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By Dean Arrindell, August 6, 2010 2:59 pm

Proposition 8 – that banned same-sex marriage in California – was overturned in federal court, but it will may be a while before gay and lesbian couples will be walking down the aisle. [SFGate]

“You vote in favor of something if you believe it’s the right thing. If you believe it’s the wrong thing, you vote no.” Sounds simple, right? Not in Congress, and sadly, not when it comes to giving additional healthcare to first responders and others affected from dust and debris due to the 9/11 attacks. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) passionately sets Congress straight.

Hef the activist? A documentary premieres this month that paints Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a Civil Rights Activist. Skeptical? Check out this article and let me know what you think below. [The Root]

The Appleseed Project teaches participants how to shoot targets at 500 yards just in case the “revolution” comes. Where does this fear of Teotwawki (the end of the world as we know it) come from? [New York Times Magazine]

Cheerleading may be competitive, but it will never be a sport. [Double X]

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By Dean Arrindell, July 23, 2010 2:22 am

It’s been a couple of months since I sent out an update, but I’m still writing. The Tea Party, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson and much more.

The NAACP Was Right About The Tea Party.. and former Tea Party spokesman Mark Williams proves it.

Mel’s Choice
Mel Gibson can probably still have a career in show business when this scandal blows over. The question is, how will he do it?

Forgive and Forget
Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Sen. Robert Byrd. Why does the public forgive some public figures for their transgressions, but not others?

Plus:
“Too Hot For Citibank”
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Rand Paul, Businesses And Equality

On my old blog, I used to compile links to news stories and videos. I’m doing the same here every two weeks on stories relating to sex, race and American culture. Click on links to stories about the Old Spice Guy, disposable males, the sexless middle class, and why some women like very bad boys. See the links here.

Enjoy!

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By Dean Arrindell, July 22, 2010 2:12 am

Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. That’s not me below. That’s the Old Spice Guy. He’s on a horse, and he’s good for Black America. [The Root]

Ever lied to get laid? You could do time for it in Israel. An Arab man told a woman he was didn’t tell a woman he’s not Jewish, and she had consensual sex with him. The truth came out, and he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for “rape by deception.” [The Daily Beast via Haaretz]

“Three penises are worth one womb.” Disposable Males. [All Men Are Liars]

A team of scientists examined differences in athletic ability among blacks and whites through evolution and heredity, not through race. [Slate]

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By Dean Arrindell, July 22, 2010 2:03 am

I thought the NAACP was tardy to the Tea Party when the century-old civil rights organization passed a resolution last week “calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” I agree with their sentiment, but I initially thought it was late. Where was this resolution over the last year: during the protests last summer, autumn and through the healthcare debate and vote in Congress? Bringing it up now seemed to put the Tea Party back in the spotlight. Politically, I thought it was bad timing.

Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots were two of many from Tea Party groups who responded to the resolution. They responded, though, as if they didn’t read the NAACP statement. In an opinion piece in Politico, they said, “The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, which has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently “racist.” At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.”  They continued, “The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism.”

Then along comes Mark Williams. He’s a Sacramento talk show host and spokesperson for a group called the Tea Party Express. In response to the resolution by the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – who, to be clear, didn’t say all Tea Partiers are racist, but that there are elements in the movement who are racist – Williams wrote a satirical letter as if he’s NAACP president & CEO Ben Jealous writing to Abraham Lincoln. His argument is that the NAACP is antiquated and racist. His “proof” of that and hook in the letter is the word “Colored” in the organization’s name.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the letter:

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Continue reading 'The NAACP Was Right About The Tea Party'»

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By Dean Arrindell, July 15, 2010 11:38 pm

If Mel Gibson wants to, he can come back from this scandal.

He and his camp haven’t responded to the drip-drip, drip-drip of tapes containing angry, racist and misogynistic rants directed at his ex-girlfriend and mother of one of his children, Oksana Grigorieva. (To be clear, there’s no confirmation that the man on these recordings is Gibson. Nor has it been determined if they were edited.)

But people are already proclaiming that his career is over. If it is him on these tapes and the investigation into violence against Grigorieva goes anywhere, it’s easy to see why people would say that. Put the recordings alongside the anti-Semitic comments he made during his 2006 drunk driving arrest, and it doesn’t take a PR expert to doubt the likelihood of a Lethal Weapon 5 or anything else from Gibson.

Nothing is impossible, though. A public figure, particularly a Hollywood celebrity, can do a lot of negative things, but people will still admire and work with them. So, I think Gibson can have a career after all this. In fact, I’m pretty sure he will. It’s just a question of how he’ll go about it.
Continue reading 'Mel’s Choice'»

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By Dean Arrindell, July 10, 2010 3:04 pm

Mel Gibson keeps doing it to himself. The list of his anti-semetic, racist and misogynistic tirades gets longer and a police investigation has been opened into the assault on his ex-girlfriend. And to further hurt his career, the NFSW audio of this conversation, which is purported to be him, has surfaced. [RadarOnline]

You may already know there’s no sex in the Champagne Room. There’s also no sex if you’re Middle Class. [New York Times]

Hot GOP. What’s behind the ogling and sexualization of Palin and other Republican women? [Newsweek]

Can you ask your church for a refund? This woman did. She sued her church for $250,000 – a portion of the money and gifts she claims she gave the church over 37 years – because a gay wedding was held there. [Clutch/theGrio]

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By Dean Arrindell, July 8, 2010 1:22 am

When public figures break the law or do something very bad, forgiving and forgetting can be two very different things.

