Captain America.

Words. For Your Consideration...

"As Barack Obama approaches the first anniversary of his inauguration as president, a faculty friend of mine renders what strikes me as the right assessment: "If he were a student, I'd have to give him an incomplete."

That's no surprise, and it is certainly no cause for embarrassment. For all the journalistic focus on the first 100 days of FDR, no president, not even Roosevelt, accomplishes his most significant goals within weeks after being sworn in, and few make their mark in the first year. There's a good reason that the Founders gave presidents four-year terms. Even when it was a fraction of its current size, the government was relatively immobile. The larger the bureaucracy and the more clotted the political system, the more resistant is Washington to political change.

As the inheritor of two wars and a huge financial crisis, the young man from Illinois, relatively new to town, clearly was under pressure to deliver decisions more quickly than those who have come to office in calmer times. But his first task was to build his own government, and he accomplished that feat with a skill that belied his lack of executive experience.

...The broad outlines of an Obama domestic agenda have become clear during this past year. The giant economic stimulus bill that passed with next to no help from the Republicans in the early months has accomplished less in saving jobs than had been hoped. But it averted catastrophe and, with luck, could produce bigger dividends in this second year.

...there have been few irreparable setbacks, and the potential for more substantial accomplishments -- including health-care reform -- remains.

...Politically, he is notably weaker than when he began. Not, as some of his critics maintain, because the voters have tuned him out or become indifferent to his well-crafted speeches but because none of the goals most important to the American people have been achieved. The most consequential of those, and the one with the shortest timetable, is easing the unemployment that has crippled so many families and this year will confront state and local governments with painful budgetary choices.

After running up record debts coping with emergencies, Obama is short of resources with which to reform health care, education or anything else. He badly needs a strong economy soon. Without it, the Republicans, no matter how strident and negative they may be, cannot help but benefit in November."

THE WASHINGTON POST: To regain public favor, Obama needs a good economy and jobs

Headbanger's Ball.

New flava in ya ear!

Nappy Roots.

Ride.

SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!

For the people...

Mos Def.

Umi Says.

Austin City Limits.

Get Lifted.

Adam Lambert asks...

WHATAYA WANT FROM ME?

A "New flava in ya ear" Production.

Remington Steele.

From Mike with Love...

Words.

"Poetic justice is a beautiful thing. Republican Party grandees were all set to use Michael Steele in the most cynical way. Now it's becoming clear that Steele has been using the users all along.

Republicans must have thought that electing Steele as their national chairman was a brilliant stroke. The 2008 presidential election had been a debacle for them. The Democratic Party was on top of the world, with the first African American president taking office amid a national outpouring of goodwill. Among the mediocre field of contenders for the Republican National Committee job -- at that point, after all, who would want it? -- there was one intriguing option. Why not begin the process of rebranding and renewal by installing the first African American party chairman?

Steele was smooth and charismatic. He was effective on television, in a wall-of-noise sort of way, and he clearly loved the limelight. African Americans, Latinos and Asians had rejected the party in historic numbers, and smart Republican strategists understood the long-term implications of allowing the GOP to be pigeonholed as almost exclusively white and Southern. With Steele, the face the party presented to an increasingly diverse nation would be strikingly different. It would also be fraudulent, but hey, this is politics.

By now, however, it's clear that Steele had an agenda of his own.

...In one of a series of television interviews to promote the book, Steele opined that the party had no chance of regaining control of the House in this year's midterm elections. This note of pessimism -- probably true, but not likely to motivate GOP activists and donors -- upset Republicans on Capitol Hill. The Washington Post reported that during a conference call, an unidentified "top congressional aide" told members of Steele's staff: "You really just have to get him to stop. It's too much."

But Chairman Mike never stops. His response: "Fire me. But until then, shut up. Get with the program or get out of the way.""

THE WASHINGTON POST: With new book, Michael Steele turns the tables -- again -- on GOP

Colours.

More than this.

Words.

"The furor over Sen. Harry Reid's remarks about President Obama's race, reported by The Times in several articles, has gone way overboard. His remarks, however -- that Obama is "light-skinned" and speaks with "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" -- may yet prove useful in sparking a badly needed, frank conversation about race in America. Indeed, we can never understand what Reid meant -- and our reaction -- unless we have this conversation.

Though I accept Reid's apology and take the president at his word that this is a nonissue, we must be honest with ourselves about the context of what Reid said. It is true in America that our white brothers and sisters have a different level of comfort with people of African descent, and that their personal comfort impacts and influences opportunities in employment, grading in schools, civic engagement -- and especially voting. Additionally, many African Americans learn the art of "code switching," where our outward display of attitudes and behaviors is sometimes geared toward what we believe will help our white counterparts feel more comfortable, even as we act and talk differently when the company is exclusively or predominantly black. This has much to do with how we look, dress and speak.

...Lest one thinks that this question has been raised only recently, I am reminded of a line from an old folk song sung by black slaves, as reported by social scientist Russell Ames in 1950: "Got one mind for white folks to see, 'nother for what I know is me."

