Category Archives: news

animal rights, news

Triple Crown hopes dashed as I’ll Have Another is scratched from Belmont; Let the speculation begin about trainer “Drug” O’Neill

It’s too bad we can’t take Doug O’Neill, the trainer for I’ll Have Another at face value. Tendonitis? I just think all the scrutiny given to the Belmont and the special detention barn made it impossible for the trainer to perform his “magic.” O’Neill’ has a record of using drugs to get horses to run through their ailments. It’s hard not to stop any further speculation now. 

The only real positive here  is that the horse was scratched in the end.

It’s not the happy ending O’Neill and the racing establishment needed and wanted. But it’s the right thing and the humane thing. I’ll Have Another is spared exposure to a breakdown.  In the long run that’s far better than any false glory that O’Neill may have been chasing.

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Obama and Aquino talk China in D.C., but media can’t get past Obama mini-gaffe on private sector

Below is the White House transcript on the press briefing after the meeting between President Obama and President Aquino of the Philippines.

As usual, what’s news is a function of the audience, and the most important issue here really is the international one:  the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China in the oil rich shoals of South China Sea. It’s resulted in some tense moments within the last month between the Philippines and China, and most Americans don’t even know about it.

What makes this briefing valuable is how it shows China the strength of the relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines.

If you’re in China, you’re seeing the U.S. remind us all that it sees itself as a Pacific power, and that the Philippines is a really, really good friend and ally.  Don’t mess with it. 

What else can China do but realize it has a lot invested in the U.S. If they want us to pay them back, it should put up with a little Filipino sabre-rattling. 

Frankly, the whole thing is a little too colonial for my taste.  The Philippines isn’t “Little Brown Brother” anymore. But the Philippines is so anemic it still needs the U.S. to play “Big Brother.” 

Maybe that’s all right if you find yourself in a pissing match with China over oil. 

Too bad the press chose to go domestic and followed up with a question focused on Obama’s earlier statements about the economy and the private sector doing well.

Is a mini-gaffe over language really more important than what happens in the South China Sea?  

Here’s the White House transcript of the Washington press briefing:

President Obama: It is a great pleasure to welcome President Aquino to the Oval Office and to the White House.

I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him, most recently during my Asia trip, when we met most recently in Bali. And at that time, we discussed how important the U.S.-Philippine relationship was, the historic ties, the 60 years of a mutual defense treaty, the extraordinary links between Filipino-Americans that have brought our two countries so closely together.  And we pledged to work on a whole host of issues that would continue to strengthen and deepen the relationship for the 21st century.

We talked about how we could work on security issues, on economic issues, on people-to-people exchanges, and on a whole host of regional issues.  And I just want to thank President Aquino for his excellent cooperation, because we’ve made a great deal of progress since that time.

On economic issues, the Philippines is the recipient of a Millennium Challenge grant that is helping to foster greater development and opportunity within the Philippines.  We have a partnership for growth that is working on how we can make sure that we are structuring a relationship of expanding trade and commerce between our two countries.

I want to congratulate President Aquino for the work that he’s done on the Open Government Partnership that is consistent with his campaign to root out corruption that can facilitate greater economic development within the Philippines.

And on security and military issues, we had discussions about how we can continue to consult closely together, to engage in training together, work on a range of regional issues together — all of which is consistent with the announced pivot by the United States back to Asia, and reminding everybody that, in fact, the United States considers itself, and is, a Pacific power.

Throughout all these exchanges and all the work that we’ve done I’ve always found President Aquino to be a thoughtful and very helpful partner.  And I think that as a consequence of the meeting today in which we discussed not only military and economic issues, but also regional issues — for example, trying to make sure that we have a strong set of international norms and rules governing maritime disputes in the region — that I’m very confident that we’re going to see continued friendship and strong cooperation between our two countries. 

So, Mr. President, thank you for visiting.  We are very proud of the friendship between our two countries, and we look forward to continuing in the future.

PRESIDENT AQUINO:  I would like to thank President Obama for all the support that the U.S. has given us in our quest to really transform our society.  Ours is a shared history, shared values, and that’s why America is just one of two that we have strategic partnerships with.

Today’s meeting has really even deepened and strengthened a very long relationship we have, especially as we face the challenges that are before both our countries in the current situation.

And again, we’d like to thank them for all the expressions of support that even now has led to the resolution of situations within our territory.   

Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  All right.  Thank you, everybody.

  Q    Mr. President, Mitt Romney says you’re out of touch for saying the private sector is doing fine.  What’s your response?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine.  That’s the reason I had the press conference.  That’s why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month, and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger.

The economy is not doing fine.  There are too many people out of work.  The housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater.  And that’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference.

Now, I think if you look at what I said this morning and what I’ve been saying consistently over the last year, we’ve actually seen some good momentum in the private sector.  We’ve seen 4.3 million jobs created — 800,000 this year alone — record corporate profits.  And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy.

The folks who are hurting, where we have problems and where we can do even better, is small businesses that are having a tough time getting financing; we’ve seen teachers and police officers and firefighters who’ve been laid off — all of which, by the way, when they get laid off spend less money buying goods and going to restaurants and contributing to additional economic growth.  The construction industry is still very weak, and that’s one of the areas where we’ve still seen job losses instead of job gains.

