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Microplastics and Health

It’s hard not to stop for a second when you see an article’s headline say they’ve found microplastics in our brain. I had already scrolled past the other articles about how food colorings will kill me, how sugar substitutes will kill me-- how pretty much anything will lead to cancer and kill me. But I hadn’t come across an article quoting a study that claimed a person may have up to 7 grams of plastic in their brain, the equivalent of a plastic spoon.

Of course, once you read a bit more, it turns out a bunch of PHDs in Toxicology, Biomaterials and Environmental Sciences came out and said the number was an exaggeration. I was baited into reading about plastics, which I was more than willing to do, because it still doesn’t change the fact that they did find microplastics, not just in the brain, but in the bloodstream, in our organs, in our piss and crap. And I imagine, as an absolute ignorant layman, that having any amount of plastic in the body isn’t good. So, how bad is it?

And the answer, unsurprisingly, is: “We don’t know”. And by “we” I mean researchers across the globe like Virissa Lenters, an epidemiologist in Netherlands; Lukas Kenner, a pathologist in Austria; Douglas Walker, a molecular toxicologist here in Georgia, and many, many others trying to figure this thing out, because plastic is going nowhere, and who wants to share a lifetime with an object that may be causing us harm.

What they do know for sure seems to be that nanoparticles that are jagged or elongated in their shape definitely damage cells, although this is true for other materials they’ve tested like carbon and silver; but also, that the electric charge a microplastic may have influences its interaction with the cells it comes into contact.

There’s a ton of variables researchers have to take into account when they design these studies. One of which is: what kind of microplastic are they going to monitor? There’s plastic that comes from disintegrated rubbish, others are from normal wear and tear from synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon and acrylic-- materials that pretty much every brand uses. We come into contact with plastic from the paint on our walls, toys, utensils and packaging-- all of which may contain over 10,000 chemical additives, including 2,400 with potential health concern like-- and I’m going to butcher this-- Phthalates and Bisphenols, and a bunch of others. The point is, there’s a ton of plastics with a lot of stuff in them, so what’s to say it’s not some of the chemicals that are causing the issue and not plastic itself. What’s the distribution of harm here, if there’s any?

And that’s just the types of plastic particles, researchers also have to consider all the contaminants that the plastic may pick up naturally in the environment. There’s bacteria, viruses, heavy metals and fungi.

If plastic had a lawyer, he would have an easy case and win on a failure to establish causation. Turns out, many of the studies done use the same type of plastic particle. It’s a sterile smooth polystyrene bead. That’s one of the few particles Labs can buy and get their hands on. Some research groups are making their own particles, exposing them to a process that simulates a natural environment so that they resemble more the plastic we find in our daily life. And it’s not like they can randomly pick trash from outside, because there’s no way to account for all possible contaminants, which means you can’t create a proper control group.

The good news is that with the new focus on AI and machine learning, new technologies are being developed in this field, and a couple of studies are underway right now to shed light on this. There’s a study being applied to 800 mother-and-child pairs in Belgium and Spain. They’re looking for links between microplastics in placenta, urine and blood and health outcomes such as premature birth and child cognitive issues. Another study involves 100 Dutch women. Researchers are tracking microplastics in their household, measuring particles in the air and dust and in women’s urine.

So, yeah, breakthroughs are happening and results will be coming in soon. Plastic already has a terrible reputation. We’ve been bombarded with those images of turtles trapped in a web of plastic bags, tons of plastic bottles littering the sea floor, rivers in the middle of cities where you can’t even the see the water because there’s isn’t an inch covered with plastic trash. If global warming had a stereotypical face, it would be between the image of foggy smog or a plastic bottle.

It’s so easy to hate on plastic, but it has done incredible contributions to our way of living. Plastic packaging is a huge part of why we can get fresh food from all over the world without it spoiling before it even gets to the store. It keeps things like rice and cooking oil safe and cheap to transport. Plastic bottles weigh a lot less than glass ones, which means lower shipping costs and fewer emissions. They can do things other materials can't. They're lighter, tougher, and cheaper to make. Cheaper food and clothes, that sounds like a good thing.

Is it good enough to risk having pieces of it in my brain? Probably not. No matter how anyone spins it, plastic inside our bodies doesn’t sound good at all. We’ll see what happens. This reminds me of that George Carlin joke about how the earth doesn’t care about plastic. The planet has survived through devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, has been pummeled by millions of meteorites through billions of years. What’s plastic going to do? If necessary, the planet will simply incorporate plastic as part of its biome. It’s a joke, but it’s an interesting scenario. I wonder if we can do that. After thousands of years living with chemicals and plastic inside our bodies, will they end up influencing our genetic code, and in the distant future, will we be living in symbiosis with elements we considered hazardous in the past?

Alright, I’m going off on a tangent. Let’s see if we can prevent World War 3 and nuclear annihilation first, then we can consider our next evolutionary step. I’m done rambling. As always, let me know if anything I said is a bunch of nonsense or I’m missing an angle. Okay, I’m out.

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Johnny Somali and the Value of Destructive Behavior

I just bumped into the story of this dude called Johnny Somali. He’s an Ethiopian-American guy that flies around the world and live streams himself as he pranks, mocks and pisses people off with stupid antics like yelling “Hiroshima” and “Nagasaki” in a train in Japan. I believe he’s been banned from Japan for that and doing other stupid crap. But the thing is, he’s now been arrested in Korea and is facing up to 25 years in jail. It looks like he desecrated a statue of a woman that represented Korean victims of wartime sexual slavery. He went on and did a bunch of other dumb stuff to the point the Korean public began to recognize him on the street and proceeded to beat his ass up whenever they encountered him. Everywhere this guy goes, he’s absolutely repudiated by locals. He is hated all over the globe. And yet, he managed to gather a huge online following that provided the financial incentive to continue with this type of content.

And so, we reach the question, what is this type of content? I don’t think it falls under “pranks” and “comedy” anymore. It’s something more vicious. Every prank has a degree of humiliation, disruption, or momentary careless behavior, but at the end of the act, things usually return to a fairly stable status quo. Maybe you’ll have to clean up a bunch of fake blood from the floor, clean puke from the sink, or clean the victim’s tears; but the floor and sink will eventually be clean and the victim will stop crying, hopefully-- unless they’re scarred for life, in which case you miscalculated-- but even then, I’m sure, you’ll feel terrible and apologize. Not these streamer scumbags. There’s no remorse. They are relentless in their pursuit for pure chaos for the amusement of the audience. Some people love to watch train wrecks, especially when the driver puts a camera inside the cabin and invites you to watch them crash into a wall.

I can see his audience split into two groups. One is the lame-ass people that crave the adrenaline rush of seeing chaos unfold. The I-don’t-care-about-anything fantasies play out through secondhand confrontations. They get a glimpse of what would happen if they were to push others to the edge of rage without any consequence. These streamers are vessels for the ridiculous and malicious actions many would do if they wouldn’t restrain themselves. Somehow, I feel like these people are the minority. I have a gut feeling that a large portion of his audience don’t like him at all. I would bet, most of his audience find him annoying, which is exactly why they throw money at him. They want to see this guy burn. They know he will push himself for their amusement with the same excitement a fly rushes to a turd. People are investing on his downfall. I may be absolutely wrong, but it seems like most of his audience just taunts him to test the legal boundaries of the places he visits. They don’t laugh with him, but at him. The highlight of his livestreams is him getting his ass-kicked.

And as despicable as this guy is, there’s very a morbid mentality brewing in some of his viewers, and I don’t mean the lame people that fantasize about public chaos, but those who find him appalling, and yet throw money at him. They are cheering for the fall and destruction of a person they don’t like. Maybe that’s also a fantasy for many. How many times have we seen scumbags get away with stuff without repercussions? Well, here you go, here’s a scumbag that gets assaulted in public and arrested for stepping out of line.

It’s an interesting business model. You monetize people’s hate towards you. That’s brilliant, up until a Korean judge sends you to prison for years. I guess, the risk is worth it for many if they know how to manage the audience’s expectation. Give them enough to hate you without getting yourself into any legal trouble.