...While racial politics in the U.S. have indeed changed over the past half a century, they haven't change enough to allow African Americans to let down their guard. Americans simply cannot suddenly abandon their long-held biases about dark- versus-light-skinned black folks or those who talk in standard English versus what some perceive as urban or "ghetto" slang.

...Perhaps Reid's remarks can serve as an invitation for us to continue this conversation about race and move us closer to true racial understanding."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: BLOWBACK: Reid flap shows the need for a conversation on race

Rockin' Robbin.

This can't be life.

Words. For Your Consideration...

"If you held a contest to pick the worst thing a politician could be called at this moment, my nominee would be Wall Street Liberal.

...And what institutions are held in lower esteem right now than those represented by the words "Wall Street"? The left has always disliked Wall Street. Populists of all stripes have gone after financiers since the days of Andrew Jackson. And the right can cast Wall Streeters as the recipients of Washington's largess. Oh, yes, and they were the highfliers who tanked the American economy.

...If you want to understand why President Obama's standing in the polls is not where it used to be -- and also why the populist-sounding Tea Party movement has gained so much traction -- consider that some significant part of the American voting population has come to see the administration as both too liberal and too tied to Wall Street.

Never mind that Obama is not really all that liberal (read any of the liberal bloggers if you doubt this) and never mind that Wall Street is fighting Obama on financial reform, particularly on his excellent proposal to create a financial consumer protection agency. The fact is that the Wall Street tag is sticking, and Obama was always going to battle the L-word.

...Moving the tax burden toward the financial sector is thus a matter of both justice and political necessity. The best thing that could happen to Obama would be for him to have a fight or two with Wall Street and the big banks on behalf of balancing the budget. It is precisely the way to shake off both ends of the Wall Street Liberal tag.

This also has the benefit of challenging the Tea Party movement to come clean on whether it really is populist, or merely using populist rhetoric to pursue the same old low-tax, low-regulation agenda that got us into this mess.

Will the Tea Party crowd come out against taxes on banks and finance in the name of their libertarian principles? If they do, what kind of populists are they?

After a year in which progressives played defense, it's time to call some bluffs."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Obama needs to cut his Wall Street tag

The Youth.

New flava in ya ear!

The Bangz feat. The New Boyz

Found My Swag.



What?! Huh?! NO! (I know, I know, "YOU'RE A JERK!")

Parks & Recreation.

Featuring RZA and ?uestlove of The Roots.

Parks and Recreation is the Wu-Tang of Comedy - watch more funny videos

PITCHFORK: Video: RZA and ?uestlove Spoof/Pay Homage to "Parks and Recreation"

"LET'S WORK!"

An Ongoing Discussion.



Words. For Your Consideration...

"For too long, academic elites and politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- have oversold us on the necessity of getting a college degree. We have reached the point at which it has become almost un-American to admit that for a sizable number of our young people, college is a waste of time.

According to a growing number of demographers and labor experts, the U.S. soon will be experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers. Blue-collar baby boomers are retiring, but schools aren't preparing the next generation to take their place. Our nation needs blue- collar workers -- skilled mechanics, machinists, welders, carpenters and electricians, as well as computer, solar and cable technicians, etc. -- just as much as it needs college grads.

As one retired plumber told me: "No one is going to outsource your local repair guy. If you've got a trade, you've got it made."

Most European countries offer a strong two-track system -- one for the trades and one for the university -- whereas the majority of our high school graduates have no employable skills whatsoever. Of course kids should be encouraged to consider college and achieve academically, and they shouldn't be pushed into a noncollege track against their will. But we are currently ignoring an important cadre of students who need something different."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: 'If you've got a trade, you've got it made'

The E.N.D.

New flava in ya ear!

Omarion.

Speedin'.

"Uh, I feel kinda silly doin ' this, but..."

Love Jones.

For Your Consideration.

Rihanna's next single.

WEAREPOPSLAGS: Rihanna unveils single artwork for ‘Rude Boy’

Dirty Harry.

A Moment of Clarity.


"Let's call the whole thing off!"

Words.

"CNN is aflutter. Bloggers are calling it a "big-time" mistake. Newspapers describe the "racially tinged" remarks as "sensational." What is this "juicy revelation"? Apparently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately told two journalists in 2008 that Obama was more electable because he's "light-skinned" and lacked a "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

...Lost in all the handwringing and shock, however, is any clear explanation of what's wrong with Reid's comment. Clearly, using "Negro dialect" is about half-a-century behind the times, but does anyone think Reid meant ill by his anachronism? Moreover, as the recent kerfuffle about the 2010 Census revealed, "Negro" is still used by a non-trivial number of older black folks. In 2000, for example, more than 50,000 people went the extra effort of writing-in that they identified themselves as "Negro" (over-and-above the millions who checked the box for "Black, African-Am., or Negro").

And what term would you use? Ebonics, a neologism coined in 1975 from ebony and phonics, is now laughably dated. Linguists currently refer to "black or African-American vernacular English," but that hardly rolls off the tongue. Yes, Reid (and the Census) should get with the times, but using dated language with no bad intent should hardly be grounds for days of media analysis, conscience-stricken mea culpas or organized damage control.

