Why I voted for Barack Obama

Any questions?

Exponential Cynicism

I can feel my cynic nature exploding by leaps and bounds.

I feel like an outsider looking in at the society around me. Im not even really complaining as much as I just dont feel a part of it.

Even stranger is that i dont even long to be a part of it. Im not really angry at anything, just i have disbelief in how oblivious people really are to what is happening. And dismayed at how hard it has become to watch television.

Do most americans know or even care that a toy factory in China just closed this past week? Do americans care to know what it means? It means America is about to get more expensive. It means people will have to start saving again. Stop bragging about how much they make, what car they have and where they live.

I despise materialism. I understand wanting quality butter to make a nice cake. I understand having well made clothes and a sturdy car. But why does it matter when A manufactuer takes said item made in china and sews a symbol on it. What makes that shirt worth 100 dollars? Why do people care about who makes the shirt? Is it true that only a few people in the world know how to make a decent shirt?

This world has taken external items and placed value on them. Skin color, height, shoes, eye shape, eye color, sock brand, car brand, house size, all things that are of no consequence, and has attached value (or lack of value) to them all.

I just cant believe how most people think about clothes, tv shows, movies, cars, and unimportant crap. People that watch MTV and "Dance Idol" are choosing presidents and representatives. Most people cant even name the senators from their state(Saxby Chambliss lost my vote to the libertarian party on voting for the bailout). How can my one vote even matter when the world is full of drones who consume fastfood, polo shirts (I have a couple, shame on me right? but i only payed 25 bucks per for mine), lexus cars, crap movies, and a presidential race that only gives lip service to real issues?

Where is the true substance in our western culture? Id say its in the happy families that manage to survive high taxes, high health care, a bad housing market, and even their own marriages; but as we can see right now, real families are under financial attack. When the family fails in a society, what is left? You can not marry into happieness. You cant buy fullness of life from a store.

Is life really about getting a lot of money and getting a really pretty wife (by TV standards)? Is it about having a lot of tsuedo-friends that are only around for the (preceived) good times in life? Is it about being able to brag about what you have and what you can by? Is it about a religion that makes you feel better about spending your life chasing money and trying to get more people to believe what you do?

Man, that is so boring. Where is the real part of life? People calling or writing letters? Seeing a kid smile. Helping someone that no one things is worth helping. Doing something for a reason other than money? Giving ones time to something other than making money. Doing something nice for a stranger. Conforting prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, and lack of human respect when they all happen, not just turning a blind eye to it all.

America is about money and money only. And that is what globalization is trying to teach the world. Forget about your culture and what substance it has, buy a happy meal and you will be happy. Buy starbucks and you will be cool. Buy nikes and you can be like jordan. Does america not have anything else to export besides shallowness and greed?

And from all of this comes the current POTUS and his financial advisors suggesting a world currency to solve the international monetary crisis.

Greed is not good. It is not right. Imagine a society where you pay to breathe. Do you think people thought we would pay for water 200 years ago? Do you think 50 year ago people thought they would go bankrupt because of medical bills? Do you think 10 year ago people thought Enron and Worldcom would go from being in the Dow Jones going bankrupt?

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is spiritual, mental, and emotional death.

I have watched Hip Hop all but self destruct. And it all happened out of greed. R and B is now on its death bed. And i love Usher, Chris Brown, and Neyo, but that is more pop music than the R and B of the 60s and 70s. America has taken black music and turned it into a commodity to be bought and sold. And that commodity has in turn become blackness. You have 20 dollars, you can buy 50 cents new rap album and experience "blackness". You can say that you are not prejudiced because you have Chris Brown and R Kelly in your playlist on your ipod.

As an educated black man, how can i not be cynical?

A verdict on American Culture?

Normally I dont spend alot of time talking about american pop culture, but here we go again. Madonna is breaking up with someone again?

America has created this woman that is impossible to please, all for living in the moment and yet, what can she offer a man? Sex is all she has to give really. She has money, but real men arent bought. She cant have kids at her age. She is not home, and when she is working, she is dancing on stages across the world half naked.

That is what older asian, african and european societies get right. A woman doesnt have to give up on having a career, but i cant imagine the joy of raising a family of productive children. My mother can, and that is something madonna will never understand. She can try to remain a sexy performer into her 60s, but she can never have a true nuclear family.

So which is it that american women want? Madonna has taught them to be "Material Girls". I dont want a material girl. What man does? How can a man love something that he can buy? Men dont love their cars, they love what society thinks about them owning that car, or how they feel when they drive that car.

Men dont love their houses, they love how they and other people feel about them living in that house. No man i know loves living in a three story house along or with a wife that they hate.

