The Conversation
- Jeremy Lin: Our Generation’s Joe Louis (11)
- Blacklisted: B, “Jeremy Lin is the Joe Louis of our time. I remember reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X,...
- Mojo Rider: This is just awesome….I watched the game too and wasn’t sure if he was going to score 20...
- SWR: This is a no-lose situation: If Jeremy Lin continues to tear it up, then we’ve all got an underdog...
- “But he hit me back first!” (46)
- jstele: I’m not aware of black owned businesses for the most part contributing to the community. I know that...
- jstele: Right, just like you didn’t bother to look up the law before saying that you didn’t think that shopowner who...
- King: I will be kissing Asian women like Linda against the wall without a shirt”. Yuck!!!
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (247)
- bigWOWO: Not sure if you’re a “bot” or a real person, Andre, but I know lots of Chuas. Only...
- Andre M. Smith: Further on Chua as a Chinese surname . . . My wife, a gyn surgeon, hails from a family of...
- Seeking Asian Female (8)
- Raguel: Yes! I mean with me. How did I miss that part out? And why do I suddenly feel some anxiety?
But here is an... - King: “If I ever get a mail order bride I will get her addicted to sex first.” I assume you mean with you...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Haha! Maybe that dude is on to something with the foreign language nagging. But to be honest, maybe...
- Raguel: Yes! I mean with me. How did I miss that part out? And why do I suddenly feel some anxiety?
- The Other-Directed Personality (1)
- Siegfried: Mitt got Obama worried. He is shaking in his boots. It’s over for Obama because Mitt is going to...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (9)
- N: @TD Good pick up on that one.
- trolldetector: @Colin I love how whites keep trying to troll their divide tactics Asian blogs under different guises.
- Eurasian Sensation: @ Colin: I’m pretty sure Jeremy Lin and his supporters are not the same person.
- Jeremy Lin shines (21)
- trolldetector: GO JEREMY LIN
- N: @danny You should youtube his college games. The two against Boston college and the one against UConn. Lol, he can...
- Lingyai: @Ben Efsaneyim Why would it be surprising a non Asian crowd cheering for Lin? Most of the NBA fans going to...
- What Cultures Value (22)
- trolldetector: @Colin. Dont you belong on a Lord Of The Rings filmset? Thats where most white trolls dwell isnt it?
- colin: A bit late to this, but bigwowo, you grossly underestimate the anti-work and anti-intellectual ethic here in...
- bigWOWO: Yeah, I could go for that.
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (6)
- bigWOWO: That’s a really good point, Raguel. Like it or not, TV executives control everything (including what...
- Raguel: I could be wrong but the distribution windows for media and especially film seems very hierarchical. If you...
- bigWOWO: Illegal streaming? I had no idea anyone did that! Well, I really should check out some movies one of these...
- Superbowl Recipe and Xenophobic Superbowl Ad (22)
- Raguel: Time to get your concealed carry licences, folks!
- Eurasian Sensation: Jeff Yang has a good article about this ad: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn....
- Raguel: I haven’t even gotten to why the ad really is so offensive to us, ROFL
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (9)
- Raguel: ^ Nice one Byron! I’m reading through the NYT picks, they’re good!
- bigWOWO: The Times had an Op-Ed by the President of the RIAA, and I commented. My comment was picked as a...
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (402)
- bigWOWO: Here’s an interesting suggestion coming out of MIT: Connectome by Sebastian Seung...
- Battle Hymn of the Kitten Daughter (36)
- Raguel: You know Andre, you and me, I think we and a lot of other folks may have gone through some pretty harrowing...
- Andre M. Smith: Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew....
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
- “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...
- Jeremy Lin: Our Generation’s Joe Louis (11)
Category Archives: Citizenship
Emotional Intelligence and EQ
Emotional Intelligence was a book by Daniel Goleman that I read over ten years ago. I don’t remember the details of the book, but I remember being struck by the idea that a person’s “emotional intelligence” can determine a person’s success in life. Goleman had case studies of really smart high IQ people who lose it because they can’t control or engage their emotions. Goleman directed people’s attention instead to EQ– Emotional Intelligence Quotient. Check out an excellent reader review of Goleman’s book here. About.com defines emotional intelligence by saying:
Posted in Citizenship, Knowledge, media, Strategy
Tagged emotional intelligence, human biodiversity, PUA
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Mayor Michael Nutter, Raising Youth, Raising Culture
Thanks to King, for sharing the video above, where Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia addresses a predominantly black church and shares his opinion on teen mob violence. It’s about 30 minutes, but it’s worth giving it a listen. He shares a tough love approach and puts the terms specifically in the context of race. He focuses on parents too, recalling how his parents raised him and comparing it to the lackadaisical approach that some parents today have towards parenting.
