Is there anything more ridiculous than the notion of war as a humanitarian mission?
I suppose it depends on if you’re the bomber or the bombed upon.
As I heard President Obama lay down his justification for military action in Libya the other night, I wondered if I understood what he was saying. Wa
I wish they hadn’t taken down that YouTube video of the now ex-UCLA coed who created a Sheen-like commotion last week with her anti-Asian rant.
It was so perfect as the look of fresh, modern unconscious racism. It was the girl next door channeling Archie Bunker. Except Archie Bunker’s a fiction, Al
As a senior host for NPR’s “All Things Considered” from 1989-1991, I was one of the first Asian Americans to regularly anchor a national news program when I co-hosted the weekends with Lynn Neary.
Some of my favorite memories involve the handwritten and very personal notes I’d receive from listener
While the media was all agog giving airtime to Charlie Sheen last week, you had to look pretty hard to find coverage of something far more important to society: the gross and unfair treatment of federal court nominee Goodwin Liu.
Liu has a name Sheen would admire (if it is all about “winning,” Liu
Full disclosure right up front: Years ago before the first tech crash, I worked with David Chiu at Grassroots.com. I was a mere VP of webcasting. One of the big benefactors said I would be the next Larry King.
I guess he hadn’t yet heard of Piers Morgan.
The real problem was the iPod hadn’t been i
If you’ve been following what’s going on in state houses in Wisconsin and New Jersey, it’s just the beginning of a major catastrophe that will soon spread to my home state, California.
There used to be red states and blue states.
Now there are just red-ink states.
The problem is, red leadership s
Flying into New York last week on a jet enabled for TV, it was a treat to watch democracy in action throughout the world. On one channel, Egypt was in full democratic eruption seeking a new modern future. On another channel was Arizona State Senator Ron Gould, advocating yet another backward step ch
Asian Americans usually never miss the boat. But maybe we have when it comes to Rush Limbaugh. (That would be a big boat, too.)
If you haven’t heard Limbaugh try to sound like your Asian ancestors, that’s good. You’ve been spared the slur.
But to hear it may be different.
Just a few weeks back wh
As an Asian American and the longtime writer of a column called “Amok,” I felt a strong spiritual obligation to be at the inaugural celebration of Fred T. Korematsu Day held last Sunday, Jan. 30, in Berkeley.
Now here’s a guy who went amok in the most metaphorical sense of the word.
Sunday would h
If you feared that this State of the Union address would be a sharp right turn from hope and change, relax.
It was the best speech our first bi-racial president searching for middle ground could make.
President Obama was purposefully in the key of C all night. No sharps. No flats. No real exciteme
The final list isn’t official yet. But if San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan are among the guests at tonight’s state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao, then surely someone in the Obama administration can make space for Tiger Mom.
Tiger Mom?
Unless you’ve been living in a m
It’s official. And in Asian American history, it’s a big deal.
San Francisco’s new mayor is named Lee—Ed Lee, the first Asian American of Chinese descent to hold that position.
Anyone who jokes that he’s mayor because they lowered the height requirement, you’ve got to like. Then again, you might j
In California, with 4.4 million Asian Americans–the most Asian state in the nation–Jerry Brown is once again the chief executive.
Are you ready for the pain?
Previously a two-term governor at age 36, Brown is back for a third term at age 72, after a mid-life spent in pursuit of the White House, an
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be watching Sunday night football on Tuesday and feeling happy that Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania will be out of office on Jan. 18.
It couldn’t come soon enough.
He may not like it that America is getting “soft,” but that doesn’t mean he has to go borderline raci
Too many historic votes in the Senate this past weekend. Some good. Some bad.
So maybe it’s appropriate that my week began by attending a funeral of a young Asian American.
My nephew Brian Francisco was just 31, an American born Filipino with a little “rasta” accent thrown in.
A “Rastapino,” we c
When Barack Obama gets in trouble, he usually rallies with a rousing and passionate speech. But his compromising ways have turned him into just half the man we thought he was.
So as the hot talk in Washington turns to tax cuts, we don’t get a passionate president fighting for the common man. We get
This week when Congress is expected to finally vote on the so-called Dream Act, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will vote to kill it.
And what of his one-time role as a lead sponsor of the original bill many years ago?
It turns out THAT was just a dream.
Hatch is one of a handful of legislators now poi
For all journalists, this I know to be true: We all love a good leak.
It’s the sexy part of the news game, to reveal something that heretofore was so off-limits and so verboten. That makes it one lucky day when a reporter is leaked upon for subsequent dissemination. It’s practically orgasmic.
Stil
In the last few weeks, airport security has gone X-rated in the hunt for terrorists. A new era has arrived when airline passengers are being quoted in the New York Times saying, “I didn’t really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants.”
We didn’t have to go there. But we have. And we’re stil
Nineteen years ago, the musical Miss Saigon first came to Broadway with a white actor augmented by eye prosthesis and bronzing cream to make him look more Asian.
Sound a bit too Charlie Chan-like for the modern day? It seemed that way to me, and I said as much in a commentary on NPR at the time.
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