At the most critical moment of our time, the people of this great nation have risen up, shown up, and made our voice heard. America has chosen democracy over demagoguery, unity over divisiveness, decency over insults, facts over lies, and science over fiction.

President-Elect Joe Biden and the first woman Black-Indian-American Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, we are holding you to your promises. We need your strong leadership to restore the integrity of the executive branch, to put the pandemic under control, and to strengthen our commitment to justice for all.

From climate to China, economy to education, healthcare to healing, the Biden administration will face tough challenges ahead. Then again, the job of the president and vice president of the United States are not supposed to be easy. Critical issues cannot be resolved over Twitter. Biden and Harris will need a strong coalition to lead this country out of the damages created in the past four years. They will need people with not only qualifications in their fields but also compassion in their hearts.

This election has demonstrated that our democracy is still strong and resilient. Totalitarian, fascism, and dictatorship have no place in this free nation. The United States is still one of the greatest countries in the world. We need to come together to heal our wounds, revive our souls, and lift up our spirits. There are no red states and blue states. There’s only the United States of America.

Break out the champagne glasses, it’s time to celebrate “America the Beautiful.”

Zeynep Tufekci writes in the Atlantic:

At the moment, the Democratic Party risks celebrating Trump’s loss and moving on—an acute danger, especially because many of its constituencies, the ones that drove Trump’s loss, are understandably tired. A political nap for a few years probably looks appealing to many who opposed Trump, but the real message of this election is not that Trump lost and Democrats triumphed. It’s that a weak and untalented politician lost, while the rest of his party has completely entrenched its power over every other branch of government: the perfect setup for a talented right-wing populist to sweep into office in 2024. And make no mistake: They’re all thinking about it.

Yes, indeed!

Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker on “Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose”:

Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if he loses to Joe Biden.

The future of Trump will be dark and devastating.

My own mama says I’m thugged out. Wait, that was what 2pac’s mama said. My own mama told me to tone down my English on Facebook. People are telling her that I am being too vocal. She’s worried about my safety.

I am actually not being vocal on Facebook. I write for my website first. I just reshare them on Facebook. Sure, I sprinkle a bit of profanities here and there, but they are just part of my style. I am not spilling out any hateful rhetoric. I am not the one who declares Civil War if Biden loses. I am all for empathy, compassion, and unity. Still, I apologized for making my mama worried.

She asked me if I voted yet. I told her I voted a month ago. I asked her if she voted and she said no. She asked me who I voted for and I told her Biden. She said China has bribed Biden and I should have voted for the other guy. At this point, I was just speechless. All of my conversations with her about him all these years meant nothing to her.

If she wanted to vote for him based on her own choice, I would respect her decision. She told me I should have voted for him based on what other people were telling her. She chose to believe other people over her own son. That has always been the case all my life. She loves me unconditionally, but she never places her confidence in me. It didn’t matter what her own son said to her. She would take anyone else’s words over mine. I am not mad at her. In her heart and mind, I am still her little boy and her first instinct is to protect me. I get that; therefore, I still love her no matter what. Her heart is in the right place even though her mind will never change.

For better or for worse, I can’t wait for this to be all over. I have some serious relationships to reconnect. I really miss drinking with my mom. I used to cajole her into sharing an Olde E and chicken wings with me. I swear—the fried chicken wings from Queen’s Six Pack must have been marinated with crack. They are so damn addictive. I have to get a fix every time I go back to Lancaster. I miss those snow days when she made bánh xèo (crispy Vietnamese crepes) and I made cognac and coke. We drank slowly and ate bánh xèo until we were drunk and bloated. I miss the good olde days, mama. I love you, mama, and I will never let anyone come between us—definitely not that orange motherfucker. Sorry mama, I have to cuss.

This is it, America. Let’s hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. In this election, our values, our characters, and our lives are on the ballot.

