keep their money in the bank without receiving any interest, they will withdraw the money for investment purposes. At this time, South America and Southeast Asia become their investment targets. Assuming there is a country A, a large amount of American capital flows in for investment, causing rapid economic growth in country A and a thriving economy. However, behind the prosperity, there are certainly some bubbles, which are the inevitable results of a market economy.

For example, suppose the stock price of a company is $100, but its actual value is only $50. Assuming that the exchange rate of country A’s currency is equivalent to the US dollar. At this point, the capitalists in America have room for operation. They first bought 50 billion currency A from a bank in country A, and then directly exchanged 50 billion currency A for 50 billion US dollars. Suddenly, country A’s currency became more abundant, and the US dollar decreased significantly. However, many corporate trades must still be settled in US dollars. In the panic, many companies will crazy to exchange A currency for US dollars. As the dollars become scarcer and currency A becomes more abundant on the market, more people are induced to use more currency A to exchange for US dollars. At this point, A currency will depreciate significantly. The government of A will certainly intervene and use a large amount of gold to buy currency A to stabilize the exchange rate.

However, the US raises interest rates. Imagine a capitalist from America investing in country A with an annual profit of 3%, but the interest rate of the Ameican bank is 5%. Which one will he choose? When a lot of US dollars is withdrawn, country A’s companies that originally had a large amount of US dollar investments will experience a broken capital chain. The government will no longer have gold to buy A currency and can only watch currency depreciate. When 1 US dollar = 10 currency A, the US capitalist only needs to use $5 billion to buy 50 billion currency A to return to the bank, Netting a large sum of money. Moreover, this is far from over. When country A’s exchange rate collapses, the US can buy a large number of country A’s assets and achieve practical economic control.

So why does the US suppress China? Because China not only wants to promote the use of RMB settlement worldwide, but also because Chinese economic system is different from traditional capitalist economies, making it impossible for B to use the same methods to control Chinese economy. In the eyes of Americans, China is not only a disruptor and an uncontrollable factor, but also a threat to its financial interests.

The dominance of the US dollar is certainly very strong, and the world has suffered from American hegemony for too long. Most countries probably have the same mindset as Japan, although they do not want to see a strong China, after being American dogs for decades, they also want to change their way of life.

Bullied men

What work secret did you accidentally find out that changed everything?

About 10 years ago, I was teaching at a small Catholic school in the suburbs of Chicago. Like all Catholic schools in the area, it was right next to a Catholic church. (The schools are actually considered ministries of the associated churches.)

Like many Catholic schools, this school was built during a time when all of the teachers were nuns who lived in a convent next to the school. Since all of the teachers (the nuns) literally lived right next door, the school was built without a break room or faculty bathroom. The nuns just went home on their breaks.

By the time I worked there, the nuns were long gone, as was their convent. It had been bulldozed in the late 70s and turned into a parking lot. But they failed to add faculty bathrooms to the school. Teachers were just supposed to knock on the students’ bathroom door before entering, to make sure no students were in it, then lock the door from the inside (this required a key that only teachers had) if they were using the bathroom.

The privacy wasn’t a problem, but the nastiness of the bathroom was. Middle school students… boys in this case… are disgusting in public bathrooms. I hated using that bathroom.

Then, one day, I learned a secret: there was a really nice bathroom behind the sacristy in the church that barely anyone knew about. It wasn’t in the school, but the church itself, behind the altar, where students weren’t allowed to go during the day anyway.

This bathroom had been built specifically for disabled church parishioners a few years earlier, using funds willed to the church by a former parishioner who’d been in a wheelchair near the end of their life. But, since it was behind the sacristy (the room where priests get ready for the mass… the room with all of the holy stuff in it), they didn’t exactly advertise its presence. The priests just told the people who would actually need to use it… the disabled. Everyone else could use the regular bathroom on the other side of the church, near the entrance.

The secret bathroom was always pristinely clean, huge, and not only was it private, but, when I used it, I was usually the only person in the entire church at the time. It made using the bathroom at work go from a dreadful, gross experience, to a very pleasant little midday break.

Slaves

As a cashier, have you ever seen a customer do something that made you say, “you can’t be serious…”?

When I worked at Staples, it was about 15 minutes before closing time, I had a lady who looked to be in her 60s walk in and walk up to our iPad case display.

She spent about 10 minutes looking through them and picked out one of our premium leather cases that cost $59.99. She came up to my register to check out, she seemed to have a slight irritating smirk on her face as she approached, and when I rang her up, she looks at the PIN payment screen and nonchalantly shakes her head and says, “No.”

I look at her and say, “No? …No what?”

She says, “That’s not the price I’m paying; the price tag on the display said $4.99.” I know well that even if the case were on sale (which it wasn’t), it would cost quite a bit more than that.

I asked her to wait a second while I go check the case display and see that she was looking at the price tag for the iPad skins that we sold. I walked back and explained the misunderstanding and asked if she’d like me to put the case back for her. She says, “No I still want the case, but I’m only paying $4.99 for it.”

I looked at her slightly dumbfounded, and politely said, “I’m sorry but I won’t be able to sell you this case for that price.”

She said, “You don’t have a choice; for one, the customer is always right, and for two, your display was messed up, which is your fault.”

“Happy Customer Service Jessica” had left the building at that point, so I responded, “Well, the case may have been in the wrong spot but there’s no way you’re leaving here with a $4.99 leather case.” She arrogantly says. “Bring me your manager.”

I called her over (this is a manager who has zero tolerance for people who come in at the last minute before closing, and it’s now 5 minutes past closing) and explain the situation. She said, “Ma’am, that case was in the wrong spot, and I’m sure you saw that all the others just like it were in the $59.99 spot but you chose to try and take advantage of my cashier. You can purchase this case for $59.99, or you can leave right now.”

She makes some comment about calling corporate and walks out, caseless.

How to stop protestors

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

How about getting paid more for not showing up to work at all?

I used to work as a suit salesman in a large retail store. The pay was basically minimum wage, but you could make commission which effectively doubled your wage.

My employer brought in a new rule around productivity. You now had to hit an ambitious AVERAGE sales target for each hour you worked to qualify to receive any commission. Hit the target and you would get commission on all sales you made, miss it and you just get your basic pay. Crucially, there was no exemptions for time spent working at quiet times or time spent working in the stockrooms, prepping for sales or doing anything other than actively selling.

The result of this was that if you wanted to earn commission, it was suicidal to do anything other than work the busiest shifts. You could sell loads one day, but spend a few hours in the stockroom selling nothing and your average sales per hour would collapse. We had part timers working only Saturday and Sunday who were earning more than the full timers who were working 5 days a week, because it was so much easier to hit your targets on the weekend. If you were close to hitting your commission targets, you would obviously do literally anything to avoid doing anything which was not selling.

I used to come into work half an hour early to tidy, but had I continued to do so it would have pushed me out of my commission target and cost me thousands, so clearly that stopped.

Most of my colleagues suddenly requested to switch to part time, weekend contracts for ‘personal reasons’, and some were granted before management caught on to what was happening.

If you were called in to cover a shift, your answer would depend entirely on how busy the shift was likely to be. We would be falling over ourselves to work a Saturday, but working a Tuesday could literally cost us significant money. Once, a manager strong armed me into working a weekday which I knew would be a dead zone. I explained that working this shift would literally cost me £1500 but he wouldn’t budge. I ended up agreeing to work the shift only if he agreed not to pay me for it, as that way I would preserve my productivity average and still get my commission.

Then the sickness started. Say you were juuust within your ‘productivity’ bracket for the month and in line to receive commission, but had a week of slow shifts coming up – you knew for a fact that if you came into work you would slip out of the bracket, but call in sick and your productivity is preserved, so there was a perverse financial incentive for not coming to work at all.

It was a crazy, crazy system which resulted in far fewer sales overall, a hugely disorganised department, a massive blow to staff morale and a divisive, angry atmosphere between those who made commission, and those who didn’t, despite often working longer and harder.

I was lucky enough to be a part timer, so I made out OK, but I left soon afterwards as it was obvious the place was being run by idiots.

What is the strangest sensation you have ever felt?

The satellite photo, taken with technology from the early nineties, was dark and pixelated, but the conclusions unmistakeable. I stared at it as the slippery, wet nausea snowballed, gaining speed down the slope of my horror. “Is— is that what I think it is?”

Mary took the newspaper back. “Well, it certainly wasn’t what Andrew thought it was,” she said, shaking her head slowly, as she regarded it once again herself, at arms length.

Andrew was a 14-year-old student I tutored at the high school where I worked with Mary. He was a quintessential teenager, always joking and jostling with the other boys, down for any sport, by turns both protective and picking on his little sister, Amber. The two of them lived on a ranch in the dusty hills far east of San Diego with their dad, a struggling local businessman. Their mom was “out of the picture.”

That was a weird story from the beginning, actually. By all accounts, their mom was a devoted and loving parent, if not a particularly faithful wife. Her affairs were not exactly top secret, and neither, therefore, were the fights between Andrew’s parents that erupted as a result at all hours of the day and night. One particularly gruesome exchange of words hit the fan after midnight at a neighbor’s house, where the two, in a rare jaunt of reconciliation, had gone earlier to enjoy a dinner party. As words escalated, they excused themselves from the gathering, and shouts could be heard fading down the street where they stumbled their mutually intoxicated way home. More than one partygoer heard her tell her husband, in no uncertain terms, that she had had enough. That was it. She was leaving.

True to her word, by morning she was gone. But she left her children behind: Andrew, who was only four, and Amber, who was four WEEKS old. Their mother was never heard from again, not by their father, not by her sister— her closest relative with whom she occasionally stayed when things got out of hand— not even by any of her various known paramours about town. That was it. She was gone.

Andrew’s father, meanwhile, did his best to pick up the pieces. He reported his wife missing within a day or two of her disappearance, and an investigation was launched, but given her history and words, it was half-hearted at best. Thereafter, life went on.

By all accounts Andrew’s father, too, was an exemplary single parent, even with the solo burden of two growing children. Their house— I visited twice weekly for tutoring sessions— was jumbled with photos of family trips to Disneyland and the zoo. Football uniforms and gymnastics leotards lay folded in toppling laundry baskets as they boomeranged between practice and hamper, never quite making it to drawers. In the backyard, Amber’s rusty playground swings screeched distantly in the rising wind. Nearby, tattered, checkered flags snapped smartly over Andrew’s old BMX bike-racing course, complete with berms, jumps, dips and inclines eroded by the rain.

Mary raised one blood-red manicured fingernail, pointing again to the black-and-white satellite photo next to the article. The headline read, “Local Man Accused of Murdering Wife, Burying Body in Backyard.” Slowly, Mary traced the satellite’s outline of a shallow, shadowy hill, comparing it to a survey photo taken a decade later by drones, when they finally put the property up for sale.

“There it is again, Meg, that same berm, just a little smaller now,” she tapped against the crackling newsprint, on the more recent photo near a banner marked “Finish Line.” “But, Andrew didn’t have a bike course when he was four, did he?”

Four words

Do you know anyone who is low key filthy rich?

There’s a guy in my neighborhood who is like this.

He is about 50 years old, in relatively good shape, decent looking, unmarried.

I spent about 15 minutes talking with him at a party.

But noticeably he never mentioned having a job. I couldn’t care either way; it was just unusual because typically a person’s occupation is mentioned during pleasantries and small talk of such parties.

