Every four years the national elections come around and the buzz on who will be the top leader in the country gets to a ferver pitch. Advocates, critics, ordinary citizens, merchants, people get hyped by over the top media coverage of the candidates shoe size, mis-rememberances, and sometimes policies. It makes me laugh a little to see all this hype for President and many who get amped couldn't tell you who their school board representative is who often decides the curriculum their child will be learning in school or who their council representative is who determines if funding will be allocated to the homeless.

I've always thought "decisions" were made at the top, but as I educate myself on where decisions are actually made I find myself recognizing how much more important local politics are rather than the heirachical mentality that once made me believe that changes at the top really do make a difference for the most disinfranchiesed in our society.

I look locally at DC and how from Clinton to Bush the education policy drastically changed the so-called national educational landscape yet DC remained one of the poorest in scores, richest in funding school districts in the country. NCLB was strongly supported by the liberal base and continues to garner strong support in Congress ~ yet the failed linkage here is that the local governments are the one with the real control on how NCLB is implemented and that's where the local leaders come into play. The highest per-pupil spending with one of the lowest scores ~ is this because of a bad national education policy created by Bush or because of poor local leadership and direction?

All this over-hype over "change" at the top somewhat disgusts me because it seems as though it's a fad to get involved in politics at the top levels because that's the only place where change happens. I challange that notion and believe change happens from the ground up, from local political level.

Now I can't say that this idea necessarily applies to international issues, probably the idea of real change on the domestic level in my mind makes sense at a domestic level. Everyone is talking about change, but no one has a plan to address ~ how will the beat out the old boys clubs of Congress, the Supreme Court, State Governments or change the culture of the bureaucracy who implements the "change policies" ~ it's easy to say and think change can happen if we live vaccum but more difficult to come up with a plan that actually will bring about change.

Rough Cut
New Orleans: A Village Called Versailles
From our Abroad at Home Series
After tragedy, a community finds its political voice

BY S. Leo Chiang
August 28, 2008

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2008/08/a_village_calle.html ~ PEEP THIS VIDEO !!

In a section of eastern New Orleans called "Versailles" resides the most dense ethnically Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. The name refers to "Versailles Arms," the New Orleans East public housing project where a group of Vietnamese refugees was first resettled in 1975. This unusually tight-knit group -- most of whom are devout Catholics with roots in the same three rural North Vietnamese villages -- fled from North to South Vietnam to escape communist persecution in 1954, and then came to New Orleans during the Vietnam War through the Catholic Church's refugee-resettlement program.

Surrounded by lush wetlands and with a humid climate reminiscent of the Mekong Delta, the Versailles clan was grateful to find peace on the easternmost edge of New Orleans. Fellow refugees, who had first settled in other parts of the country, moved to join their friends and family in Versailles, and the community grew steadily through the 1980s and the 1990s to 8,000 strong.


In early February 2006, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin signed an executive order permitting the dumping of Katrina debris at the landfill, located less than two miles from Versailles.

Like the rest of New Orleans, Versailles was devastated in the fall of 2005 by Hurricane Katrina and the floods that followed. Many Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans East were evacuated and dispersed. But despite all of the difficulties they faced, the community, led by Pastor Vien Nguyen of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, refused another forced exile. "There has been a switch," Father Vien says. "Before Katrina, home was Vietnam. After Katrina, home is here."

Armed with this new sense of belonging, the Versailles Vietnamese returned just six weeks after Katrina to begin rebuilding. By January 2006, more than half the community had returned, and the rest of the City began to take notice.

Ironically, it was the flood and its aftermath that catalyzed the transformation of Versailles from an isolated refugee community into an integral part of New Orleans. Besides the work of community leaders such as Father Vien, Vietnamese-American activists began arriving from elsewhere in the country after Katrina to work with community members toward the goal of gaining a unified political voice for the previously ignored Versailles community. Soon after, they found a common enemy in the Chef Menteur Landfill.


Armed with a new sense of belonging, the Versailles Vietnamese returned just six weeks after Katrina to begin rebuilding. By January 2006, more than half the community had returned, and the rest of the City began to take notice.

In early February 2006, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin signed an executive order permitting the dumping of Katrina debris at the landfill, located less than two miles from Versailles. Because of the emergency powers granted to Mayor Nagin in the wake of the hurricane, he was able to override city zoning ordinance and grant a six-month permit that turned the Chef Menteur site from a light industrial zone to a landfill.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and New Orleans Waste Management faced huge pressure to clean up the 22 million tons of Katrina debris as soon as they could. With the Chef Menteur site located in the heavily damaged 9th Ward, trucks hauling debris only needed to travel a short distance to the landfill, making it an ideal location. LDEQ and Waste Management assured the public that the site would only be for construction and demolition debris, material that was thought to be cleaner than regular garbage.

