San Jose State prof Hasan Elahi was questioned by the FBI after 9/11. Now the Bangla-American hairmonger posts his current location, photos and the minutiæ of his daily schedule online. He told Stephen Colbert he’s bringing the surveillance value of his datastream to zero:
It’s an art project, an econ experiment and a passive-aggressive kiss-off to […]
Mildred Loving, the Rosa Parks of interracial marriage, passed away last Friday. She and her husband Richard’s Supreme Court case Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws nationwide on June 12, 1967:
Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed… five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting […]
Laura Bush held a press conference yesterday complaining about the Burmese junta’s lackadaisical response to a catastrophic storm:
“The response to this cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s failures to meet its people’s basic needs.” [Link]
These people are missing the gene for shame, and for irony. If only Burmese storm relief were […]
Aghast that Chink’s, a Philly steakhouse, was named after its white founder’s ’slanty eyes,’ a Korean-American woman tried to get the owners to change its name. She was met by a loud yawn from the locals and mockery from Philadelphia magazine:
The restaurant was opened by Samuel Sherman, who was nicknamed “Chink” as a child because […]
As if heeding the Dalai Lama, the Tibet protesters in Harvard Square tonight took pains to say they were against the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. But after a couple of generations of propaganda, the prevailing opinion on Tibet seem to have converged with that of the Communist Party.
Unlike the Tibet protests in Union […]
Travel writer and veteran Time journalist Pico Iyer stopped by Harvard Book Store tonight to read from his new book The Open Road, a profile of the Dalai Lama. He said that five years ago when he began his book, he planned its release for this spring because he knew Tibetans would be protesting […]
Wreath marks the spot
On this day, the 40th anniversary of MLK’s assassination:
King’s last words on the balcony were to musician Ben Branch… who was scheduled to perform that night… “Ben, make sure you play ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.” [Link]
Gandhi’s memorial (or Samadhi) at Raj Ghat, […]
A [Tibetan exile] holds a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi as Indian police detain them at Dehra… [Link]
Is every successful revolution doomed to end up on the Dark Side? Indian police have arrested a hundred Tibetan protesters carrying photos of Mahatma Gandhi, on a six-month, nonviolent satyagraha from Dharamsala to Lhasa against the repressive rule of […]
Here are some choice bits from Tony D’Souza’s The Konkans. In this passage, a black Chicagoan tries to plug a Catholic Mangalorean into the American hierarchy of racial insults, presented as an act of welcoming, benevolence and friendship. This confusion with Hindus is repeated throughout the book:
‘I’ve finally decided what it is I’ve got to […]
Pretty, blank Jim Sturgess comes off blanding down the Beatles in Across the Universe to play the lead in 21, a movie based on the MIT card sharps chronicled in the book Bringing Down the House. The original team leader, Jeff Ma, is actually East Asian.
Are you kidding me? A movie about math, MIT […]
The Daily Show’s Jason Jones gave Starbucks free publicity for its nationwide shutdown and visited a desi-owned deli to buy coffee. He overlayed a random wedding shehnai soundtrack, unlikely to be playing at a place of business, then headed out to Times Square to make fun of a Sikh gentleman’s lack of English fluency. This […]
When The Simpsons tackled outsourcing in ‘Kiss Kiss Bangalore,’ the only segment on YouTube at the time was the Bollywood-style dance scene at the end. But Srini’s posted a condensed version of the full segment:
It’s got the whole enchilada — Middle Eastern music confused with South Asian, Homer as a Thuggee, non-desi voice actors reading […]
Death of a salesman
Mitt Romney’s gracious withdrawal speech:
“[If I stayed in the race] I’d make it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win… in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.” [Link]
Where most of our army is:
Where the Al Qaeda leadership is:
On Sunday, CNN broadcast a news segment implying that Nepali workers who left their jobs at an Alabama DVD plant were security threats, based on little more than their ethnicity. Reporter Bill Tucker from Lou Dobbs Tonight interviewed a nutty local politician throwing around insinuations of terrorism. The segment accused the workers of stealing furniture […]
Say you’re an Indian psychopath: a child rapist, a cannibal serial killer, a kidney thief, vagehra vagehra. Here’s how your racket works. You do something so evil that few are willing to compete. Naturally it generates healthy cash flow. But over time, it inevitably comes to public notice. So what do you do? You just […]
Sibel Edmonds
The Times of London has been serializing a blockbuster tale of nuclear espionage in America at the behest of former FBI translater Sibel Edmonds. After years of being gagged by abusive, supposed national security laws, Edmonds is risking jail by going public with the British paper. She alleges that under sponsorship of a high-ranking […]
The San Francisco Zoo where Tatiana the tiger mauled a teen to death reportedly had an under-height tiger fence because of an Indian urban legend:
… the enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo was only 12 1/2 feet tall. That height, Willis said, can perhaps be traced to an age-old confidence in India, where tigers are […]
Reality
Hollywood
Hollywood did it with Charlie Wilson’s War and The Last King of Scotland, and now they’re at it again with Nanking. This new flick about one of the vilest atrocities of the 20th century, the wave of Japanese troops bayonetting, immolating, quartering and raping their way through a major Chinese city, automatically gets Mother Teresa-like […]
CNN’s Kiran Chetry mangled a throw to TV doc-in-a-box Sanjay Gupta this morning, repeatedly mispronouncing his name SAHN-jay GOOP-tuh like she was missing half her voicebox.
Kiran… was born in Shanta Bhawan Hospital in Kathmandu… She is half Nepalese, a quarter Ukrainian, and a combination of Dutch and German… her parents, Homa Chetry and Nancy (who […]
Loins of Punjab
Four hundred years ago:
… suddenly, a tiger rushed forward… leaping straight towards [emperor Jahangir]… Bullets and arrows were showered from all sides but they went to right and left of the tiger… [Guru Har Gobind] dismounted from his horse… Just as the tiger was about to spring upon the Emperor, Guru Har Gobind […]