So if we take the steps that I laid out to make sure that we’re not seeing teacher layoffs and we’re not seeing police officer layoffs, and we’re providing small businesses with additional financing and tax breaks for when they hire or if they’re giving raises to their employees; if we refinance housing — or allow homeowners to refinance so they’ve got an extra $3,000 in their pocket so that they can spend money and contribute to further economic growth; if we’re making sure that we’re rebuilding, work that has to be done anyway, deferred maintenance on roads and bridges that could put construction workers back to work — all those things will strengthen the economy, and independent economists estimate it would create an additional million jobs. 

Now, you can’t give me a good reason as to why Congress would not act on these items other than politics — because these are traditionally ideas that Democrats and Republicans have supported.  So let me be as clear as I can be.  The economy needs to be strengthened.  That’s why I had a press conference.

I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now, which is what I’ve been saying for the last year, two years, three years, what I’ve been saying since I came into office.  And the question then is what are we going to do about it?  And one of the things that people get so frustrated about is that instead of actually talking about what would help, we get wrapped up in these political games.  That’s what we need to put an end to.

So the key right now is for folks — what I’m interested in hearing from Congress and Mr. Romney is what steps are they willing to take right now that are going to make an actual difference.  And so far, all we’ve heard are additional tax cuts to the folks who are doing fine, as opposed to taking steps that would actually help deal with the weaknesses in the economy and promote the kind of economic growth that we would all like to see.

All right.  Thank you very much, everybody.  Thank you.  Thanks.  Thank you, guys.

blog, diversity, news, politics

No schlemiels here, but are Asian Americans the New Jews in battle over affirmative action? Also: One way to thwart the system

The question is raised once again in the cyclical affirmative action fight in college admissions. Those against affirmative action are saying Jews and Asian Americans have both been victimized  by race-concisous admissions.

That  may be true. But is that a reason to get rid of affirmative action?

One commenter on my sfgate.com blog says that 86 percent of blacks and Latinos who get into exclusive schools are from wealthy backgrounds. I don’t know if that fact is true or not, but what difference does that make?  That’s always been a comeback by affirmative action foes. Poor kids are cool, but don’t give affirmative action to the Cosby kids.

I’d say that the well-to-do blacks and Latinos may even be so-called “legacy” admits, i.e., their parents went to the school. I actually am all for that for minorities. Most of the time, the parents were admitted through a more race-concious process. I don’t have a problem with creating a “legacy of affirmative action” where the off-spring of grads get admitted. It does show, after all, how an institution can change by generation.

What I don’t like is that if you get rid of race-conscious programs, the non-Cosby kids, the ones most deserving of a leg up, may lose that opportunity of a lifetime.

That’s why affirmative action is worth preserving.

There’s one another issue brought up by the the “New Jews” argument. If one makes the case that by experience Asian Americans are like the Jews in terms of discrimination faced in college admissions, can you then say that one’s common experience is valid in defining ethnicity? Considering how self-identification has been a standard in the Census(it’s merely “you are what you say you are,” you don’t have to show me any DNA)  it’s not illogical for Asian Americans to check the box on any form and say they are black, or Latino, or white.

That may be a better way for you anti-Affirmative Action folks to thwart the system. 

I remember reading Dean Henry Rosovsky’s book on Harvard where he said that Filipinos’ experiences were more closely aligned to blacks.

Maybe that’s why when I was at Harvard I felt more comfortable in my Afro American Studies courses than I did in my  Romantic Poets class.

But it may also be why I remain adamant about the need for affirmative action. Asian Americans are far from a homogenous group. Disparities within the group will have a much harder time being addressed if race-concisous admissions are eliminated.

blog, journalism, news, politics

Those high-rolling bundled Asian Americans at the San Jose Obama brunch meeting were typically Asian: shy, quiet, and reserved

Maybe they were saving their encounter for their memoirs?

Or maybe they will be posting later on their Facebook pages?

The 20 or so who paid $35,000 (not $40,000 as was originally reported) to meet with Obama talked to just one reporter at the end of the event, the SF Chronicle’s Joe Garafoli.

Though it was a closed press event, apparently there was no condition placed to not talk to the media. The meeting members  just chose not to as if they were protecting corporate secrets. The only one to talk was Vinod Bhardwagm the founder of a firm called Kalpana. He told the Chronicle he asked Obama a question about the constitution and how the founders would have viewed how the document is used. 

Can you say “softball.”

What bothers me is this was billed as a high-level meeting of Asian Americans with the president. As an Asian American, wouldn’t you want to know or share in this opportunity to have this kind of access to the president in order to let him know what the Asian American community really wants and needs? 

That would be a high-minded use of the president’s time.

Instead, it was just a vanity brunch with Obama,  where the people attending didn’t want to do much showing off afterwards.

The whole closed nature of the event just felt unseemly to me. But I suppose in an era of SuperPACs and Citizens United, the whole idea behind bundling to get around individual donor limits (usually $2,500) in order to offer facetime with the president  seems like just a small hole in our democracy.

But it’s still a hole.

See the original version of my post on sfgate.com and at www.aaldef.org/blog