Seen recently on a bumper ahead of me on a late-night trip to the Taco Bell drive-though (OK, so you know a little bit about my lousy eating habits):
“I’d rather eat shit than ride a Jap bike!” with an American flag next to the text.
This was on a Toyota pickup truck.
There’s a fascinating discussion going around in the e-mail list for New York chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. It began the day that news of the Virginia Tech shootings broke, when the media first reported that the shooter may be Asian. Since then, various perspectives have been shared about whether it was journalistically important to identify the race of the shooter (I kinda think it was, considering the tragic scope of the incidents), whether there will be a racial backlash against Asians, and whether Asian Americans share sense of guilt and shame about the murders. Continue reading
I started a fulltime job in February, working for Examiner.com as Director of Content. And it’s kept me from blogging. Continue reading
Here’s a thought-provoking essay from the NYT about Joe Biden’s use of the word “articulate” last week to describe Barack Obama (free registration required). Continue reading
One of the cool things about traveling to LA is getting to watch KDOC, a local station that unearths old TV shows and airs them. For some reason, whenever I’m in town I get to tune in to old episodes of “Hawaii Five-O.”
The show is fascinating to me for several reasons. It fit my early attraction for TV action shows (“Dragnet” just didn’t cut it) with its tire-squealing car chases and gun fights, and the cool, noir-hero cop Steve McGarrett, played by the square-jawed Jack Lord. It had one of the all-time greatest theme songs, which was recorded by the pioneering instrumental guitar-rock band the Ventures. It’s a cultural snapshot of a transitional time in post-war U.S. culture, when the generation gap produced by the baby boom was bulging into college age, and pop style was evolving from ’60s mod to ’70s avocado and harvest gold. Most of the men still had Brylcreemed hair, and the women had big poofy hairstyles when the show debuted in 1968 (it ran all the way to ’80). Continue reading
It;s also available for the Barnes & Noble Nook reader and in the iBooks store for Apple's iOS devices!