Environmental groups argued that the state of Louisiana had expanded the definition for "construction and demolition debris" to include everything inside a house, which would mean the potentially toxic household chemicals and moldy furniture. The landfill also lacked the standard-required liners to prevent ground water contamination, especially important given the site's proximity to the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge, the largest urban national wildlife refuge in the country, and the Versailles community, where gardeners watered their vegetables from canals connected to the site.

Versailles residents and their coalition of supporters initially succeeded in urging Mayor Nagin to shut down the Chef Menteur Landfill after staging a protest in front of New Orleans City Hall. Nagin did so during the week leading up to his re-election at the mayoral run-off race, but soon after allowed the landfill to reopen. The Versailles community continued to fight both in the court of law, filing suits against the agencies behind the landfill, and in the court of public opinion, speaking up in the media about how their rebuilding, which had inspired so many, was now threatened by this potentially dangerous landfill. This determined fight ultimately led to their victory in August 2006, when the community staged an energetic protest that blocked the gate to the landfill. On the same day, Mayor Nagin chose not to extend the controversial dumping permit, and the Chef Menteur site was permanently shut down.

Only through this struggle to rebuild their community and to make their voices heard have the Vietnamese American residents in Versailles finally learned the tools of democracy and ultimately claimed their American identity.

A Village Called Versailles was funded in part by ITVS and CAAM. The Abroad at Home series is done in partnership with the National Minority Consortia.

i met him, did u?

in addition to my hindi movie post, gonna try and post some ex-pat indian singers who do a little better over in England and a couple roll deep here too ~

i saw a few movies lately and wanted to give some reviews

Jodha Akbar
Cast: Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
The movie was beautifully filmed, vibrant colors sparkled on this story between Muslim Mughal Emperor Akbar and Hindu wife Jodhabai. The movie is mostly fiction, but definitely explores a tough subject for many in India and paints are more idealistic view of the union. I like historically based movies, especially from the Mughal dynasties and I'd recommend the movie for a couple of interesting battle scenes, beautiful colors on the backdrop of Mughal architecture and for the ladies Hrithik and Aishwarya for the fellas. The songs in the movie were ok, there are a couple scenes of Aishwarya and Hrithik sword fighting which are kinda cool.

I'd give this 3 Garam Chais/5 for the beautiful cinematography.


Sarkar Raj ("Rule of the Overlord")
Cast: Amitbah Bachchan, Abishiek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Expected more from such a highly touted cast, the movie moved along well and the story was average at best. This is a sequal to the original Sarkar and like with many sequals it was unable to cash in on the hype from the original. The movie is a political thriller, however the thriller part was missing, but the political aspects of the movie were done well. There is a struggle between villiage politics and municipal politics which proves to be grab a hold for moments. Aishwarya was average at best, Abishiek really did a pretty good job and Amitbah did good as usual. The villians seemed a bit overplayed and too stereotypical, would've like to seen something a little different and there was little "love" between Aish and Abishiek in the movie ... probably because they wanted to downplay a relationship, being they are real-life lovers.

I'd give this 2.5 Garam Chai/5 for Bachchan actors and political angles, but would recommend checking out Guru for a MUCH MUCH better Bachchan movie.

I'd give Guru 4 Garam Chai/5 (more info later maybe in my review of my favorite movies of the 2000s)


Chak De India ("Go For It, India!")
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan
A great feel good movie exploring women's field hockey and it's place in the world of sports. The movie was a very nationalistic feel and parts of the movie ask viewers to think about the whole and not so much the parts. The nationalism is the movie was prominant, but I like the somewhat back story of empowering women in a typical "mans" line of work ~ sports. Shah Rukh, as usual does a great job as the fallen Indian National Men's Team hockey player who coaches the Women's Hockey Team now. The movie attempts to put women at equal footing with men and has some pretty good hockey play throughout. There are minor undertones of the status of Muslim in India which are sometimes subtle, but highlighted with a couple scenes. Overall I really enjoyed the story and the songs were pretty good and definitely added to the movie. No traditional love story here between man and woman, just coach and his team and country.

I'd give this a 4 Garam Chais/5 for Shah Rukh's performance and the movie touching on the subject of women's role in sports in India.

Jab We Met ("When We Met")
Cast:Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor

See Sham's review of this movie ... it's great!

I'd give this 3 Garam Chais/5 because of Shahid's performance and it is a decent, feel good movie.


