NON-FICTION: View of my recent self

美术历史 Art History

I really excelled in this class, in just the way I really want to.  In just the way that can validate my sense of myself and my aspirations in writing and learning. 

Significant aspects of success were a responsive, enthusiastic teacher who believed in what she was teaching, the emphasis on attribution of theoretical category as the main subject of the class, and my pre-existing familiarity with the history of western painting, western aesthetics, aesthetic theory, and western history in general. 

The fact that so much of the motivation was antagonistic and rebellious helped to give me a structure within which to fill out the descriptions. 

If only ever class was like this.  I didn’t have to worry about learning anything for the most part. I just listened, and read, and thought.  Everything was easily absorbed. 

人类体格学 Phys. Anthropology

Son of a bitch.  Here my creativity and serious treatment of the subject was useless, and perhaps worked slightly against me, either by encouraging a reaction against my arrogance or expecting more based on my writing syle. 

That bastard was perfectly reasonable within the confines of his narrow mechanistic approach. 

I didn’t study much or really give the time necessary to fully understand every thing he wanted us to memorize. 

It brings to mind again the issue of submission as the key to success.  My struggle with my fierce independence and the demands of being a student. 恶性死我

My sincere contemplation of the material was insufficient in demonstrating a familiarity and comprehension of the subject matter. 

Any son of a bitch that faults for not explaining nature nurture or any other petty distinctions deserves the contempt of the angel as well as the gate keepers of hell.

Any fool that would read my writing and presume ignorance of things I deem insufficient in terms of explanatory power, and ignore the superiority of the explanations offered, or ignore the debate which they imply, or ignore the attempt to replace the check list data which shows an implicit understanding of that same data, grants to that fool the prize of god’s contempt, and the contemptuous smirk of little baby jesus. 

My rhetoric was insufficient in dissuading this evil dictatorial banal student!!! from leaving me with at least a C.

Once decided, the grade is worthy only of defense, with the smug indifference of authority, and a single minded devotion to righteousness, lest the typical, unavoidable ambiguity in student assessment be revealed. 

This cruel, cruel man required me to jump into a straight jacket, into a check list. 

This is check listing, reducing education to list of things to be checked off. 

中文Chinese

This was the easiest and most tearing.  I didn’t devote enough time, particularly early on.  So I felt embarrassed and guilty about the teacher.  I felt like I half assed it too much and didn’t give her the courtesy of trying enough. 

The class was full of half assers.  Bunch of high school kids who thought there limp tongued, broken Mandarin needed no adjustment.  Their cultural identity, mostly separate now from China, and clinging to the impressions that little island that thought it owned the mainland, dissuades them from even trying the standard pronunciation, probably feeling to do so would be “gay” or dumb. 

Again, I feel indebted to the teacher,  she was kind and engaging. 

人类体格学。lab Phsy Anthropolgy -lab

I forgive you Padua.  In this perhaps I reveal my weakness for woman (lost mother figures) or a sympathy with your lesbian-like appearance and my bi-days. 

I learned everything, I got everything.  But I still will wind up with a D.  It hurts and hurts and hurts. 

At least twice in that class I just wanted to put my head down and cry. 

All the information would have been great if presented in a series of Sunday visits, free, ungraded lecture/activities, or lessons given for anything other than short term memory retention.  

I could very easily have sat down and studied, asked the teacher exaclty what we needed, and she would told me simply and clearly, and then I could have studied accordingy.  

My time issues played a role.  I came to class on the day the class project was due with no awareness that it was due, and no awareness that I should have gone to the zoo, at least, in the previous week.  That’s when I really wanted to cry. 

孩子发展 Child Development, Early Childhood Education

I think that in this class, I missed out on the largest amount of useful information.  I’d like to purchase the book, which I might then never look at.  The stuff on different types of preschools, elementary schools was the most useful.  There was stuff on head start and first five, that I’m working in now. 

With this class, I can’t tell how the teacher was grading.  I got a’s on all the assignments.  I didn’t do the last exam, because of time issues, the opinion that I couldn’t do it anyways without the book, the sense that I already had enough points to get an a or a b, and the sense that maybe since I had already contacted the teacher in a cordial manner about resetting the exam for me (since my browser had closed before I could finish/half ass it), that maybe she would think I made a mistake and take pity on me. 

