Thang Nguyen 555

On top of the Culture divide, we’ve got the pandemic.

On top of the pandemic, we’ve got the inflation.

On top of the inflation, we’ve got a war in Ukraine (courtesy of Russia and THE Orthodox Church).

On top of the war, we’ve got Climate Change.

On top of the heat, we’ve got…oh well, Friday the 13th.

On top of it, we’ve got Roe 2.0, which circles us back to deeper Culture Divide and upcoming mid-term.

Everything is politicized, from War to Walt Disney, from Orthodoxy to Moron-oxy (my term).

In the 60’s institutions from the Presidency, the Press and the Pentagon ( not Pentacostal which is growing, in South America, along with the Mormons – not the Mennonites) were challenged. Today? It’s the Supreme Court.

Young people, while at it, rebelled against the Barbershop as well. A riot here, a protest there.

Shoot’m. “Why can’t we just shoot’m” (per DoD Chief’s recap).

Today, with digital divide, culture divide and of course, social/economic divide, we face immediate challenges, on a larger scale. Meanwhile, from Murdoch to Musk, the super rich got richer, even Russian Oligarchs after yachts-repossession per sanction (how do they tow those?)

A package of 40 Billion here, a few Trillion there. To prevent Fall surge of the covid variants (in N Korea? S Africa?)

Future earners (today’s students) will get some reprieves from student loan. They can replace us to bankroll Social Security. affect Social change and even agitate (Social unrest) . Hell No, we won’t go.

BTW, I heard the Marcos are back (now that “strong men” States are back in vogue around the world, courtesy of global amnesia – the Hippies are fading and forgetful. What’s going on? Something is happening. What it is, ain’t exactly clear.

But I sense that this summer, with gas price, energy price, pharmaceutical price and food price surge.

We will get slapped with the last straw, be it Roe 2.0, or Omicron (or OMG).

“Why can’t we just shoot’m”.

“No, Mr President, we can’t do that”. “This is the United States of America”, says Number 2 to Dr Evil.

We can’t kill innocent civilians, in the name of God or any other names, Orthodox or unorthodox.

Bible held up high, or under armpits.

Thus far , we have lost 1 million good folks, among them, I am sure, the gene pool could have graced us with another Einstein or Mozart.

What a waste of brain power and man power.

Let’s chant. Let’s dance. Let’s hold hands. While the last straw is coming. I see dead people. There will be blood.

More blood than needed, to bring about change. After all, to stay in place we need to change. Meanwhile, the good died young. Longevity is not in and of itself bad. Desirable even.

Things do come around more than once. And it ain’t pretty. Things like, the politicising of everything (then the monetising of everything else). Grifter 2.0 re-branding.

Amidst a war, there are talks about post-war rebuilding. How about post-waste clean up? So many talks and promises, to curtail and tame the beast. Yet wildfires keep on burning, until there is nothing left. Then we can start clean up and rebuilding. It’s one thing for man to rage – be it M.L. King or Rodney King – it’s quite another for Mother Nature.

I fear it might be the last straw. Let’s hope not. Please, tell me I am wrong. Give those students a chance.

P.S. barely posted this, when I read on the Post that protests are in D.C. and many cities today (Saturday).

….when I find myself in times, of trouble….Who am I going to call? the Ghostbusters?

Mother Mary.

Mother.

Mom (I can’t breathe).

I follow my Mom. You yours.

Heck with the war’s end. Heck with the beginning of a nice media career.

Mom.

Leave no one behind, especially Mom. Yet we did. Out of our depth and despair.

She was left in a refugee camp, all by herself. No sponsorships.

The US government cherry picked those who were able and employable.

My mom? about-to-retire teacher, with some French and written English only.

No way Jose.

Let her stay.

Feed her frozen fishsticks. Cheaper that way from the mess hall.

I was devastating. Did not know what to do.

How to make contact (no phone, no mail).