I'll leave you all with a good Hindi movie song ~
"Rubaroo"
Sung by A.R. Rahman and Naresh Iyer
Composed by A.R. Rahman
Lyrics by Prasoon Joshi

i vote NO! you might be asking, what are you talking about. well on wednesday the show, so you think you can dance had one couple do a bollywood dance. here's a clip of the dance, the song is awesome, it's from om shanti om (that movie will be discussed in a later entry)



Now for the critique, some people may say good try, but the point of the show is to have a high level of dancers able to pick up various styles and perform them at a high level. For the hip hop dancer who misses the waltz, they are critical of that person - here they were so soft. I will provide my critiques in bullet form with comments ...

- You call that shaking your hip, there is not uuumph in the hip, it's gotta pop out, I've seen better hip shaking when I was 10 performing Bollywood dances on the elementry school stages across the Washington, DC area.

- Movements on the beat are soft, needs a crisp hard movement, it's like they are moving through the sauce of a gulab jamin (look it up)

- I saw that fake kiss - NO KISSING IN BOLLYWOOD

- What kind of facial expression was that, this is not a Crest commerical, Bollywood is about the facial expression.

- Looked like just going thru the motions, not feeling the music, the spirit of the great bollywood.

I would grade this dance a C minus (and no that's not a Curry minus asshole). Maybe some may think it's not fair to compare to a professional but in other genres they are compared to professionals ... here's the real deal!

Marian was in Charm City this weekend, for you fakers who watch the Wire, you should know that's Baltimore and she was kicking it with her cuz. Her cousin was asking mad questions about yours truly, like if she thought I was cute and asked Marian when I proposed. Her cuz was like, the 1st date? ... the 2nd date? ... the 3rd date? ... and marian finally said the 4th date.

So her cousin thinks I'm hella cute and said I look like Hrithik Roshan (google him if the only person your ignorant ass knows is Jude Law). I can see the resemblance - its the lighting and professional photography that make us look slightly different you all the be judge:



It's tough be so fione ... now I know how Bao feels

i hope this will be like my future son -

so recently i posted about my balding and trying to fix that ... now on to my large belly and trying to work on that, i think the upcoming marriage is added motivation so me and another larger young man decided to do a biggest loser challange. We had fried chicken and then ate a lot on sunday before we started it up - here's the pics of before:



and we plan on not just doing total weight loss, but also we're doing it by BMI and we'll do a measurement every month, but only the final counts after 4 months.

we're about the same weight and similar BMI so it'll be easier to figure out the percentage lost and we're starting around the same point.

i play rock band ... wanted dead or alive



posin'for the album cover



marian takes a break and does this -

i'll be rooting for the wizards and wouldn't mind seeing LA vs Boston in the finals.

The only person I really want to win on Boston is Pierce, part of me feels garnett and allen are just hired guns and i dont like teams that win that way, unless it's my team - haha. even the yanks i think the best WS were back in 96 when they had more homegrown talent and not the new trend teams are going with just acquiring big names.

I think since garnett and allen are like good ppl tho it makes you kinda root for them - what's your favorite nickname for the trio, i've heard -


PGA Tour
Boston Three Party

any others?

some randomness
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saw giles last week and he cheated at xbox and beat me by 2pts in nba 05 (who plays 05). on a serious point he did a piece on the elections which was dope on reflecting why he isn't as enthusiatic about voting. actually before i go on with the serious, his show was good, the audience and venue was wack tho - UMD blew it and all giles' jokes are from 1995, so the advisors and his friends get it, but these young folk don't even know the bosco brothers.

back to the serious -
i think for some folk who have experience in direct service there is a recognition of the disconnect between policy and the street level. it's interesting becuase my grad program actually highlights that and encourages us to look at - street level bureaucrats and being "dirty minded" meaning not thinking top down. it was funny last night, my professor bet us all dinner that any candidate who wins will do like all presidents - "one size fits all" policies - its the nature of politics ... the "new" breed is still not out there.

he's also an environmentalist, but says he drives a bemmer cuz he wants to go fast - haha.
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sharing a story - last year this filipina teacher came to me crying about discrimination in the schools and i was able to connect her with some folk and recently i met up with a prof from UMD on filipino american studies and connected them. anyway DC schools recruits these teachers and they have no support when they get here, these teachers formed

http://pinoyteachersnetwork.blogspot.com/

I know my parents story of coming here with nothing, the story of these teachers is pretty amazing, they are recruited to teach in some of the toughest neighborhoods and some of the DC ones with special education students and they are treated like garbage, second class citizens - take a look at this article (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.md.suicide24feb24,0,1166093.story) you can find other stuff on the webpage too.
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marian got rockband - gonna play it tomorrow - let me know any tips - i'll post pics of me playing it!!

for all the seattle fans, hope the judge rules in your favor or you get another team at min ...