Thang Nguyen 555

Irregular. Refurbished. Re-store. Pre-Own. Salvage. Rental-return. Opened-box, on-display robots.

Companies e.g. Fry’s Electronics, understandably try to push products. Electronics items used to command high-priced high margins (the trend is returning, with Intel investment in Europe). Others pushed furniture rentals (it might work in our post-Ida period) in destitute neighbourhood (it’s the financial back-end, stupid).

Before we know it, that “push” mentality spills over, from product to people.

Factory-rejects, corporate-rejects, washed-out ESL teachers in Thailand and Vietnam (another name for backpackers).

Hey, the Saudis pay. The down side? You can’t drink there. Then in war, Iraq pays (via Blackwater). Finally, Amazon delivers (via unmarked trucks – the uberizing of A Prime).

I once saw how cattle were lured through a funnel gate. Or perhaps to be branded. Those that get in first (akin to Nazi concentration camp or Long-Island Black-Friday charge) are in the know: positioning yourself to get the most ration and distributed supplies. The hierarchy of plutocracy and meritocracy, the former was born into it, the latter, working his/her way up not without the help of networking tips and short-cuts. Climb baby climb (through a cracked window and be a “martyr” – almost the same with the 5 currently on trial again in Guantanamo Bay for plotting 9/11).

Martyrs are dead people: “Samson, take down the Temple” (Didn’t it say somewhere that your body is the Temple of God?). Burned and battered, open box. No return or exchange. They might be on (in-their-mind) a mission, might get there first ( Front Row Joes) and carry out someone else’s instructions. That someone else sits back, like an Egyptian King in 300 the movies, looks at the large-screen TV, with remote-control in gloved hand, occasionally squeezes a little fuel into the fire, “I will walk with you across the street”, “we’re so mad, we won’t take it anymore” “we’d rather be heroes than zeroes” – (the audience all fired up by instigators in the crowd, who had traveled the distance by bus, to save a spot, Front Row Joes per Michael Bender’s account on pg 2 “a euphoric flow of emotions between themselves and the president, a sort of adrenaline-fueled, psychic cleansing that followed ninety minutes of chanting and cheering with 15,000 other like-minded Trump junkies”. They self-hypnotized and joined in. Did not take much to build rapport and momentum e.g. water-saving toilets suck! Just three-word chants, over and over, with no less fervour than the 9/11’s 19 “perfect soldiers”). Pavlovian! Validated with praises:” You’re beautiful people” “Stand by”.

Jan 6 or 9/11, martyrs or terrorists, depends on one’s viewpoint, all had been played like a fiddle. Like a violent orgy whose aftermath devoid of pension or payout (from the 100 million dollars collected). Only prison (at least 6 months per one count) terms awaiting. The dead are not around to clarify and certify and the living fill up his coffers of their coffins.

The Japs had their shares of martyrdom during WWII (Kamikaze). The Jews in Europe (by not being aloof or standing by or informing those in hiding). Then Hollywood in the 50s with McCarthyism “you can’t work in this town”. Last half of 20th century saw conscience and ethics (socially conscientious objectors overrode personal/micro mores). Folks weren’t into policing neighbours’ behaviour (oh, he smokes – or, here comes someone walking the dog without a poop bag – or lately – another ‘unlawful’ abortion). In short, to pull a Cooper (Central Park).

We just lived, fought (Hot or Cold War) and died. At the age of 50, our average life expectancy. Period. Women too, smoked (Marlboro). You can do it. (Until the G.I. Bill sent white males to college and afford them housing i.e. a lot of space for furniture rentals, stoves and all-things electric ). The Reagans made their living by pitching those items on infomercials. Then it’s time for the conscientious objectors of the 60’s. Times of monk-burning and priest self-immolating (at the steps of the Pentagon), of the Quakers and the Fondas. There came everybody, with or without tickets (to Woodstock). The dialectical flow of social history. Hell No we won’t go (burn that draft card). Row row row the boat (to Canada, incidentally, where it has always welcome dissenters, Afghan evacuees – by the tune of 20,000).

People of conscience and for freedom have always paid a price. No other way. What other way? A re-furbished life with pre-own furniture? A quiet fading into that gentle goodnight? Poetic without justice? Monte Cristo without the Count? Napoleon in exile, sipping Sauvignon Blanc in between memoirs?

Melania, meanwhile, in between sips, said she didn’t want another escalator ride in white, looking Presidential, and rolled the dice for another stint at the well-manicured WH lawn, a one-over Jill Biden who is teaching English at college level, not as a backpacker.

Like books, we have gone through many re-brands and re-runs. Some of us feel like we have been working at the same job twice. Re-org and re-assigned. Then our hero (Jean-Paul Belmondo) once famous for being shirtless on Breathless is now dressed up in a coffin. Not a breath left. His films might get a touch up in their digitised versions (National Treasure). But we all know, we were lured in herd-like. And as they say in computing protocol, first in first out. No refurbishing for people whose ash and evaluation meant little in today’s dollars.

