thailand: refugee scandal

you'd think after past abuses, thailand would know a little more about assisting refugees. neighboring countries such as cambodia, Laos and vietnam have produced many refugees over the years due to internal conflicts, and this isn't the first time thailand's conduct (robbery, rape, murder) toward these refugees has been questioned. take a look at this video and some of the articles linked here.



http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/22/thailand.refugees/index.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1872426,00.html?cnn=yes


thanks to wl for this link

whopper virgin: snl spoof

tasteless: the whopper

i am surprised at the tacky burger king marketing campaign that goes to remote villages in thailand to find "whopper virgins." well, one more example of amerikan capitalism using others to their economic advantage. (ha ha. look at those primitive uncivilized hmong people that aint never ate no whopper before!) i could go on and on about this, but watch for yourself, and then choose to boycott burger king, home of the (tasteless) whopper.


you can also call burger king to express your opinion of their marketing strategy:
305-378-3535
305-378-7200

snow in seattle

aint worked for the past couple of days, cause the office has been closed. so i am trying not to drive. and this is why:



two buses trying to get to the station slid down an ice-covered thomas street on capitol hill and crashed through the barrier separating them from I-5.

anh joseph cao

been meanin to share this with everyone. louisiana has elected bobby jindal (first indian american governor) and now anh cao, the first vietnamese american congressman. he is from new orleans; check out the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/us/politics/08cao.html?_r=3&scp=2&sq=cao&st=cse

absurd

i should change my blog title to - "absurdities," and this should be my first post. yesterday, went to a caribbean restaurant in columbia city, and this is what they decided to advise the general public regarding the use of their urinal:


my second absurdity would be something about stepping in a soft, mushy pile of dog poop on the way to my car this morning. its seattle i tell you... the rain had the pile all squishy and soaked through. and to top it all off, i didn't realize what i'd stepped in until i got in my car and smeared it all over the carpet. i sat there wondering what that smell was, "did somebody leave a vietnamese sandwhich under my seat?" and then i looked down and saw it... light brown too. and then in my subsequent frenzy (i stopped the car twice to wipe it off in the grass on the side of the street) i spilt my diet cherry pepsi all over myself.

i tried to clean it outa my car and off the bottom of my shoe... but it never really works. i can still smell it. in fact, if i breathe in deeply enough, i can smell the poop right here where i sit, even though my shoe looks clean enough for a white glove test. its gonna be the fish sauce story all over again. a real poop emergency.

the betrayal

gran torino

so it was only a matter of time till i wrote this post. clint eastwood (who, unlike charton heston, may he r.i.p, has only become cooler with age) is coming out with this movie called gran torino. see link to imdb below.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

and the movie is about a bitter old korean war vet (clint eastwood himself... why couldn't charlton heston keep doing cool roles in movies instead of that wacko nra mess?) forms an unlikely friendship with a hmong gangster who tried to steal his gran torino. (btw, i think its cool that they named a car after a clint eastwood movie.)


but the coolest thing of all: unlike memoirs of a geisha which used an almost 100% chinese cast to portray japanese characters, eastwood has populated his film about hmong kids with none else but hmong kids. what an idea.

so out with the natalie woods (the whitie puerto rican in west side story) and david carradine (white dude in yellow face in kung fu) and in with a clint eastwood movie that finally does it right. and of course i aint seen the movie yet, so i can't say if its any good, but it's clint eastwood - so of course it's good.

due out sometime in december. also... stay tuned to my blog for future posts on the Lao American documentary, "the betrayal."

read more here:
http://www.asianweek.com/2008/10/03/eastwoods-next-film-features-hmong-american-cast-exclusive-interviews-from-the-set-of-gran-torino/

late notice...

celebrating

while waiting for the election returns, i was on the phone with katie, and i asked her, "after obama wins the election, do you think people are gonna take to the streets?" i was imagining the next day, people marching and dancing downtown, and katie agreed that they would. but it happened much sooner than that - see below:



thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate. i've never seen such a diverse crowd having that much fun together - kinda like when the mariners won those 116 games back in 2001, only this time people celebrated something way more important. a drum circle formed and the crowd chanted, "obama!" and "yes we can!" and a full-on 10-piece (more or less) brass band showed up, filing into the crowd from some side street with their horns blazing.
we marched from pike place market (probably 2000 of us) down to pioneer square - then back again. then, unsure of what to do next, we marched back to pioneer square and did the the whole thing all over again. i received numerous handshakes, high fives, fist bumps, smiles and even some hugs - all part of the celebratory feeling.

this kinda thing only happens once in american history, and its a good feeling to be on the right side of history.

finally the tables are starting to turn...

talkin' bout a revolution...