Livestream platforms like “Kick” are making tons of money from these types of streamers. The internet has nourished some of the weirdest and most obscene sides of human nature. In all our history, there’s always been demand for spectacle. From gladiator fights in ancient Rome to modern-day tabloids, people have always had a taste for the sensational. The difference now is not just that the barrier to entry is ridiculously low, since everyone has phones, but that you can have direct control and influence over what happens on the other side of the screen by sending 2 dollars with a click, followed by a comment like: “I bet you don’t have the balls to do this.” On a good day for this viewer, Johnny Somali will get punched in the face and they’ll get a laugh out of him, but the viewer becomes part a sick loop. The audience loves the drama, the streamer loves the attention, and the platform loves the traffic.

Alright, I’m done rambling. As always, let me know if anything I said is a bunch of nonsense or I’m missing an angle. Don’t spend too much time with these idiots. And for the love of common sense, please don’t give them money. Alright, I’m out.

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Friendship and Success in White Lotus Season 3

I’ll be talking about White Lotus Season 2 and 3 and I’ll get into some spoilers, so if you care about that, now is a good time to tune out. I really enjoyed Season 2 of White Lotus. Mike White, the creator of the show, does a good job pitting desire against righteousness, loyalty against self-indulgence. And he made it funny which is always a plus. Every character has something to say about the bizarre ways the inner gears of a romantic relationship can become. How does the power dynamic between a couple begin? Is it set from the moment people first meet each other? And how does it evolve over time as they realize each other’s flaws and quirks? There’s a lot of fun questions and I had a good time watching it.

I can’t say the same about Season 3. It’s not absolute trash. Far from it, Mike White is a great writer and still puts his characters through awkward moments of comedy and some tense exchanges. There is good drama here and they’re exploring very interesting topics, but the tension was often dragged out to the point it lost some of their initial momentum. Jason Isaacs is a great actor and he’s amazing at controlling his face and eyes to convey concern for the future of his business and family, but by the thirty slow-mo shot of him twitching his eye and lip, I kind of wanted to see more. Move it along, we get the point. And I felt this a lot of times throughout the season. It could’ve been tighter. Not just in terms of total runtime, but also in the cohesiveness of the theme, which this time seems to revolve around questions like: “What is success? What’s the point of it? What does it take to be or feel successful? Does it lead to a sense of happiness or fulfillment?” These are very nice questions and Mike White explores them with a pretty large ensemble of characters, a little too many in my useless opinion— but anyway, regardless of how I may think Season 2 is designed better in its structure, there are scenes I think are very well done and worth discussing.

I’ll focus on the group of characters I actually cared the least for at the beginning. It’s the three ladies: Laurie, Kate and Jaclyn. A group of long-time friends on vacation at the luxurious White Lotus hotel in Thailand. We have Jaclyn, who’s an actress living the dream in Hollywood with her young good-looking husband; then we have Kate, who lives in Austin, Texas and is the most conservative of the group when it comes to family values and often speaks about her love for her community and how influential Church is in her life; finally, we have Laurie, who is a burn-out lawyer in New York. We learn Laurie has gone through a divorce and seems to have some issues with her daughter-- things are not going well for her. So immediately, you can sense there’s a hierarchy where Jaclynn sits at the top as the recognizable successful actress; Kate is in the middle with her comfortable life in a small community; and Laurie is at the bottom with her dissatisfaction. Now, none of these women live in dire conditions, they know where their next meal will come from, they all have a house to go back to, they have the time to go for a fancy vacation at the White Lotus hotel, so yeah, they’re more than fine. So, why the hell should we care about these women and their issues?

And here’s where Mike White really excels at, because through all the Seasons he funnels the issues of the rich, powerful, privileged or influential through the scope of a human act that is very relatable regardless of class or ethnicity. And in the case of these three women, it’s the inevitable act of measuring yourself against those close to you. Even when everyone knows it’s unhealthy, it’s hard to avoid doing this. You may disregard it quickly and realize how dumb of an exercise it is and move on, but it would be silly to say you have never, at any point in your life, compared yourself with someone else. How does a person get to the realization that they have led a “bad” life? How does one reach that conclusion? Well, I guess first we have to define what a “bad” life is. And to answer that it’s almost impossible to avoid talking about someone else’s “good” life or what appears to be a “good” life. There has to be a frame of reference, right? Or else how do you measure what a “bad” or a “good” life looks like? Of course, all of this is ridiculous because there’s not one right answer. And if there is one answer, it definitely involves the influence of the people that you grew up with. The family we are born into determines a lot, but not everything. The people we decide to hang out with also have a lot of say. Friendships can be very powerful.

These three women are long-time friends. They have known each other since school, and they are in their mid-forties. That’s a very unique position because here are two people that have seen you develop through the decades. They probably know more secrets than your parents ever will. They’ve seen all the ups and downs. The terrible decisions. And through the years, I can definitely see how a friendship will naturally deteriorate for the simple reason that you don’t want to meet them because they remind you, even when they say nothing, about all the mistakes you feel they have witnessed.

Mike White plays with other topics with these three characters, like the poison gossip is in friendships, the irritation at the prospect of growing old, but this self-imposed pressure in lifelong friendships becomes the core when White wraps up their involvement in the show with the dinner scene in the last episode. And it’s one of the most interesting scenes of the whole season. It’s not just White’s good writing, but the performance by Carrie Coon as Laurie is top-notch.

This is supposed to be the last dinner of their vacation, and things have become sour and awkward ever since they fought and cursed at each other. Jacklyn and Kate are more than happy to put everything under the rug and just act nice for one last night before they all leave Thailand for the US and-- who-knows, probably never talk to each other again after this crappy-ass trip. But Laurie breaks the silence and just lets her thoughts come out of her mouth as they appear and it’s a very good scene, kind of corny at the end, but anyway, it’s well done. And I just want to read a little bit of what she said, even though I’m sure I won’t do justice to her performance. So, here you have these two other women talking about how nice the whole trip was and then Laurie says this:

“That’s funny because if I’m being honest, all week, I’ve just been so sad. I just feel like as you get older, you have to justify your life, you know? And your choices. And when I’m with you guys, it’s just so transparent what my choices were and my mistakes. I have no belief system. I mean, I’ve had a lot of them. Work was my religion for forever, but I definitely lost my belief there. And then I tried love, and that was just a painful religion. And then, being a mother, that didn’t save me either. But I had this epiphany today. I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning because time gives it meaning. We started this life together.”

And then, this is my favorite line, I love that Mike White finished her monologue with this. She says: “And I’m just happy to be at the table.”

That’s a bad-ass line. “I’m just happy to be at the table.” I wonder, is that how lifetime friendships work? You go through a bunch of crap together for decades, try to make sense of it, fight along the way, and as long as you don’t cut them off in an outburst, you will continue to meet them at a table where everything is laid bare.

I ask because I’m pulling all this from pure speculation. My best friend is my damn cat, so what the hell do I know? I’m done rambling like an idiot. As always, let me know if everything I said is a bunch of nonsense or there’s an angle I’m missing. I didn’t really like this season of White Lotus overall, but check it out for yourselves, you may like it. Alright, I’m out.

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Pets and Death

My dog died this morning. His name was Mikey. It feels weird saying “my”, because I moved out of my parents’ house for more than a decade and only saw him about once a month. Saying “my parents’ dog died” would fit better, since they’re the ones who have taken care of him for a while now-- but I grew up with this dude for many years and saw him go from a filthy flea infested street dog to a healthy dog with surprisingly big muscular glutes. I still remember the time I woke up one morning and opened my eyes to a huge puke right on my pillow, but I was so tired, I just turned the other way and kept on sleeping. So, yeah, maybe I wasn’t as involved with him by the end of his life, but he was involved with mine enough to give me some good old memories.

He was a mix of a Poodle with who-knows-what-else, but whatever that other breed was, they created a long-living breed. We estimate he lived for 23 years. We rescued him from the street, so we have no birth certificate or anything, but he lived a long life and you could tell-- this dude looked super old. He was blind, deaf, and walked like he would trip any second. But even then, as old as he was, he would sometimes waggle his tail and twirl his body like he used to do when he was playing with us. There’s that stereotypical line that goes something like: “Don’t ever kill the child in you.” It’s hard to practice that as an adult, but it comes so natural to these pets. Yes, they don’t have to go and work every day to get the money that will feed them, they don’t have to deal with tons of people throughout their lifetime, adjusting their behavior to the circumstances and having to read the room. If they feel like taking a crap in the middle of a room full of people, they will do it.

