Yellow Jacket Teacher

Chicago Department of Public Health destroys Homegrown Food

2010-02-06T07:11:00.004-06:00

What happened?
Monica Eng covers the story of a small business whose Valentine's Day business was been destroyed by the Department of Public Health.

The story's horrible from all angles:
1. The food was locally grown.
2. It was destroyed despite the owner begging it to be donated.
3. The city is demanding that each business in the space pay $600 to apply for a separate permit, but then destroying all of the businesses' supplies whether they are compliant or not.
4. The city is setting a separate standard for large businesses over small.
5. The city is destroying food in the middle of a depression and claims of insufficient resources for public health.

Who was hurt?
Beyond the general damage to our community, you can learn more about Flora Lazar here. She sounds like someone who is living out of love--quitting big time positions to follow a passion. Passion, not money should make the world go 'round. On the one hand, she is the little guy being tromped by the bureaucracy--we must support her. On the other hand, if she didn't have some background of privilege, would we even have heard about this story? How many people is the city abusing in this fashion?

What can you do?

1. The new health commissioner is Dr. Bechara Choucair. The city website hasn't even changed to have the proper contact information.

No disrespect to Dr. Choucair--he's only been in office for a little over a month, but this looks like another department that does not run efficiently to serve the needs of the people of Chicago. That's no surprise--Daley's corruption hits every area of governance.
Here's the listed general contact info if you want to act on this issue:

General Information,
Address: 333 S. State St.
Rm. 200
Chicago, IL 60604
E-mail: publichealth@cdph.org
Telephone: (312) 747-9884
Facsimile: (312) 747-9765
TTY: (312) 747-2374

2. Demand reform in the City of Chicago's governance. This city is current run by a priority list that puts the people of the city last behind every single patronage interest in the city. Let's change that.

President Obama's Speech Features Julian Student

2009-09-07T14:59:00.002-05:00

I'm so proud of Shantell who was highlighted in the notes for tomorrow's Presidential Address to the children of America. She is even more amazing than she'll sound in the speech. I'm very excited that our wonderful, world changing students are being highlighted for their prodigious lives rather than the usual focus on the violence and loss in our communities.

Here's the text of the speech from Whitehouse.gov:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

09.01.24 Jet Alumni Association Shinnenkai

2009-02-01T22:00:00.001-06:00

On January 31st, Julian's Japan Club traveled downtown to volunteer for the second year in a row at JETAA's annual New Year's party. A great time was had by all, and even some work got done.

The kids participated in a chopsticks contest, shodo calligraphy art, gyotaku (Fish painting), kimono/yukata dress up, and Wii bowling. Students also helped sell raffle tickets and won a few prizes!

We ate tonkatsu, o-sushi, and other Japanese cuisine from a local Japanese-Hawaii restaurant.

It was great to see the Kelly and Julian kids working together and I think it was a good experience for the JETs to meet kids from our part of the city.

Much thanks to JetAA and especially Emi for reaching out to us!

Catching up

2009-02-01T08:25:00.002-06:00

In a situation of a great writer quoting another, Oliver Wang profiles himself on Angry Asian Man by referencing James Baldwin. "I want to be an honest man and a good writer."

I'm relatively successful at being an honest man, and horrible ineffective as a writer. I'm too impatient, too manic and generally too immature to sit down and document everything that I ought to.

But my little experience in the area tells me two things:
1) Write from your weaknesses--I have a horrible weakness for attention and projecting as "the woman who does everything more beautifully than you do" so I think I'll get back in the game by documenting my schedule a bit.
2) Much more importantly, I believe that we are fighting the most critical battle in the history of public school education, so I hope that if I coldly document my weeks, I might slip in some of the joy and beautiful detail of these actions.

I'll probably fail as usual and be gone for a dozen weeks or more again, but I'm going to try, and even if it's just a couple things here or there, it's better than nothing.

Drive Teacher Award Ceremony

2008-11-23T05:41:00.006-06:00

I got featured in this awards ceremony last month. It was pretty cool--a good chance to highlight some of the things the kids are working on. I get kind of weirded out by all the glitz--why do chairs need to be wrapped?

I'm sitting on this Teacher Leadership Advisory Council with Arne Duncan now. Not sure if it's going to be fluff or real action, but I hope it can affect some sort of student, teacher and community empowerment.

Can't get the thing to load. I'll link it for now. It's in episode 7, last part of the new season. If anyone knows what's wrong with the embedding, give me a hand. Peace.

2008 DRIVE AWARDS

This is why I'm hot

2008-09-25T23:28:00.004-05:00

Today we had "extended division"=shortened classes due to another random standardized test for the Freshman and Sophomores. The actual tests will be held on Monday and Tuesday, and the lunch period classes will be cut to 30mins a piece while the other classes will be cut entirely.

I imagine most of the kids not testing won't come at all.

On extended division days, all classes are cut from 41 minutes from 46 minutes. Students usually have 4 minutes for passing time and extended division days are no different. The extra time is put into the "division period" which is basically what most folks know as "homeroom". In fact, officially, last year, they rebranded "division" as "homeroom", but none of the other vocabulary using "division" got changed. So you get "extended division" days where you sit in "homeroom".

The extended division days are relatively frequent and they are used to allow for paperwork to be done, and assemblies and the like. However, we aren't usually told ahead of time, so sometimes you find out that it's an extended division day when you are in the middle of your first lesson and suddenly the bell rings and everyone runs out of the classroom while you are in the midst of saying, "We only have about 5 more minutes left, so make sure you get the home---*ring* oh crap!"

Then you have no idea what you are supposed to be doing during the time, so the kids all rush in and say, "Do we have extended division today?" and you say, "It looks like it!" and they say, "Why?" and you say, "Well, that is the critical question!" and they say, "Do you know the answer?" and you say, "No."

Some teachers have told me that you never say you don't know because then the kids will think you are weak. That's not my experience. The kids aren't stupid. If you get stern or change the subject, they don't think you are strong, they think you are a liar.

I'm not a liar. So I just tell them that things are broken and I'll tell them everything I do know.

This sounds doom and gloom, but it's definitely not. I love my division, I mean homeroom, like nothing else in the world, and you really must hear about them.

My homeroom is a "demo" division as in "demoted". It's basically treated like a quarantine cell for people who are about to no longer be with us. Most divisions or homerooms or whatever have a number like "913" where "9" stands for the year the class is going to graduate. For example, "2009". However, if you are in a demo division, your number gets pushed back, so instead of "913" you will be "050" in the whole wrong year, and with a number in the middle of the rank like "050", "060" or "040".

So when anyone sees my kids' schedules, they say, "Oh! You are in a demo division! Demo! You slow or something?"

My students are Senior age, and they are in there for different reasons. A bunch failed a ton of classes their freshman year. Another handful transferred in and they've been waiting for like 2 years to get their credits to transfer. Others didn't do service learning hours, or they were entered wrong. A couple are actually Juniors, but the computer system put them in the wrong division, so they have mixed feelings--they still get mocked for being in a demo division, but they are hoping they can graduate early.

In most demo divisions the average GPA is approximately 0.8. The vast majority of students in such divisions never see the stage as they drop out.

I don't like the name "demo division", so I call it a "second chance division". In some cases, it's a "third chance division", but regardless, I really love my time with them.

On most days, I have them for just 12 minutes, and then they run off to their next class, or at least I hope. In those twelve minutes, I am scrambling to prep for other classes, but we manage to chat a bit and mostly troubleshoot.

I'm a little too lax on them, but I think it's actually helped them stay in school. For a kid who's thinking of dropping out, I don't see how arbitrary authoritarianism is going to help the situation. So they know that they need to publicly follow school regulations, but I try not to dress them down if they need to use a piece of contraband to call the doctor's or sit on a desk instead of in it or pull out their hat for a minute.

When they come in reeking of weed, I ask them if they know what they smell like, and how they plan to keep it from messing up their days if they run into security or messing up their teetering grades.

Mostly, I just commiserate when they get mistreated over something stupid like the fact that they are Seniors with a Junior division number, or told that since they aren't going to graduate anyway, they don't get choice of which classes, even though they really need flexibility in their schedules the most since many are taking regular school, night school, Saturday school, and Summer school to get caught up.

I tease them, "For how much you don't like school, you sure are here a lot..."

I ask them daily, "So are you going to make it?" "Of course!"

So I ask them, "I know you are. So what's your plan? You need to get up that grade in Math! Talk to you teacher!"

But I live for these extended division days. Some kids bring homework--as I encourage--but many don't. I used to bring in movies. I try to bring in something thought provoking and entertaining. Lately, though, they go into crazy debate mode. They choose the topics, and I let them go; interjecting once in awhile. One week it's sexual orientation, the next drugs, sometimes sports, housing policy, crossdressing, school rules, sexual protection, and on-and-on. Yesterday was politics. They really don't seem to like Palin. Today was, "Who is the greatest rapper alive?"

They'll get up in each others' faces, but then moderate for each other as well. They'll quiet everyone so their opponent can explain, "Gucchi repeats himself too much and just makes up words! That's not flow, that's just garbage!"

It reminds me how they pass the time brilliantly when they aren't sitting in a structured class teaching them about something they aren't particularly interested in.

When I want to interject, half a dozen kids wave their arms and say, "Hold up, Barrett wants to say something!" and I explain how mainstream rap is too competitive, and collaboration is what's really powerful. Jay-Z battles Nas, but Jay-Z never gets big in the first place without Nas. Some pick it up and others try to tear it to shreds. One asks me, "How do you know this stuff if you don't have a TV?"

They begin to critique the songs they bumped last year and the year before, "Mims, that was weak! Why did we ever like that?"

One of them, AM, was an expert on Chicago Housing Policy--brilliant. But it mostly just jaded him to school in general. Why should he try to learn from a system trying to push him off the face of Chicago. We talked and I tried to get him to stay, but he ended up dropping out and getting him GED.

When grade reports come out, I go over them with them, and we talk plans. "You are failing Ms. C's class?! How do you even do that?!" "Yeah, I don't make it on time..." "Go talk to her! You need that class!"

And they do make it. Of the thirty I had their Sophomore year, most have transferred or dropped out, but some have been transferred in. I now have a core of 15. Most "second chance" divisions graduate about 10%. I expect to be able to read at least 10 names in June and see at least another couple walk in the Summer after the Summer term.

Something I needed to tell you

2008-09-21T19:06:00.003-05:00

"A" was a troubled young man. He was charming and attractive, and basically a good kid. He would do fine when I sat down with him and talked things out, but could not function in a class of 40. He was angry, and it would often come out in seemingly ridiculous behavior. Once he wiped dogshit all over the inside of the classroom because he was struggling with an issue outside of school and wanted to hurt others.

On Friday night, it is still unclear what happened, but what I understand is that an argument erupted into physicalities--as often happens in our environment. It was broken up and A headed home--about a block away. The young man he had fought with was waiting for him. A was shot straight on in the chest. He was rushed to a hospital that my wife has often worked at, where he died on the table. He was not a good student and tried his best to grow into a good man, but he was 17 years old. He never really got a chance to grow into one.

When the shooter is found, he will be crucified, but it won't really solve anything.

The school is full of good, smart, attractive young men and women, who have had the worst indignities visited upon them. Some grow into amazing leaders in the face of adversity, many grow hard and bitter and sociopathic, and most just do what they need to survive and get through and end up somewhere in between; a reasonably large number die before they see their twentieth birthday.

On Monday, or some rapidly approaching other day after another good youth dies, the Mayor will go on the TV again and remind everyone how much he cares and give the police some bigger guns and vilify students for gang involvements and tell everyone he will lock up the evil shooter and throw away the key.

And then the next day or the day after another gunshot will sound, and another good young person will be dead.

When people feel powerless, they seize power. The rich play games and toy with others, the middle class buy stuff and the poor, well they grab anything they can have the tiniest semblance of control over.

Or any of us can devote our lives to service and improve the world and help others in a kind of power that does not melt.

However, as I walk into school tomorrow, students will sit in classes, 40 of which have no regular instructor, many of which are core subjects with over 40 students enrolled in them, and no funding for the very extra curricular programs which teach students to turn to community improvement instead of violence to feel meaningful and powerful. And they will grieve and try to come up with a thoughtful response. In some they will be berated by their instructor or sub for not "paying attention" or "sitting quietly". If they are lucky, they'll be able to see a counselor.

Can you imagine just sitting in a classroom, told that you are ignorant and need to take your education more seriously, and not having anyone in that room to qualified and interested in educating you? It's enough to drive any person insane.

Of course, that's not every classroom, and there are a good number of teachers--many smarter and stronger than me--who try to make up for that, or what I do--try to grow the tools so that the students can voice than injustice and demand change.

We have told the district again and again that the students need a loving, consistent, competent adult in every classroom from day one. Instead they point to a dearth of funds, pour millions into their pet schools, and sit on their $500 million surplus.

When your (and I don't mean you personally) kid grows up and makes a mistake that swindles ten thousand people out of their retirements or homes, he'll give a simple "my bad", we'll pay our taxes to save his ass, and he'll parachute into a beautiful pile of millions he made off of his incompetences and improprieties.

When my kid makes a mild mistake or no mistake at all, he'll won't see another sunrise.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? I see none of the three.

But I don't say this without hope. Everyday is a beautiful struggle, and while today is far stormier than most, it has meaning and tomorrow I will be ready, and I will be a healing drizzle misting over the scorched earth that my students miraculously burst forth from, and grow along their prodigious paths.

In the end, many will inexplicably make it, and I hold hope that they will forgive you and I for the sins we have visited upon them.

Peacing out the TV

2008-09-21T14:09:00.000-05:00

Liz and I finally got rid of our TV. My old folks took the one that lived on our landing for a year and a half to their new place, and we moved Grandpa's ghost television to replace it.

Grandpa's ghost television is one of the many artifacts that I ended up with after he passed early in 07. It automatically turns itself on or off frequently. It was kind of comforting to interact with all of its quirkiness on a daily basis--it reminded me of my grandpa.

I got home last month and a whole bunch of nice furniture had appeared in the living room. I guess Liz ended up buying some stuff. I threw the old Target entertainment furniture to the curb. Usually I feel like crap throwing out anything, but this was more something that should never have been bought in the first place. At this point, the wooden backing was coming off and was too flimsy to reattach. The nails kept jabbing me while we dragged it outside.

After we set up the new furniture, we weighed the TV. It was too heavy to sit on the new furniture. So we put it on the landing and set up the stereo. We went out to look for a new TV.

After an hour or so, we realized we didn't really want to drop $600 on something that would make our quality of life worse. So we just headed back home and left the mini-compo (stereo) in the center of the new entertainment system.

For the first week, everyday when I got home, I would sit on the couch for a few minutes and stare at the stereo. I think I've gotten used to it. We still get together and watch the news on one of our computers every other day or so.

I think it's working out. I'm no less busy, but I'm going to try to blog again. It's been about three weeks now, and I've been getting more work done.

I'm still thinking about snaking an extension cord out to the landing--not to watch TV, but so Grandpa's ghost TV can turn itself on and off.

Names we must never forget:

2008-08-14T10:58:00.007-05:00

This is a short off-the-cuff piece reflecting on the Ng INS murder:

This is a crime drama. Like CSI: Miami or those dozens of other piece of shit shows we watch on TV. It’s the story of a hardened criminal who never saw trial, but was probably guilty of his crime, wanting to love and raise his two sons. Wanting to live with his wife. The system, our system does not suffer criminals or family values gladly.

Names We Must Never Forget

Emmett Till. Anne Frank. Wong Shee.
Born in the wrong place. Born the wrong color.

Hui Liu Ng age 17, bright-eyed the New York Skyline.
Jason Ng. Studied. Graduated. Worked. Married. Loved. Fathered.

We must remember our promises:
We welcome those who come and follow our laws,
Respect the legal process.
Our mistake. Your court summon was sent to the wrong address.

We must remember this date:
July 19, 2007
Five years of agonizing waiting from their wedding day
Finally honored by the green card interview.
Dragged from the room.
When will I see my kids again?

We must remember these concentrations:
Wyatt; The House of Corrections, Greenfield, Mass.; St. Albans’ Franklin County Jail

St. Albans, I cannot sleep.
Unrelenting pain in my back
My skin itching and burning
Where is the doctor, the nurse?

Wyatt, I am alone
Choking on solitary darkness and pain
The only diversion is head count—greater pain
Brother, send help.

“I was really heartbroken when I first saw him”
“After two weeks of suffering with unbearable back pain
And unable to get any sleep, he was so weak and looked terrible”
From 6”, 200 to a shrunken jaundiced octogenarian.

“PAIN”
The overseers won’t believe me.
“They tell me, ‘Stop faking’”
If only I could.

Other inmates—the last vestige of humanity.
Help me to the toilet.
Bring me food.
Call home for me.
Can’t see my lawyer.
Can’t walk to get painkillers—too much pain.
They won’t give me a wheelchair.
“Stop faking”

Warden tells my lawyer:
We would like to resolve this case in the best manner:
Deportation
Or
If we lose, released to the streets.
No doctor. No wheelchair. Sign the papers.
Does warden not have a family?

I tried. Worked. Dreamed.
Gave every drop to be the best American father, husband, worker, citizen.
“Can no longer withstand the suffering within this facility”
“No release as long as he has appeals remaining”

July 30
Can’t move.
Crushing my wrists and ankles in shackles
Dragged from bed.
Two-hours of hellish pain to Hartford
INS bullies me “Drop all your appeals or else!”
Or else what?
“For this desperately sick man this was torture.”

Left with my pain until a federal judge orders medical treatment.
Cancer in the liver,
Lungs,
Bones,
Fractured my spine.
Calling my sister from the hospital:
“I don’t have much time to live”

No family visits allowed for three days.
Final passage, but only with Social Security Numbers in hand.
My sons
Three-years old
One-year old
My sister
My wife
My guard
Watching my unscrupulous action of dying on a gurney.

“Brother, do not worry, don’t be afraid,”
No more pain, no more torture
“They are not going to send you back to that facility again.
Brother, you are free now”

August 6, 2008
Hui Liu Ng.
Jason Ng.
Brother, tell me.
Why is this the only freedom they offer us?

They killed him. They killed him. We killed him.
Francisco Castaneda, Boubacar Bah, Wong Shee. Jason Ng. 300,000 more in ISN concentration camps. How long will we kill all of them?

Wall Street Journal disbands after linking itself to fundamentalist Muslims

2008-08-10T18:32:00.004-05:00

If only it were the case..

Obama's top Muslim liaison resigned after pressure from a variety of sources after it was confirmed that as Muslim liaison, he was talking to Muslims--including one affiliated with the Dow Jones, WSJ's parent organization--who according to an obscure internet site were "fundamentalists". (Link is to a Trib Article)

That crazy website is here.

I'd like to also add that Sean Hannity is fundamentalist space alien. I said it, and I'm on the internet. I hope the Wall Street Journal continues to be a pillar of McCarthyist thought and goes after him as well.

Update: A kind anonymous blogger has corrected a detail in the comments. Please click through.

Sincere thanks!

Facets Post

2008-03-03T18:28:00.002-06:00

Here are the films Liz and I have seen lately:
Eastern Promises
Thank You for Smoking
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Mountain Patrol
Wedding Crashers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

New Orleans Day 2

2007-11-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

I sit at a small table at the St. Charles Guest House on the edge of the Garden District as the sun rises on my third day in New Orleans.

Today we will work again in the Lower Ninth Ward, the most affected area of a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Here's a video of the Lower Ninth.

Yesterday morning after eating breakfast, the group of us staying at the St. Charles Guest House, were picked up by the Japanese Consulate driver, and brought to the house of Emily, the coordinator of this trip.

There we met the volunteer coordinator for Lean on Me, the non-profit we are working with. Her name was the same of the storm, Katrina. Prior to the Hurricane, she ran a non-profit that aided the homeless in California. When Katrina struck, her husband said that since dealing with the homeless was what they knew how to do, it was time for them to expand their operations. Now Katrina jets back and forth between Sacramento and New Orleans to oversee operations.

With her we traveled to the Ninth. During the trip, Emily remembered that we needed ice and called from the other car to request that we stop. Katrina said to tell her that we would definitely stop, but to follow her cause she knew a place we could stop later.

She explained that because different areas of the city had been affected to greater or lesser extents, it was vital to spend money in areas of the greatest need.

(to be continued)

New Orleans

2007-11-02T07:53:00.000-05:00

お早うございます！今朝ニューオーラーンズからＢｌｏｇします。長くて忙しい週の間に飛行機に乗ってＪＥＴＡＡのボランティア研修に参加させてくれます。昨日の四時ごろ着いて空港で他のＪＥＴＡＡ人に会いました。アジア系アメリカ人がかなり多いです。皆が着いたら、空港からSt. Charles旅館へ日本国総領事館人に連れてくれました。

荷物を出し、Ｃｈｅｃｋ－ｉｎしたら、ＥＭＩＬＹという総領事館人のお宅で晩御飯を一緒に食べました。彼女はガンボーとパンプリンを作ってくれました。何より美味しいかったです。他の研修員は珍しい人ばかりです。二人はボストン人、一人ニューヨーク人、シアン入れて二人シカゴ人、もちろんニューオーレーンズ人が多いです。日本語レベルはかなり高いですが鼻高まる奴は全然いないので、誰も日本語で話していません。少し残念だと気がします。

晩御飯が終わったら、旅行で連れて寝たがっている人数が多かったです。一人ニューオーレーンズＪＥＴＡＡ方はシアン達を見送ってくれました。眠くなかったから、彼はニューオーレーンズの大事なところをふらふらドライブで見せてくれました。台風で台無しされたところは結構蘇りました。

しかし、今日一番酷く台風に影響されたところに行ってボランティアすることになりました。頑張ろうね！

Florida city ponders banning China

2007-10-07T23:56:00.001-05:00

This Florida mayor thought it'd be a clever idea to ban all products from China. As Angry Asian Man points out, he's restricting it to goods $49 and up. Normally, I'd be like this is completely unfounded and racist and blah blah blah, but I don't know. This could be a big thing.

After all, it'd be kind of funny to see a xenophobic Florida revert back to pre-tool civilization for a little while and not have to feel guilty about delighting in it.

We might not know it, but we need them more than they need us...

U.S. Contractor Kidnaps Workers to Bulid Embassy

2007-08-01T03:26:00.001-05:00

A U.S. contracted company told Filipino workers that they could have jobs at hotels in Dubai. They soon found themselves on a plane to Iraq, and didn't find out the switch until the captain announced their destination...

Another triumph for private contracting. I guess folks are right about it keeping labor costs down.

Borat

2007-03-25T18:45:00.000-05:00

I still haven't seen Borat, and I'm not really sure I want to. I respect Sasha Cohen's satirical skills more than her skating, but I've never been too big on laughing at others' expense.

So what if you absolutely loved the film and hyped it to your friends? What if you were at least partly to blame for every Kazakhstanian in the country having to listen to the same ignorant "clever" questions endlessly everyday? Hate telemarketers? What if the telemarketers insulted your place of birth everytime they called?

For your penance, try reading this article:
Student from Kazakhstan dispels 'Borat' myths
and definitely go see "Nomad", which is now out in theatres and features a mixed cast of Kazaks and others including one of the greatest actors in American cinematic history, Jason Scott Lee.

As many of you know, Lee quit acting to become a subsistance farmer in Volcano, Hawaii. He recently closed his home theatre (not a home theater, but an actual public playhouse on his property!!) in order to fully pursue his environmental projects.

To learn more about Lee's projects, check out his farm's homepage:
PuMu

Once the Asians Departed, the film won best picture

2007-03-03T09:58:00.000-06:00

Inferior Remake Wins Best Picture with White Actors

From what I hear, since my time on Earth is limited and I would rather be kicked in the head by the undead corpse of Barbaro than spend my time watching the Oscars, "The Departed" aka "White Infernal Affairs with White Racist Actors" won Best Picture.

At the Oscars, the film was described as "based on a Japanese film". That's right, they borrowed the greatest cop thriller in human history, produced in the world's capital for amazing cop thrillers, and couldn't even fucking figure out which country it came from? They took the world's greatest cop thriller but had to refilm it because the American public wouldn't appreciate the color of the incredible actors' skin? Moreover, they replaced one of the finest acting performances in the history of cinema with an actor who has a history of racist violence against people of color, including those of Asian descent.

From ABC.com:

He harassed a group of African American school kids with racist epithets, and when he was 16, again using racist language, he attacked a middle-aged Vietnamese man and left the man blind in one eye. Wahlberg was arrested for attempted murder, plead guilty to assault, and spent 45 days in jail.

And though the right thing to do would be to try to find the man and make amends, Wahlberg says, he admits he hasn't done so — but says he's no longer burdened by guilt.

