Category Archives: news

The San Francisco Mayor’s Race, Filipino Americans and Ranked Choice Voting: Some thoughts after moderating a Filipino American community forum

What a difference Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) makes in San Francisco.

I had the privilege to moderate a San Francisco Mayoral Forum for the Filipino American community of San Francisco on Friday.

Normally, politicians are quick to challenge.  Forums used to be like prize fights. All candidates had  to do was speak and their words would clash.

But RCV has turned everyone into pussycats.  No one flashes a fang nor claw, let alone a bucket of mud. Continue reading The San Francisco Mayor’s Race, Filipino Americans and Ranked Choice Voting: Some thoughts after moderating a Filipino American community forum

Occupy Wall Street? Can you afford not to?

Check out my blog at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund:

http://aaldef.org/blog/occupied-or-self-occupied-thoughts-on-americas-anti-corporate-protest.html

If you are paying more than 20 percent interest on a credit card, upside down on a mortgage, been foreclosed on, have lost a job, have collected multiple extensions on unemployment, or have suffered from the frustration of the economic downturn in this country, then there’s your reason.

It’s time to take to the streets. Let your voice be heard.

Occupy Wall Street is the tea party for the rest of us. If you’ve seen economic pain, this may be the time to go amok and let your voice be heard. It’s hard to understand why politicians don’t get the urgency of passing proposals to help small business and the middle class. Are we too small to bail out?

You don’t have to wait till the next election,the people are marching in cities all over. They are simply exercising fundamental First Amendment rights. The frustration level has reached a point where the government, the media must take note. People want answers.

How can Wall Streeters make hay, when real people are suffering? 

Check my blog at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund:

http://aaldef.org/blog/occupied-or-self-occupied-thoughts-on-americas-anti-corporate-protest.html

Apple’s Steve Jobs made us all better with the tools he left us, but he left us too soon

I bought my first Apple in 1984.

It was the Mac. I just had to have it. I had no practical use for it. I had a computer at work (a PC) and didn’t bring work home. I didn’t have a business. No need to do spreadsheets. There certainly was no internet. I just wanted the hot thing. So the Mac sat on my desk next to all my other gadgets like my TRS-100 and my Osborne. I believe in technology. It doesn’t always believe in me. But I believe in technology to transform life. And that I suppose is the reason we mourn Steve Jobs.

He gave us all the right tools.

He didn’t tell us what to say or do. He left that to us. But he gave us the tools to live our dreams.

Jobs really was the anti-corporate ideal. He was a true corporate rebel. And he won. Even after being fired from Apple, he came back and led its rebirth. I wonder why more corporate heads don’t adopt his style. The difference isn’t just generational or about the tech business.

He did something really revolutionary. He made products for the people. Products for the rest of us.

They weren’t cheap, which is why most people went with PCs. But Apple was all about simplicity, beauty and ease of use.

He made tech human. You didn’t have to know DOS to make the darn thing run.

Jobs integrated the code into our lives. And now even if you’re a PC guy, you felt his presence. Jobs created pressure on the competition to be even better at being Mac-like. And now how can we live without all these tools that make us do what we do?

I never met Jobs. I did meet Woz several times. And now I see. Woz was the nerd’s nerd. Jobs was the dreamer.

One other thing that gets me about Jobs is he is my age.

I like to tell a self-deprecating joke about being in the same Harvard Class as Bill Gates. I graduated. He dropped out. I guess I showed him.

But Jobs was the dropout who trumped us all.

He’s a reminder that we can all accomplish so much more if we are lucky to discover what we were truly put on this earth to do.

Here’s Jobs’ Commencement address at Stanford (2005) that you may have seen snippets of on TV.

When you ever feel ready to give up on things, watch it. Get inspired. It’s a simple message. Have faith that the dots will connect. Find what you love and believe. Live each day as if it were your last, because yes, you will be dead soon. And as an homage to the Whole Earth Catalogue, stay hungry, stay foolish.