Uncategorized
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Beg Your Pardon?
Here’s how bad things got in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. In August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Bradley Schlozman—more on him later—in which he asked for a cup of coffee. Schlozman asked Tanner how he takes his java and Tanner replied, “Mary Frances Berry style—black and bitter.” Yes, he…
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American History: What do we throw away, What do we keep?
Last night I attended an interesting multi-media piece on “redevelopment and securing history” at the Public Theater in NYC. It was called Architecting. Stay with me. The play centers around a young white architect who’s been hired to redevelop a neighborhood in post-Katrina New Orleans. Still with me? The architect is kidnapped by a group…
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The First Mother-In-Law, take two
I wrote a joint some time ago about what a distraction having a live-in mother-in-law in the White House would be to Barack Obama. To say I was crucified for it would be to understate the reaction: this, as if any of us would appreaciate any in-law, absent an emergency, posting up in the marital…
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Run DMC get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame… really?
Run DMC has made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I don’t know how to feel about it. Long days ago, I wrote a joint about the way the Rock Hall, based right here in my hometown, handles black music in general, and hip-hop in particular. The premise behind the Rock…
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A Pointed Difference
The NFL playoffs reach their semi-final round this weekend, and after two surprising early rounds a lot of eyebrows are still stuck on the ceiling. It’s not as if someone snuck some habanero peppers in the guacamole; the results of the games have been that surprising. The Arizona Cardinals, a team that has been so…
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B.I.G.ger Than The Movie
If I got to choose a coast I got to choose the East I live out there, so don’t go there But that don’t mean a nigga can’t rest in the West… Cali got gunplay, models on the runway… —The Notorious B.I.G., “Going Back to Cali” Watching Notorious is like time traveling to back to…
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Gwen Ifill’s ‘The Breakthrough’
From the book The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill. © 2009 by Gwen Ifill. Posted by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.. chapter three baRack obaMa If you were to get a handbook on what’s the path to the presidency, I don’t think that the handbook would start by saying, “Be an African American…
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Diggin’ The Scene, With A Gangsta Lean
Here’s one more reason to keep General Motors afloat for at least a while longer, even as the company announced Thursday that it has revised its 2009 sales estimate downward—a black president has to have a brand new Cadillac. The Buzz doesn’t have anything against imports, but let’s face it, the Obama family just wouldn’t look…
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Financially Illiterate No More
Spelman College sophomore Nakeita Danielle Steward didn’t have many good examples of how to handle money when she was growing up. “My father was in and out of our lives. My mother, a disabled veteran, struggled to make ends meet. She racked up a lot of debt,” she said. Nakeita, who majors in psychology and…
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Presenting Comedy Show Headliner: Dubya!
Now the video over at Slate speaks for itself. And Bushisms author Jacob Weisberg has also ranked the outgoing prez’s top 25 quotes from the past eight years. Yes, The Buzz is ready to help Bush pack on Jan. 20, but won’t you miss his not-supposed-to-be-funny, misunderestimated utterances? Well, maybe in his retirement we’ll start…