WHAT'S NEW - October 2005

RACIAL PROFILING
The fact remains that profiling is logical in loads of circumstances, from deciding who should get flu shots to choosing whom to chat with when you don't know anyone at a party. Profiling means making smart choices when you have nothing but externals to go by.

Good citizenship — remember that phrase? — requires that we cooperate with the authorities as they work to head off the next terror attack. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat and the nation's first neoconservative president, put it well: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

RICARDO MONTALBAN & DIVERSITY
When he complained to producers about the portrayal of Mexicans as lazy peons or Latin Lotharios, they explained they simply needed colorful characters. "Yeah, it's colorful," he'd respond, "but you're smearing us with terrible colors."

But if he had his way, Montalbán would want people to remember him for that one quality that made him a success and promises to do the same for his struggling theater. "Tenacity," he says. "Against some pretty big odds."

WAR ON TERROR: MISSION AMBIGUOUS
The only real strategic achievement of the U.S. war on terror might be one Washington never intended: reshaping the Middle East along ethnic and sectarian lines instead of bringing democracy to it.

WHY FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HIROSHIMA
The 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, has not so far provoked the kind of anguished debate that accompanied the 50th anniversary. The lack of controversy is fitting because there wasn't much soul-searching at the time.

In 1945, 85% of Americans approved of a step deemed necessary to end the war and head off a costly invasion of Japan. Only with the Axis threat long vanquished have numerous historians and philosophers come forward to claim that the use of the A-bomb was unnecessary and an atrocity that blemishes American honor.

WHITE-WASHING AMERICAN HISTORY / SLAVERY
Sanitizing American history in this fashion inevitably de-emphasizes disagreeable topics, especially the most disagreeable of all, slavery. Although a number of contemporary works have cast a fresh eye on Washington's or Jefferson's attitudes and opinions with respect to slaves, most historians still seem unwilling to face the overwhelming influence that slavery exerted, both directly and indirectly, on our most sacred national institutions. Dealing with slavery merely as part of an overall theoretic analysis distances the people from the institution, consigning slavery to the periphery, an anachronistic quirk.

The Americans who drafted the Constitution were fully formed human beings, with aims both petty and grandiose. They could be alternately sophisticated or naive, manipulative or gullible. The legacy they bequeathed us was one of struggle against their own prejudices, self-interest, greed and shortsightedness in pursuit of freedom and self-rule. Ultimately, through war, rancor and bitterness, and in what would certainly have been a surprise to many of those very framers, their highest visions were realized. That is triumph enough for me.

SUPREME COURT & RIGHTS OF ALIENS
The United States has always been "a nation of immigrants." It is quite striking, therefore, to note how little attention the Founding Fathers gave to the subject when preparing the fundamental law of the new nation in 1787. When the framers met to write a constitution, they saw little reason to restrict the relatively small number of Europeans who arrived periodically and contributed the nation's wealth.

ORIENTALISM
According to Edward W. Said, Orientalism is "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient."

ORIENTALISM, AA IDENTITY & POPULAR MEDIA
During the course of the 20th Century, Orientalism also began to play out in the development of a new technological phenomenon: the motion picture. Throughout the 1900s, Orientalism took a place in motion pictures, providing Hollywood with a vast pool of characterizations, stereotypes, and concepts to draw from.

HISTORY OF YELLOWFACE
The history of blackface has been well documented in American film criticism; the history of yellowface has received much less critical attention, and considerably less public censure.

SEX AND THE ASIAN MALE
Wanting to know what the mostly Asian American class considered desirable, Professor Darrell Hamamoto asked: What posters are on your bedroom walls? After an uncomfortable silence, Hamamoto got the names he expected -- celebrities such as Brad Pitt. There wasn't an Asian among them, which reinforced what he has long believed: that clichés and stereotypes about Asian men have rendered them sexual afterthoughts.

"You aren't creating your own images," the 50-year-old Japanese American told the UC Davis class. "Make your own movies. You have to take it into your own hands." Many are offended that Asian men are projected as power players when it comes to intellectual intercourse but bystanders in the world of romance.

FORGET ABOUT BITTER
Jackie Robinson once told me,". . . You've got to change one letter in that word. Change the 'i' to an 'e.' Forget about bitter, try to make things better."

MOTHER TERESA'S WORDS OF COMFORT
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
. . . . . . Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
. . . . . . Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
. . . . . . Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
. . . . . . Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
. . . . . . Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
. . . . . . Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
. . . . . . Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
. . . . . . Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
"We can do no great things - only small things with great love."
- - - - - - - - Mother Teresa