Halloween 2009

This was the first year that Sara and Kyle went out trick or treating. We met up with two of Sara's friends from school, Jenna and Jennifer, and their parents, and we all went out together.

The kids had a lot of fun. They had a lot of energy the whole night. Kyle got a little carried away a few times and walked inside a few peoples houses. That was a bit scary, but the people in the neighborhood were very nice.

At the end of the night we had a mountain of candy. Enough to make them sick for days and days.

(Pictures: 1. Kyle (as Elmo) and Sara (as a Fairy Princess). 2. Sara, Jennifer, Connor, and Kyle. 3. The kids outside a haunted house. 4. Sara, Jenna, Jennifer, Connor, Jennifer's sister (don't know her name), and Kyle (not looking at the camera). 5. A mountain of candy.)

The Death Penalty in Texas

As an admitted liberal democrat, it might come as a shock to some people that I'm actually pro death penalty. It's my belief that when someone takes another person's life, he or she has basically forfeited their own life. If that person shows so little value in someone else life, why should they have one?


I recently read that convicted killer Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as "The Night Stalker" was just linked to yet another murder in San Francisco. He is the perfect example of the type of person that the death penalty was created for.


Texas loves to execute people. They execute more people here than all the other states in the U.S. combined. I'll be the first to admit that most of them probably deserve it, but recent events have shown that Texas has probably executed an innocent man.



Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 over charges that he set fire to his home, killing his three children. There was no motive. Supposed arson experts claimed that there were pools of flammable liquid found in the crime scene, which suggested lighter fluid was used. These claims were later debunked by numerous other experts, including an acclaimed scientist, Dr. Gerald Hurst. The majority opinion was now that the fire was accidental, not arson.


Prior to the execution, Texas governor Rick Perry was presented with this new evidence, but he refused to hear it. Even now, in 2009, Perry won't even acknowledge that maybe a mistake was made. Instead, he just refers to Willingham as "a monster."


I can't tell you how much this case really bothers me. Perry could easily have given the guy a little more time to try and prove his innocence. Would it really have cost him any clout in the Republican party by showing a little mercy? Would commuting his sentence to life in prison really cost the guy any votes?


Since 1976, 130 innocent people have been released from death row due to new evidence being presented, many of these because of DNA tests. I think when there is some doubt about a person's guilt, and in this case there was a LOT of doubt, the death sentence should be put on hold indefinitely until the truth can finally come out.

I'm not calling for an all-out abolishment of the death penalty. Certainly, if someone murdered someone I love, I wouldn't want mercy for them. But then, on the other hand, this case could happen to any one of us. Imagine if you or I were accused of something we didn't do, based on faulty evidence, or the fact that you listen to Iron Maiden or Led Zeppelin (which Willingham did, and was used against him).

The system as it is, is screwed up, and it needs to be fixed.

Subtle Racism

Racism rears its ugly head again, this time in Louisiana. A justice of the peace refuses to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/16/louisiana.interracial.marriage/index.html

As soon as I saw the headline for this story, I immediately thought "It probably isn't in the United States." But no. It was here, in the land of the free. In 2009. Not 1959, not 1969, but 2009.

Naturally, I was shocked. What decade did this justice of the peace think he was living in? This is what the guy, Keith Bardwell, said when confronted with charges of racism:

"I'm not a racist. I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."

This sounds like the type of racist who tries to defend himself by saying "I have lots of black friends!" I've heard that one before. Usually those black "friends" are just acquaintances, or co-workers. They're rarely true friends.

Mr. Bardwell also tries to argue that most interracial couples end in divorce. Does he have exact statistics? Just because he's seen a few, doesn't mean it happens to everyone. Like I've heard so many times before, 50% of all married couples get divorced, so by this logic, why marry anyone?

Being in an interracial marriage myself, I'll admit there are some obstacles you have to overcome. For me, it's the subtle racism I see in my own family. None of them will admit to being racist, of course, but it's there. I've had to deal with family members telling me that my children don't look like the rest of the family. I've seen my brother's (white) daughter lavished with attention, while my own daughter was treated like merely an afterthought. I've had my own brother make racist jokes right in front of me. But does this affect my marriage? Not at all. My family can either accept it or get lost.

As for this justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, he should resign. He's a public official. If he wants to be a racist, that's fine, just leave it at home. Don't bring it to the job.

Working in Healthcare

I received an email this week from the manager here at the hospital. She informed me of some advancement opportunities available to me. Yes...a promotion....going up the ladder!

I didn't respond right away. I actually needed to think about it for a little while. Is this the field I really want to build a career in? With the economy still in the toilet, and with many of my friends and family members still out of work after nearly a year, it seems like the healthcare industry is the only one that is still growing, with the recession causing little to no impact.

