Today is the first day of LA county restarting mask mandate for indoors even for vaccinated people.  The CDC has not make the change in recommendation yet but LA is jumping ahead because of cases increase.  There are many states that doing worse than California but LA had been the hardest hit area in California so it is not surprising that it is making this move.  The question is will others follow suit and will it be effective in stopping the variant surge?

I think if things continue this way, California as a whole will follow LA in mandating masks indoors again.  Some states may follow but others will not, at least not until things are much worse.  Florida is having 20% of the cases in the country now and I doubt that DeSantis will add restrictions anytime soon.  Even here in LA, the sheriff has said that he will not enforce the mandate.  I think the people who has not been vaccinated and not been wearing masks are certainly not going to follow the mandate.  So I am pessimistic that this will work.  I think there will be a surge in the fall unless we can get at least 20% more of the population fully vaccinated before cold weather hits.

In sports I noticed that Nick Saban, the football coach at Alabama, announced that his sophomore quarterback has already rack up a million dollars of endorsement.  Saban noted that Bryce Young has yet been named the starter.  It maybe his way to say that it is easy money if you come to Alabama!  So the rich will get richer or continue to be rich, but in a legal manner now!

 After watching the NBA finals this week and the European soccer championships, I will not be surprised to see upsurge in COVID cases in Wisconsin, Arizona, Italy and the UK in the next few weeks.  Given the ease of restrictions in the U.S. and the UK recently, i am not surprised that there were fans in the arenas and stadiums for these championship games.  But I was disappointed to see fans were allowed to watch the games on large tv screens outside of stadiums where the games took place and also at venues of the visiting teams.

So if the game was in Phoenix, there were also thousands of fans in Milwaukee watching the game together.  Same in Phoenix when the Suns were playing in Milwaukee.  Venues in England outside of Wembley were fill with spectators as were those in many Italian cities.  Even cities in the U.S. where there are lots of Italian or English fans, there were crowds gathered to watch the game today.

Most spectators in whatever venue were not masked and they were closer together than those in the stadiums.  After big plays or at the end of the games, people were hugging each other.  I think these gatherings were probably more dangerous than the those inside the stadiums.  Also people will gather at bars and other crowded places after the games.  Given the variants in both the  U.S. and Europe, I will not be surprised that there will be an upsurge in the next two to three weeks. 

 When people ask me where I came from.  I would say Detroit.  Then they give me a puzzle look, obviously not satisfied with the answer.  Then I would say Hong Kong.  Then they usually say one of two things.  The first is that they will say that I am Chinese since I am from Hong Kong.  The second is that they feel sorry for the people of Hong Kong because they are being abused by the Chinese.  So that gets me thinking.  Are people of Hong Kong Chinese?

Ethnically 95% of the Hong Kong people are Chinese.  But there is a big division among the people of Hong Kong of whether they are Chinese or not.  Age of a person will likely shape his view but even within an age group, the views are not homogenous.  

Take people who are older than me, in their seventies and over.  Many had escaped from China when the country was doing badly and they may have been persecuted by the CPC.  Most of these people are wary of the communists.  They maybe less likely to identify as Chinese so as not been associated with Communist China.

The people who are in the forties to sixties and were born in Hong Kong during British rule would be more likely to realize that Hong Kong was not a paradise under British rule.  These folks may have heard about the failure of Mao and the CPC during the fifties and sixties but they did not live in China during that time.  But they have seen the rise of China and how that has helped Hong Kong becoming an economic powerhouse as well.  During their adult years, their standard of living had risen many folds and became greater than that of the UK.  So while they may not want to move to China, they are more likely to think of themselves as Chinese.

Then we have the young people who were born after the return of Hong Kong to China.  They never lived under colonialism.  They believe that Hong Kong always had democracy.  I think they believe that they are superior to the mainlanders.  At the same time, the economy of Hong Kong has not grown like before so that the young people's standard of living is worse than those of their parents.  The big problem is land prices are so high that it is virtually impossible for a college grad to buy a flat now a days.  As a result, it is easy to believe that they are more British than Chinese and that it is worse under Chinese rule.

There are exceptions to every group that I mentioned, of course.  Ultimately, it may not matter if individuals in Hong Kong believe they are Chinese.  Hong Kong will be part of China and Hong Kong's future depends on China and not the UK or Western countries.  Hong Kong is still a big asset for China and China will try to keep it happy.  Despite tough talks from the U.S. and the UK, Hong Kong's survival depends on China. 

