It is shocking that Landon Donovan is left off the U.S. soccer team.  Donovan is the greatest player in U.S. history and at age 32 may have passed his prime.  But he is not way over the hill either.  There is no way that he is not one of the top 23 players in the country right now.  Klinsmann has not given any reasonable explanation for leaving Donovan off the team.  To say he is a step behind others is not an explanation.  That is like saying someone is just better than him.  But in what way?  Is Donovan out of shape?  I don't think so.  He is playing full time with the Galaxy right now.  Is he slower than others? I don't think so.  I would bet he beats at least 3/4 of the team in a foot race.  Certainly not because of experience since he has the most caps and goals on the team by far.

So is it because Klinsmann is still upset that Donovan took time off last year and he thinks that Donovan is not as committed to soccer as he needs to be?  If that is the case, he is wrong.  I think if Donovan did not take his leave of absence last year, he may be burned out this year and be of no use to the Galaxy or the national team.  Is Klinsmann going for the youth movement since he does not think the U.S. can get out of the group of death and so might as well let the young guys get experience for 2018?  Again that would be wrong because even though it is unlikely that the U.S, can get out of the group, it is not an impossible task.  They can certainly beat Ghana and Portugal is maddeningly inconsistent despite having Christian Ronaldo.  And players like Julian Green will not play much if at all in Brazil anyway.  They have 4 years and many friendlies and tournaments to get ready for 2018.  So the youth movement can start after the World Cup.

Even if Klinsmann does not think that Donovan can be effective for 90 minutes, it is important to have a player like him on the team.  Lets face it:  the U.S. will not beat anyone by a big margin.  The best they can hope for is play great defense and get a goal from counterattack or a set piece.  These are the situations where Donovan is by far the best American.  I want him to take that free kick at crunch time.  If he can't run 90 minutes, put him in during the second half of a close game.  He is our best chance to get a goal or assist on one.  If the game goes into a shootout, I want Donovan to be one of the shooters.  So I think it is a big mistake to leave Donovan off the team and the chance of the U.S. to have a successful World Cup just went down 50%.

Karl Rove said that Hillary Clinton may have brain damage from an injury.   He defended himself by saying that a presidential candidate's health should be under scrutiny.  He is right about that but Clinton has not declared her candidacy.  I mean, are we going to make Chris Christie's obesity an issue now before he is a candidate?  At least Chrisitie is in office right now.  Clinton is a private citizen.  This sort of attack may fire up the base but to independents it seems like Rove is scared that Clinton will be the nominee.  If Clinton does have brain damage why would Rove be scared that she runs?  You mean your candidate, whoever he or she will be, cannot beat a brain damaged person?  If she is incapable of being the president, it will come out in the campaign.  She may get herself disqualified by, for example, not remembering which 3 cabinets she would get rid of if she becomes president.  So by attacking Clinton now, Rove just makes himself look scared of Clinton.

I predict that Amy will win DWTS.  I would agree that Davis is the best dancer left but I think the difference in skill is so small between the two that Amy will overcome that with the voting.

The movie about Dan the Korean adoptee is now on YouTube.  Look for aka Dan on YouTube.  The movie is broken down into 7 segments of about 15 minutes each so there is interruption with the flow as you click for the next segment.  There is also some repeated scenes.  But the excellence of the movie makes these minor annoyances irrelevant.  Please be sure to check it out.

There is an Indian-American running for governor here in California.  His name is Neel Kashkari.  He has no chance of winning because the latest poll shows that he is only favored by 2% of the voters vs Jerry Brown who has 47%.  He even trails another Republican, Tim Donnelly, whohas 10%.  Even though he has no chance of winning and based on what I read, I don't agree with him on several topics, I will keep an eye on him.  This is due to the fact he is an unusual candidate and I want to see if his unorthodox candidacy can at least beat his Republican opponent in the primary and give Brown a run in the general election.

