Last Post!

That's right, I'm closing this shit down. No more Not Rushin.

Not really, I'm just closing it down on the Blogger. Why? Because let's face it, it sucks. Anything google buys eventually sucks. Because they don't care for the users, they acquire users and then let the product die. They stop taking care of it the way founders did and so eventually those who were loyal and loving customers go somewhere where they will not be forgotten. For me, that's Wordpress. A good community, a good platform and an eco system that changes with the web and thus not stuck in 2004.

It's been swell Blogger but this is my lost blog on blogger and it is going the way of Angelfire.

So if you read this and you are creating the next Blogger, remember why you created it and remember not to sell out. Because you could be Google's bitch and rich for a little while, but lack soul. Or you could be Wordpress. Be Wordpress my friend, be Wordpress, and you will have friends.

So where is the new Blog?

RIGHT HERE.

America-You're Funny: What's In A Gun?

When a person see's a child die in another mass shooting, what goes through their head? A liberal says society failed by allowing this to happen. A conservative says society failed by allowing this to happen. However  for different reasons. The liberal sees a system breakdown in the government while the conservative inside the individual. The liberal sees the problem in the government requiring a fix, the conservative sees no fix because the problem is inside all people, they trust man a little less and that includes all, the individuals who did it and collective which means the government. That death to them, induces a larger threat and that threat does not stop with the individual, but all individuals in the society, which includes the conglomeration of all people in a country: the government.

In a democracy, the government is the people. The meritocracy of a government means anyone can go and work in the government and so it includes all sorts of people who are our friends and neighbors, including teachers, road workers, soldiers, lawyers, engineers, clerks, judges, scientists and politicians who are elected by the people. This means when someone doesn't want to pay taxes which goes back to the people for services for the people it means they do not want to contribute to their own society. When individuals choose to pay money into a philanthropy to avoid taxes because they fear giving money to their own government, their own people it means they choose some other sick and poor, in some other country over the people of their own country. When individuals buy guns out of fear of government or fellow man, it means they do not trust and fear their fellow countrymen.

This to me, is the disease of a society. The widely accepted and often acted behavior in our society to resolve conflict with elimination of people, random people, any people with a firearm is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. We do not see one another as part of the whole, as part of each other. We don't see fellow Americans, tax-payers, citizens. We do not trust the police, or legal system or our own votes when we do not trust the politicians. It means that we do not trust ourselves. Is it a wonder then, that the people that guns harm most are those who own the gun? Because what the gun is, is a distrust in the system that we are a part of, it is fear of fellow man and when we fear fellow man, what we fear is not what is actually there but the project of ourselves onto others. It is our own selves we fear and that is who we buy the gun to protect ourselves. And that is why we turn that gun on ourselves. Because in that moment, before pulling the trigger that one last time, the killer of the self, realizes the problem is not the world, is not the fellow man, it is the self.

Maybe instead of condemning the gun, which they hold dear as the only protection from others and self, and thus see any attack on a gun as an attack on self, maybe instead we ought to reach out to that person. Maybe we ought to show them that they are not to fear themselves or any of us, their fellow man. Maybe we ought to show them that although there are bad people out there, it is worth trusting in us and the system which has been around for 200 years. Maybe this is why they scoff and being a hippy and desire to save the world. They do not believe in love or ability to save this world because for them the world is already gone. They have been the benefactors of a system used for oppression and often been the oppressors, they know what the system can do as they have used it for those means. So maybe this is why it is so important to show the people who fear society that society they have often oppressed is not to be feared, the way Jesus, Buddha, Moses and Martin Luther King Jr. did at one time for the people of their time.

Our society is sick, the gun violence is a symptom of the greater sickness of distrust and fear. Thus the only way out is to heal the sick by restoring their faith in the government, in fellow man, in themselves.

America, You're Funny-Housing Prices

America is funny, it complains about affordable housing and income inequality without understanding how the two are linked. You see, there are people in this country who buy houses every five years as part of the "first time home-buyer" program where they can put down as little as 5% down and buy a house. The government gives them that money. So every year they do it because it is free money in essence and after they live in the house for 2 years they can rent it out. So imagine that some people build this up to the point that they can start buying houses for cash. So now you have some people who own 5, 10, 50 houses!  It makes no sense for them to sell those homes or to have new homes built, because they collect rent checks on those homes.