I did make a mistake.  I accidentally closed the tab.  That’s when I gave up, rather than emaling her again.  That’s when I came up with the idea that maybe she would assume I didn’t know that I had done that and give me a second chance after the day it was due. 

This class allowed to reflect a lot on my own teaching, and prepare for what it will be like when I go back to teaching. 

It made me realize that I’ve been using a lot of modern, progressive methods in teaching, and that, perhaps, learning the terminology and categories of teaching that are used in modern pedagogy, I can categorize and organize my own teaching. 

弟弟

I want to finish going over the script and rewrite a portion for him. 

This is one of those things where my thinking is that this is a chance to make rogress in my career as a writer, but the perspective that has his thought is a spectator, watching from the future, condemning my hesitance to embrace this opportunity, it tells me that this is what I want, what will help me, which is a lifeline in the monsoon. 

哥哥

该咋说? I just want to find a way to interact with him, show him I care, without risking the eruption of his resentment or my defense against that resentment.  At this point, he won’t accept concessions, but there might be something short of a full admission that can satisfy him.

I want to bring him some gifts for Christmas and his birthday.  Maybe something like a cd, dvd, external memory.  gift card, clothing, cologne…

老婆

If I can just keep her from leaving, or keep from leaving her, until I get my writing career (reflexive shame) going, than things will be okay, or what?  Things will be stable? No.  Things will be sturdy.  Or at least I feel she won’t leave me, or she won’t feel so much despair, or at least not so very much, or slightly less. 

I just want to be good to her, but there’s some things I don’t want to do, some things I feel like I can’t do.  I don’t think I could just go out and get a job at starbucks on the weekend.  I don’t know why I can’t resists feeling bad about that, feeling wrong. 

海哥

Just emailed me to make sure I could go, and offred to loan me money, said it he hoped was a money issue, and not an emma issue. 

我们还有一些矛盾， 他的几句话让我不开心。  有机会我要跟他白白地谈.

读书俱乐部 Book Club

Need to make emma feel both okay that she’s not into it and encourage her in a way that acknowledges her minimal interest. 

My next choice, would be nice if it could be my finished Drama of the Christian Science Teachers. 

啊根体那 Argentina

Go to the bookstores, buy some Yum Yum booksYum Yum.  See the city, have resentful fantasizes about ditching emma and not coming back. 

出版书 publish books

Revise beast resigns, and finish Christian scienc teachers (good title) check price of ucla bookfair booth

多写 Write more

Take writing classes (I am) and see every opportunity to write as an opportunity to show your skill. 

Try to gain more clarity and acceptance of your situation and feelings.  See without thoughts, meditate, pray..

叔叔

Wait till the opportunity comes to email/call, or till he contacts.  Think over his possible motivations/disposition, or just stop worrying about them and just pay attention to him when you see him. 

下学期的伸河课程 Next semesters rio hondo classes

Buy the textbooks in advance, circle, highlight, study all the key words, categories, chapters, people. 

什么书想读 What books do I want to read?

Simple and direct, the spiritual in art, zizek/Trotsky, wenyanduben, mala ondo, years of salt rice-chinese, sciabarras hayek/marx, Chinese history, linguistics, neuroscience text.

Psych-situation

心理情狂

Feel sad, and feel like emma won’t let me feel happy, like I can’t feel happy without her consent that things are okay, or acceptable, or tolerable.  Don’t feel in control of my life, like a slightly removed spectator, because, probably, that’s the area of my brain summarizing the day to day to action to action part. 

进大学 Getting into university

Guess it will be okay, not be able to go if accepted because of money, might not be able to go unless I get student loans. 

大学课程Unversity classes

OBEY!!!!! SUBMIT!!!!  Doesn’t sound like anything too hard.  I think I can do it with minimal submission. 

钱，多上班。。。Money, work more...

I can take more classes in the next few days, before I leave, I can work every day.  I can also work continuously until/if I can start classes at whittier college.

