Hollywood Fringe Festival (June 12-29)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; HollywoodFringe.org

"The Oldest Son" Tibetan lama incarnation

Wisdom Quarterly; BroadwayWorld.com (4-10-14) via Buddhist Art News, April 22, 2014

High lama of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism teaches (dalailama.com)

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The Lincoln Center Theater will premiere Sarah Ruhl's new play "The Oldest Boy" this fall. The production, directed by Rebecca Taichman, will begin previews on Oct. 16, 2014 and open on Nov. 10 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 West 65 Street). In it, Tenzin, the toddler son of an American woman and a Tibetan man, is recognized as the incarnation (tulku) of a high Buddhist teacher. Differing cultures contend with competing ideas of faith and love [as they did in Hollywood's "Little Buddha"] when two Buddhist monks seek permission to take Tenzin to a monastery in India to begin his training as a spiritual master. His parents must decide whether to send their young son away or keep at him home. More

 

Day 8 teaching the Dharma in Mundgod, India (dalailama.com)

• 2014 Mt. Everest avalanche kills 16
• Former Dictator George W. Bush is no "artist," he "copied off Google images"
• Autobiography of Thai Buddhist elder Ajahn Lee (PDF) 
• Katy Perry gatecrashes a children’s birthday party and makes everyone cry
• What a surprise, Israel abruptly pulls out of Peace Talks [so it can continue its militant ways]
  
  

  The right wing Israeli government is "furious" that after all its divide and conquer efforts, Hamas and Fatah have decided to unite for one Palestine with an invader and occupier in the self-styled God-told-us-we-could country of new "Israel." It will continue to build and expand illegal settlements as it usurps more precious land. The current government of Israel wants endless war.

The Revolution MAY be televised (video)

CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; KPFK; KPFA (support free speech)

What is important enough to protest about: peace, war, student loans, taxes, pot, jobs?

(UprisingRadio) Join Uprising TV's exciting new campaign to televise Uprising for Free Speech TV. Contribute, get involved, join the revolution...or at least watch it from your couch. We have only until April 30th 2014 to raise the funds to make it possible!

UC Berkeley artist Favianna Rodriguez joins Sonali Kohlhatkar on Uprising Radio

It all began in Berkeley as Lewis Hill and others protested U.S. wars in Asia (KPFK)

 

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman agrees: we need Uprising TV

As Pacifica Radio's flagship station in Berkeley (KPFA FM), across from San Francisco, turns 65 on April 15, 2014, a revolutionary thing is happening in Los Angeles (KPFK FM). UPRISING has a crowdfunding campaign on Indie Go Go to televise the show and other Pacifica programming.

Radio host and Wisdom Quarterly friend in Pasadena Sonali Kohlhatkar has been active in bringing attention to the liberation of women in Afghanistan (RAWA) as well as covering the most gripping social justice issues of our day. More

Zen teacher Alan Watts called Pacifica the only truly "free speech" outlet in the world.

Suey Park vs. The Colbert Report (video)

I. Rony, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; NPR "#CancelColbert Let Asian-Americans Call Out The Real Ding-Dongs"; Colbert Report (colbertnation.com)

I won't stand for that white hipster ironical racism; people might misunderstand it.

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Stephen Colbert responded to criticism about a tweet about his show from his TV network last week, saying he would dismantle the imaginary foundation that created the stir.

 

It surely says something about our culture that a single tweet (when the twit hit the fan) can turn into a major racial incident: Colbert's send-up of Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's new foundation to help Native Americans.

 

The controversy erupted when a Twitter account associated with Colbert's Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report, took the joke too far -- away from its original context.

 

"I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever," read the tweet from @ColbertReport.

 

Hipster (ironic) racism? It's not Colbert's Twitter handle, and Colbert himself had nothing to do with the tweet, but a lot of people -- specifically Asian-Americans -- didn't think it was funny. They thought it was racist.

 

But not everyone thinks so, not, for example, Jay Caspian Kang, an Asian-American who wrote a piece about the controversy for newyorker.com. Where some saw racism, he tells NPR's Rachel Martin, he saw a big misunderstanding.

 

"When the tweet came out, without the sort of context of the first part of the joke, then it does seem a little bit shocking," he says.

One of those offended was activist Suey Park, 23. Park re-tweeted in outrage, and the #CancelColbert social media campaign began. Kang understands where the anger comes from.

 

Seeing Red

Colbert responded on his show by saying he would "shut down" the imaginary foundation that sparked fury among select critics. The most vocal has been Suey Park (Twitter nickname Angry Asian Woman). She began the #CancelColbert campaign.

#CancelColbert's Suey Park, activist

In an article for Time, Park wrote last week: "The problem isn't that we can't take a joke. The problem is that white comedians and their fans believe they are above reproach." She also discussed her motivations in a video interview with Huff Po. In another tweet she stated: "White people -- please keep #CancelColbert trending until there's an apology."

Rachel Stark has the right idea: "Calm, reasoned debate among comics about which jokes should be off limits doesn’t exist"!

We love you, Suey Park, but be an activist about something more serious than satire. For if we lose our hero and white-ally Colbert because of your humorless campaign, we will not be amused, not amused in the slightest, and we'll start our own offensive imaginary foundation to continue the mission of calling attention to a racist #Redskins owner Dan Snyder by mocking Asians in the blogosphere. (Please send all complaint letters in response to our rant to "Attention: I. Rony, Features Editor, Wisdom Quarterly" via EFF.org).

 

"Some of what Suey Park was saying [was about] Asian-Americans who are second-generation: It's sort of ingrained in our heads to always protect that idea of assimilation and upward mobility," Kang says.

 

"One of the things that upsets us," he says, "is when somebody comes and agitates in a way that would reflect badly upon us."

 

But Kang defends Colbert. It's also upsetting to "reflect badly upon the people who[m] we would consider our allies, who are trying to help us have this sort of assimilation, post-racial dream," he says.

 

In his article, Kang writes, "There's a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans -- [which] follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule."

 

"I think the writers in Hollywood know that it's just not going to be an issue the way that it would be if the joke was on another minority group," he says. LISTEN
 

All jokes and satire aside, there are discomfit ting conversations to be had.

• Someone else's tweet stirs up accusations of racism
• In #CancelColbert firestorm an opportunity is lost
• On being a black woman who writes (Kima Jones)
• Demi Lovato and (distraction) Hollywood sex scandals
• Appalachia is not (only) full of white morons (reverse racism?)