Jewish Christmas in San Diego

I sat in between Brian and Jason. Jason is an engineer and Brian's cousin by marriage. Brian was a lawyer but quit and started a bar trivia company in Southern California. I met Brian at a hostel in Colombia. He was Jewish, an ex-wrestler and from San Diego. We bonded quickly, and the fact that I kept him safe as an angry drug dealer looked for him after he tried translating a botched deal for a crazy Australian made us pretty close.
    We were celebrating Christmas Jewish style. I worked all day in a near empty building and went for a quick and also near empty meditation session run by a BuJu Jeff Zlotnik.
  I left meditation early and arrived at Jimmy Wong's Golden Dragon restaurant expecting a packed Hilcrest with anti-christian gays and Chinese food. Instead, I found out that gays are a lot more Christian than I expected and that Mr. Wong's was packed with Jews but it was Thai and not Chinese.
   Three sake bombs later, we were relaxed and hitting on the waitresses. I say waitresses because all four girls ran to service us anytime we were low on drinks or low on food. For that I blame Brian's sculpted by Volleyball triceps, showing clearly through the shirt. The girls could barely speak English and every time we flirted they laughed, nodded and ran off, knocking into the swinging doors and dropping the white porcelain dishes onto the floor and sending shards of porcelain into the kitchen.

   Jason converts cars from gas to electric when he isn't chasing corporate accounts at the public utility company. He is also getting married to a very non-Jewish and very pretty girl from Tennessee. Brian can't wait to sell his business and travel around Latin America where he can pick girls like girls pick flowers.

   As we chugged another Sake bomb, Jason tells Brian how Brian should sell his business in a way that only a Jew can, with conviction of knowing everything about something that one can't possibly know anything about. Another sake bomb and we discuss Christmas. Jason has mixed feelings about Christmas because of the whole presents thing and the capitalism that drives us to buy.
To me, it's not a big deal. All that buying ensures I have a job and getting gifts doesn't seem like a bad thing anyway, people spending money on each other and showing that they care through a physical manifestation.

    We head out and I walk past an ex who is sitting across from someone who could certainly be her sugar daddy. I get a thought to text her to invite her to my place, but I'm only three beers in so I don't. Instead we walk around empty Hilcrest past Jewish girls who are also looking for something to do and no open bars to do it at.

     Having found nothing but no desire to call it a night yet, we caravan it Swingers style to North Park, the closest densest bar area. Everything is quiet there, mice were stirring but all the cats sat at home near warm fireplaces. The only place that was open was a wood paneled and Jew owned Beer Bar, Toronado. Behind the bar was a lumberjack looking hipster with a long red beard and a giant pacific islander whose man tits seem to grow every time I see him. His glasses are propped up by his cheeks rather than his nose and wisps of facial hair curled off his lip and chin. He walked  with his entire body rotating and pivoting on each giant leg. He somehow managed to be giant without a gut. His massive frame seemed to be solely located in his head, shoulders and chest.
He's a happy guy and Brian working his magic scored beer taste after beer taste.
We soon found out that an awkward woman near us is half Jewish, the awkward part must be Jewish and that Nate, the giant Pacific Islander bar tender was adopted by Jewish parents.
"I went to Hebrew school until fourth grade."
"You're way more Jewish than us man." Brian said.
We cheered to our most famous Jew and shot the shit as our beers slowly disappeared.
"This is what it's been like for the past year and a half." I tell Brian. "Talking to random people and finding out that they are Jewish."
It has been difficult to explain to friends what I do, they really have to see it to understand it.
Jason wanted to smoke and Brian had been texting his ex all night and I saw a cute blond down the bar all by herself. We slapped hands and did the one arm hug as Brian and Jason left me to my devices.
I walked over by the girl and ordered another beer.
"It's on the house, you're one of the tribe." Nate said.
My first Christmas present I thought.
"You want anything?" Nate asked the girl.
"No I'm just waiting for my boyfriend."
"You could have played off being Jewish and scored a beer." I said as Nate walked off.
"I'm blond, I can't be Jewish." She said briefly looking away from her phone.
"I've met blond Jews."
"I was Joking, I went to a High School that was almost all Jewish." My ears perked up.
"Where?"
"New York."
"That makes sense, so you know more about Jews than I."
"Yeah, we had all the days off for Jewish holidays."  
    I imagine she felt like a Jew feels in San Diego with all the Christian holidays off and glee while not actually caring.
"Lots of bar-mitzvas too?"
"Not really, that was middle school. After middle school Christians went to Catholic private schools and the poor and the Jews went to public."
    Her hipster boyfriend showed up with his greased up mustache waxed to a curly point and they took off with a good-bye.
    I still had half a beer left and I chugged half of that, shook hands with the giant Samoan Jew and awkward half-Jewish Carol and went home to have a quiet, Jewish Christmas.

Homophobia Explained

The day we are born the world is a huge unknown. As children, the world becomes a scary place with dangers all around us. As we get older and older, we begin to figure out the world, grasp control over it and begin to see it a a place for us to create and not fear. We begin to understand other people, who they are with respect to us and how we interplay. We begin to understand our roles which we have defined over generations in order to make this world an easier place to manage. We create constructs, models and tools to simplify the world into something that we can comprehend. But these models only work as long as we choose to remain ignorant of the overall complexity of the world and these models rely on the world and nature to play along with us. Because the truth is, the world is far more unknown than we could ever imagine.
   
   The world and nature exist outside of us and we exist inside of it. Thus as we push to progress technologically and as a society, we hit our model and it crashes into the reality of the world requiring our reformulation of our model. Multiple responses happen in such situations. They follow the usual responses to a catastrophic change. They begin with denial, then change to anger which requires stubbornness and a direct competition with nature. But nature doesn't care, it is not competing it just is. Just because we try to fly, gravity does not change its effect on us and so we finally must accept that nature will win and we either change our models and play with nature or loose to it in our stubborn attempts to hold on to our made-up notions of nature and the world.

    Humans, as they left the arduous jobs of tending fields have come to utilize their full mental potential. With that came rest and self-awareness and full realization of who they are. To use these mental powers requires the bigger truth of the world and the selves and with that came the problem of biodiversity, sexual diversity and gender diversity.
   
   So it occurred with science when our society reached theoretical limits after Renaissance and so it happened with the end to slavery, so it is happening with racism and finally with homosexuality and our concept of gender. To have an advanced society, we have to allow people to be themselves. We have encountered the ambiguity of nature. Our one man and one woman relationship construct created by Christianity is at odds with our nature and our concept of what it is to be man, woman or human has collided with the complexity of sex and biological variation.

    In the next decades we will find the walls breaking down in our minds as we face the issue that to succeed as a human race, divisions on base of race and sexual preference are distractions, that we must come together and with that, accept one another. Religious tensions, racial tensions, ideological tensions will melt away because progress short of global calamity, is a necessary condition and regression in the age of globalization is impossible.

America, You're Funny-Communism, Civil Rights Nelson Mandela

United States fought authoritarian Communism for six decades, building up its military, telling USSR to free its people. Today under capitalism, seven of the ex-Soviet states are dictatorship and yet in America there is no desire to free the poor countries so long as they produce profit. It appears that lack of profit was the largest moral crisis, not lack of human rights. Where is the desire for freedom for Turkmenistan? Ukraine? Belarus? Azerbaijan? Kazachstan? Uzbekistan? Ukraine? Russia? At the same time, I see so many people post stories supporting Arab spring but where are those shares for Ukraine, Georgia or even China and Tibet. If anything facebook shows is that what America seems to truly care for is not democracy and the human conditions but our ability to live more comfortably by pumping out natural resources out of a country and  it was USSR resistance to join our economy that was the biggest problem with USSR, not its human rights record.