思想／理论的话题 Thinking/Theoretical topics

Origins of the brain,

Revolution as a evolutionary-hominid structure, academia, the revolution-party as dominance hierarchy, the dominant trend in scientific interpretations/humanities: biological mechanism, reintrepting everything as impulse-control again, falling back to reactionary morals sometimes, and, of course, providing powerful new ways of knowing the world and our connectedness too it. 

The contstructive political endeavor.

The fight against faith

Being a thinker like zizek (gets to say whatever interesting stuff he thinks about, doesn’t stick to topic.)

The way to see Trotsky. 

 The totalitarian approach to qualitative change

The problem of inherent class resistance to transcending capitalism. 

NON-FICTION: Get to the freaking point: Theism/Atheism, Factual Assertions=True/False

How many pathetic centuries of obfuscation have been wasted avoiding this simple truth.  A claim has to be defended, proven, doubted, explained, to be judged either true or false or possible.

The millions of theists, particularly those of the intellectual class, who obfuscate the issue of trust and belief by using a Latinate term, faith, are both unwilling and disinterested in clarifying the issue.

Faith, they say is a higher faculty, or "That's why they call it faith."  As if the assertion can avoid any process of logic by it's common acceptance, as if the atheist could be cowed by ad populum (an argument that is said to be true because a lot of people believe it).

And, in fact, that is where faith really comes from, not from the appeal to the authority of the people, but rather to the appeal of some people: Those in Charge.

It use to be the case that there was a group of True Christians who hunted out the many heresies.  There was noone to stomp out heresy with a police force or armies, so there were many groups with different Christianities.  They listed and condemned the men and woman who deviated from their views.

But, for them, this was a matter of arguments about the state of the world.  There was no controversy between science, because they believed the gods were forces that intervened in their world.  God was something real, and He kept the world going and punished the people who messed around with him.


But when did Christianity spread?  When it became the main authority.  The western Roman Empire became the Catholic Church and that's when it became mandatory to believe in god.  That's when the repression, the torture, the exploitation, and the wiping out of various cultures took the name of salvation rather than mere conquering.


And it is that same authority that confronts us to today.


Christianity was spread by the impulse to empire, the impulse to conquer.  Islam was spread in this way as well.  King Ashoka spread buddhism througout the Indian subcontinent and the nearby regions.  The Tang emperor adapted it for China, and enforced it on the masses, and the Tibetan rulers adopted it in Tibet.


That is where faith gets it's authority from.


When the Christians, theists, and atheists denounce the strident, arrogant new atheists, like Dawkins and Hitchens, what they really mean is that anyone who could so assuredly and bluntly reject theism, must be arrogant.


But what does that presuppose? That there is something to be humble about.  A topic to be humble before.


And just as the ancient Jewish god was akin to the despots of early Egypt or near eastern civilizations, so too is the faith that they refuse to question, and use as a refusal to question anything but why you don't agree with them, so too is this faith a loyalty to belief, a belief that they must believe.


This faith is the faith of the totalitarian state.  It says "We shall do whatever it takes to get you to submit, for everyone must submit.  And we shall never give up our loyalty to these ideas and lords, for to do so would be do to commit evil."


When you are confronted by the imperative to believe, which has to be reinforced constantly, remember that this is now embedded in our cultures because at one time it was picked up by an army, and made into the state ideology.


The only thing you ever need to do with a factual assertion, like "Jesus was killed and came back to life.", or "David didn't burn in the flames." is discuss whether or not it is true, why it might be true, and what would have to confirm or deny it. 

If you say it must be assessed by faith, then you are saying it must be assessed by the second thing that faith refers: inner states of feeling.  Assessing a claim by using faith means seeing what you feel about it.

But, between people, feelings must be explained and justified when they contradict. 

But Christians don't do that.  They say they you've got to have faith, which means they intentionally trust a set of ideas, and commit themselves to changing the mind of everyone, everywhere, while believing that to change their own minds would be a sin, or unholy, and, therefore, unthinkable.


If you say Jesus did something, that is an assertion on your part.  If you wan't me to believe, than let's talk about it with the awareness that it might be true, and it might be nonsense, and both of us are completely to change our mights without negative consequences.


