In June, I finished 7 years of teaching in high school. I enjoyed most of it, especially the interactions with students and fellow teachers. I have also met with many officials in county and local school system. I was wrongfully accused of doing some things I did not do, however.
I went back to Taiwan and stayed with mom. This time, she lost her steam most of the days. She did not sit with us much and did not watch TV or movies. She was tired a lot. (She did pass away at 88). My first uncle and fourth both died recently. Only third uncle is alive.
During October, my brother and family visited me from Taiwan for two weeks. We had a great time. Children got to meet and talk.
I have been more involved with "closing the gap". I am trying few things to help minority students to stay in school, learn, and graduate. Many pople are helping me. (Yea)
Jessica moved back in. We finished watching all seasons of "One tree hill" and are in the middle of watching "Gilmore Girls". We watched Monk, Hero, and few others but we like drama.
I ride bicycle to many places now. I do not use the car when I am off. I also picked up pingpong alone with yoga and martial arts.
Foodwise, I am eating a lot of brown rice and beans. I also steam whole wheat buns. I do not eat red meat. I rarely eat anything from any animal.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
How to prevent minority students from learning
A teacher, usually a strict one, may not like minority students since they are not as obedient (Research has shown that minority students do not do well in strict environment).
One of those teacher came to my room while a black student was there doing work. The teacher taught the student before and the experience was not so good. The teacher went to the student and ask her why she was there and demanding a pass. Student refused to answer.
The teacher proceeded to write a referral for, "Failing to answer to a teacher".
One of those teacher came to my room while a black student was there doing work. The teacher taught the student before and the experience was not so good. The teacher went to the student and ask her why she was there and demanding a pass. Student refused to answer.
The teacher proceeded to write a referral for, "Failing to answer to a teacher".
mom's teeth
Her teeth were good. They were so good that she chewed anything with them including bones, nuts,... Later, she had a bad dentist. Many teeth were not fixed but extracted so she could not chew well any more.
Mom's back
Her back was really hurting when she was in her 60's and an operation was in the works. Brother researched and found that stat. is against an operation. He built a pulling system on her bed and she got better.
mom's mom
Mom's mom did not like mom. Mom said that that her mom often hit her. Mom would not cry. She was just thinking, "If you can beat me to death, do it". She did not go to her mom when the mom was at her final days of fighting liver cancer in Shanghai.
Mom and her age
Mom changed her age to be older to get her first job in nursing. She then changed it to younger to work more years when she was around 65 and had to retire.
Mom and cig.
One time, we were saying the mom did not smoke. She immediately grabbed a cig. and started smoking. (Around 1960)
mom and apricot
Mom said that there was a very fragrant fruit at home (HoBei, China) called 香白杏. It was a large fruit and one bite would not reach the nut. The entire room will be filled with the fragrant if there is one of them in the room.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
How government scares people
Romsfeld scared the public by saying, "If you say anything, you are not patriotic. If you say anything, you are not helping" People kept quiet.
How math acceleration hurts poor kids
Acceleration in math usually means either skipping parts of the curriculum or hurrying through them.
Rich students have parents, tutors, and computers to bridge the gap. Poorer students may not have any assistance so they fall behind.
Rich students have parents, tutors, and computers to bridge the gap. Poorer students may not have any assistance so they fall behind.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Remember the '3' steps, STR .
Anyone can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions: S *Ask the individual to SMILE. T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)(i.e. It is sunny out today). R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other,that is also an indication of a stroke.
Anyone can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions: S *Ask the individual to SMILE. T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)(i.e. It is sunny out today). R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other,that is also an indication of a stroke.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mom and dog
There was a dog that slept in our back yard prior to the fence was installed. This dog was barking at times and brother said that he might just strike its head with his fist and destroy the animal. Mom worried that the dog might bite brother when and if he strikes the dog.
Dog was poisoned soon after.
Dog was poisoned soon after.
Uncle1
Mom and Uncle1 were closest. She told me many things about him.
When he was young, he liked to tell stories he read to workers. His nickname was "張大白話"
He went to 惠文中学, He was very good with soccer and was a good leader. Team used to play other schools and win. After that, he took the entire team to a restaurant and stuck the school with bill.
They used to have a maid Liu who will make shoes for them by hand. Uncle1 was too active for the shoes to last. A pair of hand-made shoes might last one day.
Some Chinese people used to smoke opium and so did his father. One day uncle1 came home and threw away all the opium and equipment. He learned that that was out-lawed.
Uncle1 was in the airforce as a navigator.
Uncle was not careful with his relationship with women. I am not sure that it was good for him in the long run.
When mom's dad was in jail for a year or two, mom's mom was having an affair with someone renting a room at their house. They both knew the secret but never said anything.
When uncle1 worked in Osaka, his children were first there then left for the US. Mom said that he really missed the kids and cried a lot.
In the early 1960s', he was still in the service but he was in Taipei a lot. He was riding a Vespa motorcycle. He would take me and my older brother for a ride up to the mountain with tombs.
When he was young, he liked to tell stories he read to workers. His nickname was "張大白話"
He went to 惠文中学, He was very good with soccer and was a good leader. Team used to play other schools and win. After that, he took the entire team to a restaurant and stuck the school with bill.
They used to have a maid Liu who will make shoes for them by hand. Uncle1 was too active for the shoes to last. A pair of hand-made shoes might last one day.
Some Chinese people used to smoke opium and so did his father. One day uncle1 came home and threw away all the opium and equipment. He learned that that was out-lawed.
Uncle1 was in the airforce as a navigator.
Uncle was not careful with his relationship with women. I am not sure that it was good for him in the long run.
When mom's dad was in jail for a year or two, mom's mom was having an affair with someone renting a room at their house. They both knew the secret but never said anything.
When uncle1 worked in Osaka, his children were first there then left for the US. Mom said that he really missed the kids and cried a lot.
In the early 1960s', he was still in the service but he was in Taipei a lot. He was riding a Vespa motorcycle. He would take me and my older brother for a ride up to the mountain with tombs.
Mom and dumplings
When we lived under the mountains, uncle1 and uncle2 visited us at times. They made dumplings.
Uncle1 made thin ones and uncle2 made fat ones. We used to joke by saying the shapes match the shapes of their bodies.
Uncle1 made thin ones and uncle2 made fat ones. We used to joke by saying the shapes match the shapes of their bodies.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Mom's physical punishment
Mom used to hit us when we did not follow her directions. I did not like the atmosphere of our home when I was in middle school so I was out a lot. She would lock me out and I had to climb the wall to get in.
Mom later said that she was not like that at the beginning. Three brothers were just boys being boys. Uncle #3 said, "You are the mom and you do not even know how to deal with those boys." That is when mom started physically punishing us.
Mom was often verbally abusive.
Mom later said that she was not like that at the beginning. Three brothers were just boys being boys. Uncle #3 said, "You are the mom and you do not even know how to deal with those boys." That is when mom started physically punishing us.
Mom was often verbally abusive.
Mom's mom
Mom's mom was mean to mom. She would hit mom with thin sticks often.
Mom said, " I do not even cry. If mom can kill me. Let her."
Later, her mom had liver cancer. She did not even go and see her die in Shanghei.
Mom said, " I do not even cry. If mom can kill me. Let her."
Later, her mom had liver cancer. She did not even go and see her die in Shanghei.
Mom's dad and asthma
Mom's dad had asthma. He used to just sit at night instead of actually sleep. According to her, he would just pile blankets around and get through cold winter nights of HeBei.
Mom often said that her dad did not die of asthma but died of diarrea at the age of 82.
Mom often said that her dad did not die of asthma but died of diarrea at the age of 82.
Mom's older sister
Mom's mather was the second wife of mom's father. The first wife had two daughters and these daughters did not like the new mother. They were married then and the older one never came back to visit. The second sister did not marry to a good family so she would come back sometimes.
Mom said that uncle #3 was not nice to the sister.
Once this uncle had a stick from an unbrella and was using it to annoy to the baby the sister was carrying. He did it for a long time and finally mom grabbed the stick and uncle started crying. Mom was maybe 6 or 8 years older than this uncle.
Mom said that uncle #3 was not nice to the sister.
Once this uncle had a stick from an unbrella and was using it to annoy to the baby the sister was carrying. He did it for a long time and finally mom grabbed the stick and uncle started crying. Mom was maybe 6 or 8 years older than this uncle.
Mom's work
Mom worked as a temp after three of us brothers got to about ten years old. There was a lack of nurses so she got a job. The location was a bit far so mom did not want to go. Mr. Chen of fourth floor told her that she should go. Nursing job is with Taipei city government and it is a good pemanent job.
She went to 松山衛生所. The person in charge, 胡端本 was very nice to her. She was a good worker also.
She went to 松山衛生所. The person in charge, 胡端本 was very nice to her. She was a good worker also.
Mom's temper
A student looked at her quiz once during high school, mom got angry. She threw her answer page(made with a stone slab) and broke it. She demanded that the other student to pay for a new one.
Mom went to first grade and became the best student in her class. She did not go to second grade since her father did not want her to. She went to third grade and again got the best grades after not going for a year. After fourth grade, her father did not let her go to school any more. He did not want her to be mingling with boys. He got her a tutor and teaching her at home.
He taught her old books (四書五經). She was a good student. She could recite the entire 論語 with perfect 之乎者也.
Due to wars, she never got any diploma in China after attending many schools for short periods.
She finally arrived Taipei and got a degree in nursing.
He taught her old books (四書五經). She was a good student. She could recite the entire 論語 with perfect 之乎者也.
Due to wars, she never got any diploma in China after attending many schools for short periods.
She finally arrived Taipei and got a degree in nursing.
Mom and cat
There was a cat at our house during the 50's and mom fed it often. However, the cat was very fond of uncle #3 who mom did not care for too much. She said that the cat would show a lot of feelings when that uncle got home. Mom probably got jealous.
One day, she poisoned the cat.
One day, she poisoned the cat.
Mom and abortion
During my visit in the summer of 2007, mother told me about her abortions. She said that she had a total of three for economical reasons. She said that Dad was very much against it by saying, "These kids are here to live, not to be killed".(他們是來投生的，不是來求死的)
It seemed that she regretted doing so.
It seemed that she regretted doing so.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
1957 vs 2007
SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2007
Scenario:Jack goes quail hunting before school,pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun,goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario:Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins.Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario:Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal.Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie.Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from statebecause Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario:Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's carand his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal,goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembersbeing abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.
Scenario:Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations.Car searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario:Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state.Newspaper articles appear nationallyexplaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school systemand Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends upmowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario:Johnny takes a part leftover firecrackers from 4th of July,puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007- BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called.Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents,siblings removed from home, computers confiscated,Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch listand is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario:Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job.She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
Scenario:Jack goes quail hunting before school,pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun,goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario:Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins.Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario:Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal.Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie.Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from statebecause Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario:Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's carand his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal,goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembersbeing abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.
Scenario:Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations.Car searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario:Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state.Newspaper articles appear nationallyexplaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school systemand Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends upmowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario:Johnny takes a part leftover firecrackers from 4th of July,puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007- BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called.Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents,siblings removed from home, computers confiscated,Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch listand is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario:Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job.She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Good Teaching
Children are inherently very smart.
We should keep tricking them into believing that that is true.
If a child missed seven out ten word problems, say, " WOW!! You got three correctly for the first try".
If a child can not do something, say, " When I was your age, I was worse. Let's try it again. I am sure you can get better".
Good thing to say: This is easy. You can do it.
We should keep tricking them into believing that that is true.
If a child missed seven out ten word problems, say, " WOW!! You got three correctly for the first try".
If a child can not do something, say, " When I was your age, I was worse. Let's try it again. I am sure you can get better".
Good thing to say: This is easy. You can do it.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Cancer and animal protein
Rats usually live about two years.
Rats fed with 20%* milk protein (Casein): 100% of them were dead or almost dead suffering from liver tumor at two years.(Pg. 61 of the book below).
Rats fed with 5%* milk protein (Casein): 100% of them were still lively after two years.(Pg. 61 of the book below).
Rats fed with 20% casein with tumor growing (foci, pg. 54 of the book) showed huge decrease of tumor when protein intake is dropped drastically.(pg. 56 of the book)
Protein from soy or wheat did not cause tumor at 20%.
* RDA of protein is 12% by US government.
Book name: China Study by Dr. Campbell: http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224876604&sr=8-1
Rats fed with 20%* milk protein (Casein): 100% of them were dead or almost dead suffering from liver tumor at two years.(Pg. 61 of the book below).
Rats fed with 5%* milk protein (Casein): 100% of them were still lively after two years.(Pg. 61 of the book below).
Rats fed with 20% casein with tumor growing (foci, pg. 54 of the book) showed huge decrease of tumor when protein intake is dropped drastically.(pg. 56 of the book)
Protein from soy or wheat did not cause tumor at 20%.
* RDA of protein is 12% by US government.