So let's look at at our vitriol and who we condemn. We condemn the Sharia law of Iran who refuse to sell us oil while being perfectly fine with Saudi Arabia who sell us lots of oil.

We condemn Cuba's socialism who refuse to trade with us while are perfectly fine with socialism of Sweden and Canada.

We were upset over China's one child policy and their human rights before Tienanmen square when they were not our trade partners and now we are their major supplier of surveillance equipment and largest trading partner.

We were calling for people to observe the genocide in Ethiopia during pro-soviet economy on grounds of Communism and we have ignored it since the country turned to western economy.

We pride freedom in United States but what kind of freedom are we really for? Are we for the type of freedom that allows people speech, gives women respect, allows kids to be kids and citizens to vote? Or are we simply in favor of a countries desire to do business with us for our own economic gain?


Today the news is full of fanfare for a freedom fighter who only twenty years earlier was called a terrorist. His organization was on the terror list but today is the party of the free. It was a grassroots movement that forced divestment that ended the Apartheid which went on until 1994 mainly because of American support and the billions of dollars America was making from the mines of near slave labor in South Africa which could not happen without Apartheid and our support of it.

South Africa repressed all, black and white with secret police, torture, imprisonment. There was no free press and black lives were not just cheap, they were worthless. Police opened fire on a student protest, children were not children, they were less than human and United States did nothing so long as money flowed and those who stood up for this injustice were moved to terror list.

So what is different today? How would we think of South Africa had it reacted to behavior by United States with boycott of American goods? Would Obama be there for Mandela's funeral, or would we call the new government racist, terrorist, and inhumane.

America, your love of money freedom is very very funny. 

In Defense of Christmas

Terri Beth Mitchel's Christmas Brothers.

So I want to make a confession. I love Christmas! Yes, that is right, I'm Jewish and I love Christmas. No, I am not a messianic Jew or as most people know: a Jew for Jesus. I am your run of the mill, Ukrainian emigre, left-wing non-denominational, viral Zionist Jew. And yet.... I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

Why? Well thank you for asking. First reason is obvious, Jesus! Jesus is our most famous Jew and you don't know Jews if you don't know how much we love famous Jews. Why they don't even have to be Jewish on their mother's side, why they may have had a Jewish nanny, that is enough. Mention a name and you will know if they are Jewish, because a Jew will make sure you know.

So naturally, I love that the world celebrates the birth of our biggest communist, of our original BuJu (Buddhist Jew) our original Kippot wearing Yogi, the man that is responsible for the giant crushes that every Catholic girl has had on me, my man Jeshua of Nazareth, or as you may call him, God.

Now the dude is cool I have to give you that, I can't say he's a god. I mean I've seen Tony Hawk pull off bigger stunts. And making wine out of water seems silly, your water the vines and up comes the wine. But he was a righteous man, going against all those Rabbis who took money and really going back to the original Judaism, the good parts you know like give to the others, turn the cheek and not keeping secrets. I mean he is the original dude man. He is the young mother-fucking Santa, before grey hair and a few extra pounds. I mean who else would give out free Chalah, Wine and Gifilte Fish back in those days? Why that's like giving away Playstation 4s for crying out loud!!! If it wasn't for my man J to the s-u-s, there would be no Jewish Lite, or as you call it, Christianity. Of course if not for Jew-lites there would be no Jew-Core or as my cousins via Ishmael call it Islam. I mean Jews submit to God too but we're allowed to bullshit with him too here and there. Jewish God is a bit lenient with our argumentative lot. But without my Muslim brothers, my Christian bros would have really sent us back with their love for faith and hate for books.

So really I love Jesus because before him, people were jerks. They still are, but at least now they know it.

The second reason is gifts. Some people call it “commercialism” but I say come on! That's lame, I mean we all love having money, and if we don't shop, people don't work. If you don't buy the ipod, the engineer can't go to work to make you one. But that is not the biggest reason, the biggest reason is the reason, people shop to give! The reason everyone runs to the stores is because they were going to go after all because Christmas is a time of selflessness, it is a time of showing how much you care and buying things for people that they are not selfish enough to buy themselves. And companies know this and so they give them sales. How good is that? You have a holiday to buy your friends and family gifts and the stores where your friends and family work actually give you deals instead of charging more when they know you will shop anyway.

I was born in Ukraine and we gave presents on New Year. It was an all inclusive, non-denominational holiday. It was fun but it blew because it didn't force us to celebrate our differences and it didn't influence us. Christmas does this. Why I would get no presents at all on Hannukah if not for Christmas. I probably wouldn't even celebrate Chanukah if not for Christmas. Even my Hindu and Buddhist friends love Christmas, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't get presents either if there was no Christmas.

So see! What's the deal with Christmas haters, the commercial and noncommercial part?

It's win win! And that is why I, Sam the Jewish Guy, Love Christmas!

And if it upsets you, that a Jew likes Christmas and so you decide to ban it because someone makes a buck.. then stop spending money on bars and spend a few of those bucks on your loved ones, do like Jesus… otherwise, who's the Grinch now Mr. Scrooge?

Christmas in Little Italy.

America, You're Funny - Doctors

In most of the developed world, to become a doctor, you go to college for five years at an affordable rate, do your residency and then specialize. Then you generally make a decent middle class income. There being a doctor is encouraged and supported. It is not a money making profession but a noble profession.

In United States on the other hand, we make our doctors go through a competitive pre-med program to have as many as possible drop out. We then have them compete for a few spots at a few medical schools where they will learn everything they learned in under grad, again but they will now have to pay up to ten times the amount to learn the same things. They will then specialize again at an obscene cost and then go through residency where they will work for virtually no pay while working obscene hours.

In the end, they get to work without vacations to pay off the giant loans at understaffed hospitals because there aren't enough doctors. Because of this, while most hospitals will pay them a lot, not too many people can actually afford their care that they need to charge just to pay for their insurance and high cost of loans...

America, you're funny.

America, You're Funny- Maps

I watched a little clip from Upworthy.com and it blew my mind!

In the western world, we are full of ourselves and that is no secret. What we don't know is that we even distort our projection of ourselves on the map. The map we have thought we knew is all wrong. It is great for travelling by sea but horrible for understanding the scale and relationship of continents and countries on earth. This has manifested itself for many travelers. This I found all the time when travelling around or south of equator. If the country is so small on the map, why are the distances so big? Why am I travelling for so long? Travel always takes longer than expected but it is because these countries really are bigger than what our schools and everything around us teaches us.

So if we are wrong about this, then what else are we wrong about?

Notice how the real Mexico is larger than Alaska, Greenland is actually not so big and Africa is really really giant and Russia is long as hell.

Picture used from http://www.wall-maps.com/world/peters_projection.htm

America, You're Funny- Religious Industrialists

In United States, if you are religious: Jew, Christian or Muslim, it usually means being conservative. It means being pro drilling, anti-green and anti-global warming. It is often living isolated from the drastic destruction taken by the capitalistic forces on the earth or participating in them as Bush did, and even when those forces have effects on them, it is to refuse to acknowledge man's role and instead blame it on God. 