 The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan that started under Trump is more than half way completed.  Biden has said that it will be finished by Sept. 11, 2021.  It would be 20 years since the attack on our soil.  What have we accomplished during that time with all the deaths and other casualties of war? Not much.  There are pictures of Afghan soldiers putting down their weapons to the Taliban in various parts of the country already.  It is predicted that within 6 months after the withdrawal is completed, the Taliban will take over Kabul.

Could things have been different?  I think so.  I think there was overwhelming support of going after bin Laden and the Taliban which had supported him.  But before we finished the job, we changed direction and attacked Iraq under the false pretenses of WMD.  In reality it was another attempt of the U.S. to change regime in an effort to build democracy in another country.  Efforts like this have failed every time since Vietnam.  We got rid of Gaddafi in Libya.  But what was maybe the most vibrant country in Africa is today a big mess.  We have failed the Kurds who fought for us in Iraq and Syria.  Now there are countless Afghans who sided with us who will probably be killed once the Taliban take over again.

Do you think we have much credibility around the world today about building democracy in other countries?  Do you think that people will follow us given what happens to the South Vietnamese, the Kurds, the Libyans, the Iraqis and the Afghans who sided with us?  Do other people still think that American democracy is so great after January 6th?  We need to concentrated on our own democracy, our domestic terrorism and the divides we have here before we try any more misguided foreign adventures.

 Today, June 15 marks the reopening of the state of California!  California has done well in the past few months with one of the highest vaccinated rates in the nation and one of the lowest cases per capita in the nation.  So there was already confidence before this official date arriving.  

But I don't think California or any other state is out of the woods yet.  This loosening of restrictions may still have come too soon.  Hopefully not like last year when California was doing so well but once the restriction was lifted, the big surge occurred.  I think it won't be so bad this time because about half of the population in the state has been fully vaccinated.  But we are nowhere near herd immunity and the vaccinated rates is dropping despite the prize gimmicks.  

If we don't reach herd immunity by the fall, a surge may occur with the more contagious variant getting out of control.  But even if we achieve 80% fully vaccinated in California, other states may not reach that level and if many people travel to places like Disneyland, we still can get a surge.  So we are not out of the woods yet and those who have not been vaccinated need to do that ASAP.

 I had the honor of speaking at an anti-Asian hate rally on Memorial Day.  I spoke about the Vincent Chin case and how scapegoating of Asians in the 1980s led to his murder.  I also drew the parallel of what was happening then in Michigan to what is happening today throughout the country.  That is, once again, Asian Americans are being scapegoated and thus leading to many victims of hate crimes.

Obviously, most people do not think that the scapegoating of Asians is justified.  But inadvertently, many say or write things that help the causes of the racists.  For example, Bill Maher said that there is nothing wrong with using the term China flu since Ebola is an area in Africa but that name is used to name a disease.  He doesn't realize that no Ebola Americans have been scapegoated for that disease, unlike Asian Americans with names like China flu or kung flu?  Agreeing with Trump just help him deflect blame and give racists excuses to attack Asians.

Now an article in the Wall Street Journal claim that an unnamed intelligence source said that three staffers from the Wuhan Lab went to hospitals before the first case of COVID-19 was reported.  Three Chinese people going to the hospital during the flu season?  Not unusual given that there are few private clinics in China.  No diagnosis was given, no evidence of positive COVID test, no evidence that they were admitted let alone being in the ICU.  So what is the significance of this?

But then other media picked up this non story, even liberal media like CNN and Sixty Minutes.  They make it sound like that the virus was leaked from the lab even though this is not really evidence of anything.  But next thing you know, Biden is asking the intelligence community to investigate and come up with the answer in 90 days.  He doesn't have more information than this article?  We need to investigate the origin of this virus, of course.  But this is a scientific endeavor, not an intelligence or political one.  We have not been able to figure out how HIV started after decades, so I doubt the CIA can do this in three months.

Now for my own conspiracy theory.  The author of the WSJ article is Michael R. Gordon.  This is the same guy wo used to write for the New York Times before the invasion of Iraq.  He wrote then that unnamed intelligence source said that Hussein had WMD, the same talking point of neoconservatives who wanted to wage war on Iraq.  His sources, if he actually had any, were totally wrong.  But not only did he not lose his job but he was the only journalist embedded in the military during the war.  Thus he got great access for reporting and later wrote books about the war.  Obviously, his writing helped the hawks convince the American people the need for the war.  In return, his status of a journalist was greatly enhanced despite him being totally wrong.

Is Gordon doing the same here?  I don't know but if the U.S. wants to make China look bad, one way would be to use both the conservative and liberal media to do the job as it did in selling the Iraq war.  If this time it leads to war again, what will happens to Asian Americans in this country?

