A Dark Pit

Regarding the Mueller report and Attorney General Barr reading through it and making his own assessment and excluding Congress from reading it, is a damned win for Trump.

During the Nixon investigation, AG Jaworski and his committee looked at the report, provided a guideline for Congress, and submitted the whole report.  Jaworski didn’t take it upon himself to make his own ruling. AG Barr making his own ruling despite his history with the Republicans and Trump himself, and with Republicans pushing to never have the full report be made available to the public is quite a coup. Trump and conservatives celebrating and proclaiming his innocence of all crimes rings quite hollow especially with the proof of his innocence being furiously kept secret.

Even with the Mueller report being released, there are talks of Trump redacting several parts of it due to executive privilege.

There’s gambling in the establishment. The game is fixed.

Alex Jones, QAnon, and alt-right pseudo-intellectuals and conspiracy theorists often see small things, make mountains out of them, and terrorize people with their pursuit of a bigger, sexier story, one with hidden cabals, sex rings, etc. THERE IS ONE RIGHT HERE! They are blocking a report which has details to what may or may not be impeachable offences! And if you want to talk sex, Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who ran a pedophile ring may or may not be connected with conservatives, particularly Alan Dershowitz and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta! Heck, a lady who ran a prostitution den was just taking pictures with Trump and his ilk and peddling access to them! Hey conspiracy theorists, you’re really bad at conspiracy theorizing!

But what’s to happen now? Here’s my prediction.

The Democrats will continue pushing for the release of the Mueller report, but while they’re at it, they will slowly lose interest over it as the media gets hammered for “pushing Russia-gate” when apparently “there is none.” Those are all in quotes, because that is the talking point conservatives will uniformly use on the way to the elections. They will use weaponized the Mueller report and pretend that it vindicates Trump, even though that is not what it says. AG Barr explicitly said it doesn’t exonerate Trump.

In the meantime, the Trump administration will try to control the news cycle by being incredibly hideous. They will attempt to move on and bury the issue with reckless hideousness. Just a couple of days since the release of the report, they are already working to totally repeal Obamacare again and they are planning to take away funding for the Special Olympics. This is cartoon villainy. And at some point, the Democrats will have to take on issues like healthcare and spend less time fighting for the report and/or using it to further take on the Trump organization.

The SDNY will continue with their investigations, but the lackluster result from the Mueller report release take away some of their momentum and again, conservatives will use the Mueller report and AG Barr’s proclamation as a weapon against it. Should they find criminal evidence on Trump, I’m not sure if there is political will to use it against him, no matter how serious those crimes may be. Definitely not on the conservative side of the aisle.

Even now, some Democrats are already moving on from the issue, saying that the only way to fight Trump is during the 2020 elections. This is weak and craven, but network television loves this talk. Network news loves elections. They would love nothing more than countless debates and panels discussing elections. They would even recycle some of the villains from the Mueller investigation. Already, I see George Papadopoulous being interviewed on MSNBC as some sort of witness or expert, not as a weasel traitor.

Even if there was clear evidence of collusion, Mueller did not believe in indicting a sitting president. Even if there was clear evidence of collusion, Nancy Pelosi believed that impeachment would not be worth it. And even if she pushed for impeachment, there are too many Republicans who are protecting Trump. It would be impossible. They are just that craven. So yeah, the disappointment that Democrats and progressives feel at the moment was already coming. It just took a while to get here.

Trump will not be taken away from our lives outside of an election defeat. And even if he’s defeated, there are far too many evils that he rooted out that will take longer to get rid of. Islamophobia, the rise of white nationalists, racism, fascism… even complacency, and self-defeat, these are all evils which gave rise to cartoon villains like Trump.

You’re Canadian, You Idiot!

I was recently asked about childhood memories. This was for some future project and here is a gist of what I wrote with some edits.

I don’t know how old I was, but this was back in school. My family and I are immigrants, and we were still adapting to life in Canada at the time. I didn’t have too many friends in my new school, and I was still resenting my new city and the people in it. It was a bad time to be a kid. I was somewhat resenting the whole country, wishing not to be there, probably blaming my troubles as a kid to the whole immigrant move or how different everyone in Canada was. It was not uncommon for me to begin my sentences with “Well, back in my country…” in noting how more sensible, interesting, moral, etc. people back home were compared with Canadians. In my mind, I was enlightening people, or at least demonstrating my pride for the country I just left. I could imagine how insufferable that must have been for some. I mean, who was I? Balki Bartokomous?

Then one day in English class, during some discussion or argument about a topic I’ve long forgotten, I mentioned something about being a “permanent resident” and not Canadian citizen. That was a technical term, and I forgive most kids at that age for not knowing it, but one of my classmate scoffed at my ridiculous sentiment. “What are you talking about? You’re Canadian.” I explained the situation and the difference to her, but she still insisted, “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be Canadian eventually.”

