Category: Brooklyn

Some stuff…

These first pictures from Saturn’s moon Titan are so cool!

Plus, a CNN retrospect on the 1st African-American woman astronaut, Dr. Mae Jemison. She notes:

Growing up in Chicago, Jemison looked at the “Star Trek” character Lt. Uhura and saw her future.

“What was really great about ‘Star Trek’ when I was growing up as a little girl is not only did they have Lt. Uhura played by Nichelle Nichols as a technical officer — she was African,” said Jemison, who was born in Decatur, Alabama.

“At the same time, they had this crew that was composed of people from all around the world and they were working together to learn more about the universe,” she said. “So that helped to fuel my whole idea that I could be involved in space exploration as well as in the sciences.”

And, you got to admire a scientist who got to make a little appearance in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (like Stephen Hawking); I mean, Dr. Jemison does cool stuff since her NASA days, and:

She has considered a future in politics, has been awarded honors and decorations and holds multiple honorary doctorates. But she is still tickled about appearing in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“It was called ‘Second Chances,’” she said. “It was all about the fact that our fantasies lead our realities and our realities lead our fantasies and it comes full circle again.”

“‘Star Trek’ was one of our best fantasies,” she said, then added with a laugh, “And besides, I got to meet Worf (Michael Dorn, who plays the Klingon head of security.)”

Slate.com’s Chris Suellentrop says we ought to hope that George W. Bush is like Ronald Reagan – conservative in the first term; a lot looser in the second term. Wishful thinking, but that’s always a nice thing.

NY Times profiles Carol Bellamy, first (I think only) woman elected as President of NYC Council, and currently dealing with her role as director of UNICEF. I liked how her backstory gets told – that she balanced her Wall Street lawyer career, investment banking with public service. She’s been inspiring to watch and read about.

Happy Weekend…

Thank heavens Friday’s coming.

To the spammers named “Online Poker,” “Gambling,” “Poker,” and like folk – while your some of your comments appear complimentary (I mean, sure, thanks for calling this a “super duper site” and all that), you guys are damn annoying. Please go away. Well, I guess you guys don’t actually read the content or you’d know how you’re not appreciated. Still, please go away. End of rant.

This ad where Ex-Presidents Bush the Elder and Clinton are encouraging Americans to donate to reputable non-profits to help the South Asian tsunami victims … that is a strange ad. Feels awkward. Like watching the “X-Presidents” cartoon from “Saturday Night Live.” Like weird. Oh well.

This news story that Prince Harry of Britain wore a Nazi swastika at a costume party — nutty story. What is with Harry? He apologized for his poor judgment – but this is more than poor judgment; this is just utterly slow-witted. I’m not suprised that Harry’s dad, Prince Charles, is livid and is insisting that Harry visit Auschwitz to understand the gravity of WWII (umm, plus doesn’t Harry understand even his family’s role in WWII – how his grandfather Prince Philip served in the war; that even his grandmother Queen Elizabeth had to put on a uniform; and they had to deal with his misguided German relatives; how his great-grandfather, King George, had to deal with a bombed London, maintain British morale, and stiff-upper lip alongside Winston Churchill against the Nazis? Oh, and yeah, at least 6 million people were exterminated). No wonder a former British government official is debating that maybe Harry shouldn’t be attending Sandhurst, the elite military higher education institution. The older brother William apparently can’t avoid blame either, since he supposedly helped Harry pick this idiotic costume. Neither are children anymore; get some brain cells already.

Interesting article about the guy who invented Cheez Doodles, Morrie Yohai; Newsday’s Sylvia Carter notes:

[Yohai] the snackmeister speaks humbly of having merely “developed” Cheez Doodles. Even he will confess, however, to having thought to call them Doodles.

Yohai includes his business partners, scrupulously using the pronoun “we,” when he tells the Cheez Doodle saga.

