Month: July 2024

race Jo, Her Mother, & Pastor John

On Sunday I profile individuals who have demonstrated amazing bravery and courage. Grace Jo, her mother and Pastor John Yoon are such individuals.
First the background:
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, North Korea lost its biggest economic supporter, and so the flow of critical imports into North Korea stopped. The communist regime was unable to adapt, and the state-controlled economy collapsed.
The little food available was distributed by the regime according to each individual’s political standing and loyalty to the state. Particularly in the northern part of the country where Ms. Jo’s family was from, many were left to fend for themselves.

The following is a mere summary of the harrowing efforts of the Jo family to escape from North Korea.
Excerpts from the American Essence magazine:
In 1996 when Grace Jo’s grandmother caught six newborn mice near their home in North Korea, the whole family was overjoyed. Finally, one of them would have something to eat.
Little Grace was only 5 years old, and seriously malnourished. The famine in North Korea had been ravaging the country for half a decade, and the family of seven—mom, dad, grandma, and four siblings—sometimes spent up to 10 days with no food at all, surviving by just drinking water from a nearby stream.
So when the family found the mice, the adults had to make a big decision: Which child would get to eat them? Young Grace’s hair had turned yellow and dry, and she wasn’t able to walk properly due to being malnourished. So she was the chosen one to eat the mice, which were boiled and added to a soup with some grains of rice and corn. “We didn’t have salt, so it was a very plain flavor,” Ms. Jo, now 33, recalled.”

In the summer of 1998, Grandma also succumbed to starvation. Not long after the family buried her in the mountains, six government officials showed up and told Ms. Jo’s mother that they would be evicted from their home. “In North Korea, the house, the work, everything, will be assigned by the government,” Ms. Jo explained. “But they did not assign us a new home. And they kept asking us to leave, which meant we would become homeless.”
That’s when the mom decided to flee to China.
It wasn’t an easy journey, hiding both from people and wild animals that roamed the rocky mountain trails. But after three nights and four days on foot, they eventually made it to China.

Living in China wasn’t easy, as North Koreans are not considered refugees. Instead, they are repatriated if caught. So Ms. Jo, her older sister, and her mom had to live in hiding throughout the 10 years they spent in China.
They were repatriated on several occasions and ended up spending 13 months in a Chinese prison. That’s where they met the man who would eventually help them escape.

Pastor John Yoon grew up in what is now North Korea before the Korean War. He found his way to the south during the conflict and there, found faith. He decided to devote his life to ministry work. While in China, he realized he could help North Koreans to escape.
It was a dangerous endeavor that put his life at risk, and after being discovered, he ended up in the same Chinese prison as Ms. Jo and her family.
Subsequently after getting to America, Pastor John organized a fundraising campaign to help rescue the Jo family and raised $10,000, which he used to bribe North Korean officials. The Jos were released near the border with China. Again, they crossed the Tumen River and spent two months in hiding. Once they got the chance to drive the 860 miles to Beijing, they received protection from the United Nations. From there, they were able to fly to America as refugees in 2008.

Ms. Jo is now an American citizen and human rights activist dedicated to telling youth about the horrors of living under a communist regime. “We don’t want that similar thing to happen in America,” she said.
Grace Jo also founded a nonprofit, the Grace Jo Foundation, to help North Korean kids who resettle in America and other countries to adjust to their new lives and have a good education.“I’m hoping to help those North Korean children to become leaders because they will be the first ones who will go back to North Korea once North Korea opens its doors, and they will become the bridge between North Korea and the world.”
7/21/24
www.californiacontrarian.com