I’m sure it was a very forgettable experience for everyone else in the room. But for me, it was a microcosm of what a welcoming, multi-cultural experiment Canada is, and how wrong I was with my resentment and stubbornly sticking to what made me different at the time. I was being stupid and silly. Why was I being so negative about my new home? It was a wake-up call, and I was grateful to be very wrong.  I’m quite older now, but that was a lasting lesson on multiculturalism, acceptance, and how some people stubbornly stick to their differences for no reason whatsoever.

To this day, even when I no longer live in Canada, I proudly call myself a Canadian and value what the country has given me. And as for that classmate who put me in my place, she has become one of my best friends. Even after eventually going to different schools we’ve kept in touch. To this day, thanks to the magic of the Internet, we still watch hockey together.

Anyway, even now, as I live in South Korea, I try not to be too negative on the country too much because of the lesson from that classroom interaction. For all of its quirks and what some might perceive as shortcomings, it’s still a wonderful country. It’s a still a country most people would be very lucky to live in. I can raise my imaginary flag and proclaim my love for Canada, but not at the expense of my current home. And should I be compelled to explain differences between Canada and South Korea, I try to be as unbiased as I could.

But speaking of differences, here’s the key difference. Back then, I had someone tell me, “You’ll be Canadian eventually.” And she was right. Here, it is not uncommon for me to hear people say “you’re almost Korean!” Heck, I even hear it from people back in Canada. But the thing is I don’t think I ever will be truly Korean even if I wanted to. There is a shared national and historical identity that is very difficult for foreigners to be a part in. As wonderful and as welcoming as the Koreans are, the country in general is still not as welcoming as Canadian society. (I don’t blame them. They have a long history which would explain this, one that I won’t be able to explain in a nutshell.) It’s simply not the same as Canada.

Random KFC Incident

With women from the Middle East, due to cultural reasons and perhaps my own misconceptions, I try to give them a wide berth. So when I was at a KFC and this woman and her young daughter, who were obviously tourists, were ordering after me, as I sat down and waited for my number to get called, I shoved the seat next to me a bit farther. I wanted to give them space when they sit down.

Before the woman sat down however, she dragged the seat even further from me. I didn’t know how to take that. “Was there something about me?”

“Don’t be silly!” I thought.

They finally called my number and I went to the counter. As I was picking up some extra napkins, my food from the counter disappeared just as I turned back to it. Then I looked back, and the woman’s kid grabbed my food, brought it to her mother; and they were rifling through my burger, chicken, and fries.

I didn’t say anything and waited for them to realize their mistake. I also thought that maybe I made the mistake and didn’t hear my number correctly.

But when they finally realized their error, they went back to the counter and tried giving me back my meal with the woman saying, “No touch! No touch!” my original tower burger hastily wrapped in an amateur fashion.

I have OCD when it comes to germs so I wasn’t about to eat it. I could just imagine that hyperactive kid’s fingers all over my food or their spittle all over my fries and custard.

“No touch! No touch!” she kept saying. I ain’t touching that either, lady.

So I just forced a smile and asked the lady behind the counter for a replacement. Both she and I kinda just rolled our collective eyes at the incident.

Not once did I hear sorry from the woman nor her kid.

After waiting 7 minutes for my replacement meal, I went to the dining area. I sat there shoving chicken down my mouth as I glared at this woman and her kid. My OCD started kicking in when I realized they didn’t replace my tray nor my Coke. Also, my chicken was suspiciously cold. What else did they have their spit and their fingers all over? Visions of National Geographic footage of microscopic creatures I saw when I was a child kept repeating on a loop in my head as I ate. “What else did that kid touch before going into the restaurant? Do either of them have a cold. Do I hear sniffling? Is it cold in this restaurant?”

“Wait, why am I obsessing over this?! Is it because they’re Middle-Eastern? Am I being racist?! Surely, not. But why the focus on diseases?! Hey wait a minute, I’m sure I’d be a little bit grossed out regardless of who the person inadvertently had their dirty hands all over my food. But why say ‘dirty?!’ What is going on really?! And why is this chicken so cold?”

Worst KFC experience ever. I think I’m going to have indigestion.

Now, there’s really no big revelation from the whole experience. No truths about Middle-Eastern women nor tourists. These facts are just incidental… details, mere details to color the incident. What bothers me however is the fact that no matter how emphatic we sometimes try to be towards other people, it’s annoying when they don’t bother reciprocating the same thoughtfulness. It’s not owed, but it sure would’ve been nice.  I’m sitting there, trying to think about other people, and later they just grab people’s meals willy-nilly. And in the end, I end up eating a suspicious meal, obsessing about germs and PC culture, staring and probably menacing a couple of tourists.

Satan?

I don’t normally dissect my artwork for people, but here’s one that I think is particularly misunderstood (or not really “artsy”) and needs dissecting. It’s just a silly drawing filled with silliness.

Here it is a little enlarged.

Dumb details are dumb. Be good, everybody!