Safe Olympics

With the exception of one lunatic trying to tackle the Brazilian marathon runner, and a post-match fist-fight between the wrestlers from Russia and Belarus, this Olympics that ended yesterday has been very peaceful.

No terror act, no bombing, no chemical/biological/nuclear attack!

Olympics 2004

I've been so busy, I haven't had time to comment on the Olympics on this blog!

1)Iranian judo guy refused to compete with an Israeli because of Israel's human rights violations against Palestinians. Hey, Mr Iranian judo guy, look in the mirror! It's Iran that has one of the worst human rights record in the world! You don't see the USA chickening out of competing with China, Iran, Cuba or anyone else

2) Congrats to local boy Brian Clay for his silver medal in the decathlon. He is a Hawaii boy of multi-racial heritage (part black/part Japanese) so the mixed race folks have another athletic role model in addition to Tiger Woods.

3)with the gold medal win, there might be a professional softball league for the women in the USA soon. Though I think they should start small and grow gradually. The Major Leagues didn't get to where they are overnight! The expectation of overnight growth has hurt WNBA and the women's soccer league! They should've started in smaller stadiums, and gradually graduate to bigger stadiums once interest increase.

4) The biggest individual hero of this Olympics might be Michael Phelps the swimmer. He'll be the one with the biggest hype after the Olympics. Will he continue in 2008?

5)The torch will soon go from Athens (the birthplace of the Olympics) to Beijing in 2008. Will Taiwan be playing? Will there a Tibetan athletic hero or will China continue to oppress the Tibetans?

Graduation Speakers

My latest editorial on Ka Leo

http://www.kaleo.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/08/12/411af58193e96

Commencement speakers should encourage, not rant
By Pablo Wegesend
Ka Leo Staff Columnist
August 12, 2004

love to attend graduation ceremonies.

I love them because they celebrate a happy occasion. The graduates are proud about their recent accomplishments! Their families and friends are proud!

I love to attend graduation ceremonies, because I get a chance to say goodbye to someone I might not see again for a while.

I love graduation ceremonies because they promote school pride for its new alumni, old alumni, current students and future students in attendance.

I love graduation ceremonies because sometimes in the audience I see someone who I haven't seen in a long time.

However, there is a negative trend at college graduation ceremonies. That trend is having guest speakers talking about things which are off-topic.

You see, graduation ceremonies are supposed to be about praising the new graduates and giving them some advice for the future. But what some past UH graduation guest speakers have done is talk about topics unrelated to graduation.

In the most recent graduation ceremony--Spring 2004, the guest speakers spent a minute or two denouncing America's "arrogant foreign policy".

In a graduation ceremony last year, a guest speaker criticized the military use of Hawai'i lands for training. And in another ceremony, a guest speaker criticized the "with us or against us" rhetoric of the Bush Administration.

And President Bush himself talked in some mainland universities about his faith-based programs, economic policy and the war on Iraq.

Graduation ceremonies are NOT times to talk about foreign policy, military policy, economic policy or anything else political. Want to talk about politics or foreign policy? Do it somewhere else!

So those political rants were only for a minute or two. I say that's a few minutes too long. There should ZERO political rants. Not for one second.

Some say that politics and foreign policy are too important to ignore at graduation ceremonies. Nonsense.

What else is next? Spend time in political science talking about auto mechanics? Talk about agriculture during an accounting class? Or discuss ocean ecology in fashion design?

Do you want your waiter to talk about abortion policy? No, you want the waiter to get your food and drinks. The waiter's view on abortion is irrelevant when I'm waiting for my food. Do you want the firefighters to talk about the war on Iraq when your house is burning? No, you want them to put an end to the fire. I could care less about their views on the war on Iraq, as long as my home is saved from the fire.

So, my take on political rants during graduation speeches has nothing to do with importance. It has to do with appropriateness. And while politics, agriculture, ecology, auto mechanics, foreign policy and birth control are important, discussions about them should take place in the appropriate forum.

Asian-Polynesian relations

Today, my latest editorial has been posted on www.hawaiireporter.com on the ignored conflict between immigrant Asians and Polynesians at many Honolulu high schools.

If you have any comments, please dont hesitate to contact me at madtiger99@yahoo.com

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?288cd50e-90e7-4f02-a858-413e44584dfa


The Ignored Inter-Racial Conflict
A Fresh Perspective - Aug. 6, 2004
By Pablo Wegesend, 8/6/2004 1:41:11 AM

Whenever there is a discussion about race relations in Hawaii, it is about either 1) Hawaii as a melting pot, where every gets along and inter-racial marriages are common, 2) the white landowners stole Native Hawaiian land and later exploited Japanese and Filipino plantation workers or 3) Caucasians getting harassed, mocked, bullied and even assaulted by Native Hawaiians.

