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NY Times: Coping: In a West Side Apartment, a World. Japanese film editor has 40 years of Asian American historical stuff, slowly being given to NYU so he can put in a double bed. Sounds like my bedroom.

Behind on watching “Alias” episodes.

It’s a shame I missed this – the Super Jeopardy Tournament of Champions (a.k.a. the Road to Beating Against Ken Jennings) continues – and last night, NYPD Francis Spangenberg beat out the others. He was on Jeopardy way back when, as “Frank” – the guy with the handlebar mustaches. Way cool. I was waiting to see this happen – I remembered watching when he was first on Jeopardy. Wonder if Frank will beat Ken Jennings. Well, someone has to.

What the heck is with “The Apprentice” – the final two candidates are stuck with the idiot team members to deal with the final task. Eh? Is that wise? So the two women here have to deal with the difficult “employees” to prove their mettle to Donald Trump, but these are really lame employees. Oh well, at least either way, Trump finally gets a woman Apprentice.

So, the business with the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site means that the Freedom Tower is back to the drawing board. Newsday’s Justin Davidson has a great analysis:

What does it mean for a building to be secure? Nobody knows.

The most obvious deterrent to terrorism would be to erect a small, forgettable, insignificant building that would make no symbolic claims. But as countless bombs at Israeli cafes and at Baghdad intersections have made clear, even that is no guarantee.

Faced with the impossibility of preventing an attack, architects are instead learning to plan for the aftermath. They can limit the damage from a blast and try to ward off total collapse – that’s what the gridded cage of steel beams in the Freedom Tower’s now-rejected design was intended to do. They can widen exit pathways and provide more of them. Buildings can be designed to funnel people directly into the street rather than into the potential deathtrap of a jammed lobby. In these safety-first structures, smoke will vent, backup communications systems will automatically come online and rescue workers will have a separate access so that they do not have to push past the hale in order to rescue the wounded.

But it all comes down to a game of chance. Increasing the odds of survival is not quite the same as making a building safe. Architects and planners are limited to anticipating novel techniques of destruction. They know how to keep trucks away and are learning how to design skyscrapers that might – not will – be able to absorb the blow of a plane. But they can’t forestall what they haven’t thought of.

Danger comes in many forms, and warding it off can take counterintuitive forms. During the 1990s, the New York City Housing Authority wrestled with the problem of driving muggers, rapists and drug dealers from the forbidding, fortress-like, low-income housing projects that were fostering the very social problems they had been built to solve. The answer turned out to be glass. Rather than protecting a tower with a moat or a wall, the authority’s architects tried a windowed lounge with a card table – the sort of place where senior citizens equipped with cell phones would want to spend the day, scrutinizing visitors, who now had nowhere to lurk. [….]

The dilemma of keeping a crowded city secure is the conflicting need to make its public spaces open and accessible and simultaneously keep the wrong people out. But no building can determine a stranger’s intentions, and it’s almost impossible to make it friendly and forbidding. Just how starkly opposed these goals are is apparent at Lincoln Center, where the open Italianate piazza huddles behind a phalanx of concrete barriers. Officials there would like to make the campus more inviting to the city beyond its travertine perimeter, but they also want it to be secure. The result is an ugly compromise.

So will those temporary barriers eventually come down, or will they be incorporated into the structure itself? It’s the architectural version of the question Americans are asking about their country as a whole: Must an open society be a vulnerable one? There’s no answer yet, and it’s not likely that architects will provide one.

The question of re-building – do we build big, recapture “normalcy,” admit fear, find a new normal, build a fortress to protect ourselves, keep ourselves imprisoned from what we had? (don’t build big, because it’s dangerous?). I don’t know; these are just questions.