Becoming as modesty is, in this case it may be unwarranted. There are perhaps millions of people in the world who consider Cheez Doodles the ideal snack food. People in search of healthful food do not generally gorge themselves on Doodles (well, perhaps in secret they do), but this is one snack that since its debut in the 1950s has always been baked, not fried. An argument could even be made that because the snacks are “puffed,” as the bag says, they consist in large part of air. Therefore, how bad could they be? [….]

Yohai told me that they were discovered, invented, developed or whatever word you choose to use, at the Old London Melba Toast factory in the Bronx, which also made the Cheese Waffie (now called Waffle), popcorn, caramel popcorn and other snacks. “We were looking for another snack item,” he said. “We were fooling around and found out that there was a machine that extruded cornmeal [in a long string] and it almost popped like popcorn.”

Yohai and his partners thought of chopping the stuff into pieces the size of a child’s finger and coating it with cheese. “We wanted to make it as healthy as possible, so it was baked, not fried.”

One day, as they sat around a table tasting different kinds of cheese on the snacks, the name Doodle occurred to him. “They looked more like a doodle,” he said, back when they were thin.

[….]

Wise, which is part of Borden, now manufactures Doodles. Yohai went on to become group vice president in charge of snacks for Borden, which also made Cracker Jack and Drake’s Cakes. His duties included sitting around a conference table with other high-ranking executives and choosing the toys for boxes of Cracker Jack.

After leaving the company, Yohai taught marketing at the New York Institute of Technology and became associate dean of the school of management. “The one thing that would get the students’ attention was Cheez Doodles,” he said.

Cool. Anyway, have a good Friday.

Check out this site: A Full Belly. Links to lots of new restaurants in the NY and SF areas, and I had found a link to how to properly wrap a burrito.

Star Jones is apparently no longer a lawyer, by noting in her tax forms that she is now a tv personality, instead of attorney. Hmm. Has she told her state bar/court administration of that? Is she on a non-practicing basis? Is she allowed to not worry about continuing legal education requirements like the rest of us lawyers? Hmm.

According to Slate.com’s Daniel Gross in “Who needs Harvard?”, having an Ivy League degree does not guarantee that one will become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and these Fortune 500 companies are recruiting less Ivy Leaguers. Apparently, the Ivy Leaguers of wealthy backgrounds are off to be volunteers, artists, hikers of Asia, and consultants of consulting companies. They would be less likely to be working yuppie stiffs. Uh hmm. Sure.

Last night’s “Amazing Race” – the models were lucky that was not an elimination round. Oh, and the nutty psychologically abusive husband’s wife got bitchy on him. Hmm.

Mid-week…

Power is weary; one should seek it cautiously. Today I had the chance to take away days, declare war, or let someone fly. I decided that I didn’t want to judge today.

The other day, my brother and I watched “House of Flying Daggers.” The Zhang Yimou movie has stunning cinematography – just beautiful colors. The cast is beautiful. The story – a little topsy-turvy stuff, but I watch “Alias,” so it’s not like I couldn’t grasp the Flying Daggers plot. The movie’s ending though… well, I don’t think it was Zhang Yimou’s intention, but I kept giggling. As NY Times’ A.O. Scott noted:

[Ziyi] Zhang plays Mei, a blind courtesan who turns out to be a member of the Flying Daggers, a shadowy squad of assassins waging a guerrilla insurgency against the corrupt and decadent government. She is pursued by two government deputies, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), whose loyalties come into question as the chase turns into a love triangle. Everyone is engaged in several layers of deceit, and some of the third-act revelations are more likely to provoke laughter than gasps of amazement.

[…]

The story inevitably gets lost in this sensory barrage, and it is hard to feel much for the three lovers as they sing their climactic arias of jealousy and betrayal. The final confrontation takes place in the midst of a sudden snowstorm, which envelopes the sun-dappled field that had, a few moments earlier, been a perfect spot for al fresco love-making. And “House of Flying Daggers” itself, for all its fire and beauty, may leave you a bit cold in the end.

Frankly, I totally agreed. I’m not even a big martial arts movie person by any means, but aren’t they supposed to leave you feeling a tad satisfied rather than “huh”? I’ll give Flying Daggers a grade of B.