Book name: China Study by Dr. Campbell: http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224876604&sr=8-1
Friday, October 24, 2008
癌症与动物蛋白质的关联
老鼠大约活两年左右。假如食物中有 20%* 动物蛋白质 (Casein from milk)， 两年後 100% 不是已经死于肝肿瘤就是快死了.(书中第 61 页)
假如食物中只有 5%* 蛋白质, 老鼠过了两年还是活得很好.
假如食物中有 20%* 植物蛋白质如大豆或麦的制品,肿瘤(foci, 书中第 54 页)倒是很少生长. (书中第 60 页)
假如长了肿瘤马上停止吃动物蛋白质, 肿瘤就很快的不见了.(书中第 56 页)
* 12% 蛋白质是美国政府建议每日吃的量(RDA).
摘录自 "China Study". 作者: Campbell. http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224876604&sr=8-1
假如食物中只有 5%* 蛋白质, 老鼠过了两年还是活得很好.
假如食物中有 20%* 植物蛋白质如大豆或麦的制品,肿瘤(foci, 书中第 54 页)倒是很少生长. (书中第 60 页)
假如长了肿瘤马上停止吃动物蛋白质, 肿瘤就很快的不见了.(书中第 56 页)
* 12% 蛋白质是美国政府建议每日吃的量(RDA).
摘录自 "China Study". 作者: Campbell. http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224876604&sr=8-1
Life
人生吧， 0 歲出場， 10 歲快樂成長； 20 為情彷徨； 30 基本定向； 40 拼命打闖； 50 回頭望望； 60 告老還鄉； 70 搓搓麻將； 80 曬曬太陽； 90 躺在床上； 100 掛在牆上... 生的偉大，死得淒涼！能牽手的時候，請別只是 肩並肩，能擁抱的時候，請別只是手牽手，能在一起的時候，請別輕易分開！ 這周是世界好友周，如果你願意，請把這條信息發給你所有的好朋友。
當大部分人都在關注你飛得高不高時，只有少部分人關心你飛得累不累 -- 這就是友情，再忙也要照顧好自己 ，朋友雖不常聯系卻一直惦念！世界好友周快樂！ 08 新概念一個中心： 一切以健康為中心 。 兩個基本點： 遇事瀟灑一點，看事糊涂一點。三個忘記：忘記年齡，忘記過去，忘記恩怨。四個擁有： 無論你有多弱或多強，一定要擁有真正愛你的人，擁有知心朋友，擁有向上的事業，擁有溫暖的住所。 五個要： 要唱，要跳，要俏，要笑，要苗條。 六個不能： 不能餓了纔吃，不能渴了纔喝 , 不能困了纔睡，不能累了纔歇，不能病了纔檢查，不能老了再後悔 !
當大部分人都在關注你飛得高不高時，只有少部分人關心你飛得累不累 -- 這就是友情，再忙也要照顧好自己 ，朋友雖不常聯系卻一直惦念！世界好友周快樂！ 08 新概念一個中心： 一切以健康為中心 。 兩個基本點： 遇事瀟灑一點，看事糊涂一點。三個忘記：忘記年齡，忘記過去，忘記恩怨。四個擁有： 無論你有多弱或多強，一定要擁有真正愛你的人，擁有知心朋友，擁有向上的事業，擁有溫暖的住所。 五個要： 要唱，要跳，要俏，要笑，要苗條。 六個不能： 不能餓了纔吃，不能渴了纔喝 , 不能困了纔睡，不能累了纔歇，不能病了纔檢查，不能老了再後悔 !
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Math Rushing
One hundred twenty thousand students are misplaced in their eighth-grade math classes.
They have not been prepared to learn themathematics that they are expected to learn.
This unfortunate situation arose from good intentions and the worthy objective of raising
expectations for all American students.
Two groups of students pay a price. The misplaced eighth graders waste a year of mathematics,
lost in a curriculum of advanced math when they have not yet learned elementary
arithmetic. They should be taught whole number and fraction arithmetic so that
they can then move on to successfully learn advanced mathematics.
Their classmates also lose—students who are good at math and ready for algebra.
These well-prepared but ill-served students also tend to be black and Hispanic and to
come from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Teachers report that classes of students with widely diverse mathematics preparation
impede effective teaching, that too many students arrive in algebra classes unmotivated
to learn, and that they wish that elementary schools gave greater emphasis to basic skills
and concepts in math. When algebra teachers have to depart from the curriculum to
teach arithmetic, the students who already know arithmetic and are ready for algebra are
the losers.
They have not been prepared to learn themathematics that they are expected to learn.
This unfortunate situation arose from good intentions and the worthy objective of raising
expectations for all American students.
Two groups of students pay a price. The misplaced eighth graders waste a year of mathematics,
lost in a curriculum of advanced math when they have not yet learned elementary
arithmetic. They should be taught whole number and fraction arithmetic so that
they can then move on to successfully learn advanced mathematics.
Their classmates also lose—students who are good at math and ready for algebra.
These well-prepared but ill-served students also tend to be black and Hispanic and to
come from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Teachers report that classes of students with widely diverse mathematics preparation
impede effective teaching, that too many students arrive in algebra classes unmotivated
to learn, and that they wish that elementary schools gave greater emphasis to basic skills
and concepts in math. When algebra teachers have to depart from the curriculum to
teach arithmetic, the students who already know arithmetic and are ready for algebra are
the losers.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Rushing Math
Plenty of students are ready for algebra by eighth grade, or sooner. But not everyone is. "One hundred twenty thousand eighth-graders are sitting in advanced math classes even though they score in the bottom 10 percent," Loveless wrote. "They know about as much math as the typical second-grader. They do not know basic arithmetic and cannot correctly answer NAEP items using fractions, decimals, or percents."
Some see the flourishing eighth-grade algebra movement as a triumph for equity. Activist educator Robert Moses calls it "the new civil right." Loveless acknowledged that the misplaced bottom 10th are much more likely to be poor, black or Hispanic and more likely to be in a big urban school than average eighth-graders. Yet the shortcomings of the misplaced students in those urban schools are slowing down algebra classes with hundreds of thousands of well-prepared students "who are also predominantly black, Hispanic or poor."
Some see the flourishing eighth-grade algebra movement as a triumph for equity. Activist educator Robert Moses calls it "the new civil right." Loveless acknowledged that the misplaced bottom 10th are much more likely to be poor, black or Hispanic and more likely to be in a big urban school than average eighth-graders. Yet the shortcomings of the misplaced students in those urban schools are slowing down algebra classes with hundreds of thousands of well-prepared students "who are also predominantly black, Hispanic or poor."
Friday, September 19, 2008
Dating Red Flags
Ten Dating Red Flags
1. You are not on the VIP list for breaking news
Were you the last to learn about this person's job promotion or newborn niece or nephew? Once things are serious, you should be among the first to know about exciting news, or bad news.
2. They avoid meeting your family or friends
If they are shying away from meeting your friends/family consistently, then there are problems. Even if they are very shy, they should want to meet those who are important to you.
3. They don't make any sacrifices
Healthy relationships don't require bending over backwards all the time, but a certain amount of sacrifice is necessary in a selfless union. When two of my friends first started dating one another, she demanded that he go to Farm Aid for her birthday, which was also the opening NFL football Sunday. While all the guys gathered to watch the games, he was sweltering on some field attending Farm Aid -- an event he never would have gone to if she hadn't have invited him. Now that's sacrifice.
4. They can't fit in your future
I admit it. When I meet girls, I envision future moments I may some day share with them. Most of my scenarios are her with me and my family at a Thanksgiving holiday or at a summer crabfeast. If I'm really into her, I usually relish the thought. If not, I kinda cringe.
5. They are too controlling
It's scary but I've seen many relationships where guys forbid girls to hang out with certain friends, or wear certain clothes. Major problem if someone is controlling you and not allowing you to be who you want to be within a relationship.
6. The "what are we" conversation fails miserably
Almost every relationship hits that crossroads where you both decide if it's worth taking the plunge into being exclusive and calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend. If they are confused and surprised that you're ready to get serious, the timing is not right, and you should try to figure out how long you want to wait around until they are ready.
7. They talk about plans that don't involve you
My sister has major wanderlust. She's always talking about heading off to Chicago or living in London for a year. She often talks about these things with no regard for the fact that she has a boyfriend at the time. If you find that someone is making plans or talking about far off places without inviting you along for the ride, don't let yourself get too into this person.
8. Your friends or family don't like them
Remember that your friends and family know you best. Don't take their thoughts with a grain of salt. It's one thing if a person or two don't get along with your significant other, but if a lot of them are saying you should reconsider, then do it. Unfortunately, we often find out about how much our friends hated that person after this person is gone.
9. They violated your trust
Whether it's cheating or a little lie that they got caught in, it will be hard to regain trust. Trust is something we don't give away easily, and once it's gone it's hard to get it back. We'll always be wondering about that lie, and doubt will creep in more and more as our minds fixate on that lie. Too often, people take trust for granted and once they lose it they never get it back.
10. You practice "unbalanced dating"
Are you always seeing his friends or doing things that he wants to do? Do you just let him pick the restaurants and events? Or is it the other way around? Relationships are fun when you are both able to contribute. If you're not taking turns creating fun times together, it will most likely fizzle out.
1. You are not on the VIP list for breaking news
Were you the last to learn about this person's job promotion or newborn niece or nephew? Once things are serious, you should be among the first to know about exciting news, or bad news.
2. They avoid meeting your family or friends
If they are shying away from meeting your friends/family consistently, then there are problems. Even if they are very shy, they should want to meet those who are important to you.
3. They don't make any sacrifices
Healthy relationships don't require bending over backwards all the time, but a certain amount of sacrifice is necessary in a selfless union. When two of my friends first started dating one another, she demanded that he go to Farm Aid for her birthday, which was also the opening NFL football Sunday. While all the guys gathered to watch the games, he was sweltering on some field attending Farm Aid -- an event he never would have gone to if she hadn't have invited him. Now that's sacrifice.
4. They can't fit in your future
I admit it. When I meet girls, I envision future moments I may some day share with them. Most of my scenarios are her with me and my family at a Thanksgiving holiday or at a summer crabfeast. If I'm really into her, I usually relish the thought. If not, I kinda cringe.
5. They are too controlling
It's scary but I've seen many relationships where guys forbid girls to hang out with certain friends, or wear certain clothes. Major problem if someone is controlling you and not allowing you to be who you want to be within a relationship.
6. The "what are we" conversation fails miserably
Almost every relationship hits that crossroads where you both decide if it's worth taking the plunge into being exclusive and calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend. If they are confused and surprised that you're ready to get serious, the timing is not right, and you should try to figure out how long you want to wait around until they are ready.
7. They talk about plans that don't involve you
My sister has major wanderlust. She's always talking about heading off to Chicago or living in London for a year. She often talks about these things with no regard for the fact that she has a boyfriend at the time. If you find that someone is making plans or talking about far off places without inviting you along for the ride, don't let yourself get too into this person.
8. Your friends or family don't like them
Remember that your friends and family know you best. Don't take their thoughts with a grain of salt. It's one thing if a person or two don't get along with your significant other, but if a lot of them are saying you should reconsider, then do it. Unfortunately, we often find out about how much our friends hated that person after this person is gone.
9. They violated your trust
Whether it's cheating or a little lie that they got caught in, it will be hard to regain trust. Trust is something we don't give away easily, and once it's gone it's hard to get it back. We'll always be wondering about that lie, and doubt will creep in more and more as our minds fixate on that lie. Too often, people take trust for granted and once they lose it they never get it back.
10. You practice "unbalanced dating"
Are you always seeing his friends or doing things that he wants to do? Do you just let him pick the restaurants and events? Or is it the other way around? Relationships are fun when you are both able to contribute. If you're not taking turns creating fun times together, it will most likely fizzle out.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Relax
It is not your duty to be right all the time.
You are loveable even though you are far from perfect.
There is more to life than having things.
You are loveable even though you are far from perfect.
There is more to life than having things.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Estate Planning
Avoid Probate - most people are.
Use $1 million deductible (excursion) from Federal and state.
Have a living will.
Have a power of attorney and make sur ehe agrees to do it.
Make up trusts and change them often.
Use $1 million deductible (excursion) from Federal and state.
Have a living will.
Have a power of attorney and make sur ehe agrees to do it.
Make up trusts and change them often.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Cancer
THREE STAGES OF CANCER (救命飲食)
from http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220640890&sr=1-11
Cancer proceeds through three stages initiation, promotion and progression. To use a rough analogy, the cancer process is similar to planting a lawn. Initiation is when you put the seeds in the soil, promotion is when the grass starts to grow and progression is when the grass gets completely out of control, invading the driveway, the shrubbery and the sidewalk.
So what is the process that successfully “implants” the grass seed in the soil in the first place, i.e., initiates cancer-prone cells? Chemicals that do this are called carcinogens. These chemicals are most often the byproducts of industrial processes, although small amounts may be formed in nature, as is the case with aflatoxin. These carcinogens genetically transform, or mutate, normal cells into cancer-prone cells. A mutation involves permanent alteration of the genes of the cell, with damage to its DNA.