I later bumped into a neighbor while on a walk, I mentioned meeting the man and how he was a cool guy. While talking to this neighbor he said, “Oh he’s a great guy!” and said, “He’ll never have to work a day in his life.”

And went on to tell me how he had started a company, ran it for 15 years, built it up nice and fat then sold it at age 45 for a crap ton of money.

It was a bit mind-blowing to be done at 45. And you’d never know. He has a 3-4 bedroom house with a green lawn and a couple of dogs but nothing fancy outside of that.

I recalled during our conversation, when I’d asked what he does he said, he mainly just reads, eats good food, exercises and plays with his dogs. And I’m assuming he doesn’t worry much about money.

He’s a bit of a role model in terms of how I think I’d live with wealth.

Some people use their money to project status and revel in the glory of their wealth. Others only use their money to buy back time and comfort which sounds a lot more gratifying to me.

I have no need to own a diamond sports car that can drive 20,000 MPH that mainly sits in a driveway to be seen.

American schools…

What is the best thing you have ever learned from a criminal?

How to break in without breaking anything, and how to break in silently.

I had a friend in grade school and while he wasn’t a thief, he knew the thieving arts. His older brothers had “friends”.

One day another friend was accidentally locked out of his house. He showed him how to open the latched window and remove the screen from the outside. We were able to lift him through the newly opened window and into his house, all without breaking anything.

Something like this, but we gave our friend a boost (image credit)

One day in wood shop class, the janitors had put cardboard over a window that was broken over the weekend. Apparently someone tried to break in to steal woodworking tools maybe? Whoever it was, they didn’t get all the way through. They just managed to create several big cracks in the big window.

My friend told some other classmates how the thieves could’ve done it successfully, without making a lot of noise (cut some lines in a star shape in the glass with a glass cutter, put duct tape over the area, then smash it in. It would still make some sound, but it would be muffled). The teacher heard him “instructing” the others and told him to stop.

You want to cut the glass like this first. The cuts don’t have to penetrate the glass to the opposite side (glass image credit)

He taught me other things as well, but those two instructions stick out.

I used the “latched window and screen removal” lesson to break into my sister-in-law’s apartment (for a legit and legal reason).

I used it again to break into a neighbor’s house for my daughter (again, all legit and legal). Actually, that one was a gimme; their window was cracked open. All I had to do was slide it open wider and step through.

I’ve never needed to use the “duct tape over window to break it” method, and hopefully I never will. But it’s nice to know!

Having friends in low places comes in handy sometimes!

We never needed a gun to break in (image credit)

Will the Chinese economy go down?

This year in 2023, China is likely to add close to 6.2 Trillion RMB to its GDP which comes to $ 877 Billion

This despite the fact that Real Estate in China has produced a increase in value of only 789 Billion RMB ($ 115 Billion) down by almost 11.8% compared to 2022

Domestic Consumption has produced an increase in value of 1.936 Trillion RMB ($ 277 Billion) which comes to a whopping 16.2% growth compared to 2022

Trade has produced an increase in value of 739 Billion RMB ($ 105 Billion) which comes to a growth of a decent 3.1% growth compared to 2022 although exports have fallen by 8.1% (Dollar Value) & imports by 7.3% (Dollar Value)

The Trade Surplus of China is estimated to be 5.83 Trillion RMB for 2023 or $ 834 Billion

The Current Account Surplus is estimated to touch 1.51 Trillion RMB or $ 210 Billion

The Net Savings Increase in China this year is estimated to be close to 7% or 4.26 Trillion RMB

The Inflation this year is estimated to be 0.595%

The Growth this year is estimated to be 5.10%

Let’s see

Let’s see the Parameters that have increased:-

• GDP – Up by 5.1%
• Net Savings – Up by 7%
• Net Credit – Up by 3.3%
• Inflation – 0.6%
• Current Account Surplus – Up by 8%
• Grain Production – Up by 1.3%
• RMB Reserve – Up by 106%
• RMB usage in SWIFT – Up by 136%

Let’s see the parameters that showed decline

• Real Estate contribution to Growth – Down by 12%
• Trade Surplus – Down by 1.8%
• FDI in Actual Use – Down by 4.7%

That’s it

This is Chinas Economy in 2023

In a fairer world, this would be a superb economic performance at a time when China has a REAL ESTATE BUBBLE and the world has a massive economic slowdown

I repeat a superb economic performance

Managed at a 3.8% Fiscal Deficit- with 0.8% added due to a late issue of 1 Trillion RMB infusion

---

So what is the basis for the West to cry China Economic Collapse?

#1 China has a huge debt crisis

This is because the West conveniently uses National Debt or Federal Debt for their own countries and takes TOTAL PUBLIC DEBT for China

On Date Chinas National Debt is 62% of its GDP standing at 77.2 Trillion RMB

The USAs National Debt or Federal Debt is $ 34.1 Trillion or 130% of its GDP

The Chinese Economy works on Debt financing rather than Credit or Equity financing which means the Total Public Debt stands at 311.7 Trillion RMB or 255% of its GDP

This includes all debts incurred by all Chinese entities plus Local Governments

The Total interest payable for the Local Governments and Chinese Government is 9.41 Trillion RMB a year

That’s Cumulatively around 15.63% of the Total Revenue of China

That’s almost HALF OF WHAT GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PAYS in Interest every year (28.90%) out of its revenue

That’s almost a quarter of what Turkey pays (39%)

That’s less than what Malaysia pays (23%), Indonesia pays (26.7%) as well

#2 Chinas Productivity has declined this Chinas future is bleak

The West refuses to believe that China is transforming

It stubbornly insists that China is still a production economy and a factory of the world that it was in 2007

So it says the PMI has declined and Industrial Output has declined and will continue to decline so China is finished

Yet the same West ignore that Russias PMI rose by 24% this year and Industrial Output by 30%

Here they claim something else

They ignore Chinas Domestic Consumption increase by more than a Sixth this year, a clear sign of transformation

---

Chinas Real Estate is it’s only problem

Once that bubble is defused, China will grow at 4.5–5.5% growth for another decade at least

Debt

As a doctor, what’s the most insane excuse a parent has given about a child’s injuries that you suspected could have been caused by abuse?

Cherubic. Absolutely adorable. Upper middle class and unmistakably summery soccer-kid suburban. He sits on the exam table between his mom and step dad, a smattering of auburn freckles virtually sparkling over rosy cheeks. Six-year-old aqua blue eyes regard me with shy curiosity and just a hint of mischief beneath long butterfly lashes.

Okay, the whole contentious divorce thing, that is less than idyllic. But common enough, and, presumably, all in the past. Yet here mom is now, suddenly near hysterics, grabbing her son by the wrist, shoving his hand in my face. “This!” she screeches. “He goes to his father’s house for one day and comes home like this! Somebody should call the police!”

And I have to admit, the evidence is pretty damning. Both hands and forearms, almost to his elbow, entirely burned a blistering red. There is a line of clear demarcation, with splatter marks above. Everything is consistent with the classic “stocking glove” distribution one often sees after a struggling child’s limbs are intentionally submerged in scalding water as punishment. That said, the presumed victim currently appears unruffled and virtually pain-free. If anything, he seems predominantly concerned by his mother still excitedly waving his arm around all puppet-like while his video game bleeps neglected in his lap.

I am a second-year resident on my burn surgery rotation. I should stop at this point, treat his burns, wash and dress his hands, and call for social work. But the abuse is just so blatantly obvious. The idea of this kid vanishing into the system, and his father continuing to sadistically torture him like that… I seethe. Not on my watch. I ask mom and step-dad to step out.

“So what happened today at your dad’s house?” I lead with, as soon as the door closes, but he is already resorbed in his iPad. I coax it away from his bandaged fingertips. “What did you do?”

He makes steady, polite eye contact now, with the sort of assurance one doesn’t usually find in abused children. The eager answer bubbles out of him: “Me and Leo, we played Transformers, then we had pizza, and we built a fort and picked lemons and sold lemonade and I made four dollars!” He holds up his swollen digits for emphasis.

The kid is good. He isn’t gonna give up Dad easily. “And after that, did you maybe take a bath?” I prompt him.

He nods enthusiastically, remembering. “Susan bought me a green and blue super-soaker to play with in the tub!”

“Susan…?”

“Yeah. Susan is my new step-Mom,” he clarifies, nonchalantly.

Aha! “And does Susan ever run really hot baths for you, or scrub you kinda hard, if you get really dirty, outside, building forts and making lemonade?” Now I am leading him shamelessly, I know it, and I’m a little uncomfortable.

But he doesn’t bite. “Not really.” Shrugs blankly.

I give. I invite mom and step-dad back in. Mom wants to know what I learned and whether Dad will be arrested. I tell her I will update them shortly, and I duck out to phone my attending, Dr C. I summarize in a sentence or two the burns, the recent visit to dad’s house, and my concerns for abuse which the kid will not corroborate. She interrupts, just as I finish recounting my frustration—

“Did he have a lemonade stand? With fresh lemons, that he picked from the tree? Did he make the lemonade himself?”

“What?” I am startled. I had not mentioned this detail. “Yes, I think so, but how did you…?”

She chuckles over the line. “We get three or four every year. Fresh lemon juice under the sun burns the skin. Kids stick their whole arms in it, squeezing and mixing. Looks just like scald burns but it’s not. He’ll be okay.”

Never assume.

Smart girl

Train stuff

I really do like trains. Don’t you know. Puts a smile on my face.

Credit to Phil at Busted Knuckles…

The Goat Canyon Trestle, located in San Diego County, California, is the world’s largest wooden railroad trestle. Built in 1919 as part of the Carrizo Gorge Track, it stands over 600 feet long and 186 feet high. Constructed with redwood beams, the bridge is a testament to the engineering prowess of its time. The area around the trestle, known as Anza-Borrego, is an arid desert, and the construction of the railroad track through this landscape was a challenging task. It required the building of 17 tunnels and numerous trestles, earning it the nickname “the impossible railroad.” Over the years, the Goat Canyon Trestle has suffered significant damage from fires and floods. In 1976, Hurricane Kathleen caused the collapse of several tunnels and trestle beams, leading the Southern Pacific Railroad to abandon the line. Despite its abandonment, the Goat Canyon Trestle remains a popular destination for hikers and adventurers, with a 6-mile roundtrip hike to reach the top. The area is also home to abandoned rail cars, adding to the allure of the site. As of January 2018, the Baja California Railroad was assessing the line for potential repairs to allow the track to return to operation.

How did the “cool kids” from your high school turn out?

* The athlete: Went on to play on ice hockey on A juniors Finnish national team, but instead chose to become a F-18 pilot. Retired as Lieutenant Colonel. Has three children. Cousin of the athletess.

* The jerk jock: Failed to make career in ice hockey. Got in troubles with law. Has worked as an electrics fitter.

* The bully: Got in serious troubles with the law. Has served in prison. Divorced, two kids.

* The athletess: Did swimming on national level. Joined the military, made it to officer. Later went to university and works in academia.

* The alpha b!tch: Became a hairdresser. Divorced, three kids.

* The beauty queen: Went to College of Economics. Married, three children. Works as CEO in a local company.

* The brainy guy: Went to study technology. Has doctor’s degree in applied sciences. Married the athletess’s university course mate.

* The brainy girl: Was the athletess’s teammate. Went to study medicine. Is today a doctor in her hometown. Mother of two.

* The petrolhead: Owns and manages a service station.

* The religious girl: Married early, became a nurse. Mother of three.

* The quiet girl: Best friend of the religious girl. Became a teacher in her old school. Not married.

