When you break your routine ...

It's really hard to get back to the routine after a long, busy weekend with no stringent schedule. Today was a real Monday, which I had almost forgotten because of the Thanksgiving holidays.

During the last few days, I ate a lot (and still working on left over). Went to see the Rockets play the Bulls (which the Rockets managed to lose) with our younger daughter and some friends. Watched part of the Texans football on TV when they were leading by a big margin only to lose by blowing it at the end (which I found out later. What's new with Houston football?). Hung some Christmas lights and set up the Christmas tree. I even managed to go for a run and ride the bicycle on the weekend (trying to stay fit is hard work. There is truly no free lunch). I also went out with our younger daughter to a fabric store and bought some cloth (she wants to sew a dress for herself). We even watched an old movie on DVD as a family (which rarely happens these days). On Sunday my wife cooked some more food and invited a close family to dinner. All in all, it was a great weekend.

I almost forgot about the drive to work in the wee hours of every morning, the emails that had to do with all business (and no politics or jokes or gossip), the worry about project cost & schedule, the trips to be made to contractors' offices to watch their progress, the outstanding invoices, the late deliveries, etc. All good things do come to an end. I pushed the paddle this morning through the crowded highway to face the reality. It's like you wake up after a sweet dream and find yourself with a backache on a hard bed. But the alternative could be worse. You may find yourself in a foxhole with no bed at all. Hey, you can't have a Thanksgiving weekend every weekend. Then it won't be any special.

So I am busy again greasing the American industrial machine to make a living.

Thanksgiving Day: A personal thought

It's the official Thanksgiving Day today. The conventional story says that the Pilgrims, searching for freedom from England, survived a harsh environment in Massachusetts with help from the Wampanoag Indians. This resulted in a harvest feast in 1621. Indigenous people believe it should be the Day of Mourning for genocide by white supremacist starting with the early invasion by Europeans at the Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock.

Regardless of historical fallacies and the origin of such a celebration, the concept of Thanksgiving now is rather great from a spiritual and philosophical perspective. We should be thankful for many things everyday and not just once a year. If we could be thankful for what we have (and not lament over what we do not have all the time), life would be more bearable and enjoyable. Unfortunately, in a highly material world with constant rat race that we live in, we succumb to greed leading to unhappiness and misery even when we should be extremely grateful and we never pause to do a little soul searching.

Family, friends, health, food, shelter, education, compassion, etc. may not satisfy greed, but are certainly great gifts to be thankful for. Once we learn to be thankful, perhaps we can try to control our anger, hate, lust, greed, etc. Once we gain such control, there can be true peace on earth.

My wife cooked a wonderful Thanksgiving meal today that we shared with a few family friends. I am truly thankful for everything I have been blessed with and I hope I remember this everyday. Yes, I have shortcomings and I do get upset at times. I hope I get the strength to overcome my shortcomings and become a better citizen of this world.

About torture

Can a society allowing torture of a fellow human being call itself a civilized society? Can a government approving torture of a person, no matter who he or she is, call itself better than any other totalitarian regime that does that? In Senator McCain's word "it's not about who they are, it's about who we are". A letter (from more than a dozen retired officers, including generals, admirals and former prisoners of war) said, in part, "The abuse of prisoners hurts America's cause in the war on terror, endangers U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy, and is anathema to the values Americans have held dear for generations."

If our administration, who talks so much about morality, God, and values, is so righteous, why do they need an exemption on torture ban for CIA, why does the White House threatens to veto a proposed torture ban legislation? John Hutson, a former admiral who is now president of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H. cautioned that if the United States fails to get its act together with regard to the humane treatment of detainees, we will "have changed the DNA of what it means to be an American."

Cruising through the mall

My wife and I went to the nearby mall today. Since our daughters left home, we are not frequent visitors to the mall. The mall has not changed much, although there are a few more stores. Christmas decoration is up and it's not even Thanksgiving.

A larger than usual crowd was humming around at the time. "Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle All the Way" was floating around in the air from the stores. At one end parents were lining up to take pictures of their little darlings sitting on the lap of a chubby Santa Claus in a red suit. Teenage boys with low hanging pants and girls baring their navel area were cruising around. There were myriads of fashion statements from utter ugliness to "wow' type. The food court was packed. There was a long line outside a restaurant. American consumerism was alive and well.

