OUR SITE IS SICK

Yeah, we know, we know, we got hit with a malware issue. We're working on it but seriously - it's a pain in the rear. Thanks for your patience.

--O.W.

GIRL POWER

Jezebel - Sometimes It Takes A Daughter To Make A Man A Feminist - Daughters voting liberally

It's true - before my daughter was born, I was a hardcore, reactionary conservative. And moreover, I've recently heard Junichi talking about how we need to lower taxes, cut social spending and invade more countries. Crazy! ;)

--O.W.

WINNIE THE POOH MIGHT WANT TO ATTEND YOUR FUNERAL

My understanding was that there would be no math.

I've seen the above frame many times. It features a sweet, sentimental Winnie the Pooh quote -- "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I would never have to live without you." - and includes a sample picture of a mother and child.

Just today, however, my wife pointed out a serious flaw in the quote that will ensure I never see this frame the same way.

The Pooh quote is only sweet if the two people are born on the exact same day.

Thus, the sample picture in the frame is totally inappropriate. If the toddler in the picture were to say that quote to his mother and it became true, he would live to see his mother die and then survive off his inheritance for at least another decade.

The only appropriate picture would be one of twins.

Here's a more specific example. Imagine Demi Moore will live to be 100 years old and Ashton Kutcher wishes to live to be a 100 minus one day. Ashton, who is 16 years younger than Demi, will see his wife die when he's 84 years old and then live a lonely existence for another 16 years.

That is, unless Demi can inhabit Whoopi Goldberg's body after being murdered and dance to "Unchained Melody" one last time. And that's ignoring the inevitable reality that Ashton, being a vain Hollywood celebrity, will inevitably dump Demi in three years during sweeps week of Punk'd: 2012 Edition when she becomes eligible to join AARP.

In conclusion, for this frame to have universal appeal, it should say "I Want To Die Before You."

And thus concludes the story of why I'm not in marketing.

--Junichi

MLK BIOPIC

DreamWorks Plans Martin Luther King Biopic : NPR

It's actually surprising there hasn't been one already, now that I think of it. Two questions come immediately to mind: who will they cast? How hagiographic is this going to be?

--O.W.

MALCOLM X AT OXFORD

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would have turned 84 today. I dedicate this day to his memory and that of the June Jordan.

--O.W.

JAVA ME!

Read this over coffee - Los Angeles Times

Addiction...validated!

--O.W.

RAP HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

RR Exclusive: 20/20 Hip-Hop Special From 1981 | Rap Radar Exclusives Video

Pretty great resurrection of the MSM's treatment of hip-hop in its early era.

"Music from the streets, heard in the streets!"

--O.W.

CINEMA AND THE CYCLE OF BIAS

Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test | the Hathor Legacy

Ok, so I deserve a real late pass on this since it was originally published 11 months ago but it's not like the relevance of it has changed. In summary, the author is discussing how, while in film school at UCLA, she was constantly instructed to:

"understand that the audience only wanted white, straight, male leads. I was assured that as long as I made the white, straight men in my scripts prominent, I could still offer groundbreaking characters of other descriptions (fascinating, significant women, men of color, etc.) - as long as they didn’t distract the audience from the white men they really paid their money to see."

What is really powerful in Kesler's analysis here is something that is also quite simple (and thus insidious): biases in the media are the product of self-regenerating cycle of logic.

To use her example, if Hollywood has traditionally catered its products to white male moviegoers, it builds an expectation amongst audiences - and executives - that the only successful movies are those that cater to...white male moviegoers. Thus, there is no financial incentive to break the cycle and the very bias that exists helps to perpetuate that bias into the future.

In class, I talk about the relationship between ideology and structure and how ideological bias - the idea that women are inferior, for example - influences structural inequalities - say occupational segregation - that then can be used as "evidence" to support the very ideological bias that helped produce the structural inequality!

And this seems rigidly enforced in mainstream cinema especially. I think the added dimension Kesler is providing is the fact that film schools are deliberately training their graduates to bend to this bias as well which means you have a huge amount of energy being exerted by powerful institutions to maintain a status quo. And moreover, even when "exceptions" arise (women-centered, non-"chick flick" movies that turn out to be big successes), they're always seen as "exceptions," or as one commenter, quoting William Goldman, calls them: "non-repeating phenomenon."

Except that the phenom of successful movies NOT catering to white wen does seem to keep repeating. Hmm...

--O.W.

WHITHER URBAN JOURNALISM'S FUTURE?

shuttered for good?

"Urban" Journalism's Shrinking Shores, Somebody Send A Lifeline - The Parker Report

Parker raises some good issues here and this has been something I've thought a lot about over the last few years, not the least of which is because I wrote an essay on the history of hip-hop journalism, but one that ended before the media implosion began in earnest.

One thing that I think needs to be said - the fortunes of "urban journalism" (and I agree with Erik - I'm not sure what the better term is even if it is a bit of euphemism) have any number of parallels to other industries, in particular the recording industry, and more specifically the hip-hop economy. All three got ridiculously flush and fat with cash in the 1990s, grew at a remarkable rate but also suffered from irrational exuberance and a lack of long-term strategy. The costs of this short-sightedness are being felt now.

