How to Raise a Genius

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Went to the Jelly Belly Factory on a field trip with my daughter’s 2nd grade class. The young man assigned to escort us on the tour misquoted a brilliant saying by one of my favorite icons.

The guide delivered his canned speech, spoke of how long and complex the process to make even one single jelly bean, but that nothing great ever came easily, “as the inventor, Thomas Edison said: ‘Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.’”

But that is NOT what Tom said. He said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

So what is my issue with the mere 9% our tour guide misquoted?

Mr. Thomas Alva Edison was trying to tell us that to get good (‘genius’) at ANYTHING takes HARD WORK (‘perspiration’), and a lot of it. He should know. It took him, and an educated team of men many years and over 5,000 exploded glass bulbs to invent the light bulb.

Still, you say, it’s only 9%. The 8 year old’s the tour guide was talking to didn’t even know what “percent” meant. And while this may be true, there were 15 adults with the pack of 40 kids the guide was leading. And the parents understood. Most had probably never heard the quote before. It is somewhat obscure, which is a shame because it is an astounding insight. What the tour guide misquoted did not communicate the gravity of Mr. Edison’s meaning.

In the beginning of the 4th grade our son failed several math tests in a row, and upon inquire we found he didn’t understand the material. When asked why he hadn’t asked for help from either his teacher or us, he confessed he felt afraid he’d look dumb. Having always done fairly well in math, when he got lost, he felt too stupid to ask for help. He was supposed to be smart, but maybe he wasn’t, he cried, clearly shamed.

I hugged him, held him, and reminded him of old Tom’s saying for the hundredth time. Then my husband and I got to work, played tag team, alternating afternoons, evenings and weekends to teach our son what he needed to know. Within three months of daily math lessons he not only grasped the material presented but excelled to the top of Math Swap in his grade level and remained there through elementary school.

Our son now loves math. It’s his favorite subject. He works hard at it and that hard work just placed him in the most advanced math class at his new middle-school. Failing those math tests in the 4th grade turned into a great education for all of us. We got to see directly how hard work pays off. And though our son may not always tow the line of excellence, he now knows that ‘smart’ is not given, but earned.

The New York Times Magazine had an article a while back on ‘genius.’ It sited Anders Ericsson’s research on The Making of an Expert, which concluded ‘genius’ wasn’t born, as previously thought, but made.

“Outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice, not any innate talent or skill,” according to K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely.

Most everyone starts out with the 1% inspiration. It comes with being human, and our ability to think abstractly.

Few of us have the tenacity, or the determination to endure failure after failure and continue through that last 5-10% it takes to achieve excellence. Most of us settle on gawking at greatness instead of pursuing it.

So, the question is not, ‘What is genius,’ or even excellence, but what motivates persistence?

Achieving good grades, or becoming a killer guitar player, or great at soccer, or even parenting, takes “deliberate practice.” We need to impart Tom’s wisdom to our children, teach them by example, with unwavering diligence, that reaching their potential can not be achieved blowing most of the day binge watching Netflix, or YouTube, or gaming. To actualize ‘greatness’ means devoting the 99% perspiration— the time, energy and effort necessary to create anything of lasting value. Whether it be a school report, a science project or a math test, genius is not only doable for most every child, but for all of us with hard work and persistence.

The Virus Killing Silicon Valley Startups

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

There is a pandemic in Silicon Valley. It is making startups sick, and 90+% of all small businesses fail. This virus didn’t start in China, or any country. It didn’t begin in crowded, filthy wet markets from different animals swapping genes. It began with Google and Facebook, and their unrelenting greed for profits.

I am currently mentoring startup students at Berkeley-Haas. I also teach entrepreneurs at Stanford and Cal how to achieve that illusive 10% of sustained business success. Without exception, all are starting up in the exact same backasswards way.

1. They begin their business by developing their product or service.

These entrepreneurs have invested their time, and often their own money in creating a MVP (minimum viable product), a concept introduced by Eric Ries in 2011, and the 2nd of 3 primary reasons most startups fail. NEVER begin your business by producing two-thirds of an idea hoping to ‘find’ your customers, and get them to tell you how to improve your offering. In fact, producing your initial offering at all is the wrong way to start any business.

