The Conversation
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
- Siegfried: If it was a Russian or any other white man who told blacks”to go back to Africa”, it would...
- Raguel: I saw that Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing” years ago but still can’t understand it.
- bigWOWO: Stele: “Care to qualify that statement? Even if that were true, you have to look at this case on its...
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (7)
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- Raguel: Following the temporary shelving of SOPA and PIPA in the long line of net neutrality battles, the feds and...
- Chr..: “Asian American men have to get more involved, not less. It’s a civic responsibility, and you have to...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8( - Raguel: ROFL! Thank you for thoroughly destroying Amy Chua, Andre. WELL SAID ^_^ You know the destruction is so...
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (245)
- Andre M. Smith: I believe some useful purpose will be served by offering here, what the lawyers might like to call,...
- N: What’s your opinion on Yundi Li and Yoyo Ma.
- Andre M. Smith: Amy Chua has never lived in China. Her understanding of its culture, that is, the culture as it’s...
- How to Finish Life With No Regrets (9)
- trolldetector: ^ i’d agree with that. but i wouldnt call them ‘idiots’, just misguided. crazy media...
- N: Agree with Jeff that not one regret is unlikely, the key is learn from it. Another way to look at it is that...
- American Jobs and India (14)
- lingyai: I am not sure what happen there with my name, that is not my email, so just ignore.
- lingyai@hotmail.com: @bigwowo Just because the average income in India is $2 a day doesn’t make a person...
- AM/AF couple: Nottyboy, Yes, just like every place of employment, upper management needs to do a better job in terms...
- Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy (6)
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
I wouldn’t say...
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
- National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2012 (32)
- Raguel: http://www.occupydream.org/ ^ I heard about this from Russell Simmons. I hope that things develop well to...
- Raguel: So is that the reasoning for why you don’t need the right to due process? Are you some kind of fucking...
- N: @King The constitution gave power to the states to benefit white america or the constitution gave benefitial power...
- When Your Fan Base is Full of Crazy People (24)
- N: @American girl Too be honest, I don’t really see why this video that ‘disgusting’ –...
- Mitt Romney and the Problem of Wealth (6)
- Raguel: Where do people get their information and knowledge from, though? Media, and education, word of mouth only...
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Starving Artists
The NY Times has a “project” that encourages people to share their stories about living in this recession. I haven’t looked through the whole thing, but see it here. Today, they had a piece on how artists are living through the recession.
It’s funny how art and money always seem to go together. On this blog, we have writers, actors, and filmmakers. Wherever and whomever you’re speaking with, it’s always the same: artists always complain about being broke, and money causes constant tension. I think almost all artists feel broke, except, of course, those who went to law school. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Oi.
The Good, the Exciting, and the Dull
With a crying infant and a growing toddler, I’ve been suffering from severe sleep deprivation, which means that I’m finding it hard to think on my own. Creativity? Gone. Writing? On hiatus. Dreaming? How do you dream when you never sleep? So these days it makes me happy when someone does my thinking for me.
Posted in Features
Tagged Activism, Asian American, David Brooks, finances, leadership
Leave a comment
Zee Avi
Saw this video of Zee Avi on Youtube. Her music is the Spotlight Tuesday music selection for YouTube. She’s got a powerful voice with some pretty cool, happy tunes. It’s one of the coolest collections I’ve heard in a long time. Zee Avi is from Malaysia, and her debut CD is coming out today. Check it out!
Punishment and "Crime"
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi
(pic from here)
I first saw this story in the Yuuyake Shimbun, a local paper that I used to write for. Since they don’t have a web presence, let me reference the British Times Online: Tsuyoshi Kusanagi involved in naked romp. These Smap guys were big when I was in Japan, and from the sound of the article, they’re still big. All five of them are clean-cut and wholesome looking, and they project a very good image. Unfortunately, Kusanagi had a bit of a drunken incident, and it looks like his career will be taking a brief vacation.
Podcast: Anna and Larry and Asian Activism
Download our latest podcast with Larry and Anna on the topic of Asian American/Australian Activism here, or listen to it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The podcast is 51.4 mB and runs for about 45 minutes. It was bigWOWO’s very first podcast on the topic of forming institutions. It was also our very first international podcast, with Anna calling in from Australia, where she is a first year university student. In this episode, Larry and I talk to her about differences in Asian American and Asian Australian culture, and we offer opinions on how to plan and start Asian organizations.
Christian Fundamentalist Hit Men and Holy Wars
Rummy
Thanks to Micah who sent this article.
It scares the hell out of me whenever I write posts that contain the tags “religion” and “politics” together. But thanks to eight years of Bush, I get the opportunity to post such things over and over. In the latest news, it appears that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary of the United States during the Iraqi invasion, used to “curry favor” with President George W. Bush by writing “militaristic passages from the Bible on the cover pages of White House intelligence documents.” For example:
I'm not your enemy, and I'm not your friend
(pic from here)
The NY Times had an interesting article about credit card companies and the debt collectors they hire and train. The article details how these financial companies train debt collectors as amateur psychologists, and how they teach them to squeeze every penny out of delinquent borrowers. It’s a fascinating read.
I once applied for a job as a debt collector. It was exactly as the Times described it. The company hired large numbers of collectors, trained them to act as “counselors,” and reminded them that people want to pay these bills. The phrase that they repeated over and over was “we’re not their enemy, and we’re not their friend. We’re just here to help.”
Wong Fu Productions and the Film Industry
(Pic from here)
I really enjoyed the ideas from our last podcast with Micah and Blake. On the post, I questioned Eric Jacobus over whether it’s possible to make money without following the money in film. He doesn’t think so. From what I’ve heard from people in the industry, most people agree with Eric, but there’s always an idealist in me that says it’s always possible to go against the trend and still be profitable. Every so often, a new group arises that seems to buck the trend and make its own rules. Check out Wong Fu Productions.
More Tension with Jon and Kate
I can’t believe I’m writing about this show again. I’ve never even seen it.
This drama has blown up. Seriously blown up. It looks like Kate did a 180 on her previous comments and is now tossing Jon under the bus. Their marriage is under significant stress. According to the video above, the story is on the cover of ALL FOUR major celebrity gossip mags (People, US Weekly, Star, and…some other mag?). As everyone universally agrees, they have a beautiful family, and it would be really sad to see it split up.
Podcast: Micah Moore, Blake Faucette, and Eva on Stereotypes and Film
Yesterday, we had a podcast with Micah Moore and Blake Faucette from All Aces Media, along with Eva, Vu Nguyen (BcB), and myself. Hear it here, or download it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
It’s 24.2 mb, and runs around 53 minutes. In the first part of the podcast, we discuss Dogs of Chinatown and the controversy that surrounded it–for those unfamiliar with the controversy, see here and here. In the second part (around 14:05), we discuss how we can change the filmmaking industry for minorities.
