I’ll be the first to defend Tyra Banks…on most occasions. Ever since I read
Lynn Hirschberg’s profile of the model/mogul in the New York Times magazine, I’ve felt that Tyra—despite the sometimes
ridiculous and offensive segments on her talk show—deserves ample praise for the empire she built, the brains she’s got and, duh, for
ANTM. But now she’s gone and done something pretty tasteless. Yes, they’re both strong, black women, but this Harper’s BAZAAR photo shoot in which Tyra enacts a day in the life of (future) First Lady Michelle Obama is horrendous.
OK, so we should start off by pointing out that there is no KFC in Fallujah. There are, however, some enterprising restaurateurs, and apparently, some chicken.
The combination has resulted in a bootleg KFC reportedly taking root in that embattled city. So, while it’s unclear that business is booming, and while it’s pretty clear that (according to KFC) this is not an actual KFC, let’s not let that stop
Fox and Friends touting the fast-food fryery as a sign of progress. After all, it’s Tommy Franks’ word against yours:
The weirdest part of this story is that even though it’s premised on a bare-breasted lie (and broadcast on a wing and a prayer) there’s still a colonel of truth to it.
(more…)
In recent years, Providence has not only seen a new convention center and a revitalized waterfront, but historic corridors have also been restored to their Revolutionary-era glory, giving the Rhode Island capital an architectural sense of place. But these cultural trappings, more commonly associated with overcrowded metropolises, have not caused this city of 200,000, near the banks of Narragansett Bay, to lose its small-town flavor. Drivers still request their initials on license plates, sandwich shops let regulars run a tab and Mayor David N. Cicilline greets residents by name and lists his home number in the phone book.
For the record, the Times ended their Friday and Saturday nights at the Black Rep and Local 121, which sounds pretty true-to-life. And did you know that the original State House, “where, in 1776, Rhode Islanders declared independence two months before the rest of the country,” used to be on
Benefit Street?
Espresso at Caffe Dolce Vita, brunch at Nick’s on Broadway, and dinner, oh so predictably, at Al Forno. Sounds like a typical weekend!
If that whole Obama/New Yorker cover thing made you unhappy… but you weren’t quite sure why… and you didn’t want to look like a humorless Obama nut… but it didn’t seem funny… but you couldn’t explain why it wasn’t funny… good news.
Lee Siegel, writing for The New York Times has it all figured out. It’s a great piece.
The New York Times has
a piece today on a
RI Training School program that puts juvenile offenders to work restoring old New England diners through the
New Hope Diner Project. The youths restore the diners’ decrepit buildings, work the griddles and cash registers, and will (eventually, hopefully) manage the actual businesses sometime in the future. Pam Belluck writes:
“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project. “If they continue on the path that they’ve been moving upon they would end up in an adult correctional facility. This is probably their last opportunity.”
The offenders at the detention center, some as young as 13, have been convicted of crimes like sexual assault, armed robbery, breaking and entering, and drug offenses, and sentenced to serve 6 to 18 months. The center, the Rhode Island Training School, also has maximum security for offenders including murderers, but offenders qualify for the project only if they behave well enough to move to the regular detention population. They must also have, or nearly have, a high school equivalency diploma.
Work release is an important reentry mechanism for many offenders, but should these youths be encouraged to spend their time studying and developing more general skills before jumping into this line of work? Or do programs like this create order, stability, and options for young people with seemingly no way out?
I’ve often seen gentrification as a difficult problem to tackle. For many of my friends—young, working people trying to live in diverse areas and support themselves on small, non-profit or public service salaries—it is a struggle to find housing without becoming an agent of gentrification. But a
New York Times piece today about Mount Morris Park, a traditionally-black Harlem neighborhood, explores one of the uglier examples of that phenomenon.
Timothy Williams chronicles the recent dispute over the neighborhood’s Marcus Garvey Park where, since 1969, drummers from Africa and the Caribbean have played an important role in shaping the social fabric and dynamic of the place. “The musicians,” he explains, “who play until 10 p.m. every summer Saturday, are widely credited with helping to make the park safer over the years.”
