A Barack Obama supporter quizzed on the street has drawn a million views on YouTube.
AFroNaut's Note: Derrick is a friend of mine I've known since school. For the bit that was intimated of an insider "controversy" the accompanying article, I'll let you know, he's an intelligent and seriously talented man who damn sure is nobody's stooge. That video was Derrick being Derrick, pure and simple.
Go get 'em, bro!! Thanks for doin' us proud!!! :-)
I was in the ethnic aisle at Shaw's grocery store the other day and saw a bunch of boxed microwavable Asian cuisine dishes. I thought I'd grab a few and try them out for lunch at work. Hey, it beats Ramen Noodles. Though, there is actually a comforting styrofoamy reliability with Ramen Noodles that you leave venturing into the wild uncharted corners of prepackaged microwaveable lunch.
My first test subject is Ka-Me Honey Soy Ginger Noodles. On the good side, it has a nice neat package, a la takeout restaurant carton. It was very easy to prepare: empty the noodle and sauce/veg packet into the carton and heat.
On the down side, the cooked noodles are packed together in a brick in their little baggie. The sauce reeks when it's fresh out of it's own foil/plastic baggie. Almost like it's hermetically sealed to keep the elements safe from it, and not the other way around. It seemed like there'd be more vegetables and other edible knick-knacks in the sauce mix, but nothin doin. I also thought there'd be tofu. No such luck. I guess the only soy is in the sauce itself. So for the 220 lbs that is me, it really wasn't filling enough to call it lunch. Afternoon snack perhaps, but not lunch.
It did actually taste pretty good after all. The sauce turned out to smell and taste much nicer warmed up than it did cold out of its silver space suit packaging. And for precooked noodles, they actually weren't disgusting. Because it fell short on contents, I'm giving it a C.
I'm 34 years-old, an on-again/off-again news hound, and an avid comics fan. I remember being shocked when the New York Times first printed a color photo on its page 1 and thinking "this is the beginning of The End." Likewise with the Wall Street Journal started including color on its pages. And so it was an end of sorts. The end of intransigently stodgy institutions. Even these titans would have to kowtow to the Internet Age.
I mourn that loss for nostalgia's sake - the idea I held when I was (more of) a youngster that The Times and The Journal were papers I would come to read as a "grown up". Little did I know then that I wouldn't even be reading the actual "papers" but the electronic facsimile thereof. And for that very reason I welcome the change. Most of my communication with my dad these days surrounds the NYT articles we forward to each other via email throughout the week. Thus the makeover of these dusty old juggernauts doesn't simply serve a cosmetic purpose, but a functional one, as it brings their formidable presence to bear on what was seen (and is by some still seen) as a lightweight medium. Note that the parent companies of The Times and The Journal respectively undertook infrastructure changes that were extremely costly in time and money to produce their new "looks". From that, I can only presume that the changes were to adapt to the advent of the Internet and not for appearances alone.
Finally, I submit that comics are not infantile in and of themselves, but are in fact an equal, if not higher form of written communication than print alone. The content of a lot of products within the comics medium can be and is extremely infantile, but the form itself is one that has been crafted throughout the history of written communication (literally, history itself). There, I've said it. But for an expert treatment of this premise, I refer you to Scott McCloud's seminal work, "Understanding Comics" (http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/uc.html).
Truthfully, I would insist not only that you should read it, but also the producers of the very same publications you pooh-pooh above for being too "comics"-like. I think what you'll both find is that a true understanding of the comics form could substantially increase readability and generative comprehension of news and other topics of importance. Further you'll see why the mere window-dressing of colorful pictures and stacks of bold headlines simply result in lousy newspapers and worse "comics". McCloud's follow-up to "Understanding Comics" called "Reinventing Comics" (http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/rc.html) discusses the lessons of the comics medium, applying them to new media and information systems such as the Internet. Too much to cover here, and I've butchered what little I did. So I leave you in Mr. McCloud's capable hands.