First of all, Kashkari has never run for office, so he is not a career politician.  Despite not known by the electorate, he is endorsed by the likes of former governor Pete Wilson, Congressman Darrell Issa and Mitt Romney.  Trained as a mechanical engineer, he eventually got his MBA and a job at Goldman Sachs.  It was at Sachs that he worked under former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson.  Paulson tabbed Kashkari to be in charge of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in 2008.  A life long Republican, he voted for Obama in 2008 and stayed at the helm of TARP after Obama took office.  He left to work for Pimco in 2009.  He voted for Romney in 2012.

I find Kashkari's story interesting because he uses his work at TARP on his resume as a badge of honor.  His Republican opponent, of course, says that no Republican should vote for someone in charge of TARP and voted for Obama.  Most Republicans have accused Obama as a socialist for TARP, not mentioning that it was Paulson's idea under Bush that TARP got started and it was run by a Republican even when Obama took over.  Many Republicans say TARP was a waste of tax payer's money.  But now a Republican running for office with backing of moderate Republicans, is saying that TARP saved the financial market.  There is argument on both sides but if Kashkari beats Donnelly, will other Republicans support Kaahkari?

The other thing about Kashkari is that, unlike most politicians, he does not speak in vague terms.  He has already written what he would do if he was governor.  Now I don't agree on some of the things he say such as no raising of the minimum wage and no corporate income tax for 10 years for any company that move to Californiia. But he isputting it out there for discussion as oppose to someone who says:  "I am going to create jobs".  Kashkari also does not mince words.  He told a mix crowd at Berkeley that reversing the ban on affirmative action as advocated by Democrats is just a way of saying there are too many Asians at Berkeley.  He is not afraid of being politically incorrect.

So he has a lot of people on both Republican and Democratic sides mad at him.  By the way, his remark about not raising the minimum wage came right after Romney said that it is reasonable to raise the minimum wage.  So Kashkari is not afraid to antagonize one of his own big name supporters.  So to sum up, he has no chance of winning.  But I am hoping he will have a decent showing even though I am not sure if I would vote for him.  But having both sides attack him while bring concrete ideas for discussion, makes Kashkari a candidate that I am interested in following.

This past week Neal Rubin of the Detroit News tried to rewrite history.  He published an article on the 1982 case of the killing of Vincent Chin.  To summarize the case:  Chin was having a bachelor party at a strip joint when two unemployed auto workers, mistaking Chin to be Japanese, hurled racial epithets at him.  A fight ensued but was broken up.  All involved were thrown out of the bar.  The killers, Ebens and Nitz then got a bat out of their car, hunted Chin down the street and beat him to death.  For this murder, the killers were given probation, no jail time.  The case pulled the small Asian community of Detroit together to protest.  It drew national attention but the fact remains that these two killers got away with murder.

Now for unknown reason, Rubin claims evidence show that Chin is partially at fault by throwing the first punch.  This is a complete lack of logic.  Not only has Rubin failed to prove who started the fight, it is absurd to assign fault to the victim in this case.  Let's say a slur was aimed at that person's race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, would it not be reasonable for that person to stand up for himself?  It would be totally understandable that a black, Latino, Jewish or gay person may throw the first punch in this situation. Sure, a monk may not respond to a slur but I would think that no monk would be in a strip joint.  So if you are calling someone names in a bar, aren't you the one looking for trouble in the first place?  But let say Chin started the fight, it does not matter when it comes to assigning blame because that fight in the bar was OVER when they were kicked out.  If Chin had gotten hit, fell and hit his head and died in the bar, one can argue that accidents happen in a bar fight.  But the truth, and nobody disputed this:  Ebens and Nitz had time to cool off after leaving the bar but they chose to get the bat and hunt Chin down.  A lot of time had passed for them to change their mind but they chose to use a weapon!  So this was pure murder and you can't rewrite such history.  Chin is being slurred once again 32 years later.

The Chin case mobilized the Asian community.  We were not successful in getting justice for Chin then.  But we are a bigger and stronger community now.  We cannot let anyone insult us in the media today.  The Chin case has mobilized us again 32 years later. We have way more economic power today than 32 years ago.  If we get no apology from Rubin or the Detroit News, it is time to plan economic boycott and other pressures against them.