WoW and Me

As an avid gamer and addict fan of World of Warcraft, I came across this vid and LOL'd. Enjoy!

VT Aftermath

Two articles by way of Angry Asian Man, a possible incident of anti-Asian violence at Auburn University. It's being investigated as a retaliatory attack after the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech. And an essay written by a high school student that had violent themes was reported to the police for investigation. The identity of the kid? He's Asian, and a straight A student.

Summer Daze

It's almost over. One more week of lecture, and a week for final exams, and the Spring semester will be officially over.

I can't wait.

Banners

If you haven't noticed, I'm using a script that allows me to use custom headers that alternate each time the home page is accessed. Just in case you don't see them all, I posted all of them here with a description. All shots are taken by me unless stated otherwise.

#1: Evening shot of Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA. I adjusted the tint and saturation.


#2: From Thomas Hawk, photographer, of Coit Tower and Bay Bridge.


#3: Grand Central Terminal, NY. I changed the color pictures to B/W.


#4: Grand Central Terminal, NY. Same as above.


#5: Bleecker Street Station, NY. Adjusted the saturation, tint, and gave it a blotting effect.


#6: Street shot in Arlington, VA, at first snowfall. Totally random.


#7: Photo from my cellphone camera. Resolution was bad so I used a pixelated filter to give it better texture.


#8: Art shot from Hirshhorn Museum. It's a neon lit wagon.


#9: More art. Hirshhorn Museum. Collection of Hershey's bar labels.


#10: The Wish Tree by Yoko Ono in front of the Hirshhorn Museum.

DC Walkabout - At the Hirshhorn Museum

New photos added to the photoblog.

"This is what I've heard thus far."

I was going to write another post about the newest development in the VA Tech shooting with links to his video and other posts.

But I decided against it. I'm pretty fed up with the major news networks, their coverage, and the spin machine for various political agendas. Even the progressive / liberal coverage is just falling short on so many points. And I don't even want to talk about the conservative pundits -- they're simply too heinous to reiterate.

But I'm going to talk about this in my own way and on my own terms. And this is what I've heard thus far.

I just heard that the fear of a backlash against Korean Americans is on the rise, and two Korean students were physically assaulted as an act of retaliation was reported. I've heard that the South Korean embassy is asking the Korean American community here for assistance in locating their students because of this growing backlash. That the international students should find other locations from their current residences, and to travel in pairs or have escorts for their own safety.

And that's all I have for now.

"Asian" or "Asian American?" (Cont)

Reposting from SFGate.com. It's a great article addressing this problem of the shooter's racial and national identity, and it's impact on political discourses and analysis.

Virginia Tech Massacre
Shooter Debate: Speculation Mars Discussion Online
by Vanessa Hua

Initial media reports described Cho Seung-Hui -- whose shooting rampage Monday at Virginia Tech left 33 dead, including himself -- as a resident alien, an Asian and a South Korean.

On Tuesday, racially tinged speculation, based on the 23-year-old Cho's heritage and immigrant status, flew around the Internet, even though he spent two-thirds of his life in the United States.

"Yet another reason for the U.S. to further restrict immigration to this country," a user going by the name of Christabella posted on a blog at SFGate.com, The Chronicle's Web site. "Had they not allowed Cho to waltz into the nation on a student visa, those 33 people would still be alive."

Cho, the underlying argument went, was a foreigner.

That kind of thinking has alarmed Asian American leaders. Overemphasis in news coverage of his immigrant status, and stereotyping in general, could influence perceptions of all Asian Americans -- not only Koreans -- especially in areas with little connection to Asians and Asian Americans, said Eric Mar, a San Francisco school board member who is Chinese American.

The Asian American Journalists Association, headquartered in San Francisco, questioned stories and online comments posted Tuesday morning that highlighted Cho's race and immigration status because that emphasis suggested those factors played a role in the shootings.

In fact, Cho was like many school shooters -- about three-quarters of whom have been white boys and young men, according to a 2000 report from the U.S. Secret Service. Cho appeared to feel marginalized and angry, according to criminologists and psychologists such as Louis B. Schlesinger, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Born in South Korea, Cho, 23, immigrated as a child to the United States in 1992. He was raised in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, the son of a couple who worked at a dry-cleaning business. He was sullen and depressed, an English major whose twisted fiction concerned faculty and a fan of bloody shooting games, according to media reports.

"A useful way to think about this is, 'How connected might an individual feel to a community and a society?' " said Daniel Webster, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University. "Sometimes the barriers might be racial, sometimes it might be language. Sometimes it might be their own mental health that prevents them from forming bonds."

The public is attempting to make sense of the tragedy by categorizing Cho and his motivations, said James Garbarino, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, and author of "Lost Boys: Why Our Boys Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them."

People have "an impulse to distance themselves" from the campus killer, Garbarino said. "The more someone is like one of us, the harder it is to sleep."

Some of the people posting to blogs and chat rooms online Tuesday blamed Cho's actions on his "foreign" status. Others dismissed such arguments as preposterous and asserted that the massacre resulted from easy access to guns, violence in the media or the popularity of violent video games. Still others theorized he was a member of al Qaeda, carrying out a terrorist attack. He was an English-as-a-second-language student depressed about finals, according to another theory.

Indeed, commentators' theories may say more about them than about the gunman.

"It's a psychological protective technique," said Franklin Zimring, a criminologist at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. "This is about gun control, or immigration, or not allowing guns on campus. People are painting the picture."