I have to admit that I did not watch the entire Donald Trump speech at the RNC on 7/18/24. In fact I did not watch very much of the RNC. Let’s be clear … I am going to vote for Trump, and because I live in California, my vote will not matter. I did see snippets of Trump’s speech and was moved by his recollection of his attempted assassination, but I did not watch his entire speech.
However, what I did watch in its entirety was the relatively short eleven minute speech at the RNC by Tucker Carlson. In fact, because I thought that it was so good, I watched it twice. Like Trump’s much longer speech Carlson’s speech was also done without notes or teleprompters. To me it was a speech from the heart by a concerned American.
There were multiple impressive parts. One part had to do with telephone calls. One call was from Trump to Carlson’s wife years back while Trump was President to console and reassure her after she had a very scary episode involving Antifa at her front door.
The second telephone call was on the same night as the assassination attempt. “I reached out to Trump within hours of it, that night, and what he said to me that a night having just within shot in the face, he said not a single word about himself. He said only how amazed he was and how proud he was of the crowd which didn’t run,” Carlson said.
Again referring to the assassination attempt Carlsons said,
“But being a leader is very different. It’s not a title. It’s organic. You can’t name someone a leader. A leader is the bravest man. That’s who the leader is. That is true in all human organizations. This is a law of nature. And in that moment, Donald Trump months before the presidential election became the leader of this nation,” Carlson said.
Hopefully Donald Trump be the nation’s leader a second time.
I may listen to Carlson’s speech again for the third time, and would suggest that you listen to it at least once. In fact, if you have already listened to it, listen to it a second time.

7/20/24
Californiacontrarian

Different than in most states politicians in California seem to be intent on carrying on with economic stupidity … driving jobs and consequently taxpayers out of California. To refresh everyone’s memory back in 2020, a brash statement by a local Democratic state politician, Elena Gonzalez, helped drive Elon Musk’s Tesla out of California.
From the Daily Beast in October, 2021:
Tesla founder Elon Musk indicated Friday that his decision to relocate the company to Texas was prompted by a California lawmaker’s mean tweet. In May 2020, when the pandemic was raging and Musk opened Tesla’s factory in defiance of local restrictions, California Assemblywoman Lorena S. Gonzalez tweeted “F*k Elon Musk.”
In October, 2021 shortly after Musk announced the move, a Tesla fan site tweeted a blog post titled, “Tesla Moved its HQ to Texas Following Explicit Offer from California Assemblywoman,” to which Musk replied, “Exactly.”
With thousands of jobs and thus millions in taxes lost to Texas largely in part to that gaffe by Elena Gonzalez, a Democrat, one would think that the California Democrats would have gotten smarter.
But they haven’t !
From Townhall:
“Congratulations to the leftist radicals doing their best to run California into the ground, you’ve finally gone far enough to officially drive space exploration innovator and media mogul Elon Musk to move his companies SpaceX and X out of the Golden State and into the welcoming arms of the great State of Texas — along with their significant economic impact.
The ‘final straw’ according to Musk was California Governor Gavin Newsom signing a bill into law that prohibits schools from implementing rules that require parents to be notified if their child begins identifying as transgender.”
From BlazeMedia:
The law, AB 1955, first introduced by gay Assemblyman Christopher Ward (D) and championed by the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, prohibits school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and state special schools from introducing or enforcing rules, regulations, or policies that require employees to disclose to parents “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

A recent tweet from Elon Musk:
“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”
As a result, Musk said SpaceX and X would move headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase in Texas.

Ouch! … I never thought that I would say that Gavin Newsom is as clueless as Lorena Gonzalez, but similar to Ms. Gonzalez, Newsom’s economic stupidity will be felt long after he is out of office!

