Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the LA riot due to the Rodney King trial.  Many stories have been told on film and books regarding black vs white or cops vs blacks.  Somewhat forgotten over the years were the pictures of Korean owned businesses being vandalized during the riot and the Koreans holding and shooting guns trying to protect their businesses.  But now after 25 years there are stories of the Koreans during the riot on films and books.  Some of the stories are written by Koreans who were kids 25 years ago and are now adults.  They give a perspective of what they and their parents go through during this time.

But another perspective these authors and film makers give is that of the relationship between blacks and Koreans in LA during that time.  Obviously, they talked of the violence that made life miserable for their families.  They also talked of being called "gook" and other discriminatory words.  But as these young people grew up, they also recognized the pain and anger the black community was going through.  I think it is easy to understand the discrimination that some cops had toward blacks.  But these Koreans also felt there was a lot of discrimination from the Koreans toward blacks.  They all condemn the shooting in the back of a young black girl by a Korean grocer who subsequently got probation only.  How can that possibly be fair?

Thankfully there are progress.  Korean and black leaders having been reaching out each other over the years.  For the 25th anniversary they along with other groups in the city met at the First AME church to remember the events and victims.  Roy Choi, the food truck guy, opened a restaurant in Watts providing healthy meals and jobs for an under served area.  The restaurant just won restaurant of the year award given out by the LA times.  Certainly, the tension of the two groups are not anywhere like that of 25 years ago.  We don't have utopia, but we do have hope.

The end of this week marks one hundred days in office for Trump.  After promising all sorts of things will be accomplished in the first 100 days, now Trump is saying this is an artificial day of no significance.  Whatever!  I will wait till end of this week to make more comments. So today I just want to mention that Vivek Murthy was fired as Surgeon general by Trump.  He was appointed by Obama and was a supporter of Obama.  Also he said proliferation of guns in the country is a detriment to health.  So not too surprised that Trump fired him.  What?  Healthcare is political?  Shocking!  Interestingly, his replacement is a nurse.  Maybe I am biased but doesn't SURGEON general imply only a licensed physician can hold this job?

By now I think everybody has heard of the Asian American doctor who was dragged off an United Airline plane because the plane was overbooked and there were not enough people who voluntarily get off the plane.  There are a lot of outrage over the incident.  There are some people who believe that the passenger was picked because he was Asian.  There are also some people who believe the police and the airline did nothing wrong.  So this is my take.

First of all, I don't know why United let everybody board the plane knowing darn well there were not enough seats!  If there were 105 boarding passes obtained and there are 100 seats, I would randomly select 5 people and don't let them board.  If it turns out some people with boarding passes didn't make it to the gate, then you can start letting those 5 people on, one by one.  If there turn out there is not enough seats, then the negotiation can take place at the gate, not on the plane.  It is a lot easier to not let people on than to drag someone off. 

I am a doctor so if I was being kicked off, I would use that as a leverage just as this passenger did.  This obviously failed but I would then try to get as much compensation as possible in writing.  But failing that I would not put up a fight like that guy did.  It is not worth the bodily harm.

But what if I am a 6 foot 5, 300 lbs offensive lineman for Michigan and not a 69 year old man?  Would the police still try to drag me out of my seat and down the aisle?  What is the next procedure on the airline manual?  Would the police use a taser on me?  A gun?  How about if I am a 20 year woman, would the officers grab me?  In this age of cell phones the police still acted so aggressively so can you imagine in the old days when there were no cameras around?

Finally on third writing the CEO of United makes an apology.  It is too late.  Unlike his employees who had to make a decision at the gate and plane, the CEO had time to think over things before going public with remarks.  This comes right after the young women legging incident.  I would think he would have gotten crisis management advice before blabbering his mouth.

In the long term, I don't think United will lose a lot domestically.  People will forget and the top four airlines dominate the U.S. market so the choices are limited for customers.  But United is one of the airlines trying to break into the high potential China market.  This will be a big hit for United there.  The Chinese airlines will NEVER let Chinese consumers forget this. 

