There are two things that just keep happening but no one is speaking out about it. I don’t get it!
1. People having children(s) despite being in poor financial situation
2. Calling Barack Obama African American when he is BIRACIAL! Has no one read his book?

happy birthday PJ !

Ever since Oprah joined Youtube, I’ve started to notice some of the videos posted on there. Lately a video got featured titled “I AM A MUSLIM”. It was about some of the stereotypes that the Muslim community had to face and prompted me to type this post.

Samu likes to watch programs on Comedy Channel, so very often I am forced to would watch it with him :p. After the Dave Chappelle (sp?) went off the air, a program by the comic Carlos Mencia came on. From my view, the show mainly dealt with racial stereotypes - Hispanic stereotypes in particular. One day, Carlos confronted the some of the comments that he received saying he was insensitive or disrespectful to whatever he was “joking” about. He, and I’ve seen several other comics claim this - If you can’t poke fun at yourself, ie. the stereotypes associated with you, what else can you laugh at? Other common claims for doing such a thing would be, well people need to know that we are aware of these stereotypes and it’s silly, so we want to show you how silly it is and why it’s so ridiculous to think its true, comedy allows you to vent out you frustrations with stereotypes, or to remind people so history will not repeat itself.

Quite frankly I am very frustrated with this… because on one hand, I absolutely agree that comedy is one of the few ways we get the attention of the masses and allow for the minority to have a say. But on the other hand, I think making stereotypes into comedy or any kind of publicity is really doing more damage than good. I give you this, before I came to Canada, I did not know what MANY of the stereotypical names meant, or even heard about them, everyone had a clean slate. If you asked me what the first thing that came to my mind when you said the word Jews before I arrived in Canada, I would think Hitler, and all the unfortunate people who had to die and suffer.

I really-really don’t want to have this stereotypical image of people when I meet them, I want to know them based on merit, yet everyday, I am reminded of these stereotypes, and not only that, I am taught NEW stereotypes from these so called comedy shows that I watch, or radio jockeys saying the N word or politicians being politically incorrect saying X, Y and Z. We’re human, lets face it, we’re not perfect. Show me any adult in North America who isn’t a little bit bias and I will show you my sixth toe… nah I’m just joking I don’t have a six toe.. or do I? :p

I remember on an episode on Oprah (I like to watch Oprah, is it obvious yet? :p), Oprah mentioned to a guest that she used to invite members of the KKK on her show so she could show the world how completely ridiculous they are. Then one day, she saw a random audience give a thumbs to one the KKK members… and then she realized! She said that you have to be careful about what you expose because “there are a lot of crazies” out there. Actually, come to think of it, she said this on the same episode Dave Chappelle was on her show. Dave was explaining to Oprah about the reasons why he walked away from a multi million dollar deal and left to Africa so suddenly. He said saw a Caucasian audience member laugh at one of the racially stereotypical skits. When he saw that, he had an epiphany. He said he knew when someone was laughing with him and when someone is laughing at him. He said that the particular audience was not laughing with him, and that caused him to snap.

Samu thinks that if we don’t put it out there, these things will just repeat itself. I don’t know… Why can’t we make stereotypes work for us in a good way? Instead of spreading negative stereotypes, no matter what your intentions are… Let’s replace them! with positive stereotypes! Haha… now wouldn’t that be interesting. I’ll start with one - Hey, have you heard about the one where all Asian people like to help the needy? Yeh, I don’t know what their deal is, those crazy Asianfairygodmothers, yeh that’s what it’s called, Asianfairygodmothers, or AFG for short.. Haha.. AFGs.

I was trying to come up with unique, cheap/free, and kid appropriate Halloween costumes when I stumbled upon this site with super cute costumes! See for yourself

Superfly!

Awwww!

That wig is just too cute

All pictures taken from www.tomarma.com . Check it out for a healthy dose of “Awwwwww”.

I have items already at home to dress up as a rock star, a referee or maybe a fortune teller. What do you think?

$150k Party for a 16 Year Old

I went to a party today, the host are very wealthy. They have a daughter who turned 16 last year, and an only child. To give you an idea of how rich this family is, well… imagine this, they have a punch fountain sitting in their dinning room that cost 1.5 million US dollars. Yeh, you can close your mouth now.

If you have read my previous post about the Super Sweet Sixteen TV show on MTV, you’ll know how disgusted I was with those parents and their children’s behavior. So, you can imagine what went through my mind when someone told us that our host had threw their daughter a $150k sweet 16 party and flew her to LA to have a date with an unnamed Hollywood actor. But just as I was beginning to shake my imaginary finger at the girls parents, the same person told us that the host’s daughter was an all A student, stellar athlete, extremely humble and gave us several acts of politeness examples.
So here is the question - Is it alright for a parent who can afford it to throw lavish parties for their children if the child is well rounded?

Logically I don’t see a problem with it, so why do I have a nagging feeling about it? Could it be subconscious jealousy? Maybe some people do have it all, or maybe there is something wrong with the picture that I just can’t seem to explain. I don’t know…

Law and Order

Yesterday, there was a Law and Order episode that would have made a good debate topic, one I would have paid money to see. The story basically went like this - A young lawyer represents a murder/rapist/pedophile/you name it in an attempt to gain a lesser sentence. The accused refused to give out the location of his other victims whilst enjoying the game of cat and mouse with the offense attorney. We later find out that the accused had no desire to tell where he hid all those bodies, and that his own attorney has actually seen the location of the victims and the victims themselves. But guess what, the defense attorney refuses to tell anyone where the victims are in the name of client / representative confidentiality code of ethics bla bla bla. The accused is sentence to death, and his attorney remains tight lipped about the locations, he is stead fast on his belief that he must honor the code and system it was built on. The defending attorney is then put on trail himself on the charges of being an accomplice by not telling the public where the rest of the victims are. In his closing statement, he says that he is only honoring what the justice system had put forth.

My question is, is the defensive attorney wrong for not telling where the locations are? Or is he actually a hero for being one of the rare people who actually honors their commitment? That lawyer was sentenced guilty on all account by the way. Personally, I think he should have told the victims family where those bodies were, their families deserve to put their children to rest. I don’t understand how he can be so hard headed. I mean, isn’t he contradicting himself? If he uphold the lawyers code of ethics or whatever its called, wouldn’t he be violating human ethics? By not doing the ethical thing of telling the parents of those victims where their bodies are? Also, if ethics had a weigh, telling the parents is worth more than keeping the secret of a murderer who admits wrong and laughs at authority.

Now how often do you get to see this in your calendar? Happy 07.07.07 day everyone!