The Progressive Platform

     I'm reading Bernie Sanders' Our Revolution , where he spends half the book detailing his presidential campaign and the other half writing about his platform. I picked up the book because I wanted to learn more about his values and goals, and the book does a pretty good job. He addresses a series of issues that, as demonstrated by a campaign that gained serious traction and realistically might have been the Democratic Party's best chance at putting a candidate in the Oval Office, concerns a great number of Americans.
     I think it's important to always remember, especially in the aftermath of the election and in light of the turbulence generated by the current administration, that every single politician represents a set of beliefs, mindsets, and ideas. To appreciate and follow through with the hype of the Sanders campaign requires an appreciation of the ideas that he never even got the chance to bring to the national forefront. I could rant about how the Democratic Party blew it and how anybody unhappy with Trump should lob a LOT of shade at the party leadership, but I digress. Instead, I wanted to publish the gist of some of his ideas. Each section is the title of a chapter in his book, but all the bullet points are my summary/understandings of what he writes.
1. Defeating Oligarchy

• End voter suppression laws
• Restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act in its entirety
• Restore the vote for convicted felons (of which there are 6mill+)
• Campaign finance reform
• Overturn Citizens United decision, 1976 Buckley v. Valeo, & 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC
• Pass legislation requiring wealthy individuals and corporations to disclose their donations/political spending

2. The Decline of the American Middle Class

• $15 minimum wage
• Mandate paid family, medical, & sick leave
• Mandate 10 paid vacation days

3. Ending a Rigged Economy

• More severely punishing companies that engage in breaking pay equity laws
• Make it easier for workers to join unions
• Transparency regarding wages (passing a/the Paycheck Fairness Act)
  
• Creating a full-employment economy
• Rebuilding infrastructure
• Combating climate change (making everything energy-efficient)
• Building & updating housing
• Create a universal pre-K & childcare system
• Make high-quality broadband access available to all (the idea that internet is a right vs. a privilege)
• Offer more support for small businesses
• More medical personnel so that no population goes underserved
• Reforming Wall Street
• Breaking up the biggest banks 
• Separating the functions of banks (personal banking vs. investment banking/insurance services) 
• Putting an end to excessive speculation (which is just higher-stakes gambling beyond most people's imagination, from what I understand)
• Credit-agency reform
• Capping interest rates so the consumer doesn't just get bent over and taken for a ride
• Allow post offices to offer banking services (so that everyone can have access to banks)
• Tax reform
• Closing loopholes that allow corporations to pay less in taxes than they're supposed to
• Raising taxes on the wealthiest 2.1% of the population
• Making a progressive estate tax to reduce enduring wealth inequity
• Limit tax deductions for the wealthiest to 24 cents on the dollar
• Tax capital gains & corporate stock dividends just like they are normal income

4. Health Care for All
5. Making Higher Education Affordable
6. Combating Climate Change
7. Real Criminal Justice Reform
8. Immigration Reform Now
9. Protecting Our Most Vulnerable

• Particularly: seniors, vets, the disabled, and Natives

10. Corporate Media and the Threat to Our Democracy

• What we think is really influenced by what's broadcasted to us, and currently just 6 corporations control the majority of the communications that reach us. So, while I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say we're getting brainwashed, there's definitely just a small number of people that can and do filter the things that we are exposed to. This is a threat to democracy because they can create any narrative they want to (or freeze out a guy that would've been the people's president)

     If you couldn't tell, I haven't read through the entire book, but the largest chapter (by far) is chapter 3. After that, every chapter just gets shorter and shorter. However, I covered a good deal of the things he writes on. Reason I wrote this post is so that more folks can get a good read on what drove his campaign. These are the issues he campaigned on, the same ones that drove what I think most of us would consider a "no-name" Senator almost all the way to the White House (except for fact that the Democratic establishment screwed him). So if you see these ideas and they resonate with you, remember that, as a result of his campaign, more and more folks are beginning to run with these issues in mind. & that you can start voting into office politicians who will give you their ear and address your concerns, as opposed to twiddling their thumbs and engaging in the fucking farce that currently dominates the landscape of American government.

Are Millenials THAT Bad?

