The End of a Decade

Most news magazine and editorial writers have mentioned that the 00 decade has been a "bad decade", mentioning 9/11, the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the economic meltdown, and here in Hawaii, worker furloughs!



Well, enough with the doom & gloom!



There is some positives of the decade ending today!



1) The biggest positive in my mind, is the rise of social networking sites, the most popular being myspace and facebook!



This has dramatically changed many people's social lives for the better!



Remember in the previous century, when someone changed schools or changed jobs. Chances are ....... you'll never see that person again! And you're left wondering what happened to that person!



Even if you did exchange phone #s, you probably don't have enough time to call that person. You're busy, you might call that person in the wrong time, that person might move again without notifying you! And if that person got kids, if you call that person, you're competing with those kids for attention!



Now, you can easily find that person online! Even if that person moved far away!



You still won't have time for long conversations, but so what? You can just send a message in their inbox, and they can reply to it on their own time!



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People here on Oahu like to say "it's a small island, you''ll always run into someone you know"



That wasn't my reality earlier this decade. I could go MONTHS without randomly running into someone I knew from my pre-adult days! Even if I biked through the neighborhoods they came from, I won't even see them!



All this, even though I never even left Honolulu!



It even got to the point where I told my friend Jeff, "you're the only one from elementary that I'm still in contact with"



Now that I got myspace & facebook, not only can I reconnect with former co-workers, college, high school & middle school classmates, I even re-connected with those I haven't seen since elementary school!



I even got contacted with distant relatives that I never met before!



I even played match-maker, encouraging a long-lost classmate to use my friend's list to reconnect with former classmates. Though next time, I might have to start charging a fee :)



Also, with social networking, you can "spy" on your friends, reading their sites to learn stuff they would NEVER tell you in a conversation!



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The younger generation all got myspace or facebook!



It's even got to the point a few years ago where middle schoolers taunted someone for "not being on myspace"!



Being at certain public libraries in the afternoon means having to hear middle school students fooling around with their myspace sites and giggling!



They'll never have to worry about wondering "what happened to ____________" since they're already connected on social networking sites in their school days. They'll still be connected after high school graduations. Lucky them!



Though in a way, they're unlucky being that in middle school, now bullying has gone online! Students have put up phony myspace sites accusing certain peers of being "gay", " a whore", or whatever else they call each other. You could even start rivalries that didn't even exist with phony myspace sites! If you get mobbed or cry in class, someone could camera-phone that, put it on YouTube and the whole school can see it! Someone could make a rumor online about you and you wouldn't even know who started it! Someone could be falsely accused of making that online rumor about you!



So maybe it's good that I was in school before myspace and facebook came up!



But still, you can use social networking sites as a way to reconnect with former rivals and make peace! You can even contact someone and apologize for past sins, even if that person moved far away and have no chance of seeing that person in real life!

(note: I tried finding some people I wanted to apologize, but they're not on a social networking site. I'll keep trying to find them so I can apologize)



Like everything, there's pros & cons!

But even with social networking sites, I still suggest going to your reunions!

My class had it's reunion last August! I can't emphasize enough how great it was!
I already wrote about it at

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html#8556000882361532709

and wrote a little more at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html#5090109787659733811



2) Another great positive of this decade was the rise of YouTube!



Remember in the previous centuries, there might be a song or music video that you liked but didn't get as much airplay as some over-rated song that got played all day?



You didn't want to spend all that money on a CD with 1 great song, and 11 crappy ones?



Now, it's on YouTube or myspace. (Unfortunately, if the song was released by a record label associated with Warner Music Group, it's hard to find since that company has cracked down on "copyright infringement")



You can now see news footage from past events. 

You can see old presidential debates, old campaign ads that made history but came out when you were too young to understand it, some celebrity saying something really stupid, funny arguments from FoxNews or MSNBC that you didn't get to see, or a great speech you kept hearing about but didn't see it live! 

You even get to see the fight after a sports game that you didn't get to see!



You also get to see music videos from around the world. I saw music videos from the South Pacific, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and everywhere else! I got to see singers whose videos were controversial in the Muslim countries. But when I see them, they are so TAME compared to most US music videos.



If you're lucky, you can be ahead of the trends. I saw videos from Sri Lankan singer MIA way before US radio stations played "Paper Planes" (the song with all those gunshots). It was all on You Tube!



Now, kids have access to classic rap songs. Earlier this month, at a middle school, I heard a bunch of kids rapping the lyrics to Eazy-E's "Boyz N the Hood". That song came out in the late 1980s. Eazy-E died in 1995. Most of the 8th graders in middle school this year were born the year after that! But the songs live on in YouTube! Easy access to songs that came out before your birth or when you were to young to appreciate them!



3) Music trends of this decade



I'm not even to go all over all of them!



However, as I looked through my older brother's i-phone for CDs stored on it, I noticed the hard-rock/ heavy metal classics : Metallica, Suicidal Tendencies, Pantera, Biohazard, Slayer. It also had West Coast rap classics from Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, and East Coast classic from Wu-Tang Clan and Notorious BIG



And I told him, as I told other people, and as I heard from others, Rock Music Has Gotten Too Soft This Decade!



Yes, the decade started out with heavy stuff from Limp Bizkit, Disturbed and System of a Down! But it all faded!



Don't get me wrong, there's room for this emo/ alternative stuff! I also like All-American Rejects.



Emo/alternative has too much whining ! It's gotten to the point where even the 80's glam rockers (often men who looked like girls) are more hardcore than all these emo bands of this decade!



Hopefully, hard rock makes a comeback soon!



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Remember the rap-metal trend!



I thought it was great that even the tough guys from races that had a long history of distrust could come together to combine rap and heavy metal! Check out the "Judgement Night" soundtrack to find out what I'm talking about!



Limp Bizkit was the ultimate rap-metal band in my opinion! Too bad they couldn't get along!



There was the Lil Jon songs that sampled Ozzy Ossbourne and Slayer. But I want more!



Hopefully it re-appears this coming decade!



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Hip-hop has fared a lot better! I loved the Southern stuff that dominated the hip-hop scene!

No one makes better party music better than the Southern guys!

While the Southern trend got started with booty music from Florida in the late 80's/1990's, and New Orleans supplied the No Limit Soldiers in the late 1990's, Atlanta dominated the 00's.

Lil Jon, Ludacris, Ying Yang Twins! Even if you don't like the lyrics, you gotta love the beats!

On the R&B side, Ciara, Usher, The Dream all represented Atlanta in a big way this past decade!

North Carolina had Petey Pablo, which was what middle school students used to call me around 2005-2006.
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On the West Coast, the guys from Oakland had the hyphy sounds,a lot of it inspired by the Southern stuff, but with an even crazier sound. E-40, Too Short, Keak Da Sneak, Mistah Fab! Once the DJs play some of the hyphy stuff, the clubs go crazy!

However, the Southern California hip-hop has faded! Yeah, Snoop Dogg still make hits. Black Eyed Peas are from there, they're not your stereotypical Southern Cal rap group! But overall, the LA rap scene has faded!

