It doesn’t matter that Wen Ho Lee’s name was never mentioned in the stories about Richardson’s name being withdrawn for Commerce secretary. In the underbelly of Richardson’s past, something finally emerged to which  no political deodorant could be applied. With  stories like Blagojevich and Madoff adding the stench of corruption to the current news environment, Obama could hardly take the risk that he was bringing in some bad cheese into his new cabinet. Reports say Richardson was pushed out. It really indicates where Asian Americans rank with Obama. Despite our support, he was all too  willing to compromise us by backing Richardson, the perpetrator of the worst transgression against Asian Americans in recent history. He just figured that he could take whatever heat we could dish out.  We’re still in small enough numbers that we can easily be ignored.  But a non-ethnic issue like the potential for corruption? There was no political cover for the grand jury investigation against Richardson. So this is a victory for APAs somewhat. It’s not exactly because of our protests over Lee, but I’d consider our voices as more than a few flakes on the snowball.  Richardson’s out and that’s what counts.

No Redemption for Bill Richardson
His nomination makes Wen Ho Lee my 2008 Person of the Year

I know, Lee made news back in 1999. But people forget, and they need to remember. That’s especially true now that Lee’s main tormentor, Bill Richardson—the former Energy Secretary under Clinton and now Governor of New Mexico—has been named President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce.

Richardson is relevant again. And so is Lee. Yet to my surprise, nearly ten years after Lee’s sordid treatment at the hands of Richardson, the media and the U.S. government, Lee’s name barely seems to register with anyone. Not with mainstream society or media. Not with Barack Obama. Not even with the Asian American community as a whole.

For Asian Americans (the majority of whom backed Obama), the Richardson nomination can be seen as the most serious transgression against Asian Americans in some time.

Richardson may be considered in political circles as the “Latinos’ Latino,” but to Asian Americans he remains the perpetrator of one of the worst racial profiling cases in America before 9-11.

Some of you recognize that. A few have gone to wenholee.org to sign an online petition against Richardson’s nomination. But it seems more people are sympathetic to the indignity suffered by American Idol’s William Hung rather than the injustice endured by Wen Ho Lee. Continue reading…

John Fang had a “Pan-Asian” dream that all communities of Asian heritage could come together in a special place to get their news and ideas. From this vision, AsianWeek was born. When I first saw the newspaper, I was a TV reporter for a San Francisco station. I didn’t know quite what to make of it. But it was a sincere and earnest rag. It was also physical evidence, the DNA of ethnic American life, a sure sign that we were here, with a voice, taking a stand.
I started going amok for AsianWeek Jan.1, 1995.
Fourteen years later, my column is believed to be the longest-running Asian American news commentary in journalism. Throughout all the stops in my career from major network TV affiliates to NPR, from big-chain papers to small tiny ones, my work for AsianWeek has defined my work and my voice as a journalist. It’s one of the few places you’llread a column like the one this Friday that makes Wen Ho Lee Person of the Year in 2008. Who but a mad man would do that? But the recent nomination of Bill Richardson to Commerce secretary makes Lee relevant again. Richardson is the instigator of the worst transgression against Asian Americans in the last quarter century. There should be no redemption for Richardson.
You won’t hear that opinion anywhere else but in AsianWeek.
In an earlier draft of the column, I took a slightly broader view and wondered why there wasn’t more concern over Richardson. Was there some statute of limitations on transgressions on Asian Americans? Did Wen Ho Lee not count? Or did we, once again, not count as a community?
The lack of concern was not just among the politicos and the mainstream, but within our community as well. A handful have gone to wenholee.org and signed on to a petition. But you don’t hear people outraged about Richardson being placed in the cabinet while Wen Ho Lee, stripped of his scientific career, lives in quiet obscurity. That’s why I saw Wen Ho Lee as our very real and practical litmus test to see if there is a cohesive Asian American community sense of justice, where all people of Asian descent see a bit of themselves in Wen Ho Lee. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe it’s time to say that all of us as Americans should be outraged at what happened to Lee and the failure of Richardson to be held accountable. Or maybe the grievances of race politics really are old-hat.
Maybe in John Madden-speak it’s time to say “FIMO.” (That would be an acronym for “forget it, move on,” all be it the “f” would be a slightly more passionate term that rhymes with “duck.”)
But where does that leave the “Pan Asian” dream?
From Gold Mountain to the present, we’ve left a paper trail. After this week, we may just be part of the ether.

