James Lee, a militant environmental activist, was killed by police after taking hostages at the Discovery Channel HQ this afternoon.
I completely missed the ongoing news drama today (work, work, work), so I’m a little late blogging on this.
Turns out that earlier this afternoon, a gunman stormed into Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland. The gunman had silver cannisters taped to his torso (believed initially to be explosives), and took three male hostages in the lobby of Discovery Channel HQ. Apparently the gunman’s grievances involved believing that humans are “filthy, destructive, polluting creatures” responsible for destroying the environment, and that the Discovery Channel encourages “the birth of more parasitic human infants” — (I guess he was talking about reality television shows like Birth Day aired by Discovery Health that follow pregnant mothers about to give birth).
Oh, yes, and the gunman was an Asian male named James Lee. Great.
When I first caught the headline half an hour ago on the CNN homepage, I experienced the familiar feeling of holding my breath and hoping that this Lee wasn’t Asian. Sadly, I was wrong. As we learn more about James Lee, the more we see the familiar story of an Asian guy with severe mental issues falling between the cracks, and losing his life because of it. In fact, it’s a little eerie how similar Lee’s story is to that of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman who slaughtered over thirty college students in 2007.
Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman of the Virginia Tech Massacre.
The similarities extend far beyond the shared demographics of the gunmen (sorry Angry Asian Man, I am making the connection — but hopefully I’ll demonstrate that it’s not just an easy comparison based on the whole race thing…). Both Lee and Cho displayed a marked hatred of humanity. In Cho’s case, he railed against fellow college students, whom he described as “brats”, “charlatans” and “snobs”:
“You had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac weren’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything,” MSNBC.com quoted Cho as saying.
Lee’s manifesto and other writings are also available online, through blogs, forum posts, and his MySpace page. In them, Lee also demonstrates a strong antipathy for humanity, advocating forced sterilization to decrease the human population and railing against “anchor babies” (…way to go, Republicans and Fox News…). He writes:
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
Both Lee and Cho used new media to release their twisted rants to the media. Cho sent a “multimedia manifesto” containing videos, text and photographs to MSNBC on the morning of his rampage; it was actually dropped into the mail while Cho walked to the building where he staged his rampage. Lee’s writings are collected from years of blogging and forum posting, but are nonetheless both public and multimedia in nature. In both cases, it’s clear that Lee and Cho felt unheard and used whatever means they had at their disposal to force a dialogue on their issues.
Both Lee and Cho demonstrated mental health issues in their final, violent stand-offs (although, arguably, what kind of gunman doesn’t have mental issues?). Importantly, both Lee and Cho had encounters with mental health professionals, and in neither case were Lee or Cho properly diagnosed and treated. Cho was assessed by psychiatrists in 2005 – two years before the Virginia Tech massacre — and identified as potentially posing ”an imminent danger to himself or others”, yet he was recommended only for outpatient treatment. Cho failed to comply with that order, and it was never followed up on, allowing Cho to slip through the cracks and spiral further out of control due to lack of therapy and mental care. Lee was arrested in 2008 after a protest on the sidewalk outside of Discovery Channel headquarters where he threw money in the air causing a public disturbance. While in jail, Lee was assessed by psychiatrists but claims he was not diagnosed with any mental disorder.
”I told them my idea of saving the planet,” Lee was quoted in the Gazette. ”They couldn’t find anything wrong with me.”
Manger said hostage negotiators negotiated for almost four hours by phone with Lee while police officers watched and listened to Lee on the building’s surveillance system.
“At times during the negotiations, he was calm, but I wouldn’t call him lucid. The conversation was indicative to me he was dealing with some mental issues,” he said.
Cover art for Daniel Quinn's book, "Ishmael".
Finally — and perhaps weirdest and most disturbing — both Cho and Lee appear to have some sort of connection with the name “Ishmael”. Ishmael is Abraham’s son in the Hebrew bible and the Qu’ran, who was hated and eventually exiled based on the circumstance of his birth. “Ishmael” is also the name of a 1992 novel by Daniel Quinn (and is referenced in two subsequent books) that recounts a dialogue between a gorilla (Ishmael) and a human. Through their interaction, the unnamed narrator of the book learns of Ishmael’s belief that humans have a responsibility to care for the planet and its inhabitants, rather than to pillage and consume it.
