The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health. -Food and Drug Administration
With the latest food recall still underway, one could make the argument that members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) don’t actually eat food, at least not the the same things they are allowing to make it to our plates. Or perhaps the FDA only employs individuals with private gardens and free roaming chickens in their own spacial backyards. If so, the rampant oversight and lack of quality assurance makes more sense. Not saying it is right, but it would be easier to digest it all. Pun intended. Instead, there are few guidelines and regulations, and as a result even fewer plans in place to deal with public panic and illness once bad apples actually make their way into the bunch. Occasionally, regulatory laws are put forth, but companies often find the time and cost to implement them too high and the penalty too low, making it more economical to do the wrong thing. British Petroleum (BP), anyone?
I wanted to write about something serious…really. I’ve had enlightening conversations and exchanges about abortion, interracial dating, the crack epidemic, and Marcus Garvey’s legacy in the past couple days. But I really just want to do hood rat things with my friends. My life has been hectic for the past couple months and since I just started a new position it will likely remain hectic until I settle in properly. There are a couple things that are weighing on my heart right now. And I really just have to get them off of my chest.
First, Rick Ross is making a fool out of us! Anyone that listens to his music is an informant and I don’t want to hear any opinions to the contrary.
It’s a problem that we still allow ignorance to turn cultures into threats and let fear change constitutional rights into a compromise of sanctity or national security. It is moments like this that I am most disappointed to be human, to be American, the moments when people choose to not allow others to live freely.
This past weekend I got the opportunity to meet a guy named Eboo Patel. He is the executive director of an organization called Interfaith Youth Core (IYC) and also a Rhodes Scholar who studied sociology and divinity at Oxford. Needless to say I was looking forward to hearing his speech at Loyola University this past Friday night.
In music, and films, and stories, and books, and in our lives endings are hard to get quite right. We sometimes overlap with beginnings and in the case of summers… they often finish far before we are done with them.
As September begins, we return to school and work, or continue because we never left. The vacations we took turn into more and more distant memories. The end of summer is one ending that is just about always imperfect. It fails to be either cinematic or dramatic. I seem to let it pass without acknowledging it as a transition or taking time to reflect on the summer season. I fall back into a routine. And although I’m bound to hear “How was your summer?” at least a hundred times, I’ll only sometimes give a brief update and hardly ever a proper answer. I don’t quite know if this is because people are too busy, not looking for a long answer or because I like to keep summer holiday as something very separate and distinguished from the rest of the year. Read more »
A few months ago I wrote a post about my disillusionment with hip-hop. I was desperately hoping that my love, which was on life support at the time, could be revived. As hip-hop lay dying on the operating table I prayed that Dr. Q-Tip and A Tribe Called Quest could resuscitate my loved one. As I watched her lay in a feeble position I wondered if putting her in the 36th chamber with Wu-Tang Clan could liven her up. But I thought ODB might scare her and give her a heart attack. She needed something softer and more melodic, because the current state of music was killing her softly. Then I realized that L-Boogie aka Lauryn Hill could teach her about the Miseducation of the rap game, and why she is an not an ex-factor, but the x factor. Unfortunately, Ms. Lauryn Hill was missing that thing (flow, harmony, delivery, and coherence).
This past weekend I attended the Rock the Bells concert in Washington D.C. Since 2004 Rock The Bells concert series have been exciting audiences all over the country with the prospects of seeing hip-hop’s classic artist all rip the same stage. Other than an old Rap City episode it is rare to find KRS One, Rakim, Slick Rick, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Lauryn Hill, and Snoop Dogg all rocking the same venue. Although my ticket was paid in full I felt like I needed electric relaxation to kick it because the concert was everything but a g thing. Read more »
Earlier this summer, I’d gone to my local Walgreens to satisfy a craving for peanut M&Ms. As I stood in the candy aisle deciding just how big of a bag I should purchase, a woman and her two small children joined me in the aisle. The mother stood there looking over the sale items as her two kids, a girl and a boy, argued over candy. Then, the young one, the boy, suddenly walked towards the magazine rack, and pointed to a picture of Michael Jackson. He screamed, “Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson,” then pursed his lips, started loudly breathing through his mouth, and began what must have been his version of dancing like Mike.
