another tidbit

if you haven't yet read frank rich's op-ed about the terrifying new twist the campaign trail has taken, please do. its one of the best op-eds i've read in a while, and simultaneously one of the most chilling.

Rest In Peace

Bernie Mac passed away this morning due to complications from pneumonia (combined with his sarcoidosis)- he had been hospitalized since August 1 and was expected to have a full recovery.

This is really sad, for obvious reasons.  Bernie was not only a great comedic talent (admit it- you cracked up because of at least one of his jokes or performances) but also discussed a lot of very REAL issues like poverty, inner city education and drug abuse in his performances.  He was totally real and unashamed of where he came from- and where a lot of his family still was/is.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the McCulloughs and the rest of Bernie's survived family and friends.

Politicians for Ohio

1.) I know our posting habits have been utterly atrocious, so you know- sorry for that.

2.) I'm visiting my family for a tiny tiny stint here in my beautiful home state of Ohio (I saw a Mommy duck and her baby ducklings crossing a road this morning!  Say it with me: Awwwww!) and as I was watching the local channels with my Mom I came to a realization- I have managed to avoid most campaign commercials in NYC.  True, I don't often tune into the local news (damn internet generation) but I know that I soak in all sorts of television, news and media.

It wasn't until I was inundated with "Time for a Change" and "No New Taxes" and "I am Barack Obama/John McCain and I approved this message" commercials that I realized just how serious everyone already is about this election in Ohio.

Clearly Ohio is one of the most major swing states and like, a prized jewel for all presidential hopefuls, but geez.  The moral of the story is, I'm definitely coming home and casting my vote in person- especially after the "let's not count any absentee ballots" fiasco of 2004- so that I can help dear old Ohio break out of her fucking up elections habit.

Make sure that you're registered to vote, if you aren't already- and whoever you think you'll be casting your vote for, make sure you're at least educated on their stance regarding the issues that most affect you in your day to day life.

a momentous occasion

you know its big news when i risk being seen blogging at work, but i had to stop everything for this breaking news: maureen dowd has written an op-ed that is completely reasonable, rational, and respectful. i agreed with it, and enjoyed reading it.

seriously. my world is turned upside-down. the big M.D. managed to lay off the liquor, put down the haterade, and sit down at her computer completely sober, as far as i can tell. and the result is a really valid point - what IS with this american aversion to having a president who is actually somewhat intelligent? because of course when they say obama is elitist, they mean intelligent. they can't possibly mean he's the beneficiary of centuries of privilege like every other president we've ever had, so what they mean is he's the beneficiary of years of very recent privilege in the form of an ivy league education. and that he's not trying to pretend like that's not the case. oh, right, and that unlike our current president, he actually made use of that education. i see what they mean. that IS terribly elitist. lets vote in some more of bush's boys. they may be billions of times more privileged than obama, but at least they'll never admit it to our faces. i hate honesty.

Dizzaaammmn

Best video I've seen in 2008.  Most gangster old white man I've ever seen.

Fox Reporter Owned by White Priest

running man: so far fetched?

For those of you who, for some reason, may not remember the movie "The Running Man" I'll do a brief description.  In the vein of most 80's & 90's Schwarzenegger movies, Running Man delivers a brand of action laced with brutal violence that you don't see much nowadays.  In this poverty-ridden society the government tries to distract its citizens from the sources of their troubles with entertainment, particularly with a show called "Running Man," in which convicts are plucked from Federal Prisons and put on the set of this show where they must run through an American Gladiator-style course (in fact, I'm pretty sure the movie was inspired by the creation of the real Gladiator show in the 80's) while avoiding the show's stars who chase them through the maze attempting to kill them.

You're probably thinking- "Brittany, how the hell is this relevant?"  I mean, today's shows and movies, while definitely indulging in gratuitous sex and violence, aren't nearly as bad (surprisingly) as those of the late 80's.  I mean, take another look at Robo-Cop and tell me that scene where he's first killed isn't some of the most disturbing shit you've ever seen.   So, that being said, while today's violence doesn't seem to be as unnecessary, unfortunately it is based more in reality than in fantasy.  Now, I can't speak to whether or not basing violence in a fantastical setting makes a movie's audience more or less connected to it (or if it desensitizes them more) but it definitely seems to me that it creates a culture of acceptance around a lot of the problems that cause the very real violence on which movies like Street Kings are based.

Ok, to get another perspective, let's take movies and the entertainment industry in general out of the equation.  Since probably the time of the US-Vietnam War America has created a culture of voyeurism and scintillation around violence.  Whether it's the local news discussing a story about a woman stabbing a friend while watching Top Model (no lie, that crazy ish actually happened!) or some guy freaking out and punching someone on The Real World, our obsession with violence seems to verge on the pornographic.  And this whole internet culture isn't helping things, either.  One can go onto youtube to find actual videos of people being beat, shot, hurt or really KILLED.