I wonder if the population changes had something to do with the decline of LA rap! In the last 2 decades, South Central LA went from being mostly African-American to mostly Latin-American!
Latinos have their G-funk rappers but they didn't get the attention that African-American g-funk rappers did in the 1990's!

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One hip-hop trend I hope to see fade in the coming decade is the popularity of Kanye West. He is over-rated and a whiner! Can't handle others winning an award!

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Chris Brown could've been the King of Pop! Too bad that chance faded away when he hit Rihanna!

4) It's a few hours before the next decade start! Hope to be back writing more blog posts in the upcoming decade!

Stay sober and have fun!

5 years since my U.H. graduation

5 years ago today, I graduated from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. I had earned a bachelor's degree in sociology.

I started UH in August 1999, and I graduated in December 2004!

Going to UH-Manoa was a childhood dream! So it was a proud moment that not only did I enroll at UH-Manoa, I made it to graduation :) :) :)


1) The ceremony itself!


The graduation ceremony took place in the Stan Sheriff Center, where they usually have volleyball and basketball games.

We stood in a line outside Stan Sheriff Center until 9am, then we all walked in outside and sat in our chairs.

The college graduation ceremony is different from high school. In high school, we're supposed to rehearse singing the songs a week before graduation. At UH, there's no rehearsal! You just show up on that day.

During the graduation ceremony, we heard speeches from school officials, a student speaker, and a guest speaker Tommy Lasorda. Lasorda used to be a baseball player and manager for the LA Dodgers.

Because there were no rehearsals, some weren't prepared for how long the ceremony would be! I've been to the ceremonies before, so I knew how long it would be! However, one well-known athlete sitting next to me never been to the UH graduation ceremony before, so he was totally unprepared for how long it is, and he kept complaining. I told him that before the Stan Sheriff Center was built, the graduation ceremony used to take place in the baseball stadium. Meaning, you're sitting outside in either the hot sun, or in the rain!

After the speeches were over, we walked out to the UH athletic fields to see our family & friends. Leis were given out and photos taken!



We were the last class to wear the black cap and gown. After that, the graduating class started wearing green cap and gowns.



2) The dream of going to UH.



My oldest brother is 11 years older than me, so he was at UH when I was in elementary school. That was one of the influences that inspired me to go to UH!


I wasn't interested in moving to the mainland for college. Going from high school to college is a big adjustment in itself, and I had no interest in experiencing extra culture shock by going to a mainland college! Plus, why be at a mainland college, when you can go to school in paradise!


In high school, I had some brochures mailed from Hawaii Pacific University and was considering going there! But I didn't turn in the application.


When the people from UH had a meeting for possible future students at my high school, the recruiters were talking about the many activities at UH. At that point, I was going to UH!


I just needed to pass all my classes, including Algebra II which was the hardest class I had my senior year!


No disrespect to the community colleges, but I wanted a university experience. There isn't as much activities at community colleges as there are at universities!


So I was proud to pass all my classes, and to be admitted to UH :)




3) A few weeks before starting UH, I attended the New Student Orientation, where the older student told us about academic advisers, gave us a campus tour, and talked at various activities on campus.


I also met a few students I haven't seen since middle school at the orientation!


I totally encourage future college students to attend their orientations so they don't get lost during the 1st semester!


4) My first day as a UH student was memorable in itself. I remember my 1st class, Sociology 100. The professor was Dr Manicas, but people called him Maniacs (notice the a & c switched places in his name)! In the 1st day, he was already running around the classroom and yelling into people's faces at random! The 1st day, he was talking into a girl's face, but gender didn't even matter. I remember the same professor getting into one of the men's basketball players face, and his teammate was laughing at him!


5) While Manicas was known for expressing his political biases, at least he was a funny guy! While many professors were left-wing liberals, most at least understood the difference between fact and opinions. As long as they understood that, I'm fine with it!


However, there were a few who were arrogant in thinking their opinions are facts, and damn anyone who didn't think otherwise.


I wrote about them at http://www.kaleo.org/2.13243/teachers-subject-class-to-opinions-1.1810071


I wasn't talking about all professors, just a few! But that editorial got a lot of controversy and backlash!




6) Dorm life


In my first 4 years at UH, I was living in the dorms. My parents moved to the other side of the island  and I preferred living near campus.


While I loved living near campus, I don't like having room-mates. My room-mates weren't bad people. I got along with them. I just want privacy.


So I was happy to have an off-campus apartment near Puck's Alley all to myself! :) And I still live there :)


I wrote on this issue at



http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2004/06/my-latest-ka-leo-editorial-it-is-about.html (my blog)
http://www.kaleo.org/2.13243/uh-needs-additional-one-man-rooms-1.1801508 (Ka Leo's version : the editors wrote the title, I'd prefer "one-person rooms" instead of "one-man rooms")




http://www.kaleo.org/2.13243/student-housing-policy-troubled-1.1799287


http://www.kaleo.org/2.13243/former-dormer-asserts-views-1.1799614


I'll tell future college students, better to have your apartment than to live on campus!




7) One of the best things about attending big universities is their sports teams.


In Hawaii, community colleges don't have sports teams! Only UH-Manoa has a football team!


So for those who want to stay in Hawaii, UH sports is the ultimate!


UH students get a discount to watch UH games!


I attended a few games, though I wish I watched more of them!


I started UH the same time June Jones started coaching UH football! So I was there for one of the best turnaround in college sports. The year before, UH football was 0-12 with Fred von Appen coaching. The following year, UH football went 9-4 and winning a bowl game :)


During my time at UH, the men's volleyball won the NCAA Championship in 2002, but was later disqualified due to an ineligible player on the team!


The women's volleyball team was in the Final Four in 2003 [just like this year, but lost in the semi-finals, just like this year too :( ] . Though most of the top 2003 players were gone in 2004 (my last year at UH), the team re-loaded and had an undefeated regular season that year.


The basketball teams did well in conference play, and made it to the NCAA tournament, but lost in the 1st rounds.


The soccer team went from being over-looked to being well-known in my time at UH! The swim, track, baseball, softball, tennis, golf and sailing teams had some success as well.


It was cool to be in the same school and even the same class as the UH athletes. Though most Hawaii people just know them as celebrities they see on TV or in newspapers, they were my classmates! I also met a few more of them when I was living and working in the UH dorms as well!


I'd tell Hawaii high school athletes to play for UH. Bring glory to Hawaii instead of the mainland. If they want a "mainland experience", I'd tell them to wait until you make the pros or wait until you work on your master's degree!


8) Other activities


I always found the political events entertaining! The protests, the controversies on the school's newspapers, meetings, etc.


I still remember in my first semester at UH, student activist Lance Collins getting into an argument with a professor at a meeting! They were yelling profanities at each other! Collins was telling him "(beep) you", and the professor loosened his belt and yelled "you want to (----), let's (----)". More profanities thrown around as people tried to restrain them both!