Backlash Against Korean Americans

Reposted from Salon.com.

"It's Like When 9/11 Happened"
With the Virginia Tech shooter's identity revealed, some Koreans, fearing a backlash, are fleeing the campus.

by Joe Eaton

Apr. 17, 2007 | As Virginia Tech students grieve the worst shooting in American history, which left 33 dead on this state university campus in southwestern Virginia, some Korean students and their parents are fearing a backlash.

Police announced this morning that Cho Seung-hui was the suspect in the shooting deaths of 32 students and staff members in two Virginia Tech buildings. Cho apparently killed himself with a gunshot to the head. Cho, 23, was a permanent U.S. resident who was born in South Korea and moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 1992.

At about 1 p.m. Monday in front of Harper Hall, the residence hall where Cho lived on the second floor, Young-je Ko, 21, and his girlfriend Hyun-jung Kim, 19, sat in a black Mustang preparing to leave campus. Ko, a senior accounting major, said he and other South Korean students are afraid to stay on campus. Ko said many of their friends in a Korean Christian group were also planning to leave Blacksburg for Northern Virginia.

"It's like when 9/11 happened," Ko said. "Arab people are victims even though they didn't do anything wrong. It's just the same to me." Ko said Korean students have been e-mailing and calling each other since the release of Cho's name this morning. He said he wanted to attend today's convocation at 2 p.m., where President Bush was scheduled to speak, but friends warned him against it. "People said don't attend because it could be a bad situation," he said.

Ko, who emigrated from South Korea in 2001, and Kim, who emigrated in 2002, were heading home to Annandale, Va., near Washington, where their parents live. "My parents were so worried," Kim said. "When I left my dorm, I felt like the white kids were staring at me."

Jae Kun Lee, a Korean national, also decided to leave. His parents had called him from South Korea, where the shooting is being covered extensively by the media, and expressed concern for his safety.

"Sooner or later it's going to impact us directly or indirectly," said Lee. "If someone lost a loved one, of course, they are upset. Some bad things might happened just because I am Korean."

Lee was heading to a friend's house in Northern Virginia. "It's good to stay away and wait."

Racist screeds have cropped up quickly among right-wing commentators and on the Internet, including the idea that Korean males are excessively prone to violent jealous rages.

In Christiansburg, Va., less than 10 miles from Blacksburg, Mi-hwan Park said her daughter Veronica would be attending the convocation. Veronica is a member of the campus Korean Society. Her mother said she raised her children to think of themselves as individuals more than part of a nationality. She hopes others see the crime as the act of an individual, but she is worried. "This is an individual thing, not a nation thing," she said.

Michael Ko and Mindy Koo, both 20-year-old Americans of Chinese descent, said other Asian-Americans they knew were afraid to be seen in public. "For me," said Ko, from Richmond, Va., "I just don't feel like I'm scared."

Mindy Koo said her parents called and asked her to leave Blacksburg and return to her home in Northern Virginia because they feared for her safety. She declined. "I feel that would be worse if all the Asian-Americans fled campus. We can't leave Virginia Tech in this time of grieving."

But Koo said she did wonder whether people were watching her this morning as she ate breakfast in a school dining hall. And Michael Ko said some of his friends had left Blacksburg.

Andy Wong is a 19-year-old freshman who lived on the same floor as Cho and never met the shooter, who has been characterized as a loner. Wong does not think there will be an anti-Asian backlash on campus. "It's not going to be taken as a race thing," he said. "People understand this is a special case."

Amy Ballard, a 19-year-old white sophomore at Virginia Tech, said that among her friends, the issue of the shooter's race and nationality hasn't really come up. "It's interesting that he was an international student, but I feel it isn't really relevant at all to anything."

Representatives of the South Korean government sent condolences after Cho's national origin was revealed. South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun said he was "indescribably shocked once again by the fact that the tragic shooting incident at Virginia Tech on April 16 was caused by a South Korean permanent resident.

"We convey deep condolences to the victims and their bereaved families and the [American] people," said Cho Byung-Jae, head of the North American affairs bureau of South Korea's foreign ministry. But he also mentioned that the government was taking "safety measures" for Koreans in the United States. He was apparently referring to the possibility of reprisal attacks against ethnic Koreans in the U.S. He said he hoped the shootings would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

Before Hyun-jung Kim and Young-je Ko drove out of the parking lot at Harris Hall, Ko questioned whether things might be worse in Annandale, a Northern Virginia city with a large Korean community. Still, he said he felt safer with family. "We are all Hokie [Virginia Tech students] here, but we don't know what will happen."

"Asian" or "Asian American?"

My friend over at Poplicks made this observation that he picked up over at Angry Asian Man. The shooter was Seung-Hui Cho, a senior majoring in English from South Korea. From the numerous reports, he is a legal resident of the US and his family resides in Centerville, VA. Now here's where it gets a bit dodgy ... He's 23 years old, but documents indicate he was living in the US since 1992. That's 15 years ago. That means he's been socialized as an "American kid" since he would've been 8 years old at the time he arrived to the US. So why are news agencies still calling him, seemingly at great lengths, a "legal immigrant" or a "resident alien?" Technically, he's "Asian American" or in Asian American Studies terms, he fits the classic 1.5 generation: foreign born, but raised in the US. There's very little to suggest that he's "foreign" in the recent immigrant sense of the term. He's just as American as the next kid. So what gives???

