This is a highly enlightening article published in Time today:

The Five Mistakes Clinton Made 

For all her talk about “full speed on to the White House,” there was an unmistakably elegiac tone to Hillary Clinton’s primary-night speech in Indianapolis. And if one needed further confirmation that the undaunted, never-say-die Clintons realize their bid might be at an end, all it took was a look at the wistful faces of the husband and the daughter who stood behind the candidate as she talked of all the people she has met in a journey “that has been a blessing for me.”

It was also a journey she had begun with what appeared to be insurmountable advantages, which evaporated one by one as the campaign dragged on far longer than anyone could have anticipated. She made at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others:

1. She misjudged the mood

That was probably her biggest blunder. In a cycle that has been all about change, Clinton chose an incumbent’s strategy, running on experience, preparedness, inevitability — and the power of the strongest brand name in Democratic politics. It made sense, given who she is and the additional doubts that some voters might have about making a woman Commander in Chief. But in putting her focus on positioning herself to win the general election in November, Clinton completely misread the mood of Democratic-primary voters, who were desperate to turn the page. “Being the consummate Washington insider is not where you want to be in a year when people want change,” says Barack Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod. Clinton’s “initial strategic positioning was wrong and kind of played into our hands.” But other miscalculations made it worse:

2. She didn’t master the rules

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state’s 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. “How can it possibly be,” Ickes asked, “that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn’t understand proportional allocation?” And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don’t get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she’d be the nominee. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign now acknowledges privately:

3. She underestimated the caucus states

While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that “caucus states were not really their thing.” Her core supporters — women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs — were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires. But it was a little like unilateral disarmament in states worth 12% of the pledged delegates. Indeed, it was in the caucus states that Obama piled up his lead among pledged delegates. “For all the talent and the money they had over there,” says Axelrod, “they — bewilderingly — seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become.”
By the time Clinton’s lieutenants realized the grave nature of their error, they lacked the resources to do anything about it — in part because:

4. She relied on old money

For a decade or more, the Clintons set the standard for political fund-raising in the Democratic Party, and nearly all Bill’s old donors had re-upped for Hillary’s bid. Her 2006 Senate campaign had raised an astonishing $51.6 million against token opposition, in what everyone assumed was merely a dry run for a far bigger contest. But something had happened to fund-raising that Team Clinton didn’t fully grasp: the Internet. Though Clinton’s totals from working the shrimp-cocktail circuit remained impressive by every historic measure, her donors were typically big-check writers. And once they had ponied up the $2,300 allowed by law, they were forbidden to give more. The once bottomless Clinton well was drying up.

Obama relied instead on a different model: the 800,000-plus people who had signed up on his website and could continue sending money his way $5, $10 and $50 at a time. (The campaign has raised more than $100 million online, better than half its total.) Meanwhile, the Clintons were forced to tap the $100 million — plus fortune they had acquired since he left the White House — first for $5 million in January to make it to Super Tuesday and then $6.4 million to get her through Indiana and North Carolina. And that reflects one final mistake:

5. She never counted on a long haul

Clinton’s strategy had been premised on delivering a knockout blow early. If she could win Iowa, she believed, the race would be over. Clinton spent lavishly there yet finished a disappointing third. What surprised the Obama forces was how long it took her campaign to retool. She fought him to a tie in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests but didn’t have any troops in place for the states that followed. Obama, on the other hand, was a train running hard on two or three tracks. Whatever the Chicago headquarters was unveiling to win immediate contests, it always had a separate operation setting up organizations in the states that were next. As far back as Feb. 21, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was spotted in Raleigh, N.C. He told the News & Observer that the state’s primary, then more than 10 weeks away, “could end up being very important in the nomination fight.” At the time, the idea seemed laughable.

Now, of course, the question seems not whether Clinton will exit the race but when. She continues to load her schedule with campaign stops, even as calls for her to concede grow louder. But the voice she is listening to now is the one inside her head, explains a longtime aide. Clinton’s calculation is as much about history as it is about politics. As the first woman to have come this far, Clinton has told those close to her, she wants people who invested their hopes in her to see that she has given it her best. And then? As she said in Indianapolis, “No matter what happens, I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party because we must win in November.” When the task at hand is healing divisions in the Democratic Party, the loser can have as much influence as the winner.

[James’ take on Hillary Clinton’s campaign]

You might be a person of colour out there wondering why Hillary Clinton, candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America, could care less about your vote. You wonder why she’s dissing Dr. King, why her husband brings up Jesse Jackson when Obama wins a state, why Chelsea won’t get off the damned television. Well, there’s one single, solitary reason for all of this, for all the unnecessary race-baiting tactics of the Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign.

Mark Penn, he - who - name - drops - cocaine - every - time - he - talks - about - Obama? Nope.

Robert Johnson, entertainment mogul and founder of BET who makes veiled references to “stuff Barack was doin’ in the community which we won’t talk about”? Sorry.

Geraldine Ferraro, she who’s still bitter that she’s not the first female president? Try again.

I blame Chappaqua.