And why the fuck would he be burdened by guilt? I mean the guy he attacked for being Asian probably has grown a new eye by now, right? Or maybe he's actually Forest Whitaker, one of the few people with a more successful acting character than Marky Mark Asian-Basher" Wahlberg.

But more than invective for Wahlberg, I want to point the figure at the media community we've created again. What does it say about us that they believe we would be more likely to go see an inferior film starring someone who beat someone within an inch of their life out of racial hatred than a superior film featuring something much worse: Some "slanty-eyed gooks" (Wahlberg's own words)?

I say we do find Emmett Till's killers and bring them to justice by nominating them for an Academy Award. Maybe they can star in the remake of "Raisin in the Sun".

What's wrong with "Gay=Asian"?

2007-03-03T08:41:00.000-06:00

Epic Asian American community blogger/news service Angry Asian Man (AAM) links another racist incident at an Ivy League school here: Graffiti Found in Blair Hall.

The messages (one of which is captured in the accompanying photograph) "Dry Dorms=Gay" and "Dry Dorms are for Asians", were written as attacks on alcohol-free dorms at the institution.

Often when an incident of this variety occurs, the reactions are polar: "What is this racist/bigoted crap?" and "What's the big deal?"

The perspective gap that exists between the two responses is in many ways the very problem--it's less the actual incident and more the fact that many people, some with considerable power in society equate certain ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientations with a negative connotation. That's something that should be upsetting not only to members of those groups, but anyone who believes in the marketplace of ideas that is supposed to dictate our social discourse. When people are seen with a negative connotation before we even approach their individual character, it points to difficulties in our ability to create a merit-based society.

That's not to say that such speech should be censored. If those sentiments exist--whether they be with intentional malice or not--they ought to be voiced, as only with thoughtful discourse will our society and its understanding of these issues deepen.

But the strange dynamic of this era sees "anti-PC" people attempt to destroy this dynamic while masquerading as crusaders for free-speech. While everyone should have the right to voice their opinions--no matter how racist or bigoted--why do many "anti-PC" folks believe that they should be allowed to both speak their own ideas and be free from any critique or response from those who disagree? In a true marketplace of ideas, there is no place for speech protected from criticism. Why, of any speech, would people choose to spend their energy attempting to deny speech rights to those who wish defend themselves from what they see as bigoted ideas?

But there is another issue involved with the Princeton incident which is also similar to the 2004 Details Magazine "Gay or Asian" incident. There is a clear equation of "Gayness" and "Asianness". Many apologists responded by saying, "What's wrong with that? Do you hate gay people or Asian people?" AAM addresses this well:

The graffiti, written on a whiteboard and a wall in blue dry-erase marker, read "Dry Dorms = Gay" and "Dry dorms are for Asians." That's racist! And you know why? It equates Asians with inherently being undesirable losers. Because it definitely doesn't intend to mean "Dry dorms are for cool people."

He is discussing what is wrong with the equation of not drinking with being Asian, but the same principle applies. Words do not have some universal meaning, no matter what self-absorbed fools who wack-off to Webster's might insist. This is no-brainer. In the same way some might call their best friend an "Asshole" but probably wouldn't call a stranger walking down the street with a sledgehammer the same, context and intent matters.

Being upset has nothing to do with hating Asians or homosexuals. It has everything to do with being angered by hatred directed at either group. Members of Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY) explain here : Details Says "Gay or Asian". We Say Gay AND Asian.

At GAPIMNY, we were outraged by Details Magazine's "Gay or Asian?" feature. In it, writer Whitney McNally revived a history of stereotypical images of LGBT API peoples and thinly veiled racism, homophobia, and classism as humor.

So why does the "anti-PC movement" exist? Why would well-meaning people want to attack minority groups' opportunity to speak against bigoted speech?

My guess is "history". Historically, majority power groups have enjoyed the ability to denigrate others with impunity. Naturally, it would be a culture shock to wake up one morning and find that this cowardly way of artificially boosting one's lacking self-esteem is no longer received positively by large section of society. Think empathetically for a moment: You are unsatisfied with yourself for a moment, so you attack a minority group in a way that has always in the past gotten a laugh and little bit of positive attention, and suddenly you find yourself being attacked instead.

I can understand why it's so upsetting and disorienting for aversive racists, sexists and homophobes. Their world is truly falling to pieces. That's not to say we ought to humor them--their destructive values must be tested in the marketplace of ideas and ultimately they will fail the test.

But we have the ability to show empathy, even when we do not receive it. Let's demonstrate that ability.

Chicago Politics

2007-02-28T23:32:00.000-06:00

Daley won :(
I had another marathon day on Tuesday--a full five-class day plus two and a half hours of night school teaching. So I decided to vote before school when the polls opened at six. I never received a polling place notification card, and a lot of the locations have changed lately in Chicago, so I was a little worried. I ended up finding my place through the Channel 5 NBC webpage, and as luck would have it, it was the same place as last time.

When I got to the polling place, it was nearly empty, so the judges were just sitting around munching on some of the food. I went up to vote and was offered a paper ballot. It had a different system from the normal ballot, so one of the judges demonstrated how to vote to me.

"Here--if you want to vote for Mayor Daley, just connect this arrow here..."

Really, I'm not kidding. It reminded me of when I voted at the Champaign County Clerk's Office for the 2004 election and was told, "To vote for the President, punch here".

So I voted for Brown, Morfin (who was opposing Daley's crony, Solis) and some random person for the other office, and went on my way to work.

I got through the day and was supposed to meet before night school with my Japanese Club, but there was an emergency faculty meeting. One of our colleagues had been killed in her home. It was crushing--she was an incredible teacher and later, as the kids found out, everyone was pretty distraught. I didn't really know her, but I could feel the pain in the community.

Today I worked through until ten as I had after-school tutoring in the North suburbs. When I got home, my voter notification card had just arrived in the mail today.

I don't know. These are weird topics to tie together, but I'm just kind of writing to purge right now. I hope someone gets something out of it.

No Surprises

2007-01-27T09:56:00.000-06:00

This AP article describes a study which investigated the role of skin tone in earnings of recent immigrants. Researchers controlled for educational background, skills, race or nationality and other factors.

I have no doubt some who absolutely love prejudice or at least are too scared to consider the possibility that it is still an integral part of our social institutions will dismiss this information by saying, "I knew some guy once, who was blacker than the ace of spades who made a lot of money!"

You are free to your own beliefs, but I would encourage people to ask themselves, "Which is a more compelling argument? One I agree with that is anecdotal or just something I made of, or one that is based on a research study that people invested considerable time into making it accurate and significant?"

Anyway, I'm going to go eat some breakfast that my skin tone privilege helped purchase. Peace out.

Movies We Saw in 2006 (Part 1)

2007-01-21T09:53:00.000-06:00

Lately, I've been talking to a student who attends the only non-Japanese class in my room. Her World Studies class was added 2/3 of the way through the semester--all the students were taking out of their other sections and put in a new section with a new teacher.

This student is passionate about film. She's like an encyclopedia of art house and international film. While the other students are raving about the latest blaxplotation flick, she's all, "Audition, you seen that? Wow, that was crazy. I like different movies, but that was too much!"

So in tribute to all the Roger Ebert's of the inner-city, here's my "watched in 2006" movie list:
Please comment or mail me questions about any of the films. I hope that you will find old favorites and new treasures from this list. Since it's quite extensive, I'll break it up among several posts.

Also, to remind you the vast diversity of perspectives on film, and also how far we have yet to go on issues of equality and empathy in this society, I'll link the gospelcom.net reviews for each movie that has one.

1. Whale Rider--The feminist real-life fairy tale that crosses many gender and ethnicity barriers. Beautifully shot and an amazing debut by Keisha Castle-Hughes, who has now played the leader of the Maori and the Mother of God.
2. Maria, Full of Grace--Empathetic, but difficult to watch drama about "mules", young women drafted to smuggle drugs across the border.
3. Love Liza--MOST. DEPRESSING. FILM. EVER. Yeah, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an awesome actor, but we already knew that. Do we have to sit through two hours of life abusing him to realize that?
4. Cidade de Deus (City of God)--Gritty look at the child gangs who populate the underbelly of Rio. The narrator is so charismatic as to bring shine to sobering darkness of the environment. Also, the film box picture ranks among one of the most misleading in the history of the world. I remember the scene from the box well, but several of my friends who saw the film were like, "When the fuck was that? Was that even in the movie?" Yeah, but barely. I guess we know how much thought film marketers put into box art: "Half-naked kids on the beach? Sounds like a hit!!!"
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?2360

5. Unbreakable--Second time I saw this, but I wanted to give Liz a chance to see it since she admires Samuel L. I know that M. Night has fallen out of favor, and this is not one of his favorites, but I thought this was probably his best when combining the obvious love his has for his subject and Samuel L's acting. Superior in my opinion to "Sixth Sense" which I thought was pretty good, but saw it in Japan and found "the twist" to be too predictable.
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?1777
6. Ghost World--This movie totally stumped me. I had heard all of the rave reviews for it as a great American movie classic and so I'm left with this burning question: Does this film make me want to punch myself in the head due to its overratedness or is it really all that irritating all on its own? It kind of reminded me of Kevin Smith's "Dogma". It's true that adolescents have to deal with being angsty, hipster and smarter than people give them credit for, but that doesn't mean that it's brilliant to point that out for the billionth time. Finally, what the fuck is up with Scarlett Johansson? How much acting ability does it take for a charisma-less personification of vapidness to play a charisma-less personification of vapidness in every single movie? Moreover, in what way is that "hot"??!? Does it have something to do with her octagenarian smoker's voice or is it her strangle preportioned face? Maybe it is every man's secret desire to lust after the one person in the world who they can confirm is actually even less capable of simple social interaction than they are? All that said, Liz and I loved this film. She still turns to me occasionally and in her best Scarlett/James Earl Jones bass says, "I'm Scarlett Johansson, aren't I pretty?" and we bust out laughing...
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?1910
7. The Village--Another M. Night movie that people reacted negatively to. I thought it featured beautiful imagery and brought up some interesting moral dillemas. In an industry full of recycled plot-lines and recycled actors, I thought he put together a good story and strong cast. Not great, but decent.
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?2621
8. Office Space--Only funny because it's true. The copier death scene is something worth reliving again and again, and certainly a secret wish of the drunkest person at Liz and I's wedding. When I was a kid, the rest of the Asian and white kids at my high school and I really did listen to Geto Boys all the time and think we were hard while we were copying each other's Calculus homework...
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?101
9. Violent Cop--One of Beat Takeshi Kitano's earlier films. It's often compared to "Dirty Harry". I don't remember much about this film. I think it's mostly because there was little to remember. Lots of action; lots of corpses; some exploitation of women. Violence begats violence. It's useful mostly as a way to chart Kitano's development as an actor/director.
10. Monsoon Wedding--In terms of Mira Nair's short and narrow directing resume, we can only hope it is due to her picking and choosing her projects rather than the ugly filmmaking reality of institutional racism. Over the last three decades, she has done a movie every several years, with a number of truly standout pictures. Monsoon Wedding is one of her best. In general, the genre of American films with so-called "exotic" locales is an ugly, jingoist one. But Nair's pictures are always labors of love in which she delicately balances the novelty of cultural difference with warm central themes of shared humanity. It is easy to love and understand her main characters as we learn from them--they are not specimen to be studied, but friends to embrace and understand.
http://preview.gospelcom.net/rev.php3?2033

If you want to see more comments from a labor of love--a relatively comprehensive movie review database put together by a bunch of people who think that the mere discussion of homosexuality is an abomination, and that it's worth counting the exact number of times people use marginal profanity and that the destruction of a copy machine is "violence", please consult:
http://preview.gospelcom.net/search.html

"Don't take a bullet for us"

2007-01-13T10:43:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was probably the most challenging day I've had at my school since I started last September.

It's been a busy week which left very little time for sleep. I had Students for Social Justice and union meetings two days this week, so I hadn't been getting home until 9ish when I'd eat my first real meal of the day, spend some time with the wife and then get a little rest before I got up at 5 the next day (although I fell a asleep a couple times during planning so I probably wasn't fully awake until around 6 am).

Thursday night I had to drive up to tutor a student who goes to a famous high school in the North Suburbs. She's an extraordinary kid--very thoughtful for her age or any age, and it helps me to get some one-on-one teaching time. Strangely enough, I tutor her in mathematics--not my area of certification. It works out better than usual though since we just sit down and derive the formulas together, which, scandalously enough doesn't seem to be part of the curriculum any more.

To be straight-up honest and rude, they sorely underpay me. It doesn't really bother me--if I had a problem with it, I wouldn't do it--it's just a fact I thought I'd throw in there. One of the reasons I enjoy it so much though is that it gives me an excuse to visit with my cousin--a truly remarkable person who really will improve you just by sitting with you for a few minutes. He might read this and I don't want to hurt him, but I think the best description of him is someone who is pretty much the best in the world at anything he tries but just has a blockage when it comes to employment because he expects more of himself than any of his currently available options.

I want to help, but it changes from day-to-day, and I'm not sure where he needs help. (We all need help.) He survives fine--basically hustling large-corporations and doing little odd jobs and schemes to feed himself. So I'm not sure whether he needs help getting over his blockage to get a "real" job or he just needs to learn to be proud of himself whatever he chooses to spend his time with. Probably a bit of both.

It just kills me sometimes that he isn't teaching (he was a great teacher for a year), practicing law (has a degree), photographing (in the short time he did that he won a city competition) or any of the other dozens of things he's tried and mastered and then moved on to something else. I find myself wanting to shake him sometimes and say, "Why not just share one of your gifts whether you like it or not until you figure out what you do want to do?"

But that probably would just upset him and I really love our time together.

So I got home after midnight, my wife talked to me a bit in a half-asleep state until about two-ish, I got up at five, took a shower and drove to work.

Now, it's just my first year, but I've got my own room and the kids have figured out I'm someone they can be straight up with so I get to tap into the SCN (student communication network) . The SCN is not very high-tech, but it has been in existence in every school in the history of the world and it just consists of kids relaying information to each other in the halls, on their lunch, and most importantly in the middle of class when they really should be learning some math, history, English, or Japanese. It's a trade-off, as a teacher in order to be part of the SCN, you can't share everything you hear with the administration, but on the flipside, you are privvy to information which could protect yourself, and more importantly your students.

At a school like mine, where the faculty numbers over one-hundred, and one often doesn't hear about even the official events before the minute they are supposed to be underway, the SCN is the difference between you standing there clueless and being able to get your kids safely to where you are supposed to be. Whether it be a schedule change, early dismissal, a gang conflict or an assembly, my students know it before I do, and I know it before most of the rest of the staff does.

The day before, on Thursday, there had been a major fight on the third floor, where a couple of the lunchrooms and about half of the lockers are. My rumor-based understanding is that there was a dispute between two young ladies, which resulted in one of the students and nineteen of her friends attacking the other student. That student made a very good immediate decision and a poor subsequent decision.

The first decision is something you might find useful if you are ever attacked by twenty other people. In this situation, she curled up into a ball, and protected her face and body with her arms and legs. This allowed her to escape with some cuts and deep bruises but little in the way of serious damage.

You might ask yourself at this time, "Where were the teachers in this situation?" I can't be sure, as I wasn't there--perhaps there was a faculty member or two putting themselves in harm's way to attempt to defuse the situation. There's no way to know for sure; one or two faculty can do little to remove twenty students from one other student. I'm not sure even how the fight ended. Did the large group tire or feel a pang of conscience or did the little security staff that the school can afford eventually arrive and break up the altercation?

Perhaps you might judge harshly any faculty members who stand idly by while students bloody each other. Please don't. The union itself advised new members in its board sanctioned new teacher training, "No matter what you might want to do, you must not lay a hand on any kid. Such intervention may and has in the past resulted in dismissal!" So I can't fault those who protect themselves and their welfare. However, I can't speak for how it must feel inside to have dedicated oneself to a profession of improving the lives of young people and then stand by powerless as they pepper each other with violence.

I can speak for how I have learned to handle fights and other flare-ups in my classroom or the hall around it. I shout, "Ok, I'm walking in the middle and if you continue swinging, you are going to hit me in the head!" and then I walk in the middle of the conflict. It has worked wonders so far. After I had explained my strategy, over the couple of weeks on a couple of occasions my students tested my honesty by beginning what I believe were mock fights in my classroom. When I did indeed shout and walk into the middle of it, a couple of fists narrowly missing my head, they were satisfied.

No fights have broke out in Japanese class since. I expect that it has not only pushed some fights out to non-instructional time, but probably also prevented some. If you have to wait a half-hour to get a hack at someone you are angry at, the anger tends to subside. At least it does unless they and nineteen of their friends got a crack at you.

The second decision the student who was attacked on Thursday made was the common social convention of calling her friends and family and informing them of what happened.

Friday was mayhem. Our security system consists of opening one door and passing kids through a metal detector. A school of 2,000 kids are far smarter than any hastily constructed security system. My students have gotten guns, knives, snakes, cell phones, and a host of other banned items into the building through a number of end arounds the security system. Ok, maybe snakes aren't on the banned list of items, but they did indeed get a snake into the room, upon which we decided to leave our normal homeroom topics and spend a few minutes discussing the life habits of snakes.

Utilizing this knowledge well, a number of students of another school in the area were able to enter the building, at least one with a weapon. I heard many other stories about the exact number of weapons, but again, the SCN is not concern with journalistic integrity (is anyone these days)--it spreads information and quickly.

There were fights all day; by the grace of God, no one was shot, and the administration, understandably went into lockdown mode.

I had had a minor incident with a student earlier in the week who had stepped in dog shit and decided rather than going to the restroom to just scrape it off in my classroom. The other students were miserable, so I wrote him up.

Went I went to speak to the administration about it, however, I felt silly. Who would want to deal with this on a day that hall sweeps were occurring (where any and all students found in the hall were being detained and suspending or arrested). Cops, security and administration were running everywhere and there were lines of dozens of students at every assistant principal's office.

Throughout the day, I had students, some of them the most agreeable people I have ever had the fortune of meeting, entering the classroom with the international face of "I just got harassed by authority for doing nothing wrong" showcased for all to see.

In my fifth period class--often my most challenging--a student finally broke away from our Japanese lesson and asked, "Are you going to hide under the desk if they come up shooting?" I thought for a minute and just said, "Iie, Gakusei-o mamoru-yo. It's my job to put myself in danger to protect students."

"Don't take a bullet for us," she said. I told her I couldn't think of anything better to take a bullet for, but I hope I won't have to.

By the afternoon, the classrooms were almost empty. Japanese, history, English, math, art these are fun subjects and some students stayed for them. Others decided that they are just not worth risking getting shot over.

I don't know that either decision is right, persay. I know teaching people IS something worth getting shot over to me, but perhaps it's not something I've experienced so I'm just being foolhardy, or worse, dishonest with myself.

The next time someone like myself, who received the very best education that money can buy, goes on TV or addresses Congress and says, "If these schools can't get their students to have the same test scores as other schools, they don't deserve funding," please, please remember this story. It is being repeated all over our urban landscape, and let's face it, when you take away opportunities from individuals who had no responsibility for what you are trying to punish, you are accomplishing little more than attacking the ideals of democracy.

My school is full of amazing, dedicated, brilliant students. Students who think critically, and stand up for what they believe in are sprinkled through its halls and classrooms. And yet they are subject to what are often ridiculous conditions and impossible decisions simply because they are poor kids of color and none of them are the kids of the people who make decisions on these issues.

I'm sure your kids are wonderful too. That's a trait pretty typical of human adolescents. But how would they do in this environment and why are they entitled to not be part of it?

The Main Vein of East Central Illinois Politics

2006-12-31T11:29:00.000-06:00

IlliniPundit, a make-shift thinktank site for Champaign County Republicans (not exactly conservatives, although some authentic ones are in attendance), is back with a new look and framework.

IP is clearly a labor of love by its creator, Gordy Hulten. Gordy has poured in tremendous amounts of his own time into building a truly epic blog/forum-ish political site for East Central Illinois.

Gordy also has a good sense of humor, so I hope he won't be offended by a little "something good/something bad" critique.

Good:
1. Updates on the local level: I feel like I can keep track of CU local politics better than the vast majority of citizens of CU by following this blog and filtering it for its right-wing slant. In addition to closely watching the newswire, Gordy and the other contributors have plenty access to insider politics in the area. I sure miss the smell of the boneyard in the morning.
2. Openness to opposing viewpoints: Groupthink is the greatest threat to an online community. IP has plenty of groupthink, but Gordy shows intentional effort to break that down, even though much of it flows in line with his own personal politics. I have experienced some occasional censorship of my political posts on the site, but not from Gordy himself who usually seems more upset about the situation than myself and reminds me to mail him immediately if I experience anything of the sort. There is a small group of posters who seek to stereotype and shout down opposing viewpoints rather than engage the arguments involved, but I suppose that exists on any political site in any part of the spectrum. There's nothing worse than when you need to release some good thought on an issue and you are told to hold it.
3. Activity: IP.com is insanely active with several dozen regular contributors and surely many hundred regular readers. This makes it interesting to read and participate in. It also likely helps the local level of political awareness. The more streams of discourse a site has the bountiful it is.
4. Ease of participation: Anyone, anonymous or otherwise, may response to any post. In two minutes anyone could sign-up for an account and begin posting blog entries. Just whip out your political views and showcase them for all to see.

Problematic:
1. The title: Few words in the English language are more pretentious than "pundit". That a local person would choose "Illini" for part of the title is not particularly surprising. While I empathize and support the Native American empowerment movement, I understand the local pride in the traditional symbol of a white guy in a fake indian suit. But "pundit"??? Hasn't anyone ever heard that "True compentence is its own pubicity"? Calling oneself a "pundit" is no proof of incompetence, but it does beg some questions about security. I guess I'm writing this to the hundreds of other self-proclaimed pundits too. After all, the difference between a "pundit" and "some asshole with an opinion" (yes, yes, everyone's got one) is an uncreative, self-congratulatory title.
2. The tendency to degenerate: Hardly confined to IP, this is a vice of nearly any website that deals with political issues online. There are a few regular posters that don't believe in supporting arguments with evidence. Or empathy. Or math. Or the public good. While not surprising, this can ruin many a good discussion with loud shouts of "you are aiding the enemy" or "you're just a liberal". The sad part is that when people spray these foul-smelling polemic tactics all over the place it is our Marketplace of Ideas that ultimately suffers.
3. The subtitle: Collective Intelligence Interacting Freely
Would you intentionally name your website with the abbreviation "IP" and then add "Freely" into the subtitle?

So I christen Illinipundit.com as "IP Freely".

A volunteer military?

2006-12-20T19:31:00.000-06:00

Who should make up the armed forces in our country and what role should the educational system play in that decision? Do you really know what NCLB does? Can you be patriotic without being pro-military?

Today was a pretty smooth day by our school's standard. We are still on a shortened bell, extended division (homeroom) schedule, but I had all of my classes today.

Since it's the last week before Winter Vacation (冬休), the kids are pretty restless. I gave back some exams, which I had graded rather leniently and gave the kids free time to work on their final projects.

In the second level course, they are preparing a grant proposal in English and Japanese. It's a wide range of performance--some kids have barely managed the English portion, and are just slapping some translated words into the process. Others are harassing me for new grammar points so they can write a good translation. Regardless, it's a good skill for them to work on--how to put your dreams into words and present them to others.

The first years are working on a picture porfolio introducing themselves and their families in "Amelie" style. Yeah, we actually watched a clip from "Amelie" in Japanese class. But hey, language is just a mask for communication right? So, just like in Amelie, they are to build people's personalities through a series of "She likes/She doesn't like" sentences.

But my most proud moment of the day was when one of my students who isn't actually in any of my classes (she takes French), but is in the room constantly, brought in a rough draft of a presentation I asked her to work on.

You see, my style tends to be to tell a whole bunch of students, "You're bored, why not try this? I think it's something you'd be interested in!" They get enthusiastic, but most of them soon forget--it's hard to follow through on things.

But she came in today and was like, "Yeah, it's kind of short, but I hope it'll be good", so I set it up for her to present to the other students who work in the room after school.

Her presentation was on "The Opt-Out" form for military service. I probably should back up and explain: Under NCLB (No Child Left Behind), every school district must turn over the names, home contact information and other personal information of all of its 10th-12th grade students to military recruiters. Really, I'm not making this up. It's part of the law. Basically, the only way to prevent this from happening is for students or their parents to sign "Opt-out" forms which would remove the student from the list that is being turned over.

