brightvision's Xanga

Ma Vie en Rose

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:52:57 GMT

Life is an endless cycle of learning experiences and struggle. My duty is to live it with a positive attitude and see opportunities in stress and obstacles.

Thanks Mom for always praying for me. : )

Idealism and Cynicism

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:17:59 GMT

I'm graduating next year in political science and French. I'm chasing for internship and job prospects like a hunter chasing a beast while looking into possible law schools I'll be applying and start the LSAT. I'm not expecting to make a lot of money after college. I love the non-profit sector I'm working for but I think I should also work in the corporate world in order to be more versatile.

The main quandary that has been a tightening noose around my neck is making money vs. doing something that I love. Making money and doing something I'm passionate about seem incompatible at this moment.

When I was very young, I was highly idealistic and optimistic about humanity, especiall in a very naive (and dangerous) way. I loved everyone and trusted people very easily. I wanted help people and save the world. Yet after a series of betrayal, heart breaks, and back-stabbings, I have become quite cynical and detached, losing my faith in progress.

I'm still young. I have a future ahead of me. But nowadays, I seem to be more concerned with making money for a variety of reasons--to pay back my student loans, to be able to take care of my parents when they get old, to have a college fund for my future children (if I have any) so they won't have to struggle like me, etc. Money isn't everything but it sure makes life A LOT easier!!!

Random Reflection

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:44:44 GMT

I look bored and absent-minded in those pictures as usual.

A few years ago I was this sheltered girl following a set of certain traditions. I barely smiled. I was uptight. Today, I have learned that the best way to survive and live is to just go head and complete the daunting task and to never think or worry about its potential difficulty. I find myself smiling more and worrying less.

I need more energy. Instead of drinking more coffee, running and just having a laid-back attitude have kept me going.

My generation in college is immensed in consumerism. It has always been about the right school, the right boyfriend, the right job, the right mansion, and the right income. The people I've met are so obsessed with grades, partying, and getting into the best grad/law schools to getter better jobs and make a lot of money. I'm not so sure whether or not I have been sucked into this maelstrom of consumerism.

I just wish I could live simply. I wish I could travel to francophone countries in Africa and volunteer there. I wish I could more tea instead of coffee. I wish I could feel more awake and energetic at work. I wish I could just smile more and make people around me happy.

Random Pictures

Fri, 30 May 2008 05:52:17 GMT

My dad finally got me my own camera, so here are the pictures I took!

Protest on Sproul...

Sather Gate

Wheeler Hall

Me and ma famille at a wedding

Karen at Heart

Fri, 30 May 2008 05:17:04 GMT

To most people in America, I'm Burmese because of the fact that I was born and raised in Burma. They have ever barely realized the complexity of my ethnic composition and the identity confusion it often creates. My mom is Kachin and my dad is half Chinese and half Karen. My mom speaks Kachin very well and is well versed with the Kachin culture. My dad speaks Karen and is well-versed with the Karen culture.

I know Burmese, French, and English, not Kachin, Karen or Chinese dialects. I'm 50% Kachin, 25% Karen, and 25% Chinese. Even though I'm mostly Kachin, I identify myself more with the Karen people and their culture. I grew up in a Karen village/town and had Karen friends even though I never picked up the language. The same trend continues in America, where I would show up every Karen New Year celebrations. And plus, I look Karen because of my facial structure. I've rarely gone to a Kachin cultural celebration. I don't really have any Kachin friends. I can't fit in in the Kachin community nor can I identify with the culture.

This identification just doesn't happen over night. It comes with the accumulation of experiences overtime. At least, I have the right to choose my own ethnic identity based on my what's in my heart instead of what's in my blood.

God Blesses Me More Than You!

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:11:12 GMT

It was a sunny day at Berkeley, as students bustled their ways to class in their shorts and flip-flops. My Alaskan rommate told me that it would still be cold and wet in back in her home state. I, feeling so blessed by God for this nice weather and that I don't live in Alaska, shouted, "God blesses me more than you, you moose-hunting pussies!"

As I walked to class and passed by a frat house, I saw this frat boy being butt-raped by a group of monkeys. I, feeling blessed by God that I'm not the one being butt-raped by a monkey, shout, "God blesses me more than you, you monkey lover!"