That’s right, Chappaqua, New York. It’s well-to-do, famous, and, yes, you guessed it, White. And no, I’m not causing class warfare, or playing the race card as I say this: this is all Chappaqua’s fault. Here’s why:

The Clintons of Arkansas were a happy, jovial family. Daddy Bill was a pinkish, rotund, happy-go-lucky, genial White boy who sat in the governor’s mansion and governed his state with skill, certainty, and pork rinds. The First Lady cared about helping children. Chelsea was young and off-camera.

The point? Everytime you saw Billy Clinton, he was chilling with Black people! Black people loved Bubba. He was the cool White boy in the room, before Robin Thicke and Marshall Mathers took the title! He spent all of his time, basically being that dude! Bar-B-Q was his best friend. Toni Morrison wasn’t the first person to notice the Guv’naah’s ”Black problems” — he loved pig feet and White women too much!

Arkansas was a nice place to be under Clinton. So nice, that Billy Clinton won the Democratic nomination for Pres-o-dent! So, what happened? We send Black people’s best White friends to the Blackest city in America: Washington, D.C. Some of y’all might disagree, but D.C. really is the Blackest city in America. It’s not Chicago, not Atlanta, oh, no! D.C. is where Black success meets Black pathology on a daily basis! Don’t believe me? Go to a national museum in D.C.. Who’s behind the counter, cooking you grits and cornbread in the cafeteria?

And what happened when Pres-o-dent Bubba Clinton got in trouble with another White chick? Who supported that pasty, overripe fruit? Black people. You couldn’t turn on CNN without seeing Wolf Blitzer doing another interview with Maxine Waters or John Lewis or Jim Clyburn from South Carolina. We had his back, like Mekhi Pfeiffer in 8 Mile.

And he made it through. A little saxophone-playing on Arsenio goes a long way.

Enter 2000. Billy’s out of the Office. Where do the Clintons go? Where does the former Pres-o-dent take his White wife and absentee daughter to go live out their post-presidential bliss? Well don’t let Reverand Al fool you. Bubbah only left a disconnected fax machine and an unpaid intern in Harlem, USA; the Clintons moved to Chappaqua, New York.

And things ain’t been right since.

Think about it! In the intervening years, we’ve seen “Former President William Jefferson Clinton” pal around the world with George H.W. Bush, touring all the disaster zones like Steven Speilberg directing Lethal Weapon 5. President Clinton’s gone to every board room in America giving speeches, raising money (every once in awhile for his foundation). He even wrote best-sellers, gaining all manner of support from a grateful, global population. Happy, that the Blackest president we’ve ever known, had the good sense to “Whiten up”.

And what of First Lady Hillary? She ran for office herself. Jenn and I were at Cornell when she came through, running for Senate. And who, pray tell, did she have with her during this campaign stop? Ben Affleck: the Whitest man in America! And when she made Senate, what did she do? She supported the Patriot Act, she voted for the authorization to go to war in Iraq, and publicly defended these actions as a mark of a true patriot.

You didn’t have to tell Black people the Patriot Act was a bad idea. We’ve had domestic versions of this in every city in America. Just ask Sean Bell.

So why the sudden change? What’s different? Chappaqua.

Remember, once folk get a little money, they leave the community. Call it integration.

Guest-blogged by James. Jenn claims no responsibility for the contents of this post.

Okay, so Clinton didn’t exactly put it like that. But there’s no doubt, that’s exactly what she meant.

This morning, while campaigning, Hillary Clinton said this about why America (i.e. the superdelegates) should elect her the Democratic nominee:

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

Has Clinton been gaining support in the White vote? In some of the most recent states, yes. But Clinton’s not just making a case about White voters, she is arguing that White voters predominate the party, that these voters are the only voters who matter because they (and they alone) are “working, hard-working Americans” and that Obama can’t win them over.

It was always interesting to me that in exit polls, voters who thought race was a critical factor in their decision, and voters who thought gender was a critical factor in their decision, predominantly supported Clinton. That said to me that voters who thought gender was important, were probably feminists trying to vote a woman into the office. But voters who thought race was important, preferred a White person to a Black person as president.

It’s sad to see that nearly 10% of voters still feel strongly that race should play a role in their vote; and specifically that a Black man shouldn’t be president. But that shouldn’t be the reason why Clinton deserves the nomination.

Her argument this morning — that her support amongst White voters necessitates her victory at the DNC — is patently racist, not to mention absurd. The pattern she seems to be citing is that White voters cannot, will not, vote for a Black man — and that’s not just offensive to those White voters (by calling them racist) but offensive to the Democratic party for insinuating that it should cater to that racism. In essence, what is she saying? “I’m White. I should be president.”

And that statement is a slap in the face to every person of colour who ever hoped for a career in politics. She says to them that the demographics aren’t there, so don’t even bother standing in the way of White ambition.

I said yesterday that it’s the beginning of the end for Clinton. Electroman and I have been discussing lately whether Clinton needs to step down. She won’t, but should she? After this, I think she needs to, because her campaign is very rapidly disintegrating into a train wreck that will ruin her chances of furthering her political career when she loses the nomination.

