culture

MONDAY AP: Obama Announces Plan to Cut Tax Loopholes AA: Zimbabwe: Mukanya Revisits Chimurenga Classics CBS: Malawian Dad Opposes Madonna Adoption FOX: First Family May Vacation in Martha’s Vineyard NWS: Doctors Warn Skin Cancer is Equal-Opportunity Disease SFC: Senators Want Obama to Look Beyond Fed. Bench for Souter Replacement TR: Black Youth Shunning Baseball BET:…

Truth be told, we weren’t so sure that the world needed another addition to the whole Star Trek enterprise. (Yes, Trekkies, we know: Sacrilege!) There are far too many spinoffs and spinoffs of spinoffs in the pantheon of summer blockbuster hits. So been there, so done that. Transformers 2. Really? But this latest entree, rather…

I’m not sure exactly when it happened. I’m referring, of course, to that moment in my mother’s mind when I shifted from being her prized only daughter to her only hope for grandchildren. The woman’s got a crazy case of “the grandbabies.” Maybe it was last fall, when I turned 28 and spent a stimulus…

One spring afternoon about 15 years ago, I was walking along a Manhattan street and spied an unusual scene. It was a woman and her teenage son, walking about half a block ahead of me. He was dribbling a basketball. She was coaching. She was critiquing the form on his shot, stressing that he needs…

AP: Obama versus the Fetid Remains of the Once-Proud GOP ABC: Delta Blues: Blacks None Too Pleased with Airline’s Diversity Initiatives UIA: Surprisingly, Black Students Have Hard Time Finding Niche at Univ. of Idaho (…) AP: Handyman Pleads Guilty to Oakland Editor’s Murder FTU: Kujichagilia with Ujima on the Side! Black Students Thriving in Afro-Centric…

I’m just going to come right out and say it: Mothering in your 30s is about getting your proverbial sh*t together. School is out, and playtime is over. If you’re like most working mothers in America, by the time you hit your third decade, you’ve woken up to a few things. Unless you’ve been studying…

Twenty years ago, my mom’s “Stuffed Bell Peppers” were one of my favorite dishes. When I came home from football practice to the alluring scent of onions, ground beef and mom’s mélange of herbs and spices, I knew that in an hour or so the earthy-tangy deliciousness of this thoroughly Southern dish would be blossoming…

Every morning when I wake up, one of the first things I see is a picture of my mother and me. Taken nearly 19 years ago on my wedding day, it is a picture of us at our best—at peace with each other. I usually don’t give the picture much thought, but now I stare…

The knock on our bedroom door came at 2 a.m. It was my 11-year-old daughter, Ariane, complaining through tears that her legs were cramping in pain. Rising from bed, I stood gingerly on my own creaky legs. Some kind of “-itis” was stiffening them, but I didn’t want to claim it by giving it a…