I never did attend a protest, but I did express my political thoughts on the school's newspaper the Ka Leo! Getting angry complaints about what I wrote was sometimes annoying, but it's all part of the experience!


As for Lance Collins, he was one of my editors at Ka Leo. I heard about rumors about him being hard to get along with. But aside from the bizarre titles given to my articles, I got along well with him. Maybe he just mellowed down by the time he was my editor.


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I took 2 theatre classes and watched some campus plays. Always good to see fellow students acting out interesting stories and occasionally making funny scenes!


---


Cultural events, film festivals, etc. --- While I only attended a few of those, I also found them entertaining!


Talent shows. They had late night ones at Campus Center. In 2002, I was thinking about doing Nelly's "EI" but as practiced it, I couldn't sing that fast. So, as a last minute change, I did Nate Dogg's "Never Leave Me Alone" which I also sang it in high school!


My best talent show performance was also a late night one at Campus Center in 2003. I was rapping Ludacris "Southern Hospitality" I was sick and fatigued as hell that day, but no way was I cancelling that! The crowd was into it! They were even yelling out the chorus too! :)


Afterwards, I was drained! Ho'onua was performing there after the students were done performing! Everyone was dancing, but I was fatigued and drained that night!


My last one was in 2004, I did the song Marques Houston did with Chingy "I like that". Even though I was healthier that night, the crowd was more into the Ludacris song I did the year before!


I guess my best performances happen on my sick and fatigued days!


9) My last editorial on Ka Leo, was about my experiences from UH, the culture shocks, how I adjusted, and how I changed. Check it out at

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2004/12/my-last-editorial-on-ka-leo-i-will-be.html (my blog)
http://www.kaleo.org/2.13243/goodbye-uh-manoa-oh-how-i-ve-learned-so-much-1.1813948 (published on Ka Leo)


I'd tell new college students, that there will be times you will miss high schools. Some of your childhood friends might not make it to college.


But I will tell them to appreciate college as it is! There is plenty out there to enjoy - the physical scenery, sports games, campus activities, new people from different cultures, campus eating places, big libraries, etc. You won't be able to do it all, but at least try to enjoy as much as you can!


10) Will I go back?


Right now, my life is at a crossroads. While I'm currently a substitute teacher, work has been slowing down lately! While I enjoy the job, the money is declining!


So I am thinking about eventually going back to school. Maybe train to become a full-time teacher? Maybe get a masters degree in something?


We'll see. The saga continues!

Furloughs and Taxes

It's been a month since I last blogged here.

1) Within the last 2 months, all Hawaii public schools have Furlough Fridays in which schools are closed to save money!


I know the kids love it because they get an extra day off!

In case some of you guys didn't know already, I'm currently a substitute teacher. We're the only people on earth that don't like long vacations, because that means a long time without a check :(

Substitute teachers aren't unionized, so we had no vote on this furlough issue


But without furloughs, some teachers might've been laid-off, meaning there would be more over-crowded classrooms :(

Hopefully, the economy rebound, the $$$ trickle down to the schools, the kids are back in class, and I'm working more often again :)

2) Some people keep demanding that the state raise taxes to pay for education and other government services!

There's a reason Gov. Linda Lingle refuses!

Tax Increases are the WORST thing you can do in a slowing economy!

The state government doesn't make money. It TAKES it from the private sector!

If more is taken from the private sector, there is less money to hire people!

Any entrepreneurs can leave at any time! If the state government makes it too difficult, entrepreneurs can leave and create jobs somewhere else!

This is Basic Economics!

Which is more important - more people recieving government services OR more people who NO LONGER NEED government services?

Look, I don't have anything against anyone who rely on government for assistance! If you need help, you're going to look for it somewhere!

However, why not grow the private sector, so that more people can work and be self-reliant?

This is the spirit we need here and everywhere!

Government can't take care of everything!

It's not cold-hearted to say so, it's just reality!

Spousal Abuse = Terrorism inside the House

This is a letter I sent to the Honolulu Weekly.

You can check the edited version at
http://honoluluweekly.com/letters/2009/11/homegrown-terrorists/

Here's what I sent to the editors!


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This is in response to 2 letters on domestic violence, one by Dr. Bouchard, the other by Larry Holbrook.

Brouchard is correct to refer to domestic violence as "domestic terrorism".

How else would you describe a person grabbing his/her spouse by the throat, throwing the victim down the stairs and other use of deadly force?

However, Larry Holbrook seems angray at Dr Brouchard for calling it like it is!

Holbrook accusses victim advocates of "tearing families apart!"

Holbrook also minimizes the issue by saying "every family experience conflict during their lifetimes."

We're not talking about minor disagreements here! In domestic violence, there are throats grabbed, bodies thrown down the stairs, heads banged against the wall, jaws broken, noses bloodied, and pregnant women kicked! There are stabbings and gunshots! Sometimes, the victim leave the home in a bodybag!

The abusers could be of either gender!

Little children see this and are scarred for life!

Well, if a child is growing up in a home in which one spouse is constantly using deadly force on the other, then why not have the justice system "tear that family apart"? Who can rationally argue that is a good environment to raise a child? Why not allow the abused spouse and the children start over a new life, with the abuser locked up in prison?

Holbrook says that abusers can change! But in too many cases, the change comes after multiple decades of abusive behavior! That's too long to wait!

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I wrote another blog post on this issue! It discusses the Chris Brown-Rihanna incident, abusive women, my run-in with a violent female attacker, self-defense, and other related issues! Check it out at

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

The Berlin Wall - 20 years later!

20 years ago today, the Berlin Wall came down!



1) Some historical background!



After World War 2, the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union took over parts of Germany!



The parts taken by the US, the UK and France eventually became the independent nation of West Germany! West Germany became one of the most prosperous and freedom-having nations in Europe!



The part taken by the Soviet Union became East Germany. While it was technically independent, it was a Soviet satellite! East Germany was a communist nation! Its standard of living was lower than West Germany! There was no freedom of speech, assembly or religion! The government spied on its citizens, paranoid about dissenting thought!



Within East Germany was Berlin! Being that Berlin was the traditional capital of Germany, it was split between the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union! West Berlin became an little outpost of West Germany! It was a small oasis of freedom surrounded by East Germany!



Because many East German tired to escape to West Germany via West Berlin, the East German government built the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from escaping! It was guarded by soldiers ready to kill anyone who tries to pass by!



The Berlin Wall was a symbol of imprisonment!



Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, while it was a military power, in the 1980s, things were going down! It was loosing money partly because its communist policy stifled the economy! Also, the oil-exporting Soviet Union was hurt by declining oil prices! It was also loosing its war in Afghanistan, with the Afghan troops supported by the US, Pakistan and several Arab nations! (ironically, 20 years later, the US troops are the ones fighting in Afghanistan)



The Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev felt the government went too far in suppressing civil liberties! He also wanted to negotiate an arms reduction treaty with the US!

The US president at the time, Ronald Reagan was skeptical of Gorbachev's desire for peace and freedom!



