This is so true

The Incredible Hulk is interesting

The Incredible Hulk is an intellectual property owned by Marvel Comics and created by comic book writer Stan Lee.

The Incredible Hulk is also an emerging cocktail drink that was created by mixing Hpnotiq and Hennessy over ice and popular among hip-hop circles.

The drink was created at a Hpnotiq launch event by a restaurant bartender at Sean Combs’ New York restaurant, Justin’s. A Hpnotiq employee noticed many women but few men drinking his company’s liquor, because the men considered the blue, fruity drink to be too effeminate. Victor Alvarez, a bartender at the restaurant, mixed Hennessy with Hpnotiq to dilute the fruity flavor, resulting in a green beverage that quickly became a hit.

My drink was much greener than the one shown here.

Today was my first time trying the Incredible Hulk just for the sake of treating myself after a grueling flight to Orlando and a long shuttle trip to the hotel for a business trip.  The bartenders were surprised that I would order such a drink since I don’t fit the stereotypical demographic and I was impressed that they were able to serve this cocktail.

Much of the hotel is very nice with great and pricey food.  Even the deli is expensive with $2 fruit juice and $5 pizza despite being poorly prepared compared with the standard fare I can get in local restaurants and fast food joints.  Then again, I can always expense all these costs.

All the rage

All the rage
Tracking the trend of angry Asian men
By Kevin Chong, CBCNews.ca
November 21, 2007

In his prescient new comedy, Yellow Fellas, Vancouver actor-writer-director Tetsuro Shigematsu plays a disgruntled young Japanese-Canadian named Howie Hiroshima, who decides to create a politicized (and unintentionally bumbling) Asian gang to combat skinheads and racism.

This independent film both satirizes and typifies what Shigematsu sees as an emerging cultural figure in North America: the angry Asian man. And he says the revolution is coming.

“All Asian guys are angry,” says Shigematsu, a stand-up comic and former CBC radio host who made Yellow Fellas over seven years, with only $5,000. “It’s just a question of whether they’re in touch with it or not.”

The image of the angry Asian man has gained infamy since a Korean-American student killed 33 people in a horrific shooting rampage at a Virginia college in April. But in the past few years, Asian men in North America have also become increasingly vocal and visible in non-violent ways as they voice their displeasure with certain inequalities in society. (The upsurge in anger can be seen in its most concentrated form in websites and message board postings.)

The trend is playing out in pop culture, too. After being pushed a little too far, the titular Asian-American heroes of the stoner flick Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle lash out against racist frat-boys and entitled bankers who stiff their quiet Asian co-workers. The Chinese-American rapper Jin — who happens to be the first Asian rapper to be signed to a major label — recorded a Donald Trump-sampling “diss track” about Rosie O’Donnell after the talk-show host used a “ching-chong” approximation of the Chinese language on The View. Justin Lin’s 2002 film Better Luck Tomorrow is considered a watershed film in Asian-American cinema, for its stereotype-shattering depiction of Asian teenage males who exploit their honour-roll grades and image as obedient sons to steal, snort cocaine and brandish pistols.

For many Asian men, racism and pop culture stereotypes are an ongoing source of irritation. Websites like Angry Asian Man and Asian Media Watch track objectionable portrayals of Asians in the U.S. media. Activist groups and not-for-profits, such as the Organization of Chinese Americans, have protested radio DJs spouting racial slurs and using offensive accents, racist t-shirts and stereotypical movie depictions.

Others are dismayed by the lack of representation. A 2004 study of U.S. television revealed there were no Asian-American characters in series set in Los Angeles and Miami, even though both cities have significant Asian populations. In shows set in New York City, the study found Asian-Americans made up only one per cent of regular characters but nearly ten per cent of the population.

When Asian men do appear on TV, “it’s either the martial arts villain or hero, or the opposite, the nerd who never seems to get the girl,” suggests Craig Takeuchi, film editor at the Vancouver weekly Georgia Straight. “It’s rare to ever have the Asian male as the dramatic lead.”