How could a dog that has grown accustomed to be served food and water by a human ever feel the need to restrain their sense of fun and discovery? He may get reprimanded once in a while for jumping on the couch or peeing a carpet, but that’s easy to brush off when they realize you’ll still feed them and pick up their turds as long as they don’t push their luck too much. They know how to test us to see how much they can get away with. And they know exactly what to do to win our favor back. They start playing around, acting cute, giving you the little side glances. They know that we value their presence. Maybe that’s why they never “kill the puppy in them”. They know they need that innocent energy to bring our spirits up when we we’re feeling like crap. Maybe they understand that’s their job and actually get stressed when they see their owner all depressed-- they start thinking: “Oh God, no, no, you can’t lie down, man, you need to go out and get food. I’m not dying here with you-- look at my tail, look at my eyes, you see how cute I am-- Yes! Yes, get up, get your ass up, go work-- Go!”

That would be interesting, but I’m pretty sure these animals are genuine when they hang out with us. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure every pet owner would agree that it feels genuine. And “feel” is an interesting word here, because there’s a comparison being made. It feels genuine as opposed to what? What doesn’t feel genuine? And I guess that could be all the little interactions we have throughout the day. The small talk nobody likes but we engage with to be nice. The smiles we give to people who have thrown us under the bus. The apocalyptic chatter coming out of our television and our phones followed up with an advertisement for anxiety treatment. All this noise follows us around, but once we get home, there’s this creature that does not care about anything but eating, sleeping, taking a crap and being near us regardless of how flawed we are. No matter what mistakes we’ve made, they’re there chilling with us. And we promise to take care of them, even when we’re still figuring out how to take care of ourselves.

And that’s a nice thing; we get to practice a different kind of responsibility. Not the working horse— “I have to be a valuable employee” type of responsibility. But the “taking care of another life” responsibility. And this increases the older the pet gets. All of a sudden, we’re spending a lot of time and money at the vet. And pet insurance is not cheap. It may get to the point where some seriously start thinking: “Is this creature really worth this much money?” Others don’t even think about it; they just go for it. I heard about this one girl who spent thousands of dollars trying to save her rat. Now, there’s no way in hell I would ever consider having a rat as a pet, but it goes to show how valuable any creature can become to a person.

In the end, that girl couldn’t save her rat. And one may wonder, was it all a waste of money? But it’s such a dumb question that quickly answers itself. It’s worth knowing we tried everything at the time, with whatever resources we had, to save the life of someone we loved. And that’s all that matters.

I have no evidence of this, but I imagine the death of a pet is the first-time many face the concept of mortality. The death of Mufasa scarred my generation and did generate questions about life and death, but it doesn’t compare to the existential crisis one goes through, especially as a kid, when your pet dies. They prepare us for the multiple deaths we’ll encounter in our lifetime.

Mikey is not my first death. I’ve lost other dear friends that have prepared me for moments like this. It’s still sad as hell and I’ve shed plenty of tears for him-- but at least I know he lived a long, comfortable life with us. I’m not a religious person, but I hope heaven takes both people and animals, so I can see all my little fellows up there once my time comes.

Alright, I’m done rambling. Mikey, I’ll never forget you. As always, let me know if anything I said is a bunch of nonsense or there’s an angle I’m missing. Now, go hug your pet or something. Okay, I’m out.

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ADHD and Overdiagnosis

I remember hearing the word ADHD occasionally when I was a kid in the 90s, but nowadays it’s hard to go by a couple of hours before hearing someone in the background say: “Oh God, I can feel my ADHD coming. This is driving me nuts.” And I doubt I’m the only one that immediately thinks: “Do you really have ADHD, or you’re just saying it for the sake of conversation?” This may come off as insensitive, but it’s not a complete disregard for that person’s state at the time. They may be clearly stressed or anxious, but is that really ADHD? And someone can argue: “Why the hell do you care if that person has ADHD or not? That’s none of your damn business. He has nothing to prove to you.” And I would say, first: “Stop acting like you don’t have hypothetical conversations in your head.” And second: “Given the on-going debate on widespread ADHD overdiagnosis, it's easy to see why the mind will inevitably reach that question.”

According to The Economist, 1 in 9 children aged 3 to 17 has been diagnosed with ADHD, that’s 2 to 3 times higher than other Western countries. There’s a bunch of theories as to why impulsive and uncontrollable children are multiplying in America. Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., believes the rise in ADHD is due to the use of chemicals in our food supply, especially the use of artificial food colors. Others claim that there’s a genetic component to this, and there are some studies that point to a number of genes that show an association with ADHD. You have the DAT1, DRD4, DRD5, 5HTT, and others with similarly cryptic names.

A lot of things have been correlated to the rise of ADHD. But there was a study published in December of 2024 by the National Bureau of Economic Research that I really liked. This study found that ADHD diagnoses in the U.S. spike by 14% on Halloween compared to the ten weekdays before or after that. Oh my God, is Halloween causing ADHD? Or are parents taking their overly excited child dressed as Iron Man to the psychiatrist because they can’t sit down and quietly wait until the evening to go trick-or-treating? Well, the study doesn’t dare to make that assumption, but it does hammer again and again the need for extensive testing and careful diagnosis.

And that makes sense given that in the U.S. a pediatrician can slap a child with an ADHD diagnosis in 15 minutes. In contrast, in many European countries, the diagnosis doesn’t come after multiple cognitive tests, interviews with the parents and even observing the child during a class. All this has to be done by a certified psychiatrist. And it’s often the case where the child’s behavior is not caused by ADHD, but by other factors like a stressful, broken home or bullying in school.

In 2020, a study asked American parents how high they rated their child on a scale of ADHD symptoms. 10% of Americans rated their children as high, compared to the 3 to 4% of Swedish and Norwegian parents. This is the second time I bring out the Europeans, and it obviously doesn’t mean they are way smarter over there. But it does mean that there is a different incentive structure.

Only two countries in the entire world allow for direct prescription-drug advertising to consumers. The United States and New Zealand. So, yeah, bombard those Norwegian and Swedish parents with tons of ADHD drug-advertisements and I bet they’ll start to get anxious when little Bobby doesn’t want to eat his vegetables. All you need is one commercial with a couple of parents in distress while their kid makes a mess of the house in the background, then they make the kid drink a pill—- cut to the kid sleeping peacefully—- and that’s it, it’s over. Put your phone number at the end of the commercial, you’re getting tons of calls by parents that are sick of their children.

And if it’s not distressed parents, it’s ambitious school officials. Schools are incentivized to keep high-grade scores above all else. There’s something called “Accountability Rules”. These are policies put in place to hit certain educational metrics. Each school has some control on how they apply these policies, and some are very stringent to the point teachers and other officials can lose their jobs if student’s performance doesn’t improve. A study found ADHD rates are higher in schools with strict accountability rules, because one of the few ways you can exclude bad test results from students, is to diagnose them with ADHD and place them under special-education classes. To no surprise, many of these schools are from poor areas. They found that in Louisiana and Mississippi 1 in 6 children is diagnosed with ADHD.

The rich schools exploit a different loophole. Rich families want their kids in the best schools, which are often the most competitive. They’ll go to large extents to give their child an advantage, and studies have found parents pushing their kids to be approved into what’s called a “504 designation”. This is a disability category for students that can’t follow a lecture as other children. ADHD falls under this designation. Schools give these children more time to finish tests and you bet that has all kinds of parents salivating.

So, yeah, once more, the systems that were created for good are repurposed for the benefit of the selfish and greedy. I guess, thinking back on the people that use the word “ADHD” as a casual word for conversation-- they’re not as terrible as those opportunistic pricks.

Alright, I’m done rambling. I’m not a doctor, but all this is interesting to me. As always let me know if anything I said is a bunch of nonsense or there’s an angle I’m missing. Okay, I’m out.

