Skip to main content

Culling.

The word, culling, has been on my mind for several years now. Culling typically refers to how wildlife controls the population. In the broader definition, it is to select from a group, to reduce or control the size of (something, such as a herd) by removal (as by hunting or slaughter) of especially weak or sick individuals.

The second definition by Merriam-Webster, to reduce or control the size of by removal of especially weak individuals, reminds me of MAGA's agenda and President Trump's Executive Orders on unlawful entry and unlawful residency, more commonly referred to as illegal immigrants. To pay for the culling, Congress is considering making cuts in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Is that to cull the poor and sick?

There is a very clear option of taxing employers who sponsor H1B visas. Thousands of companies sponsor foreign employees because they claim that the knowledge and skills required for the jobs cannot be found among American citizens and Permanent Residents (green card holders). Tesla, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple have voiced that they need these specialty job visa employees to stay competitive in the world market. That means they are contributing to billions of dollars in revenue, so these companies shouldn't have a problem paying $50,000 per year for each H1B visa-sponsored employee. In addition, they can triple the current existing fees for the H1B visa applications. Why punish the poor and sick when there are companies benefiting in billions of dollars by bringing foreign workforce into the nation? Why not have the visa program pay for President Trump's border walls, enforcement, and mass deportation? Immigration enforcement costs should be paid by those benefiting from entry visas.

It is a cruel word, culling; however, nature has shown that is how wildlife animals often survive and thrive. Just in case, I would like to remind everyone that we are humans and not wildlife animals. You may be confused since I've not been shy about my perspective on unlawful entry and residency. I advocate that this nation needs to enforce immigration laws. Policies and Executive Orders are not the laws of this nation. I am against open and closed borders. I believe in controlled borders. I believe in providing emergency sanctuary to those fleeing from war, political and religious massacres, and ethnic cleansing. I pointedly left out poverty. 

We should have a healthy number of new permanent residents on an annual basis. Perhaps a maximum number of new permanent residents on an annual basis with a fair and expedient application process.  How about preferential to certain types of occupations that connect them to employment? I'm thinking of farm workers and other manual labor work such as construction. Instead of having them struggle as day laborers and live in fear under immigration policies and executive orders, how about we enforce the laws of this nation, provide lawful residency, and give them protection under the law? How about providing stability to folks rather than policies and executive orders that change with every new administration or political preference? 

Is it even possible to untangle the chaos of today's realities so we can do better without securing our borders and mass deportations first?  If the word culling sounds too cruel, how about thinning? Do we need to thin this nation's population? Before the fires, Los Angeles already had more than 70,000 homeless people. Homeless encampments without water and toilets have become part of the county as the Hollywood sign is. People, particularly seniors, are pushed out to the streets due to a lack of affordable housing. That word, lack, is severely understated. What would happen, especially in the affordable housing sector, if Los Angeles's population thinned?

What would happen at the local social service agencies, NGOs, and nonprofits that are overwhelmed and lack resources? While unlawful residents can't directly receive federal aid, they can receive aid from local government agencies such as in Los Angeles.  Would thinning the population free up resources so its impact on those they reach can be greater? What will happen when we have fewer folks to shelter, educate, service, provide aid, and police? Of course, there is the flip side to thinning the population. We will lose their contribution to taxes. The math certainly isn't easy. 

Some local government agencies, NGOs, and nonprofits receive federal funds to sustain their operation. What will happen now that President Trump has ordered not to provide federal funds to local agencies that provide aid to illegal immigrants? Historically sanctuary places from federal raids such as schools, churches, and hospitals are no longer protected from federal raids under President Trump. Local officials are now threatened with federal investigations and communities are threatened with ceasing of federal aid in sanctuary communities.

Do we all drown or save ourselves? And, who are ourselves? That word... Culling lingered on my mind for years until President Trump returned to the White House. For the last few days, it has been dominating my thoughts, stirring uneasiness.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ChatGPT, Where Is Your Ethics?

It was about a month ago when I first thought of writing about artificial intelligence and its lack of intelligence. I had several ideas for the title, one of them being “Where Is the Intelligence?” I was furious that day after realizing that ChatGPT had failed, and a month of editing work had to be reviewed and possibly corrected for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and language mechanics. Takashi Murakami at The Broad, March 2026 The honeymoon phase was over. How does one miss spelling, grammar, punctuation, and language mechanics errors when assigned editing tasks? It was a costly lesson for me in trusting that an AI would consistently apply the basic tasks of editing, which include copy editing: correcting errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I didn't question it because it included corrections of grammar, punctuation, and spelling at times. I didn't realize that it wouldn't consistently deliver the work. Consistency in work. Isn't that what we expect fr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Japchae, aka Stir-Fried Korean Glass Noodles

I had been saving the return of Succession the way one saves a silk dress or a perfectly timed disappearance—waiting for the right conditions. Thanksgiving weekend offered the necessary quiet: a lull in obligation, a cultural permission slip to indulge. Kendall Roy’s season-two coup left me hungry for Logan’s reckoning, but what arrived instead was far more unnerving. Kendall’s jittery insistence on relevance—his compulsive self-exposure masquerading as strategy—was exhausting to witness. I paused the episode more than once, breathing through it. The turtleneck and gold chain were almost beside the point, though culturally unforgivable. What lingered was the ache of watching someone unravel in public, mistaking visibility for redemption. Families are often our most elegantly disguised hazard. For years, I mistook endurance for virtue and proximity for love, believing that self-erasure was the price of belonging. It took time to understand that choosing myself was not a rupture but a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lemon Honey & Soy Sauce Chicken