     What kind of religion person is that? Taking the negative created by man and assigning it to the deity you worship? That is certainly worthy of blasphemy and hell. I'm sure God would not appreciate humans destroying the earth it created and even less so being blamed for it. 

      So religious folk, if you happen to come across this, remember, you believe God made this place and that means you ought to be the one driving a Prius, jumping onto oil derricks from Greenpeace ships and leading the charge to save the earth because if not you, then who else can God trust with this earth? You love him most so shouldn't you love his creation most? And in that case logically, shouldn't you protect it most? 

     Unless that is you worship him for selfish reasons and only use his good will when it suits you and take advantage of his creation without regard for why it was created and that there are other people in this world that God may have wanted to experience life and earth as it was created before you. 

Bullies and Jokers at Comedy Palace

At elementary school during recess, there were always two types of funny guys on the play ground. There was the witty and funny one that everyone loved and the bully. Sometimes the funny guy would get picked on by the bullies, but he always knew what to say and alleviate the situation. When a bully made fun of someone, he always found a way to crack a joke about himself or something funny and make peace. Whereas the other one, that one made fun of your name, or made fun of your ethnicity, he may have been larger or smaller than you but he always got laughs at one person's expense and he or she was the bully and their way of control of the world was through sheer terror and emotional derision of others. This person may have had deep seated wounds and they would ignore them by creating unnecessary wounds in others that were never there to begin with and usually with things that that person had no control over such as their physical appearance, their ethnicity or their socio-economic level. Tonight at the Comedy Palace in Clairmont there were both.

I've been to Comedy Palace a couple times. My first time I saw a fight between a giant fat guy and a small Mexican kid. The fat guy was attacking the little guy because the little guy had tried to rape his wife and had been under restraining order. It was a funny situation and I had never seen anything since. I still like coming out to the Comedy Palace to see my buddy Feraz Ozel put on events and bring talent to San Diego. It's great because it he's a Pakistani-Afghani and he brings out Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Asians to do comedy on one stage. All that matters is that you're funny. It's like UN if UN actually worked.

  So today, I got a bunch of friends together for what I thought would be a good and peaceful comedy show. 

It started off well: after great laughs by the hosts Bijan and Feraz, Feraz introduced three comics. First up was Robert Weems from Atlanta. He had a great set about how few blacks there are in San Diego and the few that are here, are extremely poor and he made some great jokes about how age changes sex for men and women.

     The comedy set was finished off by the headliner Erik Myers who had to stop every once in a while to let the audience breathe. He was so good in creating laughs out of his life and his observations with his physical but rapid tempo humor, that we never pitied his sad moments but laughed with him and bar napkins collected our tears of joy. I would highly recommend him to anyone.

   Before Myers was a Gay, British, Persian Jew by the name of Matthew Noriel and his style was fast paced, well prepared and always kept you on your toes. His comedy similar to that of many comics but his observations about the funny in the gay and Persian scene were never offensive and very  interesting and always funny.

     In between Noriel and Weems however, was that one kid who is funny so long as he is not making fun of you because he is making fun of someone else. Faraz introduced Josh Nasar by explaining that Nasar was filming his set for Comedy Central and so he asked people to refrain from talking and heckling. It all seemed fine and as Josh Nasar came on stage, he immediately gave off the vibe of trying and lack of preparation. You could see the pressure was on him and although the jokes may have been funny at some point, tonight they were falling flat. 

He got some forced laughs by repeating over and over how horny he was, and then some jokes began to land and he started to climb up and peak our interest as he opened up a joke with how much he likes the black ladies; he had the crowd hooked, and then he fell. 

He fell hard and there was no way to save himself and he knew it. How did he fall? He said that black women’s tits smell like EBT cards and vagina like Henessey. The misogynistic, classist and racist comment had an immediate effect on everyone. I could see all the way from the back that the black woman at the front was hurt, shocked and angry at the same time. The place fell silent. Nasar tried the Kramer from Seinfeld trick and project, he flipped off the crowd and yelled “Oh you’re judging me now!! You’re judging me now!” Then he said something else mildly racist and mildly amusing and then taunted us by saying “see, you’re the racists, you laughed at that.” When in actuality, the entire room was uncomfortable and tried to laugh, in disbelief of what just happened.

     As Nasar’s set went on, it became clear that it was not a badly worded joke, but it was all his jokes. One misogynistic joke after another. He was nervous. He would turn around and talk to the brick wall behind him, then turn towards the crowd and talk awkwardly without the mic, then with the mic. He would stop and start. Everyone felt terrible and we tried to laugh at his cheap gimmicks of yelling loud and hitting himself on the head with the microphone: basically copies of copies of copies of copies of past comedians. 

You wanted to say something but you couldn’t. For me it was hard, I’m friends with Feraz and I felt bad but what do you say to a bully? At this point I realize that all the other kids on the play ground don’t laugh with the bully because they agree, but because they are now afraid to be the ones bullied next.

   But there was a girl at our table. She is a recent Philly transplant and say what you say about Philly, but they do not put up with bullshit. As one joke putting down women after another came out, she could not hold it in any longer and she said it: “You’re the worst!”

    Everyone heard it but decided to pretend as if they didn’t and Nasar tried to move on with another terrible joke. So she said it again: “You’re the worst ever!”

    That got his attention. The king was naked. So what did the king do? He attacked. Nasar called her a cunt, he said she must have been :raped and abused as a child". As if that is the reason why she did not like his humor. That if she had never been raped or abused, she would be perfectly fine with his jokes.  This was full on Kramer, this was Michael Richard happening right in front of us.  

Nasar did not care if something had indeed happened to her as a child, he wanted to wound and he did. And did the place stand up for her like they did during Michael Richards’s rant in New York? No. They cheered him on, like a school yard full of kids making fun of the poor and taunted little kid, letting the bully be a bully.

Then something happened, the king volunteered us the source of his misogyny. He broke down and told us of his break up. He told us how his fiance cheated on him. He told us that to show her his undying devotion, he did something enormously stupid and tattooed her name on his calf while she cheated on him and broke off engagement. He was the idiot and he was going to take out his anger and frustration on all women. The king was naked.

Well Josh Nasar, I haven’t been raped or abused as a child and I found your jokes tactless, misogynistic, racist, and not at all funny. And if I had been raped or abused as a child, I would have found you even less funny and even more offensive.

I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to make Nasar apologize, I’m sad that the crowd sat there and watched him say horrible things and laugh along and do nothing to stop him. I appreciate Bijan coming up to my friend and whispering in her ear:  “You’re not a cunt, I’m sorry.”

      Nasar, I hope you let go of your demons, and do the right thing and apologize to our friend,  apologize to women, apologize to black people and stop being a bully. You’ll be a lot more funny.

Terrorism/Cowardism

Terrorists... that word has lost its meaning. When civilian men, women and children are killed and blown up everyday, it is no longer terrorism because everyone is numb and it is not war because they are not fighting anyone. It is a massacre. Those perpetrating this are pure killers and cowards. What are their political ends? What kind of politics can be done at the but of a gun? Violence is what happens without politics and these people are simply killing to get their way and no one even knows what that is. They are just killing by inertia because it is what they know, it is what they have been doing for over a decade.