For a few first months in State College, I was on my own, no parental supervision, no country to feel proud of and no means to stay in touch with the remaining 8 who fled with me to America.

Mom, sorry!

Out of the gate, we were eager beavers, charged like bulls and found immediate low-hanging fruits.

Meanwhile, you prayed. You stayed behind, just as you were in that French boarding school (from Left, her guardian, middle: a cousin who had just had a baby, and my mom, at a vulnerable age).

Mothers breast-fed. Mothers spoon-fed. And Mothers gave to her child his/her snacks, spending money or in my case, fermented rice pudding – take-out from her Temple outings.

My mom often put on Temple-gray uniform and bowed. She prayed for peace, for her parents and sitter, deceased or alive. My mom gave cash to her half-brother, former SVN Navy man on leave. My mom gave me money for my Kung Fu classes, music classes, English classes. In short, her teacher’s salary was always split multiple ways. But first: a full monthly supply of rice staple and fish sauce.

The day we left Vietnam in a hurry, she managed to lug along pictures from the old days, divided up her cash for all children equally (grown up or still young like myself). In all fairness, she exemplified old-school motherhood, albeit semi-orphaned at an early age. What she learned about motherhood, perhaps was mostly from her guardian.

Today, I honor her and her guardian on Mothers’ Day. If it’s not for her guardian and guardrails, we would have grown up without roots (and only parler Francais). Mannerism and maternalism. I owe it to her, to them, to this day.

By reflex, I act out what would otherwise be characterized as a Mama’s boy…”I can’t breathe” etc…I love her to this day and the end of days. When you love someone, you want to please them, alive or dead.

P.S. I said “No” to a job offer by ABC-News affiliate in Scranton. Channel 56. Jay, News Director recruited from NYC, looked at me in total surprises. I did not tell him then. It’s my Mom, in Virginia. With no on to take care of. Can’t leave her by herself twice in a span of 4 years, just because “This Land is a land of opportunities”.

As I now look back, do a SWOT analysis of my choices in life thus far, that “No” was one of the most regrettable choices, yet most honorable one I could ever make. If I don’t give a damn about my Mom, who are you then.

My Mom observed anniversary of her guardian’s death each year. Just as we would hers. How could I miss those lessons in action. When I grow up, I want to be like her, never forgetting those who helped you.

“when I find myself in times of trouble”…

Mother bear waits for her young to catch up – more than often, follow in left-behind tracks. I am sure Mom is pleased to know my heart has always been in the right place, thanks to hers, which was at those same places to begin with.

That’s how we have outsourced-by handing over: our freedom of self-development, socially and cognitively.

“Please think for me” “Please be my stick and carrot” “Please ring the bell so I can salivate”.

Social media took over. We “friended” (or unable to avoid and deny a request) our new judges. Voila!

Life on display.

Morality debated.

Like a line by the Police (the band) ” I will be watching you….every move you make”.

In this case, our rights to privacy: our right to self-understanding at our own pace.

Instead , by “friending” we have allowed others to tell us who we are (or worse off, should be).

When it comes to Life coach, there are plenty.

When it comes to Life rescuing, none (call 911).

We all know this. Yet we are playful…”til the sun comes up on Santa Monica boulevard”.

Lessons learned.

No more living our lives “subject to approval”.

Happiness is waiting for those who have paid “full tuition”

To own one’s mistakes as well as moments.

Samuel Miles would agree “…our own energies..rather than the help or patronage of others”.

In looking back, I realised that it’s not the mistakes we made (who hasn’t), but how we recovered and made teachable lessons out of them (hidden gems). No more blame-seeking and assigning. Use it.

Self-recrimination eats up at joy. In moments of weakness, we silently and subtlely agree with those who wrongly judged us (without context and cause). In short, our lives are an open book, often times, judged by the book cover.

Facebook begins to unbrand itself, morphing into Meta.

It costs more to unbrand. How much more for us to re-invent ourselves, to improvise and improve.

Here is who I am. I can Be no other. Become no other.