I know I promised myself I would not reset and start anew here. Still, so much has happened since the beginning of September that continuing as if nothing had changed no longer felt honest. I am grieving love lost and feeling anxious about what lies ahead. At the same time, I am breaking away from the domestic violence I endured over the past year. Leaving brought old wounds to the surface, including childhood traumas and secrets I carried quietly for far too long. Shame once convinced me that the abuses inflicted on me were mine to hide. While it is still difficult to speak openly, I am beginning to understand that healing only happens when we do not hide ourselves along with the abuse. I do not know if I will ever forgive or forget. What I do know is that I want to heal. I want to tend to the wounds and allow the scars to soften with time. You may be wondering what any of this has to do with the Lemon Honey and Soy Sauce Chicken recipe. Nothing, and yet everything. This is th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Style Capsule: All Things Floral

Floral imagery has long threaded itself through the history of dress, less a passing embellishment than a quiet language stitched across centuries. In Ancient Egypt, garments and decorative textiles often carried stylized flowers, especially the sacred lotus. The motif was not simply decorative. The lotus symbolized rebirth and the daily return of the sun. Painted on linen or woven into ornament, flowers entered clothing as symbols of cosmology and renewal. Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash Across the Silk Roads the motif deepened in complexity. During the Tang Dynasty in China, silk garments appeared with peonies, chrysanthemums, and plum blossoms rendered with painterly delicacy. In Persia similar botanical motifs flourished in brocades and tapestries. Printed florals as we recognize them today emerged centuries later in India, where artisans produced cotton fabrics known as chintz. These vividly printed flowers traveled to Europe and reshaped fashion. By the eighteenth century flor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tôm Rim: Caramelized Prawns

Inspired by Anaïs Aa Dao Van Manen’s Vietnam, the cookbook published by Phaidon , I set out to cook Vietnamese food for myself. There is a certain satisfaction—a quiet, private sense of achievement—when we learn to cook within a familiar cuisine that our hands have never actually prepared. I did not realize, until drifting through the pages of Vietnam , how central caramelized sugar is to the cuisine—often referred to as a caramel braising sauce. After my first failed attempt at following the Tôm Rim recipe from the cookbook, I turned inward to develop a version that simplifies the process while preserving the dish’s essential tension: the salinity of fish sauce meeting the sweetness of caramelized sugar. INGREDIENTS LIST [serves one with rice] fourteen whole prawns, shells on, slit along the back and deveined two tablespoons of vegetable oil one tablespoon of sugar one tablespoon of fish sauce one tablespoon of Cambray onion, white part only, diced one tablespoon of red onion, diced o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are we living in 1864?

My heart sank. There it was on my iPhone: New York Times headline- Justice Dept. Asks for 1-Day Sentence for Ex-Officer Convicted in the Killing of Breonna Taylor . It took me back to 2020. The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd made headlines and triggered Black Lives Matter protests across the nation. Thousands of us marched, raised our fists, shouted Black Lives Matter, kneeled, shouted I can't breathe, and continued to march as we shouted no justice, no peace.  It was the year that made many of us realize that we hadn't changed much since the brutal torture and murder of Emmett Till in 1955. He was only fourteen years old when two white men brutally beat and killed him. There was no justice for Emmett Till 70 years ago. The judge rejected the Justice Department's sentence recommendation of one day and sentenced Brett Hankison to 33 months in prison for violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights. Was it justice?  Photo by Ryan Stone on Unsplash I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quick Fire Stir-Fry Beef

Time is always fluid. It never holds for more than a second, carrying us from the present into the next. I feel rushed at times, even when there is neither expectation nor commitment—only an impatient anxiety, as though I am about to run out of time. This sense of urgency often pressures me to neglect myself, to overlook the quiet moments within my own space, both mental and physical—the small pleasures that offer comfort and serenity... the simple act of slowing down with ordinary things that allow me to feel lived. Bowls were wheel-thrown and glazed by me. For me, that is cooking. As much as I enjoy dining out, cooking allows me to decompress and reset. The ritual—focusing on the ingredients, the process, the rhythm—at times releases me from the chaos that consumes me. There is a quiet satisfaction in savoring a meal of my own making, held within the calm of my space. The dishes don’t have to be opulent. A simple dish, like this Quick Fire Stir-Fry Beef, offers a gentle pause—a brief...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ham Bone Soup

There is a particular pleasure in cooking after the holiday table has been cleared. The ham has been carved, served, admired. What remains — the bone, the fragments, the quiet excess — is where the real work begins. I look forward to leftovers more than the centerpiece itself. A ham bone tucked into the freezer feels less like scraps and more like promise. It becomes Ham Fried Rice on one day and, on another, a pot of Ham Bone Soup that simmers slowly and steadies the house. Ceramic bowl was wheel-thrown and glazed by me This is not a flashy soup. It is structural. Broth deepened by marrow. Aromatics softened into submission. Bits of ham returning to the pot that first rendered them tender. It is economical without feeling spare, practical without being austere. INGREDIENTS [serves 2–3 as a main] one leftover ham bone with bits of ham on it one cup of leftover ham, diced twenty ounces of oxtail broth fifteen ounces of chicken bone broth ten ounces of water five celery stalks, sliced ...
Post a Comment
Read more