I should stress, these are hardly unique to the hip-hop world, but what stings in particular is that urban journalism created opportunities for many writers for whom access to mainstream journalism was limited for a variety of reasons, race included (but not exclusively). I do think MSM has become more inclusive over that time - how could it not be, if it wanted to stay on top of where pop culture was headed? - but it's hardly the case that integration has reached anything resembling parity. Now that the entire journalism world is shrinking in terms of paid work, urban journalists are likely to be the most vulnerable to finding their services no longer needed.

Personally, I think there is still a future for urban journalism but it will be substantially downsized. I also hope it will be more, for lack of a more articulate term - relevant. That's a dangerously vague term I know but given that so much of rap writing --> celebrity journalism (and really, in some of the most crass ways imaginable) and yet it's still collapsing, maybe it's time to reconsider the priorities of what urban journalism can represent and strive for. It's notable that some of the more successful examines of print journalism still surviving and thriving are ones like ProPublica and it'd be worth seeing if that model could take root elsewhere. I don't think such a thing as "hip hop journalism" has to survive, per se, but I do think the kinds of talent that pool has nurtured over the years deserve more opportunities to grow and flourish.

By the way, Ernest Hardy wrote on this very topic last year - far better than I probably am doing here.

--O.W.

UNIVERSITY DEBATE

a bear market for higher ed?

My friend Hua Hsu has a new blog through The Atlantic and one of his early posts is an excellent distillation and critique of Mark Taylor's now infamous op-ed piece on "End the University" .

I had been meaning to put some notes down on this but frankly, Hua does a far better and more meaningful job than whatever gibberish I might have spouted.

I did want to echo Jeff Chang's points: stop disrespecting the D!

--O.W.

THE MARRIAGE-GO-ROUND

The Marriage-Go-Round by Andrew J. Cherlin - Hardcover - Random House - Author Interview

The above interview with Cherlin covers some provocative topics about the nature of marriage in America, especially what Cherlin describes as these two contradictory impulses:

"The first is the importance of marriage: we are more marriage-oriented than most other Western countries. The second is the importance of living a personally fulfilling life that allows us to grow and develop as individuals—call it individualism. Now, you can find other countries that place a high value on marriage, such as Italy where most children are born to married couples and there are fewer cohabiting relationships. And you can find countries that place a high value on individualism, such as Sweden. But only in the United States do you find both. So we marry in large numbers—we have a higher marriage rate than most countries. But we evaluate our marriages according to how personally fulfilling we find them. And if we find them lacking, we are more likely to end them. Then, because it’s so important to be partnered, we move in with someone else, and the cycle starts all over again."

Cherlin also speaks to the controversies around same-sex marriage:

"Q: Why is same-sex marriage so debated in the United States? How does this compare to other countries?

A: Same-sex marriage has been more of a battleground in the United States than in most other countries because marriage is more important to Americans than to people in other countries. Same-sex marriage is sometimes portrayed as a legal rights issue—the right to file taxes together, visit partners in the hospital, etc. Those rights are important, but that’s not the main issue. If the fight were only about legal rights, then civil unions would be sufficient. They are not sufficient to gay and lesbian activists in the United States because of the great prestige of marriage. The real issue is symbolic: who gets to wear the marriage badge. In some European countries, gay and lesbian activists are asking instead: why, at this late date, should we buy into the oppressive, archaic institution of marriage? But in the United States many advocates say that only a marriage ring guarantees first-class citizenship. And they are right, because marriage matters more here than elsewhere."

--O.W.

WHEN PERSONAL ADS BECOME POETRY

I read a collection of personal ads in Sunday's LA Times Magazine that I assumed was the brainchild of a creative genius.

On second read, I realized that the ads were real personals pulled from various sources spanning several years. (I confirmed that a few were from Craigslist.)

Here are some of the more delicious ones:

• Liberal man seeks a conservative (neocon or better) woman for discreet affair. You blast Sean Hannity while dominating me in the back of my Prius. Weekdays only.



• Young man, moderate circumstances, with glass eye, would like to make acquaintance of young girl, also with glass eye or other deformity not more severe, for matrimony.



• Portly screen legend, reclusive, with unabashed Japanese fetish wishes to turn over new leaf and find a nice Chinese girl to spend remaining days with.



• My name is Bubbles. I reside in a shed with 28 kitties. I refurbish grocery carts, which I steal from the local Wal-Mart. Just kidding. I'm Tom. I'm looking for local female for coffee and maybe more.



• Broken guy with only a guitar and a Dodge Dart, looking for barely legal runaway who won't judge him for being an abject failure.



• SWM cultural imperialist foodie seeks goofy hipster chick to drive to San Gabriel so we can brag about being the only white people at a filthy C-grade restaurant.



• Stoner seeks same.

Too bad that I'm not a nice Chinese girl who could've helped Marlon Brando overcome his Japanese fetish.

--Junichi

EMPATHY IS THE NEW SOCIALISM

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Code Word Empathy
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor First 100 Days

I love filibuster-proof majorities.

--Junichi

R.I.P. AL ROBLES

R.I.P. Al Robles

Valerie Soe on Robles' passing.

--O.W.

RAHZEL & DOUG E. FRESH, YOU'VE BEEN SERVED

I hate to contribute to the stereotype that every Japanese person is a beatboxing master, but somebody needs to give 18-year-old Daichi that wild card slot in the Beatbox Battle Online World Championship.

(Credit: Cous Cous)

--Junichi