Jeremy’s Spoken
February 17, 2012
The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigour and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you.
—Mao Zedong, 1957
TMZ Producer Coins Racist Nickname for NBA Star Jeremy Lin
February 15, 2012
Clueless TMZ producers pitch lame nicknames for NBA star Jeremy Lin.
Dr. Robert
September 29, 2011
Fukushima Evacuee Condemns Nuclear Power In NYC
September 23, 2011
NEW YORK (NHK)~A farmer from Fukushima Prefecture has urged people around the world to get rid of nuclear power plants, saying there is no such thing as safe nuclear power.
53-year Sachiko Sato from Kawamata Town spoke at a gathering in central New York on Thursday. The event, organized by a US anti-nuclear group, was attended by about 70 people.
Sato was forced to evacuate from Fukushima to neighboring Yamagata Prefecture with her family after the accident in March at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Sato called on people all over the world to work together to get rid of nuclear plants, for the sake of the children of the world.
Friday, September 23, 2011 09:30 +0900 (JST)
OH, WHAT A NIGHT! Typhoon Roke Tears Through Japan, FukuDaiichi Drenched and Shaken by 5.1 Aftershock
September 21, 2011
TOKYO [9:30 am, Thursday, Sept. 22 JST]~Typhoon Roke, packing 100 mph+ winds and torrential rains, swept the length of Japan from Shizuoka to Hokkaido. Seven are dead and evacuation orders were issued for more than a million people. From the Tokai region the Category 2 storm then headed northeast drenching Tokyo during the evening commute and disrupting public transportation. Roke then whirled its way toward the stricken Fukushima Daiichi reactors.
Workers at the now-infamous Tokyo Electric Power Company-operated nuclear facility had been scurrying to strengthen explosion-damaged reactor buildings, but TEPCO reported control buildings were leaking and that workers had to resort to using ropes to secure vital piping systems against Roke’s high winds. The measures seemed to be working, then at 10:30 pm JST Wednesday night a 5.1 earthquake struck in nearby Ibaraki.
Not to worry, Japan. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) is reporting that “no irregular activities” were reported following Roke’s glancing blow and the ill-timed tremor did not further damage the beleaguered complex.
After a long night, the typhoon cleared the Japanese archipelago, evacuation orders were being lifted, radioactive cooling water had not overflowed from FukuDaiichi.
Here’s NHK World’s report, broadcast Wednesday evening JST as workers at Fukushima Daiichi waited for the full force of Typhoon Roke. Hiro Morita is at the anchor desk.
(This report was prepared using Katsuyuki Ueno’s Yokosonews Twitter stream. Yokosonews is headquartered in Yokkaichi, Japan, a region that has taken big hits from the last two typhoons. Ueno is a former L.A. resident.)
Japan Marks Six Months Since Devastating Triple Disasters; Tohoku Reconstruction Slow, Workers Struggling to Bring Fukushima Reactors Under Control
September 11, 2011
Kaku: East Coast Quake Nuclear/Seismic Wake Up Call for US
August 23, 2011
Holy tectonic plate, Dr. Kaku!
TEPCO Update From Fukushima Daiichi
August 17, 2011
TEPCO, Japan’s infamous nuclear power utility has begun releasing apology-filled video reports showing their workers battling to contain the ongoing radiation disaster at its Fukushima Daiichi complex. This vid is kind of encouraging, but is it a true depiction of the situation or PR? Ganbatte!
Man on the Street Pwns BBC Presenter
August 9, 2011
BBC presenter Fiona Armstrong was classically pwned by London activist-journalist Darcus Howe Tuesday as she tried elicit reactions on the fourth day of violence in the streets of London. With leading questions, Armstrong attempts to steer the West Indian former Black Panther Party member into rote answers, but Howe redirects the live interview to the root cause of the unprecedented violence from bands of underclass youth which first spread from London suburbs to neighboring cities and onto TV screens around the world. Listen to Armstrong, who, failing to get Howe to condemn “the rioting,” switches to a tack of condescension and defamation. Watch as Howe schools Armstrong on social conditions in the UK, on years oppressive police abuse and sums it all up by stating “I don’t call it ‘rioting,’ I call it ‘an insurrection’ of the masses of the people. It is happening in Syria, it is happening in Clapham, it’s happening in Liverpool, it’s happening in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad, and that is the nature of the historical moment!” WATCH, but more importantly listen.