Anyway, speaking of the NY Times, apparently they’re considering the idea of charging for reading its articles on-line. Aww. Say it ain’t so, NY Times!

I’m pretty caught up on watching the series “House” on FOX – the series wherein British actor Hugh Laurie plays a grouchy American medical doctor, Dr. House of NJ, who solves medical mysteries (the most recent episode – figuring out that the patient has African sleeping sickness, contracting it via sex. whoops; moral: adultery is bad). The medical stuff kind of makes you sick, and the stuff is over the top (like, can a doctor with as poor a bedside manner like House exist?) – but he’s the doctor you’d love to hate – because the way Laurie pulls it off, you can sense the actual sympathetic human being there, despite all that grouchiness and weird behavior. The supporting cast is pretty good too (liked how the background of the woman doctor unfolded slowly – her sad story of being a young widow). Of the new medical series of the season, this one is better than “Medical Investigation” on NBC.

This should be interesting this week – “Star Trek: Enterprise” has a new episode this week! (yep, can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m looking forward to a Star Trek episode again. Ah, the unrepetent Trekkie…)

Have a good week.

Hi,
This is my extremely belated New Year’s message (or a really early Lunar New Year’s greeting) that I’ve written every year since I’ve been using the Internet, which was some time last century. If you received an email from me directing you to this message, it is because you participated in my life in a unique way in the past year, and I’m grateful for that. I usually do a recap of what happened, pick a yearly topic of dicussion (which in past years focused on psychiatry as a common thread, unintentionally), and make a couple of resolutions.

As is customary at this point of the letter, I’m going to rattle off a few statistics for the past year:

Emails received: 488.9 megabytes
Miles flown: 45,720 miles
Miles driven in rental cars: 1,848 miles
Ruben sandwiches purchased for self or others: about 30 (For non-New Yorkers, it’s a thin sliced corned beef, sauerkraut and swiss cheese sandwich on rye bread seasoned with mustard or russian dressing, buttered on the outside and then fried on a deli grill until the cheese is melted and the bread is golden brown. Yum!)

This year’s travels included
– San Francisco to view the SF Asian International Film Festival, try to find real Hakka Chinese food and run into blogger Min Jung
– San Diego to visit the gravesite of my Grand Aunt Bea, Orange County to visit Bichvan and Mark, a run to Baja California to deliver a birthday present for my boss’s son and have fried Ensenada pacific lobsters
– Seattle to attend a conference for tech people who work at law schools (you’d never think that they would be that many people), see the grand opening of the Science Fiction Museum, then drive to Vancouver for Chinese food
– Seoul to have a sauna and visit a palace, Singapore for pepper crab, and Ipoh, Malaysia to attend YC’s wedding
– Philadelphia for cheese steak sandwiches and Manet
– Dallas to attend another conference for Asian American lawyers, judge a moot court competition, and buy some students cowboy boots (Lucchese’s are the best)
– Toronto to visit my uncle on his 70th birthday, attend a conference about Hakka and Carribean Chinese people, and ring in the new year with 300 Caribbean Chinese

As you can see, I enjoy traveling. I do it to discover the world, and to see for myself why things are the way they are. I remember being on a study abroad course in Hong Kong as a law student, and in a question and answer period, I was unable to counter the premise of a panelist, because I lacked worldly experience. I’m trying to make up for it now. The frequent flyer miles don’t hurt, either.

As for the job, I was promoted in the middle of the summer to director of administrative computing, which is the number two job in my department. This meant that I had to give up the kinds of things that I was accustomed to dealing with students, but also meant that I am able to grow in my career. I manage a cadre of computer staffers, with a wide range of personalities, which I enjoy and sometimes agonize about. Apparently, I am the youngest person to ever reach the rank of director, and I am younger than half my staff, which sometimes becomes a problem, but I try hard to earn their respect. It’s been a big change from being the webmaster so long ago as a student a decade ago.

