DISGRASIAN™

Congratulasians To Efren Peñaflorida, 2009 CNN Hero Of The Year!

The people have spoken, and what they have said is that our man Efren Peñaflorida, with his pushcart school, is a hero among heroes. Try not to cry during his acceptance speech:

“Our planet is filled with heroes, young and old, rich and poor, man, woman of different colors, shapes and sizes. We are one great tapestry. Each person has a hidden hero within, you just have to look inside you and search it in your heart, and be the hero to the next one in need.”

And right now, from behind our walls of daily snark and selfishness and shame, we kinda believe him.

[CNN: Pushcart Educator Named CNN Hero Of The Year]

Thanks, Jasmine!

Filed under: 2009 CNN Hero Of The Year, Anderson Cooper, Awards, Awards Shows, CNN, CNN Heroes Awards, Efren Peñaflorida, Everybody Loves a Winner, Heroes, the Philippines

How To Piss Off Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Lazy Mammogram Guidelines

Did anybody else catch today’s conversation between CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Nurse Lucy Marion from the U.S. Preventive Task Force (the group that released this week’s controversial recommendation that women should begin routine mammograms 10 years later than previously determined, and perform less self-examinations–in order to prevent unnecessary “anxiety” and costly biopsy tests)?

We don’t have the terse/awkward video, but here’s a transcript of the throwdown:

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: About 75 to 90 percent of breast cancers are found in women who have absolutely no family history and no identifiable risk factors. If you are a woman hearing that at age 40, right now watching, 75 to 90 percent of breast cancers found with people who have no risk factors, no family history, what should they do?

LUCY MARION, PREVENTIVE SERVICES TASK FORCE: I would not recommend it. I would not make a recommendation. We’re saying that the benefits are small.

GUPTA: What do you mean by that? When you say the benefits are small? Let’s not beat around the bush here. What exactly are you trying to say?

MARION: We look at it in various ways. For example, we look at life years gained by the actual screening every year or every other year. And the life years gained for that group is not very large. There are some life years gained. But it’s not very large.

GUPTA: You’re a nurse and…

MARION: And I know…

GUPTA: I don’t want to, you know…

MARION: I am.

GUPTA: … dig ourselves into a whole [sic] here. You’re a nurse, you’re in a profession of healing and compassion.

Are you comfortable with what you’re saying right now? Continue reading How To Piss Off Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Lazy Mammogram Guidelines

Filed under: Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Awareness, Breast Exams, CNN, Controversy, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Early Detection, Health Care Reform, Lucy Marion R.N., Mammograms, Medical Insurance Companies, Recommendations, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force

H1N1 for Dummies

It’s easy to get worried about stuff, especially swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, a virus, that’s facing the world, and has been for long time. Swine flu, a virus, also known as the H1N1 virus, is scary, and bad. We don’t know a lot about swine flu, that is, H1N1, but swine flu is a bad virus, and most people do not want to get it, so it seems. It’s important that Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s doctor, is investigating this flu, so that we know more things about it, and find different ways to not get it, and HOLY CRAP DOES ANYBODY PROOFREAD CNN’S FRONT PAGE BLURBS FOR EXCESSIVE COMMAS AND CLUNKY, SIMPLETON, RUN-ON SENTENCES?

[CNN: Dr. Gupta Offers Advice to Parents on H1N1]

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Thanks, Maris and KP!

Filed under: CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Huh?, Is The Recession Causing CNN Online To Hire Second Graders?, Quality Control, Rambling, The Creative Commas, Who Writes This Drivel?, Wow... So Many Questions

Smooth Move, Ex-Lax

Seriously, CNN?

In your next Ticker poll, will you be asking people whether or not grass is still green?

[CNN: Palin's Move Not Smart, Says Poll]

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Filed under: Are We Still Talking About This Woman?, CNN, Palin's Moves May Be Smooth But They Are Never Smart, Polls, Really Dumb People, Sarah Palin

AMAZIAN OF THE WEEK! 19-year-old Tehran Protest Photographer (Anon.)

Name: Anonymous

Age: 19

Occupation: Student

Hails from: Tehran, Iran

Known for: Sharing images with the world. While walking to Tehran’s Freedom Square for a demonstration Saturday, this young woman and fellow protesters were stopped and beaten by Iranian paramilitary forces. Though she had recently wept over the fallen body of fellow protester and the weekend’s public martyr, Neda, the 19-year-old woman made a risky decision to trick the officer accosting her into believing that she surrendered her digital photos of the protest on a disk. Instead, she escaped with the images and shared them immediately with CNN.

See more of her photographs (and catch repeats of her phone interview) on CNN’s live news broadcast. A selection of the photos is also available here.

[CNN: Young Woman Describes Beating At Hands of Paramilitary:

Filed under: Amazing Teens, Beatings, Being Brave, CNN, Freedom Square, Iran, Iran Election, Iran Protesters, Iran Protests, Martyrs, Neda, Photographs, Tehran

Blocking With Umbrellas-ellas-ellas

Did anybody else see a foiled pre-Tienanmen anniversary report on CNN this week?

Seriously, is there any reason why this plainclothes fuzz display seems uncannily like a choreographed hybrid of Singin’ In the Rain and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory? I keep waiting for Gene Kelly to come bursting onto the scene, chest full, hands in the air, toes dragging with flair.

Wow. What a number that would be.

[via CNN Video]

Thanks, Chris!

Filed under: Anniversaries, Beijing, China, Choreography, CNN, Funny Actions in Unfunny Places, Gene Kelly, Plainclothes Cops, The Fuzz, Tienanmen Square Massacre, Umbrellas

Rep. John Conyers: Is There Another Doctor in the House?

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has written a letter to his Democratic colleagues in the Hizzle, asking them to oppose Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s nomination for Surgeon General. In the letter, Rep. Conyers wrote that he has “serious concerns” about Gupta’s “requisite experience” and “medical background,” calling the nomination something that is “not in the best interests of the nation.”

We’ve already admitted that we don’t know much about the Office of the Surgeon General. But after a thorough review of Dr. Gupta’s qualificasians (young, handsome, full head of hair, blinding white teeth, Asian) yesterday, we feel pretty durn good about Obama’s choice. So where is this hateration coming from, Representative Conyers?

Our hunch? Jealousy. Because unlike Dr. Sanjay Gupta, John Conyers…

1. Is not young (and at 79, is about twice Gupta’s age)
2. Does not have a full head of hair
3. Actually remembers Richard Nixon’s presidency
4. Went to Wayne State and envies Gupta, a fellow Michigan native who went to the University of Michigan, because, c’mon, who wouldn’t rather be a Division I, Wolverine Football fan?
5. Does not share the same name with a famous Bollywood director
6. Has a creepy mustache
7. Could not be played by Kal Penn in his biopic
8. Does not hang out with celebutards like Lucy Liu and Matthew McConaughey
9. Has never made People’s Sexiest Men Alive issue
10. Has never been in close enough proximity to Anderson Cooper to quaff the CNN anchor’s beguiling man-musk

Just a theory!

To read Rep. Conyers’s letter in its entirety, click here.

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Filed under: Anderson Cooper's Man-Musk, CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Kal Penn, Michigan Wolverines, People Magazine Sexiest Man Alive, Rep. John Conyers, Sanjay Gupta Surgeon General, Surgeon General Nomination

Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Qualificasians

It was reported this week that CNN’s chief health correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is Obama’s top pick for Surgeon General. We don’t know a whole lot about the Office–according to Wikipedia, it’s gotten rather low-pro and unglam in recent years–but we do come from a long line of doctors (well, Diana does…mine are all the academic kind, i.e. “fake” ones), and here are what we consider Dr. Gupta’s outstanding qualificasians:

1. He’s young (39 years young)
2. He’s handsome, enough so to play a doctor on TV
3. He has all of his own hair
4. He’s already famous, so he doesn’t need the gig as a stepping-stone to something else
5. He’s the son of immigrants, so he worked his own way to the top
6. He has big and blindingly-white teeth
7. He smiles a lot with those teeth, suggesting a terrific bedside manner
8. He’s a neurosurgeon, suggesting he actually knows what he’s doing
9. Kal Penn could totally play him in the biopic
10. He’s Asian!!!

Dude. Confirm this man…stat!