But there is a rarely discussed inter-racial conflict in Hawaii. It is the conflict between immigrant Asians and Polynesians.

This has greater significance in Honolulu schools than non-Honolulu schools.

You see, in most of Hawaii, most Asians are local and have adapted to local culture. In suburban Oahu and in the Neighbor Islands, a lot of Asians and Native Hawaiians speak pidgin, wear surf shorts, tank tops, and love the beach. They share a common local culture.

I ask my fellow UH students who come from suburban/rural Oahu and the Neighbor Islands about ethnic relations at their high school, they told me everyone gets along.

In many Honolulu high schools, however, things are different. At McKinley High School (my alma mater) as well as Farrington, and Kaimuki, a large portion of Asians there are recent immigrants from Vietnam, Philippines, China and Korea. Also in those schools are recent immigrants from Micronesia as well Samoans and Tongans, many of whom are living in public housing like Kuhio Park Terrace, Mayor Wright Housing Palolo Valley Housing, Kalihi Valley Housing, etc.

In the 1990s', there were fights between Filipinos and Samoans at Farrington High School, and fights between Vietnamese and Samoans at McKinley. The specific incidents that started the fight, I don't know.

But I have witnessed other evidence of this racial conflict. Being that I'm neither Asian nor Polynesian, I get to hear what Asians think of Polynesians and vice versa.
When riding the School Street bus, I heard some Polynesian kids from public housing mocking the Filipino and Chinese languages. There were elderly Asian people in those buses who ignored the mockery.

I heard Asians from my high school express hatred of Polynesians. They said they were bullied by Polynesian kids. They made racist jokes about Polynesian culture. They view Polynesians as ignorant bullies. Most of the Asians expressing these thoughts were either immigrants or from immigrant families.

This is a very serious issue that can lead to bigger conflicts if they are not addressed. Yet it is almost never discussed in the major newspapers, nor are they widely discussed in academic circles.

I am assuming that most in the mainstream Hawaii media are clueless on this issue. After all, there do not seem to be many Vietnamese, Micronesians, Samoans, Tongans or immigrant Filipinos working in the local newspapers. It seems that most of the people in the local media are either 1) Caucasians from the mainland, 2)Local Caucasians from middle class areas like Hawaii Kai or Kailua or 3) local Asians from suburban Oahu! Most likely, they went to private school. If they went to public school, it's probably not McKinley, Farrington or Kaimuki.

With those circumstances, it's likely that the media people have not witnessed any race conflicts that I have been discussing, and therefore is not something on their mind.

As for academia, in the one ethnic studies course I took at UH, NOTHING was mentioned about conflicts between Polynesians and immigrant Asians! Same with that one sociology course on ethnicity. All that those classes discussed were the hardships Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Hawaiians faced from the White Man!

Nothing about how much people from those groups accomplish! Nothing about European immigrants. Almost nothing about blacks looting Korean stores in the LA riots, and NOTHING about Samoans fighting with immigrant Asians in Hawaii! Too many professors teach ethnic relations courses with the assumption that the only race conflict worth analyzing is white persecution of the non-white. They forget that their job is to look at the whole picture.

It is time for all, including professors and news people, to address the facts and the truth.

Check out

http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/

www.hawaiireporter.com

The Conventions

The last week's Democrat Convention had it's moments, with John Kerry's speech (all about his military service, and very little about his ultra-liberal voting record) and Barak Obama's moderate speech calling for unity.

Some say that the Democrats are making themselves look more moderate than they really during the convention.

The Republicans will do the same in their convention. They'll have famous moderates like Arnold (the Terminator and Cali governor), Rudy Guliani and NY gov George Pataki on prime time but not radical right wingers like Tom DeLay, Rick Santorium and Jerry Falwell!

Neither of the major parties wants to show it's more extremist side now that they'll need the centrist voters to bring them victory!

News from Iraq

The bombing of Iraqi Christian churches by Radical Muslims prove that the Radical Islams aren't just against Israel and the US (which is what the Euro-lefties want you to think) but also willing to terrorize Third World non-whites NON-MUSLIMS as well. It's all about Islamic World Order! Anyone who doesn't go along with it (white, non-white, rich, poor, etc) will be killed!