Here was our second podcast which featured THX1138 and me discussing “The Relevance of Frank Chin.”
Since THX has a PhD and wrote a thesis on Asian American literature, it was actually me interviewing him on his ideas about Frank Chin, masculinity, and the future of Asian American literature. There are very few people who have THX’s knowledge about Asian American literature, so it was good to hear. In addition to talking about Chin, THX also talks about Asian American activism and feminism. Again, it was one of our early podcasts, and so you’ll hear us tripping as we try to throw the mic back and forth. We learned later on to trust in Apple and to use the built-in mic instead, which is what you heard in our Olympic podcast and Activism podcast. Enjoy!
On a side note, the music that THX chose was called 44th Street or something. The irony! THX did, however, pick it for the music and not the name.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who is believed by South Korean and American officials to have suffered a stroke, recently made his first public appearance in more than a month, the North’s state-run news agency reported on Saturday.
Mr. Kim watched a soccer game held to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of Kim Il Sung University, the North’s premier institution of higher education named after Mr. Kim’s late father and founding president of the Communist state, the Korean Central News Agency said.
“We are trying to verify the report,” said a spokesman at the South’s National Intelligence Service, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity.
The university’s anniversary fell on Wednesday, the day the nuclear envoy from the United States, Christopher Hill, arrived in Pyongyang to try to stop North Korea from restarting its nuclear weapons program.
I was happy this morning to see that William from BetterAsianMan.com wrote a review of my website bigWOWO.com, my personal site which I named after my son’s favorite stuffed animal (pictured above, pronounced “Woe-woe.”). You can see my explanation of the name here. You can see William’s review here. I got the highest rating…woohoo!!!
I’ve always had my own personal blog where I double posted my 44s stuff, but it was only last week that I took the plunge and got my own self-hosted domain name. I used the free software from Wordpress.org, and all I can say is that building the site from the ground up has been an absolutely amazing experience. It’s a hard feeling to express, but the work that you put behind creating a website, even if the theme and software was created entirely by someone else, creates a special affinity that is rare. I liked my blogspot blog, but I’m crazy about this one. I now partially understand why self-hosted bloggers get territorial about their sites.
Thank you to 44’s member Lingyai who sent this article. People always ask about the Asian American vote. I actually just met someone today who works to register Asian American voters. But the question always remains: what do we stand for? We’re typically on both sides of the aisle and in all parts of the political spectrum.
The article covers that same question about what happens for a group that doesn’t all vote the same way:
An argument can be made—and is—that excessive partisanship is exactly the problem with a lot of ethnic politics. It goes something like this: Democrats take black voters for granted, Republicans don’t even try to win them over, and the result is that they have less influence than they would if they had less party loyalty.
But an argument can also be made that partisanship enhances influence. On the national level, the most powerful groups—unions, African-Americans, evangelicals—are often the most partisan. A pandering politician wants to maximize the efficiency of his pandering. So if the strategy is to mobilize the base, it makes more sense to court a loyal group. (Plus, it gets you more media coverage. The one time the national media noticed Asian-Americans this election cycle was when Hillary Clinton won 75 percent of their votes in California.)
Stocks skidded this afternoon, with the Dow’s nearly 778-point drop being the worst single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government’s $700 billion bank bailout plan.
And…there really isn’t much to say. Or maybe there’s something to say, but I just don’t feel like saying it.
6:18 PM: McCain is totally Bush-lite. I can’t believe how he danced around the regulation question. He did the exact same thing as Bush by basically just saying that he believes in the American worker, which has nothing to do with the current crisis we’re in.
6:30 PM: I’m not liking this at all. Obama is talking in abstractions. He needs to talk more about what he’s going to do in detail. McCain is still focusing on cutting spending. Why does McCain continue to dodge the regulation question?
6:33 PM: Okay, Obama is doing better now by focusing on the war in Iraq. What I think would help is if he would use his intellectual advantages against McCain. It somehow seems as if he’s afraid to look like a bully, but he needs to realize that he’s the underdog.