www.californiacontrarian.com

Do most Americans recognize the name Judy Schienlin? … I did not.
If I asked who was the highest paid woman on television, my guess would be that the vast majority would not know that answer either.
The answer to both of the above questions is … Judge Judy.
Just about everybody knows who Judge Judy is. She was a real judge who transitioned to a TV judge, and was known for her no-nonsense approach and tough legal advice. Although I pay zero attention to what Hollywood movie stars say, I would pay attention to what Judge Judy had to say.
Unbeknownst to me Judy Schienlin lives in Manhattan, and does indeed have opinions on what is happening in NYC.
From the Daily Caller:
Television star Judge Judy Sheindlin on Friday, 6/21 harshly criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for prosecuting former President Donald Trump over what she considers “nonsense.
Sheindlin told host Chris Wallace in an episode of Max’s “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace” that Bragg should be focused on prosecuting criminals who make New York unsafe rather than the former president, who she said the district attorney targeted for personal reasons.
“I would be happier, as someone who owns property in Manhattan, if the district attorney of New York County would take care of criminals who were making it impossible for citizens to walk in the streets and use the subway, to use his efforts to keep those people off the street, than to spend $5 million or $10 million of taxpayers’ money trying Donald Trump on this nonsense,” Sheindlin said. “That’s my view. But I, as a taxpayer in this country, resent using the system for your own personal self-aggrandizement.”
[As an aside, I do not think I have ever heard either a judge or a TV-star use a 14 letter word correctly in a sentence, but Judge Judy just did!]
Just like on her TV show her opinion is well respected, and she did not hold back on this issue. Her no-nonsense approach hasn’t disappeared! Judge Judy is right on target concerning D.A. Alvin Bragg.

7/18/24
www.californiacontrarian.com

The FBI is writing off the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump as the work of a lone gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks. This indeed may turn out to be the case, but certain things bother me, and it turns out that I am not alone.

First is the picture of “the ladder” which was pulled from Jeff Childers’ Coffee and Covid.

The picture shows a ladder leaning against the building from which the shots were fired. Is this a valid photo? When was it taken? If this is a valid photo, could it imply that Thomas Matthew Crooks had an accomplice?
Second:
There is now of plethora of reports indicating that the gunman was seen up on that roof minutes before the shots rang out.
From the New York Post:
“More than 120 excruciating seconds pass between rallygoers first spotting Crooks on the roof and the moment he fires his rifle. Perhaps most disturbingly, the people who saw the would-be assassin repeatedly tried to alert law enforcement patrolling nearby.”
If all of these individuals saw the gunman on the roof, how did the Secret Service not see him?

Also the FBI’s quick proclamation that the gunman acted alone is now being questioned by experts who should know.
From BlazeMedia:
Dallas Alexander is a veteran Canadian special forces sniper who’s worked VIP protection at the highest levels and who happens to hold the world record for the longest-range confirmed sniper kill. According to him, Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had help from the inside.
“This isn’t me pointing a finger at anyone in particular or a party or an agency, but someone within the ‘inside’ had to have helped with this,” he says. “You can’t walk through layers of security like that and then climb up a ladder to the most obvious shooting position and then take a shot at the former president.”
“There had to be someone that helped with that,” Dallas reiterated.

Similarly from the NY Post:
“Matthew Murphy, a retired Green Beret and a sniper trained to the most elite level, also dismissed the suggestion that ‘some 20-year-old kid that looks like he played Dungeons and Dragons in his mom’s basement’ was able to put Trump in his sights.
‘You’re gonna tell me that that kid went through all those levels of security, somehow got into the closest building to the president and accessed the rooftop, then had the time to unpack his rifle, lay down and then take five to eight well-aimed shots at the president before he was decisively engaged?” There’s absolutely no way possible that kid was able to get up there and take those shots at the president without a lot of internal help,’ he said.”

And then more doubt to the lone gunman postulate as on Monday, 7/17/24, CNN briefly ran a shocking shooter story, then quickly deleted it:
“Audio forensics suggest that shots from at least three weapons were fired at ex-US President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, CNN reports, citing experts.
According to Catalin Grigoras and Cole Whitecotton from the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver, “the first three shots were consistent with alleged weapon A, the next five were consistent with alleged weapon B, and the final ‘acoustic impulse’ was emitted by a
possible weapon C,” the media outlet notes.”

