Whitewashing of Asians in Media

In case you haven't heard, they cast a white woman (Scarlett Johansson) as the lead in Ghost in the Shell, which is a Japanese anime.

 

When I see whitewashing of Asian culture & people in the media, I'm angry, but also sad at the same time. I've heard so many stories of Asians who grew up in families where they were whitewashed by their own parents and now struggle to regain their sense of culture and past and how it fits in with their identity.

 

It's a vicious cycle. Being white and acting white are held up as the standard for success and being successful is of utmost importance. We need to value our Asian heritage and defend it and fight for it, but first we need to unlearn those lessons taught to us as children of immigrants. That unbroken and unaccented English is the most beautiful, that wearing a uniform of jeans and sneakers helps us blend in, that eating bland sandwiches and fruit rollups would help us not seem “other”, that when we did get teased and bullied, to not make a fuss and ignore it so that we can survive another day. That our success in the world would make up for it.

 

We are in a system that has a set of rules and playing by those rules makes life easier and not playing by them means that you’re punished, sometimes outrageously so. But I think one of the reasons Asians are not a vocal lot, is because deep down, we’ve accepted that Asian culture is not as valuable. We’ve done such a good job of assimilating that we've lost that sense of urgency and ownership. This fight? No, no, that's not my fight, that's someone else's fight. And soon enough, there won't be any fights, it'll just be the accepted norm. Being white cannot and should not be the norm. We all need to remember that and fight against it.

M/F?

So I just came across this: The Art of Manliness

 I haven't read any of the articles, but I'm not quite sure what to think. Is this insulting or cool, or both? What do gay men think about it? Do butch lesbians secretly or not so secretly read it?

 I consequently wondered if there was a female version, and lo and behold: That IT Girl

The world still struggles with the concept of gender roles and how much is nature vs nurture. I think that before anyone jumps to name calling and becomes all righteously indignant, they should just view them as self-help guides and anyone should be allowed to read articles from either one at their leisure and interest without having to deal with the concept of that's a girly thing or that's for men. Masculinity and femininity should be on a spectrum like sexuality.

Finally, Another Look at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147961?from=rss

This is obviously one of those extremely retarded laws that will undoubtedly be overturned in my lifetime and my kids will learn about it in their History of Gay Rights in the US class.

Dead Again - Best Gaming Song Ever?

There's some fundraiser thing related to this song right now to benefit Tom Smith who had a nasty accident on stage and is now in the hospital. I listened to it and caught some of the references (yay for being a well rounded gamer?) but it's not as catchy as Still Alive I would say. Though I would say it has greater appeal to gamers everywhere with at least one of their favorite games mentioned in here somewhere. And we can all bond together with our shared misery of dying over and over and over again. Though it would have been nice if he had mentioned some racing games...like Burnout. Nothing like dying in an explosion of metal and flames while flipping through the air.

http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1071


Lyrics to Dead Again:

Rocket launcher, rail gun, BFG Nine Thousand One,
Never saw it coming and I never had a chance.
Bad enough being dead, Sub Zero pulled off my head,
Master Chief is doing his victory dance.

Lost Asia in Risk, Diablo burnt me to a crisp,
Even though I had the Godly Plate of the Whale.
Two pair, eights and kings, Sauron got the One Ring,
Getting dysentery on the Oregon Trail.

Harry Potter came up short dueling with Voldemort,
Elspeth Holliday met the Blair Witch.
Spider-Man showed such aplomb till he met that pumpkin bomb,
Mr. Incredible didn't throw the switch.

Cliff racers, cave bats, stupid frickin' giant rats,
Deadly pirahna poodles, or soldier ants,
You were eaten by a grue, Hah! The wumpus got you,
Nancy Drew and Scooby Doo teabagged in Halo 2

Dead again,
Splattered all over a rendered killing floor,
Dead again,
Let me respawn and I'll be back for more,
Dead again,
Let me get to the checkpoint, then you can do your worst,
Dead again,
Then I'll reload but this time I'll shoot first.

My marble plummets from a height, should have rolled it to the right,
Jumped through lots of traffic but then fell off a log.
Russian cubes from the sky, and I let 'em stack too high,
Punched right off the screen by a humanoid frog.

T-rex got me, now I'm toast, chased down by a blinking ghost,
Landed on some spikes and dropped every last ring.
Bitten by a fanged slug, Jafar zapped my flying rug,
Trampled in a bog by a Barbarian King.

Mechanized war bots, Mudokan slingshots,
Centipede dropping a flea on my head.
Couldn't fly as Alfred Chicken, Duke Nukem kept on kickin',
Fought Guy of Gisborne with only some bread.

Skeletons hit me twice, dragon breath cased me in ice,
Couldn't line up all the jewels three in a row,
Shot up by Miami cops, beaten with karate chops,
Kept on missing platform hops, and the timer never stops.

Dead again,
How come these worlds have so many bottomless pits?
Dead again,
And everyone that I meet wants me blown to bits.
Dead again,
Reincarnation one byte at a time,
Dead again,
It's so embarassing to be killed by green slime.