The entire initiation stage can take place in a very short period of time, even minutes. It is the time required for the chemical carcinogen to be consumed, absorbed into the blood, transported into cells, changed into its active product, bonded to DNA and passed on to the daughter cells. When the new daughter cells are formed, the process is complete. These daughter cells and all their progeny will forever be genetically damaged, giving rise to the potential for cancer. Except in rare instances, completion of the initiation phase is considered irreversible.
At this point in our lawn analogy, the grass seeds have been put in the soil and are ready to germinate. Initiation is complete. The second growth stage is called promotion. Like seeds ready to sprout blades of grass and turn into a green lawn, our newly formed cancer-prone cells are ready to grow and multiply until they become a visibly detectable cancer. This stage occurs over a far longer period of time than initiation, often many years for humans. It is when the newly initiated cluster multiplies and grows into larger and larger masses and a clinically visible tumor is formed.
But just like seeds in the soil, the initial cancer cells will not grow and multiply unless the right conditions are met. The seeds in the soil, for example, need a healthy amount of water, sunlight and other nutrients before they make a full lawn. If any of these factors are denied or are missing, the seeds will not grow. If any of these factors are missing after growth starts, the new seedlings will become dormant, while awaiting further supply of the missing factors. This is one of the most profound features of promotion. Promotion is reversible, depending on whether the early cancer growth is given the right conditions in which to grow This is where certain dietary factors become so important. These dietary factors, called promoters, feed cancer growth. Other dietary factors, called anti-promoters, slow cancer growth. Cancer growth flourishes when there are more promoters than anti-promoters; when anti-promoters prevail cancer growth slows or stops. It is a push-pull process. The profound importance of this reversibility cannot be overemphasized.
The third phase, progression, begins when a bunch of advanced cancer cells progress in their growth until they have done their final damage. It is like the fully-grown lawn invading everything around it: the garden, driveway and sidewalk. Similarly, a developing cancer tumor may wander away from its initial site in the body and invade neighboring or distant tissues. When the cancer takes on these deadly properties, it is considered malignant. When it actually breaks away from its initial home and wanders, it is metastasizing. This final stage of cancer results in death.
PROTEIN AND PROMOTION
To go back to the lawn analogy, sowing the grass seeds in the soil was the initiation process. We found, conclusively, through a number of experiments, that a low-protein diet could decrease, at the time of planting, the number of seeds in our “cancerous” lawn. That was an incredible finding, but we needed to do more. We wondered: what happens during the promotion stage of cancer, the all-important reversible stage? Would the benefits of low protein intake achieved during initiation continue through promotion?
Practically speaking, it was difficult to study this stage of cancer because of time and money It is an expensive study that allows rats to live until they develop full tumors. Each such experiment would take more than two years (the normal lifetime of rats) and would have cost well over $100,000 (even more money today). To answer the many questions that we had, we could not proceed by studying full tumor development; I would still be in the lab, thirty-five years later!
This is when we learned of some exciting work just published by others3’ that showed how to measure tiny clusters of cancer-like cells that appear right after initiation is complete. These little microscopic cell clusters were called foci.
Foci are precursor clusters of cells that grow into tumors. Although most foci do not become full-blown tumor cells, they are predictive of tumor development.
By watching foci develop and measuring how many there are and how big they become, we could learn indirectly how tumors also develop and what effect protein might have. By studying the effects of protein on the promotion of foci instead of tumors we could avoid spending a lifetime and a few million dollars working in the lab.
What we found was truly remarkable. Foci development was almost entirely dependent on how much protein was consumed, regardless of how much aflatoxin was consumed!
This was documented in many interesting ways, first done by my graduate students Scott Appleton and George DunaiP. After initiation with aflatoxin, foci grew (were promoted) far more with the 20% protein diet than with the 5% protein diet.
Up to this point, all of the animals were exposed to the same amount of afiatoxin. But what if the initial aflatoxin exposure is varied? Would protein still have an effect? We investigated this question by giving two groups of rats either a high-aflatoxin dose or a low-aflatoxin dose, along with a standard baseline diet. Because of this the two groups of rats were starting the cancer process with different amounts of initiated, cancerous “seeds.” Then, during the promotion phase, we fed a low-protein diet to the high-aflatoxin dose groups and a high-protein diet to the low-afiatoxin dose group. We wondered whether the animals that start with lots of cancerous seeds are able to overcome their predicament by eating a low-protein diet.
Again, the results were remarkable. Animals starting with the most cancer initiation (high-aflatoxin dose) developed substantially less foci when fed the 5% protein diet. In contrast, animals initiated with a low-aflatoxin dose actually produced substantially more foci when subsequently fed the 20% protein diet.
A principle was being established. Foci development, initially determined by the amount of the carcinogen exposure, is actually controlled far more by dietary protein consumed during promotion. Protein during promotion trumps the carcinogen, regardless of initial exposure.
With this background information we designed a much more substantial experiment. Here is a step-by-step sequence of experiments, carried out by my graduate student Linda Youngman. All animals were dosed with the same amount of carcinogen, then alternately fed either 5% or 20% dietary protein during the twelve-week promotion stage. We divided this twelve-week promotion stage into four periods of three weeks each. Period 1 represents weeks one to three, period 2 represents weeks four to six, and so on.
When animals were fed the 20% protein diet during periods 1 and 2 (20-20), foci continued to enlarge, as expected. But when animals were switched to the low-protein diet at the beginning of period 3 (20-20-5), there was a sharp decrease in foci development. And, when animals were subsequently switched back to the 20% protein diet during period 4 (20-20-5-20), foci development was turned on once again.
In another experiment, in animals fed 20% dietary protein during period 1 but switched to 5% dietary protein during period2 (20-5), foci development was sharply decreased. But when these animals were returned to 20% dietary protein during period 3 (20-5-20), we again saw the dramatic power of dietary protein to promote foci development.
These several experiments, taken together, were quite profound. Foci growth could be reversed, up and down, by switching the amount of protein being consumed, and at all stages of foci development.
The most significant finding of this experiment was this: foci developed only when the animals met or exceeded the amount of dietary protein (12%) needed to satisfy their body growth rate.3’ That is, when the animals met and surpassed their requirement for protein, disease onset began.
This finding may have considerable relevance for humans even though these were rat studies. I say this because the protein required for growth in young rats and humans as well as the protein required to maintain health for adult rats and humans is remarkably similar.
According to the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein consumption, we humans should be getting about 10% of our energy from protein. This is considerably more than the actual amount required. But because requirements may vary from individual to individual, 10% dietary protein is recommended to insure adequate intake for virtually all people. What do most of us routinely consume? Remarkably, it is considerably more than the recommended 10%. The average American consumes 15—16% protein. Does this place us at risk for getting cancer? These animal studies hint that it does.
Ten percent dietary protein is equivalent to eating about 50—60 grams of protein per day, depending on body weight and total calorie intake. The national average of 15—16% is about 70-100 grams of protein per day, with men at the upper part of the range and women at the lower end. In food terms, there are about twelve grams of protein in 100 calories of spinach (fifteen ounces) and five grams of protein in 100 calories of raw chickpeas (just over two tablespoons). There are about thirteen grams of protein in 100 calories of porterhouse steak (just over one and a half ounces).
Yet another question was whether protein intake could modify the all-important relationship between aflatoxin dose and foci formation. A chemical is usually not considered a carcinogen unless higher doses yield higher incidences of cancer. For example, as the aflatoxin dose becomes greater, foci and tumor growth should be correspondingly greater. If an increasing response is not observed for a suspect chemical carcinogen, serious doubt arises whether it really is carcinogenic.
To investigate this dose-response question, ten groups of rats were administered increasing doses of aflatoxin, then fed either regular levels (20%) or low levels (5—10%) of protein during the promotion period.
In the animals fed the 20% level of protein, foci increased in number and size, as expected, as the aflatoxin dose was increased. The dose-response relationship was strong and clear. However, in the animals fed 5% protein, the dose-response curve completely disappeared. There was no foci response, even when animals were given the maximum tolerated afiatoxin dose. This was yet another result demonstrating that a low-protein diet could override the cancer-causing effect of a very powerful carcinogen, aflatoxin.
Is it possible that chemical carcinogens, in general, do not cause cancer unless the nutritional conditions are “right”? Is it possible that, for much of our lives, we are being exposed to small amounts of cancer-causing chemicals, but cancer does not occur unless we consume foods that promote and nurture tumor development? Can we control cancer through nutrition?
NOT ALL PROTEINS ARE ALIKE
If you have followed the story so far, you have seen how provocative these findings are. Controlling cancer through nutrition was, and still is, a radical idea. But as if this weren’t enough, one more issue would yield explosive information: did it make any difference what type of protein was used in these experiments? For all of these experiments, we were using casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein. So the next logical question was whether plant protein, tested in the same way, has the same effect on cancer promotion as casein. The answer is an astonishing “NO.”In these experiments, plant protein did not promote cancer growth, even at the higher levels of intake. An undergraduate premedical student doing an honors degree with me, David Schulsinger, did the study (Chart 3.842). Gluten, the protein of wheat, did not produce the same result as casein, even when fed at the same 20% level.
We also examined whether soy protein had the same effect as casein on foci development. Rats fed 20% soy protein diets did not form early foci, just like the 20% wheat protein diets. Suddenly protein, milk protein in this case, wasn’t looking so good. We had discovered that low protein intake reduces cancer initiation and works in multiple synchronous ways. As if that weren’t enough, we were finding that high protein intake, in excess of the amount needed for growth, promotes cancer after initiation. Like flipping a light switch on and off, we could control cancer promotion merely by changing levels of protein, regardless of initial carcinogen exposure. But the cancer-promoting factor in this case was cow’s milk protein. It was difficult enough for my colleagues to accept the idea that protein might help cancer grow, but cow’s milk protein? Was I crazy?
THE GRAND FINALE
Thus far we had relied on experiments where we measured only the early indicators of tumor development, the early cancer-like foci. No~ it was time to do the big study, the one where we would measure complete tumor formation. We organized a very large study of several hundred rats and examined tumor formation over their lifetimes using several different approaches.
TURNING OFF CANCER
The effects of protein feeding on tumor development were nothing less than spectacular. Rats generally live for about two years, thus the study was 100 weeks in length. All animals that were administered aflatoxin and fed the regular 20% levels of casein either were dead or near death from liver tumors at 100 weeks. All animals administered the same level of aflatoxin but fed the low 5% protein diet were alive, active and thrifty, with sleek hair coats at 100 weeks. This was a virtual 100 to 0 score, something almost never seen in research and almost identical to the original research in India.
In this same experiment, we switched the diets of some rats at either forty or sixty weeks, to again investigate the reversibility of cancer promotion. Animals switched from a high-protein to a low-protein diet had significantly less tumor growth (35%—40% less!) than animals fed a highprotein diet. Animals switched from a low-protein diet to a high-protein diet halfway through their lifetime started growing tumors again. These findings on full-blown tumors confirmed our earlier findings using foci. Namely, nutritional manipulation can turn cancer “on” and “off.”
We also measured early foci in these “lifetime” studies to see if their response to dietary protein was similar to that for tumor response. The correspondence between foci growth and tumor growth could not have been greater.
How much more did we need to find out? I would never have dreamed that our results up to this point would be so incredibly consistent, biologically plausible and statistically significant. We had fully confirmed the original work from India and had done it in exceptional depth.
Let there be no doubt: cow’s milk protein is an exceptionally potent cancer promoter in rats dosed with aflatoxin. The fact that this promotion effect occurs at dietary protein levels (10—20%) commonly used both in rodents and humans makes it especially tantalizing—and provocative.
from http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220640890&sr=1-11
Cancer proceeds through three stages initiation, promotion and progression. To use a rough analogy, the cancer process is similar to planting a lawn. Initiation is when you put the seeds in the soil, promotion is when the grass starts to grow and progression is when the grass gets completely out of control, invading the driveway, the shrubbery and the sidewalk.
So what is the process that successfully “implants” the grass seed in the soil in the first place, i.e., initiates cancer-prone cells? Chemicals that do this are called carcinogens. These chemicals are most often the byproducts of industrial processes, although small amounts may be formed in nature, as is the case with aflatoxin. These carcinogens genetically transform, or mutate, normal cells into cancer-prone cells. A mutation involves permanent alteration of the genes of the cell, with damage to its DNA.
The entire initiation stage can take place in a very short period of time, even minutes. It is the time required for the chemical carcinogen to be consumed, absorbed into the blood, transported into cells, changed into its active product, bonded to DNA and passed on to the daughter cells. When the new daughter cells are formed, the process is complete. These daughter cells and all their progeny will forever be genetically damaged, giving rise to the potential for cancer. Except in rare instances, completion of the initiation phase is considered irreversible.
