Crocodiles

So why was I thinking about crocodiles?

I was actually talking to a friend about this politician who thinks he’s going to win in November, and when that happens, all his troubles would be over.

And I told the friend, that’s not going to happen.

Because people like me who once voted for him are so disgusted, if he was running against a crocodile in November, we would still vote for the crocodile instead of him.

Yes, it’s a rather ridiculous example to make a point.

Almost as silly as the joke about organizing a water polo finals against a team of crocodiles.

Which is why that old story from Bernd suddenly resurfaced in my consciousness.

But seriously, I don’t think the old conman is making any effort to win over voters.

He’s not concerned about winning. He’s more concerned about preparing the ground for another January 6.

He knows no one believes him anymore, at least no sane person takes him seriously.

So he’s counting on his diehard supporters, the deluded, the angry, and the violent to put him in the office again.

2021 was just the dress rehearsal. The real coup is going to take place January 2025.

Be ready for the same tactics, the cries of voter fraud, of him ‘winning by a landslide,’ and then another march to the Capitol.

From the way he’s managed to stack the high court and the state houses with his cronies and other willing co-conspirators, this may turn out to be a real Armageddon for the country.

Or it may be the final cleansing of this house of crooks and conmen that’s blighted this country for too long.

Speaking of creatures blighting the landscape, crocodiles are one of my least favorite animals, after cockroaches and snakes.

They’re famous for shedding tears before they eat their prey.

Apparently, this is not out of emotion but rather a part of their eating ritual.

I heard that if you have occasion to look into their eyes, they’re a fearsome sight—totally emotionless and ready to pounce on you at any time.

I did go to a crocodile farm once but never got close enough to look into their eyes which is just as well.

Bernd Gusko

I met Bernd Gusko in a music store called Viertmann’s in Cologne (or Koeln as they call it) back in 1980.

In those days, I liked to hang out in music store, especially guitar stores.

We started talking and Bernd invited me to his apartment and we became good friends.

Bernd was a school teacher and invited me to perform a small recital for his students which he recorded on his reel-to-reel and gave me a copy.

When my friend from New Zealand visited me that summer, he and his girlfriend invited us for a bike ride along the Rhine and for dinner afterwards.

After I left Germany in 1981, I lost touch with most of the people I knew in Germany including Bernd.

I hadn’t thought about Bernd a long time.

But the other day, a thought occurred to me about something and he came to mind.

That’s the thing about thoughts. They tend to wander around and one thought would lead to another and most of the time they would be totally unrelated.

The thought was about crocodiles. (Why was I thinking about crocodiles? That’s for another post.)

And I recalled a story Bernd had told me and my friend.

He said the German government was concerned about integrating all the Turkish and Italian guest workers in the country.

At the time, the country was swarming with guest workers or Gastarbeiter in German.

To integrate them, the government decided it would organize water polo matches for the Turkish and Italian workers.

And the winners would play a team of crocodiles.

At first, I didn’t get the joke but when I understood it, I remember being a little aghast.

It’s one of those foreign workers jokes that were floating around at the time.

Like the one about the difference between a disaster and a catastrophe. (A disaster is when a ship full of foreign workers sinks and a catastrophe is when they could all swim.)

It’s an interesting anomaly—normal and good people seemingly being able to live with rather dark thoughts.

I mean, just think of the consequences of playing water polo against a team of crocodiles.

But that bike ride along the Rhine is one of those things that one never forgets.

And Bernd was a most gracious host, and I am always grateful to him for being such a good friend when I was in Germany.

Two news stories

There were two stories in the news today—both about young people.

The first involves a student who brought a lawsuit against a school district because he had a problem with the district’s hair policy.

The second is about a new acronym WCNSF which stands for ‘wounded child, no surviving family.’

That’s the world we live in these days.

On one side of the divide, a kid sues his school to demand his right to wear his hair any way he likes.

On the other side, a new acronym for kids.

The first story brings to mind the hair policy in my old high school.

Our principal, this no-nonsense Irishman, would routinely go around and snip off the hair of any student who hadn’t visited the barber lately.

The impromptu haircut would usually be a bit ragged, requiring the students to go to a real professional to have it fixed.

(Actually this is just hearsay, I personally never saw him do this to anyone.)

We, the timid ones, would comply without question, definitely no lawsuit from us. But I remember the minute we were out of school; we started growing our hair out (at least some of us did—the rebellious ones).