Real life goes on until you're
Dead, or so I'm told,
Injury, catastrophe, or
Simply growing old
Fantasy's supposed to be where
You can find your dreams,
But all I find is game designers
Hooked on players' screams.

Smothered by a boa constrictor, drawn and quartered by a lich or
Eaten by a cat while dodging Beethoven's Fifth.
My flying ostrich drowned, monkeys thowing barrels down,
Torn apart by creatures out of legend and myth.

Zombies got a hold of Jill, nurses up in Silent Hill,
All those German snipers on the beach at Omaha.
Swallowed by the sand worms, infected by some nasty germs,
Didn't slap the leather when I heard him say, "DRAW!"

Running from Koala Kong, made a turn that's really wrong,
Sephiroth's supernova fried us where we stood.
Broiled in a lava flow, squashed by Super Mario,
Didn't make my saving throw against lawful good.

Thirty zillion space machines blowning up in cut scenes,
I actually found a way to die in Myst.
Ninja swords decapitate, plasma guns obliterate,
Pocket nukes annihilate, reboot, transubstantiate.

Dead again,
Inching ahead until once more I choke,
Dead again,
The funeral bills would leave my whole state broke,
Dead again,
Something is trying to chew off both my legs,
Dead again,
Who in the hell dreams up these easter eggs?

Dead again,
All of the guys at work think I'm a freak,
Dead again,
They watch golf and NASCAR every week,
Dead again,
They'll never understand what I call fun,
Dead again,
'Cause any of my lives is cooler than their one.

Blogging & the Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/technology/15law.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

During the infancy of the Internet, when "blogging" first came about, it was just a journal on the computer. People wrote haphazardly about everything from their love life, to their dogs, work, and used real names, real places. No longer is such naivete suggested or tolerated. More and more often, there are news stories about so-and-so being fired because of what they wrote on their blog or other similar consequences of simply exercising their freedom of speech. Things that were never a concern in the beginning are rapidly becoming huge issues that could change the Internet until it is unrecognizable. Net Neutrality, cookies, bots, privacy issues, identity theft...these all encroach upon the air-bytes that the Internet breathes. Too dramatic? Not nearly.

Anyway, the article is really more about when people should be forced to give up the anonymous cloak that is being behind a computer. It's pretty easy these days with IP tracking and fancy hacker-like programs and triangulation...and stuff... so really, the less you know about someone, the better for everyone. People who gain internet notority...I guess it must be cool, but really really weird. And probably a good dose of scary in there too with all the potential for stalkers. People are f-ed up man.

E3 2008 - Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, & Sony's Press Conferences

Microsoft Press Conference - I want to be a Microsoft Booth Babe!

EA Press Conference - Man I need to play with that Spore Creature Creator soon.

Nintendo Press Conference - Yay! More Animal Crossing!

Sony Press Conference - Ugh wow...the 80 GB for $400...still pretty pricey. Little Big Planet looks hella fun though...I think I should be able to find some friends that have a PS3 come October...

One Laptop Per Kid

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/H/HUNDRED_DOLLAR_LAPTOP?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-11-07-10-56-03

http://www.laptop.org/

This promotion is going on right now!! The promotion is buy one to give one for these cute little GREEN laptops. I read about this a few months back and was very much interested in participating. It took a little bit of searching, but I managed to find out that the age range for the laptop is apparently 6 to 16! I bought one for Zach's nieces/nephew. They'll be perfect test subjects to see how much the laptop really teaches kids and their interest in it.

I'll let you know how it goes. I'm really excited for this program though, the people who put this together are really dedicated and I really think it could change the world.

Reality TV...for Gaming!

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/178564050/pl_games

Man, the Japanese think of everything great! If this caught on here, it would super boost the gaming industry as well as make gaming more accepted as a somewhat type of sport. Maybe a split screen of the gamer and the game. All those gamers out there that gave up on the game because it was too hard would be able to finally see the ending and stuff. Or in the case of poorly planned (re)formats, when the game file gets wiped and it's too much trouble to go through it all again. Perhaps this is the idea that Zach and I have been waiting for and I should be podcast gaming?

Catchy Headlines...to what end?

Newspapers have always drawn attention with outrageous headlines, but now that the news has migrated online it feels like the need to outdo others in coming up with an attention-getting catchphrase has taken priority over what used to matter...what the article is actually about.


Just this week, I clicked on a link in the Seattle Times that was titled Want to make money? Stand in line. Was the article about getting unemployment benefits? Was it about some other easy way to make money? Nope, it was actually about politics surrounding lobbyists that pay people to stand in line to save them a spot. This wasn't the first time that I had clicked on a headline that lead me to an article I was not prepared for. Most of the time, I think, wow, I'm glad I clicked that link because this is kind of interesting, but in any other frame of mind, would I have?

Maybe it's just a fault of the Seattle Times. Slashdot, digg, reddit, and others also employ crazy headlines, but they also have a sentence or more of tagline so you know what you're getting yourself into. And for most readers of Slashdot, just reading that bit is enough to churn out pages and pages of comments. I mean come on, what article can't be summed up in a sentence? Brevity is close to godliness.