So what do you think?  Have we as a culture gone too far- is there any going back?

economics can bite me.

i'm sure it has its benefits, but at harvard, "economics" means you don't have to learn anything EXCEPT economics. aka you will turn out an idiot with a fancy degree to make you think you're smart.

i'm trying to blog less about harvard because, well, i've moved on. and i think its best if harvard knew that and stopped trying to call. but its sort of difficult to let go completely when harvard just keeps making an ass out of itself. every once in a while i'm inspired (aka someone points me to a crimson article) and i feel compelled to say something about it. this is one of those times.

the subject: "a crack in the glass ceiling" written by, surprise surprise, someone without much experience, knowledge, or writing skill.

ok so as usual i have too much to say. i will try to break it down into a brief summary, followed by bullet points (or maybe numbers. i have yet to decide). that way you can just read the ones you want, but i still get to say everything i feel like saying.

summary: in an attempt to spin the democratic primary race in a new way (admittedly hard to do these days), sophomore brian j. bolduc has written an article which (possibly unintentionally) is really quite racist and sexist. the point he is TRYING to make (i think?) is actually one i kind of agree with: that electing a black man or a white woman president will probably not end racism or sexism. the points he actually manages to make with the body of his article are that jim crow wasn't a big deal, black people are oppressed because they don't get married enough, japanese people have superior work ethic to blacks and whites (but no political will/skills), and women would have equal standing in society if they would just stop having babies.

ah. i love it when people try to make complex arguments without even thinking at all, much less reading anything outside of the ec assignment that clearly inspired the article. it makes my job almost TOO easy. i almost don't even want to argue with this dude. but i will.

ok point 1 (say, i decided to go with numbers!): the pregnancy thing - no duh women have babies. and yes, the fact that they often have to take time off from work to do this contributes to their earning less/getting promoted less/getting fired more. congratulations on figuring this out, i don't think anyone has ever thought of it before. no, no wait, that can't be right. oh yes, its all coming back to me now: turns out there are actually ways to NOT punish a woman for giving birth. there are also ways of allowing the husband or partner of a new mother to participate in the whole "taking care of a baby" process so the woman who physically gave birth is not the only person legally able to take time off work. wow. crazy. i'm not even going to get into the fact that i think this dude referred to procreation as a "lifestyle choice" in his article. i guess i'm just glad that for once he wasn't talking about the gays?

2: for someone who seems so gung-ho about economics and statistics and empirical proof, i feel that this sentence feel somehow a tad short: "Married couples share certain qualities that make them more likely to succeed." ah. so when barack obama says “…many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow,” that's a generalization and a confusing of the facts. but when you say married couples are more likely to succeed, that just makes sense. the consistency literally astounds me. i'm speechless. i need to go lie down.

3: i realize i could go on for days about these little things, so let me address the major problem in the article - its complete incoherence. he's trying to make a distinction between political success and economic success, but is confused. pointing out that the economic situation of blacks improved before civil rights legislation was passed is an interesting factoid, but what does it mean? is he trying to suggest that there is no relationship at all between economic standing and social standing? is he confusing "politics" to mean pretty much anything that is not economics? does he believe that proving two things are not directly correlated proves that they are completely separate? honestly, i'm asking. because nowhere in the article does he make this clear. if i were to guess, i'd say he's trying to say that "political" forces, aka social forces, aka racism, have nothing to do with economics. and in order to prove that fact, he's tried to reduce the complex history of race in this country to an interaction (or lack thereof) of two very narrowly defined forces. obviously there's more going on - education, the economy of the nation, various social and political movements, and changes in the housing economy to name just a few things, but to try and address the interplay of these issues would be impossible in a one-page article. so instead, just write something that makes no sense!


the most irritating thing about this article really, is just that its another in a string of articles for as long as i've been reading the crimson that are just bad: they don't make sense, they're poorly written, and they contain various forms of racism and misogyny lightly veiled as 'science.' i get that its a college newspaper and that people without that much education are writing for it, and i get that learning how to be a journalist is just that - a learning process. but i fail to see how anyone can become a better writer through producing shit like this and having an editor just give it the green light with no criticism. the crimson needs to really start holding its writers to higher standards - the paper would improve, and the writers would actually learn something. which, clearly, they're not doing in class. so it may be their only hope.

i like you, but i'm not ready to bond.

like a moth to the flame (is this phrase a little out-of-date? can we start saying halogen lamp yet?), i seem to be perpetually drawn against my will to news about harvard and the various types of people that reside there (read: the various types of people i dislike). The latest bit of news is this new york times magazine article about the new leadership of my favorite club: True Love Revolution. sidenote: thats not actually sarcasm, they really are my favorite. just not maybe for the reasons they'd want.