If, instead you fall back on faith, and recommend it to me, that what this means, is you are falling back on trust of certain ideas, and you seek to convince me to trust these ideas by telling me to trust.


Look at the following example:


A.Every piece of evidence I have and you have doesn't make the possibility of god very likely.


B. Evidence.  Huh huh huh.  That's why they call it faith.


And, since faith means a feeling of trust, despite what the apologists and deep thinkers want to maintain, this statement is equal to: I don't have enough evidence to believie in god?  That's why they call it belief!  Cause you have to blieive it.


And what we end up is with something the person can't understand because they believe it is something that cannot be understood.

And to you the idiot stupid enough to expect things we believe to understandable and subject to confirmation or denial, there is nothing that can be done except to tell you that there is no understanding to be had, only acceptance. 

Relgion has been eaten away and replaced to such a great extent in our world, that the modern exponents of religion have no idea that they have inherited a past set of technologies, claims about reality, explanations of weather and illness, and explanations of government. 

中国会不会安排一个避免资本的未来。

伟大的领导都告诉我们他们还没有抛弃社会主义。  这种说法， 在海外没有任何人相信。  各种社会主义者， 共产主义者， 和无政府主义者都认为国际资本已经侵略了中国。  这样的人都认为邓小平已经把中国的共产时代推翻了。

世界上其他马克思主义者和反对资本人也都这样人围。  另外，世界上反对社会主义和支持资本主义者都认为中国政府还是个红色的中国， 还是反对自由。 

这么多人觉得中国政府是个邪恶的政府， 那怎么同事也有这么多觉得中国是世界下一个超级大国家， 像以前苏联，八十年代的日本， 或现在的美国。 

 为什么中国政府不能受到支持分子的赞美呢。  就是因为世界打多数只是分子都没有适合的方式能够说明现实政治体系。

特别是在美国。  对一办政治家和主流只是分子都只有三种经济：社会主义，资本主义， 与混合主义， 与两种政府：民主的政府和专政的政府。

但是最大的问题都是每一国家的政府与大部分的人民都没有想他们的国家会有什么样的未来。 

除了发财，挑战和长大， 国家都没有实际的未来计划。

世界各国都往哪儿开？

NON-FICTION: My Culture Gap with Middle Class Americans

Last night a friend was recounting a few episodes of my offensive behavior in a typical manner.

What has always perplexed me is the certainty his voice when he regards these statements as obviously offenseive.

On the way home, I realized that the problem is that I didn't grow up in a middle class environment, and most of my socialization, outside of school and my peers, took place among Vietnamese people.

The socialization that took place among my peers involved interacting with lower class cutlture that I was able to identify with more, and middle class (to me they were all upper class/wealthy) friends, in whose homes I always felt a little bit guilty or ashamed.

The middle class culture that I am now deemed offensive in is one that regards it as a given that there's certain things you don't say.  And I'm included in this 'you'!

The difference between this and my own cultural precedents is that among my Vietnamese relatives, I was the only white guy and they were used to living in a culture where things went differently than their own, so there was no presumption of unspoken, binding codes of social decorum placed on me.

My step-mom would tell me how to behave around her relatives and I would just go along with it.

So, there was an inbuilt tolerance for diversity, my aunts and uncles were immigrants and so accepted the American culture they had to function in from day to day, and I accepted what aspects of their culture I was exposed to by just doing what I was told (sometimes.)

One time I took a girlfriend, a middle class white girl from a very nice, waspish family to Vietnamese New Year at my uncle's house.  There were about thirty people there, and we were the only white people.

She ended up crying that night, from being around all those strange people.  Everying was laughing and speaking a strange language, and the attempts to bring her into the family involved teasing, joking, and letting her alone.

It must have seemed chaotic and threatening to her.  For me, it was like "What are you stupid?  These people are going out of their way to be friendly.  This is my life, don't be so small-minded."

But when I think of her own family's social functions, I can see that they were all in English, all with 'regular' white people, and much quieter.  Introductions were made formally, people were greeted as they arrived, and introductory conversations were boring and informational.