In Klara and the Sun, Josie went on to college. Klara (next-to-latest robotic version) stays home with the mother, keeping her company. And when it’s time, Klara might get an upgrade, or re-furbished as a viable alternative to Josie (after all, Klara has observed and learned how to behave like Josie).

As in a product, the life cycle of a society and man living in it has its ups and downs. Often times, hurting each other more than helping. Even in the worst of times, like now. People still want to squeeze in the last word, that he/she is the wisest, albeit out of conscientious objection: hell, no. We won’t go ( and get jabbed). Wrong century! Wrong protest. Go burn yourself at the steps of the CDC. Start a fight with the school board ( anti-war was a 60’s thing, culture war – 80’s thing – with the Moral Majority propagated, scaled and financed by tax-deductible electronic church donations).

Take a look. It’s 2021, not the 60’s. Our life expectancy has stretched from 47 to 77, thanks to science and medicine – even in the face of the pandemic and climate change. BUT, we need to mitigate those risks. Together. Like sailors on the same ship, sojourners on this fragile Earth and decent a-political fellow human beings living in a republic of, by and for the people. We’re once zeroes, recast, thanks to science, to outlast heroes. Most famous people of the past never outlived their average life expectancy, much less used an I phone.

Start acting like one privileged being. Or if you still want to borrow a match. Suit yourself. Guess I need to readjust the average life expectancy data chart since you preferred self-immolation over self-immunization. Guess I would also have to change the title, from ”refurbished” to “the match and the martyr” – with no exchange or return. One-way ticket to Paradise. In the background I hear what sounds like Eddie Money’s Two tickets to Paradise. But not for the half-burned and faint-hearted.

Everything came in twos on that day: the Twin Towers, NYC’s two front teeth, got knocked out. At the same time, the perpetrators had planned another one-two punch in D.C. but their plan was thwarted by Beamer and fellow passengers on UA-93.

We might think 9/11 was just one day. But 9/11 has taken a life of its own, an eternality that lasts …until today with an x-Marine mass-shooting in FL and exiled musicians from Kabul. Don’t you hate it when some regime tries to silent, not just their political dissent, but music itself (my preference is for children’s laughter and loud clapping. In short, life).

Stocks brokers in Brooks Brothers draped in dust. Then from Ground Zero, the proverbial phoenix rose again, in Times Square countdowns, with Dick Clark and Beyonce. Do it gain, Steely Dan.

Then we hear “You can’t always get, what you want” by the Rolling Stones during the Q1 pandemic of 2020.

Billboards without eyes-balls.

Public transit without the public. Ghost town. Like Las Vegas downtown (partially abandoned – if not for Zappos – as slot players moved on to their next fix on the Strip, where slots they were told are loosed).

Nothing is loosed in America since. Except for our memories of pre-9/11 good times (tax refund as Cold War peace dividend). Things then went South (Laura Bush had thought her husband’s administration would be focusing on education, evident in where he was found and how low he sat that 9/11 AM).

Take the fight to them. And when deflated, take the interpreters’ asses back here.

Re-group and re-trench. Re-shore. Re-treat.

One-two punch. In the gut, where it hurt like hell. The way Peter Jennings must have felt, ad-libbing for hours on end on that fateful day. “May I have a cigarette?” (I can’t image a Network anchor bumping for a smoke in the back alley. Of course, on that day, everyone was helpful and humane; fellow sufferers and smokers, under siege).

The degrees to which we identified with the horrific event of that day equal the degrees we personally feel those one-two punches. So far, it’s not just 7000 troops who gave their lives, or 3000 who died that day. It’s part of us who felt numb, under siege and terrorised in more ways than one (after all, we have contributed to the forever war one way or another – longer lines at TSA checkpoints etc…).

I admire people who can fake it till they make it i.e. re-invent and refurbish their internal ROM (like nothing had happened). Until the anniversary, until the troops come home. Then they would pontificate and politicise. At least the Pope did his job by calling nations to help out Afghan refugees. I saw a headline that said Europe is tired of fighting America’s war.

The retort should be, “America is tired of pitching in for NATO and the security of Europe”. How is that for solidarity across the pond. Paris my behind. When New York was burning, did Parisiennes offer Peter a smoke? ( Despite plenty of Lucky Strikes rained down from those tanks in Paris led by de Gaulle with his Gauloises). At least, those Texans offered round-the-clock barbecues to search and rescue teams 24/7 at Ground Zero.

Live coverage. Into our living room. The towers came down, imploded, like Las Vegas’ Sands on New Year’s Eve. Dust come to dust. Back then, by pre-monition I sensed that things would get worse.

Knowing events did not occur out of the blue. There would be implications and repercussions.

Twenty years later, we see the remnants and relics of 9/11: not tickertape parades but flag-draped coffins. The Chaplain who performed almost 7000 funerals since said on PBS that it was spiritual, the words that came out of his mouth to comfort the families. I knew what I saw that day on Television, live. I knew it was not just the Towers crashing down. But also my very own life, ours too, changed, affected just as those stolen planes that attacked Tan Son Nhut Airport on the night of April 28, 1975 – rendering those runways inoperable. I have seen subsequent lives destroyed and futures crashed.

