Happy Memorial Day

When I ran for Congress in 2010, I took an oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. This was an absolute pledge, there was no provision for personal privilege or protecting life and limb. Being Buddhist and Samurai, this oath struck home. Yes: my life is expendable, the Constitution is not.

It was my honor and privilege to contact several vets, who congratulated my service to my country. No, they are the heroes: the odds of a NATO slug being imbedded between my eyes are virtually nil, not so of the vets I talked to. I am proud that my dad fought in the Korean War, and my uncle received a Purple Heart in Vietnam.

Yes, technically speaking, I have served my country, but somehow I feel that my contribution is pale and inadequate.

Happy Memorial Day.  

Big Macs Are NOT Making Our Children Fat

I forthwith rain upon your “Let's Move!” parade. Excuse me, but a child's burger meal with a plastic Ninja-Turtle toy is not the cause of morbid obesity or diabetes in our children.

Exhibit A: THE BIG MAC

First, I will require you to download the complete nutrition facts from the Mcdonalds website:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/nutrition_choices.html

click on the 'Nutrition Info' to download a PDF that lists all of their food.

Exhibit B: USDA “Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs”

Click on http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/legislation/USDAFoods.pdf to get the official USDA PDF nutrition document.

Your Homework Assignment

Compare the USDA requirements for fat, sodium, protein, ad nauseum with the nutrition facts from your fav and mine, the Big Mac. You will see that the latter conforms to the former. Yet, Mayor McCheese does not measure up.

Why?

The same reason that Jamie Oliver's whole-wheat, Thai, sesame, noodle-carrot salad fails the test: not enough vegetable. A child's lunch of turkey and cheese on whole wheat bread, a bag of potato chips, banana, and apple juice is rejected as unsuitable, to be replaced by the health-food-Nazis by deep-fried chicken nuggets and huge pile of french fries.

Why?

According to USDA regs that you downloaded and studied, french fries, a fattening starch made from potatoes, count as a healthy vegetable (a Big Mac is 550 calories, add a med french fry, and it rockets up to 900 calories). Notate bene: pizza also counts as a healthy vegetable: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/28/health/la-he-school-lunch-nutrition-20111128

You see, the requirement is for a full cup (¾ to 1) of vegetable, but food processors have distorted this to include pizza and french fries, because there is big profit to be made, but are no more healthy than ordinary junk food. Surely this is a case of crony capitalism. And, no, using sweet potatoes in place of russet potatoes does not make the fries any healthier.

Waddup?

In a nutshell, these are some of the USDA requirements for lunch:

• reduced sodium and trans-fat
• whole grains
• colored veggies and legumes
• non-fat milk vs. whole milk

Certainly, these are excellent nutritional rules for the hyper-tensioned, beer-bellied, overweight, cardio-vascular-impaired old fogeys who pass these regs. However, these are not suitable for children growing an inch or two per year who need hi-density, good quality sources of protein and fat, qua: tuna fish sandwiches, cold chicken, cold cuts, cheese, whole milk, and peanut butter. Kids will simply toss these “healthy veggies” and not eat them (ask any parent who has tried to feed growing teens who will eat almost anything remotely edible).

I Like Pink Slime

Ground beef (hamburger, meatloaf, tacos) is the single most dangerous thing we can feed to our children. You see, a singe patty is an amalgam of literally hundreds of cows. If any one of them is diseased, the whole batch is contaminated and anyone eating even a small portion might become sick and perhaps even die. This is because commercial chopped-up cow is not tested or treated. Pink slime is different: every portion is chemically treated to eliminate all potential disease and sickness. Better, pink slime is made from virtually fat-free meat trimmings. Given a choice, I would prefer to eat pink slime. Perhaps less taste, but virtually fat free, pathogen-free, and way cheap. Who in their right mind would deny such a valuable and affordable source of nutrition to our children? Hmmm? Because Jamie Oliver publicized it in a TV show?

OK, Smarty-Pants, So Why Are the Children Getting Fat?

I do not contest the observation that our kids are becoming very, very fat to the point of endangering their health. But why? On my bus ride to and from work, depending on which bus I take, I pass by a convenience store. At both 8am and 3pm, there is a steady procession of teenagers armed with sodas, cookies, chips, and assorted colored edibles of unknown origin. Somehow, I doubt that our teens are getting fat because they are being serving pizza slices for lunch made from white flour rather than from whole grain.

The Solution

If a major ag company or food processor meets the USDA requirements, they are rewarded with government contracts worth $billions; that is why these national school lunch standards exist, not because it makes our children healthier. Just take the whole USDA nutrition requirements and chuck it into the trash – we simply do not need them. I am sure that the lunch lady and district nutritionists are fully capable of feeding healthy lunches to our children that they will enjoy. The 'Feds' are not being helpful.

Tibet – a Big Chinese Mistake?

I was listening to an interview with a representative of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. He made a good point, and I wish to echo: it would benefit The Peoples' Republic of China (PRC) to embrace rather than pummel Tibet.

OUR STORY SO FAR

In 1950, the PLA (People's Liberation Army) invaded Tibet (Battle of Chamdo) and absorbed it into the PRC. Ever since, the PRC has attempted to homogenize Tibet into obedience. They have failed: Tibetan culture and nationalism thrives; worse, the Chinese Communist Party has transformed the leader of Tibetan Buddhism into a global celebrity.

