NewsBytes

Sunday, July 13, 2008

News you can use from the last few days:

Upheaval Among New York’s Voting Blocs

More than 38,000 of the 110,000 voters added to registration rolls between 2004 and 2007 were identified as Russian, Korean, Chinese or Muslim — a group made up primarily of immigrants from South Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Cho Goes Reality

An outspoken, sometimes shocking comedianne with docile parents and a colorful inner circle, with bumps along her standup career. It could be "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List," but it's a new VH1 show about Margaret Cho.

The comedienne sais her "Cho Show" goes beyond that.

"I love Kathy Griffin's show. She's a very, very good friend of mine. I actually was just in it," Cho told a session at press tours. "But she's very different from me in that she's white." Presenting a Korean family as well as an assistant who is a wisecracking little person, gives it a twist.
Milestone for Asian American Students Enrollment Shifts at Va. Magnet School

Asian American students will outnumber white classmates for the first time in the freshman class at the region's most prestigious public magnet school this fall
At Quincy's large Kam Man, a new American melting pot has a distinctly Chinese taste

"You've probably never seen this before," says Wu, the manager, pointing to one of a score of green vegetables not seen in mainline supermarkets. The swimming shrimp also catch the eye. Even the Chinese takeout food challenges the familiar with offerings such as "spicy stoma" (pig stomach) and chicken feet.

Such are the choices at Kam Man Market, said to be the largest Asian supermarket in New England. Food and condiments from many Asian cultures (Korean and Japanese, to Cambodian and Thai) are represented. Throw in some Hispanic and Caribbean canned goods, a dash of Indian cuisine, and a few requisite American staples, and you've got a classic American melting pot, Chinese-style.
José Can You See?

All my life I have been acutely aware of the fact that though I am American, I am Asian- American. Vietnamese- American, to be exact. I’ve always realized that my cultural background has certainly had a strong influence. After all, how American American could I be? I attended the #1 party school and never drank one beer.
Energy war: India and China face off in Central Asia

Call it a diplomatic fandango. Heavy-duty Chinese bulldozers groan day and night, building motorable roads that will connect towns with cities in Kazakhstan. In the countryside, Russian engineers are busy putting new cables on newly-erected towers to put a fresh spark into the rusty, unreliable electrical grid.

On the streets of Tashkent and Dushanbe, Bollywood numbers incite local people to break into impromptu jigs. And in the war-torn dustbowls of Afghanistan, American workers are building schools and hospitals in the middle of non-stop gunfire. The Indians are doing the same, at the risk of their lives. This is the soft side of the story — efforts to woo the Central Asian republics with humanitarian charm.
Vietnamese group gives grants to local nonprofits

The Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California, the organizer of the annual Tet Festival in Garden Grove, announced this week that it gave out about $106,000 to 96 community organizations in southern California.