kimi wei blog

Today I came out of the supermarket and headed towards my car. A couple in their 50s were pushing a cart just ahead of me. I noticed them particularly because they were conversing in fairly loud voices. I was parked right next to the cart return kiosk and as I offloaded my bags the woman headed towards the kiosk and me to return a cart.

It was odd that the woman kept talking to her companion as she walked away from their car – where he was offloading bags too – but she never raised the level of her voice. Then I noticed that the guy, now with his head half into their black SUV, was talking too. Also not loud enough for myself or the woman, who was now almost next to me, to hear. Especially since she continued to talk steadily in a conversational voice all the time that she walked.

I realized suddenly that each of these people was carrying on a conversation, but neither of them was conversing with the other. Although I was observing four people engaged in conversation in the parking lot of Shoprite, only two of those participants were physically present. They both wore earbuds.

The way those two present people interacted made it pretty clear they were a couple with a long history. I know that long-term, frequent contact with another individual’s personal idiosyncrasies can eventually foster frustration, and also that boredom can set into relationships of many years standing. Too much time spent together with not enough distractions to keep attention occupied on external matters can eventually cause contention to sneak into relationships.

Clearly, these people had located the holy grail in terms of relationship saving. Their cellphones permit them to enjoy the benefit of two bodies sharing a physical chore like grocery shopping . . . without the couple needing to engage with each other’s personalities or thoughts while together. I can see where for some couples, this could definitely be a relationship saver.

Although some mainstream newspapers have given this matter a bit of coverage, it remains a little-known fact that the white supremacy movement is alive and well in northern New Jersey.

A Village Voice article describes the experience of an undercover reporter who got himself invited in 2007 to attend a “white power” event that was held in Elmwood Park, New Jersey.

. . .white supremacist groups around the country had called for “patriot” get-togethers over the three-day weekend. The one organized for the New York area included a Saturday barbecue and a Sunday visit to “the incomparable Metropolitan Museum of (White) Art.”

Visiting the preeminent art museum, these patriots believed, would be a terrific way to celebrate white culture.

But first, there was the barbecue, which a Voice reporter was now traveling to after contacting local white supremacists through one of the most active neo-Nazi websites on the Internet, Stormfront.org, which has more than 110,000 members. (About 10,000 are in the Northeast.)

Jamie Kelso, who organized the gathering, told the reporter he, “. . . hopes to convince others that white nationalism is a respectable political program,” adding that, “rising anti-immigrant sentiment has helped his cause.” A man called, Copperhead, introducing himself as Kelso’s right hand man, picked the reporter up at a Saddle Brook motel and drove him to the Elmwood Park meeting location. Jump to full article . . .

The supremacy group apparently has long-established roots in Elmwood Park. After receiving press attention in 1996, the group supposedly stopped meeting at an Elmwood Park hall. Peggy O’Crowley reported on 18 September 1996 in The Record newspaper (reprinted here), “The National Alliance, a right-wing organization that advocates the establishment of a, whites-only society . . . had canceled its meeting after an article Saturday in The Record described how several right-wing groups and controversial speakers had been meeting . . . ” at an Elmwood Park hall.

But another report indicates that the group didn’t actively stop meeting there until 2007.

White supremacist groups had been meeting at a local branch of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics since the 1990s. David Duke stopped there during his 1988 presidential campaign. On September 25, 2007, the locks were changed, reported the secretary treasurer of the JOUAM. At this time, he states, “As soon as we found out, we took action”, referring to the revelation that some members of the Junior Order chapter were white power activists. Numerous boxes were recovered that included tapes and books by the police, were soon forwarded to the FBI.

In March of this year, an Indymedia report tells us, “antifascist group scouts on the lookout for white supremacist gatherings in honor of “International White Pride World Wide day” spotted Erick Weigel, “known for trying to attack antifascists at an anti-immigrant rally in Morristown in 2007,” and followed him

to the Allwood Branch Public Library in Clifton. . . . The location was confirmed when League “chairman” Alex Carmichael was spotted through the meeting room window. Alex is an attorney in Northern New Jersey who has been known to refer to himself as “the next Adolf Hitler.

One People’s Project tells the story of how that reunion was visited by anti-fascist protestors

CLIFTON, NJ Mar. 21—A local library was duped into booking a meeting of the white supremacist League of American Patriots (LEAP), a meeting that was almost immediately routed when anti-racist activists (antifa) in effect forced the attendees to leave.

He offers this tip to white supremacists

Here’s a bit of advice for organizers of future neo-Nazi meetings: public libraries are just that, public. If people who don’t like you or what you stand for want to sit in on your meeting, you can’t stop them unless they break a law or something.