At this point in our lawn analogy, the grass seeds have been put in the soil and are ready to germinate. Initiation is complete. The second growth stage is called promotion. Like seeds ready to sprout blades of grass and turn into a green lawn, our newly formed cancer-prone cells are ready to grow and multiply until they become a visibly detectable cancer. This stage occurs over a far longer period of time than initiation, often many years for humans. It is when the newly initiated cluster multiplies and grows into larger and larger masses and a clinically visible tumor is formed.
But just like seeds in the soil, the initial cancer cells will not grow and multiply unless the right conditions are met. The seeds in the soil, for example, need a healthy amount of water, sunlight and other nutrients before they make a full lawn. If any of these factors are denied or are missing, the seeds will not grow. If any of these factors are missing after growth starts, the new seedlings will become dormant, while awaiting further supply of the missing factors. This is one of the most profound features of promotion. Promotion is reversible, depending on whether the early cancer growth is given the right conditions in which to grow This is where certain dietary factors become so important. These dietary factors, called promoters, feed cancer growth. Other dietary factors, called anti-promoters, slow cancer growth. Cancer growth flourishes when there are more promoters than anti-promoters; when anti-promoters prevail cancer growth slows or stops. It is a push-pull process. The profound importance of this reversibility cannot be overemphasized.
The third phase, progression, begins when a bunch of advanced cancer cells progress in their growth until they have done their final damage. It is like the fully-grown lawn invading everything around it: the garden, driveway and sidewalk. Similarly, a developing cancer tumor may wander away from its initial site in the body and invade neighboring or distant tissues. When the cancer takes on these deadly properties, it is considered malignant. When it actually breaks away from its initial home and wanders, it is metastasizing. This final stage of cancer results in death.
PROTEIN AND PROMOTION
To go back to the lawn analogy, sowing the grass seeds in the soil was the initiation process. We found, conclusively, through a number of experiments, that a low-protein diet could decrease, at the time of planting, the number of seeds in our “cancerous” lawn. That was an incredible finding, but we needed to do more. We wondered: what happens during the promotion stage of cancer, the all-important reversible stage? Would the benefits of low protein intake achieved during initiation continue through promotion?
Practically speaking, it was difficult to study this stage of cancer because of time and money It is an expensive study that allows rats to live until they develop full tumors. Each such experiment would take more than two years (the normal lifetime of rats) and would have cost well over $100,000 (even more money today). To answer the many questions that we had, we could not proceed by studying full tumor development; I would still be in the lab, thirty-five years later!
This is when we learned of some exciting work just published by others3’ that showed how to measure tiny clusters of cancer-like cells that appear right after initiation is complete. These little microscopic cell clusters were called foci.
Foci are precursor clusters of cells that grow into tumors. Although most foci do not become full-blown tumor cells, they are predictive of tumor development.
By watching foci develop and measuring how many there are and how big they become, we could learn indirectly how tumors also develop and what effect protein might have. By studying the effects of protein on the promotion of foci instead of tumors we could avoid spending a lifetime and a few million dollars working in the lab.
What we found was truly remarkable. Foci development was almost entirely dependent on how much protein was consumed, regardless of how much aflatoxin was consumed!
This was documented in many interesting ways, first done by my graduate students Scott Appleton and George DunaiP. After initiation with aflatoxin, foci grew (were promoted) far more with the 20% protein diet than with the 5% protein diet.
Up to this point, all of the animals were exposed to the same amount of afiatoxin. But what if the initial aflatoxin exposure is varied? Would protein still have an effect? We investigated this question by giving two groups of rats either a high-aflatoxin dose or a low-aflatoxin dose, along with a standard baseline diet. Because of this the two groups of rats were starting the cancer process with different amounts of initiated, cancerous “seeds.” Then, during the promotion phase, we fed a low-protein diet to the high-aflatoxin dose groups and a high-protein diet to the low-afiatoxin dose group. We wondered whether the animals that start with lots of cancerous seeds are able to overcome their predicament by eating a low-protein diet.
Again, the results were remarkable. Animals starting with the most cancer initiation (high-aflatoxin dose) developed substantially less foci when fed the 5% protein diet. In contrast, animals initiated with a low-aflatoxin dose actually produced substantially more foci when subsequently fed the 20% protein diet.
A principle was being established. Foci development, initially determined by the amount of the carcinogen exposure, is actually controlled far more by dietary protein consumed during promotion. Protein during promotion trumps the carcinogen, regardless of initial exposure.
With this background information we designed a much more substantial experiment. Here is a step-by-step sequence of experiments, carried out by my graduate student Linda Youngman. All animals were dosed with the same amount of carcinogen, then alternately fed either 5% or 20% dietary protein during the twelve-week promotion stage. We divided this twelve-week promotion stage into four periods of three weeks each. Period 1 represents weeks one to three, period 2 represents weeks four to six, and so on.
When animals were fed the 20% protein diet during periods 1 and 2 (20-20), foci continued to enlarge, as expected. But when animals were switched to the low-protein diet at the beginning of period 3 (20-20-5), there was a sharp decrease in foci development. And, when animals were subsequently switched back to the 20% protein diet during period 4 (20-20-5-20), foci development was turned on once again.
In another experiment, in animals fed 20% dietary protein during period 1 but switched to 5% dietary protein during period2 (20-5), foci development was sharply decreased. But when these animals were returned to 20% dietary protein during period 3 (20-5-20), we again saw the dramatic power of dietary protein to promote foci development.
These several experiments, taken together, were quite profound. Foci growth could be reversed, up and down, by switching the amount of protein being consumed, and at all stages of foci development.
The most significant finding of this experiment was this: foci developed only when the animals met or exceeded the amount of dietary protein (12%) needed to satisfy their body growth rate.3’ That is, when the animals met and surpassed their requirement for protein, disease onset began.
This finding may have considerable relevance for humans even though these were rat studies. I say this because the protein required for growth in young rats and humans as well as the protein required to maintain health for adult rats and humans is remarkably similar.
According to the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein consumption, we humans should be getting about 10% of our energy from protein. This is considerably more than the actual amount required. But because requirements may vary from individual to individual, 10% dietary protein is recommended to insure adequate intake for virtually all people. What do most of us routinely consume? Remarkably, it is considerably more than the recommended 10%. The average American consumes 15—16% protein. Does this place us at risk for getting cancer? These animal studies hint that it does.
Ten percent dietary protein is equivalent to eating about 50—60 grams of protein per day, depending on body weight and total calorie intake. The national average of 15—16% is about 70-100 grams of protein per day, with men at the upper part of the range and women at the lower end. In food terms, there are about twelve grams of protein in 100 calories of spinach (fifteen ounces) and five grams of protein in 100 calories of raw chickpeas (just over two tablespoons). There are about thirteen grams of protein in 100 calories of porterhouse steak (just over one and a half ounces).
Yet another question was whether protein intake could modify the all-important relationship between aflatoxin dose and foci formation. A chemical is usually not considered a carcinogen unless higher doses yield higher incidences of cancer. For example, as the aflatoxin dose becomes greater, foci and tumor growth should be correspondingly greater. If an increasing response is not observed for a suspect chemical carcinogen, serious doubt arises whether it really is carcinogenic.
To investigate this dose-response question, ten groups of rats were administered increasing doses of aflatoxin, then fed either regular levels (20%) or low levels (5—10%) of protein during the promotion period.
In the animals fed the 20% level of protein, foci increased in number and size, as expected, as the aflatoxin dose was increased. The dose-response relationship was strong and clear. However, in the animals fed 5% protein, the dose-response curve completely disappeared. There was no foci response, even when animals were given the maximum tolerated afiatoxin dose. This was yet another result demonstrating that a low-protein diet could override the cancer-causing effect of a very powerful carcinogen, aflatoxin.
Is it possible that chemical carcinogens, in general, do not cause cancer unless the nutritional conditions are “right”? Is it possible that, for much of our lives, we are being exposed to small amounts of cancer-causing chemicals, but cancer does not occur unless we consume foods that promote and nurture tumor development? Can we control cancer through nutrition?
NOT ALL PROTEINS ARE ALIKE
If you have followed the story so far, you have seen how provocative these findings are. Controlling cancer through nutrition was, and still is, a radical idea. But as if this weren’t enough, one more issue would yield explosive information: did it make any difference what type of protein was used in these experiments? For all of these experiments, we were using casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein. So the next logical question was whether plant protein, tested in the same way, has the same effect on cancer promotion as casein. The answer is an astonishing “NO.”In these experiments, plant protein did not promote cancer growth, even at the higher levels of intake. An undergraduate premedical student doing an honors degree with me, David Schulsinger, did the study (Chart 3.842). Gluten, the protein of wheat, did not produce the same result as casein, even when fed at the same 20% level.
We also examined whether soy protein had the same effect as casein on foci development. Rats fed 20% soy protein diets did not form early foci, just like the 20% wheat protein diets. Suddenly protein, milk protein in this case, wasn’t looking so good. We had discovered that low protein intake reduces cancer initiation and works in multiple synchronous ways. As if that weren’t enough, we were finding that high protein intake, in excess of the amount needed for growth, promotes cancer after initiation. Like flipping a light switch on and off, we could control cancer promotion merely by changing levels of protein, regardless of initial carcinogen exposure. But the cancer-promoting factor in this case was cow’s milk protein. It was difficult enough for my colleagues to accept the idea that protein might help cancer grow, but cow’s milk protein? Was I crazy?
THE GRAND FINALE
Thus far we had relied on experiments where we measured only the early indicators of tumor development, the early cancer-like foci. No~ it was time to do the big study, the one where we would measure complete tumor formation. We organized a very large study of several hundred rats and examined tumor formation over their lifetimes using several different approaches.
TURNING OFF CANCER
The effects of protein feeding on tumor development were nothing less than spectacular. Rats generally live for about two years, thus the study was 100 weeks in length. All animals that were administered aflatoxin and fed the regular 20% levels of casein either were dead or near death from liver tumors at 100 weeks. All animals administered the same level of aflatoxin but fed the low 5% protein diet were alive, active and thrifty, with sleek hair coats at 100 weeks. This was a virtual 100 to 0 score, something almost never seen in research and almost identical to the original research in India.
In this same experiment, we switched the diets of some rats at either forty or sixty weeks, to again investigate the reversibility of cancer promotion. Animals switched from a high-protein to a low-protein diet had significantly less tumor growth (35%—40% less!) than animals fed a highprotein diet. Animals switched from a low-protein diet to a high-protein diet halfway through their lifetime started growing tumors again. These findings on full-blown tumors confirmed our earlier findings using foci. Namely, nutritional manipulation can turn cancer “on” and “off.”
We also measured early foci in these “lifetime” studies to see if their response to dietary protein was similar to that for tumor response. The correspondence between foci growth and tumor growth could not have been greater.
How much more did we need to find out? I would never have dreamed that our results up to this point would be so incredibly consistent, biologically plausible and statistically significant. We had fully confirmed the original work from India and had done it in exceptional depth.
Let there be no doubt: cow’s milk protein is an exceptionally potent cancer promoter in rats dosed with aflatoxin. The fact that this promotion effect occurs at dietary protein levels (10—20%) commonly used both in rodents and humans makes it especially tantalizing—and provocative.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Educate Children
一位丹麥父親的「責任教育」省思
老勞特是這裡魚市場的大戶，有個 1.9米 多高的兒子，很懂事而且聽話，除了上學外，課餘的時間幾乎都在幫助父母勞動。 老勞特一向是個樂呵呵很和藹的人，只是那次是個例外。 我親眼看到老勞特把小勞特拽上汽車，臉色鐵青。我急忙上前探問究竟。 老勞特黑著臉告訴我，今天下午勞特在商店裡，把一個塑料塞子鬆動的次品保溫箱賣給了一個漁民，這個箱子是他拿出來準備退貨的，
勞特不知道。
我笑著要老勞特消消氣：「在我們中國，有句話叫不知者不罪。」 老勞特說：「我是沒有告訴他。可是他作為店員應該在賣出箱子的時候替顧客檢查清楚。現在，他需要跟我一起去彌補別人的損失。」 很不巧，那個漁民范德薩當天不在。 事情果如所料。老勞特在一天後，在魚市場找到了那個漁民，滿滿一箱子的魚都變了質，散發出一股子腥臭的味道。老勞特把正在上課
的兒子叫了回來。 當著大家的面，老勞特要勞特把那箱變質的魚放到自己的秤上，稱了一下，然後拿出計算器來，按照當天那種魚的價格，算出了漁民的
損失，大概在1000歐元左右。 他拿著計算器給自己的兒子看，然後說：「你看到了，這是你的錯誤造成的損失。 要知道，自己的錯誤要自己來承擔。我已經幫你在學校請了一個月的假，你這一個月應該為范德薩勞動，到你賠償夠他的損失為止。」 相當不錯的一個警愓故事。
有時人往往因一時的疏忽而導致嚴重的損失，這位父親的做法，相信能為他的店面帶來相當正面的廣告宣傳，讓客戶更加安心在他的店
面消費，而那孩子更能從中學習到，因為自己的一時疏忽而導致後面一連串的問題與損失，使他將來做任何事時都將更加小心謹慎，奠
定他日後成功的基礎。
老勞特是這裡魚市場的大戶，有個 1.9米 多高的兒子，很懂事而且聽話，除了上學外，課餘的時間幾乎都在幫助父母勞動。 老勞特一向是個樂呵呵很和藹的人，只是那次是個例外。 我親眼看到老勞特把小勞特拽上汽車，臉色鐵青。我急忙上前探問究竟。 老勞特黑著臉告訴我，今天下午勞特在商店裡，把一個塑料塞子鬆動的次品保溫箱賣給了一個漁民，這個箱子是他拿出來準備退貨的，
勞特不知道。
我笑著要老勞特消消氣：「在我們中國，有句話叫不知者不罪。」 老勞特說：「我是沒有告訴他。可是他作為店員應該在賣出箱子的時候替顧客檢查清楚。現在，他需要跟我一起去彌補別人的損失。」 很不巧，那個漁民范德薩當天不在。 事情果如所料。老勞特在一天後，在魚市場找到了那個漁民，滿滿一箱子的魚都變了質，散發出一股子腥臭的味道。老勞特把正在上課
的兒子叫了回來。 當著大家的面，老勞特要勞特把那箱變質的魚放到自己的秤上，稱了一下，然後拿出計算器來，按照當天那種魚的價格，算出了漁民的
損失，大概在1000歐元左右。 他拿著計算器給自己的兒子看，然後說：「你看到了，這是你的錯誤造成的損失。 要知道，自己的錯誤要自己來承擔。我已經幫你在學校請了一個月的假，你這一個月應該為范德薩勞動，到你賠償夠他的損失為止。」 相當不錯的一個警愓故事。
有時人往往因一時的疏忽而導致嚴重的損失，這位父親的做法，相信能為他的店面帶來相當正面的廣告宣傳，讓客戶更加安心在他的店
面消費，而那孩子更能從中學習到，因為自己的一時疏忽而導致後面一連串的問題與損失，使他將來做任何事時都將更加小心謹慎，奠
定他日後成功的基礎。
Monday, August 4, 2008
Teachers recruited from Phillipines
Asian teachers try to connect to students.
