With no more elections for himself and no democrat needing to shy away from him in the next two years, Obama went on the offensive in the State of the Union Address. It was the type of the best defense is offense theory that I proposed at the midterm election.  As I mentioned before, it may not have changed any results but by shying away from Obama, the Democrats were essentially agreeing with the Republicans that Obama was a failure.  In reality, as Obama pointed out, by almost any measure he was way more successful than Bush.  So now he makes proposals that will have no chance of passing the Republican majority in both chambers.  But at least he makes his points.  For example, didn't Wall Street screw up the economy last time?  So now you are worried about regulations for Wall Street?  I think Obama's vision will cause the Republican nominee to lean to the right and will make he/she less likely to win moderates in 2016.

While I agree with Obama in most issues, I don't agree that community colleges should be free.  From my experience, when someone gets something free, he is less likely to appreciate it.  I think here in California, the cost of attending junior colleges is very affordable.  I know a lot of people who go to junior colleges and work to save money to transfer to a 4 year school.  If it is necessary to lower the cost of junior colleges, I think they should first have to get rid of the sports programs in these schools before asking for more tax money.  I don't think these schools should be a minor league for the pros or 4 year colleges.  I know of people who played two years and had no credit toward transferring to a 4 year school.  I can't think of any country whose technical schools or colleges spend millions for intercollegiate athletes.  If the goal is prepare kids for the real world, don't use these schools to be minor leagues in sports.

I got the feeling that the Patriots are going to throw a ballboy under the bus like USC did a few years ago when they did the same thing.  Belichick is the usual bad guy.  But I can't imagine he would tell someone to deflate the balls to below standard since he is not the one throwing the ball.  I hope Brady is not involved other than telling the ball boy to get it down to 12.5 psi, the lowest allowable level.  While the Patriots are not going to be thrown out of the Super Bowl no matter what happens, Brady's legacy could be in jeopardy if he instructed someone to cheat on his behalf.  The whole thing is stupid anyway.  Why do each team have different balls?  Baseball pitchers don't bring their own balls.  Why didn't the officials notice a difference of almost 20% among the balls before half time?  And if Brady cheated, why was he so stupid?  Sure, a softer and lighter ball is easier to grip.  But a lighter ball would also be more affected by air resistance.  So it would be more difficult to control in bad weather.  Think in extreme:  would you rather throw a baseball or a ping pong ball in the wind?  So why cheat?

Last week Barbara Boxer announced that she won't run for reelection to the senate.  So finally one of the 3 big elected office in California will be taken by fresh blood.  Dianne Feinstein will most likely not run the next time she is up for election and Jerry Brown will be term limited out in 4 years.  So will see an era of new leadership in California over the next few years.  Given the high percentage of Hispanics and Asians in the state, one would think that these positions can very well be filled by one or more minorities.  And given that the state is dominated by Democrats, you would think that minorities from the state would also be national leaders in the Democratic party.  But that does not appear to be the case.

In fact the most likely minority candidate for Boxer's job is Kamala Harris, the black state attorney general.  There are no Latino or Asian candidate that is likely to win this state wide election at this time.  Among Asians only John Chiang, the former controller and present state treasurer, is even a viable candidate.  And since he just won election for treasurer in November, I think he is a few years away.  I also think that voters have less trouble voting for an Asian to a position involving math than voting for him to be a chief executive or national office.  Part of the problem for minorities is that the Big Three have been there so long that nobody has any experience running in competitive state offices.

But interesting enough, while California and the Democrats are not producing any viable minority national politicians, the Republicans are actually doing a better job of this.  Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindhal come to mind.  I think this is due to Republicans are trying to look not so white.  So any minority who claims to be a conservative Republican is going to get support from the party in races that are winnable.  The Democrats can wheel out any white liberal in a state like California and win anyway.  So while demographic changes in the future would seem to favor Democrats, if they take minorities for granted, they can lose their advantage.  I think as Hispanics and Asian move up the economic ladder, the Republicans will gain a higher percentage of them.  So will see if the Democrats notice this and try to consolidate the minority base by promoting more minority candidates in California over the next few years.