Signs of Intelligent Life

I don't make a habit of reading online comments because a lot of them are heinous and simply uncivilized. But I thought this was the smartest comment that I found in the New York Times:

I’ve been reading the comments and seen the following:

* people leaping to the assumption that the gunman was Muslim
* people leaping to the assumption that gun control would have stopped this
* people leaping to the assumption that an armed student body would have stopped this
* people leaping to the assumption that violence in the media fueled this

and frequently —

* people attacking each other’s comments and squabbling online

Meanwhile, the families of the victims are grieving.

And all I can think about is some words from the late Kurt Vonnegut, that could be equally directed to everyone involved in this discussion thread — “There’s only one rule that I know of – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

— Posted by KAW

A Sordid History of Shootings on US Colleges

The Chronicle for Higher Education compiled a pretty extensive list of shootings on colleges and universities in the US. I don't know if it's exhaustive one but it was clearly a sobering account of so many tragedies after I read them. I couldn't help but notice that the majority of them seem to have occurred in recent years. And there were marked differences between the decades as well from the shooting of student protestors at Kent State during the 1960s, to the 1990s and the recent massacre yesterday at VA Tech. Like I said, I don't know if it's an exhaustive list of all incidents, but I ignore the sudden increase of these shootings in the past decade.

"Major Shootings on American College Campuses"
by Lauren Smith

Following is a list of major shooting incidents on college campuses in the United States.

Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007: At least 33 dead as of Monday afternoon, including the gunman; 26 injured. The gunman opened fire in a dormitory and a classroom building, killing at least 30 people and injuring many others. (Chronicle article.)

University of Texas at Austin, August 1, 1966: 16 dead, including the gunman; 31 injured. From atop a 27-story tower, Charles J. Whitman shot and killed 13 people and wounded 31 others before he was shot dead by police. The night before, Mr. Whitman shot and killed his mother and his wife. During an autopsy, it was discovered that he suffered from a brain tumor that was affecting his limbic system, part of the brain involved with emotion and motivation. (Chronicle article.)

California State University at Fullerton, July 12, 1976: 7 dead; 2 injured. Edward C. Allaway, a custodian at the university, shot and killed seven people in the basement of a library, and injured two others. It was later discovered that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

University of Iowa, November 1, 1991: 6 dead, including the gunman; 1 injured. A Chinese physics student enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the university, Gang Lu, shot and killed five people and left another permanently paralyzed after his doctoral dissertation did not receive a prestigious award. The dead included Mr. Lu's adviser and co-adviser, the student who won the dissertation award, the physics-department chair, and the vice president for academic affairs. (Chronicle article.)

Kent State University, May 4, 1970: 4 dead; 9 injured. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded by members of the Ohio National Guard as they protested the United States' invasion of Cambodia. (Chronicle article.)

University of Arizona Nursing College, October 28, 2002: 4 dead, including the gunman. A 40-year-old failing student shot and killed three instructors before killing himself. (Chronicle article.)

Appalachian School of Law, January 16, 2002: 3 dead; 3 injured. Peter Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old law student from Nigeria, shot and killed the dean, a professor, and a student, and injured three others. (Chronicle article.)

San Diego State University, August 15, 1996: 3 dead. Frederick M. Davidson, a 36-year-old graduate student in engineering, shot and killed three professors while defending his thesis. (Chronicle article.)

Shepherd University, September 2, 2006: 3 dead, including the gunman. Douglas W. Pennington shot and killed his two sons, who were seniors at the university, and then himself. (Chronicle article.)

South Carolina State University, February 8, 1968: 3 dead; 27 injured. After rising racial tension over efforts to desegregate local bowling alleys, South Carolina Highway Patrolmen opened fire on a crowd of protesters.

Jackson State University, May 14, 1970: 2 dead; several injured. Two students were shot to death by local and state police officers during a protest of the United States' invasion of Cambodia. (Chronicle article.)

Simon's Rock College of Bard, December 14, 1992: 2 dead; 4 injured. Wayne Lo shot and killed a professor and a student, and wounded three other students and a security guard, before surrendering to the police. (Chronicle article.)

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, August 28, 2000: 2 dead, including the gunman. James E. Kelly, a 36-year-old graduate student recently dropped from a doctoral program, shot and killed the professor overseeing his work before killing himself. (Chronicle article.)

Case Western Reserve University, May 9, 2003: 1 dead; 2 injured. A 62-year-old alumnus, Biswanath Halder, killed one student and injured two others. He surrendered to authorities after a seven-hour standoff. (Chronicle article.)

Pennsylvania State University at University Park, September 17, 1996: 1 dead; 1 injured. Hiding in bushes outside the university's Hetzel Union Building, 19-year-old Jillian Robbins fired shots at passers-by, killing one and injuring another. (Chronicle article.)

VA Tech Shooting

I woke up this morning and did my usual thing of coffee, breakfast, and news when I found out that there was a shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. The details are unclear with a lot of rumors but there are fatalities and it is the worst shooting on a college in US history.

This is truly awful.

UPDATE (5:45pm EST): Holy shit. When I woke up this morning, the death toll was presumed to be less than 20. When I came back from work, the number is pushed to 33. I'm also hearing unconfirmed reports that the shooter was an Asian American male, and that some of the shootings were inside an engineering classroom. There's even a report about how there was a 2 hour gap between the first and second shootings. There's so many questions and I don't think the answers will be forthcoming on this horrific tragedy.

