Uncategorized
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Nationalize Detroit, Too
Every day, it seems, financial markets whiplash themselves over nationalization. Obviously, the jury is still out on whether nationalization is the inevitable fate of too-big-to-fail institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, already underway via the vast ongoing federal prop-up of AIG, or such a horrific notion that even the French wouldn’t try it…
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Good Book
Should you read the Bible? You probably haven’t. A century ago, most well-educated Americans knew the Bible deeply. Today, biblical illiteracy is practically universal among nonreligious people. My mother and my brother, professors of literature and the best-read people I’ve ever met, have not done much more than skim Genesis and Exodus. Even among the…
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Michael Jackson has an Announcement
Evidently, pop-star Michael Jackson has an announcement to make on Thursday. Personally, I’m expecting he’ll reveal that he’s from another planet. The last time he wanted all of our attention, Jackson was pushing back against criminal allegations and ended up telling us more than we wanted to know. There’s some specualtion he could touring again,…
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Talking Whose Talk?
Over at POLITICO, Nia-Malika Henderson writes a great bit on the different voices that belong to President Barack Obama: In January remarks about the economy, Obama made a reference to “American dreams that are being deferred,” a phrase black audiences understood without a citation as black poet Langston Hughes’. First lady Michelle Obama often cites…
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The Do-it-Yourself Health Care Kit
I’m dreading April 12th this year. It has nothing to do with me turning twenty-fly. I’m fine with that. Who doesn’t want to save money on car rentals? What concerns me is that unless something changes between now and that day I will officially join the 47 million Americans without health insurance. No offense to…
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Fall Back, Buzz. Fall Back.
While The Buzz still embraces the megalomaniacal tendencies of Kanye West, the post about his comments on vh1 Storytellers during his performance of ‘Touch the Sky’ was off-base. If you watch the performance of the song in its entirety, you’ll probably come away less aghast than the soundbite would betray. You may not be completely into the…
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Blog Noir: Tailback Trap
So often, we don’t give credit to young people who do wrong, accept the consequence and try to better themselves. The term “penitentiary” has been replaced by “correctional facility” because it seems to imply that, rather than flagellation for their crimes, inmates are being “rehabilitated” to be better and more productive members of society. But…
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A Raisin in the Sun @ 50
“All I want is to be able to stand in front of my boy like my father never was able to do to me and tell him he’ll be somebody in this world besides a servant ad a chauffeur.” ‘Raisin in the Sun’ was the first play by a black playwright to enjoy full theatrical…
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Kanye West…Is That So?
CLASSIC. The Buzz would be outraged, but why? This is entirely too megalomaniacal to be anything but hilarious. Yeah, Kanye? That’s your greatest pain? Not your mom dying? Or the break up of your engagement? Not, by your own admission, stabbing Damon Dash in the back when he and Jay-Z had their falling out? With each…