In 2007, it was revealed that Seung-Hui Cho wrote “Ax Ishmael” on his arm immediately prior to his rampage, and that his “multimedia manifesto” had a return address to “A. Ishmael”, suggesting that Seung-Hui Cho was trying to reinvent himself in reference to either the biblical figure or the 1992 Quinn novel’s primate protagonist. Jason Godesky of Anthropik Network (who has read Quinn’s novel and is familiar with its themes) argues that Cho’s actions indicate he never read “Ishmael”, and that he carried himself in direct conflict with the book’s message of peace and self-discovery, fueling further controversy over whether Cho’s “Ax Ishmael” alter-ego referenced the Hebrew bible or Daniel Quinn’s book.
Lee said he began his crusade to save the planet after being laid off from his job in San Diego and reading ”Ishmael,” a novel by Daniel Quinn about a gorilla that tells a man what it is like to live in captivity in a world where humans exploit natural resources.
Lee said he then felt an ”awakening,” watched former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary ”An Inconvenient Truth,” and decided he had been doing too little to protect the environment.
Now, I’m not saying that Daniel Quinn’s book causes Asian men to go on shooting sprees. What I am noting is how the name Ishmael, whether in reference to the Hebrew bible or Daniel Quinn’s gorilla, symbolizes alienation, oppression, powerlessness, and moral redemption, and how these themes resonated with both shooters. Could it be that Asian males suffering from destructive mental health issues specifically — and uniquely – identify with these same themes?
In any event, if there was any more evidence needed that there is a huge health disparity between Asian Americans and the rest of the population, this is it. Less than ten years ago, findings from one of the first and most comprehensive studies conducted on Asian American mental health were published by the National Institute of Mental Health. In it, Asian Americans are identified as having lower rates of mental health concerns – but that is coupled with substantially lower rates of seeking treatment. (This begs the question — do Asian Americans have lower rates of mental health, or lower rates of being diagnosed with mental health problems?)
Usage of mental health treatment is reduced in Asian American populations, from API Info Net. Click image for source.
Researchers have identified several potential factors that appear to discourage Asian Americans from seeking mental health treatment, including cultural stigma and language barriers. Other studies have shown that, despite the lower rates of mental illness among Asian Americans, the suicide rate in the APIA community (5.75 deaths out of 100,000) is higher than that of other ethnic groups. Furthermore, elderly Asian American men experience a suicide rate nearly four times the overall community average (27.95 deaths out of 100,000), and the suicide rate amongst Asian American women rankest highest amongst females of any other ethnic group.
In short, this is a problem, folks. A real problem. A we-can’t-afford-to-ignore-this problem.
Thankfully, unlike with the Virginia Tech Massacre, no one was killed in today’s hostage situation except the gunman, James Lee. But it would still be a tragedy to forget the lessons that could be learned from today’s drama: we should not learn to hate or fear Asian males (or to stereotype them as violent offenders prone to shooting sprees), or to subscribe to Lee’s misguided beliefs involving forced sterilization. But, rather than to fear the inevitable comparisons between Seung-Hui Cho and James Lee (and to lament yet another story that paints Asian folks as the bad guys), we can instead use this incident to start a national dialogue about mental health issues that are proven to exist within the Asian American community precisely because we don’t like to identify those patterns or associate ourselves with those problems.
Hopefully today’s events can teach us to be more cognizant of mental health issues and how they are socially and culturally stigmatized — particularly in the context of the Asian American community. We can and should do more to raise mental health awareness amongst Asian Americans, and to support and promote non-profit and federal efforts to improve diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in Asian American patients.
I must have missed the memo that said we are still living in the 1980’s.
I am a proud blood donor. I donate a pint every 8 weeks — which is as often as a person is able to donate — because I firmly believe that this small act can help to save lives. Blood donation is quick, relatively painless, and critical to preserving the health of victims of accident and illness. If I or someone I love were in the hospital, I wouldn’t want the lack of available blood to stymy the medical treatment available to us; I want to be able to thank an anonymous blood donor for their selfless gift of blood that hopefully will save my, or my family’s, lives. The American Red Cross makes blood donation absurdly convenient, and they even reward you with cookies and sandwiches with every visit!
Yet, our national blood reserves are dwindling. The American Red Cross estimates that roughly 1 in 30 — that’s 3% — of Americans capable of donating blood actually do so. Even fewer donate more than once or regularly. Hence, I urge everyone I know to take the time to donate — even if you have an “undesirable” blood type. I’m A-positive, which is one of the least desirable types out there.