* The quiet boy: Went to study theology. Works as priest. Married, two children.

* The twins: One of them bought a fast car. Slid off a motorway in the night with serious overspeed, with fatal results. The other took over family laundry business.

* The nerdy guy: Works as system administrator in a large corporation. Plays keyboards in a band.

* The Goth girl: Went to study English in university, works as a translator in the national television.

* The artistic girl: Became an architect. Not married.

Hoe Math

Doctors who were with a patient who woke up from a coma that lasted for at least a year, what was the most awkward thing you had to explain to them after they woke up?

“Put it down.”

He glared at me. But did not move.

His wife sobbed and hiccuped. “You have to understand, Doctor. This isn’t him. He isn’t like this at all.” To him, “Please honey, just put it down. Before you hurt yourself.”

She blamed herself. In a moment reminiscent of a facile soap opera story arc, her 60-ish spouse had collapsed unresponsive atop her during the heat of passionate lovemaking. The paramedics had regained a heartbeat, but he remained comatose, and CT scan of his brain subsequently revealed a ruptured aneurysm. The effects could be catastrophic, and given his age and severity of illness, we worried he might never regain consciousness.

Six months and change went by in my ICU, during which he underwent two operations on his cerebral blood vessels, a tracheostomy, and a feeding tube. He weathered countless set-backs including pneumonias, blood clots, kidney failure, and a heart attack. We lost vitals on more than one occasion, but each time, inexplicably, managed to bring him back.

His wife, with her short dark curls and stark white roots, thick glasses and dog-eared novels, never left his side, sleeping in his ICU room and breakfasting in the hospital cafeteria. Her constant concern was matched only by perpetual mortification regarding the circumstances of his initial attack. At least twice a week, she insisted this was all her fault, and I reassured her it was not.

And then he began to wake up.

Understand something: people in comas don’t wake up like they do in the movies — just open their eyes, ask for their loved ones and demand to know where they are or what’s happened. It’s a gradual process, especially for someone as sick as he was. First, he had to learn to breathe on his own again. Over time, he began responding to noxious stimuli — opening his eyes, withdrawing his limbs. One day as his nurse was placing a new IV he made a half-hearted attempt to brush her away, and his wife was near ecstatic. I should have explained to her then what he would reach down for next…

What ALL men waking up from comas reach for.

He had excellent fine motor skills. And made a full recovery.

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?

Years ago a girlfriend and I were having lunch on a patio, we had daiquiris, shrimp and fried rice.

She ate all of her fried rice, left all of her shrimp, and ordered a second daiquiri. I asked her if there was something wrong with the shrimp, and she said no, she was sure they were fine, but she was on a diet.

I had observed in the past that she loved her carbs, and would eat carbs instead of healthy things like skinless chicken breast, pork tenderloin , skipjack tuna and shrimp.

So I asked her why she was leaving the lowest calorie thing, eating the higher calorie fried rice, and ordering an even higher calorie drink.

She laughed at me and told me that everyone knew that meat/protein wasn’t healthy and had higher calories than anything else.

The shrimp had roughly half the calories of the same weight fried rice, and less than half the calories of her daiquiri.

How could you go on a diet and not know this?

I never told her how many calories were in her favorite perogies and french fries.

What was your first carrier landing like? How big did that landing area look the first time?

My first carrier landing was with the US Navy’s venerable T-2C Buckeye. I had about 100 hours flight time. We had been practicing on runways that were painted to look like a carrier deck for weeks, 2X per day. But nothing can prepare you for the first time you see the tiny size of an aircraft carrier, as opposed to an 8000′ runway. It’s simply frightening.

You have to not look at the carrier. You have to religiously adhere to the pattern altitudes, airspeeds, and angle-of-attack. You have to focus on the Fresnel lens (aka “the meatball”) and not the small, tiny deck. It takes a lot of discipline, confidence, and no small amount of courage.

But when you do your first trap, and then your first cat shot…and everything works just like they taught you…then your confidence soars, and you’re ready to take on the world. Launch me Boss. Let’s do this!

When you’re done, and you get the call to return to your home field. There’s a sense of accomplishment that you can only feel once…and it is amazing.

What are the most profound jokes ever?

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is politics?”

Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I earn the money in this family, so let’s call me the capitalist. Your mom says what we spend the money on, we’ll call her the government. Both of us are here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the people. Our nanny is representative of the working class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.”

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room and finds his mother sound asleep and his father missing. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room, but there he sees the father in bed with the nanny and he can’t get their attention. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.”

The father says, “Good, then tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”

The little boy replies, “Well, capitalists are screwing the working class while the government is sound asleep. Meanwhile the people are being ignored and the future is in deep shit.”

What was the happiest mistake you ever made?

This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a friend.

My friend Tony lived paycheck to paycheck in assorted jobs. He inherited $50,000 when his grandmother passed away. His friends convinced him to invest the money rather than spend it on a new car, vacations, etc., and eventually he agreed. Another friend, Jack, who worked in finance, convinced him to put the $50,000 into Cisco stock. This was back in April 2000, just before the tech bubble burst, and Cisco was at its all-time high, around $75 a share. Then the bubble burst, and the stock crashed.

Two and a half years later, we were all at a wedding of a mutual friend, and the friend who recommended Cisco was very embarrassed and apologized profusely for his recommendation.

Tony: What do you mean? Why are you sorry you made that recommendation?

Jack: Because the stock tanked right after you invested, and it’s continued to go down and down; your $50,000 investment is now probably worth $6000 or $7000. Haven’t you looked at your statements?

Tony: Sure, I’ve looked at the statements; it’s up to about $83,000! It’s doing great!

Jack: You must have misread your statement; maybe it said $8300? When was that statement?

Tony: Maybe two weeks ago, and I’m sure it said $83,000!

Jack: That’s impossible!

After the reception we all went back to Tony’s apartment and Tony pulled out his last statement, which indeed did say $83,000!

Then we saw why; Tony bought the “wrong” stock!

Jack had told him to buy Cisco (the high tech company), and Tony bought Sysco (the food distribution company); both stocks are pronounced exactly the same. While Cisco crashed, Sysco did great!

So that was a very happy ‘mistake’ that Tony made!

Huawei’s 5nm chip shocker

What is the strangest reason someone else has seen you naked?

My best friend and I went fishing down at the river. To get to the river, we had to push through a bunch of willows. It was hard casting with the willows right against our backs, and so after we didn’t catch anything in the first few casts, we decided to head back to the truck. When we were putting the fishing gear in the back of the truck, my friend noticed I had a tick on my face. I lived out on the bald prairie and had never seen a live tick before. He brushes it off, and then says there is a bunch in your hair. I notice a couple on his shirt.

So we brush each other off, there were a lot of ticks, at least 50, I had never seen anything like it. I pull up my Tee shirt and there are a bunch on my belly.

I have a pocket comb and we comb our hair, and find more hidden in the hair.

We are miles from the nearest house, and haven’t seen a car all day. So we climb into the back of the truck. We take off our T-shirts and inspect each other and sure enough we have ticks on our backs and in our t shirts.

We pick them out of our shirts, and lay our clean shirts on top of the cab, then we do our shoes and socks. We always find more ticks.

Then we do our pants, and finally our shorts. Just in time for a truck load of fishers to come over the hill. We quickly pull our shorts back on, and tell them not to go to the river here, because of the ticks.

I have no idea if they believed us, but, we weren’t concerned,because we had bigger fish to fry, so to speak. We had to take off our shorts, and inspect the other guys parts, that he can’t see. I had a tick in the crack of my ass.

This was probably the most humiliating experience I have had, where someone saw me naked. It would have been bad enough to have my best friend inspect my back side, but having a truck full of people who probably didn’t believe a word we said, see us naked together, was about as bad as you can get.

Have your neighbors ever called the cops on you for something ridiculous?

It was the summer of 2008. I was in bed, asleep, late in the morning, when I heard insistent knocking on our front door. I slogged downstairs to open the door, and found two police cars outside. Two police officers said that a neighbor had phoned in a break in at my house, and the police asked if I knew a “Brad,” which was the name of my 18 year old daughter’s boyfriend. I said that I knew him and looked around for him. Then, I discovered that the police had him in the front of the house. He looked scared to death. I told Brad to come in the house.

The police were unsure what to do and stood arguing on my porch. One officer said that I had to sign an affidavit, saying that I knew Brad. The other said that I was the homeowner and didn’t have to sign anything.

Once the police left, Brad told me that his father had dropped him off earlier in the morning and my daughter, who had the flu, had told him that she’d leave a lawn chair outside for him, until she had gotten up, not letting me know. While Brad was sitting in the backyard, listening to the birds, our neighbor had come out and took a real hard look at him. Shortly after that the police confronted Brad in our backyard. He’d encountered the police before, and knew to move slowly and tell the police what he was doing before he made a move.

He’d been stopped by the police so many times that he carried a letter of reference from the high school resource officer, stating that he wasn’t a criminal. His “crime” was that he was biracial in our neighborhood, and our neighbor decided to call the police, without contacting us first, about this young man sitting in our yard.

every restaurant is CLOSED in San Francisco

Have you ever seen a girl so pretty that you wonder if you’d ever see her again?

My wife is from California, I am from New York City. We met in the Deep South and after getting married I brought her home for the first time. I took her into the city to do many of the touristy things, you know see the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, we even took in a Broadway show. On the ferry, there was a young lady who was so strikingly beautiful that my newlywed wife actually pointed her out to me. I mean if she stood by the highway, traffic would stop — that beautiful.

She was commenting on the sheer perfection until the girl opened her mouth and out came the extreme NY accent, complete with four-letter words and gestures. My California wife was shocked, to say the least. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard words like that or even the accent— but when it erupted from a girl so physically perfect, it was a surprise. Being a NY’er myself, I barely noticed the accent — which my wife occasionally reminds me about to this day, 40_ years later.

If North Korea was no match for the U. S. military, why didn’t we win the Korean war?

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T H E * F O R G O T T E N * W A R

North Korea was no match, to be sure. For one, U. S. Air Force bombers dominated Korean skies, despite MiGs and flak. The United States even readied a clutch of atomic bombs to drop on the North. And aside from Soviet fighter jets flown covertly by Russian and Chinese pilots, North Korea’s air force consisted of everything from biplanes to MiG 15s, all flown by poorly trained pilots. Its ”Maritime Patrol”—Navy—was a single torpedo boat squadron.

But what the North did have was a hulking ally right next door: Red China. With their overpowering ground game, the Chinese brought this brother’s war to a grinding halt. Neither they nor the United States achieved their strategic objectives. There was no winner.

The U.S. military—some 300,000 troops—and the Republic of Korea (ROK), led a global United Nations (UN) army with twenty allied nations from every corner of the planet: Ethiopia, Thailand, the United Kingdom. Denmark contributed a fully-staffed hospital ship. Tiny Luxembourg did its part, supplying 44 soldiers.

This “Forgotten War” began on 25 June 1950 with a massive surprise attack by Kim-Il-sung, the North Korean dictator and grandfather of Kim Jong-un. Initially, his forces crushed poorly equipped ROK units and drove the rest into a pocket around the southeastern port of Busan. Kim bragged he would take all of Korea in three days.

Then, following a brilliant amphibious landing behind enemy lines at Inchon, South Korea, by UN Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, the UN went on the offensive. They pushed Kim’s army back over the 38th parallel and up to the Yalu River and Chinese border. By September, 1950, the UN occupied most of Korea. Victory seemed assured. Home by Christmas was the cry!

