Daniel Dae Kim, of Lost, is the first member of the cast to find work after the show’s much-touted May series finale. (And you’re crazy if you’re not watching this show. Last week was mind-blowingly-oh-my-god-they-did-not-just-do-that awesome.) DDK’s going to play Detective Chin Ho Kelly on CBS’ remake of Hawaii Five-O.
And, hey, maybe he’ll even get to speak English, and not pidgin, in this new show!
I was delighted to read this afternoon that the First Lady is gearing up for a campaign to end childhood obesity in this country. Scheduled to announce her initiatives tomorrow, Michelle Obama is hoping to raise awareness about the growing obesity epidemic in this country, largely affecting the nation’s children.
Anthony Coley said this about Michelle Obama’s plans today in a piece for CNN:
On Tuesday, the first lady will unveil the details of her comprehensive plan, the broad outline of which, she told a meeting of key members of Congress and the Cabinet, include four main elements: increasing the number of healthy schools; increasing the amount of physical activity children receive; improving accessibility and affordability of healthy foods; and empowering consumers and families to make healthier food choices. She’ll spell out the details in the coming days.
The childhood obesity epidemic is the newest front in the battle of the bulge, and Mrs. Obama should be praised for using her mass appeal to shed light on it. She is right to argue, as she has, that there is no one solution, federal or otherwise.
Stopping this epidemic will require complementary efforts that bring together government, families, schools, foundations, businesses and others. Here’s hoping that people across America hear Mrs. Obama’s call to action and join the national campaign to end childhood obesity. Our collective future, in no small part, depends on its success.
Honestly, it’s about dang time that this nation took tangible steps to end the obesity epidemic and raise the health of this country. Over the last several months, I’ve been shocked by the growing waistline of Americans; it feels as if everywhere I turn these days, I see obese men, women and children trapped in a fast food culture.
Currently, 1 in 3 Americans are obese, based on their body mass index (which I’ve railed against, but I digress). Obesity has been linked to increased risk for a host of diseases, including heart attack and diabetes. But, what’s most striking is that obesity is directly associated with socioeconomic status: the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese (particularly if you are a woman).
We see this relationship directly in data presented by Baum and Ruhm that compared measures of obesity against socioeconomic status (I graphed the data from Table 2).
But we also see this relationship when we look at the median household income in the top eleven most obese states in America: states with higher rates of obesity tend to have lower median household incomes.
| State | Income | % Obese |
| Mississippi | 36674 | 32.8 |
| Alabama | 40751 | 31.4 |
| W. Virginia | 40611 | 31.2 |
| Tenessee | 43458 | 30.6 |
| Oklahoma | 41497 | 30.3 |
| S. Carolina | 43338 | 30.1 |
| Kentucky | 41320 | 29.8 |
| N. Carolina | 44411 | 29 |
| Michigan | 51305 | 28.9 |
| Ohio | 48884 | 28.7 |
| Arkansas | 40001 | 28.7 |
In fact, if we graph these data for all states, we see an inverse relationship between obesity prevalence and median household income:
And finally, we also see a similar trend when we look across racial lines: minority groups with lower median household income (I used the 2006 numbers to match the year when the obesity data were collected) status tend to have higher rates of obesity.
(And no, I didn’t run any statistics on any of this stuff. What am I, some kind of number-crunching dork who likes to analyse data for fun? ^_^)
My point in all of this? Obesity is a health epidemic that disproportionately affects the poor. In a way, our continued cultural apathy towards obesity (childhood or otherwise) is a popularly condoned death sentence for the impoverished. Inaction when it comes to the obesity epidemic sends this message: yes, we believe the poor deserve to die.
And the truly sad thing about the obesity epidemic is that, with a little education, obesity is completely preventable. Encouraging physical activity and proper nutrition will help, as will initiatives that improve the economy. Even the healthcare reform bills mired in Congress, if passed, could improve the obesity outlook if they include sufficient emphasis on preventative care. But what this country can’t afford is continued ignorance and apathy; I’m glad Michelle Obama has taken the first step in making a difference.
And anyways, doesn’t this somehow justify all that trashy gossip over Michelle Obama’s killer arms? Instead of fixating on Michelle’s incredible shoulders, maybe we can start fixating on our own need to get more physically fit.
The idea of anti-Asian bias in college admissions is gaining further traction in mainstream media. This article in the Boston Globe perpetuates the rather simplistic idea that equates higher mean SAT scores for Asian applicants with an “Asian Ceiling” that discriminates against Asian American students.