So the student went through the details, gave a little too detail, and not enough enthusiasm (I think she was a little nervous), but then went into the question and answer session. And she was incredible. The kids gave her a bunch of tough questions and she had an answer for everything:
Q: What wrong with them calling us?
A: Well, think about this, you have a terrible day, get several failing notices, and get in a fight with your parents, and then this recruiter calls promising you some dream life...
Q: How do I get this form?
A: Well, I've a stack of forms?
Q: Do I need my parents to sign this?
A: No, only you need to sign this--it's not a legal commitment to anything, it just gets you off of the list.

Our school actually gave out the forms once--on report card day. Unfortunately, only about 25% of our parents come to Report Card pick-up. Furthermore, since they are only handed out to the parents in a big stack of forms, only a couple ever come back.

I finished out the Q&A session by asking:
Q: My father is in the Navy, what's wrong with the military? He's proud to serve the country!
A: This is not about being pro or anti-military. It's just about making sure the people who are in the military are people who want to be in the military.

I'm really excited about this--it's not the politics. Sure--it helps that she's informed and active on a vital issue. But it's just exciting to see kids determine for themselves how they think the society should be and take action to make those beliefs into real societal change.

There's a lot more to the "Opt-Out" and counter recruitment movement that deals with the socio-economic and racial inequities of the current recruitment system. If you are interested, check this out:

http://www.themmob.org/lmca/index.html

Please post any comments, especially critical. Thanks!

Student (and Teacher) Development

2006-12-19T17:44:00.000-06:00

I'm teaching full-time in a new environment again this year, so you've probably noticed that my updates are non-existent.

It's always this way--when I have the most interesting stuff going on in my life, I write the least and my experiences are lost to the page. When I'm navel gazing too much, I write a bunch of self-absorbed crap.

So I'm going to try to break through and do a few updates. I'll start with an artificial framework in the hopes it will help me write. Most of all, please respond and chip in you perspective if you can--it will help make me write and even if it fails to do so, I'll certainly learn a lot from it.

Today: Tuesday, only four classes period, eighth was cancelled.

I missed my eighth period kids, but I'm kind of exhausted from that class--it's the one that was twelve students and the kids were blasting through the material and then they dropped 20 extra students into the class with 3 hours notice eleven weeks into the semester.

I'm not really sure how they were supposed to pass, but I've been pretty flexible and there are a small handful that are doing completely awesome. A lot of the students are understandably bitter about the forced add of a foreign language at such a late date, so it's taken some work to get them moving in the right directions.

We had a Student Development team meeting today. I got the memo during my division (homeroom) period, twenty minutes before I had to attend. That kind of threw my planning into disarray, but I'm excited to be on this team.

A couple people from the downtown office came to visit us and solicit grant proposals. It's a good program--for a portion of the grant, teacher proposals are not accepted--the activities must be student written, led and executed. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have students on our student development team, so I was kind of irritated by that. I mean, no matter how many times a bunch of well-meaning teachers meet with each other and chat, there's a point of diminishing returns.

I mean, I feel a strong bond with our students--during division time today, we had an extra half-hour so we watched "Head of State" together, Chris Rock's first film about himself running for president. It has a strong understanding of politics and campaigning, and the kids had a lot of questions about how presidential debates and other aspects of the campaign work. They cheered loudly when Rock's character won, but I didn't point out that Rock had said that he was torn over the ending. Finally, he decided that there might not be another chance to have an African American win a presidential election--real or fictional--for a long time, so he couldn't pass up the chance.

I see that in my kids often--the realization that they are not welcome in the political process and sometimes a "well fuck them if they don't want us!" response that I try my best to explain to them "the best way to mess them up is to get REALLY involved."

So following the meeting, I had a very chaotic hectic day in which the kids were loud and rambunctious, but did seem to get some work done on their projects. I've got them writing fake grant proposals (weird coincidence) in English and then transferring them into Japanese. So I announced about the need for student grants, but there was little interest in trying to import their classwork into the other projects.

During sixth, one of the other teachers came to ask for help on some disciplinary issues. She a great person and a good teacher, but she happens to be caucasian and very sensitive and the kids sometimes just eat her alive. It's kind of hard sometimes to watch someone who cares so much about the kids have to choose between getting a little bit more cynical or bursting into tears or occasionally both. It's been a rough week in general--we had a ton of fights last week and at least two gun incidents, so security has been very tight and I think the kids are a little on edge, doubly so with the break coming up. I've seen a lot more teachers taking kids into the hall to try to deal with them. Technically we can't really send kids out, so there are extreme situations where it's hard to know what to do--a kid has had it rough outside of school and comes to class determined to mess up the entire process. The teachers who don't seem to be stressed out are more "survivors" than experts. There are the great teachers, but it seems like we are mostly judged from the outside just on our classroom discipline, which to be honest, I don't think is really that important. I mean, how many brilliant people do you know who can't sit in their chairs and shut up?

During my "planning periods", I let the students into my room, so they have a safe place to study and avoid the general atmosphere of violence that permeates the school. At first they were concerned that the fighting might spread to my room, but I just explained to them repeatedly that I would step in the way of anyone fighting and if they continued, they would end up punching me in the head.

They tested that promise on a couple of occasions by starting a fake fight and my head was barely spared, but it seemed to satisfy them, so there have been no outbreaks of violence in my classroom.

It does get a little loud sometimes.

Today, I really needed to get some high concentration work done, and I'd heard, "We'll try to be quiet if you don't make us leave" several times to no avail, so I set a limit at 3pm (I was actually done with work at 1:30), and said no talking past that point.

They actually decided to stay and not talk--did some reading and then started to chat a little, but in extremely hushed tones.

I got a ton of work done and at 4:15, I realized that they had stuck to their promise well over an hour, and I had almost finished my grading, so I eavesdropped a little.

They were discussing the upcoming presidential race. "Clinton or Obama, both would be good--the first of their uh, group".

I was a little surprised. Then they proceeded to discuss things that needed to change in the school and how they wished there was something to do.

I smiled, finished my grading, complimented them on their conversation and then tried to sell the grant-writing assignment. They got excited and said they'd have me several ideas for a proposal tomorrow.

I drove my hour commute home, ate my first meal of the day and am now contently rummaging through the day in this space.

Hope someone gets something interesting out of this.

2006-11-26T11:12:00.000-06:00

Heroes, Race and Gender

I've been simply shocked by this series.

While “Grey's Anatomy” has spent most of the season wallowing in the main character's plot line of "Whom should I date today and what superficial reason should I use to justify that?" “Heroes” has emerged as the best show on TV for the growing minority of us not petrified by three-dimensional minority characters.

That's not to say that non-racialized casting is the main reason to watch the show. It's actually a synergy between the thoughtful casting and brilliant writing that neither insults the viewer's intelligence nor falls into stereotyping and caricaturization of the principals.

Masi Oka is utterly brilliant as Hiro, the courageous, implacable hero of space and time, as he must portray both Otaku Hiro and Future Hiro, the sword wielding “hindsight is 20/20” guide of the expedition to save the world.

Sendhil Ramamurthy plays steamy narrator Mohinder Suresh, who tries to bring the Heroes together by following his father’s eccentric path that led to his eventual death.

Heroes’ only flaw is its weak female representation. The main female characters sound like a roll call of Hollywood stereotypes: the stripper, the cheerleader, mysterious drug addict or stripper turned bad actress, the cheating wife, and the handicapped wife being cheated upon. The only bright lights have been the development of the cheerleader, who thankfully is not played by a twenty-five year old with big tits, and the most well developed female role, the dreaming waitress, who after being developed more in her first twenty minutes onscreen than all of the other women combined was summarily executed by the serial killer.

Well, despite some notable exceptions, comics are not known for their good gender portrayals. For an utterly amazing, analytical look at this issue, please stop reading my blog and read “Women in Refrigerators”; an very thoughtful critique of gender in comic books that also tries to give artists the opportunity to respond to the analysis.

This blog entry approaches a much wider issue of how we tailor our perspective on existing trends to serve our own racial stereotypes and fabricate biological explanations to suit them:

This is fascinating to me because of two things:
1) Writers must balance their own politics with their audience’s tastes and agenda.
2) Many writers totally suck at assessing their audience’s tastes and agenda.

Looking at Heroes, the weakest actors, with the exception of Adrian Pasdar, tend to be the Caucasian American ones. Milo Ventimiglia is just dreadfully casted as his smirkiness is completely out of character for the bashful little brother character, and Ali Lartner manages to command BOTH of the worst two performances on the show as “Nikki” and her sister “Jessica”.

But was this a good call?

People magazine has Ventimiglia polling as the “most sexy” character far outpacing the minority stars.

Overall, I think this just illustrates how complex the issues of race and gender in media are. The public accepts a show that studio execs promised us they would not: one with minority male leads and non-English language dialogue. But their definitions of “sexy” still tend to be narrowly confined by the stereotypical conceptions of race and gender.

As MLK said, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, except in terms of ‘sexiness’ in which case, color of skin is absolutely vital!”

Wow, this post ended somewhere entirely different from where I intended, but I do think in a good place. Let me leave you with this quote from Joan Hilty's response to "Women in Refrigerators" which sums up not only the issues of gender in hero mythology, but also the greater cultural war of so-called "anti-PC-ness" and the fight to restore white male supremacy:

Really, the larger reality is that American mainstream comics, built by guys for guys on the crumbling foundations of superhero fantasy, remain intensely hostile to women, consciously and subconsciously. As political and cultural landscapes shift and evolve worldwide and it gets harder and harder for white guys to retain their perceived right to run the world, you can see the frustration act itself out in various forms of hideous backlash -- everything from "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" to Katma Tui.

Anyway, check out “Heroes”—the writing is incredible, and the plot twists are not the usual Hollywood, “I just made some shit up that doesn’t make any sense, but you didn’t see it coming!” variety.

Veterans Day

2006-11-12T15:17:00.000-06:00

Happy Veterans Day! Today let us celebrate the dignity of someone willing to risk their own life for the principles they believe in and the good of others.

Let us honor them in a way that as a society we have neglected--let us show respect that is concrete and meaningful rather than purely symbolic. Let's toss out the flag displays and American flag cakes, and towels and bikini bottoms and actually show love for our veterans.

Let's open our ears and listen to the stories of the veterans rather than just use them as puppets for our own polemical agendas. Let us learn from the stories of those who feel vindicated from their time in Iraq and also from those who feel cheated by our civilian government and its policies. Let us respect those who loved every moment of war and those who were shooken and horrified by their experience. Let us respond lovingly and strongly to all of our veterans' experience whether they be uplifting or truely horrifying:
The story of Juan Torres

I tend to editorialize at this point, but I really cannot express myself on this account.
We are facing a two-faced society that claims to support its best and brightest (and poorest) as it sends them to war, and then betrays them in the most disgusting ways imaginable. Please read and make your own decisions. Then if you want to know what to do next, respond in comments and we'll discuss it.

Oops, I'm a privileged asshole, "my bad"!

2006-09-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've always despised the phrase "my bad". I remember the initial wars between "my bag" and "my bad" and I don't think most people ever really understood the deep difference between the two.

Both are used in approximately the same situation--you fuck something up that affects other people, so you say, "My bad" or "My bag".

The difference is that "my bad" is commonly used as an end to the situation. "I fucked up, hee hee, let's change the subject!" "My bag" is short for "my baggage". It means, "I'm sorry, it's my burden and I'll make up for it later!"

I think it shows a deep cultural division in our society. "My bad" is dripping in social privilege. It says, "I fuck up, but when I fuck up, we laugh about it and move on! I don't owe anybody anything. I'm special!" "My bag" is a working-class, "I earn my way" mentality. "When I fuck up, I acknowledge the impact I've had on others and I genuinely strive to make it up to them."

Where did "my bag" originate? I don't have any specific entymological data, but from my experience, I first heard it on the court during predominantly African-American sporting events. "My bad" was a misheard derivative that caught fire in the mainstream white adolescent community. It gained huge popularity when it was included, ironically enough, in the film "Clueless".

To this day, I have no idea whether Amy Heckling, the writer/director of "Clueless" knew the difference between the two phrases. Even if she did, it made perfect logical sense to use "my bad" in the script that she wrote. These were clueless privileged adolescents, so it fit the situation perfectly.

So what does that make the rest of the millions of people who then decided to make the phrase their catch phrase?

Taking one for the team!

2006-08-31T00:57:00.000-05:00

A kind reader responded to my post supporting the profiling of flyers for our safety with this crafty response:

Anonymous said...: Have there been any recent incidents where a white person wanted a Chinese person off of a plane? What about a Mexican? What about an (non-Muslim) African ?

You're making this into a "white people are racist" thing, but the evidence doesn't seem to support that view. It seems that white people, and various colors of people for that matter, are nervous when people who look like they follow the "religion of peace" are on their plane.

Dear Anonymous:

Yes, actually, I was almost kicked off of a flight out of Islip because my penis was too big to fit in my seat. My penis is actually pretty small, but they had assumed that I have a giant cock because of my Chinese ancestry. Kelly Hu was sitting next to me on that flight, but she said nothing. As part of my drug trafficking operation, I employ a number of Mexican people to fly on planes for me, but they actually haven't had any trouble as O'Hare officials were too interested in strip-searching random African-American women at customs.

With your second paragraph, I have no idea what you are talking about. I am in FAVOR of tossing people off of planes because they are too Muslim. I just don't think most people are as clever as those crafty Brits, who could tell just by the way the colored gentlemen were checking their watches that they were bombing for Allah.

Hell, I get nervous too. One time there was this really fat white guy who got on my plane, and I love white people, but I was seriously nervous that his enormous girth would cause the plane to crash into the ocean. I mean it's a scientific principle that planes can't carry infinite weight. The evidence supports this. I'm not a racist--some of my best friends are fat white people, and have even had them over to my house (never for dinner though--I'm not made of money). I just wouldn't want one to marry my daughter.

But what kind of country do we live in? Why can't I have fat people thrown off the plane because they make me nervous?

It gets worse. I'm deathly afraid whenever I see Jewish people with their yamakas board the planes. After all, those evil brown people are always trying to blow up Jewish people, and it's not like you can just blow up part of a plane.

I tell the stewardess, I mean flight attendant (I'm not a sexist), "Could you please remove that Jewish person from the plane because I fear for my life?!" and they look at me like I'm crazy.

I realize that it's not the Jewish people's fault that they are targets. But as Jonah Goldberg has taught me, sometimes some people different from us have to make huge sacrifices for our safety while we make no sacrifices ourselves. So if it was up to me, it'd be no Jewish people on planes or in public EVER!

Can't they just stay in secret compartments somewhere where the terrorists would never find them? I read part of a book about that once about this girl who successfully hid from the evil Nazis (I think they were Muslims too) in a secret compartment and it saved her family. At least that's how I remember it--I didn't get to finish the Cliff's Notes because that awesome 90210 "Rave" episode was on TV, and I just had to catch it.

Because see that's what America is all about--other people giving up stuff for the greater benefit, and by "greater benefit", I of course mean "my benefit", Sure, there are tons of peaceful Muslims in my community who always treat me well, and I think they should be honored to be thrown off a plane or have their faith ridiculed by my Anonymous friends and their condescending quotation marks after all, they are helping America--a land that they love. It may be an abusive, "I love him even though he beats me" kind of love, but who am I to judge love. Unless they are sodomities, in which case I am the perfect person to judge love negatively.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the confusion. If only I could write clearly and concisely like that man I so admire, Mr. Goldberg, He has shown me that just because your people have been the victims of horrible injustices doesn't mean that you can't preach for further injustices to be visited on others. What a brave, articulate man.

Book Burning

2006-08-29T08:47:00.000-05:00

Who needs a bonfire when you have satire?

All the fun, none of the oppression of speech!

Colo(u?)red Folks on Planes!

2006-08-21T16:34:00.000-05:00

British "holidaymakers" faced a traveler's worst nightmare when they were shocked and dismayed to find a couple of colored people on their plane. These two coloreds--who somehow had gotten passports and full British passports despite the dark nature of their skin--were seen engaging in extremely suspicious behavior such as talking in some undeciferable colored person tongue, looking at their watches as if to check how long it was taking to take off, having long hair and being unshaven, and being the target of veiled racist slurs.

Stunned by the flight crew's eagerness to fly despite the presence of these un-pale intruders, the passengers heroically took matters into their own hands by muttering unfounded allegations under their breath and making accusatory statements about the colored men. It goes without mentioning that of course, being good (non-pigmented) English folks, the travelers did not directly mention that these colored heathens were, in fact, colored.

Finally, thanks to their efforts, the colored men were escorted off the plane by police to be lynched in the court of random pass-by conjecture. This vindicated many of the passengers in the decision as the men did not struggle or resist, almost as if they were resigned to the fact that their skin color made surrounding people want to jump out of their skins. As we know, any good (melanin-deficient) citizen would struggle mightly if wrongly accused, as no one of importance has even been charged or worse killed for resisting the will of law enforcement officials.

Despite the resultant delay, soon all of the travelers were able to resume their flight schedule as the plan took off just a few hours late and minus those talking, watching-checking sand-niggers who were actually of South Asian descent.

Of course we can all be relieved to know that the situation resolved well: In this case, the unfittingly dark folks were not allow to fly the friendly skies and the only outcome was positive: A bunch of brave British men and women learned a valuable lesson, "Sand-niggers can come from Asia too!"

But can we always count on heroic civilians acting on their own will to advert disasters? What happens the next time some person WHO DOES NOT BURN IN THE SUN decides to check his watch on the runway?

This might sound harsh, but these are desperate times we live in. Sure, in the past we never needed to hold slaves, commit genocides and generally subjugate other people, but now that the terrorists have come along and they are not the color of freshly squeezed milk, we must adjust to our environment.

I'm tired of these motherfucking coloreds on these motherfucking planes. --->I'm not a racist<---Some of my best friends are colored, but the last thing I want to see when I am about to hurdle through the atmosphere is some colored person next to me talking or eating a sandwich or some slanty-eyed chink who might be hiding some explosives in their eyelid crease.

Sure, in this PC era, it's not a pretty solution. But let me ask you an honest question. Would you rather take away some colored person's rights and not lose any of your own whatsoever, or would you rather be BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS?

Sure, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg and the rest of us will miss our colored travel companions, hell, we might even miss Michelle Malkin, but it's all for the safety of the (properly tinted) citizens of our (white) nations.

Starting Med School

2006-08-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

My wife started med school today. Last week was orientation week, concluded by her "White Coat Ceremony" on Saturday. Basically, the WCC is a kind of reverse graduation where many of the first-year students' families and loved ones come out to hear some pompuous speeches and then watch with joy as the students receive their first physician's coat.

The ceremony climaxes with the students putting the new coats on each other as a symbol of the collaborative spirit that will help carry them through their four years of schooling.

Several of the couples at the ceremony were ones in which the non-participating member was already a doctor. They said that it will be quite difficult to maintain the strength in relationship through the rigorous four years.

That's part of the reason why I was so thankful that they incorporated us into the orientation process. The students spent last week learning about the program during the day, but the upper-year students would then take them out on "outings". Spouses who RSVPed early were also allowed to come along. On Wednesday we went to a White Sox game and then on Thursday dinner cruised on Lake Michigan.

Having been multi-year veterans of the long-distance relationship, one of the most important elements to success was "shared experience". Anotherwards, it made a huge difference that, despite our distance, we had firsthand understanding of what each other's days and schedules were like and what we might be going through.

I kind of feel the same way about medical school--I wish I could directly share the experience with my loved one, but at least having met her classmates and instructors, I feel like I have a better idea of the environment she's going to be in and that makes me less anxious.

The other relevation that I found fascinating was the demographic of the student class. Unlike many medical schools, UIC-Med is extremely diverse, with whites making up only a minority fraction of the enrollment. However, in terms of economic class, the students were much more homogenous. Liz told me that only 14% of the students' parents had not attended university, and the large majority of them had at least one parent who was an MD.

Hearing that made me both proud and mad. Proud that the woman I love is amazing enough to overcome those odds, but also upset that our society is so unequitable in the opportunities it affords its citizens and the reality it points to:

Some of the best doctors in the world never get to even dream of practicing. Some of the best teachers never see the light of a classroom. Some of the best judges only get to see the wrong side of the bench.

And we all suffer for it.

Still dead...

2006-08-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

How about some news coverage of kids we CAN help?

Mother of American forced to hide in church to escape abductors

2006-08-16T03:04:00.000-05:00

It's a terrible situation--a 7 year-old American may soon be left parentless as armed assailants plan to abduct his mother and take her away, out of the country...

Why doesn't his government step in to help? Well, you see, they are the abductors. Elvira Arellano has raised her son well to age seven and become politically active to help improve his (and her) American community.

But tonight Elvira and Saul are hiding in a church in Humboldt Park, as they fight for the future of their family.

Immigration officials say that it's about "fairness" as they must follow the laws of the land, and there are many in the same situation as the Arellenos.

That is certainly the case, but this is where I believe a "family values" mindset must take precedence over petty issues of the law. Do you consider yourself a "good" American? What did you sacrifice to secure your citizenship? Personally, I just popped out of the birth canal on American soil. My grandfather and Ms. Arellano didn't have such a hollow tie to this land. They came out of choice and that choice was to risk arrest and internment simply for wanting to contribute to this country. My grandfather spent ten days in a concentration cell in Seattle, simply because he was too yellow to immigrate freely to the U.S.

I have paid my taxes regularly and for those taxes, I have receive Social Security credits, eligibility for financial aid, and other benefits. Ms. Arellano faked a SSN# so that she could work and had money deducted from her check while receiving nothing resembling comparable benefits.

Ms. Arellano is a pretty dope American, and deserves an opportunity to continue to contribute to the country that she has courageously fought to be a part of. If it is a country too full, why not deport Michelle Malkin or someone else who really isn't doing much to contribute?

Moreover, Saul is a young American who deserves the best shot at achieving his potential. It sure won't hurt that potential to have his mother in his life. Some may say, "Well, he wouldn't be an American at all if his mother hadn't broken the law!"

I take that as a direct personal insult. I don't think we should be judged on meaningless social conventions and grandfather clauses. We should be judged on what we contribute to our society. Are we a nation of enforcement or meritocracy? I believe we must choose the latter. To do otherwise amounts to treason against the true America--the America of equal opportunity and limitless potential...

The "Worst" Age to Teach

2006-08-11T22:13:00.000-05:00

After a few year hiatus devoted to convincing the American school system that yes, I was capable of doing what I was already doing in Japan, I'm heading back to middle school teaching!

The title refers to the fact that almost every time I tell people about my choice of profession and grade level, they say something like, "I'm sorry for you." WTF is that?!

It sounds cynical, but I think people like the young kids because they are better at just doing what they are told. High School kids are often treated more like college students and when they fail, people just blame the kids. But young adolescents are tough because they are in an "in-between" phase. They question adults, but they aren't yet comfortable with adult responsibility.

It's a critical time, and a challenging time. What would you rather teach than that?

I'm going to be teaching Social Studies to 7th graders at Goodlow Magnet Elementary in Englewood, Chicago. I'm really excited! I'm even looking forward to the "decorating my classroom" and all the little mundane tasks that I normally find irritating.

Of course, the real moment I can't wait for is to meet my new students.

So in the meantime, I have a favor to ask of all of you:

I've actually never been a middle school student in the U.S., and while I feel prepared, I would love to hear some of the insight you gained from your middle school experiences. Last night, Liz and I had a close friend over for dinner, and she said she really didn't like her 6-8 experience except for watching short clips on current events at the beginning of social studies class.

So I'm curious--what did you like about your middle school experience. If you could have changed something or if you could go back and give yourself and your teachers some advice, what would you tell them?

Valedictorian, Future Felon

2006-07-28T10:15:00.000-05:00

article from the Trib: "Still Crossing the Border".

How do you all think this relates to the idea of "American meritocracy"?

Old Boy

2006-07-25T10:50:00.000-05:00

My wife and I checked out Old Boy last night (she had seen it once before, but actually was really good about keeping quiet about the ending).

There's a really strong argument that Park Chan-Wook is the greatest living filmmaker. While I'm not really a fan of stylized violence, like Kinji Fukusaku before him, Park is one of those rare birds that when his defenders say that his violence is to end violence, it's actually believable.

I have sometimes heard the Tarantino comparison applied to Park. That's about as appropriate as comparing a six-year old at her first piano lesson to Beethoven--they both play piano, but that's where the resemblance ends.

Taratino's films are full of trendy eye-candy, but little substance. Generous on director's self-love and overindulgence, they sharply contrast to Park's deep overriding interest in the human spirit. While Taratino is fixated on the art of killing, Park explores the art of living.

While Oldboy rode its stylized action to prominence, it still possesses the brilliance of JSA, Park's best work to date.

