Dumbfoundead: Dissed On the Red Carpet
November 19, 2011
Okay, we can all relax, rapper Dumbfoundead is still a card-carrying member of the 99%. Despite all his recent homegrown success~a new album, a million subscribers on YouTube, sold out shows on both coasts and overseas and major mainstream media coverage~”CNN”‘s Jonathan Park (aka LA Koreatown rap artist Dumbfoundead) found himself being informed on the red carpet by a “angry PR person” that he “wasn’t part of this” at the Nov. 2 L.A. premiere of “A Very Merry Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas.” DFD speculated that his FlipCam wasn’t official enough. The good news is DFD appeared to be well medicated when the incident went down. To be fair, I think John Cho (Harold) just didn’t recognize his dogg Ded. Afterall, Asian bruthas got to stick together, yeah?
Report of ‘New’ High Levels of Radiation Add to Continued Bad News About Japan’s Nuclear Disaster
August 3, 2011
Japanese American nuclear physicist Dr. Michio Kaku appeared on CNN’s “In the Arena” news program Aug. 2 to discuss the disclosure this week that lethal levels of radiation have been detected outside reactors #1 and #2 at the earthquake and tsunami ravaged Fukushima Daiichi complex. Kaku’s CNN appearance Tuesday marked the first time in more than a month that he has taken to the airwaves to discuss developments at the Japanese reactors.
The recent admission by the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that owns and operates the stricken reactors, came amid reports of radiation in water, soil, crops, beef and seafood across a more widespread area of Japan than previously reported, stretching in an arc up to and even beyond 200 miles away from the melted down reactor cores. (Note: Tokyo is a mere 140 miles from the Fukushima reactors.) The Japanese government announced Wednesday that it will soon begin testing rice across 14 prefectures from the northeast through central Japan to ensure the safety of the country’s staple dietary component.
Kaku says
- “They (TEPCO) haven’t even begun cleaning up the operation. It’s not stable yet. Maybe next year it might be stable.”
- Lethal radiation in the ventilator shafts is a leftover from the original accident. Workers have to stay away from the ventilation shafts; it’s no-man’s land. Robots at Fukushima Daiichi are not automatons that can perform repairs. “That is beyond our capability.”
- “Hitachi Corp. has estimated 30 years for cleanup~in other words, up to 50 years. Three Mile Island took 14 years to clean up. Chernobyl after 25 years is still not cleaned up. It’s still melting into the ground.”
- “The Japanese people don’t trust the utility’s (radiation) figures anymore. Either they were incompetent or they were lying.”
- Physicists in the U.S. using independent computer simulations of the Fukushima Daiichi accident suspected early-on that the Japanese utility was low-balling their estimates of radiation damage.
WATCH… via Somalian Pirate Media (video swiped using HTC Sensation)
Correspondent Lisa Ling On 25 Years of Explorer and More
April 18, 2010
In an interview marking the 25th anniversary of National Geographic’s Explorer TV telecasts, staff correspondent Lisa Ling recalled that the first time she walked through the offices of the magazine in 2002, “I knew I wanted to work here.”
A special two-hour retrospective Explorer: 25 Years airs Monday, April 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, and Ling, 36, says for her the anniversary is both a time for celebration and reflection. One segment of tomorrow evening’s program shows how the Chinese American reporter went undercover posing a member of a Nepalese medical team to surreptitiously enter Kim Jong-il’s Hermit Kingdom of North Korea.
Interviewed by TV website Zap2It, Ling admits publicly for the first time that her 2007 undercover piece on North Korea for National Geographic TV, which was highly critical of that nation’s government, may been a factor in the five-month imprisonment of her younger sister Laura Ling, 32, two years later.
- Nat Geo Explorer: Lisa Ling Reflect On Her Sister, Show’s Impact, Hanh Nguyen, Zap2It
- Undercover in North Korea: “Not germane”? Larry King Live CNN
- Euna Lee, Laura Ling, North Korea Archived Entries, Epicanthus
The Morning After: Cao Targeted by GOP Lunatic Fringe After Voting for Health Care Bill
November 9, 2009
WASHINGTON—Congress’ first Vietnamese American member Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao was interviewed on CNN Sunday morning, just hours after casting the lone Republican vote in favor of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.
“I felt last night’s decision was the proper decision for my district even though it was not the popular decision for my party,” Cao, a first-term representative from Louisiana’s traditionally Democratic 2nd District, told CNN.
“A lot of my constituents are uninsured, a lot of them are poor,” Cao said. “It was the right decision for the people of my district.”
Watch Rep. Cao field questions from CNN weekend anchor Betty Nguyen, also Vietnamese American, who tries to pin the congressman down with a list of GOP talking points. Cao hangs tough. Perhaps this was Ms. Nguyen’s audition tape for Fox News.