2. The startup, with their developed MVP, create ‘digital’ marketing campaigns.

They launch their website, and create SMM (social media marketing) and PPC (pay per click) ads to get ‘traction.’ Impressions, Engagements, and Likes are virtually meaningless. Sure, Branding is essential to build awareness of a startup, but sales are what makes a business successful. SALES. That’s it. Without sales, or paid subscriptions, or donations in nonprofits, you have a hobby, not a viable business.

Let’s get real. It’s ridiculously simple to use Google Ads, or to place Facebook ads. These platforms spend millions annually to convince entrepreneurs that slamming the net with crappy advertising will make your company successful. It’s BULLSHIT. They are lying to you, pocketing your $3,000 – 5,000 monthly to ‘train’ their AI engines to “target” your business better than you can. In fact, you should KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE BEFORE YOU PLACE ANY ADS, or even develop your website.

Beyond Google and Facebook, there are tens of thousands of “Digital Marketing” agencies, selling you the same crap Google and Facebook are. They promise to make you money if you spend your money with them because it is equally easy for them to place these PPC ads as these platforms have made it for you. Stop buying into their deadly virus!

The real ROI on “digital advertising” is very hard to find. Google, Facebook and ‘digital’ agencies make these stats almost impossible to come by. Reality check on ROI of “digital” advertising, according to Search Engine Journal: “the average ROAS (return on ad spending) for small accounts is 1.5 to 1% – or barely break even.” Additionally, PPC or CPC means COST PER CLICK, not sales. It is estimated that 25 – 40% of all clicks on ads are fake, meaning you are paying for clicks from Click Farms in the Philippines, or automated systems meant to profit Google while costing you for every fraudulent click.

3. The startup goes after “building market share” with freemium offers, hoping to convert users to paying customers somewhere in the theoretical future.

It’s easy to get people to try, or even use your offering for free, when they have no skin—money—in play. SALES means getting folks to pay for your offering/s. Getting actual sales is a lot harder!

To garner actual SALES, you must first understand the competitive landscape of your product or service. Many startups have no idea the market share they’re seeking has been garnered by another company with the same or similar offerings. And here’s a heads-up to all the entrepreneurs who think your offering is so unique there’s nothing out there like it. Bullshit. In 5 minutes I can find similar offerings to just about anything. Even if your offering has a few more bells and whistles, it’s hard to get people to pay to switch from what they’ve become accustomed to using.

First and foremost, MARKETING is NOT “digital advertising.”

Broadcast, to PR, to networking, the ROI from these mediums average between 2 – 20+%, way more than the .05 – 1% ROI of ‘digital’ advertising.

BUSINESS, any business, BEGINS with MARKETING. Regardless how great your products or services are, your business will NOT be successful without constantly marketing your offerings. Branding is a tool of marketing—campaigns meant to build awareness of your offerings and company. And Marketing takes many forms, way beyond the extremely low ROI of “digital” campaigns.

The Marketing process is far more complex than designing a logo, putting up a website, and slamming the internet with “digital ads,” organic or paid. BEFORE you build your offering, construct a MARKETING FOUNDATION for your startup, (or existing business—better late than never) to create a thriving, sustainable company.

Before investing the time and money to build a product or service, then waste more countless hours and dollars advertising it, BEGIN any startup or business venture by PRODUCTIZING each and every offering IDEA.

PRODUCTIZATION begins by getting intimate with the offering you hope to create. Make lists, actual, physical lists of your idea’s FEATURES, and the BENEFITS or SOLUTIONS the FEATURES your potential offering will provide. Next, create lists of who will benefit from the features of your offering. These are your TARGET AUDIENCES, the people you will market your offering to. These lists also provide SEO content marketing when you begin the process of creating advertising campaigns.

PRODUCTIZING your offering/s means doing COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS every month or so, to be sure you understand what companies are producing similar offerings, and the market share they’re collecting. If your startup has any success at all, others are going to copy what you’re doing, and go after the same targets you’re hoping to attract, and keep. Understanding what your competition has will help you define what makes your offering unique. Your startup’s marketing should always be selling your UVPs (unique value propositions)—what makes your offering better than your competitors.

It is a lot more fun developing products and services—turning a concept into a reality—than PRODUCTIZING an idea. PRODUCTIZATION is time consuming and detail oriented, and a drag comparatively speaking. If you want to have fun, then enjoy your hobby of creating offerings. If you want to be among the 10% that build SUSTAINABLE companies, you must first build a MARKETING FOUNDATION under your startup, which begins with the PRODUCTIZATION of each and every potential offering.