By the way, Obama: don’t jump on this one. There’s enough backlash in the blogosphere over Hillary’s gaffe, you need to focus on McCain and November. I wouldn’t normally give this advice, but with your recent political mishandlings, I’m worried that you just not be a natural enough politician to know what’s best for your campaign.

Update: In an attempt to clarify her statements, Clinton noted that she wasn’t trying to say that you need White people to win. Oh, no, wait… that’s exactly what she said:

“These are the people you have to win if you’re a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election,” she said. “Everybody knows that.”

Last night, Hillary Clinton needed a trouncing. With the delegate math the way it is, with her campaign hemorrhaging money, and with superdelegates jumping ship to Obama, Clinton needed to not only defeat Obama in North Carolina and Indiana, she needed an unambiguous, embarassing victory.

Clinton didn’t get it.

Barack Obama won North Carolina by 14 points, but that wasn’t wholly unexpected. North Carolina has a large African American population, and had been polling strongly for Obama for months. Clinton essentially pulled out of the state, sending surrogates like Bill to campaign there in her place.

No, Clinton focused on Indiana, where she hoped to sway the majority of White rural voters with the Jeremiah Wright scandal (that hopefully would racialize Obama) and the “bittergate” scandal (that would paint Obama as an out-of-touch academic elitist). And that might have worked.

But, it seems that the voters of Indiana were tired of “gotcha” politics. They were tired of the negativity and the overwhelming focus on scandal over important issues like the economy and the ongoing War in Iraq (as if those are two separate things). Last night, Clinton eked out a win. But she only won by 2%, a razor-thin 20,000 votes. With the Democratic party’s proportional awarding of delegates, both candidates pretty much tied the number of pledged delegates out of Indiana, and Obama erased Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania with his sweep of North Carolina.

Which means that the Clinton campaign should be over. There are few pledged delegates left to win in the six remaining states. While superdelegates could still award this thing to Clinton, they would have to decide against the will of the Democratic voters, possible sacrificing their political futures and alienating a generation of young Democrats. Clinton needed last night’s victories to solidify her case with the superdelegates that she, not Obama, would be able to put a Democrat into the White House, but with all of her efforts focused on Indiana and still only pulling off a small win, she can’t make the case to superdelegates that she can win, either at the DNC or in November.

Clinton still has the Florida and Michigan cards up her sleeve, but it’s like playing poker with a two and an eight stuffed up your sleeve. Clinton is on-record prior to both states arguing that their delegates should not be seated. In Michigan, neither of Clinton’s opponents were even on the ballot, so one could hardly argue that it was a fair contest. Seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan reeks of “old” politics, with smoke-filled rooms and political wheelings in order to scam the system. Clinton can’t pursue those pledged delegates without looking like she’s gaming the popular vote.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign is floundering. Last month, news surfaced that her campaign was operating with a large deficit. This morning, we found out that Clinton loaned her campaign an additional $6.4 million dollars, bringing the grand total she has sunk into her campaign to more than $11 million of her own personal funds. Any reasonable voter should have their flags raised by this: a candidate’s ability to manage the budget of his or her own campaign should be a clear indication of whether they can manage the country’s budget. And if the federal Treasury falls into the red, we can’t just import more money from Hillary Clinton’s private savings account. 

Though I’m disappointed in Obama for his last two weeks (his campaign, which has been on a good clip, didn’t prove strong in dealing with the Wright or bittergate scandals, and they should have handled them both much better), I’m optimistic that Indiana and North Carolina will be the beginning of the end for this way-too-long primary season. The Democratic Party needs to decide — and thereby unite — behind a single nominee.

And after last night, that nominee should be Obama.

I guest co-hosted Addicted to Race this past weekend with the fabulous Carmen! Check it out as we talk about Harold and Kumar, and Barack Obama!

Carmen also drew my attention to a comment on the podcast regarding my nationality. Torontonian suggests that the tagline for this blog suggests I am trying to hide my Canadian nationality to appeal to Asian American audiences. This commentor seemed marginally offended that I didn’t shout my Canadian-ness from the rooftops, and essentially argued that I was “selling out” my national identity for personal gain. I was actually surprised that this was the first comment folks would have on the podcast — I figured that ‘fer sure I was gonna draw disagreement over Harold and Kumar. Nonetheless, I thought it would be worth responding to here (I also posted at the ATR website a quick comment).

I am Canadian and I am absolutely not ashamed of that fact. However, I don’t claim the “Asian Canadian” identity. There are a couple of reasons for that, none of which are for personal gain:

First, I disagree with the idea that there needs to be a strong national line drawn between Asian Americans and Asian Canadians. Whether we Canadians like to admit it or not, our culture, media access, and racial politics are similar to America’s. When a movie is released in North America, it includes release in Canada. When someone says something racist, the impact will affect all Asians, regardless of whether they are 20 km north or 20 miles south of the US-Canadian border. Both America and Canada boast a largely White ethnocentric society that Asians are still trying to find a place in. And much of the history of Asians in Canada mirror their history in America; see, for example, the fact that Obasan, one of the premiere books on WWII internment was actually written by a Canadian and situated in Canadian internment camps.