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Cutting in Line and Restaurant Manners

“What do you do when you accidentally cut in line There’s this place in Burbank called “Poquito Mas”. It’s a taco shop, and as a Mexican, I give it my meaningless stamp of approval. It has the best steak burritos I’ve tried so far in LA. The tacos and other dishes aren’t that good, but the burritos are worth coming back for. And that’s exactly what I did a couple of days ago. I walked in the place ready to enjoy some delicious grilled beef, but I was confronted with a situation I’m sure everyone has been at some point in their lives. I accidentally cut in the line. Yes. I became the bastard I’ve detested my entire life. But as my brain started to process the event, and I became aware of my surroundings, I noticed some things that I want to share today. This is my lame-ass defense. My justification for such a disgusting transgression.

Let’s begin by talking about the layout of this establishment. There are two entrances. Not one. Two. You can enter from the front, which has the name plate of the place and is decorated in Mexican paraphernalia. For any passerby, this is the main entrance, and this is the entrance I used. Now, the second entrance is from the back. They have a small parking lot in the back, so they just made a door for those who are lucky enough to find a spot in the four little spaces they have. The place is tiny, so it would take a healthy individual approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds to walk around to the main entrance. Anyway, the owners want to make it easy for those who find parking, fair enough. But the unintended consequence is that you have two streams of customers coming in from opposite directions. From the get-go, the flow of transit increases the chances of a collision where two parties are forced to ask themselves: “Uuh, is the line here or over there?” Making matters worse is the fact that the register is right next to the main entrance and the pick-up section for those who ordered “to go” is right next to it, raising an extra question: “Is that person standing there in line or are they waiting to pick up their order?”

And I know exactly what some of you are thinking. “Just ask? Ask them: ‘Are you in line?’ Problem solved.” And, yes, I would say that’s the most sensible course of action. And I’ll also admit that I didn’t do that, but not because I’m a despicable bastard, but for a very mundane reason. I was talking with my wife as we walked in. I was distracted. Don’t we all fall victim to this from time to time? I’m not infallible. The mind wanders off easily when you’re honestly listening to someone else talk. But, anyway, I’ll accept I violated the first steps in standard restaurant etiquette. But let me continue and you will see that I’m not the only one at fault.

So, my wife and I walked in having a laugh at some story I can’t remember. A person was ordering at the cashier. It took them about 20 seconds to finish the transaction. In those 20 seconds, my wife and I were discussing what we would order for food and drinks. I briefly noticed two men standing by the pick-up zone about 6 feet away from the person ordering, I assumed they were waiting for an order, I thought they were too far back. By the time I was processing their position and assessing what we would order, that one person finished paying and left the cashier.

That’s when my wife and I stepped forward, and after I said hello to the cashier and began to order, one of the guys 6 feet away goes: “Eh, the line’s here.” Naturally, my wife and I went: “Oh, we’re sorry, go ahead.” We took a few steps back, but the dude raised his hands and said: “No, no, no, you’re already there, you go, we’re not in a rush.” Immediately, my head went to: “Do we look like we’re in a rush? Do we look like starving dogs? What are we playing at here?” I didn’t say any of that, I just went ahead and ordered. We may have been distracted and cut it line, but we were standing there for 20 seconds reading the menu and discussing out-loud what we were going to order; he knew we were going to order. He knew we were going to cut in line. Why not say: “Hey, the line starts here” from the beginning? Isn’t that also part of the restaurant etiquette? To keep each of us accountable? Only a true bastard enjoys cutting in line. You tell any ordinary person they’re about to cut in and they will apologize and go to the back of the line. But no, he wanted to play human behavior games and said it once we were right in front of the cashier. And not only that, once he brought it up, he didn’t mean it. So, really, he just wants to smear the shit on our face and play moral games in a damn taco shop. Just like I assumed at first glance they had already ordered, he assumed we were jackasses the moment we walked in, and so he left us to act like jackasses. And I don’t mind acting like a jackass for people that already labeled me as a jackass. That’s why I didn’t even insist on him ordering first.

At this point, the cashier dude could have imposed some order and simply tell us he’ll attend those two guys first, but he didn’t say anything. He decided to stay out and let the customers figure it out. I’m not sure how that reflects on the restaurant? With that layout, I’m sure they bump into this situation multiple times a week, and they just let people hack it out.

Also, it could be that this dude is the type of guy that is shy and dislikes confrontations, so he couldn’t muster the courage to get out of his introvert shell in 20 seconds and tell me where the line was; but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have said “you’re already there, you go, we’re not in a rush”. You do that, you’re playing dumb games. This dude looked like he was in his mid-forties. Come on, man, we’re all adults here, call me out, if it really bothers you, genuinely tell me I’m messing up, I’m not going to go on a rage and argue like an idiot. Maybe he tried before with someone else and got into a dumb argument and that’s why he doesn’t even bother anymore.

And if all of this sounds stupid, it’s because it is. In the grand scheme of things, the exchange was meaningless for both parties involved. We both got our burritos. I’m sure we both enjoyed them. And then we left, probably to never meet ever again. But I like having fun with these mundane moments and ruminate about silly possibilities. Even if I’m wrong about what went through his head, I’m amused at the the concept of how quick we sometimes are to label people we don’t know and how we let people fall in a hole just to prove we were right about them. Yes, I set myself up and accidentally cut in line, but why did you let me fall right into that hole? Would I have done the same? Maybe. I hope not. If I don’t care, I usually just keep my mouth shut. In any case, I promise to become, not just a better fellow bystander, but a better fellow citizen, and pay attention next time I enter a restaurant. And I promise to help those about to fall in the same hole I did, and let them know they’re about to cut in line.

I mean, we have to look for each other’s backs, right? How can we do that if we always assume the worst in people? I know that’s hard to avoid, because I do it all the time. A lot of people piss me off, but I fight myself. I don’t always win and fall back into bad habits, but I’m learning to give the benefit of the doubt. For whatever reason, that guy didn’t give me any.

To his credit, I recently cut my hair, and some people have said I look like the average drug-cartel criminal. I guess, I’ll try growing it longer again, I think I look more trustworthy that way. Okay, I’m done rambling. As always, let me know if I’m full of crap or there’s an angle I’m missing. Alright, I’m out.

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Overprotective Parents and Children

I don’t have a kid, I don’t even know if I want one, to be honest. They seem like a terrible hassle; having to deal with all the puking, snot and liquid crap that sneaks out of their diapers right onto your pants. Add to this, their ability to pummel bank accounts to the ground, and you have a very big problem. A problem that a lot of people decide it’s worth the trouble. It’s true that birth rates are dropping in many countries, but not to the point where we can avoid bumping into children once in a while. The other day I heard a father talking to another guy about this new application that allows him to track his daughter’s location at all times. I don’t know how old this child was, but it got me thinking about all the technology available now for parents to oversee their children. I’m sure that “Parental Controls” is a big selling point tech companies market to families. What parent doesn’t like a bit control? It’s a necessary measure, right? You have to do it. You’re responsible for your child. If they end up all messed up, it’s the result of your neglect. Or is it something else? What does privacy look like for a kid when their parents have to take care of them?

All of these are very interesting questions that any new parent will grapple with. I bet even those who doesn’t want children have an opinion about this since it’s impossible to avoid the question: “Do I want kids? Would I be a good parent? Hmm, how would I treat them? Wouldn’t I be happier just traveling the world?” You have to ask yourself those questions to reach the: “I don’t think children are for me.” But if the answer is “Yes, I do.” Then I imagine your bookshelf or kindle app will soon be filled with parenting books. Although, my gut tells me that no matter how many books you read, at the end of the day, it’s all about finding the answers as you go along. Yeah, you may have some ideas and strategies you want to test out, but when shit hits the fan, instinct will kick in and your personality will show up to fill in the gaps in real time. Instinct makes parenting an improvised affair. It’s only when you’re old and have been through all the crap that you can somehow reflect coherently on what worked and what didn’t work.

