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April 23, 2003
Political Animal
Sugar Industry Threatens to Scupper WHO 
"The [sugar] industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review by international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar." A quarter of our intake! Guardian Unlimited
April 22, 2003
Political Animal
Adjusting the Colors "Mara Brock Akil, creator and executive producer of 'Girlfriends,' said she had always planned to have major white characters in her comedy. 'I was never given a mandate to do this. I never liked it when people would say we were on "black night" on UPN. I love exploring the human experience as well as the black experience. We really wanted Toni to date outside her race, which is the experience of many professional black women.'" Los Angeles Times
April 21, 2003
Political Animal
Discreetly Jewish "For years, characters had to, in Zurawik's view, be 'decoded' -- their Jewishness assumed by the audience rather than made explicit in a show. (He notes that some Jewish actors ended up being cast repeatedly as Italians.) And when the occasional show with a Jewish lead did appear, it was Jewish viewers who complained the loudest about how the characters were portrayed." Never heard of 'The Goldbergs'. Beacon Journal
Music
Autosyncratic "By the Sixties, Nina Simone was getting political. The murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi in 1963 and the deaths of four children in Alabama proved to be the final turning points as Dr Simone moved into the realms of protest. She wrote the first of her protest songs 'Mississippi Goddam!' and performed it at the end of Selma Montgomery March when herself, Sammy Davis Jr., James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte and others crossed police and army lines and made their stand in front of 40,000 people. These were extremely grave and dangerous days and yet Dr. Simone is not beyond a joke at the expense of her comrades." Nina Simone died today in France. Muse
April 20, 2003
Music
Black Over-representation in Special Education Not Confined to Segregation States "Orfield and Daniel Losen's book Racial Inequity in Special Education ranks Wisconsin above the national average in racial disparities in all three of the so-called 'soft' disability categories — mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, and specific learning disabilities — where subjective opinion rather than medical diagnosis qualifies students for special education." Rethinking Schools Online
Music
'A Ghetto Within a Ghetto' "'If the teacher is being evaluated on control of the classroom and the teacher doesn't understand what's going on and can't relate to a certain group of kids, there's a real temptation and incentive to define any behavior or educational problem as a disability,' Orfield said. 'If a school administrator and a teacher have a problem that really requires some social work and they don't have any resources, special education seems to be a resource. But it's a resource that's got a trap door for the kids.'" Rethinking Schools Online
Music
The Growth of Special Education in Wisconsin "Then there is the question of racial composition. There is a larger percentage of black students than there are whites students in special education in Wisconsin. In some school districts that ratio is alarming. Percentage-wise, Madison will have twice as many black students as white students in special education. This is a pattern that is also occurring in Kenosha and Racine. Yet in Milwaukee, the largest district in the state, the figures for black students are only slightly higher than those for white students. If black children are truly in need of special education, why is it that the percentages are so much smaller in Milwaukee than in other large districts?" This is the full report published by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, which was funded by the Bradley Institute, a conservative foundation. It will be interesting to see how this information is used. Wisconsin Policy Research Institute
Music
Following the Bling-Bling: A Rap Auteur "Though critics have praised the show's cheek and 'Dynasty'-type intrigue, some people closer to its milieu have not been amused. 'I haven't talked to one person who liked it, and that's all I talk to is people in the hip-hop industry,' Shani Saxon, executive editor of Vibe magazine, said. 'In the first four minutes I saw someone get shot, a woman called a bitch, and people trying to have sex in the office. It's not like that.'" Free registration required. New York Times
Music
Gay Rappers: Too Real for Hip-Hop "'He's going to open up discussion about one of the last acceptable prejudices,' said his manager, Ivan Matias. 'With homosexuals having so much influence over hip-hop from behind the scenes, it's time that they had a voice.' He was referring to the gay executives, managers, stylists and magazine editors in the music business." Free registration required. New York Times
Review
The King of Romance "From his father, he inherited healthy appetites and the dark skin and tight curls which would later prove a boon to caricaturists. He grew up at Villers-Cotteręts, 50 miles north-east of Paris, where he was happy and largely impervious to education. At 15 he was set to work in a lawyer's office but dreamed of literary glory. In 1823 he moved to Paris, where he read insatiably, and wrote unperformable plays, overheated poems and a collection of stories which, when it was published in 1826 at his own expense, sold four copies. His father's old colleagues, not wishing to resurrect their Napoleonic youth, were reluctant to help. Instead, Dumas acquired a well-connected mistress who eased his entry into fashionable social and literary circles. Soon, he was one of the Jeunes France intent on breathing passion and life into the bloodless literary tradition and it was he who, in 1829, with a violent, sensational play set in the 1570s, scored the first success of the new Romantic drama." Nice essay on Alexandre Dumas. The Guardian
April 17, 2003
Political Animal
From Sideshow To Big Tent "Sharpton has to remember the moral point of his candidacy—this is not a scorched-earth campaign. He's running to foment a movement within the Democratic Party and make it accountable to its most loyal constituencies. This must be a war for the Democratic Party, not a war on the Democratic Party. Disavowing the eventual nominee will not only discredit such an effort, but help guarantee another four years under Bush." Village Voice
Political Animal
Revolt Against the Rapists "It's not about religion, Bellil says forcefully. It's about religion, and society, and biology, and education, and everything. It's about what happens when a Muslim culture rubs up against a western one, and the worst of both remain. There are reasons wherever you look and, usually, they involve the word 'gap'. A gap between home where boys are treated like kings, as is commonplace in north African and African cultures, and outside where they are delinquents and scum. A gap between boys and girls at school, where girls do better and leave boys behind. Boys drop out more often, or end up at technical schools, where their access to girls is limited. Girls who are known to them - sisters or cousins of friends - are off limits, because of the honour code.' The Guardian
April 8, 2003
Music
Music Before Politics for French Sister Act "But for the few songs where Les Nubians sing in Spanish, English and Ewondo (a Cameroonian dialect), 'One Step Forward,' like its predecessor, remains decidedly French. The sisters acknowledged that their decision to continue crooning in the language of love could potentially alienate listeners who do not know their quiche Lorraine from their croque-monsieur. 'We receive a lot of e-mails like, "You're going to do your next album in English, right?" But we're, like, "No," ' said Celia, who, along with her sister, is studying Polish, '"this is not our mother language."'" Registration required. New York Times
Political Animal
Attack on Colleges' Aid to Minorities Widens "In the weeks since the letters have gone out, at least five universities have agreed to open their programs to white students or possibly cancel them. They are the University of Virginia, Iowa State University, the University of Delaware, Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first to be challenged by the two groups and the only one under review by the Department of Education." Registration required. New York Times
Weblog
A Black Model Reaches the Top, a Lonely Spot "'Fashion is about the right moment and every season you have to have the new moment and the new girls,' said Mohammed Fajar, an agent at Supreme models, a division of the agency Women. 'But there is no black moment. There is not now and there never will be.'" Registration required. New York Times
Political Animal
Is CRACK wack? "After Cathy Mayne saw a flyer near her grandson's elementary school that read, 'If you're addicted to drugs, get birth control -- get cash!' she called CRACK on Nicole's behalf. The organization's premise is radical, if dizzyingly simple: CRACK gives addicts $200 (they'll throw in an extra $50 if a participant recommends a friend) and sets up the medical procedures at a public hospital or clinic. All Nicole had to do was sign a release form, and two weeks later she had her tubes tied at a local hospital. She received a check the following month." Salon