America has been through so much in the last four years. Our principles, prides, and practices have been desecrated. From caste to class to community, we are further divided than ever. America is losing its soul. Four more years of division, dishonesty, and disillusion will put our nation in danger to the point of no return. The worst has yet to come.

I hope the outcome of this election will heal our country, strengthen our democracy, restore our decency, and save our lives. We need to bring back empathy, integrity, and civility. After this election, I hope America will come together to seal our cracked nation. The scars will never go away, but we will be stronger together. So let’s skip the civil war. Instead of fighting among ourselves, let’s fight against COVID-19. Instead of tearing down each other, let’s rebuild respect. Instead of spilling out the hate, let’s show some love.

After this election, I hope family members will come back together and friends will come around. Politics isn’t worth losing relationships over. I hope I won’t have to rant about politics again, or at least until 2024.

Before I shut the fuck up, I just want to say, go vote if you haven’t. Vote your conscience. Vote like your life depends on it. I am optimist that America will pull through this time.

Peace, love, and unity.

With her meticulous research and articulate storytelling, Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, unearths the unspoken caste system in America. Caste is the infrastructure of our divisions. It is a four-hundred-year-old social system that separates people according to their ranks. The higher caste has more privilege, power, and entitlement over the lower caste.

Before reading this book, I wondered why caste and not race or class. After reading it, I understand why caste makes complete sense to break down the complexity of the injustice system in America. For example, policemen of color, including a Japanese-American officer in Oklahoma, a Chinese-American officer in New York City, and a Muslim-American officer in Minneapolis, were charged of brutality whereas cases from upper-caste officers were dismissed.

From London to India, from the rise of Obama to the phenomenal of Trump, from historical documents to personal accounts, Wilkerson has skillfully pieced together all the details to create a coherent picture of the caste system. It is an important, eye-opening book that helps explain the injustice of the past as well as the presence. I highly recommend it.

The election is two days away and voters should have made up their mind by now if they haven’t voted already. At this point, it’s a waste of time trying to change people’s mind, but I have to call out the disrespectful, disturbing rhetorics in the Vietnamese-American community from Trump supporters.

Reading the vicious attacks on Kamala Harris from the Vietnamese-American Trump supporters breaks my heart. It’s fine to support someone they believed in and to oppose the other side, but it is wrong and unacceptable to be racist, sexist, and misogynist. Ms. Harris is one of us. She’s half Asian. Even if they aren’t proud of the fact that she is a heartbeat away from being the Vice President of the United States, they should respect her. I am not going to repeat their degrading language because it is a disgrace for the entire community.

Watching the confrontations between Trump vs. Biden supporters in the Vietnamese-American community shake me to the core. Again, I am not going to link to these embarrassing video clips in which Trump supporters demand the opposite camp to kneel down. They even have the audacity to tell Biden supporters to go back to Vietnam. Who the fuck do these Vietnamese-American Trump supporters think they are? The yellow supremacists?

The Scalia Law School has a new dean who comes from business background. His first order of business is to get rid of Mason’s Green, Gold, and Orange. The only color from the Mason guideline that he approves is Bright Blue (#007dc5). Thanks to SASS, updating the color scheme for the entire website was effortless. Replacing one CSS file and voila!

Yesterday, we rolled out an updated logo with Mason’s Bright Blue. All the links and highlighted items are also blue. Our new color palette consists of blue, gray, and white. Maybe I getting wearied of Mason’s Green, Gold, and Orange, but I find the Bright Blue to be refreshing. I also appreciate the limitation of just using a few colors.

I am sure there will be more changes to come, but just changing the color alone makes a difference.

I changed the typefaces again. For body text, I switched to Bookerly, designed by Dalton Maag for Amazon Kindle. I love how legible Bookerly appears on e-books. I also changed the background from pure white to light grain-like paper quality. I am a lover of physical books.

For the headers, I went with Ballinger, by Signal Type. I had the opportunity to work with Max Phillips on supporting Vietnamese. I really love the black weight for headers. I wanted to use Ballinger’s text weight, but I still hesitated to use sans serif for body copy. Maybe some time in the future.