Yet, my one exception to the whole blood donation process is that nagging question asked of during the screening process: are you a male — or have you had sex with a male — who has had sexual contact with another male since 1997? Translation: are you or your partner gay?
Answering yes to this question immediately disqualifies you from donating blood — and it is based on an archaic fear that AIDS remains a “gay disease”. Because AIDS began (in America) in the gay community, there’s still a public perception out there that AIDS is only contracted by gay men through homosexual sex. This is despite the fact that thirty years of scientific research has quickly established that the HIV virus does not discriminate based on sexual orientation – gay and straight men and women can all contract AIDS through unprotected sex.
The Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety — a committee that makes recommendations on blood donation guidelines to the Food and Drug Administration (which in turn tells the American Red Cross who can and cannot donate blood) — has banned donation from gay men based on statistics: they believe that because gay men are more likely to be HIV-positive, it’s easier to protect the nation’s blood supply from the virus by simply banning this “high risk” group of donors. And, it’s true that AIDS is more prevalent in the gay community. But, HIV is also more prevalent in African-American communities. In fact, the AIDS epidemic has reached such heights amongst sexually active Black adults that, in the D.C. area, it is estimated that 7% of Black men are HIV-positive. Blacks, only 13% of the national population, represent nearly half of new AIDS diagnoses each year. In other words, based on the Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety’s rationale for their ban on gay blood donation, Black men and women should also be prohibited from donating blood. Yet, we know instinctively that such a ban would be racist and discriminatory.
The point is that banning African-Americans from donating blood because of higher-than-average rates of HIV/AIDS contraction within that community is as ludicrous as banning gay Americans from donating blood. HIV and AIDS does not transmit via race, or via sexual orientation. It is scientific fact that the HIV virus transmits by unprotected sexual contact, by transfusion of contaminated blood, and by sharing of needles.
If the Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety wants to protect the national supply from HIV/AIDS, they should ban behaviours scientifically proven to increase the risk of contracting the virus. Just as they ban potential donors who have visited countries that have suffered bloodborne epidemics (such as Mad Cow’s Disease in the United Kingdom), they should ban all donors (regardless of race or sexual orientation) who engage in unprotected, risky sex or who are intravenous drug users.
Not surprisingly, current screening tests prior to blood donation ask if a donor has had unprotected sex (or sex with an HIV-positive partner) or uses drugs, and theoretically already weeds out those who are actually at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS without having to ask after the donor’s sexual orientation. Yet, the American Red Cross is bizarrely obliged to filter out in their screening process gay men who are monogamous, practice safe sex, or who are even abstinent — based purely on the misguided belief that their sexual orientation still puts these potential donors at risk for AIDS.
Now, I have always believed that this ban on gay blood donation is an archaic holdover from the 1980’s, and that it would be immediately overturned when examined by modern politicians. Yet, this morning, the Federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety voted to uphold the national ban on gay blood donation even while they called the ban “suboptimal”. The American Red Cross currently estimates that roughly 219,000 pints of blood are being turned away by this ban on gay donors. I simply cannot understand the thinking of the Federal Advisory Committee on this matter — it appears to based purely on unscientific and discriminatory misperceptions of what HIV is and how it is transmitted. Call me naive, but I simply cannot believe that such irrational and specious thinking remains at the highest level of our government in the 21st century.
I also wonder: if members of the Advisory Committee (or the Family Research Council, which released a statement in abject praise of the Committee’s decision) were in need of blood, would they still shy away from blood donated by a gay male based on hysterical, illogical fears of contracting AIDS? Somehow, I doubt it very much. So, why are these people working to prevent that much-needed blood from saving the lives of others?
Act Now!Contact the FDA today and urge them not to follow the advice of the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety’s, and to lift the national ban on gay blood donation. Also, go to the American Red Cross’s blood donation website to schedule a blood donor visit at your local bloodbank, or even to host a blood drive at your office!
Called The Let’s Move campaign, the program focuses on what families, communities and the public and private sectors can do to help fight childhood obesity, which she and health experts have termed an epidemic in the United States. The campaign aims to take steps to reduce childhood obesity within a generation.
As I wrote yesterday, I’m delighted that the growing obesity epidemic is a primary focus for the White House. I liked the details announced today regarding improved packaging information to help parents offer better nutrition to their kids at home. Also, I have to ask myself why kids weren’t being given fruits and vegetables in school cafeteria lunches before now?