But I bear no grudges against this mini despot (and neither do most of my peers). In fact, I’m planning to visit his home village in County Kerry to pay him (belated) homage soon.

I can make a prediction about the hair lawsuit student—he’s not bound for greatness.

When you obsess over trivial things like how you wear your hair, where would you find time to worry about your future, about laying the foundations for a good career?

It’s a case of externals vs. internals again, appearances vs. how you feel inside.

In any case, I am all for boundaries, especially for young people.

The teenage years is a great time—it’s a time for dreams, for exploring your possibilities, and also a time for rebellion, for asserting your independence.

How can you rebel if there’re no boundaries?

The second story tells the story of more human misery, on a scale that few of us can even imagine and comprehend.

The scenes of destruction in Gaza are heartbreaking, as tragic as the scenes unfolding a thousand or so miles away in Ardviika and Mariupol.

Despite the differences in the contexts (and there is a difference—one was totally unprovoked) the results are the same—human misery and WCNSF.

Which brings us back to the contrasts between the two stories.

On one side, children who are encouraged by their adults to look inward and obsess about themselves, and fight the perceived ‘injustices’ they are subject to, such as how they could wear their hair.

On the other side, wounded children with no surviving family.

Two channels

I tend to keep things a long time—I’m still watching my old 19 inch Sony TV which I bought in 2001 for $350 with my tax rebate, courtesy of the 43^rd.

I gave up cable TV a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago.

So I watch the local news on an antenna which feeds into my Zenith digital converter.

On the converter, I’ve programmed a few favorite channels and one of them is channel 16-1 PBS and the other one is channel 24-3 Daystar.

Today, I went from one to the other and the contrast was heart wrenching.

On one channel, news about Ardviika and on the other channel, business as usual—bible thumping preachers peddling their books and merchandise all in the name of their savior, of course.

On one channel, scenes of utter devastation which makes you wonder what kind of evil and depravity could justify such wanton destruction.

And on the other channel, bible thumping holier than thou preacher men and women who openly support the master mind behind the destruction and the untold suffering of innocent men and women and children in the first channel.

When you look at the scenes in the first channel, there’s no question that it is the work of pure evil.

And so the question is, if a person supports and enables evil, does that make that person equally guilty and evil too?

I guess it’s a question only their god can answer, whoever or whatever it may be.

Legal System

During my high school years, my goal was to enter law school and become a lawyer.

That was my only ambition. The eventual goal was to enter politics, something I had always been interested in (as you might have guessed from these posts).

At the time, Victoria University of Wellington was reputed to have the best law department in the country.

So I applied to the program and was accepted.

Law studies in New Zealand at that time was based on a five-year undergraduate course. (I’ve heard that since then, it’s changed more to the American model).

That first week of school, I went to two social events.

The first one was a gathering organized by the Malaysian Singapore Students’ Association and the second was an orientation for new law students.

At the first event, I was asked to play something on my guitar; I have no recollection what I played although it could’ve been Asturias.

The next evening, at the law school orientation, I met a graduate student from Singapore who had been at the MSSA gathering the night before and he said, ‘What’re you doing here?’

I told him I was a law student and he said, ‘You should be a music student.’

As it turned out, Victoria University had a guitar program headed by the great American guitarist Karl Herreshoff.

Long story short, within a week, I changed my major to music.

Actually technically, I remained a law major.

The way it worked, in first year law, you were required to take one law subject called Legal System and the rest of your classes could be anything you wanted to do.

To go on to second year law, you had to pass the required subject.

So I kept Legal System and took all the required first year music classes as my law electives.

The plan was that if I decided to stay in law, I could still go on to second year law (provided I passed Legal System) and if I decided to become a music major, I could also go on to second year music.

Unlike the music courses which were mostly small classes, Legal System lectures were held in a big lecture hall.

I remember the first day, the lecturer (whose name I seem to recall as Mr. McKay*, but all my googling came up empty) told us to look at the person seated next to us and said, ‘One of you is going to fail this class.’

New Zealand was a small country and there was a quota of law students that could graduate every year so the passing rate was arbitrarily capped at 50%.

Besides the lectures, we also had tutorial sessions in small groups, headed by senior law students.

We spent most of the year studying statutory interpretation and at the end of the year, we had to write our own statutes.

We also had a number of written exams throughout the year and a finals.

Despite not having the best attendance (it was a tumultuous year) I passed with a B and could’ve gone on to second year law, but I decided to go for music instead so that was the only law class I took.