UPDATE (6:00pm EST): Out of all the links about this tragedy, this one caught my eye from SFGate.com which has a list of blogs from the students themselves as they talk about what happened. It's incredibly difficult to read. Also, I just heard that the news are now calling it the deadliest shooting in US history leaving out any reference to college. Finally, and not surprisingly, the rhetoric about NRA, gun control, violent video games, and everything else that needs to be censored and removed in popular culture is being discussed in full force. It's kind of pointless to even link it all since it's quite ubiquitous in the news and blogosphere.

I just wonder if we even get a moment to mourn anymore?

UPDATE (6:44pm EST): Is it me, or is MSNBC the only station identifying the gunman as "Asian American" and everyone else as either "American male" or "unknown"? I keep switching channels from one station to another and I read "Asian American" on the news ticker on MSNBC.

UPDATE (10:12pm EST): So now I'm hear the gunmen was a Chinese national ... ? Virginia Tech is in Blacksburg, VA. That's roughly 2 hours southwest from where I live in Arlington, VA.

"The Style, But Not the Substance" by Baraki Kitwana

OK, one last one and that's it. But I came across this article by way of Oliver Wang at Poplicks. It's an excellent piece by Baraki Kitwana at Newsday about Imus, black popular culture, and consumerism. It's one critical analysis that hits it on the mark.

The Style, But Not the Substance
Baraki Kitwana, Newsweek

When Don Imus put his foot in his mouth on the air last week with a dirty and derogatory reference to young black women, he was articulating a message that had been clearly voiced by Michael Richards, Rush Limbaugh and countless others long before him. Ditto the white law students at the University of Connecticut who donned big booties and blackface this year on Martin Luther King Day, as well as the rash of undergraduates across the country, from Michigan to South Carolina, who somehow imagine that hosting "pimp and ho parties"is a good idea.

That message is this: The aesthetics of hip-hop culture - from the language and clothing to the style and sensibility - can be absorbed into American popular culture like any other disposable product without any effort or responsibility on the part of the consumer.

It is an idea in part ushered in by the marginal voices of black youth themselves, youth so eager to be visible that they gave up far too much of their identity in the interest of partnering with the corporate music industry. Together, and all the while green-lighted by the Federal Communications Commission, a handful of rap artists packaged and commodified rap music (not to be confused with hip-hop culture lived daily by countless youth around the globe at a local level, from graffiti and break dancing to deejaying, spoken word poetry and political activism.).

Encouraged by the quick bucks, this partnership was quickly reinforced by additional peddlers of one-dimensional images of young black men as violent, and women as oversexed bitches and hos - from filmmakers and television producers to music video directors, comedians and beyond.

These snake oil salesmen marvel at the gravitational pull that hip-hop exerts over American youth and see dollar signs. Drawing necessary distinctions between the various lifestyles (street culture, prison culture and the traditional culture of black America) that converge on the national stage isn't even an afterthought.

The result is what cultural critic Greg Tate addressed in his 2005 book, "Everything but the Burden." That is, far too many American consumers of black popular culture don't take the time to decode the complexity of black life that produces a 50 Cent, a Jay-Z or a Russell Simmons, multi-millionaires all, who peddle rap music riddled with the language of the street.

When I interviewed Jay-Z as I was completing my book "Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Reality of Race in America," he put it this way: "Hip-hop is not clothing or a place you go, this is people's lives, people's culture."

But who picks up the slack when this gets lost on the consumer?

Imus - and his defenders who claim they learned this language from hip-hop - are only partly correct, even as they are wholly dishonest. They would do themselves and the country a service by owning up to at least three facts. 1) Imus took liberty with a culture that he didn't fully understand, and when he got called on it, rather than coming clean, he pointed the finger at hip-hop to take the weight. 2) Clearly those far more powerful than rappers are complicit in bringing pimp and ho talk to the American mainstream. 3) If indeed Imus is a hip-hop fan, innocently consuming its language and aesthetics, that doesn't remove him from the responsibility to understand hip-hop cultural and political roots in all their complexity.

Rather than an ignorant fan chopping it up in the living room with one of his buddies, he's a public figure whose voice is heard by millions. His responsibility then is even greater.

That is why he had to be removed from his radio and cable TV networks. Lest folks inside the hip-hop activist community who were calling for such be deemed hypocrites, let the record show that media justice advocates such as Davey D Cook (of the organization daveyd.com), Rosa Clementes (of R.E.A.C.H. Hip-Hop) and Lisa Fagers (of industryears.com) have for years been very loudly challenging the music industry and rappers to raise the bar.

Hip-hop's internal criticism is something that a 2007 study by the Black Youth Project recently documented. In a survey of 1,600 young people it found that the "overwhelming majority" of young people agree that rap music videos contain too many references to sex, and "the majority" agree rap music videos portray black women and black men in bad or offensive ways.

Maybe the flak over Don Imus' mean-spirited, sexist and racist comments can help to raise the volume of those voices. Our failure to hear them, like our failure to check Imus, can mean the difference between our ability to escape America's old racial politics and our historical tendency to drown in them.