No, I didn’t eat one for Christmas dinner.

But this year, it was a dog sitting on my lap who gave me my first real sense of Christmas. It was a quiet moment when a simple living being just looked up at me, and all seemed right with the season.

Of course, I have friends whom I’ve hugged genuinely over the last few days. But the setting is generally loud and boisterous. Good cheer. Generally, how good depends on what we do for each other. The feeling is more or less mutual.

With family, it’s slightly more intimate, but even here, it’s funny how when you’re married to an anti-vivisectionist, the topic comes up at the strangest times. How many times does the forced auto-ejaculation of a primate come up in intimate conversation in your house?

We’re overworked. We’re too busy. When the holidays roll around, non-holiday things lurk and linger and the magic of Christmas becomes just another day on the calendar.

Already many of us are looking at January, as if the new president might have some bit of messianic power. But most of us look to January because December isn’t so hot, and schedules force us forward. People have schedules, calendars, Blackberries.

My dogs know when they prefer to poop, but they don’t have schedules per se. They don’t have Blackberries either. They’ll chew on them. But they have no use for the calendar function.

So it was quite surprising, when I found myself on the sofa, quiet, alone.

And there was my dog, a Jack Russell mutt who wandered in the room and knew exactly what to do.

She hopped on my lap, looked into my eyes, and instantly de-stressed Christmas for me.

Dogs know how to do this. All that matters to them is constant love and attention. And in mere seconds, after a deep look in my eyes, and a brush of my hand against her head, she was supine on my lap, asking for a belly rub, which I did dutifully as if on cue.

When life gets complicated, dogs know how to get you to the basics like unconditional belly rubbing.

This special dog is Josie, named after my mother. My wife gives me naming privileges to placate me because I don’t like dogs. This, as PacBell, ATT, Monster, Oracle and all others who pay mucho bucks for naming rights, know is pretty special.

So I named Josie after my mom, because another one of my dogs, the black Scotty terrier mutt we saved from a Watsonville salad patch is named after my dad, Willie.

Mom and Dad? Better than naming your dogs after ex-lovers. Don’t do it. Actually my roster of dogs’ names include Ginger, Heather, and Jenny, which now sounds like either cheerleaders, hookers, or Spice Girls. But thank goodness, they’re dogs.

We broke the pattern when we rescued a collie named May. Then there’s a randy guy in the mix, a smallish black and white rat terrier whose neutering has not diminished his libido. We called him Flip because it was time to go ethnic.

You’ll think I’m a dog lover if you’ve read this far. But I’m not, really. I grew up in San Francisco in a number of those railroad flats with the long alley hall way and a dozen doors, all of it built on a 100 foot long lot which never seemed long enough for a dog. At least, that’s what the landlord told us.

So I grew up thinking stuffed animals were real. That’s what my parents told us. Stuff dogs didn’t do the pedestrian thing, which meant they didn’t need to be walked which after all is just a euphemism for peeing and pooping. They didn’t need food, either. They were constantly stuffed. They were perfect.

Except for the love part. A stuffed animal is better than an inflatable doll you’ll find on line. But that’s no substitute for a real dog.

Doggone Love

My wife and I don’t go out and buy dogs. They find us. They get dumped on us, or they walk into our lives. And then we rescue/adopt/or are suckered into taking them. Along the way we pay tons of vet bills for the sick ones, and wait for the others to pass on.

You think you are ready for that but then when they do die, you’re surprised at just how much love was involved in the whole “human plus dog” equation.

It hit me when Ginger, a dog we inherited from my wife’s father, died around the time of an important California election a few years ago. I was brought in by a particular broadcast entity to analyze the election, but couldn’t get over the fact that my dog had died.

Someone must have thought I was crying for the loser of the election.

You think you’re tough and wouldn’t be so sappy. But then it happens and you’re so exposed. You bawl like a baby. That damn dog and all the carpets and wooden floors she wrecked. I would give anything to see her alive again just so she could pee on our new flooring.