Initial reports had Cao, 42, who won his seat in December, under severe pressure from his Republican colleagues Saturday after he made it know that he intended to support the Democratic plan once abortion funding was removed from the measure. An article filed by a reporter for the Alaska Dispatch shortly after Saturday’s vote told of Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) both figuratively and physically “leaning” on the Asian American freshman congressman as he waited to cast his vote. However, Dispatch reporter Amanda Coyne later revised her story saying that Rep. Young had actually been protecting Cao from party leaders.
According to the Dispatch account: Cao didn’t want to be the deciding vote, but once it was sure to pass, with Young on one side, and another protectorate Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), on the other, Cao was free to be the lone Republican to vote ‘aye.’ As soon as he did, Reps. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Mike Honda (D-Calif.) waded into the Republican side of the aisle to get to Cao, rub his shoulders and slap him on the back.
- Louisiana’s Rep. Joseph Cao Lone Republican to Support Health Care Plan, Epicanthus
- The Scene in the House When It Happened, Huffington Post
- Right-wing Unleashes Racism on Rep. Cao, Think Progress
- Bio: CNN Weekend Anchor Betty Nguyen
Who Is Mitchell Koss and Why Isn’t He Talking?
June 11, 2009
I was changing a leaky shower head in an upstairs bathroom when I first heard the news. Two Asian American women on assignment for the cable channel Current TV were arrested by North Korean soldiers near North Korea’s border with China. Early on, CNN’s senior international correspondent John Vause, quoting South Korean sources, reported Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, had been on North Korean soil and were seen running back toward China when apprehended.
The third member of Current TV’s Vanguard team, “cameraman Mitch Koss,” and a guide of Korean-Chinese ancestry somehow eluded capture. Reportedly, Koss was questioned by Chinese authorities and released. He booked it out of the PRC, hightailed it back to the US of A, and then he dropped off the face of the Earth.
Lee and Ling were sentenced to 12 years “reform through labor” this week by North Korea’s Central Court for “grave crimes against the Korean nation.” And Mitchell Koss has sentenced himself to silence.
Three months have passed without so much as a Twitter from the elusive Mr. Koss. Meanwhile, the lazy dog media have veered away from a search for the facts and seem content to wallow in the lame sentimentality of weeping siblings and naive pleas for their release. Poker metaphors are everywhere. And the one person who could tell us flat out what really happened at the Tumen River March 17 isn’t saying squat.
And Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department? They’re currently on location filming a remake of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
This is beginning to sound like the set-up to a bad Ludlum novel or, maybe, a remake of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Who is Mitchell Koss and why isn’t he talking?
(North Korean news agency KCNA announced Sunday evening —1:30 p.m. June 8 in Pyongyang— that American journalists Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, both of Los Angeles, have been convicted and sentenced to 12 years hard labor for the “grave crime” they committed against North Korea.)
♣
Veteran TV newswoman Lisa Ling led the families of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, two American journalists held in North Korea for border violations and “hostile acts” on a well-orchestrated, one-day media blitz of NBC, CNN and ABC June 1 and issued an emotional appeal for their release on humanitarian grounds. (Ms. Ling is the older sister of jailed Current TV managing editor Laura Ling.)
But there were subjects that were apparently off-limits to the interviewers that day—Matt Lauer (The Today Show), Larry King (Larry King Live) and Bob Woodruff (Nightline)—and despite his shaky credentials as a journalist only the suspender-ed septuagenarian dared to broach one of them: whether Lisa Ling herself had ever reported from North Korea under false pretenses. Here’s the elder Ling sister dancing around King’s question: Have you ever been in North Korea?
Not germane? In June 2006, Lisa Ling and Australian cameraman Brian Green, snuck into North Korea posing as members of a medical delegation headed by Nepalese eye surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. Images captured using miniature hidden cameras were combined with U.S. State Dept. and Dept. of Defense-provided footage and the result was Undercover in North Korea for the National Geographic Channel’s Inside series which aired in April 2007. Below is an excerpt from that controversial project critics termed one-dimensional propaganda “offering very little breadth and even less depth of interesting or new information. Lisa Ling is clearly over her head in terms of trying to report on something as weighty as geopolitics. Her style is trite and ill-prepared, over dramatized.”
Missing from MSM coverage of this worsening international incident is the real skinny on mysterious Vanguard Journalism executive producer Mitchell Koss, the veteran newsman who witnessed the capture of Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Koss, a 53-year-old 56-year-old Glendale, Calif. resident, reportedly eluded North Korean border guards back on March 17. He was briefly held by Chinese authorities and then released. After returning to the United States, Koss has refused all requests for interviews and has dropped out of sight. What if anything has Koss told the families of the imprisoned journalists?
—babamoto
Lisa Ling Extols Facebook: Says Social Media Sparked Grassroots Movement to Free US Journalists Held by NKorea
June 2, 2009
Monday was a long day for network TV reporter Lisa Ling. It started before the sun came up in a New York hotel room. She checked her e-mail and then she “friended” a few people on her Facebook account. As the sun was rising over Manhattan, she led her parents, two worried husbands and a four-year-old little girl into the NBC studios to launch a worldwide media blitz seeking the release of two American journalists being held by North Korea—one of them her sister, Laura Ling, and the other, Euna Lee, the mother of that four-year-old.
