IS DIVERSITY A GOOD THING?

I could say that I have devoted my life to diversity. I have traveled and lived in the most remote and bizarre cultures, always with the mindset that these people have something valuable to teach me. I feel enriched by the wide array of philosophies, ways of thinking, foods, arts, etc. For me personally, then, diversity is a good thing.

However, I have made some disturbing observations in my travels. The first disappointment was in working closely with Christian missionaries in Africa. They were there because God had given them all the answers, and their mission was to spread the light of Jesus to the benighted savages. They had nothing to learn from Africans. They cared nothing for diversity; in fact, their goal was to diminish diversity by destroying the original beliefs of the Africans.

Also in Africa, I noticed that the many ethnic groups in Africa were not interested in diversity. The tribe with, say, an elephant god, thought that the tribe across the river with a lion god were evil savages. In the past month or so, South Africans have been killing and expelling other African immigrants. The history of Africa has never offered an image of peace and harmony.

Back in my home country, I had thought that progress was being made in race relations, as more and more non-white people were entering into positions of authority and respect. But in recent years, Trump has seemingly unleashed a latent racism and hatred for anyone not like the stereotyped white nationalist. This includes culture-war issues like homosexuality and transgenderism. Trump has even mocked disabled people and been applauded for his cruelty.

After witnessing the hatred engendered by diversity around the world, maybe I should conclude that it is a bad thing. Maybe humans are programmed to hate diversity, so that mixing cultures leads to what amounts to tribal warfare. Maybe humans are naturally like the kids in Lord of the Flies, where they naturally split into tribes that hated each other. Maybe cultures should be isolated and not allowed to mix with other cultures. Unfortunately, that has not been possible.

Golding’s Lord of the Flies exposed a darker, tribal nature of mankind.

Maybe Orwell was right, in 1984, to suggest that society should have a mythical enemy to hate, and that there should be a “two-minutes-hate” to hurl obscenities at the unknown enemy. Humans need an enemy to hate.

I recently read of a tribe of around 200 chimpanzees who lived as a single tribe for centuries, but who split into two tribes, which declared war on each other and killed each other. Chimpanzees!

My conclusion, therefore, is that diversity can be a wonderful thing, with each cultural group ideally learning from each other and contributing to a general increase in wisdom and knowledge. In order to achieve this, however, it is necessary for people to shed their (innate?) tribalism and to realize that people of other cultures have something to teach them.

ISRAEL KILLS THE AGREEMENT — OF COURSE!

Something that I don’t get, and that I’m not hearing in the media: the US-Iran agreement commits both Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting, although neither Israel nor Hezbollah agreed. That sounds impossible; how could Iran and the US be so stupid as to write Israel and Hezbollah into an agreement that Israel and Hezbollah didn’t agree to? On second thought, maybe they weren’t so stupid.

Including Lebanon was the very first sentence of the very first of the 14 points of the agreement:

Of course, both the US and Iran knew that Netanyahu could sabotage the deal.

In other words, both Iran and that US agreed to a condition that could not stand. It was deliberate sabotage of the deal before it even got off the ground. Why don’t I hear this in the media?

So who wrote the deal? It appears that Iran proposed the 14 points, one of which was the Lebanon deal breaker. Therefore, it appears that Iran didn’t really want a deal. Why would it be to Iran’s advantage to prolong the war?

Maybe Iran figured that Trump was so desperate to surrender, he would agree to rein in his surrogate Netanyahu by any means possible. That is still a possibility, as many voices in Congress, such as Thomas Massie, are calling on the US to stop funding the Israeli war effort, or at least threaten to do so. For the moment, at least, it appears that Netanyahu is not backing down. Perhaps Iran underestimated the clout of the Israeli lobby in Washington.

On the other hand, why didn’t Trump complain about it? Why did he accept the condition, knowing that Netanyahu could bring down the deal at any time?

Probably he actually thought he could browbeat Netanyahu. After all, our narcissist-in-chief has been claiming, “I’m the boss”, and “I hold all the cards.” He was genuinely furious with Bibi for continuing to fight in Lebanon.

Trump is notorious for signing agreements that he has no intention of keeping. Perhaps he figured that Israel might break the deal, but Iran wouldn’t react.

Then again, perhaps this has something to do with the Epstein files. Like, maybe Iran knows that Bibi has the files and can blackmail Trump, but Trump either doesn’t know, or else refuses to believe that Bibi or Iran have any dirt on him.

As I write, ‘negotiations’ have stopped between Iran and the US. After Trump threatened Iran, their delegation walked out, with a statement that Trump must apologize and Israel must withdraw from Lebanon. What is there to negotiate? They’ll have to re-write the deal that both sides had already agreed to. Pretty clearly, the Lebanon clause will have to be removed or greatly modified.

