USA

Chinese Students Fight View Of Their Home

Posted on by Laughingnomad

New York Times Article

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: April 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES — When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:

…….

As the monk tried to rebut the students, they grew more hostile. They brandished photographs and statistics to support their claims. “Stop lying! Stop lying!” one young man said. A plastic bottle of water hit the wall behind the monk, and campus police officers hustled the person who threw it out of the room.

Scenes like this, ranging from civil to aggressive, have played out at colleges across the country over the past month, as Chinese students in the United States have been forced to confront an image of their homeland that they neither recognize nor appreciate. Since the riots last month in Tibet, the disrupted Olympic torch relays and calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in Beijing, Chinese students, traditionally silent on political issues, have begun to lash out at what they perceive as a pervasive anti-Chinese bias.

Last year, there were more than 42,000 students from mainland China studying in the United States, an increase from fewer than 20,000 in 2003, according to the State Department.

……..

As the U.S.C. session wound to a close, the organizer, Lisa Leeman, a documentary film instructor, pleaded for a change in tone. “My hope for this event, which I don’t totally see happening here, is for people on both, quote, sides to really hear each other and maybe learn from each other,” Ms. Leeman said. “Are there any genuine questions that don’t stem from a political point of view, that are really not here to be on a soap box?”

At that moment, the bottle hit the wall

Read the full article here.

A Coincidence

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Last night I opted for a foot massage at a place where the strong Isan masseuses from NE Thailand are trained at Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). Dating from the 16th century, this monastery in Bangkok began as an open university and is still the national headquarters for the teaching and preservation of traditional Thai medicine including Thai massage.

While zoning out in my reclining lounger, an older American couple walked in. Happens that although they are living in Singapore…he still working for Caterpiller Tractors…they are waiting to retire near Klamath Falls Oregon…the city of my birth and where I went to high school!

Xmas in Las Vegas 2007

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Spent last weekend with son #1 in Las Vegas. (He shines so bright I call him son. Sorry, my mother used to say that to the kids all the time.) Great time with sushi and a Lynard Skynard concert. It was my xmas since the kids are scattered from hell to breakfast….”kids” being 34 (Beijing), 38 (Thailand) and 40 years old (Las Vegas)!

Disneyland For Adults I call it. Many go there to let their freak flag fly. The brand message is “Whatever happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas.” This includes your money. No other city like it unless it’s Macau China. Unless you live there. Most locals ignore the strip. The morning after is referred to as the double hangover…one for money and the other for alcohol.

It so happened that my visit there overlapped with an Aussie friend that I met and traveled with in Laos and Thailand. Such excitement because we thought we would never see each other again! Greg took me to the hotel she was staying in. As I walked down a hall to the elevators I’ll never forget seeing her running toward me with her arms outstretched!

My Day

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Well, I had quite a day yesterday. My son Doug, visiting me for the last three weeks from Thailand where he lives, woke me at 1 am. We finished getting his banking set up on the internet. Wrote up the family info and took it to Kinkos to get it plastisized. Told him to give a copy to his wife in Thailand and that if anything happened to him that she was to show it to someone who reads English so we could be contacted. Got him set up with frequent flyers..and printed out his boarding pass.

I dropped him off at the curb for his flight back to Thailand, kissed him goodbye, and drove off elatedly. Free as a bird! Went to downtown Portland for a coffee. Then to shop for some clothes at Nordstroms. Everything made in China with crappy fabric and horrible prices. It was either that or high-end designer clothes with even more atrocious prices.

So I went to a movie…”The Darjeeling Limited.” Sneaky good…touching story about three brothers…set on a train in India…and their mother, played by Angelica Huston, who had become a nun in a Himalayan monastery. (This I totally understood!!!) The twenty something boys were whining about her taking off and leaving them and not even going to their father’s funeral. Ha! She finally told them to forget about it and get on with their lives. In other words, grow up. Very instructive for me, I tell you!!!

Then I bought some shoes and went to another store where I had a great conversation with an older woman who waited on me….me laughing at the prices…me telling her the cost of one piece was the price of a plane ticket to BKK…she telling me about living in Singapore when she was young and how she was so shocked by the ostentatiousness of America when she returned…we agreeing that Americans should travel to a third world country at least once in their lives. We ended up laughing about most of the women’s pants out now were low-cut… just the thing for women with poom pooey tummies!

