How many years have I been calling this a cultural wasteland?

It'll end when I'm back on my feet,...

"The important thing is to see your hands in a dream,...in the dream in which I saw my hands, I looked in the mirror and my face was black, I'd turned into a nigger,..."

 

 

"Honestly, the god in me, don't allow for modesty,..."

Hmmm. Apparently somebody at Lionsgate really messed up (The Mad Men Theme, below) and, in so doing, ensured I'll have RJD2's newest, bestest, weak at the knees but hard as day-old jello soundscapes (above) until the day that sucker stops,...or drops. 

Ain't that a bitch. 

A clear and definite reason to live:

At this point, it's kind of embarrassing,...

"War-weary Americans and their distracted political leaders are less interested in responsibilities overseas, creating a vacuum of international leadership. But for better and for worse, neither China nor anyone else appears ready and able to fill America’s superpower shoes."

New Wave artists aging gracefully. An 80′s world gone by…

Even quacks must have free speech

Study: Casual Sex Might Be Making Teenagers Sad

9 Reasons 'Hookup Culture' Hurts Boys Too

Women are 'hard-wired' to regret casual flings - but men only regret NOT having them, study reveals

70% now think it is wrong for married people to stray

Michele Bachmann: ‘If God Wanted Everyone To Have Insurance, Why Did He Invent Miracles?’

William S. Burroughs' Thanksgiving Prayer is now a TMR ritual.

    

 And I mean, come on - it's Thanksgiving,...

 

A vision of men, unquestionably different from whatever they're selling,...

 

Look at the poor guy's eyes,...

 

 It's true - this "good cheer" is starting waaay too early: 

 Here's Everything Jonathan Franzen Currently Hates to make it up,...

 

 

 I'd be all "Jesus this" or "The Buddha said that":

It'd be brutal,...

 

For anyone still confusing Miley Cyrus, or anyone on The Voice, for talented or inspirational,...

Here's an idea going around, amongst my friends, anyway:

"No More Slave Movies; Show Us as Kings and Queens Too"

I agree with the "too". It's important, that Hollywood finally makes movies about black successes in history, but here's what I also see:

   

 When you have over 400 years of untold American stories - on the brutality (and length and breath) of slavery, slaves outwitting slavers (brilliantly) the effects of slavery today, then Reconstruction and it's lies and failures (also length and effects), followed by the Civil Rights Movement, etc. - not only is it a crime how few have been told, but it's harmful to society not to mine them so we can, all, be on the same page culturally. Blacks, whites, and everyone else, need to know these stories:

Like studying the noxious, and obviously taboo, topic of NewAge (to understand our current "spiritual but not religious" culture) our racial politics - especially when it comes to identifying bad actors - too often make little sense because, as I've said, they lack context. 

We simply have to look back - to know how we got here:

And why some still resist,...

 

 

 Rap music was on top of black scholarship before society generally:

"Whites fear genetic annihilation because their genes are recessive to the majority of the world’s population, which consists of  people of color – the most threatening being black. Therefore they established white supremacy to prevent people of color from diluting their genes and subsequently rendering them extinct." 

 Some of y'all got a lot of catching up to do,...

 

Jonah Goldberg blew big chunks a few days ago. Conor Friedersdorf finger wags today. 

Might be related.

And I found 12 Years A Slave online for free. 

Completely unrelated - maybe.

 

 

 There's a new movie about a black girl who stopped slavery in England or something. I knew nothing about it or her.

And somebody in Mississippi is learning new things, too:

  "It is clear that slavery continues to have lasting impacts on our society. We are not living in a post-racial America. Disproportionate levels of poverty in the African American community are just one manifestation of slavery’s lasting legacy. In order to confront today’s societal ills, we must engage in a conversation with the past — one that can be truly painful, but at the same time, necessary."

 

A new Rock band likes driver training soundtrack vocals.

While USA Today has seen fit to do a new piece on Stanislaw Burzynski - learn that name. 

Crush him for fun.

The Pope wraps it up with a searing new message on The Scarlet Letter and related matters.

Nothing new about that, unfortunately,...