I’m not convinced these new applications that let you monitor every move your child makes is a good idea, but I’ll tell you what, I understand the urge to shield them from all the nonsense out there extremely well. I’m sure I would end up using those same apps. At least, I’ll test them out if I ever think they’re necessary. And that’s the question right, “When are they necessary? When is it necessary to impose your will on your child? Should you ever impose your will on your child?” It would be ridiculous to answer “no” to that question. Kids have a will, yeah, but without some guidance they’ll misplace it and could end-up in a compilation of 1,000 ways to die. Ideally, the parents should be the ones guiding them. But then we bump it another crossroad where we have a number of paths. I’ll go over the two scenarios that I can pull out of my ass right now.

One of them is, “What if the parent’s will is distorted? What if they’re in no place to guide their child because they are a mess in their own life?” Well, that’s a tough one, because who has the authority to define what a “distorted will” is. There are obvious cases like when a parent abuses a child. At that point, there are laws in place to punish that parent and take the child away from them. But when it comes to ideology, all bets are off. You need some extreme cases to justify it. Like a deranged parent that purposefully encourages their kid to harm other people, or one that initiates their child into a cult where members drink the pee of a maniac they idolize as a God. Barring these extreme cases, beliefs are easy to fall in a gray zone. They have to defy whatever a large community believes to be common sense. It’s hard to have a definite answer for this, so, for the time being, we’ll stick to: A deranged will is defined on a case-by-case basis.

The other scenario is the sneaky righteous overprotective parent. This is the parent that believes he knows what’s best for the kid and have set-up a fixed path to whatever that parent considers “success” means. And we can argue how the deranged parent that’s part of a cult is also a righteous over-protective parent. He really believes that this is the virtuous way, that his child will find eternal joy by drinking the pee of that maniac prophet, and he will force that kid to follow this path. And I would say that, yeah, he shares the same zealousness of an overly strict parent, but the distinction lies on what the larger community defines as common sense. The majority of people will disagree and quickly mobilize against the pee-lover cultist. But they won’t move against the other parent, because it aligns more with the common understanding of what “success” means, at least within their own community. A parent that micro-manages their child’s time may be thought of as a control-freak, kind of an unpleasant person to be around, but not deranged. They fly under the radar because their kids seem to be doing well. They don’t smile, but they have amazing grades. They play the piano pretty well or dance ballet with so much grace. The only times the damage shows up is when the kids explode and start smashing windows and collapse to the ground in tears.

Those mental breakdowns are a hard thing to see. And it’s so easy, as an observer, to say: “I would’ve never pushed my kid to that point.” But those are empty words. Conflict is unavoidable when you have two wills against each other. The will of the parents versus the will of the child. And then it gets more chaotic when you have the will of the father clashing against the will of the mother. Is there a better example for a kid than seeing the parents at each other’s throats?

Parenting is a messy game. Maybe nobody is truly prepared to be parents. It’s a leap of faith. There’s no guarantee you’ll love that child forever. That child may grow to hate you. Who knows what could happen? What’s true is that no matter what, you’ll probably learn a ton from the experience. I mean, even if you end up divorced and alone in the nursing home your child left you because they don’t want to deal with you. Even then, something has to come out of it, right?... Right?

Ah, what do I know? I’m done rambling. As always, let me know if everything I said is nonsense or there’s an angle I didn’t mention. All right, I’m out.

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Children and Disappointing Parents

Sometimes I feel like watching an old silent movie. And I recently watched a pretty damn good one that I recommend anyone to check out. It’s called “I was born, but...”. It’s a Japanese movie made by Yasujiro Ozu in 1932. What a badass movie. I’ve heard about this dude Ozu before, but never got a chance to see something from him until now. All I knew from him was that he liked to tell grounded stories, nothing fantastical or melodramatic, just small stories focused on average working-class people. And after this one, I’ll have check out more from him.

I won’t spoil much, but basically the movie follows two young brothers that move into a new suburb in Tokyo after their father gets a promotion. The boys are 10 to 8 years old and have to deal with being the new kids in town. They are bullied in school to the point they start skipping it. And, of course, the parents find out and their father scolds them and tells them they can’t run away from problems. They need to deal with them. Be proactive.

Throughout the movie the father comes off as a very strict person, very serious, and very eager to instill in his children the concept of being a contributor to the community you’re a part of. He’s a confident man and his two boys see him as an example of a successful man.

I won’t say what happens exactly, but there’s an event the kids witness that destroys that image of their father. And that’s what this movie is about. It’s about children faced against an overwhelming sense of disappointment at their own father, and in a way, at their own future. It’s not hard to imagine a kid nowadays asking the same question those kids asked in the movie: “Why is my Dad telling me how to behave when he’s a laughing-stock, a moron in front of his bosses? Do I have to grovel and suck someone’s ass like him to achieve anything? Where does he get the balls to act like he knows what he’s doing in life?”

And this may not apply to those who always had a terrible relationship with their parents. If your parents abused you as a child, more than likely, you never had a good impression of them. But for those who admired their parents in some form, there probably is a time when that admiration turned into disappointment. It’s that moment when an adult does something that you, as a kid, sense that it’s wrong. But how is it that you feel this way? Adults are supposed to know better. Adults are smarter than you. How is it that you can feel it’s wrong, but they can’t?

When this happens, I do believe something breaks inside every kid. There’s a feeling of a world your parents or this other hypothetical adult is hiding from you. And that the happiness and comfort they express may not reflect how they truly feel. That it’s an act. And there’s only one conclusion a kid can reach at this point: “Well, I guess, when I grow up, I’ll have to act too. I don’t understand why, but maybe I will later when I’m older.”

Maybe I’m wrong about this, post you thoughts below if you disagree, but it seems like most kids are eager to grow up, and the reason they are so eager about it is because of the adults around them. Not only because of how knowledgeable or mature they may appear to the kid, but also because of how much freedom they seem to have. The freedom to go and do whatever they want. It’s not true, most adults are drowning in work and debts, but the kid doesn’t see that, and even if he sees it, he’ll probably ignore it, because being free to do whatever you want is a cool concept to them. Of course, not every adult elicits this reaction from kids. There are adults they will consider weird, annoying or, even worse, boring. But not many will go straight to: “This adult is beneath me.” And, if they do, then they’re probably a spoiled child and their parents treat them like a king or queen. Yeah, you do have those entitled kids that think they own everything because their parents give them everything. So, maybe there’s a ton of kids to which this doesn’t apply to. But, then again, I don’t think those kids are the majority.

Anyway, the point is: It’s easy for kids to idolize, and when those idols betray their feelings, regardless of how dumb it may seem to a third party, it can be defining moment in their lives. We’ve all been pushed to the point where we might have to compromise what we believe in, at the expense of feeling like a hypocrite, only to keep the peace or the status-quo of a situation. And if you haven’t, you probably will in the future. And these moments will add up, little by little. And hopefully, they won’t burst out in an ugly way. It sounds bad, but many times it’s small stuff that we can take and bottle up. I mean, if it’s a belief you’re passionate about and over the years it solidified, then, yeah, none of this crap I said matters, your head will be filled with that belief and everything you do will be dictated by it. But I’ll venture and say that that belief probably solidified because of a similar disappointment from a bunch of adults. It’s just that, instead of going: “If I’m a kid and I can feel this is wrong, why can’t this adult feel it?”, you went directly to: “All these adults are dumbasses.” And that’s okay, I guess, but be careful with blanket statements like that. It’s not healthy.

Okay, I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about anymore. I’m done rambling. If you’re into silent movies, definitely check out “I was born, but...”, it’s amazing. The last frame of the film is beautiful and extends the theme of the film to every kid and family in Japan. It’s an impressive film, I highly recommend you give it a chance. And let me know if everything I said is bullcrap or there’s another angle I didn’t mention. All right, I’m out.