Part of being together in our human family is to feel and share the pain. That one-two punch I couldn’t articulate back then was a gut feel. An empathic chill in the spine, lump in the throat. OBL and the 19 hit me as much as they hit the towers. The US of A, my adopted country, from then on out, started to react the best way we know how. In solidarity and swiftness of strength. Like the 3000 more deaths to avenge the 3000 killed.

Then the cycle of violence and destruction starts spinning, like Vegas Strip loosed slots, with millions of combination and permutation. You can’t always get what you want. That’s why I read Monte Cristo. That’s why I read it again, to learn lessons, to cry with the Count (who hid behind a shadowed curtain for fear of showing his tears upon re-encountering with his stolen love).

We’ve got nothing to gain. Everything is lose-lose, only on our side of the equation, we double-downed on the one-two punch, only to sink further down due to a perpetual mis-match of force and motive. Feel like having a smoke just trying to recall the event of that day. Now I can relate partly to what Peter Jennings must have felt.

I know where they will someday go: to see Ellis Island, to see the One-World Centre, to visit Ground Zero.

But for now, they are escorted to Ft Dix on the bus, to be “processed”.

Future unknown, uncertain. Your guess is just as good as theirs. But safer, for now.

The children of 9/11 are entering college. To talk of “bringing the fight to Afghanistan” was already in past tense. FEMA got their work cut out for them, with Ida aftermath and a host of “claims”.

The boys on the bus. Heading to an US Army base, stationed deep in the country, where de-commissioned troops are de-briefed and de-compressurized. I can hear the hissing sound of a hydraulic jack lowering and unloading containers from a C-17 plane. Like changing a flat tire and letting the jack come down by the force of gravity.

I was among those boys not too long ago. Harrisburg airport-Ft Indiantown Gap (destination). The Susquehanna River that winds along or around Hwy 22 or 283. Adopted names and places of Native American.

The psychology of refugees. (Why didn’t you pronounce the “P” in “psychology”? they would wonder, yet too ashamed to ask).

I rolled up my sleeves, figuratively speaking, since I had with me only two short-sleeves as carry-on (one hung to dry overnight, the other on me) and signed up as an interpreter volunteer for Bureau of Child Welfare, with HQ in Harrisburg, PA.

Get to work the next day still with a jet-lag. My brother got his sponsorship near Mt Holly, NJ to start as a pharmacy tech (not too far from Ft Dix where the Afghan kids are arriving).

“Would you like to accept this family as your foster parents? Is this your correct birthday? – ” No one is pressuring you into a decision. Sign here, acknowledge here. You are clearly briefed on your rights….”

At lunch, the case workers talk shops, talk football and talk Thomas, Tommy (since “Thang”, sounds like women tongs ). How about “From Sir Thomas with Love” (sounds like a British Bond film). Later, at Penn State, I would print my personal business cards with both spelling and pronunciation – to pre-empt awkward situations.

I was homesick. It had never happened before, since for the first 19 years of my life, I was up and down the same Saigon street: running some errands, and seeing some female of interests (who wouldn’t).

Evacuation can turn Boyz-2-Men overnight. Anglecized names, adopting strange habits (like getting to work on time, with alternate set of clothes). Some wisecracks – who incidentally, played tennis on Wake Island in complete aristocrat’s tennis-white at the US tax payer’s expenses – tried to show off his “savoir vivre” : “you hold a fork like this, squeeze the ketchup on the fried fish sticks”. (Two years later, it’s me who was in and sang with the Penn State Choir, Mahler # 5 at Carnegie Hall with the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, Andre Previn – conducting. How is that for “savoir vivre”, schmuck!)

Boys on the bus. Peeing into clean toilets that were very likely cleaned from the night before by those night-shifters who had given their fathers a job. Mine was paid $3.30 per hour. A decent wage to start college.

The rest was history all from that janitorial debut.

Boys on the bus would agonise over many split decisions: to stay with a large family or splitting up, to follow the career path or stick with mom, to marry outside the race or inside the Islamic law, to date or not to date (what’s “date”?).

Then before you know it, boys on the bus become busy men at work, at construction sites, to build back better. To heal the wounds on both sides of the world, of the war on terrors. To mutate and evolve, like the very virus currently on a rampage. There shouldn’t even be a minute of their lives to look back. The thing about newly arrived immigrants : they are eager for the next step, then the next…from zero to 60 miles in 6 seconds. Fast, furious and forwarding. Playing catch up.

When I feel like cutting corners, slacking of, I think of these boys on the bus. They were looking out from those charter buses to a strange and hostile world. I, on the other hand, saw myself in them, in their eyes, which to me, are filled with hope and possibilities.