Happy Fun Genocidal Thoughts

2006-07-16T09:51:00.000-05:00

Unstoppable blogging force, Matt, has captured the main problem with the current democratic party--it's a bunch of people who don't believe in justice or equal rights, but they play someone who does on TV.

It's not just homosexuals who are figuring this out. It's working class folks and folks of color.

With homosexuals and folks of color, most of us still feel like, "This group of bigoted assholes is better than that group of bigoted assholes."

Unfortunately?, poor white folks have for the most part decided that it's better to pick the fake religous folks who claim to respect them than the condescending pricks who actually would help them in terms of policy decisions. So the Republicans win elections.

There is no reason why the Republicans should be able to win anything. They are not interested in anything substantive that the majority of people in any particular district are interested in. Of two corrupt, illogical, hateful parties composed primarily of rich white males, they are the worse one.

Yet, they are better at PR, so lacking a good option, most folks choose them.

Why don't the democrats do anything about this? Sadly, I don't think they are capable. They are that fumbling, well meaning affluent kid, who would like to be "down" with everyone, but just end up looking foolish.

I mean look at Hillary Clinton or Biden, it's not like they wake up in the morning and say, "I don't like Americans of South Asian descent, I think I'll say something incredible offensive about them today!" Quite the opposite, they consider them a respected part of their voting block, but like those few well meaning Chief people, they are just too fucking ignorant to actually show people different from them some baseline respect.

So right now we face a desparate choice:
1) Figure out some way to wrestle Democratic party control from the people in charge.
2) Continue to support the current D party which has no problem compromising away everything important to us and really isn't a feasible winning party anymore.
3) Take the time to build more parties that will actually represent the people of the country. You know, democracy.

Obama is trying to do one in a sort of flawed, half-assed way.

I would like to see three, but cynically, I feel that most Republicans will mockingly support "3" because it will allow them to win more elections in the here and now. The reality is that choice three could mean a couple more decades of Bush-ish rule. For us privileged minorities, we might be able to endure that, but it's easy for us to say, we might have a little hardship, but we won't have our lives totally destroyed, unless the new Republican presidents decide to make Michelle Malkin a major cabinet force and she starts up her concentration camps.

But poor minority folks will be dying in the streets.

They will have to endure a long-term tenure of a party that all evidence suggests the following beliefs:
1) The only remaining racism is anti-white racism.
2) Americans who are not lucky enough to be born into wealth do not necessarily have a right to life.
3) Criticial thought and voice are anti-American.
4) Today's problems are the domain of tomorrow's Americans.

What do you think the end result of these beliefs will be?

A lot of locked-up and dead colored people. Complete acceptance of a prevailing anti-homosexual ideology. Demonization of the youth. And all this, even in affluent suburban areas where teenage pregancy and drug use statistics has risen to match those in urban areas.

Exhilaration

2006-07-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

Sight.
Sound.
Scent.
Perhaps a little taste.
Hopefully, not too much touch.

The fireworks of the Fourth are at least a tri-sensory experience, and a magnificant one I had pretty much decided to forsake this year. Last night, I sat at home while I heard the barrage going on outside. I really ought to have at least poked my head out the back porch door, or perhaps dragged the computer outside to work.

But I didn't.

I spent most of today rationalizing it and sour-graping. "It's just some fancy lights--you didn't miss anything..."

We went down to the in-laws this evening to practice the other Fourth tradition--over-eating.

My sister-in-law tried to get us to go with her to some fireworks that were launching out of a surrounding suburb, but we passed--"It's too far, and it's getting late, and there's so much to do..."

Instead, we stopped briefly at my wife's godparents' house--her godmother passed last month, quickly and completely unexpectedly. It's still pretty quiet around there--I think nobody really knows the right way to respond to the situation, probably because no right way exists.

As we sat back in our chairs, all around us the show began. Down in Champaign where I've lived most of my life, there's the main fireworks show, but not much else. Here, small families had started their own shows and soon there were explosions in every direction.

Across the alley there was a small galley of 3-7 year olds watching a father light up a few small fireworks. Up the block, another family with a reasonably sized cannon were competing with a group of teenagers who had set up in the opposite alley.

As the symphony began to pick-up we found ourselves jogging through the smoke to the corner where we could see further--every block as far as the eye could see had several parties launching volley after volley. 360 degrees of color and sound and smoke. Those patriot red-white-blue three-shots. Those tearing (both meanings) Weeping Willows. The looping Screamers. Those bright, gold behemoths that spawn dozens of little offspring.

It was a living, multi-organism, tri-sensory tapesty of an experience brought to us by the residents of Southwest Chicago. Working-class families dropping a few dollars a week into a little glass fireworks jar on their counter produced something more moving that a municipal fireworks committee.

So, it was expensive and bad for the environment and just some brief fancy lights. But it was beautiful. Certainly not as gorgeous as a well-supported education system or equal opportunity or quality health care. Perhaps tomorrow, basking in the afterglow of the spectacle, we can make some headway on those less ephemeral beauties?

Al Gore: American Hero

2006-06-16T17:14:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of the month, I didn't think much about Al Gore. I thought he won the only presidential election he ran in, but there's a lot of bad Americans you could say that about. I felt bad about the whole "I invented the internet thing" because it was a classic case of someone being a little too proud of a real accomplishment (i.e. believing in and helping support the potential of the internet) and assholes taking your words out of context to tear you down.

After all, the same assholes who were mocking him for "inventing the internet" sure didn't do a lot to facilitate one of the greatest advancements in human history, did they? Shit, if I had just delivered pizzas to the guys who put the internet together, let alone tons of funding, I would totally be giving myself non-stop 24/7 mastrabatory backslaps.

But he handled the whole post-2000 election period terribly, and I never really forgave him for going all obsessive-compulsive about "Chads" when thousands of African American voters were disenfranchised.

Then the 2004 election came, we managed to disenfranchise more colored people, this time the ones giving their lives fighting for the country, and I kind of forgot about the guy.

So what's he doing now? Only saving the future of humankind... Look, maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's exaggerating again and living off of delusions of granduer. But the little science I understand seems to support him, and this isn't debating motherfucking Trivial Pursuit answers with your friends. If New York City or Beijing or Venice are completely wiped off the face of the Earth. That sucks! If there's a tiny, tiny chance that the polar ice caps melt and the planet no longer supports oxygen-breathing life, that's something I'd like to at least research further. That's not a "Don't worry about it" kind of thing!

Personally, I'm a little mystified by the whole mocking Al Gore thing. I understand that nobody likes the smart kid, but in the movies when the smart kid is trying to save the entire fucking planet from desolation, usually people back off on the name-calling and bullying and let him do his fucking job.

Otherwise, there's a decent chance that we are the society that the aliens laugh at when they come down to survey the crumpled remains of the human race. "Look these assholes had the choice between the savior of the human race and this ex-druggie racist, rich kid and guess who they chose!"

Ebert has an interesting commentary on the hate mail he's received for supporting Gore's non-partisan, why don't we save the planet film.

My only question is "Why are people willing to risk the lives of themselves and every generation of offspring just in order to be right about something?"

Watch the film or not. Cheer on Gore or not. Neither will make a major difference. What will make a major difference is deposing the ruling regime in our country that seems deadset on destroying our living environment.

Unless we do so, they eventually will succeed and then we can say, "I told you so!" from the outside of their environmentally comfortable bubble that they play golf in while we die outside.

Oh, and his TV network is hosting a new contest to produce a film on tolerance. Yeah, ok, so Paul "Birth of a Nation for the 21st century" Haggis is going to be a judge, but at least it's something.

Can Love Ever Be an Reason to Cheat?

2006-06-10T00:10:00.000-05:00

In response to the last post, an anonymous poster heroically came forth to defend Grey's Anatomy--a revolutionary show--in the face of my vitrolic tirade against it.

I found this analysis particularly interesting:

...^^;; I'm guessing you are not a Meredith fan? Then I won't get into her scene, except that her having sex with McDreamy was caused by BOTH of them, and they love eachother, which- 'love' in this show, is not a choice. I suppose their emotions washed over them; sure, the viewer may be mad *more than likely if they are an Addison fan*, but it's a great part of Greys: people making mistakes. They both became carried away, and depending on your stance in their relationship, it can be a GOOD thing.

Actually, for me this had very little to do with playing favorites. I find Kate Walsh's "Addison" to be pretty tepid, and evoking more pity than outrage.

Instead, the scenes hit me very hard on a general relationship principles level. Starting a relationship and then saying, "I'm sorry, I'm actually in love with someone else" is a human mistake with a good human solution. "I'm sorry, I was actually in love with someone else, and then decided to screw them and now I'm telling you..." is a human mistake with a totally self-absorbed asshole cherry on top.

You see, I've been in that situation a half-a-dozen times in my life. Seriously, I fall in love real easy and real hard and it puts me in situations. But I've always responded in one of two ways:
1) Get over it because I still love my significant other and I'm not going to destroy what we've built together.
2) Peace them out and then get something started.

This is EVEN MORE important from the other side: Tell the person that the feeling is mutual but nothing's happening until they call up their significant other and peace them out. I've had them do it on the phone that very second.

That might sound wrong, "They broke up over the phone?!?!?" It's not ideal, but it's fricking utopia compared to getting cheated on.

I can understand how people can be in love with each other and in the middle of other relationships. I can understand trying to weigh it and realizing that you've got to act on it. There's just ways of doing it that show yourself to be a passionate, empathetic person, and there's way to deal with it that show that you are a self-absorbed prick who happens to like this particular person right now.

In my limited wisdom, I believe the best way to see how your relationship will develop is to see how the two of you treat others. If you are kicking off your relationship by say, having sex in the hospital while your boyfriend who just shared with you that you are the first person he has loved since his dead wife is waiting in the next room and doing it with the man who is so possessive that he started spitting sexist slurs when he didn't get to schedule your sex life and while his wife is in the next room, it's not a good sign no matter how good the chemisty might be.

But that's just my opinion. I'm curious how other people view these scenarios. Please share--I won't judge, in fact maybe I'll learn to respect other approaches more...

A half-dozen hours I'm never getting back

2006-06-05T01:53:00.000-05:00

I caught some of the season finales and the like this past month and I'm utterly fucking thrilled that I didn't waste my time doing something more worthless like stabbing myself in the head or learning to play an instrument or something.

Desparate Housewives' finale was flat-out, "I'm not racist, I have some colored friends that I dream of date raping" creepy racist. The writers seem like good well meaning folks whose main qualification that allows them to write brilliant roles for Asian people is that they once made a meal out of two packets of Oriental Flavor Maruchan instant noodles and then Adam Corolla taught them how to pull their eyes back and switch their "R"s and "L".

In continuing their intensely positive portrayal of folks of color, they revealed that the black teenager murdered his slutty Asian girlfriend, who was crazy, and did I mention slutty, and also reminded him that "dating girls like me has its advantages".

Meanwhile, the Latino dude was caught cheating on his Latina wife with their live-in Chinese maid who speak pigeon English and is supposed to be a virgin because Chinese people haven't discovered sex yet. After all, that's why there's 1.5 billion of us--1.5 billion immaculate conceptions. We are God's chosen people.

There was some stupid shit too about the manipulative whiny white woman not trusting her hot husband, kidnapping the kids, displaying her shit for parenting skills and it turning out that while he was Melrose Place, he fathered some kid with a crazy woman, and she's going to move in, but to be honest, I got distracted by some birds chirping outside, so I tried to figure out what they might be saying rather than paying attention to the show.

Teri Hatcher had some sort of story too, but she got nervous, clumsy and embarassed and messed it up, and then that plumber guy, who is the only reason anyone watches the show got killed by a hit-and-run driver. That's like the fourteenth person to get killed by a hit-and-run driver on that one block in the last year, so if I were them I would stop spending so much money on drugs and hairstyles and maybe get some body armor or something.

Alien head freaklady was institutionalized or something and then she attacked some people or something to escape. I think I remember something about her having acid for blood, and so when she was cornered, she shot some blood in this guy's eyes and ran for freedom, but I might be confusing things.

Anyway, all-in-all it was really good, and I suggest that you buy the DVD when it comes out along with "Crash" and "Birth of a Nation". If you get them from Amazon, they will probably be bundeled together.

I was going to check out Lost cause I hadn't see it yet, but about two minutes in they said something about killing off Michelle Rodriguez, and I was like, "Well then what's the fucking point of watching the same stupid story replayed over and over from different perspectives if one of them is not Michelle Rodriguez's?"
I had it on in the background a little bit more and found out that she got killed by one of the other people--I think it was the bad black father stereotype. Like that's realistic? I understand that it's fiction, but how in the hell is anyone going to kill Michelle Rodriguez? If Michelle Rodriguez, Hannibal Lector, Rambo, and Meg Ryan were in the same room, Michelle would poison Lector by forcefeeding him Meg Ryan and then beat Sly to death with the cannibal's corpse.Then she would drink a pitcher of rubbing alcohol and drive a strech humvee through a crowd of kindergarten kids. But don't worry, they would be bad kindergarteners, each and every last one of them.

Seriously, I don't get that show. Who crashlands on Hawaii and then spends the whole time whining about who is hooking up with whom? I swear, just flag down a tourist liner and go chill on Waikiki beach and find a staff of writers for whom it is humanly possible to write episodes more than 4 hours in advance of shooting. I mean it's only a multi-million dollar program, why wouldn't you treat it like a paper for a bad philosophy class. "Don't worry, the episode's not due until tomorrow. Let's just smoke up and then turn in the same paper from the first quarter BACKWARDS! That would be awesome!"

Finally, let's get to what was my favorite show on television. WHAT HAPPENED TO GREY'S ANATOMY?!?!?

Shonda Rhimes is a good writer. I keep telling myself this because I want to believe it and I do sincerely believe it. But I'm sorry, I don't care if you were trained by Bill Shakespeare, Yazawa Ai and the guy who drew Bazooka Joe comics, if you choose to write a three-part episode with all three-parts written by different people who are not allowed to talk to each other or meet each other or even hear breath of the other's existence, you might as well leave the writing to the monkeys with the typewriters. (How do the monkeys even find typewriters anymore? Are these technophobic monkeys?)

Between the three writers, oh wait, make that four writers and three different directors, they somehow managed to make me hate every single character on the show except for the ones they chose to kill off or severely injure. Remember--this is my favorite show, I loved pretty much all of the characters.

But this week:
Anemic main character who only has like two different facial expressions:
Gets BF to confess love and intense vulnerability to her. Smiles and nods. Runs out of room to have sex with misogynist, married asshole who called her a slut, but admittedly does have very nice hair.

Misogynist, married asshole who called her a slut, but admittedly does have very nice hair:
Leaves his wife at the prom (don't ask) and has sex with intern he had an illicit affair with while not telling her about his wife and then crushed her heart and then whined a lot and acted non-committal.

Emotional, working-class heroine trapped in underwear model's body:
Stole a transplant heart that belonged to some guy with two kids because she wanted to hook-up with her patient. Her patient was a pretty cool guy who OF COURSE refused, but she waved her tits around a bit and got him to totally drop his principles in order to propose to a crazy woman and then he died.

Cool patient who was hooking up with above crazy girl:
He was actually pretty cool, and now he's dead, but I suppose they can still bring him back next season as a stuffed mascot or something.

Driven, model-minority-ish super-intern Yang:
I loved her character and her relationship with Isiah Washington. So they have Isiah get shot and then she just ignores him. I understand why she was conflicted and it was hard and everything, but it's the man you love in deep distress!!! If you can't step up to the plate then, what's the point of caring about anyone ever? I'm sorry, if you don't like washing dishes or going outside in direct sunlight or something, sure waffle around a bit. But when the person you love is in trouble, who sits on their ass being conflicted about how to intervene?

Regular, cool Asian American intern guy:
This character is awesome.

Talking horse who can perform brain surgeries and also raise people from the dead AFTER cremation:
This character is also awesome and much more likely to appear on the show than the above character.

Isiah Washington:
He is a God among men, so they shot him randomly and he's possibly going to lose his ability to perform surgeries. To be fair, this was dramatic and thoughtfully written--easily the best sub-plot in the last show.

All the other interns:
Why did people support crazy woman's scheme to steal that poor guy's heart (literally, I'm not talking about the guy who proposed to, I'm talking about the guy from whom she stole a beating heart so that his oxygen deprived body would slowly suffocate and die)? This is not "Who graffitied all over the garage?" Or "Who threw spitballs while the teacher's back was turned?" This is "Who forgot the Hippocratic Oath and decided that she could kill random people because she's 'in love'?"

I'm willing to chalk it up to sweeps and ratings grabs and give them credit for the second to last episode."Damage Case" which had a great performance by super-actor John Cho.

I saw some other stupid crap too, but I've permanently blocked it from my mind. What I can say is that "Deal or No Deal" is probably the worst TV show--no strike that, worst creation in the history of the human race. This is show that Carson Daly has been able to satirize brilliantly. And let's face it, Carson Daly is pretty, has powerful friends, is actually a relatively intelligent guy, but he is in no way a thoughtful critic or humorist.

Anyway, that all was quite a bit more negative than I'm used to being, so I hope I don't turn anyone off. I do feel a lot better having invested another hour into writing about wasting time watching these shows.

If you are curious about my new favorite show on television, I'm going to have to go with "Boston Legal". There's nothing better than 50+ year olds having sex all over the place.

Firefighter's Exam

2006-05-31T21:30:00.000-05:00

Last week, I took the firefighter's exam. It was in McCormick, so I rode the Cermak bus all the way East. The ride was awesome--the bus was full of test candidates, so when we hit Chinatown traffic, you could tell who we were cause we all looked nervous that we'd be late.

The test itself was terrible. The last time the city gave the test, they gave a test riddled with cultural bias, and ended up having to pay millions of dollars in compensation to minority candidates who were turned away.Some might roll their eyes at this, but if so, I suggest you research the topic further. After all, whether a particular test is culturally biased is open to debate, but to mock any suggestion of the possibility is rather flat-earther, as we can certainly all conceive a biased exam, right?

What I can tell you conclusively is that millions of dollars and years of consulting later, the test was still rife with cultural bias. To support this contention concretely, I'm in a tough position. I signed a statement saying I wouldn't repeat the exact test questions, but I also want to explain this injustice. So let me tell you the general idea and I'll have faith that you'll evaluate my situation fairly.

Since the general test sections are publically available through the city testing guide, I'll start with those. There are two sections. One is a personality test and the other is a reading comprehension/language section. The personality test is something I could improve upon in five minutes. The explanation is "there are no wrong answers", but each question has an answer that is clearly desired. However, they attempt to prevent people from just selecting this answer by claiming in the instructions that the test is "designed to detect dishonest answers". What they mean is that it has that lame-ass "rephrasing the questions in five ways" technique to check for "consistency". Basically, it just tests whether someone has had enough academic English experience to lie in five different ways.

To those who say, "So what, that's part of being educated", I say, "What's the point?" Are we trying to reinforce bad social conventions or are we trying to find the very best firefighters?

The reading/comprehension section was a little better. Some of the questions were case scenarios which dealt with actual firefighting situations. Others were excerpts from manuals with questions checking understanding. Still, half of this section was questions checking spelling and conjugating verb tenses.

I suppose this is so that this scenario never occurs in the city of Chicago:
Lincoln Park Trixie: Save me! Save me! Cubs rule!
Chicago Firefighter: Come to the window quick! Don't raises youse head! Ceiling are hottest!
LPT: What? Your English is so imperfect, I can't understand!
Chicago Firefighter: Lady, just get the fuck over here and don't have raising your head!
LPT: Don't curse at me! And use proper verb tenses! Can I really trust you? Spell the word "ennui".
Chicago Firefighter: ...
LPT: *Bursts into flames*

I checked into what the city actually did change since last adminstration of the test. Basically, their miraculous fix was to just use the same testing style and make it pass/fail rather than score based. It's a minor improvement--It's like feeding your children a teaspoon of rat poison instead of a tablespoon--it's less likely to kill them, but it still doesn't make it good nutrition.

The irony is that this change probably hurts me. I tend to destroy all comers in standardized tests, and all told, I was unsure on one of the ten dozen or so questions.

But my goal is not to have a city where I get to pass all the tests I want to thanks to my style of education. I would like to see the city figure out a way to design a test that will actually select the best firefighters. If they can't do it, they should give me a call. I'm not an expert, but I think I could at least make half of the items have something to do with skills one might use in firefighting.

On Hiatus

2006-05-27T11:35:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the infrequent postings. I've actually had a ton to write about, but since we moved into our beautiful new place to live, I haven't had internet access. I'll try to get caught up, but as I'm sure you all know, it's hard enough to keep up, let alone catch up.

The new place is a great environment. It's got high ceilings with skylights and lots of marble and wood to reflect the light. My cousin Mike (yes, Michael Barrett) has also taken time out from punching my favorite baseball team's players to let me know that I happen to live about a block from the greatest bike shop in the cosmos.

Our friends Matt and Ashley were instrumental in the move, and somehow we managed with Liz's parents to get all of our worthless possessions from one place to the other.

Please do come out and visit if you get a minute.

Family Values?

2006-05-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been terribly inactive lately. Liz and I just bought a new place and the move has left me tired, contently sore, and internet access-less. Hope everyone is well, and drop me a line if you get a minute. Peace!

In the meantime, here's a re-post from the South Asian Progressive Action Collective:

 THANK YOU to SAPAC for writing a letter in support of the Mujahid
family:  an udocumented Pakistani family of West Rogers Park who are in
danger of being torn apart.  Their hearing in immigration court is
tomorrow at 1 PM downtown. 
 
 There is one more thing you can do to stop the separation of this
family. We are asking people to please use your lunch hour tomorrow
Thursday, May 11, to support the Mujahid family. We need to demonstrate to the
judge that many people support this case. You do not need to bring
signs, etc., your simple presence is enough. Please note that you may need
to go through a metal detector.
> Please join us:
> This Thursday, May 11, 12:30 PM
> 55 E. Monroe, Suite 1900
> Courtroom A (for Judge Jennie L. Giambastiani)
>
> Thank you, please email or call me with any questions. Please forward
this message to friends and colleagues who work downtown.
>
> Mehrdad
>
>
>
> --
> Mehrdad Azemun
> Senior Organizer
> Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
> 36 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 1425
> Chicago, Illinois 60603
> tel 312/332-7360 x14
> fax 312/332-7044
> web <http://www.icirr.org>
> email< mazemun@icirr.org mazemun@icirr.org>
>
>
>   -----Original Message-----
>  From:  Mehrdad Azemun
>  Sent: Monday, May 09, 2006 1:44 PM
>  Subject: URGENT:  Help an undocumented Pakistani family
>  Importance: High
>
>
>   I am asking for your help to keep an undocumented Pakistani family
united. Syed Mujahid, the father of the family, has a hearing in
immigration court this coming Thursday, May 11. We are asking *both*
individuals and organizations to write letters of support ASAP. You can simply
email the letters of support to me. The Mujahid family's attorney and I
will forward them to the judge.
>   
>   You have likely read about this family's story a few years ago,
either on the front page of the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Reader. The
Mujahids were caught up in the federal government's disastrous Special
Registration program, and simply wanted to stay here to give quality
medical attention to their daughter Tooba, who suffered from cerebral palsy.
After quick organizing from the South Asian community, the federal
government allowed the family to stay. However, just two months ago Tooba
passed away and the family is left with little recourse. This family has
been through so much and showed guts, love and determination by
speaking out. Separating the father from his wife, his other daughter and the
resting place of Tooba would be immoral, especially for a family that
has been through so much.
>   
>   Thank you.
>   
>   Mehrdad Azemun
>   
>   You can read the Chicago Tribune story here:
http://www.aaiusa.org/news/must_read02_8_03.htm

Do you have any clue what it means to be American?

2006-05-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

President Bush and many others have come out against the new Spanish language version of the National Anthem.

I'm really at a loss for what their reasoning could be.

You see, I thought what made our country great was its dedication to the pursuit of equality for all people; its belief in a meritocracy. I thought our country was about democracy and a marketplace of ideas.

But that's not the message sent these days. We are told that it's not about the ideas, but the language they are voiced in. It's not about sharing your perspective, but having the "correct" one. It's not about who you are, but the kind of flag you are waving, unless you have the right one, and then that's not acceptable either. It's not about the skills and ability you have at a jobs, it's about where you were born or whether you can win a lottery.

We have a flag. We have an anthem. We have social conventions that have dictated a certain predominant language.

Who gives a shit? Everyone country has those things. They don't separate us out from any of the hundreds of other countries in the world.

What do are our core beliefs and principles. Are you, like George Bush or Michelle Malkin, etc. really willing to sacrifice those principles in favor of hollow nationalism?