Which brings up one of the top grievances that young Asian men have with their profile in the pop culture landscape: dating patterns. Namely, they are upset about the predominance of interracial dating between white males and Asian females — who are often fetishized as hyper-feminine and subservient — over dating between Asian men and white women.

“I see a lot commercials where you have an Asian girl and a white guy,” observes Eric Nakumura, co-publisher of Giant Robot, a magazine devoted to Asian and Asian-American culture. “But when do you see the Asian guy and the white girl?”

Some point to actor Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) or an athlete like basketball player Yao Ming as proof that the Asian male’s alpha status is rising; but many remain dissatisfied.

While this griping is justifiable, at what point is anger counter-productive? Is this resentment helping to replace the colonialist image of the weak Asian man with an equally unpleasant stereotype — namely, the bitter Asian man?

According to Nakumura, the solution lies in including other races when talking about issues facing Asian men. He’s taken the idea to heart. The circulation of Giant Robot has shot to 55,000. Nearly half of his readers are non-Asian. “We don’t worry too much about identity,” he says. “That’s why [Giant Robot] crosses over. Because [when you worry about your own identity], you’re excluding other people.”

Boston-based Tak Toyoshima started his semi-autobiographical comic strip Secret Asian Man in 1999, to, as he says, “get all the Asian American-centric things off my chest and out there, without any real expectation. If you look at older strips, there is a lot of anger in them. It was public therapy.” More recently, however, Toyoshima has tried to reach a broader audience. “I want the strip to serve as a bridge between communities, not a wall.” He’s now more open to writing about light-hearted topics, and while he still often discusses race, he’s also considered it from the perspective of a Muslim woman and a black man. Sam, Toyoshima’s militant Asian protagonist, has evolved a more peaceful disposition.

“All the protests are great,” says Toyoshima. “It shows that Asians can organize, mobilize and speak with a collective voice. But the danger comes when people become closed to ideas and act according to feelings of obligation and become almost blinded by their duty of being an Asian.”

Starting from real characters instead of a political stance is what makes Adrian Tomine’s wry and observant treatment of white-Asian dating so fascinating. Shortcomings, a graphic novel culled from Tomine’s comic book Optic Nerve, follows Ben Tanaka, an angry Asian man with an Asian girlfriend, Miko, who takes issue with his interest in porn featuring only white women. After Miko moves from Berkeley, Calif., to New York, Ben dates a couple of white women. When these relationships fizzle, he heads to New York to find Miko, who has since begun dating a white guy. Their relationship sets Ben off on a racist tirade.

What makes Ben Tanaka so compelling is also what accounts for Tomine’s wide appeal (and the praise of writers like Jonathan Lethem and Nick Hornby). With an eye for awkwardly revealing interactions, he depicts Ben as a sometimes unpleasant character (rather than a put-upon Asian Everyman) who’s openly disdainful of Asians who blame all their troubles on racism and the boosterism within Asian-American cultural circles; he has to be convinced that race has anything to do with his relationships. Ben might be angry, but not in a way that’s different from the Asian female and white males that Tomine also writes about.

For Shigematsu, the best way to fight the lack of representation in media is to make his own movies. As Yellow Fellas makes its way through the film-festival circuit, he’s already planning his next feature, which stars another angry Asian man at its centre.

This time around, Shigematsu doesn’t think he’ll have much trouble finding actors. But back when he began casting Yellow Fellas in 2000, he recalls finding Asian actors was not unlike recruiting members for a politicized gang. Shigematsu remembers seeing Asian men on the streets of Montreal; they would eye each other tensely before Shigematsu even approached them.

“Nothing cuts tensions more than the query, ‘Have you ever considered acting?’” Shigematsu says. “I’d give them a five minute speech similar to Howie’s [in Yellow Fellas]: ‘When was the last time you saw an Asian onscreen who wasn’t Long Duk Dong or the stuttering waiter? When did you see the Asian guy get the girl? If you want to be part of the solution and not the problem, here’s my number. Join the revolution.’”

Kevin Chong is a Vancouver writer.