America is what you made of it. Just like life itself, 400 years ago in Cape Cod, 20 years ago in lower Manhattan or seems-like yesterday in Mt Holly. From boys to men, from Child to Adult, like a saying, all it takes is that first step. In my gut I know they will make it. In my heart, I fear for their loss, which already show in their thousand-yards stares.

They were called “the Separatist”, because they wouldn’t take it any longer (the persecution and harassment of the Church of England). 1/3 children, 1/3 Pilgrims and the rest, vagabonds (today’s homeless) boarding a 30-foot boat, and set sail for Jamestown, VA… All planned to work off the debts accrued from their passage to the New World. Long story short, if not for the constant and continuing help of Squanto (who showed them how to plant and harvest Indian corn), we wouldn’t have the United States today.

You may zoom out from 1621 to 2021, a 4-centuries arc, to see how this land gets populated and replenished, by all kinds of new arrivals: from European folks to Hungarian, Cuban, Vietnamese, Afghan…from Boat to Bus People (C-17’s). Sojourners of an impossible dream. Launching and embarking on a poorly planned trip, as indentured, to work off the debt in their first few years, with extra money to send home (to ungrateful families, mind them they couldn’t imagine themselves going through seasickness, starvation and again, harassment) as “anchor kids”.

The stories of America. Newer interpretations of the same old script: the Dream: living free of corrupted churchmen and entrenched status-quo, with newly cast members e.g. Pocahontas and Moana etc… to update and attract a growing me-too audience with the same storyline: boy meets girl, boy loses girl and finally boy gets girl back ( or as in Klara and the Sun, whereby Klara our sidekick – a machine).

Back to being an empathic sojourner before Klara replaces our Walmart greeters and custom-enforcement greeters. “Let me show you where the bathroom is, and while at it, how to flush, contactless”.

New Americans are to adapt to new centuries:

130,000 Vietnamese refugees, 124,000 Afghan refugees, now in Ft Dix, Ft Lee, Ft Bliss, Ft McCoy (plus 4 more) … then at the Thrift stores near you.

It is so familiar that comes every September, I feel that same chill as if for the first time. Afghan new neighbors will feel the cold, we, naturalised American, now call refreshing cool air. All in the eyes of beholders. We are in the know: where to flip to the pages of the hymn being sung, where to find chapters and verses, where to find the ingredients like sauerkraut or salsa. We are in the know. We have arrived early, saved our spots. You latecomers to the game, put on your second-hand outfits, join us, but stay socially distant (“What’s that sound, that smell? Everybody look what’s going down “)

The status-quo and inheritors of wealth always make sure they play the upscale and last-word games of castes and castles, while poor men? outside their gates. They can afford “Breakfasts at Tiffany” (Champagne, any one?) and a Roman Holiday (Funny face). Once in a while, they may play symbolic tax-deductibles charity with UNICEF, always for the children and pets…

Looming threats like the Taliban are the worst, of course. Well, we finally can pin down a target group, the Others, over there….for twenty years, away from NYC and New Yorkers and Central Park (five)…away from our countdown in Times Squares ( Never again, at Boston Marathon, our Pilgrims’ institution with heart-break hill). We staked out our “turf”, yet 19 terrorists invaded “our space” (air space). Shoot them down, take them down…Let’s roll! You would think with Rifkin’s Empathic Civilizaiton, and broad exposure to diversity on social media, we would overcome compassion fatigue.

Back 400 years ago, all we wanted was to land on this new continent, coast and Cape (Cod). To vote for a leader – who incidentally did not survive his first winter – to become coal-miner’s daughters, to come home (Country Road Take me Home). California was a dream and the music? What music? it’s for the upstairs’ college-educated kids. All we have are “the remains of the day”, of working off the balance of a trans-Atlantic/trans-Pacific journey. We were all broken…with holes where the light can come in (to paraphrase Hemingway).

The empathic American I met years ago had covered up their “holes” quite well: I thought they were all perfect people, completely insulated in a little homogenious college town. Now I know why, in an unconscious moment, I along with others start carrying that schmuck look on our faces as if we owned Fifth Avenue and could get away with murder.

Forgive me, my Afghan neighbours for my blind spot. After more than 40 years working off my ignorance, I should blame myself for forgetting, and should with understanding, forgive neighbours for reinventing Cape Cod. After 400 years, at least 13 per cent, still carry those “Separatist” genes, the rebel label, but means the opposite of its original intent ( now = White Segregationist). If logic dictates, it’s Squanto ( who loved his new neighbours) and descendants who should stake rightful claims of this land ….from California to the New-York Island …” this land is made for you and me”.

The World Trade Centre were built with Peace and Harmony in mind, according to Yamasaki, principal architect. 200,000 tons of steel, lifted by “Kangaroo Cranes” imported from Australia and assembled to be then the tallest. Another tower, the Third Tower, our pillar of Democracy, is under attack, from voting rights to culture war, from domestic terrorism to foreign ones.

Although not as immediate and horror-filled, these attacks and attempts erode our confidence in the democratic system, itself a work in progress (or else, Congress wouldn’t have to return from recess).

