It looks great. The original graphic novel memoir about a free-spirited little girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran and her coming of age in Europe, made Start Snitching get some dirt in his eye. Ahem.
It's particularly important to witness these humanized stories of Persians/Arabs/Muslims, etc when our government spent 3 FUCKING YEARS lying about Iran's nuclear capabilities in order to demonize them and start another war.
I don't know why there is an explosion near Omar, but with David Simon writing I know it's for a good reason.
This season focuses on the media and why they fail to deliver the messages they are entrusted to deliver. With the 2008 Elections picking up steam and the media making all the same mistakes they made in 2000 and 2004 when they presented Bush and Gore as political equivalents, it will be a joy to watch Simon eviscerate the newspaper industry he worked in as he did with the public school system and political process.
The Wire duo of Simon and Burns also have an Iraq War miniseries, Generation Kill, due in 2008.
I'm still recovering from all the jazz y'all flooded me with but I gotta some shit off my chest.
- Start Snitching is in the NY Times... sort of. I posted this question to Alex Klein, a Washington Post reporter who has a book coming out about my nerdy ass HS, Stuyvesant.
As a 2000 graduate of West Indian descent, I wonder how minority students fit into Stuyvesant’s current landscape. How have minority (Hispanic/Black) students percentages held up as New York’s demographic shifts?
HR
The percentages, as you put it, have not held up. Issues of diversity continue to plague Stuyvesant. About 2 percent of the student body is black, a significant drop in recent years. The number of Hispanics also has been in decline — standing now at about 3 percent. Meanwhile, the Asian population has grown to about 55 percent of the school, while the percentage of whites has held steady at about 40 percent. The trends trouble educators at Stuyvesant and elsewhere. After all, how can the school system justify a public school, backed by taxpayers, with one of the most expensive school buildings ever built, at $150 million, that provides an elite education to only a small number of blacks and Hispanics? The question, and the issue, is addressed at length in the book. In the past, the school tried to bring about better representation by admitting some students who narrowly missed the entrance exam cutoff. That program has been suspended. Several years ago, the school also introduced a months-long program to help students prepare for the entrance exam. Still, though, the numbers of blacks and Hispanics continue to dwindle. And when asked about it, educators say they are not sure how to fix the problem. From my reporting, I would venture to say that the problem begins far before the students take the test, that, for instance, the middle schools could do a better job of preparing students—all students—for the kind of math and English questions found on the test.
Watson said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."
Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."
"That's a shame, you know, creating problems for elderly persons just is not good under any circumstance," Tanner said, according to video posted on YouTube. "Of course, that also ties into the racial aspect because our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."
So much reprehensible shit gets brushed away because the old stories aren't linked to the new ones to establish patterns and shit gets brushed off as a one time event.
Moving on...
- David Chase pretty much lays out the fact that Tony Soprano was killed in that final scene. The intense backlash that ending received was a testament to the fact that the Sopranos' had tons of fans that didn't really get the show. I still miss that shit.
- Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling outs Albus Dumbledore as a homosex. Start Snitching is a proud Harry Potter nerd who is looking forward to the newest overreaction by the Christian right to this bit of news. Who cares about real issues when a beloved children's character is gay and there is a black chocolate Jesus! Let the book burning commence!
- America kicks the immigrants out and then sneaks them back. America's schizophrenic foreign policy is beyond words. What comes after anger, shame and sadness?
-Blackwater disarms America troops at gunpoint. How can read that article and not have your blood boil. Republicans talk a lot of shit about "supporting the troops" but they have all types of connections to Blackwater who destroy the image of U.S. soldiers by their indiscriminate murder of civilians as well as their morale by getting by incredible amounts of money while doing whatever they want. "Apocalypse Now" ain't just a movie.
One major anti-Potter crusader is Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia, who made headlines earlier this month when she told the Gwinnett County Board of Education that the series was trying to indoctrinate children into the Wicca religion. In response to Dumbledore's outing, Mallory told ABC News that the Potter series has "an anti-Christian agenda," and, "this only further supports that."
"My prayer is that parents would wake up, that the subtle way this is presented as harmless fantasy would be exposed for what it really is -- a subtle indoctrination into anti-Christian values," said Mallory. "The kids are being introduced to a cult and witchcraft practices.
"A homosexual lifestyle is a harmful one," she added. "That's proven, medically."
Not surprisingly, conservatives at Saturday's Values Voters' summit in Washington also had some thoughts on the now controversial wizard.
"I feel like children's books shouldn't be political -- they shouldn't have political ties, they're entertainment," attendee Katie Beach said. "I think it's pretty ridiculous for her to say that or to do that."
Because we all know that gays aren't real people so they should never be represented among other social groups in a fictional story. Granted J.K. Rowling wrote 7 books and never made ONE specific or tangible reference to Dumbledore's gayness but now it's an issue.
Yawn... Wake me up when Harry Potter 6 hits theaters.
O'REILLY: And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin.
O'REILLY: You know, and I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall, and the crowd was 50/50, black/white, and the blacks were well-dressed. And she came out -- Anita Baker came out on the stage and said, "Look, this is a show for the family. We're not gonna have any profanity here. We're not gonna do any rapping here." The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn't know, particularly people who don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg.
WILLIAMS: Oh, and it's just so awful. It's just so awful because, I mean, it's literally the sewer come to the surface, and now people take it that the sewer is the whole story --
O'REILLY: That's right. That's right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."
WILLIAMS: Please --
O'REILLY: You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.
