January 10th, 2008
By Thomas Nakanishi
On a night when over 235,000 Iowans caucused as Democrats and where
Senator John Edwards, the candidate with an Iowa field organization
since 2003, and Senator Hillary Clinton, the first viable female candidate for President who everyone knows as a former First Lady lost to Barack Obama, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee stole the show.
While Obama handily won the Democratic youth vote with Edwards placing second and Clinton a distant third among young voters, Huckabee gracefully spoke of his nine-point victory over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and where his campaign is headed with Chuck Norris casually clapping and smiling directly behind him. I admit I was only watching the network coverage in anticipation of Obama’s victory speech, but Huck had Chuck and I was hooked.
I YouTubed the Chuck Norris endorsement of Huckabee – a la “Chuck Norris Approved” [punch]” – and relived the floating cross of his Christmas ad, while watching Huckabee deliver his speech. Maybe I was asking for too much, hoping Huckabee would make another overtly …
December 30th, 2007
By Zachary Curtis
bloodshot sunset
dinner by candlelight
cumshot megawatt
lizard-eye gigabyte
new day dawning
stretching, yawning
absent-minded pawing
sun-bleached awning
mid-afternoon
clock out soon
new hit tune
always June
donut rotting
grown-ups shopping
pills-a-popping
toddlers bopping
shy girls giggle
boys’ hips wiggle
he’ll play her fiddle
til bones go brittle
tears drop and dribble
anorexics nibble
wise men fribble
all fools quibble
pain’s universal
just watch a commercial
reversal of fortune
get dressed for rehearsal
iced-out dreams
and tanning machines
soy proteins
on all the movie screens
little boy smacked
don’t know how to act
ho on the track
til Jack blow out her back
bathroom stalls
strip malls
callbacks
pitfalls
cutaways
and tape-delays
swings both ways
for power plays
cars whizzin
freeway prison
blond ambition
television
shampoo goo
the newest in new
network zoo
who’s screwin who
baseball scores
…
December 19th, 2007
By Young McGreevey
Image by Gail Shumway
The scope of political correctness means different things to different people and spans a large number of contexts. It entails what is acceptable in the halls of government and even part of the rationale on which this country bases political decisions. Beyond that, it is a component of what dictates social norms and what is generally permissible with non-close friends and acquaintances on the streets as well as in the office. It is also highly influential in shaping pop culture. Therefore, this guide jumps between all of these areas. Keep these tidbits in mind and 7 times out of 10 you should be fine.
1.) Don’t bring up organized religion in polite company, except to say how it’s oppressing something, particularly yourself.
2.) When making a commercial or movie, cast as many racially ambiguous, EurAsianBlackLatinocentric people as possible, with wavy yet-not-too-curly hair and perfect teeth.
3.) If you enjoy the use of epithets and you are a minority, please use only the racial epithet that has been used …
December 17th, 2007
By Adeola Oni-Orisan
“The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls - South Africa supports the development of a new generation of women leaders who, by virtue of their education and leadership, will lead the charge to positively transform themselves, their communities and the larger world around them.”