The Twin Towers (and Pentagon’s newly constructed wing) buried almost 3,000 lives with them. 20 years later, the war on terror almost doubled that (on the last days of Saigon, two more US lives vs 13 in Kabul). 9/11 babies grew up in war, the war against terrorism – foreign (ISIS and Syria) and domestic.

One can’t perpetuate a lie, cry wolf and kick the can down the road. Fixing a problem by creating two more. Sarcasm wouldn’t work. Problems at one level needs solutions at their commensurate level.

We have to face up to a broken world of our own making (made worse by our denial and distraction). To bring down the towers, by one estimate, takes at least two years – brick by brick. Yet those ten terrorists – led by a graduate student of architecture, namely Atta, could do it in less than 2 hours. This is to show when there is a will, there is a way.

I, of course, share our anger, resolve and revenge. BUT we need to shore up and hone “Monte Cristo” feelings for constructive resolve. And we did. Brick by brick, in a physical sense. Ten years after saw One-World Trade Centre up and OBL down. Then another ten-years of quagmire.

That leads us to Kabul (Saigon part II), with close to 120,000 evacuees, vetted, vaccinated and eager like trapped bulls out of the gate (let loose in Texas and FL which drives De Santis and Abbott nuts). Tit-for-tat drone strikes, to kill the “Planner” of terrorist plot, albeit a mismatch: maximum force- minimum impact as opposed to minimum force- maximum impact.

We live and work in the Third Tower (figuratively speaking). The West is out in the open with bright lights of Madison Avenue and Times Square. The terrorists move and operate in caves and shadows. Their Tunnel (not Tower) traverses the underworld of theocracy, of jihad, of suicide missions. Ours: democracy, of logistically outsourced mercenary (uberized warfare) – of this edit, perhaps deployed in Ukraine, a replay of Emerald City with well-stocked PXs. Conventional vs guerrilla, State vs non-State actors, command/control vs distributed cells, strategic/short-term vs tactical/attrition.

The best way is to ignore (as opposed to fuel) their free publicity. Succumb not to inflated & irrational fear-induced tactic (we are reaping our own downside of hyper technology, such as encrypted communication, social media … as I just happened to view “Enigma” the movie which showed how difficult just 80+ years ago, making attempts at troop coordination).

Don’t be under virtual siege/paranoid or digital house-arrest. Do not buy in to their last wish i.e. assisted trip to Heaven – just as the neighboring thief who was overhearing: “Today you shall be with me in Paradise” (via slow and excruciating Roman death).

In short, not only do we need to build the One World Centre to restore confidence in our civilized society, “the steel of our resolve” as Bush put it; but we must also deny those extremists, their oaths and ends: world dominance via ways of western recruit.

Save those amendment “rights” for human rights i.e. those C-17 Kabul runners and the WTC jumpers.

To those who still haven’t learned the lessons: somehow, somewhere and someone, will make sure bad guys go down, if not by us, then by our children, if not by boots on the ground, then by drones from the sky. Of the 13 who were killed while carrying out their final mission of evacuating Kabul, many did not see a day without war (they were 9/11 babies-turned-soldiers).

Teach your children well. That it takes work and grit. Teach and lead by example. Force-rank your core values. We are to compete against time not to the bottom. Leaders who appeal to our debased values, vote them out. Our Third Tower is growing taller each day – Democracy come-of-age brick by brick i.e. to face ALL enemies, foreign and domestic.

Rule of the road, rule of Law, rule of civility and even grammar rule. Darker at times, but despair not, since we thanks to it (darkness), can spot some stars.

I long for people who debate in courtesy and context, with mutually respectful audience. Reading about those 19 terrorists who situated themselves in seats 2B to easily rush the cockpit, while all of us, freedom lovers, had to squat days on end in crowded barge (or died and never lived to reach freedom shores, then be called – of all things – by means of self-financed transport: Boat People) makes me furious, Monte Cristo like.

While they used planes for missiles, people’s lives (of jihadists) as passports to Paradise; we appreciate and value life, the only life, worth living and fighting for. In a final analysis, they can live in eternal indulgence as Twin Towers ash, but we Third Tower phoenix.

7 notes, the Alphabet and various shades and colors which elevate life.

Twenty years ago, Yamasaki designed perhaps in the shadow and flashbacks of two Nuclear Bombs earlier dropped. Yet his most genius and wildest imagination couldn’t have flash-forwarded to 9/11 terror acts. Our failure of imagination- a precautionary tale. While they monetize our attention, they can never fully extract our imagination, which always see different permutation and combination, even sparks of the Divine.

You are so beautiful, to me………

I still get those chills when flashback to 9/11 vertical jumpers, to certain but slightly delayed deaths (North tower inferno = incinerator at 2200-degrees of jet-fuel grade). I still get those chills reliving the longest night out of Saigon when hungry babies were forbidden to cry around narrow Song Be River bend. No buckle strapped, no aisle seat 2B for easy exit.

