safety net

I think I am forming a new idea for a political platform....not to say it won't get tweaked...and not to say that it might have holes in its logic but here goes.

And yeah people will probably think its nuts at first.

1) The Federal Bank

I remember learning about this in highschool as what Andrew Jackson would call "the Hydra Headed Monster"...but Jackson was wrong about a lot of things...like genocide...

We all have social security numbers if we are citizens. And banks have been bailed out constantly for bad behavior...and can even be owned by foreign entities buy bailed out by our government...so wtf?

Now if I really ran saying to create a national bank to replace all of the banks in existence people will think that is crazy. And maybe it is true that it might be like adding too much cold water to a fishbowl.

But just because that is my platform doesn't mean that that5 what happens. We all have to sit down and figure out a balanced way to make it work. So yeah...that is my platform, let's argue and discuss until we come up with the middle ground...but that's what I think we should do. Not FDIC to back up these monstrosities, but cutting out the middle man...which brings me to my next platform point

2) UBI

Yes if we all belong to a federal bank then it's easier to push a button and give everyone 1K a month after they are 18 years old. The money comes from where Andrew Yang said it would...the data freedom thing...no I don't fully understand it...and yes, everyone gets it even if you are a billionaire. No it's not about earning it or fairness. It's about running a country and  building a society. And unlike what Yang said.. I DO want this to replace welfare, foodstamps, and other programs. Because its easier. Yes there are problems with that. But their are problems with the system now. Why are we afraid of problems? 

3) Universal Public Housing

I grew up in the projects. ButI feel that there should actually be a less co.fortable more communistic feeling public housing...for everyone. That's right...now homeless people. But that doesn't mean everyone gets an apartment. Part of the housing will involve so e kind of work to keep it...weird right? Since I said there is UBI. And why is it for everyone...including the rich? Yes...a billionaire cab gst this public housing too. Which is not really a home or a house...but shelters in strange places on the side of the road. People who get work cutting lawns or whatever and stay in them one. Ight and move on. Maybe it should be REQUIRED for everyone to serve 2 years where you live in this housing...and maybe some sort of police/social work is part of the assignment. Maybe it is part of your highschool education and maybe it is funded with our military budget. 16-18 are good years. But also if you run into hard times you can return to this system until you get back on your feet...and maybe many elderly choose to retire into this system. The system we have now has people locking up other people when both of these people should really be doing a completely different job. Maybe partbifnthis training is medical training

4) Universal education 

Just freaking use Khan academy as a base, more trade school, bring in the private sector to pay for some stuff, get kids working earlier but in a reasonable way, doing tasks for society. Maybe even medical work. Maybe even police work. Yes I said kids....with the way AI is progressing, it might be possible...probably already is possible. 

5) Universal.Healthcare

But as a base line treatment. Like yes...rich people can still pay for the better stuff. That's not fair....but that's what gets those fancy drugs funding to be created. So don't touch that aspect of health care. Just add in a baseline. So it doesn't cost a ridiculous amount to get stitches. Train kids to stitch  up animals or something. Train everyone to be a medic. That's not crazy. I wouldn't want to be the first one... but why not test on animals then? Is that cruel? If you eat meat then you can't complain. If you know you WILL have to treat someone at some point when you are age 16-18 or 16-24 even...then you will do it.

6) Democratize the judicial system and supplement with artificial intelligence 

Yeah...you guys will hate this one...but a written law, since Hamurabi...has bern a form of artificial intelligence. A way to take the pressure away from the person dealing out justice by having a non human thing to refer to.. a code...a law. And there were societies in the hemisphere that did things differently and arguably better. Justice should not mean revenge and punishment. Just because we have been doing something for a long time...doesn't necessarily mean it is the best way. We cab draw from other systems and countries that are further along than we are. This also means no more privatized prisons...which we are moving away from anyway. Also fined are easier to enforce...(because of UBI and Federal Bank) and Fines are not as deadly to certain groups because of UBI and Universal housing. Also there is that young group of 16-24 year olds living in Universal housing and other Universal housing people who can be in charge of guiding society as teacher/police/social worker/medic types. Not to say we replace the private sectors version of those professions. In fact the one can be training for the other. 

Again...people will say this is nuts butbsonis our system now frankly...and so is the platform's of the people in power now. And my opinion isn't written in stone...I'm just tired of hearing politicians and media argue about nothing. Here are 6 solutions to almost ALL the problems. Just haven't mentioned how it solves all the problems yet...and it virtually leaves most of society as it is to be honest. It's only some internal redecorating and reorganizing. 