TGIF tomorrow…

It’s like I can’t resist blogging…

NY Times’ reporters report on the Right Wing Conspiracy Against PBS – or at least the attempt by the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to count how many liberal-leaning guests were on the (decidedly) liberal show of Bill Moyers. I mean, Geez Louise, if you want to get Bill Moyers on a rant, go ahead, audit the guy for who guests on his show and then accuse him of having liberal biases. At least he never denied his liberal leanings (more or less). And, oh yeah, he actually did get people like Ralph Reed and other conservative folks on his show (accusing Moyers of not being “fair and balanced”? Well, maybe he’s liberal, but he got out the stories the right leaning folks weren’t exactly covering – like the scary development of communication corporations swallowing all the mom-and-pop radio stations in the country – monopolies are supposed to be bad, as Moyers noted, but it’s not like the FCC was stopped the mess from happening; so where was FOX news on that story?).

And, if the conservative folks in D.C. are so concerned that PBS reflect “Fair and Balanced” opinions, why not also support PBS in putting people like Tavis Smiley on tv and in putting on series that reflect America’s diversity in history and society (Channel 13, local PBS, is celebrating Asian Pacific Heritage Month in May; last I checked, the networks and cable stations haven’t exactly jumped on that bandwagon). That’ll reflect the diversity of opinion and experience in America quite well too – forget just making PBS put Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot; not that I have a problem with Gigot – I actually considered his opinion when he was on Lehrer newshour; but I really have a problem with how the current administration seems to be pushing PBS around.

Ok, so I’m ranting. I just really hope the conservative extremists don’t end up hurting PBS; it’s so not right. And, besides – if the conservatives end up knocking on PBS, I have to wonder what is the matter with them – don’t they have more important things to do? I mean, really – what else on tv puts on ballets, dances, and operas and jazz, and so forth; plus silly British crap, and for free (access culture for the masses, which – admittedly – is a left-leaning idea, considering that PBS was born during the left-ish era of the 1960’s). I guess if it were up to the right wingers, we’d only listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Bill O’Reilley (in his current incarnation, not his old Inside Edition version, when he just cared about the tabloidy-trashiness of the story, not the direction of its political spin). But, then again, what do I know about what political direction is my form of media going; I’m someone who avoids extremes – I wouldn’t and I don’t bother listening or watching left or right extreme crap. I enjoyed Bill Moyers because he didn’t make me eat the bitter and just got me to think – it was about presentation of the message – not just smacking it at you. (oh, and the man cannot retire – he was hosting some documentary the other night on PBS; salute to Moyers). Politics is crazy, especially when it thinks it can interfere with the editorial or creative control of a network that’s struggling as it is.

Speaking of how pathetic politics is, I’m still thinking that Bob Kerrey is the better Kerr(e)y. See, Kerrey’s not pathetic (apologies to Kerrey, it’s just that the word “pathetic” is on my mind right now). Just when Kerrey got into the local news for his “Maybe I’ll run for mayor of NYC” musings (check out the amusing interview on NY1, wherein Kerrey says “No, I won’t run and no, I’m not a flake for considering in the first place”), I finished reading his book “When I was a Young Man” — his memoirs of growing up incredibly normal and average in Nebraska and then having that life altering experience during the Vietnam War. I think he is a flake (in the nice middle America kind of way; and yeah, backing away from mayoral musings like that kind of looks odd), but he’s not stupid – his dry sharpness makes him really interesting.

Anyway — Kerrey’s book felt like he really wrote it (there were parts that made me think that an editor/ghost writer could have done better). It felt like Kerry wasn’t entirely forthcoming about what he did in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL (not like I really expect him to disclose what really happened in Vietnam; the media kind of reamed Kerrey on that score; and his Author’s notes concedes that memory is a harsh thing and his own writing about his post-traumatic stress suggests some really bad stuff happened more than his previous paragraphs let on). His writing about losing his foot and coming home bitter from the war was poignant stuff. Generally, beyond his book – I think Kerrey’s refreshingly blunt; he’s Kerrey. I hate to make it derivative, but I feel as if he’s a Democrat’s McCain – he’s not afraid to be a bit conservative, but won’t deny being a Democrat. Nothing wrong with that.