There were a few things I learned from the class which have proven invaluable.

First, the concepts of the golden rule and the plain meaning rule as applied to interpreting statutes.

Over the years since, I’ve had to sign a number of contracts and the lessons from the class have been helpful in reading the contracts and understanding how they could be interpreted in a court of law.

My interest in law and politics has also never diminished.

Especially lately with all the ongoing court dramas and the seemingly endless ludicrous arguments and appeals that are in the evening news daily.

It is mind boggling to say the least.

This is the greatest country in the world, probably in all of history. It put men on the moon. Its institutions are filled with Nobel laureates. The level of intellect in this country is second to none.

And yet hearing the justices in the highest court of the land the other day, and their seeming inability to grasp the essence of what they’re dealing with, and their inane political considerations.

It made me wonder, how did such a great country end up with this kangaroo court as the highest court of the land, one that is worthy of a banana republic?

My decision to become a musician was quite a big blow to my parents.

Over the years, my mother never failed to remind me that I had made a big mistake in choosing music. She always said I could’ve become a good lawyer (to which I must say I am in full agreement.)

However, she did relent towards the end.

One day, we were seated on the couch in her home on Merdeka Road 13 when she leaned over and said, ‘You haven’t done too badly. With your fingers tinkling the guitar, you’ve made a good living for yourself.’

I think she was trying to tell me she was proud of me.

She said this in our Fuzhou dialect so that’s a rough translation.

*After some sleuthing and help from Ms Poupard-Gould at Victoria University, I found out that my Legal System lecturer in 1977 was Professor Lindsay McKay.

Explaining the inexplicable

What do you do when you’re faced with an inexplicable scenario?

You make up a hypothetical one to explain it.

For example, how do you explain when someone becomes lovesick and obsessed with another person?

Someone had cast a spell on him/her.

Stories abound in the Far East of the power of spells and witchdoctors who cast them and how they can literally turn a person mad.

Or you can attribute it to some supernatural being with irresistible powers.

In China, women who lead men astray are believed to be foxes who take human form.

Both these scenarios attempt to explain the inexplicable–how could otherwise sane normal people start behaving so out of character?

The West, too, has no lack of explanations to explain the inexplicable.

Take the old vampire stories.

It’s the same scenario, vampires have supernatural and hypnotic powers to lure their victims and turn them into bloodthirsty creatures too.

It’s all metaphorical of course—vampires represent the worst in our human tendencies.

They’re a metaphor for people who, instead of contributing to the common good, only know how to suck the life out of their fellowmen.

The vampire lore tries to explain how some people could become greedy, bloodthirsty, evil monsters–the minute they got bitten, they didn’t have a chance.

I recently heard an old Fukienese saying about people who are beholden to someone else to the extent that they’re almost like slaves to them.

Khiam lu eh chay.

Translated, it means the enslaved person owes a debt to that other person in a past life, and that’s why he/she has to be bonded to them, at least until the debt is paid off.

But inexplicable phenomena is not just a thing of the past, we see many instances of them these days too.

Especially in regard to the phenomena of seemingly normal sane people, people who are the kindest and most compassionate people ever, and who become wrapped up in crazy conspiracy theories and become hate-filled angry people.

And I wonder what caused the change in them.

Could it be that they owe something to their current slave master (a certain Anti Christ perhaps?) in a past life?

Or perhaps they have been seduced and inducted into a secret world of blood sucking creatures and have lost all sense of their humanity?

Or perhaps someone put a spell on them?

Or perhaps none of the above, perhaps it’s just their dark side revealing itself and all that goodness in their prior personality was just a front.

No, I prefer to believe that they’re good people and that any one of those hypotheticals could be true, to explain the inexplicable change in their personalities.

.

Pastor Andy Stanley

Today is Sunday and I started thinking about Pastor Andy Stanley, and I realized something must have happened.

He was a regular on Sundays at 10:30 am CST right after his father’s slot.

But I have not seen him on Daystar in quite some time so I googled.

If I’m reading it correctly, sometime last year, he came out a little strong in support of a certain segment of the population and the Christian elite were not happy.

So I guess the word is cancelled—he’s been stoned (figuratively) by the mob for daring to go against the powers that be.

So I guess in the eyes of this holier-than-thou guardians of the Christian faith, you can assault women, con people of their money, tell over 30,000 lies and they will still exalt you.

But if you were to speak up for a marginalized segment of the population, that’s cause to subject you to a mob lynching.

The hypocrisy is stunning.