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE

The PRC has done everything they can to suppress Tibetan culture: outlawing the language, prohibiting the flag, preventing traditional cultural celebrations, destroying historic buildings, arresting people wearing traditional garb, and so forth. They are doing everything they can to erase all traces of Tibetan culture and identity, much like the ancient Roman Senate declaration of damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) or Thutmose III trying to remove all evidence of Queen Hatshepsut by destroying her cartouches, statues, and images.

Tibetans are being forcibly relocated to other parts of the PRC, and people from the Han Chinese race are being moved into Tibet. In some cities in Tibet, it is impossible to find a native Tibetan.

They have failed: Tibetan culture is flourishing, not just in Tibet and the PRC, but they have also forced the culture to explode internationally (for that, I am grateful).

TIBET CAN BE A VALUABLE ASSET

Tibetans have demonstrated intelligence, courageousness, and tenacity in their battle against the PRC. Tibetan Buddhism is very powerful, and its adherents loyal to the point of death. If harvested, these would strengthen the Chinese Communist Party, and reinforce their grip on the PRC and the Han Chinese race, no? When will they realize that it would be more profitable to water, fertilize, and claim Tibet and her religion and culture as one of their very own, than to beat it into the ground with a baseball bat?

I realize that there are historic reasons for this: Mao's distrust of religious people, xenophobia, use as a pawn in their effort to intimidate India, view that Tibet was originally autonomous but still belongs to China, quashing irredentism, etc. The PRC should either embrace and support her neighbor, allow it to become autonomous once again, or set if free: military invasion and cultural destruction is not the correct choice.

Eureka! Oil and Gas! We can toss solar, wind, ethanol, biofuels, renewables, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric...

Goldman Sachs has predicted that by 2017, we will be the world's biggest producer of oil on the planet, surpassing even Saudi Arabia. OK, you tree-huggers: put that in your pipe and smoke it! We, that is the United States of America, are sitting atop the most humongous pile of black gold the world has ever seen:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8367

OBAMA HATES FOSSIL FUELS

Well, this only happens if the Federal Government will permit this to happen. It is clear that our canine-cook-in-chief will do everything in his Oval Office power to reduce and stop it in the air, on the ground, and in our backyard. Veto the infamous XL pipeline, prevent oil exploration and production on Federal lands via the EPA, and suppress fracking. Heck, we still cannot drill off the Santa Barbara Coast or ANWR.

LET THE GOLD FLOW

If we include Canadian tar-sands and Gulf-deep-water-drilling, we will ship out oceans of Texas Tea, and import mountains of gold. This is a good thing, yes?

who is more blind: Chinese dissident Chen or Obama?

Our story so far:

Chen Guangcheng is a blind lawyer, and civil-rights-rights-activist-thorn-in-the-side whom the Chinese Communist Party hates viscerally. He finished a long prison sentence and was under house arrest in Dongshigu Village. One fine day, he enters the American Embassy in Peking, 370 miles away.

Wait a second, he is blind: is there an underground railroad like the Civil War? How did he escape the ring of evil Chinese constables surrounding his residence? Did an embassy employee drive him there? Did he ask for asylum? Why did not Hillary and/or Barack grant it? Why was he whisked away to a 'hospital' under Party control (read: mental asylum where he will surely be brain)?

My initial reaction was to accuse our faithful leader of again making obeisance to a foreign leader, i.e. this time bowing to his evil Chinese Communist Bankers.

However, it may be much worse (or just plain stupidity coming from the Oval Office). I herewith speculate. Surely the authorities would prefer to have Chen be granted asylum, leaving his wife and 6 year old daughter behind. He cannot catalyze freedom and liberty in evil Communist China by sitting in an apartment in Venice Beach; better, he is still under Central Party control, since they have his family under arrest. Surely Chen realized this, so why would he ask for asylum? Did he also wish to have his family accompany him? Surely everyone understood that evil Chinese Communist promises of keeping him safe and not killing him was written in sand? That a 'hospital' is tantamount to permitting torture or death? Why did Chen, putting himself at great risk, agree to be turned back over to the authorities and walk out of the American Embassy to an even worse fate than before the whole affair began? Or perhaps the explanation is more simple, and the Obama administration simply fumbled the ball? Are they that naive? Let me be paranoid for a moment: Chen shows up at the embassy, and is an unwelcomed guest who will spoil the party, so State Department employees refuse asylum and return Chen back over to the evil Chinese Communist authorities, hoping to sweep the whole inconvenient affair under the rug, in order to clear the decks for the upcoming diplomatic whoop-te-doo. 

Then, in the past few hours, we discover that Chen makes a cell phone call from his 'hospital room' that he wants to leave evil Communist China in Hillary Clinton's Secretary-of-State-Jumbo-Boeing-Jetliner. We then find out that his child was deprived of food, his wife was tied to a chair and tortured, and that Chen also fears for the safety of his brother, nephew, and mother. Did the American Embassy plot the escape of Chen, only to discover that their carefully laid out plans had not been thoroughly thought through?

Who knows? Stay tuned, folks; this is just starting to get good.