First a water pipe broke near UCLA spewing millions of gallons of water, breaking concrete roads, flooding parking lots and buildings, including the famous Pauley Pavilion.  Then underground gas lines exploded in Taiwan, destroying buildings and killing people.  Then the water supply in Toledo got contaminated with a toxin from algae, causing a run on bottled water and shutting down restaurants.  All of these may seem like isolated incidents but I am wondering if more of these things will increase in the future.

I am not sure what happened in Taiwan.  It maybe an accident from nearby petroleum companies.  The UCLA situation is obviously a sign of crumpling infrastructure.  The pipe that broke was over 90 years old.  It is estimated that the pace of repair and changing pipes in southern California is such that it will be 300 years before all the pipes will be repaired or changed.  So if the pace is not picked up greatly soon, I see a lot more pipes bursting.  And it is not pipes underground but bridges are not being maintained in this country also.   Remember the bridge that broke in Minnesota a few years back?  That bridge was fixed but I have not heard of a national effort to check and repair all the bridges.  There will be more collapsed bridges for sure.

The detection of toxins in Toledo actually worked well, giving warnings before anyone got sick.  But isn't algae always going to be growing in Lake Erie?  Are there any proactive plans to prevent contamination in the first place?  I think most of the time, the local government spent money on what the people can see, such a police, fire and schools.  Most people never think about what is under the ground or the electric grid until something happens.  So unless we demand that our infrastructure be upgraded, we are just waiting for the next disaster to happen.

Besides exposing our poor infrastructure, I am worried that what happened in the last few days also give terrorists ideas.  It seems to me that if they have a few smart scientists they can figure ways to cause explosions in gas pipes or contaminate our water supply.  So besides upgrading, we also would need to find ways to protect our infrastructures.

Meanwhile I am thinking what my late grandmother used to admonish me:  stock up on more rice and water!  I am also going to drive faster when on a bridge so that I will spent less time on it!

The LA Times editorial recently called out three Asian American California state senators for backing out of their support for repealing prop 209 which banned affirmative action.  Supposedly the three liberal Democrats withdrew their support because they received "thousands" of complaints from Asian Americans fearing that the repeal will decrease Asian American enrollments at Berkeley and UCLA.  The Times said that the debate should be about whether diversity in universities is a benefit and not whether a particular group gain or lose acceptance letters.

First, I would agree that we should argue whether diversity is important enough to justify racial and "gender" bias.  By the way, if prop 209 is repealed, then gender affirmative action can also be used.  In that case, it would benefit males as they represent less that 45% of the enrollments at Berkeley and UCLA.  I would like to see what liberal female groups think about that!  But by singling out selfish desires of Asian Americans, the Times is being dishonest.  I am sure that Latino and Black groups who want affirmative action are not doing so because of diversity but because they want increase in enrollment of their own group.  If these groups and liberal whites believe diversity is that important then they should have complained about black colleges and women colleges.  Would they come out and say the students in these colleges receive an inferior education due to lack of diversity?  Anyway, I would submit that Berkeley and UCLA is more diverse as it is compared to most elite colleges.  Its white enrollment is less than 40%  compare to some famous liberal art colleges that are 70% plus white.  Asian Americans ARE a diverse group.  There are big difference between East Asians, South Asians, South East Asians, Pacific Islanders etc.  They are also diverse in socio-economic status, immigration history and religious preferences.  They are also diverse in conservative and liberal ideology.  I would argue that a political science student at UCLA would have a more diverse experience than someone at Howard or Amherst.

I do believe that the playing field is not level.  Kids who go to private schools and have SAT tutoring have big advantage over poor kids.  So to me using affirmative action due to socio-economic status is fair.  A kid who came from a poor family and went to a bad school, regardless of race, should be given extra points against my kids when applying to college.  But Obama's kids should not have an advantage against my kids just because their parents are black.  I am sure the president would agree with that.

An aside, MSU and Michigan put up good fights.   The Big Ten could have easily gotten 3 of the final 4 spots.

