All posts by Amok

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I’m no “Lin-fidel,” just a realist on Jeremy Lin. Still, he’s just what we need as more people keep blurring the difference between Asian and Asian American

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I’ve got good reason to love Jeremy Lin. I’m an Asian American who went to Harvard. I didn’t play basketball, but I did play white guys in black theatre productions. (You take your extra-curriculars where you can). So my love for Lin is real. I’m just realistic. I root for the Golden State Warriors and we had a mild case of Lin-phomania last year. 

Lin-sanity is a New York phenomenon.   I’m not sure it can be sustained.

I wish Jeremy nothing but the best. No Schadenfreude from me.  He’s a Norcal homey. He worked hard and when he had his chance this time around he delivered. But I’m not sure if last week was one of those special weeks you remember forever because you just don’t replicate it that easily.  I ran for 187 yards on 7 carries as a Pop Warner half-back. I still talk about that. OK, yeah, Jeremy’s doing it in the NBA. Big diff.   I hope he has a long run and can play at the level he’s shown, but I remember last year in Oakland when he couldn’t get off the bench. 

Still, we can thank Jeremy for reinforcing the point to all of America–there’s a difference between Asian and Asian Americans.

It’s more than a technicality. It’s a point worth stating over and over.

We forgot the distinction in WWII and opened up internment camps—for Americans.

As China shows its economic might, some in this country are trying to blur distinctions again.

Maybe Jeremy Lin will help remind people during this critical time in world history, there are Asians, and then there are Asian Americans.

For more,check out my post on the Asian American Legal Defense Fund blog:

 http://aaldef.org/blog/linsanity-call-it-linphomania.html.

blog, news, politics

Birth Control, Boobs and Catholics

I published a piece in the Filipino ethnic press last week and spent most of the week responding to angry Catholics, including one named Jesus,  about the recent insurance flap concering health care and Catholics.

The president’s accommodation last Friday apparently wasn’t enough. 

Some people still see it as forcing contraception on Catholics.

Ironically, there are a good number of Catholics who also want their crucifixes and their condoms, too. 

Most, however, are still too willing to buy the GOP’s framing of the issue, which is to put a political prophylactic on Obama’s health care plan and call it sent from the devil. 

Let’s be clear. This issue isn’t about religion.

President Obama’s initial approval of a provision in his health care plan that would require Catholic institutions and hospitals to provide health insurance to its workers is just about insurance, not about the right to be Catholic.

The health insurance includes coverage for such things as contraception and the morning after pill. It does not directly pay for abortions. And it’s only for insurance coverage benefits. Catholic institutions and hospitals have all sorts of people working for it, so it just doesn’t cover Catholics.

But some Catholics around the country claim this is an affront to the Catholic religion. How can Catholics be Catholics under this law?

If you went to Church two Sundays ago, you know the Bishops are all tweaked about this and are ready to start a jihad on the Obama administration, with the First Amendment their battle cry!

Everyone, please stop for a moment of prayer and sanity.

When Newt Gingrich sides with the Bishops and calls what Obama is doing an attack on Catholics, we all need to rethink exactly what this is—and isn’t.

The law doesn’t say Catholics can’t practice their religion.

It only forces them to offer insurance to workers. What the workers do with it is their business.

If it’s a benefit like your weekly pay, what you do with your money shouldn’t be your employers’ matter.

On top of that, as I said, not all workers in Catholic hospitals and institutions are Catholic. If the Bishops believe in religious freedom, why would they want to force it on non-Catholic workers 

The law is being applied to every employer equally, and to that end, the Obama administration isn’t forcing it on Catholics. The law is the law. There was even a period of transition built in for Catholic employers to adapt.

But the Catholics are trying to politicize this in a presidential year, and trying to rile up Catholics on the issue of abortion (which incidentally this law doesn’t support directly).

Who’s bullying whom?

More interesting is that a majority of Catholics actually want their contraception and their birth control these days.

Catholics should have their choice to do as they see fit. Their medical decisions aren’t religious ones, and medical decisions are private.