I empty my single serving bag of microwave popcorn into the crisp white cafeware cereal bowl awaiting on my kitchen counter. And I flash back to a linoleum counter from 30 years earlier. 30 years ago, when popcorn making was itself an event.
In the early days, I remember the excitement of the silver Jiffy Pop container first placed on the heated stove. The explosive percussion of superheated kernals smashing tin, followed by the Openheimer bloom of aluminum foil, buttery puffed kernel fallout contained safely therein.
I remember later when we first brought home the popcorn popper. An orange domed UFO worthy of the proudest Martian explorer. It inspired years of the most rigorous disciplined scientific research that a gang of pre-adolescent kids could muster. Our mission, to pop the elusive perfect batch. Enough corn oil to fill up to the inner ring, there was no talk of canola oil nee rapeseed. Add enough kernels for the oil/kernel mix to extend to the outer ring. Those were merely the basics.
The alchemy began where Oster's or Kitchenade's or Hamilton Beach's instruction booklet left off. Heat oil then add kernels or andd oil and kernels together? When to unplug it? Switches or automatic shutoff, you ask? Hah! When do you flip the dome? What dome cover to use? (A newly cleaned Kool-Ade lid always seemed the best fit, but after 3-4 uses became slack and pointless.) And what of those slots at the top of the dome? Lay down chunks of butter to melt and drip through during popping? Maybe pre-melt then pour through the top? Or melt and mix in after the dome is flipped? Salt before butter, or butter before salt? Margarine, you say? For popping maybe but topping? Never.
Countless questions, and layers of mystery beneath them. In the time it has taken me to write these few words, I've already emptied my bowl save a few pieces of kernel shrapnel. No layers of mystery. No unpopped kernels of truth below for wonderful tooth-shattering crunches later on. No crowd around the dome digging in for seconds, thirds, and fourths as the mummy, the werewolf, or the creature from the black lagoon terrorizes us through the tv glass for the umpteenth Saturday afternoon. Just me, in my apartment, settling in for the my latest Netflick to stream over the wire and into my solitary laptop screen.
Single serving popcorn for a single serving movie screening.
Those old popcorn poppers were probably spectacular fire hazards. And who knows whether that superheated orange plastic will pay us off with gastrointestinal cancer of one form or another within the next 30 years. Somedays, our popping results were pretty dodgy. Others, they were downright inedible. The smell might linger around the house for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the week. But there is one thing that sadly seems certain. The best popcorn days are now behind us.
There are a number of films this year being touted as Hollywood's reaction to the war and political crisis in Iraq and here at home. Most notable among these perhaps are Lions for Lambs, Rendition, and Charlie Wilson's War. The films critics and commentators probably will not and as of yet have not included on this list is Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Starring Denzel Washington, American Gangster is the story of Frank Lucas, heir apparent to Harlem organized crime leader Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. Lucas would establish a heroin distribution network that outstripped any existing in the U.S. at the time, baffling New York police, federal narcotics enforcement, and competing organized crime operations.
It is not the story of Frank Lucas himself however, but its backdrop that warrants American Gangster's inclusion in, and placement at the top of the aforementioned list. It is the America of Vietnam and Nixon. An America still reeling in the wake of the civil rights struggle and the upheaval of national Jim Crow and international Jim Crow in the form of colonial rule. It was also an America led by an individual who by accounts of close advisors as well as his own audio recordings was perhaps the most powerful, drug/drink-addled paranoiac of the modern age. A man whose attempted heist of the U.S. presidency would precipitate his downfall. America was a gangster on foreign shores being led by no less than a gangster.
Through Lucas' story, we are reminded of Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, who wrote I was a racketeer. A gangster for capitalism. We are haunted by the warnings of former President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower who stated in his farewell address we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. Lucas' ascendancy to dominance of the Eastern U.S. heroin trade was facilitated by the U.S. military presence in southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict. In that way, legitimized gangsterism opened the path to more nefarious gangsterism. Exchange Abu Ghraib for Harlem housing projects, water-boarding for no knock warrant, BlackWater for Special Investigation Unit, War on Terror for War on Crime. Where war-making ends do war crimes begin, or is war-making itself the war crime?