Then I went to another movie ($8.00 tickets) called “I’m Not There,” the creatively constructed story about shape-shifter Bob Dylan amid the insanity of celebrity. Unconventional filmmaker, Todd Haynes, (who wrote the story while living in Portland BTW) cast 6 or 7 different actors (the best one a woman played by Cate Blanchette) who all played the changing personas of Dylan. The very young Dylan was played by a very young black kid (Dylan was supposed to be 11 years old) who claimed to be Woodie Guthrie. Dylan’s name was never mentioned and names were all changed but you knew who the characters were…Joan Baez played by Julianne Moore. If you are familiar with Dylan you will be intrigued by it…much of it ironic…tongue in cheek. Rolling Stone says that Dylan surprisingly gave his permission, through a third party, to use his songs both his own recordings and those performed by others. We are left with no better understanding of Dylan than we had before seeing the movie. That’s as Dylan would want it, I think…he hated being corralled…defined by others…especially by the niggard media. You’d have to see it 50 times to catch all the references of the times and then, unless you were a Dylan freak and were alive in the 60’s, you’d miss. If you are interested, musician/songwriter Peter Stone Brown chronicles the historical packaging of Dylan in a Counterpunch article.

Then I had sushi for dinner…including wonderful ice-cold Uni (sea urchin) from the California coast . Finally paid $16 to get my car out of the parking garage! I’m still in sticker shock after not living in the States for most of the last 6 years!

So that was my splurge. I am new again.

On The Other Hand: Altruism?

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Salon.com again by Gordy Slack: “New proof of “mirror neurons” explains why we experience the grief and joy of others, and maybe why humans are altruistic.

Nov. 5, 2007 | A young woman sat on the subway and sobbed. Her mascara-stained cheeks were wet and blotchy. Her eyes were red. Her shoulders shook. She was hopeless, completely forlorn. When I got off the train, I stood on the platform, paralyzed by emotions. Hers. I’d taken them with me. I stood there, tears streaming down my cheeks. But I had no death in the family. No breakup. No terminal diagnosis. And I didn’t even know her or why she cried. But the emotional pain, her pain, now my pain, was as real as day.

Recent research in neurobiology would explain my response as the automatic reaction of a kind of brain cells known as mirror neurons. On Nov. 4, neuroscientists announced that mirror neurons had for the first time been directly identified in humans. Previously their existence had only been inferred from primate research and the observation of human brains through fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging).

Enthusiasm among scientists has been spreading as growing evidence suggests that “mirrors” may explain the roots of human empathy and altruism as well as provide insight into such disorders as autism and even schizophrenia. But that’s not all. In the past few years, dozens of studies have linked mirror neurons to the emergence of language, abstract reasoning and even self-awareness or consciousness. “The self and the other are just two sides of the same coin. To understand myself, I must recognize myself in other people,” says Marco Iacoboni. [Maybe this is why gossip is so fascinating for us!]
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One View Of “Plan Mexico”

Posted on by Laughingnomad

June 18, 2007
From the Folks Who Brought You Plan Colombia
The Annexation of Mexico
By JOHN ROSS
Mexico City.

Plan Colombia, the $5,000,000,000 drug war boondoggle cooked up in 1999 by Bill Clinton and then-Colombian president Andres Pastrana and subsequently transmographied into a War on Terror adjunct by George Bush and Alvaro Uribe brought U.S. troops, fleets of helicopter gun ships, spray planes spewing poisons, and a vast array of human rights abuses to that troubled Latin American country. It also made Colombia the third largest recipient of Washington’s foreign aid and the number one repository of U.S. military aid in the western hemisphere.

But Plan Colombia failed to stem the flood of cocaine pouring across U.S. borders nor has it even eradicated much Colombian coca acreage – 144,000 hectares continue to thrive under coca cultivation in Colombia concedes the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Narcotics Enforcement in its 2006 annual report, and while spraying massive doses of glysophate did force some farmers out of business, production simply moved south, spreading throughout the Andean region.

Indeed, the price of cocaine on U.S. streets dipped slightly last year and supply and quality remained constant, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. For the first time in five years, the DEA registered an increase in first time users. 90% of the cocaine confiscated in the U.S. last year continues to be Colombian-based.

Despite the abysmal results, the U.S. Congress has again budgeted $367,000,000 for Plan Colombia in 2008 although some congressional reps appear to be tiring of fighting this losing war and are beginning to call for an exit strategy. With the Democrats in titular control of both houses, doubts about Plan Colombia forced consideration of a bi-lateral free trade agreement to be shelved this spring. President Uribe, in Washington to lobby for the pact, complained to the press that he was being treated as “a pariah.”

Despite Plan Colombia’s fading allure, the Bush administration is about to debut a sequel: Plan Mexico, an interdiction strategy to confront the increasing “Colombian-ization” of Mexico by bi-national (Colombian and Mexican) drug cartels who have managed to spread their brand of mayhem into every nook and cranny of this distant neighbor nation.