Sir John Sulston, Nobel Laureate, explains a phenomenon which merits thoughtful consideration.

Ownership rights pose a real danger to scientific progress for the public good

The idea of ownership is ubiquitous. Title deeds establish and protect ownership of our houses, while security of property is as important to the proprietors of Tesco and Sainsbury’s as it is to their customers. However, there is a profound problem when it comes to so-called intellectual property (IP) – which requires a strong lead from government, and for which independent advice has never been more urgently required. The David Nutt affair has illustrated very well the importance of objective analysis of complex social issues.

The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to the clinic and marketplace. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it: drugs are “evergreened” when patents are on the verge of running out – companies buy up the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products. Moreover, the prices charged, especially for pharmaceuticals, are often grossly in excess of those required to cover costs and make reasonable profits.

IP rights are beginning to permeate every area of scientific endeavour. Even in universities, science and innovation, which have already been paid for out of the public purse, are privatised and resold to the public via patents acquired by commercial interests. The drive to commercialise science has overtaken not only applied research but also “blue-skies” research, such that even the pure quest for knowledge is subverted by the need for profit.

Jump to full Guardian article.

Use 2 lbs chicken liver, olive oil plus 3 T schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), 2 medium onions chopped roughly and extra 1/2 onion finely minced for after, 3 boiled eggs, 3 scallions and 1/4 large bunch cilantro, plenty of sea salt and pepper and 1/2 t Chinese hot pepper sauce (the grandmother type, with oil and visible seeds) and 1/8 c. dry red wine [a splash].

I used the big pan so the liver could spread out plenty and I did not press liver down to squeeze out juice; I seared it both sides and then reduced flame to a pretty steady lowish-medium.

To start with, I heated my pan with half the schmaltz and plenty olive oil; when it was very hot I added onions and they became translucent almost immediately. I reduced heat to high low and finished cooking them to a 1/2 carmelized state. Almost burned them, because suddenly they were done!

Turn flame to high, add a bit of olive oil and liver right on top of the onions. Sear on both sides and reduce flame back to high low and cook until moisture evaporates, stirring and turning every 3 minutes or so. Outside of liver wants to be roasted-looking, but inside should still be moist. Spread it out and let cool.

Put warm liver into a large bowl, add salt and pepper, and mash it up with the back of a rice spoon. While liver cools – so its heat can cook these ingredients a little – add balance of schmaltz, scallions, cilantro and then onion, one ingredient at a time, stirring to integrate, plus Chinese hot pepper sauce and red wine. Mash of the bits of liver you spot that are still whole. Finally, add roughly chopped boiled eggs one at a time until there are three in there altogether and the mixture tastes nice after they’re stirred in. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

And then eat it!

The US Chamber of Commerce has spent $488 million in the past 11 years on lobby efforts. Now they’re throwing their weight and cash behind trying to block regulation that will cap carbon emissions. Now they want the Environmental Protection Agency to hold hearings to prove

that greenhouse gases pose enough of a danger to public health to justify regulations controlling their emissions under the Clean Air Act.

It’s fortunate that William Kovacs, the chamber’s top environment specialist, isn’t buying into this tactic to stall environmental change so companies can continue to make financial profits at the risk of the world’s health. When he said as much this triggered a series of defections by the chamber’s eco-sensitive members

who already disagreed with the chamber’s stance on greenhouse gas legislation.

Three utilities announced plans to either quit the chamber or resign their seats on its board. Then Nike Inc. resigned its board seat, and Apple Inc. quit the organization, saying it “supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the chamber at odds with us in this effort.”

Read full article

Learned this from a friend

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Wow.

Recently I was thinking about how much stress pensions cause to the social and economic systems in the United States. After looking at this issue for a while I concluded that pensions are a major contributor to social inequality, and they create unreasonable (and maybe unpayable) financial burdens on future generations of employees and citizens. Here’s how:

Promise now, others pay later

When I began talking to people about pensions I learned that they may also be unsustainable: that is, pensions are promised to employees by a generation of company execs and union bosses who aren’t going to be around the day pension payouts start to come due. This is the same sell-the-future-short ruse that politicians employ when they’re able to get public commendation for voting a law into being although they make no provisions to fund the law’s enactment. New Jersey’s Amistad Legislation which became law in 2002 but is still waiting for funding to bring a racially balanced historic perspective to classrooms across the state is a good example of this. The Racism in Higher Education paper sheds some light on this sujbect.