Madonna is such a clear example of the misses of American culture. Be free, do what you want, be selfish, be materialistic and be single at 40.

Enjoy your money madonna, that may be all you have when you leave this earth.

Im not a finance genius...

...but why ever ever ever ever would citibank or Aig or whichever bank need free money from me.

Wow. We Generation Xers have seen america change so much. Its like an old girlfriend you meet 15 years later and cant recognize.

There is this throwing around of money like its no big deal to borrow 250 billion tax payer dollars and give to super rich banks.

Since when did the government start buying stocks anyways. I thought governments sold bonds.

Its starting to look like the rich are closing the door on the chance to be rich. Either you are rich already or you should be preparing to be poor.

Not exactly that "American Dream" that we were being sold now is it.

The best day of my life...

Since i have never had kids and never gotten married or even close to it, i can only imagine the joy of such days. So when i say the best day of my life, it isnt relative because i dont have a "next to" day to compare it with.

Sunday morning was a good day.

I love practice. We only had 5 kids come (the starters), but thats enough for me. We went over how to transition from the running game into the motion offense. We also practiced how to play good 2/3 zone defense and transition defense.

The kids make fun of may japanese, but i like it. Its a way of being taught how to speak correctly. And its good fun. The one kid, Kojima, skinny kid whose game and jump shot remind me what reggie miller must have looked like at 12. He picks on my japanese. So i pick on him back by calling him つまようじ、or toothpick. another kid, Inoue, calls me Mega Mac because of my stomach and the conclusion that it got that way by eating alot of McDonalds. As my point guard and the closest one to resembling my thinking on the basketball court, its hard to get on him so much. Besides, he has the best decision making on the team.

Then there is kotsuji. You can tell he is a youngest child. He demands attention. All the talent in the world, but emotionally he is soft. I can see how important having a father is for a young boy. In japan it is rare, but i can see how that has destoryed so many black families.

Anyways, 2 of the retired 9th graders came to practice to help. As coach, i have an open door policy to any player that i have ever coached. If you have time to come to practice, you are free to play, shoot, even teach kids, i have zero problems with it. None at all. So we practiced eating up their zone, 3 on 5.

It was so much fun.

I made a couple of plays where my kids just looked at what i did and were simply amazed. On one play, i ball fakes to get the front defending guard to shift outside so i could get into the lane. This led to a bang bang sequence of 3 quick passes and an easy layup.

I made the run for 1) not calling out who had the ball, 2) allowing a cutter to cross the lane without contact. 3) allowing an offensive rebound.

There was a lot of running on sunday.

But from that, they can learn. How to hide what you see with your eyes. How to move without the basketball. How to push the ball. How to think about defense.

Maybe the best day of my life to date had something to do with waking up next to a particular past girlfriend or with my family as a kid, but sunday was, just a whole lot of fun.

At least the first part, anyways.

Higher Expectations.

Let me go through the last, oh 4 months of my involvement with japanese women.

about 3 and 1/2 months ago, my girlfriend of the past of some 4 years, who i saw whenever possible when she came back to japan from overseas, greatly disappointed me. She calls me one day after not calling for a week. I ask her why, she says that she is "bored". I tell her never to call me after not talking for a week then giving that as an answer. In the following days I then get into a more serious conversation in the following days. Do you see a future for us. It turns into im good enough to fuck for my english but not good enough to meet the parents. After 5 years. So i basically for the first time semi-put my foot down and tell her if she only calls me because she is bored, dont call me.

She hasnt called me in two months (and she is in japan where she can call me for free).

I dont know how you can spend so long with someone and still not know them. I though she had a heart, but she is more interested in how she looks, how many friends she has, having fun, and listening to new music videos. I though there was more there, but after accomidating her stay in fukuoka for a week, i get this. A shallow, empty, vain, superficial girl who longs for a guy that had sex so rough with her that even gentle sex hurt her. But hes tall, can play basketball and can recite Jay-Z. I just hope she grows into a more substantial person.

But the new girl takes the cake. She comes to my house every weekend. She sleeps all day. Doesnt clean anything. Doesnt do anything. and she thinks she is doing me a favor. On sunday, while i spend the day teaching a private and coaching basketball, i come back to see my clothes still hanging outside, sink full of dishes, messing living room and her sitting on my sofa watching TV. She then has the nerve to ask me what we are going to do that night. What?

So i decide to follow the advice of a girl that gave the best advice for relationships that i have ever heard.

"When in doubt, do nothing".

