Author: hsoi

Free Speech 101

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Lissa talks about “free speech” on college campuses.

Yeah, I remember those days too, much the same way she does.

You see, that wonderful little “first amendment” mention of “free speech” is there precisely to protect unpopular speech. We don’t need to protect the speech everyone is ok with, we need to protect the speech that some folks might have trouble with. 

As I’ve said before, “Freedom is something we must give to others if we wish it for ourselves.” So if you want “free speech”, you have to let others have free speech, even if it’s speech you don’t want to hear.

Hyung Demonstration – Master Sung Jin Suh

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

(Sorry…. I had to turn the music off while watching, but the content is still good.)

This is Master SUH Sung Jin; 8th degree black belt; oldest son of SUH In Hyuk, founder of Kuk Sool Won. This video shows him demonstrating various Kuk Sool forms (hyung):

  1. Oon Hak Hyung, “Crane Over Cloud”. Learned at 5th degree black belt. I’ve seen many perform this form, but the way Master Sung Jin has been performing this the past few years is simply amazing. Beautiful.
  2. Kyuk Pah Hyung, “Power Breaking Form”. Learned at the 2nd degree black belt level. Watch the form and you can see the breaks, the power. I’ve seen many perform this form, but few perform it as well as this.
  3. Ki Cho Hyung, “Fundamental Form”. Learned at the white belt level. This is not an easy form, but is the foundational form upon which all Kuk Sool is built. Master Sung Jin has been performing it recently in demonstrations in this “stylized” manner to help promote improved execution and technique in and of the form.
  4. Gum Moo Hyung, “Sword Dance Form”. Learned at the brown-black level. The speed at which Master Sung Jin’s hands are moving during the middle portion of the form’s execution is amazing. Great relaxation.
  5. Dae Geup Hyung, “Advanced Level Form”. Learned at the brown belt level.

The video is nice in that it is a compilation of various forms demonstrations. But moreso, what I like about this is seeing “other” forms demonstrated. Many times in demonstration what gets demonstrated is the highest-level form the person knows. While that’s nice, us lower-level folk like to see our stuff demonstrated too, but performed at a higher level. It helps you see what the form can look like in an ideal state, or at least give you a more tangible ideal towards which to model and strive your own execution of the form. 

I need more practice.

A Zen Moment in Parenting

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

This is a great little parenting story.

First, I think the situation was handled perfectly. Sure he could have taken the simple route and spanked the kid, or “time-out”,  or grounded him, but that really wouldn’t directly address the problem. I often find it’s better to address the problem in a manner directly related to the problem. Denying the Xbox for a week wouldn’t address this problem. He was able to help his child see himself, discover his own problem, and correct his problem on his own. All the parent did was be patient and guide.

It’s tough to get people to change by forcing them to change; they’re not necessarily going to change for you. The more successful route to get someone to change is for them to change themselves. It’s tougher for you to do, you really have to take a different tack and approach in guiding them to see things for themselves, but often that’s how things tend to work best.

Of course, there are some things that folks are so emotionally tied up into that getting them to see reason is quite difficult. But just because it may be difficult for you to do doesn’t mean the other person is a lost cause or that it’s not worth making the effort to try. Patience. Devotion.

All credit is debt

/ hsoi

From The Liberator Online, Vol. 14, No. 4‘s Persuasion Power Point by Michael Cloud, regarding the “credit crisis/crunch”:

Let’s examine the word they’re using to define the issue: “credit.” The word “credit” is one side of the coin. The flip side is the word “debt.” You can’t have one side of the coin without the other.

“All credit is debt,” wrote Henry Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson. “Proposals for an increased volume of credit, therefore, are merely another name for proposals for an increased burden of debt. When they say the way to economic salvation is to increase credit, it is just as if they said the way to economic salvation is to increase debt: these are different names for the same thing seen from opposite sides.”

So why are the analysts and commentators only talking about “credit”?

Why aren’t beating the drum for “debt”?

They could claim: “To make corporations solvent, we must put them deeper in debt.”

Or: “Borrowing and debt are the lifeblood of American business.”

Or: “We have a debt crisis: the only remedy is to let business get further and further into debt.”

Or: “Unless major corporations can dramatically increase their financial liabilities, they can’t start turning a profit.”

Or: “Wall Street’s biggest problem is a lack of access to greater borrowing, more liabilities, and increased financial burdens.”

Or: “Major corporations are failing because they do not owe enough money, because they cannot run up a bigger debt.”

Or: “Businesses are failing because of a shortage of debt.”

Turn over the word coin. Take their sentences, their words, and replace the word “credit” with the word “debt.” Ask them whether they still believe it. Ask their listeners and readers whether they still want it.