6:37 PM: I think Obama needs to show his intellect. Refer to the economists. Cutting spending isn’t going to do anything without also focusing on revenues. Government needs to increase revenues too.
This is a fantastic interview from der Spiegel with a brain researcher and political consultant on what Obama needs to do to win Friday’s debate (which will hopefully happen). Debate is all about rhetoric and charisma, not reason or policy, and I hope the Dems have (re-)learned that.
THE FIRST DEBATE
‘Obama Can’t Let Rumor He is Un-American Go Unchallenged’
If McCain doesn’t back out, he’ll have his first debate with Barack Obama on Friday. But issues won’t matter much, best-selling author and brain researcher Drew Westen argues in a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview. Presentation, decisiveness and humor will be more important.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You’ve written a book on “The Political Brain.” How will the brains of millions of television viewers work during the first presidential debate on Friday?
US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and family: “There is a risk Obama will look the way he did in some previous debates — intellectual, rambling, with no obvious heart.”
Westen: About 85 percent of people will think their guy won no matter what. A lot of research shows that people support their favorite under any circumstances. Their brains work overtime to justify that view even if the person they support was in reality weaker. Usually only about eight percent of people can be convinced.
This was our very first Fighting 44s podcast when we were in Portland last month, and the topic was “Anti-Racist Education.” Somehow we forgot to post it! It’s approximately 30 minutes in length, 13.6 megs, recorded on 8/22/08, and it features nskripchun and Xian, two seasoned professionals in the education system, discussing education and culture as it relates to Asian Americans. Mrs. skrips, who is also a teacher, has a short part too (to set skrips straight!). It’s a good discussion by three expert teachers with experience in the education field. They talk about tests, books, and racial and ethnic stereotypes as they relate to American students. I thought it was interesting because it gave me the opportunity to hear from three people who are on the ground dealing with the system and trying to impart knowledge to young America.
Keep in mind that this was the very first podcast that I’ve ever hosted, and being the content-focused non-techies that we are, we were still learning to use the mics. So the quality wasn’t quite at the same level as the other podcasts, but it’s a good discussion.
A quick thought here on the controversy on our site from a few weeks ago about the effects of “PUA-ism” on gender relations.
Some of our readers seem to have two assumptions about the phenomenon:
1. That it causes, or at least amplifies, “objectification” (the nature of which we won’t get into here). Using a very simple definition, we’ll say that to objectify means to regard someone like an “object” or an “Other” and not as a human being worthy of dignity and respect.
2. That as a result, PUA-ism in general is bad, because it ultimately encourages men to hurt women by “dehumanizing” (objectifying) them in mens’ eyes.
Point 1 can go either way; I’m not convinced that it really does exacerbate objectification, since the dating/mating game is filled with objectification from both sides from the get-go, but I’m open to the possibility.
I’m very skeptical, however, about the idea that, even if it does amplify objectification, that it results in bad consequences for women. To put it briefly, what do we want? Men who have the confidence and ability to pick up women, or men who don’t? Who is more likely to sexually assault a women? A man with the confidence and ability to have consensual sex, or a man who doesn’t?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what happens between people when someone levels an accusation of some “-ism,” like racism or sexism or homophobia (or even stupidity), against someone, or against what someone said, and whether the two can really be distinguished.
I don’t think they can.
Telling you that what you said is racist, without implying anything about you as a human being, doesn’t make that much sense to me. What someone says doesn’t arise from nowhere: if you say that there is a “racist” element in someone’s expression, opinion, observation, or view of the world, you’re implicitly saying that there’s a racist element in that person.
This is not the case with any position; if you want to test the objective merit of someone’s position, you can say that what she said is correct or incorrect, without necessarily implying that she as a person is correct or incorrect (since this is nonsensical). But once you make a value judgment about someone’s position, it looks to me like a whole different game, and what you think about what they say can’t be separated all that easily from what you think of what they are.
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Thank you to 44’s member Lingyai who sent
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