Hmmm!
7/17/24
californiacontrarian.com

NATO, on its 75th anniversary, has just published a Climate Change and Security Impact Assessment, which includes the following statement about the Greenland ice cap … “The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30 tonnes of ice an hour, which is 20% more than previously thought.”
To someone who is not familiar with the Greenland ice cap this sounds disastrous … if true! It is possible that this assessment is an exaggeration or perhaps even a falsification of what is happening with the Greenland ice cap?

From a wattsupwiththat article on 7/10/24 by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in response to this NATO assessment:
“Well, 30 tonnes of ice an hour is little more than 250,000 tons a year, which is negligible, and well within natural variability. It is also probably untrue, because ice has been accumulating on the high Greenland Plateau: so much so that the old DEW-line ICBM detection stations from the Cold War are no longer on the surface of the ice but 20-30 feet below it. There has been some loss of ice on the coastal plain and in the surrounding sea, but evidence from old whaling records and from the early history of Greenland’s settlement by Leif Eriksen shows there was less ice in Greenland during the medieval warm period than there is today. For instance, the Viking burial-ground near Hvalsey is under permafrost today, but it was not under permafrost when the Vikings buried their dead.”

It certainly seems that the Greenland ice cap is increasing and not decreasing. Who to believe?
Hmmm!
7/16/24
www.californiacontrarian.com

“Apparent Assassination Attempt Targets Trump” was the headline in my local “newspaper” on 7/14/24 – which was the day following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. “Apparent!”?? There was nothing “apparent” about it, as it WAS an assassination attempt!

A few of my thoughts on this assassination attempt:
First of all the initial statement by Donald Trump was one praising the actions of the Secret Service and the local police, when in actuality it was because of the failures of the Secret Service and local police that the attempted assassination occurred at all. I would guess that much more will come out concerning how this could have even happened in broad daylight.
Second: What this does, is to further point out how important the choice of a vice-president can be. If this were to happen to the President, then in a blink of an eye, his vice-president would now be the President of the U.S. As we are awaiting for Trump to divulge his choice, think about what a disaster it would be if Kamala had to move up.
Third: To me this further points out that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump need to be cautious in their use of words.
“We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” Biden said on a recent call.
What both candidates have to realize is that all the crazies out there hear these statements, and some will inevitably choose to act on what was intended to be a metaphor.

7/15/24

On Sundays I write about individuals that make a difference … individuals who we can look up to and praise. Sheldon Theragood is such an individual.
From Epoch Bright:
In his youth he was a good basketball player in fact he was such a good dribbler that neighborhood kids would come to watch him play. Because of hip pain, he had to stop playing basketball, and got hired as a youth detention officer in Harris County, Texas.
A bit later he said, “Working there, I was going to be around teenagers who had made life mistakes. I felt like that was going to be a great place for me to help teenagers.”
Mr. Theragood spent time mentoring the youth, listening to them, and helping them build a plan for when they would be released. However, after working there for four years, he was discouraged to see some of the youth get re-detained. He decided that becoming a police officer was the best way he could help. “I thought that was the only position for me; the whole deal for me was to save the kids’ lives out on the streets, and to do whatever it takes—that’s my motto—to make a difference.”
Mr. Theragood then realized that he could teach teens valuable lessons through introducing them to the homeless men and women he met. “I brought them so that they could understand that nobody’s born like this,” he said. “This is just choices. Hey man, this could be you. Sometimes you have to be realistic with them and give them that little scare so they start thinking, ‘I want to change my life.’”

So in 2010, Mr. Theragood got the inspiration to start TheraGood Deeds, a nonprofit to involve children of all ages and backgrounds in community service.
After he got support from a community center to introduce kids to his program, his nonprofit took off, with children ages 4 to 16 doing at least one community outreach project per month. Activities range from serving in soup kitchens to hosting a Christmas toy drive and organizing celebration events for the homeless.
Over the years, some of the teens who joined TheraGood Deeds have grown up and gone to college, and thanks to donations from local sponsors like the Ashley Jadine Foundation, the nonprofit is able to provide them with scholarships.”