American teachers are advised to keep a distance from students.
American teachers are advised to keep a distance from students.
Media Center
Some students are not able to type or print reports. Media center is important for them.
A student is required to present a signed pass on an "Agenda Book", not a pass. The book costs $5 so some poor students do not buy them. As a result, a poor student might not be able to print a report either at home or at school. English papers are required to be typed or else. Some poor students just skip the paper and fail......
A student is required to present a signed pass on an "Agenda Book", not a pass. The book costs $5 so some poor students do not buy them. As a result, a poor student might not be able to print a report either at home or at school. English papers are required to be typed or else. Some poor students just skip the paper and fail......
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
ICE Raid at a meat packer
Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid in US History:A Personal AccountErik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D.Florida International UniversityJune 13, 2008On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., in an operation involving some 900 agents,Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a raid of Agriprocessors Inc, the nation’slargest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant located in the town of Postville, Iowa. Theraid –officials boasted– was “the largest single-site operation of its kind in American history.”
At that same hour, 26 federally certified interpreters from all over the country were en route to thesmall neighboring city of Waterloo, Iowa, having no idea what their mission was about. Theinvestigation had started more than a year earlier. Raid preparations had begun in December. TheClerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court had contracted the interpreters a month ahead, but was not at liberty to tell us the whole truth, lest the impending raid be compromised.
The operation was led by ICE, which belongs to the executive branch, whereas the U.S. District Court,belonging to the judicial branch, had to formulate its own official reason for participating.Accordingly, the Court had to move for two weeks to a remote location as part of a “Continuityof Operation Exercise” in case they were ever disrupted by an emergency, which in Iowa is likely to be a tornado or flood. That is what we were told, but, frankly, I was not prepared for adisaster of such a different kind, one which was entirely man-made.I arrived late that Monday night and missed the 8pm interpreters briefing.
I was instructed by phone to meet at 7am in the hotel lobby and carpool to the National CattleCongress (NCC) where we would begin our work. We arrived at the heavily guarded compound,went through security, and gathered inside the retro “Electric Park Ballroom” where a makeshiftcourt had been set up. The Clerk of Court, who coordinated the interpreters, said: “Have you seen the news? There was an immigration raid yesterday at 10am. They have some 400 detaineeshere. We’ll be working late conducting initial appearances for the next few days.” He then gaveus a cursory tour of the compound.
The NCC is a 60-acre cattle fairground that had beentransformed into a sort of concentration camp or detention center. Fenced in behind the ballroom/ courtroom were 23 trailers from federal authorities, including two set up as sentencing courts;various Homeland Security buses and an “incident response” truck; scores of ICE agents andU.S. Marshals; and in the background two large buildings: a pavilion where agents andprosecutors had established a command center; and a gymnasium filled with tight rows of cotswhere some 300 male detainees were kept, the women being housed in county jails. Later theNCC board complained to the local newspaper that they had been “misled” by the governmentwhen they leased the grounds purportedly for Homeland Security training.2
Echoing what I think was the general feeling, one of my fellow interpreters would later exclaim: “When I saw what it was really about, my heart sank…” Then began the saddestprocession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were notallowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the followingdays, notepad in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist andankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in forarraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, beforemarching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of10. They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 ft. tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasantswith Mayan last names, some being relatives (various Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí…), some intears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment.
They all spoke Spanish, a few ratherlaboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their nationality, which was imposed on theirpeople in the 19th century, they too were Native Americans, in shackles. They stood out in starkracial contrast with the rest of us as they started their slow penguin march across the makeshiftcourt. “Sad spectacle” I heard a colleague say, reading my mind. They had all waived their rightto be indicted by a grand jury and accepted instead an information or simple charging documentby the U.S. Attorney, hoping to be quickly deported since they had families to support backhome. But it was not to be. They were criminally charged with “aggravated identity theft” and“Social Security fraud” —charges they did not understand… and, frankly, neither could I.Everyone wondered how it would all play out.
We got off to a slow start that first day, because ICE’s barcode booking systemmalfunctioned, and the documents had to be manually sorted and processed with the help of theU.S. Attorney’s Office. Consequently, less than a third of the detainees were ready forarraignment that Tuesday. There were more than enough interpreters at that point, so we rotatedin shifts of three interpreters per hearing. Court adjourned shortly after 4pm. However, theprosecution worked overnight, planning on a 7am to midnight court marathon the next day.I was eager to get back to my hotel room to find out more about the case, since the day’srepetitive hearings afforded little information, and everyone there was mostly refraining fromcomment.
There was frequent but sketchy news on local TV. A colleague had suggested The DesMoines Register. So I went to DesMoinesRegister.com and started reading all the 20+ articles, asthey appeared each day, and the 57-page ICE Search Warrant Application. These were the vitalstatistics. Of Agriprocessors’ 968 current employees, about 75% were illegal immigrants. Therewere 697 arrest warrants, but late-shift workers had not arrived, so “only” 390 were arrested: 314men and 76 women; 290 Guatemalans, 93 Mexicans, four Ukrainians, and three Israelis whowere not seen in court. Some were released on humanitarian grounds: 56 mostly mothers withunattended children, a few with medical reasons, and 12 juveniles were temporarily releasedwith ankle monitors or directly turned over for deportation. In all, 306 were held for prosecution.3Only five of the 390 originally arrested had any kind of prior criminal record. There remained307 outstanding warrants.
This was the immediate collateral damage. Postville, Iowa (pop. 2,273), where nearlyhalf the people worked at Agriprocessors, had lost 1/3 of its population by Tuesday morning.Businesses were empty, amid looming concerns that if the plant closed it would become a ghosttown. Beside those arrested, many had fled the town in fear. Several families had taken refuge atSt. Bridget’s Catholic Church, terrified, sleeping on pews and refusing to leave for days.Volunteers from the community served food and organized activities for the children.
At thelocal high school, only three of the 15 Latino students came back on Tuesday, while at theelementary and middle school, 120 of the 363 children were absent. In the following days theprincipal went around town on the school bus and gathered 70 students after convincing theparents to let them come back to school; 50 remained unaccounted for. Some American parentscomplained that their children were traumatized by the sudden disappearance of so many of theirschool friends. The principal reported the same reaction in the classrooms, saying that for thechildren it was as if ten of their classmates had suddenly died. Counselors were brought in.American children were having nightmares that their parents too were being taken away.
The superintendant said the school district’s future was unclear: “This literally blew our town away.”In some cases both parents were picked up and small children were left behind for up to 72hours. Typically, the mother would be released “on humanitarian grounds” with an ankle GPSmonitor, pending prosecution and deportation, while the husband took first turn in serving hisprison sentence. Meanwhile the mother would have no income and could not work to provide for her children. Some of the children were born in the U.S. and are American citizens. Sometimes one parent was a deportable alien while the other was not. “Hundreds of families were torn apartby this raid,” said a Catholic nun. “The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone inPostville.
The economic impact will soon be evident.”But this was only the surface damage. Alongside the many courageous actions andexpressions of humanitarian concern in the true American spirit, the news blogs were filled withsnide remarks of racial prejudice and bigotry, poorly disguised beneath an empty rhetoric of misguided patriotism, not to mention the insults to anyone who publicly showed compassion,safely hurled from behind a cowardly online nickname. One could feel the moral fabric ofsociety coming apart beneath it all.The more I found out, the more I felt blindsighted into an assignment of which I wantedno part. Even though I understood the rationale for all the secrecy, I also knew that a contractinterpreter has the right to refuse a job which conflicts with his moral intuitions. But I had beendeprived of that opportunity. Now I was already there, far from home, and holding a half-spent$1,800 plane ticket. So I faced a frustrating dilemma. I seriously considered withdrawing fromthe assignment for the first time in my 23 years as a federally certified interpreter, citing conflictof interest. In fact, I have both an ethical and contractual obligation to withdraw if a conflict of4interest exists which compromises my neutrality. Appended to my contract are the Standards forPerformance and Professional Responsibility for Contract Court Interpreters in the FederalCourts, where it states: “Interpreters shall disclose any real or perceived conflict of interest…and shall not serve in any matter in which they have a conflict of interest.” The question was didI have one. Well, at that point there was not enough evidence to make that determination.
Afterall, these are illegal aliens and should be deported —no argument there, and hence no conflict.But should they be criminalized and imprisoned? Well, if they committed a crime and were fairlyadjudicated… But all that remained to be seen. In any case, none of it would shake myimpartiality or prevent me from faithfully discharging my duties.
In all my years as a courtinterpreter, I have taken front row seat in countless criminal cases ranging from rape, capitalmurder and mayhem, to terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking. I am not the impressionablekind. Moreover, as a professor of interpreting, I have confronted my students with every possibleconflict scenario, or so I thought. The truth is that nothing could have prepared me for theprospect of helping our government put hundreds of innocent people in jail. In my ignorance anddisbelief, I reluctantly decided to stay the course and see what happened next.
Wednesday, May 14, our second day in court, was to be a long one. The interpreters weredivided into two shifts, 8am to 3pm and 3pm to 10pm. I chose the latter. Through the day, theprocession continued, ten by ten, hour after hour, the same charges, the same recitation from themagistrates, the same faces, chains and shackles, on the defendants. There was little to remind usthat they were actually 306 individuals, except that occasionally, as though to break themonotony, one would dare to speak for the others and beg to be deported quickly so that theycould feed their families back home. One who turned out to be a minor was bound over fordeportation.
The rest would be prosecuted. Later in the day three groups of women were brought,shackled in the same manner. One of them, whose husband was also arrested, was released tocare for her children, ages two and five, uncertain of their whereabouts. Several men and womenwere weeping, but two women were particularly grief stricken. One of them was sobbing andwould repeatedly struggle to bring a sleeve to her nose, but her wrists shackled around her waistsimply would not reach; so she just dripped until she was taken away with the rest.
The otherone, a Ukrainian woman, was held and arraigned separately when a Russian telephonicinterpreter came on. She spoke softly into a cellular phone, while the interpreter told her story inEnglish over the speakerphone. Her young daughter, gravely ill, had lost her hair and was tooweak to walk. She had taken her to Moscow and Kiev but to no avail. She was told her childneeded an operation or would soon die. She had come to America to work and raise the money tosave her daughter back in Ukraine. In every instance, detainees who cried did so for theirchildren, never for themselves.
The next day we started early, at 6:45am. We were told that we had to finish the hearingsby 10am. Thus far the work had oddly resembled a judicial assembly line where the meatpackers were mass processed. But things were about to get a lot more personal as we prepared to5interpret for individual attorney-client conferences. In those first three days, interpreters had beenpairing up with defense attorneys to help interview their clients. Each of the 18 court appointedattorneys represented 17 defendants on average. By now, the clients had been sent to severalstate and county prisons throughout eastern Iowa, so we had to interview them in jail. Theattorney with whom I was working had clients in Des Moines and wanted to be there first thingin the morning.
