Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

The capital of Afghanistan, Kabul was suddenly occupied by Taliburn regime, managed by Islamic foundamentalists in the middle of August 2021 when the US forces were withdrawing from the country. 

A lot of Afghans are fleeing their homeland including the former President of the state, Ghani. The scenes of fleeing reminds me of what happened in Saigon, Vietnam, April 1975. 

A lot of Vietnamese who corporated with the South Vietnam and the US rushed into the US embassy. Helicoptors took off to carry then Ho Chi Minh's enemies to the sea outside Vietnam. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally helicoptors to carry refugees were dumped into the sea after landing on military ships due to lack of space to store them inside the ships. 

It seems like America failed again or America's mission in Afghanistan is over just like America's involvement in Vietnam. 

I recently watched the documentary programs that featured the Vietnam war. 

In early 1960's, wife of the South Vietnam dictator's brother said a terrible thing to those whom they oppressed. They were Catholics and they oppressed Buddhist monks. Then some of the monks burned their bodies in public in protest of the dictatorship. 

"What have Buddhist monks done? The only thing they have done is barbeque one of their monks whom they intoxicated and abused confidence. Even that barbequing is for self-sufficient mean, using imported gasoline." 

Then people in the South Vietnam stood up to fight for unification of Vietnam. 

North Vietnam force were attacking South Vietnam jointly with Viet Cong warriers within the South. 

To block weapon supply transport route called "Ho Chi Minh route" between Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, US military utilized Hmong tribe who felt Communism was threat to them. Their village lifestyle was depicted in the film "Apocalypse Now."

After the fall of Saigon, Hmong people became refugees from Vietnam and settled down in Minesota State. Their community was featured in the film "Grand Torino." 

What a history! Vietnam and Afghanistan. What are the commonality between the two! 

A famous classic musical film was remade using a protagonist with a Black skin. Traditionally the protagonist was played by a white girl. 

Is this part of Hollywood's "Diversity Casting" campaign? 

Sounds good. Good musical play. Actors sing very well. I was not bothered by the Black Annie. What I was still bothered was a rich man who adopts Annie was a Black man. 

Maybe a white man adopts a Black girl is not politically correct? 

But how many of white audience enjoy this film? Wasn't it for Black audience?

In the last scene of the film, a Black man kisses a white woman. Is this widely acceptable in U.S.? 

Wasn't this too much of liberal twist?  

I am not being racist but I am realist and view the world from realist perspective. 

Look who was the President of the United States last year. 

I just don't think this casting really fits the current social trend of that country. 

It’s been thought women are not good at mathematics and not suitable for engineering jobs. But that kind of notions were proved to be nonsense a long time ago. The film “Hidden Figures” described three Afro-American women working for NASA rocket engineering department as mathematicians, in Jim-Crow era, 1950’s to 1960’s.

 

I learnt about the film by Voice of America article on NASA’s International Space Station program. NASA named the supply ship to the ISS Katherine Johnson after one of mathematicians in the biopic film.

 

They were not only being woman but Black women, who had to sit down on back seats in public bus and could not share the same bathroom with their white co-workers. But they did contribute to the very difficult space programs by calculating the orbit and designing rockets.

 

If they were white male, this story cannot be a film.

 

Breaking stereotype is the most important factor to counter racism or other type of discrimination such as gender, and sexual orientation. Stereotype is the origin of discrimination. Prejudice is biased view on others using stereotype images. Then people discriminate others based on prejudice.

 

Stereotype is baseless information about others. Like all Japanese can do Karate, which I don’t. You cannot generalize others based on such stereotype. The sad thing is people judge others by these stereotypes and then sometimes treat them badly.

 

In the film, NASA officials found the women very useful to the organization’s projects so they accepted them equally. If they hadn’t accepted them as legitimate staff, NASA would have lost such great assets and wouldn’t have succeeded in historic space missions in those days.

 

Stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination undermine progress of our society.

 

Let’s get rid of such things from our world.

I just happened to watch the old time TV show on internet.  The TV drama-series "Little House on the Prairie" was first aired in 1970's US and later dubbed version of it was aired in Japan as well. 

I liked the show but it seemed the stories in the show were mostly fiction or modified for the dramatic effect. 

But the very first episode seems not since I read the original novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and compared to the episode. 

It started with Ingalls family departing from the woods and found the place to settle down. They could have owned the land by cultivating the fields in accordance with Homestead Act of late 19th century, a pioneer period. 

But they had to live in a very wild environment and had to deal with native people and wild animals. They had to dig the ground to make a well for water. They had to cut trees to make logs to build the house. 

In a very small house, at first there was no floor boards and the roof was hood taken out from the horse carriage.  What they had was only basic needs. 

Our civilization is now on the edge due to the deadly flu and global climate change. It was because we try to have too much destroying the natural ecosystem. The modern system we rely on too much was found to be very vulnerable to such crisis. 

It is time to rethink our way of life. "Little House on the Prairie" may be a good model of how one lives one's life without luxuries modern people have gotten used to.  

The answer may be somewhat of that little wooden house or Native People, whom the family called "Indians" in the show.