anyways, this article led me to have two thoughts, which i will share with you now:

1) i know i may have asked this question before, but is there seriously NO other news? its one thing to publish an article about a 12-member club at an undergraduate college, its another, even more ridiculously sad for your publication, thing to publish more than one. don't think i didn't already read the article last summer about TLR. i read it. i thought it was absurd. i thought, "at least now that i've read it, i probably won't have to read it again." wrong. it just leaves you wondering what the big fascination is. word on the street is scientists are developing a machine that could accidentally implode the earth. but i guess the philosophical (not religious! i swear!) musings of a 21 year old virgin are also news.

2) while reading the article (LOST is in re-runs until april 24th, so the last few pages where leo confesses his secret sexy thoughts about janie were great monday night entertainment for me), it dawned on me that i think these people are a little confused. ok, i already knew they were a little confused, but you probably know all my old stale reasons. like "rational thought." here is my new one: this girl's whole argument is that she doesn't want to have sex with her boyfriend because that will release oxytocin (ahhh! run away!) and cause her to bond with him. which will then make her irrational, and will cause her to be heartbroken when they inevitably break up. To be safe, she's going to wait til she's married to take a hit off the oxytocin everyone's been getting so damn high off of. Here's the thing: if she's not basing her marriage off some sort of intimacy, "bonding," we might call it, how exactly IS she deciding who to marry? apparently her current boyfriend is cool and respects her and all that, but she doesn't want to get too attached. she could walk away at any moment. which is great if bonding is what you're trying to avoid, but then maybe they should change the name to "true like revolution." because i'm not feelin the love.

moral of the story: the whole claim that sex causes intimacy (which leads to disaster!) is probably true (ish). but if you're not having sex with your boyfriend, you're not particularly 'bonded' with him, and you could walk away whenever you felt like, chances are your lack of intimacy is about a bit more than lack of sex. so its probably not going to be a great discovery for you when you get married, have sex, and realize the oxytocin wasn't quite a big enough boost to make your relationship a functional one. luckily, you've also got oxytocin's hip older brother, oxycontin, to get you through the hard times.


as an additional aside, because i just can't help myself, i especially enjoyed the part where they say they're not homophobic because they haven't come out (chuckle) and said explicitly that gays aren't welcome. right. I recently had a conversation with someone on a different subject where they said the presidential race hasn't been racist at all because no one has called barack obama the N word, and no hecklers have yelled at him to "shine their shoes." I think its pretty much time for people to learn that you don't get a gold star for managing to not express your bigotry in the most blatant way possible. I'm thinking of starting a support group. It will be called "i hate you, but i had no idea you were smart enough to notice." just 12 steps and you, too, will be able to interact with minorities without making them want slap you upside your head. sign up today!

penalty on the court

Damn. I'm not even going to begin to comment, this article says it all. Please read and comment what you think.

LeBron James first Black man to pose for cover of Vogue magazine. Find out why this is ass after clicking the link.

popcorn now, genocide later

So, one of the cooler parts of working at a media corporation is that sometimes you get cool perks. Sometimes it's a heads up about a party, a cool artist is doing an afternoon performance in your building, sometimes it's that you see John Norris or Sway in the cafeteria, or discounts on Broadway tickets, or maybe that you get a discount on your phone bill (but let's be real, what company isn't giving those away?). Other times you get to see movies- they can be funny, smart, boring, but very rarely political. So when the opportunity came for me to see a *free* advanced screening of the Warner Independent film Darfur Now you know I couldn't pass it up.

For those of you who haven't heard of it- and I'm willing to bet that "people who haven't heard of this movie" makes up about 70% or more of the population- I'll go ahead and give a brief synopsis:

The documentary Darfur Now follows the effect that the genocidal conflict in Sudan has had on six people's lives as they try to affect change in what has been an almost 5-year strong (at least in violence) genocide that has devastated not only the lives of the people living in Darfur, but the land's resources. Pulling on Warner Brother's connections, the movie follows Ocean's 11-13 and Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle (and features a good bit of fine-ass George Clooney) in order to get some Hollywood type leverage with the public.

Things I liked about this movie: I feel like they do a pretty good job of giving historical context to the genocide at the beginning of the movie with facts and dates. Most people (read: regular Americans) are just getting up to speed on the fact that something is even happening in Darfur, and of that small percentage of the American population, even less are likely to sit down and dutifully research (read: go on Wikipedia) the history of the conflict. I mean I'll admit, I was one of these people at first, so I can't even act like I'm above that. So yeah, this was definitely a plus for the movie. I also liked that the movie showcased change and action rather than depression and trauma- it is a film that is about moving you to do something other than just feel sad.

