South Park 12×08 – The China Problem

…wow.  Just…wow.

Asian people have always kinda gotten the short end of the stick in South Park (and for a show built on mercilessly mocking everything, that’s saying something).  Every other group of people has had some kind of redeeming feature – hell, even Satan gets to show off his soft side.  But Asian people?  In my memory of all things South Park, we’ve had the Chinese dodgeball team, which uses steroids to win, and the Chinese announcers who make racist jokes about the South Park kids.  We’ve had the City Wok guy, and his wife, Wing.  And we’ve had Mongolians and the Chinese Mafia, dealing with human trafficking, with one time appearances.  Oh, and Japanese people not having souls.  All in all, there’s not much positive here.

Of course, it’s hard to complain about being offended by South Park.  The whole point of South Park is to offend, and to do so hilariously.  And really, this episode wasn’t offensive at all to me – sure, the sequence screencapped above is pretty racist, but come on, it’s Cartman.  The Chinese people actually portrayed?  Perfectly normal.  Which, as noted above, is actually an improvement for Asians in South Park.  It’s nothing that I’m going to stop watching South Park for.

On another note, I keep on seeing things here that I thought were fictionalized.  First it was Shakey’s Pizza (from South Park), then PF Chang’s (ditto), and then a Big Boy (Austin Powers).  Kinda weird.

California Columbus Dreamin’

I’ve been in my new apartment in Columbus for a little over a week now, and just got an internet hookup. So, a few thoughts, in no particular order.

People here care about football, Ohio State football in particular, more than people in California care about <i<anything. I watched the OSU-USC game in a bar, and people were screaming after every single play. Everything in this city is named after the Buckeyes. There are jerseys for women. Un-freaking-believable.

I’m obviously projecting some kind of field that makes Columbus go bat shit insane. The last time I was here, in March, we got hit with, quite literally, the largest snowstorm in recorded history. This time, after I moved into my apartment, the remnants of Hurricane Ike swept through Ohio, knocking out power in Columbus. And the best thing? Apparently, Columbus sent its emergency responders to Houston to help with the hurricane damage there. So when the storm hit here, they were severely undermanned to restore power. Some stoplights were out for 5 days, and the shopping complex across the street from my apartment didn’t get power back until yesterday.

There are three bars within a city block of my apartment.

They have White Castle here. I need to try it at least once, just for novelty, but all indications are that it’ll be terrible.

I put in the order for my internet to be installed last Saturday. Storm hits Sunday, and the installation gets put off for several days, with me calling them trying to reschedule to no avail. Finally, on Thursday, it is revealed to me that the company actually changed their service offerings while I was waiting to get my internet installed. Brilliant.

Also, they don’t support ESPN 360. How am I supposed to watch basketball now?

The OSU campus is huge. Their exercise facility alone is probably bigger than all the academic buildings at Mudd put together. Multiple floors, multiple buildings, an indoor track, four basketball/volleyball courts, some racquetball courts…they’ve got everything.

The bar scene to the south of campus is pretty rocking.

When I tell people I’m from California, I get a lot of “What the hell are you doing here!?” Sometimes, I ask myself the same thing.

The Palin conundrum

By now, I’m sure that you’ve heard about John McCain picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate.  I have a lot of problems with the pick – I think it’s an intensely political decision, in direct contradiction with McCain’s “Country First” slogan.  It’s set off an entire wave of backtracking amongst conservative figures.  I have no idea what she thinks about foreign policy or the economy.  I find her social views repugnant and hypocritical.

Clearly, the McCain campaign did not vet Sarah Palin thoroughly.  Apparently, he had met her all of once before tabbing her to be his veep (maybe he pulled a Bush and looked into her soul).  And it’s hilarious to see the press do their jobs for once and uncover scandal after scandal.  And some of this is the McCain campaign’s own doing!  How can you complain about the media covering Palin’s 17 year old daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy when you put out a press release announcing it?  Sarah Palin’s primary qualifications for the job appear to be 1) she’s a socially conservative Republican, and 2) she’s a woman.  Even then, surely there were more qualified Republican women out there.  The Palin pick appears to be an all-around disaster.

