skrapnel

I’ve been reading a lot about how Obama’s presidency will not just challenge the political landscape, but will also shift the way society (aka TV) views the black family.

[During the inauguration] Obama didn’t shout at his wife, Michelle, to shut up. The first lady didn’t roll her eyes and tell Obama to act like a man. No laugh track kicked in, no one danced, and no police sirens wailed in the background.

“They are not here to entertain us,” says Young, a New York Press columnist. “Michelle Obama is not sitting around with her girlfriends saying, ‘My man ain’t no good.’ You’re not seeing this over -sexualized, crazy black family that, every time a Marvin Gaye song comes on, someone stands up and says, ‘Oh girl, that’s my jam.’”

America has often viewed the black family through the prism of its pathologies: single-family homes, absentee fathers, out of wedlock children, they say. Or they’ve turned to the black family for comic relief in television shows such as “Good Times” in the ’70s or today’s “House of Payne.”

But a black first family changes that script, some say. A global audience will now be fed images of a highly educated, loving and photogenic black family living in the White House for the next four years — and it can’t be taken off the air like “The Cosby Show.”

via Black first family ‘changes everything’ – CNN.com.

Black families on TV or in movies were never anything like my friends’ or my mom’s friends’ families.  That’s why it’s great that, instead of the stereotypes, the Obamas allow whites and blacks to see an image of a strong, intelligent black man who is completely loving of his equally strong and intelligent wife.  But this new image of family, to me, also goes beyond race to show that any man can be sensitive, intimate and romantic with his partner and still be strong.

What other stereotypes do the Obamas break? Do you think Hollywood will catch up?

Watching this video of Barack and Michelle dancing their first dance at the Neighborhood Ball gives me chills.  I don’t know whether it’s a combination of Beyonce’s voice and the amazing song, the First couple smiling and dancing cause they’re actually in love, Beyonce humbly crying at the end, or the crowd chanting “O-BA-MA.”

Beautiful song. Beautiful couple.  Beautiful moment.  Enjoy!

Here’s my horoscope from Free Will Astrology this week.  I’m down to the final push to finish the book, so this hits it spot on.  This novel is just one part. I also need to work on the other blogs and continue learning how to use Final Cut.

According to expert gerontologists, Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards (a Sagittarius) should have passed on to the next world a decade ago. The man has abused his body so thoroughly, his continued survival is a mystery. You’re currently in an excellent position to achieve equally stupendous feats of persistence yourself, Sagittarius. More than ever before, you have a dogged capacity to keep pushing — even in areas where you’ve been flighty or sketchy in the past. I’d say this is an excellent time to deepen your commitment to your dreams in very practical ways.

via Free Will Astrology : Sagittarius Horoscope.

This photo on Flickr totes made me LOL.  This street in downtown San Francisco is normally called “Bush Street.”  Looks like change has come to SF.

Hat tip to Mager for pointing this out.

Now this is scary.  Your brain punishes you for thinking differently!

A new study in the journal Neuron shows when people hold an opinion differing from others in a group, their brains produce an error signal. A zone of the brain popularly called the “oops area” becomes extra active, while the “reward area” slows down, making us think we are too different.

“We show that a deviation from the group opinion is regarded by the brain as a punishment,” said Vasily Klucharev, postdoctoral fellow at the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead author of the study.

Hmmm…I wonder if they could make a drug to reward the innovation part.  Maybe those creative and innovator types don’t have this happen.  Or maybe it’s caused by society and then the body gets trained, kinda like dogs.  Too bad Foucault’s dead. Love to hear what he’d say!

Read more at CNN.com>>

Each year when I was a kid, my mom and I would march in the MLK Day parade through downtown Dallas.  Walking hand-in-hand with our black brothers and sisters, we would sing old gospel spirituals and smile with the crowd.  We’d get to the final destination, watch some  footage of MLK’s speech and hear some new sermons.  I even met Jessie Jackson a few times.

I never understood racism.  My schools were mixed. Mom had several close black friends and so did I.  I was never taught to hate, but I knew that’s what we were marching against.

On Election night last year, those marches came flooding back to me.  When it was announced that Obama had won, I called my mom.  I couldn’t speak; I was crying so hard.

When I’d finally pulled myself together, I said: “This is what we marched for, Mom.  This is why we did it.  Even after all those marches, I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime.  We did it.  We conquered hate.”

“Yes, we did!” she said. [UPDATED: Was asked to post a pic of Mom. Here we are with one of her friends during her last visit to SF. Click to enlarge.]