The Daily Show on Imus

I promise, no more Imus. I'm tired of it too but I've got to include something from John Stewart's The Daily Show.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

I came back to see, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), with a couple of friends and it is absolutely stunning. Set in 1920 Ireland, the story is about two brothers drawn together in rebellion against British colonization, but torn apart when a peace treaty is signed. One brother sees the treaty as inherently unjust; the other, a clearer road to independence. It's a tough movie to watch because of the physical violence and torture, but also because the politics of nationalism is so deeply complex and contradictory. This no cookie cutter movie, or your typical Hollywood flick, as the director, Ken Loach, and Paul Laverty, the writer, do a superb job weaving an intricate political story. It's not superficial nor cliched. It is powerful in its depth and grasp of the complexity of life under colonial, and postcolonial, Ireland. There was a beautiful scene that takes place after the treaty is signed and the room is filled with discussions about whether to support it. The discussions were layered and the individual aspirations and dreams of a free and independent Ireland were entangled, and forced to confront, the need to be a functioning nation, even if it was not wholly free. The exchange was simply brilliant, thoughtful, and contentious. I really liked how the movie portrayed nationalists intelligent men and women who made extraordinarily difficult decisions. It's too easy to dismiss the men, women, and children of these political movements as uneducated and irrational reactionaries who are no better than common criminals. What the movie has done is to demonstrate complexity. And it was fantastic!

Twitter!

In an attempt to monitor my time better, and right now I'll use whatever gimmick I come across, I installed Twitter, a widget that provides up-to-date info. on my activities. so that everyone knows what I'm doing at that moment.

The Day After Imus

So now in the aftermath of Imus and his racially and sexually derogatory epithets, his subsequent firings from NBC and CBS, the Rutgers Women's Basketball team press conference, the fans, the outrage, the marvelous coalition of support for the students, the hope that this painful episode will set a new standard for media responsibility, we now turn our attention to ... RAP MUSIC?!?!?

Oh shit. I heard the report on CNN Headline News this morning that there's a greater concerted effort to now target rap/hip hop artists like 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and others. The argument, ironically, seemed to have come from Imus himself when he appeared on Al Sharpton's radio show. He commented that he did not get the phrase on his own. That it's origins are in the very worst of rap/hip hop. In other words, he wasn't saying anything new or different from what rappers were saying in the music. I know it's a cop out, and it doesn't hold water. I just can't believe that people are buying into that point. I know elder African American leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and many others for different reasons, have always had a problem with rap and it's derogatory portrayals of black men and women. But this is a fairly reactionary and conservative critique about the politics of representation and culture -- that the causes of misoygny, homophobia, or racism, etc., can be traced to an offensive representation be it film, picture, television, or even words. The solution then is simple: remove the representation from our public sphere.

This is highly problematic on so many levels. There's no talk about culture in a substantive manner. There's nothing about patterns of economic inequality, or even a commentary about the state of our education. Or worse, once again, it's a "black problem" that they created, that they must now solve, but what's different this time is now it's a fairly diverse coalition of interests willing to go further than before. It's being framed as a personal moral issue and that is worrisome. But as a political logic, it certainly makes sense to a lot of people who work on a simple map of power relations: cause and effect.

But what bugs me the most about this development is the fact that Imus somehow was able to redirect the focus and energy from himself to rap and hip hop. Maybe not by himself solely, but this episode and the mess he created certainly facilitated it. In the end, I can't help but think that cowboy is going to have the last laugh.

Soulforce "Equality Ride" at Patrick Henry College

The Washington Post has a video and article about Soulforce "equality riders" who travel to conservative evangelical colleges who discriminate against the LGBT community. What they do is simply walk onto campus and start an open dialogue with the students. Some colleges accept the invitation to a dialogue, others like Patrick Henry College refuse them to enter the grounds of the campus. Instead, they have the police standing by to arrest anyone from the group who attempts to enter.

I loved reading this article and there's a great video of the riders arriving on Patrick Henry College.

Article: "Young, Gay Christians, On a Bumpy Bus Ride" by Hanna Rosin
Video: "Equality Ride" Hits a Roadblock

Did I Read That Right? Imus is Gone?!

Wow he's really fired! I'd never thought it would go this far, but I guess, as one of my students remarked, this was a "perfect storm."

I'm still in a state of disbelief, surprise, and awe. Go figure.

From SFGate.com: "Don Imus Loses Job in Stunning Fall" (David Bauder)

Don Imus' racist remarks got him fired by CBS on Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus was initially suspended for two weeks after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week. But outrage kept growing and advertisers kept bolting from his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast, which was canceled Wednesday.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Imus, 66, had a long history of inflammatory remarks. But something struck a raw nerve when he targeted the Rutgers team — which includes a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy — after they lost in the NCAA championship game.

I also liked this article from the NY Times as a reminder of our political obligations: "Our Prejudices, Ourselves" (Harvey Fierstein)

AMERICA is watching Don Imus’s self-immolation in a state of shock and awe. And I’m watching America with wry amusement.

Since I’m a second-class citizen — a gay man — my seats for the ballgame of American discourse are way back in the bleachers. I don’t have to wait long for a shock jock or stand-up comedian to slip up with hateful epithets aimed at me and mine. Hate speak against homosexuals is as commonplace as spam. It’s daily traffic for those who profess themselves to be regular Joes, men of God, public servants who live off my tax dollars, as well as any number of celebrities.

In fact, I get a good chuckle whenever someone refers to “the media” as an agent of “the gay agenda.” There are entire channels, like Spike TV, that couldn’t fill an hour of programming if required to remove their sexist and homophobic content. We’ve got a president and a large part of Congress willing to change the Constitution so they can deprive of us our rights because they feel we are not “normal.”