This is a frustrating issue for Asian males living in North America. It appears that being Asian and male in North America does not amount to much (more so in the United States) since we will always appear as the “useful outsider”, the “perpetual foreigner” who is rarely taken seriously or provided with substantive opportunities like his non-Asian peers. It is quite different for Asian females, who will always have more opportunities available to them on the basis of their physical appearance and ethnicity. Yet ,they will always have to struggle shaking off the “Asian mistress” stereotypes that have been valued by non-Asian men for so long.

Most of the time, Asian-American women will often try to break out of these stereotypes by submitting to them through their interracial dating and using this to advance themselves at the expense of their cultural identity. This also holds true for many Asian males who decide to fully abandon their ethnic heritage by refusing to speak or learn their parent’s native language, continuously put down Asians who are still immigrants or those who retain their identity, or simply disassociate themselves from all things Asian in the false belief that they will become accepted by the White power structure. African-Americans who have acted in this manner were often called Uncle Toms or Aunt Jemimas, and it is time Asians who sell-out or promote self-hate to be known as Charlie Chans or Amy Tans.

Some males will vent their frustrations by discussing the problems in the hopes it will make their struggles seem common among similar people. Others will express their frustrations creatively through music, literature, and even the rare independent film. Many however, will simply accept this unpleasant fate and willingly put up with race-related abuses from the White power structure. Then, there are a handful who will vent all of their pain and anger through calculated and brutal violence as seen in Virginia Tech.

At Atlantic City for Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving Holiday was spent at the Borgata in Atlantic City. It has been over 5 to 7 years since I visited Atlantic City which was at a decline as a result of the recession that occurred as the dotcom boom went bust and due to the uncertainty after 9/11. Gone is the original pier mall in Atlantic City that resembled a cruise ship; in it’s place are a series of retail outlets near Caesar’s Atlantic City and a new pier mall on the boardwalk across Caesar’s Palace.

Most of the holiday was spent at the Borgata, which is the new resort built by MGM-Mirage and now currently one of the largest casinos in the city. The Borgata is also the start of a new trend of casino-resorts being built around the city now that Atlantic City has once again becoming a popular alternative to Las Vegas and to fill the void left by the decline of Donald Trump’s various casino-resorts.

Although there are still Asian gamblers that once populated the other casinos in Atlantic City’s heyday, the demographic for these gamblers has also changed. In the past much of the Asian gamblers were largely ethnic Chinese who originated from the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, and even Taiwan; but now they have been displaced by large numbers of South Koreans coming from Canada, America, and even the Republic of Korea as the Greater Chinese economy has suffered a shift while South Korea has begun its gradual rise in the world. Also, most of the Pai Gow poker tables are not longer at the levels they used to be nearly half a decade ago.

Unlike Las Vegas, Atlantic City does not even bother to promote itself as a family-friendly destination. Rather they have accepted the reality of simply being a casino town with some gentrified commercial districts for those who are looking to do something different in between loosing money in the casinos. Also, they have tried to position themselves as a cheaper and closer alternative to Las Vegas, Nevada.

One thing I did realise while working the slot machines, are the tendencies for machines to eat up your money if you play without an official casino card. This seems to be the case as the card appears to improve the computerised slot machine’s odds of providing a payout to keep you playing as a paying customer in the casino itself. Also, it allows the casino to track the player’s amounts and gaming activity which can be used later as market research for purchasing new machines, ad campaigns in attracting new customers, or even periodically changing the payout odds for the machines. With that in mind, I signed up to their local complementary membership and I started gaining higher payouts as a result.

Another thing I noticed is that the Borgata never bothers to card me in anything whether it’s playing at the casino or purchasing alcohol. This was not the case at any of Donald Trump’s casino, where I was constantly asked to produce a photo ID for nearly everything I did there. This maybe another reason why the Borgata seems to be a popular spot for college kids to go on certain weekends. It also does not hurt that many of the hostesses are also college girls working part-time for the flexible hours and reasonable gratuity. It’s also good to know that the Borgata has a less elitist atmosphere than the Trump resorts despite having obscenely-priced merchandise and high-end retail outlets.

