Tim_Timed_In

A documentation of the inspirational, challenging, random, funny, and controversial events/links/thoughts that I come across. If there's something you'd like to share, then please let me know at [email protected]!

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Song: いのちの名前 (The Name of Life), from the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away"

Composed By: Joe Hisaishi

A piano beatbox cover of my favorite song from one of my favorite animated movies.

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Summer 2012 "We'll See If I Can Get Through Even Half" Reading List

Feel free to recommend books! =) 

Asian-American Issues

Reframing Transracial Adoption (9/3/12)

(N2G) Asian American Politics

(N2G) The Myth of the Model Minority

(N2G) The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing

Biographies

Bossypants (7/14/12)

Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England: The Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (8/1/12)

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (11/24/2013)

Alexander Hamilton

The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy

(N2G) Living to Tell the Tale: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Business/Leadership

Who Moved My Cheese? (7/24/12)

Lead like Ike: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day (5/29/12)

Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground (7/27/12)

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead

Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People

Secrets of the Moneylab: How Behavioral Economics Can Improve Your Business

How to Have Confidence & Power in Dealing with People

What Every Body is Saying (9/7/12)

(N2G) Made to Stick

Consulting Demons (9/12/12)

"Chick-Flick Kind of Book"

The Rescue

Christianity

Bible (ESV Study Bible)

Know Your Bible

Growing in Christ: A Thirteen-Week Follow-Up Course for New and Growing Christians

A Beginner’s Guide to Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multicultural World

Christianity at the Religious Roundtable: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam (8/16/2013)

Stand Strong: In College

New Testament Greek for Beginners

Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise (5/??/12)

Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free

Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community (7/12/12)

Revolution in World Missions: One Man’s Journey to Change a Generation

Prayer Listening

The Pursuit of God

Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character

A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer (9/6/12)

(N2G) Worship Across the Racial Divide: Religious Music and the Multiracial Congregation

(N2G) Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire

Drama/Film

Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century (10/4/12)

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (6/14/12)

The Contrast: A Comedy in Five Acts

Economics

Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion

The Road to Serfdom - Text and Documents—The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2)

Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (8/13/12)

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It’s Transforming the American Economy (11/28/2013)

The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water (2/9/13)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma (7/9/12)

Fantasy

The Hunger Games Trilogy (7/26/12)

World War Z (8/29/12)

Eragon Series

Military/Political Science

The Art of War (6/16/12)

The Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy (8/16/12)

The Political Psychology of the Gulf War

Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Music

Simply Guitar/Guitar Chord Bible/Everything About Guitar Chords

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Beatbox + acoustic guitar cover of "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk. Recorded on June 7, 2013.

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"Yellow Face" follows the misadventures of an Asian American playwright named DHH who leads the protest against the yellow face casting, only to mistakenly cast a Caucasian actor in an Asian role in his own play. The film is based on David Henry Hwang's play of the same name for which he received his third Obie Award in Playwriting and made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Hwang is an acclaimed playwright whose works include "FOB", "Golden Child", "Aida", "Chinglish" and "M. Butterfly" for which he won the Tony Award.

[afternoonsnoozebutton]

A pastor in Seoul, South Korea has created a “baby box” for people so that people who would otherwise abandon or kill their newborns can leave them somewhere safe instead. The box has a light, a towel lining, and a bell rings as soon as a baby is placed in it so the pastor, his wife, or one of his staff can come and get it right away.

Lee Jong-rak started the box in 2009, and has welcomed all babies, often disabled or the children of single mothers, that have been placed in the box since. The babies are given a loving home, food, and shelter in his orphanage. Currently, an average of 17-18 babies are placed in the box every month. 

One mother who had considered poisoning her baby before she heard about the Baby Box left her baby in the box with a letter pinned to his clothing that read: 

‘My baby! Mom is so sorry. I am so sorry to make this decision. My son! I hope you to meet great parents, And I am very very sorry. I don’t deserve to say a word. sorry, sorry, and I love you my son. Mom loves you more than anything else. I leave you here because I don’t know who your father is. I used to think about something bad but I guess this box is safer for you. That’s why I decided to leave you here. My son, Please forgive me.’ - ‘A single mother’s tearful letter’

Lee Jong-rak is the subject of a documentary called “The Drop Box”, which I haven’t seen - but I can recommend this 13 minute Dateline video. You can find the Facebook page for the BabyBox here.

[setscarylazerstomaximumcaptain-]

And just like that my heart’s been broken

[lostintrafficlights]

No. The baby box is ILLEGAL. It’s illegal because it encourages HUMAN TRAFFICKING.