"Of course we officially discourage...

2006-04-20T09:45:00.000-05:00

the despicable practice of consuming alcohol..." (I may be misremembering a word or two.)

...was the old disclaimer on The Onion's old "Drunk of the Week" feature that was roundly admired by the high school population of Champaign-Urbana when I was a little kid.

This week, after a Santa Cruz anti-war group sent a press release that found its way to the talons of Michelle Malkin, Malkin chose to violate the Society of Professional Journalists' "Code of Ethics" by neglecting to cut the contact names and numbers for the release when she published the piece.

As someone who is so hatefully anti-anti-war, it's pretty clear that her main motivation for publishing the release at all was to direct hate toward the group, which then received a number of death threats.

At Orcnius blog, the author has documented the similarities between Malkin and others' tactics and those employed in Rwanda to lead genocidal actions. The intent by Malkin is the same, it is merely that she doesn't at this stage have the zealous following willing to "cleanse" those who she disagrees with.

Also see a "right-wing blogger"'s response (a must read): Jon Swift blog

When this was decried, she then responded:
The unhinged lefty bloggers who did and said nothing to condemn the violent tactics of the UC Santa Cruz thugs are treating me like I'm the terrorist. I'm not going to bother linking. You can find their trash easily enough on any search engine. While they whine about the death threats that SAW organizers allegedly received, you should see the filth and threats against my family that their minions are sending. Here's an uncensored sample (and by the way, the disclaimer on my contact page makes clear, "All e-mail is subject to print, including your name. If you don't want me to publish your e-mail, or if you would like to remain anonymous, just let me know."):

(Bold added)

I love the implication that people who respond to death threats who aren't named "Michelle Malkin" are "whining" and how left-wing bloggers are somehow responsible for everyone who sends emails to Ms. Malkin.

Let's get this straight: Sending Malkin or anyone, racist death threats is horrendous and stupid and please stop doing it.

If we have to compare though, one group sent out a press release based on their political agenda which was non-hateful, and according to her and her supporters on this issue, they deserve death threats. However Malkin posts people's contact information, against the principles of journalism, which as a longtime journalist, she is well acquainted with, in order to try to surpress their voices with hatred and violence, and she does not deserve the same treatment.

Michelle Malkin is likely one of those people who heard the McDonald's story, snickered with glee and then proclaimed that anyone who ever spills anything on their lap deserved to have their sexual organs liquified.

I admire those who despise my political beliefs and are able to still see me as a human being. I think the current recruitment techniques of the armed forces involve trying to compensate for a lack of interest in enlisting by lying to young impressionable citizens to fool them into the armed forces. We shouldn't need to do that.

But if you disagree, fine--speak your mind. Just don't encourage violence upon my person and then say that I "brought it on myself" if you don't like my beliefs.

Building segregation in 2006

2006-04-17T17:41:00.000-05:00

Kenneth Harney writes up a two-year study by the federal government on the actions of real estate agents.

The study sent two teams to each realtor, one Caucasian American and one either Latina/o or African American and then documented the results.

In total, they tested 73 realtors in a dozen metropolitan areas. The minority testers were given better financial qualifications than their white counterparts.

The tests found that white shoppers were steered toward nearly exclusively white neighborhoods, while minority candidates were steered to predominantly minority neighborhoods. This steering took place at an 87 percent clip!

They found that the white testers were on the whole given much better service--shown more houses, while the minority testers were often told to "look in the newspaper or on the internet."

Minority testers were often forced to provide financial information before they would even be shown any homes, while white testers were given incentives and discounts on their closing costs or lower loan rates.

Even at 10%, steering would have a noticeable effect on creating segregation. We are talking about 87%--nearly every single agency was guilty of the practice.

Owning their own home is a major portion of most Americans' life dreams. Should we take pride in the fact that people are having their dreams shrunk by the people they depend on to lead them on this dream simply because of the color of their skin?

This is not a case of white racism--I'd be very surprised if all of the agents were white. It's a case of institutional racism that restricts everyone's freedom--minorities moreso than others, but whites were being steered away from their dream homes as well in order to reinforce the segregated society.

So what are you going to do about it? When you buy your house are you just going to take this? Are you going to support this system of racism? Or are you going to research and support the 13% of realtors who are not engaged in this despicable practice?

Update on the Monica Yin Case

2006-04-15T14:23:00.000-05:00

Colbert King follows up on his inital story about the mistreatment of Monica Yin, here (original article here).

King often writes stories of this nature, asking whether those most marginalized are receiving their human right to care. I might point out that this is not just a race issue--nothing ever is. He has been also following the case of David E. Rosenbaum, a New York Times reporter who was delivered as a "John Doe" after being attacked on the street and subquently died due to a number of incompetencies and negligent actions.

It's a sobering question that none of us know the answer to, but certainly we need to be asking, "Will I be treated as well as the next person if I get hurt?"

Fighting extremism with extremism

2006-04-13T10:17:00.000-05:00

My friend Matt has posted some thoughtful citings and musings about a Sam Harris interview. (Read them first here) Harris is the author of the award winning book, The End of Faith, which points to organized religion as the blame for the world's problems--problems that we are unlikely to survive should they continue.

Doomsday prophecies aside (wouldn't that be ironic if the apocalypse NOW crowd was correct in their predictions, he raises some interesting questions. Is religion really the cause of the contemporary problems?

It's not. It's merely a language that human beings have chosen to voice their conflicts through, like race, gender, class, etc. Look at our current adminstration: it is full of people who are acquainted far more closely with wealth and imperialist desires than with faith. They are happy to utilize the control that religious language affords them when it is convenient, but it is their disregard for human life and interest in the growth of their own power and wealth than drives them. That's why when religion is not a useful tool, they are happy to use racist ideology as well to prod their electoral base.

This also points to the deep causes of the problems we see in our world: antipathy, self-absorbedness and hatred for others.

As long as those exist, people will find languages to empower that hatred.

Look at Harris' arguments. Harris is speak as someone who has removed himself from religious faith, but he is cherry-picking at least as badly as those he attempts to critique.

What he describes are not two faces of Christianity, but two faces of humanity. How is his argument any different from those people who assume that you cannot be empathetic and loving without belonging to a major religion? In his implications, he has just flipped the argument--hatred, vengeance and antipathy are lurking under the surface of CHRISTIANITY.

It's no different from bigoted arguments of other strains. "Sure, there are good people from XYZ group, but an evil, destructive nature is just below the surface."

In doing so, Harris and others draw themselves out of the potential pitfalls of being human. Ultimately, we are all capable of terrible atrocities and we are all capable of beautiful empathetic love.

Harris has let his own personal agenda get in the way of a much better point: We are all responsible for valuing empathy, not only in ourselves, but growing it in others.

I just don't feel that his tone allows for that constructive interpretation. In the end, his arguments amounts to the fire-and-brimstone interpretation: "I am right, and those who disagree with me are condemned to a life of aiding evil."

The irony is that the insights that would moderate his own arguments have been discovered by billions of people worldwide, including many folks who first found them reading Jesus' words in the Bible...

"I'm (suda)fedup with selective prosecution!"

2006-04-10T01:56:00.000-05:00

More from Sepia Mutiny:
Sudafed-ing is not a crime

To break it down, law enforcement conducted a sting which targeted South Asian-owned businesses.

This was the way the counties conducted the sting:
1. They sent an informant to a store.
2. The informant bought matches, Sudafed or charcoal.
3. The informant said something in English like, "I need to these to finish up a cook"
4. The clerks were arrested.
Oh my God, I can barely type this. I'm really not making this up.

In the end, 44 of the 49 people arrested were of South Asian descent.

To be honest, I'm not up on Meth terminology. Are you really telling me that if I was a clerk working an overnight shift, I have to study drug terminology and listen to every single thing the customers say or I'm guilty of a major crime?

What the fuck? I used to work overnight at the Jewel Foods and I couldn't understand half of what the people coming through my line were saying. I just made sure that there was no alcohol or cigarettes, checked them through and took their money. I had no clue if they were going to have sex with their frozen turkey or snort their Fun Dip. I don't think I deserve to go to prison.

But wait, it gets worse...

The ACLU found documents that showed that the federal investigators were sending informant only to store owned by people of Indian descent "because the Indians' English wasn't good."

So they weren't even trying to unearth any drug action. They were just looking to jail people of a certain ethnicity for doing an activity that in the vast majority of circumstances is perfectly legal.

Some of the victims of this government crime have already pleaded guilty through a plea bargain. All should be released immediately and those who organized this abominable program should be imprisoned for a long time.

And they wonder why we don't trust law enforcement...

Moving Piece at Sepia Mutiny

2006-04-10T01:43:00.000-05:00

This was sent down a list by Mary Anne Mohanraj, a legendary writer in her own right, and in her words:

"I'd talk more about why it's good, but that would involve spoilers. Just read it." I'd have to agree that knowing what it's about, takes away from its impact, so just check it out and let me know what you think:http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003240.html

Calling the lynch mob:

2006-04-10T00:24:00.000-05:00

Sunil Sharma at Dissident Voice discusses recent postings on American Jihad calling for the death of bloggers empathetic to Muslims here.

A short exerpt from the original post:

The US Government is not listening and allowing this treason to continue unabated so citizen militias must lead the charge to eliminate this threat to America now:

TO ARMS!

TO ARMS!!

TO ARMS!!!

* WE NEED TO LYNCH THESE HOMOSEXUAL MUSLIM SUCKING PIGS!

* WE NEED CITIZEN FIRING SQUADS AND IMMEDIATE ACTION NOW TO SAVE THE USA!!!

* WE MUST BRING AMERICAN JUSTICE TO THESE TRAITOROUS BASTARDS NOW!!!

The Islamofascist enemy is not only at the gates –

* HE IS THE ARAB AT THE LOCAL DOLLAR STORE

* HE IS THE PALESTINIAN AT THE LOCAL COLLEGE

* HE IS KURT NIMO and MIKE WHITNEY . . . . .”

It's not too out of the ordinary for that blog, a quick browse finds calls for the lynching of Mexican Americans in multiple posts:

What Made America Great?

WAR AND VIOLENCE - AND WE MUST EMBRACE IT AS OUR FATHERS DID NOW - WE MUST FIGHT!

* WE NEED MARSHALS WITH GUNS ON THEIR HIPS!

* WE NEED TO LYNCH THESE WETBACK RUSTLERS AT HIGH NOON!!

* WE NEED CITIZEN FIRING SQUADS FOR WETBACKS, LIBERALS AND MUSLIM TERRORISTS!!!

This brings me back to the a question I've asked before, "What makes someone an American?" Is this fellow Chicagoan, who spews so much hate, somehow more American than someone who happened to be born elsewhere and snuck across the border so they could work long hours contributing to the country?

I don't believe so. But I do hope he is not silenced. I think it is important for people to see the depth of hatred and racism within the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim community in the country.

Revisionist history

2006-04-07T15:49:00.000-05:00

Does this look like Moses to you?

I can't get over how people will place their own racial identification with the great figures of the Bible over God's agency in designing these folks.

Did anyone stop to think that maybe God, aware of the future flow of history, made these Guys non-white for a reason?

http://reactor-core.org/moses-ethiopian.html

One and Only!

2006-03-28T00:29:00.000-06:00

In honor of being the only blog tagged "cute asian boy" by technorati, here is a picture of a cute Asian boy:Seung-heon Song
Be sure to check him out in "He was Cool"

1 blog tagged cute asian boy sorted by authority

Racial Pro File

Last updated 8 days ago.
Tagged Angry, Asian American, Baseball, Crafty, Cute Asian Boy, Debate, Educator, Empathy, Feminism, Film, Gender, Grey's Anatomy, Japan, Movies, People Of Color, Political, Race, Revolutionary, Sports, White Sox , More »
205 links from 13 sites

Are you drunk, ma'am? No? Are you yellow? I'm afraid I'll have to kill you...

2006-03-27T03:56:00.000-06:00

Angry Asian Man linked to a story from the Washington Post featuring the firsthand account of 54 year-old Monica Yin's encounters with D.C.'s Fire and Emergency Services first respondents.

The EMTs (two or three) arrived and were told that Yin had been healthy but had suddenly experienced severe headache and, later, involuntary shaking and vomiting. Yin was lying on the bed shielding her eyes from the brilliant sunshine in the room.

An EMT asked Yin if she had been under a great deal of stress lately ("yes"); was she inebriated, had she consumed alcohol ("no"). He shook Yin and demanded that she explain her problem.

An EMT said he wanted to "do a test." He yelled at her and instructed her to "stand up." When she couldn't, he yanked her off her bed and tried to force her to stand; her body was limp and her feet did not plant on the floor. As she moaned in protest and hung like a sack, he yelled that he was going to "let go." When he did, she crashed to the floor.

His other "tests" consisted of taking Yin to a chair and instructing her to sit down. She didn't move, so he pushed her onto the chair and commanded, "Raise your arm above your head." She didn't, so he held it up, using the sleeve of her clothing, and telling her, "Now I'm gonna let go, you hold it there." He did, and her arm fell limp.

He walked over to Bryant and whispered, "I've run these tests and I think there is nothing wrong with her. . . . She just needs to stay home and rest. . . . I don't think she needs to go to the emergency room, but I'll take her if you want me to." He also whispered to Bryant, "I think she is faking it." At no time did the EMTs take her blood pressure or check her vital signs.

Using hand signals, Yin indicated she wanted the EMTs to leave her house. With them gone, Yin asked Bryant and Wyscarver to take her to George Washington University Hospital, which they did.

Yin was given a CT scan at the hospital. A "leaking aneurysm" was discovered, which led to emergency surgery, followed by a medically induced coma and a stay in intensive care for three days, then eight days in the stroke unit, where she was monitored by a neurologist.

And if Yin had followed the EMT's advice and stayed home?

The second experience actually sounds worse (more if you follow the link).

The experience sounds brutal and may shock some. I would rather you weren't shocked, though. You might conclude that a disciplining of the perpetrators would be sufficient.

The experience probably won't shock many folks of color used to dealing with this type of treatment. How many times have you dealt with civil service folks who put their desire to demonstrate their control and power over the well-being of sub-humans folks of color like us?

Until we change these institutions that encourage this behavior, it will happen again and again....and again.

This is not an indictment of all FEMS and law enforcement personnel; quite the opposite--I think these are tough jobs and somehow many of the people in these positions manage to do their jobs wonderfully under tremendous strain. They just need more support from their institutions to teach them that it is not acceptable to use folks of color as a stress relief mechanism.

Thank God that Ms. Yin survived. But how many more were not so "lucky"?

Patriot Games

2006-03-26T18:53:00.000-06:00

Denham Brown's last second shot glanced off the rim giving George Mason an overtime victory over the heavily favored Connecticut Huskies.

Like every year, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will see sixty-four games tip-off and sixty-four buzzers signalling the end of each of those games.

So what makes this particular game so special? Since the explosion in popularity of the sport, college basketball has seen hundreds of millions of dollars pour into the NCAA. That money is not split evenly among the member schools, but rather the "major conferences" tend to get the vast majority of the proceeds and are then able to invest that money into better facilities, better training and better recruitment.

Since this windfall, these "Major" schools have dominated the tournament, gained the vast majority of the invites and ALL of the visits to the Final Four of the tournament. This has also been reflected in the coverage by the media, which tend to assume the utter superiority of the teams from the major conferences.

This year, several teams from the minor conference received invites to the tournament and were mocked by the major analysis for CBS sports who have been covering the tournament.
Packer complained that three extra teams were chosen from the Missouri Valley Conference and George Mason was chosen from the Colonial Athletic Association instead of team number eight from the Big East.

He whipped out some nonsensical statistics about how teams from their conferences had won so many fewer games in the tournament than those from the major conferences. Of course, the reason for those statistics had far more to do with the low seedings and lack of invitations given to teams from those conferences as anything else.

You see every year teams with far less resources win far more games in these smaller conferences than the teams they are being compared to from the power conferences. They win all year and are never given a chance to prove themselves on the court.

This year, George Mason finally was given that chance and did something that only one team from any conference had ever done. They reached the Final Four on a tough, tough road as an 11 seed. They accomplished something unbelievable that many, given their way, would have never given them the opportunity.

Billy Packer laughed it off, and said he didn't know why people took it so helpful. Next year, another Final Four team like George Mason might not get the chance to play their way down that treacherous path. In this unfair sports world, they will never see any glory, but they will at least be a team that did their best against tough odds.

And Billy Packer will still be an asshole.

Smells like Ketchup--a weirdo hodgepodge of stuff

2006-03-21T15:20:00.000-06:00

I seem to use my sense of smell more than most--you might find it gross. In the shower I smell my pores and parts of my body to makes sure everything is normal. I smell old containers of food to make sure its still edible and worthy of inclusion in my latest culinary disaster. I smell my loved ones and remember their scents years after the last time I saw them.

The most hilarious application is when Liz has sneaked a hot dog after work. The reviled condiment ketchup with its abrasive corn syrupy odor is immediately detectable--through her hair and pores. She'll brush her teeth, pop a mint, and when I give her the "welcome home kiss", I'll still be like, "You had Ketchup, didn't you?!"

Well, there's a ton of stuff I've been procrastinating writing about as I have immersed myself in condo searching, job searching, my studies and taking care of Grandpa Wong:

12 stolen years

2006-03-21T14:37:00.000-06:00

Shih-Wei Su is suing the city of New York for $25 million. He was convicted of a crime in which prosecutors enlisted the aid of a witness who was given probation for his own crime of "grand larceny" in exchange for his testimony. When questioned during the case, the prosecutors flat-out lied saying that "there was technically no agreement" to grant the witness anything in exchange for his testimony.

I hope he wins and personally would like to see the prosecutors serve extensive jail time. Our legal system is not "both sides trying their best and the result being justice", it is one side, with overwhelming resources blugeoning the other side into submission. In many cases, it is us, the American people, getting away with murder, or at least the utter destruction of people's lives on the basis of their class and skin color.

The solution:
We need to peel back the system of plea bargaining and deals in exchange for testimony. It's one thing if investigators use incentives to obtain information about a crime. It's another ballpark entirely when prosecutors are building whole cases exclusively on the testimony of someone who is basically a hired gun there to fabricate eye-witness testimony against the accused.

We need to stop the trying of adolescents as adults. All the psychological research suggests that most teenagers do not have the same decision-making faculties that adults do, are less prone to recidivism and more prone to recidivism once interned in state penitentiary with adult felons. And that's not even considering the utter immorality of killing children, which we are one of a tiny group of countries who still practice.

We need to even the resources in court. With the ridiculously resources disparities between plaintiff and defendant in many cases, "innocence" and "guilt" are terms with no meaning. Left behind are simply, "rich=innocent" and "poor=guilty" which only seems just if you are one of those on the pleasant side of the equation.

I say, "Good Luck Mr. Su!" I hope he can win and shake up the justice system a little. I imagine David Wong can empathize...

Here's another perspective on the issue.

Family Values

2006-03-21T14:23:00.000-06:00

Angry Asian Man is getting the word out on Eddy Zheng, who faces deportation due to errors by his public defender. Zheng has been in the United States for twenty-four years, and is a strong testament to the potential for rehabilitation in the criminal justice system. Despite being forced to serve 19 years for a robbery conviction at sixteen, Zheng was a model prisoner and since parole had been working to improve the community through work with at-risk youth.

Because of his incarceration, Zheng was unable to apply for citizenship while in prison. The entire rest of his family have become naturalized citizens.

What we have here is the enforcement of a doctrine that has no function. Our immigration system, as it has for so long, is tearing apart families and trying to deport constructive, hard-working Americans who are devoting themselves to the betterment of their community.

Read more at Eddy's website and blog. His final hearing is tomorrow afternoon at 1pm. Show your support and remember, this is not an isolated incident. As someone whose family has been separate by our government's racist immigration policies on three separate occasions, I know that as well as anyone. For some reason, this anti-family, anti-equality policy of our government seems to get a free pass by much of our citizenry. That has to stop.

"Terrorism" and resistance

2006-03-21T14:10:00.000-06:00

Gar over at EnscriptCHUN has a new podcast and posted some musings on "V for Vendetta". He's brought up a number of interesting issues, including the role of art versus news in terms of informing about the world. You should definitely peep it.

His writings got me thinking about the role of violence in a revolution. Basically it comes down to your belief of whether it's worth it--we know that in some cases, non-violence may not be enough to "win" a conflict. Does that justify resorting to violence?

It's a tough question that we can certainly disagree on. There are plenty who point to WWII as a justification for "fighting back" and the most beloved person ever on Earth certainly had His own perspective on the issue...

What doesn't work is the current administration's and popular viewpoint that "When we use violence, it's cool, but when others do, it's unacceptable." That creates gaps in perspective where everyone thinks they are the "good guys" and anyone who opposes them are the "bad guys".

If you think it's ok to kill or torture terrorists, you don't have much leg to stand on when people use your own definition of "terrorist" to justify torturing and killing you and people on your side. Our policy of violence has always been one utterly devoid of empathy for those we oppose and can only result in the destruction of the human race. There's no positive outcome to a doctrine of "Kill them first, then learn to love them once we defeat them!"

The best way to reduce abortions...

2006-03-21T13:12:00.000-06:00

(image courtesy of "Fotus: Future is Bright")

All-around awesome woman, Hpets contributed this article on the recent Missouri House vote removing state funding for abortions and contraception.

As an anti-abortion, pro-choice advocate, let me emphasize that these types of measures are the worst of both worlds. I don't care if you think that abortion is murder--it does no good to institute measures that increase the need demand for abortions and forces women who has chosen to undertake an abortion to put themselves and their families into greater danger.

If this is your policy, are you actually interested in preventing abortions, or just in demonizing and hurting those who disagree with you?

Furthermore, what's the point of measures that only prevent abortions by poor women? Removal of funding displays a hypocritical philosophy of "It's murder if poor folks do it, but not if myself or my daughter do it". Even bans on abortion simply lead to greater hardship and numbers of deaths among those too poor to afford safe, expensive, black market abortions.

If you want to reduce abortions, reduce the factors that create the desire to have abortions. Reduce assault and abuse of women. Fix the horrible conditions that working-class women find themselves and their families and offspring in. Educate people on how, should they choose to have sex, to make strategic family planning decisions. Stop attacking non-conventional (whatever that means) families and encourage adoption and fostering in any positive environment for children. Research new technologies to make fetuses non-dependent on their birth mothers.

If we successfully executed all of these initiatives, then we would have a right to argue about the few remaining abortions taking place.

Japan wins WBC!

2006-03-21T11:48:00.000-06:00

ESPN captured the celebration of Japanese's greatest player in history (Sadaharu Oh) and the best current Japanese player, Ichiro!, following Japan's 10-6 victory in the World Baseball Classic Championship over Cuba.

Japan's victory was a major upset in a series that everyone assumed that the victor would be one of the teams composed almost exclusively of professional players from the American baseball leagues, Major League Baseball.

Instead, of the four finalists, three were teams from countries with their own professional leagues, Cuba, Japan and Korea. When Cuba defeated the Dominican Republic--the last team of MLB players, the stage was set for an exciting final of non-MLB players.

As the nation of Japan celebrates their victory, how do we interpret this result? While the tournament was short enough that almost anything could happen, it has at least provided some evidence that MLB is not alone on the highest level of competition in the world. A single game or series of games could go either way, but that doesn't make their outcome utterly meaningless.

The fact is that most of the American baseball community, including many of those devoted to more empirical methods of evaluation, thought that the teams with the most MLB player would mop the floor with the other teams. They believed that the obstacles of small sample size, scheduling and the like were not significant enough to prevent "the best team to win", and then suddenly when the winning teams were not the ones they predicted, they pointed to these problems.

Some even pointed to non-existence issues like the greater time for the Asian teams to prepare--Japan, like the U.S. is in the middle of Spring Training practice games.

So while a short, single-game elimination tournament in the middle of March is not an accurate measure of where the best baseball players in the world play, it is enough to suggest that our prejudices on the issue may not be entirely correct.

The intuitive answer which seems to have been missed by most of us is, "The best players in the world are where ever zealous professional baseball is played!"

Being out of shape

2006-03-16T12:37:00.000-06:00

Frustrated at not being able to fit into any of my pants, I decided to walk around a bit.

Walking rules because it doesn't really build any muscle mass whatsoever while still getting you into reasonable shape.

Here's my weight progress this year:
Pre-student teaching March 2005: 170
Post-chasing 10 sweet, brilliant, but unruly high school students around Japan, August 2005: 159
Sitting on my ass through my wedding, honeymoon and the Fall, December 2005: 164
Walking around the city, March 2006: 156

I am so going to get back into my cyber-PVC pants while retaining my steroid-free, girlish figure!