Another Aftershock Rocks Northeastern Japan
July 30, 2011
Japanese awoke to this news update Sunday, July 31
In 1947, Nobel Prize winning novelist Pearl S. Buck published a children’s story set in a fishing village in coastal Japan. She called it The Big Wave.
In the book, Jiro, a fisherman’s son, tells his friend Kino that sometimes the ocean can be angry, and that sometimes the old ocean god rolls up in bed, heaves his head and shoulders and the waves run back and forth. Then he stands upright and roars and the earth shakes under the water.
Japan’s March 11 triple disasters have brought attention to The Big Wave, and the message it carries to children about life. Sales in Japanese bookstores have soared, with parents seeking out the little-known 64-year-old Buck story to read to their children.
Here’s NHK World’s Tomoko Kamata’s June 28 report on the book.
Watch the YouTube video that gave new life to 64-year-old book. Listen to NPR Weekend Edition’s Jacki Lyden read from The Big Wave in this prophetic piece from Jan. 1, 2005.
Fukushima Nuclear Workers in Race Against Time as Radioactive Water Levels Soar, Rainy Season Arrives
June 23, 2011
THE CRITICAL WATER DECONTAMINATION OPERATION at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor facility was still not underway early Friday, June 24 in Japan as Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) nuclear technicians wrestled with a glitches in a MacGuyver-like system aimed at lowering dangerous radiation levels found in pools of cooling water under the three reactors that suffered core meltdowns following March 11′s 9.0 earthquake and 38-meter-high tsunami wave that inundated the six-reactor complex in northeastern Japan.
NHK World Newsline reported late Thursday “there is still no prospect of resuming a system to decontaminate radioactive water due to a series of problems and errors.”
The amount of contaminated water on site is estimated to be 110,ooo tons and is growing by about 400 tons a day, as fresh water is injected into reactors to cool them. The rainy season threatens to raise the water levels further, and TEPCO has said if the decontamination operation is unsuccessful water could begin leaking from the reactor buildings as early as July 5. Leakage of highly radioactive water could also prevent reactor technicians from continuing their work to stabilize the troubled Fukushima Daiichi #1, #2 and #3 reactors.
The US-French decontamination process was begun last week but was halted after problems arose and high levels of radiation was detected. Incorrect valve settings are the latest problems with the system, TEPCO said.
Japan Tsunami Alert Rescinded
June 22, 2011
Here’s raw footage of NHK World’s morning newscast on Thursday, June 23, 8 a.m. showing anchor Catherine Kobayashi informing Japanese viewers that the government had rescinded an emergency tsunami warning issued about an hour earlier following a 6:51 a.m. earthquake in coastal Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan. The Japan Meteorological Agency lifted its tsunami advisory at 7:45 s.m. In Tokyo, the morning commute was underway; business as usual. Whew…
TSUNAMI WARNING: The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami warning following a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the coast of Iwate prefecture northern Japan at 6:51 am Japan time Thursday, June 23. NHK TV was urging citizens in the affected area to hurry to higher ground. The quake struck at 2:51 pm PST. NHK World’s Hiro Morita, usually a sportscster, was on the anchor desk when the bulletin was issued 4 minutes ago.
Although U.S. mainstream media may have stopped covering the ongoing efforts of the Japanese people to recover their lives in the aftermath of the triple disasters that devastated Japan more than three months ago, innovative young relief volunteers and Internet journalists are finding ways to use mobile social media like Twitter and Facebook to connect those in the disaster zones with people in distant lands around the globe who want to help with cash, baby formula and other forms of real-time direct aid in an unprecedented grassroots effort.