While I liked all that about the movie, I will say that this being a production of Time Warner (Warner Independent, we know you are owned by something bigger.. psh) probably made it more likely than not that this was a little watered down. I mean, I can't be mad- if you want to get a message across to people here you have to package it in a certain way. Unfortunately, while making a genocide cinematically appealing (have a good plot line, characters with whom the audience can engage and a visible villain that all can unify against) can really draw in people emotionally and intimately connect them with a theme, it also runs the risk of fictionalizing not only the event in question but the people living in and through it. Once you connect to and internalize a person's struggle through a movie based on real life, I feel like people are apt to illegitmately assume that they understand that person's struggle when really they don't. And when you feel like you understand something you feel like you are living through it. And if you're living through it okay, what's the rush on changing things?

So yeah. I mean, all in all it was a good movie. It gets wide release today, so I encourage those of you who have a local theater where it is playing, and have an extra $20 to spare (I threw some concession $$ in there for you- y'all know I got your backs ;) to go and check it out. It's worth it.

SIDENOTE: The saddest moments of the movie? When the Black Sudanese hoped for help, and encouraged fellow displaced persons that "The white people will come soon, they will bring troops and save us."

Devastating.

well isn't this typical

I mean come on, it's not like you weren't expecting it:

James Watson Retires After Racial Remarks

James D. Watson, the eminent biologist who ignited an
uproar last week with remarks about the intelligence of people of African
descent, retired today as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on
Long Island and from its board.
In a statement, he noted that, at 79, he
is
“overdue” to surrender leadership positions at the lab, which he joined
as
director in 1968 and served as president until 2003. But he said the
circumstances of his resignation “are not those which I could ever have
anticipated or desired.”

Story Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/25cnd-watson.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
You know, people just run their mouths all crazy nowadays. I'd feel more of a sense of justice being served if it weren't for the fact that he'll just comfortably settle back on all of the investments and just made-it-nesses that he's got going on in his life.
What a prick.

More substantial (but not political lol) post coming up soon. Just you wait.

entitlement in U.S. reaches all-time high

I don't usually make it to the "fashion and style" section of the new york times, shockingly enough, but today i was directed there by a friend. specifically, i was directed to the "modern love" article today: a terribly-written little essay by a girl named Alexis Wolff, entitled "Too Bad for Me That She Was So Well-Loved."

I'd really recommend that you read the article to get the full effect, but just in case you don't want to/don't have time, here's the quick summary: this girl (Alexis Wolff, henceforth known as ms wolff or possibly the big bad wolff) spent a semester abroad in Niger. there, she fell in love (modern love) with a little 2 year old child, despite the child's rotting teeth and oversized features (features which reminded her of underprivileged children she's worked with right here in the us!). not speaking the language (because studying abroad in west africa is fun even when you have no idea what the fuck anyone is saying to you), she chose to hang out with this two year old and her shockingly young grandmother instead of getting to know some people her own age. now comes the bad news: she had to leave Niger and return to her life of privilege in the united states. and all she wanted was to just be able to take that child with her. its too bad she's not one of those orphaned kids you see on the news all the time, because then it would be easy and totally unproblematic for ms wolff to just take her. but alas (and now, she takes a quick little side-trip to remember her terrible childhood of a wealthy but dysfunctional family. tears well in my eyes as i read about her father's drug problem, which made even her pony-filled birthdays somehow less perfect) alas, the young child has a family who loves her. and ms wolff can't "just have her." she has to go home emptyhanded.

i could go on, but it would just be embarrassing for poor ms wolff. she sees no problem, apparently, with announcing in a national forum her horrifying amount of privilege and entitlement. sees no problem with the racialized words she uses to describe the people she met in Niger. apparently doesn't even see a problem with wanting to have a black baby of her own. too bad for her slavery is over. and luckily for that baby, and every other baby, there are some rules about adoption.

now according to the times, Alexis Wolff lives in New York, New York. I happen to be a member of that facebook network, so in the spirit of investigative journalism, i searched her name and found an unrestricted profile. there i learned that young ms. wolff attended Yale undergrad and Columbia to get an MFA in nonfiction writing. some cross-reference with my former roommate who is now getting an MFA confirmed that columbia offers no funding, so apparently her family's hearbreaking dysfunction did not extend to denying her limitless funds to pursue her educational dreams. and apparently columbia's MFA program is not all its cracked up to be.

what really made me sad, though, was not that someone could think that this article was good (more than someone, as evidenced by all the praise she's receiving on her facebook wall). i mean i think we all know there are plenty of fucked up people in this country who think that they're liberals because they're not scared to go to africa. what bothered me most was that this was published in the new york times. i kind of hoped when i graduated harvard that i'd finally be free of the kind of culture where complete ignorance is rewarded and praised. but the sad realization i've been coming to is that the real world is actually just one big harvard.

