jellochihuahua

[jellochihuahua]

There are a surprising number of people who have problems with Biden pardoning his son for lying on a form but don't believe Trump did anything wrong when he lied to banks in NYC by...lying on a form. Also, lest we forget, Trump pardoned literal war criminals who indiscriminately murdered civilians. Anyone who is mad at Biden, but not Trump, is clearly pushing an agenda.

I posted a few days ago about Biden's pardon of his son and, since then, I've had quite a few conversations about it with friends (and also a few randos on the internet). What's particularly interesting to me is how those conversations have broken down.

Without fail, all of the people I've spoken to who actually know how politics works (i.e., the actual structure of government, powers of the various elected officials, the way electoral politics work, etc.), both liberal and conservative, are largely unbothered and unsurprised by what Biden did. The people who are upset are largely those who don't actually understand how the American political system works.

(I should note here that "knowing how politics works" is not the same as "engaged in politics". I know plenty of people who are very engaged in their politics but have no idea how things function, don't confuse the two.)

This should put the media's reaction in some perspective; they're either (a) in the latter camp themselves or (b) trying to rile up that group without actually informing them. Not sure which is worse.

[jellochihuahua]

Okay but where does her tail connect to the spine?!

I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a biologist, or veteranarian, or have any information aside from what I found on google after some very cursory searches. So if I'm wrong, please educate me.

So on a cat, the tail (caudal vertebrae) connects to the sacrum on the pelvis like so.

On a human, we might expect the tail to connect to the coccyx (tailbone) which is slightly below the sacrum.

So on a cat person, does it connect to the sacrum or the coccyx? And if it connects to the sacrum, does Izutsumi still have a coccyx like a human? If it connects to the coccyx, is that comfortable? Does it affect balance? There are many small but interesting implications of this.

Ryoko Kui put out some sketches from her early work, but it doesn't seem to clear things up very much.

If anyone can say why it might be one or the other, please give me your thoughts. Also, because everyone loves a poll:

[jellochihuahua]

Sometimes people get fixed on That-One-Thing-They-Can't-Stand but this take feels like missing the forest for the trees taken to the 3rd degree. This is like saying you'll never go into the forest because the apple from The Garden of Eden grew from a tree and that makes all trees sinful. Or something. Anyway Dandadan is quietly one of the most progressive shonen mangas I've ever seen, it's wild that it's getting shit from this particular direction.

These takes are so exhausting.

Because nudity = fanservice = hates women.

Nevervmind that Okarun and Jiji are naked just as often and often more naked (girls at least keep their underwear.

Never mind all the awesome female characters, including the fucking Granny Special Forces unit.

Never mind all the flashbacks that highlight gender-based injustice and oppression.

Never mind that the only actual source of real overt fanservice is Granny Seiko.

Nah, none of that matters. The mangaka who said he set out to create a genuine girls' shonen and only added Okarun to appease Shonen Jump editors* must be a virulent misogynist. Because underwear.

[jellochihuahua]

I think some right-wingers love Fight Club (the movie) because it appeals to a certain strain of "return to monke" anti-modernism that appeals to the kind of guy who reads Ted Kaczynski's manifesto and thinks "hey actually this guy was right". You just have to accept, on principle, that Tyler Durden was right about everything and is the good guy. If you start with that, then what you can get is a very gender-essentialist take on masculinity and a very neo-luddite take on what life is best for humans. As an note, this is my guess at how you look at the movie through this viewpoint. I do not espouse these beliefs, and I also haven't seen this movie in a long time so I might get some details wrong.

The Narrator (Ed Norton) starts the film unhappy because of modern society. When he rejects societal rules and embraces who he really is (a violent, physically imposing, and dangerous man) he is fulfilled. That is because real men are naturally violent and can only be happy by fulfilling their need for violence through actual violence.

Marla in the beginning is suicidal. She stops being suicidal when she begins a sexual relationship with Tyler. That's because women naturally want to be subservient to men, and can only be happy when they are serving the needs strong man.

Modern society is what is preventing men from being "real" men (violent and strong fighters) and women being "real" women (subservient sex objects). By tearing down modern society, Project Mayhem is allowing things to return to their natural state. This will allow people to be happy, because the "natural" state of things is the right one and will make people fulfilled.

Project Mayhem is full of angry men who want to be led by the angriest and strongest man. They are from all walks of life, but primarily the working class. This is because they have recognized that modern society is keeping them from being their true selves, and they can only be their true selves in a patriarchal, anti-modern society. That natural order can only be restored through violence.