So a colleague and I drove the 2.5 hours that evening and stayed overnight in ahotel outside the city. We met the attorney in jail Friday morning, but the clients had not beenaccepted there and had been sent instead to a state penitentiary in Newton, another 45-minutedrive. While we waited to be admitted, the attorney pointed out the reason why the prosecutionwanted to finish arraignments by 10am Thursday: according to the writ of habeas corpus theyhad 72 hours from Monday’s raid to charge the prisoners or release them for deportation (only ahandful would be so lucky).
The right of habeas corpus, but of course! It dawned on me that we were paid overtime, adding hours to the day, in a mad rush to abridge habeas corpus, only to helpput more workers in jail. Now I really felt bad. But it would soon get worse. I was about to bearthe brunt of my conflict of interest.It came with my first jail interview. The purpose was for the attorney to explain theuniform Plea Agreement that the government was offering. The explanation, which we repeatedover and over to each client, went like this.
There are three possibilities. If you plead guilty to thecharge of “knowingly using a false Social Security number,” the government will withdraw theheavier charge of “aggravated identity theft,” and you will serve 5 months in jail, be deportedwithout a hearing, and placed on supervised release for 3 years. If you plead not guilty, youcould wait in jail 6 to 8 months for a trial (without right of bail since you are on an immigrationdetainer). Even if you win at trial, you will still be deported, and could end up waiting longer injail than if you just pled guilty. You would also risk losing at trial and receiving a 2-year minimum sentence, before being deported. Some clients understood their “options” better than others.
That first interview, though, took three hours. The client, a Guatemalan peasant afraid forhis family, spent most of that time weeping at our table, in a corner of the crowded jailhousevisiting room. How did he come here from Guatemala? “I walked.” What? “I walked for amonth and ten days until I crossed the river.” We understood immediately how desperate hisfamily’s situation was. He crossed alone, met other immigrants, and hitched a truck ride toDallas, then Postville, where he heard there was sure work. He slept in an apartment hallwaywith other immigrants until employed. He had scarcely been working a couple of months whenhe was arrested. Maybe he was lucky: another man who began that Monday had only beenworking for 20 minutes. “I just wanted to work a year or two, save, and then go back to myfamily, but it was not to be.” His case and that of a million others could simply be solved by atemporary work permit as part of our much overdue immigration reform. “The Good Lord knowsI was just working and not doing anyone any harm.”
This man, like many others, was in fact not guilty. “Knowingly” and “intent” are necessary elements of the charges, but most of the clientswe interviewed did not even know what a Social Security number was or what purpose it served.This worker simply had the papers filled out for him at the plant, since he could not read or writeSpanish, let alone English. But the lawyer still had to advise him that pleading guilty was in hisbest interest. He was unable to make a decision. “You all do and undo,” he said. “So you can dowhatever you want with me.”
To him we were part of the system keeping him from being deported back to his country, where his children, wife, mother, and sister depended on him. Hewas their sole support and did not know how they were going to make it with him in jail for 5months. None of the “options” really mattered to him. Caught between despair and hopelessness,he just wept. He had failed his family, and was devastated. I went for some napkins, but he refused them. I offered him a cup of soda, which he superstitiously declined, saying it could be“poisoned.” His Native American spirit was broken and he could no longer think. He stared for awhile at the signature page pretending to read it, although I knew he was actually praying forguidance and protection. Before he signed with a scribble, he said: “God knows you are justdoing your job to support your families, and that job is to keep me from supporting mine.” Therewas my conflict of interest, well put by a weeping, illiterate man.
We worked that day for as long as our emotional fortitude allowed, and we had to comeback to a full day on Sunday to interview the rest of the clients. Many of the Guatemalans hadthe same predicament. One of them, a 19-year-old, worried that his parents were too old to work,and that he was the only support for his family back home. We will never know how many of the293 Guatemalans had legitimate asylum claims for fear of persecution, back in a countrystigmatized by the worst human rights situation in the hemisphere, a by-product of the USbackedContra wars of 1980s’ Central America under the old domino theory. For three decades,anti-insurgent government death squads have ravaged the countryside, killing tens of thousandsand displacing almost two million peasants.
Even as we proceeded with the hearings duringthose two weeks in May, news coming out of Guatemala reported farm workers beingassassinated for complaining publicly about their working conditions. Not only have we ignoredthe many root causes of illegal immigration, we also will never know which of these deportationswill turn out to be a death sentence, or how many of these displaced workers are last survivorswith no family or village to return to.Another client, a young Mexican, had an altogether different case. He had worked at the plant for ten years and had two American born daughters, a 2-year-old and a newborn. He had agood case with Immigration for an adjustment of status which would allow him to stay. But if he took the Plea Agreement, he would lose that chance and face deportation as a felon convicted ofa crime of “moral turpitude.” On the other hand, if he pled “not guilty” he had to wait severalmonths in jail for trial, and risk getting a 2-year sentence. After an agonizing decision, heconcluded that he had to take the 5-month deal and deportation, because as he put it, “I cannot beaway from my children for so long.” His case was complicated; it needed research in7immigration law, a change in the Plea Agreement, and, above all, more time.
There were othersimilar cases in court that week. I remember reading that immigration lawyers were alarmed thatthe detainees were being rushed into a plea without adequate consultation on the immigrationconsequences. Even the criminal defense attorneys had limited opportunity to meet with clients:in jail there were limited visiting hours and days; at the compound there was little time beforeand after hearings, and little privacy due to the constant presence of agents.
There were 17 cases for each attorney, and the Plea offer was only good for 7 days. In addition, criminal attorneys arenot familiar with immigration work and vice versa, but had to make do since immigrationlawyers were denied access to these criminal proceedings.In addition, the prosecutors would not accept any changes to the Plea Agreement. In fact,some lawyers, seeing that many of their clients were not guilty, requested an Alford plea,whereby defendants can plead guilty in order to accept the prosecution’s offer, but withouthaving to lie under oath and admit to something they did not do. That would not change the 5-month sentence, but at least it preserves the person’s integrity and dignity.
The proposal was rejected. Of course, if they allowed Alford pleas to go on public record, the incongruence of thecharges would be exposed and find its way into the media. Officially, the ICE prosecutors saidthe Plea Agreement was directed from the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., that theywere not authorized to change it locally, and that the DOJ would not make any case by caseexceptions when a large number of defendants are being “fast-tracked.” Presumably if you gavedifferent terms to one individual, the others will want the same. This position, however, laid bareone of the critical problems with this new practice of “fast-tracking.” Even real criminals havethe right of severance: when co-defendants have different degrees of responsibility, there is aninherent conflict of interest, and they can ask to be prosecuted separately as different cases, eachwith a different attorney.
In fast-tracking, however, the right of severance is circumventedbecause each defendant already has a different case number on paper, only that they areprocessed together, 10 cases at a time. At this point, it is worth remembering also that even realcriminals have an 8th Amendment right to reasonable bail, but not illegal workers, because theirimmigration detainer makes bail a moot issue. We had already circumvented habeas corpus bydoubling the court’s business hours. What about the 6th Amendment right to a “speedy trial”? Inmany states “speedy” means 90 days, but in federal law it is vaguely defined, potentiallyexceeding the recommended sentence, given the backlog of real cases. This served as anotherloophole to force a guilty plea. Many of these workers were sole earners begging to be deported,desperate to feed their families, for whom every day counted. “If you want to see your childrenor don’t want your family to starve, sign here” –that is what their deal amounted to. Their PleaAgreement was coerced.
We began week two Monday, May 19th. Those interpreters who left after the first weekwere spared the sentencing hearings that went on through Thursday. Those who came in freshthe second week were spared the jail visits over the weekend. Those of us who stayed both8weeks came back from the different jails burdened by a close personal contact that judges andprosecutors do not get to experience: each individual tragedy multiplied by 306 cases.
One of mycolleagues began the day by saying “I feel a tremendous solidarity with these people.” Had we lost our impartiality? Not at all: that was our impartial and probably unanimous judgment. We had seen attorneys hold back tears and weep alongside their clients. We would see judges,prosecutors, clerks, and marshals do their duty, sometimes with a heavy heart, sometimes at leastwith mixed feelings, but always with a particular solemnity not accorded to the commoncriminals we all are used to encountering in the judicial system.
Everyone was extremely professional and outwardly appreciative of the interpreters. We developed among ourselves andwith the clerks, with whom we worked closely, a camaraderie and good humor that kept usgoing. Still, that Monday morning I felt downtrodden by the sheer magnitude of the events.Unexpectedly, a sentencing hearing lifted my spirits.
I decided to do sentences on Trailer 2 with a judge I knew from real criminal trials inIowa. The defendants were brought in 5 at a time, because there was not enough room for 10.The judge verified that they still wanted to plead guilty, and asked counsel to confirm their PleaAgreement. The defense attorney said that he had expected a much lower sentence, but that hewas forced to accept the agreement in the best interest of his clients. For us who knew thebackground of the matter, that vague objection, which was all that the attorney could put onrecord, spoke volumes.
After accepting the Plea Agreement and before imposing sentence, the judge gave the defendants the right of allocution. Most of them chose not to say anything, butone who was the more articulate said humbly: “Your honor, you know that we are here becauseof the need of our families. I beg that you find it in your heart to send us home before too long,because we have a responsibility to our children, to give them an education, clothing, shelter, andfood.” The good judge explained that unfortunately he was not free to depart from the sentenceprovided for by their Plea Agreement.
Technically, what he meant was that this was a binding11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement: he had to accept it or reject it as a whole. But if he rejected it, hewould be exposing the defendants to a trial against their will. His hands were tied, but in closinghe said onto them very deliberately: “I appreciate the fact that you are very hard working people,who have come here to do no harm. And I thank you for coming to this country to work hard.Unfortunately, you broke a law in the process, and now I have the obligation to give you thissentence. But I hope that the U.S. government has at least treated you kindly and with respect,and that this time goes by quickly for you, so that soon you may be reunited with your familyand friends.” The defendants thanked him, and I saw their faces change from shame toadmiration, their dignity restored. I think we were all vindicated at that moment.
Before the judge left that afternoon, I had occasion to talk to him and bring to hisattention my concern over what I had learned in the jail interviews. At that point I realized howprecious the interpreter’s impartiality truly is, and what a privileged perspective it affords. In ourcommon law adversarial system, only the judge, the jury, and the interpreter are presumed impartial.
But the judge is immersed in the framework of the legal system, whereas theinterpreter is a layperson, an outsider, a true representative of the common citizen, much like “ajury of his peers.” Yet, contrary to the jury, who only knows the evidence on record and isgenerally unfamiliar with the workings of the law, the interpreter is an informed layperson.Moreover, the interpreter is the only one who gets to see both sides of the coin up close,precisely because he is the only participant who is not a decision maker, and is even precluded,by his oath of impartiality and neutrality, from ever influencing the decisions of others. That iswhy judges in particular appreciate the interpreter’s perspective as an impartial and informedlayperson, for it provides a rare glimpse at how the innards of the legal system look from theoutside. I was no longer sorry to have participated in my capacity as an interpreter. I realized thatI had been privileged to bear witness to historic events from such a unique vantage point and thatbecause of its uniqueness I now had a civic duty to make it known. Such is the spirit that inspiredthis essay.
That is also what prompted my brief conversation with the judge: “Your honor, I am concerned from my attorney-client interviews that many of these people are clearly not guilty,and yet they have no choice but to plead out.” He understood immediately and, not surprisingly,the seasoned U.S. District Court Judge spoke as someone who had already wrestled with all theangles.
He said: “You know, I don’t agree with any of this or with the way it is being done. In fact, I ruled in a previous case that to charge somebody with identity theft, the person had to at least know of the real owner of the Social Security number. But I was reverted in another districtand yet upheld in a third.” I understood that the issue was a matter of judicial contention. The charge of identity theft seemed from the beginning incongruous to me as an informed, impartial layperson, but now a U.S. District Court Judge agreed. As we bid each other farewell, I keptthinking of what he said.
I soon realized that he had indeed hit the nail on the head; he had given me, as it were, the last piece of the puzzle.It works like this. By handing down the inflated charge of “aggravated identity theft,”which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years in prison, the government forced the defendants into pleading guilty to the lesser charge and accepting 5 months in jail.
Clearly,without the inflated charge, the government had no bargaining leverage, because the lessercharge by itself, using a false Social Security number, carries only a discretionary sentence of 0-6 months. The judges would be free to impose sentence within those guidelines, depending onthe circumstances of each case and any prior record. Virtually all the defendants would have received only probation and been immediately deported. In fact, the government’s offer at the higher end of the guidelines (one month shy of the maximum sentence) was indeed no bargain.What is worse, the inflated charge, via the binding 11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement, reduced the judges to mere bureaucrats, pronouncing the same litany over and over for the record in order tolegalize the proceedings, but having absolutely no discretion or decision-making power.
As a citizen, I want our judges to administer justice, not a federal agency. When the executive branch forces the hand of the judiciary, the result is abuse of power and arbitrariness, unworthy of ademocracy founded upon the constitutional principle of checks and balances.
