I’m spending most of this month and last looking over the Hudson River, from Jersey City to New York. It’s a good vantage point to be an observer of global interactions and politics. It is from here that I have read most of the books I have reviewed so far for Zócalo Public Square.
Three of those books have been about American foreign policy in the Middle East. To be sure, the three were very different in style and content, but in so many ways they all underscore the simple need for context. It is a desperate need in these days of information overload and soundbite news. While the foreign policy histories and opinions in the books that I reviewed are essential for thinking about monumental existential issues like national security, the act of consistently reading books is a reminder to take more time to think about, well, everything. Sometimes it’s best that life move at the speed of books.
Here are some excerpts and links in case you’re interested. Read more on Life at the Speed of Books…
Since Sunday evening this week, I’ve been spending time with National Health Journalism Fellows in downtown Los Angeles. We’ve visited slum housing, debated the terminology used in news reports about domestic violence, spent an evening at the ER, and dissected the legislative debates surrounding health care reform. You can read my live-blogging from the seminar on at ReportingonHealth.org and keep up with later posts, written by other people, on The Fellowships Blog or with @ReportingHealth on Twitter.
But for now, here is a post about one of the panels which I thought merited some discussion, even beyond the health journalism sphere. The speaker gave some specific admonitions about language in news. You can comment here or at the orignal Reporting on Health post. Read more on Health care reform, diabesity and the language of health journalism…
A New York University alumni friend of mine told me about a controversy brewing at his alma mater. It stems from a larger controversy, far away on the small island nation of Singapore. Dr. Thio Li-Ann, law professor at the National University of Singapore, has been appointed as a visiting scholar on human rights to NYU’s law school beginning this fall. But Thio’s track-record on human rights is in question.
It’s the closing night at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival and one film — not a new film — really caught my eye this year.
On Saturday, the festival showed the 1987 documentary Who Killed Vincent Chin? The documentary is a powerful staple of Asian American history which I had never gotten around to seeing. It is the story of the beginnings of Asian American activism, which came about on the heels of the end of a man’s life. In 1982, Detroit, Vincent Chin got in a barroom brawl with Robert Ebens. Ebens and his stepson then pursued Chin outside the bar; while his stepson held him down, Ebens beat Chin over the head with a baseball bat. Chin went into a coma and died four days later in the hospital.
Read more on looking back, looking forward…
Posted in United States | Tagged activism, asian americans, Chrysler, civil rights, documentary film, hate crimes, immigrants and minorities, lily chin, recession, Renee Tajima-, Robert Ebens, vincent chin |
Anil Kapoor told me I have a “lovely smile.” My mother was pretty excited.
And that says a lot. This 30-year Bollywood veteran is now the kind of star in America who draws attention on a red carpet in Hollywood. Kapoor made his international debut as the dubious host of India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.
Read more on Global Lives #2: Anil Kapoor…
Also posted in India, Los Angeles | Tagged Ada Tseng, anil kapoor, Bollywood, Gandhi My Father, global film, global lives, Hollywood, indian film festival, podcast, who wants to be a millionaire |
I had the good fortune last night to see Sita Sings the Blues on honest-to-goodness film at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. I had heard about the movie a while ago; director Nina Paley offered her seven-year project up for free in many forms on the Internet. She writes:
Read more on free culture on 35mm…
A quick post — I was really surprised to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being very forthright about America’s errors in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Let’s remember here,” she told a congressional hearing, “the people we are fighting today, we funded 20 years ago.” She links the problems in the region now, in part, to America’s policies in fighting the Soviet Union. “Let’s be careful what we sow, because we will harvest,” she said. Here’s the clip from CNN:
Read more on Clinton on Pakistan…
Also posted in Pakistan | Tagged Afghanistan, cnn, Dawn, foreign policy, hillary clinton, news, Secretary Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary, state department, Taliban, us secretary of state |
I’m starting a weekly post that rehashes some of the most interesting and unusual reports on Asia (in English) and the world. Let me know what you think, and if you find this kind of feature useful. For more interesting things on the web, from newspapers and blogs, see my shared stories page.
Read more on This Week: Follow-ups to terrorist attacks in India and the earthquake in China, perspectives on Iraq and North Korea…
Also posted in Asia, China, India | Tagged BBC, broadcast, China, Christian Science, current tv, Demick, earthquake, Emily Wax, India, Iraq, los angeles times, news, North Korea, Pyongyang, Sichuan, terror, terrorist attacks in india, Vietnam, washington post |
I’ve been a loyal reader of Tim Johnson’s McClatchy Newspapers blog, China Rises, since it started three years ago. It’s only today that I thought about it, though, because Johnson is leaving the blog behind. He writes:
Read more on the China bloggers post…
Also posted in Asia, China, India | Tagged bloggers, china correspondent, china rises, culture china, hindustan times, internet china, journalists, mcclatchy newspapers, news, reading list, tim johnson |
I did a story about the documentary film Project Kashmir for Asia Pacific Arts. You can see the story and all of APA’s coverage of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in their website. I also made my first attempt at making a podcast start-to-finish. I hope these will become more engaging as I keep practicing.
Read more on Global Lives #1: Project Kashmir…
