Clint Eastwood: A Ramblin’ Guy 
by Ben Fong-Torres

All right, all together now, with Neil Diamond in mind:

"I am," I said, to no one there
And no one heard at all, not even the chair
"I am," I cried. "I am," said I
And I am lost, and I can't even say why
Leavin' me lonely still

Well, Clint Eastwood must’ve felt pretty lost and lonely after his debacle of a speech at the Republican convention. Here he’d turned his back on the Democratic Party by attacking President Obama – or at least his imagination of Obama, represented by the now infamous empty chair on stage, with which Eastwood conducted a one-to-none conversation. But he’d done Mitt Romney and the GOP no favors by screwing up the convention’s rigid time line, looking slightly disheveled and rambling for 12 minutes when he’d been given five, delaying Romney’s big moment. And, in line with previous convention speakers, Eastwood issued statements that either were inaccurate or did no service to the anointed candidate.

Among his missteps: He chastised Obama for his timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.  But Romney himself has endorsed that strategy. Eastwood wondered whether it was a good idea to have attorneys (like Obama, a Harvard Law School grad) to be in the White House.

Backstage, Romney probably wasn’t wondering, since he also holds a degree from Harvard Law School.

That’s how it went. Eastwood threw off the schedule, then grabbed most of the headlines, for all the...

Today, January 1, 2012 marks the day that a major hotel chain, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited (HSH), owner of the Peninsula Hotels finally made it official - no more shark fins will be served. We hope many more hotels, restaurants, and fishermen will also stop killing the millions of sharks for their fins for soup.  

Let's make 2012 a year that you also take measures in your own hands to help our world become a better place. 

This is one of the most important stories of our lives, our Earth.

Not only is banning shark fins from menus one tiny step forward (and not ordering shark fins if it is still on other menus), eating fish, particularly the larger fish is not necessarily healthy.

Dr. Sylvia Earle, 75, scientist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence has been studying our oceans for more than 50 years. Dr. Earle urges everyone, "We have the power to make a difference and its time that we use that power positively not just for the dolphins, not just for the whales and the fish. It all comes back to us. We all share space on this little Blue Planet."

Earle told AsianConnections' Steven Joe at a Greenbuild Conference for GreenPlanet.TV "What we are doing to the oceans, we are doing to ourselves." She told Steven Joe in a video interview that it is a myth that eating all fish is healthy. She warns that eating larger fish-eating fish is not healthy at all. She says the larger fish such as swordfish, tuna, and marlin...

After his Mom asked him to teach her the dance moves, hip-hop dancer and choreographer Mike Song taught his 60 year old Mom to dance to PSY's hit single "Gangnam Style." Then he uploaded the video "Gangnam Style Mom/Umma Gangnam Style" on his Youtube channel for fun.

Now, millions of hits later here's Mike and his Mom dancing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to 'Gangnam Style' the 2012 Korean hit pop single by rapper/dancer PSY.

Not only is Mike Song a great dancer, his Mom Laura's got the moves down, too!

Mike Song is a University of California Irvine grad, and was the director of a dance group called Kaba Modern which made it all the way to the finals on MTVs "America's Best Dance Crew."

TV show Road Trip Nation Live interviewed Mike Song a few months ago in Costa Mesa, CA.

We look forward to more from Mike Song, his Mom, and the South Korean rapper/dancer/singer-songwriter Park Jae-Sang, who goes by the stage name PSY the creator of the hit song and viral video "Gangnam Style."

PSY has also appeared on numerous television shows including The Today Show. PSY taught his dance moves to Britney Spears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and made an appearance on Saturday Night Live during a skit on 'Gangnam Style." 

Park Jae-Sang grew up in South Korea, went to Boston University and Berklee College of Music before starting his career as a South Korean singer-songwiter, rapper, dance musician and record producer.

Check out Mike Song and his Mom Laura's Youtube...

September 21, 2012

Los Angeles

In life, its sometimes having the luck of perfect timing that counts!

Mike Kai was on a flight today to LAX when the captain of his aircraft announces he is diverting his plane to make way for Endeavour's historic arrival.

Mike could see Endeavour on the back of a Boeing 747 right outside his plane window. 

As soon as Mike lands, he runs and jumps into a cab and asks the driver to take him to the South runway to watch Endeavour arrive.

Mike shoots this 32 second video just in time as Endeavour lands! 

Congratulations to Maurice Lim Miller, and An-My Le. Both have been selected as 2012 MacArthur Fellows which carries a $500,000 no-strings-attached support.

MacArthur Foundation announced today 23 new MacArthur Fellows for 2012. The recipients learned, through a phone call out of the blue from the Foundation, that they will each receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years.

One of the recipients is Oakland, California's Maurice Lim Miller, 66, a leader in the development of services and systems designed to break the cycle of economic dependency for low-income families across the United States.  

Frustrated by the frequent recidivism into poverty he witnessed during his two decades with Asian Neighborhood Design, an agency focused on tenant rights, job training, and youth development, Lim Miller founded the Family Independence Initiative (FII) in 2001 with the goal of helping low-income working families—who often struggle in isolated circumstances or without clear direction—build their own pathways to self-sufficiency. FII has evolved into a national model that taps into the initiative and capability of low-income households to maximize their own networks and resources and guide themselves out of poverty.

An-My Le, 52, from Annandale-on-Hudson, New York also received a phone call that she is a new 2012 MacArthur Fellow. She is a photographer approaching the subjects of war and landscape from ew perspectives to create images...