This public manipulation ploy allows for a generation of administrators and politicians to gain the admiration and support of constituents and employees by supporting a benefit they get behind freely (pun intended) – specifically because they never have to think about how they are going to pay for it. They leave this to future counterparts who will get saddled both with the burden of payment and answering to a public indignant for being made to pay for programs they didn’t ask to be created and which aren’t going to be useful to them any time soon.

The inequality

There are people who can expect to live comfortably as pensioneers of major corporations and government job. Other citizens need to hope that their children will be able – and will want to – take care of them better than the government run social services system does (or doesn’t do).

Phil Greenspun shares interesting thoughts on the pension issue

Smart modern companies don’t offer pensions because they’ve have figured out what should have been a simple fact: the only enterprises that should be offering to send people a check every year for the rest of their lives are insurance companies (if they write annuities and end up paying twice as much as planned because of an innovation that extends human life they will save a corresponding amount by not having to pay out life insurance claims) and ones that have a printing press for money (i.e., the federal government).

Cities and states have a tougher time escaping pension commitments and traditional bankruptcy protection may not be available to them. If every household in San Diego owes $6,000 for unfunded pension liabilities, property owners and residents will have to cough it up in the form of higher taxes. If the pension fund does poorly in the stock market, the households will have to pay again.

We the people share a lot of responsibility for bankrupting our own towns and states. We vote for politicians who promise the moon but don’t immediately tax away all of our income and wealth. A politician who promises $2 in benefits and $1 in taxes will win an election over one who promises benefits equal to taxes. The federal government respects voters wishes by running a visible deficit, borrowing or printing money to cover shortfalls. The Federal government can’t truly be bankrupted by its obligations because it can simply print money to pay everyone back.

My current hero is Paulo Coelho. If you want access to a positive and empowering perspective on life that can be easily adopted by anyone breathing, take a look at his website and learn more about what Paulo does and says. Paulo’s a Brazilian guy possessed of a mountain stream of beautiful wisdom and comments, for example

The moment we set off in search of love, it sets off in search of us.

You ask if love wins over anything. The answer is yes if you don’t try to possess the subject of your love.

Yes, I have money and success and friends. But my greatest conquest was to get this by doing what I wanted.

paulocoelho.com
Follow Paulo on Twitter
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On October 28 present this coupon at Blue Moon Mexican Café in Englewood and 20% of your bill will be donated to Advance Housing, Inc. I’m an Advance Housing board member so I totally think you should treat all of your family members and work colleagues to a meal at Blue Moon in Englewood on the 28th!

Valid only in the Englewood location
Good for any food and drink
Anytime from 11:30am-11:00pm on October 29, 2009
Blue Moon Mexican Café
21 E. Palisades Avenue, Englewood, NJ 07631
201 541-0600

Download the donation coupon. Call Nancy Storey 201-498-9140 x 241 with questions or to make a donation directly to Advance Housing, Inc. to support its work in the mental health community.

Advance Housing, Inc. serves the community of mental health consumers by providing permanent, independent housing and supportive services to assist with life issues and recovery.

Background: Starbucks offers Starbucks cardholders two hours of free wifi every day through the AT&T network. A friend has a Starbuck’s card and registered it on the Starbucks site, but she can’t log in.

I checked with an AT&T support rep who said there are a couple of ways to register a Starbucks card on their website and not all of them will get you signed up for the free AT&T wifi service. Next I spoke with Starbucks wifi support. The information they gave me (along with a couple of things I know from experience that they didn’t) should hopefully get my friend connected.

How to register and use Starbucks’ free wifi

1. Purchase a Starbucks card and charge it with $5 or more
2.  From home: Visit Starbucks.com/wifi
   
    At a Starbucks store: Try visiting any url using a browser and you’ll be taken to a landing page. In the right upper corner or your browser window click on the link that says “Sign up for free wifi.”
3. Click on green button “Get Started Now”
   
4. On next page click the orange “Sign Up” button on the bottom of the page
   
5. On next page click radio button “I need a Starbucks account”
   
6. Create your username, password and profile and click orange “Next” button
   
7. After account is created check your email
8. AT&T will send an email to verify your information. It needs to be verified before you login at a store.
9. When you try to use your browser at a store you will automatically be shown a login option.
10. To login, enter your username and password, select “ATT wifi” from the drop-down menu and click the box indicating that you agree with the terms of service. Then click log in (or – go online) and you’ll soon be logged in.

If this doesn’t get you logged in, call Starbucks card support at 800-782-7282 + option 6. Don’t press any key after that. Say the word “representative” and then just wait for a live representative to pick up the call.

The Starbucks representative will check your account to see if it’s set up right. If everything is right, they will check with an AT&T technical representative and assist you to get logged into the system.