[peaceshannon]

(this is the message on the movie’s facebook page):

sigh… i don’t know where to start. i am a korean-american adoptee activist who has been living in seoul for nearly 7 years, volunteering actively with both other adoptees and unwed mothers’ groups. i suppose i should start by saying why i oppose the baby box. abandoning babies is illegal and the baby box facilitates the abandoning of babies. this is why the UN has suggested time and again that baby boxes be banned internationally. additionally, experts have said that there is absolutely NO PROOF that the presence of babybox reduces infanticide, it merely facilitates the increase of unethical adoption. to people who say that without this babybox, babies in korea would die - that if there wasn’t the ‘humane’ option of abandoning a child in the babybox offered by the church, these women would just leave their baby to die on the street  -i say: that opinion is couched in the deep stereotypes against unwed mothers and as someone who has worked for many years with both unwed mothers and parents who have lost their children to adoption, i don’t believe that. i believe that if the church didn’t give them this option (which is painted as a saintly deed by the church and a mother’s ‘final act of love for her child’ in the korean media) that these women would either 1) realize that maybe they have the right to raise their child or 2) choose to go through the proper, ethical procedures for the adoption of her child NOT leave them to die in the street. this line of thought is based on the notion that these women are inhuman, moral-less women who are just trying to get rid of their baby in any way possible. again, as someone who actually works with unwed mothers on a close, regular basis - i don’t accept this line of thought. 

many of the people on this thread have NO IDEA the situation of unwed mothers in korea. do you know for example that unwed mothers receive a laughable 70,000 KRW (less than $70) a month in support from the government but adoptive parents receive over twice that from the government. do you know that unwed mothers are routinely discriminated in hiring and/or forced to resign from their jobs when they are found to be pregnant. do you know that although legally fathers are required to pay child support, if the father chooses not to, there is no system to enforce it? the answer is not to give women a way to abandon children but to give them the choice to raise their children if they want. the word “choice” is a tricky one. we have to be critical about the word choice. choice doesn’t mean that no one had a gun to your head. when we consider that unwed mothers are pressured to get abortions (96% end up getting abortions) up until 8 months of their pregnancy. when we consider that most of them are kicked out of their homes and thereby forced to go to unwed mothers’ facilities during their pregnancy. when we consider that roughly half of the unwed mothers facilities in korea are run by adoption agencies. when we consider that the percentage of mothers who DON’T give up their children in adoption agency-run homes is 37% compared to 82% in non-agency homes. when we consider the fact that unwed mothers who give up their children but change their minds are told that they owe money to the adoption agency for each day that their child stayed in their facility. when we consider that one mom told me that after she went back to get her child from the adoption agency, they showed her photos of the adoptive parents in the US and their house and kept telling her how much better the child’s life would be in the states AND that she would break the adoptive parents’ hearts if she took back her child and eventually made her WRITE AN APOLOGY TO THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS before they would give her back her child (psychological warfare, anyone?) when we consider that there’s no real legal way for unwed mothers to claim child support from the father of the baby. when we consider that companies practice discriminatory hiring practices and won’t hire unwed mothers. when we consider that even unwed mothers who run their own businesses suddenly lose all their customers when they find out they’re unwed mothers. 

yes, “saving life is the utmost priority” but you have no idea what happens to children once they are adopted.  do you know the research on the rate of physical abuse, sexual abuse and assault, addiction, deportation, depression and suicide that adoptees face? no matter how “good” our adoptive parents are or no matter how “successful” our reunions are, adoption is not a ‘natural’ phenomenon - adoption is borne out of trauma. people tend to forget that in the rosy picture that’s painted of adoption in western media. for adoption to have been necessary, a family trauma had to have happened. that is the legacy that adoptees carry and it is even more haunting because we often don’t know the details of that trauma. the babybox exacerbates this problem.

yes, women should have the right to choose adoption for their children. however, it is not a ‘human right’ to abandon a child. and no one, including parents, have the right to take away their child’s right to know their birth information. that is a universal human right, guaranteed by the UN rights of the child.

finally i will share my own story: because my adoption records were fabricated, i had to appear on a audition program in order to try to find my mother. it is angering that adoptees must submit ourselves to these humiliating public displays in order to find our families. if holt practiced ethical adoptions, we would not have to degrade ourselves to becoming some kind of morbid entertainment.

what i learned from meeting my mother is that she was 20 years old when she gave birth to us, twin daughters. she tried to raise us with our father until we were a little over one year old. however, after a period of time, she could no longer take my father’s philandering ways so she left him and took us with her to my maternal grandmother’s house. she raised us at my grandmother’s house until we were just past two. my grandmother, unable to watch my 22 year old single mom struggle to raise twin girls, took us without my mother’s permission to holt. then she returned and refused to tell my mom where she had taken us. instead she told her that she would bear all of the sin for her act and that my mother should try to forget about us and try to live a good life. my mother said it didn’t matter how many times she asked, our grandmother would not tell her where she had taken us. 

