What to do about the homeless

Living in Pacific Beach and working in Downtown San Diego has given me a lot of exposure to the underclass that occupies the streets of our cities. While some of them are raving lunatics without the capability to function in society, some are just victims of circumstance. The problem with homelessness in America is the lack of a social support network to protect them. In many cities they are the perfect prey for a lazy police officer who would rather harrass someone who is already separate from society than take any real chances with actual police work. While some homeless do cause crime, the majority just spend each day in a struggle to survive.


The other day I watched a great segment of the fantastic HBO show "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" in which the show followed this soccer team made up solely of homeless men from New York City. On this team there were a few different types of homeless, and all of them were quite tragic. The first one was just a young black man who had been working in a blue collar job at the World Trade Center and lost his job (and by extension, his home due to his lack of funds) on 9/11 when the towers came down. Another was a stereotypical New Yorker working in transit who had been traumatized when a little girl fell in front of his subway car, killing her. He walked away from his job, wife and 2 kids and spent 12 years living on the street and making no attempt to rebuild his shattered life. The other significant character was an aspiring artist (who was way past his prime) with a history of mental illness. Simply because of this opportunity to be a part of a team, two of those three were able to put the pieces of their life back together, and both of them attributed it SOLELY to the fact that they had a team to play on. While these men had an amazing opportunity to play a tournament in Austria, the subway operator was denied this chance and still was able to finally make that move off the streets. He began to forgive himself for the death of that little girl and regained the social abilities that are lost living on the street. If organizing soccer teams of homeless people can really do that much to help them get back on their feet, what else can be done?


What causes homelessness? Well, other than the obvious: greed...because if we were truly committed to giving everyone a fair shake in life, there would be no such thing as homelessness. The only people who'd be living on the streets would be junkies, and they would quickly be placed into rehabilitation programs if Americans were as socially responsible as the Dutch, Swedish or Norsk people. But we (Americans) are very greedy, complaining about taxes being too high when they're only at 25% for most people. Norweigan people pay 3x that amount and have remarkably little evidence of any social suffering. There are no visible homeless, few poor and basically no crime. This is because wealth is distributed more evenly, and that's one of our causes of homelessness, the income disparity. If you're living in San Diego, minimum wage will not afford you much of a place to live; and if you lose that job, you have no chance. It is a lot easier to stay off the streets when the cost of living isn't as high as NYC, SF, LA or SD, but it's still tough when 5% of the people cannot find work.


Where do the homeless come from? Many people think that the homeless are just junkies and alcoholics, but that's not entirely true. While many of them are, even more are just victims of circumstance. Very few of them are actually "homeless by choice", but they do exist. I know one homeless guy in Pacific Beach, Brian, who is one of those. He has a BA from San Diego State in English and is a very intelligent guy (more intellectual than all those frat boys my roommate hangs with) who worked as a physical therapist for the Navy. But one day he found religion and started to question the absurdity of life and the hell we've created for ourselves. So from that day, he stopped cutting his hair and beard and refused to work. It wasn't long before he was on the streets. But he doesn't seem to mind all that much, as he is free from the constant bombardment of rules and orders he had grown accustomed to in the Navy, School and at home growing up. But Brian is a rare case, the majority of homeless come from orphans, dropouts and victims (veterans included) of war.