Shoot I didn't even mention race because if you think about it...a decade or more of this and how much you wanna bet the 16-24 year olds all mix anyway and race will be a thing of the past? 

I didn't mention Police reform because how much you wanna bet that 16-24 year old group helps buffer and solve all of that organically.

I didn't mention foreign policy...because actually this list has nothing to do with that. 

Environment 

Yes the environment is important and as with anything should be given an important place in any decision. 

Taxes...I didn't mention it because actually this has less to do with creating new programs as with rearranging the programs we already have in place. 

The biggest one is that Federal Bank and that will meet the most resistance. Fine...just work around it like I said, platform doesn't mean final outcome. 

sword

Well our Kung Fu practice started out okay

 Dai dai doesn't have to participate today because he has dance. Shao chose our wali g path. I was almost going to let him get away with just bringing the baseball bat on the walk and swinging it around and having him do his sword form once...and thatbwould be it. But he didn't bring the bat. Usually the bat is actually an incentive to get him to walk.  He chose a more dangerous path to walk in terms of having to watch out for cars. I'm not sure why he did this but I allowed him to chose because it was just me and him...and because I didn't know any better. There is more traffic than there was and we won't be doing that again.  We got back and did some sword fencing drills with old canes that I was supposed to throw away. Ut instead, left leaning again trees. We moved on to free style sword fighting with the canes and he swung wildly at my to the point where I was nervous he would let go and hit our windows despite the fact that we were outside. I tried to explain to him.why he shouldn't do that, but I didn't force him to stop. But after a while it was simply testing fate and I said to love o  to doing the two man form...which we did once and he didn't seem to want to do ut more times in order to get better at it. So I moved on to his form that he usually performs...which looked particularly terrible, but it might have been because of the weight of the cane. So I switched with the nice looking prop sword we have. It looked better but I had a correction on how to get it better by using more ding lik. He used the sword as a cane, ruining the point, and complained and whined.....and basically is refusing to do the form one more time. On the up side...he is playing outside with rocks and that is better than screens. So despite the fact that he has homework to do, I am going to let him "win" and get away with it because he is playing outside, using his imagination as opposed to sneaking of and playing screens like an addict.....oops he just came in. Guess it's time to start homework.

Kung Fu Writing

My older son has trouble writing...or right now...schooling in general... and even Kung Fu ing. I told him I wanted him to start journaling. I dont even care what he writes about. The point is he had to get used to gathering his thoughts on paper without fear and anxiety. I noticed he even got stuck when being asked to draw something. But drawing was not a problem for him before. Interestingly, if he just does freestyle Kung Fu by himself, not in front of an audience, he will not be at a loss for moves. His moves may get repetitive, but he can play and play and duck and swing and cut with his weapon of choice, the baseball bat. But in terms ofnwritingbor even speaking, he tends to be more repetitive. He will want to repeat what he has heard online or read somewhere, randomly actually. But when I try to get him to drill in Kung Fu, to do the same thing over and over, to develop skill and strength, he finds this extremely boring and won't do it. Weird huh? I guess journaling is. Form of repetitive freestyle. For whatever reason

..he just doesn't want to do it. But I am going to have to start getting on him to do this simple task in addition to his school work. Because I know that after he has written more the writing will just come. He will he able to respond immediately to simple written questions. 

a three hour tour

So yesterday we went for a nice little Sunfay hike. There were different trails. The white box trail was the easiest one. It was a mile hike or so.....but then suddenly we were following yellow squares and the number of squares did not really seem to have a meaning and we continued and then there was an Pope pine clearing and aha...white squares again...only these squares looked more like...well white the original white squares should have looked like. "Are we almost there?" Dai dai asked. I guess some mommy's or daddy's would say, "just a little but longer honey" but seriously why lie, "I have no idea you just have to keep walking so we can get out of here." Was my answer because it was the truth and really you shouldn't lie to kids..or adults for that matter. It just confuses everything. And if the path is just one option....then don't question it...just do it until we get out. People reassured us that indeed we were going the right way and finally we came to be passing old people with canes and young children and we knew that it could6be that much longer. "WE'RE NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN MOMMY!" said Shao. Then we came to the pipe line clearing and gravel and the parking lot. "Shao...we're here" he laughed all the way to the car and laughed the whole time he ate the Royal Farms fried chicken, "I'm so happy I can't stop laughing"

I think we all had nightmares that night. So in a way it was like an haunted house...or haunted woods...which I assume are cancelled this year because of Covid...so you know...two birds with one stone.