As for the rest of my family, the most traumatic experience has been my father’s chronic diabetes. He spent a month at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital recovering from gangrene that required amputation; there were some points that were really touch-and-go, but he’s really tough. He’s got to stop doing this though, because he’s probably on the sixth of nine lives. He’s been recovering at home, undergoing physical training, being fitted for a prosthetic limb and just generally trying to put a good face on an otherwise lousy situation. I admire him a lot.

The one steady thing in my turbulent, transient life is my girlfriend, who is known on this blog as “P–“. We’ve been together for over a year now, and we really do complement each other in ways that I could not even imagine before. Yes, it can be sappy sometimes when we speak in stereo, but I think that’s endearing. She actually doesn’t think I’m crazy for racking up so many miles, although I’ve only recently convinced her of the value of an airline elite member card. I am so lucky and I treasure her so much.

The topic of discussion this year is “dissociative fugue”, which the New York Times describes as a psychiatric condition characterized by “sudden unexpected travel away from home or one’s customary place of daily activities” in order to escape a severely stressful situation. Maybe this is just escapism. There are a number of people that are close to me that are engaging in it or thinking about it. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that I had it myself. As a Hakka Chinese, we’re supposed to be professionals at this.

The NYT article doesn’t mention the other half of the condition according to the Merck Manual: amnesia of either one’s past life or of the trip once they return. I think that for many of those people, leaving their stressful situation is probably the healthiest thing for them. But, please, please don’t forget. You should always know where you have been.

As for resolutions, last year’s was to try to keep in touch with people (mostly successful through trips and occasional emails for those who have signed up with Plaxo) and trying to clean up my apartment of clutter (somewhat successful in terms of putting things into file boxes, but my girlfriend will be helping me more this year). As for this year, I’m going to try to find ways to simplify my life and recapture the innocence of childhood. This will culumate in my “baby tour”, which will consist of visiting friends and relatives who are having babies this year. So far, the list includes Trinidad, Orange County, and Taiwan. Let me know when the christening or the “one month” party will be, and we’ll see what I can book.

Finally, I want to thank SSW, who has been a real trooper blogging and contributing here when I haven’t, and YC who chimes in from his extended honeymoon in Taiwan. I invite you to continue reading Triscribe, and if you are have the knack or inclination, to write. Sign up by following the “Register” link on the right side of the page. Once you are registered, I will work on giving you writing privileges. Pictures of my travels are at http://www.triscribe.com/gallery, if you would like to check them out, and you can order prints through the automatic Gallery system (I don’t make any money from your using that system). Thanks for being a part of my life this year.

And other news, in trying to catch up with the week, there was the passing of Shirley Chisholm, a Brooklyn figure. While her obituary in the NY Times was interesting (noting that her campaign slogan was “unbought and unbossed” to combat the Brooklyn machine at that time; and touching on her Barbadian childhood following her Brooklyn birth) , this other article – where NY Times’ Randal C. Archibold writes of the memory and memorial of someone of significance in her times, in her own borough – and it’s poignant stuff:

Her face stares out from a wall on an elementary school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, one of the few visible signs that Shirley Chisholm was here, even if she chose not to stay.

Ms. Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first black woman to seek the nomination of a major party for president, some two decades ago left the neighborhood she represented in Congress in a pique. She said she was seeking privacy and had grown tired of detractors who accused of her betraying her radical roots and cozying up with figures varying from George C. Wallace to Edward I. Koch.

“I think she was probably much more respected and controversial in her own time,” said Janet Braun-Reinitz, an artist with the nonprofit group Artmakers who, long before Ms. Chisholm’s death, began helping to organize a large mural in Bedford-Stuyvesant in honor of Ms. Chisholm and other female historical figures. “I think now she is coming back larger than life.”

The artists are working with the newly christened Shirley Chisholm Center for the Study of Women at Brooklyn College, Ms. Chisholm’s alma mater.

But in a sign that Ms. Chisholm’s fame had waned considerably, Barbara Winslow, the coordinator of women’s studies at the college, said that last spring, when she suggested putting Ms. Chisholm’s name on the center as a nod to her lesser-known role as a feminist, few fellow faculty members knew Ms. Chisholm had attended the college.