some years later when my mom married, she asked my grandmother once more where we were, since she was now married and her husband knew about us, she hoped to raise us together. it was then that she learned the truth from my grandmother. according to my mother, my grandmother told her then that it was too late, because we had been adopted abroad but that my mom shouldn’t worry because my grandmother had insisted that we be adopted together. 

this is how i know holt fabricated my adoption records. at the time of our adoption and TO THIS DAY, my sister and i remain on my mother’s family registry as jung hana and jung doona. my mother left our names on her registry, even though it essentially “outs” her as a mother who lost her children to adoption, in the hopes that we would be able to find her that way. the reason we could not was because in order to “legally” send us for adoption, holt had to find some way to sever our identities from that family record. at the time, the US did not give adoption visas to children who were not actually orphans, so in order to “legally” be able to send us for adoption, holt had to turn us into orphans. how does one turn a child who is not an orphan into a legal orphan? they lie and say that the child was found ‘abandoned’ in front of some random place and then they promptly make an ‘orphan family registry’ for you, neatly cutting off all of your family ties in one foul swoop. 

holt falsified my records in order to legally separate me from my mother, in order to make a profit from my adoptive parents. everyone except holt is a victim in this story. this is why i oppose the babybox. there is no way to verify that the mother herself gave up the child, leaving the possibility of someone else giving up the child without the mother’s consent. holt has a history of human rights abuses and has shown that it is not interested in checking whether or children are actually orphans or not. holt should be held accountable and unwed mothers have a right to raise their children. 

if you are TRULY interested in supporting both the mothers and children in these vulnerable situations in korea, please support the Korean Unwed Mothers’ Families Association (KUMFA) 한국미혼모가족협회, a group of unwed mothers involved in activist work to improve the rights of mothers and children in korea. more info on KUMFA here.

ETA: furthermore, the preview completely misrepresents pastor kim of koroot who is one of the most outspoken opponents of the babybox, but it paints him as a supporter of the babybox. this is unethical filmmaking. 

  I URGE YOU ALL TO CLICK AND LEAVE YOUR OWN COMMENTS: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=588706707835889&set=a.394142393958989.91070.295429577163605&type=1

[serquerida]

[from this weekend — all from church/Christian settings]

“America … the best nation that has ever existed.” “Now, when I pick up things, they are in at least two different languages. Now why is that? … people who are focusing on multi-ethnicity is watering down the Gospel” “Navajo boy stares...

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Prelude and Fugue in A-flat major from Book I of J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 862, performed by harpsichordist Katherine Roberts Perl, accompanied by a graphical score.

[buildingthiscity]

Because this has to be on everyone’s dash always.

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"The Last Pick" - a Jubilee Project short film ft. Jeremy Lin. 

"...So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it." - 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (The Message Translation).

Also, bloopers here. Neat trivia: Jeremy often practiced at this elementary school near his home in CA. =)

(Thanks to TP, DC, JK, and JT among others who have shared this)

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(found via /r/doctorwho - credit artist Adam Tupper)

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"MANDEVILLA, a short film, is part of a campaign against domestic violence sponsored by the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women & the Korean American Family Service Center. This film was created specifically for the Korean American community, but domestic violence is a problem within all communities."

Directed by Andrew Oh. Starring Jun Kim, Arden Cho, and Lance Lim. Found via /r/asianamerican.

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"Law of Physics Can't Trump the Bonds of Love" - Tara Parker-Pope, NYT (article here)

"Jeffrey Wright is well known around his high school in Louisville, Ky., for his antics as a physics teacher, which include exploding pumpkins, hovercraft and a scary experiment that involves a bed of nails, a cinder block and a sledgehammer. But it is a simple lecture — one without props or fireballs — that leaves the greatest impression on his students each year. The talk is about Mr. Wright’s son and the meaning of life, love and family."

(found via /r/videos)

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Exclusive "Django Unchained" track by track album commentary with Quentin Tarantino.

“I have to say, when I came up with the idea to do ‘Django Unchained,’ I knew it was imperative that I open it with this song as a big opening credit sequence. Because basically this movie is done in the style of a spaghetti western, and any spaghetti western worth its salt has a big opening credit sequence. In fact, if it doesn’t, I don’t really want to see it.” - Quentin Tarantino (credit Randy Lewis of LA Times for the share)

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"At first the laughs are, perhaps understandably, nervous. But then Lee Ridley is far from a conventional stand-up comic. For a start, he doesn't utter a single word on stage. Lee, who has cerebral palsy, cannot speak so he uses a text-to-speech iPad app to deliver his lines..." - Daily Mail

On a related note, it reminds me of how comedian Jack Benny once did a 7 minute routine in Las Vegas using only gestures and facial expressions, no words.

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Franny Choi's "Ring around the Rosie," which she wrote at an event using "the future" and "The Jetsons" as prompts.  Performed at NYC's Intangible Slam 2012. Other works include "Notes on the Existence of Ghosts" and "Pork Fried Rice".

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Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) cover with JT.