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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">The following is up for the Friday edition of Saipan Tribune. Sharing it with this listserv in case there are interested parties who might wish to comment.</font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend.</font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">Jaime</font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><b style="font-size: 10pt; "><font size="4">Tiger’s Fried Chicken</font></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">I crossed the
international dateline shortly after I turned 20, heading by ship (MNL, HK,
Yokohama, Hawaii, SF) for a little town outskirt of Lexington KY in a bastion
of evangelicals who decided not to have anything to do with modernism. The town voted down a proposed Interstate
Highway to pass through its neighborhood.
But they were warm-hearted Wesleyans who sang their hymns with vigor and
cried their sins easily in the communion rails at Vespers.</font></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><font><font>I did not know I
was going to be an Asian </font></font>trophy <font>when I left the boonies of northern Luzon to the
environs of what I thought was </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">one</font><font> of America’s citadel of liberal
learning. There were two black faces in
my freshman class, both from Liberia. Other
black faces on campus maintained the premises, or cooked meals in the
kitchen. They lived in shacks across the
rail tracks in town with their Sunday revival services more vibrant than the
Main Street’s Protestant edifice complexes.</font></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">On scholarship,
I work part time and the kitchen ladies loved my labor ‘cause my Mama taught me
to always leave the pots and pans polished like silver. I ate with the kitchen help so I always had
an extra helping of fried chicken, along with a slice of watermelon, and a
plateful of collard greens (also pronounced <i>colored
greens</i>). I naturally devoured the veggies though I thought it needed a dab
of anchovy sauce (<i>patis</i>), which the
ladies would not touch since the Louisiana variety labeled it <i>sauce poisson;</i> they were not wild to eat
poison!</font></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">This is a longish
intro to Kentucky fried chicken, before the Colonel made KFC a common household
word globally, but when the golfer Sergio Garcia jokingly used it in reference
to what he would serve Tiger Woods for dinner, it did not sit well with the </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">t</font><font face="Times New Roman">iger.</font></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">The young’uns in
my English class recite a local pre-school ditty that begins with </font><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Yi ge da xi gua… </i><font face="Times New Roman">(“I have
one big watermelon …”) in </font><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">tai chi-</i><font face="Times New Roman">like
movement that we recite to practice pronouncing English words. I did not know even in Kentucky</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> and Texas</font><font face="Times New Roman"> that eating
watermelon was also racially-laced Porgy and Bess. Happily, it is one of the cheapest Vitamin E
source in China without a taint of racial overtone.</font></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">We recently did
a Sergio Garcia <i>faux pas</i> when we
passed along a Pope Francis joke about his blessing the crowd at his Mass,
first, on mankind with “Tuti Homini”, then adding womankind with “et Tuti
Femini”, and finally, with the LGBT crowd, “et Tuti Fruiti.” My listserv is a pretty liberal crowd, but some
of my colleagues took offense to our flighty indiscretion, and I was promptly held
to account on my insensitivity.</font></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">The use of the
race card remains a volatile issue for those who use it, and those offended by
it. Bill Clinton in the 2008
presidential campaign leveled the charge against Obama as using the race card
to his advantage while in the stomp in VA and SC. I resided
in DC</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> while the Clintons were in the White House</font><font face="Times New Roman">, and Bill fancied hims</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">elf as</font><font face="Times New Roman"> being the first American Black
President</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">, albeit, albino</font><font face="Times New Roman">. </font></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">Obama carries
that card well in his presidency, intentionally, I hope. His popularity was tested in his GOP-upsetting
reelection that upended many pundits who predicted that Romney was heading for
Pennsylvania Ave.</font></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">It is another
matter to the </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">erstwhile </font><font face="Times New Roman">Buddhist Tiger Woods, playfully half Thai with his African-American
DNA. When he won the 1997 Masters,
Fuzzy Zoeller commented that he should not serve Fried Chicken and Collards at
the Champions’ dinner; that makes Garcia’s jibe </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">old but still </font><font face="Times New Roman">totally inappropriate. Racial slurs v. Obama, and now with
Eric Holder in the hot seat, remain common but toothless in the nation’s
capital.</font></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">Being of
Philippine descent, I was lumped along with many of the SVES teachers as
favoring Filipinos to gain honors at graduation against equally deserving Chamorros
and Carolinians. I used to dismiss this
as just another instance of racial prejudice until a parent actually asked the
Principal to convene a conference so that she could hear for herself the
reasons why her son was not going to graduate Valedictorian. </font></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">If we point out
that the six awardees </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">in</font><font face="Times New Roman"> the recent </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">CNMI </font><font face="Times New Roman">Math Court have
names that are more Hangeul than Marianitas, and the top five at NMC ha</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">ve</font><font face="Times New Roman"> only
one name that comes close to deriving from Iberian masters, it would be clear
that the NMD’s call to fame on island will not be for being at the heap of PSS’ western standardized tests. Does it really matter?</font></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman">It is the LGBT
crowd that is now getting the brunt of prejudicial asides. The Pope Francis joke forwarded by a devout Catholic
colleague was funny</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> to me</font><font face="Times New Roman"> because it let the Catholic Church laugh at its own
blindside. There is hope for the human
race. </font></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: helvetica, arial; "><font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Recent images of reactionary</font><font face="Times New Roman"> demonstrations in France held this week in protest of new </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">same-sex </font><font face="Times New Roman">marriage laws, the news that the venerable Church
England unveiled plans to ordain female priests in every diocese by 2014, that 12
States in the Union already legalized same-sex </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">unions</font><font face="Times New Roman">, President Obama openly
for the legal stature, and DOMA under review by the Supreme Court, the Tiger
Woods of the LGBT crowd can enjoy their friend chicken!</font></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="4">Got time for a
watermelon joke?</font></span></div>
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<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both; "><a style="font:lighter 10px Verdana, Arial;color:#000000;"><img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></a> <font color="black" size="2" face="arial">j'aime la vie
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<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, </b></font></i><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
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