So i got dress, played with the internet, call a friend and what not. We get to 9 o clock and she looks at me and says, "Where are we going to eat tonight?" It too hard for her to look on the internet or in a magazine and plan a place that she wants to go to. So she storms out and starts walking to the train station. After a day of work, my left hand throbbing (and yes i fear its broken), and the first holiday i can purely enjoy sitting ahead of me, i get this shit.

So i start walking after her, not chasing, more just walking to the station. She walks back towards me and snaps at me, hurry up.

Time to do nothing now.

So i walk to the store while she is ringing my phone (20 times in about 15 minutes), but meat to make yakiniku at home. Then i walk to hotto motto to by rice and proceed home. She is outside my door pissed. I open the door, she races in, grabs her things and storms out.

How is it i deserve that when i allow her to come to my house and basically sleep all day after a day of work? I cant tolerate that kinda shit.

For one day, i would love to see the true honest difference in walking around japan as a white guy. For one day, just to see the difference.

One day this girl looked at me and said "you think you are better than me, dont you?". I didnt reply, but if i can wake up at 7 on a holiday while you can sleep till 12. Then look at me and ask what will we eat? If i can cook dinner for you 2 weeks in a row and you not manage the time the make one meal in 4 days? I come home after working and start cleaning and washing clothes while you watch tv.

Damn japan. Is this the best you have to offer an intelligent black man? There must be better out there, and no japanese women, i am not looking for a woman who is looking for a hip hopper.

Just a woman ready to be a good woman for a good man. And who is shorter than me and light enough for me to try several positions with. And has some intelligence. And a good smile. And a passion for something in life.

Im not asking that much, am I?

Squeezed between two sides.

It is clear to me now that Interac is part of a system meant to funnel foreigners out of japan.

Think about that for a minute.

The company I work for is part of a system that is meant to make sure that people can only temporarily come to japan.

How is that so I may ask?

What kind of job tells you that you are not working during the 10 minute break between class?

What kind of job demands that you voluntarily stay at from 8 to 4?

What part time job has no method of applying for overtime?

What full time job chooses to only to treat foreigners a special in which case, dont deserve the full rights of japanese full time workers?

The system is two walls. A company that wont give your social issurance and a government that only enforces laws against the weakest in their society. Basically if you move every year, you can escape paying health care, but you have to pay 3 months rent to move into a new place. If you stay, you have to duck and dodge the insurance office.

Im not angry writing this, i just think for anyone that is studying japanese, be prepared to come here to do something else besides teaching. It is a scum business. The work is amazingly fullfilling, but the employers are scum. They will use a young cute japanese face and japanese prejudice to superseed your ability and experience.

Very sad, very backwards and very japan.

Health care become more a privelege and less a right each and everyday. Japan, if i cant be covered under your laws, dont ask me to take care of your old people.

You all can do that on your own.

The origins of my belief.

Why is it that we should not excessively lie? Why should we be kind to other people? Why should we care about people more than things? Why should we judge people on their inside and not their outside?

Why should be be decent human being?

In current day society, emphasis is place primarly on how to find MY happiness and find MY perfect mate. It is on how many friends do I have and how can I be the center of the party. It is on how can I make myself feel good about my life and what i am doing with it.

Life today is self-centered. That is why americans are so fat, because it tastes good to me. That is why indians are poisoning themselves with whitening cream, to make themsleves "prettier". It is why brazilian kids are killing each other, to prove how hard they are. It is the reason white 50 year old women are getting botox and tummy tucks, to look young.

Society has lost a lesson. The smartest person alive rolls around in a wheelchair and speaks through a machine. The most important man of the last 50 years what a short black man, no taller than me. The most important song of the last 50 years (or two) where sang by a group of singers singing for free. Society has lost the lesson of the benefit of giving. Not only money, but time.

To me, that is as much religion as putting on a tie and singing hymns every sunday. Religion is taking an extra second to hold the door open for a lady with kids. It is taking a few minutes to spend time with a child who needs it. It is giving without expecting anything back, not even a smile. It is having 2 minutes to talk to an old person who may not have a chance to speak to another person today. It is complimenting someone who never hears it. It is fighting for your own rights because you know in turn, you are fighting for others rights as well.

You shouldnt have to brag about what religion you are, it should show through ones actions. Stingy people arent spiritural. How can you be when the earth and nature and people are so giving to us? It may seem strange to say that, but if you want to see how giving people are, spend some time around kids. They are the most generous of people. They care about how you are. They ask how your day is. They are willing to share. They give away smiles for free.

Somewhere after 16 and before 25, we learn these rules of separating ourselves from people. Of how to find a group of people like ourselves. How to define ourselves as individuals and not as part of the collection of humanity. I cringe when i buy things from China because i know the work system there is not necessarly one of free will. Id rather pay more for the option of fairly made goods. Yet in todays world, the competition is being eaten alive like a dead carcus.