Chinese rumblings about their possible intervention were brushed off as “blackmail” by U.S. President Harry Truman. With North Korean forces in full retreat, UN leadership grew dangerously complacent.

Suddenly, UN success at the Yalu triggered a ferocious lunge by the Chinese. This changed everything, sending once-confident UN forces reeling down the Korean Peninsula in a desperate “fighting retreat.”

A 250,000 strong People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) under General Peng Dehuai (below) had invaded Korea, the first phase of 3,000,000 troops and civilians China would ultimately bring in. China termed it “volunteer” to avoid an “official” war between its national forces—the People’s Liberation Army—and those of the United States. Everyone was tip-toeing around The Bomb.

Peng’s camouflaged army slipped in by moving “dark-to-dark,” 7pm-3 am, halting when aircraft appeared. Any soldier caught moving was ordered shot. The sudden arrival of this vast army shocked UN forces.

Chinese PVA first bloodied the U.S. Army on 25 October 1950 at the Battle of Unsan in mountainous terrain near the Yalu. Their attack caught poorly positioned American and ROK forces by surprise.

When U.S. intelligence interrogated the first captured PVA, they realized the Chinese had entered the war. But how much had they entered? Were they merely backing up their North Korean friends, or committing a far larger force?

At Unsan, 10,000 PVA soldiers encircled the U.S. 8th Cavalry with a three-pronged assault, overrunning U.S. defensive flanks. The Chinese lit forest fires to confuse UN aircraft and donned ROK uniforms to infiltrate UN positions. They also blew trumpets and beat gongs, so unnerving some UN soldiers that they threw down their weapons and bolted to the rear.

Only one PVA soldier in three had a firearm. The rest threw grenades. The Chinese lacked heavy artillery and air cover. They suffered enormous casualties with their primitive “human wave” tactics. Yet at Unsan they put to rout the far more modern UN forces. The battle was a devastating loss for the U.S. and ROK. Chinese leadership was as surprised as the UN’s was stunned.

Museum display of warmly dressed PVA soldier and one from the People’s Liberation Army in China’s Civil War. Note fearsome weapon in his left hand.

Despite all evidence, General MacArthur in Tokyo (he never spent a night in Korea), refused to believe that the Chinese were “all in” to re-take the North. He was, instead, beginning his Home-by-Christmas offensive to end the war. MacArthur was never short on ego and, after pulling off the Inchon landings, was hailed as a military genius. Therefore, UN forces were caught between genius and…reality.

The historic Battle of Chosin Reservoir provided a bitter dose of the latter. Again, the Chinese encircled unprepared U.S. Marines, Army and British Royal Marines. For 17 days, in sub-Siberian weather, UN air and artillery pounded advancing PVA waves. A Turkish Brigade fought a courageous—and costly—rear guard action, allowing the bulk of UN forces to escape, albeit with 15,000 casualties. Survivors were dubbed “The Chosin Few.”

China’s victory catapulted it into prominence as a major military power. But was this truly a victory? By their own estimates, the Chinese lost a staggering 40,000 to 80,000 troops and still had not destroyed the UN forces as ordered by Mao Zedong, dictator of Communist China. There’s a name for such victories: Pyrrhic.

Battle of Chosin Reservoir, 27 November —13 December, 1950. Dashed blue line to right shows retreat of UN forces.

At the Battle of Chongchon River, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and overran the ROK II Corps. The Chinese also inflicted heavy losses on the U.S. 8th Army which then began the longest retreat in U.S. Army history.

While the Chinese were steadily pushing the UN down the peninsuula, the North Koreans, led by Kim Il-sung, were hemorrhaging troops, losing 70,000 of their initial 100,000. Therefore, General Peng sacked the militarily incompetent Kim, reducing his Korean People’s Army to a minor player.

Kim had enjoyed early success because Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, had outfitted Kim’s army with the best in weaponry: from the formidable T-34 tank, to the “burp gun,”(so named for its sound) to trucks. Lots of trucks. By comparison, ROK forces were badly under-equipped in the beginning.

Stalin also equipped the Chinese. However, Mao complained bitterly that Stalin was more a “merchant” than an ally: he was making the Chinese pay cash for everything.

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The American air campaign relied mainly on the B-29 heavy bomber, veteran of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It quickly reduced the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to a smoking ruin. Air Force documents show that the North’s cities suffered greater bomb damage than German and Japanese cities in the Second World War. The arrival of the MIG 15 and radar-controlled flak forced the USAF to bomb at night. 34 B-29s were shot down.

As Chinese troops poured into North Korea by the hundreds of thousands, President Truman considered using atomic bombs. Nine were brought to Okinawa, accompanied by their “fissile cores,” the triggers which would render them “live.” However, atomic bombs are essentially useless in the kind of warfare described above. They are “city killers.” And above all, the United States wanted to contain this conflict. Dropping atomic bombs hardly fit that strategy. By now the U.S. had 300 atomic bombs in its arsenal. That would grow to 31,000 by 1968.

General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, estimated that the USAF killed 20% of North Korea’s population and virtually destroyed it as an industrial society. One USAF pilot observed, “When we left, there was no electricity in North Korea.” Every North Korean knows the history of this merciless American bombardment.

Korea saw the first air-to-air combat by jet aircraft, namely the USAF’s nuclear capable F-84 Thunderjet and F-86 Sabrejet versus the Rolls-Royce powered Soviet Mig-15. USAF figures show 792 Migs were shot down versus 78 UN jets. However, thanks to Commenter Leo Kinnaman, we can see just how controversial the stated results of these dogfights were. Read the debate on this website:

Korean War Casualties (aircraft)

Cold War secrecy cloaked the presence of the Russian pilots. They and their aircraft wore Korean or Chinese colors and were forbidden from speaking Russian on the radio. Nevertheless, American pilots reported hearing bursts of Russian profanity in the heat of engagements. Both Soviet and American governments suppressed reports of the Soviet pilots in combat. Again, that careful dance around The Bomb—or rather Bombs. The Soviets now had their own Bomb—tho they had not yet air-dropped it.

The very air was a frightening enemy. In the brutal winter of 1950-1951—the worst in 100 years—some 45,000 poorly clothed PVA froze to death in temperatures that reached minus 35 degrees. Frostbite injuries plagued all forces. And there was hunger: 90,000 retreating ROK died of starvation, largely due to corrupt leaders pocketing money meant for food.

All war is cruel. This war, however, was stained black by unspeakable atrocities committed by both sides. Such war crimes included the execution of children. When informed of Allied massacres, MacArthur dismissed them as an “internal matter.”

On 16 December 1950, faced with the seemingly unstoppable Red Chinese advance down the Korean Peninsula, President Truman declared a national emergency. At this point he ordered custody of those nine atomic bombs be given to the USAF 9th Bomb Group on Okinawa. He signed the order, but never transmitted it. The bombs, therefore, remained in civilian custody, not military, an important distinction.

I was three years old in December, 1950. My dad had commanded a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Second World War. Sure enough, he got The Call in the national emergency. The earliest, fragmentary memory of my life is one of my mother hastily taking shiny things off a [Christmas] tree. We then set out on a long, cold and, for me, mysterious drive from Massachusetts to Norfolk, Virginia where dad joined his ship.

UN morale hit rock bottom when their popular commanding General Walton Walker died in a jeep accident on 23 December 1950. However, his successor, the charismatic General Matthew Ridgway, pulled the 8th Army out of the ditch to deny the Chinese their strategic objective: throwing the UN off the Korean Peninsula permanently.

The United States did not win the Korean War for one reason: the stunning intervention of Communist China. Its rough peasant armies fought a super power—the super power— to a standstill. Exhausted communist and non-communist forces settled for an unsatisfying stalemate. No peace treaty was signed because war was never declared. President Truman always carefully termed U.S. involvement a “police action” under UN leadership.

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The Toll:

U.S. killed..………………36,574. Wounded, 103,284 and 7667 unaccounted for.

S. Korea killed…..……..217,000 military, 1,000,000 civilian.

N. Korea killed….……..406,000 military, 600,000 civilian.

PVA: 183,108 killed… ..383,218 wounded, 25,621 missing and 21,400 captured.

(U.S. estimated 400,000 PVA killed)

Thanks to Chen Yankai for PVA figures.

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Truce talks dragged on for over two years. The problem was prisoner exchanges: many North Korean POWs refused to go home. Finally the North agreed to let their troops choose. Those North Koreans who did opt for home, often threw away clothes, shoes, chocolates, cigarettes—anything the UN had given them.

North and South pulled their forces back about a mile from the line of battle, ultimately creating the most fortified boundary on Earth: the 2.5 mile wide, 160 mile long Korean Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ has separated the Koreas now for over 60 years at the 38th parallel. There are no plans for its modification or removal.

The Zone has become embedded in the Korean landscape as an unnatural natural feature. Like the Great Wall of China or the Panama Canal. The Zone simmers with tension and some 1,000 military and civilians have been killed in it. The North has tunneled under it in four (known) places. Their portals have become tourist attractions.

There is nothing sacred about the 38th parallel. For 1300 years Koreans had been han nara—one nation—unified under various monarchies, such as the Joseon Dynasty:

Hwaseong Fortress from Joseon Dynasty, built in 1700s by King Jeongjo to honor his father, executed after refusing to commit suicide as ordered. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 20 miles south of Seoul.

August 1945: Japan had surrendered and Korea was up for grabs. The U.S. Army suddenly realized a boundary was needed fast or the Soviets, flooding down from Manchuria, would occupy all Korea.

Two young Army officers set the boundary. One was Dean Rusk, later JFK’s Secretary of State. Rusk told the “amusing story” of how the two dusted off an old National Geographic map and pored over it for natural boundary features. Finding none, they picked the 38th because it placed the capital, Seoul, on the U.S. side. To everyone’s surprise, Stalin had no objections.

This artificial frontier, set in such haste and ignorance, was bound to cause trouble and, as we’ve seen here, it did. Millions would die as the two Koreas, instant enemies, fought to impose their own brand of han nara, socialist or capitalist. Korea was the Cold War’s first casualty, the DMZ its still-unhealed wound.

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In the Korean War, Mao Zedong demonstrated China’s power to the world. He laid to rest nonsensical American accusations about who “lost China.” China was not America’s to lose! And Mao was not about to let his little communist upstart/ally suffer defeat by the United States. For North Korea served—and still serves—as a vital buffer for the Chinese. Which is why they will never let the Kim regime collapse—however much the United States would welcome that.

It may surprise the reader to learn that South Korea isn’t interested in a Kim collapse either. Or, for that matter, re-unification. Either would unleash a human tidal wave of some 23 million impoverished North Korean “inmates.” They would require everything: food, shelter, lots of medical care and jobs. Their insatiable needs would overwhelm the national systems in China and the South and would certainly trigger violence from resentful citizens.

The South has allowed in some 16,000 defectors. It welcomes them but scrutinizes them hard to weed out spies. China, on the other hand, tracks down and returns defectors, fearing that human tidal wave.

Mao conferring with Kim Il-sung (right) founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—otherwise known as North Korea.

What follows is a bit of a tangent, but I think you’ll find it interesting.

Thanks to Mike Wu for introducing me to Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying. He was a tragic link between two founders of Communist China: his father and his commander, General Peng Dehuai, who invaded Korea.

Had Anying lived, he would have inherited his father’s “throne,” just as Kim Jong-un is carrying on the Kim “dynasty.”

