culture

MONDAY AP: Sri Lankan Civilians Stay in War Zone Despite Lull ABC: Face Transplant Patient Doing Well; No Longer Responds to “Michael Steele” BBC: Obama to Lift Cuba Restrictions; Lovers of Freedom Hate This, Not Sure Why JJ: An Anti-Gay Marriage Commercial Parody CK: Watch the White House Easter Egg Roll; No, It’s Not a…

Movies based on real-life events or people tend to sink or soar based on the level of dramatic imagination injected into the true story; that is the creative element that burnishes details and streamlines the narrative to reveal the complexities that make a story worth telling. Think A Beautiful Mind or The Hurricane or even…

David Halberstam wrote many great—and long—books, most notably Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, but my favorite of these is The Breaks of the Game. He spends the 1979-80 season with the Portland Trail Blazers. The glow of their legendary 1977 title team had just faded, and what was left was…

Conservatives have this much right: It’s remarkable how much havoc poorly made public policy can wreak. Way back in 1986, when a Democratic Congress hastily and overwhelmingly passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act—the first step in stacking judicial power in the hands of prosecutors rather than judges and juries—members likely never imagined it would set in…

BBC: Since Hatchet Men Are Handy, Obama Exempts CIA ‘Torture’ Staff AP: China Wants US and N. Korea to Play Nice; US: “Yes Daddy” Reuters: Dozens Feared Dead in Afghan Quake LAT: Suspect to Plead Guilty in Oakland Journalist’s Murder AP: In Speech, Palin Takes Stand Against Abortion, Loves Guns, Can See Russia, Etc., Etc……

The idea for Family Affair: What it Means to be African American Today is one that I’ve been considering for years. The fundamental question of identity has always been a compelling issue for African Americans, so I wanted to create a project that provided a neutral environment for “us” to examine the grand contradictions, marginalization…

“The real fight for people, as much as we project it out, is in our own consciousness,” says Stic-Man, one half of the hip-hop duo Dead Prez. A decade after the release of their wildly successful street anthem “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop,” Stic and his partner, M-1, are still chopping it up about revolutionary activism.…

NYT: John Madden Retires; Buzz Uncertain Where We’ll Get ‘Booms’, ‘Thwacks’ From BBC: Into Thin Air: Kenya ‘Will Try Somali Pirates’ Forbes: Because They’re Nothing If Not Haters. Wall St. Shrugs Off JPMorgan’s Gains Reuters: Faster Than a Speeding Bullet! Obama Unveils High-Speed Rail Plans NYDN: Gov. Paterson Introduces Legislation to Legalize Gay Marriage BB:…

Are you all Twittered out? Well, the folks at Slate V are already ahead of the curve. “If Twitter is like microblogging, then that would totally make us like nanoblogging.” Watch as Slate V takes microblogging to the next level, 26 characters at a time.