It would do well for these modern day Pharisees to look themselves in the mirror and refresh themselves on  JOHN 8:7.

Or Matthew 7:5.

So what did I do?

I wrote a message to Pastor Stanley thanking him for his courage and spiritual leadership.

I am an incurable optimist—I believe truth always wins, light always overcomes darkness, and good always triumphs over evil.

Justice American style

Listening to the SCOTUS line of questioning yesterday, I’m led to one conclusion.

In this great country, if you want to commit crimes with impunity, all you need is a band of thugs behind you.

The threat of bedlam and repercussions is enough to cause even the highest court in the land to declare you innocent of your crime.

(We all know that good lawyers can make an innocent man guilty and a guilty man innocent.)

Back in the day, when this was truly the land of the brave, judges meted out justice without fear or favor.

The law was supreme.

From legendary western outlaws to legendary city hoodlums—all were taken down because of fearless judges.

But it seems, this is no longer the case.

Judges need to look at possible consequences of their decision.

What if they declare the man guilty, would that lead to retaliation? Or worse, more chaos in the street?

So it is true, as the great conman once declared, that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

He knew this to be true, because he knew he could summon his band of thugs anytime and people would be looking for ‘offramps’ (aka excuses) not to charge him.

Because these days, when it comes to justice, it’s not the crime, but the threat of retaliation that matters.

You don’t know what you don’t know

I’ve been watching quite a few youtube videos lately, mostly whatever popped up in the recommendations (and quite a few of them I’ve had to click ‘Don’t recommend channel’).

And today, for some reason, two seemingly unrelated videos stayed in my mind.

One is from a finance person, and the other concerns the economic problems of a country in Asia.

The thing that struck me the most was the quote from the finance person, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’

I’ve written about the video game analogy—the person in level one has no idea what’s in level two.’

And this seems to echo that same premise.

It brings to mind my sister-in-law who, with my brother, inherited my father’s thriving wholesale business and within the space of ten years, ran it to the ground.

I’ve said it before, the only thing worse than an ignorant and dumb person is an ignorant and dumb person who doesn’t know he/she is ignorant and dumb.

(The self aware ignorant and dumb person would at least seek advice and listen to others who are more knowledgeable.)

That was the case with my sister-in-law (we won’t go into the details), it’s also the case with a certain former president (the details are out there), and it seems to be the case with the leader of the aforementioned country in Asia.

This country was a juggernaut, poised to take over as the world’s leading economy and within the space of about ten years, this leader is poised to run it to the ground too.

The word is hubris, or over self confidence, pride, arrogance—whatever you want to call it—and the result is the same.

As the old saying goes, pride comes before a fall.

None of us are immune from it—I admit to being guilty of it too, having made many an error of judgment in the past because of it.

Perhaps that’s why it’s made me so aware of it, and determined not to fall into its trap again.

So what’s the best remedy?

Keep reminding yourself that we don’t know what we don’t know, and as the finance person advises, do due diligence and research.

No deep philosophy

I admit I was being a little facetious in my comments about wu-wei or non-doing in the Tao Te Ching post.

Yes, of course I understand perfectly what the Old Master meant by wu-wei or non-doing.

Non-doing is not about doing nothing; just as effortless is not about exerting no effort.

Non-doing refers to a state of total immersion in something, a state where you become so in sync with a task or activity, it literally performs itself.

As in playing music—you don’t have to think about where the fingers have to go—they’ve developed the muscle memory to go where they need to go automatically.

Or in driving—you don’t have to think about when to hit the clutch or swift the gears—they all occur automatically.

So things get done without you having to think or consciously make it happen.

That’s the concept of wu-wei. It is a simple idea and all of us have attained it in most of the tasks we perform daily.

Many people have tried to turn it into some transcendental state, some deep philosophical concept, worthy of tomes of discourses.

One such—Zen and the Art of Archery, which became a best seller and somewhat of a cult classic.

And of course, all the painstaking attempts to turn the Tao Te Ching into a mystical and spiritual book of wisdom.

But in wu-wei, Lao Tzu was just explaining the workings of nature and its natural progression.

There’s no deep philosophy involved.

If you keep on doing something long enough, you achieve a state of immersion with that thing and it feels like you do not have to expend any effort—the task performs itself.

That’s why the Tao Te Ching is really a manual on achieving virtuosity, as Chad Hansen so brilliantly demonstrated with his landmark translation of the book and his interpretation of Te as virtuosity instead of virtue.