Mao essentially abandoned his family when he disappeared into the mountains as a guerrilla leader during China’s Civil War. On Anying’s 8th birthday, he and his mother were captured by a warlord. Ordered to denounce Mao, she refused under torture. Anying was then forced to watch as his mother was beheaded.

Re-united, Mao sent his teenage son to the USSR at Stalin’s invitation. Anying attended Interdom (“International House”) in Ivanovo, about 158 miles from Moscow. This was an elite Soviet boarding school for the offspring of foreign Communists.

When Hitler turned his forces against the USSR in the Second World War, Anying petitioned Stalin for a posting in the Soviet Army. Stalin agreed. Young Anying served—and served well—as an artillery officer in Poland.

When Peng invaded Korea, he chose Anying as his secretary. They worked out of an old gold mining cave north of Pyongyang. At 28, Anying wasn’t shy about offering opinions in staff meetings with senior officers. One has the impression of a headstrong young man, perhaps a bit of a princeling. And why not? By now he understood his destiny.

On the morning of his death, he had fried up some eggs for breakfast. UN planes were spotted. Other staff frantically warned him, but he shouted at them to get lost, he’d have his eggs! Seconds later, two USAF planes swooped down to bomb the cave with napalm.

Mao Anying, 24 October 1922 — 25 November 1950. Here in Soviet Army uniform.

Anying’s death would ultimately return to haunt Peng. Following the war, he became Defense Minister and Field Marshall. But then, in 1966, during China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao’s last wife, the highly controversial Jiang Qing, had him arrested, “tried” and sentenced to life in prison for trumped up crimes against Mao.

The Red Guard shown bringing Peng to Beijing. He was physically and psychologically tortured there for years. The writings are his “crimes.”

Why this horrific fate for Peng Dehuai, once Mao’s comrade in China’s Civil War, victor of so many battles, including Chosin Reservoir where he put China on the map militarily?

Thanks to Joe Huang for providing political background.

The Mao/Peng rift emerged at the Lushan Conference in 1959 where Mao’s Great Leap Forward was discussed. Peng bravely criticized this Mao-made catastrophe where 30 million peasants perished in famines. Mao passionately defended himself, citing other great leaders who’d made a mistake or two. He swayed the others, effectively ending Peng’s political—but not military—career.

A play, Mao Zedong and His Eldest Son (2017), produced in China, offers insights into the complex relationship between Mao, Anying and Peng.

Mao’s paternal emotions grew as death approached and there was no bright son with whom to share thoughts deep into the night. No, only ambitious bureaucrats, quietly…waiting.

At no time did Mao indicate he might release Peng from prison. He could not forgive Peng for failing to protect his beloved son in the war. Was that fair? Of course not. How could Peng have possibly known that Mao’s beloved son would unwisely choose fried eggs over safety?

Love, war…politics. When is there ever fairness in these?

Peng, still imprisoned, died in 1974. Mao died in 1976. His death set off a bureaucratic power struggle which convulsed the highest reaches of China’s government for the next two years.

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The author is grateful to those many readers who, far more steeped in Korean history than he, improved this Answer with their thoughtful suggestions…and precise corrections.

Marriage is Slowly Dying. Here’s Why

My son wants to be a carpenter. He has a 3.78 GPA. I keep telling him that he is wasting his life by working in construction instead of going to college to get a real well-paying job. What should I do?

I have a casual friend who is the premier door installer in the area. He was so overwhelmed with work, that he raised his hourly fee from $150 to $200. It didn’t work. So a couple of years ago his fee went to $250 an hour.

Didn’t work. I told him to hire a few people to take over some of the work. He said he’d done it before but their work, even under his supervision, wasn’t up to his standards.

So I suggested he raise his rates higher. It won’t work because people who want top notch work are willing to pay for it. He only does high end custom homes. He is very well compensated for his talent. Contractors have him reserved on a waiting list.

When I was growing up, my stepfather was a casual friend of a master woodworker, Sam Maloof. He created hand made furniture using walnut without nails, only wood dowels.

There is Maloof furniture on display at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. One of my friends ordered a Maloof rocking chair 20 years ago. It cost $30,000 and a waiting list of 3 years.

I saw one of his tables for sale in a Laguna Beach art gallery. 2 previous owners. A dining table and 6 chairs for $200,000.

I know a lot a people with higher than 4.0 GPA working a jobs that pay just twice minimum wage.

What was the worst pandemic in history, and where did it start?

Well 2 stand out among the rest.

The worst ever was the “black death” which is a bacterial infection caused by Yersinia Pestis. This disease would ravage Europe and parts of Asia and claim the lives of as many as 200 million people.

Another more modern pandemic would be the Spanish Flu. This pandemic started during WW1 and the battlefields of Europe served as an excellent place for a disease to spread.

While the black death was worse, the Spanish Flu is more relevant to the modern world.

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The black death was spread by fleas who themselves hitched a ride on rats.

Once someone came into contact with said flies they became infected. Once infected you would experience aches, fever, malaise, and nausea. If untreated- around 80% would die.

The most famous symptom was the black boils found in the armpits, on the neck, or on the groin of the infected. This is where the “black” in black death comes from.

Now its hard to say where this originated from. The best theory I have heard is that early climate change and trade from Asia allow allowed rodents carrying the disease it migrate to Europe (this is an oversimplification).

Regardless once it hit, it hit hard.

This is a time before even basic medicine. The global community was ill-prepared to respond in any meaningful way. Most responses were religious in nature as people thought the pandemic was a punishment from god.

It must have seemed like the end times. Entire communities, villages, towns, and cities were wiped out. So many died that there ended up being a massive labor shortage throughout Europe.

The disease spread until it had killed anywhere from 100–200 million people. Around half of the European population was killed in this pandemic. Imagine that- every other person you know dying from 1 disease.

Once the disease had infected practically everyone it could, it died out and would resurge from time to time across Europe.

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Unlike black death, the Spanish Flu is a virus and not a bacterial infection. The disease attacks the respiratory system and secondary cases of Pneumonia ended up being the real killed. While the mortality rate of the Spanish Flu was not as high as the black death, it was still a very dangerous virus.

It’s hard to say where the Spanish Flu originated. One of the best theories is Northern China.

During WW1 China entered the war against the Germans. A large number of Chinese laborers from Northern China are sent to Canada to be deployed to Europe. A group of these soldiers were sick.

This is hard to confirm though. The first outbreak was found in Kansas but went ignored. American recruits for WW1 from Kansas were sent to camp Funston where the first outbreaks occurred. Recruits from Funston then went to other forts and before long, more than 20 forts had outbreaks.

These recruits were then deployed to Europe and brought the flu with them. From here it spread rapidly in the trenches.

Now doctors and researchers caught on pretty early that a pandemic was starting. Like usual though, nobody listened until it was too late. Additionally, European nations like the UK intentionally covered up instances of the flu in order to keep wartime morale strong.

Yet when the pandemic reached Spain it began to be reported on. Spain was not involved in WW1 and thus was free to report on the pandemic as it happened. This is why it’s called Spanish flu.

As the war came to an end all of Europe was infected. American soldiers returned home to parades and parties which caused problems. In Philadelphia, a large parade is held despite the pleading of doctors.

Due to this parade, the flu explodes. All over American similar instances happen. City leaders refuse to take wise steps to prevent transmission and this causes a disaster.

Now one exception is New York City. They publicized the pandemic, quarantined the port partially, came up with a mask mandate, set up doctors to make house calls, quarantined the sick, and created laws the limited the size of crowds. NY would be one of the safest cities during the pandemic.

Amazing how little we learned.

In the end, the pandemic died out. It had infected so many people it was out of fresh victims and so, the diseases burned out.

Now Spanish Flu remains a threat to this day- ready to mutate and infect us again.

Divorce Lawyer Reveals 3 Behaviors That Destroy Relationships | James Sexton

If America kept slavery, would the Great Depression have been avoided?

Here’s the thing – one of the reasons that the economy collapsed in the South after the war is one of the reasons that the American economy collapsed in the late 1920s – overreliance on borrowing for household expenses.

Now, borrowing to buy property has been around for centuries. The “mortgage” goes back to the 16th century or thereabouts and provided a way to secure a loan.

But if you look at 19th century slavery in the U.S., you find that most slaves were bought on credit. Your local slave auction house or slave trader was happy to sell you a human being on credit. The slave would act as security on the loan and the law of southern states made such contracts enforceable – if you defaulted on a payment, the slave trader would seize your slave with the help of local authorities and re-sell it to try to recoup losses. One of the reasons it appears that Thomas Jefferson didn’t free many of his slaves when he died (just blood relatives as it turns out) is that because he was a poor businessman with expensive taste in books and was up to his neck in debt (the Donald Trump of his time in this limited sense).

When the Union started freeing slaves, even on a limited basis (seizing them as contraband) rich southerners were in a bind. Sure they still had land, but the banks that were underwriting slave loans were getting itchy about their collateral. The truth was Northerners were borrowing too, but they were borrowing to buy machines. The South probably had more capital tied up in slaves than land, and very little capital was tied up in machinery. The freeing of the slaves pretty much destroyed the equivalent of several billion dollars in personal wealth and sent the southern economy into a tailspin after the war.

And much the same thing happened in the 1930s. from 1900 to the 1920s “easy payment plans” had started to become the norm. You could go to a car showroom, or a furniture showroom, or even a tailor who would be happy to arrange credit for your purchase. The loan would be sold to a finance company which would borrow money from a bank to pay the merchant and make their profit off the incoming payments. Because credit was so easy to get, car factories, furniture factories and many others started making product as fast as humanly possible. When the economy started a downturn in the 1930s, people defaulted on loans, their stuff was repossessed, the market for used goods drove down the demand for new goods, factories had to cut back on production, they fired people, they would default on their loans, and the whole economy spiraled down causing bank failures and massive unemployment.

The same thing almost happened in 2007 except, of course, the Federal Reserve stepped in and loaned everyone massive amounts of money to keep prices from collapsing while everyone got time to properly evaluate the financial instruments they held so they didn’t have to sell them at fire sale prices. Except in Iceland – they let the banks fail and people started setting fire to Range Rovers to get the insurance because the automobile was worth less than what it would cost to ship it out of Iceland.

If Men Acted like Women on First Dates

What is the lowest probability event you have personally witnessed?

I was the lowest handicap player in our team of four golfers, this gave me the privilege of being captain. We were playing a competition round at our local golf club and the competition was a 4 ball ambrose.

For those that don’t know golf this competition is where we each tee off and then we each play the best of the tee shots. Then we each play the best of the next shot, repeating this until the ball goes in the hole.

This day we were playing very very well together as a team and came to the second last hole. This hole was a par 4 but if you were brave enough and could hit the ball long enough, it was possible to “drive” the green in one shot but it was completely over water with all the peril that brings.

To make it even harder, the flag was at the very edge of the green, close to the water, so even if you did “drive” the green, the ball would bounce and roll well beyond the flag.

I instructed my team to make sure at least one of them hit a ball on the fairway and I could then attempt to “drive” the green.

The team hit a ball to the fairway allowing me to attempt “driving” the green but before I did this I literally said this, “The only way I will stop this near the pin, is to hit the flagstick.”

And that is exactly what I did. The ball rested less than a metre from the hole, we sunk the putt and walked off scoring an eagle 2. We finished with a birdie on the 18th and won the competition.

So you understand how ridiculous that shot was on the 17th: It was approximately 260 metres away, over water and the flagstick would be no more than 2cm wide. The odds of hitting that, especially with my ability, is astronomically low.

