Guess You're Just Going to Read Over My Shoulder Like That...

Don't know how to describe it, but I attended this Zoom event with Viet Thanh Nguyen and two other academics/writers on the connection between Vietnam and Palestine. It will air in a future episode of his podcast Accented; I had no idea, but apparently in the seventies, during the Vietnam War (the American War to Vietnamese living in Vietnam), Palestinians were so inspired by the Vietnamese fighting Americans that some number of them traveled there to learn tactics and study them. Additionally, there's a small Vietnamese refugee population that got taken in by Israel after the war. It was a really interesting discussion, but one part of it stood out to me was when they discussed Asian American "identity" and how focusing on that fails people, when what we should really be focusing on is "community". And I really felt that; I've long been frustrated that the pinnacle of Asian American activism seems to be more "representation" in media and it fails in this moment when there are multiple genocides going on and Michelle Yeoh is being asked to speak on US politics at the Berlinale and she declines but tells people to focus on "diversity" which somehow isn't politics? 

On identity politics, people online are trying to pit Olympic champions Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu against each other; Eileen Gu gets a lot of suspicion from both the Chinese side and the American side because she is rumored to have been offered millions under the table to play for China, and also offered Chinese citizenship without having to give up her American citizenship. She's been kind of cagey about it, and she was already rich anyway. Alysa Liu - I mean I will say I have been nothing but inspired by her skating - she looks like a fairy having so much fun - it feels so light and free - she's also from Oakland and going to UCLA and has spoken up against ICE and protested for Palestine so how could I not adore her? Anyway, she's got an interesting family history, in which her dad organized Tiananmen Square protests and was later smuggled out of China through to Hong Kong via "Operation Yellowbird" and came to the US. He wanted kids and was pushing 40, so opted to have them via surrogate, and he brought his mom out here to help raise them. I think Liu's most famous right now for doing skating on her terms - she quit when she was younger and came back only on the condition that she could skate when she wanted, how she wanted, etc. Fun fact about Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu - apparently they grew up in the same social circles - I forgot where I saw it, but there was a clip of the two of them at the same social event when they were kids. Both of them are quintessential American stories but people are acting like they're actual contradictions. 

Stanford is developing a universal vaccine (currently in clinical trials) that could be delivered nasally! The dream! 

Tucker Carlson right now is going viral for his interview with Mike Huckabee, and apparently Huckabee is trying to do damage control. I have zero affinity for Carlson and do not trust that he is in any way "pro-Palestine", and still think he's a racist bigot, but what being kicked out of mainstream media afforded him is the actual ability to ask "what do you mean by that" and call out his subject on their contradictions, something that most liberal media have failed to do or can't get access to do so. What do you mean the IDF are better than the US at protecting civilians? What do you mean by "this land"? Congrats now all of Carlson's clips have gone viral. 

A bunch of PACs seem to have sprung up in the past months to counter-act AIPAC, which has succeeded in pissing off one of the most moderate, pro-Israel Dems, and led him to endorse his anti-Zionist opponent who beat him in the primary. Do not support the PAC one that welcomes Hitler apologists. PAL-PAC is supported by IMEU, a legitimate Middle Eastern think tank that has made lots of good policy recommendations. The American Priorities PAC appears to have money from Zohran Mamdani supporters but it's kind of unclear where its money comes from. They still don't have as much money as AIPAC though, which is currently trying to hide its support for its candidates through shell organizations and not mentioning Israel in their ads. 

No Bad Days in LA is a new to me Substack that is very entertaining but right now it's getting a lot of attention for this exploration of how the LA Review of Books imploded. And the answer, is, as it was with PEN America, ArtForum, the BBC, and others, is Gaza and the willingness, or honesty, to call things what they are: a genocide.