To an impartial and informed layperson, the process resembled a lottery of justice: if theSocial Security number belonged to someone else, you were charged with identity theft and wentto jail; if by luck it was a vacant number, you would get only Social Security fraud and werereleased for deportation. In this manner, out of 297 who were charged on time, 270 went to jail.Bothered by the arbitrariness of that heavier charge, I went back to the ICE Search WarrantApplication (pp. 35-36), and what I found was astonishing.
On February 20, 2008, ICE agentsreceived social security “no match” information for 737 employees, including 147 usingnumbers confirmed by the SSA as invalid (never issued to a person) and 590 using valid SSNs,“however the numbers did not match the name of the employee reported by Agriprocessors…”“This analysis would not account for the possibility that a person may have falsely used theidentity of an actual person’s name and SSN.” “In my training and expertise, I know it is notuncommon for aliens to purchase identity documents which include SSNs that match the nameassigned to the number.” Yet, ICE agents checked Accurint, the powerful identity database usedby law enforcement, and found that 983 employees that year had non-matching SSNs. Then they conducted a search of the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network for reporting incidents of identitytheft. “The search revealed that a person who was assigned one of the social security numbersused by an employee of Agriprocessors has reported his/her identity being stolen.”
That is, out of 983 only 1 number (0.1%) happened to coincide by chance with a reported identity theft. Thecharge was clearly unfounded; and the raid, a fishing expedition. “On April 16, 2008, the USfiled criminal complaints against 697 employees, charging them with unlawfully using SSNs inviolation of Title 42 USC §408(a)(7)(B); aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 USC§1028A(a)(1); and/or possession or use of false identity documents for purposes of employmentin violation of 18 USC §1546.”Created by Congress in an Act of 1998, the new federal offense of identity theft, asdescribed by the DOJ (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/websites/idtheft.html), bears norelation to the Postville cases. It specifically states: “knowingly uses a means of identification ofanother person with the intent to commit any unlawful activity or felony” [18 USC §1028(a)].The offense clearly refers to harmful, felonious acts, such as obtaining credit under anotherperson’s identity. Obtaining work, however, is not an “unlawful activity.” No way would agrand jury find probable cause of identity theft here.
But with the promise of faster deportation,their ignorance of the legal system, and the limited opportunity to consult with counsel beforearraignment, all the workers, without exception, were led to waive their 5th Amendment right togrand jury indictment on felony charges. Waiting for a grand jury meant months in jail on animmigration detainer, without the possibility of bail. So the attorneys could not recommend it asa defense strategy. Similarly, defendants have the right to a status hearing before a judge, todetermine probable cause, within ten days of arraignment, but their Plea Agreement offer from11the government was only good for… seven days. Passing it up, meant risking 2 years in jail. As aresult, the frivolous charge of identity theft was assured never to undergo the judicial test ofprobable cause. Not only were defendants and judges bound to accept the Plea Agreement, therewas also absolutely no defense strategy available to counsel. Once the inflated charge washanded down, all the pieces fell into place like a row of dominoes. Even the court was bankingon it when it agreed to participate, because if a good number of defendants asked for a grand juryor trial, the system would be overwhelmed. In short, “fast-tracking” had worked like a dream.It is no secret that the Postville ICE raid was a pilot operation, to be replicated elsewhere,with kinks ironed out after lessons learned. Next time, “fast-tracking” will be even morerelentless.
Never before has illegal immigration been criminalized in this fashion. It is no longerenough to deport them: we first have to put them in chains. At first sight it may seem absurd totake productive workers and keep them in jail at taxpayers’ expense. But the economics andpolitics of the matter are quite different from such rational assumptions. A quick look at the ICEFiscal Year 2007 Annual Report (http://www.ice.gov/) shows an agency that has grown to 16,500employees and a $5 billion annual budget, since it was formed under Homeland Security inMarch 2003, “as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcementauthorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human traffickingand smuggling, violent transnational gangs and sexual predators who prey on children” (17).
Nodoubt, ICE fulfills an extremely important and noble duty. The question is why tarnish its stellarreputation by targeting harmless illegal workers. The answer is economics and politics. After9/11 we had to create a massive force with readiness “to prevent, prepare for and respond to awide range of catastrophic incidents, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics andother such significant events that require large-scale government and law enforcement response”(23). The problem is that disasters, criminality, and terrorism do not provide enough dailybusiness to maintain the readiness and muscle tone of this expensive force. For example, “InFY07, ICE human trafficking investigations resulted in 164 arrests and 91 convictions” (17).
Terrorism related arrests were not any more substantial. The real numbers are in immigration:“In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens” (4). ICE is under enormous pressure to turn outstatistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooningbudget. For example, the Report boasts 102,777 cases “eliminated” from the fugitive alienpopulation in FY07, “quadrupling” the previous year’s number, only to admit a page later that73,284 were “resolved” by simply “taking those cases off the books” after determining that they“no longer met the definition of an ICE fugitive” (4-5).De facto, the rationale is: we have the excess capability; we are already paying for it;ergo, use it we must. And using it we are: since FY06 “ICE has introduced an aggressive andeffective campaign to enforce immigration law within the nation’s interior, with a top-level focuson criminal aliens, fugitive aliens and those who pose a threat to the safety of the Americanpublic and the stability of American communities” (6). Yet, as of October 1, 2007, the “case12backlog consisted of 594,756 ICE fugitive aliens” (5).
So again, why focus on illegal workerswho pose no threat? Elementary: they are easy pickings. True criminal and fugitive aliens haveto be picked up one at a time, whereas raiding a slaughterhouse is like hitting a small jackpot: itbeefs up the numbers. “In FY07, ICE enacted a multi-year strategy: …worksite enforcementinitiatives that target employers who defy immigration law and the “jobs magnet” that drawsillegal workers across the border” (iii). Yet, as the saying goes, corporations don’t go to jail.Very few individuals on the employer side have ever been prosecuted. In the case ofAgriprocessors, the Search Warrant Application cites only vague allegations by alien informersagainst plant supervisors (middle and upper management are insulated).
Moreover, theseallegations pertain mostly to petty state crimes and labor infringements. Union and congressionalleaders contend that the federal raid actually interfered with an ongoing state investigation ofchild labor and wage violations, designed to improve conditions. Meanwhile, the underlyingcharge of “knowingly possessing or using false employment documents with intent to deceive”places the blame on the workers and holds corporate individuals harmless. It is clear from thescope of the warrant that the thrust of the case against the employer is strictly monetary: toredress part of the cost of the multimillion dollar raid.
This objective is fully in keeping with thetarget stated in the Annual Report: “In FY07, ICE dramatically increased penalties againstemployers whose hiring processes violated the law, securing fines and judgments of more than$30 million” (iv).Much of the case against Agriprocessors, in the Search Warrant Application, is basedupon “No-Match” letters sent by the Social Security Administration to the employer. In August2007, DHS issued a Final Rule declaring “No-Match” letters sufficient notice of possible alienharboring. But current litigation (AFL-CIO v. Chertoff) secured a federal injunction against theRule, arguing that such error-prone method would unduly hurt both legal workers andemployers. As a result the “No-Match” letters may not be considered sufficient evidence ofharboring. The lawsuit also charges that DHS overstepped its authority and assumed the role ofCongress in an attempt to turn the SSA into an immigration law enforcement agency.
Significantly, in referring to the Final Rule, the Annual Report states that ICE “enacted” astrategy to target employers (iii); thereby using a word (“enacted”) that implies lawmakingauthority. The effort was part of ICE’s “Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces,” an initiativetargeting employees, not employers, and implying that illegal workers may use false SSNs toaccess benefits that belong to legal residents. This false contention serves to obscure an oppositeand long-ignored statistics: the value of Social Security and Medicare contributions by illegalworkers. People often wonder where those funds go, but have no idea how much they amount to.Well, they go into the SSA’s “Earnings Suspense File,” which tracks payroll tax deductions frompayers with mismatched SSNs.
By October 2006, the Earnings Suspense File had accumulated$586 billion, up from just $8 billion in 1991. The money itself, which currently surpasses $600billion, is credited to, and comingled with, the general SSA Trust Fund. SSA actuaries now13calculate that illegal workers are currently subsidizing the retirement of legal residents at a rateof $8.9 billion per year, for which the illegal (no-match) workers will never receive benefits.Again, the big numbers are not on the employers’ side. The best way to stack the stats isto go after the high concentrations of illegal workers: food processing plants, factory sweatshops,construction sites, janitorial services—the easy pickings. September 1, 2006, ICE raid crippled arural Georgia town: 120 arrested. Dec. 12, 2006, ICE agents executed warrants at Swift & Co.meat processing facilities in six states: 1,297 arrested, 274 “charged with identity theft and othercrimes” (8).
March 6, 2007 —The Boston Globe reports— 300 ICE agents raided a sweatshop inNew Bedford: 361 mostly Guatemalan workers arrested, many flown to Texas for deportation,dozens of children stranded. As the Annual Report graph shows, worksite raids escalated afterFY06, signaling the arrival of “a New Era in immigration enforcement” (1). Since 2002,administrative arrests increased tenfold, while criminal arrests skyrocketed thirty-fivefold, from25 to 863. Still, in FY07, only 17% of detainees were criminally arrested, whereas in Postville itwas 100% —a “success” made possible by “fast-tracking”— with felony charges renderingworkers indistinguishable on paper from real “criminal aliens.” Simply put, the criminalizationof illegal workers is just a cheap way of boosting ICE “criminal alien” arrest statistics.
But afterPostville, it is no longer a matter of clever paperwork and creative accounting: this time around130 man-years of prison time were handed down pursuant to a bogus charge. The doublewhammy consists in beefing up an additional and meatier statistics showcased in the Report:“These incarcerated aliens have been involved in dangerous criminal activity such as murder,predatory sexual offenses, narcotics trafficking, alien smuggling and a host of other crimes” (6).Never mind the character assassination: next year when we read the FY08 report, we can allrevel in the splendid job the agency is doing, keeping us safe, and blindly beef up its budgetanother billion. After all, they have already arrested 1,755 of these “criminals” in this May’sraids alone.14The agency is now poised to deliver on the New Era.
In FY07, ICE grew by 10 percent,hiring 1,600 employees, including over 450 new deportation officers, 700 immigrationenforcement agents, and 180 new attorneys. At least 85% of the new hires are directly allocatedto immigration enforcement. “These additional personnel move ICE closer to target staffinglevels”(35). Moreover, the agency is now diverting to this offensive resources earmarked forother purposes such as disaster relief. Wondering where the 23 trailers came from that were usedin the Iowa “fast-tracking” operation? “In FY07, one of ICE’s key accomplishments was theMobile Continuity of Operations Emergency Response Pilot Project, which entails thedeployment of a fleet of trailers outfitted with emergency supplies, pre-positioned at ICElocations nationwide for ready deployment in the event of a nearby emergency situation” (23).Too late for New Orleans, but there was always Postville…
Hopefully the next time my fellowinterpreters hear the buzzwords “Continuity of Operations” they will at least know what they aregetting into.This massive buildup for the New Era is the outward manifestation of an internal shift inthe operational imperatives of the Long War, away from the “war on terror” (which has yieldedlean statistics) and onto another front where we can claim success: the escalating undeclared waron illegal immigration. “Had this effort been in place prior to 9/11, all of the hijackers who failedto maintain status would have been investigated months before the attack” (9). According to itsnew paradigm, the agency fancies that it can conflate the diverse aspects of its operations andpretend that immigration enforcement is really part and parcel of the “war on terror.” This way,statistics in the former translate as evidence of success in the latter.
Thus, the Postville charges—document fraud and identity theft—treat every illegal alien as a potential terrorist, and with thesame rigor. At sentencing, as I interpreted, there was one condition of probation that was entirelynew to me: “You shall not be in possession of an explosive artifact.” The Guatemalan peasants inshackles looked at each other, perplexed.When the executive responded to post-9/11 criticism by integrating law enforcementoperations and security intelligence, ICE was created as “the largest investigative arm of theDepartment of Homeland Security (DHS)” with “broad law enforcement powers and authoritiesfor enforcing more than 400 federal statutes” (1). A foreseeable effect of such broadness andintegration was the concentration of authority in the executive branch, to the detriment of theconstitutional separation of powers. Nowhere is this more evident than in Postville, where theexpansive agency’s authority can be seen to impinge upon the judicial and legislative powers.“ICE’s team of attorneys constitutes the largest legal program in DHS, with more than 750attorneys to support the ICE mission in the administrative and federal courts.