Apart from winning the day, what made it extra special was that I said out loud what I needed to do and actually pulled it off!

What is the greatest obstacle to Westerners’ understanding of China?

As long as your media continue to spread fabrications on China, set narratives meant to demonise China and cast doubts and sow distrust about China and the Chinese people westerners cannot understand the real China and the Chinese people.

Western governments are voted in on popularity. To be popular they need to repeat the narrative that China steals, China copies, China is aggressive, China gives out loans to entrap nations, China threatens nations, China make cheap goods, China depends on western technologies…..

Nothing said and reported has any strains of truth or accuracy. Nor were there any proof either and without evidence. Just plain and pure lies and fabrications. So how can the westerners even know a shred of truth about China or the Chinese people.

There is no way anyone in the west that can learn the truth about the China as long as the west lie to themselves.

HK

0:02 / 11:29

If Men Acted like Women on First Dates (Part 2)

Doctors, have you ever had a patient insist they had a disease you knew they did not have?

My brother, in family practice at a large university hospital, once saw a very sick 7-year-old girl as a first-time patient whose mother insisted the girl had colon cancer. The girl was indeed passing blood per rectum, a very concerning finding, and she was clearly very sick and doubled over with abdominal pain. But colon cancer in a 7-year-old, while not impossible, would be quite unusual. My brother made sure he knew all the facts before rushing to a conclusion, and he was glad he did. As he talked to her mother further, he found out the little girl had also at various times been diagnosed with neurological disorders, heart disease, blood disorders and kidney disease, to name a few. Each was rare on its own, but together became highly improbable as a group. He knew he was missing something. Scratching his head, he asked the mother if there was anything that ran in the family. She thought a minute before responding triumphantly,

“Well, I have Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy! Could she have that?”

Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy is a psychiatric disorder in which patients abuse someone else, often their own children, to make that child appear ill, thereby garnering sympathy for themselves as suffering parents. The character Mrs Collins in the movie The Sixth Sense presumably had it. So did Dee Dee Blanchard, the mother of Gypsy Rose, who after years of abuse and a litany of false diagnoses including leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy and brain damage, finally had enough. Gypsy Rose was 24 and still under her mother’s “care” when she and her boyfriend successfully conspired to stab her mother to death.

The mother of my brother’s patient clearly hadn’t done her homework into what MSbP really meant. All she knew was that she had an impressive-sounding diagnosis with a long name, and with it she might finally get the attention she craved. So rather than hide it, as she should have done, she was bragging about it. All those strange diagnoses her daughter had suddenly made sense. My brother listened sympathetically, nodded, and stepped out of the room to call the authorities.

What is a polite way to remind someone that they owe you money?

My friend was in a tight spot and needed $700 to prevent her electricity and water from being shut off. I immediately sent her the money, but then I didn’t hear anything back. Despite this, our friendship remained intact, even though I received no indications of getting paid back or any acknowledgement of the debt. Quite some time passed, and her financial situation eventually improved and stabilized. Then, she casually mentioned that she had taken a trip, leaving me surprised as I couldn’t afford one and she still owed me money. I chose not to confront her about it and instead attributed it to the fact that I wouldn’t be getting my money back, reinforcing the notion that one should never lend money.

Unexpectedly, she started repaying me out of the blue and managed to pay off the full amount within a few months. It turned out that she had been overwhelmed and drained by all the challenges in her life, needing a break to regain her strength and adopt a more positive mindset. This break allowed her to come back stronger and more determined to stabilize her life.

Now, she is doing exceptionally well, and I realized that I had been able to assist her during one of her lowest moments by providing the support she needed. By not pressuring her to repay the debt when she couldn’t, it helped her persevere and avoid giving up.

FIRST TIME REACTION TO STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN – Voodoo child

What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?

Two police officers with sober faces stared at me and I knew the news couldn’t be good.

They described a car that had just been in an accident, and the license plate. My wife’s mini-van had collided, burst into flames and everyone inside it died.

I’m doing a mental inventory about now. My wife, three children, and two nieces.

My legs turned wobbly. You can’t imagine what was going through my head. Because of the fire, they couldn’t find any useful identification but explained they could identify everyone both by DNA and by dental records. They wanted a DNA sample from me.

I guess they could verify my kids were mine, and that the adult was their mother. A nice, neat little bow.

Can you imagine? They’ve just told you that your whole family is dead, and —- I told them I would come down and give them a sample.

Getting ready to leave, my cell phone is buzzing. It’s my wife. What? Hard tingles are on my spine, like she’s calling from the grave.

“Our van was stolen from the parking lot….”

Were the sweetest words I could’ve ever heard. Yeah it was my wife’s car, but they won’t need any DNA sample from me today.

EDIT – to address some of the mysteries in the comments

I learned later that three people were in the van when it collided. A man, woman, and younger person, which they presumed was a child of the drivers. The police said everyone died, but they had a different human inventory than my own. I also learned they were part of a ring of car thieves, and the accident was not their fault. Another car ran a light and hit them broadside. No fatalities and only minor injuries in the other car.

Denver’s Homeless Problem Is Nuts! (Behind The Scenes)

What is it that nobody tells you about having children?

Social prejudices take a different dimension altogether. You need to protect your kid, as well as educate her. But no one tells you how.

Some examples:

When my daughter was not yet three

“Papa, don’t you use a pack?”, Sia asked out of the blue one day.

“Um…pack? What pack?”

“The one that you apply on your face”

“Oh. No sweetheart. Papa doesn’t use any pack”

“Only girls use packs na?”

“Yes. Mostly”.

“I should apply a pack daily”

“Really? Why?” I wasn’t sure I liked the direction this conversation was headed.

“I’ll become gori” (fair)

“Hmmm. And then?” I din’t like this at all.

“And then I’ll become pretty”

“Who told you that?” I controlled my fury while I considered the best response to this.

“____”

“____ is stupid. Doesn’t know anything”, I continued to grope for words, “Sia is already very pretty”.

“Sia wants to become prettier”

What do you tell a 3 year old? The whole history of slavery and racism. Or casteism closer home. About the millions of matrimonial ads looking for slim, fair and beautiful brides. About dowry that increases with the quantum of melanin in skin. Too harsh for a kid.

Maybe skip skin color and tell her that physical appearance itself is overrated. Maybe I should explain to her that there is no such thing as too light or too dark; too tall or too short; too thin or too fat. There’s only healthy, smart and nice. Too philosophical.

Maybe I should focus on self esteem. What if her self esteem slips because of dumb things people tell her? There was really no danger of that back then, though. It bordered on narcissism in Sia’s case.

“Becoming prettier is easy, sweetheart. All it takes is a big smile”, I finally managed. I was rewarded with a dazzling smile

Barbie dolls and face packs

When she was six

“Papa, you know, the math geniuses in my class, who are all of course boys…“, Sia began one day

“Hold it. Hold it. Who told you that only boys are math geniuses?”

“I know it on my own“

“Yes, but how did you know on your own?”

“It is obvious. All the kids in my class who are good at math are boys“

“How do you know that they are good?” [Hint for the reader: Who is the person in the class who judges which kids are good at what?]

“____ can do addition faster than anyone else“

“That’s just one boy. And addition is just one small part of math. Does anyone understand shapes as well as you do?”

“No. But only boys are good at math. See, you are good at math and mama isn’t“.

“That’s just two of us. That’s no reason why you can’t be a math genius. It is all about studying hard and practicing”

“But I hate math“

“Maybe. But don’t you want to prove to the boys that girls can be math geniuses too”

“Yesss!“, she said pumping her fist.

That’s how we got get to prepare for the math kiddy Olympiad. We later confronted her teacher. She first acted shocked, and then proceeded to describe how good the boys in her class were at math. *Sigh*

There was a happy outcome, though. Of the three kids who topped her class in the Olympiad, two, including Sia, were girls. “Who’s the math genius now?”, I asked her. She just grinned.

A few weeks ago (she is nearly seven)

“Papa, who is that?“, Sia asked, pointing at the TV screen. There was a news item about the Nido Taniam Death Incident

.

“That’s a bhaiyya [elder brother] who was killed by some bad people in Delhi”.

“Is he Indian?“

“Of course he is”

“He looks like Chinese“, she observed

“No. He doesn’t. He looks very much Indian”

“But his eyes are like this“, she said, pulling her eyes back

“So?”, I challenged

She thought about it for a while. “Do some Indians look like Chinese?“, she asked, a little uncertainly.

“Well, the Chinese look like some Indians. The Pakistanis look like some other Indians. The Sri Lankans look like some other Indians. There are so many different kinds of Indians. That’s cool, isn’t it?”

“Do Americans look like some Indians too?“

“Hmmm… not really”, I wasn’t keen on confusing her with too much information. We opened her map of India game and started discussing about each region and state. Hopefully, she drew the right lessons.

ØnlyFans Girl Realizes She Is F#$ked By Her Own HIGH STANDARDS!

What is a psychological fact that impresses you the most?

1. The smarter you get, more choosy you become.
2. A woman who makes him ‘feel manly’ is the one a man falls for.
3. In love, guys take April Fool’s day “I cheated on you” pranks seriously.
4. You’ll seldom perish in dreams; if you do, it signals a fresh start in life.
5. The thing that people remember the most about you is your charisma, Here you can learn the secrets to Charisma and Confidence.
6. To de-escalate a dispute, act preoccupied with more critical matters to appear somber.

What is the most cringeworthy thing you have heard a parent say?

From mum, when I was fourteen: “If you get pregnant, just keep the baby and I¨ll bring it up.”

“But Mum, I’m only fourteen, I´m not having any sex at all.”

“Well, when you do have sex, if you get pregnant – “

“I won´t get pregnant! I promise I´ll use a condom!”

“Yes, but if the condom breaks, just keep the baby. I wouldn´t mind bringing up a baby again.”

They hadn´t invented ‘WTF’ in those days so I think I just kind of growl-sighed at her.

******************************************************************************************

From Dad, when I was fifteen and chilling at home with a mix of girls and boys: “Oh how boring, you´ve all still got your clothes on.”

I went SCARLET.

******************************************************************************************

From a workmate, who was mother to the most perfect, adorable little angel ever:

“Come quickly! Tatiana has done a Big Girl Poo in the toilet and wants you to come and see it!”

I have to say, that one was a real dilemma.

How do you decline such a command when the commander has just made you dinner and is senior to you at work?

Was Prince Philip a bad person?

He was wicked.

A friend of mine’s job was to organise VIP visits to military establishments (though as a civilian – he wasn’t forces personnel). He said that when Philip was to visit an establishment they would, as always when royalty was to be around, spit and polish his route and dump all the crap – the junk, the bins, the skips and other unseemly stuff – round the back out of sight. Philip, being ex-military himself and so knowing this of course, would suddenly stride off the planned route down an alley towards the rear of the buildings asking’ ‘What’s down here then?’

The top brass, his hosts, would have inward apoplexy which he knew full well, as they coughed and spluttered, which was why he did it. He also knew that they couldn’t very well stop him.

Sort of thing I’d do.

Priceless.

I wonder whether he also did it because he knew it’d amuse the onlooking squaddies to see the top brass being embarrassed by even higher authority. There’d be a few glasses raised to him in the squaddie’s mess that night.

EDIT: Sigh! This edit, made some days after my initial comment, is aimed solely at a select few U.S. Americans, so you Britons can skip the read and go and put the kettle on (never thought I’d need to explain this, but hey ho).

