This is a great story from NPR about writing stories from an Asian American perspective.  Its always great to hear or read Jeff Yang.  I still miss A Magazine.

Chat Room: Asian-American Journalists on Media

Tell Me More, August 1, 2007 · Journalists Jeff Yang and Emil Guillermo discuss the mainstream media’s coverage of issues affecting Asian communities, including the media’s portrayal of Asian-Americans. Yang and Guillermo are members of the Asian-American Journalists Association, which begins its annual convention in Miami.

This came from Loving Day.org

One of the selling points my husband had was that he is a Christian.  I don’t know how open my family and friends would have been if he had been Korean and buddhist (or atheist).

Although I know of quite a few IR couples I don’t know any interfaith couples, personally.  I do know of a couple where the wife took the husband’s religion before marriage and now they live as a Jewish culture so its not the same.

Check out this story on News and Notes about a Black/White Baptist/Jewish couple.  They’ve been married for three years and are expecting twins this winter.

Religion in Black America

Finding Love of a Different Faith

Dara and Oded Pincas photographed on their wedding day. Courtesy Dara and Oded Pincas

Talk About This Interview on Our Blog, “News & Views”

News & Notes, July 30, 2007 · The conversation about interfaith marriage continues with Dara and Oded Pincas. She is Baptist and African American; he is Jewish and from Israel. They discuss the realities of being in an interfaith and interracial marriage.

I missed the original air time of the CNN/Youtube democrat debates but I caught the rebroadcast on CNN.

Aside from most of the questions being generated from YouTube viewers and the candidates showing their own short video (which in a way seemed like kindergarten projects) I thought it seemed a lot like the town hall meeting that came to being when another Clinton was running for President 15 years ago.

But what I’m tired of is the media talking about the format, basically downing or dismissing the questioners who sometimes dressed up in clothes or sang or had a computer generated snowman poise their question.  Aside from technology insinuating itself even more into our political process not much was different from it– okay the snowman was a bit odd.  Other than that it was just a regular town hall with questions asked via pre-taped video.

I wonder if journalists acted the same way when JFK and Nixon made the first ever televised debate?  Looking back on it now it was just a debate with cameras picking up their every word and bad lighting for Nixon.  It did help to signal a change for how political candidates presented themselves.  Roosevelt might have had a harder time proving himself to be a stalwart candidate if millions of Americans had seen him sitting on stage in a wheelchair.

Hopefully it will get more young people to be more active in the political process.  If Sanjaya can garner thousands of votes then I’m sure Edwards can get twice as many.  He’s just as cute and personable on the net.

My best friend Vee is in denial about her weight.

I’m not sure what exact image she has of herself, but whatever she sees in the mirror is not the one I see.  People ask me how much she weighs and I don’t know but I guess I’d put her close to 300 if not over.  She is kind of active, she’s not bedridden, but she won’t be doing any marathon runs as well as a walk to the corner mailbox. 

But according to her she’s in tip top shape and she can out walk or out run me.  She tells me this when I tell her we should walk to the store a couple of blocks up the street instead of taking the car.  “Girl, I don’t need no exercise,” Vee said.  “Don’t let this body fool you; I’m in better shape than you.”

Or when I ask her to come to an exercise class with me.  “Nay, I’m just too busy to go to that.” She tells me over the phone.  Is she lounging? She sounds like she’s laying down.  I tell her I will come pick her up after work if she will attend it with me although the rec center is three miles away from my job and she lives five or six miles past the center and I would have to double back.  She doesn’t need it, she said.  “I could probably come in and teach that class.  Did I tell you when I was a camp counselor back in the 80’s I used to help out with the aerobics class?  Girl, I looked better than Jane Fonda.”

