It's not that bad, of course. Necessarily. But add to that the fact that I was sick for THREE WEEKS STRAIGHT (yes, indeedy) and you'll find a huge continental shelf in the landscape of my recent life. This is all by way of saying sorry that I haven't blogged in so long. And to make up for it, here's some small news from the past month to re-whet your appetite for hyphenews:

Does size really matter?: An Indian American couple is preparing to take home the smallest ever surviving baby. Their fraternal twin girls were born 15 weeks early and one of them weighed under a pound at birth. Both girls are doing well, though. Happy New Year!

But at least stereotypes were preserved: A former president of the Korean-American Grocers Association (KARGO) was shot to death by two masked burglars in his liquor store in Los Angeles. They wore gloves so no fingerprints were left. Police are investigating, whatever that means.

And it wasn't 'cause he had to do the dishes: A Korean American teenager was declared a "martyr" by South Korea, for dying while trying to save a neighbor during a flood last year. The delay in martyrdom happened while the Korean government attempted to confirm that the teenager really was Korean. Sounds like a Hyphen editorial meeting.

You should see what they do when your engine overheats: An Indian American woman is threatened with deportation after asking police for help with a flat tire. The illegal immigrant, mother of two American citizens, home and business owner and taxpayer had been served with an order to leave the country two years before under new draconian immigration laws. Her appeal was still in process when she came to the notice of the police by flagging them down on the highway.

Honk if you love racism: A Wisconsin decal and sticker store removed an anti-Hmong bumper sticker from its wall after being contacted by Hmong American students. The sticker, which read "Save a hunter, shoot a Mung," was left over from a custom job, the owner claimed after the media made inquiries into the case. The owner wouldn't identify the customer, but said that the customer told him that ""MUNG" wasn't a misspelling of "Hmong" but rather an acronym for "Minuscule Unseen Naughty Gnat, or something like that, so he couldn't be in any trouble."

They're Almost the Same Age. Just Reverse the Digits: 82-year-old Chinese American nobel laureate for physics, Chen-Ning Yang (Yang Zhenning), recently announced his engagement to a 28-year-old Chinese woman. This will be the second marriage for both parties.

There's no goverment agency controlling it, so it must not be illegal: A Wisconsin Hmong American family with ten children has agreed to move house after their neighbors pressured their landlord to evict them. The family's house was targeted for two drive-by shootings in the past year -- shootings which the police and neighbors agree were attempts to draw family members into a gang.