if that's not enough to depress you, i don't know what is.

oh no please, don't get up...

so yesterday was the big march in Jena protesting the injustice of the whole Jena 6 fiasco. Today, surfing my new favorite blogs, I came across a few very interesting posts that I thought were worth sharing...

the field negro posted yesterday, following on the heels of good ol' pam, to question the silence on a lot of the major progressive blogs when it came to the Jena 6 case. To be honest, I hadn't even really thought about it until those two posts pointed it out to me, and then I was mad embarassed that I hadn't. Recently I've kind of been in the mindset that its not such a terrible thing that all the major news outlets are shitty as hell, because hey, we've got the blogosphere so now it doesn't matter what fox news reports. but that's a little stupid, isn't it? i mean don't get me wrong, blogging is cool, and blogs are way more fun to read than the new york times. but it seems like we run into all the same problems in the blogosphere as we do everywhere else. things like Jena 6 get swept quietly under the carpet. its kind of fucked up, no?

anyways, just a friendly reminder that racism is still everywhere. kudos to everyone who made it down to Jena for the march. and kudos to all the bloggers who have been keeping up with the case. when i think about how many people jumped up to defend the lacrosse team during the Duke rape case, and how much publicity THAT got... well all i'm saying is its a lot more clear that the Jena 6 are innocent. but i'm not seeing a media frenzy on the horizon. :-/

saving the barbarians from themselves, and other fun ways to spend my tax dollars

I’m sick of david brooks.

Now I don’t usually read brooks’s columns in the new york times, partly because he’s a terrible columnist, partly because he makes me angry, and partly because of that whole “pay more money” times select bullshit that tries to deny you half the articles online. But as long as the new york times hasn’t figured out yet that I’m not paying to read these articles, I occasionally venture into the land of timesselect just to see what’s going on. Today I made the mistake of reading david brooks’s article, “The Road to Partition.” Clever title. Not. Anyways,

For those of you who don’t have times select, I’ll just copy-paste the body of the article for you to read:

Op-Ed Columnist
TimesSelect The Road to Partition

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 11, 2007

Zealots don’t laugh when elevators break. Shatha al-Musawi did laugh. She smiled at the camera crew that was following her to her Baghdad office, and she sighed, “We’ll have to take the stairs.”

Thoughts of Musawi ran through my head as I watched David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker testify yesterday. Musawi was the subject of a profile by Damien Cave that ran on the front page of The Times a few weeks ago, and a Web cast on The Times’s Web site by Damien Cave and Diana Oliva Cave.

Musawi is a moderate Shiite member of the Iraqi Parliament who earned a university degree after her children grew up. She speaks thoughtfully and gently, but there is a wall in her mind separating Sunnis from Shiites, a wall that was erected during Saddam’s persecution and that has been fortified by the violence since. For her, the conflict with the Sunnis is not over oil; it’s a matter of honor. She wants them to accept historical guilt and grant Shiites moral supremacy.

As she said in the Web cast: “If they come and apologize to victims, if they admitted their faults and asked for forgiveness, maybe we can forget about it. But now with this continuous killing and continuous crimes against us, how could we? How could we?”

This is how many Palestinians and Israelis talk. When conflicts become struggles for moral capitulation, they take forever to end.

Musawi’s words are just one more piece of evidence that Iraq will not be put together the way it was. It’s one more piece of evidence that America’s best course is not to reunify Iraq, but simply to inhibit the violence as Iraqis feel their own way to partition.

What we’re really trying to build, in other words, is a road to partition. We’re trying to build a pathway to separation that involves the sort of low-intensity civil war that Iraq is enduring right now. We’re trying to prevent a pathway that is even worse — a high-intensity genocide.

As I was watching yesterday’s hearings, I was thinking of the sensible yet sectarian Musawi. How many American lives is it worth to save those like her? Is it realistic to think U.S. troops can help Iraqis move on that less barbaric path?

If you look around, you see this is the wrong time to give up hope, for circumstances in Iraq are better than they were in the spring.

First, there’s clearer evidence than ever that U.S. forces can inhibit violence. Despite all the debates over the data, violence over all is on the decline. In neighborhoods where 30 and 40 bodies used to show up a night, now only one or two do. After rising in 2006, violent civilian deaths of all kinds are down 45 percent since December.

Second, the worst of the ethnic cleansing may be over. For years, Shiites and Sunnis have been purging each other from towns and neighborhoods. That ugly process may be nearing its completion, and stabilization may be possible. As Damien Cave and Stephen Farrell wrote in The Times last Sunday, “Iraq’s mixed neighborhoods are sliding toward extinction.”

