FamiLee Life

Hmong Hip Hop

Local St Paul rapper and community activist Tou Saiko Lee is featured in the New York Times Magazine today. Check it out here. Toward the end of the video is a segment in which Tou honors this family's heritage through a collaborative art piece with his grandmother. It's pretty sweet and worth checking out. Plus, it's fitting for Mother's Day today.

BTW, last week's article on urban/gang violence is another worthwhile NYTMag read, but more importantly to me is the photography by my friend Reuben Cox. I am excited to own a great photograph by Reuben.

Reuben Cox for the New York Times

Back Again...with Random Things

It's been a little busy over at FamiLee, so I have been negligent in my blogging. But I am back again, sort of. Mostly, I wanted to give a few random updates and comments.

1. The mullet is making a comeback. A Red Wing boy won a contest for the best mullet. Apparently, the mullet is popular among hockey players, so their manes can be seen from beneath a helmet. Hm...will this become a new trend among cyclists? I have taken up this charge to the chagrin of HW.

2. Three local kids get suspended for not standing up during the pledge of allegiance. Read Strib article. "The school's handbook says all students are required to stand but are not obligated to recite the pledge." Funny to read because I got in trouble for the same thing back in the day. I was enough of a rabble rouser to take the same stance and, in the end, had to stand even if I chose to not recite the pledge.

3. The extracurricular activity for this summer is biking, camping, canoing, and my continued quest to become Minnesota without becoming Minnesotan. Enough said.

Funny Thursday Treat

MSP to North Dakota

Having lived in Minneapolis since 2000, I have not done very much traveling outside of the city. Heck, St. Paul even seems far and foreign to me at times. Fortunately, the last few weekends have brought me over to St. Paul so I am again feeling the Twin Cities. Now, HW and I have a trip planned to visit her family in North Dakota. I was thinking it was to a small town just bordering Minnesota. Kinda like driving up to the BWCA or something. Well, I just googled the town and it's on the far western side of North Dakota. Holy smokes! That is 660+ miles away and venturing into the western frontier, folks.

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Waiting for Spring by Watching Karaoke in Hawaii

It's supposedly Spring in Minnesota and the weather IS warmer than earlier in the month but it's so dreary outside right now. Blah! So I am sitting in my office looking out at grey skies. Then I check out Hapa9's blog on his trip to Hawaii where he's showcasing the Norae Shanty. Oh man, I miss Hawaii, karaoke, and Hapa9! Read more about his fame on the local island here.

Blogs That Make You Think

When I began this blog, I was inspired by my mentor and colleague, Hal Grotevant, whose Inner Geek blog demonstrated to me that it is possible and acceptable and appropriate for faculty to maintain a blog that balances the personal and the professional. Sadly, Hal has accepted a new faculty position at UMass-Amherst, so he will soon be leaving Minnesota (and possibly the ending of Inner Geek). It's a great move for him but a tough loss for us at Minnesota. I hope he resumes Inner Geek or a new blog in New England.

Meanwhile, my good friend Hapa9 recently started a blog about his travels with the Norae Shanty to Hawaii and he emailed saying it was hard to keep up on the blogging. It definitely is a commitment. I sometimes can't believe that it's been over 2.5 years since I started posting entries and I keep on going.

But I write this entry to really promote two other blogs. The first is my blog child (i.e., I like to consider myself the BlogFather) to Harlow's Monkey. In two short years, JR has become one of the most famous adoptee bloggers in the country/world. Her blog gets way more hits than my blog ever will. The child overtakes the parent. Ah, a familiar story. I'm quite proud of her achievements and I know she will continue to flourish as an advocate, critic, and scholar in the field of Adoption Studies. Everyone should read her most recent post on Who Deserves To Be A Parent.

The other blog is not a blog offspring of mine but I rediscovered someone whom I first met back in the late-1990s when I was just becoming aware of adoption issues, specifically Korean adoption. Third Mom is the counterpart to Harlow's Monkey as it is written from the adoptive parent perspective. Margie and I met when the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN) was just taking shape. I was asked to help advise their first national conference in 1999 and had the opportunity then to meet Margie. Margie's blog provides space to introduce, challenge and encourage adoptive parents to think outside the box on adoption and parenting. I think her child's quote from which the name Third Mom originated says it best.

"Let me tell you about all of my mommies!" said my five-year-old son one day as we sat in our kitchen. He began counting: "There's my first mother in Korea, then Mrs. Cho (his foster mother), and then you - you're my third mom!"

Read these blogs every day and I guarantee that you will learn and grow and gain perspectives that will better your life. Do it!

It's Politics, It's Art - Getting Out the Vote!

I did it. I went ahead and bought the Shepard Fairey print of Barack Obama, titled CHANGE. HW doesn't want me to get all messianic about supporting Barack and I concur. But I believe he's the right choice. Plus, supporting his campaign in this way provides the bonus of supporting my Art-A-Month habit. Why? Because Shepard Fairey is the artist who is most popularly known for his Obey Giant. Having grown up on Andre the Giant, I have a fondness for this art.

Taken from Wikipedia,

Fairey created the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign in 1989, while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).[3] This later evolved into the "Obey Giant" campaign, which has grown via an international network of collaborators replicating Fairey's original designs.[4] In a manifesto he wrote in 1990, and since posted on his website, he links his work with Heidegger's concept of phenomenology.[5] His "Obey" Campaign draws from the John Carpenter movie "They Live" which starred pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper, taking a number of its slogans, including the "Obey" slogan, as well as the "This is Your God" slogan. [6]. Fairey has also spun off the OBEY clothing line from the original sticker campaign.[7] He also uses the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan.

The Death of the Sentence

Most students are not proficient in writing. Gasp! This statement is based on a recent report on the results from a national test on writing which was highlighted today in the NYTimes. 140,000 8th graders and 28,000 12th graders were administered a writing proficiency test. According to the Time report, "each student wrote two 25-minute essays, designed to measure student skills at writing to inform, persuade and tell stories." The result? "About one-third of America’s eighth-grade students, and about one in four high school seniors, are proficient writers..."

Here is the best quote from the article...

[W]hat he [James Billington, the librarian of Congress] called "the slow destruction of the basic unit of human thought, the sentence,” because young Americans are doing most of their writing in disjointed prose composed in Internet chat rooms or in cellphone text messages.

Is blogging helping or hindering the development of writing skills?

Reuben, Ry, and NYC

Sometimes I wish I lived in NYC. I hate the big city crowds, but I occasionally miss the Korean food, the Jewish delis, the open all-night atmosphere, and the art. Oh, the art. Minneapolis has great art too, as evinced in all my blog entries on the subject, but NYC has Reuben Cox. I blogged about my purchase of one of Reuben's photograph as part of the Art-A-Month effort. He now has a new show on "Portraits of Musicians" in NYC. If you live in or near the city, check out the show and let me know about it!

Karaoke Will Make You Happy

The original fitness guru, Jack Lalanne, provides us with the three things to bring happiness in life which includes karaoke. Well, okay, he said "bursting into song" but it's close enough! Plus, check out this great website. It's gotta be the coolest website out there for a 90+ year old man. Sure, it's probably not maintained by him but still...