In the end, Tyler Durden is successful in basically everything he set out to do. This is because he was right, and is an example of what men should aspire to. Also, it is clear that Tyler is the good guy because he is beautiful, and beautiful people are always the good guys.

If you go into the movie with a mindset that is already gender-essentialist, patriarchal and anti-modern it's easy to see the things you want to see and none of the other things that you don't want to see.

The thing is, everyone knows something is wrong with how things are. Conservatives can also feel that they're being pushed around by forces that don't have their best interests in mind. They are also bothered by the commodification of human life, and sterility and lack of human connection we see in a world that's controlled by corporate interests. They just think that'll all be fixed by forcing people back into roles that they've already rejected time and again. They think we can go back to a way of life "when things were good' not realizing that things were never really good, and that people's innate desire for agency will not actuall fit with shitty, worn-out structures of power.

i dont think fight club was co-opted by the right because they didnt get the satire, it was co-opted because it fuckign kicks ass. they would have co-opted any movie that is that good and has hot sweaty men in it. right wingers aren't aliens, they know a good movie when they see it, the lesson isn't "don't make satire because the wrong people might think its for them" the lesson would be "don't make art that kicks ass" and i'd rather there be art that kicks ass

[jellochihuahua]

Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

[jellochihuahua]

Building a community takes work, and work is hard. Winning over the working class in the US isn't about ignoring them and berating them, you have to engage and show them that you are on their side.

Cutting off every conservative you know is protecting your comfort but it is not protecting marginalized people. Some of you are trying so hard to not have the hard conversations with people you care about while also trying to find ways to signal that you are "one of the good ones".

We are all responsible for building the communities we want to be part of. Talking about what you want community to look like and asking the questions about why it can't currently look that way is one of the easiest entries into a conversation about how conservative views work against those things directly. And I am seeing an awful lot of people bragging about how they are refusing to do that.

You are showing that you thought voting for Kamala would be the most work you had to do. That was only ever one step in the process. I am seeing a concerning number of people not know what any of the other steps are because they only cared about that one.

[jellochihuahua]

I know this wasn't meant to be the lesson, but this is why stories and narratives are so powerful when trying to teach people. It's hard for a lot of people to imagine themselves in another person's position, and exercises like this are so important in bringing people around.

I love teaching ethics classes because you get to see in real time a bunch of young cis men realizing that women are just as deserving of freedom, respect and dignity as they are and that their treatment of women has not reflected that.

The unfortunate side to this is that most cis men think that they have to double down on their behavior because it's too late to get women to respect them through integrity, love and kindness toward them.

When the topic of abortion inevitably gets brought up, it almost always gets into a "boys vs girls" mentality. Where the young men begin to bully the young women about abortion. So I jump in with a fun analogy.

"Let's say you and I get into a car accident, nothing major; the fault for the accident is 50/50. You stop to get out and assess the damage and check on me, but I'm bleeding out, I got cut open by something already in my car during the accident. You do what you can for me before the ambulance arrives, but I'm fading fast.

The EMT says the only way to save me is a transfusion and you're a universal donor, but, you have a condition that would make giving me too much blood extremely risky for you, guaranteeing health complications in the future, it could even be fatal for you.

You explain this to the EMT but before they can answer, your congressman steps out of the ambulance and tells you that if you don't give me the transfusion, he will put you in prison for the rest of your life. Then he tells you that if I survive, the responsibility for my medical care will be yours, for the rest of your life. You beg, plead your case, even show him your medical records proving your condition and the inherent risk, but it falls on deaf ears.

Police arrive and he again tells you that if you don't give me the transfusion, you're going to prison for life. He assures you that you have no choice and the police around you nod in agreement, saying that if you didn't want this to be happening, you shouldn't have gotten into a car accident in the first place.

The EMT tells everyone that it's too late, I won't survive regardless now. You sigh with relief, but the congressman shakes his head, laughs at you and says you still have to give me the transfusion because technically, I'm still alive. You give me the blood but it's too late, I die at the scene. You have to be taken to the hospital for treatment and when you're about to be discharged to deal with your medical complications, the congressman stops you and tells you that because I died, you're still going to prison. You protest, tell him that the accident was also my fault, that he gave you no choice and your body tried to keep me alive, that you did what was demanded of you. He shrugs, walks away and you're arrested and charged with murder. "

This always brings up the key questions:

"Should you be forced to keep something alive and care for it forever, against your will? Is it ethical to threaten you with life in prison if you don't? Should you bear the sole responsibility for the thing you're being forced to keep alive for the rest of your life? Should you be forced to keep something alive even if doing so will harm or kill you?"

