My kids log on their devices as soon as they wake up on weekends and come home from school on weekdays. They don’t do much else. They don’t read. They don’t do homework. They don’t study. They don’t help around the house. Their grades are dropping and they don’t care.

I am frustrated, disappointed, and hopeless. My wife and I keep fighting over this and we don’t see eye to eye on the issue. We are moving further apart on parenting. I can’t stand it when kids disrespect their parents and here we are.

My dad slapped me or hit me with a log. I thought he was so cruel, but now I understand. I probably deserved it. At times, I want to slap the taste out of my kids’ mouth for being disrespectful, but then I don’t want to hurt them. I am so conflicted.

I love them too much to let them ruin their lives. They spend so much time on their devices and yet they never get enough. One of my kids told me straight out that he doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore. He just wants to spend time with his PC all day, everyday.

With my older kids, I told them countless times about the importance of education. They don’t care. Their grades are slipping. I told them about managing their screen time. They don’t care. They continue to spend hours and hours on their devices. I want to take them out, but one of the older ones wants to stay home. I am getting tired of making him go. The older kids aren’t doing any sports or physical activities.

My hopes and dreams for my kids had died. The bar is so low now. I have no expectations for them. I don’t know how they will survive without us if all they do is wasting their time on their devices and not picking up any other skills. I won’t be here forever. My health is not great and I don’t expect to live long.

Furthermore, I don’t want to put my relationship with my wife at risk. This is the biggest reason that the kids are getting away with their digital usage. Until she collaborates with me, I can’t do much for them.

We need to act now because our democracy is on the line. We have everything to gain if we do and everything to lose if we don’t.

1. Turn fear into knowledge. We need to understand what we are facing and who we are fighting against.
2. Rise and organize. We need to come together to fight this battle for our country and democracy.
3. Make strategic responses. We need to make informed decisions to resist.

On Saturday, April 5^th, the people are taking to the streets around the nation to fight back Trump and Musk. Join Hands Off! and other organizations to defend our democracy.

Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel for a State Supreme Court seat. Even though Trump endorsed Schimel and Musk spent $21 millions trying to buy the election, Judge Crawford won by a significant margin. Wisconsinites fight back the Trump and his authoritarian regime. Other states must do the same to defend our democracy.

Xuân and I are transitioning slowly back to the skatepark. Xuân is catching up to his skills from last year on his scooter. He’s a bit more careful now than before. He takes less risks. That’s good. I don’t want to have to go to the ER.

As for me, my routine is the same on rollerblades. I am not learning anything new. I am not dropping in from the deep end of the bowl. I am not interested in grinding. I am pretty much stalling. I am losing motivation.

I have been wanting to try out skateboarding because I love snowboarding so much. In fact, I have been missing skiing and snowboarding. I have been spending a lot of time searching for a board for Xuân and one for Đán, yet I keep wanting to buy one for myself. I want a dedicated carving board, but the price range is from $800 to $1,200. I can’t afford that.

I am still keeping my hope up for one last spring skiing and snowboarding week in the second week of April. We’ll see. I am still waiting for my wife to book a spot.

After reading two books on democracy back to back, I needed something lighter. Rob Sheffield’s book on how Taylor Swift reinvented pop music seems like a good reading detour. I must confess: I am not a Swiftie. I tried to listen to her albums, but I can’t get past three songs. I read Sheffield’s music reviews for Rolling Stone every once in a while; therefore, I wanted to know what he has to say about Taylor Swift. Not knowing her work makes it hard for me to follow the book. I enjoyed it though. It’s a quick read. I might take a deep dive into her catalog like I had with Miles Davis, JAY-Z, and Bob Dylan. Will see!

Fuck no! According to the Twenty-Second Amendment:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Trump is not joking when he floats the idea of running for a third time. Take him as serious as cancer. If we don’t prevent him now, it will be too late. We can’t let him break our Constitution. We need to save our democracy.

Democracy is dying in the United States. It is up to us, the people, to save our democracy. In this brief book, the authors provide 10 steps to defend our democracy:

1. Be prepared and learn how our government supposed to work
2. Get informed and learn how to spot real news vs. fake news
3. Vote early and often from up upballots to downballots
4. Donate in the candidates and causes you believe in while navigate America’s deeply fucked campaign system
5. Volunteer, knock on doors, and do what you can
6. Organize, boycott, and protest
7. Take a break and take care of yourself
8. Make politics your job and your duty to save our democracy
9. Run for office
10. Get to the finish line

It’s a quick read that will help you to get involve. I don’t care about politics, but I care deeply about our democracy. I am doing a small part on this blog to defend our democracy.

In Democracy Awakening, Professor Heather Cox Richardson teaches an essential civic course that Americans need to learn about democracy. From historical to policial to cultural to social to moral, Professor Richardson provides each perspective with clarity. The US democracy has survived over 200 years, but not without challenges. More than ever, democracy is on the brink of collapsing today with Trump and his lies. Professor Richardson writes:

If he could get Americans to reject the truth and accept his lies about what had happened, they would be psychologically committed to him.…

He had successfully sold his own narrative over the truth, and his supporters would continue to believe him rather than those calling him out.

Professor Richardson provides details on Trump lies:

Far from retreating, Trump had moved to the stage that scholars of authoritarianism call a “Big Lie,” a key propaganda tool associated with Nazi Germany. This is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous.…

Big lies are springboards for authoritarians. They enable a leader to convince followers that they were unfairly cheated of power by those the leader demonizes. In the U.S., the power of Trump’s Big Lie to rally supporters meant that the Republican Party gradually purged those members who continued to stand against him, and leaders consistently refused to acknowledge that Biden had won the election. “Election denier” became a political identity, and going into Biden’s presidency, most Republicans simply affirmed that he was the current president.

Professor Richardson gives a brief explanation on how ur political system should work:

The Constitution established a representative democracy, a republic, in which voters would elect lawmakers who would represent the people. That legislative branch would be a balance to a single leader at the head of the executive branch; each would prevent the rise of a tyrant from the other side. Congress would write all “necessary and proper” laws, levy taxes, borrow money, pay the nation’s debts, establish a postal service, establish courts, declare war, support an army and navy, and organize and call forth “the militia to execute the Laws of the Union” and “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

The president would execute the laws, but if Congress overstepped, the president could veto proposed legislation. In turn, Congress could override a presidential veto. Congress could declare war, but the president was the commander in chief of the army and had the power to make treaties with foreign powers. It was quite an elegant system of paths and trip wires, really.…

Finally, the Framers authorized a third branch of government, the judicial branch, with a Supreme Court to settle disputes between inhabitants of the different states. They also guaranteed that every defendant had the right to a jury trial but said little else about the judiciary.

This book is a must-read for American citizens who ignored democracy or were clueless about democracy. Learn the truth and recognize the difference between democracy and autocracy. Without democracy, the United States is no longer the land of the free. Without freedom, nothing else matters.

I missed this special because I didn’t subscribe to Netflix in 2023. Watching it now brings back the Smith-Rock slapping incident. In addition to the gay and the transgender, Chappelle mocks the handicaps. The most memorable part of the special is when he tells a long story about his dream of being a comedian. What a talent man with such a dedication to his craft. He makes his performance looks easy, but he puts lots of efforts into them and he delivered every time.