If the George Zimmerman verdict doesn’t feel like justice, it’s because his legal team in the Trayvon Martin killing focused on a self-defense strategy.
Nothing wrong with that; it proved to be a good one for Zimmerman. Especially when the prosecution went along with the idea, essentially cancellin...
Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, the two 16-year-old Chinese school girls who died in the Asiana Airlines crash this weekend, aren’t around to experience the kind of knee-jerky modern racism toward Asians the tragedy inspired in both mainstream and social media.
They’ve been spared.
But 14-year-old Mi...
Sandra Hernandez and Mailee Wang finally got their June wedding–to each other.
San Francisco got the jump on history, opening its City Hall for business over the weekend with the Supreme Court ruling on Prop 8 having cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California.
On Saturday, nearly 250 marr...
It was like an early Independence Day celebration.
Pride parades took place in New York, Houston, and San Francisco over the weekend. As a straight male, I witnessed the scene in all three cities in the past. (I remember going to the Farm House in Houston in 1975!) As a journalist in San Francisco,...
To me, Supreme Court rulings always tend to be so Solomonic.
But in Fisher v. University of Texas, SCOTUS, in its wisdom, actually found a way to cut the baby in half without cutting up the baby.
Instead of using Fisher as the case to end affirmative action, SCOTUS chose to vacate the ruling that ...
The Supreme Court has a flair for the dramatic. But it’s not quite “Waiting for Godot.” We do know all the critical decisions people have been waiting for will be decided before the Court’s summer recess. Besides, those robes need to be dry-cleaned.
Since technically you don’t need to have a law de...
If you’ve had time to let it sink in this weekend as you touched and manipulated your second brain–a/k/a your smartphone–then you know Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old CIA operative out of Hawaii, really shouldn’t be in hiding.
He should be hailed as a 21st century patriot, a latter-day Paul Revere ...
Hipsters are so hip, but apparently they are not too hip for racism.
How else can anyone explain the blatant racial slur on the May 25 episode of “Maron” on IFC, the Independent Film Channel?
Just so you don’t think I’m some cranky PC pundit out to get your favorite low-rated cable show, let’s mak...
My 17-year-old daughter came into the living room the other night while I watched HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra,” the Liberace biopic based on the tell-all book by his chauffeur/lover/victim/plaintiff Scott Thorson.
“What are you watching?” my daughter asked.
“A movie about Liberace,” I told her. “...
In the immigration vote this week, the new political pecking order was laid out in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Corporations, si. (Especially the hi-tech ones like Facebook and Friends, and all their lobbyists.)
Families, no. (Not if you want to petition for an older married child or a brother ...
This just in–well, not really, but you may not have heard it in the news since it has nothing to do with the IRS, the AP, Benghazi, or Angelina Jolie’s voluntary double mastectomy.
A bipartisan group in the House revealed late on May 16 that it has reached an immigration deal in principle. Aides to...
In case it slipped your mind, it’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Come on, get AAPI!
If you’re non-Asian, let’s hope someone of Asian descent goes amok and greets you in an atypically loud, outlandish, and celebratory way. Sort of like Norm Mineta planting a wet one on Joe Bid...
I’ve given funny, satirical speeches before. And while a steady stream of laughs is the objective, it’s like baseball. Stringing together some titters and chortles is like bunting your way to victory. It helps if you can hit a few home runs, too.
In comedy, the home run is the laugh that goes ten s...
This was the dark-skinned suspect that turned the world upside down last week.
As the media takes its time to catch its breath after the coverage of the Boston blasts, it’s interesting to review how race played a major part in coverage from the very beginning.
I mean, really, how did we get that...
The sweeping new Senate immigration bill finally unveiled this week was delayed because of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15.
But because Boston is on everyone’s minds, it’s unlikely anything will happen to it for awhile.
So let’s begin by remembering Chinese grad student Lu Lingzi, ...
If you have ever wondered why “No.1” in newspapers is spelled that way instead of “#1,” or “Number 1,” or “Number One,” well, that’s AP style.
And the No.1 reason it exists is to enable the Associated Press’s cookie-cutter approach in the dissemination of news copy to multiple outlets worldwide all...
If you relied on an e-mail notification on your admission to college last week, you may or may not have been accepted–or rejected–by the college of your choice.
A faulty e-mailing program is being blamed for thousands of e-mails sent to people in the University of California system and other nation...
With snow in Washington, the “Deck the Halls” phrase, “Don we now our gay apparel,” comes to mind.
It’s 2013 and already we’ve seen a former detractor, GOP Senator Rob Portman, persuaded to come out for same-sex marriage in support of his gay son. We’ve even heard Republican political strategist Ka...
Waiting for the Supreme Court ruling in Fisher? Forget it. The fix is in. Affirmative Action for Whites is coming as more colleges use class to trump race in college admissions.
Didn’t you read the front page of the New York Times on Sunday?
The right column front is always where editors place “th...
Shucks. There’s no ban on over-sized sugary soda in New York after all.
But that’s OK.
I ban soda all on my own. I don’t drink soda anymore. Not through these lips. When I have to slake a thirst, I keep it simple.
Water, please.
It’s normally free of calories, sugar, or sweeteners.
But is it cl...