Given that the term “Asian American” arose in part out of shared external experiences associated with racism, immigration, and media stereotypes, I see no reason to draw such a sharp distinction between Canadians and Americans. If “Asian American” is a politicized racial identity, than the “American” in Asian American, to me, refers to “North American”. Many of the discussions I have on this blog, I feel, are relevant to all Asians in North America based on that shared Westernized culture. Of course, Asian Canadians disagree, and feel there is a critical difference between “Asian American” and “Asian Canadian”.

Secondly, for myself, I identify more closely with the Asian American community. My political activism was born and shaped during my time in America; I was only sixteen when I moved away from Canada. I have been a temporary resident of this country for nearly nine years. Based on my career goals, it is possible that I might apply for a green card in the States. I simply don’t feel a connection with those who call themselves “Asian Canadian”. For me, I best self-identify as an Asian American with a Canadian passport. 

That’s not to say I am ashamed of being Canadian. In fact, I am quite proud of Canada for being my birthplace, and the place of my childhood. Many of my values regarding populism and shared communal responsibility come from the Canadian culture, and in the healthcare debate, I will proudly discuss the benefits of Canada’s universal healthcare system. But as an adult, I feel a part of the Asian American culture, almost as children who are born in Asia but who immigrate to North America when they are eleven or twelve feel about their “motherland”.

It’s difficult to navigate nationalism with ethnicity with racial identity. Does an American ex-patriate in another country identify as White? White American? White American African? As I discussed in my podcast with Fallout Central over the weekend, I subscribe to “self-identification”: I believe that we should rely on a person to decide, for themselves, who or what their identities are, and that we should not impose our own judgements onto that self-identity, nor to imagine we are capable of discerning whether or not that self-identification is valid. Tiger Woods identifies as “Cablanasian” to articulate his multi-racial identity; who are we to say he should fit himself into our notions of Asian American, African American, or Whiteness? Similarly, if an African American during Jim Crowe was technically American but was so disenfranchised by American culture that he did not appropriate the term “American”, who are we to invalidate that self-identification? If I identify as Asian American (and have discussed my definition of that term), should my act of self-identification not also be sufficient?

I believe that we, as a community and as a culture, need to stop imagining that we are in a place to validate other people’s personal relationships with their race, gender, ethnicity or nationality. This, to me, is a manifestation of the “sellout” mentality that has come to predominate racial debates, particularly among minority cultures. We have subverted the meaningful discussion of race and gender as a group defined by collective self-identification and self-determination, and turned minority identity into a country club that allows others to decide our own identity into this exclusive clique. We delight over expelling others from the race (or gender), labelling them as “sellouts” for not acting the way (an arbitrary) we deem appropriate. We meticulously dissect every aspect of a person’s life, assuming that every characteristic — however private and complex — is grounds for deciding that person’s racial authenticity. How many have deemed me “not Asian American enough” for my long-term, committed relationship with a non-Asian American man, even when I don’t believe that the race of one’s life partner is – in any way — relevant to a person’s own political identity?

This appropriation of another person’s life choices and political identity is not only impractical, it is a violation of our individuality. Minority identity can only be serviced when people choose to identify (or not) with a particular community based on their own relationship with its basic tenets, not when we try to assimilate people, then judge them harshly for their complexities. We need to stop egotistically inserting ourselves into the lives of others and accept our ignorance of the particulars of another person’s life, respect the nuance of another person’s choices, and understand that the only person best equipped to decide someone’s identity is that person, themselves. Just because we don’t know, or don’t understand, a person’s reason for self-identifying one way or another, doesn’t mean that the reasoning is either inauthentic, ignorant or inappropriate.

… made by me!

I’m not sure how much this movie could offend me more. In The Love Guru, Mike Myers dons brownface to play an Asian Indian “love guru”, chock full of every anti-Indian stereotype he can dream up.

Much like in the Charlie Chan mysteries, Myers complements his own brownface with a Real Live Asian Indian sidekick, who, judging by the trailer, plays the foil for Myers’ stereotypical jokes. This sidekick also exists, however, to dupe the audience into believing the Asian Indian community is supportive of these insulting jokes: if you could find a real Asian Indian to go along with the insulting humour, the community must find these degrading jokes funny, and it must be okay to laugh at.

The racist brownface aside, the trailer also contained several jokes against little people which I found offensive. I was actually also annoyed by Justin Timberlake and his Quebecois caricature. Justin makes some awesome music, but he is making some poor acting choices.

Regardless, the Love Guru is Mike Myer’s brain-child, and he is milking the anti-Asian Indian stereotypes for all they are worth. On YouTube, the marketing for the film has created a pure car crash of Myers’ brownface caricature.

Update: Based on the Love Guru YouTube channel, Myers’ character is actually supposed to be an orphaned American raised in India. So it’s brownface without being brownface — Myers can be White and still play an Asian Indian caricature! Oh, that makes it all better.