Well the anecdote above is not a true at all. My roommate is from China, and frat boys here at Berkeley perhaps are only raped by drunk girls or by their drunk bros. My twisted mind always makes up weird stories to demonstrate my point.

What I'm trying to point out in this blog is something that has been bugging and irritating me eversince I was little and attending churches. I've heard so many testimonies of people who, in their own opinions, were praising God and celebrating His Blessings. All of them had said and written things like, "I'm thankful that God blesses me with my job, school, etc.. ."

ONE THING THAT I'VE ALWAYS FOUND FISHY IN PEOPLE'S TESTIMONIES of praising God and counting His blessings is that they always have to mention or bring in other people who seem less fortunate than them. Thus, the testimonies would turn out to be something like this:

"I saw many starving and sick children when I was in Africa...I feel so blessed by God for being in America and having so much junk food to eat and get fat. . ."

By human nature, we tend to appreciate more of what we have or what we've been blessed with in the face of unfortunate and destitute people. But in the context of celebrating God's blessings, the implications of mentioning people who seem less fortunate than us are grave and besmirch the celebratory image of God's blessings.

We can be all be smart-ass lawyers and work our way around it by saying, "the point or the bigger picture of this testimony is to praise God and celebrates his Blessings..It doesn't matter who has more blessings or not..."

Yet if the bigger picture or the intention is to celebrate God's blessings, why do we need to mention less fortunate people at all? Sure we may have good intentions when we give testimonies, but a good intention doesn't necessarily mean a good execution. In fact, some of the most evil things in the world are carried out or executed on the ground of the greatest intentions.

So what are the implications of mentioning unfortunate people in the testimonies of celebrating God's blessings and praising Him, regardless of our good old intentions?

1) It makes it seem like the people who seem less fortunate than us aren't as blessed by God as us. In reality, this may not be true at all. The old,feeble looking man fixing your plant early in the morning may be the owner of a successful landscaping company, and thus ten times richer than you.

2) By implying that they aren't as blessed as us, we inadvertently create this superiorty/inferiroty complex or image.

Overall, blessings aren't something we can quantify and give a fixed meaning to. Some people define God's blessing as having a lot of money and a big house,while others see it as a simple life with happiness. It's different throughout people and cultures with a complex array of different experiences and beliefs.

Random Thoughts

Thu, 01 May 2008 17:13:44 GMT

There are so many things in the world I don't know about. I'm glad I came to Berkeley. It's a pretty fucked up yet enlightening place!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:40:25 GMT

C'est fini, mon amour!

Evil Love Poetry

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:30:06 GMT

We are so bored so me and my crazy roommate wrote these. ..

Oh my dear suffering pet,

I’m very busy petting my school work

It’ such nice a moonlit night

So please walk yourself

Feed yourself

Bath yourself

But don’t forget that you have a leash (and an owner)!

Unchained Monies!!!

Oh, my love
my darling

I’ve hungered for your cash
a long lonely time
and time goes by so slowly
and time can do so much
are you still mine?
I want euros ( not dollars)
I want euros (not dollars )
Godspeed your fortune to me. . .

All your monies flow right to me,
right to me. . .
to the my bank account for CDs. .
All your monies say 'wait for me, wait for me'
I’ll be in your account wait for me. .

Oh, my love
my darling
I've hungered for your cash
a long lonely time
and time goes by so slowly
and time can do so much
are you still mine?
I want euros (not dollars)
I want euros (not dollars)

Godspeed your fortune to me

Extraordinary Rendition and the Rule of International Law

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:23:50 GMT

Texts: Rendered Meaningless: “Extraordinary Rendition and the Rule of Law” by Margaret Satterthwaite

