Category: Manhattan

Last Wednesday, managed to catch the Design Made in Africa exhibit at the World Financial Center, co-sponsored by the Museum for African Art. Fantastic looking and very utilitarian pieces of furniture and other object des arts – modern Africa heading towards the 21st Century – at the Courtyard Gallery in the World Financial Center from April 12 to June 24.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D., Ore.) is trying out an experiment: can he live off of food stamps for a week? Apparently, he’s trying to raise awareness as to how not very good the food stamp program is to feed people in need. Part of it is indeed a question of when was the last time the governor actually did his own food shopping, but I’d still applaud him for trying – imagine if we made all the politicians perform this experiment. Perhaps it’d force them to really think about ways to really help people.

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick on the oral arguments at the US Supreme Court on the whole question of campaign reform. The article was quite funny, in a sad way (sad, well, in terms of political thinking, and depending on where one is on the political spectrum…).

9/11/01 remnants for archivists’ subject material.

FC, P, and I saw “Hot Fuzz” on Saturday. In the movie, Sgt. Nicholas Angel, a cranberry juice drinker, is sent to the boondocks because he’s too good a cop for his superiors in London to accept (because, well, he makes them look bad). However, Angel finds out that there’s more to the boondocks than he would have thought. Much more.

Slate’s movie critic Dana Stevens says, “Hot Fuzz is like an Agatha Christie novel directed by Michael Bay and adapted for the screen by P.G. Wodehouse.” Well, I’d agree on the Michael Bay part; less so on the Agatha Christie (unless you’re thinking of Christie’s creation of Miss Marple and Miss Marple’s town of St. Mary Meade, where – you guessed it! – the town’s murder rate is kind of ridiculous and Miss Marple’s probably a closet psychopath); and really less so on P.G. Wodehouse (well, unless you’re citing Wodehouse as the source of wacky British humo(u)r; I’d say Monty Python would’ve been a better reference). Honestly, I’d expect good old Inspector Morse walking into “Hot Fuzz.” The whole beer thing would’ve been perfect for him; but not, say, the gun thing. No, that’d still be in the realm of Michael Bay.

All in all, thumbs up to the movie.

FC, P, and I later had afternoon tea at Sweet Melissa Patisserie, across from the movie theater. We managed not to give in to the sweets – but they looked soo good.

Daily News publishes Mario Cuomo’s thoughts on the recent Democratic debate – with his idea that there ought to be a permanent debating system to let the candidates talk about actual ideas. I thought there were some good thoughts. Personally, I kind of feel for the candidates who aren’t likely to make headway – Joe Biden actually does have real ideas on Iraq (not that I’ve read up on them enough, but he certainly knows what he’s talking about) and Bill Richardson has quite a resume – he’s now a governor and was a UN Ambassador and is Latino (although, his tenure as US Dept. of Energy Secretary included the debacle toward Wen Ho Lee – something APA’s aren’t going to quite forget – at least I haven’t). The candidates are many; the competition will be rough.

“Heroes” – a bit caught up. The episode of 4/30/07 will be interesting…

What lovely weather – finally spring outside, not reserved to the tulips in my office at work.

Time Magazine’s Lisa Takeuchi Cullen posts on her blog the Asian-American journalist’s dilemma in covering the Virginia Tech story. It made a lot of sense to me – you don’t want to make race/ethnicity the issue, but then again, you want to present a full picture. And the dilemma doesn’t make it easier when you feel personal about it – you may feel relieved if the shooter isn’t from your own ethnic group (since, after all “Asian” covers a lot), but in the end, the shooter is still from your group (“Asian” to the outsider is just “Asian” – as if the outsider cares whether one is Korean, Chinese, or what – we are all going to be seen as the “foreigner,” the marginalized, etc.).

Charlie Rose interviewed a panel on Thursday night that included Columbia Law Prof. Patricia Williams, Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel, and others, covering the Virginia Tech story, the Supreme Court’s decision on (so-called partial-birth) abortion, US AG Alberto Gonzalez, and the presidential election in France. I thought Time’s announcement on putting the Virginia Tech kids on the cover to be a good idea and Stengel’s argument on Rose’s show was persuasive: put the emphasis on the loss – the pride of potential – not on the murderer (who has his own issues, to be certain). I’d also say let’s not forget what we as a society may have to figure out. NY Times had a similar approach – and it resembles the Profiles in Grief that they had done after 9/11/01.

The pictures of the Virginia Tech struck at me for being a portrait of the diversity and spirit of American universities today – from the professor who was a Holocaust survivor and survivor of Communism and protected his students, to the RA who was a band guy and a soon-to-be engineer, to the hardworking Asian-American freshman and so on. It reminded me of how it was when I was in college, and how we can all empathize over what had happened at Virginia Tech – goodness, it could have been anyone. Crime on campus is not what we want to imagine, when we look to academia as our safe haven.

Slate’s Explainer explains why the media hasn’t quite figured out whether to put out the Virginia Tech shooter’s first name first or last name first (Asian style); apparently, ABC went with the American style in a quicker manner, after consulting with its own Korean/Korean-American staff. I think ABC made the better decision – it’s not like the guy was a foreign student – he was a green card guy – which means first name first, last name last (at least for the purposes of being in this country). Perhaps I’m being narrow-minded in that line of thinking – but it did kind of bothered me that the media seemed act like it was trying to be “sensitive” about the nationality thing – as if they were thrown off by Cho’s non-English name. If his name was “John” Cho, would they have gone with Cho John? I’d doubt it, but I guess his lack of an English name put him in even more isolation, which is sad to think about.