Just live.

Are we sure it will never happen again? Have we forgotten right after Gore vs Bush Florida re-counts, with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer of The Today Show that crystal clear Tuesday morning: “We interrupted the show for Breaking News” e.g. UA-175 casting a large Batman-like shadow on the South-Tower glass and by extension, a longer one into our future of freedom and fear.

Right before our eyes, people crushed, pushed, shoved and showed their papers. Sweat and tears, separation and survival.

Then the planes airlifted to 30,000 feet, leaving behind the dust and the doubts: free at last!

Not yet. Not quite. Not completely and mentally self-vetted. You might want to be sure: do you want to leave the past behind, with what’s on you, to live and thrive in a land where Charlottesville has “good people on both sides”?

Check your destination before departure. You’re destined to face prejudice (judging you even before you set foot on the ground e.g. TSA are learning fast: they check now under-the-hood when you board the plane).

Are you sure? OK, for your kids’ future. I conquer. Then lead by example. Live beyond Kabul, worthy of your sacrifices. Make sure your kids become doctors and dentists. Make sure they fight for what you, losing everything and leaving everything behind, have stood up for: to live free and speak freely.

Just imagine you’re on a train to have your head shaved, and DDT sprayed on you before putting out to forced labor. Let’s say those failed escape (Papillons) have their bodies hung in the Sun to discourage you.

All in the name of a Kingdom of God on Earth. Hail to the King? Bow down to/before Him for millennial to come?

You will cut grasses, plant trees and trim the shrubs…BUT, if that’s what you decided to do, in exchange for money (kids need shoes). Lawns are important, more important than where you came from.

You will get up so early that your days are long, and the nights endless…till all your races run, passion spent.

You will be re-certified every few years or so, to have medical and mental check-ups…to make sure, you’re not domestic terrorists, homegrown or overseas-planted.

While at it, check your kids too. Make sure Ft Bliss (camp-out) doesn’t turn to be Ft Hood (shoot-out).

You will learn the rope, the white lies and the White Knights (KKK). You will learn to stay in place, keep your place and move up in place. One rung at a time. You are America’s newest huddle mass. Come to Mamma. Come to Ellis Island (preferably White, like Melania). But too bad, we’re stuck with each other. We’ll have to make the best of it. Learn, write, pay taxes and keep your head down, face uncovered (when the pandemic is behind us).

Your story is America’s. Is mine. Is ours…we try our best for future generations, and make our sacrifice worthwhile. Blood, sweat and tears…all under 30,000 feet now. Welcome to the neighbourhood. Now get to work.

P.S. I know it’s early to sow the seeds…But, forget not your fellow sufferers who are stuck and struck by bombs.

The commandment is to love one’s neighbours. That’s just in theory (biblical). In practice, there are such things as sociological construct (demographic), political affiliations and financial obligations (bank repossession).

So your neighbours got evicted…in times of pandemic uptick, economic downturn and worst: Kabul falling.

Every twenty years or so. We need to retake the test…of re-certification…to be fellow human beings, to be good neighbours (Frost says to put up the fence, Trump the wall, and Mr Rogers shoes/sweats).

Edward Hall whose text has been required for Cross-Cultural courses mentioned the last few inches…the hardest. People can for a short stint, travel afar – from E1 to E3 – for mission work, military tour or diplomatic stops e.g. Harris in Hanoi (w/ Havana syndromes that delayed), but it’s much harder to repatriate, to feel close to the “millionaires next door” . Ex-pats also found this true, since being away from HQ diminishes their chances of getting rightly promoted.

Back to our Afghanis new neighbours, 50,000 strong as Biden warned. The last few inches, the hardest (please stay socially distant, six feet “haven’t you heard, you morons!). Coming to a neighbourhood watch near you.

You watch them watch you. We are the World!

Children of a lesser God.

People tend to get mixed up between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Man. The former is like an OSI upper layer in an open Universe, where miracles are the norms (sacred) while the latter, a closed one with secular and scientific facts i.e. Cause/Effect, Force/Counter-force. Just the Kingdom of Man alone, we’ve already found ourselves short e.g. Infrastructure crumbling, representatives need to get paid (Government funding to talk about police de-funding)….Then, there is a reckoning (after Jan 6 Capitol charge, not by Red Coats, but Red Hats). In the scope of this blog, I will not get into piety, the Kingdom of God and personal/original Sin. Consult Reinhold Niebuhr ( or his brother) on reforming within the system, vs a revolutionary model of change.

We project unto our neighbours, same way we thought the grass is always greener out there. We need the Jones while the Jones need us. We are both lonely, in need and in want. The Rolling Stones just lost its crucial drummer: irreplaceable and impeccable. He was known as elegant and steady-handed. Rest of the band are mourning and missing their neighbour. He earned his place in the Pantheon of our music idols and icons.

