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Does Indy Diss the Developing World?
The box office has given its ecstatic verdict on the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. ($482 million in gross ticket sales and counting.) But one little discussed metric that some people have been using to judge Skull (or, at least, that I have) is: How offensive was it compared to…
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Revisiting A Classic
A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into Roberto, a college classmate on the street. Since we were both class of ’82, this is a drop-everything moment: We live in the same Manhattan neighborhood, but our contact seems limited to annual chance encounters. After catching up, our dialogue turned to sports, and Roberto made a…
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The Death of a Movement
One day, one hour and 47 minutes after three bullets struck him down in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, Robert Francis Kennedy, the junior senator from New York and likely Democratic presidential nominee, died at 1:44 a.m., June 6, 1968. It would take years, decades even, for historians to make sense of that single event.…
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The Big ‘What If?’
What if Bobby Kennedy’s bodyguard Roosevelt Grier had spotted the gun a few moments earlier and wrestled Sirhan Sirhan to the floor before he could fire the fatal shot? What if Kennedy hadn’t died only a few hours after he won the 1968 California Democratic primary, but had gone on to win the nomination and…
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My Obama Inauguration Diet
Monday is the official start of my Obama inauguration diet. Having secured the nomination, I believe that Barack can beat John McCain in the general election. This means that after months of binging on the primaries, I have just over six months to get in shape, and I have a lot of work to do.…
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Searching for the Black Carrie
I know she exists. I know she lives uptown like Carrie and has a life insurance policy’s worth of Manolo’s in her closet. I know she vacations in the Hamptons or maybe Sag Harbor. And I know she has brown-skinned friends who live the same way. This weekend I went to see Michael Patrick King’s…
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Fear of a Non-Black Planet
Joshua Packwood’s march across the stage as Morehouse College’s first white valedictorian left a trail of fiery online commentary from African Americans, filled with consternation, anger and fear. For some, white participation and success in the black world means the failure and even end of blackness. For me, Packwood’s successes are but a part of…
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My Love is Like Premium Cable
It all started with a 30-day trial package of premium cable.I had just moved into my apartment and was enjoying the temporary pleasures of HBO On Demand. In the midst of Million Dollar Baby, I realized there were only two weeks left in my free trial period, just two weeks before a decision was required…
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Obama and the 'Women Question'
Hillary Clinton’s decision to end her campaign and endorse Barack Obama this weekend means that Obama is now assured of the Democratic nomination for president, and that Clinton’s historic bid to become the first woman to win the White House will end in disappointment. But the “women question” that has dogged Obama at times during…
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Clinton Collateral Damage
Something is wrong. Perhaps the trouble lies with me, though I think it lies elsewhere and that I’m not the only one experiencing this creeping sense of dread at a point when I should feel ecstatic. Fighting off the scourge of political cynicism has been a more formidable challenge in the past few months than…