culture

I am sick to my stomach, and I really do not know what to say. My cell and office phones have been blowing up, and people have been emailing me nonstop because Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, the three New York City police officers accused of shooting 50 times and murdering Sean…

The NFL draft, which will dominate ESPN and ESPN2 this weekend, is one of the biggest lies in all of American sport. But it’s too much fun not to follow the results. The big lie is that the draft is the first step toward bad teams getting better. The reality is much more complex than…

With protests raging in the streets of Tibet and world-class athletes pulling out of the games (from fear of Beijing’s dangerous air pollution), I know there are many controversial topics that the International Olympic Committee needs to confront as it prepares for the summer games in Beijing. However, since that worldwide spectacle is just around…

They’re working. The rules are working as designed (see my earlier piece, No Time for Smoke-Filled Rooms), to guarantee that in a deeply divided, complicated and dangerous primary season the party elders will have the last say in choosing the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. But the people who designed, and seem so eager to…

The latest entry in the celebrity-driven, black family, reality TV phenomenon is Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love, which debuted last week, oddly enough, on Oxygen, a channel better-known for Bad Girls Club. For those who don’t follow professional sports the celebrity in this series is Deion Sanders, who was a bona fide superstar in…

It’s not surprising that many African Americans give Earth Day a pass. When you live poorer and die younger in the land of plenty, it can be hard to get excited about protecting the planet at large. The oppression of black people covers centuries of troubled terrain from forced agricultural labor, to contemporary land loss,…

A lot of things recently turned 50. You might recall them. Madonna – yawn. The Dodgers – thank God they haven’t abandoned Los Angeles like another professional team, which shall remain nameless. The Grammy Awards – the crystal ball simply didn’t see rap and hip-hop coming and staying. Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat…

Two years ago the NBA engaged in one of the best postseasons ever. One night around 2 a.m. in New York, I was still in the giddy throes of the seven hours of playoff hoops, I sent an e-mail to a dozen or so hardcore basketball fans that said something to the effect of: “isn’t…

Sweet, Sour & Spicy Blackberry Limeade Yield: 2 Servings Soundtrack: “Very Special” by Duke Ellington With Charles Mingus & Max Roach from Money Jungle.” After a few friends living on the east coast told me that they were nursing their second and third colds of this year, I conjured up this recipe. I don’t know…

Those who know my politics, such as they are for a journalist who’s spent a working life concealing such things, might be surprised at my inner closeness to the old beliefs and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Let’s establish, first of all, that I am no longer a practicing Catholic. I was at a…