     It's interesting that in the present day, we have so many digital platforms available to broadcast who we are - Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and all other social media. Thinking about the ways we put ourselves out there also got me thinking about what, exactly, we put out there. & although you'll find plenty of people who would tell you that millennials are selfish, entitled, and lazy, I don't think that's really the case.
     I'm not really sure how to measure these things, otherwise I would have just done a few quick searches, something like "selfish rate" for 1987, 1997, 2007, and 2017. In my mind, it's not that my generation is any more selfish than the last, it honestly might just be that it's much easier to flaunt it than it ever was before. Otherwise, all the issues that plague society that people like to pin on one age group? I'm pretty sure those are just natural tendencies that the majority of humanity has not outgrown quite yet (because it's clear, especially in America, that we haven't properly acclimated to an era of overabundance).
     That's my long way of saying - there is no generation gap in terms of attitudes and traits like being selfish, entitled, lazy, or whatever else you can think of. Instead, I'm pretty sure it's just shown more often than it used to be. Kinda like police brutality - there's one train of thought that it has only proliferated recently, and another train of thought that the prevalence of camera phones has just managed to capture these incidences more reliably.
     Regardless of whether there is a generation gap or not, though, I think it's fair to say that the majority of people are pretty selfish. So I put a list of things you could (should?) care about. Pick one, pick 3, heck take all of 'em and add your own - whatever you're into, there are SO MANY issues in OUR society that you can tackle! & this doesn't just go for the 20-somethings - these are issues that every citizen should be vested in, because whether or not you realize it, they DO have an impact on our (read: YOUR) quality of life.

Modern Slavery (international and domestic)
Wealth/income inequality
Education
Feminism/misogyny
Healthcare
Homelessness
National Fitness (or lack thereof)
The military-industrial complex
The prison-industrial complex
Government
Regulation of ANY industry you can think of (Energy, Banking, Fashion, Manufacturing, Technology, Media, the list goes on and on)
Climate change
Sustainable/responsible living

Bucket List

"A goal is just a dream with a deadline" - or something like that. So, I thought I would take some time and set some explicit goals and attach the age in or by which I hope to accomplish them. I'm currently 25.


Own a home - 31
Fully pay off the home - 56
Run a marathon - 27
Teach somebody and their child - 55 (I'm giving myself 30 years... if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen)
Make the world a better place - continuous
Finally do a single goddamn muscleup - 26
Learn to cook (have 10 go-to, very different recipes down pat) - 29
Travel to a different country every year - Ideally, every year up until I have kids
Master 5 different magic tricks (they'll probably all be card-related) - 28
Learn to play an instrument - ...32?
Ride in a hot air balloon - 30
Scale a mountain - 35
Become a casino dealer - 60
Go on a weeks-long hike through the mountains - 30
See the Northern Lights - 40
Stay a few nights at the Grand Canyon - 45
Visit a different national park every other year - continuous
Learn to knit/crochet well enough to make a pair of socks or a blanket - 37
Road trip through the US - 48

Mexico City Trip Report 3/23/17-3/26/17

     I went to Mexico City this past weekend, but chose to leave my camera behind. I was worried I would lose it in the hustle and bustle of the trip, but that turned out to be a big mistake. So, I'm writing this for posterity's sake. Here are the highlights from the trip. Beware: there are a ton of highlights because the trip was 110% amazeballs.

Thursday

• Got in at 1AM, walked around, found street tacos. Got 4, which would've cost 40 pesos ($2), if we had any. We didn't, so we paid with a $5. It STILL felt like a steal.
• When we got back to our hostel, the bar below us was still bumping music pretty hard, so I threw in a pair of ear plugs and fell asleep on the top level of my (twin?) bunk bed, haha.

