Bolsavik.com

Proving that (a) Ho Chi Minh is still an explosive issue, and (b) Nguoi Viet still hasn’t learned, the newspaper got into hot water all over again for printing a big full-color photograph of the late North Vietnamese leader in its Monday issue.

The photograph is a well-known propaganda picture. The story goes that anti-American fighters in South Vietnam sent a “vu sua” plant — indigenous to the South — to Ho Chi Minh, and “Uncle Ho,” in his infinite love for the people of the South, took great care of that gift, watering it every day in his pajamas.

That’s him watering the plant, to the left. To the right is a man whose land had been confiscated by the communist government, standing in front of a statue of Lenin in Hanoi.

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To people posting that link from OrangeJuiceBlog.com:

Some of us have close relationships with our brothers and we know what our brothers are doing. But a lot of us (probably not a majority, but a significant percentage) have no idea what our adult brothers are doing. And nonetheless, if said brother got in hot water and needed a $1.5 million bail, yes we would help our parents put up their house for a $150,000 collateral to get the brother out.

So, no, not fair to crucify a candidate over something a brother or half-brother did.

The Bolsavik is not taking this bait.

Countering accusations of chumming with communists, OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen hit back last night with a mass email touting her own anti-communist credentials.

The top half of the email (pictured) are images of her in various anti-communist activities as well as portraits of her father and uncle, both of whom served as officers in the South Vietnamese military. It says that her uncle was killed when communists took over South Vietnam.

The bottom half answers in 5 points what she calls the “lies by other candidates and elected officials in Assemblyman Van Tran’s camp.” The Bolsavik is pretty sure this is the first time the Janet camp figures out to write in bullet points in Vietnamese.

Anyway, what’s interesting is the top half. It shows Janet at a protest against Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in Dana Point (read here), at a protest against Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in New York City, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on human rights in Vietnam, and, in the center, protesting in support of the name “Little Saigon” in San Jose. (Read more here.)

What? Since when is it proper for a Southern California pol to join a protest on a local street-naming issue in Northern California?

But then again Viet politicians have always functioned on a different set of rules….