ICE attorneys havealso participated in temporary assignments to the Department of Justice as Special Assistant U.S.Attorneys spearheading criminal prosecutions of individuals. These assignments bring muchneeded support to taxed U.S. Attorneys’ offices”(33). English translation: under the guise ofinteragency cooperation, ICE prosecutors have infiltrated the judicial branch. Now we know who15the architects were that spearheaded such a well crafted “fast-tracking” scheme, bogus chargeand all, which had us all, down to the very judges, fall in line behind the shackled penguinmarch. Furthermore, by virtue of its magnitude and methods, ICE’s New War is unabashedly theaggressive deployment of its own brand of immigration reform, without congressional approval.“In FY07, as the debate over comprehensive immigration reform moved to the forefront of thenational stage, ICE expanded upon the ongoing effort to re-invent immigration enforcement forthe 21st century” (3). In recent years, DHS has repeatedly been accused of overstepping itsauthority. The reply is always the same: if we limit what DHS/ICE can do, we have to accept agreater risk of terrorism. Thus, by painting the war on immigration as inseparable from the waron terror, the same expediency would supposedly apply to both.
Yet, only for ICE are theseagendas codependent: the war on immigration depends politically on the war on terror, which, aswe saw earlier, depends economically on the war on immigration. This type of no-exit circularthinking is commonly known as a “doctrine.” In this case, it is an undemocratic doctrine ofexpediency, at the core of a police agency, whose power hinges on its ability to capitalize onpublic fear. Opportunistically raised by DHS, the sad specter of 9/11 has come back to hauntillegal workers and their local communities across the USA.A line was crossed at Postville. The day after in Des Moines, there was a citizens’ protestfeatured in the evening news. With quiet anguish, a mature all-American woman, a mother, saidsomething striking, as only the plain truth can be. “This is not humane,” she said. “There has tobe a better way.”
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen
This powerful book showed how love could make a child and lacking it could hurt.
Q did not know her dad. Step dads abused her, beat her, and humiliated her. What did she do? She turned to any guy who looked like will give her any love. The sense of true love was never developed so she found love in all the wrong places
She noticed that she was doing the same things to her daughter as her mom did to her.
http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Q-Rise-Latin-Queen/dp/1556527225
Q did not know her dad. Step dads abused her, beat her, and humiliated her. What did she do? She turned to any guy who looked like will give her any love. The sense of true love was never developed so she found love in all the wrong places
She noticed that she was doing the same things to her daughter as her mom did to her.
http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Q-Rise-Latin-Queen/dp/1556527225
NO Bread for hungry students
I noticed that some students came in hungry so I was buying a loaf of bread every day. The bread was usually gone by third period. Kids loved it.
I was told that I could not let students eat or drink in my room next year. The reason? If you let kids eat in your room, it will be hard for other teachers to say "No". ????
I was told that I could not let students eat or drink in my room next year. The reason? If you let kids eat in your room, it will be hard for other teachers to say "No". ????
Airline services
Just came in on NWA69 from Detroit. Detroit to Osaka, the service was so bad. No smiles from most of the flight attendents. Vegeritian meals were not give to me. Rude behaviors.
Osaka to Taipei, the service was excellent.
Osaka to Taipei, the service was excellent.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Being Chinese
I always thought being Chinese was a curse. When I was growing up, I lived in a mostly black neighborhood and I had friends, but I didn’t fit in. At first, I didn’t think too much about my race. Then, in first grade, two boys started calling me “small eyes” and making some karate noises. At first I didn’t know what it meant. I was only 6 years old.
Much later, when I was watching a Bruce Lee movie and saw him making the same stupid kung fu noises, I finally realized that they were messing with me because I’m Asian. Their jokes were only the beginning. Growing up, I was constantly made fun of because of my name, my looks, the way I talk, everything.
Even my friends teased me. One girl would always say, “Yenny Yam, how about some egg rolls?” Another friend would say, “Chin chun chun,” and then squint his eyes at me.
I know that sometimes they were only joking around, but it really hurt my feelings, even though I never said anything about it. I don’t think my friends thought it was hurtful, but they knew it was embarrassing for me because my face would become red and they would laugh about it.
Most of my friends were black, and some never said anything racist to me and would defend me to others. But their help was not enough.
And the teasing wasn’t the worst of it. One very clear and sunny day, my cousin Amy and I were taking the long way home from school, walking through the parking lot of a Baptist church. We saw these two black kids we knew from school, Damien and Shawn.
They yelled crude remarks at us, like, “Chin chun, egg rolls, Chun Lee,” and some other mean words regarding our race. Amy yelled at them to shut up and go away. That was when they started to throw rocks at us. One rock hit me straight in the chest. It hurt so much and I got a huge bruise.
I was not just teased by black people, but by white and Hispanic people too. When I was 8, these two white boys would throw rocks and sticks at us and call us names. But often I was most angry at my black peers, because it seemed like they should have known better.
I am not writing this to disrespect African Americans. But I would wonder why blacks were making racist remarks to me when they should have known better than anyone that it’s not right. They should have thought of what their ancestors had been through— and their parents and grandparents, and themselves—and realized that they were doing the same thing.
When teachers would teach us about slavery, civil rights, and segregation in class, the black students would talk about how they are treated unfairly because of their skin color.
I used to sit in class and think they were talking a lot of junk. They would mess with me one minute and the next they would make an about-face. They would say crude things to my face, then preach that it’s wrong to judge by skin color.
I don’t think they realized they were being hypocritical. When people think “racism,” they tend to think “black and white.” But the
way the people in my school acted toward me was racist, and getting treated like I was not even worth the dirt they stood on really hurt me. It made me angry. It also made me feel ashamed of being Asian.
I have never been sure whether to fight back or stay silent. I am afraid if I do say something back, it will just make people even more cruel.
One time I did speak my mind, and it only made things worse. I was working in my family’s restaurant when a couple of guys started to say some perverted stuff about Asian girls. I got mad and started to argue with one guy. He ended up grabbing a container full of rice that we use as a paperweight and throwing it at my head. I ducked and it missed my head by inches.
I was scared, but I looked him in the eye, staring him down, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t afraid of him. Inside, I wanted to cry.
I think I’m too small to fight back, but I wish I could. I think people tend to believe Asians are a weak race and are not able to stand up for themselves, so it makes me feel weak when I make that stereotype true.
But at least my brother Prince always stands up for himself. Once, when he and his friend were eating pizza, two teens started to call them names, wanting to start a fight. They were surprised when he and his friend fought back. I’m not a person who likes violence, but I was proud that my brother fought them, even if he did sprain his wrist.
Even worse than feeling angry is feeling ashamed of who I am. When I was younger, I used to wish I was a white girl with a white girl’s name. I love their big, light eyes and light hair colors. Instead, I have plain, dark brown hair and small, dark brown eyes.
When I used to play house or hotel or school with my cousin, we would always become white and I would pretend my name was Elizabeth White. I also pretended that I was rich, because back then I thought all white people were rich.
I used to wish that I was able to change my name for real, because no one else had such a weird name—Yen Yam. I used to hate having my name called out because someone would always have a comment about it. It wasn’t until I moved to New York and started high school that I met many people with unusual names. Before, I felt like I was standing out like a sore thumb.
You might think with all these angry feelings that I would become bitter and hateful toward others. But I don’t treat people differently because of their skin color. I am a shy girl, and I get to know people before I have an opinion about them.
Besides, I’ve always known people who don’t judge by skin color. I want to be like those people, not like the people who have hurt me.
I know racism really comes from ignorance. I even see that in my own family. When I was growing up they would sometimes say that black people are dirty or bad people. I would always say that there are dirty and bad Chinese people too. But it’s hard to change old ways of thinking.
I think the way the older people in my family grew up has a lot to do with why they look down on other races. They grew up in China, where they knew only Chinese people. In the United States, they are unable to communicate with others. So they just think the worst, based on what they hear from their friends.
The people who were messing with me were similar, in a way, because they didn’t know anything about Chinese people. They based their comments on what they had seen on television.
Right now, I don’t know how I should feel, though. Should I still feel angry at the people who have done this to me? Should I get revenge? Should I feel sad? I don’t know. I’m confused about everything.
But at least I don’t feel like my heritage is a curse anymore. Over time, I’ve become more comfortable with who I am. But sometimes I still feel lost and alone. Sometimes I wonder, “Where do I belong?”
I was born in the United States and don’t speak much Chinese. So here I am different because of my skin color. In China, I would be regarded as an idiot, an outsider, because I do not understand the language.
Much later, when I was watching a Bruce Lee movie and saw him making the same stupid kung fu noises, I finally realized that they were messing with me because I’m Asian. Their jokes were only the beginning. Growing up, I was constantly made fun of because of my name, my looks, the way I talk, everything.
Even my friends teased me. One girl would always say, “Yenny Yam, how about some egg rolls?” Another friend would say, “Chin chun chun,” and then squint his eyes at me.
I know that sometimes they were only joking around, but it really hurt my feelings, even though I never said anything about it. I don’t think my friends thought it was hurtful, but they knew it was embarrassing for me because my face would become red and they would laugh about it.
Most of my friends were black, and some never said anything racist to me and would defend me to others. But their help was not enough.
And the teasing wasn’t the worst of it. One very clear and sunny day, my cousin Amy and I were taking the long way home from school, walking through the parking lot of a Baptist church. We saw these two black kids we knew from school, Damien and Shawn.
They yelled crude remarks at us, like, “Chin chun, egg rolls, Chun Lee,” and some other mean words regarding our race. Amy yelled at them to shut up and go away. That was when they started to throw rocks at us. One rock hit me straight in the chest. It hurt so much and I got a huge bruise.
I was not just teased by black people, but by white and Hispanic people too. When I was 8, these two white boys would throw rocks and sticks at us and call us names. But often I was most angry at my black peers, because it seemed like they should have known better.
I am not writing this to disrespect African Americans. But I would wonder why blacks were making racist remarks to me when they should have known better than anyone that it’s not right. They should have thought of what their ancestors had been through— and their parents and grandparents, and themselves—and realized that they were doing the same thing.
When teachers would teach us about slavery, civil rights, and segregation in class, the black students would talk about how they are treated unfairly because of their skin color.
I used to sit in class and think they were talking a lot of junk. They would mess with me one minute and the next they would make an about-face. They would say crude things to my face, then preach that it’s wrong to judge by skin color.
I don’t think they realized they were being hypocritical. When people think “racism,” they tend to think “black and white.” But the
way the people in my school acted toward me was racist, and getting treated like I was not even worth the dirt they stood on really hurt me. It made me angry. It also made me feel ashamed of being Asian.
I have never been sure whether to fight back or stay silent. I am afraid if I do say something back, it will just make people even more cruel.
One time I did speak my mind, and it only made things worse. I was working in my family’s restaurant when a couple of guys started to say some perverted stuff about Asian girls. I got mad and started to argue with one guy. He ended up grabbing a container full of rice that we use as a paperweight and throwing it at my head. I ducked and it missed my head by inches.
I was scared, but I looked him in the eye, staring him down, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t afraid of him. Inside, I wanted to cry.
I think I’m too small to fight back, but I wish I could. I think people tend to believe Asians are a weak race and are not able to stand up for themselves, so it makes me feel weak when I make that stereotype true.
But at least my brother Prince always stands up for himself. Once, when he and his friend were eating pizza, two teens started to call them names, wanting to start a fight. They were surprised when he and his friend fought back. I’m not a person who likes violence, but I was proud that my brother fought them, even if he did sprain his wrist.
Even worse than feeling angry is feeling ashamed of who I am. When I was younger, I used to wish I was a white girl with a white girl’s name. I love their big, light eyes and light hair colors. Instead, I have plain, dark brown hair and small, dark brown eyes.
When I used to play house or hotel or school with my cousin, we would always become white and I would pretend my name was Elizabeth White. I also pretended that I was rich, because back then I thought all white people were rich.
I used to wish that I was able to change my name for real, because no one else had such a weird name—Yen Yam. I used to hate having my name called out because someone would always have a comment about it. It wasn’t until I moved to New York and started high school that I met many people with unusual names. Before, I felt like I was standing out like a sore thumb.
You might think with all these angry feelings that I would become bitter and hateful toward others. But I don’t treat people differently because of their skin color. I am a shy girl, and I get to know people before I have an opinion about them.
Besides, I’ve always known people who don’t judge by skin color. I want to be like those people, not like the people who have hurt me.
I know racism really comes from ignorance. I even see that in my own family. When I was growing up they would sometimes say that black people are dirty or bad people. I would always say that there are dirty and bad Chinese people too. But it’s hard to change old ways of thinking.
I think the way the older people in my family grew up has a lot to do with why they look down on other races. They grew up in China, where they knew only Chinese people. In the United States, they are unable to communicate with others. So they just think the worst, based on what they hear from their friends.
The people who were messing with me were similar, in a way, because they didn’t know anything about Chinese people. They based their comments on what they had seen on television.
Right now, I don’t know how I should feel, though. Should I still feel angry at the people who have done this to me? Should I get revenge? Should I feel sad? I don’t know. I’m confused about everything.
But at least I don’t feel like my heritage is a curse anymore. Over time, I’ve become more comfortable with who I am. But sometimes I still feel lost and alone. Sometimes I wonder, “Where do I belong?”
I was born in the United States and don’t speak much Chinese. So here I am different because of my skin color. In China, I would be regarded as an idiot, an outsider, because I do not understand the language.
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