Last Saturday, on my youngest son’s seventh birthday, I subscribed to The New Yorker. I decided on the annual subscription of both digital and print edition. I hope my kids will pick up the paper magazines to read if they see them lying around the house.

Without a doubt, The New Yorker is one of my favorite publications. In my freshman year, my English teacher required us to subscribe to The New Yorker as part of our class assignments. Each week, we had to read an article in the magazine and wrote in our journal what we thought of it. My English at the time was horrible. I did not understand what I was reading. I didn’t take The New Yorker seriously because of illustration on the cover and the drawings throughout the magazine. What I hated The New Yorker the most was its long-ass essays.

After that English class, I never picked up The New Yorker again until many years later when I began my interest in reading and my English was good enough to understand its writings. I started to appreciate those long-form investigative reports and cultural commentaries, in which the writers had to put in tons of research. In addition, I appreciated its political coverages, which are grounded on facts, honesty, and integrity. They write the truth without the fear of political power and government pressure. The New Yorker is a cultural treasure. I hope that Condé Nast keeps it the way it is and won’t fuck with it like Jeff Bezos fucked up The Washington Post.

I had a subscription to The New Yorker for a few years before our first son was born. I had to cancel it because I could not keep up with the reading while being a new parent. In addition, I wanted to focus my time on reading long books. Now I need to manage my time better to see if I can read both in my spare time.

The return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is a testament that our free speech is still alive. Freedom of speech is worth fighting for. This is not the left nor the right issue, but I am glad to see some conservatives speak out in defend of free speech. Even Ted Cruz stands up like a man and speaks up for free speech.

America is not America without the freedom of speech. Let’s review the First Amendment Fundamental Freedoms in the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The government can’t take that away from us. No authoritarian can take that away from us. Since they can’t go after our free speech, they go after our jobs. Many people had been fired for speaking against the opposition. I was a bit worried of losing my livelihood too, but my employer had put out the following advice:

As you review the social media policy, you will see that it highlights a widely recognized business best practice—including a disclaimer on personal social media profiles. DHRM encourages employees to note that the opinions expressed are personal and do not represent George Mason University and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I put a disclaimer on every page of my website years ago to make absolute clear that all opinions are my own:

Opinions expressed on this personal blog are my own. My views do not represent those of institutions or organizations I may or may not be associated with.

There’s still hope for America. We need to speak up against authoritarianism. We need to fight like hell for our democracy.

In the last few days, I have lost the motivation to blog as free speech is under attack. For over 20 years, I have been writing whatever the fuck I want without the fear of being censored from the government or being fired from my job.

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Americans are getting fired from their jobs for voicing their opinions. Even Jimmy Kimmel lost his show. Media organizations are being sued for criticizing the president. The current administration officials are using government power to crack down free speech.

What makes America one of the greatest countries in the world is our freedom of speech. Democracy will die without the ability to speak out in opposition. America is heading toward authoritarianism. The freedoms we all love and treasure will be gone.

Without a doubt, I am stressed the fuck out about our freedom of speech, our democracy, and the future of America. How long can I still write freely like this? America is nothing without free speech. George Washington once said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” We need to stand up and defend our freedom of speech.

I do not condone gun violence. I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk. My condolences go out to his family.

Nevertheless, let’s not forget that Kirk was a right-wing provocateur who built his fame and fortune on abomination, disinformation, polarization, and radicalization. Kirk knew damn well what he got into when he boasted, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

America has a dead-serious gun problem and Kirk’s violent rhetoric only makes it worse. He normalized gun violence. He was a great political performer. He rose to the occasion and seized the moment. He was unstoppable until a bullet caught up to him.

Again, Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be shot and killed, but let’s not forget there was another school shooting on the same day at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. Kirk’s death is heinous, but the lives of so many innocent children we lost to mass shootings are also tragic.

At this point, we still don’t know the motive behind Kirk’s assassination, but what we do know is that gun violence is neither the left nor the right problem. Gun violence is the American problem.

Took three minutes voted for James Walkinshaw. He’s a Democrat. I can’t vote for any Republicans because they only work for one man instead of this country. So fuck them.

Stephanie Saul, writing for the New York Times:

The Trump administration has made attacking universities central to its agenda. Higher education leaders argue that their institutions are the pillars of fact-based scientific inquiry and freedom of expression. President Trump and his supporters have argued they are elitist and focused on indoctrinating new generations into liberal ideologies.

But George Mason stands in stark contrast to the exclusive institutions Mr. Trump has targeted. It offers admission to 90 percent of its applicants. Many are middle-class students from Northern Virginia.

It is also among the most diverse campuses in the country.

I wish I can tell Dr. Washington in person to stand strong and not to back down. We have his back.

I am no longer interested in politics unless it affects my livelihood. The Trump administration is attacking my institution and my president. After trying to investigate our president without success, the Trump officials now demand an apology from our president over diversity. I am glad our school and our president are standing up to them to keep our independence. Please don’t budge. We are the last institution to fight against their bullies. Fuck them!

I haven’t blogged about politics in a while, which is a good thing. I just can’t follow the news anymore. It is too depression and not good for my mental health at all.

In recent weeks, I have come to the point where I just leave politics out of my social life. I have been hanging out with people who support Trump. As long as we don’t get into politics, we are fine. I don’t want to get into it either. If they are cool with me then I am cool with them.

I also avoid putting my head on the chopping block between the Vietnamese Americans and Vietnamese communists. I have heard enough from both sides. I don’t want to be part of the controversy.

I have too many things to worry about.

In a stunning move, George Mason University’s Board not only sided with President Gregory Washington, but also gave him a 1.5% raise to $823,000 a year. I am glad to see George Mason fights back while other universities folds to the Trump regime. As higher institutions, we need to stand up. We can’t let the government involves into our education. We need to stay independence. We need to give them the middle fucking fingers. Raise them up.

George Mason University is under attack. If you have any affiliation with Mason, support our president and protect our university. Stand with us.