Dear Asian people,
I’ve never been shy about this on my blog. I, Lauren Rae Orsini, am a weeaboo. But now that weeaboos are having a sort of anti-heyday, I think I should clarify a bit more about what I mean.
It’s not that I don’t try to be appropriate. Let’s take an outing I went on last week. I was with a group of friends from graduate school at a Korean restaurant, my first time attending there. One friend had invited his Korean friend to attend, since she loved the restaurant, too.
Now my friends from graduate school know my deep and terrible secret. After I once lent him my spare pair of chopsticks at lunch, one of my friends congratulated me on being more Asian than he was. (Is it bad that I took that as a compliment? Of course not, you guys are awesome!) So they weren’t...
Lifestyle
Dear Alexey,
I deeply resonate with what you're saying. If yours is indeed the position of Novorussia's fighters and activists, largely shared by the people, if indeed you stand united behind it, then I will be cheering you on and speaking out in your defense. If you stumble and make mistakes, even terrible ones, I will be sharing your pain and rooting for you to survive, pick yourselves up and get back into the struggle.
However I am writing as an American activist, about patience and responsibility. Revolutionary patience, and revolutionary responsibility.
A revolutionary outlook transforms the color of everything. There is revolutionary anger and revolutionary love, revolutionary principles and revolutionary clarity. There is another vital distinction which those newly caught...
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Dear Ms. Spanos,
My name is Lisa Owen and I am a writer and blogger at My So Called Glamorous Life: the Adventures of a Domestic Engineer. More importantly, I am a wife and mother to two spirited and doll loving girls, ages six- and seven-years-old. We are huge fans of American Girl, with eight dolls in our collection (Bitty Babies, Bitty Twins, and My American Girl) and have attended excursions while enjoying lunch, tea, and dinner at a couple of your locations (Houston and, our favorite, Chicago). We own several of your books including The Care and Keeping of You, 1 (an excellent book!) and the accompanying journal. Your stores are magical, tending to every detail of these dolls’ storied lives, to the delight of my girls and millions of others worldwide. Therefore, it is with great...
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Dear Michael,
I was alarmed at the recent opinion brief you posted on your website advocating the outlawing of so-called “assault rifles”. ( Back up copy here on JPFO )
I doubt that I’m the only American who was perturbed by your point of view. While loudly decrying and condemning the political trickery of the insidious socialists and authoritarians in our midst, you have now written and published an influential piece to further their agenda.
As an American Jew, and the founder of “Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership” (JPFO), I believe that I can offer a unique perspective on the dangerous fallacies of “gun control”. I would hope that I might get you to reconsider your present stance.
You seem to be, as are many well meaning Americans, ignorant of certain aspects of...
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Mr. President,
We are nearing the tenth anniversary of the death of Deyda Hydra. This eminent Gambian journalist and correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and the Agence France Presse, was cravenly murdered on 16 December 2004. I write to urge you to put an end to 10 long years of impunity.
On 10 June 2014, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States declared the Republic of The Gambia guilty of having violated provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well as of the Revised Treaty of ECOWAS. The Gambia is a party to both agreements.
The Court further ruled that the Gambian government has failed to meet its obligations in not conducting a thorough investigation of the murder of Mr. Hydra. In addition, the Court found your...
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Dear New Bloggers,
Congratulations on putting yourself out there and beginning your new project! I’m sure the emotions whirling inside of you are almost too strong to contain. I, myself, know the feeling which comes with starting a new blog to document your adventures in a new place. My first blog ever was actually started in South Korea, and I also went through all the mix of emotions. Excitement, inspiration, motivation, and (unfortunately) fear.
In case you’re wondering, no, that fear never goes away. You just learn to blog through it and live with it – especially in Korea, where so many expats have already blogged and made their mark leaving little space left on the map for further exploration. At times, blogging in Korea felt like that one awful scene in the movie The Truman Show...
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Dear Josef and Mayel,
You’re probably wondering why I have been ignoring your attempts to get in touch with me lately. After all, in the past we’ve exchanged tweets, corresponded by email and even skyped. But you will have undoubtedly noticed that I have not been responding to any of your overtures lately, and for that I think you deserve an explanation.
I’ve decided to give it in the form of an open letter, because I think my readers have a right to hear what I am about to say. Also, like my colleague Elisabet Tiselius states in her latest blog post to you, I feel these sorts of discussions are best held in the public domain, where everybody can benefit from the exchange and contribute to it if they wish. They should not be hidden away in private Skype chats.
But before I get...
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Dear Hollywood,
You don’t need us to tell you that your position on anti-"piracy" laws has been unpopular recently. Last month’s historic protests, with millions of Americans registering their opposition, have made that point pretty clear. Instead, we’re writing today to tell you that the Internet can be great for creators and their community, but your own leadership refuses to recognize and take advantage of its promise. It seems they’d rather spend your membership dues on lawyers, lobbyists and astroturf than innovation. We suspect many of you are realizing this, especially when you see how successful new business models can be.
We humbly suggest that you stand up and tell them to either embrace the age of the Internet or get out of the way so that new, forward-thinking industry...
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Dear Bill,
Years ago you invited me to appear as a fellow skeptic several times on your ABC show Politically Incorrect, and I have ever since shared your skepticism on so many matters important to both of us: creationism and intelligent design, religious supernaturalism and New Age paranormal piffle, 9/11 “truthers”, Obama “birthers”, and all manner of conspiratorial codswallop. On these matters, and many others, you rightly deserved the Richard Dawkins Award from Richard’s foundation, which promotes reason and science.
However, I believe that when it comes to alternative medicine in general and vaccinations in particular you have fallen prey to the same cognitive biases and conspiratorial thinking that you have so astutely identified in others. In fact, the very principle of how...
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Dear Mark,
I'll call you Mark because that was the first name you used when you called us, and I've spoken to you at length using that name twice. If that's not your preferred name, please let me know what name I should use instead.
For a long time, I denied that your calls were coming from the same person -- I suppose due to some kind of misguided pride. After all, I thought that you and I had some interesting and even somewhat productive conversations when I was talking to you. I didn't want to feel like those conversations had been a waste of time, and I was unfairly annoyed with the viewers in email and chat who were trying to point out the obvious -- that you were disguising your voice to keep calling.
Even after accepting that you were faking the British accent, I wasn't...
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