What is sad is that no one cares. 5000 have died this year in Iraq from bombings in markets and mosques alone. Who are these victims? No one knows. What is the effect on their lives. No one knows.

I'd like to create a website, where family members can post pictures of their loved ones before and after. These people are important, they exist and we all need to see them to remember them to do something about it, and the cowards need to see them too and remember who they are doing this to.

Anyone want to help?

Flying from Tijuana

This is for the cheap people of San Diego who think they can save a few dollars by flying out of Tijuana. So here is why it is a stupid idea: time and money. Time you will waste and money you will not save.

Time:
Getting to Tijuana airport even from downtown takes about two to three hours. Then on top of that transit time, you need to arrive there about two hours early. So going from the San Diego airport you're wasting four hours just one way!

Money:
So to get to the airport will cost gas and cab money and possibly bus money which is about $50 one way. Both ways it will be about $100. Then when you arrive in Tijuana, as a non-Mexican national you have to pay to fly and that is about $40. So in the end you will waste eight hours and $140 which is probably how much it would have cost to fly from San Diego Airport except you don't waste the eight hours. 

America, You're Funny: Domestic Spying

The apathy over domestic spying should be abhorrent. Having had a President resigning less than forty years ago for spying on Americans for political gain, we are acting as if it is perfectly fine to spy on Americans. The apathy is amazing and maybe the real problem is that we're on an overload of crap from the government and the power elite. After all the scandals and all the b.s. and two wars and all the lies, we just don't care anymore. There are 300 million of us and fact is, most of us  feel that we won't be affected. Or at least we don't think we will. We are having children and old women finger frisked to get on a plane for God's sake! So if we don't care about the scandals or old ladies frisked, then we don't care about the spying, we don't care about the shooting and we don't care about the crisis. What we do care about however is how Miley Cyrus dances and if that asshole or bitch checks our phones.

Update: 

There was a pipe bomb in San Diego, again (the other one was a few months ago.) Less than a year ago two brothers detonated a bomb in Boston and before that was the Shoe bomber which is why we now take off shoes at the airport and after that was the underwear bomber which is why TSA now images us with harmful rays to see us naked.... 

What has NSA done to make us safer? It spies on Angela Merkel..... 

America, You're Funny: Poverty and Charity

I was in Argentina this August with a bunch of middle class Americans visiting the poor Jews (yes they exist you racist assholes) and these Americans were shocked by the poverty. It was interesting seeing American blindness and assumptions, given that most Americans were poor and there was no middle class prior to 1930s, Americans have an easy time thinking they were always rich and that there was no upward mobility and so they assume that the poor they encounter will never move up either. That's why they will often say "What's the use of helping these people, they will always be poor." They say so without realizing that these people they call poor, because they live in tiny little homes that are about the size of a large apartment in New York, are actually are better off then they used to be. What they don't realize is that ten years ago, these poor kids didn't even have homes, they were living in dirt shacks in the country side and are happy to have some kind of employment after some huge company (probably American funded) left them without income or land.

What is really funny, is that in San Diego, America's Finest City, there are poor people begging on every major crosswalk, there are tens of thousands living in the streets including children and that's just in San Diego. These Americans walking the streets of Buenos Aires, like the Americans who go all over the world, feel so bad for all these poor and shocked to see the poverty, and yet they will walk past a begging man ten times while dressed up and heading to the club and getting useless tattoos when they could be feeding the poor. They feel sad about shacks of the poor in Brazil when the poor in America don't even have that luxury because the cops and American laws don't allow that dignity to the poor of the United States. They talk about social issues and yet how many liberal voting Americans get wasted everyday in front of all the poor in the streets of downtown, running bar tabs of hundreds of dollars, going into debt to party and never giving a dollar to charity?

The other side of the  coin are the conservatives who hate to pay taxes but love giving to charity, partially because charity is tax-deductible. But anyone who thinks long term will realize that taxes allow for infrastructure and large scale changes that educate and allow people to rise while charity allows people to survive and not die which means they remain poor and sad which allows for the middle class to feel good about itself. Why? Because in that case, at least it is not poor and they feel better about themselves about keeping the poor alive, they somehow feel charitable and noble. But really, it is funny how the conservatives like to go to war to save those who are poor but that same war then kills the poor, troops (who are rarely from middle or upper class) and civilians. Then   to feel better about all the things they have, they give charity somewhere halfway across the world as if those countries don't have money for their poor and we are so much better and kinder by giving aid when those countries don't give a shit about their people just like we don't give a shit about ours because we have the same poor and hungry. We hate to have our tax dollars help our poor and yet we seem perfectly fine with helping the poor of other nations because those poor we deem incapable of becoming rich and our poor we deem as lazy unworthy of aid.

So in the end, America, you are poor morally and your charity is a sign of sad poverty and how rich some are in this country, rich by the labor of the poor. Maybe sometimes, the reason why other countries have less charity is not because they are stingy, but because they pay enough into their taxes and expect enough from their government to help the poor. Conversely, the countries that don't care about their people who we give military aid and give money for the poor are only encouraged to do nothing as their poor are kept fed by our charity and therefore do not expect anything more out of their country, perpetuating governments that simply get wealthy without actually governing or improving the lives of their citizens.

America, you're funny- Hackers, Anonymous

So we have this group of hackers: basically kids and middle age men who go to Comic Con and who are clearly great at using computers. What do they use their efforts on? Annoying governments and large corporations. They try to sound tough but really they are pests and no one takes them seriously. They have this capability, and yet, they do nothing useful with it when there is so much they can do.

So why not provide them with a list of things to do, I know they might not follow it but if there are others like them, at least they will try.

1) Instead of attacking legitimate democratic governments that they have gripes with, attack dictatorships and authoritarian governments like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Tazhikistan, China. It's those places where people are truly not free. So delete Chinese records on disidends, break firewalls so Chinese can see the outside world, release names of jailed Tazhiks and Turkmens. There are a million things you could that are better than posting a smiley face on a US Government site.

2) Instead of complaining about American incursions, prevent them by going after those that America is fighting such as Al Quida, Al Shabab and etc. These are the guys who blow up children, create oppressive Islamist states that ban information and even music. If they don't exist, US has no reason to fight them and their websites are their life-lines and recruitment tools. So spread misinformation, destroy their ability to communicate and show not their triumphs but cowardice by posting pictures of the children they kill on their sites. That would do so much more than messing with Coca-Cola.

3) If you don't like corruption, show it. Find the information that shows what a company or government does. You say you are world class hackers? Then show tax evasion, send it to journalists break the information prison. You can do it, so why don't you? 

So here are just three ways that you can become relevant. Otherwise you're just taking cheap shots at people that really don't care. Doing so shows that you are uninformed, bitter and most of all, lazy.

So go ahead, do some good! Expose despots, free prisoners, help people! You can do it, we know it, so why not start ?  And then, people will actually take you seriously.

America, You're Funny - Healthcare

So in Ukraine, you can pay zero for HIV pills because US and Europe send millions of dollars worth there to treat HIV patients who are too poor to afford the pills. However in US, same poor patients are expected to pay 2000 for a month of pills! That's not economics, that's extortion! Oh and if you want to get insurance then you have to wait two years for them to see "if you survive" to not consider you a "risk." What kind of racket is that? We, the US public, pays for HIV research through public tax funds and then we can't even get the benefit? That is beyond wrong. What kind of society is this? You pay for taxes and then some corporation gets the profit and you can't even get the benefit of paying for that research? Yet if you live in sub-Saharan Africa or in East Europe you can get the same medicine that they never spent a cent on for free? I don't say make them pay more but common, that kind of treatment of our own citizens should be criminal.
 America, you're funny.