A number responded saying that they’re rushing to their local tabernacle to actively pray to their gods that fire and brimstone rains upon me, my wife’s turned into a pillar of salt and that my spawn be rendered infertile for saying such a dreadful thing about Prince Philip. This explanation is for them! No, no, there’s absolutely no need for the rest of you to mount your high horses too and loudly affirm that you’re perfectly well aware of what I meant and aren’t stupid – I realise that most of you do and aren’t.

‘Ahem! Are you all sitting comfortably way out west? Good. Then I’ll begin. The term ‘wicked’ is frequently used in the U.K. as an expression of endearment for a mischievous person. It is, these days, seldom used to mean evil. So, by describing H.R.H. as ‘wicked’ I’m saying he was likeable and mischievous as the text that I wrote subsequently, if you deign to read it, shows. Do y’all think you can remember that for me? Well done and goody gumdrops. Oh, and yes, I did meet him’.

What trivial knowledge might save your life one day?

Originally Answered: What (trivial) knowledge might save your life one day?

1. If you find yourself in an active shooter situation, and you are armed, DO NOT draw your weapon unless absolutely necessary. You might be mistakenly shot, or mistakenly shoot another armed and concerned citizen. Let the police do their job, just escape.
2. If you are pulled over at night, immediately turn on your dome lights and keep both hands on your steering wheel until the police approach you. You might be amazed how much stress you take away from an armed police officer in a stressful situation when you do this. STAY OFF YOUR PHONE!
3. If you are in a foreign country, always know where, and how to get to, your nearest embassy.
4. If you are in trouble, scream HELP, FIRE! People tend to respond to fire faster than rape, muggings, or kidnappings.
5. Carry a knife. If someone tries to force you into their car, first stab a tire, then try to stab your attackers (situation dependent).
6. If you are in a fight for your life, remember, YOU ARE NOT A CHAMPION STREET FIGHTER! Always go for the neck and throat with any and everything you have.

7. When you are walking to your car, position your keys in your hand like this picture, or even better, like a stabbing position. It just looks like you are carrying your keys and the assailant would likely not notice. Aim for the eyes.

8. Never find yourself in a position where nobody knows where you are, or where you are going. I don’t care how innocent a journey it seems. For example, you are a man, your wife is at work, and a friend or neighbor asks for a ride. That’s how setups work, it’s usually always someone you know. Take 5 seconds to tell someone where you are going, and who with.

9. NEVER tell anyone, except the people who live in your home, that you own a firearm.

10. Never leave anything with your address inside your car. Hide your registration, in the trunk perhaps, or in your wallet/purse.

11. If your kids are old enough to leave the house (School age, etc) they are old enough to memorize your address and phone number. Teach them this info is a family secret.

12. Have a password with your kids. Even if Uncle Jimmy shows up to pick them up from school, if he doesn’t have the password, your kids should know it’s not safe. Have a family password, and a mom and dad only password. Change it as necessary.

13. Leave a $20 or $50 bill in plain sight when leaving your home. When you enter your house, and this bill is missing, be on guard.

14. Phones these days are almost just as threatening to bad guys as a firearm. If you are in danger, point your phone at the person(s), tell them they are live streaming. Helps if the threat is real. You can live stream to Facebook, YouTube, and others. Learn how to get on it quick.

15. Don’t wear an “I Love Jesus” t-shirt to a Marilyn Manson concert.

16. Whenever on public transportation (bus, train, plane) always sit near an exit.

17. If you are on a bus and some madman starts cutting people, don’t try to be a hero, just scream “THERE’S A BOMB ON THE BUS!” and run for an exit. Bomb is scarier than knife, gun, or madman. People will follow. MAX attack unfolded quickly: Extremist cut three in neck, police say

18. If you are ever forced to make a hostage video, look at every person present (make eye contact), or blink with both eyes once, for each person. This will let responding forces know how many people are in the room.

19. If you are in a hostage situation, and a gunman is using you as a shield, fall dead weight to the floor. Make them drag you. They won’t. Give the good guys a clear shot.

20. If you are lost, or in distress, “Three” is the international sign of distress. Three piles of rocks or fires in a triangle, three gun shots or whistle blows. Distress signal – Wikipedia

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EDIT: Lots of people have commented that tires are near impossible to puncture, and that it would blow your hand apart.

First, tires are ridiculously easy to puncture in the side walls. When I was a teen, my 16 year old girlfriend flattened one of my tires with a tiny two inch folding pocket knife on her first try.

Next, there is only 32-35 pounds of pressure in a car tire, there is NO WAY your hand is going to be blown apart. The air just wizzes out and the tire slowly deflates.

What did someone do in TSA/airport security that made you say “You gotta be kidding me”?

They took my dad’s P-38 can opener. He’d had it since Vietnam.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of using a P-38 can opener, you can barely open a can with one without some practice, and even then, a brisk pace for a can of tuna is about two minutes.

Theoretically, you could cut someone with the pointy bit, but honestly, how? Just about any way you hold it, your fingers either eclipse the tooth or you don’t have a stable grip.

If someone randomly threw ten other can openers at you, the P-38 would undoubtedly be the slowest, least intuitive, and least useful as a potential weapon (unless maybe you tried to poison someone with it).

Add to this that my dad is 5′3″ and was over 70 and it just seems kind of cruel. He’d had that can opener for over 40 years.

Fortunately, he had three other P-38s, all of which were confiscated by the TSA within the next three or four years. He liked wearing them around his neck and it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to forget you’re wearing, especially if you aren’t a frequent flyer.

I still have one P-38 in a sewing kit for when I go camping, in case I forget my Swiss Army Knife or can’t find a rock. There are a few, rare people out there who can fly with a P-38, but most people take at least a few minutes to figure out exactly how you’re supposed to hook it to the can, then immediately give up and ask if you’re fucking kidding them. How is this worth saving a few ounces?

I’ve never seen anyone open their first can in under 20 minutes, and again, most give up immediately if any other option is available.

I can’t imagine anyone deliberately attempting to hijack an airplane with a P-38. It’s incredibly satisfying just to see someone actually open a can with one, and I think you’d have trouble vandalizing a bicycle tire. They just aren’t conducive to doing much of anything, even opening cans.

What habits do you have as a result of being in the military?

Old habits die hard.

TACP 2nd ASOS with the General

I served for 6 years, and there are just some things ingrained in me that I’ll never be able to get out. Most of them are positive habits, as well. For instance, waking up early without a clock, just pure instinct or something. I wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning most of the time, and am fully showered, shaved, dressed, and fed by seven o’clock.

If I say I’ll do something, then I will do it. I don’t procrastinate or break promises unless I am, quite literally, forced to.

I still use military time and terminology. This confuses people a lot, but after a few years of knowing me, they get used to it and understand me perfectly.

I’m very rigid and studious about cleanliness and perfection. The military turned me into a neat freak, and that is a great habit to have. I don’t even think about leaving my house if the beds are unmade, floors unswept, clothes not put-away, and every surface hasn’t been scrubbed down. Including walls, doorknobs, cabinets and tables… especially kid’s rooms! You’d be surprised how much gunk can build up in as little as three days.

I rush a lot. If there’s some kind of an event at six o’clock, I’m ready by four. My wife and kids really hate this a lot. They can never understand why I rush so much, and how it’s humanly possible to perform the three S’s in 15 minutes (shit, shower, shave in that order.)

It’s incredibly productive though. I always have a lot of extra time on my hands, because I simply do not tolerate lollygagging. I can get so much done in a day, it even amazes my own self!

I can do the three S’s, eat, take the kids to school and go to work, wash my car and perform maintenance on it, hang up pictures, clean, go grocery-shopping, do laundry, and help my wife prepare dinner without even thinking about it. I know some people who take much longer to do this stuff (no shame on them, everyone has their own paces, but still) or don’t even think about it until somebody reminds them.

Of course, there is bad stuff that comes with being in the military, especially when you’ve fought in a war. I can be really bossy, controlling, and just harsh sometimes. I mean, I can see how and why, it’s not classed as cool to have your dad yell at you to wash the dishes and sort out your clean clothes when your friends are over. It’s just the way I was taught in boot camp, the way I learned, the way they instilled discipline and decency in me.

I did manage to work on these issues, and be a more understanding father and husband, while still imprinting necessary habits and values into them.

Another habit is that I still like to dig holes, especially at the beach

What person enjoyed longevity they were totally undeserving of?

Imagine you walked into the doctor’s office. You sit down in your assigned room waiting for the doctor to come in.

You look up.

And up there on the wall was your doctor’s diploma.

“…Institute for Racial Purity.”

And that is literally one of the schools where Dr. Mengele, a.k.a. The Angel of Death, studied.

His thesis from college? In layman’s terms: how to determine someone’s race by their lower jaw.

Glad they checked that box. Huge sarcasm.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a doctor who more violated the Hippocratic Oath (don’t harm your patients) than Dr. Mengele.

Him, featured in the middle:

And in this picture, he is the only one who wasn’t hanged after the war ended. And he sure as hell deserved it.

Much of his research involved race and racial supremacy in some way, and was often carried out on people who were deemed as outside the circle of purity.

He did twin studies where he purposely killed one twin to test the reaction of the other twin.

He sewed two children together just to see if he could artificially create Siamese twins.

He had a woman’s breasts tied off to study how long it took her baby to starve to death.

I’ll stop.

Just know this — there’s a long list of absolutely nightmarish experiments that Dr. Mengele carried out on other human beings. He often frequently brought candies and did nice things for children in his prison camp, only days before he turned them into white smoke in the chimneys. He was a truly, truly, truly twisted man.

After the war ended, he escaped to South America where he lived decades longer, a free man, dying of a stroke in 1979 at age 67 in Brazil.

If ever there was a doctor deserving to die by execution, it was Mengele.

As a surgeon, have you opened somebody up only to realise that they were beyond saving?

I’m not a surgeon, but heard this story from a family friend who used to work at the NIH with a highly successful and recognized surgical oncologist (I’ll call him Dr. S) who told this story.

I heard it secondhand, so don’t have all the details, but think it’s a pretty amazing story regardless (apologize in advance for my clear lack of medical terminology).

Anyway, Dr. S gets a patient with late stage cancer, who had a good sized tumor somewhere in his midsection. It’s believed to potentially be operable on, so the man is prepped for surgery and Dr. S begins by opening up the patient’s abdomen.

To go off on a quick tangent, do you know why cancer is called cancer? It’s no coincidence it has the same name as the crab in the zodiac. Tumors are rarely one self contained sphere — they have “legs” that branch out in all different directions, and kinda sorta resemble a crab. I encourage you to look it up, and it’s one of the reasons it’s so much easier to treat cancer when you catch it early…usually the small “lump” is only the visible portion of the tumor”

Back to the story, as Dr. S described it, it was one of the worst tumors he had ever seen, and the cancer was so developed that surgery was going to be impossible. So, the good surgeon had no other choice but to sew the patient back up and give him the prognosis. There was no further treatment that could be done.

About two or three years go by, and Dr. S sees a patient’s file with a familiar name come across his desk. Dr. S recognized it as the man he operated on a few years prior, but no way it could be the same guy, right?

The man had come back in for something unrelated to his cancer (though I think something that involved a CT scan). When Dr. S went to see him, he saw none other than the patient he sewed up two years prior, standing there in good health. Despite having had treated thousands of patients, Dr. S was in shock. They talked for a few minutes, and I wanna say Dr. S got permission to look at the man’s most recent scans, and there was no sign of the cancer. Zero. It was completely gone.