Third, the tribal revolt against extremism is real and growing. Few anticipated it. Few predicted that it would spread from Anbar to Diyala to Salahaddin and beyond. But it has, and U.S. troops are essential to its success.

Fourth, U.S. commanders finally have a realistic definition of their mission. We’re not trying to determine the future shape of Iraq, Petraeus said yesterday. We’re just trying to ensure that Iraqi sects compete for power in less violent ways.

Fifth, American diplomats are no longer waiting for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Yesterday Crocker made some dubious assertions about Iraqi elites discovering the virtues of power-sharing. But the concrete parts of Crocker’s efforts do not require those virtues. They involve bulking up municipal governments and disbursing money from Baghdad.

What we have then, is a confluence of events, a series of processes that weren’t happening four months ago. Obviously, these processes are tenuous. But, given the consequences, it would be foolish to give up now. It would be foolish to weaken U.S. support for the sane sectarians just when they are striving to create a segregated yet inhabitable Iraq.

Shatha al-Musawi is one of those Iraqis unwilling to reconcile. In that way, she’s part of the problem. But she doesn’t want to die in some cataclysmic civil war. There may come a time when the U.S. can do nothing for her. But with all that is happening, that time is not now.

Anyways, I have a couple of things to point out really quick about why this man needs to just get fired and go back to school.

1 – he opens the article by trying to shock you with the news that a “zealot” might have a sense of humor. Way to reinforce stereotypes and closemindedness. I’m not impressed. No style points to you.

2 – he seems to think that the concept of a “wall in the mind” separating one group of people from another is some kind of big news. He’s all shocked that this woman seems smart and has one such “wall.” Well david, I’m no genius but is it possible you’ve got a couple of those walls up too? From what I’ve read of yours in the past, I’d say there are some pretty thick walls separating you from oh, say, black people. And women. The difference between you and the woman in the article: she, apparently, is thoughtful.

3 – he actually uses the word “barbaric” in reference to Iraqis. That’s not even bad journalism, that’s being a bad human. Well, it’s a little of both. And just a few sentences earlier he suggests that American lives are more valuable than the lives of these apparent “barbarians” with the walls in their minds.

4 – he uses the phrase “the worst of the ethnic cleansing may be over.” Again, no expert, but is it possible that sentence doesn’t make a whole lot of sense? “hey doc, what’s the news?” “oh well the bad news is you’re still gonna die. But the good news is, the worst of the terminal illness is over. I can probably go home and watch some tv while you finish up here yourself.”

5 – amidst all that bullshit, he manages to make a note of something that actually IS very interesting, and then completely ignore it. In the fourth paragraph of the article he quotes Shatha al-Musawi as saying, “If they come and apologize to victims, if they admitted their faults and asked for forgiveness, maybe we can forget about it. But now with this continuous killing and continuous crimes against us, how could we? How could we?”

Brooks then moves on, dismissing this as basically idiotic. Again, no expert, but if you’re aiming for reconciliation, isn’t it maybe a good idea to listen to what people say would help them forgive, rather than deciding they’re stupid and sending for more troops? You can’t beat someone into forgetfulness. But I think history has shown there are a lot of things societies CAN do to heal after violence. And “continued occupation by American troops” has never really been one of those.

Sigh. What really bothers me is the fact that a lot of people seem to share Brooks’s point of view, and more to the point, don’t seem to find any problems at all with any of the things I just mentioned above. That’s probably the reason he still has a job when his column is a pile of culturally insensitive, shallow, conservative shit. And that makes me pretty sad. I get that the new york times needs a conservative columnist, but I don’t think they’re doing anyone any favors by employing one who sucks at his job. I guess I wouldn’t want to see a conservative columnist who actually argued his point effectively, but I mean, you’d think the new york times would want to see that. Wouldn’t you?

celebrity gossip

when was it, exactly, that our country became so wildly obsessed with celebrity gossip?

I mean sure, we all remember OJ. but I like to think that was on a slightly different level as far as "newsworthiness" goes than, say, angelina and brad's less-than-perfect marriage. I'd say that it can't have really gone into full swing more than a few years ago. my first real memories of celebrity gossip as something i was "supposed to know" are hazy memories of the younger and slightly less prison-worthy exploits of the hilton sisters and lindsey lohan.

for a while now, i've been feeling sort of behind-the-times. i even read perez hilton for a brief week of my life, in an attempt to catch up on the gossip. i read US weekly and all of a sudden had something to talk to people about. but right around the time the Michael Vick dogfighting incident blew up, i started to get a bit creeped out. That's around the time that i realized that all the news "buzz" i was hearing was about Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan's various crimes, Amy Winehouse's multiple addictions, Vick's dogs, and Britney Spears's....issues. But while everyone was talking about that, let's just consider a couple of "events" that attracted little to no attention among the majority of the American public:

- Karl Rove's resignation
- Alberto Gonzales's resignation
- the air force "misplaced" five nuclear warheads (for an interesting take on THAT, check out what digby has to say)
- that Larry Craig thing is still going on
- oh yeah, isn't there something going on in Iraq? i forget what...

feels a little sinister, no? the fact that the majority of America has managed to just "forget" to pay attention to anything our government is doing is not a great thing. I'd wager most of us don't even know who all is planning on running for president in 2008. and that's AFTER the whole presidential race has been turned into a slightly more boring version of celebrity gossip. i'd hate to think how many people would be well-informed enough to vote if the candidates just presented their platforms and ran with no publicity stunts.

the moral of the story: i've decided to log off of perez once and for all. i'm scared if i keep reading, i'll get sucked under with him. and i'm still holding on to the dream that we can get out of this mess.

color television

..Okay sorry, I couldn't help it. Lol.
Anyway, as I've been sitting home and resting on my little bit of time off from working most of my activities have centered around catching up on cable television. Okay, so most of my one main activity. And if you know much about me, you know that I can a.) obviously get annoyed by most people and most things going on today (which can be seen on this blog) and b.) I love cartoons and children's programming in general. While at home my television is pretty much regularly set on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, and I stay watching shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and Jake Long American Dragon. For anybody who shares this should-have-been-outgrown-but-is-still-fun sentiment of mine, you know that these shows (while often sickeningly corny or sweet) are generally a really great time. Most of the time they give kids valuable lessons while providing harmless entertainment. Not to mention these shows really touch kids, and definitely have a huge influence on shaping entire generations (come on, how many of us don't get excited when somebody brings up when All That was actually good, or when talking about old episodes of Salute Your Shorts or Eureka's Castle?)- and what works at shaping these kids and developing strong brand loyalty? Relating. At least in the sense of having characters, situations and environments that really speak to a child's reality- after all, how can you get lost in a world when you can't really see yourself in it? And what makes a show really great? When it relates to minority audiences.
Yep, people of color have saturated popular culture, and while we don't control most of the wealth in this society, we definitely control a large cornerstone of its buying power (which is a problematic issue that I won't even get started on right now). Obviously this has been getting more and more well-known to corporate America, who has in turn developed whole genres of movies, music, product lines and commercials to serving this previously under-served and often ignored audience. The world of media & entertainment has caught on as well, and over the past 8 or so years has really ramped up programming that focuses on characters of color. And who has done this really well in my opinion?
Disney.
Yep, ironically enough the corporation founded by and named for a huge racist, bigot, anti-semetic asshole has provided at least two really good shows centered around a black family. One, which I'm sad to say has been canceled, was The Proud Family. Focused on Penny Proud and her friends, this show did a really good job of attracting a Black audience (a Destiny's Child made theme song? Yeah) and sticking close to themes used by other children's shows (honesty, hard work, unconditional friendship, etc.) all while still feeling really genuine. What I mean to say is that The Proud Family didn't just feel like a regular cartoon with Black people pasted in, it felt very natural. Another show that accomplished this same genuine feel was definitely That's So Raven. Using Raven's great ability at physical comedy (I'll probably be roasted by someone for saying this, but she's often really reminded me of a young, Black Lucille Ball) along with a cast whose acting styles really blended well with Raven's extravagance and eccentricity, Disney was able to deliver a show that was entertaining to everyone, but could really reach out to a young Black audience.
While I love Disney for these shows, I also love me some Nickelodeon, and for a while was annoyed that they seemed for some reason to be seriously sleeping on an audience of color. Yeah there use to be Taina and Keenan and Kel, but shows like that have been long since canceled and other shows like Zoey 101, The Naked Brothers Band and Ned's Declassified have taken over. And don't get me wrong, these shows are cute (I actually really enjoy Ned's Declassified, that kid is hilarious) but there's a serious lack of color.
So where does the color come in with Nickelodeon?
Nick Jr.
So yeah, this is definitely not that tween audience that most companies seem to be clamoring for, but it's still a really impressionable audience that could be served well by having characters to whom they can relate. And, interestingly enough, Nick Jr. is serving up minority programming in a really innovative way. And no, I'm not going to be talking about Dora the Explorer or Go, Diego, Go! but I'm going to focus on some equally great shows.
First up- The Backyardigans. This show is, in addition to being incredibly cute, secretly for Black kids! Okay, so obviously it's for everyone, but with a Black female creator and characters named things like Uniqua, Pablo and Tyrone, this show is definitely for children of color. My first encounter with The Backyardigans was when my friend Tiff told me "there's a show with Black kids singing on Nickelodeon!" and then urged me to check it out as soon as I could. So I did, and I'll admit that first I was a little thrown off by the fact that none of the characters are actually humans or like, you know.. correctly colored even for the animals that they represent, but I immediately warmed up to it. These "backyardigans" use their rich imaginations to create entire worlds in the back yards where they explore typical kid issues all while being surrounded by great imagery and making use of a really amazing soundtrack. Not to mention Nickelodeon does a great job of serving a minority audience not by simply having a cast of minorities, but by completely integrating them into the programming- children of color voice the characters and the characters are given what most people would classify as typical "urban or ethnic" (read: Latino or Black) names, kind of giving the feeling that of course it's natural for them to be in this setting because they are as much a valuable part of this society as anybody else. So yeah, I basically have a new spot in my heart for this cute bunch of back yard kids.
But Nick Jr. hasn't stopped with The Backyardigans in its interesting use of and appeal to minority audiences. Another show that has recently premiered on the daytime network for children is Yo Gabba Gabba!, a show that uses hip hop and dance to help kids play to learn. Okay, so when I first heard of and saw a few clips of Yo Gabba Gabba! on YouTube I was definitely not impressed, and was almost a little annoyed at the whole fried-chicken song (I can't find the clip, but yeah..). However today as I was sitting around watching t.v. I flipped to Nickelodeon and found an episode of the new show and was almost immediately drawn in. And I'm 22. Okay okay, so I already admitted that yes, I am oldish and I love children's programming, but this show is like actually freaking great. Maybe it's just me and my generation, but the way it uses hip hop beats reminiscent of old-school along with bright colors and shapes and a really interesting 90's aesthetic (down to the pixelated video-game backgrounds used as sedge ways between games and dances) this show really masters playing to learn and does a great job of getting kids up and moving (an issues of increasing relevance in a society that is definitely saturated with weight problems in all age demographics) while showing that different kinds of musical aesthetics have value. So you can see what I mean, here's a clip of the intro to this show in action..