When I was around her family, I felt uncomfortable as well.

But I never thought of anything in terms, of 'people just don't do that', or 'that's just rude!'

Another thing I was told in regards to violations of cultural norms is that I don't put a filter on what I say!

Someone who is hyper-verbal and hyper-analytical, who has worked as a translator and English instructor....  How could I not filter what I say?

I have a million different filters and sculpting tools to polish or refine what I say.

Again, the actual indication is not that I don't think about what I say, but that what I say violates those middle cultural norms that are so foreign to me.   Not thinking is equal to not knowing what shouldn't be said.  The presumption is that what shouldn't be said is utterly obvious, so transgressions must be due to a carefree, tell it like it is mentality (now I'm the colorful black lady). 

And that is another crucial aspect of this middle class culture that I can scarcely refer to with sufficiently comprehensive categorization, this culture presumes that there is an exclusive way to behave around others.  There is little awareness of other cultural norms and thus a default presumption of exclusivity.

So, there are three cultural situations I see here.  One is the lower class culture, that also has a presumption of exclusivity, but is one I'm both familiar with and one that I rejected easily.  Generally speaking, this is the proper thing to do according most people, including those in the lower classes.

Since lower class culture is denigrated, among it's own members there is a sense that it might be better to escape.  So for people like me, who educate themselves and form their own identities, their is more likely to be admiration among my lower class peers for abandoning this culture. It's good to violate the norms of lower class culture, smart people like me are expected to. 


The two other cultural situations are the middle class culture and the multi-cultural culture.

The middle class culture is the most restricing, and the most foreign to me.  It presumes that it is the only right way to be, that it is the norm.  It is composed of people who grow up in a mono-culture, where there are likely to be other members of this culture, of various ethnicities or backgrounds, who likewise conform to the same norms.

This is kind of an international bourgois culture.  And it's actually not just middle classes, but more upper middle class and just straight upper classes.

The multi-cultural situation is one whose members are used to differences in customs, communication styles, languages, accents, smells, foods, etc.

For people that are used to being foreigners among foreigners, and retaining there own culture among others that do the same, there is a familiarity with and acceptance of culturally abnormal behavior, and a presumption that effort might be necessary to figure out what the other person means by their behavior.


So, what I have concluded is that my cultural background hasn't prepared me well for being around the mono-culture middle class people.

This also means that, in my dealing with these sorts of people, I may have also missed the chance to understand them in their own context.


Sometimes my ethnic or national similarities with these people has made me presume that I should try to have something in common with them, instead of just recognizing the fact that I need to observe them as I would any other new group of foreigners I meet, and try to learn and respect their customs.


I get along okay with my Vietnamese relatives, though I don't see them more than once a year, and I felt comfortable with everyone in China. 


Now, I guess, I have the option of learning to sit around with people who seem dull, disingenuous and narrow minded and try to imitate their culture.

I think I have to understand what a niece said to me at my dad's funeral.  It was a Buddhist funeral, and pretty normal, for me.  We spent a lot time praying to Buddha and praying for Buddha to help my father move on from this life.  There was one table that served as an altar for my father, with food and tea for him.  And another alter for the Buddha, and food and tea for it as well.  This is pretty standard, 'everyone' knows that that's how you do it.

A Buddhist funeral is different from a Catholic funeral, which is also perfectly normal to me.  

What my niece asked was "Why don't you have a regular funeral?" 

I answered something like "Where do you think you live?  You live in a place full of Vietnamese, Guatemalans, Filipino's, various Arabs, Persians, Cambodians, Indians, etc.  How can you still think like that?"

I guess that's what's meant by normal.  


Yuck!

NON-FICTION: AHISTORICAL THEISTS: WHY VS. HOW

As usual, the South Park guys put their reasonable assessment in Stan's mouth.  In response to Richard Dawkins, he calmly utters the how/why dichotomy, that, in it's very utterance, displays both a disgusting ignorance of history and of epistemology. 