The universe in all its mutations and variables, have endowed me (and you and the dog named Boo) with a given set of DNA’s. We are neither dinosaurs (extinct) nor are we helpless machines that can’t feel (or recognise facial features, feelings and compassion).

We feel. We exist. We declare our independence and stake our choice, hopefully on the right side of history.

“I need weapons, not a ride”. Wow! Clear-cut choice. In that short statement, Zelensky let the world know, he is not a subject to approval. Unpopular and suicidal. He surprised even himself. 10 weeks and counting into the war.

We are living in a glass house. Willingly and without being asked, telling others they are the NINE. Please help me decide who I am, give me your like, endorsement and enforcement. I need your opinion to be whole.

I am weak. I am insecure. I cannot function on my own without Meta and Media. Send me money. Send me love. My life is subject to approval. Until then, it’s limbo, like Ukrainian refugees at the Southern Border. Like a frat initiation or Russian recruit. Our need to belong somehow outpaces our authentic stand of the self.

Most of us are mere payload: fill up a gym, an empty seat on the next flight or in my case, the back seat of a speech class at a “cow college” (where football players napped during lectures).

USA Today had a piece on Asian Women in leadership position. Tough road ahead.

Not only they have to face tough odds against them in the boardroom, they were also punched on the street during Covid.

Willing and submissive victims? Easy targets? “Me, no English?”.

Long ago, CBS paired up Dan Rather and Connie Chung. Both have now left the field. Empty seats…not even Wallace, the son, could fill.

It’s Apple, Amazon and Netflix times. The echo chambers. The Q and Z.

(people couldn’t even go beyond just one letter of the alphabet).

The odds are, after Twitter, we will go back to cartoons and drawings.

Some fields are scaled up, others down (the auto-pay system vs mass media).

We will go for days without a genuine human interaction. Kick and punch me please. ( See me…feel me).

At least, it will be human-human instead of just man-machine interaction.

The odds are already stacked against ALL human in general (which will exacerbate the odds against Asian Women). Speak up sis!

From the Tennis booth or from the phone booth.

Out of the many (unchosen) One.

My sister turns 85. Fell, hit a nightstand. Now with eye patch and forever half-blind.

But she has lived a full life: migrant in her youth, law-school degree, Agri-Development Bank, CPA and refugee, whose four accomplished children are commanding top medical pay grade.

Asian American women. First generation. Juggling work, life and new language.

America has benefited from this type of energy (start-up energy) for centuries.

Why stop now? the odds will always be there for new comers and “the Other”.

But the moral arc of history tends to tilt toward goodness and decency.

The human spirit will prevail even at times we feel as if we’re mere payload while in fact, it’s part and parcel of re-work e.g. Seth Godin wrote many books before his first hit – now his net worth is around 50 million.

To fill an empty seat on the plane, to occupy a machine at the gym or dozing off in a near-empty classroom. All necessary, all part of the plan – with “payload” as subset: for us to evolve, to pay our dues to finally rise, reap our rewards and respect we worked so hard for.

The odds are there to hone us, make us better, smarter, stronger, quicker and fitter for the race, which intrinsically, itself is the reward. Imagine yourself blown up at the Boston Marathon some years back, now healed and re-entered the race with one good leg (the other, artificial). Just the act of being alive and thrive should give you thrill.

For my sister, in her last years, it’s to see or not to see. She might once be into numbers at work, but not once did she pay attention to the odds stacked against her. She proved it when we were all urged at her insistence to pack up and leave Saigon in moments notice. For me, it was much easier: I did not have four young kids to feed and fend for. Talking about the odds.

Yet the outcome speaks for itself. I wouldn’t bet against her, even when she faces tough road ahead e.g. dementia and diminished eyes sight. Aren’t we all closing one eye when aiming and focusing on some target? The tougher the terrain, the sweeter the peak.

Messaging.

Optic.

Image.

Perception.