That’s how deeply I loved her.

That was Ginger. Jenny’s passing this year was equally hard. She was the $6 million dog because of her vet bills. She saw specialists! Dogs just don’t have the shelf-life of Tuffy, the stuffed gray curly haired mop who last I looked at him seemed in dire need of polyester fiberfill.

We still have Flip and May, Willie and Josie to constantly surprise us with how much more they are than pets. They are members of the family and always willing to be there to let us know their special place.

But Jose’s role is now definitely elevated. In my mind the Jack Russell that looks like Spuds McKenzie shall forever be my Christmas dog because she jumped on my lap at just the right moment.

It was a reminder that we have more than we realize, and still much more to give of that one thing that costs us nothing—love.

An Amok Christmas to you!

With the Federal Reserve cutting bank lending rates to near zero, and “safe” T- bills yielding near zero returns for consumers, let me be the first to welcome you to the new Zero World. It even comes with its own salutation of the season: Happy Zero Christmas! Continue reading…

I’m surprised at the sympathy for the boot thrower of Bush. Good arm. But hey, Bush responded as if he were a pro dodge ball player.

Perhaps you harbor the same sentiments as Muntadar al-Zeidi, the Cairo-based TV reporter who was at that Iraqi press conference and shouted at President George W. Bush, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog.”

Look, he is perhaps a dog. But is that fair to dogs?   Bush is, however, still president for a few more weeks. And with that comes the difference between our democracy and the rebuilding one in Iraq.

We’re still civil. And still respectful.

You can always take off your shoes and throw them (a massive insulting thing in some cultures). But here in our democracy, while there is free speech (go ahead and throw your shoes), there is a better way to express your self.

Did you vote in November?

Then you;ve already thrown your shoes,  your socks and everything else at the bastard already.

So now we’re all here together standing naked in a barrell waiting for the man of change, or for some spare change, whatever hits us first.

As I’ve said recently,  for eight years or more, I’ve dumped on Dubya.  But for as bad as he’s been, praising the boot thrower now is a bit like piling on.

It’s time to start piling off.

We may not always agree. But for the next few weeks, he’s still our pathetic president.

This is an update of the column that will be printed in the next issue of AsianWeek:

You may have been smirking about this past week’s political scandal involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. (That’s Bla-GOYA-vich for all you phonetically inclined).

I mean there’s no sex to be found anywhere. (And that guy Blagojevich has that eerily Seventies hair-do that reminds me of Harvey Milk’s assassin, the late ex-San Francisco Supervisor Dan White).

But, of course, there’s money in this scandal. As well as the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Obama. That’s what appears to have made it a bingo for the feds who quickly moved in this week with an arrest after what has been a five-year investigation of corruption of Blagojevich. Continue reading…

The arrest today of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges includes a scheme that the governor attempted to broker who would be appointed to Barack Obama’s soon to be vacant Senate seat.

Prosecutors revealed an affadavit where the governor mentions he was approached by someone who is referred to as “Candidate 5″ who offered $500,000 in exchange to be the governor’s choice.

The speculation has long been that APA politico Tammy Duckworth, now serving as the Illinois veterans Affairs head would be named either to a cabinet post, or to Obama’s vacant senate seat.

When Obama named Gen. Shinseki to the cabinet the other day, it left perhaps the Senate to Duckworth.

But Illinois politics being what it is, maybe that wasn’t going to happen.

The arrest of Blagojevich may have just cleared the way for the first APA woman in the Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/politics/10Illinois.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Here’s a new surprise for Dec.7. :Eric Shinseki, the first four-star general of Japanese-American descent was named Veterans Affairs secretary .

Shinseki is known as a truth-teller. He was the first to contradict the Bush administration’s war forecasts by saying  it would take a hundred thousand troops to deal with Iraq after an invasion. Shinseki was right.

Obama was right with this choice.

http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_VETERANS_AFFAIRS?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-12-07-07-48-49

I was sitting in a taqueria in California with a crowd of people, primarily Latino. They were there to see a fight on the big screen featuring the second coming of Mexican American Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya.

I was there to see the world discover the pride and joy of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans everywhere, Manny Pacquiao. Continue reading…