No, the guy hadn’t found another surgeon nor underwent chemo, in fact, Dr. S was the last person to have even operated on him. The only explanation was that the immune system had recognized the tumor as a foreign body / threat and destroyed it.

____

With parents in the medical field, I have heard several other similar-ish stories, but this one by far is the most amazing one I’ve heard.

As a disclaimer, this is very much a true story (though I don’t remember the type of cancer or the name of the doctor). Although what happened is extremely rare, it’s not impossible — the human body and immune system are capable of extraordinary things. It’s no surprise there are several cancer treatments that focus on simply getting the immune system to recognize and fight the cancer.

What are some of the best examples of “American ignorance”?

Not exactly ignorance, but certainly displaying a certain amount of naïveté was the following incident.

I was an exchange student in 1969/70 in Wayne Michigan. My American host family were very friendly with their neighbours, so I got to know them quite well as well during the course of that year.

Anyway, after a year in the USA, I went back to finish my degree and after graduation and landing my first job soon saved up enough money to revisit my host family and introduce to them my long term girlfriend, who came along.

We didn’t forget to visit our old neighbour Pat, who by then had bought a dilapidated golf course up North in Michigan and moved there living in a trailer, while he did the place up.

What struck me though, was what he said after greeting me enthusiastically. He just couldn’t believe fresh out of uni, I’d already saved up enough for two plane tickets and a short US holiday. He said: “I thought we were the richest nation on Earth? I worked all my life and never been to Europe. Couldn’t afford it! And here you are again?”

I think many Americans cannot comprehend the fact that per capita GDP and disposable income in most West European and Scandinavian countries is at least similar, if not higher as theirs.

My host family’s house and my brother for the year, Ed junior.

Cantonese Shoyu Chicken

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 5 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 seed star anise
• 1/4 cup scallions, cut into 1/2-inch lengths
• 1 (3 pound) fryer, cut up
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 4 tablespoons water

Instructions

1. Bring soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, water, ginger, anise, garlic and scallion to a boil. Lower heat and let simmer for 2 minutes.
2. Add chicken; cover and simmer for 40 minutes.
3. Arrange chicken on a platter.
4. Mix cornstarch with water; add to sauce to thicken. Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

What does the world seem like to someone who just spent 30 years in prison?

I was arrested in 1987 at the age of 17. Up until then I lived the simple life of a farm boy. There was no internet cell phones etc.

In prison I was schooled by old heads who taught me how to do time. I wasn’t a knucklehead kid coming to prison like many today. I listened to what they told me. Many of them did not believe I should be in prison. One even said I wasn’t a criminal even though I committed a crime in the eyes of the law. Anyway, I was influenced by their thinking and what they told me. Some may say they brainwashed me . I say they were trying to keep me alive. MSP was a very dangerous and violent place. I did my entire 29 years based on what I learned from them.

Now it is 2016 and I get out of prison. Two things you have to realize. One is I went to prison in the 1980s and I got out thinking people would still have the same societal thinking as the 1980s. While some thinking is the same or similar a lot has changed in the way people think. The second is I came out with a prison mentality that even 7 years later I struggle with sometimes

Everyone thought I would have a hard time adjusting to technology. Even I thought that. However, I caught on to that pretty quick. I mean, I still have things to learn , but I know enough to get by. It is fascinating that I am writing this and as soon as it is posted , someone anywhere in the world can read it. The same with emails, messages etc. Absolutely amazing to me.

The hardest thing has been adjusting to society itself. Most of my life has been spent in prison so for awhile it was hard just to get used to doing things without being told I can do it. I mean for the first week I was out I would not even walk outside without someone going with me or being told .lol I laugh about it now. I wouldn’t turn on the TV because it wasn’t mine. This confused those In the house. They finally made me do it. But first they had to show me how the remote worked. Then there was being in public. I really do not understand young people. Many do not like you to hold the door for them.Many young women take offense at being called “Miss” or “ma am” This is how I was raised and I am just trying to be polite. One incident was weird to me. I was standing in line at Casey’s and there were two teenage girls behind me . One says “He has a nice a**” I turned and said “I am old enough to be your father” To which she says”I was just giving you a compliment. I have a boyfriend. Chill old man”

Another amazing thing to me still 7 years later is just going into a store. I don’t like being in them if they are crowded, but the wide variety of things to buy is amazing to me. People think I am amazed because the prison commissary didn’t have much. Well that may be part of it, but there is even a wider variety in stores now then before I went to prison. I am live in a small town and grew up in a small town and there is one thing I missed in prison that is still common in small towns. I don’t know about big cites Anyway that is the friendliness of people once they know you. I can go out in public here in town and people will greet me and ask how I am doing. Talk about the weather etc Just today a guy said to me “Harve how are you doing? When are you going to let me buy you a beer?” I respond with “When they let me off parole”

I hope this has answered your question

If America stopped importing goods from China, could the country survive? If China stopped exporting goods to America, could the country survive?

I’ve answered this question numerous times before.

Listen up!

Most of the products exported out of China… outbound to the United States…are made by American companies, making American products, to an American audience, and being sold at American prices, and the American owners obtain the profits.

The only Chinese component to this system is the workers who assemble those products, and the raw materials that are obtained out of China.

…

It is important to those (whom ever they may be) who run the United States “government” to keep the American people ignorant, and stupid of the actual Geo-political realities regarding China.

To this end, they distort numbers, figures and data to provide the ILLUSION that…

• The United States is stronger than it actually is.
• China is weaker than it actually is.

A good case in point is “export data” that promote the idea that of the total exports out of China, a massive “Lion’s Share” of it goes to the United States. Depending on the source… all Western sources… the percentages vary from 25% to 60%. So the viewer would obtain an impressive picture of the relative strength of USA – China trade.

This is a laughable distortion.

Remember… those figures are American companies, collecting American profits, on American products… made in China using inexpensive Chinese labor.

The actual number… ACTUAL Chinese products exported to the United States is around 3.2%.

You will see them in the USA from time to time. But their actual value is really quite low.

• Huawei
• Gree
• X-Peng
• ShaoMi

Most of that enormous product flow that is so touted about leaving China fore the United States consists of …

• GM transmissions
• iPhones
• Nike shoes
• SONY electronics

All of which are American, or Western products. Not Chinese products.

…

So let’s answer this question…

If America stopped importing goods from China, could the country survive?

• China would survive, most certainly. China manufactures for the world, and the United States market is a small, nearly insignificant amount. 3.2% as a whole.
• The USA would not survive. Unless the United States found a suitable nation that could provide factories, inexpensive labor, a skilled work force, and a focus on quality… most Americans would be flat out of luck in buying and using products.

Have you ever had a doctor give you a diagnosis and you just wouldn’t believe them? What did you do?

At the age of thirty-six, I was pregnant for the first time. Because of my age, my doctors advised me to have an amniocentesis to make sure everything was okay. After an amniocentesis, you have to wait about ten-to-twelve days to get the results. I had the test and I waited…and waited.

After twelve days, I started to call, but the results were not there yet. Something seemed wrong. Finally, after fourteen days, the genetic doctor called me. The results had come back and were devastating. The amniocentesis showed that the baby had a double set of chromosomes. This is a rare condition and almost all embryos with this condition are miscarried early, often before the mother even realizes that she is pregnant. Very few make it to birth, and if they are born, they die soon afterwards. The condition is just not compatible with life. The genetic doctor was surprised that I was still pregnant and informed me that I would soon miscarry.

I was of course devastated as were my husband and mom and everyone. I went to a medical library and it was difficult to find anything on this chromosomal disorder since so few live births occurred, but I did find a couple of articles. Only two babies (at the time) had been born alive and both had died within two days. One of the articles had a picture of one of these babies. She was blind, deaf, and deformed. This was what I was told that the baby that I was carrying was facing.

My obstetrician wanted to do an abortion. Instead, I made a decision to repeat the amniocentesis. The genetic doctor admitted that there could be a one-in-a-thousand chance of a mistake, but then he changed his mind, and said there was no chance of a mistake, and I just needed to accept this diagnosis. In a few days I went in and had another amniocentesis. For twelve days I waited for the results to return. I cried and cried while I was waiting. Finally the results came back and showed that a horrible mistake had been made. The test showed absolutely normal chromosomes. I went on to have a healthy pregnancy and a beautiful baby. This baby grew up, graduated from one of the finest universities in the world, and now has a beautiful baby of her own.

I totally get it

This is great.

What is the one in a million coincidence you have ever had?

My parents told me this story. When I was 8 years old living in the UK, my dad took a job opportunity in the USA and we emigrated. My parents decided to rent out our home in the UK so before we left we were showing the house to perspective tenants. One was an American guy. Turns out he was from the same city in the US that we were about to move to in a few weeks time. They laughed over the coincidence and the American guy said that his adult daughter is still in the US and we should look her up when we get there. He gave us her name and that she works in a particular restaurant in the city.

Fast forward a few weeks and fly to the US. we arrive at the airport, tired after flying halfway across the world! We are met at the airport by a representative of my dad’s new company and he drives us to a hotel. On the way we stop for some food. It’s late and there’s not a lot of places still open. The rep says he knows a place that’s open late. Yep, the same place the American tenant’s daughter works at. We end up getting served by her! So we rent out our UK home to a random American guy and move to America and end up meeting the guy’s daughter working half an hour of leaving the airport!

The Bourne Identity (2002) | *First Time Watching* | Movie Reaction | Asia and BJ

What is the most epic way you have seen a coworker resign or quit?

Her name was Monica. She was a 16-year-old cashier, and “epic” is a great word to describe how she quit. This was in the mid 90’s, and I was an assistant manager at that time for a very small movie theater in Louisiana. Monica was a box office cashier, and Eric was the general manager. Now that I’ve set the scene, let’s begin.

First of all, it gets hot in Louisiana during the summer. Really hot. The theater opened at 11 AM every day, so by then it was already a scorching hot day. Every morning, one of those sweeper trucks would go through our parking lot and remove all of the trash from the night before. On this particular day, they hadn’t shown up. I can’t remember if the truck had broken down or if they had just forgotten to show up. Regardless, there was trash EVERYWHERE in the parking lot. Popcorn bags, cups, cigarette butts, dirty diapers, you name it.

Eric was very lazy. He was the kind of manager that just sat in the office all day and would never help the employees. No one liked him, but he was the boss. When Monica came in, Eric told her to go outside and pick up all of the trash in the parking lot. I told Eric that wasn’t her job, and to call the sweeper company. He refused. I told Eric I would go outside and help her then. He refused and told me I was going to go to box office and sell tickets. I told her to just pick up the big stuff . Monica took a trash bag and went outside. Through tears she started picking up trash. She was out there for over an hour. Through the box office window I saw her picking up every cigarette butt, every popcorn kernel, every dirty diaper. By the time she finished, the trash bag was completely full, and Monica was a sweaty mess. She also hadn’t gone to the dumpster with the trash bag, but had walked into the theater with it. Her tears were gone. Then, I saw one of the greatest things I had ever seen. Eric was sitting at his desk with his back to the office door. He didn’t see Monica walk in the office. She took that full bag of nastiness and poured it over Eric’s head. Old soda, cigarette butts, and stale popcorn landed on his head and all over his desk. She then took the now-empty bag and tossed it on his head as well, smiled, then said “I quit” and walked out. At that moment, she became a hero.

The Cats (& Humans) of Istanbul

Hell! I’m moving!!!!