So all the young and poor cannot find a decently priced house because they don't plan to rent. So they cannot grow their wealth, they cannot save and they ask for more housing. The politicians are some of the people with the five or ten houses. The politicians have friends with 5 or 10 houses, they are told by their friends and voters to not build houses for fear of house depreciation.

And thus we have the growing income inequality, because people have to live further and further from work, so they spend more and more money on gas to work, their paychecks don't rise and they cannot build wealth, while the few with the five or ten and twenty houses, keep getting richer.

We don't have a housing shortage, we have a landlord surplus.

America, you're funny.

Why I Refuse To Put Up a Russian Flag on Facebook.

Russians around the world ask for sympathy for those killed in Egypt. They didn't seem to care for sympathy a week ago before everyone reached out to France but that is not the point.

My question is, do they deserve it? Sounds callous but seriously, was there a Russian tribute to Malaysia flight they shot down? How about the 5000 Ukrainians they killed and the millions they displaced? How about the thousands of Georgians or Armenians. How about the hundred thousand or so of their own country men in Chechniya? How about the fact that they are actively supporting the guy who gassed children with Biological weapons? Never mind the fact that Russian FSB actually actively help provide a large part of the fighters to ISIS. If Russians want sympathy then they better stop being terrorists.

 I feel sad for the people, I mourn for the families. BUT I will not put up a flag of a government which has been responsible for more deaths this year than any other country or conflict. 

The French on the other hand, they can be a bit annoying, Americans, Israel and French have had many tiffs. But never did they actively support or contribute to the killing of Americans or Israelis. So yes, their flag I will put anywhere they want me to and their government I will support. Because I know that their government will not use that support against me at some later time of their convenience. 

Hopeless Generation of the 21st Century and The Human Desire To Destroy.

In the last two days I heard two great minds speak on a variety of issues and problems in this world but the solution to both became much clearer to me than ever before. The problem of terrorism, anti-semitism, voter apathy, Tea Party, income inequality, Islam, Islamophobia, Globalization all these things which are some of the biggest issues of our day and age seem to have the same issue at their core: failure of the state at realizing the dreams of a generation.

We are all born with a clean slate and most of us are born with expectations from our parents and in turn we have expectations. We all think we will do as well or better than our parents. We all see the riches on TV, the ultra rich making insane amount of money and at the same time we see abject poverty.

We all want to impact the poverty and we want to be rich but we can do neither. We ourselves cannot become rich and the rich seem to be apathetic about the poor. What can we do?  Well, when we cannot fix or create we can still destroy. That's what many turn to. The Islam radicals don't care for Islam, they care for lack of jobs and lack of realization of dreams and so they take the next one that is offered to them. The Tea Party voter has no interest in electing someone who will effectively destroy the American government, he wants to have a job, savings and ability to live out his life as his parents did. But he doesn't see that happening with the current system so he elects someone who says that without the system he will be better off. The anti-BDS kid in college doesn't care about Israel or Palestine, but he does see Jews and Israel as part of the establishment that seem to do well while the little guy Palestine like him goes no where. He doesn't actually think he can help himself given the student debt, the global warming and a government that doesn't seem to listen to him, but maybe with this organization, he can destroy a proxy called Israel and if he can do that, maybe he can get some control of his life by having control over someone else.


This is the defining issue of our generation. We feel out of control in the fast past news cycle, the intense and fast changes of technology and the demands put on us by the hyper changing environment and world around us. Even those who ran on the treadmill in High School know that a divorce or a loss of job or a sickness can make all that hard work irrelevant. And those without a college education or parents who were able to pay for it feel even less in control of their life.

And so we smoke weed, and party, and do coke and get drunk and fuck because those small things we have control over and they make us forget the intense pressures of the world, of family, of friends, of ourselves on us.

And that's the lucky ones. Because the Latino and Black kids who had no choice of a good school, of parents who could pay their way through college and laws which did not treat them in a courtroom for smoking weed like kids making mistakes, but sent them into dark depths of prison from which they would never recover and the girls into the endless poverty of early mothers because the religious and white majority took away their education and ability to plan their own lives and childbirth the way white women can.