Come to think of it – Friday’s Slate has a lot of interesting articles. One fascinating feature – a slide show essay by David Segal on the history of racist advertising mascots, in light of the new portrayal of Uncle Ben (of Uncle Ben’s rice) on the company website as Ben, CEO, of the rice company (thanks to Slate and Segal for the link). Almost laughable, if it isn’t kind of sad. Segal observes that this is apparently also consistent with, say, the evolution of Aunt Jemima, who no longer wears a kerchief – but wears pearl earrings because, well, she too is the fictitious CEO of the company (okay, maybe not quite, but check out the website, where they –profile the history – that in 1989, they ditched the kerchief and in 1992, “During a frozen package redesign Quaker tilted Aunt Jemima’s head into a more upright position,” and notes that, today, “The Aunt Jemima products continue to stand for warmth, nourishment and trust – qualities you’ll find in loving moms from diverse backgrounds who care for and want the very best for their families.” Diversity wins, hands down, thank goodness; but, hey, Jemima still wants you to eat well).

Hell, Madison Avenue even did it to Betty Crocker (we just don’t have the same racial connotations with Betty Crocker – no, just sexist ones) – transforming her from housewife to CEO… who still bakes brownies. (thanks to Wikipedia for the link to the website on the evolution of Betty Crocker; can’t seem to track down the latest image of her as a multi-ethnic woman; the official website of Betty Crocker seems to have a treasure trove of recipes and stuff – I won’t criticize, as I don’t cook/bake/etc., and I grew up on that stuff, so really, I can’t criticize!).

Met’s re-opening of the Greek-Roman galleries – having removed the old cafeteria, we can now see the Romans in their better glory – well, the NY Times’ Michael Kimmelman previews it – and it looks great, at least from the Times’ website feature anyway. So looking forward to going up there soon and seeing it!

Florida Gators win NCAA Men’s tournament. Pretty good game, actually, even if Ohio State (with the quite good Oden and Connelly) couldn’t quite beat Florida (where the guys played like a team – what spirit, really). And, scarier – my bracket survived: I had picked Florida… now if only I can win the lottery; then I’d be set for life!

Too bad about the Rutgers’ Womens basketball team – Tennessee bested them in the NCAA Women’s tournament. Ah well. At least the ladies had the metro area a little more excited about Rutgers athleticism.

In the category of “good grief”: KITT 2000 – KITT of the old ’80’s show “Knight Rider” – is up for sale. Or, at least, a version of him that was filmed for tv and that doesn’t go into Super Pursuit Mode or make snide remarks in the voice of actor William Daniels (aka Mr. Feeney of the 1990’s tv show “Boy Meets World” – is there any other actor that has captured the imagination of the young for two decades?). Personally, I had no idea that Williams Daniels is a Brooklyn native – imagine KITT with a Brooklyn accent.

Oh God. I actually remember “Super Pursuit Mode.” Man, did I watch too much Knight Rider back in the day.

Prehistoric whale fossil… in inland Italy?

Was Jane Austen pretty… and does it matter?

Monday night: I attended NYU Law School’s APALSA’s Korematsu Lecture – speaker: Judge A. Wallace Tashima – he discussed the Japanese Peruvian experience of being interned in the US during World War II and briefly his own childhood experience at an internment camp during World War II. Apparently, during the war, US pursued a policy of protecting the Western hemisphere by interning persons who seen as the enemy (I think the Monroe Doctrine made that work, even though various Latin Americans countries were officially neutral on the war), forcibly removing Japanese Peruvians to Americans camps.

Things didn’t get that much better when the war was over, because Peru didn’t want the Japanese Peruvians back (talk about racism there), and the US viewed the Japanese Peruvians as “illegal aliens” (never minding that the US brought them to the country in the first place). The status became the loophole that prevented the Japanese Peruvians from collecting a larger amount in the reparations in 1988. It’s an interesting story, and thought it was fascinating that Judge Tashima discussed it and demonstrated the parallels to the current usage of Guantanamo Bay. History repeating itself; dare we learn from our past? Hmm.

Coincidentally, the NY Times published an article on the parallels of the Japanese-American internment and the experience of Muslim immigrants.

It’s that time of year: college acceptances out to the nervous high school seniors. Loved this headline in the Times: “Rejected by Harvard? Your Valedictorian Probably Was Too.” It’s getting really competitive when Alma Mater’s admissions rate is down to slightly less than 9 percent, or you have the realization that Harvard rejected 91% of applications. Every year it gets crazier – you got to save the world first before you can get to college? You apply on-line to more than 10 colleges? And, then you complain when NYU, Wesleyan, and UMichigan accepted you, but – say – an Ivy didn’t? Relax: NYU, Wesleyan and UMich aren’t exactly low tier and you might have ended up where you meant to be. Besides, the riches of choices for the colleges are making us alumni look embarrassing, the second linked article notes (and certainly highlighted what I’ve wondered):

The competition was ferocious not only at the top universities, but at selective small colleges, like Williams, Bowdoin and Amherst, all of which reported record numbers of applications.

Amherst received 6,668 applications and accepted 1,167 students for its class of 2011, compared with the 4,491 applications and 1,030 acceptance letters it sent for the class of 2002 nine years ago, said Paul Statt, an Amherst spokesman.

“Many of us who went to Amherst three decades ago know we couldn’t get in now; I know I couldn’t,” said Mr. Statt, who graduated from Amherst in 1978.