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)
Tag Archives: finances
Republican Stonewalling on the Debt Ceiling
Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell stated his position on the debt ceiling:
“I refuse to help Barack Obama get re-elected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy,” he said, adding that after two years in office, Obama is now responsible for the economic conditions that began under former president George W. Bush.
Jaehwan's Come-to-Jesus Moment
(cartoon from here)
If you talk to fundamentalist Christians, you’ll learn that each one has a story about God’s salvation. Each person has a testimony, a come-to-Jesus moment, where they “realize” that Jesus died for their sins and that all Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, and atheists are condemned to eternity in Hell for not believing in Christ. I never had such a moment with respect to religion (I still prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster over the late J.C.), but this week I did have a revelation about life. My revelation was this: I’ve officially entered middle age, and I’ve adopted the middle aged mindset about responsibility and legacy that comes along with it.
Posted in Activism, Features
Tagged Crowell-Ing, finances, getting older, Life, maturity, nonprofit, Studio J
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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
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Piracy Hits Print Media
Writers have remained relatively unscathed and unaffected by digital piracy. Until now. With the proliferation of E-books and digital devices, it’s only a matter of time before writers will face the same problems as recording artists and filmmakers. From the Times article:
Until recently, publishers believed books were relatively safe from piracy because it was so labor-intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. What’s more, reading books on the computer was relatively unappealing compared with a printed version.
Who's to blame?
The Pham family
Man, talk about the mortgage crisis affecting families. In the NY Times today, they profiled several families and individuals who have lost massive deposits on real estate purchases in the New York area: Up in Smoke. The Pham family above, for example, put down a deposit of $93,199 for a $956,990 2 bedroom apartment in Hoboken, NJ. They signed the agreement in 2005, but when their closing date came around this past September, they no longer qualified for a mortgage without putting more money down. Since they don’t have the additional funds, they are going to lose their entire $93,199. Even for rich folk, that’s a lot of money. Toll Brothers, the builder, is refusing to give them any of their deposit back.
Dow Falls Below 7,000
The Dow has crashed below yet another floor of support. It’s at 6,884 as I’m writing this. It has lost more than half its value since its high of 14,000 in October of 2007.
It’s time to nationalize the banks. Let’s learn from Japan, and let’s not repeat the same mistakes they made. Have the government take over the banks now. We need to act swiftly. With the government in charge, investors will have greater faith in the system. The government will have more authority to curb the absolutely ridiculous levels of executive pay, and Americans can know that there will be oversight.
Frugality on Trial
I saw this article in the NY Times yesterday. The article talks about how following Japan’s Lost Decade, consumption continued to lag. People were so affected by the past economic problems that they never got back up. For example:
Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990.
Learning from Japan's Bank Crisis
Heizo Takenaka, fixer of the Japanese "lost decade"
I’ll admit that I’m at a total loss for explanation on all this bailout talk. I have no strong opinion, other than the belief that it’s wrong for executives to be overpaying themselves at times like this. Why do I lack an opinion? I think it’s because I have trouble conceptualizing $800 billion, plus I have no idea what will ever restore future confidence in the American consumer.
For those who have a strong opinion, here is a piece from the NY Times about Japan’s bank crisis for the 90′s. People who have studied Japan say that even though the U.S. is spending like crazy, we should be spending and doing even more.
Adult Entertainment Industry Wants Bailout
Sorry, no picture included with this post.
Thanks to Larry from the AA Movement blog for this article on Fox News. This is yet another angle on the “internet decreasing profitability” stuff that I’ve been posting about the publishing and media industries. I usually try to summarize, but in this case, the article itself says it best:
Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and “Hustler” magazine publisher Larry Flynt have said they will petition Congress for financial aid along the lines of what the Big Three auto makers are getting.
Not getting it
Alexandra Penney
Just read this CNN story about Alexandra Penney, a best selling sex author who was one of Bernie Madoff’s victims. It’s pretty amazing that she invested everything with him. I’m amazed that people still don’t diversify their holdings, even after Enron and Wordcomm. Anyway, she was a bestselling author and former editor of Self, and she made tons of money during the 80′s. She’s not penniless, but most of it is now gone.
The interesting part of this story is related to writing and blogging. Apparently, soon after learning that she had been fleeced by Madoff, Penney blogged about her experiences on the Daily Beast, writing a series of articles called The Bag Lady Papers. She wrote:
