Friday's A to Z: the "Stinky" Edition

a - agism.
b - black friday.
c - comic sans.
d - "don't ask, don't tell." repeal this already!!!
e - education in this country.
f - feet. stinky feet, literally. blech.
g - glenn beck. there's even a comprehensive glenn-beck-sucks blog.
h - halitosis.
i - ice cream. actually, i love ice cream, but it stinks that i can't have it after every meal.
j - jealousy.
k - ken buck. he recently received the douchebag decree over at bitchmedia's blog.
l - legalese.
m - model minority myth.
n - neo-nazi's. my friends at circle a radio did a program about the rise of fascism in portland.
o - outsourced, the tv show. hear our commentary on the next apa compass fri dec 6th.
p - pickles. eew.
q - queer-bashing. aka homophobia.
r - racism.
s - sarah palin. here's a recent blog from huffington post with leaks from her forthcoming book.
t - trafficking, of humans.
u - unemployment.
v - vermin.
w - war.
x - xenophobia.
y - yanni.
z - zealots. of any kind.

how did I become such a dance geek?

Doh. I did not get to post yesterday. So, I'm going to have to cheat a bit on my NaBloPoMo and post twice today....

I, myself, do love to dance. What's more I've been thrilled with the extreme success of dance in pop culture today. It's one of the "hot" things right now that I actually think is worthy, recognizing dancers as the incredible artists and talents that they are and bringing them to the forefront when they are most traditionally relegated as a backdrop.

Anyhoo, my current dance phenomenon obsession is The LXD - Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. It's a web-only series on hulu, the most successful one existing. The story is somewhat simplistic: dancers as superheroes and super villains whose power is the dance itself; good vs. evil; recruiting and training of new team members. What makes the series super freaking awesome is the dance. The LXD includes so many genres of dance, from krumping to poi to popping to contemporary to tap. The other thing I love about it is that the series is filled with people of color, both in front of and behind the scenes. I think it could use more women. Regardless, it's a hip hop ballet circus that kicks ass. I can't wait for the next episode!

Here's Season 1, Episode 1 (they are currently in the midst of Season 2, with new episodes released on Wednesdays):

what's on the tube?

I was sad to witness a couple of my favorite tv shows display some cringe-worthy, questionably racist and sexist moments. I'm actually one of those lefties who likes tv and appreciates keeping up with some pop culture. But my enjoyment of the boob tube is always slightly dampened when my media criticism radar starts flashing during 30 Rock or So You Think You Can Dance. And now, there's a whole new crop of TV shows featuring Asian Pacific American faces including Hawaii Five-0, Nikita and Outsourced. So far, from what I've seen it's both cringe-inducing and encouraging.

The radio collective I'm part of APA Compass is launching a new feature and dedicating our next show to it - APA Pop Watch - commentary and analysis on APA representation in media and pop culture. The program will air Friday morning November 5, 9am PST on KBOO Community Radio. You can listen online or, if you live in the region on the FM dial at 90.7 Portland, 91.9 Hood River, 100.7 Corvallis.

If you'd like to prepare yourself for our discussion, you might want to hulu some of those new shows and check out these recent(-ish) commentaries...

Asian American Sitcom in the Works - Angry Asian Man

Asians in Primetime - by Dmae Roberts, The Asian Reporter

Fall 2010 TV Season Preview - racebending.com

Is 30 Rock Racist? - by Zeesham Aleem, Huffington Post

Beyond Apu by Nina Shen Rastogi, Slate.com

sick and tired

yup. that's where i'm at today. sick and tired, despite the lovely sun brightening the day.

first up, i've had to throw in the towel on my first attempt at nablopomo. i forgot that i was actually leaving the internet tubes for two days and was therefore unable to post on those days. and once i got back it took me a bit to catch up on things. so, i'll be trying again for december and i'll try my best to post most of the rest of this month. it's hard to post everyday!!

next up, i found an interesting discussion on racialicious musing on a race equivalent to the bechdel test. the bechdel test refers to cartoonist alison bechdel's origianly strip in which the two female characters talk about the requirements of movies they will see. (the racialicious post includes the original strip). check out the blog post here and let me know your thoughts.

the date after

i'm still trying to sort through all this elections business. most things went the way i hoped. obama's decisive win is a step in the right direction for sure, though i still hope that obama will take some better stands on the wars, israel and a few other issues.

here's an interesting post from racialicious with a bunch of different thoughts on the elections. it certainly reflects my own cautious optimism, especially in regards to the part that race plays in our country.

i'm upset that california voted to pass prop 8 the gay marriage ban. despite the momentum of obama's election, it seems that our country's backwards view on gay issues. florida and arizona also passed their gay marriage bans. :-(

the fight is still not over...

It's all about me

In case you don't have the chance to pick up the paper copy of the Asian Reporter, you can catch my contributions to the My Turn opinion column at their website. My latest topics include hip-hop, a recent racist comic and the recent coverage of the Olympics (old news by now). Thanks for reading!