The article draws on Espenshade’s study, which I reviewed last year, and which can lead to an oversimplification (dare I say “white-washing) of the situation. At least my friend Oiyan Poon gets it right:
“When you look at the private Ivy Leagues, some of them are looking at Asian-American applicants with a different eye than they are white applicants,’’ says Oiyan Poon, the 2007 president of the University of California Students Association. “I do strongly believe in diversity, but I don’t agree with increasing white numbers over historically oppressed populations like Asian-Americans, a group that has been denied civil rights and property rights.’’ But Poon, now a research associate at the University of Massachusetts Boston, warns that there are downsides to having huge numbers of Asian-Americans on a campus.
In California, where passage of a 1996 referendum banned government institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, Asians make up about 40 percent of public university students, though they account for only 13 percent of residents. “Some Asian-American students feel that they lost something by going to school at a place where almost half of their classmates look like themselves – a campus like UCLA. The students said they didn’t feel as well prepared in intercultural skills for the real world.’’
Oh yeah, and is anyone else creeped out that there was a seminar at a national college admissions conference that was titled, in all earnestness, “Too Asian?”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Last night on Keith Olbermann, Olbermann asked Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas what he would do to end “political gridlock” in Washington. Moulitsas replied “kill the filibuster”:
KEITH OLBERMANN: In 30 seconds, what do we do to fix it [our political system]?
MARKOS MOULITSAS: Well, our system is broken. Mostly the Senate. In 30 seconds I can do it quicker: kill the filibuster. And that’s something I hope Democrats start looking into.
Oh, has it only been a five years since Democrats were decrying the Republican threat of invoking the ”nuclear option” in response to Bush’s Supreme Court nominations? Now, all of a sudden, Democratic pundits are the ones criticizing the use of the filibuster.
Daily Kos afficionados might applaud Moulitsas’ comment. And yes, I support healthcare reform, and am frustrated by the slow lingering death of the various healthcare reform proposals in Congress — many of them being stymied by Republicans. And yes, it seems unfair that 40 committed senators (or 41, as the case may be) can stop 60 senators in their tracks with one well-placed filibuster.
But, it’s incredibly short-sided for Moulitsas and other left-wingers to blame the failure of healthcare reform on the mere existence of the filibuster rule.
The filibuster has always existed as a desperate measure intended to help avoid a simple “majority rules” mentality in the Senate. Having a majority of votes in the Senate grants the ruling party a significant advantage over the minority party, yet the purpose of the Senate — more so than the House — is to ensure careful debate over any and all pieces of legislation. Without the filibuster, the party that holds the most votes could simply force through whatever piece of legislation they would like, and the representatives of the minority party are little more than seat-warmers. The filbuster exists in case the members of the majority party lose their mind, and want to push through a bill without any adequate debate from the members of the minority party; in other words, the filibuster exists to ensure that the little guy can be heard.
Yet, a cloture vote — which requires 60 votes to end a filibuster — is not the only way to end a filibuster. Indeed, some of the most famous filibusters in history ended because the guy talking for 22 hours straight got sleepy or needed to pee — a person simply can’t stand and talk in one place for more than 24 hours.
If we want to pass healthcare reform (or any piece of critical legislation), we need only look to history. Strom Thurmond’s filibuster of the Civil Rights Act didn’t prevent its passage in 1965. Senator Huey Long’s 15 hour filibuster of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act didn’t stop banking reform.
So, I say this: if Republicans want to filibuster healthcare reform, let them. Let the Republicans draw straws to pick a representative amongst them to pee in Gatorade bottles and down throat lozenges to speak for 20 hours on why Americans don’t need healthcare. If they have a point — which they don’t – than voters across the country will be able to hear it for themselves.
But when it’s clear that the Republicans don’t have a point, let’s see whether voters will vote in favour of the party that wants to ensure that the sick get the live-saving treatment they deserve, or whether they will vote back into office the guys who actually gridlocked Washington for 24 hours trying to stop doctors from treating patients.
But let’s end this dumb talk over getting rid of the filibuster. It comes off as petty and myopic. Moulitsas’ comment comes from the same partisan bickering that has characterized the last two decades in Washington. I guarantee that if a Republican majority were elected to Congress tomorrow, we would find Moulitsas on Rachel Maddow tomorrow night defending the filibuster as a noble and time-honoured political tradition.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the study's primary author
I just caught this on CNN: a 1998 study “showing” a link between measles vaccinations and autism has been retracted by The Lancet. The 1998 Wakefield et al. paper reported that in a study of 12 children, GI abnormalities and onset of autism was associated with a measles vaccination were found in 8 of the patients, leading the authors of the paper to conclude that the measles vaccination led to failure of the GI tract, causing waste to enter the blood and producing autism.