So, in 1987, Reagan went to West Berlin and made the legendary statement "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"



While that didn't happen immediately, Gorbachev eventually declared that he would no longer interfere with the domestic happening of nearby nations. So, basically, if the dictators of Poland, East Germany, etc had a problem with protesters, they were on their own! They could no longer cry to the Soviet Union for help!

The pro-Democracy movement gained momentum in Poland, Czechoslovakia (now separated into Czech Republic & Slovakia), Hungary, Romania and of course East Germany!

East German were finding their way to West Germany by going through Czechoslovakia and Hungary!

It got to the point where the East German government gave in and allowed the people to travel to West Germany!

The Berlin Wall came down on November 11, 1989!

There were celebrations! Long lost relatives found each other! People of a same language and heritage, separated by a wall, came together!

It was a legendary moment in history!

The following year, West Germany and East Germany united! There was now just Germany!

While some in other European nations worried about what a re-united Germany could mean, based on what happened earlier in the 20th century, Germany became the largest economic power in Europe! IT was a democracy! Civil liberties! It became so pacifist that they didn't even want to help the US invade Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 different countries, with Russia being the largest and most famous one!

While Russia had its struggles, it was no longer as dangerous as it used to be! While its civil liberty situation isn't perfect, it has more civil liberties than it did in the Soviet days!

The other Eastern Europeans nations became democracies with various levels of prosperity!

The main exception was Yugoslavia. While the other European nations were peaceful in the 1990s, Yugoslavia had its ethnic conflicts and bloody warfare! It dissolved into several new nations (ie Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo)


2) What was I think when the Berlin Wall came down?

I was still in elementary school, but even at that age, I was already addicted to looking at the atlas and reading the encyclopedias :)

So I totally remember seeing what was then current-day maps with an West and East Germany, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. None of them are on the atlas anymore!

So even then, seeing the Berlin Wall going down, I knew something was changing! I knew I was watching history! Well, obviously, I understand the situation more now then I did back then, but still even then I knew history being made!

3) The fall of the Berlin Wall also inspired a few songs!

The most well-known was "Winds of Change" by the rock band Scorpions. The video for that song commemorated the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as protest movements from around the world!

Jesus Jones song "Right Here, Right Now" while it doesn't directly address the Berlin Wall, the video for the song showed the Berlin Wall coming down!

Check those songs out on YouTube, myspace or i-tunes!

Even Anti-Abortion Protesters have Abortions!

I remember reading an editorial a few years back, mentioning that the younger generation is supposedly more pro-life than the Baby Boomer generation!


The conservatives were expressing thoughts "Yes, we will win in the future"!


However, I was already skeptical of those reports!



My thought was those young pro-lifers don't have much life experience! I mean, if you're 13 years old, it's EASY to repeat everything your preachers, parents, grandparents say! It takes ZERO GUTS to repeat what they told you!


You still haven't spent some time in a room alone, kissing and hugging, minutes turn into hours, things heat up, and all of a sudden, your natural desires come into action! You weren't expecting things to heat up, but it seems exciting, can't let it stop now!

You forgot or were too shy to tell your boyfriend to use your condom! Your birth control pills expired! Or maybe his condom was on, but it broke!

Or it might've been even worse!

You were only planning to hug & kiss, but he forced your clothes off and raped you! You're now pregnant, but soon everyone will spread rumors about being a "slut" even though you didn't even want to do it!


Once that happens all the conservative correctness you heard all your life ("no sex until marriage", "abortion is always bad", blah, blah) doesn't sound so correct anymore


========


GUESS WHAT?



I got evidence that I am right!



Here's an article from Salon



http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/11/04/no_longer_anti_choice/print.html

Ann Moore, a senior researcher associate at the Guttmacher Institute, has conducted in-depth interviews with women in abortion clinics. When asked how they found out about the clinic, she told Broadsheet, some women responded that "they used to protest outside."

There's also Anna Clark, who wrote in RHRealityCheck in 2007 that she once believed "abortion was murder" and suspected that "women used the procedure to bypass the consequences of sex." After a gradual, examined change of heart, she writes, "Today, I have the passion of a convert for reproductive rights."

Clark also quotes Dr. Melissa Gilliam, who practices pediatric and adolescent gynecology at a University of Chicago hospital, and also performs abortions. "People obtain services for their reason," Gilliam said. "We luckily don't have protesters, but they tell me about how they protest (a clinic) one day, come in the next, and are back out protesting a few days later."

(Pablo's notes: a lot of those anti-abortion protesters are not even sincere, they're just there to fit in with their conservative friends)

And, a former clinic director from Raleigh: "I can't tell you how many times I checked in a patient who said, 'Now I don't believe in this kind of thing, but...'" she said. "...It's all those 'ands' and 'buts' that make abortion services a necessary part of the reproductive health dialogue."

 (READ THAT PARAGRAPH AGAIN all you anti-choicers!)

Gloria Feldt, recalling her first experience with direct abortion services when she moved to Phoenix to head up the Planned Parenthood there, told Broadsheet this story: "A 17-year-old Catholic High School student came in wearing her pleated plaid school uniform. She knew where the clinic was because her priest had brought the students down to picket as a class assignment, and she had believed in the anti-abortion position she'd learned there. Then she became pregnant; her boyfriend of the same age accompanied her to the clinic where the staff learned that she had a kidney disease and had been warned by her doctor that it would be dangerous for her to carry the pregnancy to term. Much sobbing and total rethinking of the issue followed. She did have an abortion."

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That's right, a lot of those anti-abortion protesters will end up getting an abortion anyways!



So all those who say "yay, the younger generation will be more pro-life", prepare to be disillusioned!


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Also, remember when some conservative Republicans in Congress were on Bill Clinton's case for having an affair with Monica Lewinsky!

Some of those same guys were having their own affairs (ie. Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, Henry Hyde)

One was even soliciting prostitutes (David Vitter)

Also, remember Larry Craig, the Republican senator that was against same-sex marriage? He was caught soliciting for gay sex in an airport bathroom!

The Democrats aren't immune! Former NY governor Elliot Spitzer denounced prostitution but was ......... doing it with prostitutes! Also, pro-Democrat preacher Jesse Jackson was having an affair and made a baby through it!

So, look at all the anti-abortion advocates, politicians, cable news pundits, and editorial writers! Don't be surprised to find out THEY HAD ABORTIONS TOO!

========
Look, I'm all for restraint! I'm all for teaching kids to resist peer pressure to have sex!
I'm also for telling to kids to not jump off walls!

But if your kid jumps off a wall, do you tell them "too bad, you ain't getting surgery!"?
Most likely, you'll let them have surgery!

Same thing applies to sex and abortion!
============
(In case you were wondering, my parents NEVER preached on this issue either way, but I was pro-abortion from a young age, based on real life stories I read back then!)

Who's a "Real American" anyways?

Let's say you're were born in the African nation of Eritrea!