Reverse Racism IS Racism

March 25, 2022March 25, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My daughter came home crying from her job as a barista for a local Boba Tea cafe.

“They don’t like me mom! I’m doing the exact same level of work that all the new kids are, and they keep calling ME out cuz I’m not Asian.”

Several other barista type jobs at various local businesses to which she applied told her flat out they only hire Asians (which, at least in my neighborhood, includes Indians, from India). Since most of the fast food and convenience stores here are owned by Asians, this has severely limited her choices for simple, flexible, part-time work.

A month ago, on the first day of this first job my daughter’s ever had, she came home and said, “My manager called me their ‘diversity hire,’ since I’m the only White person who works there. It hurt my feelings. He made me feel like I didn’t get the job cuz I deserved it.” Every day since, she’s come home with other racist comments most of her managers continue to make.

Our daughter has a 4.3 gpa, is a hard worker academically, and socially. She is the only White person in her small group of all Asian friends. She’s worked very hard, and continues to do so, to be a part of this bunch of kids, to fit into the Asian culture that is now well over 75% of her high school in our East Bay suburb of the San Francisco Bay area.

My son wasn’t so lucky. Boys going through puberty are all about bravado, one-upping each other. Girls are about connecting, communicating, building their community. Our son was excluded and bullied for not being “A”sian, throughout middle and high school. He had no friends at all, though he tried again and again to ‘fit in’ with them, from Karate to Robotics to Chess club and more. It broke his heart daily, and mine as well, watching my beautiful, open, kind kid ostracized for being White. He will likely struggle with a damaged self-image the rest of his life because of those formative experiences.

Yet, neither of my children are racists, like so many of their Asian friends and associates. My daughter gets bullied often, even from her ‘friends’ with thoughtless comments: “I only date Asians. I don’t find White girls attractive,” from the 4 out of 5 boys in her group. My daughter would love to get asked to proms, on dates. She watches her Asian girlfriends get asked out. She does not.*

These are REALITIES for all of us, Asians and Whites, here in the global melting pot of the San Francisco Bay Area, and yet my children are still not racists. Why, when so many are?

My daughter’s half White, half Chinese best friend had a sleepover the weekend before Thanksgiving. Her BF told me their family didn’t celebrate the holiday. Her mother was a tech-visa transplant from China in her early 20s, and had no association with U.S. traditions. She did not adopt them for her kids, regardless that they are native born here. My daughter’s BF confessed she’d always dreamed of celebrating Thanksgiving. Well, of course I invited her, and her mom and brother, right then. She was so excited she texted her mom the invite, and the girls were jumping up and down, cheering, moments later with her mother’s response.

The seven of us ate turkey, and stuffing, and shared stories of thanks around the table that night. We played Pictionary after dinner, and laughed and laughed. When the kids exited the scene to play video games, Yi, my husband and I spoke of relationships, politics, religion, ignoring social lines of polite conversation. And though we have radically different perspectives, and I felt no personal connection with few common interests, a profound one existed between us. She was raising two kids, a boy my son’s age, and a girl, my daughter’s best friend, Yi loves her children the exact same way, with the same intensity as I do mine.

Globalization is a REALITY. It’s happening, right now. Most first world nations are being inundated with immigrants looking for that illusive ‘better life.’ Like it, or not, global integration is here, and, as my husband, and our kids know, it is mandatory, simply must happen, for humanity, and our very small planet to survive.

My husband is a software architect. He’s been creating and deploying SaaS offerings for over 25 years here in Silicon Valley. Every job he’s ever had in the software industry, and trust me, he’s had a lot of jobs, he’s worked almost exclusively with Asians. While offshore H1B labor has been brought here by the tech industry since 1990, this massive Asian influx into the U.S. was not anticipated. In the last five yrs, the companies he’s worked for in software development, or any other department now, whether the staff is 30 or 3000—60% or more are of Asian descent. And yet, my husband is not racist, though he’s been passed up for many positions by Asians on work visas and H1Bs.**

“One wish,” my mom asked my sister and me on our drive home from elementary school back in the old days. “Anything you want, what would it be.”

“World peace,” I’d said. It was the mid-1970s, and a common catch phrase, but I meant it. Without war, or economic disparity, I believed in our creative potential to problem solve, and our unique ability to work together to realize our fantastical visions. I didn’t know about the hunger of greed then, insatiable, and colorblind.