We have succumbed to the same thing. We probably bought more than what we had actually gone in for. Most everything in the mall is made in somewhere but USA. We complain about our trade deficit, and child labor and low wages in other countries. They in turn are trying hard to satisfy our insatiable appetite. We talk about poverty in other countries, but we waste more than those poor children will ever have. We complain about gasoline price, but we are not willing to give up our SUVs and Hummers. We supersize everything from onions to soft drink to automobiles to people. Who gives a damn about the rest of the world? It's Christmas time and we sing, "Joy to the world". "What Joy", some may ask when they are getting killed in Iraq, starving in Africa, homeless in Darfur, left blind by Bhopal tragedy, or dying of AIDS. But we are in a mall happily buying stuff.

It reminded me a song; "All the gold in the world can buy no peace of mind in a world that don't believe in nothing anymore".

She came and left in a flash

Our daughter arrived from Tokyo yesterday. My wife picked her up from the airport. We had dinner together. I suppose she got used to Japan. Unknowingly, she said something in Japanese as we were having dinner. She quickly realized. She also brought a few gifts for us and her friends. After dinner she went to the hair dresser with my wife. Once she got back, she was busy packing again for her trip to Newark, NJ in the morning to see her friends from Princeton (before they all left for Thanksgiving). We went to bed soon. In the morning, I dropped her off at the airport on my way to work. Just like that, she was gone again. In any case, it was great to see her. It was like a rare refreshing fall sunny, but cool morning in our otherwise dull, humid days.

Time to get back on track

In 30 some years I believe I have seen a lot. But you may say, "you ain't seen nothing yet". The tales of the Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, and many more before me are inspiring. The Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, Plymouth Rock loudly proclaim the spirit of freedom, compassion, human dignity. "To kill a mocking bird", "Geronimo", "Black like me" make us think of courage, fairness and justice. A great people and its past leaders were diligently working to build a more perfect union by eliminating injustices one by one. But in the last three decades have we gradually drifted off our track and veered off the much-cherished American goal of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for all?

Now, we worry more about the unborn, but would not give a damn about the living dead (in poverty). We do not like the happiness of other people of the same sex living together. So, we try to destroy them, instead of minding our own business and following our own ideals. We spend billions for killing machines, yet we find a 3rd world in our own backyard. We try to shrug it off by generalizing that these are simply bums or criminals. Our CEOs earn obscene amount, while we fret at the idea of raising minimum wage. We are busy building more prisons, putting more people on death row, adding more police force while patting ourselves on our back calling ours a civilized society.

We stomp on individual freedom in the name of security and patriotism. We fret at religious fanaticism of others, but we ourselves blur the line separating the church and the state. We invoke God (because we are the only righteous bunch) in every opportunity we get with a mask of hypocrisy. Our leaders drag the country to wrong wars sending our children to the battlefield. From Vietnam to Iraq, vultures fly above the battlefield. We don't want (justifiably so) others to have nuclear arms, but we have a big stockpile to take out many Hiroshimas.

We want our style of democracy in the rest of the world, but only 16% of our people vote in our own midterm elections (some local government candidates win an election getting only a few hundred votes). Our election process has become a rich people's game. Party politics, and not the people or the country, reign supreme and the ruling party realigns the congressional district boundaries to fit its need. Arrogant conservative talk show hosts pose like "know-it-all" trying to brain wash others and knocking down those who don't agree with them. Conservative extremists and their leaders believe in "my way or highway". "Conservative" has been framed as good and "liberal" as evil. Our teachers and parents had told us that "conservative" meant not willing to change with time. The country has been divided into "right" and "left" or "red" and "blue". We forget that it is supposed to be one nation with liberty and justice for all. We watch helplessly in dismay.

Will the people with reason demand a course correction to get back on track and continue to strive for that perfect union?

Yet another Good Bye

Randle Belyeu (Randy as we knew him) died last Sunday at the age of 63. He bravely fought with cancer for eight years. The beast won at the end. I just got back from his funeral service at Brenham, Texas this evening.