Zelensky, 2-hour briefing. Subway station as set and fatigue T-shirt as prop. Still dignified. Still Head of State, deserving a State visit from America’s Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State (no more T-shirt?).

Either way, I was blogging the other day about Press Briefings on the Rooftop of Rex during the Vietnam War and couldn’t help noticing the contrast (from Television to Twitter).

Unlike Television which demands make-ups, wardrobe, lighting, teleprompter, white-balance, boom mike and floor directing, Twitter just cuts through the chase: “we need weapons”.

The selling of a candidate, from Nixon to Desantis (who pisses off Disney, an image maker himself) is ongoing.

It’s not enough to stay on the right side of History.

You need to “sell” your position, conviction and persuasion, to manage perception.

Rebuilding Ukraine will take years and trillions of dollars.

But an Ukrainian lady expressed her sentiments in a Newshour interview: “we certainly can do it”.

What a marvellous lady! Full of confidence and grace.

We are talking about a nation of grit and determination. No time to die.

It has done some damage (at the tune of 25% of the invading Russian army…an equivalent of decades-long toll in Afghanistan).

I can see in a near future, tanks going back the other way, same way I saw on the news back in the 80’s.

Dien Bien Phu, Saigon Embassy, USSR’s Afghan, US’ Afghan…you name it. A story, war ‘s not excluded, has the beginning, middle and ending.

Unsustainable. Face-saving and self-preserving.

Nations rise and decline..

Whether it’s roof-top briefings or subway station briefing. Ups or downs. Otis elevator or train escalator.

War and Peace. Refugees can’t wait to go home.

If ever (Denial). Life interrupted, re-invented and oh well the “selling” of job candidates.

Resume anybody? Time for our Red Cross to go about: document translation, missing relatives re-united, etc…. Already NGO’s and a host of UNHCR-related hands are busy at work. Rightly so. If not now, when?

History repeats itself. I have seen it with my own eyes. In fact, I have lived it myself. No time for compassion fatigue. No time to die. In fact, it’s time to “dress for success”, at least with 100,000 new comers who will soon be needing a job. It would be doubly hard with foreign-sounding names. Back then, the nation was n’t ready even for a candidate of a different branch of faith despite JFK obvious good looks.

Associated Press’ Richard Pyle called the Five O Clock Follies “the longest-playing tragicomedy in South­east Asia’s theatre of the absurd” as the US, Australian and South VN press offices gave their daily briefings on the war.

Rooftop of the Rex Hotel.

Then raw Network footages rushed to dark rooms in Hong Kong or Bangkok for processing. Voila.

The American TV audience, get their TV dinners and television war at the same time.

That’s the way it was (in contrast to viewing war propaganda on the silver screen).

The best we could hope for? a stalemate, per Cronkite.

At this stage in the war in Ukraine, the best we could hope for would be less territorial concession, and a curtailed human toll.

Musk first provided satellite internet. Now he wants Twitter.

People can crowdsource for documented war-crimes and atrocities.

Often in real time.

No delay broadcast, no waiting for the 6:00 Network news.

In Papers Soldiers, the author recalled how difficult it was to get at the truth during the Vietnam War.

MZ’s and DMZ’s on easel.

My brother, a medic stationed in one of the MZ’s, lost his first-born due to tetanus . I asked, you were surrounded by men of medicine. Yet your daughter died without medical help?

The toll of war. The talk of war. The (price) tag of war.

Bao Ninh was awarded with his “the Sorrow of War”.

Among the differences between then and now, besides press coverage, is the shouldering of responsibilities: during the first Iraq war, Bush was saying America was shedding the Vietnam syndrome.

For Ukraine, if President Johnson was still alive, he wouldn’t be able to say : “Asian boys ought to fight the war for themselves….(as opposed to him sending American boys to die in the jungle of Vietnam)”. April 1, 68 he said ” As I sat in my office last evening, waiting to speak, I thought of the many times each week when television brings the war into the American home. No one can say exactly what effect those vivid scenes have on American opinion. Historians must only guess at the effect that television would have had during earlier conflicts on the future of this Nation”.