It has been particularly hard on my kids, this globalization process. It deeply saddens me that they must suffer the slights of blind prejudice, just as the Asians in past generations had to suffer the racism of the ignorant Whites here. It terrifies me—the global competition for fewer jobs my kids will be competing for after college. Yet, I still advocate for globalization. This very small planet must integrate, or we will perish, and likely take much of the life here with us.

My daughter worries she’ll never meet anyone to date, yet alone marry, but I assure her she likely will. And it’s even likely that man will be Asian, since 60% of the global population are Asian*** and more than half of them are men. “It doesn’t matter where someone came from, what their heritage, or place of origin on the planet,” I’ve preached to my kids. “Choose to be with someone kind.”

A border wall surrounding the U.S. entirely will not stop Asians from flying in from China and India, Korea, Viet Nam, Indonesia and other emerging Asian nations. Nor will it stop the Middle East, South Americans, Cubans from coming here. Seeking to keep us separate is a fool’s play. Communication is key to build bridges over our differences, allowing us to meet in the middle and mutually benefit from our strengths. Ignorance and mistrust breed with distance. Nationalism is just thinly disguised racism.

Asians, Latinos, Syrian’s, and Palestinians, are all different cultures, not separate races from Caucasian. We are one race, the human race. Globalization—the blending of cultures—is hard for everyone, scary, new, threatening to our social structure, but a must if humanity is to survive, even thrive. The beauty of interracial marriage is the same thing that bonds Yi and I, as parents. We both passionately love our kids. She can’t possibly hate Whites, since her children are Asian/White. Combine two cultures, at least on a localize level, defeats racism, as most every parent loves their kids with the intensity Yi and I do. It’s one of our best bits about being human—the magnificent, spectacular, all-encompassing love we get to feel, and share as parents.

—

*Dating app data (in the U.S. and abroad) shows White men prefer Asian women, though it is unusual to see an Asian man partner with a White woman.

**Hiring offshore workers for less money, now being exploited by every social network from Facebook to Instagram to YouTube, to Mr. Trump’s summer staff at his Mar-a-Lago estate, lowers the pay rate for all of us. It’s no wonder U.S. income levels have been stagnant for years. There has been 308,613 H1B registrations for 2022, a 12.5% rise over 2021.

***Asia Population 2022 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs) (worldpopulationreview.com)

LOVE Defined

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My sister is dead, I told the bank manager.

She isn’t dead. She lives in Washington with her husband, having recently moved from L.A., where we were both born and raised.

The bank manager expressed his condolences. He accepted the paperwork from our lawyer to remove my sister’s name from our Trust as the potential guardian of our children should my husband and I die before they’re of legal age to care for themselves.

I told him she was dead to delete her from my psyche, distance myself from loving her. Five years ago, she told my husband she didn’t want any contact with him, me, or our kids, her then 7 and 9 yr old niece and nephew, in a response to an email my husband sent her.

Much to my sister’s chagrin, we’ve raised our kids without religion. Cleaning out her Agoura Hills McMansion before moving to her custom built estate in Washington, she sent our kids Hanukkah ‘gifts’ of broken toys that used to belong to her children. She missed acknowledging our daughter’s birthday, again. Three months later, she sent her a present with the one she sent for our son’s birthday, and spelled her name wrong on the card. She’d disappointed our kids time and again, ignoring their birthdays and special events, rarely calling, and talking about her life, not theirs, when she did. Many times after jacking them up that she was coming to visit, on the day she was supposed to arrive, she left it to me to tell our kids she wasn’t coming.

Her sins were many, and mounted with the years without apology. My husband got tired of her hurting our kids, emailed her five sentences politely informing her the correct spelling of our daughter’s name, and requested if she was going to send them birthday cards or gifts to please do so on or around their respective birthdays.

My sister decided he was asking too much and emailed back that “though I am deeply in love with your kids, and it breaks my heart to do so,” she was withdrawing from their lives entirely. She stopped calling every few months. For a couple of years she sent the kids birthday cards when it struck her fancy—weeks late to our daughter, if at all, but managed to get cards to our son within days of his, professing her deep affection and love for him. It took all my will not to shed the cards in a million tiny pieces. Her sentiments to him were totally self-serving, for her ego, her ‘loving’ words meaningless, meant to pump up her self-image alone.

