回饋

The Chinese characters here are 回饋 (made out of black and white sesame seeds). You should recognize 回 if you have been following me on Facebook.回 means return. 饋 means ‘offering food to someone’ or ‘gift’. It is made out of 食 and 貴. 食 means ‘to eat’ or ‘food’. 貴 means something precious or expensive. 回 (return) 饋 (gift)= 回饋 (to give back)回饋 is normally used to express someone returning something good to the society. In this case, I am trying to ...

 How an Atheist Recites the Pledge

Mulan started kindergarten at our local public school. And as part of her day at school, she said the “Pledge of Allegiance.” She proudly repeated it to me, and the “under God” part made me flinch. “You don’t have to say ‘under God’ you know,” I said—and her eyes widened with fear. “What do you mean?” I said, “You can just keep your mouth closed during that part. I don’t believe in God. These people in the government allowed that to get stuck in there much later. I...

 Algebra for the Practical Man

My cousin, at that time, who was three years older, was in high school and was having considerable difficulty with his algebra and had a tutor come, and I was allowed to sin in a corder while (LAUGHS) the tutor would try to teach my cousin algebra, problems liek 2x plus something. I said to my cousin then, "What're you trying to do?" You know, I hear him talking about x. He says, "What do you know--2x 7 is equal to 15," he says "and you're trying to find out what x is." I says, "You mean 4....