So what is to be done to solve this problem? It's about as simple as it gets: tax those with homes to help those without. Say that $8,000,000 home in La Jolla that overlooks the ocean is purchased by an executive, he must then put an ADDITIONAL 10% of that purchase price ($800,000) to a fund that is used to help those without homes. After all, it's pretty much impossible to get a job when you have no fixed address, no phone, no clean clothes and no shower. Providing people with homes by using public money to pay off private owners to rent out their vacant places would be beneficial to the economy as well. Think about it. The people who are purchasing homes are already financially solvent, especially in California, and wouldn't be hurt too much by the 10% surcharge on a new home. While the middle class person would have to cut about 50k from their budget to maintain the same purchase cost, that 50k could provide housing for 10+ people for an entire year. Now imagine those people who purchase those 8000 square foot mansions on the water giving 10% of their purchase price to this fund. One person buying a home provides housing for dozens. Now look at it from the side of the property owners. They'd be receiving real money at their rental price from this fund and would profit accordingly. Using these profits to expand would carry a provision that low-income housing must be included in all future plans. If everyone had a home and didn't have to worry about that part of life we'd all be better off. Imagine the art we've missed because of all the starving artists who have quit their passion to take a minimum wage job in order to keep off the streets, imagine how many homeless children may have missed their opportunity to succeed because they happened to be born to a homeless family. Solving this problem will go a long way to solving our other problems. So we can focus our attention inward and fix our social problems...or we can spend $300,000,000,000 on a war in Iraq, the choice is ours.

A National Language Debate

As the nationalistic debate over language rages on, it really upsets me that the people forget which country they're living in. This nation was founded on the principals of immigration to strengthen national resolve. By mixing the diverse population of this world in one nation, only then can we become one people. But somewhere along the line the people lost sight of the goal and became more ethnocentric and nationalistic. A lot of the blame lies in our politicians, who do their best to perpetuate these harmful feelings about race, religion and national origin. I was watching Bill Maher last Friday and he had Pat Buchanan on the show talking about immigration. It's dangerous that I have so much hair right now (the fro is up to 4" above my skull when picked out) because I wanted to pull it all out. Thanks to Rick Santorum (Sanitarium), the people of Pennsylvania are now more focused on immigration and denying rights to homosexuals than they are to issues that really matter in Pennsylvania like eduation and health-care.



Hmm, Buchanan said that they should put a fence on the border (with Mexico, not Canada) because the people of Pennsylvania support it. Maybe it's just me, but Pennsylvania is pretty far from Mexico and wouldn't really be affected too much by a border fence. But the part that made me most upset was how he claimed that Mexicans have no interest in learning the language and should be barred from the country for that reason. So Buchanan may be from a family that has always spoken English, but most other people in this nation had ancestors who came to this country without knowing a word of English. I know that my family came to this country escaping religious persecution and found a nation that allowed them to carve out their niche in society. Look at the Forbes 400 and tell me how many of those people are from a family tree that speaks only English. So they may all speak English, but their grandparents or great-grandparents probably didn't.



The #1 problem with denying new immigrants is that we're denying ourselves the opportunity to further expand our vision of the world around us. Every immigrant brings valuable and unique experiences to us and help diversify our knowledge base. Just as a baseball succeeds by having a range of players (speedster, on base machine, power hitter, defensive captain, pitching ace, lefty reliever) on the roster, a nation succeeds by having a diverse group of people to extract labor from. If everyone in this country was really good at math but not at English, we'd be falling behind in media, entertainment and the knowledge economy. The only way to be successful as a nation is to diversify labor; having a math star, english star and two well rounded players is far better than 4 math stars as their skills become redundant at some point. Not only that, but there's only so much two people with identical intellectual profiles can learn from one another.



So how does this relate to our national language? Well, for anyone to succeed in business, they must know the language of business. As much as Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan care about the number of Spanish speakers around, the only way for those Mexicans that they hate so much to advance is to learn the language. Those who do not will be stuck in menial jobs where language skills are not needed. It's amazing to me how these racist/xenophobic people totally ignore the history of this nation. New York is a prime example of the true nature of immigration. There are different neighborhoods for the current immigrating ethnic groups: Hatian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. 100 years ago, those groups were basically divided in the same way, except the people were mostly of white skin. The Irish had their own neighborhoods and professions, as did Italian, French, German and Eastern European immigrants. Why else would there be a "Little Italy" in basically every American city if they didn't originally try to maintain their own traditions?