It’s been just over 40 years since MLK gave his famous speech.  We read it every year in school, but it’s even more powerful if you can hear it.  That’s why I was excited to find this complete video footage of the “I Have a Dream” speech.

Watch it and remember the dream of America: a place where everyone has an equal chance to success.  A place where everyone can live free from hate.  A place where everyone can aspire to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

What’s your story?

Love this picture of a rainbow over Gaza.  I think rainbows are a sign of good fortune and luck.  For the sake of the innocent civilians, let’s hope this applies to the Isreal-Palestinian conflict.

A rainbow is seen over the northern Gaza Strip, from the Israel-Gaza Border, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2009. Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip were ordered to hold their fire early Sunday after Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire meant to end three devastating weeks of war against militants who have terrorized southern Israel with rocket barrages. But hours after the truce took hold, militants fired rocket salvoes into two Israeli communities, threatening to reignite the violence. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

If you know me, you know I love culture jammer and guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey.  That’s why it thrilled me to no end when I read that his iconic poster of Obama was purchased by and hung in the National Portrait Gallery this weekend.

I first fell in love with Fairey’s work when I saw the “Obey Giant” campaign in the 90′s.  I remember wondering why someone would paste up Andre the Giant’s face with “Obey” underneath it.  I had my own ideas, and so did my friends.  We were all kind of waiting for the full marketing/ad campaign to be revealed.  When we found out it was just art, it really taught me how affected we are by commercial art.  Most of all, I loved how Fairey was trying to recliam our common public spaces by putting up art that makes us think instead of try to buy something.

Fairey usually takes a discerning and negative approach to the government and those who control the media. Obama’s idealism inspired Fairey to make positive posters.  He also wanted to inspire young voters to get involved in the electoral process–and it worked:

“My desire for the image was to make something that I thought was patriotic and iconic but unique enough to capture the interest of people.”

He released the image on his Web site shortly after he created it and made thousands of posters for the street. As its visibility caught on, supporters began downloading the image and distributing it at campaign events, while blogs and other Internet sites picked it up.

“It was both the visible presence of the posters and the Internet combined that yielded an immediate viral storm,” he said.

At first, Obama’s team just gave him permission to make the image, he said. But soon after he created it, a worker involved in the campaign asked if Fairey could make an image from a photo the campaign had rights to, he said. Fairey changed the portrait’s bottom phrase to “change” for a revised illustration.

Fairey has since started working on posters against the passing of California’s Prop 8, saying: “When we become authenticity police for love, we’re on really shaky ground.”

For those not familiar with Shepard’s work, you can check out his website or his books: Obey: Supply & Demand : The Art of Shepard Fairey, a 20 year retrospective issued in 2006, or last year’s E Pluribus Venom.

Also, check out this great slide show from the LA Times of other artists’ portraits of Obama.

Do you think the inclusion of guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey in the National Gallery legitimizes culture jamming?  Will we finally stop selling out our public spaces to the highest bidder? Or will marketers use this style to try and target the young, hip set?

After living abroad for years and speaking mostly foreign languages, I’ve forgotten a lot of day-to-day phrases.  Plus because of PR and blogging, my vocabulary has slowly evolved to mostly quick, to-the-point words.  It’s also very tech heavy.  Since I’m trying to get back to more creative writing, I’m working on increasing my vocab by pulling words and phrases from books I’m reading.   None of them are complicated or intellectual, but I seem to take them for granted.

I’m currently rereading one of my favorite books, “The Wanting Seed” by Anthony Burgess.  Here are a few words I’ve encountered that I want to remember to use more:

• to pat s.o. on the back
• to blink
• to grow bored
• to decide
• to blush
• to face s.o. or s.t.
• hammering (pain)
• to push against a crowd
• guilt
• to observe
• to be struck by an idea
• to wash s.t. down

This whole argument over whether Obama should have a blackberry–or even email–is pointless.   When I worked for Unisys in the first few years of the Bush administration, the Defense Department and Homeland Security were both using Blackberries.  If all the advisers are, shouldn’t the guy who is leading them?

I understand the security argument, but not sure I understand how any sort of business–including that of government–can be efficient with just paper and oral-based communications.  Thank God we have an incoming president who understands what those of us who’ve worked in any business over the last 15 years know: Emails aren’t private.

Check this Obama quote from an interview with CNN’s John King:

“Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure that — to think before I press ‘send.’”

Prez Bush the 2nd had to give up email when he entered office.  I’ll let you decided why.

The real question is: Do you think Obama is savvy enough to switch the Gov’s email to Gmail?