As you can see from the Pubmed abstract, the 1998 Wakefield et al. paper attracted heavy criticism and comment, sparking a heated debate in the published literature. Walker-Smith’s lab (out of which the original 1998 paper was published) issued a partial retraction in 2004, clarifying that the original paper was not intended to demonstrate a causal link between measles vaccine and autism. Furthermore, many papers published by other investigators subsequent to Wakefield et al. demonstrated findings contradicting Wakefield’s initial causal conclusion — yet, in the popular media, Wakefield et al’s paper became a fundamental piece of “evidence” in the growing anti-vaccination hysteria that has taken the country by storm over the last decade.
Well, score one for the scientists: this morning, The Lancet issued a historic retraction of the entire Wakefield et al. 1998 paper. The retraction read only three sentences long, yet I think it’s implications are profound:
Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al1 are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation.2 In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.
Basically, here’s what happened — recently, the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel met to discuss and review the investigative and ethical practices of the original 1998 Wakefield et al. paper. The panel found that, contrary to earlier reports, the study used shady and unethical practices for recruiting patients and collecting data, including Wakefield paying children for their blood samples at his son’s birthday party.
For those of you who don’t know, all human studies (like all animal studies) undergo a rigorous review prior to implementation to ensure that patient safety and scientific rigor are maintained. Very rarely does an investigator implement such poor scientific method that they invalidate their own findings, yet it turns out that Wakefield was one of these scientists.
Hopefully, this full retraction will begin to dismantle the rampant anti-vaccination hysteria we’ve seen in association with flu vaccines, chicken pox vaccines, and the latest H1N1 vaccine. I find parents’ fear of vaccination to be anti-intellectual at its core; they fear what they don’t understand.
But let’s get it straight: vaccines don’t hurt you, they help you. Vaccines can save your child’s life, and they sure as heck won’t give your kid autism. Go get your kid vaccinated already; when your kid gets sick, it’s already too late.
I’m a huge believer of mass action. One of the major purposes of this blog was to try and encourage myself, and my readers, to stay involved — to be more than just an armchair activist. I’m one of those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed true believers who thinks we’re here on this planet to make a difference (yeah, I know, cue the beads, braids, and Beatles music). Writing, for me, is a daily act of raising awareness, stimulating discussion, and (hopefully) changing minds, but nothing beats hitting the streets, participating in a letter-writing or phone-banking campaign, or donating money.
Sure, each individual action seems tiny and pointless, but if a whole bunch of people do just a little bit… whoa!
A couple of days ago, I encouraged readers to help in the relief efforts in Haiti in the wake of a massive earthquake that demolished Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. One of the primary options was to donate via text message — sending the word “HAITI” to 90999 on your cellphone would send a $10 donation to the Red Cross International Relief Fund (appearing on your next monthly phone bill).
This campaign started on the Red Cross Twitter feed and was publicized on the White House blog. It was quickly picked up on Facebook (where I first heard about it). Word spread quicker than a zombie infection (yeah, I’m playing Fallout 3 right now so zombies are on the mind) — this morning, CNN reported that over $8 million dollars had been donated to the Red Cross, and as of three hours ago, the Red Cross twittered that the sum had now reached $10 million dollars.
$10. Million. Dollars. — more money than many foreign governments in Europe and Asia are individually committing – and most of it donated $10 at a time by people all over America. $10 million dollars from hundreds of thousands of people each spending less than thirty seconds of their day and giving up the cost of a meal for two at McDonald’s.
$10 million dollars. Pardon my French, but holy fuckin’ shit.
Or, put another way — naive romantic idealists: 1, skeptics and cynics: 0.
Here’s my re-post of how you can help raise the next $10 million:
More options to donate:
Yesterday morning, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti just 14 miles outside of Port-au-Prince. Today, Haitian officials estimate that the number of dead could be in the several hundred thousand. To put that into perspective, it would be as if Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region more than fifty times over. It would be as if the tsunami that ravaged fourteen countries in Southeast Asia in December 2004 landed less than 700 miles off the coast of Florida. It would be as if roughly one-third to one-half the population of Tucson vanished in a single moment.
But really, there’s no way to truly grasp the loss of life on that scale.
Apparently, Obama’s committed to giving “aggressively” to relief efforts in Haiti, although I’m not sure how one exactly gives “aggressively”. But, you can do your part to help disaster efforts:
I chose the texting option because it seems to be the most direct way to specify my donation for disaster relief in Haiti. Please post a comment here if you donate to receive good karma from … well… me.
Saw this at my local U.S. Navy recruiting office today:
Proving that communication skills are not a prerequisite for military service?
When I was in college, there sure as heck weren’t zombies, ghosts, and incredibly beautiful people having a bunch of sex with each other. Okay, at least there weren’t a lot of zombies and ghosts.
Filmmaker Quentin Lee has teamed up with artist John Hahn to write and illustrate an online graphic novel entitled Campus Ghost Story. Both Asian American, Lee and Hahn have set out to create a “fun and sexy horror story” that “[at] the heart of it is about how young adults construct their identity and fear against issues of race, gender and sexuality”.