So I’m used to catching foul balls up here in the cheap seats. What I am really enjoying is watching the rest of you act as if you had no idea that prejudice was alive and well in your hearts and minds.For the past two decades political correctness has been derided as a surrender to thin-skinned, humorless, uptight oversensitive sissies. Well, you anti-politically correct people have won the battle, and we’re all now feasting on the spoils of your victory. During the last few months alone we’ve had a few comedians spout racism, a basketball coach put forth anti-Semitism and several high-profile spoutings of anti-gay epithets.

What surprises me, I guess, is how choosy the anti-P.C. crowd is about which hate speech it will not tolerate. Sure, there were voices of protest when the TV actor Isaiah Washington called a gay colleague a “faggot.” But corporate America didn’t pull its advertising from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as it did with Mr. Imus, did it? And when Ann Coulter likewise tagged a presidential candidate last month, she paid no real price.

In fact, when Bill Maher discussed Ms. Coulter’s remarks on his HBO show, he repeated the slur no fewer than four times himself; each mention, I must note, solicited a laugh from his audience. No one called for any sort of apology from him. (Well, actually, I did, so the following week he only used it once.)

Face it, if a Pentagon general, his salary paid with my tax dollars, can label homosexual acts as “immoral” without a call for his dismissal, who are the moral high and mighty kidding?

Our nation, historically bursting with generosity toward strangers, remains remarkably unkind toward its own. Just under our gleaming patina of inclusiveness, we harbor corroding guts. America, I tell you that it doesn’t matter how many times you brush your teeth. If your insides are rotting your breath will stink. So, how do you people choose which hate to embrace, which to forgive with a wink and a week in rehab, and which to protest? Where’s my copy of that rule book?

Let me cite a non-volatile example of how prejudice can cohabit unchecked with good intentions. I am a huge fan of David Letterman’s. I watch the opening of his show a couple of times a week and have done so for decades. Without fail, in his opening monologue or skit Mr. Letterman makes a joke about someone being fat. I kid you not. Will that destroy our nation? Should he be fired or lose his sponsors? Obviously not.

But I think that there is something deeper going on at the Letterman studio than coincidence. And, as I’ve said, I cite this example simply to illustrate that all kinds of prejudice exist in the human heart. Some are harmless. Some not so harmless. But we need to understand who we are if we wish to change. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should confess to not only being a gay American, but also a fat one. Yes, I’m a double winner.)

I urge you to look around, or better yet, listen around and become aware of the prejudice in everyday life. We are so surrounded by expressions of intolerance that I am in shock and awe that anyone noticed all these recent high-profile instances. Still, I’m gladdened because our no longer being deaf to them may signal their eventual eradication.

The real point is that you cannot harbor malice toward others and then cry foul when someone displays intolerance against you. Prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged. Rise up in righteousness when you witness the words and deeds of hate, but only if you are willing to rise up against them all, including your own. Otherwise suffer the slings and arrows of disrespect silently.

Harvey Fierstein is an actor and playwright.

Imus Follow-Up

Media Matters, a non-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to monitoring and dispelling conservative misinformation in US media, came out with a really awesome timeline over the events leading up to NBC dropping him. Check it out and it's aptly titled "A Week in the Life of Imus in the Morning."

Excerpt:

In the wake of MSNBC's decision to drop its simulcast of the Imus in the Morning radio show, Media Matters for America has prepared the following timeline documenting events from Imus' slur of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" on April 4 to MSNBC's announcement on April 11.

Wednesday, April 4

• On Imus in the Morning, host Don Imus referred to the Scarlet Knights, the Rutgers University women's basketball team -- which is made up of eight African-American and two white players -- as "nappy-headed hos" after executive producer Bernard McGuirk called the team "hard-core hos." Media Matters for America noted Imus' comments at the time.
• The New York Times later noted that "Imus's remarks were picked up ... by the Media Matters for America site," and Salon.com's Jonathan Miller similarly credited Media Matters for posting video of Imus' comments. In an article about MSNBC's decision to drop the show, the Los Angeles Times identified Media Matters as "the liberal media watchdog group that first spotlighted Imus' remark last week." USA Today also reported that Media Matters "originally called attention to Imus' remarks."

WHOA!

I knew the outpouring of support for the students and anger against Imus was tremendous, but I never thought I would see something like this!

NBC News Drops Imus Show Over Racial Remark

NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after he made a racially disparaging remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

I blinked several times just to make sure. CBS Radio is still maintaining their two week suspension, but this is really a major development. Come to think of it, I can't recall a major media personality losing his job in this manner (and thank goodness for that because if there were more I think I'd go nuts!). I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh and his idiotic episode on ESPN awhile ago. He still has a job and he's still on the airwaves though on a limited degree. I'm talking about a clear cut, slam dunk, career-ending firing. I do remember ages ago about Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder losing his job as a television sports announcer for CBS in 1988 for saying racist remarks about the athletic ability of blacks as a product of selective breeding during slavery:

Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder is fired after 12 years as a CBS football analyst for remarks he makes to a Washington, D.C, television reporter about the physical abilities of black and white athletes. Among other things, Snyder, 70, says the black athlete is "bred to be the better athlete because, this goes all the way to the Civil War when ... the slave owner would breed his big woman so that he would have a big black kid." Snyder later apologizes for the comments but his career as a broadcaster is over.