Your parents, wanting to escape the poverty and the war in Eritrea, moved you to the USA at age 12!

In your teenage and early adulthood, you were trained in American long distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.

You also became a US citizen!

You won a silver medal for the US in 2004! You became the 1st US citizen to win the New York Marathon since 1982!


However, some didn't celebrate your accomplishment! They claimed you're "not a real American".


The ironic thing is, those critics themselves are NOT Native Americans. Those critics just happen to descendants of Europeans who came to the US!


That is the story of Meb Keflezighi, and you can read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/sports/03runner.html?_r=1


And the ironic thing is those same critics are the ones who whine about Latin American immigrants coming to the US!


Nevermind that the ancestors of many Latin American immigrants were in this hemisphere LONGER than those European-descendants who go around judging who's a "real American!"

Another irony is that many immigrants have been voluntarily putting their lives on their line to defend America overseas!

Who are the Real Americans? All those who take pride in being American! Regardless of where they were born!

Like Rodney King said "can we all just get along?"

Why should I change my name?

A hotel owner in New Mexico is telling his Latino employees to adopt English names becuase he has hard time pronouncing their real names!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33479833/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity?GT1=43001

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

(skip paragraphs)

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.

THIS IS STUPID!

Look, I am a substitute teacher! Sometimes, I got to memorize a 100 new names a day!

Some are hard to pronounce!
Some have creatively spelled names!
Some are foreign names!

I NEVER tell anyone to change their names!

I just learn how to pronounce them!

If you're easily overwhelmed by having to pronounce new names, you need some serious psychological help!

And this "I don't want people speaking other languages around me"?

I don't care what languages others around me are speaking!

Even if they're mocking me ..... if they're not saying it in a way I can understand, it's probably not that important anyways!

Mr. Whitten claims his decisions are not racially motivated, just business motivated!

Well, it's not good business! He got boycotted!

Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. "Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere," he says.

Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.

"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said.

Welcome to the 21st century Mr Whitten!

29 years old

It's that time of year again. I'm 29 years old today!



And it's time for my annual birthday blog post!



Here's some thoughts!



1) My biggest event of the past 12 months would be my 10-year high school reunion!



I've already wrote about it at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html#8556000882361532709



A few more thoughts on it



These days, many people reconnect with each other through myspace or facebook! While I've been able to reconnect with many people who I haven't seen in ages through those sites, it's nothing like a face-to-face conversation!



That's why, even in this Age of Facebook, reunions are still special!



What better place to have those face-to-face conversations with so many former classmates than at the reunion?



Plus, at the reunion, the old cliques don't even matter! There was none of this "only jocks hang out here, only computer nerds hang out here, only this ethnic group hang out here" nonsense at the reunion! We're adults already, most of us got over that a long-time ago! Plus, we were all curious about what our classmates were doing in life, even those who we didn't hang out with much!

Plus, I even got to talk to people I didn't get a chance to talk to in high school!



So to those who didn't show up or are nervous to show up at their reunion --- Lighten Up, Take A Deep Breath and Chill! You'll have a great time!



2) I started using myspace in 2005! It already was popular among teens, but it was one year before it became a subject for so many news stories!



I was too lazy to start using facebook until June 2009! I've heard it about it before, even knew that it was outpacing myspace for # of users! But I kept delaying until some friends kept encouraging me to get facebook!


Now, with facebook, I've been able to find way more people in 4 moths than I did with 4 years of myspace!



So facebook's advantage is the # of people you can find on it! Also, it's easier to see status updates from those on the "friends list". I can also promote my blog to more people through those status updates!



Myspace's advantage is you can make web-designs and add music to your webpage!

Some people like to play video games on facebook. Some even try to invite me to play them! I don't have time for video games and even if I did, I have other things I prefer to do. So please, don't take it personal if I don't join you for Mafia Wars, Farmville, White Castle, etc.!

As for Twitter? Not interested! 2 social networking sites is enough, I can put out short messages on facebook, and I already got a blog!

3) one year before being 30? Now I'm really getting old! My 20's is almost over!

4) 10 years of adulthood already? OK, adulthood officially start @ 18, but I was still in high school so I didn't feel like a young adult until I graduated!

Adjusting to adulthood has it's challenges. You gotta pay your own bills! Things that used to get you an "F" or suspended in school can now get you Fired!

But eventually, you are grateful for feeling more control of your own life, and more wisdom about life itself!
-----------


To learn more about dealing with obnoxious people (and stop yourself from being one) check out
http://www.takethebullybythehorns.com/ and the book with the same title! It teaches you things a lot of parents and teachers never got around to teach you!

---------

Having trouble dealing with the opposite gender? Your parents and teachers thought you'd learn these things automatically? Whining about it will only make it worse? It only feeds a cycle of victimhood!

Check out

http://www.johnalanis.com/

http://www.makingherhappy.com/

http://firstinhermind.com/ (from a woman's perspective)

They got some interesting perspectives! However, don't take them as "word of God". Learn from them, but use your common sense in real life dealings with people!

More immigrants, LESS crime

Anti-immigration fanatics love to tell horror stories of Mexican illegal aliens causing havoc! But the reality is that border cities like El Paso and San Diego have LOW Crime rates! Check out the following article

PART ONE

http://reason.com/archives/2009/07/06/the-el-paso-miracle

El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent.

So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them.

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

If you regularly listen to talk radio, or get your crime news from anti-immigration pundits, all of this may come as a surprise. But it's not to many of those who study crime for a living. As the national immigration debate heated up in 2007, dozens of academics who specialize in the issue sent a letter (pdf) to then President George W. Bush and congressional leaders with the following point:

Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso.

And what about those so-scary stats on illegal aliens in US prison?

Here's the reality

Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. When they do try to use statistics, they come up short. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), for example, has perpetuated the popular myth that illegal immigrants murder 12 Americans per day, and kill another 13 by driving drunk. King says his figures come from a Government Accountability Office study he requested, which found that about 27 percent of inmates in the federal prison system are non-citizens. Colorado Media Matters looked into King's claim, and found his methodology lacking. King appears to have conjured his talking point by simply multiplying the annual number of murders and DWI fatalities in America by 27 percent. Of course, the GAO report only looked at federal prisons, not the state prisons and local jails where most convicted murderers and DWI offenders are kept. The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts the number of non-citizens (including legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (pdf). Of course, even that doesn't mean that non-citizens account for 6.4 percent of murders and DWI fatalities, only 6.4 percent of the overall inmate population.

---
Anti-immigration fanatics blame immigrants for crime! But maybe it's the anti-immigration fanatics who are the ones to blame for immigrant crime! They indirectly encourage native-borns to pick on immigrants, which then make immigrants feel that they need to team up into a gang to defend themselves! And being in a gang ends up bringing in more drama then the members expected before they joined!

----------

Despite the high profile of polemicists such as Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage, America has been mostly welcoming to this latest immigration wave. You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country.