THE $300 BILLION IS NOT TAXPAYER MONEY

The widely discussed (and mostly condemned) $300 billion to be given to Iran is not what the media are portraying. It is NOT a donation from American taxpayers to Iran for reparations. Rather, it is an investment fund, the money to be provided by private investors. (Have I heard this story somewhere before?) Apparently, about half of the total has already been promised. Before the war, Trump’s sanctions did not allow investment in Iran, but now that a lot of infrastructure has been destroyed, reconstruction will become an investor’s bonanza. There are hundreds of billions of dollars in profits to be made from these investments.

JD Vance has suggested that the funding will come from Gulf countries. I doubt this, since Iran has bombed those countries, and they will not be keen to reconstruct Iran with their own money. However, private investors in those countries might provide the capital.

The situation reminds me of Gaza and the Board of Peace. Remember Trump’s plan to build a ‘Riviera’ with luxury hotels and Trump towers? That’s what could happen in Iran. Maybe the same Board of Peace can move in. Heaven forbid!

Trump Tower Teheran?

One important factor is that Trump will decide who can invest and who can’t. He will choose his cronies and family to build the Teheran Trump Tower.

If done correctly, the $300 billion could be a good thing. Iran will need a lot of capital investment, which could help to rebuild the country.

On the other hand, Trump’s well-known and ubiquitous corruption could derail the whole process, if the $300 billion were to find its way into Trump’s pockets and not into reconstruction. I fear that is the most likely outcome, with a few billion spent on showcase projects, just to prove that the money is being spent, but the vast majority disappearing down a Trump black hole. I think most people are aware of this.

WAS THE BUDDHA HAPPY?

The essence of Buddhism is renunciation as the avoidance of suffering. While the renunciation of food and health causes too much suffering, it is possible to thread a ‘middle way’, the key to which is not to become attached to anything. After all, the Buddha was a prince, brought up in a luxurious life with a wife and young son, but he escaped all that, became a monk, and spent the rest of his long life as an unattached, itinerant preacher.

The Buddha refused to fall in love or have more children, because that would be attachment, which could be broken and cause suffering. You could almost conclude that he thought love was a bad thing, to be avoided.

I have experienced love and children. They provided me with great joy, even though previous attachments have caused me great anguish at their loss. In the end, however, I started over again, and again I achieved love in marriage and children. I feel that it was all worth the risk of loss.

I spent the first 50 years of my life a bachelor, free to roam the world and experience all sorts of amazing adventures. You could say that I followed a Buddhist philosophy, moving from place to place and avoiding attachments.

When I finally married, I experienced a kind of happiness that I had not felt previously. I became attached to my wife and offspring. How un-Buddhist! That makes my whole life worthwhile, while I risk the suffering that their loss might bring me.

Every year on the Pchum Ben holiday, I go with my wife to her rural family reunion. It is always an enlightening experience for me, as I witness the generations of the family moving through their lives: infants, children, adolescents, adults, middle age, and old age. It’s a bit depressing, seeing some beautiful young girls, and simultaneously seeing the old, decrepit women they will become. Is their whole purpose in life just to grow up, procreate, and finally fade away?

This empty feeling is captured in an opera by Paul Hindemith, called ‘The Long Christmas Dinner.’ Characters enter as young people from one side and chat at the Christmas table. Throughout the opera, they secretly apply make-up, like gray hair, to become old people, and then they quietly slip out the other side, as the dinner conversations go on.

No, I believe that those who find happiness do so through love. They don’t run away to live in the forest or a cave, just to avoid the suffering of loss. They engage with the risk. I see happy people in the village, secure in the love of their extended family. When I go to my wife’s village, I’m always impressed by their joy in the company of their loved ones.

This un-Buddhist notion is expressed in the old Barbara Streisand song, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

Love and joy are emotions that the Buddha intentionally avoided; but without love, life is empty and meaningless. What, then, was the purpose of his life, just to float from birth to death avoiding attachments?

WHY SHOULD I OPPOSE SLAVERY?

The thousands of world religions have one thing in common: NONE of them condemns slavery. The Bible is no exception; the 10 Commandments do not forbid slavery. Moses tells the Israelites to kill the male children and non-virgin females, but take the young virgins for themselves. Even in the New Testament, in Ephesians 6:5–8, Paul states “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ.” Slavery was considered to be part of daily life.

