Politics

Imagine a western country with a population of about 40 million people and an economy the size of Spain or Italy. After years of dysfunctional politics and amid a global recession, it teeters on the verge of bankruptcy—forced to choose between eliminating the most basic services for its citizens and defaulting on its massive debts.…

Caperton v. Massey is one of the 5-4 squeakers that the Supreme Court got right. It is a case that may not make the front page of many newspapers, but in its own way may be as crucial as the upcoming decisions in several Voting Rights Act and affirmative action cases. Caperton put before the…

There is a hadith in which The Prophet said, “…you should not be extremists, but try to be near perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded …” And Ice Cube once called it a good day when “mama cooked the breakfast with no hog.” With his singular ability to communicate across…

Being seen dripping with jewels on a yacht in the south of France is not the new Black. Darryl Cobbin, veteran marketing executive writes today on the HUFFINGTON POST that this new global economy has created a seismic shiftin consumer sensibilities. The former middle class; upwardly-mobile people who previously maxed out credit cards in pursuit…

Last Saturday in Linn Park in downtown Birmingham, a 41-year-old Congressman who went to Harvard and then graduated from Harvard Law School, announced that he was running for governor of Alabama in 2010. There were red, white and blue signs with his name on them and a diverse crowd of about 500 cheered on the…

Indulge me in a thought experiment. Pretend that drinking something called “lethalcoffee” has been found to cause cancer. There are five or six kinds of gross-flavored lethalcoffees that hardly anyone drinks, like chocolate, cherry, banana, and vanilla. But there’s one flavor, mint, that 30 percent of all lethalcoffee drinkers are hooked on. And there’s one…

President Obama announced today that he’ll crank the stimulus amp up to eleven in the next three months, creating or saving 600,000 jobs in the process. National parks, youth summer jobs, schools and police department are just some of the beneficiaries of this increase in spending. POLITICO reports that though President Obama is pleased with…

This video from Livesteez might get your Irish up. Some strong language ensues which you may hear clearly if you’re not busy shaking your head. We understand passionate jingoism, but we expected a chosen people to exhibit better vocabularies.

The use of Aabic greetings are no longer the purview of Black men in bow ties who terrify (white) people. While speaking in Cairo Thursday, President Obama opened his speech with the greeting “Assalamu alaykum”—meaning “peace of Allah be unto you”—and blogger Amy Alexander feels the move was a pivotal moment in our relations with…

We’ve known for a little while that the president’s G was out of this world, but out of this century? While studying pyramid walls, President Obama saw a hieroglyph that had a striking resemblance to the man himself, ears and all. Is Obama the American Sphynx? The CBC and Alpha Phi Alpha sure hope not.…