Egalitarianism and Human Tendencies
There’s a great article in the NY Times today about reciprocity and fairness, and how concepts of fairness seem to be built into our evolutionary psychology: Thirst For Fairness May Have Helped Us Survive. I thought it was particularly relevant given the numerous discussions over the past year about affirmative action, evolutionary psychology, conservatives vs. liberals, and our own blog policy that enforce benefit of the doubt. According to the article, diverse human societies such as hunter-gatherers in Paraguay and foragers in Africa practice life in a way that the more fortunate give back to the less fortunate. We are naturally inclined towards fairness and giving back, which is why the idea of executives with $10 million salaries doesn’t sit well with most people. We believe in having some hierarchy, but we don’t believe in having extreme hierarchies.
Honor
I’ve been reading Manning Marable’s new biography of Malcolm X, and it’s absolutely excellent. As with the original autobiography, I love the way Malcolm’s life becomes a parable on which we can model our own lives. His life presents many of the answers which we seek in our own lives.
Indian Reverse Immigrants
Check out the video above to see an interesting follow up to the last blog post about Chinese maternity tourists (Thanks, AM Revolutions). This, of course, is a little different from the children of maternity tourists–these people are leaving because there are better opportunities. Still, I think there should be a requirement for people to stay for a while if they get their education here. Even a three year commitment would be enough.
(Also, RT America has a pretty cool YouTube channel. I checked out some of the other videos, and they bring out a new and unconventional perspective on news.)
Chinese Maternity Tourists
Hope the NY Times paywall isn’t bothering y’all, but here’s an interesting one: Officials Close ‘Maternity Tourism’ House in California.
According to the story, there was a “maternity tourism” house where wealthy Chinese women stayed in order to have babies while on tourist visas. Aside from the zoning law violations against the owner of the home, no laws were broken. It’s perfectly legal to have babies in this country on a tourist visa. You can travel here, give birth to an American citizen, and go back to China. If the s#$t hits the fan in China, your baby cannot be stripped of his citizenship, so he or she will always have a home here. Man, talk about do-it-yourself Asian Americans. It’s like the Home Depot slogan–”You can do it, we can help.”
Old People and Economics
Here are three Times articles that together make some very interesting statements about age and economics.
The first is an opinion piece by David Brooks, where he talks about how government is paralyzed because of the enormous pensions that government jobs offer. He writes:
New Jersey can’t afford to build its tunnel, but benefits packages for the state’s employees are 41 percent more expensive than those offered by the average Fortune 500 company. These benefits costs are rising by 16 percent a year.
Clarence Thomas’s Conservative Activist Wife
Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia
Interesting article in the NY Times about Clarence Thomas’s wife and her activism for the far right Tea Party/Conservative movement. Here you have a guy sitting on the highest bench, a guy who is supposed to be judging based on the Constitution, and his wife is raising money for a highly partisan cause:
Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.
Posted in Activism, Citizenship, News
Tagged Clarence Thomas, conflict of interest, Tea Party, Virginia Thomas
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Holding Out or Holding Up?
There’s a great article here about three generations of an American family and the differences in the economy between then and now. The grandfather is a WWII veteran turned stock broker who became wealthy through connections and tenacity, and the father is a general manager in manufacturing who maintained the family wealth through connections and tenacity. The first grandson graduated a few years back before the recession and now makes $75k a year in finance. The second grandson Scott, however, is the subject of the story.
Democratic Capitalism vs. State Capitalism
David Brooks has an interesting article here about the difference between democratic capitalism vs. state capitalism. He focuses on the oil industry. American/European companies like BP and Exxon Mobil work under democratic capitalism and compete in a relatively free market, while state-run energy companies like Petrobras and Gazprom work under state capitalism. The difference in practice is that state run companies become an arm of the government for political aggrandizement, while privately and publicly owned companies serve the interests of shareholders.