I came to know Randy through my years at Enron (yes, the one you probably heard of). Something clicked. We had something in common. His two daughters were his pride. He loved his family, had a positive attitude, and was hard working. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he did what he had to do (that is going back and forth between his home and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston) and went about his business. He came to work while he was under treatment. Never ever I saw him down or depressed. He retired early and moved to Brenham. Even when he was in pain, he never expressed it, rather regretted that he could not be more social. He would go out to his daughter's gourmet coffee shop and drink coffee with his friends.

Randy is gone now to a place where there is no pain, only eternal peace.

"When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there."

Speaking of cultural differences

Do I shake hand or do I bow? Do I rise when teachers enter the class room? Do I prop my feet up on a desk in another land? Should I extend my left hand or the right hand? Do I hug a lady? Do I embrace a man? Do I call some one by the first name or address the person by an assumed relation? How should a young man address his girl friend's parents raised in a different culture? Should I tip a cab driver? When is tip a bribe?

These are simple questions, yet the answers may not be so simple.

I spent first 25 years of my life growing up in a different culture in a different land. However, I have now spent more than half of my life in an western environment. So, I am at ease with both cultures (my native and my adopted). I am still asked where I am from because of my looks. The same question is perhaps seldom posed to a white or a black person unless their accent reveals something different. People still cannot (or do not make an attempt to) say my name accurately, yet I have not had the same problem with western names. People still worry if they might hurt my feelings (culturally speaking). Sometimes they hurt more by trying too hard to be politically correct.

The fact that we are concerned about our responses to other cultural traits shows that we mean well, that we are sensitive and that we do not want to offend anyone even unknowingly. I think the answer lies in treating all cultures with respect and without prejudice. It also depends on place, exposure (or lack thereof) of either party to different cultures, and attitude about other cultures. The safe response may be "when you are in Rome, do as Romans do". Obviously, this assumes that other than cultural differences, there is no cultural injustice. One must respect the difference, but stand for justice and fairness.

Profiles in courage

A frail old lady, who had displayed an enormous courage back in 1955 by a simple act of defiance of legal injustice in the Deep South, died on October 24, 2005 at the age of 92. As an ultimate show of respect, her dead body laid in rest in the Capitol Rotunda. I do not know if it was done in all sincerity or for political correctness.

But this courageous woman reminded me of another frail man in loin cloth who had stood up against injustice in South Africa. In 1893 this person was thrown out of a first class compartment in a train because of his color although he had a first class ticket. He was later known as Mahatma (a great soul). He was the best gift South Africa ever gave to India. In more recent times Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma showed such courage.

Injustice and human rights violation still continue. Subtle form of slavery (call it by whatever name) still continues in many parts of the world. Most of us are too timid to stand up or too selfish to complicate our personal lives. But it is because of people like these that we enjoy certain amount of fairness and justice.

I would like to conclude in the words (from November 19, 1863) of another frail, tall man. "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work..."

The abandoned refrigerators

I just flew into New Orleans this morning (the airport appeared to be slowly coming back to life) and then went to a little south Louisiana town called Houma by road with some coworkers. So, we really did not see the real devastation of hurricane Katrina. We saw along the way huge piles of debris, fallen trees, and people trying to clear the roadside of such debris and trees, etc. However, on our way back to the airport we noticed at a field (more like a clear farm land) million (so it seemed) refrigerators standing up next to each other. These were sealed. There was a person wearing a mask doing something. To our astonishment, we found out later that these were the refrigerators (with food and all) from Katrina's wrath. The government is apparently trying to dispose these, as these were full of bacteria. No one is allowed to open these for fear of bacteria running loose. So, these were condemned victims of Katrina in a remote camp waiting their final execution.

Oh, what a sight it was!

Lights went out on Halloween night

What a bummer! I drove through pouring rain from work to be home to hand out candies to the little ghosts, and goblins, and angels, and turtles, and ... The traffic was bad, the lights were out in the neighborhood, and the rain was still coming down. There was no doorbell, no "trick or treat". I was disappointed. For once I did not even put on my gear (the native American headdress, face paint,...). I ate something in the dark. In 30 some years I do not recall ever having rain on a Halloween night, not to speak of ghostly darkness. The bowl of candy sat there near the front door waiting and waiting. Finally, lights came on, the jack-o-lanterns came to life, rain subsided and I heard the doorbells. A few shy little angels showed up accompanied by their parents. The Halloween night wasn't totally wasted after all. Now, we shall wait for one whole year.