I’m sure you all have been wondering why I haven’t been as busy with the blog as I usually am. Well, I’ve been extremely busy helping Ephraim Cruz become elected as Arizona State Representative for Legislative District 29 in Tucson, Arizona.

You might remember Ephraim from a story I did on him last year: Ephraim is a former U.S. Border Patrol agent who blew the whistle on human rights violations and abuses he witnessed against detainees along the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, I am helping him because I believe he, among the six candidates running for two open seats, is the only candidate with the integrity to put aside political loyalties and truly represent the residents of LD29.

Primarily, I’m helping Ephraim with his online presence, because that’s what I know how to do. I helped him design and upload his campaign website, EphraimCruz.com, and am continuing to help in its maintenance, particularly as we work to upload his platform onto the site (the upload process has been a lot longer than I originally thought).

If you are interested in following Ephraim’s campaign to represent LD29, and in particular, if you know of folks in the Tucson, Arizona area who might be interested in helping out, please shoot me an email at jenn@reappropriate.com.

It’s exciting to be helping Ephraim get elected. We met through the Barack Obama campaign, and we have been truly inspired by Obama’s message to make change in our local neighbourhoods. Ephraim’s campaign is truly a grassroots effort, but we really believe that we are already making a difference.

I really suck at Trivial Pursuit.

I mean, really suck. And not even at that original version of Trivial Pursuit featuring all those silver screen movie legends no one under the age of 30 has ever heard of. I’m talking about the 20th Anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit that has been updated to focus on stuff that happened during and after the 80’s, and in which a guess of “Bill Clinton”, “Michael Jackson”, or “Tennis” should net you a right answer with two-thirds of the questions.

I’m just no good at this game. Usually, I bounce around the board, with an empty pie, guessing poorly at most of the questions, aiming for the Science and Technology category that I can do fairly well, and hoping for the  comic book questions in the “Written Word”. And while that can be fun, there’s a twinge of humiliation that occurs when I don’t know simple things – like the other night, when I thought Scandinavia was a country (it’s not?) and I could only describe the long-time coach of the Dallas Cowboys as “that guy whom Hank Hill of King of the Hill worships” (Tom Landry).

Meanwhile, electroman eats Trivial Pursuit for breakfast. Honestly, he’s about the best that I’ve ever seen, pulling out a correct answer for questions I don’t even understand. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen actually win a game of Trivial Pursuit, even doing that thing where you have to go to the center and someone asks you a question of their choosing. With a little ”uhm”-ing and “ahh”-ing, he can remember the full name of obscure aides to JFK who have recently been in the news with scandals, recall tiny towns known for their sweet onions, and even give you a quick run-down of tennis champs.

And you know what I think? Electroman is a Trivial Pursuit elitist.

With all his Ivy League education, he thinks his mad skills makes him better than me. He flaunts it every chance he get, rubbing my nose in his knowledge that Fidel Castro has a brother named Raul, and that Wyclef Jean started a foundation for kids named “Clef’s Kids”. Every question he answers right is an insult to all of those common people like me, who didn’t have the benefit of daily Jeopardy-watching when we were growing up.

And talk about useless knowledge — who could care about former presidents like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush? They’re not president now, so why do I need to know what stupid peaces they brokered or bills they passed? When has knowing the year the Berlin Wall fell helped anybody?

Electroman has lost touch with the Trivial Pursuit novices who are clearly unimpressed by an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure facts. He forgets that we Trivial Pursuit novices outnumber his pansy, privileged Trivial Pursuit experts, and we are the ones with core American values — like being really good at Guitar Hero. Trivial Pursuit is for academics and liberals like Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama, and but here in the heart of the US of A, it’s Guitar Hero all the way.

Sure, a sound trouncing at Trivial Pursuit has me feeling insecure. But, it’s not like I’m clinging to my mad Guitar Hero skills to buoy my self-esteem. Sure, I play it more when I’m humiliated at Trivial Pursuit, but I have a long, proud tradition of playing Guitar Hero that has nothing to do with the bruising my ego receives following a defeat at Trivial Pursuit… even if I turn my PS2 on as soon as Trivial Pursuit is packed up and make Electroman stumble through AFI’s Miss Murder on Hard just so I can show him how how a truly American game is played (and played well by me).

Electroman, don’t you know that your skills at Trivial Pursuit is condescending to the American people? By excelling at that game, you tell us that we’re stupid. At least someone like Hillary Clinton will throw the game a little; she understands us Trivial Pursuit novices, gives us hints when we’re faced with that pesky ”Written Word” category, and even enjoys Guitar Hero sometimes (even if she’s holding the little plastic guitar all wrong and can’t figure out what the whammy bar does). She tries to be just like us — but you? With your fancy name recall and the way you space your pie pieces equally as you collect them? Elitist.