"Look at Arab-Americans in the Midwest, especially in the Detroit area," Levin says. "The U.S. and Canada have traditionally been very willing to welcome and integrate them. They're a success story, with high average incomes and very little crime. That's not the case in Europe. Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them. And they've seen waves of crime and rioting."

------

PART TWO



And what about those Mexican gangs in LA? Most of them are born in the US! Mexican-American gangs been in LA since the 1930's. That means the grandkids and great-grandkids of the 1930's era- Chicano gangstaz are US BORN! DUH!

Here's what University of Southern California researcher Alex Alonso wrote

http://www.streetgangs.com/lies/illegal_090909/

As a gang researcher the issue of illegal immigration comes up often when being interviewed or asked to opine on the subject of Los Angeles gangs. For some, illegal immigration is a major reason why street gangs exisit, but the reality is that most gang members, including Hispanics, are US citizens. Ironically, in over 150 court cases and probably close to 200 (I have never kept a precise count but my assistant is helping organize all my previous cases) that I have consulted on in court, the issue of illegal immigration has never come up. In all my criminal cases, I have had only 12 defendants that were not born in the United States (I still have to look over some older cases), and of those 12, they all immigrated to the US as children before the age of 7 with either a parent or a family member.

--

In other words, they came in when they were too young to be recruited into a gang. And most of the people I knew who immigrated to the US as little children are so Americanized that by the time they started high school, that they don't even associated with newly arrived immigrants from the same country! This is common sense to anyone attending schools with large immigrant populations!
--------

I asked Sheriff Lee Baca, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, what was the percent of the incarcerated gang member population and his response was that it was less than 10 percent. At an event for the slain high school football star, Jamiel Shaw Jr., attendees where extremely unhappy that the alleged assailant, Pedro Espinoza, was not a US citizen and that he should have been deported on his previous arrest in 2007. One disgruntled attendee falsely believed that 90 percent of gang members were illegal citizens. I wondered how many others actually believed the rhetoric and propaganda from anti immigrant (or anti illegal immigrant) representatives. It is this misinformation that inspired, Hector Tobar, writer from the Los Angeles Times, to challenge some of the most ridiculous claims made against illegal immigrants being circulated in an email. Last year I traced down a quote that falsely stated 80 percent of the 18th Street gang membership in Los Angeles was in the US illegally, but after tracing the source of this quote, I found a dead end, suggesting that it was completely fabricated and Tobar found the same in his research.

----

In the same article Alex Alonso and Hector Tobar then exposed more lies promoted by the anti-immigration fanatics, they concluded

Obviously, the ability to speak a language other than English, or the desire to listen to Spanish music, doesn’t make you an illegal immigrant or a threat to U.S. democracy. It’s a slur against Los Angeles, really, to find these items on a list of “problems” caused by illegal immigration.

The authors of the chain e-mail and the phony government report fear what Los Angeles has become — a multilingual, multiethnic city with multicultural tastes.

They search for information to persuade others to be afraid, but the actual numbers don’t quite add up to the big monster they think is out there.

So they make the numbers bigger. Or they just make them up. And they spread them around until all that fear and anger turns into a big hate.

--

Sept 2009 rants

A few comments on the current events

1) 8 years and a week ago today, the USA was under attack by Al Qaida!

For my thoughts on 9/11 check out the following blog posts from the past


http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html#109497530808413160


Take a moment of silence to remember the innocent victims of the attack, to remember those who attempted to rescue those stuck in the buildings, and all those whose loved ones passed away!

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html#112667000764509312 (discussed how I found out about the 9/11 attacks)

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html#115801887630379524 ( my evolving thoughts on 9/11, foreign policy and the following wars)


2) 2pac passed away 13 years ago this past Sunday! 2pac once said "America isn't ready for a black president". Unfortunately, he died 13 years too early to see it happen in real life!



3) Kanye West is at it again! Hip-Hop's biggest sore loser thinks he's so tough by interrupting Taylor Swift's speech at the VMAs! If he tried that to G-Unit, Three 6 Mafia, The Game or Suge Knight, he wouldn't come out alive! Kanye West is just another punk who only causes trouble to people who can't fight back!

4) Lets' say you have always opposed racism. But you are also skeptical about Obama's health-care plans! You worry it could make things worse.

Guess what? A lot of left-wing pundits think you don't exist! They keep saying "those who protest Obama's plans are racists"

Look, I'm not naive. There are racist people out there who still can't get over Obama being president!

But the idea that "only racists can oppose Obama's plans" is BULL-NONSENSE!

Reality is that even some African-Americans have publicly criticized Obama's policies. They include Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Star Parker. And let's not forget that the current chair of the Republican Party is an African-American male named Micheal Steele!

Here's what Thomas Sowell said on Obama's plan

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell091509.php3

What did we do, back during the years when most Americans had no medical insurance? I did what most people did. I depended on a "single payer" — myself. When I didn't have the money, I paid off my medical bills in installments.

The birth of my first child was not covered by medical insurance. I paid off the bill, month by month, until the time finally came when I could tell my wife that the baby was now ours, free and clear.

In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?

That is not the best way to do things for all people and all medical treatments, which is why most Americans today choose to have medical insurance. But millions of other people choose not to — often young and healthy people, sometimes deadbeats who use emergency rooms and don't pay at all.
--------

I choose to have health insurance and hope I can continue to afford it! I can pay now or pay later. I prefer to pay now so I can be covered!

The US systems has flaws! Those who can't afford medical procedures can be in deadly situations. Check out http://www.truthout.org/article/bob-herbert-the-divide-caring-our-kids


But that has also happened in so-called single-payer (more accurate word is GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY paid by 300 million taxpayers) health-care nations like Canada.

Check out http://jewishworldreview.com/0709/tracinski.php3


5) Magic Johnson visited McKinley High School (my alma mater) earlier this week!

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090917_mckinleys_magic_moment.html

All heads turned as one to the entrance of the gym as the magic moment came at 1:15 p.m. When a big man a foot taller than everyone around him neared the door, the screaming started and burst into a roar as Hall of Fame basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson stepped inside.

No formal introduction was made for 10 minutes -- there was no need -- because the 1,800 kids recognized the smile that has always lit up a room and a basketball court, said emcee Stacie Tamaru, student body president. When Tamaru was told Johnson would appear minutes before the assembly, "I started jumping up and down. I was amazed and shocked. Words cannot describe how it felt to give a lei and hug to Mr. Magic Johnson."


He generated excitement, even though he retired from the NBA just as the current-day high school seniors were about to be born!

What's even more amazing was that when I learned about Johnson having HIV, I was in 5th grade. I thought Johnson wouldn't make it to 2000! It's 2009 and he still exciting crowds in the present!

6) Gangsta rap pioneer EAZY-E once said 1999 was going to be the end of the world. It's 10 years later! EAZY-E died of AIDS in 1995! He never got to see 1999!

I remember learning of Eazy-E's death after returning from a middle-school sponsored field trip to the Big Island!