“Love is an ACTION, what we do, not some abstract in our heads,” my husband and I teach our kids. “Don’t profess love in words without taking actions to show it,” we preach. “And don’t accept words of love as truth without seeing the actions that actualize their sentiment.”

Over the years my sister had been so disrespectful to our youngest that our daughter never really formed a bond, but her choice to terminate her relationship with our kids deeply hurt our son. She was important to him because the few extended family members we have left, namely my brother and father, didn’t call or acknowledge our children in any way.

My mom died when our daughter was just 2, and our son only 4 yrs old, so she never really got to know our kids. She did love them though. Deeply. Profoundly. And they got that. How did they know?

She came to visit often.
She called them on the phone every couple of days.
She mailed them presents on time, and called to sing Happy Birthday on their special days.
She spelled their names right.
She stayed abreast of their lives through me, my husband, and through the kids, consistently showed interest in their interests and feelings, and shared her world with them.

My mother often extolled how much she loved our kids, to me, to them, to anyone who’d listen, but she also showed it, so my children knew it was real.

The day my dad called to tell me of my mom’s cancer diagnosis, after I hung up the phone I said to my husband, “Well, that’s the end of my family.” She was the conduit that kept us together, in contact, a feature in each other’s lives. She fervently believed people come and go, but family is forever, the folks with which your love and loyalty should reside. Within a year of my mother’s passing, my sister and father checked out of my life, and the lives of our kids, too busy with their own to bother with me or mine.

My father, like my sister, practices love in the abstract. He never talks to his grandkids, never calls [even me], never asks to talk to them when I call him, and rarely even asks about them. He doesn’t acknowledge their birthdays anymore. I got tired of reminding him with multiple calls and emails weekly the month before their special days, then daily reminders the week before. The rare occasions I call my dad, he always professes how much he loves my kids, how important they are to him, though he does nothing to actually show them this. He never did, I just didn’t notice, as my mother’s effusive love overshadowed his self-love. When I mention his grandkids, he reminds me to tell them that grandpa loves them, and misses them. But I don’t. I tell them, “Popi says hi.” I don’t want our children to ever get the impression it’s acceptable to say you love someone when you take virtually no action to show it.

Her body ravaged by cancer and near death, my mother insisted my father take her to Toys R Us. She bought each of our kids their next birthday gift, and made him swear to mail them on time. She was hoping to establish a tradition (an action) for my father to adopt for his grandchildren after she was gone. He delivered her dying gifts to our kids two years later, on his way to visit my sister in Washington.

In a thousand lifetimes I cannot repay my mom for her precious gift of LOVE I now model to our children. But I cannot buy into her belief [and society’s rhetoric] that family and love are synonymous anymore.

LOVE, like potential, is meaningless unless put into ACTION.

Jobless America

March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Took a family vacation to Yellowstone last summer. After a day of exploring the spectacular park, we ate dinner at Canyon Village, a sprawling commercial development in the mist of the natural wonders. The kids wanted some souvenirs so we stopped in the gift shop before eating. The clerk at check-out was a kid, no more than 20, as was most of the customer service staff in the park. His name tag said Mal-Chin, and under his name was his country of origin: Korea.

Seated inside the restaurant we were served water by Jianyu, his country of origin: China.

We were served rolls by Mi-Cha, Korea again.

Earlier in the day, when visiting the geyser, Old Faithful, we stopped in the mini-mart at Yellowstone Lodge. The check-out guy was Yeo, China again. At breakfast, at the restaurant in the lodge, our waitress was Fedheeta, country of origin: India.

Our waitress at dinner was Kathy, her country of origin: USA. She was probably 1 of 10 Americans out of the 50 or more employees of the park I saw that day.

Yellowstone is the United State’s first national park. Over 2 million acres of pristine, protected wilderness resides in a massive cauldron of a dormant super-volcano in the states of Montana and Idaho, with the majority of the park in Wyoming. The USA preserved this land for families and fans of natural beauty to come explore, discover and study natures wonders for present and future generations. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars goes to maintaining Yellowstone National Park annually.

So why are most of their service staff from everywhere but the USA? I asked our waitress, Kathy, at dinner in Canyon Village. Why are our kids not landing these jobs, which provide a great opportunity to acquire sales and communications skills, add to college applications…etc?