We were sitting around her house one day when one of us (I don’t know if it was her or me) came up with the idea to have a lunch time aerobic class at her church.  A mid day endorphine boost for the inner city dwellers who happen to be home during the day (which, from driving by sometimes, seems to be a lot).   My friend who teaches the aerobic class I attend wanted me to take over some classes and help out but since her class is high impact I have always told her no.  But since the idea of having the class at Vee’s church would make the class low impact to gospel music I thought it was something I could handle.  Vee thought it was something she could handle, too. 

“Nay, I don’t need you to teach a class at my church,” Vee said.  “I can handle it myself.”

“You?” I said deadpan.  “You don’t need my help?”

Vee rolled her eyes and then cocked her head at me.  Looking me straight in the eyes Vee said,”No, I don’t need your help.  But you are welcome to come.”

I waited for the invitation to attend her lunchtime aerobics class (her church is about a mile from my job).  First she said it would take place after the New Year.  Then she said she was going to do it when school let out.  Then another project came up, Vacation Bible School had to be organized, people needed to be counseled and I stopped asking.  Years have passed since we first spoke of the idea.   On a visit one day her husband took me aside and asked me what happened to the idea for an exercise class. 

 ”Your wife said she was going to teach the class,” I said. 

He looked at me as if he hadn’t heard me right and then he asked me if I would say something to her about her weight.  Maybe take her to aerobic classes with me, encourage her to do something.  I told him I tried and then reminded him of who he was married to.  “You know how she is.”  He sympathized with me and I sympathized with him right back.

A person’s weight is a hard topic to broach and is subject to different reactions.  It’s a personal and sometimes when a person thinks they are just expressing their worries or observations the object of their concerns may take it as harsh criticism.  No one wants to know how other people really see them; we often gloss over the flaws of those we care about and tend to look the other way when they do something wrong.  But once the barriers are breeched hurt people can dismiss what they’ve been told, act as if the other person doesn’t know what they are talking about and keep on doing what they are doing or they can take the words of the person who has told them to heart and make a change.

So I guess Star has made her change.

“So where do I begin? I could get all Freudian on you and start with my parents—but that would be too easy. I could also start in the summer of 2000, when I was a cohost on The View and the first media stories about my weight started to surface, but that, too, would be too easy. So why don’t I start on the day that changed how I would physically appear to the world and would force me to face the reasons such drastic steps needed to be taken—August 19, 2003.

This is the day I lay in a pre-op room of a hospital, staring at the brightly lit ceiling, being prepped for gastric bypass surgery.“

In the current issue of Glamour magazine she has finally come out and admitted that she had gastric bypass.  She said she didn’t tell because it was something that was private and seemed shocked that a person who makes their living basically by selling their personality to millions of people would be expected to reveal how they are waning away like the moon before our eyes.   She gave us the blow by blow of her wedding details which some people might see as private.   She would also give daily reports about how Al was just so perfect when he did this or said that –another thing that some might find private.  I’m kind of distrusting her reason of wanting to keep it private because she also came out and told how she was done wrong by the View.  All things point to her not being confidential about her personal life.  The subterfuge was more about her being a control freak and her inability confront her image for what it really was.  Even she admits that she surrounded herself with sycophants to help her denial.  At 307lbs she saw herself as being curvaceous and fly and who was going to tell her wrong?

There are probably a lot of women who are overweight who probably still see themselves as having the curves that men want.  Over the years, the same way McDonald’s has supersized our idea of a fast food meal black women have supersized the ideal of a black body.  When growing up there were big (obese) women but from what I had witnessed they weren’t the ones that were thought of as attractive.  The skinny women weren’t either.  The ones who were “thick” or had meat on their bones were the sexy ones. 

Well, thanks Star for telling us what we already knew and crushing the hopes of a lot of overweight women when they learn you actually didn’t lose the weight by pilates and diet alone.  Once she lost the weight anyway and became a hottie that self confidance was seeming more like haughtiness to some white viewers, anyway.  But not to worry, since you and the big O went healthy on us they found another thicker sister to grace the daytime talk airwaves.  

And Barbara gets two black women’s hair to play in.