What it all boils down to is racism. Anyone who is against immigration and doesn't admit to being a racist is simply in the closet. They see Mexicans (the majority of these anti-immigrant hicks don't distinguish between different "types of Mexicans", grouping Guatemalans and Salvadorenos into the same group) in their country where there were few before and are threatened by the colorization of America. The world is not a majority white, so why would the "melting pot" end up white? When you mix brown, red, yellow, pink and black, you don't get white, you get brown. Language is tough to pick up when you're an uneducated immigrant who has been speaking the same broken Spanish for your 40 years on this planet, but their kids speak both English and Spanish. Maybe it's because these people just don't believe their children are smart enough to compete with bilingual children of immigrants and their admirable work ethic. Or maybe it's because this country has abandoned the fundamental principals on which we were founded. Regardless, the more we fight change, the more it will hurt us in the end. Instead of fighting the natural progression of this nation (and world) into a more diverse and multi-cultural society, we should embrace it. Instead of forcing people to abandon their roots and become "American" by speaking poor English, eating fast food and being lazy, we should encourage people to share their traditions. After all, if we had made all of the Asian immigrants abandon their traditions, we'd have no Thai, Chinese or Japanese restaurants. Maybe the 1950s in Middle America were great for some people, but I simply couldn't live in a world where everyone was the same and had the same beliefs. If you want to live in a world that limits free speech and immigration, move to North Korea.

Was the Terminator Fiction or a Prophetic Prediction?

I was watching Terminator 2 the other day and then I heard the news that the government was outsourcing our national security to a aerospace company based out of the West Coast. Maybe it's just me, but isn't that exactly how Skynet got its start in the film? See, in "The Terminator" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day ) the company Cyberdyne Systems ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdyne_Systems_Corporation ) is given government funding to protect the borders of the nation. Within months they allow a AI computer to make national security and defense decisions, taking human control away from the weapons. It isn't much later when Cyberdyne becomes Skynet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet )and launches its attack on mankind, throwing the world into apocalypse.


Okay, so Boeing is PROBABLY not going to launch the downfall of mankind by releasing self-aware computers on the world, but it's a disturbing sign to see privatization of security. Not only that, but the idea of a "virtual fence" on the border also frightens me because of the possible disasters it opens us up to. It may seem like paranoid fantasies, but has anyone ever used a computer with Windows on it? There are daily glitches in the system, hiccups and other issues that make the unreliability of computers obvious. If we cannot manufacture a care alarm that doesn't know the difference between a break-in and a Harley riding down the street, how can we make a sensor that can distinguish a Mexican Immigrant from a wild animal?


I'm not sure what worries me more, the privatization of national security or the employment of a "virtual fence" with Mexico. I am obviously not a supporter of any kind of fence between our nation, but a "virtual fence" could potentially cause a lot of problems. First, there is really no need for a fence, it is a waste of our resources to even be debating it. Second, it will become a safety net that we'll rely on for security, becoming complacent in protecting our borders. And Third, it will most surely fail to protect us from the actual threats we face.


The way security measures work is that they impact the law-abiding citizens more than they do the ones the security measures were designed to disrupt. Not only that, but the security measures act in response to threats instead of anticipating them. Hijackers take over planes with knives, so AFTER it happens they make them illegal. It's not all that useful to put water on a fire after it has burned down the house, there ain't nothing left to burn. Look at the border crossing in San Ysidro (San Diego) and "La Linea" that stretches for 90-120 minutes when coming back to the US from Mexico. While they catch plenty of minor criminals, the major ones just ignore that border crossing. The Arellano-Felix cartel ignored the border and just built tunnels under it or fly planes over. Goes to show you how useless security measures really are.