A judge in California placed an injunction against the California High School Exit Exam. The judge cited the unequal education system leading to a higher proportion of minority and poor students failing the exam. While economics and the school one attends would have a significant impact on one's performance on standardized tests, there is really no excuse for failing this exam. The standards of this exam is extremely low. The math portion is at 8th grade level and the English part tests at 10th grade level. You only need a 55% to pass the math section and 60% to pass the English part. Starting from 10th grade a student has two chances to pass the test each year. So essentially one has 6 chances to pass with a D- or F+ on tests that are two to four year levels below what a graduating senior should know. Not only that, the test was suppose to have been implented for the class of 2004 but was pushed back to this year for political reasons. There was plenty of time for the schools and students to prepare for this and yet over 10% of the senior students in the state have yet to pass the exam. Somehow these students have been passed by the school to the 12th grade despite not really having learned at the high school level. No wonder the high school diploma is becoming worthless.

It is true that some of the students do not pass the exam are disadvantaged by the fact that they are immigrants and thus are behind in English. From previous blogs you know that I am for immigrant rights. I am, however, a firm believer that you need to play the cards that you were dealt. Immigrants, of all people, should understand this. Just because you are disadvantaged it doesn't give you an excuse not to succeed. Non-English speaking immigrants from various countries in our history have overcame disadvantages and became successful. I believe that the immigrants today have the same ability to succeed and will not make our country poorer as some conservatives claim. However, if there is one thing that will make immigrants unsuccessful, it would be because liberals making excuses on behalf of immigrants. This lawsuit is an example of this. The liberals supported two Hispanic students from Richmond, claiming being disadvantaged on this test. The students should have been held accountable for their failure to learn the material. Over the long run this type of excuses will make immigrants less competitve.

Our public school systems are graduating students who cannot function in society. Recently a business employer wrote to our local newspaper complaining about the quality of high school graduates in the area. Not surprisingly, several teachers and school administrators wrote in to protest. My experience has been the same as the employer writer. The majority of high school graduates who apply for a job in my office cannot convert inches to feet or ounces to pounds. Do you think that would be true of high school graduates in China and India? We need to hold students, parents and schools accountable for such failures. This exit exam is just a minimum standard which they should meet.

Recently Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles announced that the Catholic Church here will ignore any law that would prohibit the helping of illegal immigrants. There is a law pending in the House that would not only make illegal immigration a felony but also punish those that help these people. I have not been a fan of the Cardinal since the sex abuse scandals and the cover ups that have been revealed. I do agree with him on this issue, however. Many people who are against illegal immigrants are conservative Christians. I would ask them to consider whether God would declare immoral someone who crosses a man-made border to take up jobs that nobody else want in order to feed his children. I think God would want us to be compassionate about others who are not as fortunate as us living in this wealthy land. There is no way that God would be against someone helping another human being, no matter what country they are in.

I understand that America has the right to enforce her borders. I also understand that certain areas of the country like California are overcrowded. I also understand that many poor, non-English speaking people moving into certain towns or cities can cause many problems for those areas. I also understand that it is unfair for those legal immigrants who may have to wait longer to get into the U.S. because the country is trying to hold down the total number of immigrants per year. I do understand why some people who are not racists would want to stop illegal immigration. I would like to point out why these people's anger are misdirected at the immigrants and that we really have only ourselves to blame. I would also like to point out unless human nature change dramatically, the solution to this problem will be hard to obtain.

Everyday driving to work, I pass vast agricultural areas here in southern California. I do not believe I have ever seen a black or white person working in these fields. In my practice I treat many people who are farm workers, some of them illegal, I am sure. I have never treated a white or black person who works in the fields. Everyday new hotels are built here in California. I estimate that 95% of the maids that work in these hotels are Hispanic. New houses go up all around me and the gardners who work the yards are almost 100% Hispanic. If somehow all illegal immigration are stopped, we would have to bring in more legal immigrants in to replace them. I don't think you can ever find enough blacks and whites, even those on welfare, to do these work. Nobody who is against illegal immigrants has send his sons to work in the fields or his daughters to clean hotel rooms. So over crowding in California is not the fault of illegal immigrants. Unless we don't want to farm our land or if nobody want to live in California or come here for vacation, the population of California will increase at the same rate. When there is a demand there will be a supply. You can bomb Colombia out of existence, but if we want drugs, somebody will supply it to us. If we don't want to do the work ourselves, somebody will supply the labor.