“After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law” by Tim Golden

In their articles, both Golden and Satterthwaite discuss the nature and the application of law on torture and rendition. While Golden traces the history and the development military law towards torture and other treatments toward suspected and detained terrorist after 9/11, Satterthwaite examines the strength and the application of international humanitarian and human rights laws on rendition, advocating a legal frame work based on humanitarian laws and human rights laws for rendition. Finding loopholes in the laws and human rights treaties that oblige state to ensure civil liberties to those “within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction,” the U.S. government claims that human right treaties it has ratified “are limited in their applications to U.S. territory,” and that “the only space it considers to be ‘under jurisdiction’ are the fifty states plus the insular areas, which include Puerto Rico, Guam, and other similar spaces” (Satterthwaite 15-16). In other words, a kidnapped and suspected terrorist who is brought to another country by American CIA agents isn’t under the jurisdiction of the U.S. However, the Human Rights Committee and others consistently interpret the human rights treaties based on their intents of ensuring rights to everyone wherever they are, since “in special circumstances, persons may fall under the subject-matter jurisdiction of a State party even when outside that State’s territory” (Satterthwaite 21-23). Therefore, under this interpretation, the same suspected terrorist is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government, since he is the hands of the CIA agents and is part of a plan orchestrated by the U.S. government itself. I think difference in interpreting human rights treatises touches the letter and the spirit of the law. It seems like the U.S government narrowly obeys the literal phrase of the law (“within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction”) by carrying out acts of torture in places outside of its territories that are often conflated with its jurisdiction.

At the same time, Both authors point out the justification of the U.S. for torture and rendition---the idea that since 1) terrorists are unlawful combatants that threaten the security of many states and 2) that no international laws seem to apply to or protect them, the U.S., the government has the right to do whatever it see fits, or there are no limits to what it could and would do. When new issues like terrorism or the “War on Terrorism” seem to fall outside of the framework of international law, does one need to base the treatment of terrorists on the spirit of the law, the intent of the human rights laws and treaties, or formulate a set of new laws in order to accommodate every emerging issue? In other words, is this only a question of the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law concerning human rights treatises that ban torture, or a question of the need to formulate new and explicit guidelines and laws to accommodate new phenomenon like terrorism, so that actors, such as the U.S., wouldn’t find loopholes in order to justify their political agendas?

When new phenomenon like terrorism emerge and no laws—at least explicitly---seem to apply to them, I think all the issues addressed on the questions above play an essential part in examining legal controversy concerning rendition and in binding the U.S. government with some legal constraints on its war on terrorism. On a philosophical and legal level, it is about the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, as shown by the difference in the interpretations of the human rights treatises by the U.S. and the HRC. Yet on a pragmatic or strategic level, it is also about the need to explicitly draw new guidelines and laws in order to accommodate a new and complex phenomenon that architects of international law have never anticipated, and most importantly, in order to prevent states from finding loopholes in the old or current laws to subtly justify their political agendas. Golden in his article points out that how some officials had noted that the strategy concerning terrorism after 9/11 “was shaped by longstanding political agendas that had relatively little do with fight terrorism.”

The administration claim of authority to set up military commissions, as the tribunals are formally known, was guided by a desire to strengthen executive power, officials said. Its legal approach, including the decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions, reflected the determination of some influential officials to halt what they viewed as the United States’ reflexive submission to international law (Golden 2).

The U.S. government’s literal legal approach to rendition or interpretation of human rights treatises illustrated by Satterthwaite also sheds light on the U.S. political motivation to avoid liability for torture and rendition. Golden also notes the inadequacy of justice for defendants of alleged terrorist activities under U.S. law in U.S. courts. Under criminal law in federal courts, evidence against terror suspects “would be difficult to air in court or too sketchy to meet federal standards” ( Golden 5). However, under military commissions, Rumsfeld has restricted the defense lawyer’s access to case information (Golden 9). While it is clear that terror suspects could not be tried in federal courts due to the nature of the evidence against him, they are also at a disadvantage under military commissions due to the limitation on information their lawyers could obtain to present their cases and defend them. Therefore, new guidelines and rules in international law concerning terrorism might not only be useful in giving legal constraints to the U.S. government and in curbing the influence of political agendas and motivations, but at the same time 1) they must be geared towards providing adequate justice---that is the right to due process and access to information---- and 2) they must be designed provide transparency on the availability of information or evidences, especially those that are crucial for proving a defendant’s innocence. It is clear that terror suspects are at a disadvantage both under federal courts and military commissions in the U.S. Therefore, should they be tried in international courts instead?