...Reid's statement that Obama could choose to use a "Negro dialect" is Linguistics 101. Everyone "style shifts" or switches their manner of speech depending on the context, politicians especially so. Given American history, such color and culture hierarchies in voting preferences should be unsurprising. That Reid would highlight these advantages for Obama's candidacy merely reflects the fact he's a savvy politician (if not a savvy commentator about race). Pointing out political realities is not the same as endorsing them. Moreover, as CNN Political Analyst Roland Martin noted, Reid's comments would have been entirely unremarkable in a discussion among a group of adult African Americans, almost all of whom have seen and experienced forms of color and language bias.

Even a cursory knowledge of black history suggests colorism shapes which blacks attain leadership positions (I'm looking at you Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois and Douglas Wilder). So, given all the evidence that Reid was right, what's he apologizing for? Perhaps, Reid's real faux pas was talking about our "post-racial" America as if race still mattered."

THE ROOT: Was Harry Reid Right?

For Your Consideration.

Stream here.

The Haunting.

New flava in ya ear!

Warpaint.

Elephants.

STEREOGUM: New Warpaint Video - "Elephants"

"Did you realize you're a Champion in their eyes?"...

A Moment of Clarity.


The Final Countdown.

Words.

"It's exhausting, this fight to believe that Gilbert Arenas is a better guy than he seems. Exactly when is he going to start acting like it? As opposed to the scattered, seven-faces-of-Gilbert split personality on display? When will he pull himself together into a whole, consistent, coherent person? Because so far all we have are versions of him.

Arenas bears a series of tattoos on his legs that he calls Black Rushmore: images of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and President Obama. When he first displayed them, they seemed nobler than the usual body art, more interesting than the inked tiger on his chest. They bespoke a guy who, beneath his teasing, was susceptible to meaning, conscious of things beyond himself. But now they just seem like costuming. The guy might as well have tattooed a feather boa onto his neck, for all the emblems seem to mean to him.

Two of those men, of course, were slain by gunfire. You would think that would have occurred to Arenas when he laid out four guns in the Wizards locker room over a card game called bourré, and rat-tat-tatted his fingers at his teammates the other night. But it obviously escaped him, perhaps because he was too preoccupied with his standoff with Javaris Crittenton, and seeing which one could act more facetiously street.

Is there anything more ridiculous than a soft guy pretending to be hard? Arenas had an admittedly painful childhood -- a mother who abandoned him, a struggling father who raised him in a Van Nuys, Calif., apartment -- but there is nothing in his background that suggests he knows anything about real gangsterism. He has played a game for a living since he was 19 years old. You get the sense that guns are adornments to him. Like jewelry. One of the weapons he pulled out in the Wizards locker room was patently absurd, a gold-plated Desert Eagle that is the same model used in the Austin Powers movie "Goldmember."

What a weak-willed, fraudulent gesture, to pretend to be someone lesser instead of someone better. And that's the deeper offense that Arenas has committed; it's what underlies our anger at him, and our sorrow for him, and our bafflement. The most winsome, talented young man in town is indefinitely suspended from the NBA, and facing a grand jury, because he stepped down instead of up. He didn't have a strong enough sense of self to shrug off a quarrel, and had to go one-up on the dumbest guy in locker room.

...Like most people who have watched Arenas over the last few years, I've always liked him immensely. I believe he's an essentially gentle man, edgy but not malicious, and that his lightness is genuine. Humor is an understandable and damn effective mechanism for coping with pain. But it's time he defined who exactly he intends to be in this world. The Gilbert we've had up to now is a figment, a sketch. He has all the substance of a tattoo."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Who is Gilbert Arenas? Even he doesn't seem to know

Into the Wild.

New flava in ya ear!

Animal Collective.

Brother Sport.

Promise, Promise, American Promise!

A Moment of Clarity.


America.

Words.

"Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately, and it's left me no less melancholy. In this case, the threat is to my own country, the United States. We Americans too seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long-familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to seem as if they are, in a sense, melting away.

In the last few months, as I've roamed the world from San Francisco to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I've taken to keeping a double- entry list of what works and what doesn't, country by country. Unfortunately, it's become largely a list of what works elsewhere but doesn't work here. In places such as China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates, you find people hard at work on the challenges of education, transportation, energy and the environment. In these places, one feels the kind of hopefulness and can-do optimism that used to abound in the United States.

As I've traveled from China's gleaming, efficient airports to our often-chaotic and broken-down versions of the same, or ridden on Europe's high-speed trains that so sharply contrast with our clunky, slowly vanishing passenger rail system, I keep expanding my list of what works here at home and what doesn't.

Over time, the list's entries have fallen into three categories. There are things that are robust and growing, replete with promise, the envy of the world. Then there are those things that are still alive and kicking but are precariously balanced between growth and decline. Finally, there are those things that are irredeemably broken.

...I started keeping these lists because I was searching for things that would banish that dispiriting sense that America is in decline. And yet the can-do list remains unbearably short and the can't-do one grows each time I travel..."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: America's can't-do list