It's been a year and five months since I last taught an English class, and I still feel no desire to go back and do that again. It's kind of sad, actually. Before I left for Taiwan, I felt very excited about being a teacher. I got my degree in English, and I even became TEFL certified. But then...after four years of teaching, I just totally lost interest in it. Maybe it was because I was teaching class after class of unruly kids who had no interest in learning. They'd rather talk on their cell phones, play games, gossip with their friends, or just stare at the ceiling. I suppose you could say that a really good teacher would have inspired those kids to learn. To stop acting like animals and pay attention. Perhaps so. Maybe in that sense, I could have been a better teacher. When I had students who didn't show any respect to me as a teacher, I kind of just tuned them out and focused on the ones who did actually want to learn. Unfortunately though, the good students were in the minority. And this is probably the root cause of my lack of desire to teach again. I just don't have the patience to go into a classroom and force a bunch of teenagers to learn something they have absolutely no desire to learn. And I refuse to put on clown makeup and jump around to try and get their attention. That's just not me.

So, now I'm falling back on the only other field that I have some background in, which is healthcare. I never really wanted to work in healthcare. It just happened. Sometime in the mid 1990's, when I was married to my first wife, I got laid off from some crappy job I was working at, and a job at a healthcare company was offered to me. Needing the money, I took it, of course. I never thought it would end up being something I continued doing indefinitely. I always thought eventually I'd go into teaching.

I accepted the offer for advancement, and now sometime in the near future I'm supposed to attend training on how to become "management material." I'm not sure how good of a supervisor or manager I'll be, since I've never really liked most of the managers I've worked for, and some I've even totally despised. I think if you're in a position where you're telling people what to do, you're bound to have some people who don't like you. Also, I have pretty strong opinions about the healthcare industry, and it conflicts with many of the people who work here.

So for now, we'll see how it goes. Either the position will work out well for me, or I'll fail miserably. I'm hoping it will work out.

Weekend in the E.R.

Over the weekend, I was "on call" at the hospital. When you're "on call," you're given a pager, and you can be called in to work at any time. You can be called to work at 12:30 in the morning, or 3am, or any other time. If the volume of patients gets heavy, or someone called out sick, the "on call" person is the one who has to come in. You're only "on call" one weekend out of the year, but there's about 90% chance you'll be called in, and it's usually working in the E.R., since that is the department that always needs the most help.

Last year was particularly brutal. I was called in three times. An 8 hour shift Friday. A 12 hour, "graveyard shift" on Saturday, and then another 4 hour shift on Sunday. I wrote a little about it last year on my blog: http://taiwantotexas.blogspot.com/2008/12/graveyard-shift.html

This time, I was only called in twice, and each time was only 4 hours. But it was four hours in the E.R., and it was during the late night, early morning hours. I normally don't work in the E.R. I work in "Labor and Delivery." In Labor and Delivery, the only patients I work with are pregnant women, who are normally in a nice mood and very easy to deal with. The E.R., however, is a very different story.

One of my co-workers, Lucas (who has since quit his job), once told me that working in the E.R. on the weekends at night is "having to deal with the scum of the earth."

The scum of the earth? That seemed a bit harsh to me. Surely it can't be that bad, can it?

Well, it wasn't actually that bad. I did have to deal with a couple of scumbags, though. But these scumbags weren't patients. They were the boyfriends of patients.

One drunken boyfriend, missing his front teeth, cheered with excitement when he was told his girlfriend would have to be admitted overnight. He then asked me if the hospital would be serving them sirloin steak.

Another patient was being seen because her drunken boyfriend had beaten the crap out of her. The guy was later arrested and taken to jail.

I give a lot of credit to my co-workers who work in the E.R. full time. There's a very high turnover in that department, and those who stick around often have to take a lot of verbal (and sometimes even physical) abuse. You're also being exposed to very sick people, often bleeding or vomiting on you. It's tough, and I'm glad I only have to do it one weekend out of the year.

Is Capitalism Really Evil?

The weather here in Austin was pretty bad this weekend, so I decided to go out to the movies to check out Michael Moore's latest opus, "Capitalism: A Love Story."

I know there are people out there, especially here in Texas, who hate Michael Moore. Hate, loathe, despise the guy. On Friday, I was reading a review of the movie while I was at work. One of my co-workers saw me reading it and said:

"Michael Moore is an idiot. I hate that guy." he said.
"Really? Why?" I asked him.
"The guy just lies about everything."
"What did he lie about?" I continue.
"That movie about Bush (Fahrenheit 9/11) was just full of lies." the guy says.

