Category: San Francisco Bay Area

Happy Lunar New Year and A Super Bowl Sunday

Gearing up for the big game tonight?

If not: PBS has counter-programming with Masterpiece Theatre’s “Emma” (all three-parts).

True, the Jets aren’t in, but it sounds like the Big Game (in Dallas this year) could be interesting with Packers v. Steelers.  Not sure about whether the commercials will be interesting though.

That was pretty powerful though: a 20 second bit of FOX having actor Dan Lauria, who’s playing Vince Lombardi on Broadway, play Lombardi to goad the current Packers, as part of the mega pre-pre-game festivities.

Amid all the drama surrounding Amy Chua’s book (you can check the links I noted), her husband (yeah, another Yale Law professor), Jed Rubenfeld, has another historical thriller/mystery, “The Death Instinct.”

(I did a search – I actually did notice Rubenfeld’s past book; but I never get around to reading it)

Anyway, so Rubenfeld’s latest book seems to have positive reviews so far and when I skimmed the first chapter, it seemed to be pretty gripping.  But, it must be tough to be in a household where you both have books out at about the same time and the reviewer in the NY Times couldn’t resist noting your wife’s controversial book in the review for your book.  Geez.

Check this out: The (PBS) Newshour does a review of how their new format’s been doing.  Impressive that the new format of The Newshour has turned out well (at least, better than I expected; but then again, I’m probably the generation that’s watching more Newshour on-line than ever).

Slate article pondering the popularity of “Hawaii 5-O.”  I haven’t watched the show in awhile. But, I do like Scott Caan and Daniel Dae Kim. And, hooray for diversity for on tv! This show probably has more APA’s on screen than anywhere else, not to mention that it is helping the economy of Hawaii (kind of like how “Lost” and “Magnum, PI” and original “Hawaii Five-O” did).

Mark Bittman moving on from The Minimalist column; he’s heading to the opinion side, to talk about food (as an industry, as politics, as culture – because we’re screwing ourselves with bad food – take a look at the first post of his new blog on the opinion side of the NYTimes.com). Good luck, Bittman! Loved your videos!

With all the horrible weather that we’ve been having: find your inner Cory Booker.  Dig out yourself and your neighbors.

Fell a bit behind on this, but: Fred Korematsu Day in California!   Time coverage here, by Ling Woo Liu, director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education and a former reporter for Time in Hong Kong (I remembered that she used to be part of Time.com’s old China Blog).  More coverage on Angry Asian Man blog: here, here, and here.

Will post more about tv commentary and other things (as usual) later…

Other Stuff

Crazily enough: the Jets have beaten Indianapolis and New England and will be playing Pittsburgh next week.  Crazy!

PBS posts the view of Brianna Lee, as her father, Edwin Lee, is sworn in as interim mayor of San Francisco, the first Asian-American in the position of mayor of SF.  Lee would be different than the previous mayor (and… he’s an APA lawyer!).

Brooklyn Historical Society and the 1770 Map restoration.

An interesting look at old Tavern on the Green, while it’s not in operation (or awaiting something to replace it, whatever that might be).

I didn’t even realize it: the comic strip of Brenda Starr came to an end.  How sad.  She was a  pioneer woman journalist with the mysterious love interest in Basil St. John (the man with the eye patch) and funny friends and weird adventures.  They really don’t make comic strips like that anymore.  Then again, were there still readers of comic strips, much less readers of dead tree newspapers?

And, oh yes, as this is triscribe and we’re APA’s and lawyers: let’s not forget the reaction to Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”   Wall Street Journal did an excerpt, which sent the APA bloggers into Red Alert.  Via San Francisco Chronicle, Jeff Yang gets further perspective from Amy Chua concerning that excerpt.   On Disgrasian.com, the point is that the book is a memoir, not a how-to – but, as Disagrasian notes: it’s not clear why Chua still had to take the perspective of Immigrant-1st Generation Parent to torture her kids to success – when maybe it wasn’t that necessary to take the hard line.

Sure, I suppose reading the whole book gives a better sense of Chua’s view of parenting, but still: all that controversy with the book – I doubt that Chua will cry to the bank. (though: I kind of expected that a Yale Law prof would have better sense of responsibility about all the craziness that ensued. Just sayin’).