Christianity and all other religions arose as HOW answers.  How did the plagues befall Pharaohs people?  God's will.  How did humans lose their innocence?  Adam and Eve?  How did the fossils get deposited?  God made the flood.  How did various semitic populations die to the benefit of the ancient Jews?  God killed them. 

But, as empirical evidence has increasingly been favored over metahporic reasoning, and imperatives of the past, Religion's explanatory role has been further and further eroded to the point where it desperately clings to any gap that scientists have not yet explained. 

Why questions are questions based in empirical reality, and debatable and answerable by reference to empirical reality. 

The bible and all other myths were propositions of how things happened and what people ought to do in their lives.  As such, it is subject to the same faculties of reasoning that the prospect of murder and fixing a car are subject to:  empirical observation, falsification, and demonstrable evidence. 

How VS Why?  As if this atheism-theism just arose twenty years ago?  Pathetic.

NON-FICTION: Vidal on Obama and Me on Vidal

He's right that Obama is twice the intellectual that Kennedy, and, I suspect right that Obama is too delicate.

On the idea that he won't be reelected. I don't think that's likely, yet.

He also said Obama didn't have Kennedy's naval experience and thus doesn't know what it's like to have the enemy's anger directed at you and generals lying to you.

But I guess Obama must know that the military commanders are not all in agreement and not all to be trusted.

The real issue for Obama's success is whether he can get out from under the barrage he's under and step out in front as the leader.

That brings to mind another point. When I see Obama shrugging off the lies that the right is spreading, it is sufficient for me. But Vidal may be right that Obama is overestimating his audience. Although the constant fear angle has made a lot of Americans a little cynical of the kind of drama that the right is promoting, it seems to have an effect on stalling the Democrats on anything close to a public option. So maybe Obama should have been treating the congress more like the easily intimidated benefactors of coroporate patrons that they are.

Hopefully, when the bases we have all over the world start closing down, and we start becoming a country only capable of high-tech and tourism, the Rush Limbaughs and Cheney's will be relegated to minority fascist groups, or all emigrate to the military superpower.

NON-FICTION: Obama=Reasonable, Therefore, Bad

Some of the blame is rightly put upon my own freckled shoulders, and the surrounding fatty areas. If I spent more time riding my bike instead of being unemployed, in my boxers, in front of the computer, than I would have less occasion to watch the news channels.

But, since I am already in this situation, I cannot avoid frustration at the freakish treatment of Barack Obama.

When Bush did anything reasonable, we were surprised, even if we hated him, we felt a little bit of something like pride, like when a homeless guy you always see turns up one day with an mp3 player. You can't help but think "That's not bad. Guess he lucked out."

But with Barack Obama, every thing he does occasions the question "Is the honeymoon over?" or "Is Obama's star quality fading?"

Today, everyone is talking about how bad receiving a NOBEL fucking peace PRIZE will hurt him!

He came to power and the rest of the world had a better attitude towards our country, and this creates a less hostile world, and perhaps, less hostility might someday, if the advanced technology to asess this ever becomes available through alien distribution, be equivalent to peace.

That's what Obama did, whether or not he's really evil and full of shit and overrated. He came to power through preaching unity and the betterment of people of this country. He preached that America needed more diplomacy, a little bit of humbleness, and a lot of hope.

That makes people feel better. Not only did he get rid of the whole "What ya gonna' do about it, bitch?" approach to public relations that the Bush Administration loved, he gave us a better model.

But god those freaks just gotta fucking talk. So all day they've had guys on talking about should Obama ignore it, should he accept it in person. Maybe he should have the nobel comittee renditioned and bomb the ceremonies to show that he's not arrogant enough to accept a prize.

And, for other white people, I know there has to be something else going on in their heads when they see this black guy up there and everybody likes him and he sounds like a highly reasonable and confident leader.

But, to review, the question today is: How much of a dickhead is Obama for getting an award?

A better question would be, when the fuck are we get a public option.

If we do, all this fear mongering, pseudo-fiscal assessments will whither away in fifteen years or so, and the next time some other evildoer wants to provide more security of life for the poor and disadvantaged, reactionaries will put out commercials telling people on the public option that the new reforms will take away their healthcare.

反动派被打倒， 社会主义没来更糟糕