We, in America, don’t need someone who’s pointlessly intelligent telling us what to do. That person should be someone who gets what it’s like to be bad at Trivial Pursuit, and someone who has worked really, really, really hard to like the things we like. It doesn’t matter if Hillary’s just as good as you are at Trivial Pursuit, electroman, the point is that she pretends she’s not good at it. Electroman, you are putting a divisive wedge between yourself and people like me who suck at Trivial Pursuit. It’s your fault I feel embarassed by being bad at that game, when it’s you who should feel embarassed by being good at it. Like Hillary, you should try to down-play your skills, throw a question or two, and talk about how much you think Guitar Hero is a better game, anyways.

But you won’t. You won’t compromise your elitist intellect so I won’t be offended by how smart you are. So with that, I have only one question for you, Electroman: why do you hate America?

This past week was declared by animal rights activists to be World Week for Animals in Laboratories, which prompted a security lockdown in most academic research institutions across the country. This week, virtually every door in my building was locked, and scientists were holding our breaths to see what would happen. Spent bullet casings were found near our building. I felt like the victim of psychological terrorism.

Earlier this week, I read two very annoying letters in my on-campus paper, criticizing the scientific community for its use of animals in life sciences research. I have hit my tolerance for this kind of manipulative slander that would characterize scientists as morally bankrupt capitalists. I wrote a letter to my campus paper in response. The response was limited to 350 words, so here is the full response, prior to my edits for length:

Animal rights activists have declared this week World Week for Animals in Laboratories. Over the past two days, the Wildcat published two Mailbag letters condemning the use of laboratory animals in scientific research (4/21/2008: Nyles Bauer, “Animal rights week campus warning” and 4/22/2008: Curt Fleugel, “All living creatures are sacred”).

I am dismayed by the anti-intellectual arguments put forth in both letters. Both Bauer and Fleugel insinuate that researchers who work with animals lack a strong moral code; Fleugel suggests that scientists who use animals in their work do so merely for self-interest or profit. In reality, scientists rarely turn a profit from our work: publicly-funded life sciences researchers – particularly those at The University of Arizona – make substantially less money in annual salary than do professionals with graduate-level degrees working in most other fields. Rarely do these scientists have the opportunity to turn even a modest profit from their work.

Fleugel further suggests that scientists do not cherish the lives of innocents. Yet, scientists have dedicated their careers to furthering our understanding of biology and disease. Fleugel laments the lives of pigs used in brain injury studies, but he offers no acknowledgement of the 5.8 million stroke victims in this country who are likely to benefit from those brain injury studies. Animal rights activists offer no sympathy for the nearly 1 million Americans who die of cardiovascular disease every year or for the nearly 10 million Americans who suffer from incurable cancer. They do not see the thousands of Americans who endure Type I diabetes – many of whom are young children – whose lives depend on the animal-based research that led to portable blood-glucose monitors and insulin analogs. It is these countless victims of poorly-understood human diseases who motivate scientists to pursue a better understanding of our shared biology: why don’t animal rights activists consider the lives of these victims sacred as well?

Scientists who use animals in their studies do not undertake their decision lightly. Beyond the obvious moral implications, animal work is particularly costly, time-consuming, and can produce highly-variable results. Yet, scientists frequently resort to animal work because, sadly, we do not yet fully understand mammalian physiology enough to artificially model it. New proteins are discovered on a daily basis, and we are still decades away from being able to develop realistic computer models of human physiology that can replace animal models. In vitro models such as cell culture are isolated from the complex physiological systems critical for maintaining the system-wide health of an organism: currently, it is virtually impossible to mimic a working cerebral, cardiovascular, or immune system in an in vitro setting. Thus, in vitro models are poor substitutes for studying the impact of a particular disease of pharmaceutical treatment on an intact organism. In other words, researchers do not use animal models because they want to; researchers use animals because they must if they hope to develop treatments for the millions of Americans who suffer and die annually due to disease and injury.

Bauer suggests that there should be greater transparency into animal usage in publicly-funded laboratories, proposing that any scientist who “hide[s] the[ir] experiments within sterile labs… either feel[s] shame in performing these experiments and should therefore not be running them, or feel[s] that they have some sort of insight that the common folk lack as to what is moral when animal experimentation is performed.” What Bauer fails to consider is that researchers who use animals are under the strict oversight of the University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). IACUC members include scientists, veterinarians, and average citizens who must approve every aspect of an investigator’s experiment that involves animal work. To receive IACUC approval, investigators must justify the scientific need for their research, address the ethical implications of their proposal, minimize pain of their animals through appropriate use of anesthetics and antibiotics, and justify animal numbers such that no more animals than are absolutely necessary are used in the course of the experiment. IACUC veterinarians inspect laboratory facilities annually to ensure that all animal work meets their approved criteria and all stress to laboratory animals is avoided.

Moreover, I find the characterization of scientists as hiding in laboratories bizarre. Most labs are secured because they contain costly equipment that must be protected from theft, and some are necessarily sterile in order to avoid contamination of in vitro cell culture and in vivo surgeries. Bauer’s suggestion that concerned taxpayers jostle their way into sterile labs in order to witness animal experimentation actually puts laboratory animals at far greater risk than any individual procedure alone: even one extra person in a surgery suite (particularly those untrained in sterile technique) will distract an investigator while s/he is performing a delicate survival surgery and will expose surgical animals to life-threatening infections.

