Can I just say how proud I am of myself? I’m probably entirely late on this one, but it was only last week that I first became aware of “Two Girls, One Cup.” My son was watching Tosh.0 and Tosh did a bit where he kept the camera on the studio audience while they watched the infamous internet video.
The audience covered their eyes, gasped, scrunched their faces, tucked themselves into fetal balls, looked away, nearly gagged, then looked back.
I admit, I was intrigued. I asked my fourteen year old son if he had ever seen the actual video. He lied and said no. Read more...
Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert and Texas State Rep Debbie Riddle (both Republicans) have been actively sounding the alarm this week about the imminent threat to the U.S. from terror babies.
For those unaware of this latest threat to our freedom, here’s what it is in a nutshell: Al Qaeda or some other Muslim terrorist group sends pregnant women to America on tourist visas and these women give birth to their children on our soil which automatically grants them U.S. citizenship status. Then, the babies are whisked back to the Middle East where they are trained to be terrorists who will come back to the U.S. in 20 or 30 years (their citizenship allowing them to do this) to carry out some nefarious plot against America. Both Gohmert and Riddle said they obtained this information from retired FBI agents (Gohmert also told Fox News that he heard of this plot form a “Hamas-loving grandmother” aboard a flight).
The only problem with these claims? There’s no evidence to back them up. Read more...
“Jean Claude Van who? Who’s that?”
That’s what my nephews said to me yesterday at a birthday party. I was shocked. “Bloodsport” was about to start on TV and they had no idea who the great Jean Claude Van Damme was. I wasn’t talking to a bunch of toddlers either. No. My nephews are either in high school or junior high so they’re basically zitty adults. They had no desire to watch the movie. They just wanted to play the Wii. How the hell could they not know of (and love) The Muscles From Brussels?
I love Jean Claude Van Damme. I remember the first time I saw “Bloodsport” where a young and ripped JCVD brought some white ass-whuppin’ to the Kumite, Hong Kong’s ultimate, underground fight to the death. His portrayal of the real life bloodsport champ, Frank Dux, was second to none (his best performance only eclipsed by his heartfelt biopic, JCVD). Plus, he had one of the most impressive asses ever captured on film in “Bloodsport”. Just sayin… Read more...
As of last month, the libraries in the city of Los Angeles have cut their operating schedules with all branches closed on Sundays and Mondays and further reduced hours at some of the locations. Most of the libraries were already closed on Sundays so one could conclude that the loss of one day and slightly shorter hours the rest of the week won’t really have a significant impact when there are so many other pressing issues in the world. But I’m not so sure about that.
The great American writer Richard Wright (Native Son) once remarked that if you want to get an accurate reading on the state of society, just look at the state of its libraries. In other words, the more vibrant and robust a society’s libraries are, the more vibrant and robust the society itself will be. And vice versa.
But Wright died in 1960—years before the internet and modern technology made information instantly accessible to anyone who has a computer or even something as innocuous as a phone. In such an age, how relevant is the whole idea of a library? Why go to the trouble to travel to a building to search for what you need when you can do it in seconds on your laptop? I’ll address this question shortly, but first, a personal account of my history with the public library system. Read more...
According to the results of a new Field Poll on California voters’ support for gay marriage published yesterday, Asian Americans are the group most opposed to same-sex unions in the state. Previous polls have shown similar results so this isn’t anything new, but the difference in this study is that it’s broken down further into specific subsets and the Asian ethnic group that is most opposed to same-sex marriage by far are…Korean Americans:
The new Field Poll reveals that Korean Americans disapprove of same-sex marriage by a margin of 70 to 25 percent. They were followed in their dislike of same-sex couples by Vietnamese Americans (64 percent disapproval) and Chinese Americans (54 percent disapprove.)
African Americans disapprove of gay marriage by a margin of 49 to 38 percent, the poll finds, while Latinos support same-sex marriage by a margin of 50 to 41. About 53 percent of whites support same-sex marriage, with 39 percent opposed.
So why are my fellow country people so opposed to this issue? Read more...
The package I ordered from Amazon finally arrived. Inside was “The Darjeeling Limited” soundtrack (I’m a sucker for the sitar), and, for my son, who just turned 14, a hardcover copy of “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury and the paperback of “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles.
They’re supposed to be part of his fun Summer Reading. Ah, to idle away the long summer days, sitting in the shade of a tree with a good book. Does it get any sweeter than that?
Apparently, for Rafael, it does. Read more...
A new study released by the Chinese Medical Association this week found that 26% of Chinese guys suffer from erectile dysfunction. That means that 1 in every 4 men in China has problems getting it up. Compare that to the 18% of men in the U.S. who suffer from the same condition and one has a better idea of the extent of this problem.
