Editing Films for Content

Some conservatives who are disgusted by movies with lots of violence and sex have re-edited films to delete such scenes without permission!

So ironic, since conservatives (who supposedly hate the entitlement mentality) start claiming that they're entitled to "cleaned-up edited" version of popular films!

1) don't like it? Don't watch it!

2) you can't always escape ideas you don't like anyways! What next, avoiding anyone who thinks differently from you?

3) I make my art the way I want to! If you don't like it, make your own art!

4) Maybe I should edit those conservative films so as to not offend the liberal sensibilities of the Blue States. You know, take out scenes critical of affirmative action, homosexuality, abortion, etc. Take out scenes promoting abstinence and resisting drug use. Then we'll see how conservatives feel about editing (censoring) films.

Maybe we could re-edit "Passion of the Christ" with it's violent scenes.

5) Or just go along with #1 "don't like it? Dont watch it!"

Aborted/Unaborted

Right-wing columnist Julia Gorin wrote one of those columns with a few wise-ass remarks against abortion.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008802

Gorin: If Ms. (a feminst magazine) readers hadn't had so many abortions, there might be more Ms. readers. As for the rest of us, here's a petition we could all sign: "I wasn't aborted."

Pablo: Yeah, and if my parents didn't have sex about 9 months before I was born, I wouldn't be here either. I am so glad my parents didn't practice abstinence at that moment.

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Gorin: Rather than debate what it is we're killing, we should consider what we may be saving--for our sakes as much as for "its" own. When you choose to abort, you alter the course of history. While the child up for abortion may or may not be the next Einstein, saving his life could one day save yours.

Pablo: And maybe we should just put a stop to abstinence too. So if you and your lover don't have sex tonight, that means that you miss a chance to produce the next Einstein, the next Tiger Woods, the next Bill Gates or some hero who cures cancer, ends all wars, and save the world from global warming!

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Gorin: The Web site of Ms. Magazine--yes, it still exists--is calling on readers to sign a petition: "I have had an abortion. I publicly join the millions of women in the United States who have had an abortion in demanding a repeal of laws that restrict women's reproductive freedom."Well, so much for the right to privacy.

Pablo: The right to privacy is so that those who had abortions (for whatever reason) can have it without worrying about right-wing bullies like Julia Gorin finding out and persecuting them.

The Ms Magazine is trying to get those who had abortions to become brave enough to stand up to right-wing bullies like Julia Gorin.

Single Gender Schools

Brother Greg O'Donnell, the principal of Damien Memorial School (an all boys school in Honolulu) wrote an article that says that boys and girls ought to be segregated in schools.

http://starbulletin.com/2006/06/25/editorial/special.html

O'Donnell: For starters, the natural thing for boys and girls is to be extremely different, including the ways in which they learn.

Pablo: An average boy might learn and act differently from an average girl. But not everyone is average! Take a group of boys -- you'll find that the boys have different learning styles from each other! Same is true if you take a group of girls!

This isn't being politically correct. This is from observing my fellow students when I was a student, AND observing the students as I was a teacher!

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O'Donnell :From a classroom management standpoint, girls are easier to teach. There are, of course, other considerations, but the energy level of boys can overwhelm a teacher who's already tired.

Pablo: In the elementary level, boys do tend to be more rascal!

However, my observations in the middle school level shows both the boys and girls to be rascal.

There were even cases, when I was working 2 different middle schools, I could have a class of mostly boys, in which the class environment was laid back. However, in the same day, in the same school, with the same lesson plans, a class of mostly girls was worse. A lot of the girls were rude and sassy!

This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough to show a pattern!

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Some say that one-gender schools are good, in that students don't get distracted by the opposite sex. I say it's better that they learn to deal with those distractions early in life!

However, if the student was homosexual, the student would be distracted no matter what school he/she attends!

Schools and Diversity

The US Supreme Court is going to soon hear 2 cases, one from Seattle, and one from Louisville about public schools that admit only a certain percentage from each racial group for the sake of "diversity".