Nam On Long hui Tai Tung Chuen

The title of this post is an idea for a form I am creating. A work in process that will basically be a Kung Fu form trying to encapsulate my Sifu's story. An intro? A trailer...bot that detailed. The form is not going to be super long. I have a separate one that will be more about certain fighting techniques. The title...needs work. And I think I will make the form on my own first and then show it to my Si Hing when  I have time and see what he thinks....but it's more for me...I plan to practice these forms every day as a way to remember and basically by doing so....I know this is sort of crazy and old school but it's what I am going to do. The more I thought about it... the more I realized that because of the events of his life....there will be some pretty emotionally heavy aspexrsbto this form. So the question is...should these forms be secret? But actually that's ki d of dumb. Most people will not understand that form anyway.....so it will be a lot like a traditional form. In other words....practiced often with secret meanings but yes also performed publicly. 

Sifu's passing

I'm going to start writing my blog again...because I really have no excuse not to. I was working on a book, butbI keep starting and stalling and part of it was I wanted to keep the rough drafts more current...but to tell the truth I will probably just start all over. My Sifu, Woo Ching, recently past away recently and that has been occupying much of my thoughts recently...with regards to my Kung Fu and also with regards to my writing. The most famous martial arts masters...like say Wong Fei Hung...or Musashi...are famous mostly because if literature. Writing, stories, movies. And so I do think it is important to write that book about my Sifu. I had collected stories and they are scattered around on this and other blogs. But maybe it is important to collect something that is specifically for the school. There should be an English and Chinese part to it...but honestly....those do not have to be translations of each other...just separate versions of a story collected into one book that gets passed on to students... maybe even a "secret book" and interestingly...for me...this book would actually not be a collection of techniques as most people would assume....but of stories. In fact, I had always felt that the techniques associated with stories were stronger in terms of being able to teach something and pass it down quickly. Our art contains such stories from times past that so far as to he foreign.. but also events more recent where my Sifu or a Si Hing was just recounting something that happened to them...and the story has a physical technique as well as a life lesson to go with it. That kind of stuff is important for the next generation to have access too. 

The Concrete Temple Intro: The Golden Ring

When I first came here from ROD (Realm of Dragons or Nagas depending on your preference) I was in poverty financially. That is to say I had no money. I didnt think anything of it because I had magic powers like every other Ming Wang Buddha. So what did I need money for? 

I was a lonely beggar looking type of fellow for a while. One day I was walking g through Boston's Chinatown. Now it's not that Chinatowns are the only place I can eall. I can go wherever I want, I walk in the woods, on the sea, in the deepest of oceans, I can go to the moon quite easily if I wish and often do. But as it so happens, I prefer Chinatown, and especially Boston's Chinatown. That's my spot, as it were.

Crossing through the gate over to Hei La Moon I saw a short man from a distance. But immediately I recognized his aura....it was Shun M Hong. Or Sun Wu Kong as people say in Mandarin, and Hanuman as they call him in India. So many stories have been told about him and he can be in more places than once...he often confuses people saying he has a twin brother....but others say it is just him cloning himself and messing with people.

But as I have said, I'm an MWB....when I see him, I see him with the eyes of the Naga realm and I know who he is, and he knew who I was...but could not remember my name.

"Hey!" He called out.."Her.....Her....MWB! What's up man what are you doing HERE!" M Hong said embracing me. 

I'm eating Dim Sum with a friend of mine...he's real connected around here. You know Odin? Usually we know him for that nonsense he tried to pull with the Tao Pong rebellion...oh...the old Christmas guy, Sing Dan Lo Yun....that's him too....he's like me...he likes messing with people...I know you like "teaching" people as well haha..." then M Hong leaned in a littel closer whispering conspiratorially....he can be a little more mean spirited....like how I used to be...but I mean....just be on guard but I do hang out with him.. there's not a lot of people like us you know and sometimes it's good to just remind yourself you know...

We walked into Hei La Moon. And Monkey pulled me back for a second, "Hold on you look like a bum" and he waved his hands to make me look more cleaned up and stylish...a little bit more. He stepped back , "Haha you should hold that look."

And we stepped through Hei La Moon's doors. 

The old man with the wide brimmed hat and blondish white beard was already sitting there drinking tea. He looked up at us and smiled and nodded to M Hong who sat to his right. 

The old wanderer took of his hat and threw it on the chair on his left as I sat next to M Hong.