The finishing touches for a Plan Colombia-like joint venture were worked out at the early June G-8 summit in Germany during a meeting between Bush and Mexico’s freshman president Felipe Calderon, a special guest at the conclave. According to insiders in both camps as reported in the U.S. and Mexican media, Calderon will make a formal application for increased anti-drug assistance from Washington come August. Mexico currently receives $40,000,000 in drug moneys from the White House.

If you liked Plan Colombia, you are going to love Plan Mexico.
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For My Lucky Friends Living In The Sun

Posted on by Laughingnomad

You live in the Pacific Northwest if

1. You know the state flower (Mildew).

2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.

3. Use the statement “sun break” and know what it means.

4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.

5 You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.

6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit or nice dress to a restaurant.

7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “WALK” signal.

8. You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it’s not a real mountain.

9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Veneto’s, Pied Cow, Peets Coffee, Coffee People and Stumptown Coffee.

10 . You know the difference between Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, Farmed and Wild Salmon.

11. You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Haceta, Yaquina, Yachats, Issaquah, Oregon, Yakima and Willamette.

12. You consider swimming an indoor sport.

13. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai food.

14. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark while only working eight-hour days.

15. You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.

16. You go camping.

17. You are not fazed by “Today’s forecast: showers followed by rain,” and “Tomorrow’s forecast: rain followed by showers.”

18.You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.

19. You know that Boring is a town in Oregon and not just a state of mind.

20. You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover.

21. You notice, “The mountain is out” when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it.

22. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear your hiking boots and parka.

23. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 60, but keep the socks on.

24. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.

25. You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.

26. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such a long time.

27. You measure distance in hours.

28. You often switch from “heat” to “a/c” in the same day.

29. You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.

30. You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, winter, Still raining (Spring), Road Construction (Summer), Skiing and Crabbing Season (Winter).

31. You can take hours agreeing on which restaurant to go to because Portland has more great restaurants per capita than any other city in the country. Seattle is not far behind.

32. You understand these jokes.

Americans Living Abroad

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Americans living and working outside U.S. borders are recognizing their growing importance in the electoral process. The outcome of the last several primary and national elections could have been very different had they been able to easily register and vote in a timely way…especially since living abroad gives Americans a keen understanding on the ground of the issues facing our foreign policy wonks.

Could You Become An American Citizen Today?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Found on Salon.com this morning written by Tim Grieve:

True Confessions

In the interest of self-reflection or self-flagellation or something, I just took the new-and-improved naturalization test unveiled this week by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

I scored 96 out of 100, which had me feeling pretty good about my bona fides as a U.S. American until I realized how the test really works. While there are 100 questions on the overall exam, any individual citizenship applicant is asked a randomly selected 10, and you need to get six right to pass. What that means: If the four questions I couldn’t answer were among the 10 I happened to get, I would have received the absolute minimum passing grade.

How can that be?

Well, let’s see. Despite having sort of studied American history under a Pulitzer-winning professor and done reasonably well at one of the better law schools in the United States, I couldn’t say, right off the top of my head, how many amendments the Constitution has. It turns out — and you knew this, didn’t you? — that there are 27, the last one providing that “no law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

Whatever. Not knowing the number of amendments is hardly an indictment of my civic knowledge. Nor, I thought, should I feel so bad about thinking that the Statute of Liberty sits on Ellis Island. It turns out — and you knew this too, right? — that while Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, the statue itself sits on Liberty Island.

Trivia, I said to myself.

But then there’s the small matter of Question No. 23: Name your representative. I know, I know: Of all people, I should know. And just a few months ago, I would have: I lived in Sacramento, Calif., and my representative was Doris Matsui, and her late husband, Bob, had been my representative for about a million years before that. But I moved to Bethesda, Md., in late July, and as I stared at Question No. 23, it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet taken a moment to figure out which representative represents the part of Montgomery County where we live.

Pleased to meet you, Rep. Chris Van Hollen. Having humiliated myself in public, I shall never forget you.

So that’s three wrong. How’d I miss four? I’ll put that law school education to use now and quibble. Question No. 68 asks for “one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for.” My answer: He signed the Declaration of Independence. That’s correct, of course, but it’s not one of the officially sanctioned right answers: “U.S. diplomat”; “oldest member of the Constitutional Convention”; “first postmaster general of the United States”; “writer of ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac'”; or “started the first free public libraries.”

Yeah, well, he did that thing with the kite and the key and is said to have said that beer is “proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” too. Would a test administrator give me credit for one of those? Probably not. But I’d argue, if my citizenship depended on it, that my answer about Ben and the Declaration ought to be close enough to count.

After all, an officially acceptable answer to Question No. 8 — What did the Declaration of Independence do? — is “declared our independence.”