Across the street from the park however, at 2002 Fifth Avenue, is “a new seven-story cream and red brick luxury co-op with a doorman, $1 million apartments and a lobby with a fireplace.” Predictably, there have been some disputes about the character of the neighborhood.
On last night’s broadcast, a repeat from June 16, Colbert did the kind of thing that I almost never rely on white media figures to do. He was interviewing Kenneth Miller, who wrote a book about how the proponents of “intelligent design” are trying to teach creationism at schools. At one point, Miller compared creationists to women who fraudulently collect welfare checks, saying they’re asking for a government handout, “I would compare them to welfare queens,” he said.
Miller, who
famously testified on behalf of the textbook he wrote after Georgia tried to slap an “Evolution is a Theory” bumper sticker on all of their biology primers, and in the
landmark Dover, PA case, is a
big macher on College Hill.
Tim Russert died today. He collapsed at NBC news from an apparent heart attack. A visible shaken Tom Brokaw reported the news of his death of NBC’s cable news channel, MSNBC. Russert is remembered as a Washington Insider and the anchor of Sunday’s Meet the Press.
In case you missed it, the media is very, very fascinated with the “fistbump” that Barack and Michelle Obama shared last week. Also known as a “closed-fisted high five,” “daps,” or “a pound,” this gesture is common among African-Americans, young people, athletes and the fingerless. Also, it is not news.
Have you ever seen those commercials for a credit protection service called LifeLock? This guy shares his social security number and dares the world to steal his identity:
But, wait! Don’t be fooled: apparently, lots of people are suing the company because the service doesn’t work. And the dude, Todd Davis, has had his identity stolen many times: at least 20 people have used his social security number to apply for driver’s licenses (some of whom succeeded!) and at least 87 others have tried to apply for credit with his name, one of who succeeded in getting $500 from an online loan program.
This time with a commentary on race and the death penalty.
I’m starting to love this guy. In
today’s Times, Liptak examines a forthcoming study by the Houston Law Review on racial disparities in the application of the death penalty in Harris County, Texas. He writes:
The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. More than 20 studies around the nation have come to similar conclusions.
But the new study also detected a more straightforward disparity. It found that the race of the defendant by itself plays a major role in explaining who is sentenced to death.
Check it, and look for more of Liptak’s pieces in which he brings to light the harsh truths of our criminal justice system.
For some reason, it takes
fancily-worded articles in the New York Times for my family and friends to realize what I’ve been hollering about for years… America’s addiction to incarceration. Anyway, props to Adam Liptak for consistently bringing these issues to public eye. Today, Liptak sheds light on an important and staggering statistic: that the US, with 5% of the world’s population, incarcerates nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. He writes:
Indeed, the United States
leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
Oh, and speaking of crimes that would not produce prison sentences in other countries,
scope my bit on how lil’ Rhody incarcerates its debtors in this week’s Phoenix.
By the first night of
Passover this year, Providence supermarkets had already run out of
Matzo. To those of us planning on observing the holiday’s mandated eight-day abandonment of
chametz, leavened breads and wheat/yeast-filled products, this presented quite the dilemma. [Oy vey!] Ultimately, Ari and I found a secret stash of Matzo at the Shaws in Cranston but, still, the Providence Matzo shortage seemed pretty bizarre. What’s up? It’s not that there’s been an influx of Jews to Providence, or a rapid increase in the number of Jews who observe Passover, says Jennifer Steinhauer of
the New York Times; the problem is a national Matzo shortage.
Steinhauer explains:
From coast to coast, a shortfall of the unleavened flat cracker bread eaten by Jews during the eight days of
Passover has sent shoppers scurrying from store to store in search of it. On Monday, Allison Mnookin circled the aisles of her local Whole Foods store in San Mateo, Calif., three times. There was no matzo to be found. […]
Here is a list of things I don’t ever want to think about ever:
1. Mick Jagger getting off
2. Keith Richards getting off
3. Jack White getting off
4. Ryan Seacrest getting off
And as much as I am generally annoyed by your publication, I would like to humbly thank you for having the courtesy to not make me think about Ryan Seacrest’s sex life today.
Yours,
Matthew Lawrence
PS–Why is it that suddenly “Passing The Torch,” “Investigating Bush,” and “One Congressman’s Crusade” all sound like the titles of dirty movies?
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