Lurker Wednesday

What of those people who lurk?
Are they sitting in their chairs with a smirk?
Or is it a smile?
Every once in a while?
Or are they all just berserk?

As seen by the census

The census bureau is making its big push for residents to be counted.  So it created a number of language- or target-specific advertising posters.  Shall we take a look?

A somewhat generic poster for the new portrait of America.  Available in German, Italian and Yiddish.  A few hints as to professions or status:  A firefighter, a healthcare worker, construction worker, two educators (shown in front of blackboards), a guy in a cap and gown.  One of the educators and the guy in the cap and gown appear to be black.  The other educator is a brownish sort.  But other than that, the people in professional wear appear to be white.  The only guy wearing a suit and tie is white.

APIs appear to be overrepresented.  Because we’re taking over.  That’s why you see such a fascination with us on the census:

What is Person 1′s race?

White
Black, African Am., or Negro
American Indian or Alaska Native – Print name of enrolled or principal tribe.
Asian Indian
Chinese
Filipino
Other Asian – Print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.
Japanese
Korean
Vietnamese
Native Hawaiian
Guamanian or Chamorro
Samoan
Other Pacific Islander – Print race, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on.
Some other race – Print race.

(Yeah, we could go on and on about race and ethnicity.  But this is about the posters.)

Another adoptee deportation

Deportations in 2009 were up by five percent.  And here’s yet another case of an adult adopted person whose parents never bothered to secure citizenship.  Sloppy writing in this article, so it’s hard to tell, but it looks like she knew she wasn’t a citizen before the criminal charges that started deportation proceedings.

The art of gaman

The Washington Post has an article and a photo slideshow of work by artists who were interned in the U.S. concentration camps.  Although I don’t think that last one is a bear.

When will writers stop referring to this as the “Japanese internment”?

R.I.P. Faith Dremmer

She was killed on a bicycle trip when an elderly man crossed the center line and struck her and two of her friends. Faith was seventeen years old and was going to graduate from high school this year.  She was adopted from China.

Story here.

It’s the economy.

Stupid.

I thought that the worsening economy would be beneficial to buyers.  Not so.  Went to the local optician in the hopes of getting new glasses.  I continue to try to shop local, despite negative experiences.

There were at least seven people working in that store.  Or not working, as the case may be.  They were standing around talking about sports and stuff.  Nobody even looked up when the little bell on the door rang.  Nobody came over.  And when I walked over to them, I actually had to interrupt to get any attention.  What was the response?

One of the people pointed and said I should look “over there.”

I don’t get it.  Don’t they understand that their jobs are linked to sales?

Not sure what to say

About this LA Times article: Years of racial slurs ‘scarred’ Japanese American gunman charged in teacher’s slaying, attorney says.

A lawyer representing a Westlake Village man who was charged Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a Pasadena art college instructor said his client had become upset after hearing his wife subjected to “a racial and sexual slur.”

Dmitry Gorin, whose law firm is representing Steven Ronald Honma — arrested Sunday in connection with the weekend slaying at a Persian new year’s party — said the 54-year-old engineer had been traumatized from years of insults targeting his Japanese heritage. “This is a textbook heat-of-passion incident, which a jury would consider in deciding whether Mr. Honma is guilty of murder or a lower-level homicide such as a manslaughter,” Gorin said. “While the sequence of events are still under investigation, there was someone at the party who made a derogatory racial and sexual slur about his wife. As a Japanese American growing up after World War II, Mr. Honma had experienced great trauma as a victim of racial bias, and that experience scarred him since childhood.”

Maulissa is home!

In February, Maulissa’s father flew to Haiti to find his daughter and bring her to the United States.  But he was unsuccessful.  That didn’t deter Jean Onelien.  And on Thursday, Jean Onelien brought Maulissa home.

What they really want to say

Tea Partiers at Capitol Hill shouted “n*gger” and “f*ggot” at Congressional representatives.  I linked Faux News because it is “fair & balanced.”  Note the headline and lede.

More teachers behaving badly

And maybe a partial explanation of why college students don’t understand that the “Compton Cookout” and the noose and the hood were wrong:  Teacher hangs Obama in effigy.