NBC dropping Imus is an important political statement. That these kinds of remarks for radio and television will not be condoned, and more importantly, there will be real severe consequences. After all, if the average person uttering these remarks at the workplace will get fired, why not someone like Imus? There are professional standards of conduct that exist and there are limitations to what you can do.

So why am I still bothered by this? Something is troubling me and I can't exactly pinpoint it. I know I do consider this a powerful demonstration against this kind of patently offensive conduct. It was also an amazing national response against Imus, and it was a fairly diverse response even though all we see are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But there were whites, Latinos, Asians, women, parents, children, religious groups, and the like all speaking out against Imus. It was a broad and beautiful cross-section of America that came out. And I'm aware of the fact, and question, if the same thing would've happened if the players were not black, but white, or Latino, or Asian? It's a legitimate question, but it's not the one that's been bothering me.

And forget this nonsense about how this is a blow to free speech crap. It's beyond that now.

But something still does not sit well with me. It's that feeling I get when something that should be obvious to me but isn't. It's what cultural studies scholar, Stuart Hall, once described as "in plain view, but out of sight." And right now, I can't see it ... just yet.

"Trash Talk Radio" by Gwen Ifill

Just adding another excellent article about the verbal attack from "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" against the Rutgers women's basketball team. I like this piece, "Trash Talk Radio," from Gwen Ifill of the NY Times who tells it like it is. That the "cinderella story," one that can be shared by everyone especially from those who have been there, was defiled by a 60-year-old relic who's rants and raves are as anachronistic as they are patently insulting and offensive:

Let's say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny. The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.

I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.

Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.

It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week.”

Is He Gone Yet?

So while reading the news today I was overcome with dozens of posts and articles regarding radio newstalk host, Imus, and his obviously imbecilic and shallow characterization of the Rutgers Women's basketball team. Talk about serious trouble now that he's been suspended for two weeks, Al Sharpton is on his case, and the usual corporate pinch of withdrawing sponsorship of his show. Since then, he's apologized for his remarks ... profusely ... to the point that every other statement is an apology. It's as Eugene Robinson says in his op-ed piece from The Washington Post: "Imus is in full self-flagellation mode."

Self-flagellation: (noun) 1. The act of severely criticizing oneself. 2. The act of punishing oneself. 3. A form of punishment by a whip, strap, or rope.


Well, not fully. I haven't seen the whips, straps, or ropes yet. But I'm counting on something grander like his resignation or cancellation of his show. Of late, and thanks to internet sites like YouTube, no one can ever get away with uttering derogatory and offensive statements without being punished: Kenneth Eng's anti-black editorial, Tim Hardaway's anti-gay comment, Michael Richards' "n-word" outburst, and so on. No one can ever get away or claim a defense when the proof of their words is broadcast throughout cyberspace, and it's literally there in perpetuity for others to see. Because of the internet, no one will ever forget what happened. What also makes Imus's comments so out of line is that his target was the Rutgers women's basketball team. That seems to be a "disproportionate attack" (if such a thing exists) because they are simply students, playing on a title contending team, and representing their university on the national stage. You don't put students down or ridicule them for failure when they have been the most responsible and dedicated role models. You can tear apart students when they act stupidly by their own initiative. But when a nationally syndicated talk show host throws the first punch without provocation, then that is simply tasteless. I can also see how an event like this will bring the campus community like Rutgers closer together. I just wish it was under different circumstances than this.

Some articles of interest regarding the controversy. It's funny how "... in the morning" seems to be a popular title phrase for the articles:

SFGate.com: Editorial, "Aiming at Imus"I do agree in a sense about how this will simply blow over. But I'm reminded of Rush Limbaugh's explosive "social engineering" comment on ESPN regarding Donovan McNabb's performance for the Eagles. He was ousted rather quickly. I will point out though that it also depends who's being picked on and ridiculed. I still think it's easier to get away with anti-Asian, anti-Latino, and anti-gay commentary than anti-black. That's evidenced with the number of tv and radio personalities like Ann Coulter, for instance, with her lurid use of anti-gay epithets to describe Democratic politicians.

The only thing sorrier than this all-too-frequent cycle of public offense and recovery is the fact that Imus, who shouldn't be talking about anyone else's hair, won't really suffer for his foul mouth. His show is too popular with the right people -- namely highbrow-ish journalists and politicians, who wouldn't be able to expound at length about their wonkish positions to a mass audience in any other way -- for him to stay in trouble. This is rotten, because if he were a politician, he'd be out of a job. The best statement Imus' guests could make would be to avoid him.

Washington Post: Eugene Robinson, "Misogyny in the Morning"
I like Robinson's take on this issue and focusing on gender and race, which everyone seems to subtly acknowledge the gendered politics, but this piece is the first that I've read that makes it explicit. I also like how he analyzes Imus' show as trying to cater to low brow and high brow interests.

If anything, Imus is more substantive and less offensive than many of his competitors. In a sense, that's one reason for his current predicament. Prominent politicians and other notables regularly call in to his show, and sometimes actual news is made -- which brings him greater scrutiny. You can be a shock jock or you can be a respected interviewer, but you can't be both.