Now, this little boy couldn’t have been more than three. There’s no way that he could remember Michael the way that you and I remember Michael. Yet he shared such a pure enthusiasm for the MJJ, such a love that I couldn’t do anything but smile at him and think about the ways that Michael continues to live and touch lives. Little boys rocking out at the sight of Michael Jackson on a magazine cover is exactly what legends are made of. Read more »
One of the bigger news stories this week (in the music world, at least) has been the use of Auto-tune during boring, contrived, glorified talent shows on television. British television sensation X-Factor has been feeling the heat after it was revealed that they’d utilized Auto-tune for the final version of the broadcast of their season premiere, and most likely many of their previous episodes as well. They’ve apologized profusely, but the story isn’t going away. American Idol has even been forced to release a statement of their own, distancing themselves from the controversy by making it “clear” that they have never and will never use Auto-tune for their broadcasts.
Honestly I don’t like or watch any of these shows, so I love it when this kind of shit happens. But, I also don’t understand how anyone can watch such highly-produced, big budget franchise programming and not assume that there is some trickery at play behind the seasons. This is capitalism people. You want epic, flawless performances from unprofessional vocalists, and that’s exactly what X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, and American Idol gives you. “Reality” be damned.
So, I am a True Blood fan. However, I am tired of seeing the only black female character, Tara, get pulled through the proverbial ringer on every episode beginning with Season One and ending with Season Three. Is it too much to ask that Tara get a break? I mean, Sookie, the white female lead, is always in danger, but, yet, she has moments of peace, love, “mutual” intimacy with Bill, and now she’s a Fairy with unlimited supernatural powers. Gosh, it’s great being a white woman.However, Tara has been raped by a Vampire—Franklin, beaten senselessly by various entities, in love with a devil-possessed black man, spooked by her mother’s alcoholism and demons, under constant suicide watch, and she ain’t no fairy . . . she got no supernatural powers. It sucks to be a black woman sometimes because even on TV black women get no break.
We all know too well the easiest way to get on television is to either have something tragic happen or to be tragic. It is clear in almost every reality show on television from The Real Housewives Series to The Bad Girls Club to Jersey Shore that we as a world are desperate for three things more than most; for people to either fear us, feel sorry for us, or to laugh at us. And perhaps now that we have the technology available to share our every waking emotion, we’ve lost some of the things that were once cherished, like secrecy. Unfortunately, it seems all of tv world is suffering from a serious case of Munchausen’s Syndrome.
Recently, there have been numerous posts about Antoine and Kelly Dodson and how they fought off a rapist. The news story, taking place in Hunstville, Alabama has resulted in numerous viral videos of remixed songs mocking Antoine’s gay patois and featuring his family members stomping about seemingly outraged at the occurrence. Of course there are many political underpinnings. How safe is communal housing? How “typical” is it for poor women to be sexually assaulted? Do poor black people even expect cops to intervene? Should certain kinds of people be allowed on television? I get it. This video points to so many issues but it also points to the problem we face as a world hyper-exposed to reality tv drama, where trauma and bad behavior are commonplace. We have become desensitized to suffering. At the very least, we have developed a more rigid expectation of what “real” pain should look like. Read more »
For the past couple days the internet has been all keyed up over the DEA’s search for translators to help them decode the intricate and complex language of the drug game. In short, the DEA is looking for, as they call it, Ebonics experts. Wait what? Are we acknowledging the fact that Ebonics is a separate language? Or is this just another cultural disconnect between Black America and America?
When speakers of one dialect can no longer understand the speakers of another dialect, these dialects have effectively become different languages. And since dialects are born through social and or geographical isolation is the DEA saying that Black America has been disconnected from mainstream America for so long that we are speaking a different language and mostly unintelligible language now?
First, Rick Ross is making a fool out of us! Anyone that listens to his music is an informant and I don’t want to hear any opinions to the contrary.