Ironic, as me & a few other male students were in a car driving into the Volcanoes National Park, a classmate suggested playing a rap CD. The driver told the student he'll have to pay for every swear word being heard. One of those CDs was from Eazy-E. At the time, we didn't know Eazy-E might've just died!

We were sequestered from the outside world! This was a few years before the Internet, text-messaging, etc became popular!

We had to wait before coming back to Oahu before finding out! We were late in hearing the news!

Natives and Non-Natives

PART ONE

Some Native Hawaiian sovereignty activists love to say that non-native residents "have a place to go back to, Hawaiians don't"

Excuse me?

I responded to it by writing the following for the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/20090906_Lifelong_Hawaii_resident_has_no_other_place_to_call_home.html

The above link is the edited version. Below is what I actually sent to the editors!

Here we go again, another letter writer claimed that a non-Native Hawaiian "has a place to return to; Hawaiians do not." (8/31/09 edition of the Star Bulletin)!

I have a "place to return to"? I never lived anywhere else! So where am I supposed to "return to"? Am I supposed to return to Mexico? Puerto Rico? Spain? Portugal? Germany?

What about those who are part-Japanese/part-Filipino? Or those who are part-Tongan/part-Irish? Where do they "return to"?
This "non-natives have a place to return to" rhetoric is ridiculous! The reality is that many who grew up away from their ancestral lands would have extreme difficulty fitting in their ancestral lands.

For example, some Japanese moved to Latin America about a century ago. When their Latin-American born descendants moved to Japan, they faced major issues! Though their DNA was Japanese, they were too culturally Latin-American to be accepted by the mainstream Japanese society!
This was also true of those who migrated to the US as children, joined a gang, comitted a felony and deported to their birthplace. They included Cambodian and Salvadoran ex-cons who had a hard time fitting into their birthplace after spending a decade or two in the U.S.

This idea of "non-natives have a place to return to" is a part of a larger mentality of "this is our land, the rest are intruders"!

This mentality isn't limited to the vocal minority here in Hawaii. It was also present in the land where my last name came from - Germany! The Nazis felt Germany was the land of their ethnic group and others are intruders. This led to a mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and other groups. Some modern Europeans still have that "this is our land, others are intruders" attitude, leading to hate crimes against immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia!

Now, let's talk about another of my ancestral lands - Latin Americans. The natives were conquered by the Spanish. But the descendants of the conquerors are there to stay. The descdendants of the conquered, conquerors, imported slaves and settlers are accepted as a part of the modern Latin American social fabric.

Most people in Hawaii, Native Hawaiians and non-native, have accepted that the descendants of the conquered, conquerors and other settlers are part of the modern Hawaii social fabric

Those without Native Hawaiian ancestry need to respect Native Hawaiian culture! And the xenophobic minority who say "non-natives have a place to return to" need to accept that non-natives aren't going to go away!

As Rodney King has said "can we all just get along?"

--

You can check out people's comments to the editorial at

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/honolulu-star-bulletin/TEK0F40EBF5J0BAPO

some called my editorial "idiotic whining", others pointed out that the ancestors of Native Hawaiians came from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.

Here's what I wrote in response to some comments

Thanks to everyone who read so far!

What I also should've added in the editorial is - it wouldn't be right for Native Hawaiians living in Nevada or Utah to be told by the local Native American tribes "you don't belong, go back to Hawaii". It wouldn't be right for Native Hawaiians to be told "go back to Tahiti".

As for the comment by "arm", my Latin American ancestors are a mix of the Native Americans and Europeans. In fact, my dad's mother is pure Zapotec, no Spanish! Zapotec is one of the native tribes of Oaxaca, Mexico! That's where I got my brown skin,and probably why I wouldn't be accepted in Germany (where my last name came from, and one of my mom's ancestral lands)

An ironic thing, Sonia Sotomayor is known to be Puerto Rican, and got controversy over the "wise Latina coming to a better conclusion than a white man". But look at Sotomayor's skin. It's WHITE! Though most of her DNA would probably trace to Spain, she's still called Puerto Rican, because her family has been there for generations!

As for WaimeaWilliams, you said "Just get along? Yes, if it were only that simple." What's wrong with getting along? What's wrong with just judging people based on character!

----------

So far, no letters appeared on today's edition of the Star Bulletin responded to my editorial. If some come up, and if they're lame, I'll post it here on my blog.
---

PART TWO

a few months back, on the Honolulu Weekly, there was an interview with UH English professor Cynthia Fujikane.

Fujikane is one of those Asian-Americans who feel guilty about living in Hawaii. She feels Asian-Americans in Hawaii should feel un-earned guilt for living in lands that European-Americans stole from Native Hawaiians!

Here's what I wrote to Dr Fujikane

=================================


Ms. Cynthia Fujikane,

First off, like you, I am a descendant of a "settler"!

I skimmed through the Asian Settler Colonialism book and read the interview in the Honolulu Weekly!

I do agree that the descendants of "settlers" need to respect the Native Hawaiian culture! We need to learn as much as we can!

However, I do see some holes in the rhetoric!

From the interview:

Some people don’t want to give up the word ‘local.

Most people I know use "local" in the context of "this guy's a local Japanese, instead of an immigrant Japanese"

So I don't see a problem with saying who's local!

---------------

If you’re not Hawaiian, you’re a settler and part of the colonial problem.

The neo-Nazis in Europe feel the same way about African & Arab immigrants in Europe! Their attitude "we (Germans, French, Russians, etc) are here first, those non-whites aren't from here, they're the problem!"

This is the attitude of "all those not of the same DNA are born-to-be-a-problem". Therefore, the neo-Nazi comparison!

-----------

The word hapa has also recently been used more in Asian American Studies. Wei-Ming Dariotis of San Francisco State recently wrote that when she discovered that using the term is a settler appropriation of a Hawaiian word, she stopped using it. She is encouraging hapa clubs in California to rename themselves.

I heard it before, using the word "hapa" is a mis-appropriation of the Hawaiian language!

Words of EVERY language has been mis-appropriated!
For example, look at English, the native language of England!

People all over the world (including these islands) use English words VERY DIFFERENTLY from the way they were originally used by the native English!
Same is true of other languages!

People of Latin America & the Phillipines use Spanish words VERY DIFFERENTLY from way those words are used in Spain!

People of Tahiti & Haiti use French words VERY DIFFERENTLY from the way those words are used in France!

And obviously, we in Hawaii use English words very differently than the way those words are used in England. Here, we call proudly call it pidgin!

As an English professors, you probably know even more examples than I do about how languages evolve!

Not only that, English has so many words from other languages, like Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German,etc, etc.

So back to the word "hapa", while it may be used differently than it was in the pre-Cook era, I'm sure we all use English words very differently from the Germanic, Latin, Greek or Hebrew roots of those same words. And most of us aren't even German, Italian, Greek or Jewish, but we use their words totally differently from their ancestors!

I'm sure you probably got answers to many of the commentary

Though if you're tempted to dismiss it as "just another settler in denial", that wouldn't a response based on logic, it would be a response based on the attitude of "how dare you question me and not sit in silence"

PART THREE

Dr. Fujikane didn't respond to my e-mail.