NHK’s Minori Takao, host of the public broadcaster’s Japan 7 Days news magazine June 19 filed this story of how Japanese activists are using social media to help establish community ties in Fukushima. Tweets and FB wall posts have already resulted in an unthinkably successful charity event in the city of Iwaki that resulted in a same-day $12,000 cash donation to Iwaki’s city government.
Are high-achieving Asian American students “a cabal of brainiacs trying to steal all the academic glory from their non-Asian competitors” or are they simply industrious and energetic American teenagers trying to be like their equally achievement-oriented white classmates? Harvard senior Jenny Tsai looked at the myths, the facts and what Asian American students themselves think in her senior social science thesis: “Too Many Asian at this School: Racialized Perceptions and Identity Formations” that has attracted the attention of the mainstream media as well as inquisitive Asian Americans around the country.
Do some winter break extra credit. Read Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews’ Class Struggle columnization of Tsai’s study and Asian American student stereotypes here or download and read Ms. Tsai’s thesis in its entirety here.
Michelle Rhee: The Exit Interview
October 13, 2010
MICHELLE A. RHEE, the controversial chancellor of Washington, D.C.’s school system resigned today in an action which came on the heels of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s defeat in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary election. It was Fenty who had begged Rhee to take the job 3½ years ago, and it was Rhee’s educational reform program that some say was the main reason he lost to D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray.
In today’s resignation statement, the sometimes abrasive education reformer said her leaving was “heartbreaking,” Reporters wrote that her press conference was “short and to the point.” Later, Rhee, 40, gave an exit interview to NPR’s Melissa Block, host of All Things Considered, in which she said she would continue her efforts to reform flagging U.S. schools and would spend more time with her fiancé former all-star pro basketball guard and now Mayor of Sacramento Kevin Johnson triggering rumors that Rhee may entertain job offers from cities in northern and southern California as well as Colorado.
Michelle Rhee: The Exit Interview
- The Highs and Lows of D.C. Schools Chief Michelle Rhee, All Things Considered.
- Rhee: “Reform Can Move on Without a Hitch,” Newsweek
- Is Michelle Rhee’s Revolution Over? The New York Times
- A Nasty and Productive Tenure Ends, TBD.com
- Biography: Michelle A. Rhee, Wikipedia
Liberating L.A.’s Soul: Midnight Ridazz
September 14, 2010
The Midnight Ridazz is a wild and crazy group of bicycle enthusiasts who have been riding together in the streets of Los Angeles, Calif. on the second Friday of every month since February of 2004. Originally conceived and founded by Skull and lovingly cared for by Mabell, Muff and a small group of planners and caretakers, the rides quickly grew from the original eight “Mammas and Papas” to current ride counts of 1300+ Ridazz.
Arguably Southern California’s hippest cultural and entertainment scene, it’s no surprise that many of the Ridazz late nite jaunts begin and end in L.A.’s Koreatown urban playground. And it’s no surprise that plenty of Asian American ridazz join in on the two-wheeled madness.
TFunk408 aka Tong is one of them. He even showed up on the Ridazz’ website recently: Read!
Crystal Kay: Jpop’s New Blood
August 13, 2010
As evidenced by the ascendency of Crystal Kay, a 23-year-old half-Korean/half African-American chartbuster, the face of Japan’s pop music scene has undergone a rapid evolution in the past five years. Riding the surge of R&B in this island nation, popular music in Japan has been greatly influenced by performers such as half-Japanese/Papua New Guinean artist Emi Maria, Japanese/African American enka star Jero, Japanese-Polish ancestry R&B stylist Anna Tsuchiya and Japanese-Americans Honolulu-bred Angela Aki and Ai Uemura, formerly of Glendale, Calif.
More about the Crystal Kay: WikiPedia, CNN Int’l, Sony Music Website, Japan Times.