What about slavery in Islam? Wikipedia states:

Slavery was a mainstay of life in pre-Islamic Arabia and surrounding lands. The Quran and the hadith (sayings of Muhammad) address slavery extensively, assuming its existence as part of society. Islamic sources indicate that Muhammad acquired slaves.

The Roman Empire acquired slaves from their military campaigns. I could go on and on about slavery around the world. Slavery has always been a global, unquestioned phenomenon.

Even in pre-colonial Africa, slavery was prevalent, although in many different forms. I think it is pretty safe to say that the myth perpetuated in the book Roots – of white men going into African villages and enslaving the population – was not the way the system worked. In fact, Africans enslaved Africans, in tribal wars for example, and then took the slaves off to coastal markets like Ile de Gorée in Senegal, to sell to the waiting white men and their transatlantic ships.

Africans enslaved by Africans

Of course, we know that the American founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and thought nothing of it. That was the social and economic practice of the day.

With all this background of thousands of years and billions of people, how can it be that I KNOW that slavery is wrong? It’s ingrained in me, like a priori knowledge, or gnosis. How can I be right while history and all religions are wrong? Even all around our modern world, there are some 36 million slaves, as shown in this map:

In the end, this is not an essay about slavery, but about the grounds for morality. How can I be so sure of my moral position? It’s not a rational argument. How can I even argue with someone who owns slaves? If I say, “Slavery is wrong,” they could just reply, “Well, I say it’s right,” or, “The Bible says it’s right.” End of discussion.

It seems that it would be even harder for Christians to oppose slavery. After all, the Bible – the irrefutable word of God – supports it. Christians, whose morality is the Bible, should all be supporting slavery.

Is my opposition to slavery simply societal conditioning? Can ALL my firmly-held beliefs be traced back to simple societal or parental conditioning? If I had been born into another society, would my views be different?

CAN CORRUPTION BRING DOWN THE WHOLE SYSTEM?

Corruption is everywhere you look. Trump’s order to the DOJ to simply hand over $1.8 billion is not only the worst corruption ever seen in Washington, but it is right out in the open for all to see. Trump is stealing all that money and daring anyone to stand in his way.

This comes on the heels of Trump’s millions of dollars in stock trading in companies that he can influence. Members of Congress also do this; the Democrats proposed a bill saying that Congressmen should not be allowed to trade stocks, but the Republicans shot that down. Johnson’s response was so pathetic: those poor Congressmen make only $174,000 per year. How can they survive without insider trading?

A problem with all this corruption, not often analyzed, is that it kills any trust in the system by ordinary Americans. It shows that the upper leg of the K-economy is playing the lower leg for suckers. If the suckers realize that they have been taken (although they usually don’t), they may hesitate to take the plunge into the markets for a second time.

The green upper leg is playing the red lower leg for suckers and robbing them blind.

I realized this many years ago when I had an account with a major American brokerage firm. They recommended a certain company’s stock, which I bought. The VERY NEXT DAY, a regulatory decision caused the stock to fall. I immediately realized that one of the brokerage firm’s REAL clients learned about the impending disaster and requested (paid?) the firm to dump the shares on some unsuspecting chump (me).

It is tempting for the chumps to study their graphs and charts, and to actually believe that they have figured out the direction of the share price. They are fools. They watch the business shows on TV, and trust the circus-barker pundits’ recommendations, without realizing that the pundits are paid by the companies to hawk their shares.

I fear this is the way most financial transactions take place. Even 50 years ago, I learned a cardinal principle about investment: you don’t just buy a stock. You must buy it from somebody. You buy as a bet that the stock will go up, and your opponent is selling the stock betting it will go down. Who is that somebody? At the very least, it is a powerful professional will all sorts of information and statistics to prove that the stock will go down, while you have nothing on your side. At worst, Mr. Somebody is a corrupt trader with inside knowledge and even the ability to cause the stock to sink.

This is what is happening lately. When Trump buys shares, he not only knows what they are going to do, but he can also influence what they will do. Why would you sell your shares to Trump?

Since my encounter with the brokerage, I have never bought shares in any company again, in the knowledge that the upper leg of the K-economy has the system rigged against me. The best I can recommend is some kind of ETF, where Mr. Somebody must manipulate an entire industry or sector of the economy in order to cheat you.

I fear that the result of all this ubiquitous corruption will be to drive investors like me out of the market. I, along with millions of others, am not going to put my money into a system rigged against me. As the corruption becomes more and more obvious, more and more chumps will opt out of the game, leaving only the insiders to play. Who will be left to fool?

On the other hand, maybe P. T. Barnum was right.

DO WE NATURALLY KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG?

I must have clicked on something inadvertently, because for the past week or so I have been inundated with posts and articles about religion versus atheism.