A Triumph Over Godless, Immoral Liberals

A Triumph Over Godless, Immoral Liberals
By Right-Wing Larry

As you may have known, the Liberal Rutgers University has disbanded an infamous file-sharing network. Why is such as seemingly harmless file-sharing network being destroyed? The answer, you simplistic terrorist-sympathizing liberals, is that not only can these file-sharing programs allows local welfare cheats, bums and pacifists to share liberal, drug-fueled, blasphemous music over the Internet such as the Beatles and Johnny Cash; it is also used by Al-Qaeda and their supporters such as the Democratic Party to channel sensitive information and terrorist plans amongst themselves. What is even worse is that these file-sharing programs are used to share pornography, which is an affront to our only true Christian God, promotes pagan values, and attacks our great Western Civilization.

Why is it so wrong to share files among friends? Well, for one thing misguided liberal idiots, those artists and filmmakers worked hard to produce the trash that you idiots download. Hey liberal bitches, they worked hard, they deserved their tax rebate, why support bums and dirty terrorists by file sharing? Too bad those idiot Democrats do not care about the dangers of file sharing and are being Un-American by not supporting the Patriotic PATRIOT ACT. Besides, the Democratic Party does not listen to Asians or Whites; they only care about liberals, Blacks, Mexicans, Iraqis, bums, hippies, and terrorists. Nevertheless, enough about the stupid Democrats and let us talk about a true patriot.

The Patriot I am referring about is not our Blessed Commander-in-Chief George Walker Bush, who was reelected by God’s mandate, but a great man as discussed by the Great Daily Targum who wished to preserve his right conservative views in our ignorant, liberal university. As a dedicated college Republican, my hero was first alarmed that such a file-sharing network existed and attempted to reason with the network hosts to stop this blatant violation of our PATRIOT ACT and the spread of pagan values to our fellow Christians. However, the ultra-liberal network hosts repeatedly rejected his pleas and he was even banned from participating in the network, so much for reason and a fair and balanced file-sharing network.

In response for being banned from the network and the failure of Rutgers to enforce the PATRIOT ACT on the university network, our hero did what was only right: he reported this terrorist file-sharing network to the proper authorities and ended their satanic orgy of file-sharing. His act of Patriotism not only destroyed this potentially devastating network if it fell on to terrorist hands, he also ended the mindless proliferation of Satanic music and Un-Christian pornography trading as well. The destruction of the DirectConnect file sharing network was a great act of true American courage that we have not seen since Bush have liberated Iraq and I am sure that our Christian God, our only God (to all pagans, please convert or go to Hell) will bless his real American soul for this act. Moreover, I am sure this great man will truly get the appreciation and love he deserves from his fellow Christians.

So that is the True Patriot, I wish to praise in this week’s opinions page. Before I go, I wish to say the following: Down with the limousine liberals like Kennedy and Kerry! To idiot Democrats, come to the true, divine, side of America, the Republican Party; only tax cuts will fuel the economic growth needed to create jobs and the economy for our American Empire!

VOTE RUDY GIULIANI 2008! A VOTE FOR RUDY IS A VOTE FOR FREEDOM!

‘ER,’ ‘Chicago Hope’ can’t hold a stethoscope to Heisei’s hubba-hubba hospitals

‘ER,’ ‘Chicago Hope’ can’t hold a stethoscope to Heisei’s hubba-hubba hospitals
Shukan Taishu (11/26)

“When he starts to rub my back or shoulders, I shudder in expectation of pleasure,” relates Akina Yoshizawa, a 31-year-old professional nurse. Once a month Ms. Yoshizawa checks into a city hotel and arranges for a young hunk to visit her room to dispense a three hour-long therapy session.

“I’ve got a boyfriend, but he’s not enough to satisfy me,” she adds in way of explanation. Then, after a suitably long interlude of foreplay — during which his hands stray over every spot on her body — she’ll demand, “Okay, that’s enough. Stick it in.” And he’ll willingly oblige.

If you can believe it, 100 of these “Nightingales of the Heisei Era,” agreed to share accounts of their most intimate activities with Shukan Taishu (11/26).

What the magazine’s leering male readers really want to know is: do any of Japan’s angels in white ever engage in sex on the hospital premises?