This pressure, this fatalism, this inability to do what we feel we were born to do seems to be at the core of Tea Party, Occupy, BDS, Terrorism, Daish, the drug war, the destruction of family, falling away of patriotism, lack of trust in food or vaccines, the lack of belief in the government and all things which could make our lives better. Instead we all embrace hate of religion or non-religion, the punitive power of war, the destructive power of drugs. Because when you cannot find a way to fix and do not have the power to create, you turn to the one thing you have control over; the ability to destroy.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In an age when education is a must, providing that education without creating indentured servants through unreasonable debt or tuition that makes it impossible for a whole subset of people to participate in our society. Making housing affordable by limiting the number of houses that old people have and collect checks which reduces the housing supply and makes rents and costs of housing so high that young cannot afford a house or create wealth. By doing away with schools which are funded by property taxes creating rich schools with high taxes and poor schools with low taxes limiting the opportunities of those who need the help and funding most, by offering trade education to those who are not academic by nature and offering good enough starting wage so everyone can feel like they have enough, by giving people ability to choose when they can start to have a family because they can afford it and not having arbitrary laws that punish specific races because the society is sick and requires drugs. These small changes could change everything. Because these are the ills we must fix, not Islam, not Israel and not "government."

These are the things in our collective power, these are the things we can create, we can fix and thus not have to depend on the one power we do not need as it would only make things worse, the power to destroy. It is our choice and it is our only hope.

Things I Learned From Crowdfunding A Book

1) Meal was covered at the Deli after telling about meeting my goal for the book and telling her how to get the book. Successful people like to reward success not neediness or failure.

2)Failure occurs when people waste valuable time which could be spent on getting to success, on thinking about failing. Every second spent on anything other than success is spent on failing.

3)There are people out there that bring you down, that hang up on you and make you feel like crap. Those people help you appreciate those who encourage you, who help you. And when you succeed, those who doubt you, make success all the more sweet. Success requires not just those who say yes, but also those, who say no.

4)A little bit from one who has little, means so much more than a lot from one who has much. When a person who you know does not have much, sacrifices for you, you know they are giving to your dream, they are giving to you because they want you to succeed as much as they want to succeed. You know they care for your cause and you. You know that they gave you what they needed and a big part of their income and you can feel the generosity.

5)Giving is the only path to getting. If you want people to give you something you must give first. You must show trust and vulnerability, showing that you are risking loosing a little for them to win something and you are ok with that.

6)Confidence matters. One has to be confident in what one provides for others to have confidence in it too. Many times I called stores and spoke softly and unsure about the book and about the price. Speaking confidently and with authority projected to the other person that I was going to deliver and the type of person to have a deal with.

7) People will surprise you. People you thought would support you, will not and people who you had no idea would be interested in helping your project will. Marketing is imperfect. Test your market and test your friends. Don't prejudice yourself in anyway.
One thing is for sure, tell your friends to join early, in fact force them to because most of them assume that it is fine to wait until the end for some reason and you need the momentum so don't feel embarrassment about pressuring them to commit early, especially if they mention at some point that they plan to. Get out the laptop and have them do there and then.


To pre-order a copy of the actual book go to Our Story Web Page

A Step Closer To World War

My best friend is Russian and he loves to play chess with me in a strange way. He loves to take queen for queen. It doesn't matter to him that if he takes my queen that I will take his because it allows him to win a lot more often. He creates a psychological fallacy in my mind as every time I think that I'm better off without his queen forgetting that I'm without mine.

Today, I see our childhood chess is starting to play out in world politics as Putin dangles his queen while knowing that he will take ours if we take his.

Putin stepping into Syria may seem like just another player in a crowded market but it isn't. Putin seems to be doing a tactical move and a very dangerous one. Putin is essentially making sure that only Assad stays in power. By destroying all non-Islamist rebels leaves Assad and Islamic State as future owners of Syria. He knows that we will not allow IS and so he is trying to force our hands by killing as many rebels as possible. To take down Assad at that point means to leave the country in the hands of Islamists.

United States and the world have two choices: stand idly by while Putin bombs all future of Syria away by destroying any possible future democratic components, or begin to attack Putin's planes and troops to stop Putin from destroying the last remnants of democratic Syria.

To do so would be to start a third world war and that is what I think will now be called "The Putin Bluff".

Thus, at this moment, we have time to save Syria but it may mean starting a world war or we let Putin keep it in the hands of Assad. This has been the tactic of Putin in Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. He dangles the queen, we take it and then he wins a slow and painful game. The question is, how often will he do this? What is our alternative?

Sadly it may be too late, Putin may be too strong. We may have had a chance to reign them in in the nineties, but we ignored the slowly growing cancer thinking it would go away. But it hasn't and instead, has become a full grown tumor.