America You're Funny - Revolution on Our Own.

Americans say: let those Arabs kill each other, it's a civil war so let's stay out of it.
But then I wondered, what would have happened if the French had stayed out of the Revolutionary war? Would we be in a United States if Native Americans did not help the revolutionaries?

We don't have to help anyone, but we can't say that they ought to do it on their own when we didn't do it on our own. Plus, we can't say that they are fighting a fair fight when the Bashar Al-Asad regime is being supplied by Russia and Iran.

So Americans saying that Syrians ought to fight on their own, you're hypocrites and you're funny.

America, You're Funny: Americans Scared to Visit Mexico

So in in Mexico 34,000 people died since 2006 due to drug violence while in United States 30,000 people died due to gun violence in 2010 alone.. AND AMERICANS ARE AFRAID TO GO TO MEXICO.... America, you're funny.

http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/15/more-americans-killed-by-guns-than-by-terrorists/
http://www.cannabisculture.com/node/25925

Brazil for Americans

If you get it in US:
Takes 10-20 days
Costs $200-$300
Usually multi-entry for 5 years.
Requires bank statements, vaccines, knowing where you're going and buying your tickets first.

In Buenos Aires:
Takes 2 days
Costs $250
90 day visa.
Requires same as in US but you also have to make an appointment ahead of time and fill out online application and bring it in.
Hours: M-F 9-13(1pm)

In Montevideo
Takes two days,
Costs $160
Five year visa
Hours M-F, 9-15 (3pm)
Same requirements as Argentina, but more relaxed.

In Chuy:
Takes about an hour and a half.
Costs US$160 (in Uruguay pesos)
Ten year visa.
Just need a bank statement.
Hours: M-F, 9-15(3pm)
Getting to Chuy: $25 bus from Montevideo, 5 hours.
Consulate directions:
From the bus stop, walk straight and make a right on Brasil St. Walk straight four blocks and make a right. Consulate should be on left hand side half a block down. You'll see the flag.

After getting the visa take a cab to the Uruguay customs: $80 pesos (there and back) (8 reals). Bring your bus/boat ticket from Argentina in case you came to Uruguay that way.
Cab to Brazilian side should be $120 pesos (12 reals) there and back.

Getting out of Chuy
Bus Station is in same direction as Consulate but two blocks down make a left and walk two more blocks.
Buses for Puerto Alegro leave every day at 11pm and 12pm.
Buses for Florinopolis leave Sundays at 12pm. This gives you an opportunity to back track to Punto Del Diablo or Punto Del Este for a night.

Buenos Aires to Montevideo via Colonia Sacramento

There are a few things to keep in mind.
Change your money in Argentina! In Uruguai your official dollar from the ATM becomes half price so you loose half your money!
Also, don't take the Boque bus all the way to Uruguai. You can buy a ticket just for the boat ride to Colonia, spend a couple hours there and then buy a ticket for $12 to Montevideo. Buses run every half hour or so with many direct buses. This is cheaper and offers you a way to see Colonia. Bus station is next door to the ferry terminal.
Finally, do not exchange money at the ferry terminal. You can get 10-25% better exchange rate a short walk way at the bus terminal or many other places in the tiny town.

Hope this helps!

America asks for the spy from one they spied on... America, you're funny

Atlantic-HK doesn't extradite snowden due to lack of evidence.

So USA asks for Snowden from Hong Kong with a threat of deteriorating relations. Snowden on the other hand let HK find out that America has been hacking into HK and has been snooping on citizens of the world including HK and America still doesn't notice of "deteriorating relations" and that the threat is actually on the other side.
This USA Government arrogance based on double speak was first shown in the terrible language in the first Wiki Leak and now seen again here and so of course US is seeing even less cooperation from other states than it did during the Bush administration. Looks like President Obama failed in his promise not because he didn't try, but because he and his administration was incensere.

The ducks are piling up even with liberals:
Guantanamo Bay,
Ice deportations,
Legalized marriage,
End to war on drugs,
Continued war on the poor,
Poor foreign policy,
And a worsening quagmire in Middle East...

I'm sad to say... are we really better off than we were four years ago?
Even our best hope has let us down, democracy is hard but so is being a snooping tyrant and asking for your squeak from those you snoop on.

Mexico to Costa Rica

Fly: $200 one-way flight.
You will be asked at the airport counter for itinerary out Costa Rica. A bus ticket would suffice.
Without itinerary you will not be allowed on the plane.
Immigration in San Jose does not check for itinerary and the airport workers do not check the bus or flight itinerary if they are not real itineraries. 

Ukraine to Belarus

Border Logistics
Visa can be done in one day for about $300 or in a matter of days for about half.
Necessary to have contact person's information in Belarus.
Consulate is open even on Ukrainian State holidays but with limited hours.

Tip: There is no passport check between Russia and Belarus and getting visa for Belarus is much simpler than going to Russia. However, should you be found to not have a Russian visa, it is possible you may be forced to stay until you procure a Russian visa. Tourists are often asked for their papers without any probably cause, I was.

Train
$20-50 Can buy ticket at the Kiev train station. 

Costa Rica (San Jose) to Panama

Border Logistics
Panamanian side might ask for itinerary, don't need real one, any fake will do from any other country. No need to buy return ticket. No visa or money necessary for Americans.

Tika Bus: 
$80 
Buy tickets in advance as they often fill up.

Local Bus to Border.
$15 Take bus to Sixaola at six am from Coca Cola station.
Walk five minutes to border.

Border to Bocas:
Two yellow bus transfers takes you to boat docs for $2 in about two hours.
$10 cabs take you to boat docs in 30-45 minutes.
$5-15 twenty minute boat to Bocas del Torro

To Panama:
Fly: From Bocas del Torro Airport for about $100. Several flights every day.
Local Bus: 12 hours from the border town. $20

Panama to Colombia

Logistics at Border:
Panama: 
Need three photocopies of passport to enter and two to enter.
Office opens at eight, photocopy office opens at nine.
Office closes at four.
Colombia: 
Office opens briefly once a day to stamp passports.
Ask Joe near the dock for details.


Fly
From Panama to Bogota for about $250
From Panama to border, 45 minute Launcha to Capurgana and Fly to Bogota. $150
Tip: This is the best, cheapest and safest option. Hostels don't tell of the second option as it is cheap but without kickbacks. Make sure to buy tickets in advance as flights fil up quickly.


Launcha: 
Cost: $150
Logistics:
Jeep to East coast.
8 hour Launcha to border.
45 min Launcha to Capurgana.
Warning: Launchas are small and go into open sea. Capsizing and breakdowns are frequent.

Options from Capurgana:
Flight to Medellin (twice a week) $90
2 hour Launcha to Turbo $20
Warning: During low season, hostels may tell you that immigration is closed and won't re-open for a few days in order to get you to stay longer. Don't believe them, talk to immigration, they will open usually between 12 and 2pm depending on when the Turbo Launcha comes in.

Options from Turbo
Bus to Medellin or Cartagena $35
Tip: Kids will try to help you for a fee to get to the bus. They can waive down a bus and it is cheaper than to buy at ticket counter. Bus driver gives them a cut so don't give money to kids. Negotiate fee with bus driver not the kids.