That’s a tough enough issue for people to tackle without also having to deal with a fake political issue that the GOP and the Church are so adamant in deploying against Obama.

In America, aren’t we’re supposed to have a separation between church and state. The Obama administration maintains that. The Church is crossing the line.

 But the other line it’s crossing is the one that keeps medical/health matters separate from religion.

 I’m all for faith. Keeping it separate means we don’t have to make a bad choice between health and faith.

 LEFT BREAST, RIGHT BREAST POLITICS

Exit polls say abortion isn’t all that burning an issue these days, but candidates who need a spark will keep turning to it to get attention and divide an electorate.

The Susan G. Komen fiasco is an indication that contraceptive rights could get hotter this campaign season.

When right-wing influences inside Komen, forced it to pull support from Planned Parenthood cancer screenings we got a glimpse of how the issue can mobilize. The dis-funding set off a firestorm of protests. The Right doesn’t like Planned Parenthood’s abortion policy. The Left resents the politicization extending to innocent cancer screenings.

Komen felt the ire and reversed its stand.

But can anyone see pink again without thinking Komen is just a tool for the right-wing? 

There are a lot of other groups out there that put women’s health first before politics.

Now we know Komen isn’t one of them.

blog, news, politics, race

Michigan’s Hoekstra’s race huckstering: Will it get him votes?

Come on folks, let’s play “Are you offended?”

Michigan Republican Peter Hoekstra wants to engage the Asian American community!

http://www.debbiespenditnow.com/

Good thing Peter Hoekstra puts his claim on this, and has approved this message.

Usually people are too ashamed to own up to such blatant racist actions. That’s why God created hoods.

But Hoekstra says he’s using “satire.”

If it’s satire, I’m not laughing. Are you?

I’m a big fan of satire, and admit to using a little of it myself.

Satire uses humor, or exaggeration, against big targets to make a point.

If Hoekstra is making China a target here, that’s fine. Political leaders are fair game. China is a strange hybrid now of capitalism and communism. Debbie isn’t the right target in a policy debate. Blame Debbie only if your real intent is to create anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S., whipping up the kind of xenophobic reactions that lead to real misunderstanding and spills over into acts of Anti-Asian American violence.

Sounds like a good divisive strategy in Hoekstra’s Michigan, where many are still trying to recover from a slow economy.

Hoekstra’s simplistic “satire” is the kind of sentiment manipulation that leads to a real misunderstanding of the imbalance of trade between China and the U.S.

It doesn’t lead to people writing Congress and demanding action. It doesn’t even lead to something that might make a difference–like not shopping at Wal-Mart.

But is sure fuels emotions that lead to street level tensions and scapegoating.

Don’t forget, when the U.S. auto industry was besieged by the Japanese more than a generation ago, an autoworker took a baseball bat to the head of Vincent Chin.

Thank you Peter Hoekstra for your part in opening up another chapter of “Yellow Peril” in America.

The truth is Americans shouldn’t fear China as much as race hucksters like Hoekstra.

Hoekstra needs votes and is willing to do anything to get attention. Just as Romney doesn’t care about the poor, Hoekstra doesn’t seem to  care about the racial sensitivities of Michigan voters.

If it’s a satire, the last laugh is on Hoekstra, who approved that message.

blog, news

Digesting Super Bowl:The game, Madonna’s ageless menagerie, and dogs, dogs, dogs

Tough to watch the football Giants parade this morning.

It was hard to like the Super Bowl too much if your “team” isn’t there. True, the Super Bowl isn’t like any other game because it is for ALL the marbles. But I saw better and more enjoyable games prior to the BIG ONE. And let’s face it, the San Francisco 49ers should have been there. Both Manning and Brady were playing in the style of Alex Smith. How else do you have a 10-9 halftime score? (Hey, that’s my birthday!) They were game managers, protecting the ball. Nothing stupendous. But Manning and the Giants were a little better when it mattered. If you were watching and who wasn’t among the 111.3 million viewers of SB XLVI?