Friday

• In the morning, I went around looking for a lock to secure our stuff. But... I don't know much Spanish and so all I had found was a tube of Sensodyne because I didn't pack any toothpaste.
• Went to a stand and got 2 tacos for breakfast, went across the street to a different one and got the best tacos of the whole trip - the meat was delicious (that was the case for all of them tbh) and the tacos were topped with freshly fried fries (not like McDonald's fries but there's nothing else I could call them)
• Headed down to Centro Historico, where there are a bunch of ancient churches (it wasn't surprising to see that some were in bad shape, but that they were still standing was very impressive)
• Visited the National Palace, which is a pretty huge governmental building that's been around since ~1400-1500. They had some awesome murals depicting Mexico's history, showing colonization and periods of Mexico as far back as ~1300-1500. The garden was rather tranquil. Stuff on the murals: 
• Karl Marx is at the top of one
• Harsh enslavement and conversion (slaves being put to work while being blessed or converted)
• Fighting against various outsider groups 
• Walked around a street market for quite some time, just window shopping. Throughout the area they were selling ice cream bars, juices, and other snacks. We picked up 2 huge cups of Horchata and a Strawberry juice for a buck.
• Grabbed a beer at a restaurant bar on a balcony overlooking the neighborhood.
• Headed back to the hostel for a short nap before heading to Estadio Azteca. It took us a good ~2 hours riding public transit, but a cool experience nonetheless.
• Mexico vs. Costa Rica! The home squad won 2-0, but what really caught my eye was the various vendors making their rounds around the stadium. They were selling: 
• Ice cream/snow cones 
• Pizza 
• Tortas
• Hamburgers
• Chips
• Popcorn
• aaaaand my personal favorite - Cup Noodles (Maruchan brand, if you were wondering). I got a shrimp flavored one, with added hot sauce and lime. That was a cool $1.50.
• Some highlights from the experience: 
• The crowd doing the wave, going around the stadium a good 6+ times without stopping
• The crowd winding up and going: aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY PUTO!!!! It was seriously ridiculous. On the ticker going around the stadium, it read "Chanting 'Puto' does not make you more Mexican, help us avoid punishment by FIFA!" (As it was explained to me, it would be similar to a crowd winding up and shouting faggot, so, y'know, there's that)
• Afterwards, grabbed tacos and fried plantains from street vendors. So heavy, so sweet, so delicious.
• Afterwards, went to a gay bar. Which no one knew was a gay bar. But the art on one wall (that was like 20 ft tall) was a naked Mexican guy riding a horse. Sooo... there was that. Some highlights about the experience:
• One of the people we were with asking of me & Eli "Are you guys straight?"
       -"Yes"
       -"Did you guys know this was a gay bar?"
       -"No"
       -"LOL me neither! Wth!"
       -Me: ???? (Aren't you from here bro??)
• Double shots of tequila for $2.50 a piece (!!!! one of MANY points throughout the trip when I KNEW I was going to have a great time)
• Listening to this 2x in one Uber ride and 4x in a later ride (it goes so hard, 10x so because the vibes were so strong when it was playing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDCcLQto5BM
• Went to another spot that we couldn't get in to because we didn't have enough girls :( (the group was something along the lines of 6 guys and 5 girls). When I remarked that I didn't realize Mexico City was Vegas, I was told that, indeed, most of the clubs around wouldn't let you in without a proper number of females (did they have to be attractive as well? Probably)
• So then that was the conclusion of our night - we went to get tacos for drunchies, and then turned in to the hostel about 4