But the Afghan pilots and interpreters, scouts and contractors, corrupt officials and female diplomats? Our new neighbours? Our STEM students of Robotic Technology.. in Oklahoma? How about Standord and MIT? Have they been baptised by sprinkling or immersion? (by fire for sure). And preferably, per Ralph Reed, to join the Moral Majority and attend Liberty U (of course, to attend MAGA rallies and not the Stones concerts). Or worst off, Jim Bakker and his advice to hear God, not through a mask.

40-50 years ago, to be American meant to be WASP, to have been baptised (possessing a Certificate of Bapstimal and of Citizenship), to have put silver coins into those Sunday-morning collection plates and to bring pot-luck dinners (International students living in the dorm were exempted).

Today, millennial and generation Z know nothing about America’s most segregate hour (Sunday Worship hour). Globalization (a trade term) and diversity (an academic/professional construct) re-frame the way we look at our neighbours. The Internet and social media help put the nails on the coffin (of what a neighbourhood once were supposed to be – with church steeple and Tom Hanks playing Forrest Gump “Life is like a box of chocolate” – Hershey, PA).

Ironically, even the missionaries who came back home felt out of place. He/she has traveled the world to win over converts, the stop the tide (of heathenism) and to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth, yet found alienated and unwanted. The neighours who live next door, the neighbours arrived at our doorsteps (Trick or Treat) and the soon-to-be- our neighbours (currently being “processed” in Ft Lee, Ft Bliss), the neighbours who out of sincere devotion and loyalty to the cause – of making this a better world for our children; are all converging. Six feet apart…Stay away, stay out of sight.

The most segregate hour in America: Sunday morning. The most uncomfortable hour in America: Sunday morning (when the priest “made” you turn around and say “God be with you”). Yes, He has been with me all along. It’s you who have confused between American and Aryan, of being baptised vs bleached, of neighbourly to gentrified folks vs people from all castes and classes. Throw a book at those who keep holding the Good Book, all the while urge others to join the cult of hypocrisy and alienation. The Kingdom of God is here, is near…when you do to the least of these (in Ft Bliss and Ft Lee) you are doing it unto me…Meet your new neighbours.

Taliban 2.0 Gentler, softer… more softened in hiding, in cave, in Pakistan…read-up on US-issued ammo manuals, on the Koran, on Madison Avenue (re-branding), on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, twitter …anything and everything about modern life in the past 20 years…

The softer side of Sears (Blue-light specials)… Coke is it. Might as well hire Paris Hilton to pull a car-wash on left-behind Hummers.

A lot to catch up and to re-brand….Steve Jobs died. I phone is now in its 13th version. Austin Powers’ Dr Evil cannot ask for an amount of 6 million-dollar ransom. Biden is now the President (and the buck stops with him). No more pivoting nor prolonging the terror war + nation-rebuilding …Please read “Don’t give the dog a donut”…Please read anything Vietnam…Please read.

Or else we keep “Waiting for Superman”…Superman, superman, fly away! I watched porno on campus at Public School (and weekend sex-ile). So I figured I enrolled in private Liberal Arts College, where they MADE me attend chapel every morning. I listened to the likes of Chuck Colson (“I would run over my grandma for Nixon”….The speaker conveniently capitalised on going to jail for him – without pardon (Cohen, as Colson 2.0?).

But at least I read something…learning from the art of persuasion/re-branding. But trading my marketing for Taliban opium? They would have to pay young ad execs from Madison or Milan to do their dirty works (or home-grown ones).

I know what they would do. They first buy some time, to shed their image: underemphasising the negative (kill at will) and inflating their positive (we allow safe passage to foreigners and female medical workers …). They will target the young expats, Westernised ones whose command of the English language is above board…They will come up with similar “Softer side of Sears” campaign, data-driven and Ad-sense, with catchy slogan…to get and hold attention.

In today’s parlance, they will have to conduct a guerrilla and digital ad campaign (for EU to unfreeze their overseas bank accounts). Their spokesperson and statesman will have lived in the West, with dynamic equivalent for Press briefing and news cycle. They will buy air time, pop up ads and learn to overcome “Skip Ad”…In short, the terrible Taliban will eat and sleep with technology of the 21st century while preserving their Islamic core belief. They will learn to be evangelists on top of being Jihadists.

They will learn to enlarge their sphere of influence, taking a page from Turkey and Egypt (already sheltering Al Qaeda and cousins, take a lesson from them – why be dogmatic? Look at the damage done by OBL, trained and adaptable). They will retain and be uncompromising about being Taliban tribal with mediators and mullahs. It’s their way of life: smoke some, shoot some and say something at the women.

To the West, Taliban are terrible. To them, the West are infidels. Unbelievers to be maimed, wiped out. The West, meanwhile, with split personalities and culture-war i.e. Protestantism vs Pluralism, are uncertain about its mission: the Great Commission for Christ, or Civil Society after Jefferson and Rousseau (separation of Church and State). Both sides are waiting for Superman. Only China, Russia and N Korea are pretty clear and upfront about it: their Leaders are God-sent, and what he (male) says carries the weight. They are immortal, all-knowing and will reign forever (now that their leader has been released; think Genghis Khan, of Nelson Mandela) . Sounds like Systematic Theology 101 about the return of God to reign on Earth.