One day after I asked the question: It is not so easy when you are the president, is it?   Trump makes it look easy by firing 50 tomahawk missiles on the air base that launched the chemical attack.  I should have said it is easy to do a one and done attack.  The question is, does Trump have a long range plan follow up to this that will make a difference.  I doubt it.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.  Just because he and Tillerson said that we will leave Syria alone and look out for our own interest first, I should not be surprised that Trump would do this.  This is a relatively safe operation.  No U.S. military people are at risk.  The chances of civilian casualties are low even though there maybe fake civilian casualties on tv tomorrow.  But of course it is not going to change anything in Syria.  It won't even stop chemical attacks because the chemicals are still there.  Assad just have to use a different delivery system, maybe even other planes in other airfields.  So we basically spent tens of millions of dollars (Tomahawks are not cheap) to beat our own chest and shout we are strong.

But beating his own chest is something that Trump likes to do.  He is basically a immature young man still and this is perfect for him.  To him it is a video game but with real ammunition and destruction.  He talked about how seeing beautiful babies being killed by chemical weapons and it affected him to act.  Well,  in 2013 the attacks were bigger but he tweeted that we should not get involved.  So I doubt that he is doing this because of seeing the carnage.  I think it is an opportunity for him to get an easy victory after all the problems of the first 100 days.  It also draws attention away from all the Russian influence problems.  Like dictators all over, when in trouble at home, attack some enemy to arouse nationalism and get people behind you.  That is the reason for this attack, not humanitarian reasons.   If humanitarian reasons are in his mind, it would be more useful to the Syrians for Trump to lift the ban of refugees.

I find it interesting that it is reported that Trump gave the Russians a heads up before the attack because there were Russians on the base.  Wouldn't that risk the Russians tipping off the Syrians and move the planes.  Even if the Russians don't say anything the fact they high tailed it out of there would look very suspicious to the Syrians.  And what will Putin's response be?  Trump was also hosting Xi Jinping today.  What will China's reaction be?

The only thing that may be good in this is that it gives a warning to Iran, Syria and even North Korea that Trump can change his mind and attack any time. Dictators want to survive and  so they may back off some.  But they also know that history shows that the U.S. will always win the first strikes because of overwhelming military power.  But that does not mean mission accomplish as George Bush found out.

I am not sure that the old saying where there is smoke there is fire is always true.  But it is worth looking into because you don't want to miss the fire.  In case of Trump's associates, there is smoke all over the place.  It is hard for me to believe that anyone running for president would collude with Putin.  But it is amazing how many of his people had contacts with the Russians.  I don't claim to know everybody involved but I am going to see if I can summarize what has been in the news regarding this.

It started with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager who may have been paid millions by a pro Russia political party in Ukraine.  He represented Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Putin in business transactions.  He resigned from the Trump campaign last August. 

Roger Stone is a Trump advisor and used to run a political lobbying firm with Manafort.  He claimed he had direct contacts with Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks and correctly predicted release of private documents by WikiLeaks.

Jeff Sessions, former senator appointed to be Attorney General by Trump.  He did not reveal that he met with Russian ambassador to the U.S. during his confirmation hearings.  He has recused himself from the investigation of Russian involvement in the election.

Jared Kushner, son in law of Trump, who met the head of a Russian bank that was under U.S. sanctions.  I don't know why he would do that, consider it is easy to know that this bank is under sanctions and is connected to Putin.

Michael Flynn, former national security advisor, who resigned three weeks into the term after it was disclosed that he had spoken with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and then lied about it to vp Pence and others.

There might be others but that is all I can think of.  Michael Flynn's attorney said that Flynn would testify if given immunity.  That is interesting because he was accused of talking about lifting sanctions to the Russians before he took office.  Not great ethics but I kind doubt he would be jailed if that is his only crime.  Also, prosecutors don't give immunity for testimony unless the accused can give up somebody that is more important to the prosecution than the accused.  So who would Flynn give up?  The smoke thickens.