It's impossible to find the link to Fujikane's lame interview with Honolulu Weekly. I saw it on the print edition.

However, I did find a link to a letter by Ethnic Studies Professor Dr. Davianna Pomaikai McGregor (who is Native Hawaiian) who exposed how lame Cynthia Fujikane's arguments are.

http://honoluluweekly.com/letters/2009/05/settling-the-record-straight/

Letters
Settling the record straight
May 13, 2009

I write as a founding member of the UH Manoa Ethnic Studies Department to correct an inaccurate statement by English Professor Candace Fujikane (“Critical transformations,” 4/22).

Dr. Fujikane mistakenly attributed our department’s slogan, “Our History, Our Way” to local Asians who she called colonial with “no perception that Hawaiians have their own struggle.”

First of all, myself and other Kanaka ‘Oiwi (Pete Thompson, Kehau Lee, Terrilee Kekoolani, Soli Niheu) were at the forefront of the struggle and the formulation of our slogan.

Second, the slogan is inclusive of Kanaka ‘Oiwi history. Our ethnic studies courses on Hawaiians and land tenure were the first to challenge the dominant historical narrative, which characterized Native Hawaiians as compliant, childlike natives who embraced Christianity and American settler civilization.

We empowered our students with a history of resistance, from the makaainana of Kau who killed abusive chiefs; to the killing of Captain Cook; the taking of the Fair American; the rebellion of Chief Kekuaokalani and Chiefess Manono; the 1845 petitions against Ka Mahele; the Wilcox Rebellion; the Hui Aloha ‘Aina; the 1895 Restoration; and Hawaiian longshoremen who founded the I.L.W.U. Moreover, we got involved, with our students, in Kalama Valley, Waiahole-Waikane, Heʻeia Kea, Waimanalo, Niumalu Nawiliwili and Kahoolawe community struggles.

Sadly, Fujikane’s statement is yet another example of how labeling Asian immigrant workers and their descendants as colonial “settlers” is ahistorical, narrow-minded, lacking in class analysis, and too simplistic to explain our complicated islands’ society.

Dr. Davianna Pomaikai McGregor

Professor, Ethnic Studies Department UHM

statehood vs independence

Yesterday, it was official : the 50th state was a state for 50 years!

1) Back in 1959, the overwhelming majority of those who voted chose statehood for Hawaii.

However, some Hawaiian sovereignty activists said that that election was illegitimate because independence wasn't listed as an option on the ballot!

So now what?

The obvious is that we should have another election for the status: statehood, territory, independence, none of the above!

Whichever side looses will need to accept the results!

According to a recent poll, most Hawaii residents prefer statehood!

Read on it at
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090821/STATEHOOD01/908210362


Whatever happened in 1893, everyone from that era is dead! Only the living can vote!

Let's put it this way - Northern Ireland was conquered by the British! The Irish could claim that was their stolen land. But that conquest happened centuries ago. But if the people living in Northern Ireland want to remain a part of the United Kingdom, then that's what it will be! You can only go by those who live there today!

If the people of Leeward Oahu, Hana, Pahoa or Waimanalo want to start their own separate nation, that's fine! They just need to keep their economies sustainable, because the US taxpayers aren't going to bail them out all the time!


2) Independence will NOT guarantee things will get better or worse.

Let's look at North Korea and South Korea. Both were conquered by Japan!

However, after the Japanese left, the 2 Koreas went in totally opposite directions.

South Korea became one of the most prosperous democracies in the world. North Korea became one of the poorest and most oppressive dictatorships in the world!

One country became better off after the Japanese left, the other got worse!

Now let's look at Botswana and Zimbabwe. Both are African nations that are next to each other. Both were former British territories.

After the British left, Botswana and Zimbabwe went totally opposite directions.

Botswana is now one of the most economically stable, peaceful, democratic nations in Africa. It doesn't fit the negative stereotypes of Africa!

Zimbabwe is now one of the most poorest, violent and oppressive dictatorships in Africa. It fits the worst stereotypes of Africa!

One country became better off after the British left, the other got worse!

So will Hawaii become worse or better if it became independent? NOTHING IS GUARANTEED!

3) why were there no massive celebrations of statehood yesterday?

Only one government official admitted the obvious : riot prevention!

Here's what Don Cataluna, a trustee of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said!

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090821/STATEHOOD01/908210363&template=statehood/Iolani+Palace+to+remain+quiet+as+Hawaii+observes+50th

"And many, many Hawaiians — many Hawaiians — would be very, very upset," Cataluna said. "It would not be a good idea to have an event at the site of the overthrow of their queen. It would be a horrible mess there. I had visions of blood spilling and I didn't want that."

Based on everything I read in the papers today, all statehood events and protests were peaceful. Sure, there might've been shouting, but as long as no one got hit, then that's democracy in action!

4) What if the US didn't take over Hawaii?

Someone else would've!

Other nations looking to conquer were Germany, Russia and Japan!

Judging by the history of the 20th century, does anyone think Hawaii would've been better off being taken over by Germany, Russia or Japan?

US control of Hawaii wasn't perfect. In the early half of the 20th century, Native Hawaiian children were humiliated by their school-teachers if they spoke Hawaiian! This has contributed to the anger felt by many Native Hawaiians!

But the freedoms of the US Constitution allowed for the freedom of speech, assembly and religion. These things made the Hawaiian Renaissance movement much easier. These freedoms allowed the Native Hawaiians to revive lost traditions and their culture to grow again!

Now, we have charter schools and immersion schools that emphasize the Hawaiian language and Native Hawaiian culture!

Things are very different now from the early territorial days!

5) What's going to happen in the future?

Most likely, Hawaii will remain a state for a very long time. Though I think that areas like Leeward Oahu, Hana, Waimanalo, Pahoa and the islands of Niihau, Molokai and Kaho'olawe could eventually break off from the US and be a separate Hawaiian nation, just like how certain parts of the continental US are separate Native American nations!

Hawaii and the USA are connected in so many ways, it's unlikely that Hawaii would totally separate from the USA! Even many Native Hawaiians don't want to totally separate from the USA! The farthest it would go is nation-within-a-nation status!



6) The total-independence crowd will continue to be a minority. Their rhetoric has alienated too many people!

Let's put it this way. My Zapotec ancestors of Oaxaca, Mexico were conquered by the Spanish! But the descendants of the Spanish settlers are there to stay! So while Mexico is independent, the descendants of the conquerors, conquered and other settlers are accepted as part of the modern Mexican social fabric!

The same for Hawaii. Whether Hawaii is a state or independent, the sovereignty activists need to accept that the descendants of the conquerors, conquered and other settlers are part of the modern Hawaiian social fabric!

Those without Native Hawaiian ancestry need to respect Native Hawaiian culture! And the independence advocates need to accept that non-natives aren't going away and that integration is the way to go!

As Rodney King has said "can we all just get along"