I liked the video on NY1 on the Chisholm story – the 1960-1980’s pictures of Chisholm really are pieces of those times.

And, while it’s nice that Alberto Gonzales is the first Hispanic nominee to the Attorney General and may become the first Hispanic Attorney General, the senators on the judiciary committee are making it interesting in the meantime. I like that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was critical, and how, of course, Gonzales would deny approving of torture when asked the leading question of “do you approve of torture?” (as if he would say “Yeah, I think torture works.”). Oh, well.

It looks like the blog has spammers again (maybe – unless these guys are actually being commentators? I can’t tell. I don’t mind commentators, but if they’re just posting to lead us to salvation to debt consolidation or other stupid services, I’d rather they not show up – so note to spammers – go eat spam).

Enjoy Saturday.

— FC, where’s your long-awaited annual recap? Is it going to be posted on the website?

Anyway, some stuff:

An article on tofu in the NY Times by Julia Moskin – fascinating stuff, some of which I never knew or thought about:

But since the opening of En Japanese Brasserie in the West Village in October, New Yorkers have been able to savor tofu that is made throughout the dinner service, coming out of the kitchen every 90 minutes. The fresh tofu is undeniably plain yet addictively cloudlike, drizzled with a delicate, clear soy sauce; the large, soft curds fall apart lightly and melt on your tongue.

“New Yorkers have learned to appreciate so many Japanese specialties, but tofu is still misunderstood, I think,” said Reika Yo, an owner. “It is not a substitute for meat, but has its own stature.” [….]

Megu in TriBeCa imports tofu made by Kawashima, an artisan in Karatsu whose product is famous throughout Japan; it costs $15 a serving. But a dollar on Mott Street will buy you a container of still-warm, custardy tofu doused in sugar syrup, to eat on the street as a snack or dessert. And at the new location of Spicy and Tasty in Flushing, Queens, you can order a plate of “stinky tofu,” a long-fermented Taiwanese specialty that is to plain tofu as Roquefort is to Velveeta.

Tofu, in fact, is made in almost exactly the same way as cheese, but with puréed sweet soybeans instead of cow, sheep or goat milk as its raw material. Because of its ability to produce so many different forms of nourishment, the soybean has long been called “the cow of China,” and tofu was first developed there by Buddhist monks, about 2,000 years ago. The process begins with dried yellow soybeans, called daizu; the fresh, green, immature pods of the same bean are what we know as edamame. [….]

Grace Young, a Chinese-American food writer, says that tofu is one of the most highly honored foods in Chinese culture because of its very plainness.

“Ingredients with texture but not taste are revered in China, and except for tofu, they are the most expensive ones you can buy there — like birds’ nests, shark’s fin and silver tree fungus.” Chinese names for tofu that indicate its high status translate as “meat without bones” and “meat from the fields.”

In Korea and China tofu is often served not as a substitute for meat, but alongside it, with a small amount of meat flavoring enriching the silken tofu, which adds its incomparable body and mouth feel. One such dish, ma-po tofu, from Chengdu, has become one of the most popular Sichuanese dishes in China and in the various Chinatowns of New York, said Ms. Young, whose most recent book is “The Breath of a Wok” (Simon & Schuster).

“It’s often translated as home-style tofu, because it has this rather unusual name, meaning pox-scarred grandmother’s tofu,” she said. “Tofu is a yang” — cool — “food in the Chinese way of thinking, so having it with meat and garlic and chilies, which are all yin” — warm — “makes it a good dish to the Chinese cook.” [….]

Really educational stuff.