We need more sunshine in NYC soon, or at least more consistent rain, instead of the weird on-off showers…

On Saturday, P and I went to the wedding of one of my work-study students who had recently graduated. Centerport, Long Island was the venue for the ceremony and the reception, which would have been perfect if it wasn’t raining cats and dogs. We reserved a Zip car and made the trek along the Belt Parkway, the Cross Island Expressway, and then the LIE. After this point, the directions in the invite were really fuzzy and it was hard to see signs in the bad weather; thankfully I had Mapquest directions, which saved the day.

The ceremony was homey in a Methodist church/school; the main sanctuary serves double duty as an auditorium when the pews are removed and replaced by chairs facing the opposite direction. The reception was really remarkable — it was held at the Thatched Cottage, which had excellent food. The cocktail two-hours had a dozen action cooking stations cooking Asian and American dishes. The actual luncheon was really Linner because it was not served until 3, but it was so good. There was a menu of 5 entrees, which were all cooked to order. We had the Long Island Roasted Duck in orange sauce with string beans, carrots, and mushroom shaped potatoes — it must have been some of the best duck I’ve ever had.

Sunday started out as a slow day until I had a call that our office floor had flooded out — apparently they were doing some work with the pipes, and some bizarre change in water pressure caused all of the toilets in the building to flush. Thankfully the worst that happened was that some of my boxes are waterlogged; there were no computer damage. Went to Lowe’s to pick up stuff for the apartment — P’s moving in at the end of the month and the apartment has to get out of bachelor pad mode by then. We also did mondo laundry – 4 whole bags worth, by which P got fed up at the end of the wash cycle and went home to take care of the dogs.

Exams are this week, and I’ve got to try to actually sleep to make it in to proctor a 9 am exam.

I watched most of “Enterprise” and its Mirror Universe Episode 2 thing. As much as I had (surprisingly) enjoyed Episode 1 (“poor Forrest bites the bullet again!”), I’m scratching my head about Episode 2. Enterprise’s Real Universe Vulcan Ambassador Soval made an appearance as Mirror Universe’s Downtrodden-2nd-class citizen Starfleet officer Soval. And, I liked his character (dignity, coolness, wow, Starfleet uniform Soval?), but there was the feeling of no-good-can-come-from-this (and nope, there wasn’t). Mirror Universe Archer became even more xenophobic, and plagued by hallucinations of Real Universe’s Archer and that Archer’s achievements (which Mirror Universe’s Archer considered to be a waste). Mirror Universe’s T’Pol tried to end the tyranny that is Mirror Archer. Mirror Hoshi Sato had some twisted tactics up her sleeve (not entirely surprising). In the end, the episode’s ending felt like “Star Trek’s Secondary Cast/People of Color Take Over.” Umm. Hmm. But, really, the way it ended for Soval, T’Pol, and the rest of Mirror Universe Enterprise’s non-human crew, it felt like an exercise in futility. Like, why give us this romp in the Mirror Universe when you only have a few episodes left?

I came away feeling like this: Gee, I wonder what would have happened if “Enterprise” had made Forrest captain or a starring admiral (admirals never really star in the show or get to be more than recurring characters in Star Trek); had Ambassador Soval as a main cast character (and therefore get more grittier with the politics of the Federation’s creation or Earth’s dealing with interaction with non-humans); and even had more quality air time for its secondary characters (yes, I’m talking about Hoshi and Travis (who has a well-chiseled body and sometimes looks like he’d love to act if they could only give him a few good lines)). We might have had better quality Star Trek (well, unless the writers screwed it up), maybe something more Star Trek:Deep Space 9-esque, with Star Trek: Next Generation’s equal opportunity positive feeling.