- Follow Lisa Ling on Twitter
- Join the Laura Ling/Euna Lee Facebook Support Group
- Free Laura Ling and Euna Lee, sign the petition
First was a 7 a.m. slot on the Today show at 30 Rock. Then it was over to CNN on Columbus Circle for Larry King Live which airs at 6 p.m. on the East Coast. Finally, it was up Broadway to 66th for ABC’s Nightline at 11:35 p.m.
By the time she was waiting for the start of her Nightline segment last night with Bob Woodruff, Lisa Ling, the desperate big sister with the destinies of two families and the weight of the world on her shoulders, was ready to lose it emotionally. She’d been under hot TV studio lights, working the phone or battling New York traffic for 20 consecutive hours.
Then she lost it, tearing up as she talked about how virtual strangers had used Facebook to mount a nationwide support network for her sister and Euna Lee and how she finds solace in the kind words of Internet strangers.
“You know, it’s been amazing to us. Through Facebook—It’s been extraordinary—this whole grassroots movement has been born,” she said.
“I’ve been at home late at night feeling emotional, and I’ll post something so intensely personal on Facebook, and I don’t know who’s reading it, Ling told Nightline anchor Bob Woodruff.
“After I hit ‘update,’ I think to myself, ‘Why did I just post that for thousands of people I don’t know to see?’
“I think the reason is because there is no support group for this and for some reason when people I don’t even know send me a message that says ‘We support you.’ ‘We’re praying for you.’ ‘We’re behind you’—somehow there’s the strangest comfort in that.”
Here’s an excerpt of that Nightline segment:
- Follow Lisa Ling on Twitter
- Join the Laura Ling/Euna Lee Facebook Support Group
NEW YORK—The families of two American journalists held for nearly three months in solitary confinement by the North Korean government flew here from their California homes this weekend and will appear on NBC’s Today Show at 7 a.m. and CNN’s Larry King Live at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST) on Monday, June 1. The families will also appear on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 Wednesday, June 3, 7 p.m., on CNN.
Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, who work for Current TV, the San Francisco-based multimedia news organization founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, were arrested March 17 near the North Korea- China border as they shot video footage of North Korean women and children fleeing to China. They have been charged with illegal entry and intention to commit “hostile acts” and are scheduled to stand trial in Pyongyang, June 4 (June 3 in the U.S.) before North Korea’s highest court.
Iain Clayton, Ling’s husband of 12 years, and Lee’s husband, Michael Saldate, have had very limited contact with their imprisoned wives.
Clayton, a Beverly Hills-based financial analyst, was the first to go public about his wife’s ongoing imprisonment with a post on the CNN Larry King Live blog May 29.
“As the trial date of June 4th approaches, I grow increasingly apprehensive and nervous about the fate of my wife, Laura Ling, and her colleague, Euna Lee,” Clayton blogged. “They have now been detained by the Government of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] for nearly three months. During this time I have had very limited contact with her and really, really miss her.”
Read Clayton’s entire blog post here.
L.A.-based actor/comedian Saldate has yet to issue a public statement on his wife Euna’s now 77-day-long ordeal, but he and the couple’s young daughter Hanna are also in New York to appear on the NBC and CNN programs. The trio will be joined by Ling’s parents, Doug and Mary Ling of Sacramento, and her older sister and fellow network TV reporter Lisa Ling.
UPDATE: CNN Reporting Asian American Journalists May Have Been In North Korea When Arrested
March 21, 2009
BEIJING—The North Korean government has confirmed that it is holding two American journalists, and CNN, quoting South Korean sources, is reporting that Asian Americans Laura Ling and Euna Lee may have in fact been in North Korea when arrested March 17.
CNN correspondent John Vause said Ling and Lee, on assignment for cable channel Current TV, were seen running back toward the Chinese border when arrested by North Korean border guards.
Meanwhile, former U.S. vice president and Current TV founder Al Gore has reportedly reached out to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to secure the release of the two Northern California-based journalists.
Circle the wagons! CNN’s Lou Dobbs is showing himself to be a one-trick pony. With the immigration issue less relevant to America today than a vente moca frappuccino, Uncle Lou, horny for ratings, began ranting Wednesday against… St. Patrick’s Day and all other “ethnic holidays.”
“How about an Asian ethnic holiday; is there one? You know, St. Jin Tao Wow?”
Dobbs didn’t mention Cinco de Mayo, Easter or Christmas. What? Is he Catholic and married to a Mexican American? And who the heck is this “Jin Ting Wow” guy and do we get the day off?
Listen to Dobbs’ ethnic holiday rant:
H/T Wok The Way
Why Mumbai?
November 29, 2008
WHAT THEY HATE ABOUT MUMBAI
“Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. ‘Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you.’ The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird.”
New York University journalism professor Suketu Mehta explains why terrorists targeted Bollywood in an op-ed piece printed in the Nov. 28 edition of The New York Times.