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/washington/05cnd-scotus.html?hp&ex=1149566400&en=a57b596a5d121bdd&ei=5094&partner=homepage


The idea that schools choose the race of it's students, for any reason, is ridiculous. Especially if it's a government school.

Our state of Hawaii is more racially integrated than most of the mainland. This state has the largest rate of inter-racial marriages and multi-racial people.

And we didn't get that way by having government schools choosing the race of it's students.

The real reason people had problems with segregated schools in the South pre-1960's, was because the government schools chose the race of it's students. Now, forcing schools to have a certain percentage of whites. blacks, etc for the sake of "diversity" is just as crazy! Let the people figure out their own way of dealing with diversity. That's what we in Hawaii have done.

Yes, a school like Waipahu High would have a lot of Filipinos, but anyone living in that school's district can go to that school. A school like Waianae High would have mostly Native Hawaiians, but anyone living in the district can go there. Hardly anyone in Hawaii has a problem with Waipahu High being mostly Filipino or Waianae High being mostly Native Hawaiian, because people can choose where they live.

Other schools have very different combinations of people, with Kahuku High having a lot of Polynesians and Caucasians; Roosevelt High having a lot of local Japanese and Native Hawaiians, or McKinley High having a large of number of immigrants from Asia and the Pacific (which, by the way, is where I, a Mexican/PuertoRican/Portuguese//German, graduated from). The people in those district choose to live among such diversity.

Yes, Hawaii has Kamehameha Schools, which admits only Native Hawaiians, but it's a private school. And even that has caused controversy. A person with 99% European/1% Hawaiian ancestry can go to Kamehameha School, but a 100% Samoan or a 100% Tongan can't go there, all because their ancestors landed on the wrong island.

The Change in Priorities

So odd, a few years back, some mistaken me for a conservative because I criticized Haunani-Kay Trask, Al Gore, and the Radical Leftists at UH. For that I got vicious smears from people like Tobin Jones.

However, if you read my blog posts the last few months, it is something that would give me vicious smears from the Radical Right.

Most of my political opinions haven't changed, but my priorities on my top topics did. Since I graduated from UH, and after the Churchill/Horowitz appearances at UH, I have paid less attention to the campus leftists.

Now, the extreme right-wing of the GOP wants to reduce or even ban immigration. And this goes along with idiotic, bullshit editorials from conservative writers like Thomas Sowell, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, etc.

I give President Geroge W. Bush and Senator John McCain for being pro-immigration, unlike other members of the GOP

I know A LOT MORE about immigrants than most right-wing conservatives. My family includes immigrants, my school classmates includes immigrants, and a large # of students I currently work with are immigrants. I am not going to be silent when someone writes bullshit editorials about people I love and respect.

Tobin Jones would be tempted to tell me "I told you so, that the Left-Wings are angels and Right-Wing are devils".

I'll tell him

1)Bush is defying the right-wingers on the immigration issue, 

2) I still think Dr. Foltz and the other leftist profs need to stick to the frickin topic of the class instead of making political rants, 

3) I dont care much about the 2000 election controversy anymore, since that's old news, 

4) I was never a right-winger in the first place, 

5) I spent more time criticizing the left-wingers on Ka Leo (www.kaleo.org) because the left-wingers dominated UH

The Dixie Chicks started their war on Bush in London instead of Texas. That's not bravery! I'd rather criticize the Left on their territory (UH) instead of doing it outside (ie, BYU). If I was a student @ BYU or Liberty University, I would've spent more time criticizing the Right Wing since most students there are conservatives.

If you are wondering whether I'm Right or Left on certain issues, just explore this blog. You'd have a very adventurous time doing so.

P.E. classes

As I think about my experiences with P.E. classes as a student, my middle school and my high school had different approaches.

At my middle school, all students had to participate in the same team sports as everyone else. The P.E. curriculum is only team sports (ie basketball, flag football, soccer, volleyball, baseball).

At my high school, there was a very different approach. Every other week, the students get to choose from 3 different sports. The choices include basketball, football, soccer, badmintion, lawn bowling, indoor hockey, aerobics, weight training, archery, frisbee, bowling, and even fishing and billiards (I'm not making that up :)!