Of course there are young men who try to pick at the semantics involved in my analogy, but its foundational elements are undeniable and in the end, the men relent and give in. Because they cannot argue that this should happen to them, they can only argue that it should happen to others.

[jellochihuahua]

In Defense of Empathy

There's a natural impulse right now to be angry at the voters (and non-voters) who are ultimately responsible for another Trump presidency. I've already seen posts of people jumping feet first in schadenfreude, ready to watch the imminent Face Feast of the Leopards unfold on the foolish and hateful people who decided the price of breakfast was more important than the rights of other human beings. Immigrants who voted to put in office a man who will try to revoke their citizenship because they didn't think a woman could run this country. Millions of people who were taken in by a carnival barker running for the most powerful position in the world. Right now it's very hard not to harbor the utmost vitriol towards these ignorant, naive, and foolish people because it seems very clear what the consequences will be for the rest of us. The time is very likely coming soon that all of these people will be forced to reckon with the consequences of their choice.

When that moment comes, there will be an overwhelming desire to pull out the screenshot of Arthur Fleck and retort that people should get what they deserve. It would be so satisfying to see the despair in their eyes and tell them "this is what you wanted right, why are you mad that you got it?!" And while it would be so satisfying to rub people's noses in the consequences of their actions, it is entirely the wrong thing to do. When people get knocked down, you should try to pick them up. It will be challenging, but I at least will try my best to treat my fellow people with understanding and love. Even as they harm me and my loved ones, I have to hold onto the belief that as our fellow humans they are deserving of the same understanding and concern that all people deserve, regardless of their beliefs. And my hope is that this will be how we turn them into true comrades. If, in that moment when they are laid low, we treat them with disdain and contempt then we will lose them for another generation.

Within leftist and liberal circles there is an open disdain for the uneducated, ignorant and below-average intelligence (of the normal garden variety unintelligence). It's very similar to the conservative contempt towards anyone who is outside their range of "normal" and it is just as toxic. People who below-average in intelligence deserve the same love and basic human respect as people who are below-average in looks, or outside the range of what society has deemed "acceptable" parameters.

I say this not just as an indictment of the "the left" writ large but also as an indictment of my own thoughts. "These idiots have no idea what they've done" I think to myself as my Trump-supporting coworkers gleefully whisper about the good times ahead. I feel contempt for their naivety, I feel hatred for their stupidity. I want to force the knowledge and understanding I have into their minds. I want them to SEE.

But that's arrogance. That's expecting everyone else too see what I see and understand it in the same way. I saw an argument online yesterday where someone compared it to teachers. "Why is the pressure always on the teacher to motivate the students? Why is it always on teachers to convince people to learn, it should be on the students to want to learn." Why don't the kids just fend for themselves? Why don't ignorant people just educate themselves? Why don't the homeless just buy a house? This is the mindset of the privileged failing to understand those who don't share their privilege. And intelligence is largely a privilege, it is something you're born into. It is easy to be informed when staying informed is easy for you. It's easy to see how things interconnect in the world when learning the systems seems obvious. It is easy to stay off the streets when you have a trust.

That's not to say anyone who voted for Trump or decided not to vote is stupid, or ignorant. Some of them are hateful. Some of them are just afraid, or gullible, or apathetic, or frustrated with the status quo. And those things are all things that I think anyone can relate to. They are human failings, and to dehumanize a whole bunch a vast swathe will only turn them back towards MAGA.

If we are to bring normal, working, struggling people into our camp we have to meet them where they are. The reason good teachers take responsibility for motivating students is because they care about them. They love them and they know that the world will be a better place if they are convinced to learn. If they are taught to care, and grow and be curious they will make the world a better place. Think to your favorite teacher (if you had one) and consider why they did a hard job for (in the US at least) not very much money. It's always love. It's always hope. It's always belief that they can make a difference, no matter small in scheme of things. Small differences can add up, they can be everything.

To break the perception that to be a leftist is to be an elitist we must take a page out of MAGAs favorite book that it doesn't read. We must turn the other cheek. Which is always so easy to say, and SO hard to do. Out of all the things in the bible that you're told to do, this is the one that Christians fail at the most. Because it requires so much inner strength, so much self-control. To meet hate with love is a huge ask, but it's what we have to do if we want the world to be better. If we fight hate with more hate, we'll just end up with a more hateful world. We have to strive to see the humanity and pain of those who have enabled our oppressors. We have to see it in our oppressors too.