It does happen, admitted 12 percent — as opposed to the 63 percent who replied “no way.” Interestingly, another 19 percent voiced a cryptically Clintonesque “other” as their reply. But come on, no fudging permitted: Was it sex, or wasn’t it?

Shukan Taishu chooses to interpret the noncommittal reply as being a yes. Which, extrapolating the data, means that one out of three nurses in Japan has, at one time or another, done some sort of dirty deed on the hospital premises, either with a physician, other staff member or patient.

“The first three years are always the hardest for a new nurse,” says Yoshiko Kagawa, who is 26. “You have to learn a ton of new stuff every day, and you can’t perform as well as senior staff. It’s hard on you psychologically.”

According to Kagawa, young nurses are particularly vulnerable to seduction by doctors while in their first year on the job. When she was still in her freshman year, she befriended a 34-year-old physician at the ward where she was assigned. The two constantly tiptoed off to the recuperation room, the rehabilitation therapy room, the linen storeroom, and anywhere else they could find privacy for their tempestuous trysts.

“We also used the outpatient surgery room,” she giggles. “Late at night any emergency cases were treated in the ICU, so the surgery was always empty. We’d lie down on the operating table and he would turn on the rotor and rub it against my clitoris. Or he’d moisten a cotton swab and insert it into my urethra. It drove me so wild, I lost control and wet myself,” she blushes.

“The sensei really smirked when he saw that — I tell you, some doctors are really flaky. Sometimes he’d use a speculum on me too. I got the feeling he was just toying with me. We broke up not long after that…”

Based on the above, it’s hardly surprising that of the 31 nurses who gave responses other than “no,” 17 were under age 24 at the moment of truth and six were aged 25-29. The figure dropped off after age 30 and then inexplicably picked up again after age 35.

How’s that? Well, it seems that once past this age, senior nurses are more likely to have access to the head physician’s private office, particularly when he’s out making calls. This affords them with extra privacy to indulge in their libidinous impulses.

Of course what readers REALLY want to know is, do admitted patients ever get lucky?

Well, it’s been known to happen.

Last winter Hitomi Yasunaga, a 23-year-old nurse at an orthopedic hospital, was helping a 28-year-old skier with a fractured leg limp to the loo, when, she confesses, “I did something I wasn’t supposed to.” Pressed for details, she relays this account.

“There weren’t enough male nurses available. Anyway, I was on night duty when I was buzzed, and he told me he had to pee.”

One job nurses must do, it seems, is pull down an incapacitated male patient’s PJs and aim his willie while he takes a whizz.

“He was really nervous and he couldn’t urinate at first,” she relates. “And while I held it there, it started getting bigger. And harder.”

Their eyes met and they giggled in mutual embarrassment. “And then nature took its course and I started, um, manipulating his thing,” blushes Yasunaga.

As it turned out, before the patient produced his urine specimen he secreted another, stickier substance.

After the patient’s discharge — not that one, I mean the one from the hospital — Yasunaga dated him once, but the magic of the moment had worn off.

“In a business suit he just wasn’t as cute as he was wearing pajamas,” she says. “We had sex on the date, but things didn’t click. We never saw each other again.” (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)

Heeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Hello, Nurse!!!

No End in Sight

The documentary “No End in Sight” traces the initial missteps in the postwar handling of Iraq that has led to the ongoing problems for America. The documentary interviews the individuals who were involved in the early phases of the postwar occupation, military leaders, journalists, Iraqis and even American soldiers. Much of the film involves interviews from these key individuals and retracing the decisions that ruined post-Saddam Iraq.

In the film, we learn that the Bush Administration only created an agency to oversee the Iraqi Occupation only 90 days before they officially attacked the country. Worse of all much of the initial staff for the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was a skeleton crew with limited access to computers, databases, and experience to manage such a gargantuan task. Additionally, all of the recommendations written by ORHA and the American State Department were largely ignored by the Bush Administration.

