INSPIR-ASIANS

more designers, less cheerleaders
1) Chloe Dao won Project Runway (yes!). Seriously, Sharon and I were pulling for her but we never thought she had a chance. Luckily for her, Daniel V. and Santino came out with surprisingly safe and weak collections while Chloe's at least took some real chances and had a point of view. As Sharon said, "some of her dresses look like they're from a bad '80s prom" but at least they made a statement.

Plus, Chloe winning is on some definite immigrant American dream tip: she's one of EIGHT sisters (you think they were trying for a boy? My guess) from a Laotian Vietnamese family that had to flee Laos at the end of the Vietnam War. Like many Southeast Asians, her family settled in Houston where she owns the boutique, Lot 8.

2) On the flipside, if any of you saw that footage from the other day of the cheerleader who fell, broke her neck and sustained a concussion...but STILL performed her routine, even prone and in a neck brace...as it turns out (sigh), she's Asian too: Kristi Yamaoka. As you might tell, I'm not a big cheerleader fan to start with and the fact that someone would have sustained head and spinal injuries but still perform, on a stretcher no less just strikes me as the crazy act of someone who, for example, has just been dropped on their head.

But good god, everyone's calling her "an inspiration." This piece is so over-the-top that I can only assume it's satire but I'm kind of scared it's not. I mean, how can anyone take stuff like this seriously?:

"There are certain iconic images, like the solitary man who stood before a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square, that exemplify the best of humankind: Courage and the willing to sacrifice one's self for a noble cause.

The injured cheerleader, who kept on leading cheers with her arms, while strapped to a gurney, now joins those images that will be indelibly marked in our memories.

...Kristi didn't move her arms while strapped to a gurney to call attention to herself, she's no Terrell Owens who will do anything for publicity.

...I can't wait for Kristi's heroics to be reenacted on the big screen, or at least on the small screen. If dubious personalities like the Runaway Bride receive so much publicity, a genuine heroine like Kristi certainly deserves her 15 minutes of fame.

--O.W.