The pro-religion folks often point out that without a religious framework of morality, there is no backstop to prevent someone from murder, rape, pillage, etc. The atheists counter by stating that we all know right from wrong. The threat of hell or punishment isn’t what keeps us from doing wrong; we just know that it’s not done.

This sounds a lot like the philosophy of Immanuel Kant’s concept of ‘categorical imperative’. It is imperative that you act in a certain way, for no reason other than you simply should not do it. Kant’s oft-quoted statement is that

6 Categorical Imperative Examples (Kant’s Ethics) (2026)

In defense of Kant, it is often argued that the Golden Rule is found as a universal law in all religions. On the other hand, how is it that it is immoral to eat beef in India, but immoral to eat pork in the Middle East? You might even claim that eating dog meat is immoral in Western countries, while it is perfectly normal in China and the Far East.

There is even a ‘Dog meat eating festival’ in China.

This line of reasoning opens the atheist up to the religious person’s criticism, “Where does that categorical imperative come from?  Who created it?”

I would take the argument even further, by asking, “Are the same acts moral in every culture of the world? Could an action be moral in one culture and immoral in another?” I think the answer is, ‘Yes’. Or maybe it’s a matter of degree: some immoral acts are more immoral than others. Just as there are thousands of gods and religions, so also there are thousands of moral systems. How do you know yours is the correct one?

Take lying, for instance. In some cultures it is a terrible sin to lie, while in others it is only a minor infraction. In most cultures, murder is a lot more serious than lying.

Then my previous question becomes: “Who decreed that murder is worse than lying, if both are immoral?” The Western justice system metes out penalties for various crimes. Who decides whether some crimes deserve harsher punishment than others? It would be interesting to compare penalties among cultures.

Atheists in the websites I receive usually ask, “What evidence do you have that God exists?” But religious people could ask the atheists, “What evidence do you have that murder is wrong?” If your religion depends on where in the world you were born, it may also be the case that your morality depends on where you were born. Thus, both religion and morality are cultural phenomena.

CAN TRUMP STEAL ALL THE MONEY IN THE U.S. TREASURY?

I’ve been hearing a couple of words used by the media with increasing frequency: ‘brazen’ and ‘egregious’. That’s because Trump’s actions have become much more and more brazen and egregious these days. He has really ‘jumped the shark’ with his latest corruption: stealing 1.8 billion dollars from the Treasury to distribute to the thugs who attacked the capitol on Jan. 6 and injured many law officers.

As you’re probably aware, Trump ‘sued’ his own Justice Department for $10 billion, and then withdrew the case because he had made a ‘settlement’ with the DOJ for his $1.8 billion slush fund.

I have a couple of questions that seem important to me, but which I’m not hearing in the media.

  1. If he cancelled the lawsuit, then the 1.8 billion was not a settlement at all, but rather a deal made with his own team to empty 1.8 billion into his slush fund. He simply directed his minions to give U.S. Treasury money for his private use. Can that possibly be legal?
  2. More importantly, if he gets away with this one, there is nothing stopping him from pulling the same stunt with every other U.S. Government department. He could threaten to sue the FBI and then make a deal with Kash Patel to give him $10 billion. Then he could do the same with Hegseth in the Defense Department, then Lutnick in Commerce. Then Rubio, then Bessent, etc.  He could end up with 100 billion dollars. He could bankrupt the entire government.

In fact, why not just direct the Treasury Department to give him personal control of all U.S. money? He controls them all anyway, and they must do his bidding or be either fired or charged with some made-up crimes.

There’s even more to it. According to CNN, the ‘settlement’ states:

According to the new document, dated Tuesday and signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the federal government is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from prosecuting or pursuing “claims” or “examinations” arising from matters pending before the IRS, including “tax returns” filed by Trump before the agreement was reached. The language applies not just to Trump, but to his family, trusts, companies and other affiliates.

Again, this can’t be legal, can it? The President can’t just order that he not be investigated, even if it’s part of a real ‘settlement’.  This is one area where the courts could step in.

One final stipulation from the agreement: the American people must apologize to the rioters. “Sorry that your flagpole was bent when you struck the officer over the head with it.”

Is there any way this could be stopped? Well, for one thing, the timing of the cancellation of the lawsuit may matter. If the lawsuit were cancelled before the ‘settlement’, then there was no pending lawsuit, and therefore no settlement. There would be only an agreement between the DOJ and Trump. That agreement would be illegal, since the DOJ doesn’t control the purse strings of the government. On the other hand, Trump is justifying the deal on grounds that the DOJ already has a fund to compensate people unfairly treated by the government, and this fund was already used years ago. Do we know how much is still in the fund?