Is there a difference between legal immigrants or illegal ones? My parents were legal immigrants. It took them more than 10 years to get into the country. My parents are honorable people. They would not do anything that you would consider illegal. Yet if China was attached to the U.S., they would not have waited 10 years to get official approval before coming here. They would have crossed the border like the Mexicans are doing today to make a better living for their children. If they had crossed illegally, they would have done the same jobs, brought up the family the same way and my siblings and I would have become productive citizens as we are today. When you are trying to survive you would not think of crossing a border as an illegal thing to do. Did you see all those people in New Orleans breaking into stores to get food and water after Katrina? You can call them looters but if you are hungry and thirsty, wouldn"t you do the same? How about the old people who buy medication illegally from Mexico or Canada, are they bad people? All of you, unless you are a pure bred native American, have ancestors who are from another country. If your ancestors were desperate they would come in illegally if their country of origin was attached to the U.S. You think if Ireland was connected to the U.S., the Irish wouldn't charge into America during the potato femine? Interesting enough, I read an article that up until recently many Irish came over here illegally by coming on visitors visa and simply stayed in cities like New York or Boston. Some of the Irish-American cops actually would turn a blind eye to this. This trend has come to a halt, not because people feel guilty about it but because the economy in Ireland has improved tremendously so there is actually a reverse migration of the Irish going back to Ireland. So you see, illegal immigration is not something bad people would do but something all of us would do given the same circumstance.

Some people want to put a fence around our Mexican border. They say it can help stop terrorists as well as illegal immigrants. Well, I think terrorists will find it easier to get into Canada instead of Mexico and then cross over a much longer Candadian border with practically no patrol. As far as illegal immigrants are concern, it would slow it down some but won't be effective. People from Cuba and Haiti risk their lives on the rough sea to reach Florida. Chinese people are smuggled in shipping containers across the Pacific. Where there is a will, there is a way. When people are desperate, they will do anything.

The only way to stop this is if demand disappear or if the source of supply dries up. The supply would only be gone if Mexico becomes economically comparable to the U.S. Fat chance that is going to happen any time soon. We can help Mexico with investments but ultimately it will be up to the Mexican government and its business people to improve. One way to cut demand would be to punish the employers harshly so that it would not be worthwhile for them to hire illegals. This can be done but the government has no interest to do so. Like I said, the whole agricultural industry will be destroyed. The consumers will be paying much more for food. You think that the government have the guts to put big business people like officers of Wal-Mart in jail for hiring illegals? I would bet that many politicians from California have or had illegals working for them directly or indirectly. If people like the minutemen are serious about stopping illegal immigration and they are not racists, then they should picket the employers and expose politicians who have hired illegals instead of intimidating poor immigrants.

One possible way to cut demand would be a guest worker program. It would be fair to allow workers to come in to work legally without permanent resident status. Employers can hire these guest workers, pay them fair wages without legal problems. They would be punished if they hire workers without guest permits or try to pay someone below a fair wage. This won't get rid of all the illegals because you can't catch all small businesses and there is always someone who would hire people off the street to work on his yard. The large farms and businesses who violate the rules would be easy to catch if the government is willing. So unless you are ready to shut down all of our farms and close the hotels, a guest worker program must be started soon.

As for the law that would prohibit anyone from aiding an illega immigrant, I would defy it if it passes. As a physician I will treat anyone regardless of where he is from. If someone catches an infectious disease, he can pass it to anyone else regardless of that person's citizenship. Not only would it be inhumane to not treat someone but it would be a health hazard for the whole population. I agree with the Catholic Church that we should help our fellow man and not demonize him for doing something we would do if we were in the same situation.

Academic freedom or brain washing?

Recently an UCLA alumni group called the Bruin Alumni Association made headlines by coming out with a list of liberal professors at UCLA that the BAA considers too radical to be teaching at a public university. The group is willing to pay students to bring in tapes or lecture notes from these professors so that it can be demonstrated that they indoctrinate students. Of course the liberals are complaining about interfernce with academic freedom and that it is mean spirited to single out certain professors. Well, this is the same argument I made last year when a group of liberal called for the firing of John Woo, a law professor at Berkely, who was an apologist for the Bush administration. I did not see any liberal group coming to the defense of Woo then. As usual, I feel both sides just want their views to be heard and not the others.