As it was, I saw just a bit of the game as I was at a wake for a dear family friend, Rosie Vitin, a Filipino American activist in Northern California, who since the 1950s supported immigrant families and fought for social justice and changes in things like discriminatory housing covenants.

That put the game in perspective.

I did catch the last quarter and I saw everything I needed to see: The Manning to Manningham sideline catch, and the last play, Brady’s not so-Hail Mary. That would have been a great game ender and would have catapulted this one into the storied ranks. Just think, if Brady didn’t have that first quarter safety, he would have just needed a field goal to tie the game and send it into OT. But alas…

MADONNA’S MENAGERIE

The one thing the Super Bowl does have that other games don’t are better commercials and a better half-time show.

If you were looking for a wardrobe malfunction, there wasn’t one. Madonna’s slip on the bleachers, and the exposure of her black bikini don’t count. I admit when she flipped over to show her underwear, I thought that might have been a good opportunity for a legit W.M., but no.

As it turns out, there was a “digital malfunction,” M.I.A.’s middle finger, but that made the ordeal of finding it a bit like “Where’s Waldo?” I didn’t see it. I wasn’t offended. Did it really happen? Are people really upset about MIA? Who is MIA? What war was she in? Did the finger make everyone find her?

In general, I was a bit underwhelmed by Madonna, personally. She used to be so shocking in a way. But now she’s all garbed up with nary a sign of cleavage. She was middle-aged, though fighting it all the way.

I mean, isn’t it great that a 53-year-old can do cartwheels and “sing,” (if in fact she didn’t lip-synch), isn’t it?

How’d she pull it off? Augmentation.

And it worked.

I mean when you see the Boss, or Roger Daltrey or the Stones, or Steven Tyler, these don’t you wonder what fun they’d would all have at the senior center?

But I kept looking at Madonna on Sunday.  And she sure didn’t look like the senior center entertainment.

I had feared people would wonder aloud,”What’s Lady Gaga doing singing those old songs?”

Or maybe they’d wonder why Madonna isn’t singing “Danny Boy”?

But then I figured Madonna would know how to re-invent herself yet again.

I also knew that if she didn’t sing “Like a Virgin” the very first song, we wouldn’t hear it. You just don’t go backwards on virginity. Not credibly.

So she started in her Cleopatra meets the USC marching band get up, with “Vogue” and just kept on going. And all along it was never really just Madonna. She was the focal point, yes, but it was all a massive ensemble on a huge multi-media stage that featured one by one Nicki Minaj, LMAO, the aforementioned M.I.A., and Cee Lo Green.

That’s how you stay young, folks. You surround yourself with younger, hipper folks, and try not to show your tree rings.

And then you put on the razzle dazzle with lights, dry ice, smoke and then grasp at significance by leaving with an an appeal for world peace. Or did she mean “whirled peas?”

So I liked this incarnation of Madonna. Any 53-year old who can show her panties while doing a cartwheel and not have it considered a wardrobe malfunction is a great talent. That’s an ageless pop culture icon for you. And I’d rather see her than Steven Tyler, Mick Jagger or Keith Richards recreate their hits, that’s for sure.

Madonna will be reinventing herself throughout life.

I want to see again her when she’s Jane Fonda’s age.

THOSE SUPER DOG COMMERCIALS

I thought for a second I was watching a dog show.

Every commercial seemed to have a dog, including the Doritos commercial people seemed to say was the No.1 ad of the lot.

Nah. The VW dog and the Skechers’ racing bulldog,Mr. Quigley were my favorite dog commercials.

Overall, I preferred the apocalyptic Chevy commercial best. No dogs. Just frogs falling from the sky. Nice amphibious touch.

But the ads did seem a tad retro. A lot of eye candy to go around. David Beckham’s underwear?  Tele-flora’s strip-tease?  Despite the “doggie style” theme, those two commercials made it clear, more than dogs, sex still sells.

But is it effective if all I want after the commercial is the sex and not the product?