Just got back from a couple days in Boston to attend the annual Asian American studies conference -- my annual intellectual vacation.
While the Cherry Blossoms are out in force in these parts, New England seemed to be still gripped by windy, wintry weather.
Some of the highlights of my trip:
- hearing some local Asian American rock bands at a gig in Cambridge
- reconnecting with some acquaintances from years ago
- seeing a film about 2nd-generation Asians in Britain, specifically musicians with origins from the Subcontinent
- touring the Cambodian community in Lowell, Mass. (2nd largest behind the one in Long Bch., Calif.)
Maybe I'll be able to comment in further detail, in future postings, on my experiences.
Over the past week or two, I've suffered some minor mishaps which lead me to wonder about the shortcomings of human behavior.. Namely, 2 instances of the need to be aware of the meanness of others and 1 case of the lack of carefulness (and self-awareness) on my part.
1) I walked into a hi-fi store looking for info. on turntable repair. Of course I got distracted by the products on display like digital cameras, new turntables, and the like. What I noticed, after a while, was that no salesman one approached me.
I think that my untouchableness was due to my casual dress -- blue jeans, white sports shoes, black cap over shaggy hair, blue parka shell with a brown muffler. It bothered me momentarily, and I realized that the info. that I sought probably couldn't be found in a store that sold new things and staffed by guys who were probably not much older than my turntable.
(Reminds me of the another time, years ago, when I bought my speakers in a hi-fi store, and I suffered the same problem. Salesmen avoided me. I had to approach someone to get service. It seemed that other potential customers were getting approached. Apparently, I looked too poor. Guess I still do.)
Lesson: be aware of how salespeople might judge you by the way you're dressed and your appearance. Adjust your behavior accordingly.
2) Last night I was at a club in DC, trying to juggle my point-and-shoot cameras, a steno pad, backpack, and my gloves. I'd just walked in, stuck my gloves under my arm and was shuffling the other things into position so I could cover the bands about to play on stage.
I think someone stole my gloves from under my arm. (I may have dropped them, but they weren't to be found on the floor at the end of the show. And no had turned them in at the bar.) They were a mismatched pair of insulated winter gloves, so I'm not sure if anyone else would want to wear them. (I'll bet I'm one of the very few odd people that wears mismatched gloves.) Why someone would want to steal my gloves is a mystery, but I can imagine that some people have a predilection for mischief or theft.
Lesson: keep your possessions secure in crowded situations. (Keep reviewing a list of your articles so that you don't forget things, until it's too late.)
3) The night before, I'd stayed up till the wee hours of the morning trying to hook-up my turntable. A friend had recently troubleshooted and fixed it. (All it required was a new phono plug.) But when I tried to remove the needle from the cartridge, it wouldn't budge. (I was trying to make sure I wouldn't damage the needle when I mounted the cartridge back on the tonearm.)
I pulled harder, and the needle popped out and onto the table (and bounced!) When I looked at the needle with a magnifying glass, I compared it too the previous needle (which I happened to have kept.) It looked like it was but a sliver of the old one, so I guessed that I'd probably splintered the thing. That means I gotta buy a new one.
(It still can play records. I tried it out. But I think in its condition, it is liable to ruin the grooves rather quickly -- not desirable.)
Lesson: don't push your luck when working with fragile, tiny parts... don't push yourself past your limits of endurance. Exhaustion and low energy level can affect your judgement and fine motor control.
I just found out that this year (2004) is the
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Gotta cook some. Haven't done so, in a while. Maybe I'll mix varieties.
So they successfully removed John Ashcroft's gallbladder... but what about the aftermath? (Don't want to run into a post-op mess a la Iraq.)
I hope they don't just toss it away. This is an organ of a famous person (or infamous person, depending on your politics). It now has its own celebratory cachet. Do they know what they're going to do with it?
Here're some suggestions:
a) auction it off on EBay and use the proceeds to fight terrorism
b) donate it to UCLA and restore respect to an entrepreneurial body-parts program
c) freeze-dry it, bronze it, and mount it on a pedestal in the Dept. of Justice to inspire future generations ("He gave his gallbladder for his country!")
The other day, I brought my old turntable (Dual CS 606) over to a friend's house, to see if he could help fix it. It has a bad hum coming outta one channel.
But we couldn't figure out how to open the unit up. It appears to be sealed tight... unless there's some way of getting at the innards thru the top by unscrewing various screws... but it was not clear, that once you did that, you could put it back together.
Maybe the easiest solution is to buy a new ttbl. But I'd rather fix and use the old one. It has nice features like the ability to return the tonearm at the end of a record and adjustable pitch. Also a nice, sorta heavy platter.
About 2 weeks, ago, there were some violent demonstrations in Slovakia by Roma over welfare cutbacks.
That probably prompted this editorial by an online news group, TOL, that covers Central and Eastern Europe:
Equal but still separate
The editorial compares the plight of the Roma (a.k.a. Gypsies) to Black Americans before Civil Rights. Apparently, this follows remarks by Jack Greenberg in Budapest last year comparing "black and Romani movements." Greenberg was one of the attorneys who argued for the plaintiff in Brown v. Bd.
The editorial suggests that Roma need their version of Brown v. Bd, and describes the poor education situation that Romani kids suffer (despite western funding of the schools).
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It's interesting that a U.S. Civil Rights struggle strategy might be adopted by a minority group in Eastern Europe.
I'm thinking about visiting a bit of the Czech Republic, so I wonder about minority affairs there and Eastern Europe.
I'd certainly expect matters to be a bit diffferent than here in the States.
I tried to explore the difference between Western Europe and the U.S. during one of my trips to Germany. About a year-and-a-half ago, I visited the state of Nordrhein Westfalen (NRW). In surfing the web, before my trip, I discovered that there was this state government bureau called the Landeszentrum fuer Zuwanderung (Center for Immigration Affairs).
So I popped by for a visit, since I was in the area. I guess you could say that it's similar to the US Civil Rights Commission. (perhaps without the bickering that's plagued the commission in the past)
Aparently, one of the fruitcakes made in Claxton, Ga. has become a popular item in Kabul. A U.S. commander in Afghanistan gave some to an Afghan general, and asked his wife, back in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to send more.
She and a civic group rounded up 6 cases (144 pounds) and sent them off. The commander said that the "delivery caused riots, fights" because everyone wanted some.
The civic group that provided the fruitcakes had been selling them for decades to raise money. Unfortunately, times have changed, said the civic group member that coordinated the shipment.
"People have become so weight-conscious here that they really don't eat cake like they used to. It takes a lot more effort to sell them. To hear that the Afghans were fighting over them was wonderful."
- condensed from an article in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal
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(Fruitcake! The gift that keeps on giving... If we can get the Afghans hooked on fruitcake, then maybe we can wean them off growing opium poppies, subvert the grip of the warlords, and remove the threat of the Taliban... Now, we know what to do with all that surplus fruitcake that keeps circulating.)