Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, January 24, 2022

China has been busy online. Western allies warn about increasing cyber attacks from China; it’s become the common thing to expect and discuss. Cyber attacks aren’t China’s only online hobby. Social media “influencers” are reportedly set to spread the good gospel of China’s greatness all through the Olympics. We’ll see how long their social media followings last.

While China engages in paid diplomacy and bolsters Western demand for cybersecurity, Taiwan has another new friend. Slovenia will open a diplomatic office in Taiwan. And, Taiwan will send an envoy to the inauguration of Honduras’s president, none other than Taiwan’s former favorite, pro-independence Mayor William Lai. That means more officials from Taiwan will attend the Honduras event than American officials will attend China’s Olympic Games.

But, that’s okay for China. After all, there are all those “influencers” getting paid to pay China compliments on their soon to fall social medial accounts.

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, November 5, 2018

China is less and less popular in the news. It's almost conspiracy-like—how much negative news comes out against China in the Western press at once.

The Trump administration backs Micron with legal action against Fujian Jinhua, an American company vs a Chinese company, over tech theft. At the same time, Jeff Sessions suddenly decides to appear in front of cameras and decry China for cyberspying on the US—a completely unrelated matter except that it is bad press for China. Then, the Taipei Times runs a front page story on illegal Chinese crabs being imported, but not passing a health inspection, with involved companies given a hefty fine, while pushing a North Korean nuke "restart" story to page five! The Taipei Times ran another front page story of China creating fake social media accounts to meddle in Taiwan's upcoming midterm election.

The truthfulness of this flood of anti-China news is not as important as its timing and priority among headlines. Popular sentiment is more powerful than missiles in a conflict between nations. On that front, the West has already won. Don't think for a moment that missiles won't follow to secure what the war of words already won by a deck stacked in the news.

Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, April 2, 2018

Washington is moving against corporate giants. Gear up.

David Hogg is under ad hominem character assassination from multiple directions. He curses and is disrespectful. He advocates action to be quick and to stop deliberating, not removing the 2nd Amendment. Other anti-2nd Amendment students are being conflated with Hogg's position. The reason for this partial Right Wing, mad-dog assault on David's character is unknown, except that he is the loudest and easiest target while people in close social proximity to him are Leftists. It should be the other Leftists, not David Hogg, that the Right Wing should focus on.

The anti-ad attack against Laura Ingraham would normally fail, except that she's wrong; colleges are just stupid much of the time. She seemed to be part of a mindless Right Wing attack against David because her defense of bureaucratic colleges is rare form. This seems very unlike the Conservative media. Her apology seemed more like a cave-in and demonstrated that she doesn't really have a direction. The apology didn't do any good since advertisers pulled anyway. The lesson here is two-fold: 1. Ingraham should have stuck to her statement, no matter how silly, expounded on the whole situation—not apologized—, and thus at least gained a sense of direction. 2. Never apologize when a hypocritical media asks you to. Public apologies for statements in the media have now proven to be permanently useless.

The Christian concept of an apology is forgiveness. Suddenly, Mark Zuckerberg took this approach, indicating that he may have a moral center after all, even with Facebook's censorship of some accounts. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and to give justice to everyone; silencing "bad people" isn't justice to everyone. If someone is bad, the Facebook community of users should see why. If Facebook censors an account it should be for posting incriminating content only. But, the people who demand apologies want admission of guilt, not restoration, because they are part of an anti-Christian attack on everything good in this world. This week, the Right Wing got caught up in the mindless mob-think in attacking David Hogg's character.

This means one thing: The People's Party is coming.

Stormy Daniels is promoting her story in a way that makes perfect sense if her goal is to get media attention. Her story could be true or false and this "marketing" method would still hold true. Lawyers promote her interviews as one would a movie. They talk about money. She promotes her social media connections. And, she has commented that her bookings are up. It's just interesting how much business she has gotten from this and it will be more interesting to see how it pans out.

There is a gross contradiction, however, with Stormy Daniels and the Left. Being a porn star, she is hardly a moral judge. More importantly, the Left Wing did not attack Bill Clinton anywhere near as much.

Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 15, 2017

Make no mistake; when the Chinese advocate “globalism”, they don’t envision a world with multiple governments nor do they envision a world government run by the West. They don’t talk about their end game, nor does anyone else. When China talks regional alliances, they envision choreographed unison along the path. Regional alliances would be a great end game and it is unlikely that any nation would be able to push past regional alliances any more than any nation could live without them.

Whether a nation’s goal is protectionism or a one-world government, regional alliances between individual sovereign nations are the only future that awaits us—at least before Christ descends from a wormhole in the clouds.

China has roads and bridges to build. Russia has a nation to rebuild. Militaries have hackers to train and break in. Anonymous hackers have kudos to earn, coup to count, and chests to thump. And, nations have computers to defend, even island nations across China’s east coast. Alliances are certainly in season—and for good reason.

But, right now all those plans halt at an impasse over a bridge with a brittle keystone. The Kim Dynasty can see it’s own defeat on the horizon; we all can. Japan will rise to action. The US will rally the world. China will endorse. Russia will sit quietly. Then, China will seize its opportunity for the shift in the balance as Russia finds its excuse for “retaliation”. Once Korea snaps, the first shot gets fired and no battle plan will survive.

And then, we’ll see.

Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, January 2, 2017

Carrie Fisher died over the Holidays, may she rest in peace. She was best known for Leia in “Star Wars” and second-best known for her wit. Having finished filming for Episode VIII due in 2017, Episode IX for 2019 is still in on the drafting board, though she was intended to play a substantial role. There has been no official comment on what Leia’s role will be.

When anyone dies, our natural response is to discuss their work. It seems cold, but is its own form of respect. People want to know how her life’s work will end up, a question about justice to her and her work. People ask what will become of her unfinished work because they love her. They’ll make it good. They always do.

But, deeper meaning surfaces for all of us. Han Solo’s death, his speculated return, the runaway son, and the complexity of Leia and Han’s family opened one of the deep problems in America: broken families. Any runaway child should come home quickly because parents don’t live forever. Carrie’s mother passed away the next day.

Carrie Fisher left us with many messages, both in life and in death, both good and bad, both filial and professional, both pithy and elaborate, and always poetic.

A team that works in web security dug into claims about the so-called (and now seemingly mislabeled) “Russian hack” and they made some reports. In sum, it likely wasn’t Russia in particular. The hack seemed to use out-of-date Ukrainian hacker tools, had multiple origins and targets, and, as usual with hacks, the main vulnerability was: compromised user accounts—something easily prevented by using Ubuntu rather than Windows for a desktop operating system and knowing a few basics about hyperlinks, apps, and websites.

If Russia did have anything to do with the [non-]Russian hack, it would have been to get Democrats to merely cast the recent and unnecessary doubt on the perfectly-in-tact election system itself.

Obama continues to work diligently—between golf trips—to smack someone on the wrist in his remaining less-than-three-weeks. Israel may be stalling too much to receive a good slap; instead, he went after the adversary who outsmarted him time and again, including this time: Putin.

In life, many of us know what we have lost, but few of us ever learn to know when we have lost.

Symphony