Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
That’s Tri Ta, who came to the US at 19 in 1992 is the first Vietnamese American Mayor of Little Saigon. He’ll be inundated with work and he’ll be held to a high standard. He’s also a young guy. (LA Times – Tri Ta) There also seems to be some rich stories about Little Saigon that are starting to trickle into media. Maybe it’s the Small Town, USA vibe, but keep them coming! We re posted one earlier about the local mail man who serves almost as a Mayor as well. (GR – Raymond Tran)
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I can’t tell you anything about Raymond Tran, but this article is rad. He’s almost a local hero who’s just the main man at the Post Office is Little Saigon. You can practically make a film about this guy and how he handles his job. His PO is at Bolsa and he runs it like it’s a cafe. More places need to think micro instead of macro, don’t you think? (LA Times – Raymond Tran)
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Sorry, it’s not sexy at all, just sad. Brent Stirton – Getty Images “RHINO WARS” “A wealthy Vietnamese woman sits and grinds Rhino horn for her personal consumption in a roadside café in Baoloc, Vietnam. The dealer who sold her the horn sits next to her. Rhino Horn is an illegal substance in Vietnam yet both the woman and her dealer have no fear of the police, grinding the horn in a café in full view of the street. The dealer states that he pays $1500 a month to the right people and they can carry on with impunity. The woman says that it has cured her Kidney Stones and now she takes it daily for her general health. Rhino horn is generally used as a fever reducing agent and for the removal of toxins across Vietnam, the biggest market for horn today. Rhino horn has even been held up as a cure for Cancer by a senior Minister in the Vietnamese government.” Why is this happy little dude and his mom better off living in captivity? Rhinos have been in trouble for a long time, but their slaughter for their horns is on the rise. They’ve long been in demand for ornamental and “medicinal” purposes in Asia and the Middle East but since 2007, despite increased efforts to save the remaining rhinos in the wild, their death toll has increased. In 2011, the death toll added up to one rhino being killed every 20 hours. The biggest current market for rhino horn is the affluent Vietnamese who is using the powdered horn as a hangover remedy. What happened to a nice hot bowl of pho doing the trick? There’s not much response from the Vietnamese government to try to curb the collecting of horns, and distributors often have organized crime connections. The horns find their way into hospitals as well as private homes. Big game hunting is big industry in many parts of Africa developing their tourism, with customers flying in from all over the world to take out gigantic herbivores that don’t run very fast or pose any threat to humans. Vietnamese rhino horn distributors sign up for fake hunting trips, sometimes hiring Thai sex workers to go on the trips so they don’t have to get their loafers dusty on safari. The distributors succeed with the help of corrupt wildlife reserve workers, customs officials, and even shady wildlife veterinarians. The rhinos are going fast. The black rhino has already been declared extinct, with other species of rhino following fast. Vietnamese ballers need to chill out on the horn and just take a couple of ibuprofen after an all-nighter, or we’ll be all out of rhinos. This creep in the US got busted, but he’s just one of thousands around the world who don’t really mind if they wipe out a species or two. Shark fins, rhino horns… when we’re all out of sharks and rhinos, what’s next? Brent Stirton – Getty Images “RHINO WARS” “A four man...
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Why? In a town with only 1 shop and land, why would “businessmen” buy the town of Buford, WV with a population of 1 for 900k? (CNN – Buford)
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