And yet, at the same time, I feel like the furor over Palin is overblown.  In the end, this election will be about Barack Obama versus John McCain.  So as tempting as it is to bash the governor from Alaska, the best way for the Democrats to take advantage of this is to frame it in terms of McCain’s judgement.  There’s no need to attack Palin’s inexperience on its own merits (though there’s obviously a case to be made there); just point out how disingenuous it is for McCain to attack Obama’s credentials while claiming that Palin is ready to be president.  Go after McCain’s rashness.  This is the first really public decision he has made to show he can be president.  McCain sewed up the Republican nomination in March.  He’s had almost 6 months to make this decision as best he could – and this was the best he could do?  Is that really a person you want to be the most powerful man in the world?

If this election is about policy, Obama wins.  Therefore, the Republicans will try their best to make it not about policy.  They’ll try to rally their base with this pick.  Unfortunately, thanks to eight years of the Bush administration, Democrats have a huge advantage in party ID.  Now is not the time for half-measures and trying more of the same.  If we don’t let Palin distract us from the issues and hammer home how McCain will follow Bush’s policies, then Obama wins, and the country will be the better for it.

Introducing the Oklahoma City…Thunder?

Clay Bennett has formally unveiled the official name and logo of the team-formerly-known-as-the-Sonics, completing the ugly and shameful saga of their move from Seattle. The name comes as no surprise, as it’s been around the internets for a while now. The logo’s pretty ugly, and I’m definitely not a fan of team names that don’t end in ’s’ – I’m looking at you, Miami Heat and Orlando Magic. Of the alternatives, I would have liked the Barons, with a black/gold color scheme the best.

But anyway, now that they’re officially the Thunder, what does that mean for the Warriors’ mascot, Thunder? Maybe Golden State can redesign their logo and uniforms too (god knows they need it). But more importantly, maybe we can trade our mascot Thunder for Kevin Durant…

Nixonland

Nixonland is a fascinating book by Rick Perlstein about the late 60s/early 70s, specifically the time from Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in the 1964 election up until Richard Nixon’s similar landslide reelection in 1972. As someone who didn’t live through that time, my knowledge of that time period is pretty hazy – I had vague ideas and impressions, but nothing really concrete, and high school history barely even touched on the subject. So it was shocking to see just how close to implosion the country came. As the title implies, Nixon is a central figure in the book, the driving personality behind many of the developments. But at the same time, Nixon didn’t create the divisions and passions that shaped the wave of backlash he rode into office. He just exploited them more adroitly than any politician before him.

At the same time, while the book is ostensibly a history, I found myself looking at parallels to the current political climate, which has clear roots in Nixon. Nixon’s GOP was what introduced the ever-present conservative paranoia about liberals destroying the country, the race-baiting tactics, the exploitation of social issues to distract from actual policy, and much of what disgusts me about today’s politics. The Democrats aren’t blameless either, coming off as extraordinarily inept (another development that endures), highlighted by the disastrous 1968 convention. And there are glimpses of current day figures sprinkled throughout the story – Bill Clinton and George HW Bush, John Kerry and Karl Rove. All in all, this book is essential to understanding why things are the way they are.

Obama’s acceptance speech

Wow. Just…wow. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech was easily the best I’ve seen (in my admittedly short political life). This was no squishy triangulating speech that tried to move him to the mythical “center” that political pundits seem to have such a hard-on for. This was an all-out defense of the liberal values that I and many other Americans hold. This was a response to the past eight disastrous years under Republican rule, a beautiful, eloquent speech that drew sharp contrasts with the other party and made me proud to be a liberal (or progressive, whatever label you prefer).

Thank you, Barack Obama, for not heaping unnecessary praise on John McCain. He’ll get plenty of that from his own party. There’s no need for the Democrats to do it too. Thank you for not shying away from issues like abortion, gun control, gay marriage, Social Security and health care. The majority of the country has a “liberal” position on these issues – it’s about time that’s made clear. Thank you for challenging America to break its dependence on fossil fuels and for echoing Al Gore. We are in a precarious time, and we need this effort, like the Manhattan Project or JFK setting us on course to go to the moon. Ten years may be all we have. And above all, thank you for calling on America to honor its core principles once again. We are better than we have been these past eight years. We can be great again. We will do so under President Obama.

Full text of Obama’s speech after the jump.