He pointed at me laughing and then pausing, "Mahn fut Ji...10,000 Buddhas...in the New Territories." He saw the surprise on my face at him knowing where I had studied and come through into this realm and said, "Recognized you right away. I love Hong Kong....especially now...but I thrive on chaos....heh heh so your a friend of the Monkey King huh?"

"How many?" Looking back and forth from me to M Hong

It wasn't until I was talking to the God of the Tai Ping (Monkey King Sun Wu Kong is a mutual friend) and he was like,

"Look, powers or not, you need money in this day and age."

"But money is made up...I mean it's not even gold any more. Incense smoke is more real." I argued like the little upstart deity that I was.

Odin spread his hands....(oh you didn't know the Blond bearded wide brimmed hat wearing trickster that the Tai Ping were frothing at the mouth about was Odin? Yeah it was. And yeah he was just messing around for fun to see how many people he good get to kill each other and maybe have a whole country to himself again. Don't judge me he's Monkey King's friend.)

So anyway Tai Ping Odin  was like, "Look young Buddha, I see potential in you. And I dont mean that you'll rise "above" being a wrathful deity, I mean you won't and me and Wu Kong will have someone to live vicariously through and hang out with...but will also keep us in check from going too far. Money is fake than incense? Awesome. All the more reason to play with it." He slipped a golden ring from his wrist, "I have 5 of these.. .just like the Christmas song. The story goes that they increase every night and that's why I'm generous. That's an idea. I dont create matter. But these rings each draw money in their own elemental way. This one draws money through fire...heroic service...and that's just not my thing." Monkey King laughed at that...we were eating Dim Sum at Hei La Moon on a cold winter's day and Monkey was just sort of looking out the window at people passing by. He didn't say that much. I would find out later he had a lot on his mind, but that's another story.

Tai Ping Odin took my hand and slipped the ring on to my wrist.

"The way it works is you rub it and the Jinns or fire dragons as you call them bring you gold...or money nowadays. If you believe that sort of thing. But it's not free. You would call it Karma. For me it comes with a price. For you.. it comes with a service. I think it will give you something to do in this world. Cause you can't be doing magic tricks for baos or bowls of rice. Not in this country. 

I wore it for a while without rubbing it, because the things is....I actually dont need to eat or sleep. I mean I just lie to one side for a minute or two and then the other side and I'm good. I can photosynthesize too. I'm not human. But man Tai Ping Odin and Monkey King were right. That's just not how this country works and I felt like I was just an observer standing to the side. I wasnt human and I didn't feel human so I had to try this money thing out. I rubbed the ring.

Now I'm not sure the full connection but this ring is the same as Aladdin's ring from the story. Except in of a finger ring, the real one is like those teeth sing kuen rings.in fact the whole wearing of the teeth sing kuen rings is derived from some connection to the ROD where Tai Ping Odin and Monkey King frequent as well as other magical types, and the physical world. Except with Teet Sing Kuen...your basically giving power to ROD. This thing works the other way and the Jinns work their magic invisibly. When I first got here and first rubbed that ring I could still see them. They didn't grant me wishes. They just helped bring me money and I didn't get to choose how. Now when I rub the Ting I know they are working for me, but I can't see them any more.

I rubbed it and Bam! This fire Jinns tell me to follow them. They fabricate all this back leg work with computers and set me up for a job interview as a private investigator right up the street. They tell me.what to say and I say it and they mesmerize everyone for about a week, fake it till you make it type of thing...and I worked hard because like I said...I don't require food or sleep. So that's how the ring works. Bot sure how the other 4 things work...but I cab see why Tai Ping Odin gave me this one. I mean looking back it wasn't exactly a favor or a gift...but it was what I needed. 

After working in the field for a couple of years, I opened up my own office, the Concrete Temple. People hire me.for all kinds of stuff. Sometimes just to talk. And business is always booming when I want it to be...because of the Ring. In fact...I am charging you right now and you should know that before we continue. And maybe you want to tell me what I can do for you instead of asking me about the name I decided to put on the wall. I do Tarot, Kau Cheem, Private Investigation, Exorcisms, Marriages, Lion Dance, Dragon Dance, Guided meditation, Real Estate, and a few other services. The part I told you about the ring I will erase from your memory, not that you believe me anyway, and I actually need to go meet some friends for dim sum so you cab either come with or reschedule. It's a $99 dollar deposit just to talk to me...that was what you paid through We Chat at the door. If you dont6hire me, that's still mine, if you do, it will go towards your bill.