25 July 2011: Dial M for Murdoch

Being Asian-American, I’m super-sensitive to news about other Asian-Americans, whether it be about creaky old Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii, Woody Allen’s daughter-turned-wife Soon Yi, Star Trekker-turned-gay activist George Takei, new GLEE heart-throb Darren Criss, Matrix superstar Keanu Reeves, pot-smoking Harold masquerading as John Cho, potty-mouth comedienne Margaret Cho, or long-suffering keeper-of-the-flame Yoko Ono. And…

24 July 2011: If Obama Is a Thermometer…

Princeton professor Cornel West, when asked by New York Times columnist Andrew Goldman as to how Obama can be the president West wants him to be when he’s facing this Republican Congress, replied thus:  “You’ve got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects…

13 June 2011: Support Your Local Koch Dealer!

Thanks to The New Yorker article (30 August 2010) on the powerful billionaire Koch brothers of Wichita, and the continuing updates about them on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, we now know what Koch Industries is up to as it funds and manipulates the election of political candidates who would then support the Koch…

7 June 2011: Mykee Is 14 Years Old!

Mykee, my sweet and gentle keeshond, is 14 years old today. In the past six years, she has undergone major surgery and extensive chemo treatments twice, but you wouldn’t know it from her youthful demeanor and disposition. True, she is now somewhat deaf, but she has learned to read my lips and to go wherever…

2 June 2011: Outsizing Anthony Wiener

What’s all the hew and cry over the alleged photo on Twitter of Rep. Anthony Wiener (D-NY) in his underwear?  Didn’t we all grow up seeing equally “lurid” photos of Marky Mark and all the other beefy Calvin Klein models in humongous billboards all over Times Square and in glossy family magazine spreads? Republicans taking…

11 May 2011: Artless in Kansas!

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has now fired all five employees of the Kansas Arts Commission. I’m sure what money this saves the sorry State of Kansas can now be shifted to any further campaigns the artless governor might have against Planned Parenthood and Abortion.  By all means, let’s have more unwanted kids in more crumbling…

Farewell, My Lovelies…

On the afternoon of 9 May 2011, the English Department of the University of Kansas gave a festive “milestones celebration” in the North Gallery of the Spencer Research Library for three of its new retirees, presided by Chair Marta Caminero-Santangelo, and organized by Administrative Assistant Robert Elliott.  The retirees (Mike Johnson, Jim Hartman and I)…

My Memorable Movies for Good Friday

Growing up in the 1950s in the Philippines, I remember Good Fridays being especially sad and mournful, not because Jesus died a horrible death on the cross on this particular day, but because it was the only day of the year when most of the movie houses in Manila were sanctimoniously dark, and the few…