I am, however, a little concerned that the Let’s Move campaign details announced today focused primarily on nutrition.
What we need, also, is a commitment to provide state funding to help public schools support physical education classes. No Child Left Behind essentially signed a death warrant for all extracurricular classes. A friend of mine volunteers his time to teach kids physical education during recess because gym classes were axed to ensure schools could meet No Child Left Behind standards and avoid funding cuts.
And there’s talk in Southern Arizona of eliminating recess as well.
We can’t just fight childhood obesity by helping kids cut calories; let’s get them outside and… well… moving.
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.
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.
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, manypapers 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.
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.
It’s been 64 years since the Crimson appeared in the NCAA tournament. But thanks to senior guard Jeremy Lin, that streak could end this year. Lin, who tops Harvard in points (18.1 per game), rebounds (5.3), assists (4.5) and steals (2.7), has led the team to a 9-3 record, its best start in a quarter century. Lin, a 6 ‘3″ slasher whose speed, leaping ability, and passing skills would allow him to suit up for any team in the country, has saved his best performances for the toughest opponents: over his last four games against teams from the Big East and Atlantic Coast Conference, two of the country’s most powerful basketball leagues, Lin is averaging 24.3 points and shooting nearly 65% from the field. “He’s as good an all-around guard as I’ve seen,” says Tony Shaver, the head coach of William & Mary, which in November lost a triple overtime game to Harvard, 87-85, after Lin hit a running three-pointer at the buzzer. “He’s a special player who seems to have a special passion for the game. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the NBA one day.”
A Harvard hoopster with pro-level talent? Yes, that’s one reason Lin is a novelty. But let’s face it: Lin’s ethnicity might be a bigger surprise. Less than 0.5% of men’s Division 1 basketball players are Asian-American. Sure, the occasional giant from China, like Yao Ming, has played in the NBA. But in the U.S., basketball stars are African-Americans first, Caucasians second, and Asians . . .somewhere far down the line. (One historical footnote: Wat Misaka, who is Japanese American, became the first non-white person to play in the NBA in 1947.)
But, while Lin scores one against the stereotype of nerdy (and short) Asian American men, it looks like we’re still not in that dream of a post-racial America (surprise, surprise).
Jeremy won a state championship as a senior in high school, but he received no Division I scholarship offers (Ivy League schools cannot give athletic scholarships). Yes, he was scrawny, but don’t doubt that a little racial profiling, intentionally or otherwise, contributed to his under-recruitment.
Some people still can’t look past his ethnicity. Everywhere he plays, Lin is the target of cruel taunts. “It’s everything you can imagine,” he says. “Racial slurs, racial jokes, all having to do with being Asian.” Even at the Ivy League gyms? “I’ve heard it at most of the Ivies, if not all of them,” he says. Lin is reluctant to mention the specific nature of such insults, but according to Harvard teammate Oliver McNally, another Ivy League player called him a c-word that rhymes with “ink” during a game last season. Just last week, during Harvard’s 86-70 loss to Georgetown in Washington, D.C., McNally says one spectator yelled “sweet and sour pork” from the stands.
“Sweet and sour pork”? Really?
So, last night, Arizona got creamed by Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. But, as pissed as Arizona fans were at University of Nebraska players, yesterday, who finds themselves yelling food items at players? “Screw you, Nebraska!! Corn and beef, muthafuckas!!” as they exit the field? Really, has it all come down to this?
Okay, so maybe the racists are hampered by their general lack of knowledge of all things Asian. But tha doesn’t take away from the coolness of athelets like Lin, Manny Pacquiao, and Michelle Wie who rise to the top of their sports while simultaneously dismantling the stereotype of the Asian American as nothin’ but nerd.
As my boss loves to tell me, everything about me makes sense except for one: my love of boxing. I’m smart (highly educated, at least), passionate (no kidding?), level-headed (erhm, sure), and rational (now I’m blushing) — so how is it that I can delight in watching a sport where two guys strip to their skivvies and beat each other to a bloody pulp with giant, plastic oven mitts?
