Quick Hit

Lou Dobbs rants about race, calling the United States the most racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse and progressive nation in the world (actually, in 2007 The Economist ranked the U.S. 17th in the most democratic countries in the world. I guess Lou hasn't heard about those pesky Scandinavian countries.) Anyway, so, Lou is blithering on about how ungrateful these certain politicians are (Condoleeza Rice and Barack Obama, in particular) and...well...see for yourself:



Oh, Lou, you crazy-ass old man.

Mooooooving on, in the news of the completely irrelevant, we have this little gem about who 50 Cent is supporting in the Dem primary. Because 50 Cent is whom I have always turned to first for political advice.

Last, there's an amusing article [via Feministe] over at the New York Times about literary compatibility and how, let's face it, some of us can be kind of snobbish. But it's ok! Says Sloane Crosley in the article:

“If you’re a person who loves Alice Munro and you’re going out with someone whose favorite book is ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ perhaps the flags of incompatibility were there prior to the big reveal.”

Totally. I do wonder, however, about the veracity of the claim that women tend to be more critical of their partners book choices than men. Maybe that's because I know some pretty book snobbish dudes (and I love you all). Also, I'm guilty of really liking The Unbearable Lightness of Being which is derided in the article by one person interviewed as "trendy, bogus metaphysics" (even though he admits in the same sentence that he knew nothing about Kundera or his work at the time of this assumption and, I think, made up his mind based on that god-awful movie). Anyway, I thought it was kind of a fun article. [Update: Amanda Marcotte has a post about this article, too.]

That's all for now. What random stuff have you come across? Sock it to me, dudes!

Summer Fun

PEP is gearing up for the second Wanderlust Bike Tour, launching at the end of May. It's a five week, 1,600 mile bike tour from New Orleans to New York City with several stops along the way to hold seminars on sex education and raise awareness about reproductive health. I would love, love, LOVE to join in on something like this but, unfortunately, I have to take classes this summer, not to mention the fact that I'm not exactly in peak condition for a bike tour. Hopefully, there will be another ride next year that I can be part of. I think it would be so much fun and it's such great work. For now, I will try to get up to Gainesville for the Southern Girls Convention in July.

There's a big debate going on over at Feministe about the newest Vogue cover with LeBron James and Giselle Bundchen. The posts (here and here) discuss how the photo could be seen as racist, with this comparison:



I have a hard time believing that something like that could get past all of the people a Vogue cover needs to go through (art director, photographer, editor, layout designer, publisher) without someone having said, "Hey...you know....maybe...". It's an Annie Leibovitz image and if anyone should know how much a simple photograph can imply, it's her. When you're that famous of an artiste, can you just get away with stuff like that?