Matthew Yglesias: blogger, "Racism in the Morning"
I came across this blog awhile ago and there's some pretty good discussions. In this case, it's the usual example of fight hate speech with more speech which is plainly non-sensical to me.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

I picked up a new book by Mary Doria Russell titled The Sparrow (1997). It's another science fiction novel that I randomly chose when I was in Barnes & Nobles the other day. Well not totally random. It was after some productive writing on my last chapter on the development of classes of unprotected speech, and the formation of "true threats" doctrine in Watts v. United States (1969). I concede it sounds boring, and it's certainly no page turner, but it's what I do. Anyways, I decided to head over to B&N in Clarendon just to browse and give my brain some down time. I head over to the new releases, both fiction and non-fiction. If there's anything about B&N or Borders, it's the fact that they are all prearranged and ordered. It's like buying a mocha frappucino from any Starbuck's anywhere: you know it's the same at every one of them.

I make my way upstairs to the fiction and science fiction section. Again, the new releases are laid out prominently in its own section and I casually glance at the rows and rows of new books. I don't read a lot of fantasy novels. Stories about dragons, demons, sorcery, witchcraft, ancient kingdoms, bloodlines, blood feuds, a powerful sword, an even powerful ring, a king, a queen, a prince, a princess, a boy/girl to be king/queen, and every imaginable variation, does not appeal to me all that much. Don't get me wrong. Science fiction also has its conventions that defines the genre: aliens, space ships, planets, wars, photon torpedoes, transporters, warp drive, FTL, galaxies, universes, parallel realities, physics, non-physics or pseudo-science, first contact, nuclear holocaust, post-nuclear life, alien invasions, human rebellion, and so on. I find science fiction to be more appealing than fantasy although there are two that come to mind.

First is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004), a wondeful book about war and magic in 16th century England. Not only is it a solid narrative, but it is written like an intellectual history book complete with footnotes, discussions about the intellectual tradition of magic, and so on. The second author is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; and The Amber Spyglass (2003). It's an amazing fantastic story of children and their "familiars" caught in a horrific battle in parallel universes. There's even J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter series, but I digress ...

So I was browsing through the books, and to make an unnecessarily long post short I was intrigued by the cover on Mary Doria Russell's book. It's not superficial at all. It's a version of first impressions. I like it, or I don't, and luckily the cover was very attractive and unique that I liked it. I later found out on reading Russell's website about the origins of the cover art pieces as well: a cool mash of stars from the ceiling of Scrovegni Chapel (c. 1305), and birds from Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds (c. 1297-99). So picking up the book, I read the description on the back cover, seeing if I can recognize the names or publications. All mainstream ones which tells me the general public seems to like it. I think of it as locating the readership more than whether it really is a great book to read. So after scanning the back, I look to see if there's an author bio page: she was a paleoanthropologist. An academic? Now it's quite compelling. I turn to the first page to read her style and a bit more about the story.

I was hooked.

The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.

They meant no harm.

In short, the book is about a disastrous first contact mission to a new planet with an alien civilization by four Jesuit missionaries.

My first thought was, "What?!?" thinking about the near impossibility of the idea that the Church could organize such a venture. But then I thought about it more and realized they already did. I immediately drew upon the history of the Jesuits, the Catholic Church, and their colonial and imperial projects throughout the ages. The early history of the Jesuits was one of "first contacts."

That got me thinking.

And that's how I decided to buy the book. If there's any theme that I'll read in fiction or science fiction and fantasy novels, it's anything dealing with the Church, especially the Jesuits. Religion, theology, matters of faith, science fiction, fantasy, and, of course, politics will surely catch my eye; I'll always pick it up and give it a short read. That's certainly a lot more than all the other books that I pass by on the shelves.

And so far, I'm enjoying the book. :D

Gone?

In plain words, he just needs to go.

New Look

So these past couple of days I've been toying with templates, css, and javascript coding to give this blog a new look. I made some changes in the format of the body, and added a picture header that randomly changes each time the page is refreshed. I had to edit some of my pictures into a banner so that they'll fit. It took some fiddling with the code especially when google gives you several dozen people doing some really cool things with their blogs. Needless to say, this was the kind of flexibility I wanted in designing my blog that wordpress.com does not provide for legitimate reasons. But after several hours of this, I think this will work, and I got the "look" of the page that I wanted. Enjoy!

An Oldie

I was cleaning up my computer when I came across this old clip of Triumph, the insult comic dog, doing the weather report in Hawai'i. I think it was aired on an episode of The Conan O'Brien Show some years ago. It still makes me laugh. :D

Totally Random

This made me chuckle.

Ten Arrested Over Harry Potter Train Attack

British police have arrested 10 youths suspected of vandalising the Hogwarts Express, the steam train used in the blockbuster Harry Potter films.

The train was attacked at a depot in Carnforth, north-west England, on March 10 and had more than 230 windows smashed with hammers.

"Ten youths have been arrested after 337 windows were smashed on various trains," a spokesman for British Transport Police (BTP) said.

"Ten males aged between 12 and 14, from Carnforth and surrounding areas, have all been arrested in connection to the incident.

"They have been released on police bail pending further inquiries to report back to BTP in the first week of May."

The Hogwarts Express ferries boy wizard Potter and his chums to school in the popular movie series.

The damage will cost at least 50,000 pounds ($120,235) to repair, the train's operator West Coast Railways has said.

BTP and forensic experts spent several days combing the scene for clues.

The train - which is normally hired out for tourists and is used by film company Warner Bros for the Harry Potter movies - was attacked in 2003 when graffiti was sprayed on a carriage.

In October 2005, Harry Potter's flying car - a pale blue 1962 Ford Anglia - mysteriously disappeared from a film set in Cornwall, south-west England. It was found in May last year in a nearby ruined castle.

-AFP