Since I’m y’know me, I pretty much jumped at the idea of a couple of Asian American creators making a comic book about race and gender. And who doesn’t love a good comic with sexuality, right?
So, since I’m sitting here at my desk waiting for tissue to digest (I won’t bore you with the science-y details), I decided to check out the 13-page preview of Campus Ghost Story (which, it seems, represents the first of eight chapters in the book).
The first 13 pages of CGS set the environment for the tale. The opening panel shows the college quad at night, dominated by a large clocktower which, as I assume, is really the focus of the piece. And I was immediately drawn into the world of CGS; I could swear to you that artist John Hahn was given pictures of my alma mater (Cornell University) at night from which to draw his inspiration. Although, to be fair, Cornell’s clocktower isn’t (at least to my knowledge) haunted by the ghost of a dead student wearing a hoodie.
The rest of the chapter introduces us to one of the three primary protagonists: red-haired Julian who is feeling overwhelmed by college. His best friend / roommate, pudgy and Asian American Mark, wants to ditch his nerdy past and hopes to pledge a frat so he can be cool, but Julian is totally not interested. Further complicating matters is the implication that Julian is gay, although it’s not clear if he’s out to himself (let alone to anyone else).
After (literally) running away from a hot topless guy in the men’s locker room (which, I gotta say, was a little – uhm – on the nose) Julian meets a handsome guy in a hoodie named Darren. Flirty, tense, Dawson’s Creek moment later, and cue the climactic scene we kind of all knew was coming from the get-go. I’ll leave it to you to read that part for yourself.
CGS is definitely noteworthy for the art, alone. I’ve never really seen Hahn’s work before, but the stark line art that he uses in CGS nicely complements the story’s stated sociopolitical themes; the style reminds me, in part, of mid-twentieth century political and propaganda posters. This effect is augmented by the colour palette, which is particularly well-implemented during the story’s “spooky” scenes. Despite a few awkward panels (particularly in the third page of the preview chapter), Hahn’s art is generally subdued, while simultaneously gorgeous.
And, I certainly do like that the story focuses on a gay male protagonist, where his “gayness” (so to speak) isn’t entirely central to the story. Yes, Julian is attracted to Darren, and appears to be ramping up for some serious “coming out” angst, but the story doesn’t spotlight Julian’s homosexuality in a hokey and over-done way. It’s also noteworthy that Lee chose to write a story that, at least from the preview pages, includes Asian Americans in its cast of characters but that doesn’t beat us about the head and shoulders — sledgehammer-style — with classic APIA tropes and archetypes (as too many minority comic book and filmmakers feel the need to do).
That being said, it’s also clear that CGS is Lee’s first foray into comic book writing. While the overall story appears to be interesting, there are issues of pacing and dialogue that appear clunky for the comic book page. Either the art (or the page design) are simply inadequate to communicate some of the subtle interactions between characters (a problem that betrays Lee’s background in film) while some of the initial pages of this preview chapter drag on in slow (and seemingly meaningless) interactions between Julian and supporting characters. Some panels are crowded with dialogue (particularly the early scene at the frat party); furthermore, very little of the speech is written in a comfortable, colloquial fashion that would be believable emerging out of the mouths of blonde, beer-guzzling frat Neanderthals. In fact, few of the characters (Julian’s friend Mark being a notable exception) speak with a unique voice at all.
Also, the feminist in me winces at the fact that of the four women in the first chapter of the book, two are (apparently) APIA, and yet both of them are depicted in sexualized contexts. I’m hoping that’s not an indication of how APIA women fare, in general, on Lee’s campus.
Nonetheless, I will admit that some of my criticisms aren’t entirely fair: in all likelihood, the issues of pacing and characterization might be resolved if I were to read further into the book, and many of my other issues are nit-picky quibbles that would diminish as Lee’s experience in the comic medium increases.
Over all, I’m delighted to see the growing democratization of the comic book medium as more and more independent artists choose to use the comic book format to tell their stories, and (in the grassroots spirits of the Interwebs) publish their work online. And, I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of CGS to see how Lee tackles the issues of race, gender and sexuality; conceptually, the book has me hooked.
Certainly, to me, the most exciting preview of CGS came from the trailer video (which I’ve embedded above), which shows some truly stunning panels from Hahn, and which suggests that CGS has a lot more blood, gore, and sex to offer than the rather minimalist first chapter suggests.
Campus Ghost Story’s website contains links for reading the free preview chapter, and you can download digital copies of the full book for an (extremely) reasonable fee over at NetComics.com (the whole thing would cost you less than $2.00). You can also buy the book in print at Amazon for your comic book collection.