Saturday

• Woke up about 11, then headed to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (National Museum of Anthropology). The museum was located in the Chapultepec Park, which is a pretty expansive area of Mexico City that holds a lot of landmarks - the office and residence of the Mexican President, a zoo, the Castillo Chapultepec (Chapultepec Castle)
• Highlights:
• A video exhibit showing the creation story of the Mexican people
• A concrete, circular fighting ring maybe 20 feet across where people fought to the death in sacrificial rites.
• Some re-creations of ancient sites and blocks from the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon 
• A disturbing number of skeletons with cranial deformations. Apparently, there had been a tradition where they used some tool to shape and mold skulls of children. It resulted in some scary cracks.
• After the museum, we headed over to the Castillo. It was about a 15-minute walk from the museum, so we had some ground to cover. On our way, we came across an open rock concert they were having in the park, so we took a seat and soaked it in for a few minutes.
• This is the biggest regret of the trip for me: I wanted to make it to the castle, but we also wanted to squeeze in seeing the Frida Kahlo museum, so we were on a time crunch. Result being I could really only venture around the castle for 15 minutes. But I knew I really didn't want to miss it, so I just bit the bullet.
• In one word, this place was: extravagant
• Rooms full of artifacts and gifts from various sovereigns
• It was just so impressive - 2 stories, stunningly beautiful gardens that were perfectly manicured, murals, paintings on some ceilings, and a piano performance so serene that I invested 2-3 of my precious minutes. I just had to stop to close my eyes and appreciate the gravity of the moment - to appreciate the history and to give myself a moment to soak in awe that I was, for some reason, in Mexico City in a gorgeously appointed castle I had only looked up 3 nights previous. 
• Considering the sundry artifacts collected in and around the castle, I could only imagine the wealth amassed in its vicinity. 
• I hadn't mentioned the view! It was a brisk uphill walk for ~10 minutes from the park to reach the castle, and you could really appreciate the height of the castle from any side you were on. From every angle, you were overlooking the sprawl of the city - buildings, parks, roadways, even the roller coasters from an amusement park. 
• After I got my time in (I seriously wish I had prioritized it over anything else, it was that amazing), we headed to the Frida Kahlo museum. By the time we got there, though it was about an hour from closing, the line was long. So long that we knew we weren't going to make it in, so we headed to the Coyoacan market for some eats. 
• Did you say EAT?? From the moment we stepped inside, we were offered samples of chicharron and meat from vendors luring prospective customers in. Somehow, the (delicious) bait didn't fool us, because we just grabbed the samples and continued our circuit of the market. Eventually, we ate from a couple different stands. We had:
• Quesadillas (chicken mole, carnitas, and some type of squash?)
• Tostadas (shrimp & ceviche)
• The shrimps on the tostada were YUGE. We're talking 7-8 shrimp that were probably 1.5in long, stretched out? And the tostadas were $2 each it was SO amazing!
• Elote (corn on a stick) 
• Tamarind candy (I shoulda bought a lot more... :'(   )
• A cup of watermelon juice and a cup of horchata
• We headed back to the hostel for a power nap, woke up, grabbed a beer, hung out for a bit, then met up with Eli's friend Maria for dinner. Since everything had been so cheap, we were tryna ball out and get a fat steak dinner. Something got lost in translation, though, 'cause she took us to a seafood market lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It was delicious, but it definitely wasn't what we had in mind. Highlights from the dinner experience:
• We ordered oysters - that was a mistake, considering we live in Louisiana, but w/e lol. Oysters are still oysters.
• Octopus w ink over rice
• Their mixed drinks - pours were generous, to say the least. I'll never look at a rum & coke the same
• We also had some iced espresso mixed drink. It was so delicious I gulped it down, hardly tasting the liquor. This was a mistake.
• By the time we finished dinner, it was 11 and I was fading fast. I said I probably had it in me to stay out 'til 1 before I headed home.
• We get to the club where Maria's friends have bottle service. I remember slamming shots (of tequila, of course), some real animated conversation about where the 2 of us were from, and marveling at the experience I had over the weekend and how lucky I was to be going out in Mexico City at a locale I never would have been without Eli (the MVP) & Maria (co-MVP, she was such a great hostess). A couple bits of conversation that stood out to me:
• When I said something about sticking out like a sore thumb bc I was the only Asian basically anywhere, her friend [Carime? The spelling is probably off] said she felt the exact same way when she was at school in London (as the only Mexican).
• When I was gushing about how amazing the trip had been and how cool it was for us to be chillin' wherever we were, the same friend said something along the lines of "Yeah, this is as Mexican as it gets!" and I just remember this distinct feeling of being impressed. Like... wow, I'm in another country, going out with locals. Cool would be a major understatement.
• The next thing I remember is pulling my head up from the table to a table empty of everybody except Eli. Time to go home, lol.

     Our last morning was marked by disappointment - we attempted to go back to the Frida museum, but even though we showed up 15 min after opening, there was already a long-ass line. We waited for 45 min 'til we decided to make the best use of our time by heading back to Coyoacan market and eating our hearts out at 2-3 diff. vendors. So... that's exactly what we did. & it definitely made up for it, haha.

     Overall, I had a spectacular trip. I enjoyed everything - the food, the spirit of the city, the food, the history and architecture, the food, the hospitality we received, the national pride that filled the stadium, and everything else I mentioned throughout this post. Every single bit of the place was an absolute pleasure. 

     A couple people asked me how much the trip cost, in all. With flight (300), the total was ~500, give or take 50. Once we got there, the cost for all the food, experiences, drinking, 8-10 ubers averaging half an hour each, and our hostel stay amounted to about 150, 200 tops. I could say this was probably the first time in my life I spent without restraint. A part of me knew that no matter what I did, the damage wasn't going to be so bad - and it wasn't.
   
     I hate to say it, but I don't know the next time I'll be going back to Mexico City. What I will say, though, is I'm damn glad I went and will forever be grateful for the opportunity to partake in such an adventure.

The Time I Saved A Life

     This is a story I really enjoy because it's one of the things I remember most from the earliest days of my friendship with one David Ngo. Throughout the 14+ years since it happened, we have referred to this event plenty of times. However, it has always remained somewhat of an inside joke between the 2 of us because no one else was present (besides my mom). I'm sure we've told it plenty of times, but I wanted to get it down in writing for the sake of posterity. And to share with you all, of course.