The major criticism over Iraq comes from the military, especially from former military leaders who served in Iraq. Many were especially critical of the lack of due diligence made to the troop levels, equipment, and instructions handed down to the United States Army. For example, Rumsfeld did not allow his military commanders to declare martial law to secure Iraq once they had officially ousted Saddam Hussein from power, which allowed the locals to mindlessly loot and destroy every major institution and key infrastructure in the country. Whatever initial support Iraqis had for Americans when they ousted Saddam from power was vapourised the moment the army allowed for mass looting and lawlessness to take root. It had also fuel suspicion among Iraqis that the Americans allowed this to happen as an excuse to prolong their presence in Iraq and that they were only after their oil since they had protected the country’s oil pipelines.

Many soldiers had complained about having the lack of tools to fight against the local resistance in Iraq. It reached the point where soldiers were actually rummaging in local junkyards for scrap metal to add armour to their cars, beg their parents to buy them body armour, and feeling overwhelmed due to the lack of overall troop strength. It was even worse when Bush decided to outsource their key security tasks to Private Military Contractors (PMC) who were unaccountable to no one and were allowed to shoot random Iraqis at will. Bush made another fatal mistake by refusing to hire any local Iraqi businesses for reconstruction in favour of corporate supporters, who were often more expensive and incompetent.

According to No End in Sight, there were three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:

• A move toward “De-Ba’thification” in the early stages of the occupation. Saddam Hussein’s ruling Ba’th Party counted as its members a huge majority of Iraq’s governmental employees, including educational officials and some teachers. By order of the CPA, these skilled and ultimately apolitical individuals were to be banned from holding any positions in Iraq’s new government.
• Not providing enough troops to maintain order. The looting of Iraqi museums sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi, telling them that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. And arms depots were available for pillaging by anyone who wanted weapons and explosives.
• The disbanding of the Iraqi Army, which made 500,000 young men with weapons and training unemployed and bitter. Many of them decided that their best chance for a future was to join or, together with the rest of their unit, become a militia force.

The film cites these three mistakes, as well as many others, as the cause of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos.

As a result of these fatal errors, an Iraqi insurgency rose almost overnight with the goal to kick the Americans out of Iraq with pro-Iran, fundamentalist elements taking power in a democratic Iraq. Now the so-called democratic Iraq is simply biding their time by playing nice until the Americans leave at Iran’s benefit and one should not be surprised if Iraq decides to implode into three weaker states that bring about more instability in the region.

Indigènes (Days of Glory)

“Indigènes” is a film about the French colonial soldiers who enlisted in the Free French Forces during World War II to liberate France and fight against the Nazis. The movie portrays the motivations of the main characters for joining the French First Army, and their contributions in the campaigns in Italy and Southern France against the Germans. Each of the four main characters join for different reasons: Said from Morocco joins to escape poverty, Abdelkader joins with the hope of gaining equality for the indigenous Africans, Messaoud for the hope of settling in France, while Yassir joins for the money. In their time in the Free French army, each of the main characters suffers endless racism by the White French power structure in addition to coming to terms with their own experiences.

One of the more interesting items that comes out of the film were the dynamic between the four Arab characters and with their French North African commanding officer, Roger Martinez. Although he is hard on them, the commander actually supports his men by constantly pushing for his commanders to give his non-White soldiers equal access to food, leave and even promotions. However, he does show his bad side by patronising Said, whom he promises a promotion to Private if he essentially acts as his servant, much to the annoyance to the other Arab soldiers. Eventually we learn that Martinez tries to get fair treatment for his troops not only because he is a French North African (Pied-Noir) but because his mother was an Arab, which he tries to hide when Said discovers one of his old photos. However, Martinez seems shun his Arabic heritage for fear of discrimination and loss of opportunities and by also refusing to speak Arabic, which causes Said to loathe him near the second half of the film.

In “Days of Glory”, Said appears to represent the Arabs who still cling on to the colonial mentality valued by the French power structure. He constantly puts himself down when he is offered opportunities by Martinez and especially when he is reminded by Abdelkader that he is a equal man with dignity. At the same time he seems to lack any confidence in mingling with the local French women like Messaoud when they stayed over a French town. However, he redeems himself at the end when he criticises Martinez for denying his Arab heritage and when he tried to make a move on a local French girl before his final mission. Said ultimately represents the non-White minorities who were indoctrinated by the French power structure to believe that France is the superior homeland with opportunities and that White French are inherently superior to them.