And, because we’re APA lawyers: please note that Yul Kwon’s leaving the FCC (them’s the feds) to go back to tv (PBS, but still – tv!). He will likely not be shirtless on PBS. That’s ok. Sort of.

Slate’s Farhad Manjoo points out why we don’t need to do two spaces between sentences anymore.  Sorry, but I was taught to use two spaces after a period when typing. Yes, it is an ingrained and arbitrary habit done over 20 years now. But, it’s not like I’m really wasting space. Plus, I find seeing space is easier on the eyes. But, that’s just me… 😛

The new horoscope sign: Ophiuchus.   CNN notes that there’s more to this whole horoscope change than we think though.

So it goes, I guess.  I’m not impressed by 2011 so far (besides the Jets making the universe all very weird).  Maybe 2011 will get better.  Eventually.

Reflecting on things from the hiatus

Not that my hiatus was planned (really, it wasn’t!).  But, I’ll try to catch up a little with some commentary and links on things that might be a little old, but still good to check out.

Some stuff to note, because around here at triscribe, we’re APA’s and we’re lawyers:

The first Asian American woman elected to be mayor of Oakland: Jean Quan.  PBS Newshour had an interesting interview with her and coverage on the format of election in Oakland (rank-choice voting – almost a little Round Robin with ranking you 1st choice each round).  Oakland has problems to overcome (high crime, poor economy), in addition to its interesting demographics.

The new White House Chief of Staff, Pete Rouse, is part Asian-American, via his mother, a Nisei.  Meanwhile, I’m not sure how ex-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is pulling off the race for Chicago mayor election, but good luck!  Saturday Night Live won’t be the same without SNL Alternate Rahm.

Karin Wong of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center raises interesting points about Asian American legal history, on the Angry Asian Man blog.

I’ve seen others share this Slate article, and I’m passing it along: “A Case of Supply v. Demand: Law schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs, and law students aren’t happy about it,” by Annie Lowrey.  The headline doesn’t quite do justice to the issue, though; there are unemployed or underemployed lawyers who are frustrated that law schools are producing more lawyers, since the law students will eventually compete with them (who already are bar-admitted…) for employment. At least, that’s what I noticed from conversations – anecdotal info don’t quite compare to the stats, I guess. But, frustration is out there. How to resolve it is another story.

I thought this Yahoo post was interesting: NBA player Ben Wallace is looking to one day transition to become a law student and join us lawyers.  I mean, Shaquille O’Neal has a law enforcement alternative path, and if Ben Wallace is serious about law school – maybe the NBA isn’t completely pointless (to me, anyway; I believe a bunch of NFL alumni are lawyers and judges).

NaNoWriMo got in the NY Times op-ed last month.  Thought it was pretty cool.  I especially liked this line about the point of NaNoWriMo (besides the challenge of writing a novel in a month): “It’s also the pleasure of belonging, for a month, to a community that puts the lie to the myth of the lonely writer.”

James “You’re Beautiful” Blunt may have prevented World War III, way back in 1999, when he was in the British Army?  Guess I can’t listen to the song the same way anymore.

I don’t listen to NPR on radio, but I have gotten into listening or reading on NPR things on the NPR website:

If you’ve got a half hour to listen to something fascinating and you’re a Founding Fathers (and Mothers) history buff, this NPR thing was great stuff.  The interview/coverage of Joseph Ellis’ new book o the Adams’ marriage was fascinating.  Joseph Ellis is also quite the writer/historian; I’d recommend reading anything he writes.  The John and Abigail Adams story is just amazing.

This particular item is so precious and precocious: Former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins and his now-4 year old fan.  It is funny and sweet!

Plus, really awesome stuff on NPR, with this interview with Garry Trudeau and his 40 years of Doonesbury!  I enjoyed the reflecting on the characters’ development – Mike, B.D. (the helmet! the losing of the helmet! the losing of his leg!), and Joanie.  The interview didn’t touch on, say, Zonker and Uncle Duke (wonder if he’s behind the crazy 2010 election commercials; Uncle Duke is THAT crazy), but it was still awesome.  The Slate interview with Trudeau was also cool.

The story of the 101 year old woman who got her US citizenship was heart-warming.

Eventually, I will have to do a post on the fall 2010 tv.  Eventually…