The American kids get fired here constantly, Kathy told my family after taking our order. They party a lot, get drunk, don’t show up for work, and are rude to the customers. They write the orders wrong, or charge people the wrong amount because they can’t do simple math quickly. The management can’t keep them for more than a few weeks into the summer because they’re mostly irresponsible and lazy.

Her words literally hurt me, because I knew they were the truth.

Kathy went on to describe the programs that land the out-of-country kids the jobs at our national parks. They pay thousands just to get here, she said, which is generally less than the salary for six days of work a week, including the food and lodging during their contract with the park. They clearly want to be here very badly, usually to acquire work skills and develop their English fluency, and they do an excellent job. It’s easy to see why management prefers them.

Heavy sigh.

World News Tonight on ABC used to have a segment they called Made in America. It was a joke, an embarrassment to any sensible, educated, aware adult who knows that China produces over 1/3 of all global manufacturing, with Mexico and Korea close behind them. The World News segment was touchy-feely, saccharin and all smiles with David Muir interviewing American manufactures of unique hats and scarves, or a cupcake maker gone viral, and then touted these businesses as being the cornerstones of our future success. This segment is no longer produced.

Hats and cupcakes won’t cure our supply-chain issues. The USA is not, and will never reclaim its manufacturing base when we charge in excess of ten times as much to do the work other nations are willing to do, and do well, for so much less.

The internet has united our world, as it gives most everyone the opportunity to see how others live. It’s easy to find the American lifestyle attractive. Our families generally have warm houses with running water, electricity for light, computers, entertainment systems, cars in almost every garage, freedom from religious and/or political persecution (sort of). Most countries still aspire to be US, to model our independence and luxuries.

Watch World News Tonight’s entire broadcast, and David Muir will tell you all about rising inflation, families charging groceries and gas just to get to work and feed their families, maxing out their credit limits. He’ll tell you about our personal debt crisis, where the average American has over $15,000 in credit card debt, and he’ll introduce you to one of the many families bankrupted from a medical catastrophe not cover by their insurance or Medicare.

This decline in the American lifestyle will continue for most U.S. citizens, and eventually even the 1% wealthy will be effected, guaranteed, if we stay the course we are on.

Like it or not, we are a global world now. Today’s manufacturing, trade and technology bind us, and gives us the opportunity to thrive as a people, a planet; or we can destroy everything we have here, through our laziness and greed.

Our K-12 public education system is failing our kids, regardless that we keep pumping more and more tax dollars into education. U.S. now ranks 36th out of the 79 countries and regions in math, behind China, South Korea, even Canada. It is no wonder U.S. kids aren’t hired for even the simplest retail positions at our national parks. Our kids are unprepared to compete globally. And according to our server, Kathy, at Yellowstone, who went to a private school back home in New York, the American employees clearly demonstrated their lack of education in their reading, writing, and math skills, in addition to their poor interpersonal skills with customers.

Cutting school hours of instruction with “teacher furlough days,” short days, and extending ‘teacher work days’ has not, does not, and will not produce a nation of creators. It takes education, practice, and focused persistence to produce anything of value. For the U.S. to achieve the potential our parent’s achieved—have jobs, and retain the lifestyle to which most of the middle-class has become accustomed, we’re going to have to limit our play/relax time, and work a hell of a lot harder.

Partying, with attitude, instead of doing their work, like the stream of U.S. kids fired from Yellowstone; playing Halo, or killing endless hours on TikTok or SnapChat, or binge watching Netflix instead of studying math and science won’t help our kids compete in the job market locally or globally. H1B visas requested by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies reached a whopping 308,613 H-1B registrations for 2022, a 12.5% rise over 2021.

Greed, laziness, the-world-owes-me work ethic so many Americans possess won’t win us jobs, or help us keep them here in the States. We must teach our kids that PRACTICE is the only way to get good at anything. This means investing the time and energy into academics instead of iPhones, social media and video games, which means parents need to pay more attention and invoke more discipline. It means educators need to step up to the plate and give more homework, harder tests, teach longer hours for the same money because giving more money to education shows little improvement in student performance.

