culture

Call it a comedy of editors. Looking back on the initial media blitz surrounding Love and Consequences, the auto-myth-ography by Margaret B. Jones (nee Margaret “Peggy” Seltzer), laughs come first, but anger comes hardest. Take last week’s 2,000-word New York Times profile about the author and her tall tale of gang life in South Central…

As the nation pours over the dirty details of yet another political sex scandal, federal health officials this week quietly made some sex news that matters. A study discovered that more than one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted infection. And sadly, researchers found blacks once again hardest hit by a health problem:…

Every so often, we all have an experience that completely changes our life. The Wire was mine. I still have trouble believing that I was blessed for two seasons to appear in one of TV’s most admired programs, a show that many college students like myself—and even Sen. Barack Obama—feel is the coolest on TV.…

My middle son is a cold-hearted drug enforcer who brutally murdered a young man poised to leave a life of crime. His father and I couldn’t be prouder. Darrell, 22, has for two years played O-Dog on The Wire, the searing HBO series about life on Baltimore’s drug-strangled streets that ended last night after a…

DERIVATIVE Equinox-Easter; Rebirth and resurrection are synonymous. Betsy-Katrina; Rebirth and resurrection are synonymous. —b. terry I bet you’re already thinking about this Sunday’s Easter dinner.  Come on.  Admit it.  Visions are dancing in your head of succulent honey glazed ham surrounded by sweet, caramelized, roasted root vegetables; rich, creamy mac and cheese with a golden…

My name is Steve, and I’m an addict. David Simon is my dealer. He got me in the early days with the five-part HBO mini-series, “The Corner,” and now, I’ve moved up to a full hour in front of the television, every, single, solitary Sunday night. Nine p.m. Sharp. I don’t answer the phone. I…

Conventional wisdom teaches us that historical fiction takes a while. It’s a process, much like the stages of grief. A culture must wade through the shock, acceptance, recovery and reflection of a particular incident in order to draw insight from hindsight. “Lower Ninth,” an original one-act torn right from the pages of recent history and…

The King is dead. Long live the King. King Nando’s death on February 2 didn’t get much media attention. There was just a brief mention on Billboard’s web site. His last hit records were heard on stations that catered to Latinos in New York and Puerto Rico in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and…

As Clay Davis, my favorite character on The Wire, would say, “sheeeeeeit!” Yesterday’s election results have given me the blues. I was hoping that Barack Obama would knock Hillary Clinton out of the race and lock up the Democratic nomination. Instead, Clinton’s big wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island have set us up for…

In one of my favorite episodes of “The Boondocks,” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. awakens after 32 years in a coma. Confronted with the black community, circa 2006, Dr. King is appalled. BET, Michael Jackson and “Soul Plane” are among the things that push Dr. King to the point of calling us “trifling, shiftless, good-for-nothing…