Barack Obama will be our new president.

today, i voted

look who else the obamas are pal'n around with!

first it was terrorists, socialists, and community organizers... and now he's really pushing the limits. its over... now that i've seen this, there's no way i can vote for obama.

kutv.com

also,
can yall visit my brother's "radical-right" website and let him know who yall are voting for tomorrow? check the right side of his page...
http://stopnobama.blogspot.com/

in response

my brother started a blog. i don't know how we're related, but i'm told we are... here is the link and it's title tells you all you need to know:

http://stopnobama.blogspot.com/
so this post is in response to his posts, although i swear my blog won't turn too political... just a little bit- so here we go (and a small disclaimer, i got this in an email, but i don't agree with all of it - like the "mired in scandal" comment aint really a fair depiction of palin's time as governor):


If you think there is little or no racism going on in this election, here's a little mind game for you to play:

Imagine two candidates for president of the US—one is black and the other white…

What if the white candidate was a former president of the Harvard Law Review and the black candidate finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if the white was still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to and the black was the candidate who cheated on his first wife and then left her for a beer heiress?

What if the black’s second wife not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization, and what if the white’s wife graduated from Harvard?

What if the black was a member of the Keating 5 and the white was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if the black’s running mate had a pregnant unmarried teenaged daughter?

And what if the black and his running mate represented the party that was in power for the last eight years which presided over historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc. ?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Background:


Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

12 years as a professor of constitutional law

7 years as an Illinois state senator

4 years as a US senator


Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

36 years as a US senator


McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

23 years as a Naval officer

22 years as a US senator
Palin:


Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

6 years as a mayor of a town of 6300

2 years as Alaska state governor, mired in scandal.

louisiana

i guess that's one way to settle a divorce

i wish i coulda seen some video of the bitter husband draggin his half of the house away. wow. here is the accompanying article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27113959/
thanks jane for sending me this (and for the accompanying tagline).

back home

i am home in louisiana (wondering why i ever left). i missed all the hurricanes, but fallen trees - all cut up in pieces - still litter the roadsides, waiting to be picked up by the fallen-tree truck.
this picture is of my family. obviously an old picture. do you know which one is me?

you could vote for this one, or you could vote for...

football

i went to the cougars-huskies game last weekend, and the tension was a little much for me. here is a big "w" to encourage people to vote for george mccain for his 3rd term. here is jacob. he presently lives in one of those critical swing states (florida) but he was rooting for the cougs on this occasion. no love for the "w."

i have gone to both of the schools, so i was really struggling to figure out who i should root for. and i couldn't just root for whoever was winning at the time, cause it was such a close game!
so i just rooted for the old standby (see my cap):

the silent "s"

the announcers at the 2008 beijing olympics shook the world when they announced, as the 4 Lao athletes (2 swimmers, 2 runners) entered the bird's nest arena, that Laos is actually pronounced Lao, and that the "s" (a french additon) is silent. my phone has been ringing non-stop since that day... "is it true? is the country really called Lao and not Laos?" and yes... it is true; it is really called meuang Lao, not meuang Laos.

and on a different note: the olympics have been my new best friend. we hang out every night until 1 am. and did yall see misty may and kerri walsh beat up china in volleyball last night? and in the pouring rain too. amazing.

and i actually saw one of the Lao runners in his qualifying round - Souksavanh Tonphithak. he came in last place in the prelims... so i really only saw him just when the starting shot was fired, then the camera left him to follow the jamaican runners zooming to the finish line. but nevertheless, it was exciting to see him there...

here is a link to a blog with another report about the beijing olympic athletes.

http://laocook.com/2008/08/11/sokdee-der-muang-lao/