     I don't remember particularly when or in what grade we met, but in 5th grade our friendship blossomed. We were in the same class, shared the same social circle at school, and then hung out some more afterwards (along with a cast of various other characters from Cherrywood). This was a very convenient friendship considering we lived (essentially) one intersection away from each other, on the opposite sides of Hostetter and Agua Vista. Fast forward to the end of the school year, and needless to say our bond has only strengthened throughout the months. Now that I think about it, for a couple of children, being great friends for a whole year without any type of squabble or anything like that is pretty remarkable (because children are generally fickle creatures). Anyways, we finished out 5th grade and moved on to 6th grade at Sierramont Middle (where, incidentally, I might be employed next year) close as ever.

     A brief information session on the geography of the story. While we lived pretty darn close to Cherrywood, Sierramont was a bit further afield (probably 2 or 3 times as far as Cherrywood was, which is a lot of land for a child to remember). This wasn't really an issue for me, considering my mom picked me up from school 99% of the time anyways. & as far as I was concerned, David must have been an excellent navigator of the neighborhood, considering he had walked to and from school for... well, as long as I'd known him (at least to my knowledge). To my young self, as far as the Berryessa area was concerned, David was a real professional - in line with Christopher Columbus, or Ferdinand Magellan. 

     Well, this wouldn't be much of a story if that were the case, would it? At the end of our very first school day, I hung around, waiting for my mom to pick me up, while David got to walking. Either my mom was late or that after-school traffic really was as bad as it is in my memory (y'know, hopping into your car then not really going anywhere because the area is all congested with pedestrians or parents waiting for their children REFUSING to move from their position in the middle of the parking lot smfh), but whatever was going on, it was taking a while.

     Traffic notwithstanding, we eventually make it out and onto Hostetter Road. We're cruising down the road before we hit the spot to turn into my neighborhood. However, before we get too close, I can see David standing on my side of the intersection (remember, we live on opposite sides). He's looking around with a worried expression on his face and scratching his head in the exact way you expect someone who is puzzled to scratch his or her head. Like so:

 Seeing him there was confusing to me too, because...well... he was on the wrong side of the road. Clearly something was up. I told my mom he was a friend, and to pull over because it looked like he needed help. 

     As we pull up next to him (in my minivan, btw), I hit him with the "Hey man, are you lost??" He responds in the affirmative, and that he doesn't know which way his house is (which is literally 2 blocks away from where I found him, lol). I tell him to hop in and we'll give him a ride home. I direct my mom to his house because for some reason I remember better than he does where he actually lives. He is dropped off safe and sound, and that's the end of the story.

     ~5-6 years ago, he's over at my house and my mom says it's nice to meet him. I remind her of this story, that this is that kid, and she starts to laugh and says she remembers. She adds that, without me, he'd still be lost. So there you have it, folks. He basically owes me his life, haha. Hope you enjoyed this story, and if you're lucky some day you'll read it from his perspective.

What I Want

     I just finished watching "Minimalism," a documentary featuring various people who've taken to that kind of lifestyle. While I agree with the message of the film, I didn't find it terribly captivating, informative, or even new. The gist of the film is that our current rate of consumption is unsustainable, it doesn't make us any happier to have more belongings, and that we should be more deliberate about our lifestyles (to save our planet, raise our kids right, make it easier to pursue meaning, etc. etc.). Go figure, right? Unfortunately, the funny thing about people is that we can think about things when it's intellectual - when something exists just in our minds or as a discussion - but when it comes time to connect our reality (our actions) to our desired outcomes... we fall flat. Some prime examples are:

1. Wanting to look/feel good but not having the discipline to make it happen.
2. Wanting to conserve the environment but going on to consume (food/clothes/plastics)
3. Desiring simplicity but refusing to release all the clutter (physical/social/mental or any kind of clutter, really)

     That's not why I started writing, though. One of the messages I received from the film was to consider what it is I want in life. So I figured I'd set aside a few minutes, think about it, and write it out. The list is short enough where I don't feel greedy, broad enough so I feel it covers my bases, and just long enough to make me think that I've put some careful consideration into it. So, here are the things I want in life. Not just now, or tomorrow, but ideally, for the rest of my days.

1. The basics
   a. Food to sustain me
   b. Roof over my head
   c. A warm bed to sleep in
2. Love (both to and from)
   a. My family (which I feel I've always had, thank God)
   b. My partner (which I'm still surprisingly amazed by)
   c. My friends (what's there even left to say after all these years?)
   d. My community (my coworkers, students, their parents, and just all the people I see on a regular basis)

     That's not too much to ask, is it? So long as this post is around, I guess I can always check in and see how far I've come and whether or not I've stayed true to my desires. In the meantime, it might do you some good to sit down and think about what you want in life. & of course, writing it out somewhere (journal, blog, scratch paper) will make it that much more meaningful.