We can't, of course, roll over and just die. Resistance will be needed. Action will be needed. Hard times and hard work and fear and suffering are coming. But, if we can, we should try to meet the moment with hearts full of love and a desire to understand. If can't embrace those who've been conned by MAGA, where will they turn? If we can't get past our resentments, we will never build a movement to try and turn humanity away from the cliff of our own extinction. We must try to love even those that hate us. In the end, love is the only thing that ever stops hate. And I'm so tired of living in such a hateful world, so I'm going to try again and again to let love and hope be my north star. Maybe that's also naive, but in my dreams there is a world where things are better than they are now, where people are better than they are now. And that world can only exist if it's built on love.

[jellochihuahua]

Now the storm has officially hit, and we'll all be left to pickup the wreckage. Just like when a natural disaster hits the people most hurt will be those at the margins of society. People with money and power might still be affected, but they'll be insulated from the worst of things. The marginalized will take the brunt of things. From that group, many won't be able to rebuild to what they had before. Communities that were may cease to be, and lives that were whole will be broken into pieces. It is bleak, and no one is coming to save us. The only help we will get is the help we seek out from our loved ones, and the only justice we will find is the justice we build ourselves. I'm personally going to try and enjoy this holiday season to the fullest extent because come January the real challenge begins.

The Slow, Inevitable, Churn of the Coming Storm

Watching November 5th get closer and closer on the calendar feels like waiting for a category 5 hurricane that the Cone of Uncertainty TM says is coming to destroy my home in particular.

Having lived my entire life in hurricane zones, it is a feeling that is terribly familiar. I have done the official preparations (voted early) and now it's just a waiting game till the disaster hits. I of course have been keeping up with the news as a Concerned Citizen and I am filled with dread and anticipation as what seems like unavoidable disaster comes bearing down on me and my loved ones. The genuine experts seem flummoxed, these things are less predictable than they used to be. The temperature has been turned up across the board so these events can escalate faster and farther than they did in the past. The models that used to make us feel like we understood what was going on have been so wrong lately that if anything they're making things feel even less certain.

There's still some time, and winds could change, but the analysis seems to be that trends are generally Not Looking Good. The problem is of course that this storm is so big that there's no real way to evacuate, and I don't have the resources to Just Move. So now, either it misses and disaster is narrowly averted or it's a direct hit and my life (and my family's life) has to start being rebuilt in a certified Disaster Area.

I hate this feeling when it comes to hurricanes and politics and it's really shitty that These Kinds of Things are only going to get more common and more intense from here on out. The big difference of course is none of my neighbors would ever cheer for a hurricane, but they're all really excited about The Storm.

It's a week and a day till the polls close and I feel like I should treasure these finals days before everything goes to shit. Seven and a half days till the American Experiment ends. But there are no sandbags I can fill that will keep out the flood of fascism, no storm shutters that will protect my family from the winds of racist hate that are sweeping across the country. Only a week to take stock of how things are now, to remember Things As They Are before they become Things As They Were. There's a chance it ends up being a near miss, but the aftermath of a direct hit fills me with dread.

[jellochihuahua]

In the end, after all the finger pointing and recriminations and crying and soul-searching and doomposting, analysts and pundits will realize that people hate the how the world is right now. Angry establishement Dems will try to blame turnout by women/minorities/young people/etc but the reality is that the status quo sucks and it's basically impossible to get people excited for it. We can all feel that the current system is broken, that the working class is being exploited by the super-rich, that the value of a life is cheap and getting cheaper. Things are falling apart, the center cannot hold. And in this widening gyre the promise of incremental change feels hollow. Things like expanded child tax credits and a higher EIC are good but in the face of reality they seem like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. People want real change, and the Democratic party is afraid to propose actual systemic change. Regular, working-class people would rather take a roll of the dice on a madman than vote for More of the Same.

Biden and the establishment Democrats could've offered a transformative vision of our country, but they didn't. Biden could've declined to run for a second time and we could've had a primary with candidates who promised to shake things up, but he didn't. The DNC could've treated primaries as a way to sharpen the party message and solidify the base, but it didn't. It was clear to everyone that Harris was running against Trump, but it didn't feel like was running for anything.