The point of this rambling? I really love kids shows, and I'm really pleased at what I've been seeing develop over in the pre-K area of entertainment for kids- I'm really excited to see what they come up with next.

intel: processors for the man

While browing the net I saw this gem of an Intel ad on a forum:

Yeah. That's right. Let it sink in real good.
Anything pop out at you? Anything at all?
Okay, so clearly you guys are smart enough to see what's incredibly problematic about this ad, but I'll go ahead and say it anyway, just to make sure that it's clear: RACISM.
So when I first saw this, other than the flaming anger that began to rise inside of me (with a fair bit of vomit in my throat, as this sort of thing just plain makes me sick) I was a bit confused at how it at all related to computers and technology. So not only is it problematic that these men (all conveniently Black men) are bowing down (yeah I know it's a stance in racing/track but clearly you see the imagery) to a white man, but even the copy that 'justifies' the imagery is itself problematic:
"Multiply computing performance and maximize the power of your employees."
Wow, so much to unpack. So first of all, even though "power" in terms of meeting deadlines and maximizing resources would be a relatively beneficial result of having really good processors, but to me the word power combined with the image of the men (strong, hunched and athletic, muscles very clearly sculpted, highlighted by shadows and even sort of glistening in the lighting) really connotes more of a brute, physical sense of power. In a sense, nothing about the image gives me the idea that the processors complimented the intellect and ability of the workers.
Which brings me to another problem that I have- the men very clearly represent the Intel processors and not the workers. Let me tell you why.. The print reads that "multiply computing performance" (clearly through Intel processors) but that you "maximize the power of your employees," nothing about the power of these men looks maximized. Instead, it really just looks like the same man (generalizing Black people, how nice) multiplied over and over again, ready to out perform (because he's about to run really fast, you know why? Because he's Black, and boy can those n*ggers run, huh?) those crappy old other processors. When it comes down to it, Intel equates these Black men (or even this Black man, since he really seems to be just copy/pasted onto the ad because of the lack of attention and detail given to his seemingly unimportant face) to technology, to machines- to tools that white men (read: corporate America, controlled by white men, obviously) can buy, sell, use and control and with no tough feelings- I mean look at the smug smile on that guy's face.
I mean damn, you'd think that after the ole 3/5 thing was in history that we'd actually start to be seen as human beings and not as property anymore, but I guess you really shouldn't overestimate the power of racism and the ignorance (i.e. ignoring racial issues) of white America. Damn. Like come ON- who let this ad run, and how many people approved it? Do Black people even WORK at Intel?
If you are Black, working at Intel, and you somehow saw the concept for this and had a hand in approving it before production then you suck ass and are a failure for letting this get out.

In closing, what does this mean for good ol Brittany?
The next computer I get will have an AMD processor.
Thanks.