Sail:
$350 by "speed boat" or $500 by sail.
Warning:  Often a rip-off, leaving tourists stranded without refund. Especially on the way north. Sail boats are often loaded with drugs.
Tip: Don't trust hostels, go to the docks and find the boat there and ask the captain for references.

Hitchhiking through San Blas
Can take as little as a few days and as much as a month depending on boat traffic.
Most villages cost $10-$20 per night for stay.
Warning: Must have own water. Water on islands is very expensive.
Can cost as much or double as a flight or launcha.

Palestino-Ysrael

   A few days ago I watched an old Israeli movie about the 1982 Lebanon War called Cup Final. It is about an Israeli soldier that is captured by a rag tag team of Palestinians in the border region and about their journey to Beirut. The movie presents the case that the land is as important to Palestinians as it is to Jews and how they both want it but only one can have it. About a day later, as I was listening to Josephus War of the Jews about Roman destruction of Israel and renaming Israel it struck me that Jews of Israel have it all wrong. The Jewish contention that Palestinians are an invention and the Palestinian notion that Jews are foreigners and invaders are both wrong.
    In effect the two are the same people. The difference is that Palestinians are Israelis that became Muslims and Christians after the destruction of Israel. There are even genetic studies that prove this: The shared genetic heritage of Jews and Palestinians. And so what Jews must do is accept that some of us are not Jewish but also Christian and Muslim. That not all of us believe in god the same way and that actually, Muslim and Christians in Israel are closer to religious Jews than atheist Jews because they believe in the same god but practice the religion differently. Like me, they do not speak Hebrew, instead they speak Arabic and that makes them no different from me.
   Palestinians also just have to turn the idea a bit, that Jews from around the world are those who had left and now came back, that they are not invaders but their own stock that had left and is now back. They are non-Jewish Israelis and Israel is Palestine and they are Israelis because Palestine and Palestinians is the country and people renamed by Romans. Difference is that Jews never accepted this renaming and Palestinians did.
   So this is my hope, that this war between Cain and Abel ends, that the two realize that they are both from the same stock and Palestinians accept that they are in fact Israelis and Israelis accept the fact that Palestinians are not Arabs but middle-easterners just like they are and were simply converts to other religion. When the heritage of the two will be accepted by the two, when the two embrace their shared history. When the Palestinians realize that they were Jews and the Jews realize that Palestinians were Jews, that is when they will end the fighting for the land and accept that it is one country and one land and they are one people that pray to the same god but in a different way. When this happens, peace will happen, refugees will come back and a new Palestino-Ysrael will be formed.

Parenting: the only hard rules to it are the rules.

Blog Post about the rules of parenting.

It doesn't feel so long ago, when I was a child. In fact it was about half an hour ago when my parent scolded me for not turning off the lights.
I'm 31 and as a result of a chance meeting in Berlin, I may have a daughter in Sao Paulo Brazil, a beautiful baby girl. So now, even though I've yet to meet and hold her, I think all the time about what it means to be a father and all those movies and shows and comic sketches about kids, hit pretty hard home.
  So when I was nagged again as I rent out my house and my car, and crash at my parents guest room while taking a break from a ten year career in engineering, I thought about how they don't seem to get tired of nagging. At the same time I wondered how it is that I didn't get tired of their nagging either. That made me pause and think and  that is when I realized that I do; but there is a negative trade-off to doing what they want me to do.

   You see, my parents are well raised Russian-Jewish kids of doctors, managers and professors and they don't dole out congratulations for some petty accomplishments; compliments are reserved for special accomplishments and doing well is standard and mistakes are to be highlighted to be fixed. It of course never dawns on them that they require constant affirmation of their good parenting in form of "please, and thank you" but even though they have twenty years more life on me, my accomplishments for tasks entirely new to me no matter how young do not deserve any considerable praise whether it be tying my shoes, playing the piano or getting an A on a paper.
     So naturally, when I was young, it served me well to do as much misbehaving I could get away with that would get me attention but not get me grounded. You see, it is a simple mathematical formula: each time I screw up, they nag, which really meant they noticed me and I got attention. If I were to say finally put away the dishes after not putting them away for ten days, I would have gotten eleven comments from them culminating in a grand thank you at the end. Think about it, had I done dishes well the entire time, I would be neither seen nor heard, nor would would I get any acknowledgement at all for not leaving the dishes as that is the expected behavior.

   This game works well in their favor too. As a result of their upbringing, they are uncomfortable of giving praise, because they are not sure how to give it and they are afraid to give too high of praise for fear of risking a spoiled upbringing and too high of self-esteem. They don't know how to talk to me as by this point, I no longer trust their praise as I expect scolding and I wouldn't know what to do with a compliment. By this time I expect that I will screw up and that in general I am a pretty rotten person. I'm sure they don't think that, but given that that is the only thing I have heard from them my entire life, that is the impression of myself that I have. So without my constant mistakes and their constant nagging of those mistakes, they would have no way to talk to me.

   I have respect for my parents, the people that had to at some point wipe my ass, blow my nose and clean up my mess. I admit that no other adult had had to do that with me and so one must have respect for someone who put up with them and who fed them for no one else would give a crap. But that is the easy part, that is the non-psychological part, that is the non-interactive part. It's the part one can do without any attention or thinking like with a fish or a cat. The real parenting part is creation of a human, not an animal. Yet even there I am proven wrong. How often have I seen people give constant physical contact and dole out compliments to their dogs for the smallest accomplishments and then completely ignore their children for tasks no dog could ever do as if somehow dogs need affirmation but kids do not. Why does this not occur to more parents that the way to get dogs to be well behaved may be the same way to get kids to be well behaved?

 So parents out there that are afraid of spoiling your children, hear me on this, if you want kids that are neither seen nor heard, do yourself and them a huge favor, keep watch on them, talk to them and praise them, at least for a little while. Because when they are older, you'll have plenty of time ignore them and have time to yourself, plenty of time to not see them or hear them. But in the process of giving them this attention-you'll get to nag less and be happy more, and so will they, and they will thank you for it for the rest of their lives.

America, You're Funny: Funeral

At a party on a Friday in San Diego, a prominent architect, a rugby player by the name of Grahm "Basher" Downes had his head bashed in. A memorial service held for him on a Rugby field included beers and big breasted samba dancers. "A Celebration of a Life" they called it. One person after another went up to tell funny stories from bigger than life life of Grahm "Basher" Downes. One talked of how he interacted with Junior Seau, a locally famous football player. Another, his brother, about how he brought with him to Australia OMBAC team rugby hats and jerseys as gifts for his nephews who were expecting ipods and iphones. Beneath the harsh sun, jokes about poor sound, rugby and hot girls flowed like the beer.
This is when it dawned on me, only in America can you have beer and jokes after a tragic death. In Japan, crying women are hired to cry at the funeral. In Ukraine, as people cry they are sprayed with holy water so that just in case they are not crying enough, there is enough on their hair and clothes to drip all around. And in Palestine, a killer in the casket will be paraded around the streets with wails and cries of revenge and anger. But in California, people in flip flops and board shorts tell jokes and laughter and stories flow like the tears of Ukranians.
I guess I would understand this better if it were a death of an old person who lived out their life, or of someone who died of an incurable disease as it would be their time. Maybe even a car accident because somethings you just can't prevent. But when death is because of a fight, a tragic brutal murder, how can that be a joke and in any way time for celebration? I guess you can, but only in America. America, you're funny.

