In the 1970s I read an article about dominance of drivers with blue eyes in auto racing.  It asked:  Is blue eyes an advantage in auto racing?  It was not a subtle way of saying whites are better drivers.  In the years since, Italian, Brazilian, Argentine race champions make this blue eye argument absurd.  But it was not until Lewis Hamilton won the F1 championship that one can definitely say that no one race has a monopoly on driving skills.  That point was driven home again yesterday when Takuma Sato won the Indy 500.

I think most reasonable people would agree that chances of participation rather than genetic makeup is the prime reason some groups are more dominant than other groups in certain fields.  That is why I find it interesting John Hawkins wrote "We live in the strongest, most powerful, most prosperous nation in human history and if we are being honest, white men probably deserves 95% of the credit for that."  He did also say: "That may be unfair because women and black Americans weren't given the opportunity to significantly contribute for most of our nation's history, but it is true."

I think there is truth in the first statement by itself.  But the second statement makes the first statement absurd.  It would be like saying in 1960 that the NBA is by far the best basketball league in the world and white American players are responsible for that.  That statement would be true in itself  but it would be nonsense looking at it now.  So Hawkins' statement will be nonsense 50 years from now.  The rest of the world was way behind us in basketball in 1960 so that we did not need black players to win easily.  But can we say the same today?  We need the best players to beat the likes of Spain, Serbia, Croatia etc.  The same with our nation in general.  China was a sleeping giant in 1960.  Even Japan and Germany had not fully recovered from WWII.  But we need everybody in the country, regardless of race or gender if we are going to stay on top. 





So the race of the winner of Indy 500 is not important but the racial makeup of our politicians, scientists, generals etc are important.  So it is imperative that we let everybody have the opportunity to contribute or we are not going to stay top. 

By the way, VP Pence was at the race yesterday.  I wonder what his thoughts are as a Japanese driver win in his home state.  I wonder if he is worried that an openly gay driver will win in the near future?

While the Trump administration is embroiled with Russiagate last week, China quietly took over the international stage.  China hosted a summit on its $900 billion Belt and Road Initiative.   This creates a trade and infrastructure network that pass through south and central Asia to Africa and Europe.  Part of it traces through the old Silk Road trade route.  Third world countries such as from Pakistan to Kenya may benefit from this.  Of course, China is not doing this for pure benevolent reasons.  This will help China become the top trade partner with a number of countries.  It is also a way of building soft power that will make it eventually a super power opposing the U.S.

Of course, this may not work the way China wants it to.  Already there are grumbling about Chinese workers getting the jobs the locals need and want.  It is not clear that the railroads and ports that China is building will be profitable.  And when one ethnic or national group become a dominant force in a county, there is bound to be resentment toward the group.  So instead of the term ugly Americans, there will be a term of ugly Chinese soon enough.  But as a Trump administration looks inward, a Chinese push outward is going to help China in this attempt to catch up to the U.S. in the world stage.

Just finished reading a book called "No Wall Too High".  It is the story of Xu Hongci translated into English by Erling Hoh.  Xu was a young man who joined the communist party of China and was moving up the ranks and was sent to study medicine by the party.  He had thought that Mao Zedong and the communist party had fought well against Japan and will lead the country to prosperity.  But he became disenchanted by Mao's policies and spoke out.   Of course he found out Mao and others in the party do not want to hear this.  He was sentenced to hard labor.  He was accused of spreading false rumors regarding the regime.  After many years and several escape attempts, he eventually was able to escape to Mongolia.  It is a fascinating story of survival.  But it is also a fascinating illustration of how an authoritarian person and government can make life miserable for millions of people. 

Interestingly, Mao suppressed news that shed bad light on him and his policies.  He called these "false rumors" counterrevolutionary.  Sort of like some leader today calling news that reflect badly on him "fake news".  I am, of course, referring to the president of FIFA who said that the accusations of FIFA being corrupt and nontransparent are just fake news.  That is what every dictator in third world countries say.  Yeah, those dictators and the leader of the free world.

People are comparing to Trump's firing of FBI director Comey to the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973 when Nixon fired special prosecutor Cox.  I do not agree.  I think this is worse for the country.  For one thing, Watergate was about a failed attempt to influence a presidential election by Americans.  This investigation is about a successful attempt by a foreign government to influence a presidential election.  This has far more potential disaster for our democracy than Watergate.

The second thing that makes this worse is that when Nixon decided to fire Cox, his attorney general and deputy resigned instead of taking part in the firing.  Those two Republicans put the nation ahead of their party.  Jeff Session, on the other hand, signed on to the firing even though he has supposedly recused himself from the investigation.  Also so far, other than John McCain, no other prominent Republicans has come out and say this is outrageously wrong. 

The third thing is, as I have said before, Trump is a bully.  Beyond that now, I think Trump is acting like a dictator.  Why do you think he sings the praises of Kim, Duterte, Sisi and Putin.  Just like them, if you are against him, he is going to try to get rid of you.  At least so far he has not had anyone killed yet like those dictators.  But with his firing of Comey, I am afraid that we are going down that slippy slope taking us away from our democracy.  Think about it:  the president is being investigated for colluding with the Russians and he fires the man in charge of investigating him.  His party, which runs the government refuses to acknowledge that this firing is undemocratic.  The president's best foreign friends are dictators.  So yes, I think the situation is worse for the country than Watergate.

Last week the GOP was able to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Interesting picture of Trump declaring victory with many GOP Congressmen behind him.  They were all white males.  I am sure the Democrats will use that picture in coming elections.  They will also use the yes votes of GOP incumbents in contested districts against them. 

There is no point in going over the bill at this point.  All I will say that almost all nonpartisan analysts believe this bill is worse than Obamacare.  Of course this won't become law.  The Senate will not pass a bill exactly like this.  The GOP majority in the Senate is a lot slimmer and there are higher percentage of centrists among senators.   If they can pass a bill, it will then go to a conference committee with the House.  Can the Senate and House hammer out a compromise then?  I don't know but if they do, I doubt that the final bill will pass both the House and Senate again.  So I don't see those same white males standing behind Trump and declare victory again on Trumpcare.

I see the FCC is investigating Stephen Colbert for his remarks about Putin and Trump.  I did not hear the "joke" but I can't see him getting censored.  The show is at 11:30 p.m., well pass kids' bed time.  I am sure the words are beeped out so I don't see censoring being appropriate.  I do think some of the jokes by all comedians regarding acts of sodomy, size of sex organs etc. are pedestrian.  I have more respect for comedians who don't go to those kinds of jokes.  Most of the time Colbert does a good job of roasting Trump and since this has helped him increase his rating, I don't see him stop using Trump as a punching bag. 

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.