And there’s more: The situation is worse for Chinese men over 40—40% of them suffer from erectile dysfunction. And because of the stigma attached to this issue and the lack of public awareness, 83% of these sufferers never seek help for their problem. This comes on the heels of a 2009 survey where China was ranked 11th out of 13 countries in overall satisfaction with their sex lives.
So what’s the deal with these Chinese dudes? According to the study, only 7.2 % of the cases are due to physical problems. That means the majority of these men could get it up if they wanted to, but can’t because of some psychological hang-up. Read more...
Last week I wrote about covering the windows of my bars with plywood in preparation for possible riots following the Oscar Grant shooting verdict. I needn’t have. Ironically, it was safer to get a drink at Radio Bar last Thursday night than it has been on any of the other 3285 nights we’ve been open. That’s because there were at least fifty cops hanging around about one hundred feet from our door.
They had set up their command at the corner of Broadway and 13th streets – our corner.
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JAY
Jay Chen is the Vice-President of the Board of Education for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, from which he graduated in 1996. He attended college at the Kremlin on the Charles, where he read Marx, wrote a paper on Che, edited for The Crimson, and won a fellowship to study in the People’s Republic of China. He also regularly pays into his Social Security and Medicare accounts. Learn more about him here and here.
In the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression, with budget cuts looming, teacher layoffs cascading, and achievement gaps growing, who could have imagined that the most controversial issue at our school district would be the acceptance of free money and books to expand an existing Chinese language class?
That is the strange reality I have been facing for the last six months, ever since our board approved an agreement with the non-profit Hanban to create a Confucius Classroom at Cedarlane, a predominately Latino middle school in Hacienda Heights. Instead of seeing this as an innovative opportunity to educate students at no cost to taxpayers during a recession, we’ve been accused of bringing Communism to the classroom. I actually think most districts would be envious of having a problem of too much funding. But I digress.
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I’ve checked in with my managers, and we have our plywood sheets cut and ready to go. The sandwich shop and apartments across the street are already boarded up.
The verdict in the Oscar Grant shooting case is expected this week, and we’re bracing for another riot. A year and a half ago, seven days after an unarmed 22 year old black man was shot and killed by a 28 year old white policeman on an Oakland subway platform, a protest march turned violent in downtown, where I co-own two bars. A block away I watched a car burn in the street. Hundreds of rioters swept past my bars, on 13th and 14th streets, but saved their greatest anger for storefronts three blocks away, where they broke windows, fought with the cops, and set more fires. Read more...
So I was sitting around with a bunch of friends, drinking beers; the jukebox is playing, and the song Yellow from Coldplay comes up and my friend Stephane becomes a little solemn. I ask him what’s wrong and he then says, “dude, this is my breakup song.” We all get it. Ah, yes, the inevitable breakup song, the one song that will stick with you for your entire life as a painful reminder of that one person who ripped your guts out in the name of the brokenhearted.
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By now, I’m sure most of our readers know that Rep. Ahn Joseph Cao, the Vietnamese American congressman from New Orleans, had this to say to BP America President Lamar McKay following a suggestion from a colleague that McKay should resign: “Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently. During the Samurai days, we just give you a knife and ask you to commit harakiri.”
It was a little strange to hear a Vietnamese official call for the suicide of a top corporate execute via a ritualistic Japanese samurai ritual, but I totally understand where the congressman’s coming from. Cao’s district is one of the hardest hit by the oil spill and BP’s continued incompetence and lack of transparency in the aftermath so if Cao wants to tell McKay to go kill himself, I have no issues with that. What I do have issues with is the method the good congressman suggested.
Harakiri involves plunging a sword or knife into one’s abdomen and “moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion.” You’re basically disemboweling yourself. That means your intestines and guts and a whole lot of blood will be spewing out of your body like…like…hmm, what would be a good metaphor? Oh yeah, like a whole lot of oil spewing out into the Gulf—how’s that for a metaphor? And if BP’s handling of the clean up in the Gulf is any indication of their skills in this area, we should be looking for a less messy but still appropriate form of suicide for any interested BP executive. Read more...
That Indonesian kid has got nothing on this Chinese girl. 3 year old Ya Wen, from Huizhou, China, regularly smokes and drinks beer as a form of therapy after she survived a horrific traffic accident. After being struck by a speeding van and waking up from a week-old coma, her parents and doctors say the young girl has been acting strangely, as if she is an adult. Her mother soon discovered her sneaking her father’s cigarettes and smoking in the bathroom. A local store clerk caught her stealing packs, thinking that she was stealing for her father. Read more...