The irony of Frank Lucas' story lies in its conclusion. The heroic efforts and character of Richie Roberts, New Jersey Detective and co-prosecuter in Lucas' case, ultimately brought Lucas to justice. Despite the years they spent as adversaries the two found more in common with each other than their respective peers. They bonded, and together uncovered and brought down one of the nations biggest police corruption scandals. Strangely enough, Robert's first case as a defense attorney would be that of Frank Lucas, defending Lucas against the very crimes for which he'd originally prosecuted him.
I hearken back to the whistle-blowers of the late 90's and early 00's. Their own steadfast integrity, crises of conscience, or both, coupled with herculean struggle called to account some of our country's most powerful organizations including Enron, WorldCom, big tobacco (ironically featured in another Russel Crowe film, The Insider), and the FBI. It is a parallel I can only hope and pray continues into our present day as another gangster presidential administration winds to its own conclusion. If only that means we too will conclude our collective chapter as American Gangsters. That the Lucases and a Roberts, or other Insiders within us will come to the fore. Maybe then can we finally enter our own second act and call to account the gangsters whom we as a nation - in politics, business, military, religion and other global affairs - have ourselves supported and/or created.
HA! No such thing, SUCKA!!! But, I give you my best effort at remembering my mom's curried chicken recipe straight from Trinidad & Tobago (by way of London, Lagos, Brooklyn, Nashville, Detroit...)! It has served me well in impressing dates, cheering friends, and smiting enemies (...with the 'itis!). Enjoy this rendition. If I had any readers, I'd worry that some of you would comment on how your mama has a better recipe and blah, blah, blah, but since I know that you're not out there, eat a habanero fool! Love, peace, and curried chicken grease!!!
Bon apetit!
Through our scientific genius, we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make of it a brotherhood.
I wrote the following in response to an email I just received from freetheiphone.org c/o freepress.net. I applaud their efforts to pressure Apple and the FCC to play fair with the release of the iPhone on a proprietary network. Supposedly we own the telecommunications bandwidth and the companies are just renting, but for the past 6 years at least, it's felt like it's the other way around. As I said, I applaud their work thus far and I urge you to take the time to read up on the issues. But as you'll see below, I implore freepress/freetheiphone both that it's time we made our own game and instead let them play catchup.
Apple will continue to work with proprietary software and make sweetheart deals with whomever they choose as it suits their interests and those of their shareholders. As Microsoft didn't feel the pinch until Linux came along and exposed the naked emperor, Apple will sit on its pedestal meting out its favor to those who prostrate themselves until something puts the magnifier to its nethers and reveals that indeed there is no there there.
I give you, OpenMoko: http://www.openmoko.com/
Take REAL action. Create a fund to hire developers full time to make this a project real working reality - one that works with all GSM/GPRS networks globally, that is not enslaved to iTunes, MusicMatch, or the other media mongers, and that transcends whatever bandwidth the FCC (Federal Communications Cyndicate [sic]) seeks to control.
You must leave the matrix to fight The Matrix. With mindfully dedicated backing Neo1973 (http://www.openmoko.com/products-neo-base-00-stdkit.html) can be that red pill.
I endorse your efforts to reign in the FCC and return them to service of the people, for the people, and by the people. Michael Powell is gone but his ghost yet remains. Exorcise him and the rest of the flunkies from all our airwaves and bandwidth!
As far as Apple and others like them are concerned, corporations are no longer beholden to the people who issue their charters and allow them their 14th amendment "right" to operate as citizens (http://www.thecorporation.org/), Thus, like any torch wielding mob does to unrepentant sociopaths, you've got to hit 'em where it hurts. Hit 'em hard. Then bite it off. I know a mad little window smashing penguin that'd be awful proud.
Yours,
The AFroNaut
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