In the previous iteration, I said that it would be a while before I made the change again and yet it only lasted 4 days. That’s the beauty of having my own site. I can change it up whenever I want to. I love the freedom to write as well as the freedom to design.

The homepage is featuring a lovely illustration of a diverse group of people supporting Joe Biden. I lifted that artwork right off joebiden.com, which is being displayed way too far down on the official website. I wanted to give it more prominent space on my site until Election Day. Go vote for Sleepy Joe so you can sleep better at night knowing a competent, compassionate president taking care of America.

Thấy bài thuyết giáo về việc bầu cử tổng thống, tôi cũng tò mò muốn biết ông cha nói gì. Clip giảng gần 28:52 phút nhưng tôi chỉ xem đến 1:52 phút là phải bỏ cuộc. Ông cha cho rằng với lương tâm và trách nhiệm của một chủ chiên, ông phải hướng dẫn con chiên, nhất là giới trẻ, biết được đâu là thánh ý chúa và “biết được người nào không phải là mình muốn bầu mà chúa muốn mình bầu cho người đó.”

Tôi không biết rõ đây là ý chúa hay ông cha đặt lời vào miệng của chúa. Tôi thì không nghĩ đây là ý nguyện của chúa vì nếu thật sự như thế thì đấng chúa trời quá hẹp hòi và quá độc tài. Việc bỏ phiếu cho ai là quyền cá nhân của người đó không ai có thể xen vào. Chẳng hạn như trong gia đình tôi và vợ luôn bàn luận hoặc thậm chí tranh cãi nhau về chính trị. Nhưng đến lúc đi bầu cử, vợ không có quyền bắt tôi phải bỏ phiếu cho ai và ngược lại tôi cũng không có quyền ép buộc vợ phải bỏ phiếu theo tôi. Chẳng lẽ chuyện nhỏ nhặt như thế mà đấng chúa trời cũng không tin tưởng để con người tự quyết định cho bản thân họ?

Tôi không nghe hết bài thuyết giáo nhưng cũng có thể đoán được ý ông cha và đấng chúa trời muốn như thế nào. Như đã từng tâm sự, tôi có bạn bè và gia đình khuyến khích theo chúa. Tôi vẫn luôn do dự và e ngại một điều gì đó cho nên vẫn chưa đến được với chúa. Giờ tôi mới hiểu rằng đến với chúa tôi sẽ mất đi những tự do rất căn bản như đi bầu không phải theo ý mình mà phải bầu ý chúa muốn. Nếu như phải sống dưới cộng sản thì đành phải chịu. Còn được sống trong chính quyền tự do thì tạo sao phải lệ thuộc vào những gì người khác muốn?

Dĩ nhiên đây chỉ là lối suy nghĩ của cá nhân tôi. Ai tin vào đất chúa trời và những ông cha nhà thờ là sự tự do của họ. Chuyện bầu cử cũng thế. Tự tìm hiểu sự thật cho chính mình đừng để lời lẽ người khác khiến mình mất đi lý trí và lẽ phải. Nhất là chuyện mà mình quan tâm đến.

Chẳng hạn như lúc nào chúa cũng được khen là một đấng nhân từ giàu lòng thương yêu nhân loại. Nhưng với điều kiện là phải nghe và làm theo ý của chúa. Chúa thương yêu tất cả mọi người nhưng chúa không chấp nhận tình yêu con người dành cho một người cùng giới. Một người đàn ông yêu một người đàn ông cũng là tình yêu. Một người đàn bà yêu một người đàn bà cũng là tình yêu. Tại sao phải cấm họ yêu nhau hoặc tước đi hôn nhân của họ? Chúa có thật thương xót và yêu thương loài người hay không nếu như chúa không mở rộng bàn tay để đoán nhận hết tất cả nhân loại?