The Fighting 44s

This is a fantastic article from the New Yorker on the effectiveness of relentless effort and unconventional technique, as it applies to basketball, war, and life. It reminds me of two things: first, a study a genius buddy told me about which concluded that most of the top guys in any given field were the relentless ones, not the most talented. This article goes much further than that conversation, though. Second, a while back there were a few articles on the new “white flight” in California where parents were moving their kids away from certain school districts because they didn’t like how academically competitive the Asians were. The article discusses not just the strategic consequences, but also the social consequences of playing by a different set of conventions (but the same “rules”) as the majority and beating them.

My friend who sent it to me had this to say:

I highly recommend you all check out the article “How David Beats Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Posted in Social Issues | | Permalink

It’s been almost a year since the Sichuan Earthquake, and NPR is running a series following up on both the survivors, impact, and recovery from the disaster.

Story Link

For Disabled Chinese Girl, An Uncertain Future
by Melissa Block

All Things Considered, May 4, 2009 · Huang Meihua is a bright, spirited 12-year-old with an uncertain future. She’s pretty and funny and full of spunk.

“If I listed all of my good qualities, it would take more than three days and three nights,” says Meihua with a grin.

Meihua is also a double amputee. Both of her legs were crushed in last May’s earthquake in southwest China, when her school collapsed around her in a remote mountain village.

Meihua spent several hours trapped in the rubble, but at the time she wasn’t aware of how badly she was hurt.

“I was thinking my legs are fine,” Meihua says. “After I get out I’m going to write an essay about this and get a good grade. They always ask us to write about something unforgettable, so I was going to write about this.”

Posted in News, Social Issues | | Permalink

It’s been a great five years. I hope you’ll all keep in touch. Dialectic, Lopes, Xian, Box, Ellen, Maogirl, kimtae, Cattygurl, Skrips, Kwak, Scowlie, JadeDragon, angi, awong, Makulita, Seoulbrother, Tojo, Samuraijack, Pat, THX, King, lingyai, etain, MinorityMilitant, doppleganger, flipsoul, Tokyolovestory, e_FUX, Zhubajie, HurricaneSteve, urB4N, sargassosea, lycheng, Candide, TygerDurden, caocao, ReappropriateJenn, even MelaninManson, and anyone else who added to my life but I may have missed–thanks for the education and the memories.

Signing off,
JH

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

I’ve always had a fondness for that phrase, the last words of the Buddha on his deathbed. It’s not the translation that’s easiest to understand, but it’s probably the most elegant. To paraphrase, he said “everything put together falls apart; work out your salvation with diligence.”

On that note, I’m formally announcing the “death,” or at least, semi-retirement, of The Fighting 44s.

I hadn’t planned it this way, but coincidentally, it’s been five years to the day since we started, and it’s been a damn good run.

We’ve already told many of the long-time members on our forum, and we’ve shut down new user registration. This site is going to become an archive, and I expect only the frontpage will be updated from here on, with the same irregularity that it’s had over the past couple years.

We’re not going to disappear; Lopan and I are going to keep the site up for the foreseeable future, and I’ll continue to post occasional articles, news links, and commentaries, but this is a formal acknowledgment that our “active phase” is over. I’ll save the thoughts and stories and explanations for future posts, and simply say thank you, all of you, for your fervent support, your heartfelt hostility, and your fucked-up craziness. It’s been a privilege.

Posted in Announcements | | Permalink

By now I’m sure many of you have heard about Jackie Chan’s latest political statement. The media, as usual, has blown it all out of proportion. I don’t want to defend or criticize what he’s said, because it actually deals with a very complex issue of government as it relates to moral and techno-economic development. I do want to point out, however, that it’s the “dark side” of an argument I’ve heard from a certain type of pluralist liberal from time to time. There has been a backlash, lately, against the idea of democracy, and its universal applicability. While I certainly agree that democracy is not universally applicable, I also believe that it is a desirable and necessary structure for a suitably industrialized society.