Sheldon Theragood was on a mission to help teens, and he found a unique way to do that in Houston. Kudos to him!

7/14/24

As I was reading about the recent Joe Biden Parkinson’s kerfuffle, two questions crossed my mind:
Does he or doesn’t he?
&
If he does have it, does it matter?

When I practiced medicine, I did not have a lot of patients with that diagnosis, and so I do not consider myself to be an expert on Parkinson’s disease. However, Joe Biden does have the one manifestation that is the sine-qua-non for that diagnosis, namely ‘bradykinesis.’ When I watched the recent debate, it was obvious that Joe Biden was afflicted with something from the very beginning. Biden’s entry on to the stage demonstrated a slow and shuffling gait, which is a Parkinson’s symptom. Also with his entry the movement of his right arm was significantly less than the movement of his left arm. Selective bradykinesis (slow movement) is likewise a symptom of Parkinsonism. Similarly, during the debate I noticed that he did not blink a lot, another possible sign of Parkinson’s disease. I also noticed that his right eye was smaller than his left eye … not the pupils, but rather the eye opening. However, as far as I am aware, this is not a sign of Parkinson’s disease.
These were my non-neurologist observations, but what do real neurologists say?
An emeritus professor of neurology told The Free Press that he believes Biden has “Parkinsonism,” as demonstrated by his “masked face, reduced blinking, stiff and slow gait, hunched posture, low-volume voice, imbalance, freezing, mild cognitive disturbance, and difficulty turning.”
Another neurologist agreed, reportedly stating:
“All the disturbing symptoms we all see are called Parkinsonism. . . . In fact in medical school we watch videos of patients with Parkinsonism like Biden to illustrate to the students how this manifests.”

My second question … If he does have it, does it matter?
Is it possible to have a competent President who has Parkinsonism? My answer to that would be a qualified, “yes.” Qualified, because there is a form of dementia that can go along with Parkinson’s … Lewy body dementia.
Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a common type of dementia that happens when clumps of proteins called Lewy bodies build up in one’s brain. They damage parts of the brain that affect cognition, behavior, movement and sleep. LBD is a progressive condition, meaning it gets worse over time.
Could this be what those who are behind Joe Biden are worried about? Is this why everything about Joe Biden’s health is so hush-hush, and does it matter? Since LBD is slowly progressive, at some point, if a diagnosis of Parkinson’s was made public, there would always be a continuing concern that Biden’s mental state had progressed to the point that he was not able to carry out the duties of his office any more. Thus, for the good of the country, it does matter. It would not be prudent to have a President with Parkinsonism.

7/14/24
www.californiacontrarian.com

Granted, I am not a big fan of trite sayings, but for some, “the end justifies the means!” Let me be more specific – for some Democrats, “the end justifies the means!” Let me try to even be more specific – for a lot of Democrat politicians, “the end justifies the means!”
Again with the risk of being repetitive – for almost all of the Democrats in the U.S House of Representatives, “the end justifies the means!” How else could anyone justify all but five Democrats in the House voting against the SAVE Act.
From the Daily Signal:
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter law,” to require that states obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship from someone before he or she may register to vote.
Five Democrats voted for the legislation, but 198 Democrats voted against it.”

One might naively ask, “Why would anyone vote against having only American citizens vote in American elections?” Obviously, because to these Dems the end of having more illegal individuals vote for Democrats justifies the means.
Keep in mind that this question has been posed to the American citizens, who this support this common sense concept by 81% to 87%.
Hopefully, these “the end justifies the means” House Democrats will have to defend their position to the American people when they run for re-election this November.
A similar bill that came up for a vote in the Senate, and was defeated in the Democratic Senate. For those who are running for re-election a vote against what 81 – 87% of Americans think will be interesting and perhaps telling.
For those House Dems and those Senate Dems who voted against the SAVE Act, hopefully this will be the end for them!
7/12/24
www.californiacontrarian.com