Humans have clearly chosen the wrong patch. The path of collection wealth, goods, toys, ipods, videogames, baseball cards, cars, houses, yacths, jetskis and luxury suites. We havent chosen the path of clean water, clean air, good roads, mass transit, welfare for all, healthcare for all, or education for all. People think that money and a gun can protect you and your kids from a world and society that is falling apart. It cant. Ask Brad Pitt what its like to go grab a carton of milk? If society continues in the direction it is going, that will be the experience of anyone with enough money to buy any milk at all. Beggars, desperate people dying for a piece of your fortune, or worse yet, the food you bought.

In america, people have this nasty attitude that "If you havent found success, you arent working hard enough" but in todays america you should change "working" with "stolen". Stealing means that you didnt produce anything, you just took what belonged to someone else. We can use fancy words for what happens on wall street and insurance jargon or government bailouts or taxes, but all remains the same, in the end, nothing was produced and money changed hands. You can get rich that way, but if you steal wealth from 10 families that really needed the wealth, then not only have 10 poor families been created, but there are 10 more men ready to do what every it takes...

...to feed their family. To bad we cant throw a man that steals 100 million in jail the same way we do a man who steals 500 dollars.

This world, these countries that we are living in now, are not societies. There are but an ipod clogged, mtv splattered, people magazine decorated survival of the greediest. A new social dawinism in which the less you care, the easier it is for you to do what ever is necessary to make your first million.

Too bad our kids get to grow up and learn from us.

Id like to thank Interac for giving out my bank account details.

5 man yen. Thats right. 5 man, or the dollar equivalent of about 500 dollars. Taken from my bank account.

How you may ask? Oh, someone from the local ward office called and asked for the information. My dumb ass company called me and said that someone was asking about the information. I replied, "You didnt tell them, right?" After some bs and about 3 weeks, i notice a gaping whole in my bank account.

Japan doesnt have a social health care system. Not for gaijin (foreigners). It is if we want to pay twice and much for the same coverage because our company knows that they can get away with not enrolling us.

This whole situation is so disgusting. I wish kids taking freshman japanese in college could hear about this. I would make people change their minds about wasting time studying a language to go to a country where people dont want you to go. And make no mistake, japanese people want people to come here for a year or two, see how beautiful it is, then leave. Too bad japanese expatriots arent held to the same standard.

This is a warning to all that are learning japanese, if you have plans on living in japan, you will need to have the attitude of an activist to be treated the way that you are expecting before you come here. You will speak perfect japanese to a person and they will speak broken english right back to you. Be ready for it.

My deal is; if the social health care system is so important; why would local governments hire private companies that DO NOT pay into the system? Using tax dollars to put give to private companies that openly mock the system by breaking the law.

If my company is to break the law, why is the f)&'%&76'&%&$%#%&#k should I?

Fuck paying kokumin hoken to a system that wont protect my rights. Fuck it until they decide that my rights are worth the taxes they charge me to live here.

...Unless Japan is so awesome for foreigners that we pay rent to live in Japan, rent to live in an apartment, pay twice as much for health care. Japan isnt great enough for all of that.

Any of you people teaching japanese overseas, make sure you let people know what they are getting themselves into when they sign up for Japanese 101.

These kinds of days are there reason i love this job.

No classes means i sit at my desk and blog all morning. Beautiful weather. Time
to look at basketball stats. Time to check the news. Good stuff. Too bad I dont have a woman to go home to, but hey, life aint perfect.

I just created a blog for my fantasy league team. I need to learn how to use css, and learn a server side lanugage so i can widen my skill set. Using the web is cool on they end user side, but manipulating the web for ones own purposes has quickly become a necessity. Ill need to jump on that. I just hate reading long passages from a computer screen. I think i need to go on amazon and order a few books.

I got my abseentee ballot. Yes! I know many people dont feel like voting is a big deal, but as an educated black person, i know that black people couldnt really vote until the 60's. Certainly we could pay taxes, but in the south, via grandfather clauses and "literacy tests" we were kept from voting, much like faulty voting machines, long lines and the like these days. I wonder why more people dont vote by absentee ballot. I kinda see it as a duty to vote for all of my ancestors who werent allowed to.

I know that people say there isnt a big difference in the two parties, and 99 percent of the time, i agree, but now way can I allow a woman who can only do three interviews in a month WHEN SHE IS RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT become president. I MUST vote.

I read a good solid hour everyday, online news from various sites, even the japanese newspaper. In no way can there be another president that reads less everyday than I do.