11.23.07
Posted in Crime at 1:29 pm by william_lee
According to this article:
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Witnesses told police Sunday night that they saw several people hurl water balloons and yell abusive comments from the Delta Upsilon fraternity house.
Just after 10 p.m., officers were called to the 19th Avenue Northeast fraternity house after a passer-by saw an Asian student get hit in the head by a water balloon, according to police. The caller said he then heard four or five people on the fraternity balcony yell anti-immigrant slurs at the man, who ran from the house.
Another UW student approached an officer who had responded to the call to say his friend had also been hit by a balloon thrown from the house.
The 27-year-old man told police he heard the people on the Delta Upsilon balcony shout racial slurs at his friend. He and the people on the balcony had a heated exchange of words, police said, but he left after some of those on the balcony threatened to “come down there” and settle the dispute.
P-I reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com.
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11.19.07
Posted in Media and Entertainment, World News at 11:08 pm by telly_wong
Hayden Panetierre: Hero to some, hypocritical jackass to others
In Japan, an arrest warrant has been issued for the 18-year-old “Heroes” star for her involvement in an October 30th protest where she and a pack of unruly activists from the U.S. and Australia paddled out on surfboards to prevent the hunting of dolphins and whales by Japanese fishermen.
Her group attempted to reach a pod of dolphins and protect them from the fishermen, but the protesters were blocked by a fishing boat and the dolphins were subsequently killed.
The pop tart has been charged with “interfering with international commerce” and could face potential jail time. However, Paneteirre remains defiant, shrugging off the charge and stating, “I’ll do it again.”
Panetierre’s publicity-seeking actions and holier-than-though grandstanding are examples of ethnocentricism at its very worst. Although I’m an animal rights sympathizer, I draw the line at trying to dictate how other people should live their lives — especially those from different cultures. But I guess that’s just part of The Great American Way these days.
“We must unite as a world to solve our increasing international environmental crises,” said Panetierre in a statement (likely written by her publicist). “We can no longer hide [behind] out-dated, senseless cultural traditions and lazy, bad habits that are resulting in the annihilation of our planet’s resources and the extinction of our species.”
And to this, I call Panetierre a goddamn hypocrite.
After conducting some quick research, I discovered that this supposed animal lover was recently named a celebrity spokesmodel for Dooney & Burke, a line of overpriced leather handbags.
In case Panetierre doesn’t know, leather comes from the flesh of slaughtered cows and the basic premise of “designer” handbags –dead animals as status symbols– can be easily categorized as an “out-dated, senseless cultural tradition” that is “resulting in the annihilation of our planet’s resources and the extinction of our species.”
Maybe Little Miss Sunshine here can pontificate on her contradictions the next time she’s practicing her new cheers or cashing those Dooney & Burke checks.
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Posted in Politics at 6:10 pm by telly_wong
Democratic presidential front-runner and
Batman arch-nemesis…The Joker!
Staffers for Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign are spreading rumors among Democratic circles that she has potentially harmful information about her arch-rival for the party’s presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama, according to an online report. However, insiders claim Hillary has decided against publicly disclosing any details of this “scandalous” secret — apparently because she’s such a righteous sweetheart.
Obama responded to the controversy by accusing Hillary of “swift boat politics” and vowed he will not be intimidated.
In a public statement issued over the weekend, Obama said: “I am prepared to stand up to that kind of politics, whether it’s deployed by candidates in our party, in the other party or by any third party. The cause of change in this country will not be deterred or sidetracked by the old ‘Swift boat’ politics. The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it.”
Hillary’s people responded to the statement by saying they have “no idea” what Obama is talking about.
Meanwhile, if Hillary does in fact have dirt on Obama, the pissed-off Illinois senator is demanding that she “comes clean”. (No Bill Clinton jokes, please.)
Personally, I don’t believe Hillary has anything substantial on Obama — if anything at all. This is all probably just a bit of Sun Tzu-inspired psychological warfare being employed by Clinton’s camp to instill some fear and paranoia in Obama in order to get him to quit with the attacks on Hillary’s flip-flopping positions.
And even if Hillary’s minions really do have something on Obama, I don’t think anything can be much worse than his pathetic excuse for dancing on a recent episode of “The Ellen Degeneres Show.”
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:51 am by william_lee
According to this article:
- California has recognized this week as anti-bullying week to inform people that bullying in our schools remains a problem. This unrelenting problem is also the reason it’s disappointing to learn that many school districts lack anti-harassment policies or do not use them to discourage deviant behavior.