Well worth your consideration, folks.

Sword training

/ hsoi

At the dojang today, all I did was sword training.

I don’t care for sword.

I know some people are totally enamoured with swords. There’s a Romantic notion about it. There’s great fantasy in it. But for me? I couldn’t care less. I’m practical. A sword is not practical. Sure it’s better than nothing, but it’s just not a practical weapon for the 21st century urban dweller. In my traditional martial arts training I prefer more practical weapons, such as a staff (especially short staff called “dan bong”); I’m looking forward to studying cane.

But for today. Sword.

So I look at it this way: it’s training, it’s discipline. I have a heavy (relatively-speaking) steel sword. Most people don’t like to use my sword because, while a gorgeous and well-balanced sword, it’s long and heavy: arms tire out. That’s why I like it, because it works out my shoulders, my arms, and most of all — my grip. It’s not just strength, it’s endurance.

And I care about grip for other areas of martial study. 🙂

 

Updated: I should clarify. I only have so much time and energy in a day to study and practice something. So with limited time and energy, I’d prefer to spend my finite resources on the things I find most productive and useful. Thus why I prefer to study things like staff or cane or firearms. But if I must study sword, and to progress in my martial art yes I must from time to time, then I might as well utilize that time towards productive ends. Maybe I’ll never be a master at wielding a sword, but if it’ll strengthen my grip, well, I found something useful to focus on.

A little financial lesson I learned

/ hsoi

Like most people, the past some months in my household have involved a lot of belt tightening and reexamination of financial situation. I’ve done my best to be responsible with the money I earn, currently having no debt other than the home mortgage, which is a reasonable mortgage at that. Live within your means; in fact, try to live well below your means. Still, I kept feeling a crunch. I had spent a bit beyond our means the past some months to stock up on various things, dipping into savings and such. I’m wanting to recover from that but was having a bit of a time digging out. It hit me what was going on and I wanted to try it. It’s only been a couple months so it’s a bit early to tell, but so far the results are promising so I thought I’d share.

What was going on was that I was paying too much towards credit cards every month. I use credit cards because of purchase protections, extended warranties, rewards, and other such side benefits. I pay them off in full every month. But that was the problem. When it came time for me to pay the bills, I always paid the full amount. For example, the billing cycle ends with a $500 balance, but between the end of the billing cycle and the time I get the bill in the mail then sit down to pay bills, I might have charged a few more things and might have $700 on the card. I always figured that I’ve already used the money, send it now or send it later didn’t matter I still had to send it, so I might as well zero out the card. Thus I’d write a check for $700 and zero out the card. Technically that’s a good thing to do, but it was having a subtle side-effect on me. I would look in Quicken and see that we had a zero balance so I would think to myself “ok, we can spend X amount”, but in reality, I had kinda robbed Peter to pay Paul. I try to shave off a good portion of my paycheck every pay period to put into savings, but to pay that credit card bill down to zero I might have to reduce or eliminate that savings. Thus I’d have a zero card balance, but I didn’t get to save as much as I wanted to. And so, I was treading water, paying bills, but not rebuilding my savings.

So instead what I decided to do was just pay the required amount. Bill comes for $500, I pay $500. Sure that might mean at the time of the bill paying I leave $200 (going with the above example) on the card, but that’s fine. It does a few things. First, when I look in Quicken I see there’s already some sort of balance on the card, thus I’m reluctant to put more charges on the card thus spending less. Second, when I do my bill paying now I am saving in full or might be able to save a little more. And so far, that has really been paying off. It’s helped me curtail spending and keep my savings on a good pace.

Yeah, it’s a bit of slight-of-hand, it’s just mentally fooling myself. In the end it’s all about budgeting and such and keeping within your means. But for me, this change helped. I keep bills paid in full, no revolving balances on the cards, but I keep the monthly spending correct for the pay periods and don’t “overspend” because I miscalcuated. My savings is rebuilding at a good click, my spending is reigned in more.

Man… wish I had realized this years ago. 🙂

Cornyn on Federal firearms laws

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

From one of my US Senators, Sen. John Cornyn:

Dear Mr. Daub:

Thank you for contacting me about federal firearms laws. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this matter.

It is essential to safeguard the law-abiding citizen’s constitutional right to own and use firearms designed for legitimate purposes such as hunting, target shooting, collecting, and self-protection. Restricting this right runs counter to the intent of our Founding Fathers, who expressly guaranteed that citizens would retain the right to keep and bear arms.