“Annie” comic strip has been interesting lately. Annie’s reunited with Daddy Warbucks and Amelia Santiago, and they get mired in this odd storyline where this guy is trying to evict a bunch of singing ranchers from their ranch because he’s convinced that he’s a Queen of the Lizards to bring the Martians to Earth. Umm. Ok, it’s so weird it has actually been the best “Annie” in a long while since these new writer and artist worked on the comic strip. Still waiting for the missing old favorite characters acting like their amusing selves…

Channel 4, WNBC, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the pairing of the longtime newsanchors Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons. As Daily News notes, they’ve lasted longer than most marriages (even – unfortunately for Hollywood watchers – Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston). Crazy, kooky pair (well, half the time Sue’s the crazy one, but Chuck needs the levity and they ultimately balance each other out). Channel 4’s website has a link to some old pictures from back in the day for those two. Such a rarity with the current state of tv anchors splitting up or dropped or traded to different channels (so it goes with NYC’s competitive local news). Heck, kudos to NBC for bothering to celebrate (the network that get so sentimental; they milk every anniversary and farewell, sure, but that’s a nice thing, really – I like that warmth on NBC when it shows up). Happy Anniversary, Chuck and Sue!

Have a good weekend!

It’s Thursday, which is one day away from Friday…

Amidst all the stories of tragedy, gloom, doom, and accusations of stinginess (although the media’s hype of massive generosity seems to belie the accusation of Scrooge behavior) regarding the South Asian tsunami, a Jan. 4 article – NY Times’ David Rhode’s writing on the hopes of humanity’s better nature:

The Tidal Wave Task Force headquarters here is not much to look at, but what is happening inside is extraordinary.

Inside a crumbling, bullet-riddled building in rebel territory in northern Sri Lanka, low-level representatives of the country’s government and Tamil Tigers rebels – mortal enemies in a brutal civil war – are sitting together and planning the distribution of relief aid to tsunami victims. [….]

In a reaction reminiscent of the sense of unity that spread across the United States following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, large numbers of Sri Lankans appear to be spontaneously reaching across the country’s festering ethnic divides and delivering donated food and aid to rival ethnic groups.

“We see people strongly affected by it,” said a senior Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They think about the possibility of working together and the necessity to do so.”

[….]

An array of political and religious leaders has called for national unity since the disaster. In impromptu scenes witnessed over the past five days, Sri Lankans of various backgrounds delivered aid to one another or proudly told stories of food being delivered by one group to another.

While it was impossible to gauge the actual breadth of the sentiment, a new passion for unity has been heard repeatedly in interviews. Asked why he had just delivered a truckload of food to a group of ethnic Tamil refugees on Sri Lanka’s east coast last week, Thavamani, a 48-year-old ethnic Sinhalese businessmen who uses only the one name, said it was his response to the disaster.

“Because of the incidents, we have to get together,” he said. “We have to get together.”

In the mountain town of Teldeniya in central Sri Lanka, Jayasingha, a 32-year-old businessman, was one of hundreds of people who attended a ceremony at a Buddhist temple where monks lit 15,000 oil lamps in remembrance of the dead. Sinhalese, who make up about 75 percent of the population, are generally Buddhists. Tamils, who make up roughly 18 percent of the population, are generally Hindus.

Gently cradling his 11-month-old daughter in his arms, Mr. Jayasingha, a Sinhalese, said the nation’s response to the crisis has shown that Sri Lankans can work cooperatively.

“Muslims, Sinhalese, Tamils, they are working together everywhere with this problem,” he said. “I’m hoping in the future it will be like that.”

Sounds beautiful, if it can happen.

Slate.com’s latest “Jurisprudence” column, by Stanford Law prof Richard Thompson Ford, argues that the liberals ought to embrace federalism. Arguably, he has a point – as much as the left of center folks recoil at the idea of states’ rights, there’s nothing inherently “conservative” about federalism. It always irritated me whenever the conservative types wave their so-called federalism flag, since I always thought that there was more to federalism than “conservative” or “liberal” labels. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but federalism was more than just “states’ rights” – it was the Founding Fathers’ idea of balancing the states and the central (federal) government and included checks and balances of the federal government itself (the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches annoying the heck out of each other with various maneuvers). I mean, those Founding Fathers weren’t idiots or just Dead White Guys – they were trying to make an unprecedented government that functioned somehow for more than 200 years…

(ok, it’s too obvious that I spent my undergraduate years studying the history of the Founding Fathers, isn’t it? Rah-rah for the history majors; or else maybe the poli-sci folks can challenge that.).