I checked out the BAA website and frankly I was impressed with the length Andrew Jones, the writer of the site, goes to give a biography of each of the professors. I don't know if everything in the biographies are true but Jones does put out a lot information and references. I would have to say some of the views of these professors are way out in left field. The only thing is that Jones has not proven in these biographies that these professors are indoctrinating students with their views in class. For example, being an Asian American, I have heard of Jerry Kang. He is a law professor whose view on affirmative action I strongly disagree with. Jones made a point that Kang felt affirmative action was partly responsible for his being at UCLA. Kang had said that UCLA needed an Asian American law professor when the only one it had left for Georgetown and so he was hired. I think Kang was just showing his Asian upbringing which calls for humblenes. Kang graduated from Harvard with a degree in physics and then got his J.D. from Harvard. He graduated magna cum laude in both instances. He hardly needed affirmative action to get a job at UCLA. I believe his view on affirmative action is wrong but I did not see anyone come out with any evidence that he tried to indoctrinate students with his views.

The same goes for John Woo. I don't think much of the Bush administration especially its handling of the war. Woo is one of Bush's apologists on the torturing and unending detention of prisoners of war. The liberals at Berkeley called for firing. Again there was never any evidence of poor teaching or indoctrination in his classroom. I am not defending Kang and Woo because they are Asian Americans. I am defending them because having some knowledge about them I see where both liberals and conservatives are just trying to get people they disagree with.

You don't have to agree with anybody just because he is a so-called intellectual. But it would be beneficial if everybody listens to both sides of the argument before making up his mind. I don't agree with John Roberts on many of his views but if I have an opportunity to listen to one of his lectures, I would do so. The same with Ruth Ginsburg. Keeping an open mind is the best way to prevent indoctrination. If a student at a law school like Berkeley or UCLA can be indoctrinated by a bias professor, then that student wasn't qualify to be admitted in the first place.

A judge in California ruled against the Pledge of Allegiance this week. Personally I don't have any problem with the words "under God" in the Pledge. Certainly it is less religiously coersive than having "In God We Trust" on our bills or the President swearing into office with a hand on the Bible. I usually just skip the words "under God" when I recite the Pledge. I am still pledging my loyalty to this great democratic secular country and if other people want to say those two words, it doesn't bother me. We have no say with respect to the dollar bill though. I cannot cut out the words "In God We Trust" without bringing on lots of unwanted attention every time I spend my bills. The truth is that there are many more important things to worry about in this country now to be spending time arguing about this issue. We really don't need to make a Supreme Court case out of this. But since there is a case, I'll have to side with the plaintiffs.

If we look at the history of the Pledge, it would be an obvious case of violation against separation of church and state. The original version of the Pledge did not contain the words "under God". It was in the 1950's, during the McCarthy era, that the two words were added to showed that we are a country of religion as opposed to the communists countries which are anti-religion. How can that not be a violation of the separation of church and state? Our government injected religion into an important institution of our country which had no religion in it in the first place. If the original version already had "under God" in it, maybe you can argue that tradition dictates that no change should take place. But in this case the government actually changed the tradition and so changing back to the original form would not be in any way be considered unpatriotic or anti-religion.

All this arguments over two words but in reality nobody is obligated to recite the Pledge in the first place. It is our right not to recite the Pledge. Conservatives would probably consider anyone who refuses to recite the Pledge unpatriotic or worse. I tend to agree with them. Yet one type of people who won't recite the Pledge are extreme Christians who believe that they cannot pledge allegiance to an earthly kingdom. Like I said, it is their right to believe what they want but I don't think I can be less patriotic than them by skipping two words in the Pledge.

The Pledge of Alligiance is important to the patriotism of this country and should be taught to all of our school children. So while we are teaching them we should tell them about the history of the Pledge including how the two controversial words were added to it. By learning about the history of the Pledge, the children will learn something about the history of this country's democracy. After that, with the help of their parents, a child can decide individually if he or she will use "under God" when they recite the Pledge. Regardless whether the child use these two words, if he recites the Pledge with true passion, we should be proud of him.