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LED Headlights and Human Decency

Driving. You can’t escape driving in LA. I imagine it’s similar in other American cities, but I’ve spent most of my life in southern California, so I can’t speak for others. There’s a public system in LA, but the routes are very limited. And the last time I used the Metro I caught a type of fungus on my leg-- I’m guessing from coming into direct contact with the cushion seat. So, nope, I’ll drive. If you feel like having a nice meal, you have to get your keys, get up on car and drive. For most Americans, I imagine this is nothing, that’s how it’s always been, but for those of us who grew up in other countries, more than likely you had access to dozens of tiny street food stands and small restaurants inside actual houses that a family retrofitted with tables and chairs. They are on every corner of a block, all in walking distance, and the food is amazing and cheap. There’s nothing better than the food of a scrawny grandmother. In LA, everything is far as hell. You drive for 30 minutes on the highway, you feel like you barely moved, and by the time you reach the restaurant, after an hour and 20 minutes, the food is expensive and it’s okay. It’s alright. But then you get back up on the car and drive back for 2 hours because an idiot was driving like a suicidal maniac and crashed, causing a ton of traffic. But there’s a bright side to this trip: You like driving.

Or maybe some of you don’t like driving, maybe it makes you nervous, but there’s a therapeutic element if you give it a chance. Try driving at night on an empty highway with no music, and you’ll probably go into a strange peaceful trance. Either that or you’ll panic and hyperventilate because you feel the darkness of the night eating you up. At that point you should turn back and ignore everything I’m saying.

But I’ll still insist, that there can be a healthy element to driving. Even when those scumbags cause an accident and a bunch of traffic, and you’re stuck on the highway, it’s an opportunity to practice patience. How many times have any of you wished the worst on those who caused the accident? When you go: “Ah, shit, another one! I hope it was a douchebag and he broke his fucking ribs, that’s the only way these people learn.” But then you tell yourself: “Okay, come on, relax. You’re already here. There’s nothing else you can do. Let’s just put some music.” And then you enter a meditative state where the entire world is pushed away and you learn to quietly sit in peace behind the wheel, comforted by the frame of your car. You realize your lack of humanity for wishing injury on someone else. You think to yourself: “Hey, I don’t know the circumstances of this accident. There could be a family up there dealing with a life-altering situation. Maybe they’ve lost someone dear to them.” And you regain a degree of human decency.

Yes, driving is a window into one’s mental state. But just when I think I’m in control of myself, there’s always this cockroach that manages to intrude every time I’m on the road. It’s those pricks who drive with their bright-ass LED lights that seem to be designed to perfectly aim at my side and rearview mirrors with the sole purpose to blind me and burn my corneas.

Why are these animals propagating? Something has to be done to stop the proliferation of these absolute degenerates of society. And I understand, this may have nothing to do with the driver. Maybe that’s how the car was designed, but it’s hard to separate man from machine when I can’t see shit. And it’s a problem all over the world.

There is a study from the UK, published in February of this year, that found that 61% of drivers believe the issue of blinding LED lights from other cars is worse than it was a year ago, and 75% of respondents are driving less because those damn lights make the driving experience uncomfortable. Apparently, LED headlights are roughly 300% brighter than the old halogen bulbs used in older cars. They're 2,000 to 4,000 lumens while the average halogen bulb is only about 1,000 lumens. I understand LED lights are capable of outputting much more light with less energy and heat than halogen, but that doesn’t mean we have to abuse that power.

And maybe someone argues that the study I read focuses on the UK and doesn’t reflect the American driver, but turns out the U.S. Department of Transportation has acknowledged the problem and is pushing car manufacturers to use a new glare-proof design for ADB headlights. ABD stands for Adaptive Driving Beam, and these are headlights that are supposed to automatically adjust the brightness and direction of the light beam in real-time based on driving conditions. We’ll see how that works out as more car makers adopt these systems.

The thing is I can’t get past the feeling that those drivers know they’re blinding innocent people and enjoy it. They rejoice while we suffer, because they also know they can’t be blamed for it. All they have to do is say, “Blame, Ford, man, what are you talking about?” And that’s a good logical answer. And even then, I somehow still feel their disgusting smirk. Maybe I should take this as part of my car meditation and try to convince myself that’s there’s goodness in most people.

Alright, I’m done rambling. Watch out for those LED headlights. I’ll see you later.

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Booty Soreness and Bulgarian Squats

Have you been keeping a healthy lifestyle? Are you working out 2 to 3 days a week, minimum? It’s fine if you haven’t, it’s hard to keep healthy habits when we’re surrounded by fast-food chains, bakeries and taco trucks. My biggest weakness is a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos with a ton of spicy salsa and lemon. I once ended up in the hospital after eating a huge bag of that shit. I was puking, had severe diarrhea, I was whole mess. The doctor had to give me electrolytes and who-knows-what-else through an IV in my wrist. After that, I promised, I was done messing with my body and that I would pivot towards a healthy lifestyle. And so, besides focusing on a healthier diet, I also starting working out more.

And I wasn’t out-of-shape. I played a lot of “futbol” when I was younger, or “soccer” as they call it here. I’ve always had pretty good stamina, but the thing about running is: it’s not good at building muscle. When jogging is the only thing you do for exercise, you end up looking like a stick. Look at those Olympic marathon dudes, their body frame is thin as hell. You can see some muscles, but that’s because their body-fat percentage is so low, their skin has to wrap around the muscle. And I’m not talking about the short-distance runners, those dudes are jacked, but that’s not jogging, that’s sprinting. That’s a HIIT workout, and it has actually been proven to help with building muscle. Anyway, I’m saying all this to explain why I’ve always had fairly thin legs. I never did any weight-lifting or compound exercises. My arms weren’t that strong. And the soreness was pretty bad at the beginning, but I was dealing with it well. What I didn’t expect was how weak my ass cheeks were?

It didn’t make any sense to me, how I could have weak booty muscles after playing soccer for years. You would imagine that running up and down, twisting at high speeds to change direction would somehow activate and use some booty muscles, but I guess they don’t. Now, this is a good point to add an extra layer, and that’s the fact that I wasn’t blessed with good booty genes, and genes have a lot of say on this issue. I’m not completely flat, I do have some padding back there, but it’s not to the degree that would make someone look back and say: “Goddamn!” I have enough padding to last about 7 hours in a flight, more than that and I need to stand up and stretch.

The point is: I didn’t know I had a weak booty. And there’s no other exercise, at least from the ones that I know, that has destroyed my ass more than the Bulgarian squat. And I’ve seen a lot of variations, but the one I’m doing is with a 35-kilogram kettle bell. I lift and put one foot on a flat weight bench behind me, and then I just squat down holding the kettle bell by the leg I’m bending.

I have no idea what muscles that damn squat engages, but they are muscles, I can only assume, I never used in my life, because that shit hurts like hell. I do 20 squats on each leg and I know, for a fact, that I won’t be able to comfortably take a dump for the next four days. And, honestly, out of all the places I’ve felt painful soreness, the booty soreness is the worst. If your arms or shoulders are sore, you just don’t move them and that’s all. It’s harder when your legs are sore because you eventually have to walk, but you can take a break when you sit down. Not when your ass is sore. You sit down, the first thing that touches the couch is the booty and it will punish you no matter how comfortable your couch is. You lie down on bed, more than likely your ass is in contact with the mattress. Not even sleeping on your side helps, because gravity makes your sore cheeks hang down. Maybe sleeping on your stomach is the trick, but who the hell does that unless you have some medical excuse?

You push the booty to the point of soreness and you’ll feel it on every movement. There’s no escape. And then you realize that this is how it’s going to be from now on. It will be an endless loop of pain because the whole point of working out muscles, is that you have to push them to the point you feel the burn. You’re looking to create micro-tears on your muscle so that in the repair process, they’ll heal into a stronger muscle. So, that’s it. You’ll be in an endless loop of uncomfortable trips to the toilet. And then you ask yourself: “Why the hell am I doing this? Is it for a nice-looking ass? Forget it, man, you’re in your 30s, who the fuck is looking at you? Nobody is looking at you. Okay, yeah, that may be true, but there are health benefits, the glutes are important for daily stability and posture. It’s an essential muscle.” So, yeah, I tell myself that, but the reality is that it never lasts. The health argument is the best one, and yet, it only lasts a couple of weeks. Eventually, I get tired of being in constant pain and once I stop doing it, I get complacent and don’t go back after months when my booty muscles have lost whatever progress I made at the beginning. So, I guess that’s another type of endless loop, but with much less pain. At least, until I’m older and my body begins to break down and then I’ll reflect on the past and say: “Goddammit, would I feel better now if I had keep going with those Bulgarian squats thirty years ago”. Ah, that’s a tough one, I don’t know which one I fear more, Bulgarian squats or old age. I guess one is unavoidable, so aging is a bit scarier.

Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent, I’m done rambling. Stay healthy. Keep working out, just watch out for those booty exercises. Take it chill. They can and will destroy you. I’ll see you later.

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Greenland and the United States

It’s hard to keep up with everything that happens in the White House and the range of reactions across the country. Trump always had the ability of leveraging the power of the cameras and microphones reporters shoved on his face. Instead of answering their questions, he mocked them and made outlandish claims that his team would later try to mitigate by basically throwing their hands in the air and saying: “Hey, I can’t control everything this dude says and tweets all the time, give me a break. I don’t know what he’s talking about, we’re figuring this thing out too, okay.” As his first term continued, and he fired those in his cabinet who opposed him, the less of a joke he became. Now that he’s on his second term, with a better understanding of the federal machine, and with a much more loyal team behind him, everything he says has a different weight. And one of the many things he said that caught my ear was the idea of America purchasing Greenland. Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but that’s the first I’ve ever heard of something like that.

So, I was curious, how crazy is this idea of purchasing Greenland? And it actually may not be that crazy. The very short answer is: it depends on the Greenlanders. I was going to say the citizens of Greenland, but turns out the majority of the inhabitants over there prefer the word “Kalaallit”. I’m sure I just butchered the hell out of that word, but it basically translates to “Greenlanders”, so I’ll stick to that.

In theory, they’re citizens of Denmark, but Denmark granted Greenland the right to declare independence in 2009. Greenland was a Danish colony for 300 years, but “colonialism” is no longer popular, so they had to pivot. They agreed to give more power to the island’s government body, and here’s another word I can’t pronounce, but I’ll try anyway, that government body is called: “Naalakkersuisut”. And, yes, I looked this word up and practiced it beforehand, but I’m sure it was in vain. Anyway, this government body has a larger say about the internal affairs of the island, but Denmark also gives them what’s called a “block grant”. Or as we normal people call it: money. Every year Denmark sends a bunch of money that helps Greenland maintain a stable economy and social services. And it’s about 20% of the island’s GDP.

I imagine, conversations about independence are hard when considering you’ll have to operate without the 500 million dollars Denmark sends every year. Even then, support for independence has increased ever since 2009. A poll released on January 29 of this year, 2025, reported that 56% of Greenlanders would vote for independence if it were to be brought up in a referendum. That’s a very close issue.

The funny thing is, in the same poll, they asked them if they would like to join America after becoming an independent nation, and 85% of respondents said: “fuck no”. The population of Greenland is 88% Inuit and they’re very protective of the island’s vast resources. Greenland has 43 out of 50 minerals the U.S. Department of Energy has considered critical for national security, including the infamous rare-earths that are needed for the semiconductors that power every electronic devise we use. The only other place in the world with such a high amount of these rare materials is China. And, well, we’re not exactly in the best terms with them. They’ve actually threatened to limit their export of these minerals if Trump goes nuts with the tariffs.

In any case, the Greenlanders in general aren’t too happy to be seen as resources. It’s nothing new for a government to see their citizens and land as assets, but usually politicians try to mask it with nice words. Not Trump. He said, and I quote: “They should give it up, because we need it for national security.” That’s a statement few countries can make in the world. When you have a nuclear arsenal, military bases all around the world and your currency is the blood of the global financial system, I guess you can get away with saying shit like this. There’s no denying that the United States has ”fuck you” levels of influence. They say that to the UN all the time. The question is whether this power should be used this way and, if used, how far can you go with it. Our Allies can only tolerate so much. Already, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have come together to form the BRICS group with the aim to replace the dollar as the dominant currency. Our Allies are keeping track and they won’t forget if the US pushes them to the edge. There’s a world in the future where they’ll throw us under the bus because of decisions made in the past.

I don’t see it happening, but in the off-chance, that Greenland’s government puts this issue up in a referendum, let’s hope the U.S. can respect their decision over their sovereignty. In January, Trump didn’t rule out the use of military or economic force to take over Greenland. That’s insane. Every country moves their pieces in the chess board to maintain a sphere of influence and protect their interests, this isn’t something we can only blame the U.S. for. But nothing good will come out of pulling a Putin on Greenland. They’re already 85% against the idea. That type of talk isn’t going to improve that percentage.

Alright, I’m done rambling. Stay safe and I’ll see you later.

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Pig-butchering Scams and Loneliness

How was your weekend? Were any of you lonely? There’s apparently a loneliness epidemic in this country. And according to a survey done by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 73% of respondents said “technology” is partly to blame for this increase in loneliness. Well, what do they mean by “technology”, some of you may ask? The survey used the following sentence to describe the “technology” category: “People are so distracted by or used to technology that their in-person interactions are suffering.” I’m surprised that this only got 73%. That’s a statement I think most people will agree with, especially online scammers that have made a career out of stealing money from lonely people.

Just a month ago, the case of this French woman in her 50s was reported. She received a friend request in Facebook from Oscar-winning actor Brad Pitt. Of course, this was a scammer pretending to be Brad Pitt, but this woman believed him. This scumbag photo-shopped images displaying Brad Pitt as a patient in a hospital, laying on a bed with a bunch of IVs stuck on his arm, and claimed he needed money for the hospital bills. This went on for months apparently, and developed into what she described as “a romantic relationship”. She lost 850,000 dollars.

We hear a story like this and it’s easy to say: “What a dumbass.” If that’s the case, there’s plenty of dumbasses around us since it’s estimated that 1 in 100 Americans falls victim to a scam annually. A former scam prosecutor, Erin West, says 50 billion dollars are stolen from Americans each year. And these are college-graduated dumbasses, they are Silicon Valley software engineers, financial advisors, doctors and therapists. The therapists that are supposed to help treat the loneliness epidemic are falling for these scams. If these top earners and highly educated individuals are dumbasses, what does that say about the rest of us? Maybe loneliness doesn’t respect income brackets.

And someone might argue that the story of the French woman is an extreme case, and it may be. But it turns out that the most successful scam is exactly the type where the scammer acts as a close friend or a romantic relationship. This is known as a pig-butchering scam.

The scammers look for victims through social media apps like Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, and in dating apps like Hinge Tinder, and Bumble. They sweet-talk their way into the victim’s head. They offer them love and promises of marriage and a family, others offer friendship and understanding. They nurture this relationship to the point the victims send them money or, as many of these scams go, they convince the victims to invest in fake cryptocurrencies with the promise of a high return on their investment. They feed people with hope and then they slaughter them like pigs. Hence, the name: pig-butchering scam.

And another tragic angle is: a lot of these scammers are victims themselves. They’re victims of human-trafficking. According to the UN, in 2023 around 220,000 people were being forced to work as scammers in Myanmar and Cambodia. These are people from all over the world, they arrive in Thailand after applying for a job offer. They are picked up in the airport and directly transported across the border to Myanmar or Cambodia, and are then sold to scamming organizations. They are electrocuted if they don’t hit their target numbers. Their kidneys are removed as punishment for low earnings. It’s sadistic, to say the least. And it’s only growing. This guy called Jason Tower from USIP, that’s the United States Institute of Peace, said that scamming has become the “mainstay of the economies of Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos”. He believes Cambodia’s online-scam industry makes over 12.5 billion dollars a year, which is about half of the country’s GDP.

12.5 billion dollars from an estimated 500-billion-dollar industry. And before anyone starts talking shit about these southern Asian countries, investigators have found these organizations all over the world, including Turkey, Ukraine, Peru, and Mexico, the country I grew up in. So, yeah, it’s a pervasive industry that’s expanding.

The scammers are apparently excited about the opportunities AI offers to their business. I imagine, AI will eventually reduce a reliance on human-trafficking and forced labor. But it clearly indicates that we’re far from defining what our relationship is with technology. It did fulfill the promise of an interconnected world; the issue is that there are plenty of sick bastards out there willing to do anything for money. And they’ve always been there. They’re nothing new. It’s just that their business models have evolved and will continue to evolve. Let’s hope we can, at some point, get ahead of them.

