Shotgunning

     Your faithful friend has decided to stop posting long pieces on Facebook.
     The reason it twofold. The first is that Facebook is not a proper platform for posts of more than four sentences. It is forum more suited for short, pithy entries, and photographs and jokes. Facebook is not a serious platform. It is, in a sense, a back fence over which exchanges gossip and Polaroids with neighbors who are far away. The second reason that the people running Facebook are both intrusive and grabby. If what one posts on Facebook something that the Facebook "team" does not like, or has been complained about by some sensitive soul, the said post will be deleted. Facebook owns the platform and is not loathe to kick and entry off it. And Facebook seems to think (or to be more accurate, the corporation that runs Facebook) that anything published on the Facebook platform belongs to the corporation. It does not belong to the person posting or the creator. It is as if one wrote a novel and had it published by a book publisher only to find out that one did not own the copyright to one's own novel, but, instead, the publisher now owns the copyright and takes all the profits without paying royalties. Facebook reserves the right to do this. And it does so without even paying an advance or giving a notification to the creator/poster. One becomes an almost eternal "intern" for Facebook i.e, working without being paid or considered. And the reward is, well, nothing. Facebook controls and steals. Who needs that?
     Now, to get down to cases:
     The reader is, one hopes, aware of the unrest in Hong Kong.
     Basically it comes down to the fact that when Great Britain handed the colony of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China there was a promise by the PRC that Hong Kong would be allowed to operate in the same way it had under British rule for fifty years before the PRC installed its form of governance upon Hong Kong. The hand-over took place in 1997. That means that Hong Kong should have been expected to remain under its pre-transfer condition until 2047. In other words, another 28 years.
      The PRC, being the PRC under the rule of Xi JInping, aka Winnie the Pooh, has decided to slowly violate the agreement by increments, and the Hong Kongers have noticed. It started with a decision by Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, to allow the extradition to the PRC or citizens of Hong Kong despite the fact that the people who were to be extradited to the PRC had never committed a crime in the PRC. That was the catalyst of the protests.
     Ms. Lam backed down, but the PRC did not. Instead the PRC increased pressure on the government of Hong Kong for extraditions and then began a campaign to sub rosa violate the 1997 treaty. The PRC and Xi Jinping got hungry and wanted what it wanted now. And the result was more protests and protests that have become more violent in reaction to the increased heavy-handed tactics by the Hong Kong police who seem to be directed by the PRC.
     For some reason the protesters are appealing to United States for help and support. They have taken to carrying and waving American flags during their protests. One finds one's self wondering what the protesters expect the United States to do? Send in the Seventh Fleet along with a division of Marines to protect them from the PRC's People's Army? File a complaint in the useless and termite ridden United Nations? Send a "Good Luck" card with a million signatures? The best that the U.S. can do without setting off an out and out war with the PRC is to tariff goods from mainland China and have no tariffs on goods from Hong Kong until it becomes apparent that the PRC has taken over Hong Kong. And when that happens the tariffs on goods from Hong Kong become doubled of those in mainland China.
     One question that arises for this writer is way are the protesters in Hong Kong appealing to the United States and not to Great Britain? It was Great Britain that handed Hong Kong over to the PRC. The only thing that the U.S. had to do with Hong Kong was as a port of call for the Navy's Pacific Fleet. It was Great Britain that sold out Hong Kong at the insistence of the the leaders and intelligentsia of Hong Kong. And those leaders actually expected the PRC to keep its word and expected Great Britain to intervene if the PRC did not keep its word. The PRC has not held to its promise and Great Britain protect the Channel Islands, let alone demand that the PRC operate according to the agreement of 1997. So the protesters, seeing that their former colonizer has become a weak and silly self-hating nation has turned to the U.S. for hope. And this despite the fact that many in the U.S. and outside the U.S. see the nation as an outlaw nation of oppression i.e., Antifa, universities, entertainers, much of the media. Or as unwanted invaders and regime in countries that don't want regime change. The Hong Kong protesters are going against the liberal narrative and there is nothing that the U.S. can do.
      And please know that this writer has no ill feelings toward the Chinese. His ill feelings are directed toward the People's Republic of China. Your friend has too many Chinese friends to dislike the Chinese. But he has too many Taiwanese,Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai and Filipino friends to have any love, or even like for the PRC and its leaders.