Israel's Independence, Patriot's Day, Boston Marathon

I love Boston. I nearly moved to Boston. It's a smart but stupid city. It's a small but big city. It has attitude, it has food and it is the center of America, spiritual America. New York is like our wang and DC is our brain but Boston is our heart; birthplace of our revolution. To strike at Boston is to wound our heart and as I was driving home from the desert, I was told by my best friend of the simultaneous explosions in Boston.
It has been hard to come to grasp with it and it is hard to really react because for one month I traveled through areas of the world devastated by United States policy. We know we have devastated areas for our way of life and if I lived anywhere in the world and I knew that someone for their comfortable life would cause so much harm to others, would you not try to hurt them back?
Let's look at Panama. Sure we gave them freedom in return for the canal but then we left them without anyway to profit from the canal. The country is essentially Honduras, a banana republic in spite of the 6% of world commerce that passes through it sidestepping all of South America. We the put in Noriega, had him do drug running and destabilizing and committing acts against humanity against his own people. We then came in to depose him, firing missiles at snipers, demolishing whole buildings full of people that go back three and four hundred years, going to colonial era. Entire blocks are missing that cannot be replaced. And these shells still stand there as only in 2009 was Panama able to run the canal at a profit and begin to invest money into infrastructure.
There's a famous downtown full of skyscrapers that city empty, essentially parked drug money. Drugs go up to United States to feed the Lawyer and Doctors' addictions and money stays there but is parked in Panama. In the meantime Panamanians live in squalor.

Then there's Colombia, where to fight the Marxist FARC we created paramilitary forces that are responsible for 80% of drug trafficking  kidnappings and murders. They used to have constant bombings there and their country is run by drug money that our citizens gladly give that allows us to keep the intelligent rich in a state of dependence and the poor in prisons.
What will happen on this day of Israeli independence, Patriots day? Will more of our freedoms be taken to find the perpetrators? Will we go and bomb more countries as revenge? Will we keep taking an eye for an eye until we are all blind?

Or will we reassess what "our way of life" actually means for us and the world? What this race to have American cars, American homes means for people working, means for people around the world? What it means to have this progress and it's effect on humanity, culture, environment?

Heart hurts for those who died, heart is angered by those who would in violent and cowardly manner would take that which does not belong to them. But we have done our share and the cycle of violence can only end when one puts down the arms and stops gouging at the eye.

Crossing the Darien Gap by Launcha, Sail boats are SCAMS!

It is MUCH easier is to fly from Panama for $90 to Puerto Obaldia and catch a launcha from there to Copurgana. There you can fly to Medellin for $150 rather than go on a dangerous overloaded launcha for three hours and then by bus 10 hours. YOUR HOSTEL WILL NOT TELL YOU OF THIS BECAUSE THEY MAKE COMMISSION OF THE BOATS!


Crossing by sea is now very commercialized and yet less safe.
Sail boats rip you off with fancy pictures, don't be lazy and go to Carti or Portobello to see the boat.
THEY ARE SCAMS!!! Four years ago a sailing trip was $300 max to Cartagena and now they drop you off in Subzurro for $500 which is about two days from Cartagena if you're lucky. Mike Wilson's Blog tells of their incompetent captain dropping off the party with no provisions and stealing the money days from their destination in the islands of San Blas.

Darien Gapster for $350 (excluding 4x4 and other fees so more like $450) is a known scam and does what I will say bellow for double the cost.

If you do take a Launcha the cost is high:

A 4x4 taxi to Carti is $30.
A rinki-dink launcha overburdened with barely enough gas to make it in good weather that regularly capsize and kill people is $115+$10 entry to San Blas=$125
It will probably be late for immigration to Puerto Obaldia so you will spend the night there $5.
Office of immigration opens next morning at eight but they need two photocopies of your passport (so get them in Panama or three in Colombia, need three to enter Panama) and the internet place opens at nine so by 10:30 you will be in Capurgana.
Capurgana is a nice place with clean beaches and in-off season you can easily find a place for $6.
The immigration office there opens once a day and works for about twenty minutes so don't miss it. Your hotel may say they don't open at all in hopes that you stay for more days but don't listen to them and go talk to Joey or the immigration office instead.

Get your launcha to Turbo in advance from Samuel for $32 as it sells out. Usually two leave at eight and at nine. They break and capsize as well.

If you have any questions in Capurgana, ask Joey, he's the Hawaian guy drinking beer near the doc.

You also don't really need proof of exit from Colombia and if they ask, anything fake will work.

America, You're Funny - War on Drugs

So between Noriega in Panama, Guatemala, El Sal, Mexico and Colombia and Afghanistan, we've spent a lot of money to fight drugs and yet when we read about countries like Colombia, we find out that we are responsible for the drug trade there. We spend money to fight that which we support so we spend money twice. Yet what we are really outraged is about welfare moms that take up a thousand dollars instead of the millions we waste on drugs that our own population demands. America.. you're funny.

"Paramilitarism in Colombia refers to the origins and historical development of far right paramilitary organizations in Colombia. The paramilitaries claim to be acting in opposition to revolutionaryMarxist-Leninist guerrilla forces and their allies among the civilian population. Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia are the parties responsible for most of the human rights violations in the latter half of the ongoing Colombian Armed Conflict. According to several international human rights and governmental organizations, right-wing paramilitary groups have been responsible for at least 70 to 80% of political murders in Colombia per year, with the remainder committed by leftist guerrillas and government forces. Paramilitary groups control the large majority of the illegal drug trade of cocaine and other substances together with the main Colombian drug cartels, especially in terms of trafficking and processing activities.

The first paramilitary groups were organized by the Colombian military following recommendations made by U.S. military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia during the Cold War to combat leftist political activists and armed guerrilla groups. The development of later paramilitary groups has also involved elite landowners, drug traffickers, members of the security forces, politicians and multinational corporations. Paramilitary violence today is principally targeted towards peasants, unionists, indigenous people, human rights workers, teachers and left-wing political activists or their supporters."

Costa Rica

Cost Rica (Rich Coast) is a great place for Gringos. Lots of people speak English and the place has lots to do and can be as expensive and as cheap as you want it to be.

• Make sure to have a ticket out of Costa Rica, a bus ticket will suffice.
• From airport: walk around the parking lot and take a bus to Alajuela for a dollar and another from Alajuela to San Jose for another dollar. Or pay forty for a cab.
• Inside San Jose the bus stations are all over the city so it's good to get a map. Buses go everywhere and cabs are not cheap. I generally took a cab to a place and a bus back as that was always easier.
• San Jose is a huge city so it is worth discovering more than just the downtown.
• At night it becomes a little sketchy and most things close down and there are not too many restaurants so try to have your dinner early.
• Local buses go all over the country for very low fares but most leave at six am.
• Currency: multiply local by two minus two zeros to get dollars. Divide dollars by two and add two zeros to get local.

Mexico

Contrary to popular belief, Mexico is fairly safe, modern and a great place to go. Here are some tips to make your time there easier.