Trump got one major thing right in his strategy: trying to appeal to the center and the keepers of the status quo is a waste of time. If we (the voting base) cannot push the Democratic party to become an actual progressive movement, it will continue to sputter and flail ineffectually. As long as the Democratic party is trying to hold hands with Dick Cheney while preaching about justice, its message will ring hollow. As long as people like Biden talk about helping indigenous people while allowing their water to be poisoned by uranium mines, it will be hard to take their apologies seriously. The current Democratic party is hollow at its heart, and until that is fixed it will continue to generate only lukewarm enthusiasm. It's not enough to run against something, you have to run towards something. And right now the Blue Team is running in circles.

[jellochihuahua]

The Slow, Inevitable, Churn of the Coming Storm

Watching November 5th get closer and closer on the calendar feels like waiting for a category 5 hurricane that the Cone of Uncertainty TM says is coming to destroy my home in particular.

Having lived my entire life in hurricane zones, it is a feeling that is terribly familiar. I have done the official preparations (voted early) and now it's just a waiting game till the disaster hits. I of course have been keeping up with the news as a Concerned Citizen and I am filled with dread and anticipation as what seems like unavoidable disaster comes bearing down on me and my loved ones. The genuine experts seem flummoxed, these things are less predictable than they used to be. The temperature has been turned up across the board so these events can escalate faster and farther than they did in the past. The models that used to make us feel like we understood what was going on have been so wrong lately that if anything they're making things feel even less certain.

There's still some time, and winds could change, but the analysis seems to be that trends are generally Not Looking Good. The problem is of course that this storm is so big that there's no real way to evacuate, and I don't have the resources to Just Move. So now, either it misses and disaster is narrowly averted or it's a direct hit and my life (and my family's life) has to start being rebuilt in a certified Disaster Area.

I hate this feeling when it comes to hurricanes and politics and it's really shitty that These Kinds of Things are only going to get more common and more intense from here on out. The big difference of course is none of my neighbors would ever cheer for a hurricane, but they're all really excited about The Storm.

It's a week and a day till the polls close and I feel like I should treasure these finals days before everything goes to shit. Seven and a half days till the American Experiment ends. But there are no sandbags I can fill that will keep out the flood of fascism, no storm shutters that will protect my family from the winds of racist hate that are sweeping across the country. Only a week to take stock of how things are now, to remember Things As They Are before they become Things As They Were. There's a chance it ends up being a near miss, but the aftermath of a direct hit fills me with dread.

[jellochihuahua]

Setting Up

There's something hopeful about setting up a new account. Especially on a site (like tumblr) that's really user driven. You're starting over from scratch, choosing how to display yourself to a community. Picking a handle, a profile pic, descriptions, fonts, color schemes, these are the elements of a self you can choose anew. The sweet anticipation of a thing that is beginning; fantasies of new you that can be anyone in a room full of strangers who have all constructed their own selves for display. It's been awhile since I've had this feeling of possibility, and I'm enjoying it even if it's a bit naïve. It's good though, to enjoy the things you enjoy. It's okay to relish a silly feeling that other people might not get.

[jellochihuahua]

Keeping a promise

Last year my favorite uncle passed away, and it was pretty tough on the family. He was the youngest of my uncles, and he died far too soon. He was everyone's favorite; he was the best of us. At his funeral I got up and talked about how he'd been the bravest of us, how he'd been the one who was unafraid to follow his dreams. He was an artist in a family of engineers and doctors and we all loved how he was fiercely himself. And then he was gone. I got up and looked his young daughter in the eye and told her how he'd live on in all of us, how we all needed to honor his memory by carrying him with us in our hearts. I told myself that I needed to remember that through action. I promised myself that I would pursue writing again. That I would do something to create, instead of only consuming. So after procrastinating for a couple months, here I am, writing things down. I feel like if I just keep writing anything, it'll be better than writing nothing? Something is always better than nothing I guess. Why do this on tumblr, and not somewhere else? Maybe I'm off, but I feel like this community is more accepting of written introspection than most other sites. Plus, if I ever write something and it gets popular then maybe my little brother will see it and he'll reference it to me and I'll say "oh that's pretty interesting" while quietly smiling inside because I know a secret and he doesn't.

This post is the first step on trying to keep a part of myself alive. A tiny spark that has been sputtering under the pressure of everyday life for a decade with no oxygen. I will vomit my thoughts and feelings onto this page because to keep it down would be poison. I will do it for myself, and I will do it in memory of my mother's brother who refused to let the world choose his path for him. Maybe this is all a bit dramatic but sometimes I want to be dramatic. And so I will, here, in my own little corner. Even if no one reads what I write, I will have done the thing and I will be better for it. Here's to you, Uncle Tuan.