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Filed under: Barack Obama, Children of Immigrants, CNN, Doctors, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Kal Penn, Sanjay Gupta, Surgeon General, Surgeon General Nomination, TV Doctors

AMAZIAN OF THE WEEK! Phymean Noun

Name: Phymean Noun

Hails from: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Known for: Seeing a disgraceful situation and doing something to make it better. When Noun realized how many children were scavenging through her city’s trash dumps just to survive, she quit her job and started the People Improvement Organization to provide the area’s underprivileged kids with a free education–fronting $30k her own money to build the first school.

The humble Noun was honored at last week’s CNN Heroes Awards, and even though we were momentarily distracted by her presenter Lucy Liu’s bad teleprompter reading and ill-fitting dress, our icy hearts warmed to flooding tears from the inspirasian of her story. If only we could all give so much!

Find out more about the PIO here.

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Filed under: Cambodia, Children, CNN, CNN Heroes Awards, Educasian, Every Little Bit Helps, Lucy Liu, People Improvement Organization, Philanthropy, Phymean Noun, Ugly Dresses

It Takes Your Picture

I’m not a tech-snob or anything, but…

Shouldn’t a 2008 digital SLR snapper being featured on CNN do something that sounds a little more special? Like nanny your children? Or purify water? Or make Michelle Malkin appear less rodent-like?

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Filed under: Asians and Their Unholy Obsession with Technology, Asians Love Cameras, Average Abilities, CNN, Dubious Achievements, Michelle Malkin, Rodentia, Um... Wow?

AMAZIAN OF THE WEEK! CNN’s Betty Nguyen

Name: Betty Nguyen

Hails from: Texas

Occupation: CNN Newsroom weekend anchor

I’ll admit, I find most Asian-American TV news reporters annoying. They’re either plastic surgery nightmares like KCAL 9’s Mia Lee or too fuckin’ perfect like Connie Chung or totally frivolous like the Chenbot. Also, they’re the girls our mothers always compare us with, as in, “Why can’t you be more like (fill-in-the-blank-Asian-lady-reporter)? She’s on TV all the time. She’s very big in the (fill-in-the-blank-Asian-ethnicity) community. And very, very pretty, though she wears a little too much makeup.”

But Friday night, when I got home from a concert and flipped on CNN for Hurricane Ike news, I took a shine to Betty Nguyen, who was reporting from Houston. Well, reporting’s not quite the word. It was more like, being blown about by hurricane-force winds in the middle of the night in a sad-looking, rain-soaked CNN parka while still managing to look spunky and game. I couldn’t reach my parents at the time, because their power–along with over a million others’–was out. And I was a little worried. Watching Betty steady herself and squint through the rain in her eyes that looked like tears, however, I felt weirdly soothed. And I reasoned:

Betty Nguyen is Texasian. So, of course, she’s “staring down” Ike. And she looks goooood, too, even though it’s the middle of the night and she has no makeup on. How does she not have huge bags under her eyes? Bitch. Oh, but she’s so cute. And she’s a Nguyen. Nguyens are Jungle Asians; they’ll fuck your shit up from here to next Tuesday. God, she’s teensy. But she’s not blowing away. So if this 100 lb. chick isn’t blowing away, neither will my parents. Phew! OMG. I love Betty Nguyen. She is such a dope storm-chaser! Hope she didn’t ruin her shoes in that puddle!

And, as it turns out, my parents, like Betty Nguyen, are doing just fine. Does that have anything to do with CNN’s hawt Hapa (Vietnamese-white) reporter staring down the storm? I can’t say fer sure, but I’m willing to believe it!

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Filed under: Asian Female Reporters, Betty Nguyen, CNN, Hapa, Hurricane Ike, Ike You Better Leave Jen's Room Alone, Jungle Asians, News Anchors, Nguyens Rule, Staring Down the Storm, Texasians, UT Alums

Don’t Eat In Line

CNN just aired a shocking piece about a NY city restaurant that was busted by health inspectors after a customer saw an employee in the back crushing garlic “the fancy way”:

Yeccch. Remind me to never eat at GREAT CHINA BUFFET again!!!!! Oh wait, no need.

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Thanks, Chris!

Filed under: CNN, Garlic, Gross, Health Code Violations, Let's Go to Nobu Instead, Restaurants I Don't Frequent