We are a nation of [mostly] Christian believers, but if Jesus really saves, he’d better start saving our kids, because it sure as hell isn’t our education system, and clearly most parents aren’t doing any better. Raising a generation of spoiled, unmotivated, under-educated Americans can not, does not, and WILL NOT compete in our global economy.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

December 22, 2021December 22, 2021 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

(An Atheists View of Religion)

Religion is one of the few remaining barriers to humanity’s advancement at this time. Perhaps it had a purpose once, when we were all closer to apes in mental development, but we’re not anymore. We are living the Reign of Man. We’re effectively Gods here now.

Relying on mysticism to define our world is dangerous at best. It blinds us from the reality at hand—that there is nothing to save us from ourselves but ourselves. We are all individually responsible for our world and everyone and everything on it. Where in the past the world was large, and to survive people banded together, today our world is so very small. And we have the power to destroy it.

Structured belief systems divide us instead of unite us. Religions preach commonality only with their followers. They promote the differences to set theirs apart from the myriad of others. We can no longer maintain divided clusters running around thinking their way is the only truth, or the only way. We are a global world now. Integrating. Blended. We must not only understand, but act on the fact that we are intricately connected with each other and everything else here.

Cultural assimilation isn’t a bad thing. Interracial marriage is an absolute necessity for our survival, and doesn’t have to rob us of our traditions. Ethnicity— a rich representation of our history—can and should be passed on, just without the divisive labels of the past. You can celebrate Christmas without calling yourself Christian. You don’t have to be Jewish to eat bagels and lox. Derisive ideologies must be eliminated. Not all Catholics are against abortion. Jews don’t have a corner on being neurotic, nor Muslims on being fanatics.

At this time in humanity’s development, it is imperative we become thinkers, innovators, not continue to be followers of a mythological narrative most adopted from their parents without much consideration or independent spiritual investigation. Indoctrinating our young with religion leaves them little chance to think outside the box we’ve guided them to join us in. While we all must acknowledge we stand on the shoulders of giants, and never lose site of history, assimilation is integral for our evolution. Without coming together as one race, and very soon at that, we will most likely divide and conquer each other. War with a bang, or disease with a whisper, if we don’t work together to face the issues of this planet, the human race will not survive the fallout of our factioning.

Promoting or proselytizing religion at this point in our history hinders our development, and just may hasten our imminent demise. Sending your kids to religious school, or raising them with a religious identity may seem innocuous, even righteous, but propagating ideological foundations that fundamentally promotes division must be discarded if we hope to continue humanity’s evolution forward.

On Aging…

November 20, 2021 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I hate having more memories than time to make them.

United We Live. Divided We Die.

August 24, 2021August 25, 2021 by jcafesin, posted in Covid, covid19, Uncategorized, vaccinated, vaccinations, vaccines

I’m lying on the nurse’s exam table, legs spread in stirrups while she takes a vaginal sample for a pap smear. I’m there for an annual checkup, new to the area, and her practice. As I describe some minor chest pains, she asks me if I’ve gotten the Covid vaccine.

I say, yes, of course, five months back, soon after it was available for my age range. I’d unmasked in her small office when entering because she was not wearing one, nor her two assistants, and I’d just assumed anyone working in a women’s health clinic, especially a medical facility servicing an upscale suburb of Seattle, was vaccinated.

I’m naked and unmasked on her table while she tells me with certainty that my chest pains are likely caused by the vaccine. She then goes on a rant, telling me I would not believe what she sees daily—how her vaccinated patients are getting sick, women are becoming sterile, or losing their babies, and that the vaccine is killing more people than it’s helping.

I don’t believe that, I say. What possible reason would the govt have for killing its citizens?

She has no answer for this. She just keeps on about how hard it is to report side-effects to the CDC, how the paperwork is “this thick,” the distance between her thumb and forefinger as wide as she can spread them, indicating how difficult it seemingly is for medical professionals to report complications from the vaccine.

My skin is crawling as she rants. She tells me that she had Covid two weeks ago, and not only were the symptoms “not bad, like a minor cold,” but she is, “chock-full of antibodies now.” She assures me that there has not been enough research on the Covid vaccines, and regardless of any mandates, she will not get it.

She now has her fingers inside of me, checking for lumps or abnormalities, so I don’t feel in any position to argue with her. I ask her how she thinks we can shut down Covid without vaccinations. She says, “We can’t. People will die. The strong will survive, and that’s the way it is.”

