Okay, so I'm exaggerating.

As of yesterday, the Huckabee campaign decided to scrap its press plane. Says his press secretary, referring to its less-than-half-full media plane, "flying around with a bunch of empty seats was no longer practical." Huckabee and company are obviously trying to cut costs, but bonus, they are unintentionally saving Mother Earth too. As you can imagine, CO2 emissions from a private jet aren't small. In our January/February issue, Mother Jones reports just how not small they are. Check out "How Green Was My Rally" to see our estimate of CO2 emitted by Barack Obama's entourage.

Some candidates, unlike Huckabee, are intentionally trying to minimize their impact on the planet this election season. Many of the Democratic candidates are using carbon-offset groups to offset the energy use of their headquarters and are using air charter companies, which factor in offset costs with each mile flown. And if you missed this blog post, you don't know that Dennis Kucinich was hoping to roll out energy-efficient veggie-oiled-cooled computers to the campaign's field offices.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

The biggest primary election day of the year: February 5th.

The biggest advertising opportunity of the year: February 3rd.

That's right, the Super Bowl and all of its nationwide advertising potential is just two days before the 20+ state February 5th super duper primary election extravaganza. The candidates are considering taking advantage. The plan may backfire, however: folks who tune into the Super Bowl just to see hilarious and inventive commercials from Pepsi and Budweiser are going to be irritated when they find Romney's handsome but boring mug instead.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

With my kids home for four days (dammit), I've had scant time - what with going insane and all - to stay current. That's why the bombardment of black book reviews took me aback for a moment once I got back in the know. Whatever could have caused the sudden interest? It couldn't be the superficial politcal analyses (as opposed to worthy ones like this) attendant upon this election...then it hit me. Oh nooooooo. Black History Month is coming, with all it's attendant neuroses. Batten down the hatches.

I mock, because I must, but I find myself intrigued by this latest crop.

First, Randall Kennedy's Sell Out: The Politics of Racial Betrayal:

Fortunately, it's no how-to manual. Kennedy's chapters are dense, stuffed with facts and anecdotes, compressed almost beyond belief. His second and third chapters move the reader through roughly 177 years of black sellout history in approximately 50 pages. Since this history has been suppressed almost by definition, it has the advantage of offering a fresh look at a rarely considered aspect of black history. I'm pretty sure that the slave commended by his masters for helping to thwart the 1739 Stono Rebellion, in part by killing rebellious fellow bondsmen, has never shown up on any of those black history calendars full of noble-looking portraits of heroes, even though he was named July. You can bet that the words of William Hannibal Thomas, the first black man to attend Otterbein College, have never been trotted out at graduations, sermons, or rallies. Thomas' 1901 screed, "The American Negro: What He Was, What He Is, and What He Will Become: A Critical and Practical Discussion," posits that "the negro represents an intrinsically inferior type of humanity, and one whose predominant characteristics evince an aptitude for a low order of living." Anyone who, like me, has a morbid fascination with deliberately forgotten corners of history and wrongheaded, outdated belief systems like W.H. Thomas' will wish that Kennedy had expanded these chapters, perhaps into their own jaw-dropping, crazy book.

Instead, Kennedy devotes a lengthy chapter to a contemporary Thomas—Supreme Court justice Clarence, that is—whom the author describes as "the most vilified black official in the history of the United States."

Let's just say that Randy (a dear friend and mentor), has a problem with group think.

[Read more]

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

Or, at least, studying him.

In my fantasy life, I wouldn't be refurbishing a compound in Tuscany or climbing Mt. Everest with all the other mid-life crisis chicks. I'd be doing this—urban sociology WEB Dubois-style (he created the discipline, fyi). From the NY Times:

In a bit of bravado Mr. Venkatesh, who now teaches at Columbia, styles himself a "rogue sociologist." Dissatisfied with opinion surveys and statistical analysis as ways to describe the life of the poor, he reverted to the methods of his predecessors at the University of Chicago, who took an ethnographic approach to the study of hobos, hustlers and politicians. Much like a journalist, he observed, asked questions and drew conclusions as he accumulated raw data.

He also learned to hide what he was doing from his academic advisers. Mr. Venkatesh, reared in the comfortable suburbs of Southern California by Indian parents, crossed the line from observer to participant on more than one occasion as he penetrated deeper into the life of the Black Kings and its local captain, the ruthless, charismatic J.T.

When a rival gang sweeps by, guns blazing, he dodges bullets and helps drag a gang lieutenant to safety. When local squatters mete out street justice to a crackhead who has beaten a woman in the projects, he gets a boot in.

Not so much the helping adminster beat-downs part, but the fly on the wall, embedded study of urban culture. I've done a tad, but not nearly as much as I'd like. Instead, I bake cupcakes for the Jammie Day pre-school party and jealously read folks like him and her and him and her. Can't believe I almost forgot him!

[Read more]

• Print
• Email
• Tweet