Monday, May 28, 2018

The rise of the Social Media Protests


Since the inception and popularity of the social media, nothing seems to be hidden from the public eye any longer. Anything out of the ordinary you do or something that hurts another person physically is recorded instantly and put on the social media in real time and if it looks outrageous, it goes viral instantly forcing the person or persons doing the act run for cover or in some cases resign from their position. And that person if he or she is in a public authority, the corporation of public entity instantly comes under pressure to make amends to the person affected by their employees’ actions. If you have seen news lately, there has been constantly flurry of social media outrageous occurring almost daily and the sad (or fun) part is that despite all this outrage going on, some people still manage to the do the stupidest thing that they can think of even if in their normal daily life it would do fine and find themselves the scorn of the hundreds and thousands of social media public.
Prime examples of social media protests are numerous and it happens almost every day in the U.S. and around the world. It includes a guy being dragged out of his paid seat on an airline, two African American male being arrested in a star bucks for no fault and countless others which are happening as I write and will continue to be on going since everybody nowadays is keen to record anything and everything but if something is recorded which is controversial then the explosion of social media protests takes over like anything and the accusers are face to feel the wrath of the public as well as the law. Everybody knows that it has been happening for a long time but nowadays the difference is that all your negative actions are recorded for the world to see and you become a target of protests not only locally but also internationally. This is the power of social media and one should be careful what they should say or do because you never know who is recording and what is being recorded.

On the lighter side-Movies- Happy Death Day (2017)


A college student relives the same day again and again of her murder and this thing will continue until she finds the identity of her killer. Although a good movie overall, but the annoyingly repetitive nature of the movie, now being employed in several films, is becoming tiresome. Recommended with caution

On the lighter side-Movies- The Adventurers (2017-Hong Kong)-Andy Lau


A French detective is on the trail of a group of top thieves who have pulled of a heist. Action galore. Recommended with caution

On the lighter side-Movies-Atomic Blonde (2017)-Charlize Theron


An undercover British agent is sent to Germany during the cold war to investigate the murder of an agent. Action packed movie. Recommended

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

On the lighter side-Movies-The Dark Tower (2017)-Idris Elba


A gunslinger tries to protect a tower which holds the universe together from evil. An eight book series shrunk into an half an hour movie. If you see it as an original movie, it is good but seen as an adaptation of the eight book series not good. Recommended with caution

On the lighter side-Movies-Wonder Woman (2017)-Gal Gadot, Chris Pine


An Amazonian woman fights for justice in this special effects laden action fantasy movie. Recommended

On the lighter side-Movies-Battle of Memories (2017)-China


In the future, you can erase your bad memories, an author tries to erase the memories of his bad marriage only to have side effect of acquiring an unsolved murder. Good story and movie, although you will have to pay attention carefully. Recommended with caution.

Healthy food is bad, unhealthy food is good


I eat food to live not live to eat food and as such I am much of a carnivorous than a vegetarian. But apart from regular food, I try to eat as much healthy food as possible but sometimes it is really hard as most of you have come to find out. I didn’t mean to say healthy food is bad as my title suggests but if one is not accustomed to it, it will taste weird. I will give you my example, I have started eating Wheat bread instead of the regular bread on doctor’s orders a few years ago and I am still continuing it, although it makes me yucky. Same thing goes with chips as I see original ones and then the ones with less fat content and obviously original ones are so good and the modified ones are not that great.  Chicken and lamb and fish are definitely better but red meat is the icing on the cake and even when I mostly eat Chicken and fish and lamb, I still crave steak and burgers once in a while.
I have seen people who have high blood pressure and cholesterol and are diabetics still sometimes cheat on their diet and eat unhealthy food although their version of unhealthy food is with no calories or fattening content but nevertheless not healthy. I sometimes don’t have the patience to go for the healthy food even it means good for my health as doctor ordered or nutritionist recommended food is not my cup of tea and I bet that overwhelming people will agree with me. If not you can just see the long lines outside burger joints and steak houses serving mostly fat filled food, although they have also added food which are considered healthy but their main revenue comes from the unhealthy part. And despite the phenomenon of organic food and dieting craze, there is an epidemic of obesity not only in the U.S. but all over the world and even when there is shortage of food; people tend to eat unhealthy meals whenever they can. I, for one, keep on trying to balance my intake of food but still junk food wins in the end.

The trade war between China and the United States


So finally it had to happen, when push comes to shove, the United States already promising to slap tariffs on Chinese goods imported to the U.S. finally followed through with it and slapped tariffs. And China not ready to lose face to its own citizens retaliated in kind although with much less products. But since China exports more to the U.S. than the other way around, China will lose more but this trade war is not going to be good for either side as the U.S. is highly dependent on Chinese goods and their buying of the U.S. bonds and China needs to be careful not to antagonize the U.S. too much as it is their largest export market. Already the trade war is not even started in essence and the stock market is acting like we are in a full blown war. It has been on a losing streak a little bit here and a lot more there.
It is just an unnecessary thing and it would do that much to correct the trade balance between China and the U.S. Unless the U.S. consumes less of Chinese goods and China exports less, there will always going to be trade imbalance. But here is the classic economic dilemma that it all relates to supply and demand, there is a demand for Chinese products and thus China exports its surplus items to the U.S. where there is a demand. I believe that this back and forth trade war will continue for some time and things will settle down once the new normal starts to kick in.

Curiosity is good


A curious mind is good for everyone and mostly it was done to discover something before the current state of affairs in the world, when everybody seems to be a suspect and the governments encourage people to be vigilant about their surroundings. And in the essence, the governments of the world are encouraging people to be aware or what you see and hear and observe and if it sounds suspicious then report it without hesitation. So curious and inquisitive minds do not put you in trouble and it can and has led to many scientific discoveries and have saved many lives just because the individual or individuals were vigilant of what was going on. But throughout history, curios people have discovered many things but sometimes being curious got you killed. Today you really need to be curious enough to make sure that you are safe not only for yourself but others around you.
Babies are very curious and they look cute but society sometimes don’t like too curious mind as some adults want to be left alone and don’t want people to poke their noses in their businesses. But I have seen many examples that some curiosity have led to the capture of prevention of some violent act. So don’t be afraid to be a little curious because you never know you have save some lives or discover something useful which can help humans in the future.

Don’t blame whole for sum of its parts


If some person did some wrong, people tend the blame the whole race or ethnicity associated with it without realizing that they are also part of some race which may have done wrong in the past or maybe in the future. For example if some Muslims tend to terrorize the world with their extremists ideas, people generally tend to blame the religion and its book without reading the contents of it. Same thing happens with colored people or someone in the minority, people generally believe that the whole race is at fault, without realizing that you cannot blame the whole race, religion or ethnicity for the acts of an individual. People don’t blame the acts of a white man on the white race just as the acts of an individual should not be blamed on the whole race. If your car has some problem, you isolate that problem and if it has multiple parts broken, you replace it and don’t throw away the car just because the cars lights or any other small thing is not working or is broken.
Same goes with individuals of a particular race, you should isolate that trouble maker individual and should not blame the entire race for the acts of that individual as they overwhelming majority of people are peace loving and hard working good people, it is only the bad apples that make the entire race suspect in the eyes of the whole society. So we should not blame the whole for the sum of its parts as the parts can be replaced in order to fix the whole.