I probe a little more to try to get him to tell me what was a lie in "Fahrenheit 9/11" but I do my best not to provoke him. The last thing I want to do is get into an argument with an angry Texan at work. In the end, he can't tell me what was a lie because he can't remember.

I'll admit that Michael Moore sometimes does take things out of context. The hit piece he did on Charlton Heston in "Bowling For Columbine" was one example. The way the movie was edited made the guy seem like a heartless bastard. I still liked the movie, though, and thought it did bring up a lot of good points about America's obsession with guns.

Not being a fan of George W. Bush, of course I really liked "Fahrenheit 9/11." It just proved what most of us already knew, that Iraq was never really a threat to America, and our invasion of the country was mostly about oil and a personal vendetta that the Bush family had with Saddam Hussein.

Then he made "Sicko", about our faulty healthcare system, and another topic that hits me on a very personal level. Anyone who has read my blog know that I favor universal healthcare for everyone. The movie seemed to imply that Richard Nixon was the instigator of the decline of American healthcare, by approving of the creation of the first "HMO's", where healthcare now became "for profit."

Now, in his latest movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story", it's another Republican president who is being blamed for the destruction of our economy. And no, it's not George W. Bush. It's Ronald Reagan. Once Reagan was elected, he approved the de-regulation of the financial industry. Once there were no more regulations on what banks and financial institutions could do, they went wild. Fraud was everywhere. People where promised mortgages they could afford, only to have them raised again and again by greedy lenders.

Reagan also brought huge tax cuts to the wealthy. In the 1950's and 60's, everyone had health care, houses were affordable for everyone. A single income could take care of an entire family. I come from such a family. My father was an accountant. He didn't make a large salary, but it supported a family of five. FIVE. Could anyone do that now? Hell no. Christy and I would both have to work to even come close to the life my parents had. Why was it better then? Because the wealthiest people in the country paid 90% in taxes. Yep, 90%. It does seem like a lot, but it didn't prevent the rich from staying rich. They were still rich. They still had their opulent lifestyles. So the money they paid in taxes made life better for the entire country. Now it's become everyone for themselves. Survival of the fittest. Is this what they teach in church? Is this what Jesus preached?

One of the biggest surprises I learned from the film was something called "Dead Peasants Insurance." I actually had to google this one when the movie was over to see if it was really true. "Dead Peasants Insurance" is a life insurance policy that an employer buys for an employee (without their knowledge), so they can make money off your death. Wal Mart and Disney had such policies, and so do other major corporations like Bank of America and AT&T. The movie mentions a case of a woman who was married to a Wal Mart employee, a guy who died at 27 years old. Wal mart had a life insurance policy on the guy, and made an $87,000 profit on his death. His widow got absolutely nothing. Totally despicable.

I don't really agree with everything that Moore says. I don't think capitalism is evil. I have no problem with someone who creates a product that people want to buy, and becomes rich from it. That's the American way. If someone contacted me and said they wanted to give me a million dollars to publish my two blogs as a book, would I say no? Hell no. haha (yeah, I'm a dreamer). But you know what? If I were extremely wealthy, I would have no problem paying higher taxes to help my fellow man. For giving people universal healthcare, affordable housing, and a right to a good job. It's just too bad that there aren't enough people who share that opinion.

Austin City Limits Music Festival vs. Woodstock

This weekend the crowds are once again returning to downtown Austin for the annual "Austin City Limits" music festival. This is like the "Woodstock" of Austin. 3 days of peace and music (well, definitely music. We'll see if the peace holds up.)

No, I'm not there, though I wouldn't mind to be. Although, to be honest, out of the 130 bands playing at the festival, I've maybe heard of about 10 of them. Pearl Jam has basically got the "Jimi Hendrix" slot and are closing the show on Sunday. Kings of Leon was the big attraction on Friday, and the Dave Matthews Band is closing the show Saturday.

I'd heard stories of previous ACL's being extremely hot and dusty. This year it looks like it's going to be raining most of the weekend. So this year it may actually be a lot more like the legendary Woodstock festival of '69, with hippies rolling around in the mud.

As much as I would have loved to be at the Woodstock festival (I wasn't even born yet), I don't think the people who were actually there could really have enjoyed it all that much. It was cold. It rained. There wasn't enough food or toilets. It's not surprising that most of the crowd had left before Jimi Hendrix even set foot on the stage on Monday morning. If I were there, I probably would have left early too.

So maybe I'll go to next years ACL festival, if my wife will let me. She likes to remind me that, as a married man with kids, I can't really act like I'm single anymore and have this kind of fun. Yeah... what a downer, huh?

So, I guess I'll just pop in my Woodstock cd's, or play the movie, and have my own little music festival in my apartment.

(Pictures: The Austin City Limits Music Festival 2009, and the famous pic from "Woodstock)