My husband started a new game on facebook that I thought I’d share: “What does BP stand for?” So far, we’ve got:
Bungled Plugjob
Banish Petroleum
Better Plugit
Barack’s Problem
Beyond Pathetic
Buy a Prius
What do you think BP stands for?
Remember Sarah Palin’s campaign motto of “Drill Baby Drill”? So what’s her response to the catastrophic oil spill? Essentially, it’s “Don’t trust foreign oil companies.” Yup, that’s what she says on her twitter account. It’s not the offshore drilling itself, it’s those nasty British. And never mind that her husband worked for BP for 18 years. Read more...
LEE ANN
Lee Ann Kim is a dog, virgo, recovering television news journalist and boss lady of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Among her many talents are barking like a chihuahua, doing the splits, and the ability to remember random lyrics to cheesy 80s songs. Hailing from the mean streets of Chicago (Downers Grove, IL to be exact), she’s known among Filipino gangstas as “Lizelle” and aspires to take over her father’s OBGYN practice. IUDs anyone?
Are you a Swinger?
Ah ha! I knew it! You’re a swinger, just like me. I know, I know, it’s shocking because as Asians, we’re not supposed to be talking about this kind of stuff – especially swinging. Our parents will lose face, our ancestors will be rolling around in their graves. But if we want to make progress in America, we must recognize as swingers, we matter! I mean, look at what happened in Massachusetts. Read more...
What is this country coming to? First, we learn that the new Miss USA is a Arab terrorist and now comes word that Dora The Explorer, the young Spanish-speaking star of her own Nickelodeon show, is…gasp…an illegal immigrant. There’s even photographic evidence:
And as her arrest mug shot below demonstrates, it’s fun to go exploring as long as it’s not in Arizona ’cause they will fuck you up good: Read more...
LEE ANN
Lee Ann Kim is a dog, virgo, recovering television news journalist and boss lady of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Among her many talents are barking like a chihuahua, doing the splits, and the ability to remember random lyrics to cheesy 80s songs. Hailing from the mean streets of Chicago (Downers Grove, IL to be exact), she’s known among Filipino gangstas as “Lizelle” and aspires to take over her father’s OBGYN practice. IUDs anyone?
And now a story to get you revved up for Asian Pacific American heritage month.
If the title got you to tune into this post, then perhaps there was something to my former TV station’s misguided efforts in selecting this topic to present as a legitimate news investigation. It’s called RATINGS. But for me, it was nothing more than one of those, “oh no you did-dent” moments.
Sex Secrets of the Orient? I could hardly believe my eyes when a fellow producer showed me the special reports lineup for the November sweeps month. (In TV lingo, “sweeps months” refer to February, May, and November when TV stations pull all the rabbits out of their collective hats to trick viewers into watching the news to boost ratings, and in-turn boost commercial rates). Read more...
The Phoenix Suns wore “Los Suns” on their jerseys in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals on Wednesday night as a reaction to a law passed by the Arizona Legislature that makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally and it directs local police to question people about their immigration status and demand to see their documents if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.
“I think it’s fantastic,” Steve Nash, the Sun’s two time MVP point guard said. “I think the law is very misguided. I think it’s, unfortunately, to the detriment of our society and our civil liberties. I think it’s very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. As a team and as an organization, we have a lot of love and support for all of our fans. The league is very multicultural. We have players from all over the world, and our Latino community here is very strong and important to us.” Can you imagine LeBron or Kobe saying that? Read more...
In recent months, it seems like there’s been story after story about some major earthquake hitting somewhere in the world. Now scientists have reassured us that this is perfectly normal: the amount of earthquakes we’re experiencing is about average; it’s just that they happen to be occurring in more populated areas as opposed to out at sea where many of them usually strike. But what do those eggheads know anyway? If they were really all that, they would’ve invented some machine that could predict and stop earthquakes by now.
Nope, I think there’s something else going on. Something more sinister. But I had no proof of it…until recently. Iran’s Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers last week that there was indeed another reason for the rise in earthquakes in that country: sex.
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We’ve all written it: The Break-Up Letter. Most of the time, it’s in the form of a letter, but now in the Digital Age, it usually takes form as an e-mail or if you’re Joe Jonas, the text message.
Over at The Huffington Post, there’s a great slideshow of the world’s most absurd breakup letters, in some pretty interesting shapes and sizes. Here are some examples:
Dave didn't like BIG Government, Beth didn't think "Big" Dave was all that.
What's more unbelievable: The fact that he used Star Wars references in his letter or that he was actually dating someone?
You know, I kinda feel bad about this, because these were most likely submitted by jilted lovers who just want to embarrass their exes to be ridiculed in the public space. I find this offensive, almost a betrayal of trust that breaks the love contract between two people… Read more...