Like when stealing somebody's radio out of their car, you don't go through the lock, you break the window. Well, when sneaking across the border, you will just exploit the weaknesses in the same way. Just as a window can't stop a determined thief from stealing your radio, a virtual fence will do nothing to stop the professional armies and other undesirables that are the real threats to our security. So instead of giving billions to an aerospace company to protect our border, why not just concentrate on security within our cities. Because it's only a matter of time before a young Muslim (or Christian, Jew or Hare Krishna) decides that he's had enough of American imperialism and hegemony and launches a chemical attack on Yankee Stadium. Why spend money to help train our enemies?

When arguing about the present, don't forget the past

Pope Benedict recently got in trouble for a quote about how Islam was spread by the sword while speaking about the connection between religion and violence. Well, Benedict was right in drawing the comparison to the past, especially because religion and violence go hand-in-hand. I normally do not agree with the Pope, but anyone who denies the fact that Islam was born in violence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_islam ) is either delusional, ignorant or just plain stupid. Muhammad began his path towards a new religion in the standard way: he is by himself and has a "vision" and hears the word of god...sound familiar? How come nobody else has ever heard god speak to these prophets? It's all hearsay, and we're led to believe that the word of one man is equivalent to the word of god.


Islam is certainly not the only religion responsible for violence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres#Pogroms_and_religious_massacres ) but it's definitely in the forefront now because of the current global situation. If Islamic people want to claim that it's a peaceful religion, they have to admit to the fact that the only reason why Islam even exists is because it took a path of conversion through conquering. Wonder what happened to Spain, Byzantium/Constantinople and Jerusalem during the dark/middle ages? Hmm, maybe it was the aggressive policy of convert or die in the latter years of Islams emergence. If it wasn't an oppressive religion, people would be free to express themselves and live freely in Islamic nations today...they cannot. If it was a peaceful religion, how do they explain the countless wars and conquering of regions?


However, Islam is not the only violent religion, so is Christianity, Hinduism and even Buddhism. Yes, there have been numerous violent conflicts between Buddhists and other religions such as Sufis, Hindus and Muslims. So is it really about religion and the teachings of the prophets? NO!!! If it was, we'd be living in a world free from all the ills of society. It's more about the grouping of people in order to further an ideology and to subjugate the masses. It's the strong few oppressing the weak masses because people are sheep. On the other side, religion is about being accepted into a group. For some reason, most people don't want to stand out, they want to blend in and religion is perfect for that. Unfortunately, violence is a key component of human nature, growing with each generation due to the natural selection of war.


What amazes me most is how people have stood by religion despite the fact that it has been behind nearly every human-based tragedy and massacre in history. People have used it as a tool to divide and conquer instead of a tool to unite people in peace. Christianity is probably worse than Islam in terms of oppression and historical evil. If anyone denies that Christianity has been used for evil purposes, take a look at the Holocaust, The Inquisition, the massacre of the Hugenots, the forced conversion of natives in the New World, and pretty much constant oppression of non-Christians throughout most of Christian history. Jesus and Muhammad would be spinning in their graves if they saw what their philosophies have been corrupted into.


Religion usually arises from a prophet after he's dead thanks to some great salespeople. The 12 Apostles were one of the world's first sales team, spreading a doctrine from dozens of people to millions. Christians were persecuted in their origins, but they rose to power and took over in the persecution of minorities. Mohammed's followers were born from a war between Mecca and Medina, even Jews found their religion through conflict. So while we cling to these ancient doctrines, we're ignoring the fact that a religion from 5000 years ago really has little relevance today. So will new ones emerge? I'm thinking that Carlinism and Maherism may be candidates, but Oprahism is more likely to happen. But if Carlin's philosophy does turn into religion, it'll be a complete perversion of his own philospohy, and that's why religion doesn't work.