If you’re interested to read more about this, the Economist just wrote a pretty detailed report on this situation, but if you’re not a fan of them, I’m sure your preferred news organization has covered this.

Alright, I’m done. Stay safe, offline and online. I’ll see you later.

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Thanks for listening. I hope this monologue entertained you for a bit. Please, share your thoughts. Is there anything you agree or disagree with? Is there an angle this fellow bystander failed to mention?

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Black Holes and the Earth Bubble

Today’s puke is about a video I watched recently. It’s a video made by Nasa and it’s a simulation of what it would be like if you were to drift right into a black hole. I’ll attach the link below this post so you can see it for yourselves and let me know if by the end, you felt like an insignificant speck of dirt in the ass of the universe.

These types of videos creep me out. I get how majestic the universe may be for some people, but I bet that lingering too long on this topic actually destroys the earth bubble for the majority of us. We all hear about the isolated bubbles we live in that shape our beliefs. Whether it’s the blue, democratic bubble or the red, conservative bubble, but those are tiny bubbles when compared in scale to the massive earth bubble, we all live in. The earth bubble is the one that protects us from thinking about the end of our world because of some cosmic event that might be out of our human comprehension. And it wasn’t the physicists who created this bubble, they’ve been trying to explain the universe for hundreds of years and till this day they theorize we only understand 5 percent of it. They say 95 percent is a combination of dark matter and dark energy. What the hell are those things? We don’t know. We can’t explain it. The universe seems to be expanding much faster than we thought, we don’t know why. And I’m not a scientist, I know I’m a dumbass, but please someone tell me, if we don’t understand 95 percent of whatever happens in the universe, how are we confident that we understand 5 percent. How do we know it’s not 0.5 percent? Who said? “Okay, yes, here’s the 100 percent line, and, yep, there it is, we’ve only covered 5 percent.”

This sounds terrifying to me, but you know who loves it? The physicists. All of them, the nuclear physicists, the astrophysicists, the quantum physicists, and all the ones to come from future fields that have not yet been discovered. They all love the mystery of the universe, like flies love a pile of shit. That’s why the earth bubble was not created by them. Intrigue and curiosity don’t create bubbles. There is only one way a bubble is created and that is through fear. You need a large group of people to have one shared fear. The bubble exists to protect us, or at least distract us, from that fear. And I think the earth bubble does a great job at it.

This doesn’t mean you find cosmology boring. It’s interesting and fascinating, but spend too much time seriously thinking about stars, galaxies, black holes, and there’s a high chance you’ll start to feel very, very small. Have you ever been lying in bed at night, unable to sleep, just staring at the ceiling? And you begin imagining the sky above, and the stars, and you try to go further— until all of a sudden, you feel like you’re leaving your body. But before you freak out, you pull yourself back in and force yourself to think about something else. That’s the earth bubble right there doing its job. I know I can’t be the only one inside this thing.

Haven’t you imagined, that one day you could be walking outside on a normal, sunny day, and for whatever reason, your feet lose contact with the ground, and you slowly levitate. You turn around confused and notice, not only that the people around you are also floating, but so are the cars and animals, and before real panic settles in, you’re shot upwards towards the atmosphere in such a speed that your body contracts immediately, burning on the way up, and your body is expelled out of the earth as flecks of ember.

I know this sounds paranoid, but you can’t deny it’s some scary shit. Is such an event even possible? I don’t know, there’s 95 percent we don’t understand. How can anyone be sure that’s not possible?

This is the kind of places my head goes whenever I see a video of what it would be like if I drifted into a massive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, which is equivalent to the monster black hole that’s actually located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Fascinating? Yes. But that’s not a place where I want to spend too much time thinking. Maybe I’m too scared of dying and that’s the issue. The good news is that if a catastrophic cosmic event were to happen that ends all life in the galaxy or resets the entire universe back to one, igniting a new big bang which leads to the next life cycle in the endless expansion and contraction of space-time, I’m sure we wouldn’t feel a thing. It would just be over. Just pure black in less than a second. No pain.

Okay, I have to stop talking about this shit. I’m done rambling. Take care out there and I’ll see you later.

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Airplanes and Fear

Hey, good morning. Today is President’s Day. I was reading George Washington’s biography a while back and I’ll never forget that throughout his entire life he had to deal with severe hemorrhoids. This dude fought the French and British on a horse with a little cushion on his ass because of the pain. He was relentless. Is there anything more patriotic than fighting for your country while bleeding out of your rectum? Maybe one day I’ll talk more about him and the founding fathers. They were all very interesting people. Today’s puke isn’t about past presidents. It’s about airplanes.

Are any of you scared of flying? I remember I was on my first flight, but I believe I’ve overcome it by now. Probably not in the healthiest way, because I can’t deny I still feel a slight discomfort the moment the engines start, and the plane rumbles, and accelerates, pushing you to the back of the seat as it tries ascend. If anything, I’ve suppressed the fear and replaced it with resignation. And, yeah, this is about a fear of death. The moment I buy the plane ticket, I’m already conscious that I may have just purchased the ticket to my death.

Now, this is a good spot to remind anyone listening, that airplanes are considered extremely safe. Anytime someone brings this topic, you have to have someone say the typical line: “You have a higher change of dying in a car accident than in an airplane.” And, sure, I understand that. But logic doesn’t work when someone’s afraid. Fear is irrational. So, yeah, my subconscious mind doesn’t give a shit about logic when it enters panic mode. The most I can do, again, is suppress it. I have to surrender my life and accept that I may not come out of this alive, and that it’s fine. I tell myself: “I’m going to die one day anyway, so what... if it happens now? Just relax. You’re going to Japan. It’ll be great. And if you don’t make it, well, it was meant to happen.”

And I’m not a religious person, but you can see there’s a very spiritual aspect to that resignation. The “it was meant to be”, or the “whatever happens, happens.” All these are just one way of saying: “God, if you’re out there, I’m sure you don’t like me because I ignore you most days. I know I’m an asshole sometimes. But I just want to let you know that I’m putting my life in your hands, okay. I just want you to know that.”

It's like that story of the Roman Emperor Constantine, where he supposedly asked a priest to turn him into a Christian as he lied on his deathbed. I think there’s a dispute on whether that’s true or not, but that feeling is very relatable. It’s easy to ignore a belief, until you come up against an overwhelming force. And the dread of death is the most overwhelming force for many people.

And I guess it’s also kind of unfair to the pilot. I would say the majority, even the atheists in the plane, surrender their life into “God’s hands”, when it’s the pilot doing most of the work. But that’s the thing, that’s his work. Everyone expects him to perform and be a good pilot. The things that people imagine going wrong during a flight are often catastrophic. If the engines fail and things go up in flames, there’s jack-shit the pilot can do. He’s just a man. Or at least, that’s the initial impression. The pilot doesn’t get any credit unless he actually lands the plane safely. At that point, fuck yeah, everyone loves the pilot. But it’s only at the end. Most will surrender to God first, and maybe, in the end, they’ll go and embrace the pilot for saving their lives.

There’s been a lot of accidents happening lately. And it’s a terrible thing to see because we’ll never stop flying. Families have spread all over the place, that’s the only way to get together. Many get hooked up on traveling and that becomes the reason they carry-on working and saving money. The airline business will not end, even when their profit margins are shit. Turns out airline companies are among the businesses with the least return on investment. But I guess they’re like government bonds; they’re seen as a safer bet because the business will never end. Maybe some will file for bankruptcy, only to be absorbed by another airline. There will always be people who need to fly.

I just hope they don’t get cheap on safety measures. That’s what messed up Boeing last year. You had that flight in Portland where the door blew-out mid-flight. Apparently, it was because it was missing a damn door plug or screw. And the FAA ordered every plane of that Boeing model to be grounded for inspection. I understand investors want growth, but come on, not at the expense of safety.

Okay, I’m done rambling. I don’t mean to scare anybody, but it’s hard to ignore when you see another video of a plane crashing and seeing the photos of the passengers. Like I said, I don’t believe in God much, so you can call me a hypocrite, because I still feel like saying: “God bless them and their families.” Alright, stay safe and I’ll see you later.

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