 

• Flying from Tijuana may take more time than worth the hassle.
• Getting around Mexico by car, watch out for topas (speed bumps) as they are never marked.
• Cops will generally not bother you unless you are going far too fast, which rarely happens because of topes.
• Mexico City cab to airport about 150 pesos standard fare.  International departure gates are on second level. 
• Flying to Costa Rica on a one way ticket, buy a bus ticket to Panama before arriving at the airport.
• Metro stops running at midnight and cabs become pricy afterwards.
• Rush hour on metro in center of the city is recommended to be avoided, trains get packed to capacity and leaving the train far from the door may be impossible.

America You're Funny: Django

The most common two things I heard about the movie Django unchained was:
The word "nigger" is used a lot and that it is hard to watch because of the violence.

Well guess what, "nigger" is what black people were called back then and there were a lot of black people in that movie and so guess what, "nigger" is what you should hear a lot and it was to show that "nigger" is not a cool word we use today: it was a dehumanizing and an objectifying term used to degrade people into objects.

As I watched angry slaves look at the free blacks with anger and envy I realized how slaves must have been institutionalized. How confusing it must have been to see a free black person and not understand why they are free and others are not.. Seeing Samuel L. Jackson character do everything to backstab blacks so that he can be in the good graces of the whites.

Sad part is that our society is still so racist that if a black person made this movie no one would have watched it. A white person making it made people pay attention and still not get it. Blacks were slaves a hundred fifty years ago. They had no concept of freedom, no education, no sense of self for the most part.

Sad part is, they still don't. The killings that happen in black areas seek no "dialogue" of the nation, no panels or media groups discuss it. Hundreds of people die and are put away in urban areas and most of America gives two shits about it. They look at it as just violence instead of the fact that it is systemic and endemic. Instead of looking at environment we blame it on the blacks and ignore it and watch them die and just build bigger prisons.

This country is just like south Africa, big fences and lots of cops keep the poor locked up in their areas with horrible education and no work in blighted areas to keep them where they are, as nothing.

Django unchained is another symptom of a system wide disease: white man with rights doing their best to keep those rights no matter how badly they are enslaved by them.

IOC committee has shamed themselves but they can fix it

The IOC committee has without understanding why wrestling is an Olympic sport shamed themselves by for whatever reason trying to keep 25 sports and allowing sports with representatives stay and wrestling fall... Well let me tell you why wrestling is a core sport and why it finishes off the Olympics.

Wrestling doesn't get much respect because it commands the ultimate respect.
Wrestling is unlike any other sport because it is the ultimate sport and it epitomizes the sacrifice and dedication of Olympics.

Wrestling is a battle that ends and begins with a handshake.
Wrestling is running a marathon, with a man on your back.
Wrestling is running a hundred yard dash, 36 times while another man is doing his utmost to stop you.
Wrestling is like jujitsu, but you can't stop moving.
Wrestling is like water polo, if there was no ball and someone were trying to drown you the entire time.
Wrestling is like rock climbing, if someone were trying to pull you the entire time.
Wrestling is like karate if karate allowed people contact and throwing.
Wrestling is like Judo if Judo did not have a gee to grip or joint locks to trap opponents.
Wrestling is like other sports except you are not allowed to have an ounce of extra weight and so you are battling for your honor with strength and speed while starving your body of fuel.

Wrestling is the epitome of human performance.
Wrestling is not about the flight or the fight, wrestling is about standing your ground against any opponent and walking away with dignity and respect. And when you know you can't give any more tomorrow, you leave the shoes on the mat because when you can't get better, you retire.
Wrestling is about personal control and control over the opponent at the moment when your mental and physical limits are stretched.
And after that point, you have another match.
Wrestling is the original bible sport where Jacob wrestles angel Gabriel.
It is the ultimate and unequivocal test of one man or woman versus another.
This is why the Olympic torch bearers and flag bearers are wrestlers, because they bring in the Olympics and they are the defenders of the Olympics and this is why they are the last sport of the Olympics because like true warriors, they make sure all go before them and the build up of the Olympic games is up to the ultimate sport wrestling. Because when Olympic gods came to earth, it was wrestlers that met them, fought them and showed that humans are worthy of respect and help.

IOC, you can cut wrestling, but you may as well cut the Olympics because there can be no Olympics without the soul of the Olympics.
Your dirty politics have been shown, your disregard for what is Olympics is clear and the only thing that you have in front of you is a choice: a choice to go into history as the panel that made a grave decision and did not correct it, or the panel that made a mistake and had the guts to fix it.

Will you be wrestlers for a vote?

America You're Funny: Republican Roommate vs Democrat Roommate

They are cutting 20% my roommate says as I sit on my computer reading news in the morning and going over hebrew lesson of the day.
He works as an Engineer in the defense department.
"That's after they raised it by a lot since 9/11" I say
"Well yeah but that saved the economy."
"Holy shit!" I realize. "That's right it was the dot com bust. It was probably a huge stimulus package disguised as the war on terror."
"That's right." He says.
"That is so smart! I didn't realize the Republicans were so smart."
"That's why they keep their money." He says as he washes dishes.
"Well, they are keeping the white vote. It's the same money they spend, just they prefer to spend the money on jails and cops rather than schools. And as long as illegal aliens are illegal they don't have to put up with their vote. They know the border is unenfocible and this way they get to keep the slave labor and not have to pay them more or have their competing vote. If the poor minorities rise up the whites loose their vote. No wonder they are slashing the budgets."
"Yup! We don't like black people... Juuuust kidding." He says as he takes off for work... but I'm pretty sure he's not.

America, you're funny: Congress

Listening to a return congressman Rick Nolan describe how they used to work full days and 42 weeks a year in the seventies and eighties and now they show up 32 weeks a year and are lucky if they work a few hours a day... Well that explains this dysfunctional country; there's no one running it!
Interview with the Congressman Rick Nolan

TED Photography Talk

Seeing the world through mine and eyes of others, I realize that I live in a tiny island of priviledge that we often confuse for the world in 21st century. The advances we have are available to very very few people that we believe characterize the 21st century.

Watch these and see your view of the world change.

http://www.ted.com/playlists/72/close_up_and_personal.html

America You're Funny: Porn vs. Education

I wonder what this says about U.S. that amount that people look up porn is climbing and searches for education is declining. What kind of long term future do we have?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=education%2C%20porn&cmpt=q

Falacies of Fat

Listen to how we have been fooled into terrible health, even those who work out and eat "healthy."
Fat Chance on Science Friday.

Hey Science, Answer This

Question 1: Oil
So we can look bellow the strata and we know when and how life evolved.
We also know that oil is organic matter which is wildlife that used to exist in the world.
However Oil is really really deep underground and sometimes under the Oceans.
How did it get there?
How long ago did it get there?
If it is that far bellow then it must have happened billions of years ago, what kind of life created that oil?

Question 2: Entropy
The big bang happened. We say it was order and ever since then, the world has gone towards disorder.
Yet, looking out the window on trees full of leaves rustling in the wind, birds chirping and singing, waves crashing in the distance, the tidy homes around me made intently for the best possibly survivability made me question that very law of Thermodynamics. When DNA, through time by mere survivability has developed into complexity far greater than we can and possibly will ever achieve.

Although mathematically, the universe is plummeting into disorder with everyday and although a broken egg cannot be put together, the egg is still a model of order, created out of the disorderly food that the hen pics off the ground. Cells order themselves into parts and organs and shells and in the end a tiny little chicken.

Disorder? Yes but what is the force that creates the order of our planet, our solar system our thoughts and our eyes and our hands and arms and bodies?

Answer this science. Please.