The Exorcism of Donny R.

The AngryBlackBitch castes out the demons from Rumsefeld’s sick mind as it has been annonced he will be coming out with a memoir in 2010:

ABB, whilst flinging drops of vodka cran at Rumsfeld: I cast you out, unclean foulness!

Rummy: Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

…

ABB: The logic of Spock commands you! The power of logic and reason commands you! The logic of Spock commands you!

Rummy: [moans] There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. [spews pea soup across the room] That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. [spins head in circle a couple of times]

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No News is Good News?

Bhupinder blogs on an article he read about content in the news media:

The research indicates that TV news today is no longer political. It has become abjectly insensitive towards issues concerning health, education, environment and public interest. It has become flooded with sports, entertainment and crime stories. This has become integral part of news bulletins. It is not surprising that a decrease in the number of political stories has coincided with a rise in the number of sports, entertainment and crime stories. Even a little shift in favour of human interest stories seems to be again trapped in meaningless trivia and selective and obsessive 24-hour coverage of issues like ‘Prince in a hole’ or a ‘naagin’ out to take revenge.

read the complete story at that excellent site Hardnews

Ike says “it’s water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.”

But the Angry Black Woman blogs:

I am tired of people using the “But he was a great artist” line whenever someone who is, otherwise, a despicable human being, writes a song or a book or a poem that they like. I hate to break Godwin’s Law here, but even Hitler wrote some nice poetry and drew some pretty pictures (and he was nice to animals).

Pull Your Pants Up!

Darian writes about a campaign by Dooney Da Priest and his tactic in trying to get people to stop sagging their pants:

If you allow yourself to get caught up in the hard beat of this song when you hear it then it’s very possible to miss the homophobic punches by Dooney Da Priest in an attempt to scare the young men “straight” who’ve adopted sagging as their personal style. In one verse and a chorus he questions their masculinity, accuses them of being gay and on the down low and is personally offended along with all of the other “real men” at the sight of their boxers outside of their pants.

I guess when legislation fails to criminalize sagging and stern lectures from authority figures fall on deaf ears the only option left is to pull the gay card. What’s sad is this campaign has good intentions but it relies on stereotypes and fear to achieve the desired result.

Underground White Hip-Hop Snobbery

Dective Mat writes (the link isn’t working as of now):

Oh hip hop…what has happened to you…I really don’t know what to expect out of you anymore. At least I know what crap to expect from the commercialized mainstream. But the underground? I completely give up. It’s not a flourishing culture that addresses the needs of urban youth anymore. Now, it’s just a pissing contest between suburban snobs to see who knows the most unknown underground artists. The underground is depressing. At any given underground show, the crowd will be filled with college-aged suburban guys who somehow discovered their consciousness in school, and now dive blindly into anything labeled as “underground”. You must like Hieroglyphics, Atmosphere, and Aesop Rock or else you “aren’t hip hop”. They’ll always come at you with their collection of trendy underground groups, telling you “this is REAL hip hop”, when in actuallity, theres little diversity in the styles they listen to.

Racism, Sexism and the Video Game Industry

Latoya Peterson, from Racialicious, blogs:

To illustrate the issue of racism, let’s play a little game. Off the top of your head, name 5 black video game characters. Now, exclude any characters that were not main characters. Now exclude any that appear in a sports game or hip-hop based game. Finally, exclude any characters that embody stereotypical representations of African Americans. (Yes, that means excluding CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.) How many are left in your list?