The use of animals in biological research is an ethically complex discussion that has no easy solution. However, the debate is not done justice by the threats of vandalism or physical violence from some extremist animal rights activists that have necessitated this week’s security lockdown of the university’s research labs. Mutual understanding will not be reached through a one-sided debate that vilifies scientists as profiteering sadists and morally bankrupt social outcasts. Scientists are happy to discuss their work in detail when they are respected as contributing, caring members of society whom you can disagree with without being petty and disagreeable.

I am infuriated that animal rights activists seem to want to engender fear in scientists. A faculty member in my program uses monkeys in her research in an effort to study the anatomical basis for primate emotion. For nearly twenty years, this faculty member refused to publicize her research: not out of shame of her findings, but out of fear that animal rights activists would firebomb her home, destroy her life’s work, or threaten her life or the lives of her family. A colleague of her’s, who used to work with monkeys to study the function of the hippocampus, moved to studying invertebrates after his children’s names and schools were published amongst animal rights activist’s circles.

I work with mice, not because I want to, but because I must to obtain answers to my research questions (which have implications for the treatment of both cardiovascular disease and cancer). I am deeply offended by animal rights activists who use slander and threats of violence to terrorize scientists. I am insulted by the posters of cute, fluffy kitties and puppies used to decry animal research, but no images of cancer victims who die every day because research has not progressed quickly enough to save their lives: these victims are condemned to death by those who would stop life-saving research in its tracks.

There is no simple solution to the ethical dilemma of animal research: on the one hand, several million animals die in the course of animal experimentation around the world, but on the other hand, hundreds of millions of humans die of disease if we do nothing. Whose lives are more sacred?

Asian Americans for Obama have worked tirelessly over the last several weeks to try and spread Senator Barack Obama’s appeal to the Asian American voting constituency. In this final pitch email, we will wrap up several posts written by Asian Americans detailing our support for Senator Obama. We hope that you will help spread the word to your blog readers and/or forwarding this email to your friends.

News

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Obama Buttons
  The store at BarackObama.com now has AAPI for Obama buttons available!
• Filipino Veterans Benefits
  Earlier this year, Senator Barack Obama issued his support for a bill authored by key Asian American leader, Senator Daniel Akaka, to call for benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II. That bill is currently up for debate in the Senate tomorrow, and Asian Americans are excited that Senator Barack Obama issued a statement in February detailing his support.
• Asian American Online Phonebanking Tool
  Earlier last week, the Obama campaign launched an Asian American online phonebanking tool that could be used to allow Asian Americans across the country to reach out to voters in Pennsylvania. The response has been great!
• Canvassing at the Philadelphia Chinatown Obama Office
  Casperr of DailyKos documents the experience, and Asian Americans for Obama reports on the office’s amazing work!
• Taiwan for Obama?
  There’s a surprising amount of street-level support for Barack Obama in Taiwan, where a large number of Democratic American expatriates cast their vote for the good Senator from Illinois.
• Senator Obama Wishes Cambodian Americans a Happy Cambodian Lunar New Year
  Asian Americans for Obama reports on an event held in Philadelphia earlier this month.
• Asian American Delegates
  Asian Americans worked hard this month to be elected as delegates for Senator Obama.

Asian Americans: Why We Support Obama

• A Lesson from my Father: Vote for Obama
  Obama’s living in Hawaii gave him a historic and an everyday perspective of Asian life. Obama, in describing his family’s arrival in Hawaii in 1959, makes historical reference to the indenturing system that kept Japanese, Chinese and Filipino immigrants stooped sunup to sunset in the sugarcane fields and pineapple plantations of Hawaii. My dad was in Hawaii for a number of months, living with an uncle, before his final leap to America. Obama also vividly recounts that a Japanese American man named Freddy, who ran a small market near his family’s house in Hawaii, would save his family the choicest cuts of aku for sashimi and give him rice candy with edible wrappers. When I was young, I remember the fun of eating the “wrapper” around the rice candy.
• Obama Campaign in Pennsylvania: A Tale of Two Levittowns
  ”I got my first overtly racist anti-Obama comment today while phoning central Pennsylvania. It was a 62-year-old man, who said, simply, “I’m not voting for the black man.” I moved to end the call, but he continued, “I’ve worked with hundreds of black people.” He meant that as a defense (”Some of them are my best friends!”) but the point was clear. At least he was honest.”
• Working People: The Real Casualties of Hillary’s Finger-Pointing
  Hillary uses the same tools of division as many have used on working people in the past when she parses Obama’s statements to justify calling him an “elitist.” [The past actions of her surrogates who have attributed both Obama’s success (a la Ferraro) and inelectability (a la Rendell) solely to his “race” is only further proof of her campaign’s divisive tactics].
• Why I Support Obama as a Sikh American
  As a Sikh American whose family settled in America 100 years ago, this election is different than any other my family has seen. This is the first election where I believe the future of my community and country rests on our support of a single presidential candidate: Barack Obama.