Two weekends ago, Chris Brown tried to resurrect his career and redeem himself in the eyes of the public with a tribute to Michael Jackson at the BET Awards. The performance was almost a year to the day since Brown pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. The first half of Brown’s performance was a dance tribute to Jackson. The second half was Brown weeping to Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.” He was supposed to sing the song, but Brown appeared as if he couldn’t hold back his tears. I say “appeared” because there are allegations that the tears weren’t real.

Another redemption story came to an end a few hours after Brown’s performance. Robert Byrd – the longest serving U.S Senator in history – died that Monday morning at age 92. Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940′s, voted against Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court and filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Then in the late 1960′s, Byrd had a turnaround on race. He supported the creation of the Martin Luther King National Holiday and endorsed Barack Obama for president. How’s that for a switch? A former Klan member endorsing the man who would become the first black president.

Also that same weekend, the world mourned (again) over Michael Jackson’s death. One year after he died, the media and some of the public rehashed the King of Pop’s life, death and money. Though he was never convicted of anything, the allegations of child molestation followed him for over a decade. Those allegations along with the years of strange behavior  - we all know he did, so I won’t list the incidents here – made the Michael Jackson who died into someone different from the one who made hit records. There was one Michael Jackson who was a megastar performer in the 1970s and 1980s and became one of the most famous performers on the planet. Then from about 1993 until his death, he was another Michael Jackson: the guy who once a megastar, but did a lot of weird things and was accused of molesting kids.

Continue reading 'Forgive And Forget'»

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By Dean Arrindell, July 1, 2010 11:13 pm

How much money does it take to heal a broken heart and buy silence? A lot, if you’re Tiger Woods.

The London Sun reported that the terms of Elin Nordegren’s divorce from Woods are final. The paper said she will get $750 million along with full physical custody of their kids and several pieces real estate. Nordegren also can’t talk publicly about Tiger, ever. A source who claims to be a friend of Nordegren is quoted as saying, “The price of the huge sum is her silence: no interviews, tell-all books, or TV appearances about this for the rest of her life – even if Tiger dies first – or she’ll lose the lot.”

Forbes disputes that three-quareters of billion dollar figure saying Tiger doesn’t even have a net worth of $750 million. They put his net worth at $600 million, but half of that is still a lot of money.

It must be extremely devastating and painful to have the entire world know your husband cheated with umpteen cocktail waitresses, strippers and porn stars. Three hundred million or three-quarters of a billion dollars, though, would definitely soothe some of that pain, and is, apparently, the price to make sure the public never knows about it.

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By Dean Arrindell, June 25, 2010 2:43 am

On my old blog, I compiled links to interesting news and opinion pieces from around the Internet. I’ll start doing the same here about sex, race and American culture. As always, feel free to leave your comments below.

-One year ago today, Michael Jackson died at the age of 50. According to this estimate, the King of Pop’s estate made $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) in revenue since his death. [Billboard]

-Joran van der Sloot claims he’s getting mail from women who want to marry him and have his baby. Why do some women like very bad boys? [The Daily Beast]

-If there were groups of heavily armed black men who wanted to “take back” their country during the Bush/Cheney years, would they be viewed the same as the militia groups that have grown in number since Obama’s inauguration? [Washington Post]

-The leak and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the “missing white woman” of oil spills. [The Root]

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By Dean Arrindell, June 9, 2010 8:43 pm

The “too hot for Citibank” story took an interesting turn on Wednesday.

In case you haven’t heard, Debrahlee Lorenzana is suing her former employer, Citibank. She claims she was fired after her bosses said her beauty was too distracting. On Wednesday, a 2003 video surfaced showing Lorenzana getting her second breast implant procedure. In the video, she said she wants to “look like a Playboy Playmate” and be “tits on a stick.”

That’s a slightly different impression from the interviews and articles we’ve seen of her over the last week. Her story has been that she’s a single working mom whose bosses at Citibank said her beauty was so distracting to her bosses that they fired her. Whatever she wore, the beauty that blessed her  (or cursed her?) was too sexy for Citi.

Photo by Carrie Schechter

Here’s what she said on Monday’s “Today” show:

What I’m trying to make is the point that enough is enough. I’ve been through my whole entire life going through this type of harassments [sic]. And I have done the other.. gone the other way where you stayed quiet. You just leave, get a better job and it just.. it continues to happen. And it’s the point that you say, ‘I don’t want to go through this anymore.’

After hearing that, it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for her. Which makes it sound like such a great story. She’s a beautiful working mom who was pushed around by the big bank. Then there are the issues of workplace dress codes, what’s too sexy and what isn’t, and tons of reasons to show more photos of Lorenzana and have commentators say how beautiful she is.

The new video, however, shows that some of her beauty wasn’t a blessing. It was a purchase.
Continue reading 'Does A 2003 Video Change Your Opinion Of The ‘Too Hot For Citibank’ Story?'»