McKinley High School gave the students more options, and obviously, I liked that school's approach to PE a lot better than my middle school's lame approach to P.E.

I sucked at most team sports, so I didn't like being stuck with playing them at middle school. Plus, the other students are such sore losers, getting mad if I made a bad play, or even blaming me if the team lost the game. However, NONE of them made it to the pros, in fact most of them weren't even high school all-stars! So, if I see them again, I will tell that to their faces!

If I ran my own school, students would fulfill their PE choices, by choosing from different courses. They choose courses like 1) team sports, 2) martial arts, 3) bike riding, 4) weight lifting, 5) aerobics, 6) cultural dances (ie. Polynesian, Latin, Asian, and from the rest of the world), 7) hip-hop dance, 8) etc.

That way, students can get their fitness from whatever they enjoy, instead of being forced into activities that they hate!

That is an approach Mililani Middle School takes in their PE curriculum. Their PE teacher even won an award recently. Check out the article at http://www.midweek.com/content/story/Print_Story/the_best_pe_teacher_in_america/

One more thing, the students need to have their own private stalls to change clothes and showering. I hated changing and showering in front of others!

Development in Hawaii


Here's my editorial published in yesterday's Honolulu Star Bulletin

http://starbulletin.com/2006/04/30/editorial/commentary.html

Gathering Place
Pablo Wegesend

Time doesn't stand still and neither can Hawaii

IT IS natural for people to reminisce about the old days. I'm only 25 years old, and I already feel nostalgic about the good times of the past.

That's totally OK when you're sitting alone at home or when talking story to longtime friends.

However, some people use nostalgia as an excuse to oppose any development, whether it's a condo building, a neighborhood or a Wal-Mart being built.

Many of these opponents grew up in Hawaii in the 1950s and 1960s, and they want Hawaii to stay the way they remember it.

How ironic, since when they were children, the adults (who grew up in the 1920s) already wished things were the way they were when they were young.

People just assume that the way things were when they grew up was how it was before they were born.

If those people were living in caveman times, they would oppose the idea of building homes outside of caves, not to mention basic sanitation, electric systems and other things we take for granted today.

THINGS CHANGE, and it happens everywhere.

Whenever a new building goes up in city or suburb, opponents call it the "mainland-ization" of Hawaii. But is the mainland the same as it was in the 1960s? Is Japan the same as it was in the 1960s? Is Mexico the same? Is France? The answer, obviously, is no! But some people want Hawaii to be exempt from the passage of time.

When a new condominium is built in Kakaako, or a new neighborhood is built near Kona, opponents promote the fear of the Big, Bad, White Mainlanders who are coming to take over Hawaii and drive up property values. But as mentioned in a recent newspaper article, Hawaii people are more likely to move to the mainland, than mainlanders are to move to Hawaii.

Most of the population increase in Hawaii is due to: 1) babies born to Hawaii residents and 2) foreign immigration, mostly from Asia, Micronesia and the South Pacific.

IT'S IRONIC that the anti- development folks complain about both suburban and urban development, yet they have the nerve to complain about the high cost of housing. If they had their way, housing would be even more expensive because there would be even fewer houses. It's basic supply and demand: When the supply of homes goes down, the demand goes up and the remaining supply of houses becomes more expensive. Then more Hawaii residents must choose between homelessness or moving to the mainland.

What this means is that the anti-development agenda is a bigger threat to Hawaii residents today than the Big, Bad, White Mainlander.

DON'T GET me wrong, I still want to see forests in Hawaii. But I also understand that people need places to live, so we either have more suburban development or more condominiums in urban areas. I prefer more condominiums so that more people can enjoy the urban life of Honolulu without wasting their time in long commutes from other parts of Oahu.

One last thing: I am not a Big, Bad, White Mainlander; I am a Medium-Sized, Brown-Skinned, Hawaii-Born-and-Raised Guy who grew up in a low-income section of urban Honolulu.

But I still think fearing development and Big, Bad, White Mainlanders is ridiculous!