On Harassment in the Workplace

So my office made us take this seminar on harassment (sexual and otherwise) this week and it brought a whole lot of thoughts to my mind. To me, the simple fact that companies are required to give harassment training is bad enough, as any case of ACTUAL harassment should be obvious and easily avoidable. It's about common sense, if you think one of your coworkers is attractive, you're not just going to grab her ass, are you? Those days are (sadly) gone...men know this, and those who don't are simply retarded. But this nation did not stop at the cases where it is clear-cut harassment, it's gone way beyond and turned some pretty standard behavior into "harassment". It's one thing when people are setting out to harass, like a Lawyer who requires his paralegals to be orally proficient (and not with her speaking skills...) to keep their job or the boss who institutes a mini-skirt only policy, but not when people are just being people.


I check women out subconsciously, it's part of my nature as a heterosexual man. I am not harassing a woman by checking out the cleavage she's showing off with that low-cut top or those legs exposed by the short skirt, I'm admiring what she's displayed. If she really wanted to be free from objectification, she'd wear a burka and not her cutest outfit. It's the same for me, I am not a stranger to harassment from both women and men. I was asked on a date by a VP at my company once, given shoulder and neck massages (on the sales floor) by a manager at Guess? when I was a salesperson there, and have been cat-called by men and women a number of times, but it's a COMPLIMENT. Even though I am unconfortable when being hit on by gay guys, it's a compliment because they're telling me that I'm someone that they would want to have in their life. How is that an insult?


If Clarence Thomas was Denzell Washington, Anita Hill would have been on her hands and knees for him. It's as simple as that. I actually think that the person who files suit for harassment is also guilty of something: discrimination. If you're going to go as far as claiming that a compliment is harassment, I'd think that getting someone in trouble because they have an uncontrollable attraction is also a crime. I cannot control who I am attracted to and whom I am not. I met this girl when I first moved out to San Diego with whom I had great rapport, but I was simply not physically attracted to her like she was to me. It was hard for me because I wanted to be friends, but she wanted a more physical relationship, so I gave it a shot and it failed miserably and caused the friendship to break down. I then met this gorgeous wide-eyed Mexican/Filipina model who I just couldn't resist even though she was bi-polar and possessive. I didn't want to be attracted to her but I was, and it almost got me into a very bad situation.


Simply put, if harassment is in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it just heresay? A woman can say she is offended by some cartoon or picture her coworker puts in his cubicle, but isn't she just offended by him? It wouldn't matter what he did because she would always be uncomfortable around him because they have a natural personality conflict. The nature of harassment laws is to make only the most conservative people safe from persecution. I compliment women on their outfits or hair when I notice them because I know how much women like that and a compliment can't ever be a bad thing, right? I am not attracted to the middle-aged, overweight woman in my office who constantly calls me "sweety", "honey" and "babe", but I'm certainly not being harassed. Some people are flirty and outgoing by nature, some people have a stick up their ass, and I'd much rather be around people who are friendly to one another than those who say nothing for fear of offending.


I just can't see how this country actually supports laws like these. I totally understand the habitual harassment laws, like for those who are different and get picked on for that difference (whether it's sexual orientation, a big one for guys, or race, etc.) because it is deliberately offensive. If harrassment is extended to things like playboy cartoons or two guys talking about how hot the new girl is while an uglier one is eavesdropping, we're walking a thin line. You're not offended because it's offensive, you're offended because you're overly sensitive and probably have a reason for being that way...GET OVER IT. If you were the fat girl in high school, who cares? I was made fun of for being fat (in middle school and at Tennis and Baseball camps), for being a white guy with a fro, even for being an athlete at a highly academic prep school. So what if someone brings up some old scars, the point of life is to learn from the past and to grow stronger because of it. Unless someone is actually trying to offend, there is nothing that should be taken for an offense. After all, Chris Rock is a multi-millionaire for doing comedy that would probably get me killed if I did it at the Apollo theater, and that's not right. Didn't anyone ever tell these people "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"?

The Future of American Students

The Future of American Academics

I know it's been a while since I've written one of these, been really busy at work lately.