And we can see – President Zelensky on 60 minutes, on CNN, transparent, lucid and forthrightly without delay or defer until …oh well, 5 o clock each day on any rooftop.

We are fully invited to buy-in the Ukrainian position and positioning…Southern then Eastern front. Ain’t quiet on the Western front? It’s all out, man and machine, civilian and volunteers. There might be a few “Papers Soldiers” but from what has been coming out, there ain’t no papers leaders or tigers. Bravo!

Where is the TV dinner BTW!

Moving is no fun. When you have to move your whole library, books become burden.

Today, I started that process. Yet I found myself surprised by joy. The joy of looting, of rediscovering why I had picked a certain title over the others. In short, new found love with authors and writings that have been there all along.

Scribes and scrolls, typesetting and typewriting, tweet and shout.

The little bird, Tweeting in Musk’s ears.

Our attention-span has never been shorter ( trending tweets as oppose to a whole library ). ”Organizing the world’s information” . As if we’re gods. Everything there is to be known, while in-fact our very existence are mere bylines or barely mentioned in passing.

Yet here we are: Multi-channeled, multi-media….The medium is the message. The tweet is the trend.

What once feared as “Future Shock” is now here. A divided country, whose fault-line is so obvious (No more Presidential debates, says the RNC). Nixon vs Kennedy, the networks vs their mass audience (before being un-massed by Culture Wars).

Narrow casting: talk-radio, blogosphere, tweet and trend. Preach to the choir, play to the base.

War and famine. The poor will always be with you (hence, Be Mary, not Martha).

Pay attention to the Logos, the Word, the story and the speech.

Be not like Audrey Hepburn or Mother Theresa. For the poor shall always be with you.

God wants you to be rich (BTW, share your wealth, give me some…at least 10%). Just lie your way through.

Mega phone and mega Church. Co-opting the world into the Church (calling it “Club”) and not as was originally called to be In but not Of it.

On the eve of Good Friday, the plan was to sell out his Carpenter-turned -Influencer, like a Godfather’s plot i.e. planting a gun behind the restaurant toilet – pointing him out, with plausible – not without a price – deniability, leaving him to die by a hammer i.e. wooden crucifixion.

We are all Judas and Peters. betrayers or deniers after leveraging our “friending” to extract a few bucks (at least Facebook did).

True friend? Debatable. Real enemy? Certainly.

We all fall short, everyday, in every way.

Just look at Zelensky. Forged in crisis. Standing still. Against the wind. Born, battered but not beaten in battle.

Real leader with real followers although I am sure there must be a few Judas selling him out.

But so far, his hiding has yet been bombed (60 minutes interview shows him OK).

Back to my more selected library.

This time, I vow to keep more History titles, like Robert Caro, Walter Lippmann than mystery’s.

More poetry (if not now, when).

And fewer “Future Shock” types. After all, we’re living out that “shock”. Need I list all the crises since the televised Kennedy-Nixon debate e.g. Bay of Pigs, assassination, rise and fall of “curtain” and “wall”, Great Society and Social Media (which put a nail on the Mass media coffin with start-stop- pause content.)

So much thrown at us. The more we are connected digitally, the less we are in control (hardly push “Pause”), the more shallow our connections. Scribes and scrolls, thesis and teleprompter. None of that offers an additional grain of wisdom. Bombarded in all sides with news, more fake than real. Infotainment and entertainment. Self-Prescribed and self-appointed experts and expats.

That said, should I leave behind my library or take them all with me. To rinse and repeat until my next overhaul. Time for self-care and compassion.

Meanwhile it’s fun to loot my own library. The books are now on the floor, on the shelves, or the table. Boxed or un-boxed – all screaming “Take me with you”. “I want to inform, entertain, enlighten you”. Befriend me. Unfriend me not.