Crystal Lake Park District Re-Votes: OKs Gay Games

2006-03-09T15:36:00.000-06:00

The Trib covers the re-vote.

Board President Jerry Sullivan, who was absent for the first vote, cast the deciding vote in favor of the games. Now the City Councils of Lakewood and Crystal Lake (the two bordering municipalities) will vote on whether to allow the games by restricting wakes on the lakes during the events.

The same two members of the board, David Phelps and Scott Breeden again voted against allowing the event.

They commented:
"I have been threatened," Breeden said. "I have been called names I do not appreciate. To be called a homophobe and names just because I'm trying to represent the people who elected me, I feel uncomfortable."

"I was not elected to be park commissioner to the world," Phelps said. "I was elected to represent the people of Crystal Lake."

Of course, I am appalled to hear of any substantial threats that Breeden may have received, although I would like to hear what these threats were. After all, the rest of his statement is so ridiculous, it does call into question his judgement. He reflects that part of our society that will happily perform acts of bigotry and then became up said when they are called "bigots". If the people of Crystal Lake are homophobic and these men choose to represent their constituency, I would wish that they at least have the courage to say, "Yes, we have performed homophobic acts, but we did them as proud representatives of our homophobic community!"

As to the common complaint that "sports should not be about a sexual/political agenda", I think this exchange highlights the viewpoints quite well:

George Stasiak of Crystal Lake said the name "Gay Games" is offensive because no one should flaunt his or her sexuality in public.

On Wednesday, Baim said the name is not about sexuality.

"There's not a need for a `Heterosexual Games' because heterosexual people are not oppressed and killed for who they are and who they love," Baim said.

Sadly, we can see this reality even in this victory of Gay Games proponents, Co-Chairperson of the Games, Tracy Baim:

She also pledged that organizers would spend the next four months trying to soothe any lingering concerns about the event.

Think about this: Remember when you reserved the park for your company BBQ, or your child played Little League their during the summer?

There was no need to spend the months preceding the event ensure people that your contingent wouldn't ruin the park and corrupt the community. You weren't stereotyped based on historical prejudices against your group.

If we look at history, one would wonder why we don't prevent straight, conservative, European Americans from using parks--they sure haven't demonstrated a talent at playing well with others and sharing civic resources...

Oscar Winner "Crash"'s Tolerance has Its Limits

2006-03-06T01:29:00.000-06:00

Update:
Discussion on Mixed Media Watch

Crash on Tavis Smiley's program here

Liz and I kind of half-heartedly watched the Oscars tonight--she was studying and I wrote while half-paying attention to what was going on.

I was happy to see Ang Lee's victory in the best director category--he did a masterful job making "Brokeback Mountain", a movie I want to revist in a later write-up.

Liz was also elated to see her favorite actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, take the Best Actor award. We especially liked his acceptance speech in which he shared some moments from his childhood to show love to his mother, who raised him and his three siblings by himself. I hope people remember that the next time they get the itch to demonize single parents. Also, I think it demonstrates how much better entertainment the Awards are when it's not all canned dialogue and people all giving each other Masturbatory Back-Slaps.

We did feel a little disappointment with the multiple awards given to "Crash", a movie that was long on self-promotion by the director, who really believed that he had made some kind of miracle work.

We went to see it in the theatres when it first came out and we quite underimpressed. There were three main problems we had with it:
The writers were really trying their best, but they came up short in the empathy department. The racist whites were portrayed empathetically, and some of the other characters as well, but not all of the them. The couple of Asian descent were especially poorly portrayed, as they were one-dimensional stereotypes. Seriously, I know they live somewhere in there, but have the filmmakers actually been awake and in LA? I think there are some real Asian Americans for them to model three-dimensional characters after...

The handling of the sexual assault was especially bad. We didn't buy that saving someone's life would make up for the initial assault and in a way, it seemed like a cheap ploy by the writers to justify a rape fantasy. The victim's response, while well acted seemed utterly ridiculously written and was rather upsetting.

Finally, the crowd response was not what the filmmakers had promised. The predominantly white crowd did not seem the least bit introspective on issues of race and rather laughed at many of the racist stereotyping in the film and didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable about that. They practically cackled with glee as misfortune befell the characters.

In the end, we tried to view the movie in perspective--we are all seekers to become better citizens, but perhaps it was aimed at people with a more shallow understanding of race issues. I wanted to believe the filmmaker that perhaps without that deeper empathy, the film would still reach mainstream Americans who were complicit with institutional racism, but the message didn't even seem to reach that point. It basically was just a "there's racism around and none of us is perfect on this, except the filmmakers" message, but didn't challenge anyone to explore or initiate the dialogue it promised.

Seeing the filmmakers tell their anecdotes about shallow racial awakenings like they were some kind of parables made me think of "Aren't I a special white boy?" syndrome. I especially found the scenes of a black couple on screen debating "blackness" with words written by others, creepy. It didn't bother me that the writers were white. It bothered me that they seemed to not have a deeper understanding and happened to be white.

I'm sick of people, including white people themselves, treating whites like they are special just for doing anything when it comes to the issues of race. Racial inequities hurt everyone, including the ethnic majority group. They should be as enthusiastic to learn about these issues as anyone else. In my opinion, to pat them on the head for poor achievement is patronizing and not respectful to white folks.

I don't want "Crash" to win "they aren't total morons on race and that's awesome" awards. I want to see it challenged as the filmmakers were when they appeared on Tavis Smiley's program. Smiley did a great job getting Maxine Waters and another community activist to challenge the filmmakers to see that these racial issues are daily and constant for much of the community.

And I guess that's where I feel like I should step back. Because although they were overmatched, didn't appear to entirely do their homework, and seemed to be writing from a place where privilege was limiting their empathy, they still did have to write the movie and for the few days on Smiley's show they were actually discussing it on a level to educate people. Even if that's as far as it went, it's still something that they deserve credit for. After all, how many movies even do that much for our society plagued with race problems, but scared to death to talk about or even acknowledge their existence?

But still, even in the Smiley discussion, they avoid the fact that the film for all its parading of "tolerance" has no interest or empathy left for Asian Americans.

Angry Asian Man had explains in detail some of his concerns about the 1-dimensional depictions of Asian Americans here.

Meanwhile, Memoirs of a Geisha won three Oscars for some nerdy technical shit. It still sucked as a movie and as an atrocious vehicle for Orientalist fetishization. What does it tell you when you get a great sound and music crew, sets and costumes staff and your movie STILL totally reeks?

Two new movies with Mos Def

2006-03-06T00:46:00.000-06:00

Mos Def, half of one of the greatest politically conscious hip-hop groups of all-time, Black Star, is in two new movies this week, "16 Blocks" and "Dave Chappelle's Block Party".

Both films got favorable reviews from Ebert:
16 Blocks review
Dave Chappelle's Block Party review

I was a little sorry to see Ebert so dismissive of hip-hop music, but as usual, even when his tastes dictate an aversion to something, he is still able to be reflective about his own tastes and the universal merit of what he is looking at.

Ebert discusses a little the impact that signing his $50 million contract with Comedy Central may have had on Chappelle. Chappelle was in an impossible situation as a high-paid performer with a social conscious whose largest fan base was aversive white racists. How do you walk that tightrope?

Conservatives go after teacher for his political views

2006-03-06T00:13:00.000-06:00

Audio Here

Before I get into this, let me say that I'm fully aware of the necessity of NOT indoctrinating your students and kids with your political beliefs. It's been my experience that the most powerful visionaries in society, regardless of place on the political spectrum, become strong through the development of their own political ideology through strong questioning rather than mimicry of others' perspectives.

So I am not at all satisfied with a teaching culture that places teachers above students, responsible for transmitting "correct" knowledge to their charges, and I commend efforts to change that culture.

What we have in this story however is a group of conservatives who are not taking issue with indoctrination, but with indoctrination of views they disagree with. In this particular case, students have been very supportive of the teacher and say that they have learned a lot. Critics don't seem to care--they think that this man should be silenced because of his viewpoints not his lack of teaching ability.

Look at Michelle Malkin's take on the story, for example. She doesn't critique the points. She doesn't address the fact the student doesn't produce evidence to support his claims, or even display much knowledge on the history of the situation. She's basically mad that the teacher did his job by providing counter-evidence to the students' questions. She's not mad that the teacher was talking too much and not letting the students interject. Quite the opposite, she actually mocks the other student who speaks on the tape. You can't just hate on people because they disagree with you. You have to engage their points.

Furthermore, the student Allen, who is now some kind of hero to many on the right, is breaking the law. Personally, I don't care about that. I don't think he should be charged of any serious crime, and I realize there is a wealth of perspectives on the right. However, I do think the people who use the "if you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about" line of argument need to check themselves at this point. By any definition I know of, this kid is a criminal, who taped a section of a person's workday without their permission and then turned it over to folks who have allowed their hatred for the points being made overcome their ability to evalate the situation.

So if you want to criticize this teacher for having a bad day, and being too teacher-centered, fine. If you don't agree with his politics, fine, engage him with the tools of a marketplace of ideas. But how ironic is it that Malkin and friends are claiming to be in favor of a free expression classroom while calling this teacher "Unhinged" and "needing medical help" simply for disagreeing or asking questions they don't want to hear?

They show a complete and utter lack of understanding of what makes a good teacher--it's not conservative or liberal viewpoints, but the ability to encourage students to ask critical questions and challenge the social conventions of their surrounding, liberal or conservative.

As a teacher, I argue points that I utterly disagree with all the time to help my students learn. They need to be able to discern between a credible argument and a poorly support one regardless of political bent.

Obviously, Malkin didn't get this care from her teachers when she was learning. I don't think she's "unhinged" or "needing medical help", but a mild injection of empathy sure wouldn't hurt.

That's sooooo hetero...

2006-03-03T12:36:00.000-06:00

To learn how to act on this issue click here

Update: This blog has the original anti-games flyer that was circulated around Crystal Lake.
Pretty typical stereotyping and bigotry. If you get a minute, definitely read the Mchenry County Blog for more information on the issue.

Crystal Lake Park District steps us for all of us heterosexual Chicagoans who hate the idea of people who don't share our sexual orientation playing sports.

I wonder what they mean on their homepage when they say We need your help to keep our parks and facilities safe!

According to the Trib, there were several arguments that were leveled against the games:
1) Commissioner David Phelps, who joined Scott Breeden in opposition, said he believes that the Gay Games are more about politics than athletics.

"I do not believe the Crystal Lake Park District should be a vehicle for the promotion of an agenda," he said.

Basically, Phelps is using the old, "Why are the people whose rights we are pissing on making such a big deal about it?" But let's hear him out, he's saying that political causes have no place in sports.

This is a fallacial argument for two reasons:
A) It's anti-democratic. As we've discussed before, being a contributing citizen is not an occasional foray into a voting booth.

B) It's completely and utterly impossible. Have these people ever actually been on a park district sports team? Shouldn't they know that it is one of the most vocally, politically opposed venues against people of minority sexual orientation? The group that is introducing politics into sports are the majority who throughout history have excluded or bullied skilled athletes because of their race, sexual orientation and gender. Sure, the explicit barriers have come down, but read the stories of any of the post-career out-of-the-closet pro athletes and it should be abundantly clear the homophobic forces they faced.

2) Crystal Lake resident Scott Spencer told the Park Board that homosexuality is "contrary and detrimental" to traditional family values. Saying that view doesn't make him a bigot, he added: "Let me point out what my prejudice is toward: my wife, my children, my grandchildren and the sanctity of the home."

This is another tired, old argument. It's the idea that somehow the sanctity of a family is buried firmly in the sexual equipment of its members. It's the idea that some people's families are worthless and worthy of less rights because of the absence of a penis or a vagina in the relationship. People have different definitions of bigotry. Would Scott Spencer think this statement was bigoted?

"White privilege is contrary and detrimental to traditional family values. This doesn't make me a bigot. My prejudice is toward my wife, my children, my grandchildren and the sanctity of the home. That's why I think we should kill all of these crackers who have been oppressing my wife, my children, my grandchildren and violating the sanctity of our home for so long."

I'm sorry, being a prejudiced prick violates the sanctity of my home a lot more than some gay people rowing boats.

So we get no new logical insights to justify this blatent prejudice, just more of the same excuses for hate.

We should note that there were courageous folks in Crystal Lake who spoke in favor of the Gay Games. According to the Trib, Reverend Dan Larson of the Unitarian Church was vocal in that, "Everyone has a right to row their boat." Two of the four present commisioners voted in favor of allowing the games, and Park District Director Kirk Reimer described the majority of the feedback regarding the event to be positive.

He called some of the correspondence "ugly." And that made him wonder if there would be problems at the rowing competition caused by people opposed to the Gay Games. "Based on some of the e-mails and phone calls I've gotten, it could get ugly," he said.

So in the end, the "ugly", bigoted crowd has carried the day.

What should we do about this?
Well, the two commissioners who voted against the proposal can be contacted here:

Scott Breeden, commissioner
Phone: (815) 455-3471
Dave Phelps, commissioner
Phone: (815) 455-6389

If you want to support the other member's decision, you can reach them here:

Candy Reedy, commissioner
Phone: (815) 455-2531
Michael Zellmann, commissioner
Phone: (815) 788-0887

And the absent member was:
Jerry Sullivan, president
Phone: (815) 459-7649

Or email them here: cdunham@crystallakeparks.org

Remember, be civil. We want to make people empathize with our cause, not make them think we are jackasses. Sadly, when we are talking about stereotyping, people tend to remember the worst of the lot.

Yep, he just let people die because he didn't give a shit...

2006-03-02T12:58:00.000-06:00

I'm not a modern day prophet. I don't even want the chance to be able to say "I told you so!" I'd rather be wrong.

I'm just someone who doesn't see, hear and believe an idealic dream world because it's easier. After Katrina, I wrote this: "Your Laziness has Killed Hundreds, Maybe Thousands of People!"

Now it appears that this was exactly the case:
Video of Pre-Katrina Briefing

Basically, Bush and friends were warned exactly what would happen and couldn't be troubled to cancel a few visits and birthday parties to save the lives of more than a thousand U.S. citizens.

Even if this had been simple incompetence, I would question his ability to do his job. This wasn't. This was pure and simple negligence possibly compounded by the opportunity for personal gain through the eradication of poor folks of color.

At the very best it's "not giving a shit about the country or its inhabitants", at worse it's genocide.

I don't want impeachment. They'll just send another killer into office. I was an example made so people remember that you can't just treasonously kill off fellow Americans.

If I believed in a vengeful justice system, maybe I would want him executed--that would be logical.

If I believed in the value of hateful, maybe I would wish him misfortune in prison or want him to be tortured.

Certainly he and his political platform would wish that upon me should our positions be reversed.

I just want him sentenced to several decades in prison where he can be rehabilitated and given an opportunity to reflect on his actions. No brutality, well-fed, ample access to his family and reading materials.

Are we a country where we gladly, apathetically watch as folks die and ignore all chances to avert such disaster?

We are today. Hopefully we can do something so that we won't be tomorrow. Spread the word, speak out, and talk to your local politicans. I'll have more as more concrete, strategic responses are crafted.

peace.

How much do you spend on groceries?

2006-03-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

Liz and I split our shopping between the corner market (Milk and produce) and Jewel (everything else). I suppose we owe at least that to Jewel, considering we met when I came through her checkout line at Jewel.

When I started taking my Grandfather, Shew-Lim shopping on the weekends, I was surprised to find that he shopped the exact same way I do. Or I guess I should say the opposite--I had learned to shop the exact same way he does though we had never been to the market together.

Since I was a little kid, grocery shopping has been a kind of comfort activity for me. I sat in the basket of the cart as my mom would push me around until I got too big and then was sent around with half of the shopping list. From four or five, she taught me to calculate price/unit (ounce, cup, etc.) and how to discriminate between good and meaningless sales.

I never knew that she had learned it from watching her folks. We all do the same thing--we get a list of essentials that we need for the week, and then buy whatever is healthy and extremely on sale.

When Liz and I first started dating seriously, it was a bit of a culture shock for both of us. She's rather thrifty herself, but I had never really bought anything "I like" that was full-price. She wasn't used to coming home with bags full of unfamiliar items.

After six years, it appears that I have won. It really has more to do with who does the food preparation than anything else. Here's this week's receipt:

What do you buy at the store? What is your strategy?

Jewel:
Savings %: 53%
Final Cost: $63.14
Total Savings: $72.39
Preferred Savings: $23.02
MFG Coupons: $8.25
Store Coupons: $5.00
Buy 1 Get 1 FREE: $36.12
Juicy Juice
Breyers IC 56OZ $5.99
Breyers IC 56OZ FREE
Pepperidge Farm Bread $2.95
Preferred Card -.45
Nissin Ramen X 4 .80
PC -.40
GM Cinnamon Toast 19.62
PC -7.62
GM Cheerios 11.55
PC -5.55
Vienna Beef Franks X 2 9.98
Vienna BF X 2 Rain checkFREE
P/F Geneva Cookies 2.95
PC -.45
P/F Raspberry Cookies 2.95
PC -.45
JWL Rotini 1.00
JWL Rotini FREE
RAC Tri Rotini 1.29
RAC Bow Tie FREE
CHX Mix Hot X 2 4.90
PC -2.90
Frontera Grill Pizza 6.29
Frontera Grill Pizza FREE
LAYS Wavy 11.5 oz 2.95
PC -.95
Perdue Turkey 16oz 3.79
Perdue Turkey 16oz FREE
DGB OR LVND CH2Z 2.75
PC -.25
ROK Tumb Candle X 5 2.25
PC -1.25
Jewel Medium NDL 1.40
PC -.40
Cabot Garlic Cheddar 4.99
Cabot Garlic Cheddar FREE
Frigo Ricotta Cheese 2.95
PC -.95
Stella Shredded Parm. 3.79
Stella Shredded Parm. FREE
COUPON $5 off $50 -5.00
Scanned Coupon -.55
Scanned Coupon -1.00
Scanned Coupon -1.00
Scanned Coupon -1.00
Scanned Coupon -.75
Scanned Coupon -1.00
Scanned Coupon -1.00
Scanned Coupon -.40
Scanned Coupon -.55
Scanned Coupon -1.00

1/3 Asian Miss Universe Speaks

2006-02-27T20:26:00.000-06:00

This is an interesting article about a former Miss Universe that brings up interesting points:
1) Her stories of the culture shock as she faced the realities of Hollywood ethnicity, suggest that differences of ethnicity that revolve around "ethnic majority or minority" status and are not natural facts.
2) Us folks of color are not "looking for racism"--quite the contrary, we'd like to ignore it and often try to pretend it's nonexistent, but almost inevitably, if we chose to excel in society, come face-to-face with it again.

Finally, I just wanted to point out this is not the first time I'm heard of someone claiming to be "1/3 something". Usually it's white people trying to sound "diverse".

You might find that snarky, but stop for a second and think about it:
How in the fuck would you end up with a 1/3 child? I mean, I'm into some kinky shit, but how do you have three parents contribute to an egg?

Well, I can't complain, after all, I'm 1/17th Cherokee.

"Good" crime?

2006-02-26T19:56:00.000-06:00

(props to AngryAsianMan and Gar for the link)

Imagine how kick ass the world would be if all the people who commit crimes were a little more thoughtful about their targets?

What if all the graffiti writers bombed for justice instead of to get their name out?

What if all the drug dealers, gangbangers and thugs wouldn't do their business in their own neighborhoods?

What if all the thieves and filchers wouldn't touch family owned stores or people's houses and instead only hit big-ass corporations and wealthy folks?

I'm not saying, "Rich folks deserve to have bad shit happen to them..." so please don't get all "You love the terrorists!" on me.

I'm just saying, "Can you bring yourself to imagine how different things might be?"

After a massive campaign to write the advertisers for Corolla's show, he ended up giving up an apology the other day:

A quick item of business to take care of. An apology to the Asian community. We did a bit a few weeks back that offended many people. It was unintended to offend these people. We do a show here that is a little irreverent and sometimes we cross the line and we definitely crossed it this time. And it was not meant to offend. It did. And for that we sincerely apologize to the good people of the Asian community. So we apologize and we thank you for your support.

This ranks up there on the "pathetically bad but still better than expected" ranking. At least he attempts to admit some fault and backtrack a bit. Of course, the ultra-typical whitey "It was not to offend language" is still in there. Oh, so mocking the English language ability of native English speakers because of the color of their skin while shitting on a show to recognized an oppressed and underrepresented group in media with one of the most passe, sophomoric attempt at humor ever was not meant to offend? What was it meant to do? Surely not be funny--there was no danger of that.

I would have rather he just say, "We sure as hell meant to offend, but we underestimated the ability of Asian Americans to kick the shit out of through our sponsors. Oops! Sorry about that!"

But hey, I'm not a white journalist talking about Shani Davis, so I'm not allowed to demand that the target of my criticism do exactly what I wanted him to do.

Privilege is never having to sincerely say, "I'm sorry"...

Random fun fact: Spell Check wants to replace "Corolla's" with "gorilla's".

More Corolla Campaign

2006-02-20T14:02:00.000-06:00

Someone has started an online petition to fire Adam Corolla for his racial slurs against Asian Americans on his 1/24/06 show (here and here). You can sign it here.

I sent this letter to CBS radio through this form (send one yourself!) and have yet to receive a response:

Dear CBS Radio,

I understand that individual performers will sometimes go beyond the pale of what is acceptable in their creative performance.

In the case of Adam Corolla's January 24, 2006 slurs against Asian Americans on his program, his performance was not only racist, but also devoid of any comedic value. The tired old joke, "Asians can't speak English" has been trotted out so many times, it was more of a admission of inability to perform his job--being entertaining--than anything else.

Furthermore, it is deeply damaging to Asian Americans who face perpetual discrimination even if English is their native language.

Worst of all was your insult, idiotic non-apology released by the station following protest. I respond to it here:

http://yellowcontent.blogspot.com/2006/01/dear-american-people.html

Anyway, due to your general lack of empathy for Asian Americans, I've decided to avoid all of your media outlets except for the purpose of viewing your prime-time commercials. I will then avoid all of the products promoted by these companies.

In my eyes and that of my community, you will become the "un-promotion company".

I know I'm just one person, so I don't expect you to respond. But if you do want to do right by me, you will fire Adam Corolla for his lack of talent and your spokesperson who composed the ridiculous "apology", as obviously they are incapable of performing their job.

Best of luck to you, I don't expect a response, but I would welcome one,
Xian Barrett

Faster than the speed of white...

2006-02-19T15:09:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Chicago South Sider Shani Davis won the first individual gold medal by a black person of African descent in the history of the Winter Olympics.

I know very little about the sport of speedskating, but I do know that Shani Davis is a wonderful Chicagoan who has been a good role model for city kids of color who are in dire need of role models through his school visits and other community work.

From media coverage, I've learned that Davis is a very controversial character in the American speedskating world. Some of it is due to the actions of his mother, who is quite vocal on issues of race in sport, rather controlling of her son, and not usually remotely strategic about either of these roles. However, I'm pretty convinced a great deal of it is the normal "shoot the messenger" mentality that faces anyone who attempts to address realities of race in America.

Let's face it--if "The Emperor's New Clothes" was set in contemporary America, we'd lynch that little kid.

In terms of the perceived feud between Davis and Chad Hedrick, I'd like to look at their comments:

Hedrick has used Davis' victory in the 1000 meters as an opportunity to trash him to the media.

Davis has responded mostly by complimenting Hedrick, but also questioned, "Maybe if the pursuit was organized better, or if they hadn't brought people over here just to skate it, or if I had been informed about it more than a week before ... If the shoe was on the other foot, would Chad have done the team pursuit if it was the day before the 5,000? We'll never know, but people will do whatever's best for you and that's OK."

The irony I see in their comments is that Hedrick is questioning Davis' commitment to the team because he didn't help Hedrick win an event. Furthermore, in doing so, he openly attacked a teammate in the media. Davis' choice may have been incorrect, but he certainly was trying his best to win. Hedrick's choice was simply to trash a teammate and rival with no possible benefit to his team.

Keith Boykin has some great commentary on his blog about Davis' odyssey and one of the commenters brought up a point that I've often discussed with my friends.

What is the deal with white people thinking that a person of color is "bad" simply because they don't do what people want them to do? Sure, it's fun when people listen to you, or you agree with them, but isn't disagreement a normal state of human existence. When folks in an ethnic majority question ethnic minorities more for not "doing what they are told" we can see an ugly underbelly of ethnic privilege. Basically, they don't like the fact that they don't have control over the people of color.

Fuck that Shani. You make them eat ice and take your gold home, and if part of "America" doesn't support you, there's plenty of us back here who admire you that much more for what you are doing.