This story damn near covers itself. Only in this country could this man have a venue for his nonsense and an audience that follows.
We're getting lessons on respectable social behavior from a man that got hit with a sex harassment suit for trying to fuck a Fox News producer.
"I would take your other hand with the falafel thing and put it on your pussy."
Even I don't know what that is. Does he mean loofah?
Fuck it, I'm not even trying to think of the details of Bill O'Reilly's sex life. Just get that dude off the air. He's deserves the boot more than Imus.
All awards shows suck, I know. It's all about behind the scenes favoritism and bandwagon following. But I still get pissed every year when they announce the same 5 fucking Emmy nominees over and over. The only good thing about the Emmys is the fact that Conan O'Brien is a great host.
Dear Emmy voters,
Stop blowing "House."
Stop blowing "Monk."
Stop blowing "24."
"Boston Legal" is garbage. Grey's Anatomy is garbage.
No one from "Heroes" deserves an Emmy nomination for acting. The acting is the worse part of that show.
The little kids from The Wire can outact about 99% of the nominees.
Time Magazine is riding with me on this one. Here is the list of who was nominated and who should have won off the top of my head.
Vic Mackey "The Shield" Tony Soprano "The Sopranos" Dexter "Dexter" Coach Taylor "Friday Night Lights" Hugh Laurie "House" Any of the four children from "The Wire"
I could go on but who really cares? It's sad that "The Wire" doesn't get any attention whatsoever but it's true to the show's theme. Why take the time to watch and recognize a non-sexy, careful and intelligent examination of black inner city anomie when you could just watch a bunch of rich slutty doctors whine about life to slow acoustic music.
The Supreme Court is on a tear. They are trying to see how much they can fuck America the fuck up before they go hunting with Dick Cheney for the summer.
The list of god awful rulings they made in the last few days is sickening but the real shit kicker is their ruling on race in schools.
Apparently that whole Civil Rights movement thing you Negroes have been into for the last few decades was a waste of time, because segregation is really not that big of a deal. Black kids can't Chicken Noodle their way out of this one.
Certain sections of the media and so-called "independent" voters would like you to believe because of the nature of our political system, Democrats and Republicans are identical.
When you look at the type of Supreme Court Justices Republicans nominate and the decisions they make, you realize that is one of the greatest lies ever sold.
Let's go through the interweb and see how much race doesn't matter...
Bobby Cutts Jr. (who is fucking up interracial dating for every black man in America) killed his pregnant white girlfriend and is in the news every goddamn second.
But don't worry about those things. The Supreme Court says race doesn't matter. The Supreme Court which consists of a fucking retard named Antonin Scalia, who cites the fictional terrorist fighting of Jack Bauer as a defense of torture.
Peep the delusion,
The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.”
What
The
Fuck?
Can you say disbarment?
"24" has become the most pathetic enabler for Republican torture fantasies and the failed "War on Terror." It's really disgraceful.
Do Republicans have any respectable or defensible positions anymore? Will it even matter by the time 2009 gets here?
I know I'm cutting it close to the finale airing but I just wanted to be on record as predicting Tony's downfall at the hands of Paulie Walnuts. Good prediction site here.
Reasons why,
Paulie was friends with Tony's dad and Tony admired him growing up. All of Tony's largest problem come from his blood or near blood connections.
Paulie snitched about Ginny's fat joke to the NY family.
Tony showed his hand by almost killing Paulie and then backing away from his impulse.
It seems like he helped botch the hit on Phil Retardo.
I had a bizarre dream where Paulie shoots Tony. The fact that I am dreaming about this show means that it really does need to end.
Ron Paul is a Republican I can fuck with. Peep this clip from a Republican debate last month where he walked the fine line of explaining why America is hated without blaming the victims of terrorism.
He spit that truth off the Fox News roof all over Guliani.
For shitting all over Republican orthodoxy and calling out the party's warmongering, Ron Paul is the Snitch of the Week.
I found Conan's opening sequence form the 2006 Emmy's. If I would have known, I would have just watched this.
Part 1
Part 2
And I found out that Conan spoke at my old high school's commencement speech this year. Don't be surprised, Bill Clinton spoke at the school after 9/11. Rich schools are the truth.
As a 2000 graduate of West Indian descent, I wonder how minority students fit into Stuyvesant’s current landscape. How have minority (Hispanic/Black) students percentages held up as New York’s demographic shifts? 
The percentages, as you put it, have not held up. Issues of diversity continue to plague Stuyvesant. About 2 percent of the student body is black, a significant drop in recent years. The number of Hispanics also has been in decline — standing now at about 3 percent. Meanwhile, the Asian population has grown to about 55 percent of the school, while the percentage of whites has held steady at about 40 percent. The trends trouble educators at Stuyvesant and elsewhere. After all, how can the school system justify a public school, backed by taxpayers, with one of the most expensive school buildings ever built, at $150 million, that provides an elite education to only a small number of blacks and Hispanics? The question, and the issue, is addressed at length in the book. In the past, the school tried to bring about better representation by admitting some students who narrowly missed the entrance exam cutoff. That program has been suspended. Several years ago, the school also introduced a months-long program to help students prepare for the entrance exam. Still, though, the numbers of blacks and Hispanics continue to dwindle. And when asked about it, educators say they are not sure how to fix the problem. From my reporting, I would venture to say that the problem begins far before the students take the test, that, for instance, the middle schools could do a better job of preparing students—all students—for the kind of math and English questions found on the test. 
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