Even though I was planning on writing about 9/11, I decided to go the less cliche route and write about something else: Education and the future of the American child. I saw a story on the news today and it struck me because it's something that's been happening for a while. We're quickly falling behind the rest of the world in mathematics and it's going to really hurt us as the world moves more towards global technology. The average 4th grader in the US places just behind the Asian nations and the European socialists, but ahead of the Russian republics. However, once that child is in 8th grade, they have fallen behind Russian, Latvian and even Slovakian students. I've been to Slovakia (it's a dump), and if they're able to have better math classes than us, there's something seriously wrong with the system. The problem is systematic throughout the US and it's getting worse every day. The danger is that we'll continue to lose ground to the vast populations of India and China and that they'll take over the international techonology markets. After all, if they're better at math, harder working and have 3 times the population, then they shouldn't have any problem beating us to any new technology.


Technology is not about today, it's about tomorrow. Whatever is in public use has gone obsolete already in the labs, and the more we fall behind in math and science, the more it will affect our ability to keep up with technology. It's not a coincedence that Japan and South Korea have exploded economically as they've become technology meccas. But now the danger is not in losing ground to those already prosperous technology hubs, but to the emerging ones in India, China, even Eastern Europe. People think that Americans are so much richer than everyone else and that our lead on the rest of the world is insurmountable, but that's simply false.


So as we're further abandoning the principals of math and science and focusing more on entertaining the kids, we're pretty much digging our own grave. Sure Intel has thousands of employees in Silicon Valley who are highly intelligent and experienced, but so does Mumbai, and their cost of labor is far cheaper. We've seen many industries that were the backbone of this nation sent away as we've moved onto newer and better things, but what happens when the next innovation comes from Mumbai and not San Jose?


Notice how the campuses at any school that has admissions based solely on numbers are much more Asian/International than ever before? California is not 50% asian, but you'd think that if you went to ANY decent UC campus. Why is that? Because their culture puts more stock into hard work, dedication and fundamentals. While our public schools are teaching kids that math isn't about the answer and all about the process, the kids completely miss their chance to develop computational skills. They do projects now instead of assignments. Busy work is useless, but what about actually challenging kids? If a kid cannot get the concept of 2x3=6 by 2nd grade, they surely shouldn't be allowed to move on, right? It's the same for English, hell, I have coworkers who shouldn't have been allowed to graduate the 8th grade because they still write things like "Your right" when they really mean "You're right"...it's a totally different sentence!!!!!


So what would I do to fix this problem? Well, first of all, I think that one of the main reasons why I am so good at math is that I was being secretly taught how to convery pretty complex fractions into decimals by going to baseball games and being quizzed on batting averages and ERAs. By the time I was 8 I could calculate pretty much anyone's batting average to within .005. I think that the dropoff of baseball from the national obsession has caused a lot of these problems. Baseball is a game of statistics and numbers and it has always been a game that intellectuals love to follow. But this country has forgotten its roots and moved onto Nascar and the NFL. Nascar serves no purpose, you learn nothing from watching a race on TV other than which detergent to buy or what kind of coffee to drink. Football has a lot of strategy, but it's more about watching guys hit each other and seeing freakish athletes run and dance. The stats mean very little, and that means that most of the people watching are spending 3 (usually 9 hours on Sundays for those typical beer-gutted American men) hours sitting on their ass watching others exercise while they gorge on beer and pretzels. Nobody sits there and tries to calculate how many passes Alex Smith needs to complete to bring his % up to 60 on the season, they just watch the game and use it as an excuse to drink at 10 in the morning. The main stat in football that is comparable from year to year is the QB rating stat, and fitting for this argument, it has to be done by computer because it's such a complicated stat. Baseball is a pure game that has numbers that matter in every game and it makes for a more mentally active viewing. So my proposal to improve our math is not to make schools better, that's a necessity anyways, but to bring baseball back to its place as the #1 and only sport that matters in America. Because I don't want to live in a world where little leaguers can't figure out their own batting averages, and we're moving in that direction very quickly.