She finally finishes her exam and moves back so I can get up. The room is maybe 10 x 12 ft, so we are face-to-face, unmasked, but she continues. She tells me that the vaccine misinformation is like the “fake election results.” There is no stopping Covid, which is why her clinic is “vaccine-free,” and she laughs, in my face, at this announcement. She just had Covid and is not vaccinated. Nor is the young assistant who took my blood sample. Nor is the front desk woman who checked me in. And the Moderna vaccine I had in March is losing effectiveness. The Delta variant is rampant. And ‘break-through’ Covid cases among vaccinated adults is becoming more common.

I put my mask on before we leave the small exam room. I can’t wait to get out of there.

It has been over a month since this encounter. I’ve been debating whether to share my story about this event with my neighbors through the app NextDoor, but I do not want to start a flame war online, or hurt this nurse’s practice. Besides the rant, she was professional and did her job efficiently. I am also afraid of some conservative nut job coming to my home and hurting my family because we believe in getting the Covid vaccine—for ourselves, our kids, our community, and our world. We’ve done the research and the data shows us with enough people vaccinated, humanity can shut this virus down, and stop it from prematurely killing more people.

Vaccination hesitancy is valid, real, and needs to be constantly addressed with scientific proof to thwart the fake news pushed out by conservatives groups looking to get Trump reelected in 2024. In fact, we do not know a lot about the long-term effects of the vaccine we’ve created, however, we are watching our family, friends and neighbors die, suffocate to death in droves every day for the last year and a half. This is also science fact, and we must shut this reality down now.

We’ve been administering vaccines since the mid 1960s. I remember getting the sugar cube with the polio vaccine. The only long term side effect of that vaccine was to eliminate polio globally. Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccines were introduced in the early to mid 1960s, and my mom got us vaccinated immediately after the pediatrician’s recommendation. There were no “anti-vaccination” people back then. We were all just so grateful for the opportunity to wipe out horribly debilitating, and often deadly diseases.

The anti-vaccination ‘movement’ began with a discredited study from one arrogant, [proven] corrupt doctor, Andrew Wakefield. He was disbarred from practicing medicine and struck off the UK medical registry after publishing his 1998 paper falsely claiming a link between the MMR vaccines and autism. Full of contempt for being fired, he moved to the U.S. where he megaphoned his [proven] false findings across media, garnering followers who then repeated the fake findings in Wakefield’s corrupt ‘study,’ collecting more advocates to proselytize his lies.

Polio to flu vaccines have proven to prevent these illnesses with no long term side effects for over 70 years. We’ve been testing RNA vaccines on animals and humans for decades. Moderna and Pfizer are mRNA vaccines. They’d both been tested on tens of thousands of people well before released to the public. Now, billions across the globe are proving the side effects of a Covid19 vaccine are minimal, mild at best for most of us, and don’t last long. Unfortunately, we are also finding the safeguards afforded the fully-vaccinated against getting Covid aren’t lasting too long either.

So, if you’re still afraid there are long term side effects from the vaccine, and since it doesn’t even last, why bother getting vaccinated?

If 70% of the U.S. Population got vaccinated as soon as it was available for them to do so, we could have shut this virus down by now. Yet, our Republican representatives have used this pandemic to increase our nation’s political divide in hopes of securing reelection. They don’t seem to care that pushing ‘No Mask’ mandates are killing people. Using Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, they go after ignorant religious conservatives—devout Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, because these people are prone to blind belief if the message is delivered by a preacher, or powerful speaker.

An anti-vaxxer marks the nurse at the women’s health clinic as a likely Republican. She has clearly bought into the political crap served to her mobile, her computers, her TV daily, from Recommendation algorithms that track her every move, analyze her posts, texts…etc., and pushes online content she’ll respond to. She has clearly not researched the science behind these vaccines, and without facts, she likely doesn’t realize these ads are scamming her to ignite her ire. Hitler ignited Germany’s ire, and then was elected their Chancellor. And while this nurse survived Covid, if she had it at all, its mutations, like the Delta variant, don’t care who you are or what you believe in to infect, and quite possibly kill you, or someone you love.*

United and vaccinated we beat this virus. Divided we spread Covid19, and die.

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*Over 630,000 deaths from Covid19 are documented in the U.S. as of 8/24/21. The real figure of Covid deaths in the U.S. is estimated to be closer to a million or more—deaths that went unreported as Covid19 related.

This is the SCIENCE, the FACTS about how and why the TARGETED mRNA vaccines work to kill Covid without hurting any other part of your body: