
Kazakhstan
The Terry Clarke Daily (Wednesday, March 11, 2015) has been published.

Today is International Women’s Day! Celebrate Ladies Worldwide, While Remembering the Millions Victimized and Marginalized.
Today is one of the most important, and frequently ignored, “international” holidays in the world. I am proud that my daughter’s birth country, Kazakhstan (with whom she shares dual citizenship) has made International Women’s Day a national holiday.

- http://16days.thepixelproject.net/tag/forced-marriage/
- https://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/projects/showcase_pdf/global_eye_sixth_issue.pdf
- http://www.polarisproject.org/ (a personal favorite NPO battling human-traffiking)
- http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/women_insecure_world.pdf (another personal favorite site from UNICEF-“Women in an Insecure World)
- https://www.facebook.com/ForcedMarriageProject (Forced Marriage Opposition Group)
- http://www.refugees.org/resources/for-lawyers/human-trafficking-resources/human-trafficking-links.html (extensive collection of links to excellent resources related to human trafficking and other activities that degrade and victimize women)
- http://www.icl-fi.org/print/english/esp/58/sextraffic.html (US and UN Crusade against “Sex Trafficking”)
The Terry Clarke Daily (March 3, 2015) is out!
The March 3, 2015 edition of The Terry Clarke Daily is out. I appreciate the response so far, and I have incorporated several issues into regular articles at the request of many of the publication's readers. I continue to request additional areas of interest readers would like to see in future editions.
Please click the link below to access today's edition!
The Terry Clarke Daily (February 19, 2015) is out!
Please list in the comment section any issues you would like to see included in future editions of my virtual newspaper!
My continuing foray into the world of social media
UPDATE: PLEASE EXCUSE THE MANY INEXCUSABLE TYPOGRAPHICAL, GRAMMATICAL AND STYLISTIC ERRORS IN THE FIRST POST, PUBLISHED JUST AFTER I FINISHED COMPOSING IT, BLEARY EYED, AND FATIQUED AFTER 2:00 AM.
This is a “quickie” post, one in which a better human would not have troubled himself, or even worse, I pity those unfortunate souls who may happen upon the post inadvertently. After building a fairly large Twitter following (at least by my standards, a bar set much lower than my teenage’s daughters). Next, I began this blog and though I wish my health would cooperate a bit more, I find writing on any subject that I find new or refreshing to be quite good for my soul . . . and I especially enjoy discussing the concepts discussed in my posts with people who may have had a very different take on a subject than me OR even downright dispised the sight of my name for coming to a particular opinion in a post.



Trading Jeremy Lin Was A Huge Mistake For Houston Rockets
I agree. I think former NBA Commissioner David Stern was right on point during the height of “Linsanity” when he suggested that discrimination and/or inaccurate Asian stereotypes contributed to Jeremy’s inability to gain substantial playing time.

Why was Jeremy Lin’s s superior play described as “against all odds.” He has the height and quickness to play in the NBA. Apparently, his Asian features were the only odds he was facing.
My ethnic Kazakh daughter certainly excels at basketball despite her Asian features. Her size,nearly 6′ (150 cm), and strength have not held her back, though she has endured the same ethnic/racial taunts and slurs as has Jeremy. Jeremy is the most humble and compassionate professional sports figure With whom I have ever spoken (though former New England Patriot WR, Troy Brown, is in in that class also). Mr. Lin, after learning from his mother of my daughter’s mistreatment from her former teammates, arranged and had a 30 minute video chat with my daughter, discussing their shared experiences and giving her practical advice on dealing with the slurs and taunts.
The Post-Soviet Union Countries: An Update
I have a very keen interest in the state of affairs of the post Soviet countries, as described below, but I recently came across a very good article in The Guardian that lists the current state of affairs of the 15 post-Soviet countries, and am providing the link below.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/09/-sp-profiles-post-soviet-states

Map showing the former countries of the Soviet Union
My daughter was adopted from Kazakhstan nearly 14 years ago–not that long after the Soviet Union collapsed, relatively speaking. Because I have tried very hard to keep my daughter connected to her motherland (with whom she holds a dual citizenship), I have befriended many hundreds of Kazakhs on Facebook, LinkedIn and through Skype and simply word of mouth. My daughter Milena (Tulegenova) Clarke is from the Middle Horde (Orta Zhuhz) and the Naiman tribe (ru) and she and I have visited Kazakhs throughout the USA during my business trips over the years and spoken with many over Skype or Goggle’s Hangouts. Accordingly, I know much better how Kazakhstan has faired (extremely well, despite the crude, inaccurate portral in Boraдt) than the other former Soviet countries since the collapse of the USSR.
I am constantly amazed by the Kazakhs’ closeness to and concern for one another, even including their great concern for my daughter, who has not yet returned to her mother country (though I plan to take her “home” for an extended holiday for her 16th birthday next year). I continuously receive articles and music related to Kazakhstan to show Milena, though at her age, they oftentimes send information directly to her. Milena continues to list Almaty, Kazakhstan as her hometown at every opportunity and tries diligently to celebrate her Kazakh culture as much as she does her American culture (whatever that is).

Milena maintains pride in the heritage of both countries in which she has dual citizenship.
When the national media reported on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) filing of complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education against Milena’s former school system for their deliberate indifference in allowing her to be harassed and the subject of discrimination (and accompanying retaliation) based on her ethnicity, national origin and race, well over a thousand Kazakhs came to her defense on Facebook, creating a page dedicated to Milena and offering her support in both English and Russian. Most of our Kazakh friends know that I have raised Milena to be bilingual (English, out of necessity, and Russian, her first language–though she is determined to learn Kazakh, which, though it currently uses the same Cyrillic alphabet as Russian, is a Turkic, not a Slavonic language).

The Kazakh Facebook community’s show of support for Milena
I have had more contact with Central Asians because of the similarty of their cultures with Kazakhstan, maintaining friendships with people of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Also, because my daughter and I practice the Russian Orthodox faith, we have a greater understanding of the non-secular issues of Russia.
If anyone has any information they would like to share on any of the 15 post-Soviet states, please be sure to add your thoughts, ideas or information in the comments section.
This may help explain why my daughter is such a powerful, strong basketball player–because
Elaine Chao Attack by Liberal Feminist Kathy Groob Will Not And Should Not Go Away
This is an update to an earlier post on Liberal Feminist Kathy Groob’s racist tweets against Elaine Chao, the first Asian American female to serve on a U.S. President’s cabinet in American history. Former Secretary Chao has also served as director of the Peace Corps and president and CEO of United Way. Had Former Secretary Chao not looked “foreign” [translated–“didn’t look like an American should look”], Ms. Groob, as a self- designated Feminist would be shouting from the rooftops Ms. Chao’s many noteworty accomplishments.
Make no mistake, I am a political moderate who believes ALL American citizens deserve the same rights regardless of their physical ethnic or racial characteristics. Increasingly, I find myself both disappointed in and more alienated from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Also make no mistake, I think Kathy Groob’s IQ (intellectual, social or otherwise) has risen into the double figure range by not only deleting her racist tweets (one of which is included below), but acting on the advice (of someone of at least slightly-below normal intelligence) to cancel her Twitter account (because given the ignorant, most racist tweets I have ever read, she clearly is without the mental acuity to realize that armed with a social media account, she was essentially a super-sized Jim Crow incapable of spewing anything other than ethnic and racial hatred with each stroke of her keyboard.
I have seen firsthand the collateral damage, up close and in person, (as the father of an Asian American daughter and Kentucky citizen–like Elaine Chao), the dehumanizing effect Ms. Groob’s vitriol has on people (like my daughter) “who do not” look American (whatever an American is supposed to look like). This suject is of such great interest to me because:
- My Asian American daughter, like me, a Kentucky citizen, cannot exist, according to Kathy Groob’s link below.
- Being the recipient of ethnic and racial slurs and told she “doesn’t belong here”, my daughter’s self-confidence (critical to the survival of ANY teenage girl) has been severely impacted, making her feel like “she doesn’t belong and is unwanted in America”–which is the very essence of Ms. Groob’s message on the world’s social media stage. (My daughter, who is bright for her age, actually found the tweets before I did and suggested that she was beginning to understand why “the rest of the world hates America.”)
- There are so few succesful Asian Americans celebrated in the American media for their many accomplishments that is difficult for an Asian American student to see the need (other than that based onpersonal pride–which their peers so frequently try to rip from them) to strive for greatness in America: (1) Self-proclaimed “Feminist” Kathy Groob rather than touting the sucess of an unquestionably successful female, who served as Secretary of Labor, director of the Peace Corps and CEO of the United Way, essetially belittles Ms. Chao’s many accomplishments because of her physical features and intimating that no matter how many generations back her ancestors have been American citizens, Elaine Chao “will never really be considerd a ‘real’ American citizen”, and (2) I love Jeremy Lin. He spent 30 minutes video-chatting one-on-one with my daughter discussing their shared experiences of dealing with hatred on the basketball court and encouraging hr not to descend to the level of the haters. [Jeremy’s mother, who had read about my daugher’s experiences in the Asian American press, called Jeremy while he was still in China and asked Jeremy to call my daughter and give her some advice] Even though Jeremy was listed as the number one ranked California basketball player his senior year in high school, he did not receive a single scholarship offer and has been the subject of racism and discriminatin while playing in the NBA. While I am not a fan of former NBA Commisioner David Stern, even he stated that Jeremy Lin’s lack of recognition and playing time in the NBA was, without question, based on the ridiculous myth that Asians cannot play basketball. Please keep an eye out for my daughter’s progress if you have any interest in seeing the folly of this unfounded myth that Asians can’t pay basketball.
The following is a link to an aticle summarizing the Kathy Groob “incident” from beginnimg to end:
The last link is to a wonderful piece appearing in the Washington Times, describing the harm Kathy Groob has done with her racist tweets.
Quote from Deborah Simmons’ excellent article:
‘. . . because [Kathy Groob] is desperate to prove a point. Ms. Groob might have well said, “Don’t elect McConnell because his wife is not one of us.”
Sometimes folks are afraid, especially self-designated, dyed-in-the-wool political operatives who have branded themselves as specialists in bolstering women in politics.
What does she see down the road?
A post-racial candidate?”

Kathy Groob: Your tweet insinuates my Asia American daughter, with her Kentucky citizenship, does not exist!

According to Feminist Kathy Groob, Elaine Chao will never be considered a”real American” because she has Asian features. This “national” attitude does dot bode well for my daughter’s future in America–if she chooses to remain here.

At least former NBA Commissioner David Stern attributed Jeremy Lin’s mistreatment and lack of playing time resulted rom discrimination.
RIP Kathy Groob’s racist and jingoistic Twitter account