Profiling Asian American Volunteers and Staffers for Barack Obama

• Chris Lu, Obama Legislative Director (World Journal article in Chinese (.pdf) or English (.pdf))
• Saleem, superstar volunteer in Pennsylvania (YouTube)
• Preeta Bansal, staffer

YouTube Videos

• A More Perfect Union with Chinese subtitles
• Si Se Puede Cambiar with Chinese subtitles
• Korean Supporters of Obama speak about their support
• Obama ad featuring Maya Soetoro-Ng

More videos with non-English subtitles can be downloaded at Captioned Media for Obama, all of which were created by volunteers and supporters.

Don’t forget to get out and vote for Obama tomorrow in Pennsylvania’s much-anticipated primaries. And, as always, Asian Americans for Obama, a concerned group of Asian American supporters for Senator Barack Obama will be working tirelessly to help spread Obama’s message within and outside of the Asian American community. For more information, go to Asian Americans for Obama. 

This email may be forwarded or reproduced. Any questions should be directed to jenn@reappropriate.com

Senator Daniel Akaka co-authored a proposal earlier this year to call for retirement benefits for thousands of Filipino veterans of WWII. The proposal (part of the larger Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007, S. 1315) passed the Veterans Affairs Committee but is currently being stymied by Senate Republicans. In a final attempt to keep the bill alive, it will be brought to a vote tomorrow.

Akaka, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other supporters, on Thursday filed a motion for cloture, a procedural move that attempts to bring the bill to the floor for debate and an up-or-down vote.

“This legislation will enable Congress to begin to rectify a wrong done to Filipino World War II veterans over 60 years ago,” Akaka said in a statement released through his office. “The United States has a moral obligation to care for those who have served under its flag.”

Reid (D, Nevada) said obstinacy from Republican leadership to move on the bill left him with no other choice.

This move requires that 60 Senators vote to end debate, and ultimately vote in favour of the bill, before the benefits for Filipino veterans can be stripped down. It is imperative that within the next day, you contact your local Senator and strongly urge them to vote in favour of benefits for Filipino veterans tomorrow.

The Veterans Equity Center is urging you to contact your senator tomorrow. Here’s the action they recommend:

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202)224.3121 or check the online directory, or log on to find list of Senators and their corresponding fax number and contact information.

The message should be simple and clear: “I urge you to support  our Filipino World War II veterans and to vote in favor of S. 1315 Veterans Benefit Enhancement Act.”

If you have even just a few minutes tomorrow, please contact your Senator and urge them to support benefits for our underserved Filipino veterans of WWII.

I didn’t see last night’s debate — the 21st debate between Clinton and Obama. Turns out all I missed was a lot of mudslinging aimed at Obama from Clinton and the moderators (including Clintonista George Stephanopoulos).

But here’s a fabulous response from Obama at a campaign stop in North Carolina this morning. Because America is really just sick and tired of Clinton’s kitchen-sink strategy that’s nothing more than politics as usual.

(Hat-tip: Racialicious)

The National Asian American Student Conference (NAASCON) is looking for sponsors for its conference. Check out this email:

National Asian American Student Conference (www.NAASCon.org) is announcing its search for financial sponsors of the 2008 National Conference!* We are currently seeking individual/private, organizational, and/or corporate sponsors at all levels for our upcoming conference on October 17-19, 2008 at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. (Please see attached file for all details!)

NAASCon is an organization created by and for students of Asian descent. This organization aims to serve as a forum for Asian American/Pacific Islander student activists from across the country to compile resources, coordinate campaigns, and build community around shared values of social and economic justice, human rights, and collective decision-making. NAASCon envisions a progressive Asian American student movement that works in solidarity with all oppressed communities to construct a just and equitable society in which human dignity is respected. This conference serves as a national forum, providing a dynamic space where students from every college and university can converge and share ideas, develop relationships, and think critically about the world around us.

Although you may not be located in Atlanta, there are multiple reasons why your involvement as a sponsor can be valuable to you:

By becoming a sponsor of NAASCon, you will:
– *Encourage the leadership and professional development of student leaders*; our goal is to attract 500+ students from colleges and universities across the United States.
– *Help students* with financial need to attend the conference by funding scholarships and subsidizing travel costs.
– *Acknowledge the need for community building and service.*

As an organization/business, you will also:*
– *Obtain various benefits for sponsorship *including placement of your company’s logo on our website(s), advertising space in the conference program/brochures, and recognition at the opening and closing sessions of the event.
– *Support a national conference* that links student communities across the United States; providing promotional exposure on both local (Atlanta) and national levels.
– *Reinforce your company’s/organization’s objective* and reputation as a leader in diversity.
– *Promote your mission, products and services* to the conference participants and respective communities that these students represent.//

The theme is “From Visions to Actions: Let’s Get Our Movements Going,” and with your support, NAASCon can reach its potential and empower student leaders and their communities.

NAASCON is a very large Asian American conference and has historically been a great forum for exploring new ideas within the Asian American community. Please check out the NAASCON website if you are interested in becoming a sponsor.