Wisdom doesn’t come easy. First you must seek it, then earn it before dispensing it. Rodin’s “The Thinker” perhaps was pondering the same, like Steve Jobs “If you know you only have that much time left to live, shouldn’t you go ahead and do the very thing your heart has always so desired”.

The Biblical story we remember this day presents two responses: selling out or denying (Judas and Peter). Both followed the money/popular trending e.g. joining the crowd when stones turned into bread or when the donkey triumphantly rode on Palm Sunday.

Solomon would advise us to pick one over the other, just to paint us into a binary decision (The real mother, the one who has true love, would give up her rightful claim just to see her child live). True vs fake, truth vs falsehood (hypocrisy).

TIME has a piece by Richard Cohen about re-written History. Most time, today’s Peter was yesterday’s Judas (got rich on schemes, then taking up the high road to Sainthood). Pulling a Kushner right through the loopholes of the law. If any decency and conscience left, we should at least see our current Pope continue his round of public apologies for all the wrong done in Canadian boarding schools – atrocities committed in the name of our greatest Influencer, who had no need for a Twitter feed to spread his parables.

Come to think of it, the only wisdom I need to preserve is whatever our Lord was scribbling on the ground while people casting stones at the adulterous woman.

Judge not.

You can be up at 30,000 feet one moment, then find yourself buried in the jungle right after that. Sheer physics.

Gravity. Mechanical malfunction. Death by design or default?

But death, nevertheless.

To be searched and recovered along with plane wreckage and black box.

China Eastern flight. No survivors. No more hopes, fears and dreams for its passengers onboard.

Deaths in China, either by Covid or crash. Death in Sacramento, by mass shooting.

And of course, death in Ukraine as the Russian army retreated and boobytrapped on its way out.

Meanwhile, musicians sing on. Dream on. Romancing everything. “I need you”. “Love for sale”.

People die. Some mourn their death. Others commented with harsh words.

The best they can hope for is some lingering moments of memories, marks in history and leaving behind some residual money for loved ones.

We’ve lost a bunch of talented folks of late.

That leaves us with a new job: that of a curator of folks’ good memories.

Our life should be a sum of our contribution, of our values and of our un-choices.

People did not know that at times, living on is harder than dying off.

Yet we’re put here to finish the job. To be vocal and active in our full participation in this reality called life.

Those passengers trusted the Airline. The Airline trusted the manufacturer of airplanes. The manufacturers trusted its workers and government overseers.

We’re a link in this human chain, and chain reaction.

Until the beast nosedived. Flying toward the Sun. Melted. Reaching its limits. With speed always comes risks.

I have driven like a mad man of late. Cruising up and downhill, hugging those curves trying to drop my kid on time at her school curb.

Door-dashing.

Without the crashing.

Half way through this piece, she woke up and came out, Gave me a hug.

That’s what life is all about.

Those moments. Those memories. Those un-choices so we can have time for previously committed choices.

People don’t often realise, it’s those un-choices that make us who we are today e.g. pass those joints (or not inhale), stop at the second beer, or have someone drive you home when you know your speech starts to slur.

The plane plunged. People plunged. Death could come slowly, or suddenly.

But comes nevertheless.

It’s our choice or un-choice that buys us time. Death delayed but not death denied. It’s just is. Part of the package. The cycle that should keep us up at night, to be reminded and to be mindful during the day. and perhaps cause us to make some compassionate choices like giving a buck to the guy who holds the now-worn sign:”Need Help”.

There won’t be a lot of time as it used to be. To do good. To be good. And to exercise those un-choices.

The mark of a man is not so much the sum of his choices but the sum of his un-choices. His exercise of free will whether self-preservation or self-denial. You are here to do a job and to complete that job.

Gotta to take the kid to school on time. Promise to drive slowly and safely. Not wanting to join Eastern Airline passengers in China. Not desiring for anyone’s moment of silence, nor wanting to “pause” anyone from the work at hand.