 More than 4 months after Biden had been sworn in as president, there are still many out there who thinks that Trump will be reinstated as president.  In fact some are calling for the overthrow of the government in a military coup similar to the one in Myanmar recently.  Among those who said that a coup is possible are Sidney Powell, former attorney of Trump, and Michael Flynn the retired general.

I know an ordinary citizen calling for a coup is not something you may want to prosecute.  After all, that are many people who have been seduced by the false narrative that Biden stole the election.   But a former general has to be held to a higher standard.  Flynn had taken an oath to defend the U.S. and for him to make up lies against the government and advocating a coup is borderline treason.  He tried to walk that back but it is similar to the time when Trump changed what he said to "Why wouldn't it be Russia?"

In this country, the civilian president is the Commander In Chief of the military.  So the military cannot overthrow the government.  So anyone planning a coup is committing treason.  But I guess a lot of the Trump supporter don't know or believe that.  They rather have the U.S. become a third world country where coups can overthrow the civilian government.  Maybe they should move to Myanmar!

 Three states:  Ohio, Maryland, and New York are now holding money lotteries to incentivize people to take the vaccine.  Are we that selfish that many of us won't do something that is essential for the well-being of the country without a chance of getting money?  There are many reasons for vaccine hesitancy but the bottom line is that there are many people who won't do the right thing unless they are paid or at least have a chance of hitting the jackpot.

I understand the reason for these three states using lotteries to get more people vaccinated.  We have vaccines waiting to be used as the vaccination rate is dropping.  About 20% of the people in this country say that they will refuse the vaccine.  Since 75 to 80% of all people need to be vaccinated for the U.S. to reach herd immunity, it means we have to get practically everyone on the fence to buy in for herd immunity to occurred.  So we have to get all those who does not object to getting vaccinated to get the jab.  And they need to do it as quickly as possible before variants appear that make the vaccines less effective or ineffective altogether.  

It is too bad we have to resort to these money give away in order to get some people to do what is a civic duty that also may save their lives.  We should be ashamed that we are not taking advantage of the vaccines that we have.  Many countries would love to have the vaccines that we don't use.  We don't appreciate what we have here.  Instead, look for other states to follow the lead of these three states in the coming weeks.

 Will be going on vacation in a couple of days.  But I will answer any comment tomorrow.  Today is a quick note on couple of disappointing developments here in California.

The census result came out yesterday and California will be losing a Congressional seat for the next decade.  This will also mean a loss of one electoral vote.  Overall, the states that voted for Biden loses three seats and those who voted for Trump gained three seats.  With the next presidential election expected to be a lot closer, this maybe important.  Also the Democrats hold a slim lead in the House and this can make a difference.  But who knows?  I mean North Carolina and Florida can flip blue and Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado can flip red.  In the long run the greatest hope for Democrats and the greatest fear for Republicans is if Texas ever flips.  Texas gained two seats this time and will probably continue to get people moving from California unless we cut way down on use of fossil fuel.

Another blow is that Newsome is being recalled.  The opposition has enough signatures for a recall election to occur.  Newsome will most likely survive as he and the Democrats will bill this as a Trump supporters attack.  But he will have to fight hard and that may mean loss of concentration for his job.  Worse, he may lean a little more to the right and cut back on COVID mandates even if there is another surge in the next few months.  There will be expenses for the state due to the special election.  There will also a big circus as all kinds of people, mostly unqualified, decide to jump into the race.  This includes Caitlin Jenner who somehow is a Republican even though that party is not exactly a friend of transgender people.  There is also a porn star in the race along with bunch of has beens.  So if Newsome loses the recall, one of these people may be our next governor!

 Finally, justice is done.  Three guilty verdicts on the Floyd case brought celebration in the streets rather than protests.  To me, it is more relief than celebration.  Relief that the jury got it right, but no celebration because it took such overwhelming evidence to get justice.  Relief that we maybe improving in our understanding of the fear and pain that Black people go through.  No celebration yet as we still have a long way to go.   Relief that there won't be violence in the streets tonight over a verdict.  No celebration because I see many potential fire in the streets over verdicts in the near future.

Another concern is that Maxine Waters may have given the defense a pathway to appeal.  Her not so subtle message for violence if the verdict was not guilty was not smart at all.  The judge, while saying the Waters' rhetoric should not affect the jury, did say it may give the defense a chance to appeal.  Well, I don't see how her words would affect the jury at this point.  I am sure that everyone on the jury has heard of all kinds of rhetoric before Waters.  They are also well aware of the probability of violence if they return a not guilty verdict.  After all there have been many post verdict protests before.  Still, Waters was not helping here.

Also the GOP saying Waters is inciting violence is hypocritical.  Did the same people called out Trump, Cruz and others for inciting the violence on the Capitol?