One of the big complaints I hear from ethnic actors is the problem of typecasting. A Latina actress friend of mine once told me about the problems she was having with a director. “He didn’t have to explicitly say it, but I knew that he wanted me to be that sassy, finger-snapping Latina with attitude,” she complained. “And I didn’t want to do it.”

As an actor of East Asian heritage, I have been well aware that East Asian men have historically been typecast as martial artists and gangsters, and are typically not romantically involved with anyone. East Asian women, on the other hand, are usually typecast as prostitutes or as the “hot” girlfriend of a Caucasian character. In the past few years though, roles for East Asian actors have become more varied to include professional characters such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, but there is still a ways to go for the roles to truly reflect the full range of the East Asian experience.

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Most experienced WordPress users could spend hours discussing their favorite—and least favorite—WordPress plugins. If you’re still fairly new to WordPress, though, you might be wondering which plugins you really need.

Below is a breakdown of four WordPress plugins that all new users should consider installing. There are a lot more great plugins than the ones listed below, but the following list represents the core group of plugins I find essential to maintaining the optimal health and functionality of a WordPress blog.

BackUpWordPress

With traditional, static web sites, it’s easy to keep backups of all your files right on your own computer. With interactive, database-driven sites, however, the content is always changing, so you consistently need to create new backup files. For instance, if you have a WordPress blog, all of the site’s posts, pages, comments, and registered users are stored in a database on your hosting provider’s server. Because of this, it’s important to make regular backups of everything stored in the site’s database. That way, if anything goes wrong—if someone hacks into your site or your hosting provider accidentally wipes out all your files—you’ll be able to restore your web site with relative ease.

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If you have a WordPress blog on your own web site (not through WordPress.com) you should configure both a robots.txt file and an XML sitemap in order to provide indexing information to search robots.

If you don’t know anything about configuring robots.txt files, I encourage you to learn more about them by visiting http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html. If you don’t know anything about configuring XML sitemaps, I encourage you to learn more about them by visiting http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php.

Below is an outline of special considerations that WordPress users need to be aware of when setting up these files for their blogs.

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There is a fantastic new review of an essay on translating literature over at The Complete Review. Not only am I constantly impressed by the number of foreign-language books reviewed (either in translation or untranslated) over there, but the insight with which he addresses not only the merits of the work but the translation as well. This review deals with a new translation of That Mad Ache by Françoise Sagan, translated by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

What is especially interesting is that the book has two covers—a front and back. The front is for the text, the back, when turned upside down, is the cover of the long essay on translation by Hofstadter included with the text. I haven’t read it, but having read the review I think it’s safe to say that I will likely disagree with his discussion of translation in major parts. I would not translate Bonjour tristesse as Howdy, Blues, and don’t feel the need to elucidate texts as a translator—that is the job of the critic, teacher, or student. In any case, having not read it I was still struck by the magnitude of giving the translator not only so much page space in the book, but his own cover. And, according to The Complete Review, listing him on the front not as a translator but co-author.

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In the interest of promoting arts and education, Open Source Artistry has added a page where you can learn about worthwhile causes to support by donating money and/or time. If you’re interested in helping to support arts and education throughout the world, please visit the Open Source Artistry Causes page. If you’d like to suggest other causes for us to add to the page, please register and add a comment either to this post or the causes page. Thanks!