(Mission statement taken from the Oprah Winfrey Academy Foundation website )
Celebrity appearances by stars, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, and India Arie. Inspirational speeches by Nelson Mandela. And a stand-up comedy routine by Chirs Rock. No, it’s not the BET Awards. It’s the opening events for Oprah Winfrey’s new school, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. This project is definitely not just another humble attempt at bringing education to Africa. The school consists of 28 buildings set on 52 acres, complete with multiple computer and science labs, two theatres, a yoga studio, and the much publicized beauty salon. Although overlooked in most of the media attention about Winfrey’s school, there are also 152 girls attending. Each girl’s life story more …
December 12th, 2007
Alex Unger
The Legal Breakdown…
“I mean, why do we do diversity searches anyway?” she began. “Isn’t that like reverse discrimination?” The paralogism hit with an added distracter, “Why don’t they just hire whoever is best qualified? I mean, isn’t that our job: to find the best qualified candidate?” I work at a retained executive search firm, finding people for financial and legal positions. Higher education and American business rationalize diversity initiatives similarly. There is a business component of education, and a learning component of business. Much of the corporate community celebrates the push for “diversity” as a triumph of capitalism over ugly regressive thinking. In the university, like the corporate world, a diverse constituency is seen as an asset in human capital. Not only is it marketable, it also speaks to our liberal sympathies. When we look at diversity as an asset, however, we are given to notions of corporate governance. We are given to managing diversity rather than instituting social justice. Our current prescriptions for affirmative action have nothing to …
December 10th, 2007
By Frenchi Urban
It’s in my nature,
Like faking is for the fakers,
Hating is for the haters,
Creating is for the Creator,
It’s in my nature
to come off as a writer,
A master of the fader,
A free man of expression,
feeding off impressions,
Stating all intentions,
no harm intended…
My weapons of choice,
Are pen and paper,
Sometimes mics and faders,
Slicing through legions
Of ignorance and indifference,
With words of knowledge and enlightenment…
It’s in my nature
No, I’m not a hater,
I’m not a faker,
I’m not the Creator,
But I am the writer,
Of words that dictate,
What you call fate,
In my mind state,
I live to elate…
It’s in my nature,
Part of my eminent stature,
To be the author,
Word manipulator,
Of all things future…
It’s in my nature
December 7th, 2007
By Sharifa Love-Schnur
Apple is at it again. And of course by at it again, I mean always at it. Flashy new designs of the iPod Nano, and new iPod Touch. Reduced prices of iPhones sparked an uproar. The release of operating system Leopard touting “300+ new features” was highly anticipated and has been well received. But more than anything, iPod is back at commercials.
I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been hit over the head with the new iTouch commercial with the bopping pop-ish sound and the catch refrain of “music is my boyfriend, music is my imaginary friend.” After being bludgeoned one time too many with the commercial, I decided to do the standard Google search of lyrics to see what the song was and who it was by. To my surprise I found the title of the seemingly innocuous song is Music is My Hot Hot Sex.
This clearly demanded further investigation.
The band Cansei de Ser Sexy has apparently been around for a bit, founded in 2003, a …
December 6th, 2007
By Elaine Goldman
My alarm beckons me from my warm bed, and I awake angry and cold. Angry for no reason other that I am cold. Between shivers and yawns I stagger over to the closet, wishing I were on a tropical island surrounded by palm trees, or that it were at least twenty degrees warmer. I twist the knob, step through the door, and fall.
Now, it isn’t the kind of fall that you get up from, rather, one that eerily continues, like a dragging rendition of 4:33. Perhaps there is some prize at the bottom for me, I think, then reject the idea as silly.
“Well, why would there be a prize for me at the bottom?” I say to myself. “At the bottom of what and… where were my shoes?”
I must admit, when I first began this tumble into abyss the only thing on my mind was that I had fallen in love with these gold strappy sandals not but two days ago, had gingerly carried them home from …
December 5th, 2007
By Ted Fertik
Photo by Tom Calendera & Birgit Sieckmann
My mother went to Medellin, Colombia a few months ago. Medellin was Pablo Escobar’s center of operations, the capital of the western world’s cocaine production and distribution for twenty years. Until he was finally killed, Pablo Escobar held that city and its entire corridor to the coast hostage. A low-level civil war has been occurring in Colombia for decades, mostly over drugs. And what did the people in Colombia tell my mom? Until you stop the demand, someone will find a way to grow it and ship it.
But in the United States we don’t do too much to stop the demand. We prosecute users, especially young blacks and Hispanics, and we use “interdiction” to try to stop drugs from getting here. Neither of those strategies has worked. Cocaine and other imported drugs are plentiful, as the growers and smugglers are always one step ahead of the government. Violent crime around drugs is still ubiquitous. And we continue to imprison people for …
December 3rd, 2007
By Jonathan Pitts-Wiley
So, since my body is still sort of on east coast time, I awoke early one morning this past week and attempted to make myself busy before a 2 o’clock appointment. Having about six hours to kill, I poured myself a bowl of Raisin Bran–I need the fiber–and clicked on the TV, only to have my appetite basically ruined:
“Sean Taylor: 1983-2007″
I knew Taylor had been shot in the leg after an attempted burglary, and I knew he had been in critical condition as of the night before, but I found myself shocked that he succumbed to the injury. And though I knew he wasn’t that much older than me, I couldn’t help but stare at the dates that bracketed the dash of his life. We could have been teammates; not in the “if I had the goods to be a pro way” but in the “we could have been on the same high school team” way. Though I generally pride myself on my cynicism, especially when it comes …