Hedrick and five medals is not going to improve the quality of my life. Shani Davis' accomplishments just might in some minor, yet significant way.

Update:
Terrence Says with a blog entry on the Davis vs. White Privilege (and he does it quite a bit more eloquently).

Open Letter to Shonda Rhimes

2006-02-13T12:45:00.000-06:00

I originally wrote this and sent it to Ms. Rhimes, but unfortuately, it bounced back, so I guess she'll never see it. I've made a few revisions lately.

Dear Ms. Rhimes:

I hope I am not bothering you with this email. I want you to know that this is meant to be "fan mail" or maybe more accurately "friend mail", as I hope it comes across foremost as loving, and secondarily as a little bit critical.

Grey's Anatomy, when you are writing, has the finest writing of any show on TV. That's a big thing, but not what has impressed me the most. When I discuss this show with other people of color, it seems that it really reaches us in an empathic way. We feel that someone like us actually has fought and obtained a platform on prime time television. This might not be the best way to put it, but when Dr. Bailey is on-screen, I feel like a living, breathing woman of color is being portrayed. This sharply contrasts with the few other sightings of folks of color on mainstream TV where it often feels like a face of color is being paraded, but unempathetic writers are still pulling the puppet strings.

But that's not all. The character you and Chandra Wilson have created in Dr. Bailey is so powerful that she can't be "un-written" during the episodes that you are not writing. It almost feels like you are able to FORCE ethnic majority writers to empathize more when they are writing her character.

That's beautiful. I also love the feminist messages of the show, and as an Asian American, it is warming to see how three-dimensionally you have written Sandra Oh's award-winning "Dr. Yang" character.

Furthermore, your writing has only improved. The Super Bowl two-episode story was masterful in your ability to juggle eye-candy to attract the wider audience and still keep the profound human significance in the script. It was your best work yet.

But all of this is why it pains me so much to see the portrayals of Asian American men on your show. The main exception was the episode you wrote dealing with the Hmong family. On my blog, several Hmong posters and other Asian Americans discussed this episode. Most of us agreed that you must have done wealth of research to nail the writing so empathetically (even if there were a few inaccuracies).

However, when you weren't the main writer, there has been a subtle, yet consistent promotion of racist stereotypes and negative images of Asian American males. Most blatantly, there have been several times that fathers of Asian descent have been conspicuously absent (Dr. Yang's father or the father of the special needs teenager). While I understand the wealth of diversity in families, when the norm is the utter exclusion of Asian American father figures, that’s troubling. There have been a have dozen White Male/Asian Female couples. Individually, of course, this is no problem, but in the absence of any portrayals of health AM/WF or AF/AM relationships, this serves to exacerbate current racist/sexist stereotypes in our society.

This past episode featured a negative, stereotypical portrayal of a man of Japanese descent. The man callously mistranslates to the athlete his is coaching in the field of competitive eating. Meanwhile, the female character shoots down Dr. Karov’s flirtations, but is unable to communicate this because of her lack of English ability. Ultimately, she suffers the consequences of smiting this white knight and realizes the error of her ways, as she holds the Karov’s hand after the surgery. This is a classic racist/sexist plot message. In the end, the white knight, Dr. Karov has to be restrained from attacking the evil Asian man. This “good white guy/evil man of color/misguided woman of color who sees the error of her ways” plot is not only upsetting, but at this point practically formulaic for prime time television. I was physically sickened to see this portrayal.

I have tried to be patient about this and have encouraged my friends who have been more critical to do so as well. After all, we have such deep respect for what you have done with three-dimensional minority characters on the show.

But as the disparity of AF/WM couples piles up and some of the few male characters of Asian descent we get are extremely negative portrayals, it just makes begs the questions, "What about us? Why not attack stereotypes of Asian American males too?" The emasculation/fetishization of men and women of Asian descent is as pervasive in our media as the stereotypes of the violent, brutish African American male. These stereotypes attack us and deny us opportunities in our daily lives in the same way institutional prejudices hurt any ethnic minority group. They are strong, racist forces that we must resist at every opportunity, not aid with media portrayals.

Please, we really trust you and believe in both your writing ability and your sincere desire to write for a better society that strongly flows through this work. Is there any chance you might consider addressing this issue of portrayal in future episodes?

If it's not too much to suggest an idea, Dr. Karov seems to have been written (intentionally or unintentionally) with a strain of "Asian Fetish Syndrome". Perhaps it might be interesting to see him attempt to act on this (as he did in this week's episode), but be called out on it by either the woman he shows interest in or Dr. Yang's character and an educating moment on what "Asian Fetish Syndrome" is will result. In the end, the woman could be shown to be in a healthy relationship with her boyfriend or husband who happens to be of Asian descent.

Once again, I'm sorry if this is too critical or it seems like I'm trying to snatch the pen away from you. I deeply respect and thank you for creating my first favorite TV show (I've never really watched much TV before your show came along).

I have already taken too much of your time, but if you have any questions or feedback for me, please feel free to reach me at xianb8 at yahoo or (xxx) xxx-xxxx. Please keep on doing what you are doing.
much respect.
xian

Washington Times Plagiarist

2006-02-13T11:43:00.000-06:00

Washington Times reporter Eric Pfeiffer ripped quotes and analysis off of Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet.

The Daily Kos responds here.

This is a man who is paid to be a "journalist", and here is an article that he cobbled together without interviewing any of the sources. This is type of journalism that has people repeating news from "The Onion" as real.

The Times ran a lame-ass "correction" once informed of the improprieties. This is bullshit. You can't commit offenses, insincerely apologize when you get caught, and expect everything to be fine.

This guy ripped off other journalists so he didn't have to do any work or confirm anything he was writing and got caught. Now they want to run a "correction"? Please.

This guy needs to be peaced out immediately. Reach the Times online here. Or give them a call at (202) 636-3000.

I sent them an email about the situation:
Correction not enough:
I read Eric Pfeiffer's article on Obama and instantly recognized the similarities to my hometown paper, the Chicago Sun-Times. This is not just "a mistake", this is a guy who committed a major crime against the field of journalism and showed himself to be a negligent journalist. Running a correction is like me stealing a car, and then when caught saying, "I'll make a correction" and giving back what's left of the car.

Please terminate Mr. Pfeiffer immediately. He has committed a huge offense against the ethics of journalism.

Sincerely,
Xian Barrett

Shonda Rhimes displays her mastery again

2006-02-13T10:32:00.000-06:00

There are different ways to review a work. One is the Richard Roeper way. Basically, he walks into a movie showing with an expectation. He is entitled to that expectation. If the movie doesn't meet his perspective, he is disappointed and trashes the film.

His partner and possibly the greatest film critic living or that has ever lived, Roger Ebert, has the opposite approach--he gets into the film, asks what they were trying to do and then evaluates, "Given what they were trying to do, how was the writing? The acting? What did I learn from it?"

Grey's Anatomy's Super Bowl effort and its follow-up which ran last night, illuminate the joy you can find with the second approach.

This was a cheesy, over-the-top story--it was trying to attract the millions of extra viewers tuning in from the Super Bowl. It worked--according to Nielsen, between 30 million and 40 million folks tuned in.

What was most impressive was how Shonda Rhimes was able to write the gratuitous moments smoothly and effectively into the script. The Super Bowl episode opened with one of the most riduculous shower scenes in the history of media. At the end of last night's episode, Rhimes had not only justified that scene, but grown it into a tremendously emotional, powerful new shower scene that really put the earlier scene in its place.

As Meredith Grey's (Ellen Pompeo) best friends washed from her face the blood and bone of the man who saved her life, a look of realization washed over George O'Malley's (TR Knight) face. There were things in life far more important than foursomes with his beautiful intern colleagues.

Tonight's episode had an almost Japanese Drama-ish feel. Absent the "everything going on at once" quality of last week, Rhimes wrote a constant level of tension and just let her character try to love and survive in the midst of it. She held us viewers on the edge of climax for almost the entire hour and finally when we breathed a momentary sigh of relief delivered a blow that shook us to our core.

How many times do we hestitate in treating those around us how we ought to. How much do those little words of gratitude or love mean? Won't there be a day where we'll try to finally articulate those feelings and it will be too late?

Thank you Shonda, I was entertained. But I think I walked away understanding humanity a little bit more.

It's not a "disaster", it's a "profit opportunity"

2006-02-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

You remember New Orleans? You know that place where all the people of color died and we felt bad about it, but then we threw some money at it and forgot about it? Well, not only did most of the Red Cross money not get to the right people, but now we are starting to see the "rebuilding" plan take shape.

The poor and working folks of the city wanted to move back and rebuild and the major corporations including Dick Cheney's former company wanted to profiteer off of the death and chaos. Guess who got their way?

Now community leaders from New Orleans are traveling the country to try to raise awareness of this atrocity. In their terms, we are seeing the "privatization and gentrification of an entire city". Come out and hear the truth and learn what can be done about it. After all, New Orleans is just a blueprint for what they'd like to do to every city. Don't the folks in Baghdad know that...

What would you think if I was standing by after you were hit by a car, and then it took me 35 minutes to come over and check if you were ok and call for help, then you died and I cashed your insurance policy? Would you family say, "Well, he cried at the funeral, and he seems like a good guy--he didn't cause the car accident!" Maybe if they hated you...

You see, I don't want to be rude, but I know crocodile tears when I see them. I sincerely believe that they could not foresee Katrina hitting New Orleans, but there's no doubt in my mine that they hid a tangible smile when they realized what it meant. And the fact that all of us assholes sit around while they pile up profits from these deaths sure tells us how we feel about poor people of color.

As the people of New Orleans become a tribe without a homeland, what are you doing?

Come out Saturday, February 18, 2:00-4:30PM, to UNITE HERE, 333 S. Ashland Ave. Chicago.

Monday Michiru at Hothouse Friday 2/17

2006-02-10T23:27:00.000-06:00

I've been a big fan of Monday Michiru since I heard "You Make Me Wanna" in, of all places, the "Beatmania" arcade game as an exchange student in Kobe. Later, in Kumamoto I spent all day everyday with my team teacher Ikuko--fighting often in school over curriculum, and then dancing all weekend in the city. She introduced me to "Double Image" with its DJ Krush track, "Cruel 2 Be Kind".

In late 2004, I was feeling guilty for spending too much time in our apartment and so I checked "The Reader" and there was Monday playing at the HotHouse rhat evening. Liz couldn't go, so I went on one of my rare solo excursions to dance out. I took the Red Line down, marched up the staircase of HotHouse, and just soaked in the amazing atmosphere of this non-profit club and Monday's ethereal voice. I danced and danced, and got a chance to chat with Monday briefly (about being half kids) and get her to sign an old remix CD I had lying around.

It took one night for me to fall in love with the HotHouse and I've been fortunate to get to be enriched and share my love for it with others on many occasions.

Monday will be back in Chi next Friday night, and of course, I'll be back to experience it. If you are in Chi and want to join our group to head out there, just email or call me about it--we'd love to have you.

Mr.Guillen does not go to Washington

2006-02-10T14:39:00.000-06:00

Mayor Daley announced his disatisfaction at Ozzie Guillen, often controversial Chicago White Sox manager, skipping the customary White House visit afforded to champions in most major American professional sports.

Daley's point was that the honor of the office should be respected with a visit.

While Guillen himself did not respond, his son, Ozzie Jr. explained:

"My dad cares about two things, his baseball team and his family,'' Ozzie Jr. said. "He's not interested in pleasing other people. The White House had changed the date of this visit a couple of times. It was supposed to be right after SoxFest [at the end of January]. Mr. Daley probably doesn't know that.''

Is there any chance Ozzie Sr. will reconsider and interrupt his vacation with a quick stop in Washington?

"No way. Not at all," Ozzie Jr. said. "To Ozzie, his family is more important than getting attention for himself. You have to remember, Mr. Daley is a politician. My dad is not."

Now, personally, I might not agree with Ozzie's decision--I would probably use the opportunity to give Bush a piece of my mind--I deeply respect it. One of the decadent qualities of declining empires is a great respect for ritual than for substance. Let's face it--the visits that most teams make to the White House are not watershed moments for national policy. In fact, they are exactly what Daley suggests--an opportunity to recognize the inherent honor invested in the office of the President of the United States.

But does that really exist? Honor and respect come are not currency determined by our government. They are rewards to be earned from every individual. Ozzie Guillen is saying that kissing the President's feet is not so important that as he is jerked around by the president's schedulers, he feels the need to give up time with his family.

On a related note, the architect of Chicago's first championship baseball team in eighty-eight year, Ken Williams has been pretty quiet following his team's triumph.

But he was not so silent on the visit to the president:

Apparently not everyone has such an easy time separating politics from honorary visits.

In a recent radio interview, Sox general manager Ken Williams said he decided to make the Washington trip, but only after thinking long and hard about it because he differs with President Bush on the war in Iraq.

I wish he would have. Politics and morality are not things you just put in your pocket when the social conventions warrant it. Celebrities are Americans too. When they speak out politically from any end of the spectrum, they set a good example for the rest of the country. There is no magic moment when we are "ready" to participate in representative democracy. There's too much of us sitting on the sidelines as it is.

It's not a coincidence that Guillen and Williams are making waves on these issues. Ethnic outsiders are often the ones who possess the courage to question social conventions. Let's afford these men our respect.

Code Black

2006-02-06T23:46:00.000-06:00

Grey's Anatomy tried to capitalize on following the highest rated show in this or most years, the Super Bowl, by pulling out every possible big gun last night's episode.

Some diehard fans, myself included, worried that the show, in introducing a "Code Black" situation would compromise its philosophy and go "too sensational". Furthermore, in order to appeal to the huge, predominantly male crowd tuning in for the game, they had a ridiculously gratuitious shower scene with three of the main actresses from the show.

Sound dreadful? It would have been, except for lead writer Shonda Rhimes took the helm for the critical episode. Amazingly, she was able to walk the tightrope of adding shiny objects to attract the new audience and still retaining the heart and snappy writing of the show. For example, in the opening "shower" scene, the dopey main character imagines himself getting into the shower with three of the main female leads. He indulges himself in his dream, but even as Sandra Oh's character says something along the lines of "You are sooo much smarter than me and so hot!" we can hear the dripping sarcasm. Immediately, Katherine Heigl's character breaks down George's door and yells at him to stop clogging the toilet or "you'll have to go in the yard!"

Shonda is a master--just when you think she has caved to the pressures of selling the show to the Super Bowl crowd, she flips the script.

Furthermore, despite fears that "Code Black" would be some terrorist threat or something worse, it turns out to be--spoiler, spoiler--cause by a couple of idiots playing with explosives in their backyard. She's able to have the cliffhanger, high-suspense "everyone we care about might die" moment and still not go too sensational.

Finally, she continued to deepen Dr. Bailey's character as she maintained her image as a fearsome, powerful force (for whom Dr. Shepard would rather risk his life and job than risk her wrath), but also as a vulnerable mother to be.

As promised, the episode is a cliffhanger, and will resume next week. Hokey, but necessary marketing.

Look for:
Continued build on the "Code Black" tension, Bailey to be fighting for her and her child's life, some more bullshit on the stupid ass emaciated main character and sleazy, whiney "McDreamy" and most of all I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Asshole Karov couldn't get it up again--he was back on the floor WAY too fast for anything to have happened...

Don't Look for:
An Asian American man...
WHERE ARE WE ON THIS SHOW? CAN'T WE GET HINES WARD A CAMEO OR SOMETHING? PLEASE!

A Perfect Super Bowl

2006-02-06T23:26:00.000-06:00

While most of the sports media drones on and on about how the referees robbed the Seahawks of the game, I'm frolically in a fifth Super Bowl for my hometown. Hines Ward, African-Asian American Wide Receiver for the Steelers won the game MVP award. The game-breaking touchdown was tossed by ex-QB and Chicagoland product Antwaan Randle El. It was brillliant trick-play in which there was a double hand-off reverse to El that he capped off by tossing a missile to Ward.

I know some people will say, "What's the big deal that the hero was Asian American?" Just for today, let's just say that you think I'm not "color-blind" or whatever and I think you lack basic human empathy and have the discussion for another day.

To be honest, I kind of zoned in and out during the game. Baseball is my first love for sports and American football, while super-fun to play, is irritating to me for the very reason many of the zealous are complaining this morning--it's a rather subjective sport often determined by inconsistent officiating.

As usual, I missed most of the halftime show, but did tune in long enough to catch part of the Rolling Stones' performance. Matt gives a deeper analysis here, but as for me, I was kind of amused by the fact that these old guys got all dressed and made-up for this event (Jagger was wearing pants and a jacket to match one of my favorite pairs of pants). But the singing was just dreadful. While they performed their unmelodious dirge, the crowd went nuts all around the stage, in well-choreographed fashion.

I realize that there's no accounting for taste. But simulated fun just never compares to actual fun, and I was really just able to bear the proceedings for a short while by hoping that Mick would whip-it-out and all hell would break loose. No such luck though.

As the game ended, Liz and I cheered a little bit, and then I watched the post-game show to make sure that we didn't miss a moment of Grey's Anatomy.

You look a little not pale, may I see your vagina?

2006-02-04T13:29:00.000-06:00

The federal government has settled with a group of 87 African American women who were obtrusively searched (in some cases strip-searched) in the late 90s at O'Hare Airport for a sum of $2 million dollars.

Some articles on the topic:
CBS 2 Chicago
ABC 7 Chicago
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Sun-Times

There are a few issues here:
The government admitted no wrong-doing.
From the Sun-Times article:
The government admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, saying the searches at O'Hare are considered "border searches" that do not require warrants and need be based only on reasonable suspicion that the suspect is carrying contraband.

This makes sense, but what criteria were they acting upon?
From the Tribune article:

Jacquelyn Jordan-Akinola, a graduate student from Chicago, said she was strip-searched when she returned from Jamaica in July 1997.

Jordan-Akinola said about 70 percent of the passengers on her flight were white, but when she was steered into a line to be searched, she found herself among all black women.

From the Sun-Times:

All appeared singled out for their race, he said. One woman, an actress returning from Germany, was singled out for an extensive search because her "itinerary was suspicious," even though three white actress colleagues traveling with her had identical itineraries, he said.

So basically, our government agency had a clear policy of racial-profiling. So people might agree with that, others may not. But there's another problem:

From the CBS 2 article:

Victim attorney Edward Fox said, "The most frequently searched group of people were black women. And, at least in 1997, the group most likely not to have drugs on them, were black women."

Finally, the victims, rather than receive this settlement, had wanted to file a class-action suit. But this request was denied by the judge on the case.

So we have a situation where people of the same ethnicity were picked out of line for drug smuggling. When questioned, Customs said that they did so on the basis of circumstantial "suspicious" characteristics, which is a lie because they people they picked out's "suspicious" characteristics were no different than their white counterparts. They also did so on the basis of psychological cues such as nervousness. Of course, if customs agents and law enforcement officials in general have a history of attacking people of color, especially African-Americans, why wouldn't they be nervous? I get nervous in the airport, not because I'm smuggling, but because I'm worried that some assholes might decide to give me a body cavity search.

The group targeted was the least logical for racial pro-filing, unless of course, our government wanted to send a clear message that "We don't care about drugs, we just hate niggers". In the end, the court system refused to recognize this as a consistently targeted group and the government refused to acknowledge wrong-doing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of those who pursued this case and brought attention to the injustice. Sometimes however, when our government decides on an institutional level to condone the sexual assault of women because their skin is too dark, I get a tiny bit ashamed of the country I love.

I don't need ESP--it's racially motivated

2006-02-02T11:27:00.000-06:00

A white terrorist killed six others and herself in a California post office yesterday. All six victims were people-of-color. In addition, she killed a former co-worker at the woman's apartment, who was white.

According to the article:

Anderson (the County Sheriff) said it wasn't clear if the killings were racially motivated.

This might be hard to determine--as racist assholes tell me regularly, "You aren't in my head! Stop being so PC! You have no idea whether I hate you coloreds or not!"

Let's see what evidence there might be:
1. Acquaintances said San Marco, who was white, sometimes talked to herself and spewed racist comments.
2. A deputy clerk in the town of Milan said she once requested a business license to start a publication called "The Racist Press."

This is a problem with mainstream definitions of "racism". In order for a killing to be "racially motivated", the mainstream demands that someone actually be yelling, "I am going to kill you right now, you Chink, you, and I want to make it clear that I am killing you not because I'm just aiming your way, but solely because you are Asian. Also, I have no Asian friends, I have never had Asians over to my house, and am not married to an Asian person. I really just don't like Asian people, and that's why I'm killing you. Please pass out copies of this statement after I take my own life."

And then half the law enforcement agencies in the country would say, "Well, she killed herself and she's white, so it must not have been 'racially motivated'!

For those who are still unclear on how white privilege works, remember the Chai Vang case, and now ask yourself, "Does every white person in America have to fear that they will be threatened because some white women killed a bunch of people in a post office in California?" Will we start discussing racial profiling of white people for homocidal craziness?

No, and that's why, even if racial profiling worked, which it doesn't, the proponents of it are racist assholes. They hide behind arguments like, "It keeps us safer (to code people by race)" but what they really mean it that "I'm in favor of persecuting YOU for race, but I would not give up a single right for other Americans' safety!"

"Cause the N-C-Double A**holes won't let us..."

2006-02-01T13:15:00.000-06:00

The U of I in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has filed a second appeal with the NCAA regarding its mascot. (Peep the typo in the USA Today online headline.) I figured it'd be good to update and trot out this piece again:

Please enjoy and comment!
Hail Alma Mater, ever so true...

Hines Ward's Biggest Victory

2006-01-31T10:24:00.000-06:00

Whenever you are inclined to gloss over privilege, just look at your own children or parents and ask, "Would I have been allowed to have a relationship with them if I happened to be the wrong color?" Hines Ward, superstar receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was one of the many babies of Asian descent taken away from his mother simply because she was of Asian descent. In his case, he righted the wrong that our court system committed as a second-grader.

This article details Ward's amazing journey, including an Anna Mae He-esque court decision:

Anna Mae He is still with her kidnappers. Will she need to run away too, or might we as a society right this wrong and stop kidnapping babies of Asian descent?

To really bring out the emotions in Ward, one needs only to mention his mother. Ward invariably gets misty-eyed talking about her, as if he can't believe how lucky someone could be to have a mother like his.

"She means everything to me," Ward said.

Kim Young-hee must feel the same way about her son.

Shortly after coming to the United States, she and her husband divorced, leaving her in a country whose culture and language she didn't understand, and with a young son and no way to support him.

Then it got worse.

According to Ward, a court determined she could not suitably raise Hines without being able to speak English or hold a job. As a result, Ward's father and a new stepmother were awarded custody of Hines. It was a devastating blow to Ward's mother, who could have been forgiven for giving up and moving back home to Korea.

Remarkably, she didn't. And when Hines was in the second grade, he ran away from his father and returned to the mother he had never forgotten, and never left again until he went to Georgia to play football.

To raise Hines, Kim Young-hee often worked three jobs nearly around the clock, taking breaks only to sleep for a few hours and to go home to get her son up in the morning and make sure he had dinner.

She washed dishes, cleaned hotel rooms, worked as a cashier. Nothing was for her -- her only concern was making sure her son had clean clothes, food and the best home life she could provide, even if it wasn't a high-income lifestyle.

Ward didn't have a father to lean on -- he says he has no communication with him today -- but he did have direction. Even as his football career took off at Forest Park High near Atlanta, his mother made him concentrate on academics, and Ward received excellent grades.

His mother also taught him about the importance of a work ethic -- lessons he took to the football field where, out of necessity, he played wide receiver, quarterback and running back in college. (A long-forgotten stat: As a quarterback, Ward passed for 413 yards and ran for 56 yards in the Peach Bowl.)

When Ward came to the NFL as a third-round draft pick in 1998 but, in essence, a man without a position, he threw himself into his work. Determined to create a role for himself, he quickly became the NFL's best blocking wide receiver, helping him earn playing time until he became a starter a year later.

Ward's background may explain why he often plays with an edge uncommon for a skill position player. And, perhaps, why his mother kept working her school cafeteria job even after Ward signed his first million-dollar NFL contract.

"My mom never gave up," Ward said. "She did everything she could for me, worked three jobs. She worked her tail off."

Ward's name in Korean is tattooed on his upper right forearm, directly above a smiling Mighty Mouse carrying a football. The smile, he said, reflects how he plays: with ferocity, a will to win but also for fun, another lesson learned from his mother.

"I could never pay my mother back for what she did for me," Ward said.

Props to Aelward from the Fighting 44s for the link.

