Hôm nọ xem Facebook thấy clip của một bé gái trình bày “Anh là ai” của Việt Khang. Tuy phát âm khá ngọng nghịu (vì bé sinh ra ở Mỹ) nhưng hát rất mảnh lực trong chiếc áo dài vàng ba sọc đỏ. Mẹ của cháu là bạn học cùng trường trung học với tôi. Định viết comment vài câu nhưng không muốn gây chuyện hoặc chia rẽ “dòng máu anh hùng.”

Lúc còn ở trung học, mẹ cháu mới đặt chân đến Mỹ. Lúc đó em chắc 18 hoặc 19 tuổi. Với mái tóc ngắn duyên dáng và mình dây nên có rất nhiều anh muốn theo. Trong đó có một đứa bạn chơi chung trong nhóm. Thằng này chịu khó mỗi ngày lái xe đến tận nhà đưa đón em đi học. Từ lúc hai đứa cập nhau chúng tôi thường đi chơi chung sau giờ học. Vì cô ta hơi nhỏng nhẻo nên hay bị chúng tôi chọc. Sau trung học tôi không biết hai đứa sao lại chia tay. Tôi cũng khong6 hỏi.

Giờ gặp lại trên Facebook em đã có chồng và hai con. Thấy em post lên nhiều vấn đề chống cộng. Chắc em đã từng trải qua những gì đã xẩy ra lúc còn ở Việt Nam nên có cái nhìn như thế. Lúc tôi đi Mỹ chỉ 11 tuổi nên không biết gì cả. Sau này qua Mỹ càng nghe nhiều về những việc chống cộng tôi càng hoài nghi. Như việc càng bảo tôi tin Chúa tôi càng không tin. Tôi muốn mình tự tìm hiểu những vấn đề ấy cho bản thân.

Mỗi một người có một lý tưởng riêng. Chống cộng hoặc tin Chúa là do tự mỗi người quyết định. Tôi chỉ mong cháu bé được tự quyết định lấy cho bản thân mình mà không bị cha mẹ hoặc bất cứ ai nhồi sọ.

Linh viết đúng với tâm trạng và lối suy nghĩ của tôi về gánh nặng của những đứa con Việt sống ở Mỹ. Chúng ta cần không nên trút hết những gánh nặng đó lên tụi nhỏ. Tụi nó sinh ra và lớn lên trên mảnh đất tự do hoà bình thì biết gì về chiến tranh của bốn mươi mấy năm trước.

Asian folks, just lightened the fuck up. A high school girl was just wearing a traditional Chinese dress to make her stood out from the rest. She looked stunning. She did not slant her eyes. She did not make any racist comment. We dyed our hair and wore hip-hop clothes all the time and nobody accused us of cultural appropriation.

Adam Conover on “Michelle Wolf Did What Comedians Are Supposed to Do”:

Comedy has no rules, per se. But in my 15 years of writing and performing, I’ve come up with a few guidelines that I find helpful:

1. Be funny.
2. Tell the truth.
3. Make people in power uncomfortable.

By that math, in her performance at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night in Washington, Michelle Wolf did exactly what a great comic is supposed to do. She made the crowd of assembled journalists, politicians and guests laugh; she made them squirm; and she made them gasp in astonishment (and yes, a little delight) when a sharp sliver of the truth cut a little closer to the bone than they were expecting.

I don’t know it for a fact, but I know it is true that Wolf received so many negative criticisms because she’s a woman who happens to be damn good at roasting politicians. From pussy-ass President to ball-less Speaker of the House to neck-circumcised Republican Majority Leader, she did not hold back.

Masha Gessen:

Wolf’s routine burst the bubbles of civility and performance, and of the separation of media and comedy. It plunged the attendees into the reality that is, in the Trump era, the stuff of comedy. Through her obscene humor, Wolf exposed the obscenity of the fictions—and the fundamental unfunniness of it all. Her last line, the most shocking of her entire monologue, bears repeating: Flint still doesn’t have clean water.

Gessen’s assessment of Wolf’s performance is spot on.

Kimberly Harrington:

This is a volunteer, unpaid, full-time job. If you have paid employment outside the home, this is still a full-time job. You will have to sort that out for yourself. The primary purpose of this position is to train your co-workers to become more competent, independent, well adjusted and successful than you.

To learn more about the dumbest job ever, visit The New York Times.

Michelle Wolf was killing it at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Her roasts were spot on. They sparked controversial because they stung like a motherfucker. What she delivered was the meticulous art of roasting. If you find her jokes offensive, you just have a brittle-ass soul. Props to Michelle. You did it, my sister.

Tara Westover’s gut-wrenching memoir recounts the story of a resilient daughter who grew up in a destructive, dangerous environment. Her father who had bipolar distrusted the government, its healthcare, and its educational system. Her mother suffered brain injury from a family’s tragic car crashed—no one was treated. One of her brothers was violent and abusive toward her, their siblings, and his girlfriends. Westover’s only way out of the family was education. After working in her dad’s junkyard for many years without schooling, Westover took the ACT test and enrolled in college. At seventeen, she stepped in to a classroom for the first time without knowing the cause of the Holocaust and the meaning behind the word “nigger”—even though her brother had called her that all the time at home. Through study hard and determination, she graduated from Brigham Young University and awarded a PhD in history from Trinity College. The vivid detail of her transformation from suffering to success is frightening yet empowering. If you are in doubt about the true value of education, get Educated.

Kimberly Harrington:

I have no problem lying about “being in a meeting” when I’m with my kids and no problem lying to my kids about “needing to work” when I’m on Facebook.

I have flexible morality and rigid immaturity.

I have kids who have forced me to do everything in my life with greater efficiency and the professional assumption that I’m now less efficient after having kids.

Read the rest of Harrington’s essay on The New Yorker. I should read Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words in the near future.

It’s hard to believe our first born turns nine today. Đạo will be nine years older than our forthcoming boy. Time has flown by so fast, but it has been a joy watching him grow. He is our guinea pig for parenting. We learn our lessons and mistakes from raising him and apply to his younger brothers.

Đạo enjoys reading. We read every night before bed. He has been fascinated with history, particularly about the wars. He has been giving some historical facts that I did not know before. Last Monday, he told me something intriguing, yet it escaped my mind. I can’t even recall what it was about. I am getting old. I should have written it down.

Like most kids, Đạo loves playing games on the iPad. He would get addicted even, if we just let him play for hours. For that reason, we always try to take the boys out as much as possible, especially on weekends. He still likes to play with Lego. I am terrible at Lego; therefore, he had to learn to build everything on his own. Now he builds his own battleships and war aircrafts to play with.

Personality wise, Đạo is charming. He interacts with everyone from adults to kids younger than his age. Even Đán’s friends like to hang out with him. When playdates end, he doesn’t get emotional attachment. He’s fine with saying goodbye to friends and not feeling sad.

Đạo is still afraid of being alone. He doesn’t want to sleep by himself. He wants me to rub his back every night to soothe him to sleep. I got annoyed sometimes, but then I feel bad.

He argues and fights with Đán constantly. It gets worse when their cousin is around. Each tries to get the cousin to be on his side. It irritates the heck out of me. I always have to break them all up until they all can play together.

At the end of the day, Đạo is still my little boy. I am looking forward to learning to code with him using Dash and Dot. Happy birthday, kiddo!

Nicholas Kristof and Jessica Ma:

That’s mostly because of malaria. Mosquitoes spread the blood-borne disease, killing about 445,000 people per year. That figure doesn’t even include deaths from dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika or West Nile viruses.

Check out the well-executed interactive piece on The New York Times.