As a former Texas Supreme Court Justice and Attorney General, I have firsthand knowledge of crime-fighting policies that work, and I believe that citizens’ Second Amendment rights should not be restricted because of the actions of criminals. Rather, we must respect the rights of law-abiding citizens and focus our attention on the source of violent crime: criminals who use firearms to commit crimes. I believe that strictly enforcing the law and meting out longer sentences for career criminals and those who use firearms when committing crimes will reduce crime more effectively than gun or equipment bans, which primarily serve to take firearms away from law-abiding citizens.

I appreciate the opportunity to represent Texans in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will continue working with my colleagues to protect our Second Amendment rights. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2934
Fax: (202) 228-2856
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov

 

911 didn’t answer

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

An elderly woman in Parker County, Texas dials 911 repeatedly, and receives no answer, repeatedly.

Eventually the woman’s daughter and son-in-law arrived and were able to hold the intruder at gunpoint. Finally 911 gets through. Police are dispatched and arrive 13 minutes later… 13… minutes… later.

According to the article:

[Capt. Mike Morgan of the Parker County sheriff’s office] said he understands the family’s frustration. But he said records show that when 911 dispatchers answered the calls, the family had hung up.

Morgan said cellphone calls can take up to 30 seconds to connect in the dispatch center.

Cellphone technology is great, but it still has problems. When you’re in a situation like this, 30 seconds is going to seem like an eternity. Even still, how much evil can happen in 30 seconds time? And then, 13 minutes to respond.

As the saying goes, when seconds count, police are only minutes away.

While it’s nice to know there are other people in this world that are willing to keep you safe from harm, in the end the only person you can count on being around when you’re being attacked is you. You’re in the best position to preserve yourself. Ms. Hokett now knows that:

Hokett said she hopes she never needs 911 again. But just in case, she said her daughter bought her a shotgun that she has places near her bed.

All those things take time.

/ hsoi

It took 80 minutes for the Princeton campus alert system to notify students of a possible gunman on campus. (h/t to SayUncle).

With HB 1893 and SB 1164 up for consideration in the Texas Legislature, and after having spoken with my Texas State Representative about this, maybe we can look deeper into these campus safety systems.

From the article:

Greil then called Public Safety at 11:24 p.m. and spoke with them for 13 minutes, according to her phone records.

Within one minute of Greil’s call, Public Safety had contacted Borough Police, Cliatt said. Minutes later, Public Safety and Borough Police officers were canvassing the area. The officers had already begun their patrol at 11:29 p.m. when Public Safety received a second call with a similar report.

So basically, call goes in and it takes about 5 minutes before formalized law enforcement shows up on scene to start working. If we look at the Virginia Tech data, every minute Cho killed at least 3 people and shot a total of 4. So in 5 minutes of response time, a little math shows us that 20 people would be shot, at least 15 killed.  Now, it took 80 minutes before the campus alert system notified the students. Go ahead, do some math.

The article continues:

At 12:40 a.m., when the threat was found to be credible, the University sent out the first warning messages via the Princeton Telephone and E-mail Notification System (PTENS). Students told the ‘Prince’ that they received the message between 12:45 and 12:48 a.m.

So it took 76 minutes for them to determine the threat was credible. Then it took an additional 5-8 minutes before students received word. Go ahead, do the math.

The article continues:

Executive Vice President Mark Burstein said he was “extremely satisfied” with the emergency response. “Both our Public Safety department and the Borough Police reacted quickly. The speed with which they responded was very reassuring,” Burstein said in an interview at around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. “Our notification systems worked well.”

Well, I guess the system functioned correctly, but even then 5-8 minutes is a very long time. Again, do the math.

The article continues:

Cliatt also praised the University’s response, adding that she did not believe the 80-minute gap between the first report and the notification of the campus community was unnecessarily long.

“The things that took place in that time period obviously took 80 minutes,” she said, noting that all “action steps” taken during this period were necessary. “Canvassing the area, getting access to prox information to see if various dorms had been accessed, convening the task force, putting together the alert message, all those things take time,” she explained.

All those things take time. Killing at least 3 people and shooting a total of 4 every minute… that takes time too.

The article continues:

Cliatt also emphasized that the University considers the fear and anxiety caused by emergency alerts when deciding whether a threat is sufficiently credible to merit issuing an alert. “The safety of our community is our top priority, and that includes both the physical and the emotional safety of our campus,” she said.

Ah, the emotional scarring of our children. Because fear and anxiety of the sheeple is more concerning and emotionally scarring than seeing your friend die in your arms, or a parent dealing with the loss of their child.

 

Thankfully in this situation it was just someone exercising poor judgement and I hope they are dealt with accordingly. But it still demonstrates failure of these systems to truly keep people safe.