On the other hand, if the settlement happened while there was still a lawsuit pending, then the judge could order hearings to determine whether the suit was between adversaries, or where there was collusion. If the judge rules that there was no adversarial relationship, then the suit is again cancelled, and the $1.8 was just a deal and would again be illegal, as explained above.

In any case, the words ‘egregious’ and ‘brazen’ clearly apply to Trump’s latest grift.

THE COMING CRASH: BE PREPARED

Cambodians, and in fact people all over the world, are not taking the coming economic catastrophe seriously enough.

One reason is that the ships that left the Middle East over a month ago are still arriving in Europe and other ports, so that shortages, even of oil, are not being felt yet. However, once their supplies run out in a couple of weeks, there will be no replacements.

The blockades on the Strait of Hormuz are not being resolved. They could last for months, while the rest of the world must run on 20% less oil, fertilizer, helium, and other products. That means not just higher prices, but shortages of everything.

Cambodia has fared pretty well so far, and I fear that Cambodians are becoming complacent that everything is working out all right. I don’t think they are expecting petrol prices to double, from the current 5300 riels per liter to as much as 10,000 riels. Or worse yet, petrol stations simply won’t have the petrol to fill your car. Already we are seeing long queues of cars at filling stations.

What can Cambodians do to prepare for the shock? Cambodia is lucky to grow a lot of its own food. People should start relying on local products, since their prices shouldn’t rise faster than products imported using petrol transport, or using imported fertilizers.

Consumers and residents prefer Australian and other imported beef, because it is more tender than the tough Cambodian beef. I have gotten used to Cambodian steak because, even if you have to chew it more, its good flavor stays in your mouth. That’s just one example of getting used to Cambodian products. You can even buy local buffalo meat, which is really tough, but which can be used as a delicious snack or appetizer with beer or other drinks. Imported beers are going to go up in price also, so drink Cambodian.

I eat a lot of duck meat and duck eggs. These are local products which won’t be affected too much by the economic downturn.

The price of natural gas cannisters has doubled, as you well know if you cook by gas. It may go even higher. It’s time to start cooking with electricity, or charcoal, or even a wood fire or oven.

Since it will be much more expensive to drive your car or motorcycle, you should arrange your living accommodations near your workplace or your kids’ school. Buses and Pasaps are cheap alternatives to your personal transport. You might even travel by train!

The time to start taking these precautions is NOW! Once prices have doubled and store shelves are empty, it may be too late.

YES, TRUMP HAD A PLAN FOR IRAN ALL ALONG

Since the beginning of the Iran war, pundits have been criticizing Trump for not having a plan or an objective. He changes his tune every day. Many websites claim that Trump has lost the war and doesn’t know what he’s doing.

I claim that Trump had clear objectives, and that he is achieving them big time.

Trump’s frequent Iran policy reversals are followed by big market swings, and in every case someone is placing huge bets on oil prices and stock markets just before the market opens. Some inside-traders are thereby making billions of dollars.

At the same time, the prolongation of the Hormuz blockage is driving oil prices higher, and oil billionaires are making huge profits. American oil producers still have the same production costs, but the retail prices have risen drastically, providing enormous profits.

Also at the same time, Hegseth is asking Congress for billions more in war spending. Trump’s GOP Congress will bitch a bit, but will eventually cave in to the demands. There will be lucrative contracts awarded to Trump family members and cronies. This has already been happening with, for example, contracts for making drones.

This was his plan for Venezuela. Maduro may be out, but not his régime. Venezuela now sells oil, and the money goes into a Trump-controlled, non-governmental bank account in Qatar. Big American oil companies allied with Trump are now going in to control the production of oil.

These grifting activities, seemingly more blatant and outrageous every day, are convincing me that this was Trump’s plan for Iran all along. Killing schoolgirls, destroying infrastructure, bombing thousands of innocent Iranians, losing American soldiers, raising prices for Americans, all count for nothing, as long as Trump and his billionaires are enriched.

What does my hypothesis hold for the future? The longer those oil prices go higher, the more billions in profits go to Trump/Oil & Co. Expect the Strait to remain closed for a long time. Maybe Iran can also get the Houthis to close the Bab-el-Mandeb.

On the other hand, Trump will continue to oscillate between ‘peace-on-the-horizon’ one day before the markets open, and ‘bomb-them-into-the-stone-age’ the next day. That way, he can continue to make a killing from insider trading. One danger with that approach is that the markets have already figured out TACO and may take him less and less seriously. Judging from the past two days, however, the market manipulation appears to be in full swing.