The San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus is inundated with anecdotal incidents of hate-motivated bullying. The 2004-06 California Healthy Kids Survey and the California Department of Education say 37 percent of middle and high school students reported being victims of harassment.
Two laws were signed this month to better protect youths. One, the Safe Place to Learn Act, clarifies the minimum steps school districts must take to meet California’s safe school standards.
Despite laws, the numbers have remained consistent for five years. Too many youths face what are actually hate crimes.
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Posted in World News at 4:49 am by william_lee
According to this article:
- Twenty years after her allegations of a racially charged rape became a national flash point, Tawana Brawley’s mother and stepfather want to reopen the case, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Glenda Brawley and Ralph King want to press New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to re-examine the November 1987 incident, which a state grand jury ultimately concluded was a hoax, the Daily News reported.
“New York state owes my daughter. They owe her the truth,” said Glenda Brawley. She reiterated her stance that her daughter was indeed raped by a group of white men who smeared her with feces and scrawled racial epithets on her body.
Brawley was 15 when she went missing for four days from her home in Wappingers Falls, about 75 miles north of New York. After being found, she made the shocking allegation that she had been abducted and raped by six white law enforcement officials. A special state grand jury found evidence Brawley had fabricated her story, and she later lost judgements against upwards of 1/2 a million dollars in defamation lawsuits.
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11.15.07
Posted in World News at 7:52 pm by telly_wong
Japan Hates On Foreigners?
Once again, the American media is attempting to portray Japan as racist xenophobes steeped in the dogma of their ancient traditions. However, anyone who has any inkling of awareness regarding Japanese pop culture or history can tell you, nothing can be farther from the truth.
Recently, the Japanese government has initiated new immigration procedures for foreign visitors, which will include fingerprinting and photographing non-Japanese travelers as they pass through immigration at air and sea ports to prevent terrorist attacks.
However, critics have attacked these new procedures, believing they reflect Japan’s negative attitude towards foreigners.
“The Japanese government has a long history of not wanting long-term foreign residents, and they really feel they need more control over foreigners,” said Sonoko Kawakami of the Japanese chapter of Amnesty International.
Personally, I believe that’s a tough argument to win considering Japan’s unholy reverence of American culture (i.e. baseball, hip-hop, movies) and their disgraceful habit of shoveling out millions of dollars for Hollywood stars to appear in local commercials.
Tokyo officials defend their new policies by citing their support for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes Japan a target for terrorist attacks. Additionally, officials say their new immigration policies are simply based on America’s own counter-terrorist measures.
So Mr. Kawakami, does this mean the US government also doesn’t want long-term foreign residents and feel a need to exert more control over foreigners?
Oh crap, I think I just ruined my argument.
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Posted in World News at 7:07 pm by telly_wong
How do you get on the good graces of a state that the world regards as a Stalinist dictatorship and President Bush once called a card carrying member of the “Axis of Evil”?
You rescue some of their sailors from pirates, apparently.
Pyongyang officials are in a state of afterglow after U.S. military forces came to the aid of North Korean sailors after their cargo ship was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia on October 29.
“We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen. This case serves as a symbol of the DPRK [North Korea]-U.S. cooperation in the struggle against terrorism,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said.
Furthermore, the news agency stated, “It is the consistent principled stand of the [North Korean] government to oppose all sorts of terrorism. We will continue to render international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, in the future, too.”
Relations between the United States and North Korea have been moving towards the positive of late. Recently, Pyongyang agreed to shut down their main nuclear facilities in exchange for U.S. aid and security guarantees.
Who would’ve thought?
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:55 pm by william_lee
From this article:
- A restaurant deliveryman was fatally shot Sunday as he brought food to a home in Southeast Washington — the second such killing in the District in recent months.
Hong Zhi Wang, 29, was delivering food at 10:30 p.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of Barnaby Terrace when he was shot in the neck, authorities said.
Wang, a native of China who lived in Springfield, died Monday. Police have not made any arrests.
Do you think this is just an isolated incident? Think again.
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Posted in Crime at 12:48 pm by william_lee
From this article:
- Angry after a fight with his girlfriend, Palo Alto abduction-sexual assault suspect Todd David Burpee Jr. went looking for anyone to physically beat to vent his frustrations. Then he saw his target — a 17-year-old girl riding her bike home from school.
- “It could have been anyone,” he told police in the documents. “It could have been a guy. I was just mad.”
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