The answer is simple, really. It’s not that boxing is a violent sport (although it clearly can be), it’s that there’s more to boxing than the pummelling. Boxing is actually a thinking man’s sport, as strategic as chess but far more exciting. In boxing, each boxer is armed with nothing more than his (or her) fists and his wits, and he is charged with disarming his opponents defense’s. The boxer must stick to a pre-determined strategy that minimizes his opponent’s strengths while taking advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses (Stay out of reach? Move in tight to pin him down?) while adapting to minute-by-minute information (for example, determining that the right uppercut has connected most times, so altering the strategy to use that shot as much as possible). Moreover, the fight is more than street brawl; fights go for a pre-determined number of rounds and, in the event that neither boxer is knocked out, the winner is determined by the average score of three judges. These judges award points in each round based on how well each boxer does: this can include how many shots he has landed (vs. how many thrown), how active has he been (how many shots thrown vs. just standing there) and whether or not he looks winded. That means that on top of sticking to a strategy, a boxer must strategically increase activity or conserve energy to ensure that he wins on the score cards but still has the endurance to make it through the entire fight if he needs to.
And on top of having to do all that thinking, you’re getting punched repeatedly on the side of the head by a guy who can probably curl a Backstreet Boy with his biceps. Which means you have to have some serious presence-of-mind to maintain a coherent thought under boxing circumstances, let alone enough intellectual acuity to win a fight. Or let’s put it another way: as smart as I might be, I definitely couldn’t focus on my research if my lab-mates kept running up and hitting me in the jaw between aliquoting.
Another reason to love boxing? Well, it just so happens that this year’s current #1 pound-for-pound best professional boxer in the world (as judged by the sports premier magazine, Ring Magazine) is a Filipino boxer by the name of Manny Pacquiao (pictured above). In what other sport (short of something stereotypical like karate) can you see an Asian guy be unanimously praised to be the most testosterone-fueled, most athletically-built, most hardcore guy there is? Asian Men: 1, Emasculated Asian Man Stereotype: 0.
But, boxing also comes with it’s own kind of drama. Pacquiao, as it turns out, took Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound honour from one Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who is probably the best American boxer currently fighting. Mayweather is a flashy fighter, but beneath his over-abundance of personality, he’s amongst the fastest and most skilled boxers the sport has to offer. He boasts an undefeated record, and even wiped the floor with boxing favourite Oscar De La Hoya. Boxing fans and critics have long clamoured for a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, and recently they (we?) were gratified with word of a verbal agreement that the fighters would clash on March 13th, 2010.
With any scheduled fight, there comes an expected amount of hype. Fights generate more revenue when the fighters appear to be settling some sort of interpersonal gripe, and it’s not uncommon for boxers to jab verbally (via the press, who eats this stuff up) in the weeks leading up to a fight. This manufactured “beef” can range from one opponent calling the other weak or diminishing his recent victories… although, unlike in WWE, it’s usually not over a beautiful woman dressed in a blue and red sequinned cat-suit. But, in some cases, the pre-fight back-and-forth can cross a line that makes fans question whether there really are interpersonal issues involved, or if it’s all show business.
In the case of Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, the arguments stem from (what I would call) a rather racist charge against Pacquiao by the Mayweather camp. Basically, Mayweather’s father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., accused Manny Pacquiao of taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in order to achieve the level of athleticism that has allowed him to be the first boxer to earn seven championship titles in seven different weight classes (no easy feat because you essentially have to re-learn how to box, and chang eyour strategy, every time you change your weight).
The basis for this claim? Well, the Phillipines (apparently) make some of the best PEDs around, and Manny Pacquiao is Filipino.
As if the Phillipines are so swamped in PEDs that Pacquiao was walking down the streets of Manila one day, when he tripped and fell into a vat of human growth hormone.
Let’s be clear: that shit is racist. The accusations being lobbed against Pacquiao have nothing to do with any actual evidence that he’s taking steroids (except that he’s a buff Asian dude — ‘cuz like, what, Asian dudes can’t be buff?). Instead, it is equating the actions of criminals in the Phillipines with Manny Pacquiao’s morality and ethics. If Pacquiao were from Southern California, would Mayweather be accusing Pacquiao of having an addiction to frappucinos and surfer shorts? And by the same logic, my parents are from China, ergo my family must make our money manufacturing mercury-laden toys, right?