Heck, I always thought that DS9 was never fully appreciated; and its complex politics and references to an Earth in fear of war and terror would be fitting in this current age than it did back then. Oh, and the crazy soap opera ambiance of DS9 – everyone’s alienated from each other; everyone’s relationships are complex but significant, and so forth. Sure, DS9’s romantic relationships were nothing brilliant, but it was a step up than Next Generation’s. Even Voyager tried to push with the relationships on that show (well, let me not get on a Voyager rant). Had “Enterprise” played up on the positives of DS9, Next Gen, and Voyager, that would have been peachy.

I think we’re down to the last two or three episodes of “Enterprise” now. Oh well. I won’t mourn too much really. Maybe. We’ll see.

Sorry for being MIA; my so-called social life took over Wednesday and Thursday nights. Great to see you back, YC. Life in Taiwan sounds less maddening than it is in NYC…

Wednesday night – pouring rain. But, I saw “Little Women” the musical – pretty good. Sutton Foster, the star, playing Jo March, the stand-in for the original author of the novel, Louisa May Alcott; Maureen McGovern, playing the mother Mrs. “Marmee” March. They played up the role of Prof. Baher, the German professor who falls for Jo (and vice versa). It should have played more on the ensemble aspect of the March sisters (it was very Jo-oriented, which wasn’t really the book), and took off on the whole “Jo in NYC working on her writing career and she has a vivid imagination” that I didn’t think the book really focused on that much (but it’s been years since I read it, so who am I say?). But, pretty good (and on bargain tickets, sure is great!).

Thursday night was a nice reception held by the Alma Mater Asian alumni group; Klong, in East Village, a Thai restaurant. Good pad thai; excellent soft shell crab. Hmm. Intimate space (if a little dimly lit). Highly recommended.

Novelist Gish Jen writes for Slate.com about the “Have You Eaten Yet?” exhibit at NYC’s Museum of Chinese in the Americas. I had seen the exhibit – fascinating stuff on the history of Chinese restaurants in the diaspora.

But, then there’s “Dim Sum Under Assault, and Devotees Say ‘Hands Off’” in the NY Times. Keith Bradsher reports:

A report by the Hong Kong government suggesting that eating many kinds of dim sum regularly may be bad for your health is threatening to overshadow whatever else might be worrying the people of this city.

Practically every Chinese-language newspaper here has run a banner headline about it across its front page. Scrolling electronic displays in subway cars have flashed the news, and the report has become a topic of breakfast, lunch and dinner conversations at Chinese restaurants across the city.

Longtime dim sum lovers are indignant.

“The government is putting its thumb on every part of citizens’ lives, and it shouldn’t be telling anyone how dim sum should be served,” said Wong Yuen, a retired mechanic and truck driver who says he has eaten dim sum every morning for the last two decades. “People can make their own decisions. If it’s unhealthy, they can eat less. They don’t need the government to tell them.”

[….]

But based on laboratory analyses of 750 dim sum samples, Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department found high fat and salt and low calcium and fiber in everything from fried dumplings to marinated jellyfish. The report suggested that local residents eat these kinds of dim sum in moderation, and choose more dim sum like steamed buns and steamed rice rolls.

Regular dim sum diners should order plates of boiled vegetables to go with their meals, the report said, and should beware of some steamed dim sum for which the ingredients are fried, like bean curd sheets.

The report came as a shock here because dim sum is a part of the culture of Hong Kong in a way that few foods unite Americans. [….]

Dr. Ho Yuk-yin, the community medicine specialist who oversaw the government report, said no one wanted to stop such meals, but older people in particular need to be aware of the risks of relying too much on dim sum.

Edmund T. S. Li, a nutritionist at Hong Kong University who was not involved in preparing the government report, said the findings were consistent with academic research on the nutritional content of dim sum and were especially important given recent studies on how people from this region absorb fat. Genetic tendencies toward long trunks and shorter legs mean that many people of southeast Asian descent may carry a higher proportion of fat relative to their height and weight than people of the same height and weight from northern China or Europe, he said.