Grey's Anatomy Gets Ready for the Super Bowl

2006-01-30T13:41:00.001-06:00

Grey's Anatomy capped off its pre-Super Bowl run with a show concerning labor issues. From what I've heard, there were some protestations from Nurses and Health Care Professionals' unions regarding the portrayal of nurses on the show. This is something I admire greatly about the show--they seem to be receptive to criticism of the show, and often respond by saying, "Woah! We didn't think of that! We'll write an episode about that!" Normally, it seems like top-rated shows have more of a "We're a top show, we'll tell you what's appropriate!"

Standardized recommendations include “Code Blue” – Medical Emergency – Cardiac/Respiratory Arrest; “Code Red” – Fire; “Code Grey” – Severe Weather; “Code Black” – Bomb; “Code Pink” – Infant/Child Abduction; “Code Yellow” – Disaster/Mass Casualty; “Code White” – Security Alert/Violence/Hostage; and “Code Orange” – Hazardous Materials.

There is much hype and talk around the plot of next week's show, a cliffhanger which will attempt to win some new viewers bleeding over from what is usually the highest rated show of the year, the Super Bowl. The previews showed Isiah Washington calling a "code black" with blood everywhere and police attempting to clear folks from the building while the doctors demanded to stay and save patients.

There's been a lot of discussion of this on Grey's Anatomy forums and boards, but if you are curious (if not, stop reading) here is a list of hospital codes used at most institutions (black is buried in there, so once again stop reading if you don't want to know):

It seems like a good choice, especially for Super Bowl night and hopefully they will hook a few million more viewers for the best? (Boston Legal has a good argument) show on television.

In last night's show, the Seattle Grace nurses went on strike and set up a picket line at the hospital. The portrayal was far from the normal anti-union slant you see in the mainstream media. Realistically, the nurses both wanted their demands to be heard, but also were concerned for their patients. Like in most real strikes, they viewed the strike as a last resort that they felt pushed to by their unfair treatment at the hospital. George, the dopey intern, did a great job balances his allegiances to the working-class union way of life and his residency. Ultimately, he improvises and comes up with a constructive, successful middle-ground that helps the nurses win their victory, but also prevents the compromising of patients' health as much as is possible.

Dear American People:

2006-01-27T22:42:00.000-06:00

One of the assholes in Al Qaeda mailed me this letter. I hate those assholes, but I thought there was something interesting about it:

Dear American people,

We were shocked and vaguely amused to see your reaction to our actions on September 11, 2001. Flying two planes into buildings and killing thousands of people was merely meant as a political gesture and certainly was not meant to offend anyone. We are sorry if anyone was offended. We are not hateful, nor racist people. Perhaps you should grow thicker skin if you take our political gestures so seriously.

Love,
Saddama Bin Laden and Friends

Disgusting? Ridiculous?

Of course. And that's why everytime somebody promotes American racism and violence against ethnic other people, it disgusts me when people trot out the same fake-ass "apologies".

My point is not to equate the harming of millions of Asian Americans or other Americans of color with stereotypes to be on the par with the violent killing of thousands of people. It's that when someone has done an injustice to you, a hollow, insecure "apology" makes things worse.

So when CBS Radio's spokeperson responds to Adam Carolla's racial stereotyping of Asian Americans by saying, "The segment was meant to be humorous and was not meant to offend anyone,"
it's simply piling racial harassment on top of racial harassment.

Of course, this begs the question, "What am I supposed to do when, I do something horrendous and I'm expected to apologize?"

I proscribe three steps:
1) Empathize: Ask what bothered someone about the original transgression. In the case of racial issues, it's likely that the root of the problem is a racial perspective divide of some kind. Sincerely listen.
2) Respond with a sincere apology that addresses the specific grievance that were voiced.
3) Re-assess and learn: Listen again as the other person responds to your apology and ask them to honestly respond. Sometimes a simply apology won't be enough, but being empathetic and not trying to just end the encounter will help heal that. Apply what you've learned in future situations, so the same thing doesn't reoccur repeatedly.

In the case of Carolla and friends, here are some contact emails:

Joel Hollander, chairman and chief executive officer, CBS Radio, tel: 212-846-3939, email: joel.hollander@infinitybroadcasting.com
Dana L. McClintock, senior vice president, CBS Communications Group, tel: 212-975-1077, email: dlmcclintock@cbs.com
Adam Carolla: adam@adamcarolla.com
Dave Dameshek: dave@adamcarolla.com
Rachel Perry: rachel@adamcarolla.com
Ozzie Castillo: ozzie@adamcarolla.com

Please write in and express your own viewpoint on this issue. If you want to, please go ahead and forward your exchange with me here at xianb8 at the wonderful domain of yahoo dot com.

As one of my students says, "Two fingers, one word--PEACE!"

A racist trancemaster:

2006-01-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

Xanga blogger Crazee Michi has been doing a lot of legwork on Adam Carolla's latest racist jackass antics.
On his radio show, Carolla ran a skit mocking the Asian Excellence Awards. Here is the transcript:

adam says:: the asians have an awards show now... can you believe it... we have some early tape of the show... here is the awardee's speech for best male TV performance..
(roll some award-show-ish music)
Voiceover: CHING CHONG CHING CHONG CHING CHONG CHING CHONG CHING CHONG

Then: the same thing, but in a female voice for "female tv performance"

You can listen to the clip here.

Cutting this apart, it's not hard to figure out what the "humor" is supposed to be here. Asian-looking people can't speak English and sound funny. The reason why I stress "looking" is because the two winners of those awards, as michi points out, are fluent English speakers. But I highly doubt that Carolla's people did that kind of research anyway. They just saw, "Asian" and thought "Ching Chong Ching Chong" and cracked themselves up.

There are two types of humor in the world. There is quirky, incongruous humor and there is conditioned, trance humor. The first is when someone says something completely unexpected and it elicits a laugh. The second is when someone says something that we have been taught to laugh to. There's deep artistry in the first type of humor and practically none in the second. It's really no different from pressing the "Laugh" button on the studio audience. Basically, over time, many people (not only whites) in society have been conditioned to laugh when the same racial stereotypes are raised again and again.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't laugh at these moments or they should be vilified. We should just recognize it for what it is: a complete lack of effort on the part of the "comedian", a conditioned response to a racist stimulus on the part of the audience, and most of all, a woeful lack of attention to the real damage that these stereotypes cause to other human beings (who happen to have the misfortune of being born the wrong color).

They have every right to make their money and laugh it up, but criticial thinking folks also have the right to say, "What a bunch of racist assholes!"

For those new to this topic, lets review a bit...What is this terrible hurt I'm referring to? Basically, Americans of Asian descent are viewed as permanent foreigners--eternal others, who can never be accepted as legitimate human beings like our white countrymates. That might seem abstract and not such a big deal to people who can take their sense of national belonging for granted, so let me put it more bluntly: Concentration Camps. Multi-generational Japanese Americans were thrown in concentration camps during WWII because of the perceptions of otherness that plagued them. In the present day, such "otherness" results in a problems in every area from education and employment to dating and socializing.

That's good and all, but what do we do to address this:
CBS radio has responded with the "generic white people offensive apology" (We didn't mean to offend anyone with our blantant racism. We think people should roll over and play dead whenever they experience racism.), but right now Asian American activists are organizing an action to encourage CBS to address the situation more concretely.

What should I do if someone says this to me on the street?
Let me start by saying, "Yes! It actually does happen quite frequently!"
I'm just a half-breed, but I get this crap relatively frequently, so I'd be super surprised if most Asian Americans don't fact it at one time or another.

The key is not to just cry, "Racist!!!" but to out the other person's racism in such a graphic display that nobody in their right mind would want to be complicit or aid them.

Here's one that I often use (and have written up before on The Fighting 44s web site)

I always find it useful to play it off like it wasn't meant to be a joke:
Racist Asshole: "Ching Chang Chong! Wing Wang Wong!"
Me: "Yeah, I agree, but I didn't know you spoke Chinese so well!"
Racist Asshole: "What?"
Me: "I was just surprised to hear you say, 'I'm a racist asshole' in perfect, accentless Chinese!"

If they protest, just say, "I'm not calling you a racist, you said it yourself!" and then ask other people in the crowd if they heard the same thing.

They'll probably quickly abandon their dreams of being the next Adam Carolla, racist trance humor master.

Lame-ass mechanism for humanization

2006-01-24T11:30:00.000-06:00

Matt tossed up this on his blog, and I'm finally forced to admit these things have a purpose. One of my friends was telling me that I need to humanize myself more instead of being a "mythical debating creature", and since I seem to be impaired in my ability to do so, let's give this thing a shot...

Four jobs you have had in your life:

Grocery bagger
Japanese Human Rights Education Teacher
Software Developer
Assistant Educational Outreach Coordinator (wow job titles sure aren't helpful)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Romeo Must Die!
Saved!
Yomigaeri!
God of Gamblers! (ok, the last two don't really have

Four places you've lived:
Chicago, IL
Champaign-Urbana, IL
Namino, Kumamoto, JP
Akashi, Hyogo, Japan
Raleigh, NC
Pittsburgh, PA
(So much for four...)

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Boston Legal
Grey's Anatomy
Avatar
Hey! Hey! Hey!

Four places you've been on vacation:
Thailand
Michigan Dunes
Ottawa/Montreal
Tokyo

Four of your favorite foods:
cheese
chocolate mousse
pizza
gnocchi

Four sites I visit daily:
It's Matt's World
The Fighting 44's
Angry Asian Man
Baseball Think Factory

Four things that remind me of death:
The number 4
Copies of Video Tapes
Columbus Day
The "W"

Auditing our time

2006-01-20T00:56:00.000-06:00

From today's Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: My story is a little different from "Stressed Out's," but it applies. I live near a beautiful trail in California. If you take the path to the left, it takes about an hour and a half to walk, and it is beautiful and peaceful. My husband always wanted me to walk that way. On the occasions when I agreed to walk, I'd insist we go the opposite way, which took only 45 minutes and wasn't nearly as pretty. I had too much to do and not enough time to do it, considering the kids, the errands, the house, etc.

Now I walk that trail the long way almost every day, but I'm doing it alone. My husband died two years ago. Now I ask myself what was so important I couldn't take the extra 45 minutes to go the longer and more beautiful way with him. It's the little things I miss the most, Abby. Life is so short, and there are no guarantees. -- ALONE NOW IN CALIFORNIA

There's a score of cynical, snarky responses to this sentiment, but let's be real: How many of us, especially those middle-class and privileged folks, don't squander a generous portion of our time on the planet? How much better could we be?

Speaking of which, beyond the normal veiled racism and leaps of logic, I thought there was something particular sinister in Dennis Byrne's latest contribution.

But Chavez wasn't counting on Chicago being Chicago, where the CTA initially turned down the offer. And set off the usual outbreaks by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and others from the we're-more-compassionate-than-everyone-else set.

Fiscal conservativism, etc. whatever I can handle, this is the stuff I can't get over--the "caring about other people is a sign of a character flaw". Don't get me wrong, blatant self-promoters deserve criticism from people who actually work to address the problems themselves. But nothing Gutierrez said concerning this issue pointed to an attempt toward self-promotion. He really just wanted to see this money go to poor Chicagoans and didn't want to see a blind hatred for a certain political platform deny assistance to his constituents.

That's the difference I see--I don't like Castro's regime, but when he offers medical training to brilliant, poor American kids, and our government doesn't, it's hard to respect Bush's criticisms of such programs. Shit, I don't like Bush's regime, but I'm not go to send back his checks for neighborhood schools (which have been pretty scarce these days...).

blatant self-promoters who do great humanitarian work are more compassionate than cynics mocking them for their style who do nothing. Let's step out of bizarro world where cynicism is God and return to a society where people can't use other's compassion as a focal point for mocking them.

1 stolen wallet, $412,000 in hole

2006-01-14T02:41:00.000-06:00

The Trib ran this story last week (subscription needed maybe).

Basically, this performer at Second City Chicago had her wallet stolen and quickly called to cancel all of her cards and shit. Here's where it gets a little off-the-wall. The thieves used her belongings to pose as her to open a series of morgages on Chicago buildings. Then the loan companies came after her and ruined her credit, trying also to get her to pay the $412,000 tab they had been stuck with. In addition to having no credit, she had to pay about $10,000 in legal bills.

I'm not a big fan of a lot of the horror stories in the newspaper because there's not really much to be learned from them. However, I hope we do learn a bunch from this one.

So what went wrong?
1. The CPD did nothing. When she told the police what was going on, not only did they fail to track those using her identity, but one of them told her to dye her hair move out of town.

2. Those OKing the sales were complete morons. The person posing as Ross in the deals used a driver's license with no state ID# on it. The contact addresses on the contract were empty lots. The lawyer presiding is facing charges for losing another family their home. The actual owners of the properties were not involved at all, and also listed with fake addresses.

3. The courts provided no protection, but instead were used as a means for the loan companies who held the fradulent morgages to harass Ross and the actual owners.

In the end, in addition to Ross' losses, two of the home owners were forced to pay a large sum to settle their fake mortgages and the third lost the property entirely.

If anything, the banks should just foot the bill. After all, they were involved and stood to make a lot of money on the loans. The people left dealing with the costs are people who had nothing to do with the incident--there was nothing they could do to prevent the fraud.

"Cape of Good Hope" and other Facets stuff

2006-01-13T15:57:00.000-06:00

Liz and I caught the film "Cape of Good Hope" at Facets last week. We're still riding on the family plan that lets us see unlimited movies at the theatre plus rent three DVDs at a time for about $25/month.

The film was excellent and you can read Ebert's review here. I won't spoil the film as it's a true must see, so please catch it if it comes to your local art theatre or grab it on DVD when it comes out.

As one of the rare films that adequately balances race/class/gender issues with an uplifting story, there were a couple things I wanted to discuss:

1. From Ebert's review:
The movie was directed by Mark Bamford; his wife Suzanne Kay Bamford co-wrote and co-produced. At the Toronto festival, they told me they were Americans who were unable to interest Hollywood in the stories they wanted to tell. They moved to Cape Town "for one year," are still there after four. Ironically, their screenplay for "Cape of Good Hope" attracted the interest of Hollywood, but the studios wanted to use an American cast to play the South Africans. That would have lost the particular local flavor that is one of the film's assets.

Once again, racist, nativist, stupid Hollywood strikes again. You have a team of empathetic, immensely talented writers and they are driven away because Hollywood needs its latest Comic Book rewrite. Then once they write a beautiful work, the studios want to de-soul it and put some random American beautiful people in the roles. Maybe they could have gotten Chris Tucker to play the romantic, powerful black lead?

2. There was a brilliant moment where that lead (played by Eriq Ebouaney) is out on a first date of sorts with one of the main female characters and her son. They drive into town and watch a big movie-ish screen next to one of the city gas stations. At one point (and I'm not going to get the direct quote) he turns to her and says, "White people do the strangest things!" And I just busted out laughing. I looked around and realized that no one else was laughing, although as I laughed, an Asian American couple in the front of the theatre also started laughing. I felt truly empowered. Before someone jumps all over me with assessments of racism, let me explain.

The character in the film was not commenting on "the white race"; he was merely making the observation that many ethnic minority folks make when assessing the group in power. He was saying, "These white folks, who by default in our society are always right, really look pretty foolish at least as much of the time as everyone else." And he rolled that into a little 5-second comment.

That might seem like nothing, but it's actually a pretty courageous act. It's hard to be a dissenter--a minority voice--and it takes a type of heroic bravery to say, "The Emperors have no clothes" especially on a first date.

Do we have this courage? I don't know. I guess I did in that crowd of white folks at the Facets Cinemateque. And maybe, just maybe, that lent some to that couple in the front row. And hopefully it made a few people squirm.

We need to do this more. We need to stop self-censoring around ethnic majority folks and just say what we think and laugh when we want to. They are free to judge and disapprove, but maybe they will actually have to spend an ounce of empathetic energy to realize that their perspective is not the only one. Let's do this not in order to mock and feel superior, but in the hopes it can help us all meet somewhere and improve our society.

So that's my prescription: Laugh more at folks in the majority, question them, call them out when you think they are being condescending pricks. When they respond, assess their response empathetically and try to start a loving conversation.

A problem I'm having

2006-01-13T02:38:00.000-06:00

There's this guy out there--I'm not really sure who he is--but he's threatened my life several times. If he gets the jump on me, I'm dead for sure. I haven't seen him, but I do know for sure that he is a conservative white guy.

So it's kind of hard to know what to do. I guess I'm just going to start punching all the conservative white guys I see in the face.

Some might say that I would be better off trying to figure out why someone would want to threaten me instead of hurting and maiming people indescriminately (or in this example and our country's case, "descriminately"). To them I say, "Why do you hate me? Do you want to embolden the terror--I mean the guy after me?"

(Inspired by Matt)

Quick Quiz:

2006-01-12T01:21:00.000-06:00

What happens when people can no longer make evidence supported appraisals of "racism"?

There is no way to root out existing racism of any kind.

If you think the charges are wrong, awesome. If you attempt to shutdown any appraisal of "racism", then you are enabling all racism.

As an added bonus piece of advice: Racists aren't bad people! This is a rumor circulated by aversive racists. The next time you hear someone say, "He's a good man! There's a black guy I know who would say so!" call Bullshit.

Everyone is "a good guy" to a wide variety of people. The Nazis were "good people". Slaveholders were "good" enough guys to get their land back after they started a treasonous war against their own government.

Are you kidding me?

2006-01-11T18:02:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching part of the Alito hearings and all I can say is "Are they really considering this guy?" Of course I hate his guys because his politics suck. That's fine. That's probably going to be that way regardless who the "W" nominates.

I guess I would just like to see them dig up someone who will actually take responsibility and say what they believe instead of dodging questions. Isn't it helpful to a judge on the highest court in the land to actually believe in his own appraisels of issues enough that he's secure enough to articulate them to Congress?

I don't care if he's the pale offspring ofThurgood Marshall, I'd like to be able to evaluate that instead of have to sort through "That's a complicated issue"-type responses. Can't we just be honest with our beliefs and stances, and then evaluate the qualifications of the candidate?

Plus, he hates black people and women. But that's another story ;)

Ain't this a bookstore?

2006-01-11T00:29:00.000-06:00

Asimov writes about the decadent deterioration of a great civilization with the wisdom to realize that most of those in the middle of the decline don't know that anything has changed. They have no point of comparison, so they don't know that their society in the present is any different from its past versions.

As neighborhoods yield to suburban lockdowns and community gathering places become havens for individuals to isolate and consume (money, time, opiates, etc.), how many of us even know what we are missing?

The Women and Children First Bookstore on Clark in Chicago is a relic of sorts from a time when a trip to the bookstore was a place to nurture one's soul rather than one's insecurities and desires to consume. Rather than stocking materials that will sell, the store stocks a wide array of works by and for women, children's books of all kids and works of gay and lesbian fiction and non. Beyond that, they have various presentations by authors and others, which are far more "teach-in" than "book promotions".

Tonight, the store hosted a Power Point presentation on the struggle for women's access to health care. It was given by the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, an organization that did much to fight for gender equality in the Chicago area for a decade starting in the late 60's.

The impact of the presentation was amplified by the detail in their accounts of the time and the prescense of dozens of former members in the audience. In all, I would estimate between 100-200 people in audience for the event.

As Liz and I watched, it really made the current mainstream perceptions of feminism feel utterly absurd. It's only been several decades since physicians regularly sterilized women for being poor and colored. Only recently have many women had access to information about their own bodies and health.

And sorry, it wasn't these "reasonable" folks who mock feminism who made it happen. In most cases, it was radical, crazy, feminist women educating each other and performing procedures on each other that shook our society into positive change.

Nor is it a permanent shift. Even as we speak, more and more American women and children (and men) are losing access to adequate health care. The gain made in terms of health education have been eroded to the point that students can no longer get information about their own health or where to seek knowledge from their school environment.

Finally, there is the spectre of the abortion issue. However you feel about the morality of abortion, access should not be the issue. The reason why radical groups push for an increase in access to abortions is not because they take joy in the act. It is because a drop in access means that poor women will lose access to the same medical procedures that rich women have access to. So if you believe women should have to support the little parasites they (not alone mind you) conceived through delivery, that's a different battle. Greater access means equal opportunity. We're supposed to like that in this country, right?

Anyway, if you get a minute, check out the CWLU homepage. It documents an important part in the struggle for equality in our nation's history and present.

Is Human Love just penises and vaginas frolicing?

2006-01-07T01:57:00.000-06:00

If you get a moment check out Matt's latest blog entry in which he revisits the arguments of an anti-gay columnist for the DI.

Matt is right to call out Bambenek for the faulty logic he uses to justify his hate. As he points out, the columnist trots out the tired old argument, "I have an opinion, why should I apologize for it. I'm not talking about killing off the Jews." Like many equality issues, people have been killed over this, but it's the hate filled anti-gay who have doing the killing, not the dying...

Personally, I don't want Bambenek to apologize for his opinion, but I also don't think he should have such a defensive response when people critique his opinion. His opinion is founded in bigotry of the most fundamental kind and as long as he's willing to acknowledge that and doesn't work actively to deprive people of their civil liberties, he's welcome to go procreate among those accepting of his zealous bigotry.

I guess the question I want to address beyond Matt's analysis is "How do people get like this?" I believe these bigots when they claim that they actually think that they are the loving, non-hateful types. I think they really say, "Yeah, there are gay folks out there who worked there asses off just to have kids, but they are the exception to the rule, whereas folks like me became true fuck-ups of parents through less effort, so we should have marriage and other family rights and they shouldn't!" and they actually believe it!

But this is not to mock "crazy, out-there bigots" because we all can fall into this trap. You see, privilege--racial, gender, class, sexual orientation, religious, occupational, etc.--for all it's envied and emulated, truly is a bitch, and this is a beautiful example of what it does to us. We bask in our ignorant bliss of others' reality; no longer able to empathize with them or relate to their humanity. When we have privilege, the society is designed for us--we are "normal" and we don't have to think or work to "fit". Most of the time, we can avoid many of the situations where you would have to face the pain of adjusting our perspective. We don't even know where to start when we are forced to overcome minority statuses. When we face this situation, many curl into a ball, whine and use our privilege to complain about how persecuted we are.

But let's step outside for a minute. Among their many human pursuits, people love. Some of them love monogamously. They want to make covenants with their love. They want to create families with those loves. Those families come in all shapes and forms. In some societies, people claim to believe in "equal opportunity". In those societies, there's always folks who try to make people different from them face more obstacles and deprive them of their right to love and create familes. These folks are against "equal opportunity".

Does anyone have a problem with this that they can articulate without being as insulting as to say that "God disappoves of some of these loves because the penis or vagina is the most important organ in a human being" or "Some human beings having sex is like animals and humans having sex" or "It's my right to have the equal opportunity to deprive others of their opportunities because it wigs me out" or "Some people I've never met make bad parents or are bad influences on children"? I'd love to hear something new. That would help me believe that privilege hasn't blocked millions upon million of people from their ability to empathize.

After all, it's not your penis or vagina that makes you a human being. It's not having the right number of kids with the right number of parents and the right products surrounding them all. It's not calling our creator or driving force by the proper name like we are on some game show. It's not hating the right or wrong groups of people. There is one thing that makes up human and that's our capacity for empathy.

Late Christmas Shopping

2005-12-22T01:21:00.000-06:00

In case some of you still haven't found that perfect excuse to spew conspicuous consumption all over that special someone, here's a great gift. After all, what says Merry *Dominant Consumerist Holiday* like a "Whimsical citrus squeezer and goblet"?

But I realize that the $53 price tag might be a little steep for some of you. I mean we love our loved ones, but $53??!!

Luckily, I am marketing this new product which performs the exact functions, but with a price tag that won't make you yearn for the days of slavery and indentured servitude:
You probably want to see that again:

That's right! It's a wooden spoon with the words, "I strive to be a racist fuck because it shows that I'm oh so trendy and subversive" inscribed on the handle!

All for the super-low price of $37 plus shipping and handling!

"But wait!" you ask. "Does it have as clever and subtlely clever and kitchy clever name as the 'Mandarin Squeezer'?"

Need you even ask?

Please place an order for an "Ignorant Cracker Spoon" today!

Where does this name come from? Why of course from the multi-purpose nature of this wonderous contraption. In addition to squeezing oranges, you can also use it to spoon "Boston Crackas" on to your Chowdah or "Saltines" into your Shark's Fin soup...

What? You don't eat Saltines in your Shark's Fin soup? Do you have something against Crackers?

So order one today! Squeeze your oranges, demonstrate your amazing hipster charm, and build your wrist muscles faster than a stupid asshole with AFS looking at Phan Thi Kim Phuc pictures!