The really frustrating part of it all is that Pacquiao is willing to prove he’s not a druggie, but he’s not willing to jeopardize his performance to satisfy what he insists is a bogus charge. Mayweather’s camp has insisted that both fighters submit themselves to random blood and urine testing before and after the scheduled March 13th fight. Pacquiao agreed to random testing, but drew the line at random blood testing leading all the way up to the fight. He was concerned (and rightly so) that he could be woken up in the middle of the night a day or two before the scheduled fight in order to have blood drawn. Instead, Pacquiao wanted Mayweather to agree that testing be stopped a week before the fight to give both boxers a chance to rest and prepare for the big day.
And, that’s where we’re at. The biggest fight that boxing has ever seen — one that could generate obscene amounts of money — is being derailed over a racist accusation and a butt-load of drama.
Personally, I’m normally not one to spend money on HBO pay-per-view boxing (each fight costs something in the ballpark of $50 to watch!) but I would shell out for Pacquiao vs. Mayweather. Why? Mainly because I’m really not sure who would win that fight. Mayweather has a reach advantage (which he always uses to supreme advantage), lots of power behind his punches, an undefeated record, and lightning fast speed. Yet, Pacquiao is also an agile, active, and adaptible fighter who fights southpaw, which can often throw boxers in a conventional stance for a loop.
Which is my long, round-about way of saying that Mayweather and Pacquiao need to quit with the threats, the ultimatums, and the interpersonal drama. Stop with the posturing, and yes, even the racism — and take the fight to the ring, guys!
Last month marked National Diabetes Awareness Month, yet diabetes remains one of those diseases that remains largely misunderstood by the population at large.
Diabetes refers to a loss of the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose levels by reduced (or absent) activity of a hormone called insulin, which normally helps the body cope with the complex sugars we intake and convert into energy. Too much or too little glucose in the body can produce catastrophic effects on health, and can even be fatal; thus patients with diabetes require close monitoring of their blood glucose levels. Type I diabetics (diagnosed in children) suffer from an inability to make insulin and must inject insulin multiple times a day to keep their blood glucose levels within normal ranges, while Type II diabetics develop an insensitivity to their naturally produced insulin, which can become progressively worse as they age.
According to Cheung, important studies that look at prevention and treatment for people with type 2 diabetes use Caucasian patients primarily. “Due to differences in body size, physiology and cultural differences between Asians and Caucasians, results may not be applicable to Asians,” she states. A classic example of this, she says, is the body mass index (BMI). “At a lower BMI, Asians tend to accumulate more body fat compared to Caucasians,” which she says underscores the need for different BMI thresholds for Asian American patients.
The problem with understanding racial and ethnic factors associated with disease is frequently that the data collected remains inadequte to fully understand all the issues. Few studies are able to provide the kind of detail needed to fully understand how certain diseases impact communities like ours. Writing about their gestational diabetes study, Dr. Teresa Hillier said:
“Many previous studies have lumped all Asians and Pacific Islanders together,” study co-author Teresa Hillier said in a statement. “We now know that the risk for developing [gestational diabetes] varies greatly depending on your specific ethnic background. Future studies should also look at whether women in these higher risk groups also have more complications.”
Nonetheless, these increased risk factors underscore the importance of healthcare reform, which will help all Americans — including Asian Americans — prevent and treat their diabetes. Recently, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a report detailing the cost of diabetes and how healthcare reform will help diabetic Americans:
One in six individuals with diabetes report avoiding or delaying needed medical care because of cost. Annual health care expenses for a diabetic topped $11,477 in 2007. A box of 100 test strips for blood sugar monitors can cost up to $60 while the price of a vial of insulin can range from $30 to $70, mainly because generic brands are not manufactured in the United States.
A study showed that 80 percent of people with diabetes went uninsured after having lost coverage due to health insurance
transitions triggered by job change or layoff, a move, divorce, graduation from college, or a change in income or health status.
If all states improved diabetes control to the level of the top four best performing states, at least 39,000 fewer patients would
have been admitted for uncontrolled diabetes in 2004, potentially saving $216.7 million.
It’s tempting to, as a community, stick our heads into the sand about issues like health and disease, particularly when we are not confronted on a daily basis with the statistics that show that Asian Americans should care about something like diabetes. After all, diabetes affects all Americans, so it’s not a problem we should specifically make a stink about, right? Sadly, no, diabetes, like several other diseases, is of particular concern to racial minorities like Asian Americans, and yet we spend comparatively little time sponsoring private studies, or petitioning for federal studies, to help shed light on these health risks. These diseases are the silent killers in our community, and we must do more to bring the facts about these illnesses out into the open.