It is this type of thinking that partly encouraged many French colonial Arabs and Africans to immigrate to France with the hopes of improving their lives, and gaining equal rights as true Frenchmen only to suffer from constant discrimination, alienation, and a depressing existence in a poor state-sponsored housing districts that function as suburban ghettos. I always found it offensive to hear liberals and the ignorant trying to justify European Imperialism simply because it led to some perceived positive changes on paper, while the reality shows that the former colonies were exploited of all their worthwhile resources, the newly independent colonies were always struggling with a lack of national confidence, and unwanted immigrants from the former colonies are trying to move there for the false belief of opportunity and equality.

I always found that my African clients always appear to lack confidence or assertiveness when I am dealing with them in conference calls and I always wonder if Western Imperialism and its consequences had anything to do with these consistent attitudes from African business leaders I talk to. As a result of their colonial policies, France has now reluctantly become a melting pot like America and they cannot afford to ignore their multicultural character for fear of damaging their national reputation and from further alienating their non-White taxpayers.

Abdelkader represents the progressive Arab who tries to advance their rights as non-White French citizens, who is grudgingly respected by Martinez. He protests against the French steward when he refuses to serve Fresh tomatoes to African soldiers on the basis of race and he picks a fight with Martinez when he and his fellow troops were denied promotions also for simply being non-White. Throughout the movie, I had the impression that Abdelkader would be one of the characters who would eventually survive the War and return to Algeria to promote civil rights and independence from France like the anti-colonial thinkers in that era, but his ultimate fate was extremely depressing. His final fate was depressing to the point where I almost cried at the end of the movie.

While Abdelkader was more vocal in his fight against racial discrimination in the French power structure, Messaoud eventually fell in love with a local French girl named Irene and was committed to return to her alive after she was willing to be with him despite his ethnicity. However, he becomes increasingly demoralised when he never receives any replies to all the letters he sent out to her. We later learn that all of Messaoud’s letters were censored by the French military post office simply because they were love letters to a French White girl coming from a Muslim Arab. The same White censor who blocks Messaoud’s letters also lies to the girl when she goes to the office asking about Messaoud . It is strongly implied that the censor lied about Messaoud’s death and stole her from him. Near the end of their final mission, Messaoud is still thinking about Irene and loses his will to fight from the perceived rejection.

Other notable items shown in this film were the French army’s utter disregard for the non-White soldiers lost in their Italian and French campaigns against the Nazis, and the French media exclusively filming White people in all their victories to downplay any contributions made by the Arab and African French colonial troops. Indigenes is a great film that highlights the greatly ignored contributions of Arab and African French colonial soldiers during World War II and the racial discrimination they ignored in the name of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”; ideals that only applied to White Frenchmen at their expense.

It was fortunate that this movie was able to inform the French and the world of the little-known contributions by these people and it supposedly prompted the French government to eventually provide full pensions to their non-White World War II veterans and promoted more dialogue between the White French and their non-White communities.

Abe Lincoln tells Kyle the bright side of reality

There are days people wished Abe Lincoln would come help them by taking them on a trip back to the bright side of life in a used Honda Civic.

Third Wood from Japan

It was good to see Hirozo after simply chatting via email for about 2 years since graduation.  He seems to be more forthcoming and his English has improved since we last met in person.  I decided to treat him for dinner at Stuff Yer Face and we talked about some of the changes we went through, a little about work and mostly about movies.  We came to the agreement that Letters of Iwo Jima was a good movie but I was very surprised that he didn’t know it was directed by Clint Eastwood and unaware of “Flags of Our Fathers”, which is the American version of events.

Then I showed him the East Asian library at Alexander Library.  I still thought it was funny that he was annoyed that he couldn’t use the library when Wen Jiabao made a visit instead of going out of his way to get a snapshot of him but I was more surprised that no one ever took him or his group to the East Asian library during his time here as an exchange student.  After some reading, we left so I can take him back for the RONs kids to take him out for a night out before he heads out to Southeast Asia.  Overall, it was good seeing him again and catching up on some good times in the past.