     The PRC and its leaders are a sort of Sauron demanding the loyalty and conformity of all those with the borders of the PRC using the tools of the old Maoist regime, the old East German model, and modern technology. At the same time it reaches out to grab and take and effectively colonize to build an Empire: the ruining of the Mekong River by dams, the taking of islands from the Philippines and Vietnam, and the constant threatening of Taiwan. One also must remember that the PRC is not loathe to drive African nations into debt to get its own way in Africa. The PRC is an awful colonizer. Unlike the UK or the U.S. the PRC does nothing but take from a country. It contributes nothing to a country. As bad as the U.S and the UK may seem as colonizers, at least they contributed to their colonies; the making of India as a nation from a group of principalities and the modernization of the Philippines. The PRC model seems to be based on the Spanish and French models i.e., colonize and take plunder and invest nothing for the populace.
      But that's enough of that corn pone opinionating. On to another topic. And the last for this all too long post.
     This writer has really gotten tired of the glorification of gays (or as he refers to them, homosexuals, both of the male and female variety) and "transgenders" (included in this bunch are included cross-dressers who make a life of their fetish and have brought their "thing" into the public square, and those who have undergone surgery or hormone treatments to make a him a "shim" and a her a "sher"  of various types, not to mention adults who claim that they are six years old, adults who claim that they are ponies or doggies or demons or sparrows).
     Let us face the facts. According to the media gays and trannies have become America's (and perhaps Western Europe's Chai pets, Furbies, fashion dictators and style influencers despite the fact that homosexuals make up about 3 percent of the U.S. population and trannies make up about .2 percent of the population. Homosexuals have been  in modern times part of the performing arts, and have had an out sized influence on the population for some reason. But the fact of the matter is that whether homosexuals are born the way they are or are influenced by various factors to be what they are, they are a vast minority representing fewer people than the number of Scandinavian-Americans (about 4%). But for some reason women (and it is almost always women) find this bunch cute or stylish or endearing as long as the homosexuals are not threatening, meaning that said homosexual is not trying to take the woman's breadwinner husband or boyfriend. Most men, as freaky and as primitive as they can be, seem to hold to an almost Biblical attitude towards homosexuals and trannies. They believe that there is something not quite right about the whole deal. And while most men will put up with homosexual men (though not so much trannies because most trannies are rather clownish in their presentation), they see homosexuals as a sort of chihuahua that one won't kick but which one really doesn't want to take hunting.
     Here is the most disturbing thing that your friend finds about the contemporary attitude towards homosexuality.
     All too often one will read an article about a man (and it almost always a man) who in early middle age decides/realizes that despite the fact that he's been married to a woman for 15-20 years and has fathered two or more children decides one day, or over a period of time, that he is a homosexual or is a woman in a man's body. Said man then announces to his wife, and every other damn body who is willing to listen, that he has found himself and that he's a homosexual or a woman or a six year-old girl and then abandons his wife and kids to "be himself." Much of the media and idiots will yak about how brave he is that he's decided to live as "who he is" and be honest while at the same time ignoring the ramifications of his either previous lying about or his "realization" of his true self on his wife and kids. The abandoned woman and children are nothing. It's all about this "brave" man/tranny being true to himself. A family has been destroyed by the man's hedonism and yet the man is a hero and the family is forgotten.
     Now imagine for a moment, a case that probably takes place more often than the sudden revelation homo-erotic or sexual dysphoria or a married man. A man between the ages of 35 and 45 who is married with children suddenly decides that he's going to ditch his 34 to 45 year old wife and the fruit of his loins in order to take up with some 19 year old woman because he still feels young and his wife is "old." He sees himself as young and vital and sees the woman that he is married to as old, haggard, perhaps fat, and with sagging breasts. He married, years ago, what he thought of as a Barbie who has turned into Ma Kettle and he sees himself as Ken. His kids? They'll get over it. They learn to love the new Barbie and appreciate that Dad is a "cool" guy. And in any world that makes any damn sense the man would be condemned as an awful creep, and, in fact, in most of the U.S. the guy is seen as a a selfish and irresponsible bastard except by his close male friends who hope to get a shot of leg from the new Barbie behind the Ken's back.
      Now, what's the difference between the guy who dumps his family to live with a Bruce or become a Jasmine and the guy who dumped his family to take up with some young blood? The answer is nothing. Nothing at all. Both are based on the worst and deadliest sin---pride.
      But that's enough of this writer.