Posted in News, Politics | | Permalink

Thought you all might find this interesting: 20/20’s Shooting Under Fire. It’s a special report on guns, given the tragic mass shootings that have been taking place recently. The latest, of course, was the Binghamton rampage where Jiverly Wong killed 14 people including himself.

The most interesting part of the 20/20 story was where they train the college kids to use guns and then test them by simulating a mass campus shooting. I’ve heard people advance the argument that the world would be safer if everyone had a gun, but as you can see from the experiment, it’s much more difficult to return fire than it sounds. Under the psychological pressure of a mass shooting, people will fail to pull the gun out of the holster, will freeze, or will get shot without even realizing it. As shown in some of the real footage, people will also make bad decisions regarding the welfare of other people.

What are your views on this topic?

(Posted in different form on bigwowo.)

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

I love it! I’ve always wanted to be Bobby McCormick. From The Houston Chronicle:

Lawmaker defends comment on Asians
Call for voters to simplify their names not racially motivated, Terrell Republican says
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 9, 2009, 11:58AM

AUSTIN — A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
Easier for voting?

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

Posted in News | | Permalink

Who says that making fun of Bush (and chasing after the perfect burger) doesn’t pay off? Slackers, this is true validation of your righteous path!

From the Wall Street Journal:

Actor Kal Penn to Join White House Staff

Susan Davis reports on the White House.
Actor Kal Penn is leaving Hollywood for the White House.

Penn, best known for his roles as Kumar Patel in the “Harold & Kumar” movies and most recently as Dr. Lawrence Kutner on the television series “House” told EW.com that he will be associate director in the White House office of public liaison.

“They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations. They’re basically the front door of the White House,” Penn said. “They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House. It’s similar to what I was doing on the campaign.”

The Chicago Sun Times reports that Penn will be working with the Asian-American and arts communities. His start date is unknown. The office is run by senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Posted in Entertainment & Media, News, Politics, Social Issues | | Permalink

This is a long article, but it is very well worth reading. The views expressed in this piece from Foreign Affairs accord exactly with my understanding of the relationship between techno-economic base (agricultural, industrial, post-industrial, or what I refer to as informational), cultural values, and political system. American philosopher/psychologist Ken Wilber has written on this as well using integral language. Gerhard Lenski found decades ago that a culture’s subsistence technology limited the type of social organization that was possible, which enabled one to predict features of a society’s political, economic, and religious structures based on its technological means of production. A strong understanding of development is NECESSARY to an understanding of politics, values, law, and race.

Finally, if don’t read this and ever try to talk to me about how politics, values, law, and race work, I will not respect you, and I will regard you intellectually as little more than a marmoset.

Summary —

Democratic institutions tend to emerge only when certain social and cultural conditions exist. But economic development and modernization push those conditions in the right direction and make democracy increasingly likely.

Posted in Integral Theory, Politics | | Permalink

See, this is the kind of ignorant western reaction that annoys the crap out of me. Der Spiegel describes western outrage over the recently-passed “men rule women” laws with words like “shocking,” “outrageous,” “worse than the Taliban.” And I have to ask, just what the fuck did you think was going to happen? You march into a country that doesn’t even have a stable agricultural base (poppies don’t count as food), much less industrial or informational, and you install a goddamn democracy where people have only ever known tribal and ethno-religious rule. If a huge chunk of the population is going to be strongly ethno-religious, how the fuck do you think they’re going to vote? Liberally? Fucking morons. This is the same shit as when Hamas got voted into power, and the west was shocked and outraged. Stable democracies with liberal pluralist, equality values can’t just pop up out of pre-liberal, pre-rational, pre-equality ground: you need an agrarian-to-industrial techno-economic base, a strong educational base, and some significant chunk of the population that buys into liberal democratic values (like middle-class knowledge workers who take survival for granted).

Posted in Politics, Religion & Spirituality | | Permalink