In or out of prison, time has always been on their side: Taliban 2.0 are now riding high (on Hummers) to attract young, eager and tech-savvy recruits. Tik Tok Tik Tok…Patience and Time are on their side, not ours. Maybe it’s our turn to re-brand, regroup and re-examine our premises.

Instead of waiting for Superman (Reeves is dead) 2.0, ALL of us should get back to the drawing board…admit our errors of judgment and conduct in a hurried war (highest-ranking Adm Mullen has just said so on Salon), a war that lasts so damm long and deep into the unknown unknowns that Leo Tolstoy resurrected couldn’t even offer any advice. War and Peace 2.0 will be in two volumes, side by side, like the Twin-Towers that started it all.

Saw a photo of a Vietnamese family of four (with children age 2 and 3) getting off the airport in Des Moines, IA back in 1979. The mother’s carry-on was a straw basket, popular with housewives to/fro wet market.

Traveling light. Or perhaps that’s all they had – after the Thai pirates had done their vetting at seas, then thieving at camps and finally vetted by UNHCR, I am sure. America is once again opened (Ft Lee, Ft Bliss) to receiving the newest displaced.

The immigration waves…WWII (with Cuban and Hungarian in between), VN ( refugees and subsequent Boat People – like that family of four), and finally with Ethiopian, Syrian and now Afghanistan all desperate to get in-shore.

The great Displacement…survive, adapt and thrive…rinse and repeat; to take one’s place at the lowest rung of caste system (like working as a janitor at night).

The totem pole. Then an internship (work for credits)…then a job offer ( in my case, I had to go home for mom).

Very slippery slope…to the top, then once there, we turn cocky and complacent, like losing 2 Billion dollars in one day ( Archego’s Bill Hwang….) or resigned like Cuomo this morning. In America, you can’t even stay put in one place, albeit lowest. They will promote you to the next rung, making room for new comers (less experience, less paid or non-paid interns).

Those who progressed to mid-level, private or public sector, are not familiar with finesses and nuances (learn from Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio), of playing for time, of playing safe ( both sides of the fence) and of playing politics. This validates Drucker’s principle of “being promoted to the level of incompetency”.

Anglo-Size one’s first names, but keep the last (just in case: Andrew Yang, John Yang)…for the uphill climb.

Then Kabul. Then refugees and displaced waves make their way to the front burner: the great replacement. All of a sudden, misery becomes fashionable again (newsworthy). Then we display what has been hidden all these decades….Operation Frequent Wind, VOLAG’s and vetting process. All dusted off. Like an old maid nobody wants, tucked in the closet corner for years, only to be asked out front with lights and camera on.

The pain is still raw, unhealed (listen to Scott Simon on NPR, Sunday 7-min long interview with the author of Rendez-Vous…Thuan Le).

We empathised with her (first shopping trip for backpack and tennis shoes – Bata – I assume – was actually for evacuation).

It’s as if nobody wants to hear about others’ loss and pain (which means rehashing America’s blunder in the Far East). We want to see the kiss in Times Square (after WWII) – between a sailor and a nurse, both in uniform.

We preserve our selective memory, of what’s honourable and not shameful, exemplary and not despicable. That tendency did us a disservice: we repeat the mistakes, the blundering and the despair. For one who verbalises, either in public or via viral sharing, we’ve got a tons of silent sufferers (tip of the iceberg).

That family of four who resettled in Des Moines, the author whose book is coming out and promoted via NPR (she earns her post as an Editor at USA Today), all got their baptism by fire.

It’s those who haven’t reached amnesia-age or retirement age, playing both sides of the fence e.g. taking Biden’s money but rooting for DJT, just for an example (or to put on a banner of anti-vexers, but quietly took two jabs, in wait for the third). We have a term for it: hypocrisy. Then those who are anti-immigrant, anti-this, anti-that….the degree of hypocrisy just happened to be shielded by their masked accomplishment (democracy gave them a start, meritocracy booting them out)…

In America or anywhere else, people reward good deeds and punish wrongdoing. It’s during turbulent times, that we are like deers facing an oncoming headlight: don’t know how to react, who to blame and what course of action is optimal. Then, being out of practice (in the art of being selfless and compassionate), we withdraw into our own shelves, placing self-interests and survival above all else. That’s when we find out we are neither saints nor sinners.

We’re people, fearful and selfish. We like public services (the warmth of the fireplace) but refuse to pay a dime for it (without having to haul wood). ” Before enlightenment, I chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, I chop wood and carry water”..not much meritocracy there. The only choice for displaced or replaced people, is to do time, willingly or grudgingly. Then make rooms for others, younger and more eager to run after the C-17 built for 150, but loaded and landed with 823.

I wonder how many were in that plane which landed in Des Moines April 29 of 79. But however many, four were quite eager from the look of it.