There are some hints that even without the government warning a new health consciousness is starting to spread here. In the more expensive restaurants, working women and taitais alike can sometimes be seen dabbing their dim sum with tissues to soak up some of the grease and daintily pulling away the fried exteriors of some dumplings with their chopsticks before popping them into their mouths.

Some women – few men – even pour a little hot water, provided to dilute tea, into a small bowl and dip the dim sum in it to remove oil.

Perhaps proving the cynical adage that it is more expensive to eat healthy foods, the restaurants that are trying to reduce the fat and the salt in their dim sum are often not cheap. One of them is the Man Wah Restaurant at the top of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, with magnificent views of Hong Kong harbor and I. M. Pei’s Bank of China tower.

The restaurant stopped using monosodium glutamate, or MSG, 15 years ago, and switched from lard to vegetable shortening five years ago. But Henry Ho, the restaurant’s Chinese culinary adviser, said the renunciation of lard had cost the restaurant valuable points in the city’s fiercely contested dim sum competitions.

“A high fat content adds to the flavor,” said Kong Churk Tong, the chief dim sum chef.

Personally, I’m of the view of common sense – eating dim sum everyday is obviously not good for you; moderation is smart; fat tastes great, but don’t be stupid about it; and do you really need some government agency to tell people this? Eh.

Weird story in the NY Times. Carol Vogel reports:

Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie’s or Sotheby’s should sell the company’s art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week’s auctions in New York. […. H]e resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.

In Japan, resorting to such games of chance is not unusual. “I sometimes use such methods when I cannot make a decision,” Mr. Hashiyama said in a telephone interview. “As both companies were equally good and I just could not choose one, I asked them to please decide between themselves and suggested to use such methods as rock, paper, scissors.”

Officials from the Tokyo offices of the two auction houses were informed of Mr. Hashiyama’s request on a Thursday afternoon in late January.

They were told they had until a meeting on Monday to choose a weapon. The right choice could mean several million dollars in profits from the fees the auction house charges buyers (usually 20 percent for the first $200,000 of the final price and 12 percent above that).

“The client was very serious about this,” said Jonathan Rendell, a deputy chairman of Christie’s in America who was involved with the transaction. “So we were very serious about it, too.”

Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie’s in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department.

Mr. Maclean’s 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, “practically every day.”

“Everybody knows you always start with scissors,” she added. “Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper.” Flora piped in. “Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest,” she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors – because, as Alice explained, “Everybody expects you to choose rock.”

Sotheby’s took a different tack. “There was some discussion,” said Blake Koh, an expert in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles who was involved in the negotiations with Maspro. “But this is a game of chance, so we didn’t really give it that much thought. We had no strategy in mind.”

As Ms. Ishibashi wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague in New York, to prepare herself for the meeting she prayed, sprinkled salt – a traditional Japanese ritual for good luck – and carried lucky charm beads.

Two experts from each of the rival auction houses arrived at Maspro’s Tokyo offices, where they were shown to a conference room with a very long table and asked to sit facing one another, Mr. Rendell said. Each side’s experts had an accountant from Maspro sitting with them.

Instead of the usual method of playing the game with the hands, the teams were given a form explaining the rules. They were then asked to write one word in Japanese – rock, paper or scissors – on the paper.

After each house had entered its decision, a Maspro manager looked at the choices. Christie’s was the winner: scissors beat paper.

Bizarro World indeed!

Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is now a movie, and it opens today! Pretty good reviews; I have to see the movie. “Don’t Panic!” and, of course, Marvin the Chronically Depressed Robot. Hehehe….

Oh, and tomorrow – “Enterprise” Mirror Universe Part 2…

Today was the 90th birthday of one of the professors. What did he wish for? To be 30 years younger. He was really concerned about students attending class. They weren’t, he thought, because they were trying to make enough money to make ends meet. He’s using his birthday party to raise scholarship money next week.

Another prof mentioned that he was concerned about me but felt that I needed some distance. He said that one day, I’d look in the mirror and see my father smiling. One day that will be true.